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As a wise man said: RedSnapper posted:
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Sep 15, 2022 20:11
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 00:24 |
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Nathan
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Sep 15, 2022 20:14
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Nathan.
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Sep 15, 2022 20:31
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Yeah let's help our baby brother. Nathan.
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Sep 15, 2022 21:26
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Nathan
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Sep 15, 2022 21:32
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Suck it, commonerailures. Should have joined the church. 
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Sep 15, 2022 22:56
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Nathan. It seemed like we were totally boned at first but we have a good chance to incite a riot. Georg is about to own a print shop, as long as he is careful then he has the means to make his own propaganda.
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Sep 16, 2022 00:27
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1.18 - The Brante Family Schism So, Nathan, how've you been?      drat, we can relate.  Believe it or not, Stephan is much less of a tire fire in the Noble Path.     Things are rough at home.  Thanks for hanging out with us, Nathan.  Time to get our legitimate printing business going.    Glad you like it.  Time to figure out what we're actually here for.     Still can't believe our comrades got arrested and died for nothing.      Alright, find malcontents, bring them under our wing.   On top of that, build dossiers and blackmail on the Lesser Quorum.     If you remember, El Borne visited us for dinner at one point, and even acknowledged Mother's existence.   We haven't seen Egmont in person yet, but Gregor complained about him and the Lesser Quorum.   Lennart hasn't appeared on our radar at all at the moment. He's a student of the murdered Patriarch Fotis.    Oh we know you're good at it, we were on the receiving end.        Look, I'm somewhat sympathetic to this, Sophia ain't going back to jail. The House of Humility is terrible, and the Inquisition does not gently caress around with mages, as we could've seen in the Priest Path. But note her phrasing: "as long as the Empire still stands". This is very true. The Secret Chancellery, the Inquisition, the Legion, the Courts - they are all violent, lethal tools of the Empire, and with them, the Empire is everywhere. It is all-knowing and all-powerful, as permanent and real as the very ground we stand on. Until it isn't. Revolution is so obvious in hindsight, and so hard to see in the moment. In 1787, it was clear that there were problems in the Kingdom of France, but nothing the crown couldn't handle. By 1797, the King of France was executed, the First French Republic was pronounced, and the aristocracy practically ceased to exist as a class. In 1913, the Russian Empire had incredible control over its populace, having crushed the vestiges of the Revolution of 1905, and dismissed multiple parliaments unilaterally. By 1923, the last tzar of Russia was executed, the Russian Civil War had largely finished, and the Soviet Union was fully established. What I'm saying is life comes at you fast.  On the one hand, she hosed over our comrades. On the other, she did make sure we live long enough to at least see El Ferro, and talked us up in her reports.     Well, first things first, time to get our perfectly legitimate business going.  We need the Willpower, and if we actually make money, it'll make hiding our activity easier.  If we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it right.   This is gonna be our little thing.  The extra money from Father helped get us settled.  And throwing ourselves into this gives us a little bit of Willpower.  We're a business now.  A semi-legitimate one, even.  Ah, the nobles are talking.    Good luck with that poo poo.    Will we?  Still not clear on what it is that Stephan actually does.  Top marks as always, Gloria.   The nobility is here. Our step-uncle (and important target) has shown up as well.    And Gloria is already getting hit on.    We should help her out.  loving hell, thread. Honestly, these are the worst stats I've ever seen.  No Diplomacy.  Not enough Manipulation or Eloquence.  And we didn't win poo poo.  So, uh. Hoorah for the family!  gently caress 'em, Mother and Gloria are absolutely family.    Aw, they're dancing, it's sweet.    What a piece of poo poo.     That's real sweet.  Gloria appreciates being a part of the family.  Stephan does not.  We're holding together, but we're not exactly popular.  And hey, free Willpower!  The tension between Stephan and Gloria is not improving.   Feels like we've been called into the principal's office.     Holy poo poo, shut the gently caress up Stephan.      This fucker has turned into Gregor's avatar. Hope he ends the same way.      Jesus Christ. At the very least, you're not in charge yet.  I empathize with Robert here.  Shut the gently caress up, please shut the gently caress up. -- How do we deal with this situation?  A. Stephan is somewhat right. If we're to get ennobled by the sword, Gloria will need to be quieter.  B. Shut the gently caress up, Stephan, challenge level: impossible.  C. Perhaps a little time apart will calm them down. Send Gloria on a little vacation.  If we had gone for the Priest Path, we could've gotten Nathan to tell them the Twins are telling them to shut up.
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Sep 16, 2022 14:52
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C. I don't entirely like it, but I can't help but think we're utterly doomed if we don't boost our manipulation stat.
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Sep 16, 2022 15:17
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C we're gonna dieeeeeeeee
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Sep 16, 2022 15:21
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C it's ok when we get to the 'do or die' part we'll just die twice
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Sep 16, 2022 15:44
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No choice but C, sorry Gloria.
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Sep 16, 2022 15:45
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C is frankly the best choice anyway, Gloria deserves a break from a house where her stepbrother is a complete abusive rear end to her all day every day.
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Sep 16, 2022 15:58
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C. We have wealth for now, but we really can’t take the Unity or Reputation hit. And we need stats.
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Sep 16, 2022 16:06
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C. Our stats may be garbage, but we've been true to ourselves on who we think Georg is this whole time. It's just an unfair world, but we knew that from the start. Our impending crash is soon though, not denying that. Gonna ride this rollercoaster to the hard stop and not regret it.
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Sep 16, 2022 17:51
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I ended up buying the game and playing a bunch. It’s definitely fascinating to see just how bad the threads stats are right now. I feel one of the biggest catalysts for that was the inability to save Sophia. It feels to me like it’s a fairly ‘canon’ for the protagonist’s action as far as the game is concerned, and not getting that initial +1 to all stats is painful gameplay wise and prevented the thread from reaching any of the other 4 stat thresholds too.
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Sep 16, 2022 18:13
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I would have figured the bigger problem was beelining determination over perception, so you lose out on anything that comes from perception. and then the same thing happened again in adolescence
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Sep 16, 2022 18:38
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Yep. Have Gloria take a vacay. Not ideal, but...
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Sep 16, 2022 19:00
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Mister Olympus posted:I would have figured the bigger problem was beelining determination over perception, so you lose out on anything that comes from perception. and then the same thing happened again in adolescence That's sort of correct honestly. The problem the thread encountered through no fault of its own is that the early bit of childhood has a bunch of things to raise both determination and perception, but there's more later events to raise determination. It's honestly kind of hard to raise perception late in childhood. Of course, blind readers absolutely cannot know that, so whoops. If you want to raise both, perception needs to come first. Kissing the sword didn't help. It was a nice moment, but it penalized perception further to raise determination. And it also made the thread unable to save Sophia.... so it kind of snowballed the problem. It's interesting to see Georg's journey from a naturalistic path, but unfortunately, he lives in a world where many naturalistic paths can lead to personal disaster. The Sophia incident is what I feel is the defining point of this, where it has a commoner literally trampled underneath the nobles, and it is a completely normal thing.
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Sep 16, 2022 21:28
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is it naturalistic? i just figured people pumped one stat because they had a particular idea of how it might go/what stats might do/what high determination 'means' for the character's outcomes
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Sep 16, 2022 22:21
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Keldulas posted:I ended up buying the game and playing a bunch. It’s definitely fascinating to see just how bad the threads stats are right now. Oh, our stats are awful, but the thread did go into it blind, so I can't blame y'all. I fired up a new savefile to run up stats for a Lotless playthrough, with the following major changes: - died twice (Sophia, burning the house down) - refused to train swordfighting with Robert - didn't kiss the sword - convinced Robert to defend Gloria at the trial of the assailants - printed leaflets instead of making soapbox speeches before the march (because of high manipulation) I still got into the Blood Tide due to high Nobility, still took the friendship oath with Tommas, got both Childhood stat events to trigger, triggered all three Adolescent stat events, and took almost the same options in our Youth. Gloria, Tommas, Lydia, and Nathan all have one lower opinion of me than in the thread's playthrough. Resulting Skills at the beginning of Peace Time:  For comparison, here's Georg's current Skills:  I could've probably bumped it up a few points by going for Perception before Determination, since, as you mentioned, it's easier to pick up in the beginning. Still, though, that's a 36 Skill point difference at the cost of 10 Willpower, 4 opinion points, one Wealth, one Reputation, and two deaths. It's a massive difference. We can still hit a good ending in this run, though. Just gotta betray the right people.
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Sep 16, 2022 22:39
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C. I think that Gloria needs a break from all of this. I'm enjoying the blind playthrough no matter where it leads too.
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Sep 17, 2022 00:39
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I'd argue that burning the house down isn't the best trade-off? I'm not sure I like the Wealth hit, though it is +2 spirituality and +5 Willpower in not spending it to stop Gregor. Also I find it weird that your nobility related stats are better than your spy-based stats. And yeah, kissing the sword is unfortunately not very statistically beneficial given the other method to get into Blood Tide. You don't even have to make nice with Gregor. I am enjoying the 2 Theology and 4 Diplomacy of Georg, those stats are never going to be useful.
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Sep 17, 2022 01:09
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Keldulas posted:I am enjoying the 2 Theology and 4 Diplomacy of Georg, those stats are never going to be useful. Pretty much the only time we interacted with religion was defying it (the sword, the New Faith pilgrim) and we grew up having Gregor in our lives, a man who absolutely could not be reasoned with and Stephan who is merely Mini Gregor. We really stopped trying to reason with people long ago and just started taking matters into our own hands regardless of the situation. I guess it kinda fits. Kayten posted:
I appreciate those filenames also yowza, those stat brackets on age up really hurt don't they
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Sep 17, 2022 01:36
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Odd Wilson posted:also yowza, those stat brackets on age up really hurt don't they What do you mean by that?
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Sep 17, 2022 04:25
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Keldulas posted:What do you mean by that? Had to go back and look, for some reason I thought the stats you got on age up were based on the thresholds met of the source stats. Evidently, like Georg, I have 1 Perception.
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Sep 17, 2022 05:10
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The stats of Adulthood are a simple sum of one of Childhood (Perception, Determination) and Adolescence (Nobility, Spirituality, Ingenuity). So Georg's stats got kicked in the teeth pretty hard from having 1 Perception and also having 2 Nobility and 1 Spirituality, so those stats are both hindering Determination and Ingenuity when working with them, and giving the hilarious stat totals we see here when combined with each other. The kicker is that the 5 Ingenuity isn't even that high, it's still kind of bad. But Georg is also basically a full roleplay run, what with the thread both being played blind, and Kayten hiding the stat change results on certain pivotal decisions. So it's an interesting read for it. I find the game kind of an interesting mix of roleplay, and implicit encouragement of powergaming the stat gains. At the same time, it also tells a good story, even if sometimes the cracks in the structure are visible. My most recent run ended up with 5 Perception, 4 Determination, and then 6 Nobility, 8 Spirituality, 7 Ingenuity with 1 death and 15 willpower. Honestly, the willpower was overkill, I should've put +2 Nobility or Ingenuity at the end there. But I was going priest path, so I abstained from that.
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Sep 17, 2022 07:46
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Keldulas posted:My most recent run ended up with 5 Perception, 4 Determination, and then 6 Nobility, 8 Spirituality, 7 Ingenuity with 1 death and 15 willpower. Honestly, the willpower was overkill, I should've put +2 Nobility or Ingenuity at the end there. But I was going priest path, so I abstained from that. Oh, did you not have enough relationship points with Lydia to get the +2 Spirituality at the end there? (Unless you went for that specific Priest Path) Because yeah, Nathan’s a trap option there, because +2 to a Stat is 4 extra skill points. Also Diplomacy is a somewhat important Stat for all playthroughs, because unfortunately, we interact with nobles throughout. Theology is unnecessary, but Eloquence has a few moments where it becomes useful. Our Manipulation is so low, drat.
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Sep 17, 2022 11:33
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Yeah the relationships for the unlocks were 5, 3, 5 there. I knew the willpower was definitely a mistake but the relationship point waste was just messing with my head there even though it pales in comparison to wasting the stat point opportunity. That run is complete and for whatever it’s worth I felt I had high enough stats to largely accomplish what I wanted.
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Sep 17, 2022 11:50
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What would people say is the best spread to have in childhood in order to keep a good relation with your family and also get decent stats?
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Sep 17, 2022 22:36
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1.19 - It's Like Poetry, They Rhyme As much as we would prefer to chuck Stephan directly into the     Look, it's the least bad option right now.  Stephan will pay for it personally, holy poo poo.   Thanks, Father.  At least Stephan is out of the house more.  I don't like Gloria mellowing out, but at least there's a bit less open hostility (but at what cost!)  Also Skill points!  We've got work to do though.    It's harder this time: we don't have as clear a pool of malcontents to draw from. The Lotless specifically targeted prospective students who got radicalized by the closing of the college. Here, there isn't a ready-made group ripe for recruitment, so we have to spread our efforts out.  Thread, meet Father Fuad, one of our lieutenants.    Oh hey, he's into private revelation. Private revelation is the doctrine that Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, or a saint like Mary, speaks to some people directly, usually in dreams or visions. Think Jeanne d'Arc or Benoîte Rencure. The Catholic Church actually loves this poo poo, more often than not, provided it falls in line with what the Church needs. Otherwise, it's actually visions from the devil. Takes a priest to tell them apart, you know. There's a whole list of things a "real" revelation has to do to be officially recognized: the church is staggeringly bureaucratic. It's hard to talk about Protestantism in general, given the vast scope of doctrines that the term encompasses, but in general Protestant denominations aren't big on this. If you remember, we already covered sola scriptura, the doctrine that only the bible is an authentic guide on the faith. Private revelation doesn't exactly gel with this idea, you know? However, not all Protestant denominations are that strict about sola scriptura, there can be a bit of wiggle room. Charismatic churches, such as Pentecostal ones, love private revelations, and consider any Christian capable of receiving them. As far as I can tell, Eastern Orthodox Churches aren't fans of private revelations either. A big concern in Orthodox doctrine is falling into prelest - spiritual misguidance. If you think you know better than the church because you had a vision, you're wrong. The Church with its traditions and thousands of years of experience knows better than you, and anything that moves you away from it is wrong. Anyway, that's what Father Faud is about, theologically speaking. In practical terms, he can whip up a crowd into a riot real easy. Useful guy for our little organization.  Another one of our lieutenants is Alida. She's reliable and really motivated.  If you recall, we saw her sister get hanged in the capital. She's the one that gave a little speech. Having your family killed by the state is an excellent motivator to spend the rest of your life fighting against it. For example, in the late 19th century, there was a revolutionary in the Russian Empire who tried to kill tzar Alexander III. Along with several others in this group, he was caught and hanged in 1887. His name was Alexander Ilyich Ulyanov. You may have heard of his brother Vladimir.  Our methods remain the same - passionate speeches by Sophia, follow-up private interviews by us.  It feels almost real, you know.   We've spent enough time working that the boss man himself wants to check on our progress.  Please, come on in.  Our only talent is crime, El Ferro.  This is the final major addition to our motley crew. On the one hand, Moss is very useful for the unsavoury parts of the job. If you need someone shanked in an alley, he's your man, and that's very useful in this line of work. On the other, he's clearly here because El Ferro wants to keep an eye on us.   Moss is loyal to money, and money alone. Which could come in handy.  The boss is starting to drink on the job. Problems at home?   Ah, no, problems at work.   Hey, I like Father Fuad.  Now that's interesting. Keep in mind, that no matter how El Ferro presents himself, he is not the Secret Chancellery, he's just one man inside the organization, with very specific career goals. On top of that, Nobles of the Sword have their own backstabbing bullshit, and the Chancellery is not the only power center involved.     Oh, uh.  Not a lot of options there.  Not with these Skills.  Sure, yeah, you're right, boss.    Being a lickspittle has its perks.  Oh goody, he has ideas.   What a delightful little troupe.  El Ferro likes yes-men, it turns out.    The rest of the results are predictable. More Spy Network from better vetting, Sophia mad at us, and Willpower from not going up against our boss.  Either way, the work continues.   And we're going to see an underground show.  Time for a packed hidden performance.   Let's see what they got.  We get a number of poems here.    They're very direct.  The people seem to like them.    We seem to like them too.  As does Sophia.   Got a whole spiritual vibe to them.      This is a good question. -- What do we do about the poets? Note that we're finally getting options that raise and lower our Occupation Stats at the same time. Most choices will be like this from here on out.  A. Every rebellion needs its "Come Out Ye Black and Tans" or "Bella ciao". Recruit the poets.  B. These small fries will make us look good to our boss, and him to his boss. Send them to El Ferro.  C. There's no need to involve the Secret Chancellery in this, let's keep this in-house. Send them to the Prefecture.  Gloria likes us, and we helped her nurture her poetry circle. But! Alas, Manipulation.
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Sep 17, 2022 22:44
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Uh... I'm not sure how thin a line we walk to get a good end here, I'm just aiming to get a real revolution this time, and get Felipe ousted. That said, recruit 'em. Mechanically, I'd sell them out to our father, but I'm playing by what our Georg would do.
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Sep 17, 2022 23:48
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Report to dad.
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Sep 17, 2022 23:55
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Recruit them.
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Sep 18, 2022 00:47
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On a side note what's the family unity at? Cause Reputation 2, Wealth 3 is a bit of a yikes at this time.
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Sep 18, 2022 00:56
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Feeling that lack of stats square in the pocketbook right now.
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Sep 18, 2022 02:21
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Speedrunning the Mr. Burns style of life collapse where we escape the consequences of our actions by having all our failures collapse onto each other, creating a nice little cave for us to lurk in
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Sep 18, 2022 02:31
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Recruit em Our end goal is to get a real revolution going that Felipe can't quash, and ideally have something on him so the secret police eat him alive while this spirals into nonsense.
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Sep 18, 2022 04:19
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Report the poets. Family reputation is awful low right now, and we could use the boost.
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Sep 18, 2022 04:34
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Report them. We can trust our father not to take things too far, and we really, really need the reputation boost.
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Sep 18, 2022 05:33
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