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Sea Glow

An unusual phenomenon found in the Archipelago Ridiculus, Scherie, Ogygia and Aeaea, as well as a number of other equatorial and tropical magically-protected islands, Sea Glow is not caused, as mundane equivalents are, by bioluminescent phytoplankton, but instead by magically contaminated pieces of sand and shell, due to the interaction of the ocean with the shielding spells and wards. Very rarely phytoplankton too will be contaminated by the spellwork, giving them a magical bioluminescence rather than a mundane one, but this is extremely uncommon - most phytoplankton are, like Flobberworms - too simple to really take to magic.

Thus Sea Glow is usually a mark of a magical beachhead, and is much admired at many magical resorts. Indeed it is often considered romantic in many Western magical culture to walk along the beach at sunset as the Sea Glow begins to illuminate, though many more practical wixes head down to the beach at such a time in order to collect the glowing fragments, in order to bolster the magical strength of a potion. Indeed, studies done into Sea Glow fragments have suggested that their addition to many common potions can enable squibs to make functioning potions, despite lacking magic of their own.

As might be suspected this has not gone down well with many pureblood supremacists.

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If I go spend 20 dollars at a restaurant we wouldn’t call it a micro-transaction, but if I spent the same amount of money in a video game then it is a micro-transaction?

Then they made their way to video games. And it used to be that they presented a reasonably comprehensible bargain:

You get to play a full-featured videogame for free, in return for which the game will occasionally advertise a premium cosmetic or unlock of some kind, for prices like $.99 or a couple of dollars. This was considered slightly annoying, especially in the mobile gaming space, but the trade-off was clear. Free game, paid optional content for less than the price of a cup of coffee.

The absolute maximal price you'd pay for a League of Legends skin was about $30, and those skins were considered an absolutely outrageous expense for totally dedicated League of Legends lifers, and were expected to be the absolute peak of technical possible quality. And those were still mocked as ridiculous expenses for weirdos, the sort of thing that no normal or average player should ever be expected to blow money on.

Bethesda was mocked for MONTHS for trying to sell $2.50 horse armor cosmetics in Oblivion. Microtransactions? In a premium product? In a sixty dollar game? Absolutely unacceptable! That was a breaking of the bargain!

But Bethesda's transgression was the thin end of a wedge. More and more of those post-launch monetizations started creeping into premium products, and by sheer erosion, by sheer slow grinding normalization, they started to multiply and the prices started to creep up and up and up, and day 1 DLC became normal, and ultimate and premium editions and super ultimate exclusive digital deluxe collector's editions and battle passes and lootboxes and... yeah.

It used to be a... not amazing, but at least a reasonably fair bargain. A transparent bargain. You get to play a game for free, and the price you pay instead is the soft pressure of microtransactions—actually micro transactions—being advertised to you.

I made some not so quick little lookbooks of the first three wives of Maegor Targaryen. Some outfits I've already done and some new.

Sure, @ido100.

The smallest domino is the Assassination of RFK

In 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy (Bobby Kennedy) was assassinated for his support of Israel by a Palestinian man, Sirhan Sirhan.

Because of his father's tragic death and his family's legacy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. grew up in the political spotlight. Decades later, he aligned with the Trump administration and was appointed as the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).

As part of government funding cuts in July 2025, the administration and HHS Secretary RFK Jr. dramatically scaled back a crucial CDC program called FoodNet that actively monitored foodborne outbreaks.

FoodNet went from tracking eight major foodborne pathogens down to just two.

One of the pathogens they stopped tracking at the federal level was a microscopic parasite called Cyclospora.

The largest domino represents Michigan's 2026 outbreak

Because the federal government stopped tracking the parasite, health departments lacked coordinated, day-to-day data to catch early warning signs.

This made the outbreak harder to detect and contain early. Without early detection and containment, the parasite spread rapidly through contaminated produce, causing weeks of violent, explosive, watery diarrhea as it spread.

The last domino is Michigan being hit the hardest by this outbreak, going from ~50 cases a year to thousands of confirmed infections.

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In many draconic cultures, the Hroom marks a dragon’s coming of age, a time to recognize that a dragon is now of a proper age to hold a weapon and defend itself. Some dragons believe that it is only by bonding with an elemental spirit that a dragon has a soul, and that a dragon is only a whole dragon when it has both the mortal shell and the inner spark.

Metaphorically, yes. One dragon had married the witch she brought back to her clutch, and she said that meant their two souls had become one, which was basically the same thing.

There are of course the main schools, those scattered few well known for patronising the whole of their nations (and some others besides). The ones in existence longer than most, which had formed bonds between them to set them apart, that they could name themselves elite.

There are many more schools than just these. In Ireland warded tower castles teach small local groups of students, who do not wish to cross to Scotland for their education. In Russia there are many old monasteries which have been made Unplottable and repurposed for those who do not wish cross the entirety of their huge country for learning.

In France and Germany small hunting lodges were made into schools, some for small children, that they can read and write with ease before attending Beauxbatons, and some for students of any age, from four to twenty-four. Teaching basic comprehension and magical theory, all the way up to Mysteries (what muggle-borns might think of as Masteries), that they can know all there presently is of a subject.

These small schools are often scorned, but where Hogwarts has vast funds left by the founders and by governors, and by the Ministry wanting a way to influence the school, and Beauxbatons is funded by the Ministry, rarely accepting donations to avoid claims of bribes, these small schools work differently. Some teach on a volunteer basis, others are paid for by donations of past students. Some - such as Delphi’s School of Prophecy - are funded by carefully invested monies, decided by the Pythia founder.

And where the big schools, the ‘main’ schools, ones such as Hogwarts and Durmstrang and Beauxbatons, have their own agreements and organised occasions (even with the Triwizard Tournament being banned and unbanned and banned anew) so too do these small ones. Small exchanges, students going from the semi-submerged Venetian School of Magic, and the Seville Witches Academy, comparing the magics used by ancient traders to the Moorish magics, almost wiped out by Isabella and Ferdinand. School trips, where both L’Académie de le Comte de Saint Germain and Moroccan Ladies School of Serpent Speech each visit sites together, encouraging international cooperation, if only on a small scale.

Even Iceland’s School of Seiðr joins in these, comparing techniques with the Delphi School of Prophecy,and encouraging their students to learn, above all, rather than be rivals.

— Excerpt from Chapter 13: Europe and the Mediterranean of Lesser Known Magical Educational Institutions Around The World by Alexandra Monmouth.

Flobberworm

Generally agreed to be one of the most singularly useless, harmless, and boring creatures in the magical world, Flobberworms are simply very large worms, which produce a mucus which can be used in potions (as a thickener and not much else) and devour whatever greenery they manage to force down their gullets. Generally growing to around ten inches in length, and generally a dull pinkish brown colour, it is so useless and uninteresting a creature in the public eye, and even to most magizoologists, as to be rated “boring” by the Ministry Creature Classification system, having only a single X grade.

Generally Flobberowrms move very little, if at all,only expending as much energy as will get it more food to eat. While Flobberworms are edible most do not find the taste at all appetising, and though they can be  used in some more interesting and tasty dishes the general perception of Flobberworms prevents this, in all but the most avant garde eateries. Curiously - and possibly due to the creatures general unwillingness to move - Flobberworms are one of a very few creatures which can be Summoned, still-living, with the Summoning Charm.

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Fire Crab

Known for the ability to set fire to things by the flames expelled from their rear end, Fire Crabs (and their close cousin of Giant Fire Crabs) are tortoise-like creatures with bejewelled shells. Usually they possess six legs, but increasingly specimens are found with four or five and limb stumps in place of the remainder, apparently having lost them to the poachers who hunt Fire Crabs in the hope of removing and using their shells as cauldrons. Found on the island of Fiji they are occasionally exported as pets, though, by ICW mandate, one requires a permit to keep one.

Beyond the simple distinction of common Fire Crabs and Giant Fire Crabs (which will be covered separately due to a few differences between the creatures), Fire Crabs come in several varieties solely among themselves. Most have a mixture of jewels on their shell, but some few have singular varieties (usually garnets, clear quartz or orange tourmalines, with rubies, sapphires, emeralds, yellow diamonds and amethysts being rarer), leading to them being hunted preferentially, despite the creatures being protected under the ICW.

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