MEDIA NEWS: Countess Vi BUYS The Arendelle Guardian

Featured image “The First Vampire” by hannah.digiart (@HDigiart)

ARENDELLE – The Arendelle Guardian has a new owner and its editorial staff a new employer. As of midnight, the Snow Herald is dissolved, its assets recouped by Countess Vi’s estate, and its journalists now transferred to The Arendelle Guardian’s office by the dockside. The Arendelle Guardian itself has been sold to Vi, who will be keeping its editor and the rest of the present staff in their positions.

The Arendelle Guardian, in return for signing a contract of new ownership under the Countess, will have the salaries of its editorial staff increased significantly, making the profession of the newsperson an aspirational goal for ambitious writers or young graduates of The University of Arendelle.

The Snow Herald was once the primary soapbox of the Countess, and when she opposed Anna in the early months of the latter’s reign, the newspaper was relentless in its ideological attacks on the queen and her allies. At certain points it even supported outrageous positions like questioning Anna’s ability to govern, and justifying the time when Vi tried to force Anna to accept her warship, Muspelheim, as a weapon for overseas war.

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Editor’s Notes: The AG’s OCs – Countess Vi

Featured image “The Countess,” by hanna.digiart (@HDigiart)

// Hi! I wanted to do something new and add this to the blogroll today, taking the chance while there’s a lull in the Russo-Arendellian War event to discuss with you some “behind-the-scenes” talk. Specifically, about the plethora of OCs in this project.

I’d love to get your thoughts about OCs as well. What are we getting right, and what can we do better? Feel free to make any comments below or join the discussion on The AG’s Twitter account, @arendelleguard1.

I remember coming across an anonymous comment by someone who’d visited The Arendelle Guardian. They’d posted on a forum our movie poster-themed promotion of Anna’s story with the Exalted (below). The caption was something along the lines of, “This makes more sense when you read the thing.”

Their comment was pretty funny, but it also raised an important point: how can you make your OCs merge seamlessly into the world you’re writing about?

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Editor’s Letter: Our newsroom’s new coat of arms

Featured image banner by PURY (@puryartist)

For months, our newsroom has been trying to develop a logo, a coat of arms that represents the queen of Arendelle and our website’s project of reporting on her reign. Our most cherished house artist, Arute, almost by chance came up with a design that I fell in love with right away. I wanted to share with you this special logo, drawn specially for this website.

Without further ado, here is our newspaper’s logo and coat of arms, representing our devotion to Their Majesties and the influence our own journalists wield on their behalf in the kingdom:

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WHERE IS ANNA? Concern grows among journalists at queen’s week-long silence

ARENDELLE – With her sociable personality, love of company, and keen political savvy, Anna is the most press-friendly monarch Arendelle has ever had.

In one year she has granted more interviews and done more press events with the Big Three newspapers (The Arendelle Guardian, the Fjord Times, and the Snow Herald) than her predecessors put together.

Naturally, after a week of silence from the palace, Arendelle’s reporters are growing restless and impatient, with editors scratching their heads in puzzlement.

Journalists from the Big Three that are tasked with covering the queen and royal household are known as royal correspondents. They often double as political journalists due to the queen’s executive involvement in the Great Assembly. With quotes drying up and coverage material dwindling, newswomen and men on this prestigious beat are starting to panic, resorting to gossip about who Queen Anna last saw before shutting herself away in Arendelle Castle.

One senior reporter from the Fjord Times made a smarmy joke about Anna’s absence causing Arendellian stocks to fall. Others have interviewed figures in the palace, trying to understand what happened. While Kristoff and Elsa have admitted that Anna is indeed still in Arendelle Castle, they’ve struggled to give a reason for her silence.

She was last seen in public on her daily walk with a beautiful foreign woman, near Vera’s Berg Sweetshop.

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Northuldra Nights with Maren: I Hate the Reindeer Room

Featured art by Big椿 , from: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/78244721

By Maren, Head Liaison of Northuldra-Arendelle Relations

Greetings from the forests of Northuldra, where the night sky awes you with its vastness and blankets of constellations. Where the streams and glades are so clear you could probably use our water as a mirror. Where magic and nature aren’t two but one: just ask our resident Snow Queen.

I’ve been having a blissful holiday with ten kindergarteners, whose Arendellian parents kindly entrusted to my care. Five boys, five girls – all of them beautiful and darling. We’ve been singing Northuldran folk songs by the campfire, snuggling in our yurts under the star-studded sky, and goin’ fishing, not without reminding the boys and girls to say a Northuldran prayer of apology and thanks to the spirit of the fish.

Can you imagine that? A classroom in Arendellian preschools full of kids from this forest? And just last year, it was unthinkable that kids like those by my side would ever be up here, picnicking with me or watching the reindeer and birds. They even played with the spirits (The Wind and Fire Spirits are particularly popular – they seem to love entertaining these little souls too).

You can’t imagine how the kids squealed and laughed when Elsa rode on the Water Spirit to greet them. I have to admit, my heart was aflutter to see Elsa play with them. It was a magical day.

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The Princely House

I was doodling on my notepad at my usual corner table in the Reindeer Room when a waiter strode in. “Ma’am, His Highness is here.”

“Thanks, Harald,” I said, taking a sip of my espresso. The bitter beans were all the rage in Europe, with salons, private clubs, and coffee houses catering for lovers of this aspirational tonic. Kristoff strode into the cigar smoke-smelling room, waving his big hand at me.

“You don’t turn up to the Club as often anymore,” I called.

“You know how I feel about these places. Stuffy, fake,” he groaned, scratching himself. “I love my woodlands and my mountains.”

“You’ve probably outgrown all the mutual shoe shining and back slapping around here. In any case, you already have Her Majesty’s desire and affection. Can’t beat that.”

He blushed.

“Venison? Salmon? Or just a lemon soda?” I asked.

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Three Fiefs in a Kingdom: A Guide to Arendelle’s Newspaper Empires

As you might have heard from the local gossip, there was a bit of a verbal confrontation at the Nokk Club. The kingdom’s only private ladies’ and gentlemen’s haunt, the Club isn’t a place for the stuffy jarldom or even the royal family. This is where Arendelle’s ascendant captains of industry, managerial and professional classes, and politicians and journalists congregate.

It was our usual inter-outlet meeting, where we debate and negotiate how we’ll frame the news and stake out our territory. My fellow press barons and I got a bit more heated than usual about Queen Anna, probably due to her recent political accomplishments. It climaxed with the owner of the Snow Herald throwing a bottle of fine aged wine against the wall, screaming an obscenity against Her Majesty. Meanwhile, the proprietor of the Fjord Times threatened to sic thugs on me to rough me up a bit. I guess I also floated the idea of sending reporters to rummage through her garbage. Not exactly our most noble moment of journalism.

You might be surprised at how high the stakes are in our small kingdom. In this editorial, I want to come clean and tell you all about Arendelle’s newspapers, from our constituents and readership to our power base and beliefs.

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