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thefiery-phoenix · 1 year ago

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PLATONIC YANDERE POTTER FAMILY X READER X WEASLEY FAMILY

In this AU, Harry's parents are well alive

You'd most probably meet the Potter family first before meeting the Weasley family and I have a feeling that they'd be friends with each other. You'd meet the Potter family on the day Harry was going to Hogwarts, James did have quite a legacy at Hogwarts for being one of the best Quidditch seekers the Gryffindor Quidditch team ever had. Harry was looking forward to follow in his footsteps and the two of you met at the Kings' Cross Station. Your parents couldn't come with you to drop you off because they had an important business meeting with some client in Switzerland and they left you with your aunt who only dropped you off at the station and took off almost immediately, leaving you all by yourself surrounded with complete strangers. You've never been to Kings' Cross Station before and you had no idea where in the name of Merlin was platform 9 3/4. You've asked the Station master nearby and he thought you were just messing with him and pranking him which was why he just shooed you away

You were at a loss, you didn't know what to do and whom to contact, it wasn't like you were given an official guide as to where the platform was. You started panicking, thinking that the Hogwarts Express would be leaving without you any minute and you'd miss your wonderful chance to go to Hogwarts. You couldn't help but blink back a few tears of frustration as you felt that the situation was spinning out of control. You sighed and sat down on a bench for a moment to think about what to do next. You spotted a family of 3, a young boy of your age wearing glasses with a scar on his head, along with his parents, a man who resembled the boy's appearance, his father perhaps and his mother with hair as Red as the autumn leaves were accompanying their son with his trolley. "Blimey Harry, can't believe you're going to Hogwarts. Time does fly by fast" said James dramatically as he wiped his fake tears away

His wife, Lily glared at him and whispered "Shh... what if someone hears?" "It'll be all right, muggles don't know a damn thing about platform 9 and 3 quarters and Hogwarts and all that" he waved airily as they walked past you. An idea suddenly formed and took shape in your head as you followed them and when you finally caught up to them, you spoke "Umm... hi there, good morning. I was wondering if you could please direct me to where platform 9 and 3 quarters is...I know it exists, I just can't find it..." you finished with a forlorn look on your face as they stared at you in amazement for a moment and they had a silent discussion with each other through their eyes. You were indeed, one of them. "Don't worry dear, we'll help you. Where are your parents though?" enquired Lily as you replied "They're in Switzerland at the moment" "Oh...who came to drop you off then?" asked James as you answered "My aunt. She had some work to do back at her law firm. She's a lawyer so... it's just me by myself" you laughed slightly as they felt sad. Even though they just met you, Harry could already sense you were a bit upset and sad about something, the way your eyes had that wistful and wishful lost look in them, James and Lily didn't think too kindly about your aunt and your parents either at the moment

Attending Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry and boarding the Hogwarts Express for the very first time was a magical once in a lifetime experience which would be memorable in one's life. How could your so called family just abandon you like that without even taking the time off from their work to even see you off properly? And did your family not care about your safety at all? What about all the dangerous and unknown strangers lurking around? The society and world these days isn't really that safe you know especially for sweet little things such as yourself. They decided to accompany you and show you the ropes as you tagged along with them and felt grateful that you'd finally catch your train in time

You noticed Harry's scar and when you asked him how he got it, he just had a sheepish smile on his face and replied "I was trying to catch a snitch at the Diagon Alley on my broom and I accidentally crash landed at Borgin and Burkes near Knockturn alley. The owner wasn't really that pleased with me when I smashed some of his stuff but the incident did kind of catch on with the other witches and wizards from the magical world. Some thought it was amusing and they think I'll follow in my dad's footsteps to become a great seeker like him" "What's a seeker?" you asked him with a confused and bewildered expression on your face. He stared at you for a moment and then it dawned upon him that you could have spent your life living with muggles and you probably had no idea what he was talking about. However no matter, he'd show you and teach you everything

You guys reached the platform just in time and you thanked them for their help as Lily hugged you and smiled "Enjoy yourself dear. Stay safe and have fun but don't get into any trouble" your heart warmed at her words, it was the sort of advice a mother would give to her child before sending them off into the real world all by themselves. You nodded as you boarded the train with Harry, saying your farewell and goodbyes to the Potter family. James and Lily couldn't get you off their minds for some reason, they were concerned with your safety and wondered if you were being treated well at home. Perhaps they'd better write to Harry after he reached Hogwarts to check up on you and update them about you. Just to be safe

You were talking with Harry and your conversation was interrupted when a ginger haired boy around your age dressed in black robes, with freckles on his face peeked in and spoke "Excuse me, do you mind? Everyone else's is full..." "Not at all" replied Harry as he motioned for the guy to take a seat in front of him. "I'm Ron by the way. Ron Weasley" he introduced himself as Harry introduced himself and you introduced yourself as well. The three of you were engaged in discussions when the sliding door opened again and this time, a girl with brown hair asked if any of you had seen a toad, a boy named Neville had lost one. The three of you said you hadn't spotted a toad and when she saw the wand in Ron's hand, she spoke "Oh, you're doing magic? Let's see it then" with an interested look on her face. Ron glanced at the two of you nervously but composed himself as he straightened his posture and uttered a spell which you were pretty sure wasn't even real because instead of turning his pet rat Scabbers yellow, he just made it frightened and it started scampering around everywhere till he finally managed to calm it down

The girl introduced herself as Hermione Granger and she disappeared after she told you three to change into your robes. You finally reached Hogwarts after a few hours and you were speechless by the magnificence and splendor before you. It looked exactly like the sort of castles in your bedtime stories your mother used to read for you when you were little, before she wasn't too preoccupied with her work and had time for you. You went along with the other first years led by a giant of a man named Hagrid who you thought was quite nice and friendly. Then the head of the Gryffindor house, Minerva McGonagall who was also the Transfiguration professor gave you all some background information about the houses

"Slytherin is filled with dark wizards and witches. And crackpots too" whispered Ron to you and you felt nervous, you didn't want to get sorted into Slytherin and lose your new friends. Professor McGonagall then asked you all to wait for a few moments as she needed to get some things ready for the sorting ceremony and as soon as she left, a blonde haired guy spoke "So it's true then, the sayings on the train... Harry Potter has come to Hogwarts" as everyone looked at him in surprise and muttered among themselves. "This is Crabbe and Goyle. And I'm Malfoy... Draco Malfoy" as he introduced himself and Ron snickered in a not so subtle manner. Of course Draco heard it and wasn't really pleased with his reaction as he sneered at him. " You think my name's funny do you? There's no need to ask yours... red hair, a hand me down robe... you must be a Wealsey..." as he turned back to Harry and spoke "You'll have to know by now that there are some Wizarding families that are better than the others Potter. You're a part of the Sacred 28 after all,you don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort..." and glared at Ron again

You barely knew Malfoy for 5 minutes when you intervened "I'm sorry, what exactly makes a family a part of the Sacred 28? And Harry can make his decisions for himself. Of course, if you were a part of a Sacred family, your values and morals would be decent as well. Else you wouldn't be insulting people right off the bat as soon as you meet them". Some of the first years around you 'ooohed' when you said that as Malfoy's face grew hot and red with anger as he snarled "Stay out of this. No one asked you for your opinion" and you just rolled your eyes in response. Harry and Ron stared in amazement at your courage as Hermione was observing the scene from a distance away. It was your first day at Hogwarts and you were already getting ready to fight? She looked on rather disapprovingly but part of her admired your courage and loyalty for your friends by standing up for them. Which was why she also gripped her wand in her pockets just in case she could pull it out if the situation got out of hand. She didn't want anything happening to you for some reason

It was time for the sorting at long last, the moment you've been waiting for and Harry, Ron and Hermione were sorted into the Gryffindor house whereas Malfoy was sorted into the Slytherin house. The sorting hat was placed on top of your head and it muttered "Hmm.... interesting. Very very interesting...." as you nervously looked up at it and asked "What is?" "In all my years of sorting students into houses, you're truly something. You have bravery, courage and loyalty, fit to be a Gryffindor and yet, that cheek, determination and lots and lots of ambition to make you a Slytherin. Plenty of brains, the curiosity and hunger for knowledge is in there as well, you'd do well in Ravenclaw. You're also kind hearted and have the good old nature that Helga Hufflepuff was talking about...hmm... where to put you?" it asked you

It was quite an interesting predicament because never before did anyone see the sorting hat have trouble sorting someone into a house. Everyone looked at you with bated breath as you could feel everyone's eyes on you which made you a bit conscious of yourself but you tried your best to ignore the feeling. The headmaster, Albus Dumbledore was watching you quite closely as professor Snape, the Potions professor seemed interested as well. After a few moments of deliberation, the sorting hat finally sorted you into Gryffindor which you felt relieved about. Harry, Ron and Hermione felt immensely glad that you were in the same house along with them. You felt an exhilarating feeling course through your body when everyone clapped for you as you joined the Gryffindor table. You were introduced to the Wealsey siblings present there, Percy Wealsey, the third oldest who was the Gryffindor prefect, Fred and George the twins who were overly fond of pranking people and you made a mental note to not get on their bad side. The last thing you needed was to wake up with horns on your head or something or a tail for that matter

Harry, Ron, Hermione and you became fast friends pretty quick but you refused to talk with them when they didn't include you in the quest for the Philosopher's stone. It broke their hearts but it was for your own good,you couldn't be put in danger like that. They cared for you too much and it drove them crazy when you ignored them or just glared at them angrily and stormed off. You finally softened a bit towards them when they said that they didn't want to put you in danger and they just wanted you to be safe. You started hanging out with them again as usual and they were elated, the days you refused to even spare them a second glance was utter torture for them. Harry, Ron and Hermione were like your three overprotective shadows, always around you no matter what. They've appointed themselves as your official caretakers and grew possessive and obsessive of you really quick

Harry wrote to his parents about you regularly as Ron did to his parents as well. During Christmas your parents forgot to send you your Christmas presents and you felt heartbroken. Harry, Ron and Hermione were mad as hell so they pitched in and got you some treats from the Great Hall and a few Christmas goodies of your own like a journal from Hermione, a cute quill set from Ron and from Harry, a book he thought you might be interested to read along with an encouraging note from all three of them. Of course they've mentioned to their parents that you haven't received any gifts for Christmas and you've received dozens of parcels from the Potter family and the Wealsey family, even though you hardly knew them. But they knew everything about you, more than you could know about yourself. You've received puddings, Tarts, cakes, pastries, sweaters, a maroon jumper with a W stitched on it and a snowglobe with a cute tiny snowman inside it. You felt grateful for their presents and sad at the same time for your own parents and family forgetting about you just like that

You were even more crushed when your parents said that they needed to go to France for a work conference and your aunt would be preoccupied with a huge case in the muggle world which meant you couldn't go back home. You were pretty devastated when you were invited by Ron to spend time with his family as Harry stated that his parents would join them at the Weasley's house for a couple of days. You agreed and upon reaching the Wealsey house, you could feel the warmth and homely feeling the atmosphere radiated. It certainly did give off homely vibes. You wished your family was also like this. You were introduced to Molly, who hugged you and spoke "So you're the famous Y/N my Ronald keeps talking about all the time... it's so nice to finally meet you dear" as Ron heatedly yelled out "MUM!" as Fred and George snickered in the background, whispering about how Ron was a simp for you as he told them to shut up

You were even introduced to Arthur Weasley, the father of Ron and the other Wealsey siblings who worked at the Ministry of magic, Bill Weasley who worked as a curse breaker at Gringotts the Wizarding bank in Egypt, Charlie Wealsey who worked with dragons in Romania which you found extremely fascinating. There was also young Ginny Weasley, who'd be starting Hogwarts next year. She was shy at first but she really opened up to you and she had fun being around you. The Weasley family loved and enjoyed your presence, it felt like you were part of their family already

Percy could see you becoming a head boy/ girl or prefect and he wanted to become your guide but Fred and George kept stealing you away to their room to show you their latest inventions. They loved it when your eyes sparkle and light up in curiosity, they feel proud when you take in interest in their inventions as do the other Wealseys when you enquired about their hobbies and pastimes. Molly wouldn't even let you step out of the house when it was time for De- gnoming the garden, she didn't want you getting injured and everyone agreed that it would be best for you if you'd stayed in while they'd take care of the business

A few days later James and Lily showed up at the Burrow and greeted you warmly as all of you sat down together and discussed various things over some nice hot steaming bowls of soup and a scrumptious feast laid out by Molly and Lily. When you were asked about your love life by Ginny, you literally choked on your soup as Molly patted you on the back and James handed you a glass of water. "Ginevra, that isn't a question for the dinner table" said Molly with a death stare as everyone present there became very interested in what you had to say. "Believe it or not, some guy from our Potions class, Troy Mullers asked me out for Valentine's day" "What did you say?" asked Hermione as everyone felt that sudden protective urge to make sure you were safe by all means necessary, even if it meant getting that Troy schmuck out of the way. They won't stand for someone to romantically court you, you were too kind and innocent to have your heart and feelings being taken for a ride by some random immature guy you barely even knew

"I... I rejected him. He wasn't happy about it and he called me all sorts of mean names but... it's not something I'm not used to" you shrugged it off as they all felt anger course through their veins. Who dared to make you sad and upset by calling you mean names and hurt your feelings? In fact Charlie was ready to send a Hungarian Horntail after them and Fred and George would send them Howlers after Holwers and packages with explosive Dungbombs from Zonkos, the Wizarding joke shop that go off as soon as you open the parcel. They were seething and they all came to a single conclusion, you had to be taken under their care for your own good. And judging by the way your so called family was treating you, you wouldn't want to be spend more time with them anymore which was a huge favor for them. Besides, what good is a family if they can't take care of you? Don't worry dear, they'll look after you and care for you like their very own. You've become a part of their families now whether you wanted to or not and it's like they say, family ALWAYS comes first...

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jq37 · 10 months ago

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The Report Card – Fantasy High Junior Year Ep 6

Post Shrimp Jump Conspiracy Board Special

Hey y’all! Welcome back to Seacaster Manor where the shrimp party is still raging and the Bad Kids are balancing being cooler than ever with some serious sleuthing. We get a lot of new information this episode so I wanted to try out a new format for this week. I often talk in a metaphorical way about putting items up on a Conspiracy Board but I want to actually try that now that we’re a little over a quarter of the way in and have multiple overarching things happening. This is going to be a lot less linear than usual but bear with me. Gotta shake things up a little so I don’t get burnt out! There’s still fourteen more episodes to go!

The Rat Grinders

The Bad Kids’ de facto rival party got a lot of screen time in this episode, which makes sense: Adaine declared the party their nemeses over Goldenhoard or anyone else they’ve fought, which is saying a lot. Before this point, we knew the following facts about them:

1) They got their name because the only enemies they’re recorded as killing are low level ones (including rats) that they grind in the woods behind the school, showing a willingness to follow the letter but not spirit of the rules but also an impressive amount of dedication.

2) Their leader seems to be rogue, Kipperlily Copperkettle who is type A as hell and has a LOT of free time to kill having found the rogue professor (or at least having the rogue professor find her). She’s running for class president on a platform based around “fairness” which is a theme that’s come up more than once this season.

3) Also on the team are emo Bard Reuben (who seems to be related to the new Artificing teacher and who shares an agent with Fig) and nonplussed Barbarian Mary Ann (who is buffing herself magically somehow).

4) Kipperlily specifically asked about where Kristen was able to create a new god. Now how, where. An odd question.

This episode, we learned a lot more, so let's throw them on the board and make some connections!

5) The Rat Grinders have a new cleric named Buddy Dawn (something Kristen’s brother mentioned two episodes ago). He’s from Highcourt and moved with his grandparents. He’s got super Mormon+Southern “Bless Your Heart” energy and Kristen doesn’t like how familiar it feels. His vibes are clocked as well meaning but kinda judgey.

6) Buddy Dawn was *specifically requested* by the party. Of course, requesting a cleric isn’t weird–why wouldn’t you want one? And Helioism seems a pretty common religion in the region so odds are good that if you get a cleric is would be a Helioic one. But, paired with KP’s question about Kristen, it makes you wonder if the plan is to recruit a Kristen expy and try to get lightning to strike twice.

7) At the beer pong table, we meet the RG’s archer who is an elf named Ivy Embra. She’s got some flirty, catty energy (which we see when she interacts with Fabian and Mazey respectively).

8) We also meet the party wizard, Oisin Hakinvar, who is a Conjuration specialist with a focus in summoning. He’s a blue dragonborn which means that he has a great great great (etc) blue dragon ancestor he can ping when he needs barrels of diamonds, no problem. He has so many in fact that when Adaine lies badly that she’s also swimming in diamonds, he kindly offers to let her borrow some of his “extras”. But she turns them down, calls him great, and then panics and runs away to commiserate with Fabian who is also panicking about a flirty moment with Ivy. Oisin, for his part, seems driven to distraction and can’t make a single other shot all night. Cute! But–

9) As much as I want to wholeheartedly love Oisin (and honestly do and will until I am given direct evidence to change my mind) I have to point out that KVX, known evil bank, did change its logo from red (Goldenhoard’s color) to blue (Oisin’s Ancestor’s color) and there is a shot in the trailer of the party fighting a blue dragon. Connected? Maybe.

10) From investigating some yearbooks, the party also learns that the Rat Grinders have existed since Freshman Year but, at the time, they were called the High Five Heroes. They all look a lot more smiley and a lot less intense–Rebuen’s not even emo. It was the lineup from above, minus Buddy and plus a frost Genasi cleric named Lucy Frostblade. They learn that she supposedly died in their Sophomore year but specifically during a period near the end of the year where grades are locked and it wouldn’t affect their party comp which is…convenient.

11) Fig tries to investigate this by disguising herself as Lucy and seeing how Ivy and Oisin react. Only Ivy sees her but she doesn’t seem shocked at all to see her allegedly dead party member She just raises an eyebrow and ditches the game to talk to her. Fig bails (and rolls only a 12 to stealth away) so we don’t get any extra info but just the fact that Ivy reacted that way is pretty juicy info as is.

12) The other Rat Grinders don’t seem to be at the party but the members are skeptical about that. On the other hand, when Ivy leaves, it’s because Oisin pulls her aside and says, “Kipperlilly’s calling”. So it’s possible there was a Team A and a Team B for whatever the Rat Grinders were doing that night?

13) And speaking of what they're doing, we do have a theory. When Fabian checks some damage in the basement where Max and some other kids were smoking "gorgenfern" he sees that something called a cloud rider engine was smashed up pretty bad and in a suspicious way–gorgenfern doesn’t make you rowdy. Fabian checks the security tapes he obviously has and sees that some ice mephits came in and riled people up to the point of crashing into the engine. Adaine conjured some earlier in the party and as far as her arcana check can tell, they’re here, but there’s suspicion that Oisin–a conjuration wizard–could have done it. It’s certainly within his skillset. A cloud rider engine allows a vehicle to fly on clouds and it’s not clear if it was simply smashed or if something was stolen from it.

14) Max isn’t a Rat Grinder but he did ask them all if they wanted to smoke with him and Ivy offered Fabian snuff so Riz is suspicious that the RG’s are trying to get them kicked out of school for drug use now that they have a non-Aguefort principal who presumably cares about silly rules like that at the murder school.

That’s basically what we know about the Rat Grinders! So, to sum it up, I’d say the conspiracy board bullet points are:

Supposedly dead cleric Lucy Frostblade: What actually happened to her and why isn’t Ivy surprised to see “her”?

New cleric Buddy Dawn: Why was he specifically requested?

The High Five Heroes: What caused them to turn into the Rat Grinders? And, as they seem like they were more gung ho their first year, why did they never pivot to fighting things other than low level monsters?

Do they actually have beef with the Bad Kids specifically or are their vibes just terrible? Were they trying to sabotage them by offering drugs? Did they break the engine on purpose and, if so, why?

Oisin: Is he chill or is he working an angle? That question technically goes to Ivy as well but I’m almost certain she’s fully working an angle, lol. I’m getting straight up Aelwyn vibes from her.

Class President: What is KP’s angle re: running for class president? This seems like something she’d want to do either way with her personality but her policy of fairness dovetails too neatly with Grix’s appearance and Cassandra’s inability to say the phrase, “It’s not fair,” last episode.

How did KP find the rogue professor and is that relevant?

And finally, why did KP want to know about where Kristen created her Freshman year god? Well, that question may be partially answered in our next section.

God Stuff

There is a lot going on this season with celestial shenanigans between Cassandra and Galicaea and even Yes! So let’s mark out what we know.

1) Cassandra was possessed by some kind of rage entity via crystal shards that were expelled from her body. Her status is kind of up in the air right now as the party was shunted away to safety by Connor Counterspell (RIP) and all Kristen has left of Cass are some glowing, purple shards.

2) Earlier in the fight, while lucid, Cassandra said, “I thought you were dead” about some unseen entity. Later, Kristen heard from a creepy voice that said, “She is at my side once more”. It then threatened her and slid out the rotting corpse of Yes! as a sick joke. Likely that these are the same person or at least connected.

3) Gorgug identified that the rage stars are similar to what’s going on with Ragh’s mom, Lydia so it was put on the docket to get in touch with her about that–especially because Kalina specifically told them to track down Ragh with her last lucid words.

4) Tracker’s Galicaea rebrand is going really well. Her social media is really popping and the endless night probably didn’t hurt.

5) Kristen on the other hand, hasn’t been doing so hot. Due to a bunch of negligence based in lack of time management and personal uncertainty, she hasn’t been evangelizing much which means only she and Craig stand between Cass and her permanent destruction.

6) Kristen can’t contact Cass telepathically and says she can’t use her magic which is Not Great if you're as danger prone as the Bad Kids.

Alright, that’s all the old business so let’s move to the new business.

7) When Kristen talked to her parents, we learned that Helio doesn’t have a chosen one since she left but we learn that it’s more serious than that. Helio also can’t choose a new chosen one. He only gets one. With Kristen gone, the whole religion is without a chosen one.

8) At a certain point, Tracker finally gets a hold of Kristen and says some harsh but true things about Kristen but, more relevant to the conspiracy board, she talks about her girlfriend Nara and Adaine, as a fellow high elf, clocks her as coming from a family of moon goddess clerics in Falinel. That raises the question: is this run of the mill teenage rebellion a la the theme song, or is she some kind of plant? We’ll hopefully get some more info from Aelwyn since Adaine texted her about it.

9) The real juicy stuff happens when we talk to Ragh’s mom. The fiend in Lydia's gem is called Bakur. Her having him in there doesn't make her rage--she's raging to keep him trapped but that's it. Her personality is the same.

10) Bakur was a pit fiend and the right hand guy of a dead god whose name we don't know (hmm, another dead and nameless god). Bakur can't even say the god's name. It's like, weird god rules and Lydia explains in a weird vague way: gods not being able to use loopholes and saying names being powerful and rules changing for non-mortals when gods die.

11) The one very concrete info we get is that a god can only come back in a place where they were born or created. The reason Bakur’s plan failed is that he tried to bring back the nameless god in the Red Waste and not where they were created.

12) Rana (Lydia’s party cleric) is away and Cormyr (the party sorcerer) is dead but Lydia offers to put the party in touch with Rana and Cormyr’s family because they have more stuff related to this and they were the ones who knew more about this than her.

Following? Good. So let’s distill this down to bullets again:

Holy Helio. The corn god doesn’t have a chosen one anymore because Kristen up and left. What does that mean in a concrete sense? What can a chosen one do that a normal cleric can’t? Is Helio gonna ask Kristen to do anything this season now that we know that this is a special position that only one person can fill? Is it until she dies (or at least dies for real)? Would a fanatical Helioic person try and kill Kristen to open up that slot?

KP specifically asking WHERE Cassandra was created seems clearly tied to the info Lydia gave about only being able to resurrect a god where it was created. But what does that mean exactly? Is she trying to resurrect the same god as Bakur? Did she just assume that wherever Kristen made her god is probably where most gods are made and, thus, her best bet? What’s her angle? Is this an evil plan for just a “this will get me a good grade” plan?

Where in the world is Cassandra right now? She is MIA right now which means Kristen’s powers are too. Though I wonder if she can draw on those shards to cast spells.

We obviously can’t be sure but it seems like the voice Kristen heard and the person that Cass thought was dead is likely that unnamed god. What’s his deal? I’m sure we’ll have more info for this bullet soon.

Is Tracker’s new girlfriend Nara, much like Ecaf, a turncoat?

With Helio, Cass, and Galicaea all being in the mix, is there any kind of family angle being played. It doesn’t come up a ton but they are very much related.

MISC

This is a section for a few points that don’t yet fit under the main two headings of the season but still need to go up on the board.

Why would Aguefort program a robot that acts like Grix? Is he supposed to be like or is he hacked? If he is hacked, who would be able to do that? The new artificing teacher? The old one?

We learn that Aguefort has made a lot of contradicting proclamations and all of them are canon, so you’re able to pick and choose what you want to cite (I feel like I’m in law school again). Lots of room for loopholes which could be useful later.

Adaine, while very drunk, had an oracle vision of Kristen at a birthday party, giving a victory speech to a bunch of teens on election night as a crescent moon hangs in the sky. The Crescent moon potentially gives them a time frame if they look into it (and it specifically being mentioned makes me think of Galicaea even though not every moon thing has to be connected to her). And we know Gorgug’s birthday is near the Frosty Folk festival so maybe that’s why the hats.

Speaking of, we know there’s a connection between Riz’s mom defending someone for money crimes re: that Festival and Gorgug’s parents hosting it so that’s something to remember.

This isn’t something for the pin board per se but this season introduces a stress token system for downtime! I’m sure I’ll talk about it more when we use it for the first time next ep but, for now, gotta say he’s really ramping up the pressure on our kids! And, to that point, let’s do a quick check in with everyone and see what they’re up against!

Character Board

Adaine

-Adaine is still facing major money troubles. After last episode, not only is her job terminated, but she actually owes 2.5 gold for her uniform.

-It looks like she might be developing a bit of a crush on the cute dragonborn (yay) but he’s a Rat Grinder (nooooo). I will say though, cross party romance could be a lot of fun and also my favorite NPC in this show is Aelwyn whose top 2 traits are famously Criminal and Loves Adaine so I am honestly fine with this either way lol.

-Speaking of Aelwyn, I’ll put the sister stuff together: When Adaine calls her to ask for dirt on Nara she says, “Working, will call in five.” And when Adaine questions the fact that it's 5am on a Saturday, Adaine just gets a winky face emoji back. Suspicious!

Fabian

-Fabian has to juggle the new 150% course load (bard/fighter) as well as his new party house reputation.

-He has a lack of adult supervision which also means a lack of adult care and it seems to be affecting him more than he’s willing to let on.

-But honestly his biggest obstacle is probably himself right now, lol. He made himself a new nemesis in Gertie Bladshield and I am not confident he can handle this honey trap mission with Ivy without the tables being turned on him.

Riz

-Riz is also facing money troubles, but for him that’s kind of business as usual unfortunately.

-He has a TON of extracurriculars to keep track of but he so far seems to be handling it pretty well and is picking up some interesting allies (that double as votes for Kristen’s campaign–campaign manager is also an extracurricular he’s taken up): the aforementioned Gertie Bladeshield (Apiary Club), Sprak LeFevre (Aviation Club), and Molman Holden (Soil Club). Always good to have new allies and Aviation Club seems like it could be really useful later! I can see him making some luck checks to successfully say, “I know a guy” in a tight spot based on how many clubs he’s joined.

-He also has the Reliable Talent ability now which means he’s incapable of rolling lower than a 21 on things he’s proficient in which includes Investigation. We’re about to be getting some INSANE lore dumps.

Gorgug

-Gorgug has his insane 400% courseload happening and I didn’t notice this until it was pointed out to me but Zac actually leveled Gorgug DOWN in Barbarian to take an extra level of Artificer! That’s commitment. But I can’t imagine Porter, who already has a problem with him, is gonna like that.

Fig

-Fig would hate it if I didn’t start this list by saying that she hella misses Ayda and that’s her biggest problem.

-But she also has her album to worry about and we actually get the bombshell during a conversation with Mazey that she’s not even sure that she still wants to be a bard.

-On top of that, she’s taking Barb and Warlock classes along with the Bard classes she’s finally going to.

-She has her gnarly Gilear curse happening that’s seemingly connected to whoever the boss who owns the pride armor is.

-She has beef with Rebuen and is living her double life as Wanda Childa to try and learn whatever she can about him/the Rat Grinders.

-Both she and Wanda are wanted by the Solace FBI.

-On a positive note, she really endeared herself to Mazey by sweetly sticking up for her when Ivy was being catty. If Fig wasn’t so devoted to Ayda I could have read their interaction at the end of the ep as flirty. Regardless, nice moment and great ally.

Kristen

-Welp, her god is, if not dead, MIA which is arguably the biggest deal of anything on any of these lists, especially since it’s tied to her magic AND her grade.

-Next of course is the potato to her meat on her plate: her campaign. But that’s actually going really well, especially after this party. Her biggest issue is whether or not she can get Fetty Wap to homecoming and, lbr, in a pinch Fig can just disguise herself as him. When has that ever not worked?

-She also has this unnamed god (or whoever it is) taunting her and threatening her specifically which isn’t ideal.

-But I honestly think she was more fucked up by the conversation which Tracker where her ex basically outlined everything she needs to get together in her life and then posted a pre-written pic with her new girlfriend. That’s gotta sting.

And that’s it! I wanted to focus on the specific nuggets of info we got this episode and start to connect them with what we knew so far. Different format, I know, but I’m feeling experimental this season and I might switch it up a few more times as Junior Year goes on. I love covering Fantasy High but, like I said at the top, I have to keep it fresh so I don’t burn out. See you next time when Brennan makes the stress we’re all feeling an actual game mechanic! Fun!

#Dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #d20 #d20 spoilers #fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #spoilers #the report card #when I started doing these no one was doing proper recaps #now other outlets are and I'm thinking pivoting to commentary rather than straight recaps might be more fun #but I'll see how I feel

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albi-bumblebee · 1 month ago

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in a happier universe harry potter was taken to platform 9 & 3 quarters by his three loving, magically talented parents. and when he ends up in the same compartment as ron weasley they don’t need to introduce themselves to each other because lily knew molly through her brothers in the ootp so they were childhood playmates. ahhhhh

#Og #Harry Potter #Ron Weasley #Jilypad

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homestuckreplay · 8 months ago

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Homestuck Is A Game, Who Is The Player?

Week 3 Retrospective

'Video games have long been associated with spectatorship as well as play, from their origins in quarter-fueled arcades, where high score displays implied the presence of admiring or competitive spectators, to their migration to home screens and consoles. Live streaming chat emulates these older models, but its interaction with economies of scale on streaming platforms brings a different kind of intimacy and intensity to the experience. Chat lets spectators feel like they are there with the streamer as well as a part of a crowd, even if they are alone in their room.' [Jeremy Antley - emphasis mine]

From Homestuck’s very first page, the comic has made something clear. We are not allowed to immerse ourselves in John Egbert’s world. There is a layer of separation between us, an interface mediating our access to his life and story, a voiceover narration from the person who’s really in control. Who is this person, and what form does their control over John take?

Homestuck is presented like a video game, yet unlike a video game, we don’t control the character’s movements with arrow keys or have the chance to type our own commands directly into the text box. Instead of being able to explore the game on our own terms, we are confined to a specific and predetermined route, even though others seem theoretically possible. Simply put, we are not the ones playing the game.

Essay continued under the cut - about 2.6k words

I think there are two really important questions to consider when analyzing the meta elements of Homestuck and treating it as a game. The first - what kind of game is it? The second - where exactly do we stand in relation to the player(s)?

The most obvious answer to question one is ‘Homestuck is a text based adventure game.’ This guide to text based adventures is a great overview, and we can map the example commands here onto commands we’ve seen in Homestuck. ‘Examine room’ (p.4) is a one-word action, ‘Captchalogue smoke pellets’ (p.9) is an action and direct object, and ‘Nail poster to wall’ (p.19) includes the indirect object. John hasn’t given any orders yet - he’s too nice a guy for that - but ‘Report progress to TG’ (p.39) is definitely communicating with another character. All of these, and most other command lines, feel like reasonable instructions that could be recognized by a game.

However, commands like ‘Fondly regard cremation’ (p.52) and ‘Play haunting piano refrain’ (p.77) honestly feel too characterful to be fully interpreted by a computer, and ‘Squawk like an imbecile and shit on your desk’ (p.16) is… well, I tried typing this into the command prompt for the classic text adventure Zork, and got the following response.

A text adventure is just not set up to interpret wacky, left field ideas, much less respond to them in an entertaining way. And we know there is a real person behind Homestuck doing exactly that.

If my party enters the wizard’s study in Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, and I tell the Dungeon Master that I squawk like an imbecile and sit on the wizard’s desk, that statement will be understood. Sure, the DM will probably call me an idiot and put a nasty spike trap on the desk, but what I said will become part of the story in the way that a nonsense command in a text based video game never can. It’s interesting to think of Homestuck as a tabletop roleplaying game, where the narrator is the Game Master, the command prompt is a player, and John is a player character (presumably TT, TG and GG are the rest of his party and they’re just really late to the session).

Homestuck isn’t just text based, though - it has a strong visual element, including interfaces and overlays where the player can click and drag items between John’s inventory and his environment, or around his space. This suggests it could also be a point and click adventure game, a genre that grew out of text based games as graphics improved, and is defined by a strong inventory management component (check), puzzle solving quests (check - we’ve recently solved our first quest of acquiring the Sburb Beta) and dialog trees (????). The sprite based, isometric art style is really good for getting an overview of the space and seeing possible interactable objects, and Homestuck does feature extended dialog sequences - we don’t know if there are other possible inputs from John, but it's interesting to think that there might be.

These three genres - text based adventures, point and click adventures, and tabletop roleplaying games - all developed throughout the 1970s and 80s. It’s reasonable that Andrew Hussie (born 1979) could have grown up with some of these games. But to answer the second question, ‘where do we stand in relation to the player’, we might need to look at media forms still in their infancy - let’s plays, livestreams, and actual play.

[Michael Sawyer, 2004]

In the past few years, ‘Let’s Play [Game]’ has become a relatively popular thread format on the Something Awful forums, as well as personal websites. This began with posters taking screenshots of their playthroughs of a game and adding commentary in the text. The medium has now advanced to video and is typically hosted on YouTube, with commentary overlaid. Either format gives a creator the space to play through as much of the game as they choose, and then edit exactly what content they want to show to the audience, providing commentary after the fact.

Homestuck, with its per-page illustrations, could be seen as a long thread of forum posts by the player, each including screenshots as they move through the game. The inclusion of short Flash animations shows the edge into video, and makes me wonder if we’ll see longer or more complex videos, perhaps with voiceover narration, as Homestuck expands its focus. The self-referential and aggressive yet helpful commentary in Homestuck is similar in tone to Sawyer's playthrough above, and could easily be the work of a player who knows where the story will go, at least in the short term, and is dropping hints to the audience while purposefully concealing some things.

Livestreaming video games is a similar concept to Let's Plays, but performed in real time. Often hosted on Justin.tv, an open video broadcast website that’s been gaining prominence in the past couple of years, a livestream is an improvised and unedited way to watch someone game. Any commentary from the creator happens without knowledge of how the playthrough will turn out. Homestuck, by Hussie’s own admission, is being written similarly in real life - they don’t know more than the broad strokes of how the story will go, and it’s possible that neither the author nor the narrator knows the long term implications of an action such as John stealing his dad’s PDA.

Livestreams open the possibility for viewers to influence game events, if the streamer listens to their audience. We know this is true in Homestuck - readers are able to submit commands, and some are chosen for the story. The real time nature of Homestuck, waiting each day for the new update, is equivalent to waiting for a streamer to come online and start playing again so we can find out where their game goes next. This is compounded by us having no access to Homestuck outside of the streamer - we cannot buy and play this game for ourselves, it’s still in some kind of early or limited access, and the streamer controls all our knowledge.

The livestream is definitely most similar to how Homestuck is made by its author, but it's hard to say whether its narrator is commentating in real time, or after the fact. I can't find any definite clues in our pages so far - I think the narrator wants to seem smart and superior, but I can't say whether they have the knowledge to back it up.

[img source]

Our final media format is known as Actual Play. Almost a year ago, the creators of Penny Arcade (along with Dungeons & Dragons game designer Chris Perkins) began releasing Acquisitions Incorporated, a short-run, officially licensed podcast where the group plays through a D&D adventure to demonstrate gameplay interspersed with jokes. This isn’t the first time a TTRPG publisher has recorded sessions to help people learn the game, but this idea seems to be crossing over into the entertainment genre - and webcomics are part of that movement.

In the first episode, the group have a brief aside. The DM says that ‘some players prefer to refer to their characters in the third person… others prefer to get into the first,’ and one player says they’ve observed the same thing in World of Warcraft. What’s not explicitly said is that the Game Master typically refers to the player characters in second person, describing what happens to ‘you’ and what ‘you’ see - much like streamers talking to their chat. The blocks of narrative text below pictures in Homestuck could easily be a Game Master balancing giving information to an unruly player, and providing entertainment for the audience. John’s lucky or unlucky moments with his sylladex could be the result of particularly good or bad dice rolls from his unseen player.

Actual play is a really great format for deep diving into a small cast of characters, and exploring their emotional state in ways that aren't intrinsic to a lot of video games. As we're already seeing the beginnings of John's emotional arc, we know this will be a focus, but we need two to four more characters with equally large roles in the story to really form a TTRPG party. Actual play also tends to include a lot of combat and its mechanics. We know Homestuck can handle crunchy mechanics due to the sylladex, but I'd expect to see the Strife concept become just as in depth and central to the story if Homestuck ends up fitting into this mold.

All three of these formats can have a mass audience, just like Homestuck does in reality - but Homestuck also feels like a very personal experience. Two people playing the same video game, even a highly linear game such as Portal or one that doesn’t involve much active interaction such as a visual novel, have slightly different gameplay based on the speed they move through the story and their missteps on the way to finding the solution to a puzzle.

Similarly, my experience of Homestuck is different from yours. I read the new update every day, while I know some people wait for a few days of updates to build up and then read a larger chunk. Maybe I clicked ‘Aggrieve’ and ‘Abjure’ three times each on p.90, alternating the options, while you clicked ‘Aggrieve’ five times in sequence and then ‘Abjure’ only twice. Maybe I didn’t realize p.110 had an interactive element at first, and skipped over it until somebody pointed it out to me (really telling on myself here). These elements of Homestuck that we have direct control over are currently only a small part of the story, but they do exist.

In this way, Homestuck feels a little bit like sitting in the living room as a kid watching your older brother play a game, begging him to let you take over for a minute, occasionally doing so until he gets frustrated with your inability to Strife and takes the controller back. The nostalgia of the simplistic graphics and the 70s and 80s games that are being evoked only adds to this cozy feeling. If Homestuck starts to add more interactive elements, such as branching paths, opportunities for us to take over the cursor, or a chance for us to use John’s sylladex ourselves and choose what he picks up, it might be worth thinking of Homestuck as different iterations of the same game, each of us watching our own, slightly different player, and even co-playing with them.

So, who IS this narrator? In my mind, I’m trying to draw a clear distinction between the author and the narrator. Hussie is the author in the real world, and the narrator, or player, or GM, exists within the work. Their role is best described on page 82:

‘The game presently eluding you is only the latest sleight of hand in the repertoire of an unseen riddler, one to engender a sense not of mirth, but of lack. His coarse schemes are those less of a prankster than a common pickpocket. His riddle is Absence itself.’

The narrator is this unseen riddler (or perhaps unseenRiddler?), providing a secondary layer of control over what happens and what we are able to see. They’re the person clicking and dragging objects around John’s room, and choosing what actions to take next. The narration is their perspective on the game - whether we see this as a GM describing a scene to their players, or a streamer reading aloud information that the game has given them and providing their own commentary.

So, we're watching the narrator play Homestuck, in whatever form it takes - but there's another layer to this. On page 22, an equivalence is made between the Sburb Beta, which John was supposed to receive on April 10 (and finally acquired on April 13 in-story, p.100), and the Homestuck Beta, which launched to us on April 10, but was quickly canceled and replaced with Homestuck proper on April 13. The Homestuck beta is linked within the comic, and might be canon within it - the narrator making an initial run at the game before restarting their save (perhaps on a different computer or console?) and trying again. Homestuck the game is currently about a kid who lives in the suburbs - and if the name and logo are anything to go by, Sburb could also be a suburbs-themed game. While we watch the riddler play Homestuck, the riddler will be watching John play the game Sburb. How deep does this go? Are there more layers inwards or outwards?

I’ve been puzzling this over for days, and I’m definitely left with more questions than I can answer. Here are the ones I'm focused on:

Is the unseen riddler playing the game as intended? Now that they’ve passed the tutorial, are they keeping the game on the rails and trying their best to follow a linear story, or are they pushing the boundaries, going for some kind of pacifist or resource-stripped run, trying to interfere with John’s intended story? Have they played the game before, and if so, how does this affect their gameplay?

If the unseen riddler is a character within the story, distinct from the external author, are we the true audience? Will there be an audience within the story, or perhaps other players? If so, how big will it be? What kind of reach does Homestuck the game have, and how many people are playing it or tuning in to watch?

How permeable are the boundaries? Is John simply pixels on a screen for the unseen riddler to play with, with no agency of his own outside of the riddler’s interpretation, like if we were playing The Sims? Or is it possible for the riddler to enter the game, or for John to leave it, and the two of them to communicate directly? Or a middle ground - something like ‘character bleed’ in TTRPGs, where a player embodies a character for so long that despite their not being real, they come to influence each other even outside of gameplay?

What the hell is the Midnight Crew? Is this a different game that exists separately to Homestuck? Will our riddler, or a different one, eventually play it? If we have three games - Homestuck, Midnight Crew, and Sburb - what exactly is the relationship between them, and how interrelated are they?

This is a lot of thoughts for what is, at time of writing, is 125 pages of comedy webcomic. But the story is just beginning, and we’ve been told it’s going to be a long day. Anything could be important, and with the frequent in-text nods to the meta elements - ‘examine third and fourth walls of room’ (p.61), ‘you decide it’s time for less meta, and more beta’ (p.113), the title appearing in the clouds on p.82 that John may or may not be able to see, the integration of the physical captchalogue card into the sylladex interface on p.98 - I don’t want to draw any firm boundaries, or make any assumptions about what is and what isn’t part of the story. Instead, I’ve cataloged the meta elements of Homestuck that might be worth paying attention to as we move through the comic, to develop a more concrete theory in time.

#running up against 'need to take classes in academic writing / get a professor to grade my homestuck papers'#also running up against the idea of 'can i cite things from later than 2009' it's helpful but does go against the spirit of the bit kinda #homestuck #analysis #im open to thoughts and feedback always #chrono

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saveregblackordie0726 · 7 months ago

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Sombre et Pur'

I wanted to make a masterlist for my fic <3

I have about 8 more chapters written, I just don't wanna post them if no one is interested in this <3

#regulus black #regulus deserved better #regulus being a little shit #sirius and regulus #regulus black x hufflepuff reader #regulus black x oc #regulus black x reader #regulus black x you #regulus x you #regulus x reader #regulus x oc #original character #the marauders era #the marauders

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amythehobbit · 1 year ago

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Part 2 of the tour!

#i follow back #follow for follow #instant followback #Harry Potter #wanna be friends?#Warner brother #Warner brothers studios #wizarding world of harry potter #day trip #travelling #platform 9 and 3 quarters #Gryffindor common room #hagrids’s Hut #flying Ford anglia

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wowthesewomen · 3 months ago

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - crew quarters - La'an Noonien-Singh

re-watching the episodes i notice some things about the crew quarters, and while most have the same layout (except Pike, his are huge, and besides the kitchen and the huge kitchen Island, the man has a fucking fireplace in the middle of the room!) the interior design is quite unique to each character.

Generally, the quarters are an open space (again the captain IS different and seems to have something that can close the bedroom area from the rest).

1- wall with the entrance door to the far right, and to it's left a small kitchenette

2- The opposite wall has two big sets of double windows/porthole? that go into the ceiling separated by a beam that cross the room and kinda serves to visually separated the leaving area from the bedroom one. Said beam is also use to support tables and shelves (depending on the crew member)

3- the other two walls: both have a door (facing each other and the one next to the front door seems to have a pad lock next to it) and some drawers.

La'an, Uhura and Ortega have their bed against the wall near the exit door.

Una and Spock have their leaving/bedroom areas reversed and their beds are against the windows wall opposite to the kitchenette.

La'an must have a interior architecture hobby because hers keeps having some makeovers, that are huge between episode 203 to 209. I'm going to do a post for each character but I'll start with hers.

Entrance to an open space (episode 203)

adds a full mirror in 209

also is that some kind of Bonsai tree? that could go with the other hobie theory for La'an, because hers is the most spartan quarters but we do see some (spartan) green plants around her room, the one above, and this in the kitchenette

And La'an seems to be a tea drinker going by the tea pot and the tea cups set

first change on the quarters is actually this one from episode 104 to 203, the lamps change from those tall/mushroom look alike

to smaller round ones (very similar to Una's) and more green on the table also lots of pottery, on the table and on the shelves .

A cool thing that i notice on Una's scenes (because they were close) is that the Windows have blinds on, you can see on this scene that La'an's are not fully open.

Now the major overdo is from 203 to 209, besides the mirror mentioned above.

1 - more lamps, those vertical ones are new.

2- new wall behind the bed, different design, it seems the draws are gone and that looks like some kind of tree bark and some greens??

3 - the shelve crossing the beam is gone and becomes a one side table/secretary with a new work chair.

Side note: interesting enough and i would say much in character except for the chair next to the "time travel police" everything else faces the exit door, and even that chair she doesn't have her back fully turn back from the door.

4- either different sofa or she changes formation.

5 - the bed is different, use to be above the floor and now has an extra platform on the floor

6 - adds some plant to the vase on the table

7- upper shelve looks the same but changes the lower one and adds a picture (landscape ??)

8- change the stuff on this shelve (Una has a similar hand mirror)

9- adds the digital padlock on the drawer and the drawer designs and numbers are different.

What does her quarters tell me about La'an:

1 - Either La'an loves interior designs or between 203 and 209 she changes to a different quarters.

2- she likes tea

3- she likes pottery

4- not a single think out of place, very spartan

5- not a single book (will see why a reference this when i post the others living quarters)

6- considering that everything else turns to the exit door, i'm guessing she sleeps on her left side and is always on the alert.

7- likes plants? not flowers but plants

8- doesn't have anything that connects her with anyone, not even a pic with Una. the only thing i can think and is very subtle is that she has the same hand mirror and the same round lamps that Una has. She does have a few things that she treasures on safe box (i would love to know the story behind some of them, specially the sea star)

9- her quarters are cold, you can see some kind of blanket on the bed, sofa and both chairs (besides the working one). Again in character with her and her past story.

Next: Una

#star trek strange new worlds #la'an noonien singh #crew quarters #musings

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holmesillustrations · 1 year ago

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Vote for your favourite, the top 9 will proceed in the bracket. Since theyre all different shapes and sizes, make sure to click into the full views!

Paget Eliminations // Other Artist Eliminations

Full captions and details for each illustration below the cut:

All Sidney Paget illustrations are for the Strand Jul 1891 - Dec 1904

"Mr. Jabez Wilson" Redheaded League Characters: Jabez Wilson

"Shook out five little dried orange pips." Five Orange Pips Characters: John Openshaw

"He unwound the handkerchief and held out his hand." Engineer’s Thumb Characters: Victor Hatherley, Watson

"I took it up and examined it." Copper Beeches Characters: Violet Hunter

"Up came a man and addressed me." Stockbroker’s Clerk Characters: Hall Pycroft, Beddington

"I walked right into six of them." Crooked Man Characters: Rebellion fighters, Henry Wood

"Joseph Harrison stepped out." Naval Treaty Characters: Joseph Harrison

"Our friends were waiting for us upon the platform." Hound of the Baskervilles Characters: Sir Henry, Dr Mortimer

"The lady sprang from her chair." Hound of the Baskervilles Characters: Laura Lyons, Holmes, Watson

"Holmes clapped a pistol to his head and Martin slipped the handcuffs over his wrists." Dancing Men Characters: Watson, Holmes, Abe Slaney, Insp Martin

"Then he staggered to his feet and received another shot." Charles Augustus Milverton Characters: Unknown Noblewoman, Charles Milverton

"He never looked up until Holmes' hand was on his shoulder." Missing Three-quarter Characters: Godfrey Staunton, Holmes, Watson, Mrs Staunton

#acd holmes #sherlock holmes #tumblr bracket #sherlock holmes illustrations #elim poll #sp elim #polls full bracket

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phoenixlionme · 1 year ago

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Some bigoted assholes on different social platforms I STRONGLY DISLIKE

IMPORTANT NOTCE: Before I begin my venting, I would like to note that I am NOT attempting to or condoning any form of harassment to any of the people I listed below. I am simply expressing my right to vent my personal annoyance/anger towards them and the content they produce. So, any fans of these below named assholes, please either be respectful or simply go somewhere else, because if I any threat of any kind, I WILL REPORT YOU. Make no mistake.

Look, I am NOT here to boycott or cancel anyone. I am just here to simply VENT out my anger. And I ask that no one who reads this attack me and/or anyone on this list. You're free to agree or disagree but don't threaten or be rude. This is my final warning.

The main reasons I simply HATE these media commentators is that they feel more like bullies than actual critics. In most of their videos and/or posts they are about hating on something, someone, or some group. With many of their thumbnails being designed to get clicks even if what they display is bigoted in some way. And most of them, I feel are grifters, willing to change whatever their stance is simply to get money. Even at the expense of decency. Look, I am a critic of extreme PC culture but some of the things they post are just all about hating something. And yeah, other people post things that upset them but not ALL the time. It feels like the people mentioned below make a big deal over criticizing everything they don't like.

And I as stated that I feel some of them are grifters, I also feel like many of the content they seemingly hate, they either don't truly care, take their dislike too far, and/or actually like it but are trying to keep up an act. And most of their content comes from making dismissive and outright cruel videos on those from certain groups; be it race, gender, sexuality being fat, etc. And a few of them have even done some criminal actions (Libs of TikTok making up grooming claim which led to a school threat; sssniperwolf doxxing someone).

All these channels do are either constantly complain about something (often taking it out of context) and/or fueling stereotypes and/or prejudice towards certain people. ANd I just needed a moment to vent how much I DEEPLY hate them and the disgusting content they create.

1. DailyWire (Ben Shapiro, Brett Cooper, Candace Owens, Jeremy Boering, Jordan Peterson, Matt Walsh)

2. Mediaholic

3. Yellowflash

4. The Quartering

5. Geeks + Gamers

6. Nerdrotic

7. Jesse Grant (YouTube)

8. Justpearlythings

9. Black Conservative Perspective

10. Libs of Tiktok

11. Michelle McDaniel

12. KNIGHTS WATCH

13. DOOMCOCK

14. DRUNK3PO

15. JOSIAH RISES

16. Prageru

17. Youngrippa59

18. Andrew Tate

19. Fresh and Fit

20. sssniperwolf - doxing

21. Melonie Mac Go Boom

22. Charlie Kirk

23. WorldClassBullshitters

24. Sydney Watson (YouTube)

25. Misha Petrov

26. Critical Drinker

#bigoted assholes #my posts #personal rant

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yzeltia · 6 months ago

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Closer to You

Chapter 19 Characters: Natsu Obinata, Fuyu'li cen Zwhan, @driftward 's Zoissette Vauban, Y'shtola Rhul, Y'hmitra Rhul, Asa Obinata, @erickgage 's Erick Gage and Ryssthota Sundstyrwyn, @niraff14 's Yesuntei Kagon, Clauiden, Y'zel Tia, Hien Rijin, @goldencrusader 's Ioh'Juhn Reighn, +??? Rating: T for Tears Notes: Thanks to @biot08 for not only writing Zoisette's bits, but also helping me get this in before launch while doing their own amazing work <3 And @erickgage for fixing some Erick lines too! [Phase 1 Theme: Break Through It All] [Phase 2/3 Theme: DEAR FUTURE by Coaltar of the Deepers]

“This aether. It emulates that of the Steppe’s sacred trials,” Yesuntei called out, wincing lightly as she felt herself sealed with wards by Y’zel’s barrier. “We must expend his aether!”

“A feat that might prove a tall order. His aether pool is near inexhaustible, not that he has much of a talent for manipulating it,” Y’shtola said, hand reaching back to find Zoissette’s before finding her partner being pulled away from her, trapped in aetherial chains. “Zoissette!”

Zoissette squirmed, writhing in her fetters as she and Claudien were suspended away from her. As they were pulled away, she furrowed her brow at Y’zel, concentrating on him as he brought his hand up then started to steadily strike it down a lyre, a pulse emanating three-quarters of his platform before he started to turn. Quick to catch on she yelled out, “On your guard! 6 to 9 is safe! Watch his clockwise rotation!”

“Of course even fighting him would be annoying. Stay close Yesuntei, Natsu,” Erick gruffed, watching the crystal floor rise to the north of him before rushing forward, making sure the girls stayed with him.

Y’mhitra pursed her lips, running with the rest into the next quadrant as the floor fell out behind them only to be re-iced over. “No concern for us sister. I think we’re no longer maidens in his eyes.”

“I do not know what you mean Mhitra. I’m still a spry 23,” Y’shtola responded with a smirk, focusing on the aether of Ryssthota’s egi to guide her to safety as they spun.

“And we’re more than capable of taking care of ourselves,” Rysshthota laughed before noticing Y’zel had stopped strumming to catch his breath, trading his lyre in a flourish to summon a circular keyboard and sound mixer about him, organ pipes rising slowly behind him as he started to work the keys. “Incoming ballistics! Watch the skies!”

Soon small shards of ice started to pelt the arena about them, small ones pelting off the arena after being struck before two large ones descended downward on opposite ends. Asa looked to Fuyu’li and gave him a small push toward the incoming crystal before moving to soak up his own as Y’zel summoned back his lyre and strummed at it as it continued to hail ice shards.

“He has the lyre again,” Zoissette called out, the group quickly bunching together to wind through the falling debris as the field shot upward.

Fuyu’li hurried along, doing his best to keep up only to feel the floor give on him. His eyes widened, looking to Natsu as he closed his eyes and braced for the fall. Instead, he felt himself tugged forward to Yesuntei’s side. “Please try not to fall behind,” she cautioned.

Rysshota held out her arm to stop the others, noticing as the projectiles stopped falling just as the field calmed again. “Is he finished,” she asked, looking at the other as the instruments frosted over and turned to ash.

“Just be still! I shall reunite us all with those we love! Why do you not understand,” Y’zel said, shaking his head before summoning his scythe to the ground. Pomodoro, Y’zel’s voidsent, sprung up from the ground, letting out a wail as Y’zel flew forward, hand on Claudien’s chest as he kissed him before drawing it back slowly, a flame flickering in his palm as his lover went limp.

Teleporting back to Pomodoro’s side, Y’zel fed the flame to the avatar. The creature writhed before taking the shape of a Viera man, with the same fiery eyes and blond locks as Claudien. Together, they swung scythes into the ground, to the right, the left then the center.

“This aether…Beatrice,” Y’shtola breathed out. “Follow me! The lines will erupt with an aetheric blast!”

The group followed Y’shtola as she maneuvered through the flames before the duo struck the ground again. Racing away, they narrowly avoided the final blast before hearing the sounds of chains breaking. “Zoissette! No!” Y’shtola cried out, finding her to have phased out from her chains to appear before Y’zel and Pomodoro, separating them with a slice.

Metal against metal rang out as Y'zel swung his scythe in turn, parrying Zoissette’s next swing. The two began to phase about the aetherial space. Pomodoro groaned then found himself being dragged back into void, reaching out toward the others before emitting a blast of fire that shattered the barrier protecting the Heart of Sabik.

“Quick! Try to disrupt it with our aether,” Y’mhitra called out, raising her wand in turn with Yeusentei as she raised her cane, trapping it in a wind vortex.

Ryssthota raised her grimoire high over head, letting it send out a salvo of unaspected aetherial missiles with Asa doing the same with dark pulses from his palm into the stone. Y'shtola summoned a sigil beneath her before summoning three balls of fire to explode around the stone. “Natsu! Your attention is needed here!”

Natsu let out a breath, finding herself distracted as Zoissette and Y'zel blipped about. Attention pulled she nodded then whipped her focus around sending out a jolt of red sparks exploding about the auracite while Fuyu'li fired rounds of aether bullets beside her. A familiar surge in magick flew through her as she felt more and more restored. Looking to Erick grumpily standing still gathering chakra she shook her head and called out, “Give your aether up to Mister Gage!”

“Great. Shared power and I don't even get to punch Y'zel, but a rock instead,” Erick said wryly as he sparked with magick, the party offering up their power to him. Launching forward, he punched hard into the auracite natural aetheric shroud before a pillar of light exploded about him. “Final Heaven!”

Natsu let out a breath of relief as she felt the aether around them start to stabilize before hearing Y'zel wail out: “NO!”

Everyone's eyes turned skyward, expecting Y’zel to have paused for stone, only to find Zoissette, unaltered, free falling from a blow from the other’s scythe.. Rushing forward, Y'zel caught her then landed on his platform, sobbing into her shoulder as he awkwardly held her.

“Zoissette!” The group called out advancing forward all at once before being stopped as Y'shtola held out her cane to prevent them going forward.

“She yet lives but stay back! He does not hear us unless he is looking at us and provoking him could be worse for her. The auracite is responding to the call of his dynamis,” Y'shtola warned, eyes narrowed.

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Wake up…wake up…Sister…wake up…,” Y'zel whimpered, rocking before crying out as the Heart of Sabik flew to him and embedded itself in his chest. He screamed as he felt himself altered, white wings sprouting from his back. As he screamed he held Zoissette tight then arched back, letting her float from his arms to become enshrouded in a protective crystal. “Don't worry…I'll fix this…I'll…fix this.”

Wobbling, Y'zel got to his feet, clothing turning crimson as he lifted his gaze. Y'shtola stepped forward, huffing. “Are you done now? You've hurt a dear friend in your recklessness and the auracite has grafted itself to you. Let us help you before it consumes you!”

“No! I will fix this! I will fix everything so that it is perfect and no one will ever have to make a sacrifice for us ever again,” Y'zel shouted defiantly. “Not you. Not Zoissette. No one! I am to be the red thread that binds us all together in an everlasting present!”

“Fine. Play the Lover. But remember, most of us here have made careers of taking down those who saw themselves ignorant enough to declare themselves gods,” Y'shtola said before instantly whipping aether about her to fire off a bolt of lighting.

Y'zel deflected the blow with his sword, feet lifting off the ground. “The Lover…you still haven't bothered to learn anything about me, cousin,” Y'zel screamed before launching forward toward her, intercepted by Fuyu'li’s gunblade as Erick scooped her up and away.

“See, I protect all girls, I’m not about to let him hurt a lady” Erick called back to Ryssthota and Y’mhitra.

“How did we fail to stop him,” Natsu asked, flitting her sword to send a gust of wind at her brother before summoning a boulder over his head.

Yesuntei, concentrating her healing on Fuyu'li’s increasingly tiring arms, shook her head. “It is as Y'shtola said. The Heart of Sabik interacted with his heightened emotional state and wellspring of aether.”

“In other words, we're going to have to beat the stone out of him,” Erick gruffed, launching himself forward to pummel Y'zel in the chest with a furry of blows before the latter vanished and recentered himself on the field, holding himself.

“Claudien…my love,” Y'zel said to himself, fire emanating from his body.

“Cease your movement less you be burned,” Asa called out, before stabbing his sword into the ground and mumbling a spell to protect them with his aura.

A wave of fire spiraled out from Y'zel as he shook out his head before crying out, hand clutching at his heart, ice aether freezing the air around him. “Ysayle…Zoissette…,” he whimpered.

“Now move and do not stop moving until you feel warmth again,” Asa called out, swinging his sword to send a dark wave at his nephew before a cold burst of ice rushed out from him.

Ryssthota nodded toward Asa, “Good call. Now then, cry Phoenix,” she bellowed before summoning the great bird to appear and send a gust of flames into Y'zel.

Y'zel shielded himself but felt himself falter. Shaking it off, he flew up then slammed his sword in the ground, sending an icey aetheric chill through everyone, quickly eased by Yesuntei and Y’mhitrs casting twin domes of healing auras to restore their strength. Frustrated, his guard fell leaving him open as Erick flew in for a quick kick to his stomach before using the leverage to flip and hit his jaw.

Sliding back to the edge of the arena, Y'zel coughed, holding himself up by his hands and knees as his wings burst into aetheric dust. His fist slammed the ground as he let out another cry.

“Yield…Zel. You are the Lover no more,” Y'shtola said, tilting his chin up with the edge of her cane as Y'mhitra ran up beside her.

“His eyes. They're still red,” Y'mhitra noted before pulling her sister back a bit cautiously.

“As I said…you know nothing of me. I am not the Scion of Menphina,” Y'zel said before becoming engulfed in light, the field following after.

Natsu rubbed her eyes as she found them standing in a beautiful flowering tundra by a river, several mountain streams in the distance feeding it from their snowy mountain tops. “It is beautiful…” she breathed out, watching as little balls of iridescent light floated about her.

“My Elysium…The Destination of our Fate,” Y'zel’s answered from above, descending from a sky filled with pinkish purple clouds. His hair had grown longer and whiter. His clothing had changed from that of a white coat and violet trousers.

“Nymeia, the Spinner,” Y’mhitra said, taking a cautious step forward.

“It is my inheritance, claimed early so that I can ensure we are never separated again. Life and death meet here and are one in the same,” he Y'zel said, hand reaching out to let a little soul rest in his palm before floating on with another light.

“The promise of Omphalos was to be observers. To hear and feel. Not to act! You should know that better than anyone,” Ryssthota called out.

“I only hear and feel. Voices of today. Voices of yesterday. Haunted…but no more. I shall weave all into one!”

Y'zel's hands reached into the sky, summoning two loom wheels into his hand before flourishing an aetheric pulse of light away from him. Natsu gripped her arm as she felt herself weakened before holding her foil high and sending a jolt of red aether at her deified brother as Fuyu’li pulled focus with bolt of electricity from his blade.

The battle turned from there, and not for the better.

The aether of the entire lifestream seemed to answer to Y’zel’s call. A sweep of his hands sent a huge wave of water crashing out from him, throwing everyone back. Natsu rolled along the floor, holding her hands to her head defensively. She looked up, her sight blurry, as she saw Y’zel sweep back Ryss and Asa with a flurry of razor sharp ice. Y’shtola’s staff was in the air as she struggled to channel another spell, Y’mhitra next to her staggering to try to get back up to her feet.

She looked up, eyes filled with tears, reaching a hand up to Y’zel as he turned, and another spray of ice leapt from his hand. Fuyu’li stood, guarding Erick from being struck down, but the aetheric shield from his gunblade started cracking almost immediately.

She almost cried out to him, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Startled, she turned, and looked.

Zoissette was there, her breathing heavy and labored, a determined look on her face as she looked past Natsu, focused on Y’zel. Natsu stared, and then looked to where she was certain Zoissette’s body still lay.

All she saw was a smoking purple miasma evaporating into nothingness.

“What…?”

Zoissette kept one hand on her shoulder, and reached forward with her other hand, and tugged off Natsu’s glove before grabbing her wrist back where skin contant could be avoided.

“To share someone’s memories is to know them,” said Zoissette. “There are no secrets in the Echo, no place to hide. If I can get you close, can you touch him? Do you think you can bring him back?”

“I thought you were dying!” said Natsu.

“Do not worry about that. He does not know what Lavender and I can do,” replied Zoissette. “I can explain more. Later. Can you do it?”

“I… I think so,” said Natsu, taking a deep breath in, feeling Yesuntei’s healing aether wash over herself and Zoissette.

Zoissette just nodded, and she watched as Y’zel pointed both of his hands at Fuyu’li and Erick, doubling the stream of ice flowing from him, looking to overwhelm them.

“Now,” said Zoissette, and in a blink, Y’zel’s back was right in front of Natsu. Natsu reached out, and she touched him.

The world was a blur of light. She was exposed, world noisy. The only familiarity was the scent of her former home and the murmur of the only voice she knew laughing. Her ears were kissed.

“I love you, little Y'zel.”

And then nothing. No familiar beat. No breath.

She was eight now, and bitterly cold. Her father's cough had finally ceased. She put his arm around him, snuggling tight as the snow billowed around them. Her father's stillness lulled her to sleep.

She was taller now, but not as tall as Ysayle had become. Ysayle pulled his hand, running as fast as they could through the snow. She looked back, watching as a walk of Shadow became consumed by tumbling snow. “Dad!” She screamed, over and over until her voice ached and her face pulled into Ysayle’s breast. She wailed as her sister stroked over her ears.

Ysayle was gone before her eyes. No matter how much U’noloh kissed her and held her and promised it would be okay, it didn't land. The sorrow was too much. She cried until she passed out in his arms.

She wandered through the forest…she wondered how long it had been. The decorations in her hair hand long fallen free. Tired and sore she found herself at the docks looking at a startled ferryman. “Take me east…as far as I can get,” she said before getting in the boat.

Sobbing, she pulled out a black cloth and wrapped it, letting U’noloh’s bloodied hair piece glisten in the light before she put it to her her chest and started to sob again.

“Is he going to save you this time?” sneered A’yurn Tia, the white-haired Mi’qote soon grinning ear to ear as he slapped a wooden board in his palm.

She thought of Hien that bade her to return home for a spell, making her promise to go straight to the docks. If she'd listened…if she hadn't turned back….Closing her eyes she shook her head then heard the sound of the bat whistling toward her head.

Claudien was missing. No matter how many reassurances to not worry she was given she could not help but feel cursed. How could she bear another one taken from her so soon? She wanted to freeze the world over. She did not want to find out she'd lost him again.

Rain beat upon her. She was barred entry from the lab. She had just wanted to help where she could, and yet was reminded of how little use she could actually be. Silver touched her knee, the farie looking up at her with sympathetic eyes. Zoissette was out of reach. Gone. Just like Ysayle. There was nothing for her to do. All in all, she felt that she didn’t amount to anything.

She couldn’t focus. Leon’s form coming in and out of view as her eyes looked up to the message then down to his wound. She collapsed on the ground, unable to hear the sound of her own voice as she screamed. Everything went cold, aether flooding out of her, the apartment freezing over around her. Her heart ached, then she felt a call…far away. She closed her eyes, picturing a stone sitting in Claudien’s cabinet, pulsing with life…

Nastu felt herself be repelled, feeling more and more herself as she tried to delve deeper. A sense of overwhelming power, the auracite. Reaching out to it, she fed it a bit of her own aether, forcing Y’zel to see her own memories.

She was alone in an empty storage room, barely a girl of seven. The maids whispered and giggled in the room beyond about their peer, her mother. They called her a liar. A fortune seeker. Natsu was confused why they hated her mother so…and why her mother hated her. She sniffled, knowing she’d be scolded if she interrupted…

She was ten, walking paces behind her mother, cheek sore. She tried not to shed a tear, not wanting to be struck again. The dango offered by the nice man at the stall for her still lingered on her tongue but it was far behind them now, the rest on the ground for the gulls.

“How dare you indulge their pity!? Don’t you realize they see us as worthless? Something to be discarded? If it wasn’t for your father abandoning us…you could know nothing but halcyon days eating whatever you wanted. I would have the silks I need and combs I want. If it wasn’t for you, I still might have them!”

She sniffled. Her heart felt hard…

She stared up at her mother’s portrait. She was sixteen summers now. She didn’t shed a tear. The few that came offered her condolences, but she didn’t know a face. An older Auri woman was wheeled in, looking rather cross as she stared up at her.

“If your father’s family would have just stayed a little longer, perhaps she would have gotten the help she needed,” the woman said while shaking her head. “Or perhaps if she wasn’t so blinded by her anger at his rejection she might have thought to send a bird on his departure.”

Natsu looked at the woman. “My father abandoned her when he found out she was pregnant with me,” she stated coldly.

“Young Raiden? No. He was far too noble to do such a thing. If he’d have known of you, he’d have come back to take you away from her. Or he might have even married her and given her the life she wanted.”

For once Natsu felt a twinge in her heart. “Do you…know where my father is? Who are you?”

The old woman sighed. “Perished in the aftermath of the moonfall in Eorzea. I met a young man claiming to be his adopted son, who visited me some time ago and told me of his fate. A nice boy, though he seemed a little lost… As for myself: I am your grandmother’s younger sister on your father’s side.”

Natsu’s heart sank, having a chance to have a good, kind father strewn before her then dashed away. She stood there for a moment, looking at her great aunt in silence. “A son…so then. I have a brother?”

“In a sense, yes.”

“Then, perhaps you can tell me of my father and then I can seek him out to fill in the rest,” she said, feeling a strange feeling wash over her. Excitement? Hope? “I know you might see me as a stranger, but perhaps you might let me touch your hand?”

Her great-aunt smiled, the best she could. “Yes, child. If you’ve no means of your own, might I suggest you stay in my home? Just until we can send you off to Othard. That was where your brother was headed.”

Natsu and Y’zel let out mirrored gasps as they repelled from one another. The latter turned, tears in his eyes as he looked down at his sister. “You…You who have known so little love. Why do you defy me? I can bring us back together with our dad. I can make a world without loneliness,” he said, voice raspy before lashing out, swinging one of his wheels down toward her only to have one of the floating souls swoop in to shield Natsu as she covered her face from the light.

“Because life and death separated gives us meaning. That is why we celebrate life while we have it. And why must we embrace death when it is our time,” a calm voice said.

Natsu’s eyes shot open, tears streaming down her face as she turned and hugged Drowning Heaven from behind. She inhaled his scent then rubbed her face into his back. “Kami…it is you…,” she breathed out.

“Yeah. In the flesh, sort of. It’s a long story. Bounding says ‘Hi’ though,” he said, pushing Y’zel backward and onto the ground.

Natsu wiped her tears then wandered around her husband, hugging him tight before looking over to her brother as he weakly tried to pick himself up.

“I knew a life of loneliness…lovelessness. I only had the thought of meeting you, to make a connection with a father who loved you so much. And then I met Fuyu’li, who became my friend. And then I met your friends and family who all welcomed me in and took care of me just because I was connected to you. Yes, you’ve the lionshare of loss, but when you’ve lost you’ve always found love,” she said, looking off toward the party as they picked themselves up. “Whether that was in a parent, a sister, family, found family, a lover; there was always more love waiting for you. The world you want already exists brother. I am here because they love you. They are here because they love you. The world we have was already perfect…It is as Drowning says…life and death have its place…you feel your loss so heavily because you are still tied to those you’ve lost.”

“Well said,” a second voice called out. “I leave you to go on an errand and you get yourself into all sorts of trouble. I really should have never left you alone.”

Y’zel’s ears perked, the voice familiar but he could not place it. As he sat there, the auracite fell from his chest, tumbling into the grassy field, aether growing quiet. Elysium faded, and they were returned to the platform, aetheric sea calm once more.

At the gate into the aetheric realm, Ioh’juhn Reighn struggled to hoist the weight of Claudien over his shoulder while Emperor Rijin beamed down at them then hopped onto the platform. “You should thank your dear sister here for reuniting us. As well as your Cousin,” he said, giving a polite bow to Y’shtola.

Y’zel’s ears flitted back, deified clothes evaporating back into what he’d been wearing before. “I-I’m sorry but why are you here? And how do you know me,” he panted, scooting away toward Natsu as the man approached.

Hien blinked, “Kami, he really doesn’t know me.”

Natsu knelt down, carefully draping Y’zel’s arm over her shoulder before hoisting him to his feet along with Drowning. “There’s a lot to discuss here…but, I think for now we should return home…And draw lots for who gets to scold him first,” Natsu said, turning to look at Y’zel with a smile.

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #ff14 #final fantasy 14 #ffxiv oc #ff xiv #y'zel tia #zoissette vauban #natsu obinata #ryssthota sundrythwn #y'shtola rhul #hien rijin #drowning thunder #y'mhitra rhul #ioh'juhn reighn #yesuntei kagon #claudien #ffxiv claudien

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