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Childhood is a marvelous time in ones life. The world is still new to you, you learned new things everyday. You weren't desensitized by the internet. Everything was grand. That is, until the noises in your house started digging into your subconscious. That scraping on the window outside wasn't the tree branch anymore, but something more sinister. You found yourself digging yourself into your blankets, thinking the deeper you are under those sheets the safer you are from the thing in your closet. Or you find that a particular production companies logo sent a shiver down your spine... This thread is dedicated to those strange fears you held as a child. The things that some people would look at and go "What the hell?". Go ahead and share images that made you cringe, stories from your youth that creep you out. For starters, I was afraid of the FBI warning screen on VHS tapes.  Why did this creep me out? The logo for the FBI wasn't as fancy as today's version. No, it was black and white and in low definition. It looked like a face to me. Couple that strange little face with the deafening silence (and the low subtle popping the VHS' sound use to make), it did one of two things to me. I either left the room completely, or turned away and covered my eyes. This fear stuck with me into my pre-teen years. It still bothers the hell out of me and makes me feel like a Screamer is about to pop up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUUxu_m6mrU I turned this video off upon seeing that FBI warning (Thanks M42.) I also share the same fear of the Emergency Broadcast Signal and the William Street logo that was shared in the "favorite scary or unnerving article or Wikipedia page" thread. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRxrCBvt7TM Emergency Broadcast Signal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un0DKKPRoRM Williams Street Logo/Nightmare inducer. Your turn Goons, let us reminiscence together.
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Feb 20, 2014 05:44
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| # ? May 2, 2024 05:40 |
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I had a nightmare featuring the Virgin Mary when I was about 9, and I was terrified of any statute of her for a few years after that. My family isn't religious, so I was never exposed to a lot of that kind of imagery, fortunately. Also, Batboy from that Weekly World News hosed me up for a bit too.
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Feb 20, 2014 06:00
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I was afraid of garbage trucks, a digital clock on in the same room as I was trying to sleep in and especially the Barney doll.
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Feb 20, 2014 06:00
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Worms, and bizarrely, leaves. Leaves. I'm still not a fan of worms. I was also completely terrified of Pee-Wee Herman.
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Feb 20, 2014 06:05
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This truck used to come around our neighborhood around the time I went to sleep at night. I think it sprayed something to help kill mosquitoes or something. But all I heard was a low rumbly whirring noise get closer and some flashing lights through the curtains. So yeah I was afraid of the mosquito truck. You know what, gently caress it, I was scared of drat near everything as a kid. Aliens, vampires, ghosts, atomic bombs, tsunamis, tornados, earthquakes, lightning. And the emergency broadcast noise. And what was that Tex Avery (I think? Maybe chuck something) cartoon...ah I can see it in my head. "Snake eyes!" They were creepy gangster guys. One had a hammer as a head. They scared me too.
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Feb 20, 2014 06:15
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community ham boil posted:And what was that Tex Avery (I think? Maybe chuck something) cartoon...ah I can see it in my head. "Snake eyes!" They were creepy gangster guys. One had a hammer as a head. They scared me too. http://youtu.be/9ly35NQfZw8 Here ya go champ.
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Feb 20, 2014 06:23
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When I was 4 I had a terrible nightmare about massively oversized novelty crayons.
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Feb 20, 2014 06:28
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I was terrified of uncovered windows at night, even going as far as using a sheet to cover mini blinds because there were teeny holes where the strings go that someone might peep through. To this day I hate blinds and use thick curtains. I was also terrified of the America's Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries themes and background music.
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Feb 20, 2014 06:33
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When I first started using the internet as a kid, I was terrified people would find out I was not an old and truly mature person. I was scared of Christopher Walken for some reason. I think maybe I stumbled in on my dad watching The Deer Hunter.
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Feb 20, 2014 06:51
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Stairs posted:I was terrified of uncovered windows at night, even going as far as using a sheet to cover mini blinds because there were teeny holes where the strings go that someone might peep through. To this day I hate blinds and use thick curtains. I was also terrified of the America's Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries themes and background music. Unsolved Mysteries made me weirdly paranoid for a while as a kid that I was secretly adopted. I have no idea why I was so concerned about this, given that I looked like a female clone of my father except with my mom's hair color, but I guess I watched too many stories of SHOCKING BIRTH CERTIFICATE REVELATIONS! on bad daytime TV.
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Feb 20, 2014 06:51
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The Emergency Broadcast System! The alert tones the voices everything about it creeped me the gently caress out. I'd change the tv channel or radio station as soon as I heard "This is a test of the..." To this day I still switch stations when it comes on. I tell myself it's because it's annoying.
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Feb 20, 2014 07:02
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Stairs posted:I was terrified of uncovered windows at night, Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssss. Also, I was afraid of parasites, especially things like bot flies, even though I don't live anywhere near a place where they live. Totally afraid of catching worms, or some sort of scary brain-parasite that doesn't actually exist or something. I was afraid bugs could somehow get in me and eat me from the inside out as I slowly lost my faculties. Centipedes, but that isn't unreasonable. I used to stay up late thinking about the futility of life, and how I'd die relatively soon, how big things were and how I really had no control over anything important, so on and so forth, and send myself into paroxysm of existential terror as I curled up as tight as I could under the blankets, holding my stuffies for comfort. I was about 5 the first time I remember doing this. So...I guess my childhood fear was nihilism?
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Feb 20, 2014 07:04
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I was afraid of tinnitus  . For some reason I didn't twig that it was coming from inside my head and thought it was some kind of emergency broadcast signal that meant you had to stand extremely still until it stopped, which I dutifully did. I have no idea how I got such a stupid idea, or what finally tipped me off 
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Feb 20, 2014 07:05
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I was terrified of Micheal Jackson's Thriller.
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Feb 20, 2014 07:16
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I used to get night terrors as a child. One I remember well was that I was the brave little toaster and was deathly afraid of water as it would destroy my toast making circuitry. Glad I grew out of that poo poo.
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Feb 20, 2014 07:25
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As a very tiny child I was afraid of the moss green curtains in my room. They hung heavy with a stillness that was strange to me. They were replaced with lighter yellow ones that let more light in, but strangely I missed the old scary curtains. But that was okay, because I still had the monster face on the closet door to contend with. Except when I was six I had an epiphany: 'this huge scary face on the door hasn't come to eat you after all this time...hey, why are we afraid of monsters, anyway? Has anyone tried talking to these guys?' I was friends with the door face after that; later as a preteen I couldn't quite make out the face anymore. I still miss him. Unsolved Mysteries theme to me meant 'quick, run for the TV because there might be a cryptozoology piece!' But it also meant the possibility of terrifying aliens! Poor little grays, they were creepy and cute at the same time. I was afraid but fascinated, even to the point of reading Communion no matter how scary it seemed. It took oncoming adulthood and a memorable but positive dream to get over that fear. Years later I felt dumb for not catching the alien on the Communion cover is smiling placidly.
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Feb 20, 2014 08:09
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Troll dolls. When I was really young, I loved them to the point where it was the go-to gift for Christmas and birthdays. I must've had 30 of them. Then, when I was 5 or 6, I had a nightmare about one coming to life in the night and stabbing me with a nail file. After that, I carefully gathered all of them up, stowed them in a broken dishwasher, and locked the door, and there they stayed until my mom discovered them several months later. : What are your trolls doing in here? : They're in jail.I didn't get any more troll dolls after that.
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Feb 20, 2014 08:36
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I was scared of the red creature (whose named I've just learned was Gossamer) from a couple of Bugs Bunny cartoons. If he came on even for a split second, I turned off the TV.
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Feb 20, 2014 08:59
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When i was 5 i was petrified of the sound of the toilet in my house flushing. Thankfully i got over that by like 8, but still.
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Feb 20, 2014 09:06
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MinistryofLard posted:When i was 5 i was petrified of the sound of the toilet in my house flushing. Thankfully i got over that by like 8, but still. My big sister was very happy to encourage this notion. She told me she'd seen a poo cobra and it was the scariest thing ever. Even more scary than that Hellraiser movie we watched because it got put inside the wrong VHS box and it wasn't The Lion King at all.
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Feb 20, 2014 09:15
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After a nightmare I was deathly afraid of Grover for a while.
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Feb 20, 2014 09:26
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I used to be so scared of sleeping in the dark that I must cover my entire body, except for my head, with blankets, even if it gets really hot. If I were to leave even my toes hanging out in the open, ghosts would get me.
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Feb 20, 2014 09:29
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I was really scared of ET as a kid. gently caress that movie and more specifically, gently caress that ride in Universal. My parents knew ET scared me shitless and they still took me on it. They thought it was funny. And by the way, the whole "ride" is just a slow moving car that wheels you around the ET home planet. There are animatronic ETs everywhere and at the end, one of the ETs says goodbye to you in his creepy loving voice and uses your name ("BBBByyyyeeeee Naadiiirr"). I almost started crying right around there. I don't get how people think ET is cute. It's a turd-like monster with a heart that glows in his translucent chest. That is terrifying.
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Feb 20, 2014 10:43
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DicktheCat posted:I used to stay up late thinking about the futility of life, and how I'd die relatively soon, how big things were and how I really had no control over anything important, so on and so forth, and send myself into paroxysm of existential terror as I curled up as tight as I could under the blankets, holding my stuffies for comfort. I was about 5 the first time I remember doing this. So...I guess my childhood fear was nihilism? Hey, me too! Also, mirrors. Because of vampires. You see, vampires don't have reflections, so if you're looking at a mirror and you can't see anyone standing behind you, there still might be a vampire there. I understood quite well that A) vampires aren't real and B) if you're not looking at a mirror there still might be someone behind you that you can't see, but I was still scared when I was in front of a mirror at night. And I had a recurring nightmare about the dam next to the school I went to. It was just a small body of water where we sometimes caught yabbies and it didn't bother me at all in real life, but for some reason it was terrifying when I dreamed about it. And not for any identifiable reason, either. I'd just have a dream where I was at school and for whatever reason I'd decide to go down to the bottom of the playground, but once I got there I'd realise that I was right near the dam and suddenly wake up in fear.
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Feb 20, 2014 10:45
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Being trapped in an elevator. There was an episode of Night Court. Where Dan and Roz were trapped in an elevator with Sumo wrestlers. I think I asked my granddad if you could really run out of oxygen if trapped in an elevator. He said yes, so I threw a fit if I couldn't take the stairs for a couple years, 4 to 6. That's the funniest one.
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Feb 20, 2014 12:48
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I watched Pet Semetary as a kid and it hosed with my brain for a long time. I also had this book about extinct Australian animals and the Thylacine drawing in that book freaked me the gently caress out. I used to put the book on te shelf and cram other books hard up against it so there was no chance of it opening and escaping.
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Feb 20, 2014 12:56
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Tiggum posted:Hey, me too! Mirrors scared me at night because I was sure I'd look into one and somewhere behind me I'd see a stranger hiding and looking at me. I was also scared of hallways at night and would run as fast as I could down them so I didn't get caught and kidnapped or eaten. The biggest WTF fear I had was that I was terrified that I would start my first period and not know it, then It would go everywhere and I'd get picked on. Because of this fear I always wore my jacket around my waist all that school year. I was 8.
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Feb 20, 2014 13:07
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My aunt and uncle's pool suction cleaner, or "creepy crawly" as they're sometimes called. I don't know how my brother managed to convince me that it could swallow my legs, but it worked! Stairs posted:I was terrified of uncovered windows at night, even going as far as using a sheet to cover mini blinds because there were teeny holes where the strings go that someone might peep through.  Oh, and mummies. Specifically, mummies under my bed. Thanks a lot, Young Indiana Jones.
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Feb 20, 2014 14:14
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Closed Shower curtains, something in my mind makes me think something sinister lurks behind them if not opened.
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Feb 20, 2014 14:38
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I used to think adults could secretly read thoughts, and they knew all the "bad" things I've ever done, but they couldn't say anything about it because then the whole house of cards would come crashing down and all the lies of the adults would be exposed. Then I turned 9 and realized that was retarded
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Feb 20, 2014 14:47
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Man, I was a stupid child. I used to think there was a bear living behind my chest of drawers. I was also afraid of my bedroom walls closing in on me at night. There wasn't any sort of claustrophobia, it was those walls and only those walls and only at night. and they wouldn't get past my bed, so I had to stay entirely within my bed. I'm not sure why they didn't get the bear. Then in a mildly-OCD situation, I thought touching the walls with both sides of my hands and mentally setting their speed to zero every night would prevent this this. I also recall seeing a kids game show do a 'cutting in half' magic trick as part of one of the rounds, and was mildly convinced that this game-show had some sort of portal technology. If we're also sharing weird nightmares, the strangest I remembered is as follows. Terry Wogan was hosting a kids TV show. But then he got sucked into a vacuum cleaner full of chocolate, and started drowning. I had to save him, but I could not, as I was lost in my local high street.
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Feb 20, 2014 15:00
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When I was about... I want to say about 7 or 8, a friend convinced me that there was this evil organization that would kidnap children who were out after dark. The group was called 'Bogies'. But there was another group who would keep them away from you called - wait for it - 'Bogies One', and all you had to do to keep yourself safe was say 'Bogies One, please protect me'. For a good year or two, whenever I left the house, if it was dark (only really during the winter), I would inevitably utter this mantra upon leaving the house. Granted, I was never kidnapped by any shadowy groups, so I suppose it worked. The fact that 'bogies' is a British slang term for snot never really occurred to me. Also, when I was 11, I had terrible flu, hallucinating like crazy whenever I tried to sleep. My mother bought me some comics and game magazines, including a Simpsons Treehouse of Terror comic (the one with the Curse of the Cat People parody, if anyone's familiar). That night, I started hallucinating about missiles tipped with Homer Simpson's face trying to attack me. It freaked me out so much, it was a while before I could actually see anything Simpsons-related without instinctively being nervous. Pixeltendo posted:Closed Shower curtains, something in my mind makes me think something sinister lurks behind them if not opened. Well that's just common sense.
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Feb 20, 2014 15:17
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 Critters. The only way I could avoid being eaten whole was to start running at the end of the hallway and fling myself at my bed so I wouldn't have my feet near the underside of the bed. Those things lived under there for years. Also, china dolls. gently caress those things still. A friend of my sister in law bought me a stuffed donkey this Christmas, and it's head flips open to reveal a surprise doll head. Nope. That thing is in my trunk still. Hidden under a box.
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Feb 20, 2014 15:20
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When I was little and I was in my dad's truck, he would sometimes pull the back of the seat ahead to access the storage space behind the seat. I don't know why, but when he pulled the back of the seat ahead when I was sitting there, it would scare the poo poo out of me.
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Feb 20, 2014 16:07
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I was terribly afraid of Animal from the Muppet Show. I thought that my Animal doll could come to life at night and was plotting to kill me. I was also terrified of hair clogs in the bathtub drain. I thought it was the Blob (from the old Steve McQueen film, not the X-Men villain.)
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Feb 20, 2014 16:14
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Stairs posted:I was terrified of uncovered windows at night, even going as far as using a sheet to cover mini blinds because there were teeny holes where the strings go that someone might peep through. To this day I hate blinds and use thick curtains. After Independence Day came out and I watched it on VHS with some friends the same night a tornado struck our neighborhood, I had a fear for years afterwards of one of those aliens just staring into my bedroom window at night. My dad was pressured into replaced the old cheesy blinds with a thick curtain, but there was always a sliver of the window that the curtain didn't cover and in that sliver the aliens could still watch. 
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Feb 20, 2014 16:20
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Tater Tot 13 posted:The Emergency Broadcast System! Oh my god, I thought I was the only one. You're watching TV and all of a sudden BZZZZZZZZZZZZT *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*  It makes me jump even now. It's so unsettling.
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Feb 20, 2014 16:31
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My dumb mom let me watch a VHS that had Puppet Master and Demon Wind on it when I was like 7 years old because I wouldn't stop bugging her about it. Her final response was "Okay, but it's going to scare you really bad!". I sat alone in my bedroom terrified but transfixed on the TV through both movies. Basically had nightmares for a year. My Unreasonable Childhood fear was that I couldn't sleep in a room that had any toy or drawing or depiction with a face on it cause I was afraid it would move.
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Feb 20, 2014 16:38
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Freaking Ghostbusters. I watched it when I was 4 and when the keymaster and gatekeeper dogs came out that scared the ever loving poo poo out of me. I was too young to understand the jokes and only associated it with "scary as poo poo". For years afterwards I wouldn't even touch the VHS tape of it for some reason, even though I wanted to watch it to see if it wad as scary as I thought. Finally, at around age 10, I finally watched it again and it was the funniest god drat thing ever. Still one of my favorite movies.
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Feb 20, 2014 16:43
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| # ? May 2, 2024 05:40 |
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C-3PO frightened me as a child. I imagined him coming into my room breathing like Darth Vader. Weirdly enough, I watched Aliens around the same time, and Xenomorphs didn't scare me. I thought the Alien films were documentaries, and you just had to be careful in space. C-3PO, though, gently caress that noise. Also, I can't be the only one who was afraid a shark would materialize in the bathtub if you didn't climb out fast enough. Scandalous Wench has a new favorite as of 23:41 on Feb 25, 2014 |
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Feb 20, 2014 18:54
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