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snipsnsnailsnwerewolftales · 4 years ago

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Blue Moon - Part 6

A/N: See masterlist for prompts used. (And the list of amazing people who have helped me with this.) Okay. I really like this chapter. We finally get back to Sourwolf and shenanigans. There is some show related violence referenced in this one, so, like always, check the masterlist if you need a heads up about the warnings. But this one is mostly just fluff and some angst. (Also, my boyfriend had a hilarious take on Peter in passing conversation, and I included it in bold because it made me laugh so hard.)

I do not own Teen Wolf or it’s characters. Sadly.

Warnings: See Masterlist

Word count: 3,843

Xxx

Derek was nowhere to be found the following days so, after some minor sleuthing, Stiles decided to meet Cora and Peter at the loft to try and figure something out.

He asked you to “use your nose�� and try to find him around Beacon Hills, being careful of the Alpha Pack. Even though they had given an ultimatum which hinted at a tentative, time sensitive peace after Boyd, that had been one of several they had broken.

“Use my nose?” you had questioned him, raising an eyebrow skeptically as you parroted his words back at him.

“Yes. Just try and find the smell of brooding, or leather, or, I don’t know…. killjoy. Anything that screams Derek, let me know.”

“And if someone told me to sniff you out, what three words would you use to describe yourself, Stiles?”

He thought for a moment. “Resourcefulness, resilience, and tenaciousness.”

You were silent as you stared at him before sighing. “I asked for words to describe you, Stiles, not your English exam answers.”

He scoffed and rolled his eyes before turning away from you and walking back to his jeep to head to the loft.

“I would have said, sarcasm, annoyance, and duct tape.”

You snickered as he pulled away in the car, flipping you off as he passed by, despite his grin. After just a few feet, the tires screeched to a halt, and he stuck his head out the driver side window, looking back at you. “Do you wanna know the words I’d use for you?” He grinned at the flash of your golden eyes and smirk and pulled away.

“I have an idea,” you shouted after him, hearing his laugh over the roar of the engine, both fading the farther away he got.

Oddly, you had locked on to Derek’s scent wandering around the woods, and it was fairly fresh. You were following the trail when a twig snapped behind you. Whirling around, you scanned the woods, but saw nothing. Taking a few steps back, you ran into the trunk of a nearby tree, startling yourself. Eyes closed, hand over your heart, you tried to calm your breathing. “Good job, Y/N. It’s a freaking tree. Sooooo scary,” you said out loud to yourself. Letting out a huff, you turned, barely dodging branches before you made it a few more feet, only to hear more twig snaps behind you.

Sighing, you turned and glared at the woods. “Look, whatever or whoever is out there, stop following me. I’m terrifying and mean. And I can and will bite. So just….. don’t, okay?” Waiting a few seconds, you mused quietly to yourself, “Terrifying, mean, and will bite. Hmmmm…. I guess I found my three words.” When no new sounds met your ears, you huffed again, mumbling an “okay” before you took a few steps backwards once more, running into another tree.

“Oh my God!” you seethed.

“I mean, Derek is fine, it’s what most people call me.”

Before spinning around at the voice, your mind had the fleeting thought of, “Why is the tree talking?” only for relief to flood over you at the sight of Derek. Relief and then annoyance. “You’re not a tree!” you cried in frustration. Reaching out you whacked him in the arm with the back of your hand. “Where the hell have you been?!” You shoved his chest for good measure, but he didn’t budge, just looked away and rolled his eyes before grabbing your wrists to still you.

Looking all over your face and landing on your eyes, much like he had right after Boyd, you felt a weird sensation crawling in your gut. Derek’s eyes looked…. lost. He oozed confidence as usual, but there was a conflicting anxiety underneath it all.

“If I stay and talk to you, will you quit looking at me like I’m a wounded puppy?”

“Derek, I’m not- I didn't mean to- You’re not-” you sighed for what felt like the millionth time in just a few minutes. “I’m worried about you. We all are. Stiles of all people sent me to find you. Told me to ‘use my nose’.” You scrunched up your face at the thought. “He really likes the dog jokes lately.”

Derek smiled gently, his hold on your wrists loosening, but he still held them close to his chest so you couldn’t move. “I’m out here looking for something. Can we walk and talk?”

“I can. Can you?”

Derek leveled a look on you, somewhere between a deadpan and disbelief, before softly shaking his head as he let go of you and turned the opposite direction. You didn’t miss how after you jogged the few steps to fall in beside him, your shoulders brushing, that he didn’t try to create space between the two of you.

His gaze seemed distant as he surveyed his surroundings, and when he finally spoke, it was soft, not his typical sometimes brash voice. “I know we have about four or five years between us, but we’ve been friends for a while. Do you remember not long before the fire, there was this girl that played the cello? She was the same year as me, so you probably don’t-”

“Paige?” You tried to match his voice, keeping it low, as this topic seemed to be labeled, ‘handle with care’. He looked at you with raised eyebrows, eyes wide. “You mentioned her once or twice back when I was staying at the loft. You were barely awake usually whenever she came up somehow.”

He looked back to the path, clearing his throat. “Oh. Yeah. Well, that’s her. I killed her.”

You didn’t say anything, but you felt your eyes widen at the bluntness. “Yeah, you, um…. You mentioned that, too. That’s why you have blue eyes.” This time you cleared your throat. “You never told me why, though. And I know you, Derek Hale. You wouldn’t just kill someone, despite how much you threaten it to the general population daily.”

He chuckled lowly, staring at the ground as he walked. “Long story short, Ennis bit her and she didn’t take the bite, her body rejected it.” He looked up, his mind a million miles away from the woods you were in, reliving it all over. “So I brought her to this special, sacred place called the Nemeton, and she asked me to help her stop the pain.” He looked back down at the ground, stopping and turning to face you, you doing the same, searching his face as he spoke.

“That’s when I got blue eyes. And that’s also how the Nemeton got its power back, making it a beacon for the supernatural. It’s complicated and hard to explain, but it’s an ancient Druid thing; if you want to know, ask Deaton.” He stopped and took a deep breath and let it out on a huff, smiling sadly. “And now I’m looking for it to try and see if it has answers somehow.” He looked around. “Problem is, supernatural tree? Likes to play supernatural hide and seek.”

You chuckled. “So how did Peter get his blue eyes?”

Derek rolled his eyes again. “Another very long story that has sketchy details depending on who is telling it.”

You nodded. “Or, you know, there is a simple answer. It’s the black evil that resides where his heart should be.”

Derek threw his head back and laughed loudly, the sound making you feel like your insides were buzzing and making you smile broadly.

The two of you fell into step once again, like before, so close not only were your shoulders brushing one another, but your hands, too. It made you feel stupid things, like your stomach doing flip flops each time. You had to keep it together before he could pick up on any pheromones or something. Scowling at the ground, you felt like a kid with a crush in elementary school and longed for the days when you could just write a letter asking them to check yes or no instead of toeing the line of feelings.

Casting a sideways glance toward Derek, you saw the slightest of smiles on his face, and it was contagious, causing you to match it.

“Have you been by your parents’ place to take care of the plants recently?”

What? It took your brain a moment to swim out of the murky waters of emotion and into the light of dread.

“Shit!” You stopped short, noticing he stopped right along with you, still smiling. “You just love to see people suffer, don’t you? Stop smiling, you buffoon!”

He chuckled, turning you to face the trail again and forcing you forward, walking right behind you. “It’s okay. I’ve gone by twice this week.” You tried to look over your shoulder at him, eyebrows knit in a disbelieving scowl, but he pushed you a bit faster, and you had to look forward to avoid tripping over your own two feet. “I don’t think your neighbor likes me much.”

This made the scowl melt off your face. “Which one? House on the left or right?”

“Left.”

“Ah, yeah. They are part of the neighborhood watch.”

“So they told me,” he huffed, making you snicker.

Xxx

After walking for several hours, talking about anything and everything, you spun in a small circle, taking in your surroundings as Derek glared at a tree you two had passed at least twice already.

“Derek, look. It’s getting dark out, and we are no closer than we were the last two times we passed this tree.” He turned the glare on you. “Let’s just sit and rest and come up with some sort of game plan, or at least a new direction.”

Plopping down at the base of said tree, you leaned back with an appreciative groan. Closing your eyes as you took a deep breath, you heard Derek plop down beside you, leaning back against the tree, bending his legs to prop his arms on, and letting out a frustrated breath through his nose.

After a moment of silence, Derek spoke while using small hand gestures that reminded you vaguely of Stiles’ broad gestures, and you had to bite your lip not to tell Derek the similarities. He’d probably never speak to you again if you did.

“I just don’t get it. It’s a massive magical tree stump. How in the world are we missing it?”

“Doesn’t it, like, offer itself to supernaturals in need or something?”

“Yeah,” Derek answered hesitantly after a pause, staring straight forward.

“Are we in need right now?”

Derek chuckled darkly, leaning his head back against the tree. “I would say yes, but that’s probably just frustration talking.” He rolled his head to the side to look at you as you did the same.

“I’d say we’re in need. Let’s take stock. Maybe it’ll hear our desperation as we recount Beacon Hills’ latest and greatest hits.” Derek closed his eyes and groaned, so you began. “The Alpha Pack, and I’m not going into detail as we would be here all week just for that, so, them and everything they’ve done.” You held up one finger, adding a second after a moment of thought. “The people we’ve lost.” You reached over to grab Derek’s hand, squeezing it. “Although, I still blame the Asshole Pack - that’s their new name, I’ve just decided - for those.” Derek squeezed your hand in return. “These weird ass sacrifices that have me…. weirded out.” You rolled your head to look at Derek, squeezing his hand again so he couldn’t pull away. “You not being yourself.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Derek, think about it. Really think. You know something is off, deep in your gut. It’s instinct.” Looking down to your lap, you continued to hold his hand tight. “The night after the whole mall madness, I went around town looking for you. All day. After, I needed something at the loft and stopped by to grab it, only to catch your scent down in the parking lot.” He went stiff in your grip, but didn’t pull away. Using your free hand you batted away tears you didn’t even notice until they fell.

“I um, I saw you and Jennifer together.” He wouldn’t meet your gaze. “But I’m not here to harp on that. Derek-” you turned your body toward him, leaning your shoulder against the tree, letting your head tilt until it also rested against the bark- “you didn’t notice me, and I was several feet into the loft at one point.” He finally met your gaze, and you could see his wheels turning in his head. Finally, a moment of some sort of clarity. “After Boyd, you noticed me as soon as I stepped into the loft.” You traced his knuckles with your thumb.

“And while I was there, I couldn’t get Jennifer’s scent.” He knit his eyebrows in confusion. “I know. I smelled something that I had smelled a few times at the loft, at school…. at the sacrifices.” His breathing started to get heavier, but that was the only indication he gave that he was still listening. “And Scott said he smelled it at the motel whenever that thing tried to take them out-”

“How would he know it was the same smell?” Derek’s voice was low, the smallest amount of pain laced in. It broke your heart that he was probably so used to getting news of new betrayal that it didn’t hardly affect him anymore.

You swallowed, clutching his hand tight once again, seeing his eyes dart to it in what looked like fear for the briefest of moments before looking back at you.

“Because it’s a very distinct scent. It’s not human. It’s not not human.”

“Kind of like the Kanima?”

This caught you off guard. You didn’t expect Derek to go into planning mode. You’d expected him to storm off.

“I, um, wasn’t a wolf back then, but from what I’ve heard, yeah. Kinda like the Kanima.”

You sat up straight, keeping contact with the tree. “Look, Derek, we all love that you’re happy. You deserve it. It’s just concerning all the things happening at once, and we’re just looking out for you. If she makes you happy, we won’t stand in the way.” That hurt more than you wanted to admit to say. “But just keep an open mind. Trust your instincts. You taught me that.” You smiled at him, giving his hand a final squeeze before letting go.

He caught your hand before you could pull away, his eyes going wide. “That’s it!” You scrunched your face in confusion at him. “Keep an open mind, trust your instincts. Close your eyes.”

You obliged, peeking once at him before shutting them completely.

“Think about a giant tree stump, and try to see the path there in your mind. Maybe it will show us how to get there.”

You went to lean your head against the tree again with a sigh, only to fall over at the hip, the sigh coming out in a rush at the impact until you were bent over what felt like a stump. A massive stump. Opening your eyes, your breath caught in your throat. “Derek?”

He grunted in response.

“I found it.”

Xxx

Running after Derek as he quickly walked away from the Nemeton, you glanced over your shoulder for one last look at the stump of doom, only to have it evaporate in a shimmer, like waves of summer heat, making you blink a few times in shock, your eyebrows knit in confusion, your feet slowing to a stop. You stared where the stump had been and whispered, “Weirdest thing ever.”

Taking a few steps backwards before turning to catch up with Derek, you shook your head, dislodging all remaining thoughts of the Nemeton. “Hey! Derek! Wait up!” Falling into stride beside him, you panted, muttering, “How do you walk so far so fast?”

“We don’t need the Nemeton, at least not right now.” He launched right into an explanation. “We go there to hide and heal, and right now I’m sick and tired of hiding. I can’t believe I didn’t connect it sooner!”

Trying to keep up with both his stride and his rambling, you kept looking between the path in front of you and up to his face. Finally making yourself dizzy, you reached out and grabbed his bicep, pulling him into a hard stop. “Breathe.”

“What? I’m fine, Y/N. We have to-”

“No.” You took a deep breath. “Me.” You pointed at yourself. “I need to breathe.” You bent over, placing your hands just above your knees, trying desperately to catch your breath.

Derek rolled his eyes and let out a huff, shifting his weight from foot to foot like an antsy child.

Looking up at the stars, you placed your hands on your lower back and arched away, stretching and taking a much needed gulp of air. After a moment of studying the sky, you took in an easy breath. “I’d like to pretend I can tell where we’re going based on the stars, but I can’t, so I won’t.” Derek let out a snort of laughter, making you smile. “Where are we going, Derek?”

“Somewhere important to me.”

“…..That’s all I get?”

He looked over at you, grinning. “I’m letting you come with me, aren’t I?”

It was good to see him smiling so freely again, especially at non-Jennifer related things. He didn’t smile often, except for when it was just the two of you at the loft, and especially when he thought you didn’t notice, but today he offered them freely, and you weren’t about to question it. He seemed to be out of the Jennifer induced haze, at least for a little bit, and you would do everything you could to keep him in the fresh air for as long as possible.

Walking a tad bit slower, you decided to test the waters. “What is it about Jennifer that you find so appealing?”

He sighed. “This again?” He looked at you, and you only nodded, staring straight ahead, and muttered an uh-huh. Letting out a puff of air through his nose, his face a tight line, he took a minute to respond.

You realized he sighed an awful lot, especially when he was talking to you, but that meant he was listening. Because he only did it when he was annoyed, and he could only be annoyed if he heard what you said. You’d take the win either way.

“I guess because she saw me at one of my worst moments, an Alpha trying to contain basically rabid Betas, covered in blood, and she wasn’t scared.”

“I’ve never been scared of you,” you mused, side eyeing him.

“But she is a human! You’re not!”

“I was.”

He let out another huff through his nose in annoyance, and you smiled, grabbing his bicep again. He stopped, prepared for you to need another break, but you kept walking, pulling him along until you were back in step with one another.

“I was, until five or so months ago, if you remember.”

“But you knew what I was! You had for a while!”

“Doesn’t matter. Derek, you’re a scary dude, and yet I have never once been afraid of you. I’ve been afraid for you, but never of you.”

“Why?”

You pursed your lips in thought. “I’m not really sure. I just knew from the moment I met you, I could trust you with my life.”

He chuckled sardonically. “That’s ironic. Most people who trust me, it costs their life.”

“I trusted you with mine before the bite, and I was fine. I trusted you with the bite, and I was fine. I trust you now after the bite, and I’m fine.”

“Well, today isn’t over,” he muttered darkly, looking straight ahead, groaning when you pulled him to another abrupt stop. He lolled his head to look down at you, a grim look on his face.

“Derek, when I thought you were dead or dying after the mall, Stiles had to talk me down. I had a full blown panic attack brewing. And not because of stupid pack dynamics, but because it was you.” His face adopted a look you hadn’t seen on him before, and couldn’t place. The closest you could think of was shock, like receiving a compliment for something you thought no one would notice. “I have nightmares almost every night after fighting Kali.” He looked pained. “But then I remember the look on your face while I did, that look right there-” you pointed to his face- “and I’m okay.” You searched his eyes for any one emotion, only to find yourself getting lost in many. “Once I realize you’re okay, that I’m fighting for you, I’m fine.”

Putting your free hand on his shoulder, you held his gaze. “I will never not fight for you.” You realized at some point you two had drifted incredibly close to one another, your noses almost touching. “Whether it’s literally, like with Kali, or emotionally, like with Jennifer-” he pulled back a little and groaned, a small smile betraying how he really felt- “I’ll always be there for you.”

Your hand slipped down just a little, resting on his chest, and the tips of your shoes were flush with his. Tilting your head back to look up at him, everything seemed to fade away until your noses brushed one another, and like lightning you pulled apart from one another, confused expressions on both your faces, which melted into laughter when you looked at each other.

“We’re here,” he said softly, surprising you by taking your hand in his and leading you into a long abandoned building that looked to be an old distillery. “This is where Deucalion became blind, where the Alpha’s used to meet if needed, and where Paige and I would sneak off to to be alone.”

Now you realized why this place was special to him.

“I’m glad you have somewhere from your past to go if you need.”

He shrugged one shoulder, still holding your hand. “It’s not the same without the people.”

He stared at the wall, and you noticed a spiral etched into the metal in claw marks.

“Ennis. One of his pack was killed by hunters, Argents, I believe, and this is our symbol for revenge. A declaration of war, basically. And because of that one less pack member, Peter talked him into turning Paige, which killed her.”

He continued to stare at the symbol while you looked at him. This was the first time he had said Ennis killed Paige, and not him, which was technically true. He may have gotten the blue eyes for putting her out of her misery like she asked him to, but Ennis is the one that bit her.

“One more reason the Asshole Pack is gonna pay.”

He turned to you and smiled. “One more reason. Let’s not give them any more.”

“There’s the Derek I know.” You smiled. “Sounds like a plan.”

Xxx

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blackjack-15 · 4 years ago

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Avenge My Twistery Depth — Thoughts on: Trail of the Twister (TOT)

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

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 links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: TOT, WAC, mentions of GTH.

The Intro:

Let’s talk about Trail of the Twister, shall we? No clever intro, no pun, no sassy statement on the quality (whether lacking or overflowing) of the game…let’s just Talk.

Like I said at the beginning of my WAC meta, TOT is one of two games that doesn’t really fit into a category besides it and WAC demonstrating HER’s growing pains. The world opens (kinda), the characters get a little deeper (kinda) and a few new things are tried with plots and character (to varying degrees of success). Both WAC and TOT — but especially TOT — represent a shift in the tone of the games and their approach. You can ascribe this to a lot of reasons — an aging fanbase, technology marching on, a new writer in the mix — but you really can’t ignore it, no matter if you’re a Classic Games Elitist or a Newer Games Snob (or neither one).

To paraphrase a fabulous song, there’s something there that wasn’t there before.

This is not me saying in any way that TOT is a fabulous — or even moderately successful — game. In fact, it whiffs a lot where WAC hit solidly, which makes playing them one after the other a sort of chore; WAC is weighed down by the knowledge of what comes next (after such a brief respite from games like ICE, HAU, and RAN), and TOT’s repetitive chore list seems even bleaker after the snack shop and secret societies of WAC.

Which is truly unfortunate, because hiding behind the rat traps and the car chases (or drives, if you drive like a normal person in this game) and the endless moon chunk offerings is one heck of a story. Unfinished and beleaguered and (to my suspicions) censored as it is, there is a definite, multilayered, morally ambiguous, honest-to-moon-chunk story in TOT.

Like I said, something there that wasn’t there before.

Playing through the games in order, it seems like the reason WAC is so solid is, in part, because the games before it have so little cohesive story as to be laughable. Playing them out of order will show you that though WAC does come off a little better than it actually is due to the games that came before it, it’s also actually a step-up from a lot of games in the complexity of its plot and characters. At this point in the series that’s about to happen a lot, but WAC is the first real instance where you get it. Like I said, these two games mark a tonal and approach-based shift in the games.

So let’s turn our attention to TOT.

There are a lot of things that bog down this game — it feels sometimes as if you’re simply going through Farmville-esque tasks to get from Point A to Point B — but its plot and characters (save in one large instance) aren’t actually the culprits. Surprisingly enough, we have a mystery here with enough twists, turns, small crimes, and red herrings to make for a perfectly serviceable plot with relatively well-developed (for the length of the game) characters (whom I’ll go into more below).

A huge difference from a lot of the games is that we have a prominent unseen character who isn’t the one who hired Nancy or who is part of the historical background. Brooke’s actions actively move the plot along no matter what Nancy does, and I do like that the world of TOT goes on spinning (as it were) without Nancy driving everything.

You get the sense that Nancy truly was just dropped into the middle of this without having any control over the situation, and that she spends the entire game (or most of it) playing catch-up, rather than being on the scene for the crime(s) or arriving shortly thereafter.

In TOT, this sabotage has been going on for a while — the competition is nearly over, in fact — and Nancy has to actually do some detective work to even get caught up, let alone to try to step a few feet in front of the guilty party.

One interesting thing is what TOT and WAC share: they both feature casts who are only a few years off of Nancy’s age; in WAC, they’re a tiny bit younger, while in TOT, they’re a tiny bit older. Nancy, being Nancy, is much more in her element with the ages of her suspects in TOT than she is with high schoolers — with how much time Nancy spends around people significantly older than her, I’d be shocked if she got along well with high schoolers when she was in high school herself.

As a side note, I know it’s sort of a fandom thing that Nancy gets along well with children, but honestly outside of Lucas, it’s not something we really see (no, I’m not counting pelting Freddie with snow 10 times sans mercy as getting along with children) — and honestly Lucas is just charming, so I see no reason why Nancy wouldn’t get along with him. Generally speaking, kids who grow up the way Nancy has [especially as an only child] are far more comfortable with ‘adults’ — well established, 35/40+ adults, who make up the majority of her suspect pools — than they are with peers or children.

There’s also a great deal of care taken with making all the suspects (mostly) equally likely for a large portion of the game; it’s not until past the halfway point that a suspect (Chase) is cleared due to his confession of a different crime, and even then, he doesn’t really become Nancy’s helper, as is the usual case with cleared suspects. This is actually one of the few games where Nancy doesn’t really have a helper; she relies on herself, the Hardy Boys, and (questionably) P. G. Krolmeister to get the job done.

And speaking of the Hardy Boys…you knew an intro wouldn’t be complete without my mentioning them, hush.

The Hardy Boys are arguably the set piece that benefit most from Nik’s writing (and yes, I’m going to ascribe it to him; he’s the most prominent variable). Don’t get me wrong, the Hardy Boys were great before, but the Nik games are where they start attaining a place of more prominence and solidify their distinct personalities other than “focused killjoy and playful scamp”. In this game, you get more of Frank’s protectiveness (directed towards Nancy) and Joe’s actual sleuthing abilities — not the least of which because this game coincides with that DS Masterpiece “Treasure on the Tracks”.

Oh yeah, we’re going there. It’s relevant.

Treasure on the Tracks, as mentioned, was a game for the Nintendo DS (and the only one, mind you) focusing on the Hardy Boys. In the game (as in TOT), they’re tracking down the Romanov treasure with the help of a surprising ally — Samantha Quick herself. Samantha is under orders (from who, she never says, but a future game makes it obvious) to help the boys find the treasure aboard the royal train that the Romanovs used to own.

And yes, I would have loved that to be a joint Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys PC game, but I’ll push the bitterness aside for the facts. Which are that this game has a rad premise and would have been a very cool addition to the ND series…but I digress. Regardless, that’s what the boys are doing during TOT, so we get little hints to their investigation as well as having them help Nancy out.

I love that the Hardy Boys have an actual mystery that they’re investigating, as beginning with this game we see a lot more of their ‘agent’ side being brought out. It’s nice to feel that Nancy isn’t alone out there fighting against the forces of evil, and gives excuses to have the Hardy Boys in the games more, so I’m a big fan in general. It also helps build them up as investigators; while they offer hints to Nancy a lot, we don’t get to see them doing a lot of spy/detective work, and it’s lovely to be able to see it here.

And I love their sibling banter. It’s obvious that JVS and Rob Jones have a lot of fun with their roles, and it really lightens and enhances any Nancy Drew game that they’re in.

The last interesting thing that I’ll point out before diving into the game itself is what TOT does for the world of Nancy Drew. Beginning with this game, we start the tradition of each game leading directly into the next one; for her help in TOT, Krolmeister sends her to his favorite ryokan in Japan, which leads to her being hired for CAP; her absence and fight with Ned in CAP lead her back home for the Clues Challenge in ASH, and so on and so forth.

It really makes the world feel solid and cohesive, and lets our characters grow and shift and change without making it feel episodic or sudden. The Nancy of SPY is quite different from the Nancy of TOT in how she behaves and tackles mysteries, but her character growth throughout the games in between make it feel right and natural — like actual character growth.

The Title:

As a title, “Trail of the Twister” isn’t bad — it’s got that alliteration that ND books tend to like doing, and makes it feel a little classic. It also gets a play with words in there — you’re tracing the actual trail of the actual twister, and you’re also walking through the evidence left behind (aka a trail) of a twisting plot. Solid, if not exceptional, with its only real detriment being the hilarious acronym (TOT).

The book it’s (loosely) based off of is called “The Mystery of Tornado Alley” which, obvious to anyone with eyes, is a much worse title while telling us the same thing. It also doesn’t apply to the game as much – you’re not figuring out a mystery as much as unwinding the tangled threads of character motivations — and is supremely clunky to boot.

The Mystery:

Called in by P.G. Krolmeister to go undercover, Nancy joins a team of storm-chasers bent on winning a grant for their research — and beating the opposing team that wants the same thing. Nancy begins the mystery by finding a tin box full of cash (payment for an as-of-yet unspecified action) and it spirals from there, putting the not-so-amateur teen sleuth through her paces learning about tornados and storms, taking pictures, and trying her best to keep everyone happy and working towards the money.

It’s not as easy as it sounds, however. There are competing forces at work outside (and sometimes within) the two teams, and the personalities of the storm-chasers that Nancy must investigate mean that no one trusts anyone else. Things continue to go wrong and Nancy chases down the clues until the mother of all tornados hits town, and our culprit takes advantage of the distraction…

I mentioned above some censorship that I suspect went on in this game, and I’ll talk about it here. Given the darker themes of this game and the mentions of death and serious injury (more than most other games in the series at this point), I would say part of the reason why our story is a little more…displeasing, especially by the end, is that HER was really intent on the 10 part of the 10+ rating.

There’s lots to explore — the Ma storyline that goes nowhere, the collateral damage of these tornadoes, the fact that our cast is filled with genuinely unpleasant criminals — and yet it gets glanced over while feeling like the game is building up to it. Like CRE and ICE where I postulated a lot of the attention went to the new engine, I’m going to postulate here that the reason why we have hanging plot threads and injustice at the end (which I’ll talk about later) is that the game was censored by the HER bigwigs to ensure it still fit in a 10+ rating.

As a mystery, like I said above, there’s absolutely nothing wrong here. We’ve got plenty of means/motive/opportunity spread out in our cast (and in the periphery cast, just to keep things interesting), the threads and smaller crimes/wrongdoings/etc. are realistic in scope and in motive to keep them hidden, and it’s the personalities of the suspects that give us our conflict and tension, rather than random “interferences” by the writers. And speaking of our suspects, let’s go to the other area that TOT does (almost) nothing wrong.

The Suspects:

First off is Chase Releford, a junior who took Scott’s class for a science credit who got super interested in the actual work. The team’s handyman, Chase has noticed (and fixed, and fixed again) the equipment acting up, and is being stretched pretty thin in order to keep it all shipshape and in working order.

He’s also one of Nancy’s sources of Pa Pennies, if you wanna spend hours doing circuit boards.

As a culprit, Chase is a great option (which is a sentiment you’ll hear repeated for all of our suspects, never fear). He’s secretly spending his time looking for oil with Pa’s divining rods, which puts two crimes on his conscience (stealing the rods and not working on company time) and helps the team fall even further behind. It’s important to note that for a large chunk of this game, the likelihood of the suspect also hinges on how much they want Scott to fail, and Chase is pretty much the only one without any real anger towards Scott.

The owner of the local general store, Pa Ochs might be a surprising option to put ahead of Chase in order of culprit likelihood/suitability, but I stand by it. Having lost his wife (Betsy “Ma” Ochs) to a tornado (the warning sirens, which were Scott’s responsibility, didn’t go off), Pa alone mans the counter, helping Nancy find everything she needs — for a price, of course.

The price being annoyingly hard to get Pa Pennies. Unless you exploit a glitch.

Here’s where we start with the culprit possibilities that have an actual grudge against Scott. Though not as angry as he could be, Pa is deeply hurt by the loss of his wife Betsy, and has grounds for an axe to grind with Scott. As much as I would have loved to have the ‘friendly general store owner’ be the culprit, it would have been like a mix of DOG’s Emily and FIN’s Joseph (minus the Crazy), and it’s (sadly) best to leave that ground alone without re-treading it.

Frosty Harlow is next up; a second-year grad student in digital media, Frosty got his nickname (his real name is Tobias) from his storm photography and is, well, trying to re-capture that lightning in a bottle.

He also screams like a little girl. So that’s fun.

Like Chase and Pa, Frosty is a wonderful option for a culprit. His crime is selling university property (the video of the storm he and Nancy shot) to an aspiring photographer (who happens to be on the rival team) to help them get a toehold into the business, along with working with Debbie to try to stress Scott into quitting.

What really makes Frosty stand out is that, unlike Chase, Frosty doesn’t feel bad about what he did at all. He also holds far more animosity towards Scott than Pa does, and has a little more…innate anger as a person.

If you haven’t noticed by now, we’re going in order of “worst” culprit option to “best” (and then the actual culprit), and it really says something about how fleshed out these characters already are that we start with people who are solid options to begin with.

Though only appearing vocally and for a few minutes total of the game’s runtime, I’m going to list Brooke Tavanah as our next most likely culprit — in part because, well, she kind of is our culprit. The leader of the rival storm-chasing team, Brooke offered Scott money to sabotage his own team to let her team win the grant — an offer that he takes her up on.

Of course, Brooke isn’t the only one sleeping with the enemy (so to speak) to ensure her team’s victory; her videographer, Erin, is apparently so talentless as to need to buy footage from Scott’s team as well.

Things don’t exactly look great for the Kingston University team — as they can’t really get ahead even through sabotage and skullduggery, and one does wonder if they’d even be able to put the grant to good use. That, of course, is not the point; Brooke wants her team to win, come hell or high…wind…and a little thing like scientific ability isn’t going to stop her.

(Interestingly enough, this is the first of three times we’ll see Kingston University pop up; we meet their alumni again in TMB and DED).

I love that Brooke is guilty, because so often in Nancy Drew games the tendency is to implicate an unseen character and then to have that implication be a poorly done red herring. Instead, Brooke isn’t a distraction, nor a smoke screen — she’s just another piece of the puzzle.

Our last non-Culprit (by the games’ common definition) suspect is Debbie Kircum, a recent PhD graduate who is on her fifth time working with Scott in chase season, and who has gotten a lucrative offer to teach at a university in New York.

Worrying that Scott would let his resentment towards the college hurt their chances in the competition, Debbie leads the conspiracy to stress him out so much that he just quits. I’ll talk more about this later, but it is both one of my favorite and least favorite things about this game. For now, I’ll say that her plan works…but not the way that she planned; for her and lots of other suspects in this and upcoming games, the quote “the price for getting what you want is getting what you once wanted” works perfectly to describe their arcs.

As a culprit, (as Debbie fully qualifies as a culprit), Debbie certainly has the shortsightedness and nastiness that Nancy Drew culprits tend to have. She’s extremely good at getting what she wants…but see the quote in the previous paragraph.

She also over-contours her cheeks so much that it looks like someone slapped her with an open compact of bronzer.

That takes us to our final culprit and character, Scott Varnell, genius professor of meteorology and the leader of the Canute team. Scott is my personal favorite character not just because he’s the most interesting, but because he’s a tragic figure who isn’t historical/dead, and those are a bit of a rarity in Nancy Drew games, especially at this point.

Being an expert on tornadoes yet denied tenure based on his personality, rather than his academic prowess (a gripe I share as it applies to jobs/academia), Scott holds a grudge against those who don’t recognize his contributions to meteorology and to the study of tornadoes specifically. Unbeknownst to him, two members of his four-man team have been conspiring to stress him out so badly that he’ll just quit, as they think he’ll be a hindrance (again, due to his personality) in winning the competition.

Scott is in some ways the obvious option, and yet the game never turns into a howdunnit. Throughout the mystery he tends to be the prime suspect, but is also the prime victim — a dichotomy we’ve never seen before in the Nancy Drew Games. I’ll talk more about Scott below (a sentence increasingly common in this meta), but I both love and hate him as the culprit, and that’s something new (and interesting) that TOT brings as well.

The Favorite:

Don’t worry, we’ll get into TOT’s myriad flaws soon enough, but for now I want to focus on what it does right.

The first thing the game nails is the Hardy Boys. Their inclusion, their plot, their characterization, the voice acting — all of it is nigh-flawless, and is by far the most enjoyable part of the game. Don’t get me wrong, the Hardy Boys are usually quite far up there on the list of things I love about a game with them in it, but they really start to shine more in TOT, gaining some character development, plot relevance, and just overall depth.

Oddly (or perhaps not oddly at all) I don’t have a favorite moment nor a favorite puzzle in this game; barring that, I’ll talk about some of the great threads to the game, rather than any particular moment/puzzle that stands out.

I love that we get new and interesting layers to our story and characters. As I mentioned briefly above, there’s a real sense of the world existing before Nancy’s arrival, which works wonders for the world of the games, and our characters here are more layered, more distinct, and more ‘realistic’ (for the value of ‘realism’ in stories) than they ever have been before.

This is a game unafraid to deal with the topics of death and mistakes, and that accounts for part of the depth to the game as well. No, not the whole “Where’s Ma” thing — which I fully believe to just be a script that didn’t fire/didn’t stop firing in the game’s code after finding the newspaper that says exactly what happened to Ma — I’m talking about Scott’s mistake in the tornado warning system, Debbie and Frosty’s mistakes in dealing with Scott (which I’ll talk more about), and even Brooke’s miscalculations that lead to the ending of the game. Everyone here deals with the fallout of their mistakes, and it’s how they handle it that forms the basis for our plot.

It’s a seemingly small thing, but I love the sheer level of detail in this game. You can click on everything, read everything, explore everywhere — there’s a lot of information crammed into the game that sometimes you won’t get until the second or third replay (that is, if you have the stomach to play through this game repeatedly).

The use of our tertiary NPCs (Brooke, Krolmeister, Erin) is also inspired; they help the world feel whole and varied rather than existing simply for the benefit of the game, and show that Nancy doesn’t have control over everything when she’s investigating — and that she can be wrong in her focus of investigating (whether because she pays too much or not enough attention to the ‘minor’ characters).

Speaking of characters, I also love that our characters in this game – our suspects — are able to be fully formed without (on purpose, I feel) being particularly likable. It’s always fun to get a cast of characters that are hostile to Nancy, but TOT’s characters are slightly different from that: they just don’t care about her. She’s another intern to them, nigh-invisible except when they need a chore done. Nancy also doesn’t really try to befriend anyone because of it, and I like that too. Sometimes, a game should just be 1 vs 4, with some backup in the wings courtesy of phone friends.

The last facet of the game that I love is Scott himself as a character. Sure he’s cantankerous, blunt, egotistical, and a thousand other things, but the game is very clear that these ‘faults’ don’t make him anything other than what he is — a brilliant meteorologist and the foremost mind when it comes to tornadoes and tornadogenesis. The university undervalues him, but the team really can’t function without him, sabotage or no sabotage.

His motive for the sabotage isn’t the money nor fame — it’s simple tit-for-tat. For such a complex game (note, I’m still not saying it’s a fun or good game), our ultimate motive is deceptively simple: do unto others what they have done unto you. Tired of being devalued and having his worth judged on his personality rather than his work, he decides that if the university doesn’t care enough to keep him around (and for his worth as a professor, look at how accomplished and passionate his team of former students is), then they don’t care to keep up their program either.

It’s hard not to sympathize with that, especially if you’re the kind of person who’s been valued based on any defects in your personality — rather than your ability to do a job and do it well — and been found wanting. Whether you’re too serious (or not serious enough), too flighty (or too inflexible), or any other stupid “personality defect” that the workforce loves to throw around, we’ve all heard it before. Scott’s thrown into an unfair situation and — wrongly or not — decides that his troubles are going to have trouble with him.

The last thing I’ll add on the topic of Scott for this section is that I do love that Debbie and Frosty create their own villain. In figuring that Scott’s personality is going to prevent them from getting the grant (never mind the 4 other years that Debbie’s been on this team with him where it hasn’t been a problem), they decide to screw him over presumptively — and thus create a Scott who actually does want to prevent them from getting the grant. It’s usually a mark of a solid story (and solid writing in general) where the villain is created not from some problem inherent in them, but because they’re perceived to be a problem in the future — and thus live down to the expectation.

The Un-Favorite:

The problem with everything TOT does right — and that’s nearly a thousand words about what it does right above — is that it never combines to make a game that’s enjoyable to play. Before I go into the specifics, I do want to make that clear; TOT is a fascinating game to think and write about, but it’s honestly nigh-unplayable. The puzzles and chores are laborious (and repeated ad nauseum), pieces of the plot don’t make sense, and the ending is the bleakest in the series until GTH’s multiple endings took the cake.

A game should be well-written, complex, and interesting, but it just has to be fun to play as well. It has to. And that seems to have been forgotten during the course of making TOT. My least favorite moment is the ending of the game (more on that below), but I don’t have a least favorite puzzle — on the basis that most of the puzzles are equally bad. There’s no real standout…but that’s not a good thing.

Now let’s get into some of the bits and parts of the game that I really despise.

The handling of Scott is one of my favorite parts of the game, but it’s also my least favorite part of the game as well. They’ve set up a character who firmly believes that everything ends poorly, that he’ll never profit no matter what, and that, ultimately, no matter how hard he tries, nothing will go the way it should. And then the game confirms that worldview to the end. There’s no other option; no matter what Scott does or doesn’t do, no matter if he tries his best or blows it off, the end result is the same, and that’s a tragedy. Sure, you can argue it’s his actions that led him to a bad ending, but he only took those actions because he was heading to a bad ending anyway.

The feeling you get at the end of the game isn’t a feeling of justice served, nor success — it’s pity in a way that’s never been cultivated for any criminal up to this point in the series. And it’s not cathartic — it’s just more misery.

The other huge thing that I hate about this game ties into it — there really is no justice. The supposed ‘happy ending’ is Debbie getting people from both teams to ‘win’ the grant (where does it ultimately go — Canute or Kingston? Can it count as winning if there’s only one team? HER certainly didn’t bother to think about these things)…but Debbie’s hands are just as filthy — and I think more so — than Scott’s are.

Debbie leads Frosty in conspiring to make Scott quit and actually created their own monster — does she even know Scott at all? He’s lead a team through at least the last 4 years, probably more, and not had a problem; why now? Power? Greed? Pride? Whichever way you spin it, she and Frosty are guilty.

Frosty and Erin (of the Kingston Team) are also guilty on a separate charge; Erin for buying the footage and Frosty for selling it. If Brooke and Scott are kicked off, Frosty and Erin (at least) should also go for the same conspiracy charge. Everyone on the team (excepting possibly Chase) knowingly sabotaged their team; why is Scott the only one punished? Why does Debbie (and Frosty, and Erin) get off scot-free (pun intended) to win the prize, despite everything?

When I say that there’s no justice nor success here, this is what I mean. The whole thing stinks from top to bottom, and any way you look at it, a culprit walks.

Honestly, the ending should have just been “Chase, guilty only of petty theft, led the team (of himself and Pa) and was given the grant, which they donated to a charity for tornado victims”. Kingston actively cheated and Canute doesn’t deserve it either. In a game where everyone deserves to lose, declaring a winner just leaves a bad taste in my mouth — and a black mark on the game.

The Fix:

So how would I fix Trail of the Twister?

My feeling is that if you’re going to go with a downer ending — which TOT is — then go for a full one. Have Nancy discover everyone’s crimes — and I do mean everyone’s — and report to Krolmeister, asking what he wants her to do. Don’t forget, Nancy’s got an actual client in this game, and can’t go off half-cocked like she tends to in her more informal mysteries.

In the end, as nearly everyone would be disqualified, the competition should go to a third party — a storm chasing team that’s not Kingston nor Canute — and create chances for less corrupt institutions to study tornadoes at a level they haven’t been able to before. Sure, our suspects would lose, but, honestly, outside Chase…does anyone deserve to win?

I’d also be a fan of Scott getting a second chance due to outside sabotage (directed solely at him) with a job opportunity to consult for storm chasers. It’d be an arena where he’d be seen as the expert he is, without having to deal with the namby-pamby bureaucracy that infects universities (and that he hates anyway). He’d get the name recognition and the ability to actually do work in his field that he needs without being put in situations where he can’t help but fail. Honestly, I’d prefer that P. G. Krolmeister offered it (while saying he’s going to be keeping an eye on him), but really anything would do.

Exposing the crimes of everyone – and focusing on more than just Scott’s — would be the quickest way to improve the story of the game. The puzzles, on the other hand, need to be completely redone; a mix of ostensibly tornado-related intern-type chores (like the circuit boards) and more detective-type puzzles (fingerprinting suspects for a match on the tin bribe box, tracking everyone’s movements, solving codes used for communication) would be a big help in making TOT not just feel like a list of chores with a bad ending.

Oh, and fix the broken code leading Nancy to ask about a man’s dead wife over and over again. She lacks tact as it is.

#nancy drew #clue crew #nancy drew games #trail of the twister #nancy drew meta #my meta #TOT #video games #long post

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