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I've read the first book, liked some parts, loved some parts, hated some parts. I haven't caught the pilot yet (I'll probably wait to see the whole season at once later) but if it left off where it sounds like it did I'm very surprised it got that far in the pilot. Can anyone fill me in on what happened at the end of the pilot? I haven't been able to find out googling around, all the info I have is that it seems to have diverged from the books at least somewhat.
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Dec 17, 2015 10:32
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Ah, yeah from the sound of it I thought it ended with the Beast popping up, but at the same time that blew my mind because that's like 1/3 to 1/4 of the way into the book, and that's a TON of ground to cover in one episode. I also expected his later meeting with Julia to come a few episodes in, once we've had some more time to see her trying to learn stuff on her own and been shown why getting her into the school isn't practical. I mean, it's a really good hook to end the pilot on, but you could have gone really slow and ended on his admittance to the school, or medium and end on him getting into the physical room or on him meeting Julia again. I mean, this is just absolute hyper speed and not at all what I expected. Popping the Dean is pretty major, I think I actually preferred how it goes down in the books. How that's dealt with goes a long way toward showing that a student dies through some kind of magic shenanigans every couple of years and the college just kind of covers it up or smooths things over as best it can. But yeah, holey moley are they rushing things. There's still a more than fair amount to get to, but this sounds basically like Harry Potter going from entering to school to winning his first Quidditch match in the first 20 minutes of the movie without explaining what Quidditch is or showing him learning how to fly the drat thing.
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Dec 17, 2015 17:38
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Svensken posted:I mean, she's an actress. That's my view on Day, I generally like her work when I see it and she's been in loads of sci-fi/fantasy shows here and there in guest spots from what I know, seems like a natural fit for this show. Having Elliot's wife be a descendant from time fuckery is possible, I mean that family was already involved in time travel shenanigans before so there's certainly precedent. I'd be more interested to see a decent-sized family of alt-time relatives come in to help as part of the key quest. Oh, and I was kind of disappointed that the mosaic piece Quentin found didn't act as just a reference for what the design should look like and require him to actually build it out, I guess after seeing a fair number of attempts in the montage I had high hopes for seeing the finished version. Here's hoping with this latest key they've really got some mojo in their favor, so far the keys have been useful but very situational, and I have to believe a key that was a vital part of time travel abuse has some potent properties, even if there is the very sensible possibility that it's low on power after helping create you know, like 20 different versions of reality or whatever.
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Feb 9, 2018 13:38
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muscles like this! posted:This key seems super cursed. The only key we haven't seen a drawback to so far is the time-related key from last episode, maybe it's difficulty of acquisition meant it didn't have much of one or they just don't have time (no pun intended) to get into giving each key a downside. It gives me some hope that they're going to up the stakes on the quest though with the last 3 keys having really strong penalties for holding them or using their power, like shaving years off your life or turning you straight up evil or something. You can't have a proper quest without a heroic sacrifice at the end after all, and so far the closest we've come to that is poor Benedict.
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Feb 16, 2018 09:12
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I like that both times this season they leaned into an in-universe device or reason for our perspective to switch between characters Penny was the cause of it, and both times we Saw brief snippets of Eliot in peril in a suitably crazy situation, either fleeing from cannibals or on trial before a marsupial judge. It's also really stood out to me how much stuff happens between episodes and the audience is just trusted to know what's up. We don't see Penny put himself in a book and get sent to the underworld, it's just poof he's there at the start. After Penny's death we don't see them working out how they're going to stay in touch with him, it's just wham singing fish with the key hung under it. We don't see them putting little number tags on the keys, but there they are. I'm sure I'm missing glaring examples, and I've felt like it's been going on since the start of the show, but those are the ones that jump out at me. For my taste a little bit too much takes place off-screen, but I wish more shows would follow the Magicians' lead and give characters more agency to further their various goals or even make minor changes to their situations between episodes. I wasn't expecting the latest faerie development but I totally should have, I just didn't pick up on the clues for whatever reason. It totally makes sense for humans to go after magic by any means necessary, and I have to think snorting magic cocaine is a direct callout to how magicians are addicted to magic and it's just like a drug to many of them. We've seen them be suicidal without it, left with a purposeless life like the Dean, and our main characters are doing all kinds of crazy stuff to bring it back despite ample evidence that it's done way more harm than good. Also on the faerie front, I hope the show doesn't have the faeries on earth and Fillory know about each other or have a way of communicating, so we get the dichotomy of the Earth faeries being subservient and basically helpless in a world run by humans while the Fillory faeries have mostly been running the show while Fillory is left with no magic to rely on, and likewise being more vulnerable because it has fewer humans and has been far more directly reliant on magic. Seems more interesting that way for me to see two identical magical creatures shaped by their surroundings to be in vastly different situations.
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Mar 2, 2018 22:45
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I like that they justified the music and dubbing through the use of magic, once they have their party trick magic of course they'd be able to make people hear songs and enhance their voices with studio recording-level instant dubbing. Slytherin Hermoine really sums up Alice so drat well, good work. Julia's well on her way to being just straight up Harry Potter at this point as someone with a lovely past but who's trying to do the right thing, and they are both characters whose respective traumas loom large over their entire lives.
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Mar 12, 2018 08:48
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Yeah this seems to be leading to a compromise and peace between most people in Fillory with the Faeries given some land to mushroom up and chill in after they lose their key, Lorian being taught magic and chill because of that, and I think the floaters are the guys we'll see Margot and Eliot full on fingerbanging into oblivion once they have magic back because they just don't want to deal with their crazy bullshit, maybe with some backup from Lorian too. I mean there's no way we get a big ol' battle scene, but I'm betting on Margot coming up with a fun way to kill her unconsummated creepy husband and the smother.
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Mar 17, 2018 23:44
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Boris Galerkin posted:This show is fun. I’m really enjoying Julia’s ascension to godhood or whatever she is. I only read book one in depth and skimmed through two, but I found it pretty engaging. I think book one's probably the best since there's more of the school based stuff and things haven't gone completely wild yet, but then again there are some massive differences there like how Julia is barely in it. Two wasn't a slouch either though, it just turned into more of a direct sendup of narnia with the characters in Fillory for like the whole thing, from what I can recall off the top of my head, and more of a grand quest theme to it. There was just so much fun for me in sending up Hogwarts with the messed up life choices of late high school and college student aged people, so if that sounds fun to you check it out! Book three's probably solid too I just never got around to reading it. One of my fave book things was that Josh's magic was always useless or insanely stronger than he wanted, so that made for lots of fun moments. He also takes to the Neitherlands much better than T.V. Josh and basically runs around finding literal elves, having sex with those elves, and then retiring to a huge-rear end mansion after selling his button to the dragon. Truly he was the real winner of the story.
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Mar 23, 2018 08:13
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I feel like they're actually well prepared for whatever's behind the door turning magic back on considering they have magic in general turned off. Even if all the key mojo is used just opening it, they have full God-mode Julia, a god killing bullet, and a siphon that seems like it should be able to be attached to whatever comes out of it. It's still guaranteed to all go sideways, but on paper it seems like the right call to go for it and hey they've come this far right? My blind pick for the crazy thing to happen at the end of the season is Kady getting straight up killed by whatever comes through the door while everyone else is able to get away, and then we get some kind of arc with her and Penny-40 in the underworld, maybe culminating with both of them being able to move on together somehow rather than Penny coming back to life, or taking over Penny 23's body. I'm also glad I was right about how stuff went down with the faeries, it's just good sense all around and I love that Margot won the vote just because she didn't completely react disgusted when talking to a drunk bear about romance while the men were going crazy with posters and promises that wound up not mattering. I didn't expect a faerie eye to get thrown into the mix, that was a nice touch on top of the general eye restoration I figured would be coming. As much as the faerie queen was selling the idea of just waiting things out, after how much she emphasized that faeries going back on a deal was going to really gently caress over their whole power structure getting a proper alliance in place and full reproductive abilities with it is just good political strategy on her part, I totally bought that she was ready to sign on the dotted line there and giving Margot the enhanced eye was a real solid way to start off that new relationship on the right foot. Also nice to see Frai wound up released by the Faeries to bum around Fillory, I was curious what had gone down with her after the secret of her true parentage was out. All things considered she kind of lucked out. Now I want next season to have the Faerie queen and Margot putting out political fires and drama together and forming a fun mentor-mentee relationship after how much hate they had this season. Overall lots of fun developments in this episode with a few minor bummers, but I just know we're going back into classic Magicians "This is so hosed up" territory in the finale and start of next season and it's gonna be glorious to see how they try to fix things when everyone has their superpowers back.
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Mar 29, 2018 06:44
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Rocksicles posted:Julia really is the best. Stella Maeve's voice is so soothing when she's in god mode. I guess it's possible that he's real evil and just slowplaying it, that's always a plausible twist. I'd be game for an evil version of one of our protagonists to run around messing stuff up. He'd probably need some kind of hidden powers if he's kept that hidden while standing next to "I feel all emotions" Julia though. I just now realized that the 23 version of Julia's dead friend hasn't been seen since fleeing into the 40 timeline, I like that she just peaced out since she wasn't part of the core group, and it'll be fun to see them go run her down in some random season 4 episode when they inevitably need an acquaintance for a favor, which has been the story of this quest but really the Magicians in general. NowonSA fucked around with this message at 12:01 on Mar 29, 2018 |
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Mar 29, 2018 11:53
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I agree that that are practical reasons it's needed, but it still seems clear to me that at its core they need it back because they've all experienced having the wild power to do whatever the hell they want and they need that thrill again. I also really liked the Penny looking at the laptop moment, and it occurred to me that they could have very easily just shot that with a green screen monitor and CGI'd in whatever news text they wanted. With how good the tech is now and text on a screen probably being about the easiest thing to pop in convincingly, I'm game for shows to use that trick more often. Not all the time because then it'd get annoying, but sprinkle it in and have some fun with it, why not. Off the top of my head a show like Law and Order SVU could use it to do a "ripped from the headlines" reference that's not meaty enough to be its own episode but is a timely reference. To again go to the mass shooting example, sad though it is, they could have an episode dealing with that in the can for months and then have the latest shooting up on a monitor while the dialogue references ones that are a few months old. I dunno, it's not the kind of thing you can do more than once or twice, and it's hard to find a particularly good reason to do it, but I think there's some untapped potential to make that gimmick really cool and well used for the right show in the right situation.
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Apr 2, 2018 04:09
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mastajake posted:Pretty lame they set up the “you’ll regret this deal” thing and then she got away with her ridiculous scheme anyway. I’m sure it will be addressed later, but I thought that was kind of a lovely ending to an otherwise great season. Body jumping stuff has potential though. Lol at Julia essentially giving up goddesshood for nothing. I saw it as her taking the long view of things. Like, she knows at least the bare bones of the syphon plan and the Libary's involvement, so if the "bad guys" win they limit magic which is in the faeries' favor, and even if it's a magic free for all there's a deal in place that says "no one can harm a fairy ever" which is a much stronger deal than the "leave a few behind on earth but you can't go after them anywhere else" deal that was annulled. Even if fairy deals were weakened greatly by one being broken, that's got to be useful, and it's notable that there's nothing in that deal's wording about fairies messing with humans. muscles like this! posted:Lol-ing at "Janet" Yeah that really made me smile, such a nice and simple callback to the books. Nihonniboku posted:Ha! Exactly my thought! It is really interesting to see though how they're still recycling elements from the books, even if they're not used the same way. I was more impressed by the CGI of them flying to Fillory's Upside Down, but yeah it was certainly pretty. I don't mind them making budget concessions per se, but now that it's been pointed out I would love to see fewer scenes set in the Fillory throne room and Physical dorm downstairs because now it's like all I can think about. With how this season left off it seems like I'll get my wish for awhile at least. And I guess Dean Fogg made the deal just because he figured the library was gonna win anyway? I wish we knew more about what he was thinking there. Overall looking forward to next season, they found a fine way to keep Julia in the show and I feel like one god or another coming in to help her in particular is the most likely catalyst towards everyone getting their brains fixed, I put Margo's fairy eye as a close 2nd only because she looked at Josh and wasn't knocked out of it immediately, though she did seem thrown off for a second so it's definitely going to play a role in all this somewhere. Also looking forward to seeing possessed Elliot show off why all the gods feared that being, I'm expecting them to top the Beast singing crazy showtunes which is a high bar to beat. ZorajitZorajit posted:Knowing the ending of the books, there were some things in this episode that I suspect were written the way they were so this could have been the series finale if they didn't get renewed. That and/or they wanted to tease and reference the books for the sake of the episode. I mean, it's rarely a bad idea to write each season finale as an at least decent series finale when you can, especially when you're on cable. It definitely works that way with one quick shot of whatever mindwipe Elliot is up to, maybe change the Alice dialogue to suggest the thing they released is coming after the Library instead, and then Fogg does the "I'm possessed" eyeflash or something. Not an ideal ending, but a nice mix of "at least they're not dead," a sense of what the future could hold for the characters, and some implied comeuppance for the bad guys. NowonSA fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Apr 6, 2018 |
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Apr 6, 2018 01:12
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DaveKap posted:I'm completely lost on this "Janet" thing. Is it a book spoiler to explain it? Not a spoiler at all, just a super simple explanation. Margo's character was named Janet in the books, but to avoid having two female characters who both have J names they changed her name to Margo for the show. So yeah, a super cheap and easy shoutout to the book readers that doesn't detract or distract from the story they're writing and can be just thrown in there is always welcome in my book.
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Apr 6, 2018 07:41
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I kind of wish they'd played out the "Elliot's dead for reals, the baddie told us so" story longer without revealing to the viewer that it isn't true. Still gonna be rough for the characters, but I weirdly think I would have preferred to stew in that idea as an audience member for a few episodes, even though T.V. logic says we're probably getting real Elliot back at the end of the season. Josh's story had a sweet ending this episode, but I feel like there had to be some easy fixes, the most obvious one being basically the Tinder suggestion only with some detailed pamphlets and whatnot on what they're in for. Bound to be someone who's into it among the general populace who doesn't know magic is real.
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Feb 16, 2019 12:07
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Alice has plenty of motivation to hate the library, but I think the more interesting character arc for her would be to be horrified that her little stunt got her new friend in trouble and got a library blown up, like even when she's doing what she thinks is a minor thing and for the right reasons yet again Magic results in awful things happening. It wouldn't surprise me to see her do some self-destructive behavior or go after the hedges that blew up the library, rather than say joining the hedge cause and trying to break the system. Remember all she was trying to do was make a bit more magic available to make clean water for everybody, her response to all the drama that's resulted from it could go in a lot of different directions. We've seen her in a state of super depression not all that long ago after coming back from niffin-hood, so I don't think they go to that well again necessarily, but she's kind of been through so much poo poo lately that it wouldn't exactly be shocking to see her spiral downward especially since her entire support network wants nothing to do with her. Kady being a rebel leader against the library and trying to recruit Alice could be interesting, that's kind of where I see it loosely going. With some big status quo changes coming at the end of the last few seasons, seems like the expected thing would be to see the Library lose control of magic, or some new god-level threat takes down the Library and magic is unregulated again but now they gotta deal with that new bad guy next season. Probably a bad girl actually, we're due for a properly villainous female antagonist on this show. NowonSA fucked around with this message at 09:36 on Mar 3, 2019 |
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Mar 3, 2019 09:29
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A fun episode, I didn't really think the penny dialogue was out of place, I was more bugged that Kady had a fun "I'm closing all Sam's cases and also maybe have some mysterious other business I'm doing" and then that pretty interesting (to me at least) idea of Kady: Magic Cop got sidelined immediately by the rent being due and what that led to. I feel like that notion got short shrift and I would have liked at least a scene of her out castin' spells and saving peeps, or for her to have that established in a prior episode and then in this episode she gets caught up by all this stuff. My only comment on all this latest major discussion is that the 1900's ghost saying he really related to a straight white male hero was probably my favorite single line of the last season. NowonSA fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Mar 10, 2019 |
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Mar 10, 2019 19:19
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Alhazred posted:I'm okay with the Magicians not devolving into a procedural show. I mean I didn't want a whole episode of Magic Cop Kady, but the notion of still feeling connected to the false identity and magic being used to help people and presumably against normal people are both areas I'd be interested to explore with Kady without her being caught up in the whole plot. In that early kitchen scene it seems like we're going there when she explicitly says "You do your thing I'm not getting mixed up in it" and then right away she's pushed toward being involved in their stuff in a more roundabout way. Give me a bit more to show how she still feels tied to the Sam identity and a quick montage of her using magic to close Sam's cases and I'd be all set.
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Mar 10, 2019 21:46
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Dammit Penny why did you have to phrase this revelation in the most cliffhangery way possible?! I also have to give this show a very, VERY rare demerit for slipping so completely into conventional T.V. dialog at the end there since no one talks like that, but I guess just write that off as Penny's brain still being scrambled.
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Mar 24, 2019 08:15
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Margo's story in this latest episode suited her, but I kind of wish it wasn't so explicitly about patriarchy holding women down. I think a subversion like "no, seriously these men are all that can protect us." would have been worse, so I guess I'd rather they come across as more bumbling dumb desert nomads who don't understand how the red spirits worked than the evil men keeping women in their place. I'd also have liked some flashier magic from Margo and it would have been cool if the spirits helped her forge those grains into her own weapons instead of it just being a case of "guess that guy lied about those axes only working for him, yoink!" While we're at it, have a spirit tag along with Margo as kind of a "passenger until needed" situation, somewhat analogous to the imps from super early on, and have that be an assist down the line. I think that would make for some fun story opportunities, and if they do kill a character soon you could have that spirit possess the body and keep the actor on the show that way. Now after all this insanity to free Elliot they save him and beat the monster, but person X died doing it but this wild spirit took it over and wants to help out! That could be super lame and not fun, of course, but I'd trust this show to make it work. Anyway those are my mostly bad thoughts on what I would have done with this episode.
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Mar 31, 2019 15:06
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1994 Toyota Celica posted:i hope in the next season Fogg has to spend even more time out in the field I'd think given how much she wanted to be at Brakebills and use magic a Brakebills classroom is a real possibility. Could be something more outright comforting given what the pursuit of magic ended up doing to her, if she had a happy family life then her family home for instance. I really liked the suit callback with Fogg, was nice to see that rad custom order do crazy magic BS. Fun to see more varied uses of magic in this episode too, we got the now standard instant slices, telekinesis, and blasts of force, but also a tiny fireball, instant teleport, and people turned into puppies. Good stuff all around, and I'm totally on board to see a proper magic free for all next episode. We haven't seen Alice doing full-bore battle magic in quite awhile, I'm keen to see her bust out crazy light-based attacks while hopped up on extra magic.
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Apr 12, 2019 12:29
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Pretty wild stuff, I like that repairing things didn't come into play by him mending the containers for the monsters, that was a nice bit of playing with expectations there. Certainly just about the boldest move they could make there, but it's still gonna be a real fun show. I feel like after the stakes of the last few seasons we'll actually see it tone down a bit, maybe have the cast acting more independently trying to resolve their particular conflicts. In a show that very much explicitly has time travel and multiple timelines as a thing and more than a few reasons to use flashbacks I feel like we'll definitely see Quentin again in small doses, but probably barely if at all in the next season, and it's always fun to bring the character back for a big deal series finale thing at the end, even if it's just something involving everyone meeting in the afterlife Lost style. I could also see some evil magician on the level of Martin Chatwin taking on Quentin's appearance to mess with everyone because they really pissed him or her off. A lot of that is really just cheating to get an actor back on the show, and it's easier to make it cheesy and dumb than it do well, but this show's done enough well that I think any times he pops up from here on out will be executed well.
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Apr 18, 2019 11:12
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Open Source Idiom posted:It's their best performing show, so that's unlikely. I'd buy that as a theory more than Magician's being canceled for any reason aside from the people making it wanting to end the story this season. Even in that case it's quite possible for the show to find another home, though that's relatively rare. Still, I never count out a show that has a comic-con panel from possibly pulling something off if it's canceled or there's a network upheaval.
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Nov 12, 2019 07:07
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Fauxshiz posted:Well, I don't know how they have a better finale than last season but I hope they outdo themselves. The series is too good to go out like a loose fart. That's a solid point, the s4 finale would have been a very solid series finale in its own right, really the only thing off the top of my head and going from memory that wouldn't fit had it been a series finale is the Margo/Elliot return to fillory cliffhanger. I think the s4 finale could be held up as a teachable example to showrunners on how to create a finale that works really well as both a season and series finale, which can be a drat hard target to hit. Overall this has been a good and fun show, but you just can't stay on the air without getting those sweet sweet ratings.
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Mar 4, 2020 01:21
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