Ongoing Art Hiatus

preview pdf for the fallen london ttrpg core book has dropped, and with it we've gotten our first official art of december :D

this isn't exactly how I've imagined them (though this art is VERY good) but also, the beauty is

with the shadowy check increasing proportional to your repeat dentistry quality- IE; the more you bit mr fires, the harder this check became, until you literally couldn't succeed at it anymore. this screenshot was taken at the exact point i hit 0%.

but. post update. the option has changed. it now looks like this.

and the new requirement... is this.

and the success text...

this gives an exclusive burden.

i have no idea when this started triggering. i have no idea how this started triggering. i only know that i have done it.

Thinking about how the Light Fingers story does want you to sympathize with the antagonist on some level--in fact, the narrative demands it for the story to have full impact. The game doesn't ask you to think Poor Edward is redeemable or even worthy of forgiveness, but it specifically draws attention to him as a tragic figure. His name is Poor Edward, and it's not meant to be a purely ironic epithet. He is pitiable! From his Orphanage backstory to physically cowering should you threaten his life at the wedding, unable to fight, our primary antagonist incites feelings of pity, even if accompanied by revulsion. "He's a pathetic little man in a mask, playing at being the villain," says Clara, close to the final confrontation. Poor Edward, indeed!

And if that weren't enough, the mask that Poor Edward wears is the theatrical symbol of tragedy: the story has your character face-to-face with this physical representation every time they have to confront their antagonist. This isn't an incidental aesthetic choice, but a thematic one. Between mask and epithet, the story does not allow you to ignore the inherent tragedy of Poor Edward's character: a child whose parents were cruelly mudered and then taken to The Orphanage for years of various abuses--and then, the villain of this tale, engineering his own downfall with pride and moon milk, a future that may not have occurred without the initial violence he came to perpetuate. The call for sympathy, even momentarily, is written into the way the narrative presents Poor Edward. It is vital to the climax:

Some Fallen London inspired color palettes! 22 palettes, 7 colors each. I tried to make them varied, which got harder to do the more I made.

The tragedy of needing to grieve and not knowing what or who you lost or why. The angst of having trauma and being denied the awareness that it's trauma. The suspense of being different somehow and left to wonder how and when. The tension of knowing that something is off and you can't find where it hurts. The Adventure Zone gets it. Kingdom Hearts gets it.