#trn spoilers

[avengerscompound]

Bucky Barnes

What If... Peter Quill Attacked Earth's Mightiest Heroes?

[prmssm]

hello! i know you haven't posted here in a while, but new stevetony dynamic just dropped!

idk if you've heard of the new ultimate universe (mostly unrelated to the original one), but ultimates #1 (the avengers-aligned title) came out yesterday, and it features a teenage tony with daddy issues, a freshly-defrosted steve with a revolutionary streak, and a bit of longing/envy for earth-616 as "what they could've/should've been"

it's a very new universe (there's been less than 20 cumulative issue published so far), so you can easily read everything (i have a reading order here), but if you only want steve and tony's story, it's just ultimate invasion #1-4 > ultimate universe #1 > the ultimates #1 > the second story in 'free comic book day 2024: ultimate universe/spider-man' (though this one was more of a sneak peek and might be set after/during a later ultimates issue, it's the obligatory confusing one lol)

Thank you so much for the rec and reading orders! 💕 I am in fact back on my superhero bullshit since Free Comic Book Day (though for me that's mostly just involved acquiring an armful of completely random issues of various things, and rewatching Avengers Assemble episodes). I probably even saw that ultimate comic at my local comic shop on that day, but ignored it due to my unwarranted bias against anything related to the Ultimates 😅 But maybe I'll go back and give it a fairer shake.

My heart absolutely yearns to revive this blog, but I still feel like I don't have anything worthy of posting yet. But I did spend the other day shaking @ahsokaisawesome by the shoulders and frantically detailing a AA/MCU crossover fic treatment at her, so I know the embers of my multiverse love are still smouldering.

But anyway. Thanks again!

[anarzaabloodladen]

Hi don't worry about the content here (I am not allowed to tell you who this is yet I'm sorry) I just wanted to prove to you guys that I still in fact make art

[of-galaxies-and-black-holes]

the thought of kni cutting his hair after the trauma of tesla got to me

[oflgtfol]

when i talk and ponder about the different marvel universes with the number designations and number naming conventions i truly honest to god feel like a nerd. a geek even

[drewlyyours]

Nancy Drew Games’ Dark Subplots

(I wanted to make a collection of the theories people had about game subplots, and the proven subplots y’all forgot about)

spoiler and trigger warning ⚠️

SCK - (this game just IS dark) the m*rder of a high school boy by an adult - teens on steroids

STFD - BOMBS! (@this-story-of-dreams)

MHM - homeless young adult (Charlie)

TRT - child abandonment (Dexter)

FIN - aggressive behavior attributed to dementia

SSH - m*rder via s*ffocation (the Whisperer)

CAR - Dissociative amnesia and childhood trauma (Joy)

DDI - animal ab*se and human tr*fficking

SHA - capital punishment for theft (Dirk)

CUR - child abandonment and burning at the stake (Elinor) - emotional ab*se - extramarital affair (Hugh and Renée subplot, thanks @canutecollege) - generational trauma

CLK - psychological manipulation and emotional ab*se of a child - the Great Depression threatening everyone and Black Tuesday on its way

TRN - self-neglect resulting in death (pretty obvious Jake arranged to die where Nancy found him)

DAN - Sonny and Minette had a one night stand after Minette got a drunk tattoo of an alien, also why she left Dieter (@nancynancydrewdrewdrew) - and of course, literal war and nazis

CRE - purposeful corruption of an entire community’s food source - human sacrifice

ICE - childhood trauma (Yani)

CRY - elder ab*se

HAU - child abandonment and trauma (Fiona)

RAN - just hate crimes and kidn*pping

WAC - bullying and either su*cide or mansl*ughter (Rita)

SAW - su*cide (Kasumi)

CAP - r*pe and pr*datory behavior (the original “monster”)

TMB - attempted m*rder - child abandonment (Daughters of Nefertari, @pisoprano)

DED - m*rder of course

GTH - r*pe and inc*st (Clara’s mother and grandfather) - slavery and neglect resulting in mass m*rder - just plain old mansl*ughter/m*rder (Charlotte)

SPY - m*rder - terrorism

LIE - threats (Niobe) - gang violence

SEA - mansl*ughter vía mob violence (Alda Lawrence) - kidn*pping

MID - lots of burning at the stake

It’s just so interesting to me that I played these games so often when I was young and never picked up on some of these (kinda like all the dirty jokes in Disney movies you only notice as an adult) but they make a fuller, more human story imo.

Please let me know if y’all have more!

[practicecourts]

🔁 A fic you’ve re-read several times!

Ah such a good one…

So these are fics I’ve reread more than once, its not an exhaustive list by any means.

The Last Enemy by @chdarling 1 and 2 (maybe I’ve reread 2 more not because i like it more perse but because its still being updated so i need to refresh my memory) Although there’s a thing about chapter 2 where Lily talks with her dad and she goes have fun with some of her muggle work friends. Although if i had to pick a favourite chapter there are so many in that one (a Slughorn Xmas party, some menial labour, the shrimp fest, i won’t go on bc for some reason my app wont allow for a spoiler break…

Then there’s two shorter ones by you actually “never really” is maybe too new to have been reread… but it has. And I’ve enjoyed Purely coincidental a lot… It helps that the art by @constancezin that it inspired (or the other way around) is very nice to look at again and again ;-) > i hope these links actually work. If not I’m so sorry. Go look for it yourself!!

Another reread is by the masterful @scriibble-fics , i must admit to reread a lot of her stories, or just parts of them, chapters I love to relive the suberp tension that she does so well. My last rereads of Notes and Magic were right on time for the new story drop!! Even if they are so very different.

I;ve reread @wearingaberetinparis Royalty one shots and of course : it only takes a taste when you know it’s good, I must admit now that I’;m behind on reading her wonderful stories as they come faster than I have time to read (which is unbelievable!!!) here’s one that i def read more than once When love was king but there’s another one shot (bar hopping with the prince that’s so good!!)

Three strikes till your out by @theresthesnitch i reread the campsite chapter occasionally. Because that scene where they are dancing after s’mores…

@mppmaraudergirl has me rereading the wedding ring and just spoiling all men (fictional or otherwise) just because that james is amazing. I’d love to find a good reason (such as an update maybe - hahaha, i hope you know this is a joke!!) Of TRN… but I’ll admit I read that one more than once already (I love the way in all of these stories i get so wrapped up in them, they become real characters that i care about even if they have flaws or do stupid things, but they also don’t get boring (I’m sorry for saying this but sometimes only fluff and nice just is that…) when they do the exact best thing they are supposed to say or do in that moment! This is rambling but… my defense, if you havent read any of these i dont want to spoil anything.

I just know i missed things here (oh, yes i did @mabeltothknows i reread and leave a comment only to find that the last comment on such a chapter was actually also by me…. Hahaha. But the sentiment was very much the same) i love that war one shot so much (i;m sorry i should link it but i cant find it that fast… AND THE PUTRID CORPSE …

A one shot that i keep rereading that’s old, is somewhere hidden om tumblr here where lily has a one night stand and the next day goes to her new job … guess who. It’s chapter 4 or 5 of these on ffnet…

I think I could just go on. (Room service by @maraudersftw Good old fashioned love letters by @theesteemedladydebourgh just popped into my brain… ) And the reason i feel that way is that this is by no means a complete list. SO instead of agonising to find the one fic or 20 that i now forgot but I’ve enjoyed so much that i occasionally go back to reread because they brought me joy I’m going to finish this post ;-)

[doyoudrew]

HeR actually casted Lori Girard's voice actress SO well. that breathiness? the cadence? I absolutely believe that she's both ditzy and a mastermind who is only obsessed with getting famous. Lori Girard is a real person and she wants to be a tiktok influencer

[glasseyekeychain]

Here are all the dead ends.

Crash.

Slow to a stop.

Crash into rocks.

Crash into DYNAMITE.

Crash into cave-in.

[kristalpepsi]

Seamless Loopng Pranking Noelle gifs 4 the Soul (affection8)

[age-of-moonknight]

Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe Again (Vol. 1/2017), #2.

Writer: Cullen Bunn; Penciler: Dalibor Talajic; Inker: Goran Sudžucka; Colorist: Miroslav Mrva; Letterer: Joe Sabino

[nancysassdrew]

Darn you, Natalie.

[jbreenr]

⚠ MOON KNIGHT 106 SPOILERS ⚠

Oookay…

Yeah well, I was a little scared about what the poster could mean. Like, was it all actually Marc's imagination and he was indeed in a psychiatric? Then I realized the reason of the poster and everything was fine.

“Whatever else who might be there.” Oh Harrow, you have no idea…

I'm not really surprised that Layla is going to look for them. Alone. With a knife only. *sighs*

Taweret. I had this Lucifer flashback. Remember when he sent a demon to talk to Chloe? No? Well, i do.

She asked Layla to be her avatar.

To which she said no.

And, of course, the Gods are freed by breaking the statue. As simple as that. I did not think my theory was right but… it was.

Ngl, I WAS expecting Layla to become Khonshu's avatar. I did wanted to see her as Moon Knight (yk, like Tabitha from Earth trns 590 [I believe I wrote it correctly]).

But I'm somehow happy she didn't accept.

“You're the only superpower I ever had.” Man, Marc went back for Steven, he turned to sand and placed (quite literally) his heart between them, bringing him back. It was emotional.

And we have Taweret helping them, old softies, stopping the sand.

The bullets falling when Marc stands up. The suit forming. Lemme just… 🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴.

So, just like that? Did Khonshu accept to free Marc (and Steven) for good, just like that? There's just something there that's not convincing me.

That frame. That fRAME of him covering the moon with the suit. *chef's kiss*

Taweret is a baby and I love her. And you love her too. We all love her.

You know what I also love? The costume she chose for Layla to wear as her Avatar. 10/10. Quality.

Now, the transition between Marc and Steven (aka Moon Knight and Mr. Knight) is sick.

The fact that Steven fixed the suit while still fighting, leading him to be thrown away was so funny. I like this kind of humor.

The girl asking Layla if she's a superhero and she going “I am.” ajzñdkzñsñ. Yes, you are!

JAKE?!??!!?? WHAT IS THIS? WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT DID YOU DO? WHY AM I YELLING?

We can all agree that it was him. Steven didn't do it and Marc blacked out (again)..AAAAAGH!!!

Now, what the hell was that, at the asylum with Harrow?

For a moment, I thought about that theory saying that everything was, in fact, in Marc's head and nothing was real.

Which would have the poster making sense, but it didn't. Not when Harrow's footsteps were printed in blood on the floor.

Aaaand, they wake up in Steven's apartment, and Marc falls because he has this clamp thing (sorry, idk what's it called xd) around his heel.

AND I HIPE YOU STOOD FOR AT THE END OF THE CREDITS BECAUSE THERE IS ONE SCENE, FINALLY!!!

Harrow (Ammit), in a psychiatric, being strolled out of the hospital by someone, put in a car and then BHAM! we have Khonshu telling him that Marc didn't know how messed up he was.

AND THEN, INTRODUCING HIS FRIEND, JAKE LOCKELY!!! DUUUUDE, HE… AJSÑDKSÑS!!!! I'M SCREAMING AGAIN!!!

Wait, wait, wait. Did I miss the “MOON KNIGHT WILL RETURN” at the end of the credits? Was it not there? Why am I always asking questions I know the answer to?

Anyway, this series was phenomenal! The best, I dare to say, Marvel has done so far (and I'm talking about Marvel Disney, because Daredevil is still the best), I don't think the projected ahead can top it but we'll see.

Now, we have to wait for Ms. Marvel and hope for the best. 🤞

[anarzaabloodladen]

Wait hold on. (I might hit)

[thenextcelestialchapter]

I liked the Thermae Romae Novae anime so much that I sought out to read the Thermae Romae manga too. It’s really funny and though it starts out the same as the anime, a lot changes in the manga by the mid-way point and it ends completely different! Spoilers ahead for those who want to read it later, but...

I just think it is so hilarious how the main/biggest difference between the anime and the manga is that Anime!Livia waits a whole whopping 10-12 years for Lucius to come back home before she finally goes home to mom n pop, Hadrian gets her back and she’s all like, “Oh Lucius, I’m sorry, I should have known how important your work was to the empire...!” Meanwhile Manga!Livia divorces his ass after only 3 years, when he tries to get her back some other dude already put a burger in her happy meal, and Livia ain’t the least bit sorry about it... XDDD

I kinda wanted to write a smut about Lucius and Livia finally getting time together to make them babies but uuugh Satsuki/Diana is such a cute stand-in for a romantic partner too, it’s so cute how he saves her and she comes back to Rome with him~ Kinda almost makes me wish they’d make a second season for TRN and add the parts from the manga they left out, buuut its probably pretty unlikely, it seems like that’s how they planned to end it... 

[blackjack-15]

O, The Tangled Webs We Counterfeit — Thoughts on: Labyrinth of Lies (LIE)

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, GTH, SPY

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: LIE; DAN; mention of VEN; mention of TRN; mention of CUR; mention of SAW; Nancy Drew #60 The Greek Symbol Mystery.

The Intro:

Welcome to the final meta! Sorry it ended up taking so long.

The only one of the “New Games” (MED, LIE, SEA, MID) that I’m going to be writing about in this series, Labyrinth of Lies is a great note for me to end the series on. It has it all — secret plots, a gorgeous museum, a distant-but-not-too-distant location, a mix of indoor and outdoor locations, fabulous suspects, and a nail-biting finale.

And the Hardy Boys. I never forget about them.

Before we really begin, I do want to preface this by saying that, as I began this meta series before MID came out, I won’t be referencing MID’s actual “storyline” or the events of that game within this meta. Because the Hardy Boys do reference Salem and such throughout the game, obviously leading into the next game, I won’t ignore the plans for MID that are laid out in LIE, but the game itself, to be frank, doesn’t deserve the screen-ink I’d waste writing about it. Just a heads up.

The usual thing for a ND game to do is to take a sort of spooky atmosphere and subvert it just slightly; a Haunted Train is only occupied by a friendly, peaceful spirit; the Haunted Manor is really just home to a bunch of dead try-hards and their immortal parrot; the Haunted Inn is shadowed by both intense feelings of guilt and an entirely mortal and mechanical presence. And while LIE has a lot of the pieces of these Haunted games — secret passages, old legends, a malevolent presence — it takes those pieces and spins them about to feel entirely different.

At its core, LIE is a subversive game, both texturally and meta-texturally. It delights in taking the player’s — not to mention Nancy’s — expectations and twisting them on their head. The game really telegraphs that in the first moment; Nancy walks in on what she thinks is an assault, but it’s really just a scene from a play. From that scene on, the player has a sense — especially if they’re paying attention — that nothing is as it seems to be on the surface.

We even see this subversion in our suspect list. In a sort of Orient Express nod, all four of our culprits are guilty (to some degree) of the same crime, and it produces a sort of cohesion in their backstories and alibis that we haven’t had before in a Nancy Drew game. When everyone is covering for everyone, it makes it much harder to sniff out contradictions and lies.

One of the greatest strengths in LIE is the constancy of seeing what Nancy is not meant to see. This is best exemplified in the audio tapes of the practices; seeing (or hearing, rather) the “theater group” in practice lets both Nancy and the player see what they’re really like (and we’ll talk a little bit more about that in the character section) when they’re not being actively observed and how their dynamic is actually much more tenuous than Xenia would like it to seem. Like the audio tracks of Niko in DED, these not only give us some great voice acting and characterization, but they’re also key in ferreting out exactly who these suspects are to each other.

LIE is, as with all of the games, based on a Nancy Drew book (no matter how loosely), and here it’s The Greek Symbol Mystery (book #60, for those playing along at home). Pretty much the only thing that the game and book have in common is that there’s an art theft ring, as the book focuses more on missing money – charity donations and an inheritance, in case you needed proof that the culprits are Very Bad Men indeed.

Along the way, Nancy, Bess, George, and their respective boyfriends (this book goes with the Nancy/Ned, Bess/Dave, George/Burt that is nauseatingly common among books of That Era) come across a Byzantine mask, a basket of apples with a poisonous snake (which, yes, is more Cleopatra than Athens, but Cleopatra was Greek so I’ll let them get away with it) and the titular Greek Symbol.

I’ll touch on this briefly below, but one of the most remarkable things about LIE is that it cements a rather disarming (for 60s Yellow Cover diehards) truth in the Nancy Drew game universe: Nancy is no Wonder Woman, and she is usually on the back foot when it comes to her mysteries.

The 60s rewrites, the Girl Detective series, and, yes, the early games in HER’s Nancy Drew games kind of build Nancy up as this all-powerful yet modest detective. Nancy can do anything, knows everything, can take down anyone in a fight, and fixes every problem — big or small — that she comes across, like some red-headed Mary Poppins in a tweed skirt and sensible shoes.

Danger By Design is a perfect example of what I mean; not only does Nancy find the treasure that no one has found for 60/70 years (though it was hidden pretty poorly, honestly), but she also helps along a budding fashion designer, “clears” a woman’s name, and stops an international sabotage/espionage plan from ever coming to fruition. Never, however, do you feel that she really works for any of this — she even takes down a martial artist after having read a book on it once.

I know I harp on how much I love the games headed by Nik Blahunka and Cathy Roiter a lot in these metas, but this is why I do it: together, those two almost without exception create games and stories that humanize Nancy without ever degrading her skill. Instead of upstaging the French Historians or the Italian Secret Police in the span of 48 hours, from WAC/TOT on, Nancy is no longer the smartest person in the room — she’s simply a girl with a knack for observation, no fear of appearing rude, whose best quality isn’t her Encyclopedia-like Knowledge, but rather her dogged determination (which is very much true of Nancy’s original 30s incarnation).

It’s hard to root for an omniscient hero who surpasses everyone else just because they’re special and the protagonist. But it is so, so easy to like and support a rather bullheaded hero who looks around, who asks for help, and most importantly hammers at a problem until she cracks it. And in my opinion, that’s the Nancy that LIE so well portrays.

The Title:

As a title, Labyrinth of Lies is…well, it’s pretty much perfect. You have the nod to Greek mythology with the word “labyrinth”, the sense that no one is telling the truth, the idea of navigating through those lies in order to arrive at the conclusion, and — most importantly — the hint that this mystery is manmade.

Labyrinths don’t just spring up out of nowhere; the origin of the word was the (supposed) structure built by Daedalus to contain the Minotaur. Interestingly enough, labyrinths in their traditional form are unicursal — they only have one path, they’re just confusingly laid out. We see that reflected from the title through the mystery in LIE — though the twists and turns of the game are many and varied, there is still only one path through it.

And speaking of the mystery itself…

The Mystery:

We begin with Melina Rosi offering a job to Nancy — to help the Phidias Cultural Center in Greece to prepare and pull off its big exhibition: a play entitled Persephone in Winter, designed to create buzz around the new Life in Ancient Greece exhibit. Some work has even recently been done on the museum to provide an interactive, exploratory section for the exhibit to show what life really might have been like in the mythical Underworld.

All is not well, however, as artifacts have been disappearing and staff have been quitting by the dozens. Leaning on her experience as both a museum intern and as a detective, Nancy needs to figure out who’s responsible for these setbacks, where the artifacts are going, and if this is all part of a larger, grander plan — one with potentially deadly consequences…

LIE has a mystery that really shines more the more effort the player puts into it — a hallmark of Nik’s games, but one that is especially true here. If you play through with half-attention, skipping dialogue and clicking through papers and files just to check them off, you’re probably going to be a little bit confused and think that the museum and such make little sense.

If, on the other hand, you’re willing to do some actual detective work — snoop and read carefully, pay attention to what the suspects say, make use of all of Nancy’s resources — then you’re rewarded with a mystery that takes everything into consideration.

Note that I’m not saying that if you don’t like LIE, you didn’t pay attention — liking or not liking a game is purely a matter of opinion, honestly. But LIE, like any good Greek myth, has more too it than it looks on the surface, and you have to pay attention to the different versions (aka the different stories told by our suspects, the files in Melina’s office, the Hardy Boys, and the tangible evidence) in order to get an actual sense of what’s going on.

The big thing I love about the mystery is that the game telegraphs from the very beginning that it’s not so much “who is the baddie” as it is “how will this play out, and how can Nancy stop it”. The crime is, rather than forthcoming or already past, in process when Nancy arrives, and her arrival doesn’t really do anything to mess with the Troupe’s plans.

The tagline for “Persephone in Winter” is “what evil sleeps in four red seeds?”, which — as we see the poster at the beginning of the game — is a pretty early sign that all four of our suspects are, to some extent, involved in the crime. Adding to that, the title pretty much telegraphs what the final showdown will be — “Persephone in Winter” is a nice, moody title for a retelling of the Persephone myth, sure, but it does subtly ask the player to consider: who is Persephone during the winter?

The answer is, of course, the Queen of the Dead. And speaking of Her Highness…

The Suspects:

Let’s look at the leader of the “troupe” and the play’s director — as well as our mastermind — Xenia Doukas. For someone whose name refers to friendship, she’s pretty two-faced. Which is awesome, given her place as Persephone on stage.

Xenia is our crime-syndicate-backed mastermind and is, quite frankly, pretty darn good at her job. She wrangles in extra help, keeps everyone in line, writes and directs a mostly-functioning play, and plans an elaborate heist all at the same time — and does it while dealing with a nosy detective yapping at her heels.

To be quite honest, Xenia has her place as one of my favorite culprits, and not just for the killer lava dress at the end of the game. She’s adaptable in a way that few other culprits are, constantly changing and evolving to take advantage of new openings in the museum’s atmosphere and security, and does it all while playing the Beleaguered Director in charge of Hopeless Amateurs.

Sure, Xenia is taken into custody by the end of the game, but the results of her trial are still unknown by the time of Nancy’s letter, and if Thanos’ example means anything, Kronos will probably be able to get her out of this one. She’s an able actress and even better mastermind, and someone with her skills will go quite far in underworld dealings.

She is the Queen of the Dead, after all.

Standing alongside Xenia as her muscle and enforcer Thanos Ganas, a man with a dark voice and even darker contacts in the real-life underworld. Like Xenia, he’s a part of Kronos, and his job is basically enforcement and stark threats, along with hydraulics (which not only makes him seem Important to an acting troupe, but also helps control who goes down into the underworld).

He’s also one of the few Nancy Drew suspects with a confirmed body count, so that’s lovely as well.

As one of our culprits, Thanos is refreshing in that he is exactly what he presents himself to be. He’s not there to play a part, nor is he trying to convince Nancy that he’s harmless; he’s a bad guy, and he’s comfortable with that to an extent that we rarely see in these games, making him a breath of fresh air. Xenia plays a part in order to make herself more terrifying when she shucks it off, but Thanos — a confirmed killer and the only one of the troupe to escape justice — doesn’t need to.

Niobe Papadaki is the art expert of the group, along with the very shy Demeter in Persephone in Winter. Her role in the crime syndicate is the most important but also the most tenuous: she’s in charge of creating the forgeries, which she does with both great skill and trepidation.

Niobe is great in that she exemplifies what seems to be a favorite Nik trope: the person who was damned by a good deed in their past. Like Kate, like Alexei, and even like Nancy herself sometimes (to name just a few), Niobe tried to do something nice — to help her friend break into the art world — and instead paid for it a thousand times over, from losing her place as an artist to being dragged down into the criminal underworld of art forgery.

As someone threatened into cooperating, it’s understandable that Niobe is the one that gets off the easiest at the close of the game with a sentence of probation. In the end, her arc comes full circle; she was someone who took a fall for a friend in order to help them and ended up (metaphorically) imprisoned — and she ends the game set free and back on her way to the art world due to someone taking the fall for her, as her friend.

The fan favorite in LIE has to be Grigor Karakinos, who does everything from lights and sound to the vast bulk of the actual stage-time as Hermes, narrator and scoundrel extraordinaire. In our criminal troupe, he’s the transporter for the forged replicas, along with being the designated fall guy should the plan go wrong.

It’s Grigor’s knowledge that he’s living on a knife’s edge that makes his sacrifice(s) throughout the game mean so much more. He looks out for Niobe — note in the recorded practices Niobe insists on having him there while Thanos is present as protection — while attempting to help Nancy and still keeping Thanos and Xenia relatively in the dark.

In the end, Grigor does end up taking quite a bit of the fall — specifically for Niobe — and he does end up at least for a time in prison, but he chooses it with his eyes wide open, rather than having it dropped on him by Thanos and Xenia, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Our phone contact is Nancy’s employer and phone contact Melina Rosi, who works as the curator at the Phidias Cultural Center. By the time she brings Nancy in, Melina is facing disaster; most of her crew has quit, items are going missing, and the opening of the “Life in Ancient Greece” exhibit looks like it might not happen at all.

Melina’s one of the more interesting employers that Nancy’s had over the course of the games, not the least of which because she does end up firing Nancy in a non-second-chance setting — purely out of concern for Nancy’s safety, yes, but she fires her all the same, behaving responsibly in the job of someone responsible for a young detective.

I mean, Nancy doesn’t let a little thing like being fired stop her from continuing to work the case, but it’s the thought that counts.

Finally, just because I love and care for them — and because they rock in this game — let’s talk about the Hardy Boys. Frank and Joe are in top form this game, and between Joe being fired up about ATAC’s name change and “baseless accusations” of witchcraft and Frank playing the beleaguered older brother role and digging deep into the modern Greek underworld, the Hardy Boys are a joy to call. JVS and Rob Jones do some of their best work in LIE, and really feel like the siblings and not-so-amateur detectives that they are.

Obviously, the whole witchcraft (and planning something with the Hardy Boys that involved kidnapping Ned) angle(s) was to set up a future game in Salem…but since MID bears little to no resemblance to the game that’s hinted at in LIE, it doesn’t end up mattering in the end.

I will say that one of the best parts of the Hardy Boys in this game is their redesign for their phone contact — they look both distinct and polished but still echo their designs from TRN. It’s a bit of wonderfully classic character design, and I shall never be over it.

The Favorite:

There’s a lot of things in LIE that I really truly love, so let’s go over just a few.

First things first, I love the use of Greek mythology and the setting of Greece in general for a Nancy Drew game. It’s perfect for the mixture of legend, fact, and history that games like SSH and TMB (two of the more thematically similar games to LIE) really excelled at, and LIE is no slouch in that department.

Another thing that I’m fond of is that these characters are actually someone to each other. Lots of times in pre-TOT games we get a random assortment of people with no connection to each other and nothing in common besides happening to be in the same physical place, and it’s really lovely to have the sort of post-TOT shift towards an interconnected cast whose actions really have an effect on the other suspects.

As a very vocal fan of Nik’s writing style, it should come as no surprise that the play’s script is one of my favorite things within the game. It’s witty, quotable, poetic, and hinges on the absurd, making it really feel like a play that was kind of written – and rewritten – on the fly to suit the troupe’s needs. Hermes’ strong narrative style, Demeter’s flowery speeches, the use of the chorus as a mix between judgmental oopma-loompas and Siri — it’s all honestly great stuff, and more than worth a read and a reread over the course of the game.

My favorite puzzle to play through — shock upon shock, I’m sure — is the seating logic puzzle towards the beginning of the game. I used to play (and replay, and replay) the potions puzzle at the end of the old GameBoy Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone a lot when I was little, so any puzzle that even remotely involves logic and whittling down correct choices already has me in its grasp.

That being said, I’m also extremely fond of the overarching puzzles for navigating the underworld in LIE. The coin for Charon, the unlocking of the gates, etc. etc. — it feels like a constantly expanding world without stretching the limits of believability (yes, good museums often have areas like this for ‘hands on exploration’) and it makes for a stunning backdrop for not only sleuthing but also for the last-minute dash at the very end of the game.

It also has secret passages, and honestly there’s nothing better than secret passages in a Nancy Drew game.

My favorite moment in the game would have to be the moment that Niobe steps through the secret passageway under the arch in the main hall of the museum. Not only does it align with my previously mentioned love of secret passages, but it’s also a moment that really cements that at no point does Nancy have the upper hand in this game.

She’s up against people who are more organized, better connected, better informed, and who have the home-court advantage in a very physical way. Nancy’s routes are constantly changed, cut off, shifted, or destroyed throughout the game, forcing her to find another way to do something as basic as walk around, and this secret passageway reveal is one of the strongest moments that reveals how underpowered Nancy by herself is.

Finally, as a shipper, I have to point to the “fake conversation” that Frank and Nancy have while he’s giving her information about Thanos and she’s pretending to make small talk. It’s a perfect example of multi-sided tension; not only is he giving her rather frightening information, but it’s happening in an environment itself that is rather threatening, with the added romantic tension coming from (at least) his side.

It’s a great example of how conversations in fiction should do multiple things at the same time, while at the same time really increasing the tension that the player feels — not just in that moment, but around Thanos and the underworld for the rest of the game.

The Un-Favorite:

There are a few things that aren’t quite my favorite in this game though, so I’ll briefly touch on those.

I’m first gonna mention Grigor’s arms. I don’t know why they look like that, I don’t know who thought it was a good idea, I don’t know why his arms are so much worse than Thanos’ — I just have no idea what was going on there, and I don’t like it.

My biggest complaint also ties in with my least favorite puzzle — which is the temple/vases puzzles at the beginning. Like TMB, LIE is a wonderful, history-focused game — but also like TMB, LIE is also a bit undirected at the beginning, and it can be a little difficult to figure out what you need to do and what information you have to know to do it. Once that bit’s done, the game flows along smoothly, but the beginning, puzzle-wise, does stutter a bit (especially on replays, where you know you should be Doing Something but can’t remember how to get Nancy to do it).

It’s a mark of how (other than the complaint directly above) seamless LIE is that I don’t really have a least favorite moment in the game. LIE is dedicated to keeping up a sense of tension in every location (apart from perhaps Melina’s office) and to making the setting feel a little larger than life, and it succeeds pretty exactingly on both fronts.

The Fix:

So how would I fix Labyrinth of Lies?

Beyond smoothing the beginning puzzles better into the game timeline, I’m not sure that there’s anything else that I would do. Yes, LIE ends without a happy ending for everyone, but given the subject matter, the crime, and above all the theme — that there is a stark difference between villains, who sacrifice others, and good guys, who sacrifice themselves for the sake of others — is better borne out by an ending that’s a mixed bag for our players.

LIE would be a good game just based on the sum of its fun, imaginative, thrilling parts; LIE is a great game, instead, because the sum of those parts adds up to give the sleuth — and the player — a proper view of who Nancy Drew is, what her job is like, and how she tackles the world around her.