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Looking through novelupdates idly, looking at random BL novels and find one with a translation and open it and I see THIS
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Feb 21, 2021 02:53
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Well, that's impressive, in a way.
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Feb 21, 2021 11:24
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Megazver posted:Absolute Great Teacher is readable, if you have a tolerance for typical Chinese webnovel bullshit. Checked another recent translation: Museum of Deadly Beasts is a another "guy gets a knowledge cheat system and start face slapping the poo poo out of arrogant masters" story. This one is basically about being a Pokemon vet. Pretty solid translation, no common Chinese webnovel misogyny/racism so far and the protagonist isn't pushover, but isn't a psycho either. It's a fun read if you want something along the lines of Library of Heaven's Path.
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Feb 22, 2021 00:59
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Megazver posted:Well, that's impressive, in a way. I mean, I would kind of prefer that versus somebody dumping a raw MTL on a WordPress site and leaving me scratching my head at what is happening.
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Feb 22, 2021 10:18
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This is like a month late but cultivation is pretty easy to grasp since so many of the concepts are cross cultural and can be found in other mythologies and traditions. The problem is that the text isn't necessarily very clear since it might assume a certain level of familiarity and translations don't always try to bridge that gap. Things like casting spells by chanting certain phrases (a plurality of all fantasy media), using hand signs as a part of magic (D&D, Dr. Strange, Naruto etc.), performance enhancing and/or recovery based consumables (vast majority of rpgs), or even punching stuff very hard are all pretty easy to process if someone has consumed any amount of fantasy media before. Even the more esoteric concepts can be found if you look hard enough, stuff like the magnus opus of western alchemists being the creation of the philosopher's stone and obtaining immortality (Harry Potter, Fullmetal Alchemist), the concept of a divine breath present in the world that animates life and provides power (Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, Paradise Lost from trad games), or the idea of a literal internal self called a homunculus which drives the physical body (almost a perfect analog to a "yuanying" or "Nascent Soul" in cultivation stories, though tbf I don't think this is really a thing in recent western media). Other stuff like sympathetic magic through the use of blood, the sealing of demons (usually through some sort of written magical script), or the animation of corpses via evil magic are all stuff that's pretty easy to grok because you can see it everywhere. Even eastern mythological beasts are roughly analogous to their western counterparts and their narrative purpose is pretty clear. People do stuff like punch dragons because that's badass and that can be communicated without further exposition because it's knowledge you already have via cultural osmosis. The only things I can think of that aren't clear at first glance would be stuff like cultivation levels, but I think inclusion of something like that is more a consequence of nerds wanting to see numbers go up. Sun Wukong in journey to the west mostly used daoist magics, but there obviously wasn't a discrete power ladder he could climb and judge himself/others by, nor is there a clear singular reason for his immortality and eventual apotheosis because none of that really mattered. The murder-hobo power escalator you see in cultivation stories is more along the lines of what you would find in rpgs where you farm a certain zone from a hub city before you advance to the next level tier to repeat the process. Other things that might not be immediately clear can still be parsed from context; "spiritual power" is literally a bundle of psychic powers including telepathy, local clairvoyance, and telekinesis, things like "flying swords" are just a magical missile weapon shaped like a sword, and when you're riding it instead it's just a fancy mount skin which has the same
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Feb 22, 2021 16:13
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I really like the particular interpretation of cultivation in Forge/Threads of Destiny. The idea is essentially someone ascending to be the personal manifestation of a particular "concept" that represents who they are on a core level, and they gradually transition from just "people casting structured magic" to actually directly overwriting their own bodies and ultimately outside reality within their domain. It's a good way to have "numbers growth" in a way that directly ties into characterization; you can look at a high level cultivator and their abilities tell you a lot about their personality/goals/world-view. It's probably the most appealing "power system" I've seen.
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Feb 22, 2021 21:09
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Ytlaya posted:I really like the particular interpretation of cultivation in Forge/Threads of Destiny. The idea is essentially someone ascending to be the personal manifestation of a particular "concept" that represents who they are on a core level, and they gradually transition from just "people casting structured magic" to actually directly overwriting their own bodies and ultimately outside reality within their domain. Definitely part of its appeal. Cradle sort of has an element of that too but less explicit. The rest of the junk I've read, not so much for the most part.
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Feb 23, 2021 12:23
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This February has been so rough that I've gone back down the web novel hole and I'm finally 200 chapters into Renegade Immortal. The plot is fascinating, the pacing is not good, but Wang Lin has finally escaped the Ancient God and things are set to move. I rather like this novel for showcasing how awful a cultivation world could be, with lots of death and callous people who are power-hungry and want your treasures so they can make cultivation numbers go up indefinitely. I also like the imagery, with lots of dragons and weird moves - the entire Ancient God sequence was super trippy, with cultivators cloning themselves, restrictions, rifts to pop in and out of, and more.
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Feb 23, 2021 15:26
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:Ha. White showing up is when it goes from "generic, mediocre xianxia" to "I see why people keep recommending this now" for me. This is definitely my feeling. The early Altar Master arc has some sparks of what make the series enjoyable, but it's not until that relatively "serious" and "normal" cultivation arc is over that it takes off into Wacky Cultivator Hijinks for me. I'd really appreciate recommendations of anything that's even close to similarly humorous (and I've read A Will Eternal and ISSTH.) One of the things about CCG that really stands out for me - besides the humor, which is good - is that the MC and supporting characters are genuinely nice people. They don't just help each other out, they'll go out of their way to help other people out, because it's the right thing to do. It's a welcome change from most cultivation novels. The MC even goes out of his way to give his friends and family treasures that will make them healthier and live longer. It also has, amazingly, one of the most mature confession scenes/romance subplots I've seen, and I still don't understand how that happens in a loving webnovel about punch wizards getting into trouble because they're thousands of years old and bored. Log082 fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Feb 24, 2021 |
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Feb 24, 2021 05:44
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Log082 posted:One of the things about CCG that really stands out for me - besides the humor, which is good - is that the MC and supporting characters are genuinely nice people. They don't just help each other out, they'll go out of their way to help other people out, because it's the right thing to do. That's just social cultivation.
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Feb 24, 2021 06:31
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In different news, I've read some Reverend Insanity. There's certainly some skillful face-slapping and powerleveling, but it's... the book reads like it's a powerless and not-too-smart person's idea of what being strong and cunning is like and the worldbuilding is comically sociopathic just to justify the MC's bullshit. Half of the Evil Galaxy Brain poo poo the MC did so far would have actually worked out better if he wasn't acting like he was doing an evil playthrough of an RPG.Log082 posted:This is definitely my feeling. The early Altar Master arc has some sparks of what make the series enjoyable, but it's not until that relatively "serious" and "normal" cultivation arc is over that it takes off into Wacky Cultivator Hijinks for me. I'd really appreciate recommendations of anything that's even close to similarly humorous (and I've read A Will Eternal and ISSTH.) Read Beware the Chicken, if you haven't already. Out of recent stuff I've read, Museum of Deadly Beasts also isn't bad. Megazver fucked around with this message at 13:18 on Feb 24, 2021 |
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Feb 24, 2021 12:53
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Megazver posted:In different news, I've read some Reverend Insanity. There's certainly some skillful face-slapping and powerleveling, but it's... the book reads like it's a powerless and not-too-smart person's idea of what being strong and cunning is like and the worldbuilding is comically sociopathic just to justify the MC's bullshit. Half of the Evil Galaxy Brain poo poo the MC did so far would have actually worked out better if he wasn't acting like he was doing an evil playthrough of an RPG. How many chapters have you read? The story evolves over time and some of the earlier stuff makes more sense about the MC (and the MC is not nearly as clever as he might think sometimes.)
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Feb 24, 2021 14:35
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AtomikKrab posted:How many chapters have you read? The story evolves over time and some of the earlier stuff makes more sense about the MC (and the MC is not nearly as clever as he might think sometimes.) A couple of hundred so far. It's still enjoyable enough that I'll probably continue reading, but I am rolling my eyes here and there.
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Feb 24, 2021 14:50
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Megazver posted:Read Beware the Chicken, if you haven't already. I wasn't expecting a cultivation series to reference both a fantastic time-slip manga and Basil loving Brush.
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Feb 24, 2021 15:50
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:I wasn't expecting a cultivation series to reference both a fantastic time-slip manga and Basil loving Brush. I didn't realize Basil Brush was a reference.  That is one horrifying looking fox puppet.
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Feb 24, 2021 18:07
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LLSix posted:I didn't realize Basil Brush was a reference. Terror of British children everywhere! And Canadian ones, I guess? e: My youngest brother loved it, actually. Drove me spare.
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Feb 24, 2021 18:15
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beware the chicken is very aggressively canadian, yeah.
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Feb 24, 2021 18:21
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LLSix posted:That is one horrifying looking fox puppet. Boom. Boom.
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Feb 24, 2021 19:10
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I finally caught up with Forge/Threads on Royal Road, which I think means I'm about a year behind the newest material. Brief thoughts: The best part of the story is the politics and the character relationships, I think. Everyone's motivations make sense, and there's a complex web but it's still reasonably easy to keep the major players straight. And the characters aren't just synecdoche for their families or factions; Cai Renxiang's goals aren't the same as her mother's or those of the rest of the Cai. In general, I find myself enjoying the social events more than the fights and sparring. The story does feel kind of aimless, presumably because of its source as a story with a lot of reader involvement where it goes. Ling Qi doesn't take a lot of risks, so things move very slowly, especially in the second half of Forge. I'm not sure I can name a single major setback she suffers, either. Maybe when her house blows up qualifies, but even that doesn't keep her down for long. The good part of the structure is that it makes the story come off as real: nobody really behaves in ways that make no sense just to keep the plot moving. I like the stuff with Ling Qi's family a lot. It makes things feel grounded and real, and it helps flesh out our brave protagonist, who can be a bit of a cipher at times. Is the Argent Sect located in a desert? Because everybody always seems to be speaking dryly.
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Feb 25, 2021 03:45
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Reading the speculation in the Kumoko thread and wondering: does anyone remember when in the WN it's revealed that Kumoko was always a spider, and how far away from the current episode is that? (I haven't started watching it yet)
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Feb 26, 2021 18:40
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I think that's a very late reveal. I'd be surprised if we get to it this season.
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Feb 26, 2021 19:09
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:Reading the speculation in the Kumoko thread and wondering: does anyone remember when in the WN it's revealed that Kumoko was always a spider, and how far away from the current episode is that? It happens after the translation source changes, which puts it after the fire dungeon. I don't know how far after because I stopped reading shortly after the translation change.
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Feb 26, 2021 21:36
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LLSix posted:It happens after the translation source changes, which puts it after the fire dungeon. I don't know how far after because I stopped reading shortly after the translation change. I believe it's pretty far in since it's after kumoko becomes a god or whatever. I suspect if the anime gets there at all it will be something they drop as the very last scene of the two cour run, but that really depends on how they choose to balance the human/kumoko/other POV portions and how much stuff gets cut wholesale.
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Feb 26, 2021 23:39
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kirtar posted:I believe it's pretty far in since it's after kumoko becomes a god or whatever. I suspect if the anime gets there at all it will be something they drop as the very last scene of the two cour run, but that really depends on how they choose to balance the human/kumoko/other POV portions and how much stuff gets cut wholesale. Yeah, Kumoko becomes a god and teleports back to earth, where she meets D, who tells her. It's volume 10 of the novel release, so very unlikely that the anime will get there
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Feb 26, 2021 23:49
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nrook posted:I finally caught up with Forge/Threads on Royal Road, which I think means I'm about a year behind the newest material. I think the reason why the "aimless" aspect isn't that bad is that the author manages to make the various characters and their interactions feel organic (and also major events happen later that really focus the plot more, so I think that the author may have been thinking along the same lines during the earlier parts of ToD). It's the sort of thing that is unconventional and usually wouldn't work well, but the protagonist just sort of naturally grows apart from people or meets new people (like the large number of people Ling Qi has been meeting recently due to making connections with other major Emerald Seas families as part of her role as Cai's vassal). I think the reason it works is that the story sells the idea that all these other characters have their own circumstances. Like there's obviously this whole backstory for the various named characters Ling Qi hasn't grown close to, and said characters have obviously had their own development "behind the scenes." Biggest example of this is probably the Golden Fields folks, but there's also obviously been a lot of stuff going on for characters like Li Suyin (who Ling Qi has only seen relatively sporadically since entering the Inner Sect) and the relationship between Ji Rong and Sun Liling. In general it seems like the author constantly has a relatively coherent idea of all the side characters' ongoing stories and doesn't change them solely for the convenience of Ling Qi's narrative. It's probably the only thing I've ever read that actually makes a "relatively unstructured account following someone's life in a fantasy world" premise actually work. Regarding Ling Qi specifically, she's absolutely really lucky, but the same is essentially true for almost all other cultivators who are at the top for their age group; Ling Qi's luck essentially just helps put her on par with the various ducal scions (who are all given things by their families that are at least as good as the boons Ling Qi acquires), and we've gotten glimpses into other characters who experience similar luck (namely Ji Rong; I'm not sure if this has shown up in RR yet, but (minor spoiler that isn't really plot-relevant and may have already shown up for you) he ends up getting some sort of heavenly dragon as a spirit companion, which is basically the same sort of good fortune Ling Qi has). So the end result is that she feels very lucky, but not unrealistically so - there's a clear precedent for similar characters, both among her peers and in the broader setting.
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Feb 27, 2021 00:17
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I do agree that Ling Qi might not suffer much personal defeats/setbacks, but I think that's because as said the story does a very good job with the social and political elements; there's a lot of points where she treats the people around her being unhappy as a larger personal failure than anything that happens to her directly eg, the near-fatal wound she gets in the first ambush is more or less shrugged off, but the hurt displayed by Gu Xiulan and Zhengui for just letting herself take it is a Way defining moment, and as the story goes on there's been a lot of focus on the limits of what any one individual can do, and how important the previous emperor/Cai Shenhua/someday CRX's efforts to reform the empire are compared to any personal strength they have (which admittedly doesn't hurt in getting the former done). Side note, but in terms of the current quest version I really do like how even at the current nascent state of her Way there are occasionally voting "options" that are automatically crossed out because Ling Qi actually can't choose to do that. It's a neat characterization thing, particularly as we start encountering different cultivation styles that don't have this limitation and are slightly unsettled by the concept.
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Feb 27, 2021 00:52
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Beware of Chicken got real horny real fast. Shame 
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Mar 11, 2021 13:47
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Workaday Wizard posted:Beware of Chicken got real horny real fast. Shame No, I'm not going to go and see what the original adds, site's a shithole. E: HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:I mean, they're behaving like a pair of newlyweds. You made me worry that it got bad. 90s Cringe Rock fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Mar 11, 2021 |
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Mar 11, 2021 13:55
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Workaday Wizard posted:Beware of Chicken got real horny real fast. Shame I mean, they're behaving like a pair of newlyweds. You made me worry that it got bad.
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Mar 11, 2021 14:02
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90s Cringe Rock posted:It started on the porn spinoff of spacebattles, the version everywhere else is toned down apparently. Ewww... 
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Mar 11, 2021 14:02
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Workaday Wizard posted:Beware of Chicken got real horny real fast. Shame Eh, It’s the honeymoon period and anything happening is conveniently offscreen. About as tasteful as you can handle it without just making your characters sexless caricatures of married people. Honestly we seem to be practically flying through the relationship bits compared to the pacing for the other events in the book. Take a week off to let a backlog build up IMO. Well, on the RR side at least. Reading spacebattles is it’s own insane decision with its eldritch rewards.
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Mar 11, 2021 14:20
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i have very low standards for reading material, but i do have standards. so, no spacebattles.
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Mar 11, 2021 14:27
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Spacebattles gets the same chapters as RR, I am pretty sure. I took a look there and the discussion is actually pretty wholesome and pleasant. There's been a couple of 'lewd' chapters on Patreon, though.
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Mar 11, 2021 15:28
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quote:Her tongue was very nice too. Uh, yeah. Thats all I’m going to say about that. "Tee hee she sucks good dick 😇" It just feels gross.
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Mar 11, 2021 16:15
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They're a married couple! In full context:quote:My wife was beautiful. Idiots called her eyes sharp, her tongue a dagger and her freckles blemishes. If you're writing a comedy, there are far worse ways to get laughs in a similar fashion. I loved A Will Eternal, but the aphrodesiac pill stuff there was not so great. Here, you've got a loving couple with great respect for one another, attraction both intellectual and physical, actively getting to know each other better and she actually has a great amount of agency within the relationship. I haven't read a cultivation story with a healthier approach to relationships, though that's a low hurdle to clear.
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Mar 11, 2021 17:02
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Is it literally just a one liner about blowjobs? Seriously?
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Mar 11, 2021 17:47
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i have my problems with boc but a married couple having non-explicit sex isn't one of them. the unnecessary details about the city lord and his wife's s&m lifestyle was much worse, even.
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Mar 11, 2021 17:56
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:They're a married couple! There's that and they're now also in a symbiotic relationship with Earth. And it's Spring, the Horny Season. gimme the GOD drat candy posted:i have my problems with boc but a married couple having non-explicit sex isn't one of them. the unnecessary details about the city lord and his wife's s&m lifestyle was much worse, even. That was a little awkward, mostly because it felt the author doesn't know all that much about s&m.
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Mar 11, 2021 17:57
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The best married couple is chunky & peppa anyway.
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Mar 11, 2021 18:06
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Telsa Cola posted:Is it literally just a one liner about blowjobs? Seriously? That's just what I bothered to copypaste obviously. It got that horny stench over it and the first-person narrative really doesn't help. 90s Cringe Rock posted:The best married couple is chunky & peppa anyway. 
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Mar 11, 2021 18:19
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