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honestly it’s still well written, but it goes into an incredibly boring bottle universe and completely ignores the actual strengths of the series, which as you said are the well-realized depiction of a xianxia society that makes sense and has lots of different characters in it with their own perspectives and motivations I think one of my favorite moments in Part 1 is when you start seeing Ha Yun viewpoint chapters and find out he resents and is jealous of the more independent Hunters because he can’t get promoted for political reasons, just as they all resent him for picking and choosing the easiest missions using his influence. Everybody has their own perspective!
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May 14, 2022 14:49
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Larry Parrish posted:Anyway to change the subject back to Memories of the Fall, I skipped over that one a few times because frankly it sounded too generic to bother with. And it kind of is, but I really like it. There's clearly a background plot, but I just finished Chapter 11 (they're REALLY long, lol, I didn't count but it felt like a couple hundred pages), and so far I really enjoy this. It's kind of melancholic and grounded in a way xianxia novels rarely are. Out of curiosity are you reading from the beginning or starting with the rewrite? I've been kind of struggling with the rewrite but I just read chapter 14, which is probably like 200,000 words in, and at the end is a note that "with this the rewrite has reached the end of chapter 4" and I was like, is this why everything feels so bloated? Though it is well written, I'll give it that, it just feels like the story is taking way too many words to tell the story it wants to.
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May 14, 2022 17:04
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Bremen posted:Out of curiosity are you reading from the beginning or starting with the rewrite? I've been kind of struggling with the rewrite but I just read chapter 14, which is probably like 200,000 words in, and at the end is a note that "with this the rewrite has reached the end of chapter 4" and I was like, is this why everything feels so bloated? Yeah I'm reading the rewrite. It's loving colossal, yeah. But as a chad slice of life enjoyer it doesn't bug me.
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May 14, 2022 21:10
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So I finished binging my way through Worth the Candle and man... It wasn't the perfect story, it had really bad pacing issues, occasionally contrived arcs, and perhaps too much of a tendency to descend into long kinda boring circular arguments but overall... I actually think it was really good, and more than that, parts of it struck real emotional chords with me, parts written in such a raw real way that made me viscerally invested in the characters, and the ultimate catharsis of the ending was, in my opinion, perfect. I can understand it's not a story for everyone, it goes way too deep into some extremely dark subjects, but I never felt it wasn't trying to treat them with the gravitas necessary. It's not going to be my favorite novel, but I think it had more of an impact on me as a person than novels I draw more enjoyment from. I dunno, I just felt a need to recommend it despite all its flaws, just on the chance it works for someone the way it worked for me. I almost can't believe it's the same author as TUTBAD.
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May 15, 2022 07:04
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It's an incredible work. As you say, it certainly has some flaws, but it's also extremely ambitious in its scope and thematic content. An author self-insert that tries to realistically deal with his flaws and traumatic history is not a common thing. And of course the world building is insane in its sheer variety. I love how Wales treats silly stuff seriously. "How are we going to safely pull out an entire tree from our dimensional pocket space in this busy urban street" is totally my jam. Similarly, the way he took common dwarven fantasy tropes -- dwarves love gold! dwarves are stoic! dwarves all live underground! -- and made them feel real in a way that ended up downright sad was amazing to me.
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May 15, 2022 10:53
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Ok I wanted something long, but not TWI long, so I read more Ar'Kendrithyst. Once I started just completly ignoring any numbers it got better. Kinda enjoying it now.
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May 15, 2022 17:42
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"If you ignore the main selling point of the genre it's p. good" is in no way an accurate or fair reading of that post or the genre, but lol anyway. Maybe I should finally try that one. Or finish catching up on something else I'm fifty chapters into.
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May 15, 2022 18:04
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It honestly doesn't go mad on the numbers, pretty much the only thing it seems to have a bee up it's arse about is money amounts, and I can glaze my eyes over those. One of the big plot points is that the main dude hates maths.
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May 15, 2022 18:09
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Ar'kendrythist is not a LitRPG although it does have a status sheet. But the narrative is going to start rapidly ignoring it anyway. The numbers just don't matter too much if you know what you're doing with magic. Anyway almost all of that is in the first book.
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May 15, 2022 20:55
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Good news: Memories of the Fall Book 3 is much better than Book 2. There’s a ton to say about this serial; I’ll try to write a review after I’ve finished Book 3.
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May 16, 2022 03:39
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Well. I got caught up on the Memories of the Fall remake, but the chapters don't seem to line up. Does anyone know where to jump to in the old ones...?
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May 17, 2022 02:32
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Lol I think this remake either seriously reorders a lot of stuff or it's straight up more stuff than the original first book cuz flipping around the first couple chapters is just leaving me so confused. I guess I should have just read from the beginning of the original
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May 17, 2022 04:32
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it's definitely more stuff and I think there are a bunch of rewrite chapters that don't correspond to anything in the original book but I started at ch12 and it was ok. especially since it's memories of the fall so it loves referring to information that you don't have like you already know it anyway
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May 17, 2022 04:44
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It definitely feels like ratfic, especially the mentality of the protagonist, but I'm enjoying A Practical Guide to Sorcery (I'm on ch 16 so far). About a young woman learning, well, sorcery. She already has some talent and skill in it when the story starts, but her training has obviously been haphazard. edit: (ch 25) quote:Professor Lacer apparently got angry at some mishandling of magic by one of the second term students and had him expelled from the University in a scene that Sebastien hadn’t personally witnessed, but which grew more dramatic with every retelling she heard. She even heard a version that claimed Lacer turned the student into a sheep out of anger and sent the bleating young man back to his family with a note that said, “Your son was raised like an animal, so I have unified his outer appearance to match the inner.” 
Cicero fucked around with this message at 09:21 on May 17, 2022 |
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May 17, 2022 06:15
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Larry Parrish posted:Well. I got caught up on the Memories of the Fall remake, but the chapters don't seem to line up. Does anyone know where to jump to in the old ones...? New Ch 24 is supposed to be the rewrite of the second half of old Ch 12, I believe.
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May 17, 2022 10:07
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Yeah I'm more or less following it from there. But there's a lot of weirdness lol. I don't think any of it changes the overall plot but it sure changes all the small details.
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May 17, 2022 10:15
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Cicero posted:It definitely feels like ratfic, especially the mentality of the protagonist, but I'm enjoying A Practical Guide to Sorcery (I'm on ch 16 so far). About a young woman learning, well, sorcery. She already has some talent and skill in it when the story starts, but her training has obviously been haphazard. A Practical Guide to Sorcery felt to me like it's a fan rewrite of Name of the Wind.
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May 17, 2022 14:22
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LLSix posted:A Practical Guide to Sorcery felt to me like it's a fan rewrite of Name of the Wind. I think this is doing it a disservice. There are definitely similarities, but overall the story is much different.
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May 17, 2022 16:20
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LLSix posted:A Practical Guide to Sorcery felt to me like it's a fan rewrite of Name of the Wind. Brutal!
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May 17, 2022 21:43
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It doesn't have nearly enough gratuitous sex for that comparison to be fair.
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May 17, 2022 22:00
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Cinara posted:It doesn't have nearly enough gratuitous sex for that comparison to be fair. Fair. As far as I know, A Practical Guide to Sorcery has no sex in it.
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May 17, 2022 22:23
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If I remember right Name of the Wind had no sex in it either, the sequel is another story.
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May 17, 2022 23:25
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Yeah, in the sequel sex happens on like 20 pages of a 1000+ page book. Pure debauchery.
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May 17, 2022 23:55
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Bremen posted:I think this is doing it a disservice. There are definitely similarities, but overall the story is much different. One of KKC's biggest problems is that it had some obvious big bads right the beginning, except that that plotline never seemed to actually go anywhere, even two books into a trilogy. PGtS has two long-term plots, aside from the progression/school aspect, and both seem to be making reasonable, steady progress, at least where I'm at (about halfway caught up now). And then there's all the eye-rolling stuff like the sex ninjas and sex goddess, while PGtS plays on its protagonist being aggressively socially unaware and sexless.
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May 18, 2022 08:08
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Hah, Re: Trailer Trash changed its title to Re: Small Town Girl. I will say the original was right up there with "Cougar Town" in my list of top 5 terrible titles.
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May 18, 2022 13:27
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Argue posted:Hah, Re: Trailer Trash changed its title to Re: Small Town Girl. I will say the original was right up there with "Cougar Town" in my list of top 5 terrible titles. There is a new chapter, and I'm enjoying it. But of course Tabitha just has to mention the super important story Worm, by Wildbow. And that takes me out of the future narrative because it is such a bad story. Edit: Also they mention the store 'Electronics Boutique' and I have fond memories about that place... man the 90's were awesome. Peachfart fucked around with this message at 18:12 on May 18, 2022 |
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May 18, 2022 18:06
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quote:As if disturbed by plucking one vivid memory out of the disorganized pile of junk that had been pushed back into this recess of her mind, dozens of other embarrassing memories suddenly tumbled out.
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May 18, 2022 18:14
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goth comes back because of the sisters of battle movie
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May 18, 2022 18:16
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Peachfart posted:There is a new chapter, and I'm enjoying it. But of course Tabitha just has to mention the super important story Worm, by Wildbow. And that takes me out of the future narrative because it is such a bad story. worm becoming a hugely popular hit is absolutely in line with the typical absolute trash that populates the nyt bestseller's list
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May 18, 2022 18:19
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PGtS (54): something that's bothering me now is, why doesn't Siobhan simply anonymously give up the book? She cares about its secrets to some extent, sure, but she cares about not being found and imprisoned a lot more. It's obvious that the powers that be care about getting the book, not really her in particular. Yeah, ideally they'd like to get her too, the coppers anyway, but they don't care to the tune of enormously expensive magic rituals repeated over and over. If the book suddenly showed up in their hands, they'd take their win and give up the chase.
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May 18, 2022 18:24
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90s Cringe Rock posted:goth comes back because of the sisters of battle movie comes back? friend it never died,
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May 18, 2022 20:45
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Cicero posted:PGtS (54): something that's bothering me now is, why doesn't Siobhan simply anonymously give up the book? She cares about its secrets to some extent, sure, but she cares about not being found and imprisoned a lot more. It's obvious that the powers that be care about getting the book, not really her in particular. Yeah, ideally they'd like to get her too, the coppers anyway, but they don't care to the tune of enormously expensive magic rituals repeated over and over. If the book suddenly showed up in their hands, they'd take their win and give up the chase. I'm pretty sure she doesn't actually realize all of what's going on. She has no idea what the book is and thus has little idea that's why they're going to such an effort to catch her; they got her blood at a completely separate incident where she was allied to a crime group and used blood magic in front of witnesses, so she probably thinks that's the main reason they're after her, having not realized that the whole system is so rotten no one cares about the laws and it's just powerful groups manipulating the system to get what they want. And even if she did think they were after the book she'd probably expect what they really wanted is the amulet and she can't really give that back without a pardon. Which she probably totally could negotiate for but she doesn't realize that. PGtS is really as much about Siobhan misunderstanding what's going on as it is about everyone else misunderstanding what's going on with Siobhan. Bremen fucked around with this message at 22:14 on May 18, 2022 |
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May 18, 2022 22:07
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What's actually happening on the cultivation front in Forge of Destiny in the Threads? I'm caught up on Royal Road (Ling Qi is watching the sect tournament). Lots of stuff has happened in the story, of course, but I kind of lost track of the power progression. She's at, uh, level 3 cultivation and level 3 body physique, or whatever they're called, right? "Green" and "bronze", I think? But I think this was true even at the end of Forge. How much progress has she made in both categories? Is there even a fourth level of body strength? To be honest, I don't really care that much about the answer, but it's weird reading a story with these kinds of power levels and not really knowing how the protagonist matches up with other major characters.
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May 19, 2022 00:07
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nrook posted:What's actually happening on the cultivation front in Forge of Destiny in the Threads? I'm caught up on Royal Road (Ling Qi is watching the sect tournament). Lots of stuff has happened in the story, of course, but I kind of lost track of the power progression. She's at, uh, level 3 cultivation and level 3 body physique, or whatever they're called, right? "Green" and "bronze", I think? But I think this was true even at the end of Forge. How much progress has she made in both categories? Is there even a fourth level of body strength? Ling Qi is perpetually 2-3 small ranks behind the big names and usually about that far or a bit more ahead of the crafter and fox-girl. So at the start of threads Ling qi is Green 1 (of 10?) while snake girl and Cai blinding-light saber girl are at green 2/3 and that spread stays constant even as Ling qi advances to green 3 or 4. Green to the next tier is supposed to take several years even for good talents, most people don't progress past Green.
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May 19, 2022 00:12
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nrook posted:What's actually happening on the cultivation front in Forge of Destiny in the Threads? I'm caught up on Royal Road (Ling Qi is watching the sect tournament). Lots of stuff has happened in the story, of course, but I kind of lost track of the power progression. She's at, uh, level 3 cultivation and level 3 body physique, or whatever they're called, right? "Green" and "bronze", I think? But I think this was true even at the end of Forge. How much progress has she made in both categories? Is there even a fourth level of body strength? She is a 4th stage (threshold) of both green soul and bronze physique realms as of the sect tournament. (Actually, she hit full 4th stage in month 12 of her Inner Sect year). She was at the 1st stage of green and bronze at the end of Forge. So she has made 3 stage advances in both spiritual and physical cultivation over Threads so far. There are 8 stages for third realm (separate tracks for both spirit and body). The stage names are: Early / Appraisal / Foundation / Threshold / Framing / Formation / Fortification / Completion. As to other characters, CRX was at the 4th stage in month 11 and should be the same for BM. It is unclear whether CRX and BM advanced to 5th stage in the 2 months between the end of the ice lady expedition and the sect tournament. I would verge on probably since BM has previously thought in her sidestory that she was about to hit 5th stage soon. Katreus fucked around with this message at 00:31 on May 19, 2022 |
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May 19, 2022 00:27
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OK, thanks, good to know. It's funny that Yrsillar doesn't mention this at all in the RR/published versions. I can see why they don't; it's really not that interesting, and of course on the quest presumably when someone cares they just go look at the big stat block. But I do think it should come up a little more often than it does. Speaking of xianxia, I'm almost caught up with Memories of the Fall, and there's a big caveat on the story, one that is not at all obvious from the description. One of the major themes of the story--- maybe the major theme--- is people being oppressed and wronged by an unfair world and an unfair fate, and "justice" existing only so far as the powerful can use it to get what they want. And one of the main ways that manifests is rape culture: the MCs are predominantly (though not exclusively) female, and their actions are in many situations constrained by the fear of being sexually assaulted or humiliated by powerful men. What I'm getting at here is that rape and other forms of sexual abuse is basically everywhere in the story, and probably around half the time a female MC is physically threatened it's with an explicit or implicit threat of rape attached. These are pretty heavy themes for a xianxia progression fantasy story, and they're way more baked into it than for something like A Journey of Black and Red (where the MC is a rape survivor but spends most of her time being a badass vampire or trying not to die, not avoiding the threat of sexual assault). And unfortunately a lot of the time Rith does not exactly treat it with the utmost care; my eyes rolled back into my head, then did a 360 and rolled vertically back the other way when they pulled a "oh, in this society, women all walk around with their tits out, and everyone loves casual sex". The theme does have a resonance for xianxia, which usually has a subtheme of "the powerful do what they want, which is why the MC wants to not be weak", and the heavens themselves screwing you over is certainly a good analogy for the power of societal forces like patriarchy or rape culture, so I don't mean to say that it's always treated poorly. But it's something to be aware of going in.
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May 19, 2022 00:46
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The Blue Morality Scripture as far as the little we've seen of it is deeply patriarchal to just before the point of women being outright property pretty much. Which would be bad enough since it's more-or-less the global religion, but it's implied that when the current dynasty took power they somehow wrote it into the fabric of the world, which is why a few of the very powerful side characters summon antimatter flower blossoms when they get too pissed at the Emperor. Yeah it's not handled particularly carefully but it certainly sounds like something your average rear end in a top hat xianxia elder would do. Why enforce your stupid standards directly when you can just twist reality itself to gently caress the weak over?
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May 19, 2022 03:53
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Yeah, sometimes it does really hit. This is the only xianxia story I've ever read where I gave a gently caress about the tribulations, for example, because "the heavens" are conflated with all the societal bullshit the main characters have to deal with.
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May 19, 2022 04:29
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Hum, I'm still working my way through the rewrite chapters and while I totally agree that the themes are "people with power screw over others and there's very little they can do about it" there hasn't been any explicit threat of sexual assault at the point I'm at. The closest I can think of is it being mentioned one of the protagonists' clan is trying to profit off forcing her into a marriage (which, to be fair, is basically just prettying it up a bit) and her father and mother trying to block it. Or at least I think so - it's entirely possible more has been going on that I just missed because I look at the world through a different lens than the female MCs. But maybe that means the author has been easing off that in the rewrite. That said, the world is definitely set up as sexist in a way that gives things a vaguely creepy undertone. All of the female MCs come off as basically completely uninterested in either men or women (and to be fair, the male viewpoint characters mainly seem to as well), but non-viewpoint male characters are constantly making creepy comments about how sexy the female MCs are when they aren't around. Maybe that's intended to give a view on how that sort of objectification is a problem women in the real world, or maybe the author just wrote it in without ever realizing how it came off because hey, sexy female MCs, I dunno. At the point where I'm at in the story I'm not really comfortable making a judgement either way, but that might change.
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May 19, 2022 04:40
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its because those usually unnamed creepy old men and young masters are the type of people who remade the heavens op
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May 19, 2022 06:44
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