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Julius CSAR posted:Well probably not Team Melty though, because those two are perfect for each other. I could imagine them breaking up explosively later in life once they've moved in together but not yet learned that it might be healthy to spend literally any time apart. They seem like the kind of couple that would go to university together, take all the same classes and never be more than two metres apart for like a year straight until one of them breaks. (Then maybe after a while they'd get back together again on a healthier basis. But this is straying pretty far into fanfiction territory anyway)
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Oct 18, 2021 16:28
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Tenebrais posted:I could imagine them breaking up explosively later... So can Goops.
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Oct 18, 2021 16:55
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nimby posted:So can Goops. I’m imagining goops breaking up explosively later. Hopefully by an orbital strike style beam of holy pink light because Tessa inexplicably gets her powers back after turning good again.
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Oct 18, 2021 17:19
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Dogwood Fleet posted:Some of that first page is Sally being Sally. She's firey, abrasive, and doesn't like being told what to do. While Tessa has a superiority complex, Sally has an inferiority complex and lashes out and as a result, gets most of the group killed. She could do things like not rely on the rest of the group to take notes for her or figure out better ways to use her powers, but nope. Teen girl gonna teen girl. The text of the comic simply does not support this read. Her superiority complex is unearned. When we see them fighting monsters, they are managing just fine. Tessa's contribution is a completely gratuitous killshot that basically morphs the entire team strategy around her. Is it effective? Sure. Was she NEEDED? Absolutely not. The only time she was needed was when a supernatural force that literally no one can account for actively assassinated the team. This is not to say Tessa got them killed either, but all textual evidence definitely points to her having a Queen Bee self image that her ego relied on. It's a bad coping mechanism, but she's a teenager. The problem is with making teenagers with bad coping mechanisms into child soldiers. It was genuine when she got huffy about being the LEADER because people ran off. Not "it's not safe!". Reasserting herself as the lady in charge. Captain Oblivious fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Oct 18, 2021 |
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Oct 18, 2021 17:30
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Captain Oblivious posted:The text of the comic simply does not support this read. Her superiority complex is unearned. When we see them fighting monsters, they are managing just fine. Tessa's contribution is a completely gratuitous killshot that basically morphs the entire team strategy around her. Is it effective? Sure. Was she NEEDED? Absolutely not. The only time she was needed was when a supernatural force that literally no one can account for actively assassinated the team. This is a good post
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Oct 18, 2021 18:42
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While the power boost from Tessa certainly helped, we can see from Undine's work with HP that she can do a lot more than she was ever let do with Team Alchemical. And that's without the combo attacks they could do. If they hadn't been pushed into support roles it seems likely that they all could have been much heavier hitters.
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Oct 18, 2021 19:03
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they don't train or strategize their powers; that HP has a training regimen at all or flashback Undine briefly flirts with being clever with her powers is suggested to be unusual. (a little reminiscent of how ancient Greek city states ensured physical fitness of their hoplites: i.e., they didn't) this means that MG teams really are coasting heavily on whatever their talent grants them in order to manage risks. "NEEDED" is dicey (of what is suggested to be a heavily showbiz job rather than a paramilitary, existential one, at least in normal times; support staff are camera crew and press agents rather than paramedics). Would having someone to oneshot boss monsters be necessary with prerequisite drilling and practice and coordination? Probably not; HP's alive, after all. Would they actually drill, practice, or coordinate if someone to oneshot boss monsters is around? Well - why would you, that's, like, work.  Fourteen-year-olds have got poo poo to do in their life, man.
ronya fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Oct 18, 2021 |
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Oct 18, 2021 19:07
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I love the back and forth we're having. Very interesting reads into Tessa's character. Speaking of Undine's power boost from Tessa, on reread I noticed that her eyes light up bright pink on this page to the point of causing a pink glow around her. We haven't seen this before or since, have we? Like obviously her eyes have the pink in them either way, but the lighting up pale pink to the point that it casts a light?  The obvious take is that it's Tessa's power manifesting in her, especially with the blatant parallel drawn between her power and Tessa's here. But I think it's particularly relevant now that we're here with Goops possessing her and wanting her power for herself. I think that even if Goops manages to orient Tessa, she's going to find that the power barrel was emptied out (because it was quite literally dumped into Undine) and Tessa has nothing of value to offer her. I don't think Goops is going to react very well to that. Which means Undine has that super-special Sailor Moon protagonist power buried in her, she just doesn't know how to access it yet other than in situations of extreme life and death danger. Though Goops may have anticipated this already because Tessa says outright "wait why do you keep attacking undine though lol" which Goops deflects.  Maybe Goops thinks SOME of Tessa's power is in Undine, and she just needs to assemble the whole, but Tessa is her ultimate priority. I don't know. I guess I'm getting too far into theorycrafting, but I feel like she's going to discover that Tessa has a lot less power left than she thinks, because making Undine a much bigger target and the comic focusing on unlocking Tessa's powers within Undine to put her more into that "sailor moon destined protagonist" role would be a really compelling development.
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Oct 18, 2021 22:46
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The idea of Tessa accidentally giving Undine some Actual Literal Protagonist Powers would be a fun twist on the formula.
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Oct 18, 2021 23:35
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Do you think it’s that the WiW just sometimes gives a girl more power than usual, or that some girls are more receptive to, well the dream I guess, and that’s why Tessa seems OP? I mean, Tessa didn’t seem to train or anything either like the rest of Team Alchemical, so if she has the same level of training and experience as the rest of the team (technically less experience since she got the dream last and spends most of the fights charging up) she is very clearly significantly more powerful than them. So how does that happen? Also is her getting the dream last the reason she got stronger powers? The WiW wanted to do that for her since she felt left out with her friend group?
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Oct 18, 2021 23:42
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Julius CSAR posted:Do you think it’s that the WiW just sometimes gives a girl more power than usual, or that some girls are more receptive to, well the dream I guess, and that’s why Tessa seems OP? I mean, Tessa didn’t seem to train or anything either like the rest of Team Alchemical, so if she has the same level of training and experience as the rest of the team (technically less experience since she got the dream last and spends most of the fights charging up) she is very clearly significantly more powerful than them. So how does that happen? That is a very good question. We know why Kokoro has stronger powers....it's because her mom's powers help fuel Kokoro's native ones....but no one's ever said why Tessa so grossly outclassed the rest of her team, only that she did. 
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Oct 19, 2021 00:05
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Julius CSAR posted:Do you think it’s that the WiW just sometimes gives a girl more power than usual, or that some girls are more receptive to, well the dream I guess, and that’s why Tessa seems OP? I mean, Tessa didn’t seem to train or anything either like the rest of Team Alchemical, so if she has the same level of training and experience as the rest of the team (technically less experience since she got the dream last and spends most of the fights charging up) she is very clearly significantly more powerful than them. So how does that happen? There's a panel where Sally and Undine are talking and Sally mentions something like, "your powers really fit you since you're the nice one" or something along those lines. I dunno if that necessarily follows for the entire cast, but it makes sense that if Tessa's lowercase-d dream was to be royalty - popular, loved, and powerful - then it follows that her powers after her capital-D Dream would be those of raw power.
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Oct 19, 2021 00:06
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Since Undine's dream also had jellyfish representing her friends, it seems likely that Thematic Team powers are meant to work together. Moreover, Alchemical Aether's magical mark was a non-standard triangle combination that takes the alchemical symbols for water, air, fire, and earth and lays them over each other to make a single weird hourglass... which is still the icon for the comic in my bookmarks tab. So I would bet that Tessa being so powerful is in part because of how the group's dynamic worked. The five of them come together to form a powerful team that support each other, with Tessa as the central conduit or figure in some sense... but it turns out teens were not actually going to make that hypothetical arrangement work, or at least these teens weren't. I have no idea if this is something the WiW actually did on purpose, or some potential that she could open up in them, with Tessa having the most because of her position in her group of friends.
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Oct 19, 2021 00:53
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Pseudoscorpion posted:There's a panel where Sally and Undine are talking and Sally mentions something like, "your powers really fit you since you're the nice one" or something along those lines. I dunno if that necessarily follows for the entire cast, but it makes sense that if Tessa's lowercase-d dream was to be royalty - popular, loved, and powerful - then it follows that her powers after her capital-D Dream would be those of raw power. drat it was like, the last page posted how did I already forget about Tessa dreaming she’s royalty and being carried around by her friends. Then again, she seems genuinely surprised by what is happening in that but, so maybe she didn’t actually harbor those types until after the dream? Maybe goops is mad at the woman in white because she’s arbitrary with handing out powers, and goops was girl that got jealous, or hurt, because of it? edit: Wait, never mind I think she’s surprised because is the having her remember it. Actually you know what, I don’t think this was Tessa’s WiW dream, I think this is Goops feeding her bullshit. Julius CSAR fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Oct 19, 2021 |
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Oct 19, 2021 04:34
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Tiny Myers posted:Speaking of which, I was just looking at that. Tessa's look in the final panel can be read in a lot of ways. She looks vaguely upset and not at all excited like the others. When was this? I admit that probably have not read everything up to a certain point.
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Oct 19, 2021 23:45
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Unlucky7 posted:When was this? I admit that probably have not read everything up to a certain point. It was at the end of chapter 6. Well, that's when the page was. The flashback is to two years ago in-story.
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Oct 19, 2021 23:50
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Might not get a page this week, or if we do it'll be very late: https://twitter.com/cubewatermelon/status/1451685451253915655
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Oct 23, 2021 23:24
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She'd already had to skip the first update this week because of difficulties with her father's condition. I hope Mary's doing okay through all this.
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Oct 24, 2021 01:15
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Apraxin posted:Might not get a page this week, or if we do it'll be very late: Honestly I only see those type of errors when a hard drive is starting to fail, but I also don't use photoshop so hope things go well for her.
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Oct 24, 2021 01:55
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Looks like we got a page this week, at least https://www.sleeplessdomain.com/comic/chapter-page-4 still just doing audible "OOF"s
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Oct 24, 2021 06:28
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rannum posted:Looks like we got a page this week, at least Based on the alt text, I believe you mean audible "YOUTH"s (Metric is good imo)
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Oct 24, 2021 07:32
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I like that the gutters of this page are a continuation of the "mouths and teeth and eyes where they shouldn't be" nightmare, so the panels are literally "papering over" what Tessa's going through right now. It's a good use of the medium.
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Oct 24, 2021 08:55
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It remains to be seen whether this is how her actual dream played out or if this is a nightmare version of it. Currently leaning towards the former - I think whoever said Tessa was the last to receive her powers was spot on and this is going to end in the curtain flying back to reveal her powered up self like "wait for me, aren't you missing your LEADER". That said, it's very interesting that she seems to have expected Undine to passively be like "oh no it's fine  " as always and is very caught off guard by her saying "Yeah, you're right, thanks!  " instead. Goes back to what we said about her being used to being the queen bee of her friend group, only for that dynamic to threaten to crumble as soon as her friends started getting powers. Literally dropping her and moving on without her as her queen's crown falls off. Absolutely no symbolism related to Tessa's deep-seated fears here.I think this just confirms the reading that she liked being the gifted one who was better than the others in some way, and that she enjoyed the sense of superiority it entailed/feeling like they needed to depend on her and relied on it as her source of self-esteem. She tries to play it off here like "no wait, you don't have to" but is shocked when they actually agree.
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Oct 24, 2021 10:28
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Brought To You By posted:Honestly I only see those type of errors when a hard drive is starting to fail, but I also don't use photoshop so Adobe software is pretty garbage, honestly. I've seen InDesign just bork itself and those files were on ZFS. I will never give up my hourly snapshots. At least I only lose 60 minutes at maximum…
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Oct 24, 2021 22:46
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Not to prattle on again but if this IS a straight rehash of her dream, I'm guessing we're about to see The Woman In White again, what with the wisteria in her colors reminiscent of the Great Barrier and the implication that every Dream involves a girl talking to her. Undine says they talked about "something important". Do we finally get to learn what that is? I'm also wondering if the reason Undine had that dream twice is a direct result of having a second "powers puberty" from Tessa putting her power into her. Antigravitas posted:Adobe software is pretty garbage, honestly. I've seen InDesign just bork itself and those files were on ZFS. 
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Oct 25, 2021 01:20
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Tiny Myers posted:It remains to be seen whether this is how her actual dream played out or if this is a nightmare version of it. Currently leaning towards the former - I think whoever said Tessa was the last to receive her powers was spot on and this is going to end in the curtain flying back to reveal her powered up self like "wait for me, aren't you missing your LEADER". I think it’s actually a nightmare goops is feeding her. Like, the whole thing of her being powerful and thus being the leader could just be a matter of coincidence. And the special feeling/superiority complex could simply be a result of that (and also that she’s like, 14) and now goops is tapping in to that to mess with her. Like, Udine’s dream with the Jellyfish is themed toward her powers but doesn’t seem to include anything negative like that. And interestingly there is a pink jellyfish in her dream as well, representing Tessa though that could be because she is having the dream later on, like a repeat
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Oct 25, 2021 02:53
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Julius CSAR posted:I think it’s actually a nightmare goops is feeding her. Like, the whole thing of her being powerful and thus being the leader could just be a matter of coincidence. And the special feeling/superiority complex could simply be a result of that (and also that she’s like, 14) and now goops is tapping in to that to mess with her. Like, Udine’s dream with the Jellyfish is themed toward her powers but doesn’t seem to include anything negative like that. And interestingly there is a pink jellyfish in her dream as well, representing Tessa though that could be because she is having the dream later on, like a repeat I think that was just Undine remembering part of her original Dream, so we didn't see the whole thing or the important conversation. We have no idea what those jellyfish meant or did in the original dream, only that they were present (and represented her friends). Also just as a writing thing, this being a fake dream would be a huge let down and a waste of page space. It's only of interest if it accurately represents what happened, and the way Goops talks about it is 'this should have been yours all along' - so I'm inclined very strongly to believe that this is her real dream. Especially since like... if this dream is how she got her powers, it could absolutely be seen as an effort to help her be the leader in a real, healthy way - showing her that she already was the queen but didn't want to admit it, then saying 'you can lead them, and lead them well if you try.' We just know, having seen the endgame, that this is not actually going to work perfectly because Teens and also because an evil slime monster took advantage of Teens to assassinate them all with an elevator centaur.
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Oct 25, 2021 03:43
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This latest page has reminded me about the theory that Team Alchemical was originally only going to be the four classical elements, and Tessa's "Aether" element was shoehorned in at the last minute for some reason.
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Oct 25, 2021 04:57
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Joe Slowboat posted:I think that was just Undine remembering part of her original Dream, so we didn't see the whole thing or the important conversation. Yeah, those are really good points
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Oct 25, 2021 05:03
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Goops has no real reason to lie to Tessa, at least not via nightmare. Goops needs Tessa to be cooperative to have more agency in the city, while Tessa is so far down the depression hole she was ready to let Goops kill her. If Goops just wanted to subsume her will, she'd be doing more terror, I think. Showing the original power-granting dream (with perhaps some scenes edited out) might be enough to turn Tessa.
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Oct 25, 2021 09:40
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Yeah thats a good point, I doubt this is a fabrication but it also doesn't need to be the whole truth either.
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Oct 25, 2021 14:37
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nimby posted:Goops has no real reason to lie to Tessa, at least not via nightmare. Goops needs Tessa to be cooperative to have more agency in the city, while Tessa is so far down the depression hole she was ready to let Goops kill her. If Goops just wanted to subsume her will, she'd be doing more terror, I think. https://www.sleeplessdomain.com/comic/chapter-8-page-12 https://www.sleeplessdomain.com/comic/chapter-8-page-13 So I feel like this is what Goops means by "a memory that should've been yours all along". It's not The Dream she's referring to - Tessa would have kept that. It's what comes after. We're about to see The Woman In White and learn what it is that she tells magical girls, and how their powers become activated. (Undine says "We talked about something... Something important...") From what we've seen of Tessa's fuzzy memories of Anemone, they keep rather than lose memories that are obfuscated by The Woman In White's amnesticizing effects, and they can be brought back by a strong enough reminder. Like how Undine vaguely remembers their conversation but not the specifics, even though The Woman In White did not expect her to. https://www.sleeplessdomain.com/comic/chapter-6-page-23
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Oct 25, 2021 22:16
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It's impressive how long the hazy eyes thing has been around because drat if I wasnt blind to it every single time it happened until the Tessa/Anemone conversation brought attention to it
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Oct 25, 2021 22:51
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I think this being close to the real dream is possible. Aside from the teeth visible in the gutters(!), the corners of the panels are rounded instead of squared.
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Oct 26, 2021 09:19
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Oh hey this looks familiar: https://www.sleeplessdomain.com/comic/chapter-9-page-20
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Oct 26, 2021 13:07
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Nettle Soup posted:Oh hey this looks familiar: Yeah I'm assuming that's what she looks right now,  ing ghosts.
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Oct 27, 2021 03:08
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Ragnar34 posted:Yeah I'm assuming that's what she looks right now, Not likely I think, the boy only did that when he recovered.
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Oct 27, 2021 03:23
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Yeah Tessa's probably going to look closer to this, who probably didn't manage to puke out the ghosts in time.
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Oct 27, 2021 08:26
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Tenebrais posted:Yeah Tessa's probably going to look closer to this, who probably didn't manage to puke out the ghosts in time. I'm also skeptical of that because Mitsuki is dead in that panel. I think Tessa is just going to look like the boy did when he was comatose, until... something happens, I dunno, we'll find out
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Oct 27, 2021 08:35
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Since she has goops in her right now I a mguessing she's just going to look completely different from either of these examples
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Oct 27, 2021 15:00
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