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loonatism · 4 years ago

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WHAT IS THE LOONAVERSE? PART 2 – THE NARRATIVE DEVICES

LOONA is special among K-pop for its immersive storyline. These girls are not just k-pop idols performing a song, they also perform a story and that story is what we call the Loonaverse.

So, what is the Loonaverse? In a few words: The world and story that LOONA inhabits.

Yeah. Duh. But what is it?

Well… it’s complicated.

The Loonaverse is a fictitious story that borrows elements from real science and fantasy to build its world but also uses allegories, metaphors, allusions and other literary devices to tell its story. Our job as spectators (and specifically us theorizers) is to look beyond those devices to understand the message they are trying to send. In this post I’ll attempt to explain the numerous literary devices used to narrate the story of the Loonaverse.

So, these 2 things are LAW:

Each girl has two conflicts: an external one and an internal one.

The LOONAVERSE story is one of fantasy and mystery.

INTERNAL CONFLICT VS EXTRNAL CONFLICT

Or as I like to call it: UNIT vs SOLO

I’ve explained how the girls are trapped in a time loop and how escaping it was their overarching goal. This is the external conflict of the Loonaverse. The progression of this storyline is seen mainly in the Sub-Unit MVs and LOONA MVs but also in some teasers and other videos like Cinema Theory. The conflict is external because: 1) It comes from the outside. 2) The characters not have power against it, at least not at the beginning. 3) The conflict has effect over multiple people.

Also…

Every character has an internal conflict. A personal story. Each girl perceives the world differently and that changes the way they act and interact with each other. It is internal because: 1) It comes from within the person. 2) They themselves may be the cause for the conflict. 3) The conflict has effect on only one person: themselves. This Internal conflict is presented to us in the Solo MVs. Every solo MV is a window to the character’s mind. While the solo MVs are tangentially related to the main external conflict, they mostly focus on the internal conflict of the character.

External and Internal conflicts often mix and interlace each other to create a wider story. We will see how the external conflict fuels the internal conflicts of the girls and how their internal conflicts will shape the way they act towards solving the external conflict.

FANTASY AND MYSTERY

What is fantasy? The genre of fantasy is described as a story based in a world completely separate from our own. It usually features elements or magical/supernatural forces that do not exist on our own world. It is not tied to reality of science.

Wait a minute. You just spent an entire post explaining the science of the Loonaverse. You can’t call it fantasy now. Well yes, yes I can. Since most of the scientific elements I explained are theoretical, unproved in our world but in the world of LOONA they are a reality, a scientific reality. A reality that differs from our own, and thus a fantasy to us. But regardless of that the reason I call the Loonaverse a fantasy is because of the themes it explores.

Fantasy is a broad genre, it is one of the oldest literary genres, being found in old myths. Some of the themes often found in fantasy stories include: tradition vs. change, the individual vs. society, man vs. nature, coming of age, betrayal, epic journeys, etc. All of these themes are very present in the Loonaverse. But I’ll delve into each one as we encounter them.

What is Mystery? The mystery genre is a type of fiction in which a person (usually a detective) solves a crime. The purpose is to solve a puzzle and to create a feeling of resolution with the audience. Some elements of a mystery include: the Crime that needs solving, the use of suspense, use of figures of speech, the detective having inference gaps, the suspects motives are examined in the story, the characters usually get in danger while investigating, plus these:

Red herring. something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important question and leads the audience to a false answer.

Suspense. Intense feeling that an audience goes through while waiting for the outcome of certain events.

Foreshadowing. A literary device that hints at information that will become relevant later on.

I just though you should know these definitions.

In the Loonaverse, the “crime” is the time loop itself, and the mystery is finding a way to break it. Or so we think. In reality, the “How do we break the loop?” question is solved rather easily. But can we really call this a mystery if the main question is already answered? Yes! It may no be a mystery story for the characters themselves but because BlockBerry uses various mystery genre tropes while telling the story, it is a mystery TO THE AUDIENCE.

That’s right! WE are the detectives!

In a classical mystery, the detective examines all clues, motives, and possible alibis, for each suspect, or in our case, each character. The same way we analyze every MV, every interaction, every possible clue to where and when everything is happening.

The Loonaverse differs from a classic ‘Who done it?’ by establishing that no suspect is actually guilty. The crime IS the loop, but no girl is responsible for it (or so we think). Our job as detectives is not to figure out who is doing this but to explain how and establish an timeline of events that shed a light to what really happened. In that sense, our job resembles more closely a real crime investigation than a mystery novel.

LITERARY DEVICES

There are many literary devices an author can use to tell its story. Too many to cover them all in here, so I’ll focus on the most recurrent ones in the Loonaverse:

Allusion. Referring to a subject matter such as a place, event, or literary work by way of a passing reference.

Archetype. Reference to a concept, a person or an object that has served as a prototype of its kind and is the original idea that has come to be used over and over again.

Faulty Parallelism. the practice placing together similarly structure related phrases, words or clauses but where one fails to follow this parallel structure.

Juxtaposition. The author places a person, concept, place, idea or theme parallel to another

Metaphor. A meaning or identity ascribed to one subject by way of another. One subject is implied to be another so as to draw a comparison between their similarities and shared traits.

Motif. Any element, subject, idea or concept that is constantly present through the entire body of literature.

Symbol. Using an object or action that means something more than its literal meaning, they contain several layers of meaning, often concealed at first sight.

Genre. Classification of a literary work by its form, content, and style.

Some other literary devices worthy of your private investigation are: Negative Capability, Point of View, Doppelgänger, Flashback, Caesura, Stream of Consciousness, Periodic Structure, THEME, Analogy.

About Genre:

Genres are important because they give a story structure. They help an author tell the story in a way that makes it simple for the audience to understand what kind of story is being told. The classic genres of literature are Poetry, Drama and Prose. Some scholars include Fiction and Non-fiction.

In film there are a variety of accepted genres: Comedy, Tragedy, Horror, Action, Fantasy, Drama, Historical, etc. Plus a bunch of subgenres like Contemporary Fantasy, Spy Film, Slapstick Comedy, Psychological Thriller, etc. What defines a genre is the use of similar techniques and tropes like color, editing, themes, character archetypes, etc.

I point this out because the Loonaverse uses many genres to tell its story. Sure, the main story is a fantasy/mystery but every MV or Teaser has its own genre (especially the solo MVs). So, when I point out later that Kiss Later is a romantic comedy or that One & Only is a gothic melodrama, this is what I mean.

TLDR:

The Loonaverse is the world and story that LOONA inhabits. It borrows form real life science and fantasy elements to better tell its story. Each girl has an external conflict (escaping the loop) and an internal conflict (portrayed in the solo MVs). Both conflicts interlace to tell the story. The Loonaverse is a story of Fantasy because it takes place in a different world from ours and it is a Mystery because it is told using various mystery tropes. The story uses multiple literary and visual devices to tell it’s story and fuel the mystery.

REMEMBER: This is all my interpretation. My way of comprehending and analyzing the story. You don’t have to agree with everything. I encourage you to form your own theories. Remember: every theory is correct.

After all that you may be wondering what the story even is. And we’ll finally be getting to that. While I have my own interpretation of the timeline, themes and who did what. I think it’s more fun to slowly explore every brick instead of just summarizing it in one (incredibly long) post. I’ll do that much, much, much later. The journey will be just as interesting as the destination. I hope you’re in for the ride.

Let’s get to the real deal: The MVs. I’m going in chronological order so let’s start with girl No. 1!

Next: The bright pink bunny of LOONA: HeeJin’s ViViD.

#yeah i know its been months #life's tough kids give me a break #loona #loonaverse #loona theory #loonatism #heejin #hyunjin #haseul #yeojin #vivi #kim lip #jinsoul #choerry #yves #chuu #go won #olivia hye

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adventism-atheism-orthodoxy-me · 2 years ago

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What do you think of Joyofsatan.org? They claim to follow the Sumerian God Enki-Satan, they’re pro-choice, they follow gay Pagan Gods and they’re the largest Satanist group in the world.

Thank-you for the question. This one is tough, because it's been years since I've looked very deeply into any of this. When I did, I found it as disturbing now as I did then.

First. This site. The fact that it was published, and the fact that it is largely followed, demonstrates to me the abysmal state of Christianity in the World. It shows to me that at some point, a human being came to the conclusion that Christianity was so completely toxic to the core, that Satan is better. If you are a Christian and can't understand how someone could come to that conclusion, you may need to evaluate yourself in light of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), and consider the Fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23).

Second. Now I know where a lot of Christian negativity I have seen has it's source. I had a coworker come up to me one night during a graveyard shift, climb up a scissor lift (Not an OSHA approved activity) and confirm with me that I called myself a Christian. If given the opportunity, I would have given him my measured and qualified response (Not all who call out to me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of Heaven). That wasn't required though. Instead I got a lecture about stupid people being controlled by puppet-masters, etc... Now, given my own journey, you can probably imagine that I actually resonated with many of his points, but I couldn't agree to his complete and utter rejection of Christianity.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

You will notice, by certain phrases and words that many of the arguments made on this site are directed to a specific kind of Christian. Also, keep in mind that I do not claim any new earth shattering insight, it's just how I interpret very traditional Christianity as I understand it.

The first target seems to be the very materialist Christian. One who doesn't understand or believe in spirits, egregores, or really in anything that could even be remotely considered immaterial. One of the things that has attracted me to Orthodox Christianity, is that they have maintained a strong connection with the spiritual. If anything, its become stronger through history with Saints like Gregory Palamas. Father Freeman wrote a book on the problems of the Two-Story Universe in our modern thinking. Jonathan Pageau has tangentially addressed the idea of a multiplicity of spiritual entities many times, not only in, "The Body of a City and how Authority Works", but also more flippantly in, "Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy Exist". Lastly I would recommend the podcast, "Lord of Spirits" by priests Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick and Fr. Stephen De Young. I incidentally became interested in egregores a year or so ago when I listened to a discussion with Mark Stavish on a podcast where he was being interviewed about his, then, latest book. But the idea had been germinating in my mind for awhile, a proto-reference might have been a discussion on 'The conjuring of Phillip' I heard on another podcast (The episode is an hour and a half. the reference is a little after the 36 minute mark, but the following stream of consciousness discussions intrigued me too).

The next target is a Christian whose faith in the Bible is so brittle that they can't imagine that there were undeveloped precursors further back in history, or that the Bible must be understood word-for-word. I will refer back again to the the Podcast, 'Lord of Spirits', for a deep dive into this idea. Jonathan Pageau is a good reference too. Keep in mind, Christ himself had to teach the disciples how to understand their own Scriptures within a revolutionary new context for 40 days (Acts 1:3). Elsewhere are repeated references to treasure found, or lost coins, etc... The Bible isn't easy to understand, contrary to what some might say. As for precursors, if a story is true, its true. Some details may change. But to see echoes of your life's narrative repeated throughout history in different contexts shouldn't be at all surprising. None of them have been systematized in the way that the Christian story was in the New Testament, which makes the Christian movement that sprang out of that narrative particularly interesting. Christiological exegesis that postdates the Great Schism should be met with discernment, as the protestant impulse originating in Rome and spreading through Germany and the West has not improved the narrative of Christ's mission here on earth - and narratives are important.

The Third target seems to be the kind of Christian who assumes that the Western Church is the best repository of Christianity. There are references to Easter (NOT Pascha), the Vatican, Inquisitions, quotations from Popes, Masses (NOT Liturgies), and maybe a few other things that really make me think that the target here is Organized Christianity here in the post-schism West with all it's faults. Some may say the Eastern churches have their issues, and they do. Up until recently, the biggest issue in Eastern Orthodoxy was whether to use the Gregorian or the Julian Calendar - This is an issue that a sensitive Adventist can relate to since the argument drawn from the Bible is largely the same as we use to defend the Sabbath - Daniel 7:25. The issue can be complicated, and my understanding is that not even all churches who follow the old calendar are schismatic. Back to the point. There is a conciliar and collegial impulse to the Orthodox faith that seems lost to the West. There is more than one Patriarch among the Churches, and decisions are reached within counsels that contain more than just the patriarchs. Even then, some counsels come to conclusions that are rejected by the laity, and in those cases, bad council decisions are corrected in practice by the laity who refuse to abide by them. The Holy Spirit is assumed to be present in all of this, providentially working to ensure that the Church remains true. As a contrast, most of us in the developed world live, move, and have our being in top-down hierarchies. Some hierarchies are better than others. Many who live in various dysfunctional hierarchies dream of a hypothetical ideal world where the hierarchy is flat, a pure anarchy, where each man is his own god. That would be where I think the author of Joyofsatan.org is trying to go.

There are probably other points I could try to tease out, but I've read enough that I'm not really interested in going any further. For an umbrella statement, I would say that for the most part, many of it's assertions are accurate from a certain point of view. I can relate with many of the criticisms, but disagree with the conclusions.

The biggest difference between my experience with Christianity as I understand it, and what I read on that site, is that the interconnectedness and indwelling that is supposed to take place between God and his creation and within creation itself has been severed. "In reality, only your own powers will save you." This is the same argument made in the Original Garden - whether you call it Eden or something else - “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5) In my own mind, I read Good=communion, and Evil=selfishness (separation, maybe), but that's just my read on the whole thing. I could be wrong, and probably am, but I think it's closer to the Heavenly reality than two ephemeral words like "good" and "evil" that could be used as philosophical footballs in this discussion.

My quick take? I see people in pain, lashing out, wanting to inflict as much pain on others as they can. I see a group who wants to legitimize sociopathic behavior as normative. They would like to see the world burn - and when it does, they want to be on top.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Mankind was created for communion. Family, villages, cities, guilds, and many other examples, are all expressions of this impulse. Our God, who seeks communion, is an expression of this impulse.

"And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John 12:32.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Most High God, have mercy upon me a sinner.

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charcubed · 4 years ago

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Frank Hudson, Greta, Margaret, & Mary

(PSA: If you’ve been tagged in this post, it’s because I’m crediting you or linking to a meta you wrote! I particularly linked a lot of things at the end I think could be tangentially related. No pressure to read all of this!)

Please allow me to take you on a journey in which I present a theory:

Mary is Frank Hudson’s daughter from a relationship with another woman, and part of her motivation (as a villain, as Moriarty’s agent/possible successor) is to get revenge on Sherlock for having killed her father all those years ago and ruining the drug cartel empire.

I was calling this a crack theory, but uh, given that I’ve now written thousands of words connecting weird dots, I’m gonna say maybe this is potentially not as far-fetched as I initially thought.

Before Sherlock series 4 came out, we were given this delightful niche little “clue” in a Youtube video on the official channel:

It’s always struck me as odd that this was specifically shown in a video advertising / leading up to series 4... when it seemingly never connected to anything. Why this, of all things?

Let’s review what we know about Mr. Frank Hudson.

• He was sentenced to death in Florida; Sherlock ensured his execution. (ASiP)

• He was executed for double murder and the execution was via lethal injection. He was arrested for “blowing someone’s head off.” (TSoT)

• According to Mrs. Hudson, about their relationship: “It was just a whirlwind thing for us. I knew it wouldn’t work, but I just got sort of swept along. And then we moved to Florida. We had a fantastic time, but of course I didn’t know what he was up to” and “It was purely physical between me and Frank. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other.” What Frank was “up to” included a drug cartel and “all the other women.” (TSoT)

• Mrs. Hudson was a typist in Frank’s drug cartel (and an exotic dancer, which is in YouTube videos in-universe). This is also the scene where she’s present to hear enough to figure out that Mary shot Sherlock; in the original script, it’s made obvious that she was eavesdropping even after walking out. (HLV)

• We’re also given repeated reminders in TLD that Mrs. Hudson was/is somewhat of a badass. She tells Sherlock “you’re not my first smackhead, Sherlock Holmes,” and whether or not any of that (the revolver, the kidnapping of Sherlock, the car) is actually literally real, I take it mostly as a blatant reminder that Mrs. Hudson has a past filled with “not good” people.

A lot of this info is given in more comedic moments... but I think because it is repeatedly mentioned with consistent detail, especially largely in season 3 when Mary arrives (partially to mirror John/Mary’s doomed relationship), it shouldn’t be swept aside.

Speaking of Mary, let’s get into it.

In ACD’s The Sign of Four, Mary Morstan’s story centers heavily around the loss of her father. That’s also the story that involves the Agra treasure, and Mary notably receives 6 pearls in the mail as part of the mystery. Keep all of this in mind because it’s going to be relevant as we go.

First, let’s roll all the way back to The Abominable Bride.

(All transcripts I will be quoting are from the inimitable Ariane DeVere.)

Giles, & Morse Hudson

The abominable bride herself–who I trust we all know mirrors Mary at this point lol–stands on the balcony and aims her guns at people on the street while saying “You?” / “You, or me?” One of the people she aims at is this man, who is listed in the credits as Giles. I always found it odd that he was named, so I decided to look him up in relation to Sherlock Holmes.

“Giles” connects to Giles Conover, the criminal in the 1944 Sherlock Holmes movie The Pearl of Death. That movie is loosely based on ACD’s The Adventure of the Six Napoleans. In the movie, Giles (who is not in the ACD story) stole the Borgia Pearl and hid it in a bust of Napoleon. In case there’s any doubt, we can know for a fact that Moffat and Gatiss are familiar with this movie because they referenced it in TGG previously; the Golem assassin is a nod to The Creeper.

So I was like, why that movie specifically? What’s significant, and how would that connect to the bride?

And as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now... they later referenced that movie again in TST. The writers called back to both the ACD story and the 1944 movie, very specifically.

Referenced movie details I noticed in TST include the following: Sherlock calls Lestrade “Giles.” The Borgia Pearl (movie phrasing, as opposed to “the black pearl of the Borgias”) is mentioned multiple times; we’ll go back to that. We are also pointedly told by Ajay that one of the members of AGRA was killed via a broken back, which is how a murder happens in the 1944 movie.

As for TST’s references to the original Napoleon story by ACD... there are many, but there’s one thing they pointedly didn’t reference (unless I missed it) that I find interesting: in the ACD story, 3 of the 6 busts were at the shop of a Morse Hudson. Beppo, the criminal in the story, worked at Morse Hudson’s shop to have access to the locations of those 3 busts. Even in The Six Thatchers version on John’s blog, Beppo is the criminal but Morse Hudson was not mentioned.

So I thought... alright, Morse? What morse code have we seen in the show? Well, there’s UMQRA, from The Hounds of Baskerville.

I poked around and some genius anon on @inevitably-johnlocked‘s blog once said that if you encode UMQRA with HOUND using a vigenere cypher, you get BAKED. Mary bakes her own bread, according to Sherlock’s deductions in TEH. The abominable bride, in the above scene, shoots at/into a bakery.

Edit: @rosie_ww on Twitter aka @silverybees pointed me to this, from THoB:

SHERLOCK: You’ve been to see Mr Chatterjee again.

MRS HUDSON: Pardon?

SHERLOCK: Sandwich shop. That’s a new dress, but there’s flour on the sleeve. You wouldn’t dress like that for baking.

(Friendly reminder that shortly thereafter we find out that Mr. Chatterjee has other women)

Does this morse code / BAKED business necessarily mean anything by itself? No, and of anything in this post, it’s the biggest stretch. But it’s still kind of wild, because let’s recap so far:

• We have Morse Hudson in The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, a story which is heavily referenced in TST

• TST heavily connects to Mary / AGRA (we’ll get to how specifically)

• TST also heavily connects to The Pearl of Death, which connects to TAB

• And not only that, but The Pearl of Death connects to the exact scene in TAB where the bride shoots @ Giles and the bread shop. The bread shop could connect to the UMQRA morse code in the show... meaning “Morse” (code, and therefore Hudson) could then connect to Mary.

Morse Hudson -> The Six Napoleons -> TST -> The Pearl of Death (“Giles” etc.) -> TAB (“Giles”) -> Mary, the bride

Oh what a tangled web we weave. That’s a Hudson to Mary.

But let’s keep going. Better stuff to come.

The Black Pearl of the Borgias In TST

Let’s play the game of following the trail of the Black Pearl. Shout out to @miadifferent and @impossibleleaf, because their combo post here I came across was very helpful for showing me the best way to write this out to make it easily understandable. I will be quoting / paraphrasing them below!

The first time we hear about the Pearl, it’s from Mycroft, who connects it to Moriarty’s final activities:

MYCROFT: In the last year of his life, James Moriarty was involved with four political assassinations over 70 assorted robberies and terrorist attacks, including a chemical weapons factory in North Korea and had latterly shown some interest in tracking down the Black Pearl of the Borgias, which is still missing by the way, in case you feel like applying yourself to something practical.

We also learn that the Pearl is somehow connected to London.

HOPKINS: Interpol think, the case of the Borgia Pearl trail leads back to London, so..

So we have Moriarty -> Black Pearl -> London...

And next up, there’s Sherlock’s “fake” deduction about Greta Bengtsdotter (who has always very obviously made us all think about Mary.)

SHERLOCK: Your wife is a spy. That’s right. Her real name is Greta Bengtsdotter. Swedish by birth and probably the most dangerous spy in the world. She’s been operating deep undercover for the past four years now as your wife for one reason only: to get near the American embassy which is across the road from your flat. Tomorrow the U.S. president will be at the embassy as part of an official state visit. As the president greets members of staff, Greta Bengtsdotter, disguised as a twenty-two stone cleaner, will inject the president in the back of the neck with a dangerous new drug hidden inside a secret compartment insider her padded armpit. This drug will then render the president entirely susceptible to the will of their new master, none other than James Moriarty. Moriarty will then use the president as a pawn to destabilize the United Nations General Assembly which is due to vote on a nuclear non-proliferation treaty tipping the balance in favour of a first strike policy against Russia. This chain of events will then prove unstoppable thus precipitating World War 3.

The name “Greta” is derived from the name Margareta, which comes from the Greek word margarites. It means pearl. Further versions of this name are Margarita / Margaret / Maggie.

Thus, we add her in: Moriarty -> Greta -> Black Pearl -> London

So when Sherlock finds the AGRA stick in the busts of Margaret Thatcher, he says to Mary...

SHERLOCK: I was so convinced it was Moriarty, I couldn’t see what was right under my nose. I expected a pearl.

Sherlock expected to find a pearl (Greta / a spy), but instead he found AGRA/Mary’s identity. He actually found what he was looking for, but he just didn’t recognize it.

And it actually still makes sense:

Margaret Thatcher’s bust -> Black Pearl -> Greta (“pearl”, spy) -> Mary (spy) -> AGRA memory stick

That’s how it went in the plot. It’s a subconscious connection.

So what’s ACD have to say about all that then?

This is the point where I remind you...

So all of this does have connections back to ACD canon; who is surprised?

But what do we know about Mary’s past from the show’s canon in His Last Vow? Let’s look at some other reminders.

SHERLOCK: By your skill set, you are – or were – an intelligence agent. Your accent is currently English but I suspect you are not. You’re on the run from something; you’ve used your skills to disappear; Magnussen knows your secret, which is why you were going to kill him; and I assume you befriended Janine in order to get close to him.

MAGNUSSEN: All those wet jobs for the CIA. Ooh! She’s gone a bit... freelance now. Bad girl.

Mary’s not English; she could be Swedish, she could be American, but regardless–Sherlock deduced she’s a linguist in TEH. And either way, she’s worked for America.

Americans crop up a weird amount in BBC Sherlock (and ACD canon too really), and usually in negative contexts. I just want to highlight one American connection from The Abominable Bride, about Emilia Ricoletti:

SHERLOCK: So she decided to make her death count. She was already familiar with the secret societies of America and was able to draw on their methods of fear and intimidation to publicly – very publicly – confront Sir Eustace Carmichael with the sins of his past.

HOOPER: He knew her out in the States. Promised her everything... marriage, position – and then he had his way with her and threw her over, left her abandoned and penniless.

Also, where was it that Mr. Hudson had his drug cartel? Oh yeah. Florida.

We’ll go back to that.

More Margarets In BBC Sherlock

So we’ve officially got one connection where Margaret relates to Mary. TST makes that pretty clear.

Now, where else have we encountered the name Margaret in the show?

Three places (at least, that I’ve caught):

1. A Study In Pink.

The first victim of Jeff Hope the serial killer is Sir Jeffrey Patterson. He was having an affair with his personal assistant Helen, despite being married to his wife Margaret Patterson.

It’s a well-known fact in this fandom that the victims in ASiP are considered mirrors for John Watson, highlighting things that would lead to his own unhappiness/death–possibly even by suicide. (TJLCE video) So, let’s say Jeffrey Patterson is a mirror for John.

Helen the personal assistant (who says “I love you”) is, perhaps, a mirror for Sherlock. She’s wearing a deep purple shirt.

Does that connect Margaret Patterson, who insists her husband was happy, to Mary?

MARGARET PATTERSON: My husband was a happy man who lived life to the full. He loved his family and his work – and that he should have taken his own life in this way is a mystery and a shock to all who knew him.

[looks at John’s unhappiness in HLV after a month of marriage, looks at series 4 theories about John faking his suicide / trying to commit suicide, laughs nervously]

Well. Moving on.

2. The Hounds of Baskerville.

Project HOUND was a CIA Classified / American project that Major Barrymore was involved in. The Major is apparently a fan of Margaret Thatcher, and the password to his laptop is Maggie. Sherlock types “Margare” then hesitantly backtracks and writes Maggie and it works. It’s worth noting that in the script it was drafted to just be Margaret.

3. The Sign of Three.

MRS. HUDSON: My best friend, Margaret – she was my chief bridesmaid. We were going to be best friends forever, we always said that; but I hardly saw her after that. [...] She cried the whole day, saying, “Ooh, it’s the end of an era.” She was probably right, really. I remember she left early. I mean, who leaves a wedding early?

So in BBC Sherlock, the name Margaret is connected to...

• The Margaret Thatcher busts in The Six Thatchers, which connects to Mary/AGRA/pearls/Greta the Swedish spy

• Margaret Patterson, the wife of a mirror for John who was the victim of murder that masqueraded as suicide. This Margaret insists that the John mirror was happy in their marriage, but the John mirror was having an affair with a Sherlock mirror

• Project HOUND, of the CIA. I find this exceedingly interesting because the name "Margaret” has connections to Moriarty/Mary, and this could mean it’s safe to guess that this case is/was connected to the wider Moriarty web. We see Sherlock hallucinate Moriarty when drugged by the fog, sure, but otherwise Moriarty’s handiwork supposedly isn’t involved in this case... but maybe it was indirectly, by Mary in the CIA. Just ruminating.

• Margaret was Mrs. Hudson’s best friend, who left the wedding early when Mrs. Hudson and Frank got married

Re: that last bullet point, here is what I am suggesting as a possibility: Margaret was one of Mr. Hudson’s “other women.” Margaret left the wedding early because she was sad about the marriage, obviously, but maybe she wasn’t in love with Mrs. H like we would naturally assume (per Sherlock leaving the wedding early because he loves John). Maybe Margaret was in love with Mr. Hudson.

Maybe Mary is the daughter of Margaret and Mr. Hudson, and (as previously stated) she’s motivated to get revenge on Sherlock for killing her father and ruining the drug cartel empire. Who knows what would’ve happened to her mother Margaret, in that case, too.

This is speculation, of course, yes. Yet [waves to all the ridiculous web of connections I’ve delved deeply into, and the Frank Hudson hangman] can you blame me?

But, maybe you’re wondering... why would I think she’s the daughter of a Hudson specifically, even aside from all this Margaret stuff?

Well.

Hudsons In ACD Canon

Where is the name “Hudson” used in ACD canon, other than for Mrs. Hudson?

Three places (that I’ve caught; my ACD canon knowledge is limited):

• Morse Hudson in The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, as discussed above; not mentioned in BBC Sherlock canon for some reason, yet strongly tied to the story that inspired TST.

• A name drop of “Hudson” in The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips.

Quick run-down of some aspects of this case: the client, John Openshaw, asks Holmes for help because a series of mysterious letters seems to be connected with the recent suspicious deaths of his uncle Elias and his father Joseph. The letters included 5 orange pips, and KKK on the envelope. When his uncle received his letter, he burnt a bunch of secret personal papers. One paper survived; it’s on that paper that we see Hudson’s name, associated with the KKK, and otherwise oddly unrelated to the case.

Holmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet of paper, which showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed been torn from a book. It was headed, “March, 1869,” and beneath were the following enigmatical notices:

“4th. Hudson came. Same old platform.

“7th. Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and John Swain of St. Augustine.

“9th. McCauley cleared.

“10th. John Swain cleared.

“12th. Visited Paramore. All well.”

Here are other ~features of interest~ in this case to me: Openshaw’s uncle Elias was a planter in Florida for many years. Florida is mentioned by Holmes as a “notable” state where the KKK formed a branch; the others are Tennessee, Louisiana, the Carolinas, and Georgia (hello to Tbilisi, Georgia being in TST seemingly at random). It is also mentioned that the fear of someone or something is what drove Elias from America to England. There’s also a very random name drop of “Mary” in this story that doesn’t relate to the case, told as part of Openshaw’s story, in which I can only assume Mary was a maid?

OPENSHAW, QUOTING UNCLE ELIAS: “They may do what they like, but I’ll checkmate them still,’ said he with an oath. ‘Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my room to-day, and send down to Fordham, the Horsham lawyer.’

The fact that the name Mary manages to be in this cracks me up.

The orange pips / secret societies in America / etc. all heavily tie into The Abominable Bride, and the women’s hoods were visually reminiscent of the KKK. Sir Eustace’s line in TAB of “Death” (when he receives the pips) is a direct quote from Elias in this story when he receives his pips–and a quote that Mary echoes in TST when she completes Vivian Norbury’s sentence in the aquarium.

VIVIAN NORBURY: I’m just like the merchant in the story. I thought I could outrun the inevitable. I’ve always been looking over my shoulder; always expecting to see the grim figure of...

MARY: Death.

So, in summary we have: a name drop of Hudson in a story that factors in Florida, Georgia, pips, secret societies, the KKK, and even a name drop of Mary.

• Hudson is the criminal in The Adventure of the Gloria Scott.

This case is the one Holmes credits as his first case, and it inspired his future profession. He’s telling Watson the story. It happened in his university days and centers on his friend Victor Trevor (TFP says hi, lmao). More specifically, it centers on Victor Trevor’s father. I won’t go into all the details, and the plot summary on Wikipedia is good if you’re curious, but–

A quick run-down of some ~features of interest~ in this case: Mr. Trevor the elder is being blackmailed by the criminal Hudson because of their old criminal past together with others. Hudson is threatening him with exposure / public shame, and Mr. Trevor is forced to employ him. Victor gets pissed about it and eventually upsets Hudson enough that Hudson leaves in a very “this isn’t over” kind of way. Later, Mr. Trevor dies from a stroke after receiving a letter that threatened him via a skip code. It is a skip code of specifically every third word, beginning with the first.

Full skip code message: "The supply of game for London is going steadily up. Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen pheasant's life."

Decoded message: "The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your life."

(It’s not a game anymore...)

Who do we have in show canon who recognizes a skip code on sight of specifically every third word, beginning with the first?

All together now: Mary.

(Bonus points for “Save John Watson” being the phrase Mary says in her creepy posthumous DVDs. Bonus points x2 for the fact that this text was sent by Magnussen, the “Napoleon of blackmail,” to Mary when he was supposedly trying to find Sherlock’s pressure point. But anyway!)

Another feature of interest about the Gloria Scott case: Holmes deduces that Mr. Trevor was once connected to someone with the initials J.A. whom he wanted to forget, guessing it was an old lover. Mr. Trevor momentarily faints in shock. Holmes guessed this based on an old arm tattoo that Mr. Trevor had tried to get rid of, where the initials are blurry. This later turns out to be wrong, because Mr. Trevor’s previous name was James Armitage–J.A.–when he was a criminal, and that is the reason behind the tattoo. (JA? AJ / Ajay? Much to think about)

The J.A. tattoo deduction was referenced in The Six Thatchers, when Sherlock deduces that the client had a Japanese girlfriend he is now indifferent about.

SHERLOCK: You’ve got a Japanese tattoo in the crook of your elbow in the name ‘Akako.’ It’s obvious you’ve tried to have it removed.

KINGSLEY: But surely that means I wanna forget her, not that I’m indifferent.

SHERLOCK: If she’d really hurt your feelings, you would have had the word obliterated, but the first attempt wasn’t successful and you haven’t tried again, so it seems you can live with the slightly blurred memory of Akako, hence the indifference.

I’m bothering to highlight this in TST because after Sherlock explains it, the client remarks upon it being “simple”... and that’s when Sherlock immediately launches into his ~fake~ long-winded deduction about his wife being Greta the spy, as I already talked about above. Wild.

One last fascinating thing about the Gloria Scott: this case is referenced in 2 other ACD stories–The Sussex Vampire (John texting in TST), and The Musgrave Ritual (TFP). Gotta love that.

So, uh, what if Mrs. Hudson’s “case” (getting her husband executed) was one of Sherlock’s “firsts” that inspires him to become a consultive detective full-time? We’re told in ASiP that he ensured Frank Hudson’s execution “a few years back.” The inexactness of that year amount drives me bonkers, but I think it’s potentially plausible.

Short Coda: Ghost Stories...

In Mr. Trevor’s reply to Holmes’ (incorrect) J.A. tattoo deduction, he includes the following line:

“Of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.”

Mark Gatiss talked a lot about ghost stories. In the Sherlock Chronicles book (which I own) teasing series 4, he said, “I can certainly give you one word. Ghosts...” and in this interview he said “There’s a conspiracy theory about everything and they’re almost the modern equivalent of ghost stories. And the great thing is, you can have all the tropes of a ghost story. . . There are lots of people in happy marriages who turn out to have terrible secrets or to have done some awful deed in the past that must be paid for in the present. In Doyle’s stories, those are the ghosts you need to worry about.”

And here are the lines we get from Holmes in The Abominable Bride about ghosts (that aren’t literal):

You may, however, rest assured there are no ghosts in this world... Save those we make for ourselves.

We all have a past, Watson. Ghosts – they are the shadows that define our every sunny day. Sir Eustace knows he’s a marked man.

The avenging ghost – a legend to strike terror into the heart of any man with malicious intent; a spectre to stalk those unpunished brutes whose reckoning is long overdue.

While typing, I’ve now galaxy-brained my way to the realization that Mrs. H was canonically an “abominable bride” to Frank Hudson and literally murdered him (with Sherlock’s help), just like the women in the special. She’s also shown as one of the women ignored/disparaged in the special (”I’m your landlady, not a plot device”) but just isn’t shown in the crypt/society. So that’s, uh... interesting.

In (Semi-)Conclusion: A Summary

We have the following significant points at minimum:

• A Frank Hudson clue in a series 4 video

• One reference where Mary is undeniably connected to a Hudson who was a criminal in ACD canon (skip code)

• One ACD Hudson who was heavily connected to The Six Napoleons story, aka The Six Thatchers

• One ACD Hudson name-dropped in a story that heavily connects to The Abominable Bride, and Florida

• A bizarre pile of evidence that all Margaret mentions in the show could relate back to Mary the ex-CIA spy, in some way or another

• A Margaret connected to Mrs. Hudson who could’ve been in love with Frank Hudson (in Florida)

• The overall theme of s4 being ghosts from past deeds and un(happy) marriages coming to haunt people. And lest we forget, “ghost” Mary literally haunts Sherlock and John after her “death.”

Does that cover it? I feel like that covers it.

Of course, I absolutely could be reading into a ton of things that are unrelated, but... Who is to say ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Random Related Stuff

Not required reading, but while poking around, I’ve found other things that could or could not connect to the above theory. I’m just gonna... info dump it right here. It could all be meaningless, it could all connect, it could be unrelated! You decide! Lots of meta links involved below, so credit where credit is due.

• I knew I wasn’t the first to come up with this concept/possibility of Mary being a Hudson. While building this post, I ran a search and came across this old one by @the-7-percent-solution, who posited there’s a letter game at play of AEIOU involving Mary’s monstrous regiment of various characters and connects Amo/Love to Mary. I love this concept, and while I do think there are other elements/aspects in play for the plot besides just this, that post still has pieces that can work nicely; doesn’t matter that it was written before TFP aired.

• Frequently thinking about how Sherlock said “Mrs. Hudson? Leave Baker Street? England would fall,” because what does Mrs. Hudson do in TLD? She leaves Baker Street.

• All of the above cursed elements haunt me. (Arwel’s Instagram post was April of this year.) Note: there’s another tweet Arwel jokingly posted of this photo years ago, but that tweet’s caption was connected to Brexit based on dates / my memory (i.e. “England has fallen”), so I’m not including it lol.

• In TFP, when Mrs. Hudson is vacuuming, she’s listening to Iron Maiden’s “The Number of the Beast.” The lyrics we get are “666, the Number of the Beast. Hell and fire was spawned to be released.” The other time 666 is mentioned was by Mary in TST, in reference to Rosie.

• Mrs. Hudson is in the center of the 221B promo pic for series 4, as noticed by @sherlocks-salty-blog.

• This cursed pic of Mary’s "ring from her past” on top of a series 4, episode 3 script (??) that Amanda took has haunted me since she tweeted it. Mary wears this ring on-screen in TEH, and you can see it when Sherlock deduces her.

• The Gabrielle Ashdown passport (in TST) is from America.

• Janine (who many of us notice is likely involved with Mary / Moriarty of course) often wears pearls, as @sherlockmeta noticed. Mary also wears pearl earrings in series 4 promo shots but never in s4 episodes (that I can find/remember). I also always think that Mary and Mrs. Hudson are dressed very similarly in s4 promo images (see all promos here).

• @raggedyblue discussed how Sherlock’s window deduction in TLD sounds a lot like Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen in 221A, and how a sheet of paper being pinned/folded is an opposite element in ACD’s The Sign of Four. The re-folded paper was a map leading to the AGRA treasure, and Mary found it in her father’s desk. Brilliant catch. Of course, in the show, the paper says Miss Me which is also heavily connected to Mary.

• The mystery of the little girls with blond and braided hair, as compiled by @ebaeschnbliah, is also going to haunt me. I suggest reading the post, but minor summary: during s4 setlock, there was filming with Ben and Mark at Ogmore Castle with a little girl "wearing a skirt or dress, and her hair was blonde and in pigtails,” and she was running circles around Sherlock. There are two separate reports from people who saw this and mentioned it had to do with Mary; at first glance it bears similarities to Eurus scenes we got in TFP, but seems different in description. This also brings to mind the little girl with blonde braided hair in TEH at the bonfire, who notably wears a bright red jacket just like Mary. And there’s also a doll with blond braided pigtails in Magnussen’s mind palace.

• @gosherlocked has posts about “The Children of Sherlock” (part 1)(part 2) that highlight how children are frequently victims in this show. Metaphorically, I find this interesting if Mary plays a role of a “wronged child” avenging her father, regardless of age.

• Let’s talk music in TLD–or at least, one piece of it. When Mrs. Hudson drops the teacup, Mozart’s “Andante From Piano Concerto #21” plays. That specific second movement was used in the 1967 Swedish film Elvira Madigan. Sweden, of course, immediately reminded me of Greta the spy (aka Mary) being Swedish. After I realized this info, I ran a search to see if anyone else had mentioned this movie and I found this post, where @tjlcisthenewsexy and @possiblyimbiassed discussed how it’s a story of 2 doomed lovers who die via suicide-by-revolver. This is significant because Sherlock drops a revolver to catch the tea; death replaced by (gay) love?

• Speaking of Sweden: in The Game Is Now, Sherlock is abroad in Sweden. This is mentioned more than once: first, in this audio message between Sherlock and Mycroft (“Sweden sends its regards.” “It does?” “No, not really.”). This audio message also includes “This is not an international game of sardines.” Fish reference? Aquarium?

The second Sweden mention is visually, in this video. See below. (Also, in both, the characters say “real people,” which I can’t help but feel is a fourth wall break of them being fictional?)

I hate this Sweden stuff specifically. Thank you.

This post is so much longer than I expected it would be, thank you for reading all of this if you did, Johnlock is real, Mary is a villain, etc.

Come yell at me on Twitter @CharCubed!

Also, I made a secret sideblog @frankhudson to just reblog meta or info I might want to be able to find later lmao. Feel free to poke around if you want.

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punkpoemprose · 5 years ago

Text

Comatose- Kristanna Bodyguard AU

Hi @frenzy5150! I’m your secret santa! So sorry I’m a wee bit late on the posting! I’ve been having an... interesting weekend to say the least. You said that you wanted some hurt/ comfort and some Kristanna being loving dorks, and I intended fully to deliver on both counts. I wrote this in the universe of my bodyguard AU X X which I hope is alright! I hope you like it!

Now with Art by the lovely @epbaker

Universe: Modern Royalty/ Bodyguard AU Rating: T (Teen & Up) Length: 3226 Words

Kristoff combed his fingers through Anna’s hair as Elsa left for the night. They’d said that they would take shifts, but really it was more that they both sat at her bedside all day and well into the night, only taking breaks for the two hours in the day where nurse rotations and other hospital policies asked respectfully that they wait in a room other than Anna’s. They had, however, made the agreement that it made much more sense for Kristoff to stay with Anna between the hours of midnight and 9am as, despite the fact that the hospital had excellent security, particularly in the royal wing, Kristoff was her bodyguard after all. He was also her fiancé, although no one outside Elsa and a handful of others were aware of that.

“I miss you Anna,” he whispered, tucking bits of hair back behind her ear. “Wake up soon, okay?”

Her car had been struck by a drunk driver while she had been returning from a visit to a children’s hospital, and while she’d been able to walk away from the crash, she’d been on the ground by the time Kristoff could extricate himself from the security car following hers. He’d been the one to hold her until the ambulance arrived. He was always the one holding onto her after something awful happened and it made him ill. He’d wanted to be her in car security, but she’d insisted that she didn’t need him there.

Of course, it was because they’d had an argument that morning about when they should be going public with their engagement, and she hadn’t wanted him so close by until they’d both cooled down. He’d expected to find himself in her bedroom before the end of the night to talk things out and work off their stress and anxiety in the way they usually did once her heavy soundproofed bedroom door had closed.

It was four days after that now, and he hadn’t even been able to tell her that he was sorry for asking her to wait, and for presuming to know what would be best for her. The doctors said that she would be waking up “soon” and “any time now” for the last few days, but the tabloids were already running half mad stories such as “Arendelle’s Princess on Deathbed! Queen Silent on Sister’s Condition!” and “Assassination Attempt on Crown Princess??? Palace Insiders Confirm!”. Kristoff frankly, didn’t care if it was all some kind of PR nightmare, or if people in their tiny kingdom were wondering what was going on. He only cared about Anna.

The doctors were optimistic that she’d make a full recovery, but the longer she stayed comatose, the less certain anyone felt. Of course he wasn’t a stupid man, he knew that she must have hit her head fairly hard in the crash, but when people tossed around phrases like “possible traumatic brain injury” and “uncertain recovery period” he felt less confident.

He let his hand shift, trailing his fingers gently over her arm. The doctor had told them that keeping her stimulated would help. It felt strange to touch Anna so openly, and technically without her consent. There’d never been a day that had gone by where she’d objected to his touch, and in fact she was often the one to initiate contact when he didn’t instantly do so. He liked the way she looked at him when he was touching her the way he was now. She’d give him a conspiratorial smile and lean into him, her eyes pleading with him not to stop. He’d thought a couple times since she’d been admitted that maybe she was smiling when he spoke to her or when he touched her, but he couldn’t be sure.

He wasn’t even sure that she’d want him there when she woke. They hadn’t been on particularly good terms before the crash, and it made him wish that he’d just taken the time to talk with her about the reasons why he was worried about making a public announcement of their engagement. He wished that he’d been in the car with her when it had been hit, not that he had any certainty that it would have made any difference, but if nothing else he would have liked to have been there for her when it happened instead of being there seconds after.

The only thing he was certain of was that he loved her very much and that the doctor had said to keep her senses working, and so at least for the next hour that’s exactly what he planned to do.

He held her hand and shifted so that his other hand could trail slowly up and down her arm.

“Do you know how many deliveries of flowers and chocolates I had to send elsewhere today feisty pants?”

He paused, as if she would answer, and was only slightly disappointed when she didn’t.

“You wouldn’t believe how many gifts people are sending you. You’re very popular my Princess. I keep telling the delivery people that we can’t bring the gifts into your room because it’s a safety concern, but I keep having the guards safety check all the sunflowers first. You should see it in here Anna, it’s like the fields we used to play in as kids, you can’t turn without bumping into a sunflower. I think the doctors are going to tell me any minute now that I need to get some out of here because they can hardly make it to your bed.”

He thought he saw a ghost of a smile cross her lips but he couldn’t tell for certain. He had toyed with the idea of kissing her. She’d loved fairy tales when they were young, and it would be just like Anna to wake up to true loves kiss. He didn’t want to test the theory, not only because kissing her lips while she was out felt uncomfortable to him in a way it never had before when she’d simply been asleep, and also because he knew that there would be nothing more disappointing to him than her not waking up if he did so.

Instead he settled for kissing her forehead. He leaned in close to her, just looking at her face for a moment, taking her in, noticing the lack of expression on her face, like a baseline from which he might determine if she was cognizant at all of what he was about to do. He pressed his lips to her forehead, just below her hairline, and let his lips rest there for a moment. He tried to be gentle, he wanted her to feel his kiss, but not any pain on her nearby bruises.

“When you wake up,” he muttered against her skin, “I’m going to beg your forgiveness and kiss you senseless if you’ll let me. Then I’ll go check through all those gifts and let you eat as much chocolate as you want, hell I’ll have some sent over from the castle or that fancy chocolatier you hire for all the parties if you want.”

He pulled back slightly and noticed no changes on her face, something that he had half expected, and yet something that still disappointed him more than anything.

“I hope you can hear me Anna, because I love it when you hold me to a promise. I’d be happy to hear you yell at me about the engagement or about not being in the car with you. I just want to hear your voice baby.”

He shook his head, “You know they don’t want me to keep Sven here with you, but I think I’ll bring him tomorrow. Maybe dog slobber is just what you need, yeah? If you don’t mind being covered in dog hair I’ll fight someone on the rules, I know he misses you and I’m sure you miss him too. He’s just moping around according to everyone else on staff and I think maybe you’d do well to have him around.”

When she still didn’t respond he sighed and readjusted his gun belt and turned his walkie down to just audible. He wasn’t on the clock, he hadn’t been since the accident, but he was still prepared, even as he was about to fall asleep in the chair beside her bed.

“Please wake up Anna,” he said again, this time softer, “Or just give me a sign you hear me please. I’m going crazy missing you.”

He closed his eyes, and almost swore that he felt her hand make the tiniest squeeze against his own.

***

Anna blinked against the light. It was harsh and fluorescent, and it hurt her eyes. They stung anyway, like they were too dry, and her head felt like it was full of rocks. She felt like she was suffering through the worst hangover she’d ever had in her life, but she couldn’t quite recall drinking anything. She only remembered being in a car and now she was somewhere with a strange ceiling and her limbs felt like they weighed a thousand pounds each.

She couldn’t really even move her head though with a little bit of effort she managed to roll it to the side slightly as she blinked her eyes again and again, trying to remoisten them even slightly. When she managed to make a somewhat full head roll to the side she felt the crick in her neck begin to abate and saw a bleary eyed Kristoff looking at her.

She opened her mouth to speak but found her throat too dry to produce much of anything for noise. Her “Kris?” came out like something more of a squawking sound than any real word.

He was off his feet in an instant, calling for someone to come into the room, and just as quickly as he’d moved, there were dozens of people around her, there were lights in her eyes, someone scratching notes down on a clipboard and while Anna was somehow tangentially aware that this was all somehow important, it was also all rather annoying to her, particularly because she couldn’t see Kristoff anymore and she didn’t know any of the people around her.

She opened her mouth to speak again and she, this time with a bit more concentration managed to call out his name somewhat satisfactorily.

Then he was there, on his phone, but there, with one hand extending toward her. She saw the worry in his eyes, the bags under his eyes and his mussed hair. He was usually so put together and calm, so prepared for the worst, so to see him that way caused her great concern. Her arms still felt heavy, but she managed to reach her hand up, albeit shaking as she did so, to take his hand. Everything was too loud or too quiet. She knew people were talking but she couldn’t quite hear what was being said, she was mostly watching their mouths move and listening to her own heartbeat above the din of everything else.

Kristoff squeezed her hand and said something to one of the people scurrying around her. She couldn’t figure out what he had said, but she calmed at the sound of his voice. If he was there things were going to be alright, whenever Kristoff was there everything was alright.

Soon enough the crowd of noisy people left the room, and Anna was quite embarrassed with herself that it was only when the last scrub wearing nurse left that she realized that she was in the hospital. Kristoff was seating himself, once again next to her bed when she started working through the fog in her head to figure out how to ask him how she’d ended up there.

“What the hell?”

When he started laughing she smiled.

“You’ve been in a coma for five days and the first thing you say to me, other than my name is ‘What the hell’? The doctors were worried about you being yourself when you woke up,” he said with a grin that lit up his whole face, erasing the look of exhaustion and replacing it with more of the exasperated look she was familiar with. “But sounds to me like you’re fine.”

Anna shook her head slightly, it still felt heavy and she had a headache, but it was bearable. It took her a little longer than usual to process what he was saying, but she knew he was teasing her just from his tone, and that was good. She liked it when he teased her.

“I’ve been…?” She was still having some difficulties responding, but she could feel words coming back to her, and her throat, while still scratchy, was no longer at odds with her tongue, allowing things to come out of her mouth more or less as she wanted them to.

“In a coma. Anna you’ve been in a coma. The doctor said you might not remember what happened. Do you remember why you’re here? Do you know where you are?”

“Hospital,” she replied quickly, having already had the thought, “No. I don’t know. Well you said coma, but why?”

He frowned then and she immediately pouted in return. She didn’t like it when he frowned.

“We were on the way back from the children’s hospital on the other side of the city and we got to an intersection and there was a crash. You walked away, then fell unconscious.”

Anna frowned then fully, “Oh no! Was anyone else hurt?”

He shook his head, and a ghost of a smile returned to his lips.

“Just like you to come out of a coma, find out what put you in it and ask about everyone else.”

She nodded, because yes, it was like her, and she knew it, and that felt good.

“No,” he added, “no one else was seriously hurt, just some scrapes and bruises, you took the brunt of the crash. The driver walked away too. He’s in a cell somewhere waiting for a court date.”

She didn’t like the sounds of that, “It’s not serious is it?”

“Drunk driving,” he said back, “And he went through a police barricade to get into the intersection in the first place, so yeah, pretty bad.”

She frowned again and teared up a little bit, “That’s so sad. Does he have a family?”

He rolled his eyes but scooted closer to her bed and leaned in close, “I’d say you hit your head too hard, but no. It really is just like you to start worrying about the family of the drunk driver that put you into the hospital.”

She smiled and made the effort to put her arm up to pull him in closer. She wanted a kiss and she would have one.

“I’m the Princess. It’s my duty to look after my people, even when they make mistakes.”

Kristoff sighed and kissed her. She knew that he knew that arguing with her was futile. She was still a little confused and it was taking her a little longer than normal to think about what she wanted to do or say, but Kristoff knew her and she knew him.

She also knew that she was supposed to be mad at him. Or at least she was pretty sure that she was much earlier in the day, before the crash. He’d made her take the ring he’d bought her off before they went to the hospital. He didn’t want people to know that they were engaged until they made the official announcement, and she’d been ready to go tell the world since he’d popped the question. It seemed silly now, for them to have fought about it. She had wanted to announce it to the world, but she should have been ready to give him a little more time before he had an even bigger spotlight placed on him. She should have been more willing to be flexible.

“I’m sorry we argued,” she said just as the thought came to mind. “But I’m glad you weren’t in the car.”

He huffed, “I didn’t think you’d remember that.”

“I remember everything important.”

He grinned slightly and gave her another kiss, this time on her forehead, “So the car crash isn’t important?”

“Not as much as arguing with you,” she said in return, confident in her answer despite the look he was giving her over it. “I’m sorry, we can wait before we say anything.”

He grinned, “Well it’s a little late for that,” he said gently, “I had to tell the hospital staff I was your fiancé for them to let me stay in the room instead of outside the door and when they didn’t believe me your sister confirmed it. While they’re supposed to be quiet about it, but you know someone will overhear something and it’ll be front page news any day now, if it isn’t already.”

She smiled, “Does that mean I can wear the ring?”

He leaned back and picked up her hand in his own before placing a kiss on her knuckles, “You already are.”

She glanced over to see that she was in fact wearing the ring he’d given her just a few weeks prior. The stone didn’t glitter quite so much under the fluorescents as it did in the sunlight, but it was absolutely her ring.

“I kept it in my pocket after we fought, and I put it on your finger after the doctor’s gave me permission. I hope you don’t mind.”

He seemed almost sheepish, but she was grinning from ear to ear.

“I don’t mind as long as you don’t mind the fact that I’m never taking it off again.”

She felt more awake now. Things were making sense, her brain was getting up to speed and she was able to move a little better.

He chuckled, “Even in the shower?”

She grinned, “Especially in the shower. You never know, some water droplets in the kingdom might not know I’m a taken woman.”

He leaned in and kissed her again, this time letting her take her fill of him. She relaxed into the mattress and sighed against his lips, her hands, while still heavy, moving to card through his hair. They only broke apart when a nurse came in and coughed politely. She needed to check some kind of level and informed Anna and Kristoff both that her royal majesty had just arrived again to check on her sister.

Anna had a feeling that it was less of a notice to her than it was an indication to Kristoff that he might want to unmuss his hair. When she left to fetch Anna a pitcher of fresh cold water, Anna giggled.

“We were caught! So much for constant vigilance Mr. Bodyguard.”

He smiled and leaned back down to kiss her again, “Oh I knew we were getting caught,” he said before resting his forehead on hers, “I just didn’t care.”

Anna giggled again and did her best to straighten herself before her sister arrived. She felt like she needed a shower, and maybe also a tray of chocolate cookies, and also maybe for Kristoff to take her back home as soon as possible and give her some specific affection that she knew neither of them would like very much to be caught in the act of.

#kacij 2019 #kristanna christmas in july 2019 #kristanna #bodyguard AU

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kae-karo · 5 years ago

Note

[1] hi!! so idk if you've seen dan speaking at the mental health panel or not, but there was one part that hit me really hard and id love to know your thoughts on it! basically he was saying that often content creators, and people in general, are struggling with their mental health the most when it seems like they're thriving (uploading constantly, getting good grades, etc) but everyone thinks they're fine. which is literally my life rn but i can't take a break from overworking myself bc i need

[2] to get into college. do you have any advice abt how to provide for my future while still taking care of myself? also, i just want to thank you for running such a healthy and positive blog bc it has helped me thru some difficult times, and you seem like such a thoughtful and caring person!

hi dear! oh no :( I'm so sorry, that's such a hard position to be in - I havent been in school for a few years, and not in high school since 2012 yikes lmao, so I'm sure things have changed a bit but hopefully I can still give some advice that helps?

I'd say first and foremost, talk to a trusted adult you know in person about how you're feeling - whether that be a parent, older sibling, favorite teacher, advisor, etc. they may have advice more specific to your situation that might take into account details I dont know. and while this is my first piece of advice, it can also be the hardest? sometimes facing our demons and being honest about them with others who have only seen our "good side" can feel impossible, but it can be a crucial step to help build a support system that you can go to when you feel you're struggling

the next thing I'd say is, on a small scale, start taking time for yourself. I know that's like. the hardest thing to do when you have like 6hr of homework a night, minimum, plus clubs or sports or other activities that take time, but literally even sneaking five minutes between some bits of homework to do something that's calming and centering for you can make a difference - if you can grab five minutes to go sit in a space you feel comfortable, away from your work, to breathe and think about something other than your work, that can be helpful

the next one is sorta like. tangential, but take care of your body as well - you're still a growing and developing human, so this is ESPECIALLY important, but drinking lots of water (and not too many sugary drinks/chemical drinks) and eating veggies and getting enough protein can literally make such a big difference in your brains ability to function at it's best. the other important thing here is sleep - every body is different, so keep in mind what your body does best on and (when you can) aim for that. between hydration, good nutrition, and sufficient sleep, you're laying a foundation that can help your brain be more successful throughout the day

I wish, ultimately, i had a perfect answer for the fucked up school system (esp in America which is what I'm most familiar with), but it honestly sets you up to fail. what (unintentionally) worked well for me was having a blow-off class or two - classes that were easy for me (like sign language, or French 1 after I'd already taken Spanish for several years) and could help boost my GPA without stressing me out as much. if you can find those classes- and definitely look for the ones that are easy for YOU, don't just ask around for the easiest classes - that can be a really nice break in your day and help relieve you of some after-school stress

here's another "honesty is the best policy" situation - if you find yourself struggling to understand a concept, or homework is taking you so much longer than some of your peers (or the teacher says theres only an hour of hw a night and you end up spending far longer on it) talk to the teacher! tell them you're struggling, and ask if you can get some help understanding a topic. be specific about what you dont understand (dont just go "I dont get it") and explain your thought process - this can help teachers understand where you're veering off the path and what you might be missing. and, more importantly, if you're coming in for help, they're more likely to be lenient with you because they know you're trying (yes I'm aware that was more a "school help in general" bit of advice but in case that's something you're struggling with)

now heres....maybe some controversial advice. take calculated risks. example: if a teacher has a policy where they drop your lowest homework grade in a class and you're doing alright in that class, but you have a day where you're saddled with WAY too much work for another class where you're struggling, it's okay to say "okay, today I need to go to sleep by 10pm, I can either finish this difficult homework or complete homework for the class that will drop a grade", sometimes it makes more sense to skip that one homework and get a zero to spend time dedicated to the class you're struggling in and get rest. in a similar vein, there is also a limit to studying - there is a point where you physically cannot absorb more knowledge. it is so much better for your brain - both from a focus and memory standpoint - to get a little extra sleep than to stay up late studying well past the point where you will retain knowledge.

now....again, I havent been applying to colleges in ages so my advice might be a bit stale, but colleges tend to look for good grades but also challenging classes, or improvement over time in classes, etc etc. they want to know you're working hard, and that you have diverse interests. college apps are a bit like resumes honestly, except you cant lie about your GPA. but like. you can fluff everything else. literally EVERYTHING becomes fair game with college apps. you can talk about fanfic or a fandom you're in if you phrase it the right way, like there are barely rules lmao. and you can make yourself sound very appealing

so my advice would be basically this: work hard, but learn your personal limits. figure out how much sleep a night makes you feel awake and focused the next day (again, it varies!) and aim for that as much as you can. try to eat nutritiously when you can, and drink lots of water. dedicate time to your homework and studying, but be sure to take regular breaks and ACTUALLY shift your brain away from your work during those breaks. and it's also good to dedicate time to life activities - like I said, colleges want to know you're a diverse person. spend time in clubs you like or playing sports if that's your thing, or do things unconnected to school. and remember, you can fluff that all up on a college app! but also remember - you have to live with you for the rest of your life, and there are so so many paths to a good job or a college education if that's what you decide you want, be sure to prioritize your health as much as you can. the education system tricks you into this never ending cycle of "if I just push through ___________ I'll get to ___________!" and taking that through your life can be really challenging and exhausting. I need to acknowledge that some of this is easy for me to say - I was a good test taker in high school, I went to college, and I bullshitted my way through (that's a whole other story lmao) but like. I need to acknowledge that, by some privilege and luck, I do have a college education. so when i say this next thing, please take it with a grain of salt, but there is more to life than chasing what society tells us to chase - there is family, there are friends, relationships, hobbies and interests and love and dreams and spending hours playing video games and SLEEP and getting sunburned cause you spent too long out under the sun photosynthesizing and collecting pens or shiny rocks and ANIMALS there is so so so much in life and I hate with such a burning passion that, for the first 22 years of our lives, we are told the ONLY thing in life is getting through college, getting a degree. again, I need to acknowledge that I say that with a background of privilege, and that education can help people get out of bad situations, etc, but there are many paths to education and they dont all require you to put life on hold to get there

let me tell u a story real quick, cause my education looks (from the outside) "easy" (turns out I had depression and eating disorders of all kinds yeehaw !!!!). my sister did NOT have an easy time in school - my parents could afford it, so she had a tutor for some of her challenging subjects, but she also dealt with anxiety and depression the entire time. she didnt get into the college she wanted to, but got put in a sort of program where, if she got good enough grades in some community college courses, she could get into the school. so she worked her ass off, dove even deeper into her mental health issues, but eventually did get in. and then she had challenging classes and didnt have a great support system, and she ended up failing out of many of her classes, to the point where she got put on academic probation. so she took a year off, got a job at a daycare, and I have literally never seen her happier or more well-adjusted. shes going back to school now, for early childhood education, and working part time at the daycare while she takes a light course load at school

another story for you - my aunt graduated high school and went straight into the workforce. she came from a dirt-poor family and couldn't afford it. she bounced around a bit, but eventually found company that she worked well with. they paid for her to go to school, and she finally got a degree many years after what we would consider "traditional". she had a few other jobs, but shes been at her current company now going on 20 years, has been through several promotions, and works directly with a c-suite employee. she is also the only woman in her office, a very traditional trucking company where she works with engineers on a daily basis

there are many paths to education, if that's where you want to go, and it's okay if it ends up looking different from the traditional path were told to follow. do what you can to avoid sacrificing your mental health for an education - if its what you want, you will get there. and remember to ask for help along the way!! I hope that helps a little, dear

#advice

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ncfan-1 · 6 years ago

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ncfan listens to The Magnus Archives: S1 EP034 (’Anatomy Class’), EP035 (’Old Passages’), & EP036 (’Taken Ill’)

A bizarre kind of comedy episode (at least it is to me), and lots of juicy, juicy plot.

No spoilers past Season 1, please!

EP 034: ‘Anatomy Class’

- There is something bizarrely hilarious about the story this episode. Yeah, the seven ‘students’ killed at least one person and drove a professor to suicide, but there’s just something so ridiculous about beings who are pretending to be human but are so bad at it that they have to take an anatomy class, and can’t hide it well enough to keep their professor from noticing. And they used placeholder names, and presumably had to exert a considerable amount of supernatural influence (presumably the same influence that keeps more people from noticing that they’re really bad at pretending to be human) to keep people from noticing how off that is. It has all the makings of a weird, gory comedy.

- Here is, I believe, our third statement so far given directly by the statement-maker. This time, it’s a college professor who seems more than a little rattled by everything that happened to him.

- And now we have our first indication that people from outside the Institute know there’s an infestation problem.

- So Dr. Elliott walks into his class to find it populated entirely by pod people. He takes this as well as you might expect.

- The fact that these people are so uncanny and that there seems to be a lot of supernatural “interference” radiating off of them (the fact that Dr. Elliott can’t remember what any of them looked like, and the fact that he didn’t notice anything odd about their names) makes me think a little of Not-Graham. At the same time, though, their ability to manipulate their own bones puts me in mind of Jared Hopworth. I wonder if a bone turner could create a new person from pilfered bones and black magic.

- The detail about Dr. Elliott suddenly being able to hear them breathing is… something. Although he doesn’t seem to want to think about it, the fact that he could only hear them breathing after a certain point implies that they weren’t breathing before.

- They’re very brazen, these seven, altering their bones right in front of the professor, when they must know he can hear them, and probably guess what’s happening. It implies that they are very secure in their ability to escape any and all consequences, which means it’s just as well that Dr. Elliott never confronted any of them about what he had been seeing and hearing.

- I’m sorry. I know the thing with the hearts is supposed to be horrific, but it’s funny. When I listen to this scene, I find myself close to snickering by the end.

- What really makes it funny is that the ‘students’ were polite enough to clean up the lab after they coated it in blood.

- And the tooth-apple is so bizarre I start giggling to myself when I think about it. Jonathan’s reluctant “Did you… eat it?” just makes it even better. Why would they do that? How would they do that?

- I know there’s no reason to believe the other professor didn’t commit suicide, but the first time I listened to this episode, I’d assumed he was so bad at teaching to the ‘students’’ satisfaction that they had killed him, and left that note because they thought that even his corpse would be worthless for educational purposes.

EP 035: ‘Old Passages’

- This is another favorite, not least because we have another appearance of Gerard Keay, and because I think this is the first episode where we’re really presented with a vague outline of the other forces at work in the world besides humanity.

- So I looked them up (being an American, I don’t know these things off the top of my head), and apparently Pall Mall is a swanky shopping district/home to prestigious clubs. The Reform Club is one of those, a private club that was men-only until 1881; if Wikipedia is to be believed, it was the first of London’s gentlemen clubs to open its doors to female members. It’s a popular haunt of political progressives.

- Robert Smirke was a real-life architect. As best as I can tell (I didn’t dig too deep; I don’t have that kind of time), his association with the occult is native to The Magnus Archives.

- And here comes Gerard, a skinny teenager in 2002 with a band t-shirt and a portable CD player. I had one of those. I’ve noticed that people heavily associated with the supernatural shrug a lot.

- The implication here seems to be that Mary Keay sent her kid down to some incredibly dangerous tunnel network to pick up a Leitner book for her. Lady, why don’t you do that yourself instead of sending your kid to risk his neck? What the hell.

- I think this is also my first semi-direct glimpse of Jurgen Leitner, and he sounds about as sketchy as I had thought he’d be. “Some things are too powerful to be owned.” And yet you’re meddling with them anyways.

- “Can you smell it?” Can Gerard sense the supernatural, or something?

- I wonder what the scream was about.

- There are fourteen passages out from the star, including the one Harold, Rachel, Alf, and Gerard went in through. And several of those fourteen are extremely reminiscent of entities/phenomena that’s been experienced in other statements in Season 1.

1. The one they walk in through out of the basement gives Alf and Harold a sense of claustrophobia, similar to ‘Lost John’s Cave.’

2. One is so dark that the flashlights could only penetrate a couple of feet before the light failed—‘A Father’s Love’ and ‘Growing Dark.’

3. One, if you look into it, makes you feel like you’re falling into it—the sense of vertigo induced in some readers by Ex Altiorā in ‘Page Turner.’

4. One makes you feel like you’re burning—‘Burned Out’ (and ‘Confession’), and the later ‘Burnt Offering.’

5. Pages covered in cobwebs—‘Arachnophobia’, ‘Burned Out’ (Tangentially).

6. The one Gerard runs down to get the book has walls covered in what is almost certainly blood—‘The Man Upstairs’ and ‘Killing Floor.’

7. One has at the end of the corridor a stranger Harold was certain meant him harm—the Not-Them, perhaps, seen in ‘Across the Street’, and later in the finale.

So… Fourteen passages, fourteen parent entities? Or was that just Smirke’s assumption?

- Jurgen Leitner has definitely been messing with things he shouldn’t have been.

- The inscription on the date stone, “Balance and fear,” makes the audio distort.

- I wonder if there’s any significance to Robert Smirke having built this in 1835.

- The book Gerard grabs seems to drop small animal bones behind it; this is almost certainly the book the ghost of Mary Keay (if that was even Mary Keay at all) showed Dominic Swain in ‘Page Turner.’

- I’d say the owners of the Reform Club know at least part of what’s up with that star and those passages, for them to insist that the builders rebuild the wall and not pry into it any further. So what’s up with them?

- “And I can’t help but wonder whether that was where they were found, or just where they were stored.” Which suggests that Jurgen Leitner’s books are far more vital to the plot than even past episodes would suggest.

- Tim’s interest in architecture, and Robert Smirke in particular makes me wonder if said interest will come up again.

- Smirke wanted to design churches? Uh, Jonathan, I wouldn’t be so certain he wasn’t designing churches, or at least chapels, considering the one we saw in ‘Growing Dark.’

- I think this is the first time we see worms loose in the Institute building.

- The last bit of the episode is devoted to Martin running into two deliverymen who it’s safe to say are from Breekon & Hope, delivering something to the Archives. Which is fairly ominous, to be honest.

EP 036: ‘Taken Ill’

- This one has a great atmosphere to it.

- As Jonathan pointed out, the way Nicole talks about her fears, and about insects and decay, and her use of the phrase “bleed into” is very similar to Jane Prentiss’s narration in ‘Hive.’ I get the impression that perhaps whatever was behind the deterioration of the nursing home in this episode is connected to the Flesh Hive, or is perhaps part of the same parent entity. After being touched by the pus oozing from that corpse, maybe Nicole got a flash of that visceral feeling, too.

- This one is kind of hard, because both of my grandfathers live in nursing homes. My maternal grandfather has dementia and can’t be cared for at home. It would be perhaps more accurate to say that my paternal grandfather is in assisted living; he’s close to ninety and has gotten to be very frail, and after he had a stroke, he decided he needed to be somewhere he could get immediate medical attention if something went wrong again. I don’t like the idea of someone exploitative taking over their homes.

- “I don’t know why I wrote ‘disease’ just then.” I think I do.

- It’s interesting that Alenka was still trying to call Nicole after the nursing home was decommissioned and John Amherst came in and started enforcing the “new order.” It sounds like he tried to enforce that new order unilaterally, without the consent of at least some of the staff who remained after it was decommissioned.

- The detail about the heat is important to the episode, I think. In my experience, the summer heat is oppressive, and especially so because summer here is so humid. It’s thick and close and cloying; the air is too damp for your sweat to evaporate and cool you off, so it just sticks to you while you get hotter and hotter and hotter. I’ve heard it’s very humid in the UK as well, so I imagine summer feels much the same there as it does here.

- I’m guessing John Amherst is one of those people who’s only human in appearance. I can’t see any normal, conscious human not reacting as a fly crawls over their eye.

- It sounds like Amherst was trying to turn the entire building into one big pus-oozing wound.

- The fact that the pus could make Nicole’s skin burn even through a (presumably latex) glove gives the lie to Amherst’s claim that what killed Miller wasn’t contagious. If you didn’t automatically assume he was lying, that is.

- Nicole’s uncle seemed to grasp at least part of what had happened to Bertrand Miller. Why the calls he made didn’t result in the nursing home being cracked down on, I can’t imagine—I can only assume the reasons fell under some category of “Not my problem.” At least he tried, anyways.

- I can just imagine the uneasy pall over everything as Nicole drove back to Ivy Meadows that last time. I can just see the sky turning red as the afternoon grew older and the shadows growing—no breeze, nothing to break the rolling walls of heat. Just still air, so close it’s hard to breathe.

- The detail about the plants turning white reminds me of the plants in front of the farmhouse in The Colour Out of Space.

- Alenka banging on the window, it becoming clear her last phone call was a last-ditch cry for help, is a horrible moment, even before the flies enter the picture. Because we just see her. What about the residents still trapped in the building with her?

- It’s clear that the man who tackles Nicole is Trevor Herbert. This is the first time since ‘Vampire Hunter’ that we’ve seen someone out and about with the explicit purpose of hunting down and destroying supernatural threats (Well, asides from Gerard Keay, but there’s a caveat there in that I can’t tell if he proactively hunts them, or if this shit just sort of happens to him). They’re thematically linked, and the physical descriptions match up. This, despite the fact that Trevor Herbert is supposed to be dead. Don’t know who the woman with him is supposed to be; I hope we’ll see her again.

- The fact that John Amherst doesn’t seem to even officially exist further suggests that whatever he is, he’s not human.

- “Workplace accident.” Yeah, sure. I hope, at least, that getting rid of the hand means that the infection can’t spread any further.

- And Jonathan finds out about the deliveries. The smaller of the two packages is a lighter with a spider web design on it, and the larger is… worrying. The table from ‘Across the Street.’ Oh, that’s not good.

#ncfan listens to The Magnus Archives

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st33d · 4 years ago

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All These Worlds Are Yours (Except Europa)

It’s been a while since my last CRPG report and I have played quite a lot of CRPGs in the meantime. I’m going to keep it brief. It’s by no means all the games I played over the past year or so, but it is all the games that are worth playing in some fashion or another.

Yet again I didn’t really bother to get decent screenshots so you’ll have to endure some tangentially related Shutterstock photos.

Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk

It’s like Etrian Odyssey but made by horny 14 year olds. Monsters take the form of purple-black eyes that move only when you do. Colliding with them triggers a JRPG battle with your team. You must conquer around a dozen or so dungeons to defeat a mysterious evil whilst learning about your protagonist’s horny hubris.

I like how it automatically fills in the in-game map, only drawing tiles you have stepped in. Stairways also connect perfectly on most dungeons, leading to some detective work to solve them. The combat is passable. The story is PG13 with random suggestions of poop and sex without really showing any. It’s… a good game with a lot of simple mechanics that it layers up over time to make something quite complex. I really enjoyed solving the dungeons but it’s such a multilayered ball of weirdness that I hesitate recommending it.

Dragon’s Dogma

It’s like Skyrim but with less items, less map, and decent fights. Like, really decent fights. You can climb on the back of beasts and hack pieces off of them or shoot magic arrows that do a host of cool things. The story is pretty anime - I can’t get into why without some major spoilers. Safe to say that after the first (and honestly entertaining) chunk of the game you get an overlay of falling ash pinned to your screen and the monsters become hit point sponges. That’s around when I stopped playing because it felt like I’d reached “an” ending and the rest was about beating as many dead horses with whatever sticks I could upgrade enough to hit them with. Last time I fired it up I got in an hour long fight with an off-brand beholder that basically respawned all its limbs eight times because of its egregious hit points.

You’re joined by some enthusiastic AI companions called pawns who have no story and just kinda throw themselves at enemies whilst repeating the same phrases over and over. I’m not really sure if they’re a blessing or curse. The game overall is pretty jank with terrible traversal (don’t explore, the quests will send you to every corner of the map anyway - twice). Despite all my complaints it’s a lot of fun - at least until the 1st ending. It’s cheap and I recommend it.

Sky Rogue

It’s like a lot of aircraft dogfight games but a bit random. I’ve played this a bit on single player and it’s alright. However I have played many, many, missions in the 2 player mode with a coworker. It’s just very satisfying doing the whole Top Gun team thing taking on a bunch of enemy planes whilst working on upgrades.

Disco Elysium

It’s like Planescape Torment but without the tedious combat or problematic writer behind it. There’s a video of one of the devs explaining how the dialogue is laid out like Twitter in tabloid format for easy reading. This is revolutionary. I want every computer text game to use this format from now on.

I cannot stress how important it is to enter Disco Elysium unprepared. To have no grasp on just how far you will be allowed to explore, who you will meet, who you will travel with, or what you are expected to do. It is a game about amnesia and becoming someone new - if that is at all possible.

I have two pieces of advice however:

Don’t start with Psyche or Physique stats below 2, they’re both your health and the game will surprise you with damage to either in the most unexpected places.

Do every quest. Explore every nook and cranny. Not knowing is the very essence of the game. You’ll have lost that feeling after the ending.

I don’t need to tell you how good the game is. Just look at most reviews.

Everspace

It’s like Descent (that 1st person spacecraft game on the PSX) but in space and it’s a roguelike. Everspace has you mine, salvage, fight, trade, and quest - but you do it all from the comfort of a spaceship that has responsive controls and interesting weaponry. I had a lot of fun skulking round wrecks to salvage parts whilst avoiding patrols of hostiles until I had enough kit to take them on.

It has a substandard storyline but great meta-progression, asking you to grind cash from each run to unlock parts for a better ship on the next. I put in a great deal of hours into this game and I’m looking forward to what the studio does with the sequel.

Horizon Zero Dawn

It’s like Shadow of Mordor but good. My only major complaint was how constant use of the bow had the camera staying uncomfortably close to Aloy’s arse and burying itself in grass during frenetic combat. When the camera wasn’t trying to kill me the combat was astoundingly good. You fight lumbering robo-dinosaurs with special weak spots and various attacks. The quests are also good with a surprising amount of cutscenes and dialogue for a lot of completely optional content.

I was also amazed at how they managed to pull off an almost believable backstory for a world full of robot dinosaurs. Despite some frustrating combat encounters I had a good time exploring its large and very pretty world.

Pathfinder Kingmaker

It’s like Baldurs Gate but not as good. Only on my 3rd attempt at playing the game with the newly patched in turn based mechanics did it start to make sense. It uses Pathfinder’s rules which are deep and tactical - as tactical rules go they’re pretty good. However when those rules fly by at real time speed you don’t learn how opportunity attacks work (they’re more complex than modern D&D) or how to utilise charge and positioning.

The story is pretty forgettable and the encounter design is relentlessly dull. A lot of areas are just simply fight after fight after fight. In turn based mode the fights are pretty good but too many of them are identical. The ones that weren’t I found inscrutable and impossible to pass. If you like min-max fighting and little else then have at it - but I warn you that the UI is lagging behind most popular CRPGs. You can’t even check the world map whilst in a town.

Metal Gear Solid V

It’s like an RPG. Despite not having a main character with stats, in this open world game of hide and seek you kidnap soldiers who in turn become your stats. Through them you gain access to new abilities. Through them you are drip-fed the resources you steal, only becoming able to spend all that you’ve stolen by having enough accountants to do your taxes. It is a brilliant work of roleplaying economics and a thoroughly enjoyable open world game. One where I can completely ruin a mission yet chuckle at my attempts to save what’s left of my dignity.

It also fails to stick the landing. At around the 20th mission the game starts committing to its plot and the rot sets in. Bit by bit it becomes worse to play. There was trouble at Konami when the game was made and it feels like the end of the game was hit the hardest. This was the part that was tested the least and had the worst ideas thrown into it. Metal Gear Solid V is still worth it for the 1st half of the game.

Final Fantasy 8

It’s like the other Final Fantasy games but poorly paced and balanced. The junction system is incredibly interesting in that it tries to sidestep the whole issue of items by gluing your characters to guardian angels. It’s built in card game Triple Triad is simple and engaging. The story is kinda interesting with some time travel shenanigans going on...

But it’s pacing is dreadful with endlessly copypasted rooms. The magic draw system is miserable (and yes I know you can get GFs to convert items to magic but then it’s more tedious busy work to upscale all the magic into something work attaching). The world map is shockingly empty. And the characters are just yawn, yawn, yawn.

Pick it up on sale.

Torchlight 2

It’s like Diablo 2 but not quite as good. Still worth playing though. I got it on the Switch and found that playing it with a gamepad was a pleasant experience.

It has a few balance problems with the Engineer class being ridiculously overpowered compared to any of the others (and way more fun). And there’s some annoying bugs that prompted a few reloads. Still pretty entertaining however.

Pokemon Shield

It’s like every other Pokemon game (surprise surprise) but easier. As much as I like how they’ve removed a lot of busywork from this entry, it makes it feel like the only challenge in the previous titles was the busywork. When really it was the busywork that held you back from just kerb-stomping everything in your path.

It’s not until the final DLC that you’re given some pokemon that are needlessly tedious to catch and some group battles using randomly selected pokemon that test your knowledge of the game’s systems. The only real challenge in the game is in the online multiplayer against humans where your pokemon level is normalised and encyclopedic knowledge of the title’s history is required.

My internet is terrible so the online gameplay is dead to me. It’s a very fun game, but also a very disappointing one.

Burnout Paradise

It’s like a sandbox game for cars. Except that you’re not really driving a car, it’s more like you’re driving a bobsleigh with a rocket attached to it. Unlike most driving games you aren’t given terrain that slows you down. Even if you hit a wall you’ll skate off it so long as you collide sideways. The game just wants you to drive like an arsehole and go faster and faster - to the tune of Epic by Faith No More (literally).

I mean yeah, it’s not an RPG by any stretch but it’s one of the best sandbox games I’ve played. Even when you’re not doing a “mission” you can just drive around the city finding back alleys and ramps to fly off of. It’s just a massive playground with very little negative feedback.

Cyberpunk 2077

It’s like a bunch of different games you’ve played before but not quite as good. The story is the best bit. I really liked the characters I got to hang out with. I guess I would have enjoyed the gun fights if I hadn’t been playing Doom 1 before I played it. And I would have enjoyed the stealth if I hadn’t already played Metal Gear Solid V with its superior A.I. It has cool Obra Dinn style brain movies to explore for detective work but I enjoyed the spectacle of them more than the execution (though I did enjoy them more than Obra Dinn which I found tedious to navigate or understand).

I saw one review say it was the most backwards view of the future. Not imagining what could be but endlessly paying homage to cyberpunk stories of the past.

I see other reviews say play it when it’s fixed. When the myriad of bugs (and I experienced enough to impact gameplay) are solved.

I say play the sequel. It’s worth experiencing but there’s too much going on that’s playing catch up to other titles.

Shiren The Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate

It’s like Rogue. I first played Shiren 2 on the Nintendo DS and was amazed by its deep systems and story meta progression - various tales progressing in the game only after each death and subsequent replay.

This entry is technically Shiren 5. Holy shit the content in this thing. There are 15 optional dungeons with different rules. Over a hundred block pushing puzzles using various mechanics of the game that you can just walk up and play in the 2nd village you enter. A minesweeper minigame. Loads of tutorial levels. All of these give you rewards which you can take on your main adventure which is a wholly different set of dungeons. I’ve unlocked several companions to adventure with and the game is hinting there are even more later on. It is obscene the amount of value there is packed into this title. And it’s fun. A little unfair at times, but as with all roguelikes the later depths require knowledge and a lot of caution. Strong recommendation for roguelikers.

Dicey Dungeons

It’s like Dream Quest but with dice. I played the prototype of this at the 7DRL after party. Terry was quite bashful about his creation and didn’t want to submit it. I honestly didn’t see why he shouldn’t as many of us had made far worse in the past.

I put off playing this until it finally landed on the Switch as complete as any roguelike can hope to be. It’s quite different to Dream Quest in that it requires a bit of math to do well in. If you’re not prepared to do basic sums then it’s hard to make progress. Also unlike Dream Quest it’s very balanced. There’s definitely some cheesy tactics you can pull off to get cheap victories but not without some thought and planning.

In a sea of deck building roguelikes, Dicey Dungeons is quite simply refreshing. There’s a lot of good ideas in here you won’t see elsewhere - give it a go.

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epackingvietnam · 4 years ago

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How to Come Up With Tangential Content Ideas — Whiteboard Friday

Posted by amandamilligan

Your brand has probably used content marketing to generate awareness and engagement, but have you tried tangential content?

In this brand new episode of Whiteboard Friday, Amanda Milligan of Fractl is here to walk you through what tangential content is, why it's useful, and how to create it.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hi. My name is Amanda Milligan. I'm the Marketing Director at Fractl, an agency that helps brands build their organic growth. Today I'm going to talk to you about one of the strategies we use for our clients, and it's called tangential content. If you haven't heard of it, don't worry.

Odds are you might have already done it and not even known. Today we're going to talk about what it is, why you should include it in your strategy, and how to come up with content ideas that are tangential.

What is tangential content?

So to start, what is tangential content? It's not used a ton, this phrase, but we and some others I think have kind of adopted it because there wasn't a ton of language around it.

So the word "tangential" means lightly touching or peripheral. So not really as related is basically what the word means. Tangential content then is content that is not directly related to your product or service offering. In other words, it's not very on brand. Maybe the opposite of tangential content is very topical content.

So we create both topical and tangential content at Fractl, but they each serve different purposes, which is what I'll get into. But just to give you an example of the difference between the two, down here I have two different articles you can create for let's say a dating website. So a topical article for a dating website might be here are seven profile red flags to watch out for.

So the reason that's topical is because we're actually talking about a dating site or a dating app, and so is this article talking directly about things to watch out for on a dating profile. So it's really relevant to the actual offering that you're making as a brand, and it's helping even users. So it's targeting your direct audience and then also some people who might use other apps.

Tangential content in this category might look like, "couples voted these seven places as the most romantic cities in America". So now we're not talking about dating apps anymore or any dating websites. We're talking about partners and relationships. It's still relevant in the grand scheme of this niche, but it's not directly related to the product or service.

So this is just an example of how topical and tangential can look a little different. Another example I like to use is for Porch.com. They are a home improvement website. We've done all kinds of content for them that fall in both buckets. So for topical content, we've done the cost of home improvement over the lifespan of living in a house, and we've done tangential content like how to cook with your family or backyard games or something.

So I'll explain a little bit more over here how to come up with ideas like that. But you see this all the time in marketing even if you haven't recognized it or known what to call it. We actually did a study very recently where we looked at the finalists for the Content Marketing Awards. We excluded agencies, but we looked at a bunch of brands, and we saw that, I think, at least 6 out of 10 of those brands that we examined had tangential content on their blogs.

So it's a pretty common practice, and whether people even recognize it or not, it can be really effective.

Why create tangential content?

So why bother with content that isn't entirely on brand? A lot of people would hesitate and say, "I want to do stuff that only makes sense for our primary audience, that will convert users, or build a really relevant audience."

Link building

But there are some incredible benefits for tangential content. First of all, SEO people love the link building aspect. So if you're interested in getting some of the best links you've ever gotten, really high quality links from some of the best media publications, we haven't found a better way to do it than using tangential content. Why?

Because when you're doing something that's not directly related to your brand, you're able to reach a more general audience, really tap into compelling ideas that will appeal to more people and thus more publications. So it increases your chances of getting that media coverage.

Brand awareness

The second is brand awareness. For similar reasons, if you're able to get that content out there and appeal to more people, that means more people are seeing your brand.

So what we do at Fractl is essentially come up with these types of ideas. We build an entire content project around a new dataset or we run a survey or we collect new information based on this tangential idea, and then we pitch it to the media. So when you have this new study or this new report done by your brand and you get it covered on some of the top national media sources, that's pretty incredible brand awareness, not to mention authority, because when your brand is mentioned as so-and-so study shows this, you're framed in a really authoritative way, usually toward the top of the article as the source of the information that this publication has deemed worthy of talking about.

It's pretty incredible. So that's kind of what I'm talking about here — national media coverage. Additionally, if you're doing tangential content on your blog and you're trying to get more organic traffic and more presence in the SERPs, that is another way that you can really build out the top of the funnel marketing efforts that you have.

So if you're kind of zooming out and thinking how can I reach people in this industry who might not already have decided that they want to purchase our product or service but still get our name out there, then you can target more tangential, top of the funnel keywords and start ranking in the SERPs to get more awareness. So these are really incredible benefits.

Social shares

Finally, social shares, because, as I'll get to, when you come up with tangential ideas, like I said, you have much more room to play around and be creative, which generally means you can come up with ideas that are much more compelling and emotionally resonant, and those are the types of ideas that get all kinds of social shares. People want to send it to their friends. They want to react to it on social, etc.

So really some great stuff here. Whether you're coming at it from a brand perspective or an SEO perspective, you can get a lot out of doing this type of content.

How to create tangential content

So finally, how? The first thing I tell people is to zoom out. If you have typically only been creating topical content in the past, you're probably not used to thinking about your greater industry outside of your value proposition.

1. Zoom out

So I encourage people to start by literally just thinking, "What is our greater category?" So if you work as car insurance, then automobiles or transportation even. It's like, "What would the top category in a publication be that fits your brand?" So for this example, I put time management software.

So if you are a SaaS company and you are time management software, maybe your general topic would be work and productivity. So that would be the general zooming out. Once you've zoomed out, then you want to think laterally. This is how we describe it.

What I mean by that is: What are all of the subtopics that fall under the zoomed out category? What are all of the other things we can talk about that aren't directly related to our brand? So for work/productivity, I wrote down some examples of what that could be. Sorry, not work/productivity, but work and productivity. It could be either one. So just the workplace, that's the general gist.

So maybe it's about your salary, your salary aspirations, are salaries fair across different companies, within companies. Anything salary related, maybe that would get published on financial publications in addition to ones that cover the workplace or business publications. Office gossip, that's something a lot of people can relate to, and you can pitch publications that are more on the lifestyle side of things.

That's an example of getting very generally appealing. Anybody who's worked in an office, even if they haven't participated in office gossip themselves, probably knows that it has happened or that it's caused issues or what have you. So you can go that route. Work/life balance. We're recording this in the time of COVID. That's even more applicable now. You can get a really timeliness factor to it.

But when you talk about productivity, work/life balance becomes a question a lot of the time. It's how can you be more productive without sacrificing your personal life? Dating coworkers. Again, you're taking a totally different ... You're combining the work niche and relationship dating lifestyle niche. This could be something that even the dating site could even do.

They can talk about dating coworkers. It's a tangential idea that actually applies to multiple industries. Finally, I have up here job satisfaction. So this is more based on the work side of things, how good do you feel about your job, are you looking for another one. Just getting a sense of how people feel. All of these things qualify as tangential content ideas for a time management software company.

So I wanted to illustrate that because it shows how many things are now within the realm of possibility for you that you might not have realized before. When you can play around with this many types of ideas, you can get very creative with the methodologies and the things that you explore. It gets pretty fun I have to be honest.

2. Consider emotion

So down here, and honestly this section deserves its own whiteboard, after you've done this and maybe you've written down 70 ideas based on, oh wow, we're able to zoom out and think about all kinds of stuff, so much comes to mind, think about emotion. Most things that do well have an emotional impact on you.

Even if it's how-to content, you might be thinking that's usually pretty straightforward and dry. If you're helping somebody and they're getting value out of it and they're reading it like, "Oh, thank God, I was looking for an answer to this," that is an emotional reaction. So you have to be thinking about how emotionally resonant these ideas are.

So part of how we score our ideas or prioritize them or measure their likelihood of succeeding is to think about the emotional components. You can kind of see how these play into these ideas. Salary aspirations, people tie a lot of their worth at work to their salaries. That's a pretty emotional thing. Dating and gossip at work, obviously those social dynamics can get pretty intense.

Work/life balance, again now you're talking about your family and your relationships with people. Job satisfaction, similarly to salary aspirations, that can really impact your life. So then I actually recommend to people, when they have ideas, to literally write down all these emotions and see what is going to be part of like the essence of the actual idea.

Then, when you're able to say, "Okay, this idea is really going to emotionally resonate with people. They're going to see themselves in this. They're going to be really interested in the results. Then you can start honing in on: What are the different methodologies we can use? What kind of data is available or that we have internally or that we can find or collect that can illustrate this, get at some of those truths that we don't have access to right now?

So that's a great place to start if you have kind of questions. Like if you have office gossip and you're like, "I wonder how many people do feel like they participated in that? I wonder how many people have actually had some kind of ramification at work because of that or have suffered themselves?" I don't know the answer. So if you want to run a survey about that, that could be really interesting to people.

So zoom out. Think about all the different types of subtopics you can talk about now that you have zoomed out. Then consider the emotional factors of all those ideas and then start sorting based on that. See where you can collect data to kind of fulfill those types of ideas. Once you're onto something like that, a lot of the time your intuition will tell you.

If you find it interesting, if you want to know the answer, certainly give it a shot executing it. Then you can pitch it to publications. So that is the short version of how we do all this. I'm happy to answer any questions you have. You can find me on Twitter @millanda. But that is the gist of tangential content.

It is extremely effective. Give this a shot. Whether it's on your blog or if you do decide you want to pitch it to media publications and go for those links, I highly recommend it. Thank you so much for watching.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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bfxenon · 4 years ago

Text

How to Come Up With Tangential Content Ideas — Whiteboard Friday

Posted by amandamilligan

Your brand has probably used content marketing to generate awareness and engagement, but have you tried tangential content?

In this brand new episode of Whiteboard Friday, Amanda Milligan of Fractl is here to walk you through what tangential content is, why it's useful, and how to create it.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

What is tangential content?

So to start, what is tangential content? It's not used a ton, this phrase, but we and some others I think have kind of adopted it because there wasn't a ton of language around it.

So it's a pretty common practice, and whether people even recognize it or not, it can be really effective.

Why create tangential content?

Link building

Brand awareness

The second is brand awareness. For similar reasons, if you're able to get that content out there and appeal to more people, that means more people are seeing your brand.

Social shares

So really some great stuff here. Whether you're coming at it from a brand perspective or an SEO perspective, you can get a lot out of doing this type of content.

How to create tangential content

1. Zoom out

2. Consider emotion

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

0 notes

nutrifami · 4 years ago

Text

How to Come Up With Tangential Content Ideas — Whiteboard Friday

Posted by amandamilligan

Your brand has probably used content marketing to generate awareness and engagement, but have you tried tangential content?

In this brand new episode of Whiteboard Friday, Amanda Milligan of Fractl is here to walk you through what tangential content is, why it's useful, and how to create it.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

What is tangential content?

So to start, what is tangential content? It's not used a ton, this phrase, but we and some others I think have kind of adopted it because there wasn't a ton of language around it.

So it's a pretty common practice, and whether people even recognize it or not, it can be really effective.

Why create tangential content?

Link building

Brand awareness

The second is brand awareness. For similar reasons, if you're able to get that content out there and appeal to more people, that means more people are seeing your brand.

Social shares

So really some great stuff here. Whether you're coming at it from a brand perspective or an SEO perspective, you can get a lot out of doing this type of content.

How to create tangential content

1. Zoom out

2. Consider emotion

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

0 notes

xaydungtruonggia · 4 years ago

Text

How to Come Up With Tangential Content Ideas — Whiteboard Friday

Posted by amandamilligan

Your brand has probably used content marketing to generate awareness and engagement, but have you tried tangential content?

In this brand new episode of Whiteboard Friday, Amanda Milligan of Fractl is here to walk you through what tangential content is, why it's useful, and how to create it.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

What is tangential content?

So to start, what is tangential content? It's not used a ton, this phrase, but we and some others I think have kind of adopted it because there wasn't a ton of language around it.

So it's a pretty common practice, and whether people even recognize it or not, it can be really effective.

Why create tangential content?

Link building

Brand awareness

The second is brand awareness. For similar reasons, if you're able to get that content out there and appeal to more people, that means more people are seeing your brand.

Social shares

So really some great stuff here. Whether you're coming at it from a brand perspective or an SEO perspective, you can get a lot out of doing this type of content.

How to create tangential content

1. Zoom out

2. Consider emotion

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

0 notes

ductrungnguyen87 · 4 years ago

Text

How to Come Up With Tangential Content Ideas — Whiteboard Friday

Posted by amandamilligan

Your brand has probably used content marketing to generate awareness and engagement, but have you tried tangential content?

In this brand new episode of Whiteboard Friday, Amanda Milligan of Fractl is here to walk you through what tangential content is, why it's useful, and how to create it.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

What is tangential content?

So to start, what is tangential content? It's not used a ton, this phrase, but we and some others I think have kind of adopted it because there wasn't a ton of language around it.

So it's a pretty common practice, and whether people even recognize it or not, it can be really effective.

Why create tangential content?

Link building

Brand awareness

The second is brand awareness. For similar reasons, if you're able to get that content out there and appeal to more people, that means more people are seeing your brand.

Social shares

So really some great stuff here. Whether you're coming at it from a brand perspective or an SEO perspective, you can get a lot out of doing this type of content.

How to create tangential content

1. Zoom out

2. Consider emotion

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

0 notes

camerasieunhovn · 4 years ago

Text

How to Come Up With Tangential Content Ideas — Whiteboard Friday

Posted by amandamilligan

Your brand has probably used content marketing to generate awareness and engagement, but have you tried tangential content?

In this brand new episode of Whiteboard Friday, Amanda Milligan of Fractl is here to walk you through what tangential content is, why it's useful, and how to create it.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

What is tangential content?

So to start, what is tangential content? It's not used a ton, this phrase, but we and some others I think have kind of adopted it because there wasn't a ton of language around it.

So it's a pretty common practice, and whether people even recognize it or not, it can be really effective.

Why create tangential content?

Link building

Brand awareness

The second is brand awareness. For similar reasons, if you're able to get that content out there and appeal to more people, that means more people are seeing your brand.

Social shares

So really some great stuff here. Whether you're coming at it from a brand perspective or an SEO perspective, you can get a lot out of doing this type of content.

How to create tangential content

1. Zoom out

2. Consider emotion

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

0 notes

gamebazu · 4 years ago

Text

How to Come Up With Tangential Content Ideas — Whiteboard Friday

Posted by amandamilligan

Your brand has probably used content marketing to generate awareness and engagement, but have you tried tangential content?

In this brand new episode of Whiteboard Friday, Amanda Milligan of Fractl is here to walk you through what tangential content is, why it's useful, and how to create it.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

What is tangential content?

So to start, what is tangential content? It's not used a ton, this phrase, but we and some others I think have kind of adopted it because there wasn't a ton of language around it.

So it's a pretty common practice, and whether people even recognize it or not, it can be really effective.

Why create tangential content?

Link building

Brand awareness

The second is brand awareness. For similar reasons, if you're able to get that content out there and appeal to more people, that means more people are seeing your brand.

Social shares

So really some great stuff here. Whether you're coming at it from a brand perspective or an SEO perspective, you can get a lot out of doing this type of content.

How to create tangential content

1. Zoom out

2. Consider emotion

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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