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For what it's worth, I believe all magic in Erf is malicious. Fate gives with one hand and takes with the other. The bracer seems to work exactly like this: every time it says something is extremely likely to happen, some unseen twist lies in wait and messes with the prediction. In this case, I think the prediction is self-perpetuating: since attack on Transylvito seems likely, they'll take action that further makes the conflict more likely.
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Jul 10, 2016 20:12
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isndl posted:Saying the Mathamancy bracer forces self-perpetuating twists seems like selection bias to me. What about all the times Parson used it to calculate battle odds before choosing a plan? Because the bracer told there was 60% chance of winning, Charlie became convinced he needed to capture Parson alive. Without that, Charlie would have used his archons to blast the tower and get the Arkentool. Because he chose to believe it, the entire result changed. Something similar happened at the beginning of book 2. Wanda was convinced a decapitation strike would win the battle effortlessly because the bracers said so. As a result the entire fight became a horrible mess that almost cost them everything. Maybe "malicious" is a poor choice of words. The system seems self-correcting at a very deep level; you can gain a little, even a lot in a short time but sooner or later it's gonna catch up with you. Many of the stories seem to emphasize this aspect. Charlie has cheated fate for a long time and when he finally gets his, it's going to be spectacular. In a similar vein I'm very interested in seeing what the Maui tower does once something happens.
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Jul 10, 2016 22:48
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Parson is within one or two turns of flight distance from GK though, it's said to be on the other side of a mountain range separating the two cities. With practically unlimited treasury he can fly dwagons with troops in, promote them to knights and arm them with guns in addition to upgrading the city into a level 5 fortress. Not to mention Jillian probably isn't even attacking Transylvito.
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Aug 2, 2016 10:52
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Charlie knows Don believes he's about to be hit by Jillian. He also knows Caesar made Vinny Doombats drafted a plan of conquering the capital of Faq. Charlie's offer probably goes something like this: 1) Turn Albert to Transylvito. 2) Get Albert and Vinny to conquer the capital of Faq. 3) The army of Jillian, still 2 turns away, can't pay upkeep (since treasury goes when you lose your capital) and disbands almost entirely. 4) Charlie pays enough for Albert to set up a new side. 5) New heir pops in a few turns as a bonus. No more threat to the side from Jillian, a new loyal ally, whatever money Jillian had in her treasury and all the prestige that goes with taking out Parson. Plus whatever extra cash they feel like squeezing out of Charlie; a few mil is chump change at this point. Plus they get to keep the bracer and try to reverse engineer the gun or sell it for even more money. It's not a bad offer, considering preserving the side has to be the most important thing for every ruler.
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Sep 20, 2016 21:02
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I think this is just a bluff. Don wants to measure just how high Parson values himself. Almost any other unit would self-sacrifice if it saved the side millions plus gained a permanent ally.
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Oct 4, 2016 22:25
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Stealing the one thing that made your side a superpower might also be frowned upon. You can get more casters but there's only one set of pliers.
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Nov 13, 2016 01:21
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Reene posted:I can kind of understand keeping Bill around but goddamn there is really no reason Vanna should still be around even in a dungeon. She is way too dangerous. What is he hoping to gain by keeping her? She's a Transylvito unit, and a valuable one at that. You don't disband a caster lightly. Just look at what Bill has done without getting disbanded.
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Jan 28, 2017 21:13
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Anyone else read The Last Turn fanfic? I thought it was a neat bit of prose which fit the spirit of the comic well.
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Feb 10, 2017 23:59
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Zoe posted:It seems like casters that can cast veils would be in VERY high demand if so. A lone caster isn't much of a threat and only casters can go through portals. Thus far the custom has been that Magic Kingdom is neutral and assassination strikes like what we're seeing now are strictly forbidden by custom all casters share. Lord Hamster has opened up all sorts of wormcans during his stay but this may be the worst.
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Apr 14, 2017 23:11
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Zoe posted:That said, I have a hard time keeping track of a lot of the details of Erfworld rules so I may be overlooking something. It came up when Parson made his dash in the portal tunnel back in book 2. http://archives.erfworld.com/Book+2/110
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Apr 15, 2017 00:34
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Zoe posted:Is executing people no one believes to be people, like, ten minutes early, really that big a deal? Everyone around was there specifically to watch them die to begin with. It's the ritual that is important, not the deaths of some zombies. Magic Kingdom is loosely run by consensus of a committee, beyond that there is no governance. Going up against the committee which decreed the show and dance to take place is the real problem; in doing so, Buck not only risks himself but all of Dirtamancers by association.
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Apr 22, 2017 07:25
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nimby posted:Let's watch Roger trying to think-assassinate Parson, only for Jed to step in as the ultimate mindguard. It would be interesting to see what happens if Roger tries the suicide assassination and Maggie bodyblocks it. Would that be every high level thinkamancer in the world dead except Charlie?
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May 3, 2017 12:44
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Parson promised Bunny would be uncroaked. Marie promised the top units of Faq would be uncroaked. There's a bunch of dead Archons that are extremely valuable. Someone is not getting what he wants. Wonder who? Also I always read the strings as something from the Greek myths where the Fates weave your life on a loom. When your thread was cut, that was is. That's why I didn't read the strings leading to Charlie, they lead to Titans or something like that. Dons string certainly didn't lead to Charlie.
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May 28, 2017 13:03
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Two guesses: - the scroll sent him to the literal same place as ruby red slippers sent Dorothy (because "home" might not even be a thing in Erf so the concept translates weirdly) - there's no place like home, and the setting loves literal puns. Parson is in limbo somewhere, looking the board from above or something.
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Jan 3, 2018 22:20
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This was an obvious place for a full-page image with Parson in the middle, all his friends (and Jed) pulling him one way and Charlie & co. pulling the other way. Shame the drawing department seems to be the place which slows the entire thing down, it's very effective when used in proper places. Like the fall of Jetstone? And even that would've worked better if they had the faith to go with just one big image.
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Jan 18, 2018 14:24
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I think the format change is to blame there. While it was all comic, it had to be written in a form that made sense as a comic. There's a limit on how much speech you can fit into one page without it becoming a Wolverine comic. Once the format changed into half writing half comic I think all the parts that don't make sense in a comic (too many characters, sprawling subplots etc) started. It'd almost be smarter to drop the comic bits altogether and just write a book... but then, all the pun stuff would be horrible and who in their right mind would read it? I wish Erfworld would return to a comic form. That's when it was at its best and still can be.
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Jan 18, 2018 22:07
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I have no idea what happened on the new page. Help?
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Jan 26, 2018 03:58
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Donkringel posted:I am going to curse it even further. Next update is Parson or Wanda perspective. We don't see Caesar until 2 weeks pass. We're getting a Vinny update. Then a Parson update, then another update from Magic Kingdom, then another from Wandas perspective when she meets Jillian. Then the aftermath of the drama in Transylvania with all the tense bits resolved off-screen from the perspective of Charlie who muses how his plot failed but he made a bunch of money back.
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Feb 11, 2018 19:25
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It's a real shame that the comic is plagued by delays, skips and meandering writing. I re-read the first book and it's still a solid piece. There's several twists and the result is not clear until the very end. The characters are interesting and fun to read about, with strengths and weaknesses to their personalities. One of my favorite bits of the comic is still Parson talking for the first time to Prince Ansom. That one scene sets the stage between the two opposing sides perfectly. One of the most important things that has changed is the feeling that the reader has been given all the important clues. A detective story loses much of its punch if the writer pulls a key witness out of nowhere to solve the tension. Same thing with Erf. It gets worse every time there's a "surprise" revelation of something ever more powerful that hasn't been hinted at. There's several already: Jed, guns, rigged portals, entire "under the gameboard" fortresses, godlike mindmancer ghosts running around... And this is a shame, because up until book 2 everything was foreshadowed properly. The most powerful trick during that fight was the "end turn" spell which never felt like a deux ex machina, Parson had after all won the last time around with something similar. And this time too, it wasn't a simple "I win" button. I would still like to like this comic but man, is it hard.
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Feb 13, 2018 17:33
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Donkringel posted:Link up between Wanda, Maggie, and Ace? Not Ace, Bill. He has experience with it, after all, and it makes for a neat redemption story.
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Mar 26, 2018 20:34
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Oh yes, it'll be horrible. This one will not have a happy ending, it's all but guaranteed. We have Dr. Frankenstein, Dracula and the Iron Lady stuck in a room. It has to end in tears. Just because it's possible, what if it's not Wanda in the linkup either? Bill, Maggie and Charlie would make a real powerhouse of a team. Maybe they could cheat death! Or cheat someone to death, anyway.
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Mar 27, 2018 01:00
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I have no idea what was the point of these two last books? First one was great, second one was fine. I haven't understood whats happening for the last 200 pages or so. If this is a tacit admission that poo poo got out of hand and we're going back to two alternating plot threads then I'm all for it. The worst part must be that when the comic started, I understood the setting immediately: "hex wargame with stupid puns everywhere" and our hero dropped in the mix. The more time passes, the less I understand how the game world works. It's like reading a absurdist murder mystery where you're not even sure if someone died. There's very little to relate to and may God have mercy on your soul if you think five page contracts and rules lawyering them is relatable. I think the moral of the story is this: Power gamers turn everything into poo poo and you shouldn't play with them.
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Oct 11, 2018 00:51
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Maybe stuff will break to the point that the comic ends with Parson and Charlie sitting in a Blue Screen of Death limbo for all eternity, reminiscing on how they broke everything. I don't mind a little power creep, I thought it was clever how Charlie ended the turn in Book 2. But his entire armory is absurd. What does it matter if he can't take over the entire world in one turn if he can do it in 2 or 3 and no one can stop him? Dude could already sweep the entire map with his bullshit and clean up in a few more turns. Is this some sort of metacommentary on players who won a thousand turns ago but refuse to finish the game? Also Oz? I've no idea how that links to the entire theme. Is there an Oz-themed wargame I don't know? I get that Charlie is the wizard of Oz and the other characters were somewhere in the snoozefest that was written in summer, I just don't get what that has to do with anything. I much preferred the hint that this entire thing was a hallucination of Parsons, what with Saline IV and all. Then at least the setup makes sense, Parson is fighting essentially himself in Charlie and the only winning move is not to play (linking back to page 16 where his friends are worried that this is too much of an escape to him). It's not just the powergaming and rules-lawyering, it's that I don't understand where this is going and why. There's a hundred pages and angles on Fate and none of it makes sense. There's no reason why people do things any more, things just are done. Charlie bombs thinkamancer temple into big think into stealing the pliers into creating sentient cities for everyone into everyone dying? Okay? Is this something that was supposed to inevitably happen or what? The worst bit is that some of the characters are well-written, relatable and interesting. I would like to like the comic but it sure is hard.
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Oct 11, 2018 17:16
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Kyte posted:To be entirely honest I don't see a way to satisfactorily end this comic without majorly breaking the foundations of Erfworld. No, I suppose that's the entire point. That there must be some change if things are ever to move on. This is just a very strange direction to take it into. Why Oz, why spend so much time on Fate if things will just spiral out of control, why endless contract negotiations as the main way of breaking things, why essentially random things happening all the time with no foreshadowing? Why do we even follow the non-essential characters if this stuff is supposed to be important? Big Think broke every capital (maybe every city!) in the world and we're spending several updates on Albert and his knives. Jillian does something irrelevant for a long while and loses her entire field army to one caster with a gun. We have Juggalo Elves who have done nothing and are irrelevant anyway, we have prince Ansom who did nothing and is irrelevant, we have all of this crap that doesn't matter, we have this entire drawn-out drama in Transylvito that didn't matter. Vinny was completely right, dammit. The entire original setting has been made completely irrelevant. An entire side dies in one turn with zero chance to do anything meaningful. Armies and combat mechanics don't matter, a contract can cause a thousand times more damage and permanently ruin a side forever. Maybe everyone will just agree to not attack anyone else, ever, for fear of penalties that will kill the offending side off for good. Maybe the poor saps calling themselves "rulers" won't even get a say, towers will just decide it for everyone and that's that. So here's the thing that annoys me the most. When the comic started there were several sides with agency and opportunities that mattered. Now there is just the extremely high stakes play that matters. Why are we still following the inconsequential pieces? It was cool to read one page from the life of Wrigley, the spearman, who got to use his spear once. Now it's tens if not hundreds of pages of crap from people who don't matter. And even in the high stakes play there are too many things that are random. Who could have predicted Big Think or that he would steal the pliers or that he would wake up every city? And why did he do that? "The cheat to end all cheats" my rear end, the entire motivation of the high council was to keep things under control and maintain status quo. Galvanik posted:It's just there's to drat much of it. This series really needs a editor. I agree.
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Oct 11, 2018 18:45
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After this I hope Balder doesn't change his mind and wimp out. We're on the path of breaking down everything, he should instead double down and start to break down the structure of comic next. Maybe have a few voiceover episodes, a video of interpretative dance, a sculpture to represent the latest agreement over psychosurgery over contract over ceasefire over sides that have ceased to exist. Go super saiyan and full meta. Because farting back into kinda sorta wargame-y environment is just not possible anymore, that ship has long since sailed.
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Oct 23, 2018 12:39
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Phenotype posted:If the climax of this book was supposed to be the Towers becoming immensely powerful and rulebreaking, then he needs to define Erfworld's new "normal" and stop himself from breaking that normal every few comics. I think breaking everything to the point that nothing can be trusted upon is an interesting development. Everything sort of leads to it, backing out now seems like a bad idea. If the original Erfworld was a hex-based strategy game with a ton of rules and restrictions, this new game starts to resemble Diplomacy quite a bit. Very few things to actually restrict you, it's all in how you deal with players. I'm down with that. That is, if Balder actually planned it to be this way and didn't just write himself into a corner. I'm not sure which just happened.
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Oct 25, 2018 15:59
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Main Paineframe posted:If everything is broken, then nothing is left. There has to be some rules left or the whole thing just collapses into absolute chaos where everyone's too busy looking over their shoulders for the next inevitable betrayal or twist to actually do anything. Maybe that's a precondition to lasting peace? And anyway, what's the alternative. About half the survivors are irrelevant (Vinny, Ansom, Princess, Tool, Maggie, whoever the rifle building guy was, whoever the crap golem guy was) and a bunch of them are dead. Most of the stuff that has happened is almost completely irrelevant because towns come and go at snap of fingers, even the strongest defensive position in the known world and stakes are so massive as to be practically irrelevant. What's the difference between half your kingdom and hundred times your kingdoms worth, except that half the kingdom seemed a bigger deal back when Parson was faced with the choice? The funny thing is, both situations were practically game over and yet they ended up not being game over. There's no going back now that the world is full of all sorts of rule-breaking equipment and trickery and towers. At the very least the towers amount to infinite mischief due to the fact that everyone has them, every tower is different and there seems to be no practical limit to what they can do barring themselves refusing to do it. If you can tap into infinite juice and towers are stacked with defensive magic, doesn't that alone make attacks impossible if towers choose so? I see no way back to the simple and charming hex-based wargame that this comic was about when it started, we're way past that now. I'd rather see a manga-style insane power ramp up rather than this all ending in a wet fart. I want to see the equivalent of a sore loser flipping the game board over, pieces flying everywhere. Maybe one more thought. Back in Book One, Parson wanted a game where the players had to essentially cheat to beat him. Well... quote:The next time someone hits someone else in the face with a sword, is the victim going to stand up and proudly reveal that they magically disabled the "swords hurt people" rule forty-three minutes ago? This happened in the summer text story, I think. Was it a magical drink or something like that? Hob_Gadling fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Oct 26, 2018 |
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Oct 26, 2018 00:53
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So if I come back around June, the temp crap will have passed and we're back to the main plot? Cool. Also while Balder is good at writing, he's terrible at managing a business. His crew is too big and he's spending money in stupid ways. What's wrong with Amazon Marketplace, what's the idea with whatever the loyalty points are and crypto mining to replace ads? He obviously has at least somewhat successful product and it hurts me to see the core of the entire thing suffer from silly business ideas. Special mention towards whoever the webmaster is because the site looks real busy and confused.
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Dec 1, 2018 00:48
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Could someone give me the tl;dr version why art team is learning 3D modeling tools now? Because - artist retention has been terrible for this comic. We started getting text updates originally because artists couldn't keep up with schedule. What's the guarantee people will stick around this time? - 3D art is terrible, especially when done by people with little experience, compared to hand drawn stuff. - the problems with delays and stuff are not easing up with this move. They'll be worse because new tools, new work processes, new things to figure out. - and personally I really don't give a flying gently caress about a city modeled full with ad puns and parodies. Cities have always been basically palace, walls and boxes that looks vaguely like houses which gave them the same toy-like look that all the people have, and it has worked really well. I want to like the comic and I still regularly check for updates but goddamn it's made hard. This world-building stuff better have a huge payoff.
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Dec 11, 2018 21:39
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Main Paineframe posted:- rather than admit that's a bad idea, he hired a dedicated 3D modeler to join the art team and handle that workload. also, the 3D modeler appears to be a great salesperson and/or scammer and has sold Rob on a bunch of crazy poo poo regarding the potential of 3D, so now Rob is paying his entire team to take 3D classes from the 3D modeler, who he is also paying to teach the class What the gently caress.
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Dec 12, 2018 16:18
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There's a lot of commonly used words that refer to family. Sons, brothers, daughters. I read that part to mean that she couldn't have a heir for reasons and thus didn't want to talk about it, being an old lady and all.
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Feb 10, 2019 23:19
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This new story thingy is even worse than the previous all text crap. It's gonna be a year or more before the main story continues if old signs hold true. And even the main story is such a mess I've no idea what was happening there anymore with all the minutiae. 's a goddamn shame, the first book is still very enjoyable to read.
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Apr 7, 2019 02:40
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I kinda sorta understand why B wants to make 3D models. His artist turnover is too great to create a consistent product and it must be frustrating to write a lot more stuff than can be drawn. But hesucristo, this is such a silly way of conducting business. He should write a GRRM style book series or something instead of turning to 3D modeling. Sunk cost, indeed.
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May 16, 2019 11:53
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Two powergamers broke the game so badly the entire webcomic crashed.
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May 18, 2019 22:00
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I suppose this is better all around. The comic had written itself in a corner. Lack of artists and family sickness made updates very unfrequent. First book remains forever the best.
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Oct 13, 2019 12:40
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Rogue 7 posted:Yeah, it took me a few minutes and one google search to piece together what happened, and it's loving awful. Yeah. I'm sorry I googled it, not knowing was better. I hope Rob and Linda can somehow get past it and keep living on.
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Oct 14, 2019 07:54
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