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NikkolasKing posted:Thank you for stating my feelings so perfectly. I rejected most media criticism for years because everybody I talked to seemed to want to psychoanalyze the writes of a story based solely on that story. "The writer had X in their story and therefore they agree with X." That's so unbelievably arrogant to think you know what a person thinks solely based on a fictional story. Thankfully I later met more reasonable and nuanced people. uh yeah people's beleifs influence the stories they write, there's nothing weird about making connections between writer and story if I wrote a story called Hitler And Friends Save Christmas and it was about how the nazis actually gave presents to all the good children, you would think I was a nazi-loving insane person and you would be right also quote:Exactly. We're talking about Eva having dated ideas here and The Bible is no different. For its time Christianity was incredibly progressive. We take egalitarianism for granted now but it was by no means the norm 2000 years ago so a religion that promised salvation for absolutely everyone was pretty loving cool. alright two things to say here 1) bad things are still bad regardless of when they were made 2) lmao
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Jul 20, 2019 16:56
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NikkolasKing posted:It was his sagely guidance that got Shinji to go back IIRC. He was the picture of a cool wiseman. Under examination, he's kind of a poo poo.
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Jul 20, 2019 17:05
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Kaji is cool if you forget that 100% of the cast in Eva sucks in some way or another. There is no one in the series that you can point at, save maybe Pen Pen, and claim them to be completely okay. The children have the excuse of youth, but I can't think of a single adult that doesn't have some glaring flaw. Kaji helped Shinji out a few times, sometimes by telling him good advice and others by Shinji recognizing how full of poo poo he is.
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Jul 20, 2019 17:11
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Yinlock posted:uh yeah people's beleifs influence the stories they write, there's nothing weird about making connections between writer and story Sure if you look at the most hilariously extreme examples like The Turner Diaries that is true. But for the vast majority of fiction? Am I right to say Anno is a sexist pig because of the poo poo in Eva? No. That's a ridiculous position to take, even if Kaji was played 100% straight and his sexist behavior was perceived as cool by the creators. Neon Genesis Evangelion does not tell me a thing about Hideaki Anno's personal life or views. Anno played with a lot of cliches in Eva so portraying one such cliche doesn't mean he endorses it. His comments outside of the anime do but that's different, I will concede though that if there is a pattern of behavior across all their fiction that is more iffy. But I have seen nothing else he's done. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Jul 20, 2019 |
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Jul 20, 2019 17:26
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I think Kaji is supposed to be hiding under this persona of a womanizer as a part of his whole triple agent thing but it still could’ve been handled way better. I guess it did catch up to him eventually and get him murdered.
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Jul 20, 2019 17:49
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The problem with "being woke" is like using the word "love" in the 60's and early 70's: it's a really narrow term to describe a fight that's lasted centuries. The 90's weren't the 50's, I was a child in the 90's and the adults in my life who didn't prey upon me were very clear about what was and wasn't okay. Kaji never tracked as a good person. The best thing he does is something he doesn't do: engage in Misato's desire to feel defiled. Even then, he's kinda played a big role in why she feels that way.
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Jul 20, 2019 18:39
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Fiction is supposed to be a reflection of the human experience. Something a character does isn’t supposed to be good or bad it just exists, and we the viewer are supposed to read our own interpretation into it and how we can relate it to our own experience. I think declaring something to be “not good” is reductive, because there’s literally nothing you can do about it. It’s a cartoon work of fiction about existential terror. We can’t tell Kaji to stop it. It’s ok to see his actions and go oh he can be sleazy and recognize them as sleazy, but to go as far to claim that this is what the creators felt can get a little weird to me and it’s usually a conversation that leads nowhere. These characters are all presented the way they are presented and just like in real life they have many facets that make them a full character. Sometimes abusers can be nice people. Sometimes nice people are utterly broken. That’s kind of the point of the show.
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Jul 20, 2019 19:29
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The_Rob posted:That’s kind of the point of the show. does that excuse it though, is the crux of the argument here I think it was poorly-done Yinlock fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Jul 20, 2019 |
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Jul 20, 2019 19:38
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Expect My Mom posted:Asukas cool
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Jul 20, 2019 19:54
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Asuka remains one of my favorite anime characters and time/rewatches have done little to change that opinion.
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Jul 20, 2019 19:56
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Kaji bad, Asuka good. I’m glad we have come to this decision.
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Jul 20, 2019 20:01
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Yinlock posted:does that excuse it though, is the crux of the argument here It does excuse it, because like many people have brought up. Shinji sees right through Kaji every time they talk. The women in the show often times seem repulsed by him or at the very least irritated. The only one who has true affection for him is Asuka and that’s because she’s looking for any real male attention even if it’s unhealthy. In fact the running theme of the show is seeking attention from people who don’t give any to you. The reason his actions are excused is because 1. He’s not a real person and 2. His actions in the show are shown to be pretty not good. Now you thinking it’s poorly done. That’s fine that’s on you you’re allowed to have that opinion, but it doesn’t leave much room for discussion because now we’re talking about a matter of personal taste.
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Jul 20, 2019 20:03
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The_Rob posted:It does excuse it, because like many people have brought up. Shinji sees right through Kaji every time they talk. The women in the show often times seem repulsed by him or at the very least irritated. The only one who has true affection for him is Asuka and that’s because she’s looking for any real male attention even if it’s unhealthy. In fact the running theme of the show is seeking attention from people who don’t give any to you. The reason his actions are excused is because 1. He’s not a real person and 2. His actions in the show are shown to be pretty not good. This doesn't jive at all with my memory of the show (which admittedly is far from perfect) nor what I've read from other Eva fans. Misato clearly seemed to have feelings for Kaji and Kaji's final message to her seems to be about a confession of love or to ask her to marry him. It's just that, like everyone else, they're too screwed in the head to act on it in a good way.
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Jul 20, 2019 20:16
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NikkolasKing posted:This doesn't jive at all with my memory of the show (which admittedly is far from perfect) nor what I've read from other Eva fans. Misato clearly seemed to have feelings for Kaji and Kaji's final message to her seems to be about a confession of love or to ask her to marry him. It's just that, like everyone else, they're too screwed in the head to act on it in a good way. Sometimes you just go dumb for a person. Sometimes we as humans do things that are bad for us. Misato is in a vulnerable place in her life and he’s one of the few constants of her old life. And same goes for him. She brings him back to a more care free time in his life before the end of the world was just on the horizon. People are messy we do dumb things.
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Jul 20, 2019 20:26
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I feel like the textual read where Kaji is being depicted as a good guy is the same read where Misato is just trying to be a mother to Shinji on the bed. Which is just a bizarre combination of refusing to believe the show ever tried to be critical of human behavior and also thinking that it somehow still has any value as a show without that. It's cool if people like Evangelion because it's "total chaos" and "a beautiful mess" or "flawed unto becoming fascinating" but if that's a person's read of the morals and psychology then I have to assume they think of psychology in general as a bunch of "mumbo jumbo". To me the show is absolutely nothing if the creators weren't intending to show these people as bad. The only people who are worth saving is the children, the future generation, everyone else is just artifacts in a web of pain. Understanding those adult pains can lead to understanding what the children face as inheritors of the damage adults inflicted upon them. e: also, minimizing Misato's damage (i.e. ignoring the state of HER inner child, and her tendency toward the physical with Kaji, Shinji, etc) means that she's just a dumb woman who likes the bad boys. Which is in my opinion a wrong reading of the show that then deflates the psychological trappings of the female characters until they become tropes. As said above, sometimes you just go dumb for someone...but there's always an actual reason behind why, and that's where the heart is. Peacoffee fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Jul 20, 2019 |
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Jul 20, 2019 20:35
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Why does everyone want to gently caress Gendo and Shinji? Do they have the kavorka?
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Jul 20, 2019 20:50
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I think the most textually-supported of Kaiji's flaws is that he's extremely self-destructive. He keeps deliberately sabotaging his relationship with the one woman he cares about and sticking his fingers in the toaster that is the SEELE conspiracy. It's the only thing we, the audience, can see that he has in common with Misato's father, who also destroyed himself in the pursuit of forbidden, deadly knowledge. This is a highly Freudian work, and he's got a stronger death drive than nearly anyone else in the cast - which also fits with his womanising being a hollow sham, because for Freudian psychoanalysts, Eros is the opposite of Thanatos. He keeps pretending to chase the little death so nobody will notice he really wants the big one.
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Jul 20, 2019 21:03
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Peacoffee posted:I feel like the textual read where Kaji is being depicted as a good guy is the same read where Misato is just trying to be a mother to Shinji on the bed. Which is just a bizarre combination of refusing to believe the show ever tried to be critical of human behavior and also thinking that it somehow still has any value as a show without that. It's cool if people like Evangelion because it's "total chaos" and "a beautiful mess" or "flawed unto becoming fascinating" but if that's a person's read of the morals and psychology then I have to assume they think of psychology in general as a bunch of "mumbo jumbo". To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Evangelion. The angst is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the plot will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Kaji's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these creepy rapey scenes, to realise that they're not just creepy- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Evangelion truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Kaji's existential catchphrase "hey gurl" which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev's Russian epic Fathers and Sons. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Hideki Anno's genius wit unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools.. how I pity them
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Jul 20, 2019 21:13
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Yinlock posted:To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Evangelion. The angst is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the plot will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Kaji's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these creepy rapey scenes, to realise that they're not just creepy- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Evangelion truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Kaji's existential catchphrase "hey gurl" which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev's Russian epic Fathers and Sons. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Hideki Anno's genius wit unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools.. how I pity them Source your quotes
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Jul 20, 2019 21:17
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The real question is, Is rebuild Kaji bad?
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Jul 20, 2019 21:18
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Tythas posted:The real question is, Is rebuild Kaji bad? i actually forgot he existed entirely, so n/a I guess e: which puts him far above most of WILLE in that he's not in the "let's emotionally abuse the key to the apocalypse because it makes us feel better about being huge failures" tier of bad Yinlock fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Jul 20, 2019 |
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Jul 20, 2019 21:20
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Yinlock posted:To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Evangelion. The angst is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the plot will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Kaji's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these creepy rapey scenes, to realise that they're not just creepy- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Evangelion truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Kaji's existential catchphrase "hey gurl" which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev's Russian epic Fathers and Sons. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Hideki Anno's genius wit unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools.. how I pity them But do you have an Eva tattoo? And can other red blooded males see it?
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Jul 20, 2019 21:46
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Tythas posted:The real question is, Is rebuild Kaji bad?
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Jul 20, 2019 21:47
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Do you guys not recognize the Rick and Morty copypasta???
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Jul 20, 2019 21:52
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FilthyImp posted:Do you guys not recognize the Rick and Morty copypasta??? To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty copypasta...
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Jul 20, 2019 22:01
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He does the watermelon thing. Boat bit doesn't happen, Misato already knows about Terminal Dogma in the first 30 minutes. And then it goes to Rebuild 3 where he isn't.
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Jul 20, 2019 22:11
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An interesting aspect of Kaji imo is the ways he is feminine while Misato is masculine. Which one would you expect to be drinking in the morning, living like a slob, and eating instant ramen for every meal? I enjoy how often the way the characters seem at first can be really far from who they actually are (like in End of Evangelion, where Shinji is the aggressive one and not Asuka). Kaji seems to play the role of a James Bond-esque spy but ultimately he’s a dead love interest who left his work to the one he loved. If anything he’s a Bond girl, narratively. I think one of the sad things about the Rebuild movies is that because they are short on time, they have to cut out most of the adult characters’ moments and focus on the children. I remember an interview where it was said that Anno lost his favorite Misato scene from 2.0 as a result of this structure and focusing.
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Jul 20, 2019 22:31
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I don't know how to respond because I don't know the references, but it sure doesn't have anything to do with what I said. I could understand why someone wouldn't like Evangelion because I haven't talked or thought about it for 15 years until just a few weeks ago. I'm getting a lot of "male responding to male threat" vibes, but I really don't want to learn more about Rick and Morty that I have to. I have yet to watch the rebuild films but everything I keep hearing about them makes me think they are probably not going to be my thing. Peacoffee fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Jul 20, 2019 |
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Jul 20, 2019 22:32
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Peacoffee posted:I don't know how to respond because I don't know the references, but it sure doesn't have anything to do with what I said. I could understand why someone wouldn't like Evangelion because I haven't talked or thought about it for 15 years until just a few weeks ago. I'm getting a lot of "male responding to male threat" vibes, but I really don't want to learn more about Rick and Morty that I have to. it's the part where you assumed that anyone who thinks eva is a fuckin mess must just have a small brain that is unable to comprehend the vast intricacies of a depressed man having a breakdown on live tv and the part here where you assumed someone making jokes about that must be some kind of combative neanderthal that is the part i was making fun of
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Jul 21, 2019 00:22
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the show doesn't really interrogate kaji's lovely behavior nearly as much as this thread seems to think it does. speaking of: kaji acts like a shitheel sexually and then misato gets back together with him, but the show is much much more willing to shine a light on misato's sexual issues as like, a woman with daddy issues who uses sex as an escape or whatever, than it is on shaming kaji for the stuff that he doesNikkolasKing posted:Exactly. We're talking about Eva having dated ideas here and The Bible is no different.
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Jul 21, 2019 00:58
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IronicDongz posted:the show doesn't really interrogate kaji's lovely behavior nearly as much as this thread seems to think it does. speaking of: kaji acts like a shitheel sexually and then misato gets back together with him, but the show is much much more willing to shine a light on misato's sexual issues as like, a woman with daddy issues who uses sex as an escape or whatever, than it is on shaming kaji for the stuff that he does Is it possible to read Kaji/Misato as something that never really ended? I kinda got that vibe during my first watch but I don't know if the text really supports it, and while it doesn't excuse Kaji groping someone that's not into it, it recontextualizes it into more of a toxic relationship than Misato giving in to an abuser.
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Jul 21, 2019 01:59
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Dias posted:Is it possible to read Kaji/Misato as something that never really ended? I kinda got that vibe during my first watch but I don't know if the text really supports it, and while it doesn't excuse Kaji groping someone that's not into it, it recontextualizes it into more of a toxic relationship than Misato giving in to an abuser. kaji clearly thinks it never ended, but misato's reaction indicates it very much did
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Jul 21, 2019 02:02
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Yinlock posted:kaji clearly thinks it never ended, but misato's reaction indicates it very much did I guess that's fair, it's been a while since I watched the entire series. Something about their dynamic registered to me as this lovely come-and-go relationship, but maybe it's just me projecting real-life experiences onto the series.
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Jul 21, 2019 02:10
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Jul 21, 2019 02:30
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GC5rAX0xHg
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Jul 21, 2019 02:35
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I'm just baffled that it could've gotten any traction after, what, 2 years?
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Jul 21, 2019 02:40
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Outside of the show how would you view a guy making unwanted advances on a woman who clearly doesn’t want it? That’s probably a good sign of how much you enjoy Kaji for his “quirks”.
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Jul 21, 2019 03:00
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How the hell does somebody look at Eva, where Kaji treats Misato like poo poo until they become useful to each other enough that they use sex as an excuse to pass information, with the text that Misato sees her father in Kaji, a father who she still 15 years later cannot get over whether she respected or despised, and think, "Yeah Kaji is meant to just be a cool dude, women amirite." She loves Kaji probably about as much as she loves her father and big shock that's up in the air. Like of all the things running in Misato's mind when she plays the tape, likely one of those things was, "Work (saving Fuyutsuki) really was more important than me wasn't it?" The thing that makes me angry about this too is how loving pointless of a death it is if all he accomplished was save Fuyutsuki.
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Jul 21, 2019 03:15
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I love when people follow up their post with "it's been a while since I watched the show" lo
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Jul 21, 2019 04:18
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Expect My Mom posted:I love when people follow up their post with "it's been a while since I watched the show" lo This is why I asked if that was a possible read. 
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Jul 21, 2019 04:25
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