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If I am to be judged by those who come after me, let me be judged for the truth. So, like a lot of goons, I read Dragonlance as a kid in the late 80's and early 90's. It was the absolute coolest poo poo I had ever read, and I'm sure it has aged like fine quiche. Apparently, I wasn't the only dumb kid growing up back then because, as I understand it, there are about 190 books in the entire series. I'm not masochistic enough to read all 190, but we'll see how far we get. So, we'll start with the Chronicles: Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Winter Night, and Dragon's of Spring Dawning. After that, we'll see what we can do. I've found an allegedly complete publication list here: http://dlnexus.com/products/printdate.aspx . To be honest, if anyone can point me to somewhere I can get the "Adventure Gamebooks", the idea of forums-based CYOA seems rad as hell.
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# ? Jul 18, 2019 23:01 |
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# ? Jun 6, 2024 06:05 |
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One of my fondest memories of the series is the songs. I'm just gonna drop the opening song here, because it's not something to easily describe. code:
I did some digging, and the poem itself was actually (like many poems in the series) penned by Michael Williams, not Hickman or Weiss. Prologue: The Old Man quote:Tika Waylan straightened her back with a sigh. flexing her shoulders to ease her cramped muscles. And thus is introduced our protagonist: Tika Waylan, Barmaid. quote:It was getting harder to keep up the old inn. There was a lot of love rubbed into the warm finish of Wait a sec, this hardly sounds post-apocalyptic at all!! I think I may have been hornswoggled. In fact, we get more description of this inn-within-a-tree in the chapter than we do of any of the characters. I may have been truly mistaken and the inn, itself, may be our protagonist. quote:Tika looked around and smiled in satisfaction. The tables were clean and polished. All she had left to do was sweep the floor. She began to shove aside the heavy wooden benches, as Otik emerged from the kitchen, enveloped in fragrant steam. Our first reference to the changing seasons. I, for one, cannot wait for the second novel, wherein I clearly expect they will tell us how cold Winter is no less than 400 times. quote:"I walked my feet off yesterday and got little thanks and less tips! Such a gloomy crowd! Everybody nervous, jumping at every sound. I dropped a mug last night and-I swear-Retark drew his sword!" First of all, Otik: "But it's good for business" shouldn't brighten your face when discussing religious fanatics dragging people off in the middle of the night. That's some incredible late-stage logic. Second off: Pay your drat barmaid a living wage so she doesn't have to scrounge for tips. quote:"It must be thirsty work, haranguing people about the New Gods day in and day out-he's in here every night." Well, we've made some progress since the end of the poem. The New Gods are apparently here, and possibly the cause of some of the misfortunes in the area. Also, the Northern army seems like a dangling plot lead if I ever heard one. Just the thing for a band of young adventurers to investigate. quote:The door opened. Uncanny! Like the X-men! (Good thing they got that whole "nobody can sneak up Chekov's stairs" gun fired early.) quote:The Inn of the Last Home was built high in the branches of a mightyvallenwood tree, as was every other building in Solace, with the exception of the blacksmith shop. First, I'd like to commend them on basic fire safety for not putting the blacksmith in a tree hut. Second, this is basically an Ewok village and I think we can all acknowledge that. quote:He stood in the doorway, leaning on a worn oak staff, and peered around the Inn. The tattered hood of his plain, gray robe was drawn over his head, its shadow obscuring the features of his face except for his hawkish, shining eyes. And thus is introduced our protagonist: Gray-Beard, the Old One. It's clear by his "hawkish eyes" and the fact that he didn't take the stairs that this man is also secretly... a bird. Some sort of... Bird Man. quote:He stood in the center of the Inn, peering around as though confirming the location and position of each table and chair in the room. The common room was large and bean-shaped, wrapping around the trunk of the vallenwood. The trees smaller limbs supported the floor and ceiling. He looked with particular interest at the fireplace, which stood about three-quarters of the way back into the room. The only stonework in the Inn, it was obviously crafted by dwarven hands to appear to be part of the tree, winding naturally through the branches above. A bin next to the side of the firepit was stacked high with cordwood and pine logs brought down from the high mountains. No resident of Ok, I'm back on the "The Inn is our secret protagonist" plan. What we know about our protagonists: Tika: Barmaid, 19, Redhead, Tired Grey-Beard: Old, Also a Bird The Inn: FOUR ENTIRE PARAGRAPHS {Not pictured: Several pages of Grey-Beard literally rearranging the furniture.} quote:"Bring the chairs. That's a good girl. And I want one, right here." The old man gestured at a spot in front of the firepit. "For me." Thus endeth the Prologue. I can't wait for Tika to go out on so many rad adventures.
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# ? Jul 18, 2019 23:03 |
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Wherever I see a song or poem of more than six lives in a fantasy book my eyes glaze right on past
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# ? Jul 18, 2019 23:14 |
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I am so on board for this.
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# ? Jul 18, 2019 23:23 |
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this is tickling my nostalgia! Looking forward to more =)
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# ? Jul 18, 2019 23:24 |
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I have no nostalgia or even much knowledge at all of Dragonlance, but I'm ready to sign up for your Patreon.
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# ? Jul 18, 2019 23:31 |
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I tried to read this to my son out of nostalgia and I wasn't able to. I didn't have what it takes. I think I got to the end of Chapter 2. Godspeed, gentle goon.
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# ? Jul 18, 2019 23:33 |
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Never read these books when I was a kid. Boy howdy does it seem aggressively mediocre.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 00:18 |
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God I'm tempted to listen along on audiobook so I can "read" while doing better things. If there's audiobooks that is.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 00:22 |
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Yesssssss this is gonna be fun mostly for poor Toshimo's pain
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 00:26 |
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Cold and cheerless breakfast! Cold and cheerless breakfast!
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 00:38 |
I managed to miss these books as a childe so now I'll be able to understand everyone's crap.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 00:53 |
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I loved Dragonlance, I even had the Dragonlance RPG that my friends and I played. It was our first foray into pen and paper RPG.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 01:14 |
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I honestly wonder how long this will take to get to the three Dragonlance books I actually read. I have no idea where they sit in the publishing history.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 01:38 |
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Excited for the weird Gnome books. Best part of the setting.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 03:17 |
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Hell yes, I am totally here for these. Dragons of Spring Dawning was my introduction to D&D, I stayed up all night reading it and got my mom to cut my hair into a topknot and call me Tas for years. I was like 8.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 03:27 |
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Thank you for doing this. I am ready to cast a shadow in the shape of a dragon because Polymorph doesn't fool moonlight somehow.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 03:42 |
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I recall enjoying Dragons of Autumn Twilight well enough when I read it, by the standards of game fiction, but Winter Twilight totally lost me- it just felt scattered.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 03:56 |
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Somehow I managed to avoid every D&D novel, no matter the setting or author. Now I finally get to see what I missed!
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 04:00 |
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Arivia posted:Hell yes, I am totally here for these. Dragons of Spring Dawning was my introduction to D&D, I stayed up all night reading it and got my mom to cut my hair into a topknot and call me Tas for years. I was like 8. Wait. Is there something to a topknot beyond long hair and a really high ponytail? I've always assumed "topknot" was basically the same as "gently caress I need to do a lot of cleaning with chemicals and need my hair really, really out of my face". I'm sincerely curious. Also this a great thread and I'm ground flooring this bad boy. I think I have some garbage supplement thing sitting in a box somewhere with recipes and crap. If I can find that book I'll totally make those potatoes that come up in EVERY GODDAMN CHAPTER. (The recipe sucks by the way, if I remember.)
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 04:21 |
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Ground Floor! Yes! I know nothing about Dragonlance except my high school library had all the books and I dutifully ignored them in favor of their collection of Discworld novels. I am eager to learn about a piece of history that completely passed me by, judging by the TG industry thread this spun off from it should be fascinating. Except for the prologue, that bored. Also if you're writing a fantasy novel you are not allowed to write big long songs unless your name is literally John Ronald Reuel Tolkein, and even then I'm probably going to skim them.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 04:31 |
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I tried reading the three original books earlier this year on a whim. A friend loaned me his annotated edition, which was actually kind of interesting. I mean, I still gave up maybe three chapters into book two, but eh.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 05:37 |
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Splicer posted:Wherever I see a song or poem of more than six lives in a fantasy book my eyes glaze right on past Same, but there's a group who does Tolkien poems and it rules https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxfoa23skHg
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 05:40 |
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It’s have watched the animated movie, can’t wait to see how the book compares
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 05:46 |
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Echoing the, "I loved it as a kid, I cannot read it today," sentiment. I got them on Kindle super cheap last year and couldn't even make it past the lake in the first book. I can't wait for some of the sillier stories, like Sturm and Kitiara Visit The Moon or the segue into post-post-apocalypse, with more and biggerer dragons now
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 05:51 |
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Sodomy Hussein posted:Same, but there's a group who does Tolkien poems and it rules The Rankin-Bass movies do pretty well as well. Not spectacular or anything, but they remind me of the melodies my dad would do when he read the books to us. Also some of them are sung by Glenn Yarbrough who was a great folk singer. One of my dad's favorites and I think he influenced the reading by complete coincidence, Dad started reading the books to us before we saw the movies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5vu8vU9yCw
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 06:23 |
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As a kid I sort of felt obligated to read these, scraped my way through Autumn Twilight and maybe the next one? But then lost track of the order and also just wasn't hugely compelled. I did read a short story collection from the setting though, which was if anything more bewildering. (Ground floor!)
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 06:27 |
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Bruceski posted:The Rankin-Bass movies do pretty well as well. Not spectacular or anything, but they remind me of the melodies my dad would do when he read the books to us. Also some of them are sung by Glenn Yarbrough who was a great folk singer. One of my dad's favorites and I think he influenced the reading by complete coincidence, Dad started reading the books to us before we saw the movies. My dad read us The Hobbit and some of the Lord of the Rings when we were kids, and he tried his best on the songs but... uh. He is not a musical man. Let's leave it at that. And I've wondered before if that's part of the reason why I can't stand the loving songs. I adore the Rankin-Bass ones from The Hobbit cause we'd get those from the library and they just sound like childhood now, but when I'd see them in the books when I was a teenager and reading LotR I just checked out and got some content words and then went back to the story. I know there was content there, but I just couldn't. And that's still a reason why I have no desire to ever reread those books. And I love deep dives into settings and slow narratives! I just could never get into those. Somehow this didn't infect when my dad read us The Last of the Mohicans and I heard my dad's "French" which is, let's say unique. I love the hell out of all of those books despite him poorly reading parts in period French he didn't understand with basically no knowledge of French and just guessing. He actually learned to read a decent amount of French but his pronunciation is hilariously garbage and I still tease him for it. In conclusion, I should go read to my nephew.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 06:42 |
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I am glad you finally got this going, Toshimo, and I plan to follow along closely. Also yes, any poem/song/whatever longer than like 6 or 8 lines is an easy way go get me to glaze over. Like, yes, we get it, did you really need to spend 50 lines on this?
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 07:04 |
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Sometimes I lurk over in the D&D thread, and I saw you post this link, and I'm all about this thread in the worst kind of way. I was way too big of a Dragonlance grognard in high school and a bit into college. Read the first trilogy (I think the first two books were in my HS library, oddly enough), and the second trilogy about the twins going back in time, and a couple of the collections of short stories, including the one about everybody's kids. Then I read the maybe sort of unofficial "fourth book" in the first trilogy, Dragons of Summer Flame? (I guess they decided keeping the naming scheme 100% and calling it Summer's Day would be a little dumb...) IIRC, the book was written because TSR (I think D&D was still owned by TSR then) was completely changing the Dragonlance campaign setting. And not in the way they did with Forgotten Realms, where a D&D version change just meant some gods died and new ones appeared...instead, they completely REMOVED all the gods (which was resolution to the book), and changed the entire RPG mechanics so it wasn't the same as current AD&D. Looked it up just now and it was called the SAGA system. Then they undid all of that a couple years later with the Souls trilogy where the old gods came back because: *surprise*, they didn't actually leave like they said they did at the end of the other book, the main antagonist evil goddess just tricked the other gods, "stole" the world and hid it from them. (Not sure if it needs spoiling, it's a freakin 20 year old trilogy.) If I remember right, Weis and Hickman basically said they didn't like how they That's where I stopped, early 2000's, I was in college and realized I could read GOOD books, instead.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 16:44 |
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For the love of all that is good, please just stick to the Weis & Hickman books and a few select spinoffs. Nobody wants to see you lose your mind.thetoughestbean posted:It’s have watched the animated movie, can’t wait to see how the book compares We don't talk about the movie in polite company.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 17:06 |
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This will be fun! I'm pretty sure I read less than ten Dragonlances as a young teen. Definitely the first trilogy. Some Raistlin and Caramon and Lord Soth thing, and a book(maybe more than one?) from the perspective of some goblins who were trying to get a better life.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 17:42 |
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Silhouette posted:We don't talk about the movie in polite company. The SA forums, though we've grown less actively malicious, are not and have never been polite company. Adding to the chorus: I read a lot of Dragonlance as a nerdling before developing the ability to evaluate quality. I think I stopped in the mid-90s? The last I read was Second Generation and Dragons of Summer Flame, after which I didn't particularly care to continue. I have fonder memories of some of the side books and short stories than the main storyline these days. Weasel's Luck/Galen Beknighted in particular. Some of the Tales and Preludes series, plus a whole freaking lot of the short stories in the anthologies, were obviously written as generic fantasy and clumsily shoehorned into the Dragonlance setting, which did them a disservice. Example that I can't remember the book it was in was Raistlin and Caramon in the city with the cat god dude. The first Dragonlance I ever read - really the first D&D fiction - was the anthology Dragons of Krynn. Toshimo: You should take an intermission every once in a while to do some of those short stories rather than power through them all at once when you get to the books they're in. Maybe it'll help keep you from burning out going from one epic trilogy to another.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 17:49 |
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Yeah thinking back I think I only ever really completed the Chronicles. I also read the Moon book at some point, because I was hoping it was Spelljammer, and IIRC I was kinda disappointed. I should do an F&F of the AD&D Dragonlance Adventures hardcover though. I think I still have it around somewhere.... I am probably not the best dude for it because my DL lore is ... shaky.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 18:18 |
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I read the first trilogy, a book focusing on Kitiara, maybe one about Tanis, and there was also one with a dark elf
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 18:21 |
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I had the companion books they made - Leaves From the Inn of the Last Home and More Leaves From the Inn of the Last Home. More songs, more (probably terrible) poetry and recipes. Many recipes. I'll see if I can't dig them up somewhere. Always tried to get my mom to cook the spiced potatoes but could never get her to go along with it.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 18:43 |
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I’m definitely a latecomer to D&D (never played until 2017), but what’s the general opinion of the Dragonlance setting? I know next to nothing about any of the settings besides Forgotten Realms (seems like a kitchen sink setting) and Eberron (rules imo).
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 19:03 |
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Mr. Humalong posted:I’m definitely a latecomer to D&D (never played until 2017), but what’s the general opinion of the Dragonlance setting? I know next to nothing about any of the settings besides Forgotten Realms (seems like a kitchen sink setting) and Eberron (rules imo). As someone who only knows broad, mostly third-hand information, it seems that despite a variety of interesting ideas for the time (fantasy post-apocalypse, world forsaken by gods, fundamentalism vs actual compassion Good v Good), it's aggressively mediocre. The cartoon with Lucy Lawless and Keifer Sutherland and a bunch of terrible CGI was hilarious, tho. (And yes Eberrowns.) That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Jul 19, 2019 |
# ? Jul 19, 2019 19:09 |
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Mr. Humalong posted:I’m definitely a latecomer to D&D (never played until 2017), but what’s the general opinion of the Dragonlance setting? I know next to nothing about any of the settings besides Forgotten Realms (seems like a kitchen sink setting) and Eberron (rules imo). Forgotten Realms is extremely kitchen-sinky and you have a bunch of tools who are way, way, way too deep into the altogether-way-too-expansive lore and canon. Dragonlance got expanded a ton in novels, but it has never been a premier RPG setting except for a few minutes during the late 80's or whatever. It's much more well-known for its books. It has some clever bits that were atypical for its era, and it prided itself on being a deep, dramatic setting, but it's still an Extremely Generic Fantasy World.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 19:10 |
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# ? Jun 6, 2024 06:05 |
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+1 to the list of "read a bunch of this poo poo in high school/college" pile. Been years since I read any of my old books that are packed away in storage, save for my well-worn copy of The Legend of Huma by none other than the WoW Lore Thread's favorite I'm both looking forward to and dreading seeing where this thread ends up going.
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# ? Jul 19, 2019 19:12 |