From Shadow Magazine #39: Road of Crime
I want more of you to appreciate how often part of The Shadow's plan to uncover in-depth crucial information about a case or it's suspects boils down to "send Harry Vincent somewhere and let him make new friends", and the fact that it works.
For further context: Graham Wellerton is a very smart, very cagey and very bitter ex-criminal currently trying to turn over a new leaf and redeem himself through extensive philantropy with his evil bastard uncle's inheritance (he is the main character and the story is about his redemption). Wellerton spends much of the book trying to ignore the people after him that forced him into criminality, but he's so paranoid that, just before the climax, he ends up viciously and venomously turning on the people that pulled him out of jail and overlooked his past and housed him and inspired him to try and better himself, even spouting how stupid he was to trust anybody.
I was right when I was crooked. I trusted no one then. I refused your friendship because I suspected everyone who ever pretended to be my friend.
That same guy also repeteadly let a stranger from Michigan into his home for chat with never the slightest bit of suspicion, not even when Harry's visit is interrupted by Wellerton's wife (the person that basically forced him into crime). That same guy has also spent this whole book scared of The Shadow, terrified that The Shadow will pick up his trail again and come for him, regardless of his attempt to reform (completely unaware that, not only has The Shadow never once lost his trail, but has been working silently to ensure he stays reformed).
That guy? Never once suspected Harry. Nobody ever does unless they're villains. Harry Vincent is just The Most Trustable Man Alive.
25 notes
·
View notes
So how was stormblood? I know it's very hit or miss for people, so what're your thoughts?
I understand why it’s hit or miss! It — to get to the point i would be straight up lying if I said I was an unbiased consumer because I’m not, I’m a coastal American mid 20s rando with a Lot of very current cultural baggage around concepts like patriotism and freedom. And Hamilton references. It all has a sweet and strong and very anti-occupation message (along with themes I very much enjoy dissecting like the constant assertion that it Doesn’t Have To Be This Way, or the expansion into You may not understand this person but you must be able to accept them,) but when combined with Stormblood’s shakier coherence in writing and dialogue and pacing, it comes off as A Bit Off. to me. And I think it missed ever so slightly just due to how it was all structured and set up with the characters we have and motivations we have because the stuff OUTSIDE or Adjacent to the main story, despite how out of place it could feel, was structured great!! Like the Kojin and the Ananta trial and the Kugane mishaps and trying to murder Zenos twice and the ghost ship. Could the main structure have come across very well yes absolutely! It does it on and off it succeeds in there often! But sometimes it doesn’t. I can see a lot of where concepts were promised and not fully delivered, pacing was a bit off, things just happened without really belonging there (despite how much I loved Susano, he could have been better structured. same with many instances and also I feel like the unethical science should have been MORE IMPORTANT THAN IT — maybe it comes back. Who is that scientist.), sometimes dialogue felt somewhat canned. I feel like in a consequences-heavy expansion, many things just didn’t have important consequences, which was very strange
HOWEVER! I cannot give the new gameplay features abd dungeons any crap they are all SO GOOD. And so PRETTYYYYY. And there were so many solo duties that ruled! Every dungeon in this expansion was like whoa this is a PLACE im in you know what I mean??? I’m in a place that’s big and there’s people and there’s NEW MECHANICS and active time maneuvers (??!!!!!!!) and unique fights! I can jump on the roofs in Kugane! And, mind you, when the dialogue was good, it was good. Lyse has a fantastic voice actor. Alisaie is my favorite girl elf creature in thw world. Estinien is like the best p- the guy ever. also m’naago is my new friend. The tower was a great part of sb to me despite my singular gripe. I think Zenos’— I know it’s controversial to some people because he does assume your wol to be a bit more murderous than some people would prefer their characters be and doesn’t take no for an answer, but his um speech did something to my brain a little bit
ON that note the ending was very fast?????? Or like — not FAST, but I wasn’t expecting Zenos or Shinryu to go down in one fight. Two co-op fights, right next to each other. I kind of wanted to beat him up myself. And when Zenos was so impossible to beat before. I was expecting both of them to be WAY harder. Though Shinryu is a COOL fight I’d do the royal menagerie again in a second. I was kind of expecting a three stage trial? Like Nidhogg? I love going into space hiiii big dragon where were you this whole time… u were shafted… but u could not be suffered to live so. Maybe if we’d gotten an instance of fighting the dragon alone after beating the trial?? Could have been Themes. I don’t know
anyways no I can’t quite pin it down, but I’ve said it before I think they had the outline for the story and then built it and went oh this is too much and not enough at the same time and got stuck writing the whole thing after getting stuck in the story they already had. A COMMENDABLE job for getting turned around like that, way better than a lot of video games stories out there, good gameplay and areas that didn’t feel too empty. glances at coerthas falcons nest area. I think the ways they did the exploration thing was good, having us venture further into occupied territory etc, but so much exploration stuff felt oneoff and not there to do much for someone who has been skipping almost all of the side content except stuff I’ve been told is good. It almost felt like they were Trying New Stuff a lot, and some of it succeeded some of it failed. Such is trying stuff!! Such is trying to imitate what you had while making something new and exciting! And I can’t fault them for that
so like — putting aside the fact that I haven’t done post-sb which is like missing 40% of the Thing according to past expansions and my thoughts very well might change, i would 100% do the fights again, maybe watch some cutscenes, but I don’t think I’d NG+ this one. where is that lady selling buuz it is a CRIME i did not get to have any buuz let me buy one yoshi p
21 notes
·
View notes
hi hi hi can you tell me more about the fairy simon au please also your baz is so pretty i love him so much
hOLY SHIT thank you—both for coming here to let me talk about this silly AU and for the compliment, drawing Baz is good for my mental health, honestly. he is just... so lovely. 😭💞
about Bazza in the AU: the story (kinda) takes place post-Watford for Baz, so he's in his early 20s; he's an art student, he's a magician, and he is still a vampire, but, Natasha is actually alive in this AU because Baz wasn't turned in the nursery as a kid, he was turned a bit later in life. Baz plays the violin still, too, but not as well as he does in canon because he stopped his lessons cold around 12-13, which was also right around when he started taking art pretty seriously. without the Mage's cuts and reforms and shit happening, the school still offered a plethora of creative arts courses to the students, and of course they're not quite like Normal classes 'cause pretty much everything ties back to magic in some way at Watford, etc., but he liked them well enough and they were enough to get him into a good program after he graduated!
about Simon in the AU: so, this is funny. i was actually editing my one fanfic, and i have this section in it that goes: "It is impossible to search the entire Wavering Wood. The environment is too thick with magic, the old and unpredictable kind that used to belong to faeries and fable creatures and all other manner of strange, lost things. Penelope says there are even parts of the Wood rumoured to be untouched by magicians. Hidden meadows and ancient groves and brooks that babble of the future, sequestered away because they never stop moving and changing, because they do not want to be found." and it planted this funny seed in my brain. in the books, fairies are like a lost magical people. Simon tells us that they wandered into the woods for a few centuries and then couldn't find their way back. and i just had this silly thought: "imagine a fairy does the opposite. wandered out, but then didn't know how to find its way back in."
the whole idea of the AU is like... this total whimsy-ass summer Simon and Baz get to spend together.
Baz comes home from school on holidays to visit his family: in winter and spring, that means he stays with his father. but in the summer, he goes to Watford to spend time with his mother (Natasha doesn't actually leave the school very often, she drowns herself in work; Malcolm sees her very rarely these days) but "spending time with his mother" is actually just six weeks of quiet lunches in her office together before Baz goes off to find a good place on the grounds to sit with his sketchbook and his Spotify until he has to go back for an equally quiet supper in her office together. and so it goes: less than a week into break, he decides to spend the afternoon in the Wavering Wood, and by chance, happens to meet Simon. a fairy that walked a little too far for a little too long, and can't seem to remember his way back to where he came from anymore.
and Simon is a fucking pest. but—he's harmless.
and he's pretty.
and Baz actually happens to like the Wavering Wood quite a lot, thank you very much, going back there every afternoon has absolutely nothing to do with anything else, lost fairies or otherwise! 😉😂
if anyone sees this and is wondering what the hell i'm on about, click here!
31 notes
·
View notes