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Fanfic / The Seventh Player

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The Seventh Player is an Alternate Universe Fic for Dimension 20 written by Yalamodo. The story largely follows events as they transpire in the original Fantasy High campaign, with an added element in the form of Machaira Mekhit, a seventh "player", who acts as an additional member of the Bad Kids who joins their party and partakes in their adventures alongside them. In addition to this, the story explores the various personalities and lives of the Bad Kids in deeper detail than the original story, and takes more time in exploring or addressing several concepts and nuances that the original storyline either glossed over or otherwise disregarded as comedic.

You can read the story here.

The Seventh Player features examples of:

  • Adaptational Jerkass: Downplayed, since Kristen mostly still follows the "script" of the original series and thus has her moments of being as kind and sweet as she was initially portrayed, but she's still presented in this story as being noticeably less respectful of people's boundaries and personal limits, and generally more obnoxious and ignorant as a whole, than the original Fantasy High campaign presented her. Justified by the author, who wanted to further bring to the forefront, and deconstruct, some of what they felt were similar behaviors that Kristen exhibited in canon that were otherwise taken less seriously in the original storyline.
  • Amazon Chaser:
    • Machaira is a same-sex version of this, often finding herself turned on or aroused seeing a girl or woman kick ass or otherwise excel in a fight. Such as Adaine, although she's a less traditional example of an "amazon" than most.
    • Adaine herself has also come around to being this, albeit in regards to Machaira exclusively.
  • Amazonian Beauty: Machaira is noted as being quite fit and muscular for her age, and is frequently regarded as being attractive by people she encounters or interacts with, including some of her own party. Especially Adaine, from "Cold Kids, Cold Case: Sex" and forward.
  • Blood Knight: Whether she's hunting for food or dispatching an opponent in combat, Machaira thoroughly enjoys a good fight.
  • Bruiser with a Soft Center: Machaira is one of the strongest, and most eager, physical fighters in her party, but she's also potentially the most nurturing and forgiving Bad Kid out of the seven.
  • But Liquor Is Quicker: Initially downplayed, then subverted, in "First Kisses And Last Words: Acquiescence". Adaine persuades Machaira to have a drink with the hope that the alcohol will loosen her up enough for the wizard to confess her feelings to her, but she underestimates how easy it ends up being to get Machaira drunk, and things nearly result in sex anyways against Adaine's intentions and better judgement; thankfully, however, Adaine doesn't fully go through with it. See Kissing Under the Influence for more on this.
  • Cat Folk: Machaira, as a tabaxi.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Machaira has one, which is revealed in "Cool Kids, Cold Case: Scars" and hinted at in bits and pieces before then. Specifically, Machaira was born shorter and broader than most tabaxi, as well as with fangs, marking her as a "primitive" and resulting in a life of ostracization where she was bullied violently by other tabaxi children to the point of having one of her ears clawed off, and subjected to neglect and abuse from the adults in her community, including her own parents. She ran away from home after overhearing that her parents were planning to file down her fangs once her adult ones grew in and was forced to live as a homeless wanderer until she was granted refuge in a temple to Bast in the jungle, where she was first exposed to the goddess and began following her example. After spending some time as a vigilante at such a young age, she nearly destroyed her life once puberty struck her, as she began drinking and doing drugs and having sex frequently, allowing people to use her out of desperation to feel something akin to the love people that people had denied her for so long. This would culminate in an encounter with an ursine that ended with her other ear being ripped off and Machaira killing him out of self-defense, forcing her to start getting her life together.
  • Darker and Edgier: The story as a whole treats the circumstances the Bad Kids are faced with more seriously and more realistically, and introduces various uglier realities of the world that the original Fantasy High glossed over or disregarded. This is without even getting into Machaira's Dark and Troubled Past.
  • Eating the Eye Candy: Once she develops feelings for her, Adaine often finds herself taking the time to appreciate Machaira's physique whenever she can. Machaira does the same with Adaine as well, although not as often.
  • Good Is Not Soft: Machaira, full stop. While unashamedly a sweetheart, she's also a savage Religious Bruiser who worships a War Goddess and honors her through example.
  • Heroic Self-Deprecation: Machaira with considerable frequency, who constantly downplays her capabilities, achievements, and qualities when people compliment them. She doesn't believe she deserves it, after the life she's lead before enrolling into Aguefort.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Machaira is a very downplayed example. She's mostly only Good Is Not Soft (see above), but she also has a strong temper that occasionally prompts her to snap at or lash out at others (although she usually almost immediately tries to rectify any harm done when this happens), and she isn't above dishing out some Tough Love when she feels it's needed, including to her own party.
  • Kissing Under the Influence: When Adaine convinces Machaira to have a drink in "First Kisses And Last Words: Acquiescence", Machaira becomes considerably flirtier and more open in her romantic feelings towards Adaine, which she initially disregards as being ideal, as the plan had been to make Machaira more receptive to Adaine confessing her feelings to her with the alcohol. However, things end up getting out of hand and the two nearly have sex, which starts off with a series of passionate kisses from Machaira. Thankfully, due to a slip of the tongue on Adaine's part, things don't progress any further than that between them.
  • Love Epiphany: In "Cool Kids, Cold Case: Truth", Adaine masturbates to a fantasy of her and Machaira having sex, resulting in this and serving as the culmination of Adaine's efforts to process her newfound feelings toward her that had been growing since "Cool Kids, Cold Case: Sex".
  • Ms. Vice Girl: Machaira. While possibly the most actively and consciously noble out of all the Bad Kids, she's also surprisingly sultry and sensual for someone of her age, although this facet of herself doesn't come up too often. What's more obvious, however, is her temper, which usually prompts her first reaction to a threat, either to herself or her loved ones, to be violence, usually with the intent to outright kill or destroy what's responsible for it. This is also deconstructed, as both of these traits have landed her in trouble quite often, especially when she was younger and before she enrolled into Aguefort.
  • My Instincts Are Showing: Among other things, Machaira, and by extension all tabaxi, have hunting and heat cycles just like non-sapient big cats; similarly, it is suggested (again by extension) that other half-animal races are similar in having biologically ingrained behaviors and traits in common with their non-intelligent counterparts. This is also deconstructed immensely- more "human" humanoids often dehumanize half-animals because of their animal qualities, and according to Machaira, modern tabaxi culture actually abhors demonstrations of "primitive" behavior and teaches their youth to actively suppress them in favor of deflecting suspicion through superficial charm and beauty. All of this has a role to play in Machaira's past.
  • Nice Girl: While of a tougher caliber than most examples, Machaira is openly a compassionate and affectionate person, with only Gorgug being potentially nicer than her. This quality of hers endears her enough to Adaine to where she starts falling in love with her.
  • Official Couple: Kristen and Tracker, as per canon, as well as presumably Gorthalax and Sklonda towards the end of the storyline if things still unfold as they do canonically. The author is also building up Adaine and Machaira to become this by the end of the story, a relationship that they hope to further explore in sequels.
  • Really Gets Around: Machaira used to before she turned her life around and started attending Aguefort.
  • Religious Bruiser: Machaira honors and worships the goddess Bast and is a very adept physical fighter. Justified, due to the fact that Bast, according to Machaira herself, actively encourages her followers to be this trope.
  • Shadow Archetype: Discussed in "Cool Kids, Cold Case: Family", which involves the Bad Kids hunting down and killing a gang of gnolls that they believe may have been tied to the palimpsest conspiracy in some way. Specifically, Machaira explains in detail that gnolls, as well as all who ally with them, draw their savagery and ferocity from Yeenoghu, who grants them unity and community against a cruel world that is constantly out to kill them, stripping away preconceptions of burden and responsibility in return for a twisted form of security; Machaira elaborates that she's never joined them and has even hunted them in the past, but she still sees the worst parts of herself, and what she could have been in another life, in them.
  • Single Woman Seeks Good Man: A same-sex example in Adaine and Machaira both; specifically, towards each other. Adaine is starved for the emotional and physical love that the other Abernants actively deny her on a daily basis, a craving that Machaira satisfies in spades, and Machaira admires Adaine not just for how humble and kind she is in spite of the family that raised her, but also for her intelligence and determination.
  • The Unfavorite: Adaine, as per canon, although this status in her family receives more focus in the narrative than the original campaign, as the kindness Machaira extends her as a result causes Adaine to befriend the tabaxi quickly. And eventually fall in love with her.
  • Violently Protective Girlfriend: They aren't official yet, but Adaine and Machaira have both already developed this mindset towards each other.
  • Wise Beyond Their Years: Machaira. Mainly due to Misery Builds Character.

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