Bling for Sassy Detectives

I design rings based on the HER Interactive Nancy Drew games & characters. Currently, I use http://www.gemvara.com/ to design all the rings. My blog is imaginairium, so if someone called that reblogs you, that's me. And if schluckspecht likes something or follows you, that is also me.

[franceshumber]

Unpopular opinion: I enjoyed some of RAN’s puzzles, most specifically the decoding of the journal.

[lickieloo]

Totally! It wasn’t the best game and is in my bottom 5 but there are some really fun parts :)

[nancydrewrings]

Everyone makes fun of underwater sudoku but I loved it 😇

[xrebunbunx]

Not sure if this has been done yet but damn I really gotta make a list of which Nancy Drew characters would have voted for trump. The only one I can immediately think of is Holt Scotto but otherwise I gotta sit down and think about it.

[lickieloo]

Toni Scalari for sure! There were rumours at the time she was based on Sarah Palin

[sharkthief]

I feel like Lisa from Treasure in the Royal Tower would have. As well as Rick Arlen.

[jim-archers-wifes-dress]

Renée definitely would’ve.

[charleenapurcellslaptop]

Get ready cause I'm gonna make some people mad

Mrs. Drake (If she were American) - she screams conservative

Clara Thornthon - Trump would personally give her a government kickback for being an American-based business (and would ask zero questions about workplace safety/employee treatment)

Ed and Bet Rawley - I'm sorry they have a conservative vibe

Ollie Randall - always votes republican cause he thinks democrats would take his guns away

Paula Santos - a true lover of capitalism

Joanna Riggs - see Paula Santos, would sell her grandmother for success

[papenniesandbentoboxes]

KEEP MY MUSICAL-THEATER-LOVING RESIDENT GRANDPA'S NAME OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MOUTH

[nancydrewrings]

Chase Releford (TOT) - believed in the whole "eliminating waste and fraud" thing, will be absolutely shocked when his Medicaid premium goes up and "good guys" he knows start getting taken by ICE. A real "never thought the leopards would eat MY face" situation.

Tino Balducci (TRN, ICE) - he responds to a big ego and totally thinks he and Trump are on the same level of celebrity.

Emily Griffen (DOG) - you KNOW she always votes Republican. She thinks Trump is a really smart businessman and she aspires to such success.

Ingrid Corey (CAR) - she's giving anti-vaxxer

bonuses: I'm so sorry because I love Alexei Markovic (ASH), but if he votes he votes third-party (functionally useless) because he doesn't trust any aspect of the establishment. Colton Birchfield (GTH) doesn't vote because "I don't know, politics don't really affect me"

[american-teen-against-crime]

Wanted to include a link to @kit-foley ‘s post here about Josiah Crowley and how Nancy Drew games have and always will be political whether people want them to be or not.

@papenniesandbentoboxes also made a really good point about this on Instagram a few days back as well. Rae mentions the books, and why the games were created, including the different games with political issues in them.

Rae mentions SSH, but I just want to re-iterate how important that game is. I grew up in an extremely Christian, conservative, homeschooled household. I didn’t really meet people different from me. I grew up believing a lot of ignorant things. I didn’t play SSH fully until my teens, but I had played part of it at my cousin’s house when I was really young, maybe like 7 or 8, maybe even before that. I remember being worried, because Alejandro seemed too extreme to me, and was “spreading lies” about the US. I knew if my parents knew about it, they’d say something like “you shouldn’t be playing that game” and then I’d get it taken away, and if my parents thought something was bad, I should think it was bad too. And also, I thought I was suppose to agree with Nancy.

Later on when I actually played the game, I’d been exposed to more things and agreed with Alejandro, and was annoyed at how dumb they made Nancy sound. But later I realized that was on purpose; Nancy is wrong on purpose, she has an arc in that game and it’s purposefully trying to teach young players- players like me. Despite me initially not being receptive to the messaging, I think it stuck with me, and same for the other games.

Despite not always doing everything correctly, HeR always tried. They always tried to give you different perspectives and I am so so grateful to them for that, and I think I truly do owe a lot of who I am to Nancy and the games.

Anyways this got longer than expected and I always have more thoughts haha but if you guys have any specific moments/plots in the games that really resonated with you or taught you something as a kid I’d love to hear them!!!!!

[nancydrewrings]

Fundamentally, regardless of the specific details included in any one game, these games are political because crime is political, and the Nancy Drew games are about solving crimes.

[nancydrewpcpolls]

What was the first Nancy Drew game you played?

Secrets Can Kill (original)

Stay Tuned For Danger

Message in a Haunted Mansion

Treasure in the Royal Tower

The Final Scene

Secret of the Scarlet Hand

Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake

The Haunted Carousel

Danger on Deception Island

The Secret of Shadow Ranch

Curse of Blackmoor Manor

other poll

Voting ended onDec 6, 2023

[nancydrewrings]

I saw a review of CUR in a Nickelodeon magazine and asked for it for Christmas!

[drewlyyours]

Rating Nancy Drew Game Dads for Father’s Day

(All characters start with 5/10 for being dads)

Franz Mittelmeier (Lucas’ Dad)

3/10

+2 works hard to keep the whole village safe.

-3 for being strangely absent in his son’s life. Like, yeah you live in a castle but YOUR SON IS A MENACE DO NOT LEAVE HIM ALONE WITH HIS AUNT WHO NEEDS ANGER MANAGEMENT.

Hugh Penvellyn (Jane’s Father)

2/10

+2 being a diplomat to whatever is cool, helping people or government or whatever is fine

-5 DONT LEAVE YOUR UNSTABLE DAUGHTER AND YOUR NEW WIFE IN A HUGE HOUSE THAT YOU LEFT IN THE HANDS OF YOUR AUNT WHO HATES ANYTHING THAT CANT PHOTOSYNTHESIZE. Ah but don’t forget they also live with the scary -RAIL NECK- tutor.

Ollie Randall (Father to Freddie)

8/10

+3 kinda a swell guy

+1 lets her play outside whenever she wants, and although I don’t want him to shoot the wolf im sure he just wants the place safe, especially with her around

-1 not playing outside with her 24/7 as he should

Brendan Malloy (Fiona’s Father)

9/10

-2 for creating DEATH TRAPS literally everywhere where his family could and DID literally die

+4 being a literal rocket scientist

+2 doing his best and clearly loving Fiona enough for her to be drawn to pieces of him after 80 years.

Whoever the heck Clara’s father was

0/10

-5 there are theories about this but whoever he was, he was a gross person who I would rather eat chalk then spend ten seconds with

Ezra Wickford (Dexter Egan’s Dad)

6/10

+10 for inventing chocolate milk

-8 for Dexter’s daddy issues and for probably never saying I love you

-1 for caring more about his castle

+1 for the genuine shame he felt about the way things went

Meryl Humber (Frances’ Father)

2/10

-10 for murdering her boyfriend

+5 for regretting it

-2 for probably actually not

+4 for really loving Frances enough to wait everyday for her to come home.

Gunnar Tonnisson (Edda Gunnarsdottir’s father)

10/10

-2 for turning into a sad sack who lashes out

+7 for his family being everything to him and loving them wholly and entirely, so much that it broke him

Jake Hurley (Train Dad)

10/10

+5 just for “take care of my train. it holds wonderful things”

-2 too much train love maybe neglected wife

+2 wife’s ghost on train so he loves it more

Magnus Kiljansson (Ship Father)

8/10

-3 was a little too obsessed with the gold on the ship

+5 but he wanted to study its history

+1 loved it literally more than anything else (including his girlfriend lol)

Mickey Malone (Dog Dad)

9/10

-2 was a mobster and didn’t plan on where his dogs would go if something happened to him

+6 loved his dogs so much they came back to haunt humanity

Bruno Bolet (Iggy and Bernie’s Dad)

10/10

-2 kinda just let his beds run wild, which may not be good in a domestic context

+7 LITERALLY gave them run of the house, took care and loved basically ever creature he came into contact with, no matter how creepy or weird it was

Carson Drew (Nancy’s Dad)

8/10

-6 lets daughter go on trips overseas ALONE and WITHOUT MONEY, even after she

Was threatened and brutally attacked by MULTIPLE ASSAILANTS

Dressed in a cat suit and danced at a night club for petty cash

Almost got kidnapped and literally had her best friend get kidnapped and trapped on an island

Was threatened by a crime ring, the mafia, and a terrorist organization

Had multiple criminals tell her they would “get back” at her for this (even once who never made it to jail)

+2 for being a good wholesome guy, and a lawyer at that

+2 ALWAYS being there for Nancy

+2 actually giving her the freedom she needs to save the world over and over again

+2 Trusting her and loving her. And raising a BADASS teenage detective.

[henrikvanderhussy]

greatly enjoying the idea that newspapers will be exactly the same 700 years from now except for a small font change in the header

[nancydrewrings]

And that on the right? One of our only pictures of Nancy’s face

[canutecollege]

clue crew, what plot hole in a game bothers you to this day?

mine is who sent nancy her second black cat note if corrine was sitting in the room with her and the twins swear they didnt

[hotchkiss-and-tell]

WHAT is the secret of the scarlet hand?! Why was it left at all 3 of the thefts if different culprits committed the thefts between Chaco Canyon, Prudence, and Beech Hill?

[topeka-commission-for-the-arts]

Was the well water in DOG really poisoned or was it a case of old pipes? They never say.

[celedrielism-deactivated2026022]

Was the haunting in Yumi’s room set up by Rentaro? If so, how did he cgi all those things on her window? o_o

Who kills Nancy when she finds Jessalyn if Charlotte is supposedly a hallucination??

[nancydrewrings]

How old is Carson Drew, if he was the lawyer in Alexei’s case 50 years ago??

[hafanforever]

After over 15 years of playing Stay Tuned for Danger, and having had to use some online hints to finish it the first time, it was two years ago that I finally uncovered the clue to cutting the correct order of wires inside the bomb.

On a stool inside Mattie’s dressing room is a script pamphlet in which the Serena lines are highlighted in yellow. When you click on the script, it appears a bit distant from the screen, then you can click on it again so it can take up the whole screen. As it turns out, the pages on the pamphlet can be turned, but ONLY if you click on the bottom right corner when it is not in close up mode. The sequence of the colors on the pages represent the color sequence of the wires, and since yellow is the color found on the first page, the first wire that has to be cut is the yellow one. The second page includes part of a paragraph circled in red. The third page has a circular orange stain circling a couple of line segments. On the fourth page is four words underlined and the name “Serena Livingstone” circled in blue. Furthermore, the word of each color (red, orange, blue) is surrounded by the appropriate markings on the pages, except for the one on the first page.

So for all Nancy Drew games fans who have been searching for any kind of clue to the bomb puzzle, this is indeed it. 😉👍🏻

This is for my dearest friend and soul sister @minervadeannabond, because Stay Tuned for Danger is her favorite game in the series. 😁😄😉

[nancydrewrings]

Whoa! I never knew this clue existed...

Also, looking at the script, the colors appear in the text near their markings:

1. Among the yellow highlighting:

Yuri (interrupting): You know what?! You know that that yellow-bellied poor excuse of a man doesn’t deserve your love, Serena? Is that what you know?

2. Within the red circle:

She is wearing a full length red gown.

3. Within the orange stain:

MIREILLE holds up a piece of orange and dangles it in front of JORGEN’s mouth.

4. Underlined in blue:

JORGEN: For you and me, Love, it’s smoothe sailing and clear blue skies ahead!

So really, they clued it to us twice!

[nancydrewrings]

Every Nancy Drew game puzzle-leaver ranked from worst to best.

I was thinking about the ranking of ND suspects by @aniceworld (if you haven’t seen it then go check it out because it’s the best) and felt inspired to do something similar.

Methodology: I included characters who left us puzzles to solve. I judged STFD, CRE, VEN, TOT, and ASH as not having characters who met those criteria. CAR was the only game with two. I lumped all the Penvellyns together because ain’t nobody got time for that. If I forgot anyone, let me know. All rankings are personal taste.

28. J.J. Thompson (FIN) Does he count? Between fucking over Louisa Falcone and betting against Harry Houdini pulling off a trick, ol’ J.J. just can’t overcome his P.T.-Barnum-knockoff origin story.

27. ??? (CAP) To be honest, I spent this whole game trying to figure out how I could break up with Ned and ask Frank out, so I don’t remember who put the puzzles here. They were stupid, though.

26. Ezra Wickford (TRT) You can’t just adopt a kid and then disown him if he has behavioral problems. And I frankly don’t believe your claim that you invented chocolate milk. Enjoy your hidden sadness shrines, you sack of shit.

25. Lizzie Applegate (MHM) I guess I’m just not sure why she left the treasure in the floor instead of using it at any point. Sorry your outlaw husband ditched you, though. Dirk Valentine would never do a thing like that.

24. Trapper Dan (ICE) Apparently Lizzie Applegate is the one who told Dan to riddle the Lodge with puzzles: a pointless callback in an overwhelmingly frustrating game.

23. El Toro (RAN) The hourglass puzzle makes me cry, but he deliberately died in a ridiculous position so his corpse could trigger a booby trap, which I respect.

22. King Pacal (SSH) The scribe’s desiccated corpse has haunted my dreams for years, so while I appreciate Pacal’s level of loopholed pettiness, I hate him.

21. Ramses II (TMB) I’m not particularly impressed by anything Ramses set up to guard Nefertari’s tomb, but at least his actions were justified in-character, and I minored in classical civilizations so he gets an automatic bonus for Ancient Egypt.

20. Rita Hallowell (WAC) Her motivations are unclear at best, but she gains rank for clearly being an emo lesbian cat lady.

19. Kasumi Shimizu (SAW) Maybe just tell your daughters that they can leave the family business instead of making them solve a nonogram to find out. No wonder your family fell apart.

18. Kate Drew (SPY) Many parts of this game are beautifully, emotionally moving, but up until the new engine fuckery, Nancy’s mom being a spy was the dumbest idea HER has had since RAN.

17. Rolfe Kessler (CAR) I’m sorry that neither your wife nor your era could handle your mental illness.

16. The Forgery Ring (LIE) I love the culprit in this game, but everyone’s first clue that they weren’t a real theater troupe should’ve been their requirement to solve complex puzzles to do a goddamn set change. Hire a prop manager to keep all those dumb pieces in order.

15. Charlotte Thornton (GTH) The audacity of entrusting a vital clue to finding her will to an approximately five-year-old child just proves that Charlotte was not fit to run the family business. It’s hard to like her when all she does is murder me while I am actively avenging her.

14. Jin Soo Seung (MED) I don’t know how or why Sonny’s grandpa hid these artifact pieces all over this specific area of New Zealand. Unfortunately, I am one of those people who loves Sonny Joon enough to put up with a fair amount of bullshit.

13. Captain Lawrence (SEA) Like the Penvellyns, it is amazing that his treasure-hiding gambit was even marginally successful. However, that skeleton hands post helps him skate all the way to spot #13 on my list.

12. Brendan Malloy (HAU) His double-agent scientist backstory is the only redeeming thing about this absurd game.

11. Noisette Tornade (DAN) Great name, cool job, noble deeds, but did you need to lock me in the basement after I went to all the trouble of solving your encrypted clues?

10. Jake Rogers (SCK) Jake Rogers decided to be a blackmail kingpin at the age of 17. Minus points for being skeevy about Connie (her secret is that she can beat the shit out of you, dude, please have more foresight), props for sheer ballsiness. Is he the one who left all the weird rhyming clues everywhere in SCK1? Because if so he would shoot up at least five spots.

9. Penvellyn Family (CUR) Props for dedicating their lives to continuing this convoluted, pointless gambit. It’s just impressive none of them fucked it up over the last few centuries. However: if the point was for your family members to solve an elaborate series of puzzles to find the treasure, why trap them in a box to suffocate at the end?

8. Darryl Trent (CAR) He clearly made a lot of poor decisions in his life, but leaving his daughter a baffling robot to remember him by makes up for most of them.

7. Jake Hurley (TRN) I need a private sadness train with a mystical gemstone contraption, like, yesterday.

6. Bruno Bolet (CRY) What a fucking weirdo. If it weren’t for the crystal skull thing he might rank higher, because all of his other obsessions are positively delightful.

5. Josiah Crowley (CLK) I have a bunch of nerdy internet friends who use nicknames for each other, so I appreciate his group of radio Mechanicals. Also disguising yourself in drag to mess with your friends and neighbors is hilarious. Truly a man ahead of his time.

4. Niko Jovic (DED) Turns out that he was kind of an asshole, but I’ve got to love him for the steampunk lair he built under a privately-owned facility.

3. Dirk Valentine (SHA) If I were Frances Humber, I would’ve left Shadow Ranch the day after I met Dirk and had like eleven outlaw babies with this king of romance.

2. Hilda Swenson (DDI) When I’m a bored widow, I hope I become so disillusioned with the rest of the world that I fuck off and force anyone who wants to talk to me to solve a bunch of puzzles I scattered around my old town.

1. Mickey Malone (DOG) All I aspire to be is a 1920s gangster who owns a private speakeasy under my cabin in the woods and hangs out with my four giant dogs whom I adore.

[nancydrewrings]

I mean, come on. Xenia is a freakin’ queen.

You can check out the ring here!

[karenplaysnancydrew]

Actually where DO you all live?

Not to be creepy but I’m just wondering where the Clue Crew is mostly spread out?

[wade-thornton]

School and home in Maryland!

[nancydrewrings]

Also a Marylander!

[nancydrewrings]

Magnus Kiljansson

Magnus seems like a cool (albeit paranoid - why encrypt every piece of furniture in your cabin? It mostly inconveniences you!) guy. I hope he, Tumi, and Elisabet were happily reunited. The ring setting reminded me of rigging on the Heerlijkheid. You can check out the ring here!

[missti-skip]

I wanna make a big post that clearly lays out the events surrounding Charlotte Thornton’s death because I think I have it all pieced together! I’m drawing heavily from this brilliant (but dark) theory, this one, and these official responses from HER Interactive. Mega spoilers, obviously.

Keep reading

[nancydrewrings]

Love this! Also, more than likely, Clara was pregnant with Jessalyn at the time of the fire.

[nancydrewrings]

Mel Corbalis/Henry Bolet Jr.

Okay, I kind of understand the ship - pair the sensitive goths together. I tried to incorporate elements from both their rings into this one. You can check out the ring here!

[nancydrewrings]

Day 28. Historical Theme You Want A Game Based On: Antinous (& Hadrian)

Massive history lesson under the cut. If you want to learn a whole lot about Antinous and why I like him so much, but you don’t like reading, there exists a video of me giving my friends a lecture about him. Play it in the background while you scroll tumblr or something.

tl;dr Antinous was the really pretty boyfriend of the Roman emperor Hadrian (early 2nd century CE), and he became a god when he died and developed a huge cult following all over the Roman empire. Also I have a statue of him in my apartment because he’s my favorite historical figure ever.

Antinous was born between 107 and 111 CE in the city Claudiopolis, in a region called Bithynia (now part of Turkey). His parents were slightly wealthy, but were not Roman citizens.* Around 123 CE, Hadrian, the Roman emperor at the time, met Antinous and brought him to Rome, where he received education at the imperial school for boys.

*Their citizenship matters because it was illegal for a Roman citizen to sleep with another Roman citizen outside of marriage. Foreigners, however, were fair game. This quickly becomes relevant.

By 128 CE, in his late teens/early twenties, Antinous had become a favorite of Hadrian’s. Hadrian was relevantly known for (1) hating his wife Sabina and (2) having many affairs with married women and adult men. Antinous and Hadrian apparently went on romantic getaways like lion-hunting trips (Antinous famously loved hunting) and stays at an Egyptian resort along the Canopic Canal.

Tragically, Antinous drowned in the Nile in 130 CE under mysterious circumstances. While the official story was that a boating accident caused his death, rumors ranged from a suicide attempt (either to escape the relationship or fearing the loss of Hadrian’s affection as he grew older) to Antinous being sacrificed in a ritual designed to improve Hadrian’s health, which at the time was poor.

Whatever the cause of Antinous’ death, Hadrian was inconsolable; ancient sources say he “wept like a woman” over Antinous’ body when it was pulled from the river. Within days, Hadrian had him declared a god. This had a many effects:

he asked the Greeks to deify Antinous, bypassing the Roman Senate, who usually made these decisions

Antinous had no political/social connections (he was just an emperor’s boyfriend from the provinces) and deification was usually reserved for emperors and their beloved wives and family members

basically the Senate was really offended and pissed off but they couldn’t do anything about it because Hadrian was the freakin’ emperor

the nature of Antinous’ death meant that to the Egyptians, Antinous had already become a god (people who accidentally drowned in the Nile were considered special; their bodies could only be touched by priests and their funerals were paid for by the state) so to the Egyptians, Hadrian was also honoring local custom

Hadrian established a city (Antinoopolis) and a temple at the site where his body was retrieved. He did little to encourage Antinous’ worship, but...

Antinous’ cult took off in the provinces!!!

took off in a big way

he appeared on provincial (but not Roman) currency

cults & evidence of his worship spanned from Turkey to Britannia

cults held ritual games (artistic, athletic, and musical competitions) to worship him

he was such a rival to Christianity that some Christian authors felt they had to denounce his worship

he was the 3rd-most-statued person in antiquity. We have more statues of him than of anyone else except for Hadrian and Augustus.

I imagine the ND game inspired by this theme could be set in Rome, Tivoli (the site of Hadrian’s personal villa), Turkey, Egypt (where Antinous died), and/or at some random location that happened to host a cult of Antinous. As part of the mystery I require an explanation of what happened to Antinous. Also, if HER could get to work solving this for real, I would give them all of my money forever.

So there’s my obsession with Antinous. I just feel like he probably had a scary and weird life (being somewhat coerced into a relationship with the emperor of Rome) and I hope his afterlife is, y’know, okay. Godly, even.

[kenselarts]

Did some sketches of Nancy Drew fashion while browsing the ndfashionmonth tag.

Inspired by the following

SPY: detectiveworkisalwaysinstyle

DDI: nancydrewrings

TRT:  nancydrewandcrew

ASH: you-have-made-a-fatal-error

If you have any suggestions for future drawings just drop a message.

[nancydrewrings]

!!!

Thank you so much! I love it, especially that you included the cute little teapot necklace. You totally made my day :)

[nancydrewrings]

Day 27. Historical Backstory You Think Is Underrated: Shanghaied Sailors (DDI)

There’s about seven simultaneous plots going on in DDI, so I understand how this detail falls by the wayside. But before it became the Hot Kettle, the Royal Flush Saloon was used to press-gang random gents who just came out to have a good time. Whaaaaat? And this was just swept under the rug by everyone on Deception Island? I want to know so much more about this.