#rather than take the extra time and irrelevant data to figure out both how to use humans as energy sources and keep them alive

[galacticnova3]

Don't forget "I'm nitpicking this thing because it is a real thing, though in a fantasy environment, being written unrealistically and presented in a way that treats it as if it is accurate, and therefore has led others to make decisions and form opinions on the real thing based on this false information about it"

It’s important to recognize the difference between “I’m nitpicking scientific facts because I’m willfully ignoring how suspension of disbelief, fantasy, and sci-fi work and just trying to be obnoxious about how unrealistic this is”, and “I’m nitpicking scientific facts because there are actually some intriguing worldbuilding possibilities if we use them that can add another dimension to the story”, and “I’m nitpicking scientific facts because considering the real-world implications of how this would happen are FUCKING HILARIOUS”

[evalinashryver]

A Mysterious Stranger: thoughts on Gwyn’s unknown father

Gwyneth Berdara: our lovely cinnammon roll who could actually kill you who was introduced in ACOSF and who took the fandom by storm. She’s strong, brave, good and optimistic despite a dark past, a great friend that Nesta desperately needed. Her potential as a character is extraordinary, both because of the development and healing she needs to undergo, her connection with the Valkyries and Nesta and a very mysterious — and interesting! — family tree.

@yazthebookish​ did a great meta elaborating on Gwyn's maternal bloodline, connecting her with the Autumn Court and, more specifically, to Eris, which you can find and read (here). As you can guess by the title, we’ll not be diving into that side of the family, but rather about the mysterious stranger who so happens to be her father. 

Firstly, I want to clarify that we actually have almost no information on Gwyn's father except for this one line in ACOSF: I, we—my sister and I, I mean—were the result of that sacred union with a male stranger. If we apply Occam's Razor to try and figure out his identity, the solution that covers all available data and makes the fewest leaps of logic is that this mysterious male is just that: a mysterious male, irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. 

But let's be honest— we all know how unlikely that is in a fantasy and ficiton setting. How many books out there do we have where a character’s unknown father (because yes, it’s hardly ever the mothers) turns out to be of relevance? And SJM does love to give her character something extra, something more, that makes them stand out from those surrouding them.

 Look at ToG: how many of them either came from important bloodlines or were blessed by some kind of God? Aelin and Dorian are royals and a descendant of Mala herself; Yrene, introduced a novella and expanded upon Tower of Dawn, comes from an ancient line of healers dating centuries back; the key players are nearly all tied to some deity. 

 In ACoTaR itself, both Azriel and Cassian don't really come from special bloodlines (that we know of), but are extremely powerful to make up for it. The Archeron sisters? Their father was the Prince of Merchants, and there may be something else to their bloodline that we don’t yet know like, say, being descendants of the Fae who imprisoned Koschei. Feyre ended the curse and a silver of the High Lord’s magic, Nesta took from the Cauldron when she went down, and it loved Elain so much it voluntarily gave her more. 

So let's put in our tinfoil hats and ask: what if Gwyn's paternal side is more than what it appears to be?

We all know Sarah loves Mythology and folklore and is constantly lifting things directly from it, be it names or concepts. Sometimes she picks and chooses and blends them together to create her own thing, other times she doesn’t even bother as much. Nyx's own name, for instance, or the High King Fionn, from the Irish legend of Fionn mac Cumhaill. 

It’s fairly common in mythology and folklore for deities and supernatural beings to take different guises and seduce different women, then disappear and leaving them behind with a child, unbeknownst to them. Some already know from the start, but other times, the child grows up and only learns of their parentage when fate comes calling. 

There's one god I'd like to call attention to, though. One norse God who is known to wander through the nine worlds, with a nearly insatiable thirst for knowledge: Odin. Wait, Ella, why Odin, of all of them? Because the Valkyries are his daughters. It's true that ACoTaR's Valkyries more closely mirror the Amazons than the Norse Valkyries themselves, but the connection is still there. And who brought the Valkyries up first, questioned why they didn't use Valkyrie technics (even though Nesta suggested mixing it with th Illyrians), and perhaps most symbolic, she was the first to cut the ribbon.

Gwyn, first of the new Valkyries.

We know from Sarah's multiverse that there are ways to travel between worlds; in ACoTaR, the harp itself allows one to open any door; in ToG, we have the wyrdkeys and the gates. So what if Gwyn's father was one such worldwaker, who just so happened to be passing by then? This could potentially tie her in with the greater forces at work, the otherworldly beings which Koschei and the Bone Carver are a part of. A child of secret knowledge.

That's the first assumption/idea. The second one is the other reason why I selected Odin: in the Norse versions of the story, he's the leader of Wild Hunt. ACoSF introduces us to the concept in the verse, this is what we know of it: "The Wild Hunt was a way to keep all of us in line. They’d gather a host of their fiercest, most merciless warriors and grant them free rein to kill as they pleased."

What's even funnier is that Odin, despite our current image of him, was far more related to the more berserker warriors and the frenzy of the combat. The Valkyries, the choosers of the slain, picked the most valiant and fiercest of warriors, half of whom became einherjar— and here I'd like to point out that they stemmed or were influenced probably from a common source, as the Wild Hunt is a ghostly horde (that does not seem to be the case in ACOTAR, but the connection is there).

Which brings me to another possibility: what if Gwyn's father is one the Daglan? We know they were cast down and hunted down, likely by Fionn (Rhys says that this one of the strains, but I'm going to go with it being true to Prythian), but just like there were Fae who fought with the humans in the Great War, were there not Daglan who sided with the Fae and Humans? We know that after they were cast down, the Fae hunt them down and imprisoned them, slowly, but how many managed to survive and live out there, in hiding? Even if they were not evil, the Daglan were demonized. Just like the Fae imprisoned Amren for thinking her one of their enemies, they could have turned against the Daglan who actually helped them.

The Daglan are, to me, inspired by the Fomorians who are described to be gods associated with the destructive powers of nature, being in direct opposition to the other race of gods, who are associated with more positive things. They also dwelled under the sea or under the earth. Cassian gives us Lubia as a seamonster. But under the Earth? We have the halls of the Prison, Under the Mountain, Hewn City... And yet unexplored Ramiel. With how the Hewn City designs were connected to the hounds of the hunt, these to me were important places of the Daglan of old. They might've even held the Dread Trove, once upon a time, and maybe Ramiel still does, or at least a clue towards it.

Gwyn being half-Daglan could neatly connect her to the overarching plot of the series, which seems to be going further into how the world was before the Fae took rulership. It would also tie her in with the otherworldly beings and plot that's emerging, and allow her to play a greater role. Would she be able to scry the fourth trove? No, but she and Azriel — because I firmly believe the next book is his — might be able to figure out and unveil the shadows surrounding the fourth trove.

This is very tinfoil-y and I'll readily admit that, but it's a thought that grabbed me and won't let go so I'm throwing it out there! Enjoy!

[weneedtherooks]

In The Beginning

Okay! Have fun with this one!

Also, in the next story (hopefully, unless one of my other WIPs gets done first), we’ll learn something very...interesting about Clara’s caseworker, Mr. Ian Casey ;D

[Early Winter, 1979]

The idea of time travel had always been just that: an idea. Limited to the fantasy realm of a person’s imagination, and in some cases, brought to life on a television screen. For one small group of historians, it was an amusing topic of discussion for passing the time. That was...until today. He appeared out of nowhere, his appearance somehow both futuristic and old. Dark brown hair hung just below his jaw, and his beard was trimmed neatly, accenting the shape of his face. His half-rimmed glasses and the eyes they framed looked as if they had been made with mercury. On his fingers were three simple rings, each either silver or black. Inside his ears, however, was an odd looking device. Were they actually inside of his ear? “You seem confused,” he finally said. One historian, a man in his forties with salt and pepper hair, stood to face the stranger. “Who are you? Or what are you?” “Hmm…” He touched his lip with a crooked finger. “I am...a librarian of sorts,” he replied, content with his answer. “‘Of sorts’,” another historian scoffed, squinting his pale blue eyes as his demeanor grew more suspicious. “You have name, oh mighty ‘librarian of sorts’?” “Why don’t you just call me that? Librarian. My name isn’t important; I came here to give the people a tool, and your group seemed the most competent.” “‘Competent’? Compared to who?” a young woman asked, tucking her bright red hair behind her ear. “Other historians? Other librarians? Perhaps some other occupation altogether?” He smiled at her, clearly amused with her. “All very good questions, but all are irrelevant.” He waved his hand, motioning for a nearby crate. As if with a mind of its own, it moved towards Librarian. “Now, I want you all to come here and see this!” “What’s ‘this’...?” asked the woman as her and her colleagues hesitantly approached. “They say the best way to learn is through experience, yes?” “Yes, but-” “Consider this ‘experience’.” With a flick of his finger, the lid of the crate slid open. “The ability to travel through time itself in the palm of your hand.” The historians peeked inside the crate. Five camera-like objects were inside, along with three pairs of the odd ear pieces similar to what Librarian was wearing, and eight discs that resembled small magnets. Before they had time to register the items before them, they floated out of the box on a shelf, revealing more items below; toolkits and three tablets roughly the size of clipboards. The young lady gasped in awe, picking up the various tools and inspecting them. “Incredible,” she whispered, testing out the ear pieces. “They also act as adaptive hearing aids,” Librarian commented, smiling as she jumped in surprise. “Those will also allow you to keep in touch with the drones, as well as a variety of other things. The tablets have detailed instructions and descriptions of each item shown.” “And what if any of this is too complicated…?” the oldest of the group asked, experimentally turning one of the tools in his hands. “You just ask. They’ll be set up to respond to you, and you alone, whether by touch or by voice. More will come along in due time, but for now, these are enough.” “Are these cameras the drones?” the woman asked excitedly. “Yes, they are. In a moment, they will disperse and look for candidates.” “Candidates? For what?” “Your first time travelers,” he replied with a grin. “It isn’t wise for you yourselves to go through just yet. Not for any extended period. For now, let’s set up each device. If you please?” In mere moments, each person was equipped. “Now, all you’ll have to do is hold up your hand and say your name.” Librarian stepped out of the way. One by one, they held up their hands. “Richard O’Neil.” “Raymond Halford.” “Christine Knotts.” Each device made a little chirp, but when they turned to ask Librarian what to do next…he was gone. Vanished just as quickly as he’d arrived. Without another word, the group watched as the drones also began to float away. For a moment, they wondered how long it would take before they would ever see the little machines again…

[Early Spring, 1984]

Three years went by before they’d seen any of their drones return. The boys, in almost typical male fashion, had taken it upon themselves to handle two drones apiece. Richard had taken charge of the first two: “Spot” and “Runt”. Spot had picked up a little boy from a wealthy family, and Runt had found a little girl born to a teenager. Raymond, the second batch: “Penny” and “Shuffle”. Penny had located a young boy in a foster family, and Shuffle brought another boy from a recently divorced family. Which left Chris with “Dottie”, the drone that had taken the longest to arrive. And it had found a girl from a young family. Christine sighed as she made her way to the small apartment. “This the place, Dottie?” The invisible drone hovering nearby chirped. “Robin and Scott Hughes, huh...daughter’s name is April.” She sighed. “I really hope this one is as good as you’re making it sound.” Dottie beeped in an annoyed tone. “Look, all I’m saying is it took you five years to pick someone out. I’m just hoping she’s worth all the trouble. This project isn’t cheap, you know. If we don’t make decent results, we’ll lose everything.” And considering it was a government project, the stakes were much higher. Voyager is what the big wigs chose to call it, and they were nearly at the project’s climax. The plan was to have the five families spend five to ten years in an earlier period, dating as far back as the early 1800s. It would give them valuable data about their ancestors lives and lifestyle, as well as open up commercial opportunities later on, so long as this test proved successful. And as much as Chris didn’t want to admit it, she was grateful Dottie had taken so long with choosing someone; it had given her group valuable time to learn more about the tools they were using, and how to use them effectively. Granted, the actual act of travelling was still a problem. The magnet-like objects were the actual catalyst for time travel. “Gates”, Raymond called them. At first, they’d really only been good transporting one person at a time by...well, stepping. You picked a place, and stepped forward. Which resulted in a lot of falling off old sidewalks, nearly getting run over by carriages, a couple instances of dizziness and disorientation, and one near death experience on top of a building. Thankfully, Ray had some friends who understood coordinates, and she’d figured out that using multiple gates could create a working “doorway”. They’d also discovered that, if given specific instructions along with the coordinates, a person or group could be set down inside a certain level of a building. The dizziness was still a problem, since removing the physical step resulted in simply being “dropped” on the location, but it was a trivial issue. It was those breakthroughs that had gotten them funding to begin with, but it still wasn’t stable, and five years wasn’t nearly enough time to work out all the kinks. Power surges were the biggest issue, and those had proven to be…somewhat dangerous. Chris took a deep breath as she approached the Hughes’s front door. “Okay, let’s do this,” she said, firmly knocking on the door.

~6 months later~

Richard finished laying the last toddler down on the padded surface. Little April had been the last to fall asleep after having her information band put on...the child was a fighter. The last six months had been spent changing the children's sleep schedules, having them sleep during the day rather than at night. Their sponsors wanted to do the drop during the day, against the wishes of himself and the group. Frankly, he was ready for the whole thing to be underway. One less bit of anxiety to think about. Christine had been the fussiest of them all. Thanks to the fact that she only had one drone to handle, the sponsors decided it was her job to cover pretty much everything; from wardrobe, to housing, to quick tests on timed drops. She’d barely had time to come up with the drop order. “Relax, Chris. Everything will be fine,” Raymond said, trying to comfort her as he entered the delivery room. “We planned this out thoroughly. Kids first, parents second. It’ll be nighttime for them, so they won’t even know they’ve been moved.” “But we’ve barely tried applying actual changes in time, not just date. This just feels too risky.” “We’ve taken into account every possible outcome, Christine,” Richard said, agreeing with Raymond. “We even got extra generators ready to prevent a possible power surge. We’ll be fine.” With a heavy sigh, she double checked all of the ID bracelets on each child. “I still think we should have been given more time,” she quipped, pointedly looking in the direction of the sponsors conference room. Richard shook his head, tapping on the earpiece in his left ear. “Okay, we’ll begin transferring them soon. It’ll be instant; they won’t notice a thing.” The plan was to send the children all at once, followed by the parents, one couple at a time. With Ray’s go ahead, Richard, after giving his colleagues one final look, touched the button on his tablet.. In the blink of an eye, the children were gone. In that same blink...the building temporarily blacked out. “What the hell?” Ray muttered. Touching his ear piece, he blinked. “We...have a problem. A big problem.” “How big…?” Christine asked, fear in her voice. Richard felt the blood leave his face as he watched the rapid data dump flash in front of him. “We don’t know where they are…” Richard muttered. “What do you mean we don’t know where they are?” “As in they just fucking vanished, Knotts. You're getting the same data pour as we are!” “That's enough, Halford. We don't need to create any further tension. Legally, we have to announce this. Let's try and make this as painless as possible.” Ray huffed, but calmly made his way to the sponsor room. Christine, on the other hand, made her way to a nearby desk and began reading through her tablet. In short, the power had surged because they tried to send them all at once. In the span of a second, the order went through, they'd blacked out, and during reboot, the Voyager system scrambled to piece together the fragmented information. The only information available was a year and a side note about a ground landing. “We should have sent them in intervals…” “Looks like it...dammit.” It felt like mere seconds had passed before the pounding on the delivery room door started. Christine looked at Richard, tears threatening to spill over in her eyes. “What do we do now…?” “We find them. But first...let’s handle this.” He took a deep breath as he made his way to the door, trying desperately to scramble together some decent explanation for the parents now shouting on the other side.

[dippedanddripped]

Brand has changed a lot in the digital age, from complete ownership by the company establishing the brand, now to complete ownership by consumers who engage with the brand. Consumers may start with that initial brand message but ultimately embrace it unexpected ways which ultimately do define the brand. In other words, you can want your brand to stand for something, but it won’t if the people you’re targeting don’t buy into that. JCPenney and Ron Johnson’s attempt to remake the chain appeal to a younger, hipper audience are a now-classic example of how it’s always consumers who win when it comes to who ultimately gets to define your brand.

Since the time when consumers firmly took the reins from companies over who gets to define the brand, there has been the additional complication of Millennials, who want more from their brands than just values or attributes. They want their brands to stand for something. At the same time, their willingness to engage with brands has shifted away from passively consuming advertising to wanting to interact more directly – and they prefer to do that primarily through digital channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.

Brands now have to operate in this interactive space. To-date, most of them haven’t figured that out, and the old tools of brand and marketing haven’t served them well in navigating the shift. But in the end it’s not about the tools so much as redefining how those tools are used.

The Term “Persona” Has Baggage

Today In:

Business

In marketing, the term “persona” has been so overused that if it comes up in conversation today it is more likely to be met with groans than with enthusiasm. It was originally applied to consumer segments, as a mechanism for bringing life to what was ultimately a collection of averaged attributes. This was helpful in turning a pile of data into something that people could relate to, but I think part of its downfall was that it created a false sense that the company “knew” its customers, because “Look, my customer segmentations have names and jobs and pretty stock photo images attached to them, so I must know exactly who they are!”

The problem is that averages (even in carefully crafted customer segmentations) hide a lot of variability. I might fit most of the profile attributes of a soccer mom, but if you called me that I would laugh at you. “Soccer mom” was initially most useful to car companies looking to sell minivans – which in turn became such a shortcut way to identify a soccer mom that it became a self-reinforcing attribute.

Me, on the other hand – I would rather die than own a minivan and am proud of the fact that I have nearly finished navigating my kids’ non-driving years having never owned one. If you tried to target me based on the assumption that I followed all of the attributes of a soccer mom, rather than just “most” of them, you would be demonstrating to me your actual lack of understanding of me and your total irrelevancy to my life and needs. When brands operate by assuming that the persona is the segment, they lose because there are just too many places where you can get it wrong, and with the attention span of today’s consumers, if you get it wrong even once, that may be the only chance a consumer gives you.

When it comes to brand, though, persona is not total garbage – if we can get past the baggage associated with how it was used in the past. “Persona” in customer segmentation was trying to put one face on something that actually represented a large group of unique individuals. That was always doomed to fail. Brand, though, should be clean and concise and cohesive – and should only represent one thing. One company, one brand. And therefore, one face.

But wait, you say. It may be one brand, but it is represented by many different people. In retail, there are potentially millions of store associates out there representing the brand every day – before we even start bringing marketing people into play. So how do you reconcile one face against all of these faces?

One Face, Many Voices

Yes it’s true that store associates are a varied group and hopefully bring their own personalities to the brand in a way that is authentic to both themselves and the brand. I would distinguish that by thinking about “one face but many voices”. I’ll come back to that in a couple paragraphs.

But let’s go back to the idea that Millennials (and, let’s face it, Gen Z and increasingly a growing number of older generations that have given in to the social media void). They want to engage with brands in digital channels first. And they are very adept at blocking or ignoring any of the traditional forms of “interruption media” where brands historically had their chance to make a case for consumers to get to know them.

Digital – especially social media – is the great leveler when it comes to brand. Unless you want to confuse customers, you pretty much only get one social profile for your whole company. And your social profile is the same size and is fighting for consumer attention with the same exact set of tools as anybody else (sometimes juiced by ad dollars, but again – easily ignored). When I talk to small retailers bemoaning how to compete against Amazon, my first question is, what are you doing on social media? Because the smallest small business looks exactly the same size as Amazon does on Facebook – the dimensions of your profile page are the same. What you get surfaced in a post is the same size.

You get one profile page for your brand. That’s it. Yes, brands often establish other accounts, sometimes for corporate giving, sometimes for recruiting, things that focus on different aspects of what the company is trying to accomplish. But when it comes to the flagship, “who are we and what do we stand for” brand communication, you get one page. One face. I haven’t seen any company try to avoid that flagship brand profile by giving over all brand communication to a bunch of individuals like “Jane Smith23, brand ambassador”. There is one brand and one face to that brand.

I have seen companies actually try to shut down all those thousands or millions of brand representatives that exist in stores or within corporate headquarters. I’ve seen them try to force everything back to the corporate message, trying to silence voices so that they don’t accidentally do something that is not “on brand” (or worse, embarrassing, offensive, or illegal). I understand the impulses that drive those behaviors – Taco Bell Nachos guy, anyone? But even though you pretty much have no choice but to fire a guy who posts pictures of himself allegedly peeing on a plate of nachos in what appears to be the restaurant’s kitchen or food storage area, there’s also a recognition that this one employee is (hopefully) not representative of the brand as a whole. There is definitely lack of judgment at play, whether just at the individual employee level, or at the level of the manager who hired him, but that’s different than an overall brand statement.

Over time, brands are getting better at working with this one face/many voices model. Walmart once experimented with a social profile of an alleged employee (some people suspected it was all made up) named Kevin. Kevin was supposed to offer insights into life as a Walmart employee (I would link to it but the profile is lost to the depths of Google, in part swamped by the fact that Walmart has a director of communications now who is also – coincidentally? – named Kevin). Kevin’s profile was one early attempt at providing a way for employees to both be themselves and a brand ambassador (no matter how cringeworthy and PR-washed his profile was).

The pendulum has swung far since then, with the most recent public attempt coming from Macy’s. The company created “Style Crew”, a way for employees to use both their own social savvy and the fact that they work for Macy’s in order to make some extra coin. Individual voices, supported by a brand.

A Brand Face, Not A Bland Face

This progress is all good. Brands should not be stifling the voices of their most passionate advocates – namely, the people who decided to tie their own economic fate to that of the company they represent. Employees. But all that progress has happened on the “many voices” side of the equation, not on the “one face” side.

When you look at brands’ social profiles, they are as corporate lawyer sanitized as you can get. Offend no one. Say nothing of meaning or import. Drive as relentlessly positive, sanitized message as possible. And then, if you’re not stuffing that feed full of posts exhorting how awesome your company is, you’d better be stuffing that feed full of products and promotions, because otherwise, why are we paying this social media intern anyway?

This is the state of brands’ faces. In the place where consumers are most likely to find them, brands are doing the least to get their attention. If Facebook is a cocktail party where everyone is chatting and joking and getting to know each other, your brand is “that guy” – the one going around talking about how awesome he is, and by the way do you want to buy some stuff from me?

The level of blandness is so bad, that when KFC – who has a natural, in-built brand persona in the Colonel, which they have been using to great effect – actually went viral and made news for unfollowing everyone on Twitter except for eleven people: six guys named Herb and the five former Spice girls, a reference to KFC’s recipe of “eleven herbs and spices”. And then they one-upped their own game, by rewarding the guy who first spotted it (the portrait they sent is truly awesome).

Personality is Effectively Free

What does KFC have that everyone else seems to lack? You guessed it: personality. Now, personality will only take you so far. At some point you have to execute on the promises made by that personality. If KFC is fun and edgy online, but then you go to a KFC restaurant and have a horrible experience, I would consider that a wasted opportunity. But guess what? That opportunity cost them the price of a social media intern (and the cost of a fantastically horrible painting, but that’s still way less than the equivalent spend on ad words required to get the same exposure).

And that’s the point. Other than the cost of a social media jockey, personality costs nothing to execute. It does require a strong brand to serve as a compass for both what is going to resonate and what is appropriate. And it requires some people who have been steeped in what the brand stands for enough that they can both come up with brilliant ideas like eleven “Herbs and Spices”, and also interact with others spontaneously on social media – as Wendy’s does very well.

It’s also probably not a coincidence that Wendy’s, like KFC, has a natural “persona” in the Wendy mascot. The company has not chosen to leverage her in that way (though consumers have), probably out of respect for the real Wendy, but that still works out just fine. It’s not about what Wendy’s wants in that regard, it’s about how consumers connect. As a new generation embraces the Wendy’s brand, a generation that is unfamiliar with the real Wendy’s backstory, then the brand has a mascot ready-made to come to life in digital spaces.

What If You Don’t Have a Natural Mascot?

Companies that don’t already have a built-in mascot don’t necessarily need to run out and gin one up. The face of a brand doesn’t need to have a literal face to resonate with consumers. The first place to focus is on brand values, and what those values imply about a personality. In other words, what kind of person would share these values?

There are other questions to ask, and things to think about, in creating a brand personality. And that will be my focus in this month’s series of articles. How do you define a brand personality? What is that personality’s values and passions? If your brand was a person, who would they be?

It wasn’t that long ago that these questions would’ve been scoffed at by anyone but the fluffiest of fluffy marketing people. In the age of digital, however, they are questions that could very well be the difference between customer relevancy and bankruptcy. And that’s not fluffy at all.