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Captain Hygiene posted:Oh neat, I never saw that set before. I guess they went through a range of properties that they pulled the model designs from depending on who owned the franchise at the time. both Transformers and Go-Bots pulled from a bunch of different sources initially. The first two years of Transformers are a hodgepodge of Micro Change, Diaclone, Armored Insect Battalion Beetras, and even a Macross jet. Hasbro in particular licensed different Japanese toylines basically just to prevent Tonka (Go-Bots) and Matchbox (Voltron) from licensing them in America, even though Hasbro's partnership with Takara meant that some of those licensed toys couldn't appear in the cartoon because Hasbro had licensed the toys from Takara's rivals. (See also: Jetfire the Macross jet -> Skyfire the not-a-Macross-jet -> Skyfire the character who vanished after five episodes)
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Sep 15, 2023 17:24
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Sammy Skates https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xgK-BXjkDU Definitely Dinosaurs triceratops  A whole bunch of the Monterey Bay Aquarium figurine collection. I still have them. A couple of them, I have 2 because I kept asking for them as Christmas presents.  Hot Wheels City  Jurassic Park raptor  I still have this somewhere. About a year ago I checked to see if it still roared, and it did. I've never changed the battery. And now I feel really old because that battery has lasted THIRTY YEARS
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Sep 15, 2023 20:35
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SulfurMonoxideCute posted:Definitely Dinosaurs triceratops Oh wow, I completely forgot about those things. We loved them, and we got quite a few on K-Mart's old blue light special clearance sales, probably after they were discontinued.    We pretty much ignored the dumb cavemen that came with some of the sets, but the dinosaurs are great. They had some fun designs, and the coolest thing was how large they got - I believe the big orange ultrasaurus there was getting close to two feet tall, for scale. My favorites were that one, the t-rex, and the stegosaurus. They were solid enough as toys that at least those ones have stayed around all this time at my folks' place, my sister's kids liked playing with them too. e: they're getting pricey nowadays too, that lot is $1000 on ebay 
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Sep 15, 2023 20:52
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I had a bunch of the British Museum of Natural History Dinosaurs by Invicta: They were solid chunks of hard unpainted plastic which were beautifully sculpted, lovely cheap rubber dinos were more fun but the Invicta dinos felt special Going way way way back I had some of the vintage Aurora "Snap Together Prehistoric Scenes" model kits. I remember the Allosaurus and I have super super vague memories of other kits which I can't quite pin down: 
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Sep 15, 2023 22:43
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I had a few of those dinosaurs too! I had totally forgot about them!
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Sep 16, 2023 04:14
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One cool thing I had a few of was change colour cars. No idea what they were really called (that could have been the actual name, I guess) but they were little metal cars like matchbox cars, but through some kind of magical reaction they changed colour in response to temperature. Some of them quite dramatically. I remember my favourite one went from dark purple to white. I'd get two tubs of water, one cold and one warm, and spend ages swapping these cars between the tubs to change the colours back and forth. The other cool car toy I had were Connectables.  Each vehicle was two (or more) pieces that could be taken apart and connected with other vehicles to make weird combinations. The best one I had was the limo with a swimming pool in the middle, but I was always jealous of my friend who had the giant helicopter.  You can stick the fronts and backs of the cars onto the little attachment points on the sides, but I don't know why. Other than that it doesn't really interact with the rest of the toys. I guess it's a fine toy helicopter in its own right but looking at it now, as a part of the Connectables set, it's a bit poo poo. Unrelated to cars, I also really liked the Test Match game.  I don't even like actual cricket (and didn't as a child either) but this game really appealed to me for whatever reason. BalloonFish posted:I do remember having some ICE PLANET 2002 sets (ah, how different 2002 would actually be...), culminating in this bad boy:
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Sep 16, 2023 09:10
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SulfurMonoxideCute posted:I had a few of those dinosaurs too! I had totally forgot about them! Same! One of those completely absent memories that came zooming out of the void as soon as I saw the pic. We definitely had the plesiosaur and the icthyosaur - they ended up as bath toys. I'm pretty sure we had the stegosaurus and one of the long-knecked dinos too.
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Sep 16, 2023 12:01
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Tiggum posted:I had that little buggy with the big white wheels there on the left. Not the trailer though. Just realized that the 3D base on that set is the same shape as a 3D base that my brother and I had like two or three copies of. Apparently they made it with several different patterns printed on it, e.g.:  Didn't have the ice one, I don't think, but we had at least two green, grey, and/or brown ones (as far as I can remember; possibly that exact one from my example but idk). I always thought it was weird how they had that "well" in the middle as well as the little indents in the corners, which now as an adult I realize are pretty important for making it more rigid, because they were very thin plastic.
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Sep 16, 2023 12:11
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Tiggum posted:One cool thing I had a few of was change colour cars. No idea what they were really called (that could have been the actual name, I guess) but they were little metal cars like matchbox cars, but through some kind of magical reaction they changed colour in response to temperature. Some of them quite dramatically. I remember my favourite one went from dark purple to white. I'd get two tubs of water, one cold and one warm, and spend ages swapping these cars between the tubs to change the colours back and forth. Oh yeah, I had a couple of those, they were Hot Wheels as far as I remember. They even had a car wash playset you could drive them through to change their color, although I never got one. I liked them a lot. They were pretty impressive for a while with how vibrant and fast the color changes were. Mine eventually wore out, though, getting slower and slower to change, and finally ending up in a muddy sort of halfway state 
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Sep 16, 2023 16:17
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DontMockMySmock posted:Just realized that the 3D base on that set is the same shape as a 3D base that my brother and I had like two or three copies of. Apparently they made it with several different patterns printed on it, e.g.: that's the baseplate for the big castle set I had:  the "well" was a little storage pit/torture dungeon, there was a prison cell as you can see, and the tower had a weird jail cell with a trap door. thinking back on it this was a pretty rough place!
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Sep 16, 2023 19:03
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Dr. Jerrold Coe posted:that's the baseplate for the big castle set I had: Was that one of the ones with a glow-in-the-dark ghost? That was the one minifig we always wanted but never got. Pretty much all the castle stuff we got was from garage sale hauls, but no ghosts. Probably everyone hung onto them because they were so fun.
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Sep 16, 2023 20:02
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I didn't have any of the Lego castle sets but I got a huge box of Exin Castillos parts at a garage sale, they were loving great. You could make some gigantic castles with that 
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Sep 16, 2023 20:11
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:I didn't have any of the Lego castle sets but I got a huge box of Exin Castillos parts at a garage sale, they were loving great. You could make some gigantic castles with that That's really cool, I haven't seen those before. I definitely would've loved it, but from the short Wikipedia page I'm guessing they didn't make it to the US.
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Sep 16, 2023 22:27
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Captain Hygiene posted:Was that one of the ones with a glow-in-the-dark ghost? That was the one minifig we always wanted but never got. Pretty much all the castle stuff we got was from garage sale hauls, but no ghosts. Probably everyone hung onto them because they were so fun. yeah, had a ghost and a crow that I was fond of
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Sep 16, 2023 22:34
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Captain Hygiene posted:That's really cool, I haven't seen those before. I definitely would've loved it, but from the short Wikipedia page I'm guessing they didn't make it to the US. I don't ever recall seeing them in shops here in Australia, I've never seen them apart from that set we found at a garage sale one time. I think I really lucked out there.
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Sep 16, 2023 22:49
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pandy fackler posted:
I have no idea why I loved these dumb things so much. I had the one you posted, plus a star-shaped one that came with some little fairy girls with delicate little wings.  I think my favorite thing was putting the polly pockets in the chairs there and spinning it as fast as possible to see if I could launch them out.  PinheadSlim posted:
yessssssss Fright Knights was one of the best sets, they really knew how to make cool theming back then. I remember my brain exploding when I found the Night Lord's Castle set on clearance and my dad let me get it  look at this thing, it's so huge and cool! It came with a cool witch minifig, a cool evil bat helmet guy with a BAT CAPE!!!, and skeletons and horses and a dragon!!!! what more could you want out of a lego set!!!
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Sep 17, 2023 01:50
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someone awful. posted:I have no idea why I loved these dumb things so much. I had the one you posted, plus a star-shaped one that came with some little fairy girls with delicate little wings. Oh man memory activated. The little table slipped up and there was a secret compartment to put your pollies in.
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Sep 17, 2023 02:09
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someone awful. posted:I have no idea why I loved these dumb things so much. I had the one you posted, plus a star-shaped one that came with some little fairy girls with delicate little wings. My favorite later castle guys were the Dragonmasters. I never had any of the big castle/fort sets for them but I did have this sweet dragon wagon which could double as a prison:  In my head they were mysterious slavers from the hinterlands, threatening my castle guys in the King's Mountain Fortress. I did have this kickass set for the Robin Hood guys and of course they were the righteous renegades who saved the day:  Tons of play value in this one, the one tree could fall over, the catapult launched bricks and figures, and iirc there were a few spots to stash contraband
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Sep 17, 2023 03:06
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This thread has definitely sent me down a rabbit hole. I remember having two sets of three small plastic figures. The first were just three random ones, the second were designed to combine into a vehicle. Literally more than an hour of trying out various things on Google, and I find out they're called Z-Bots. I had, from left to right, Khann, Stelthoid and Zentor:   At some point I also got Flyb, Yn and Yte, who combined into Flybynyte:     I remember the second ones (which were apparently called Linkbots) being pretty lame. The linking gimmick meant that they had very limited articulation, and the linking itself didn't actually work very well. However, Khann, Stelthoid and Zentor all spent time on my desk during tests at school, or in my pocket when I went to the doctor's office. Of course looking up the specific ones on Google Image Search also conveniently sent me to a vintage toy store that happened to have those three specifically in stock.
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Sep 17, 2023 03:07
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Skios posted:This thread has definitely sent me down a rabbit hole. I remember having two sets of three small plastic figures. The first were just three random ones, the second were designed to combine into a vehicle. Literally more than an hour of trying out various things on Google, and I find out they're called Z-Bots. I had, from left to right, Khann, Stelthoid and Zentor: Z-Bots were responsible for an entire summer my best friend and I didn't talk to one another. I forget what the Z-Bot was exactly. We were trading them, and there was a conflict with one particular bot. I can't remember the details, but I remember him "winning" the argument by getting his older brother to beat me up, and then his brother took all my Z-Bots and scattered them into the loving bushes
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Sep 17, 2023 03:23
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credburn posted:Z-Bots were responsible for an entire summer my best friend and I didn't talk to one another. ahhh, The Z-Bot's Wilderness Adventure, I watched that tape until it wore out!
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Sep 17, 2023 03:37
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Skios posted:This thread has definitely sent me down a rabbit hole. I remember having two sets of three small plastic figures. The first were just three random ones, the second were designed to combine into a vehicle. Literally more than an hour of trying out various things on Google, and I find out they're called Z-Bots. Ah, that's awesome, I'm glad you found it out. One of the things that I had in mind when I started the thread was hoping it would jog my memories enough to identify a little flying saucer toy I remember playing with when I was five or six, that's popped up in my mind every so often since then. The kind of thing that I have a good mental picture of when it's just generally in mind, but instantly starts fading away the moment I try to come up with specific details to search for. Oh well, maybe someday 
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Sep 17, 2023 03:47
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Captain Hygiene posted:Ah, that's awesome, I'm glad you found it out. One of the things that I had in mind when I started the thread was hoping it would jog my memories enough to identify a little flying saucer toy I remember playing with when I was five or six, that's popped up in my mind every so often since then. The kind of thing that I have a good mental picture of when it's just generally in mind, but instantly starts fading away the moment I try to come up with specific details to search for. Oh well, maybe someday Another powerful thing imo is the existence of non-branded, non-IP toys from back in the day, or knockoff stuff - I remember scrolling thru a whole section of Mexican/Euro bootleg Star Wars figures on some toy site, most of them straight rips but some looking pretty delirious/nightmarish. Even the old Imperial brand Godzilla figure looked like a knockoff. That little flying saucer probably exists online but without any SEO terms you could find it with.
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Sep 17, 2023 03:51
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Oh yeah, that's the other side of it. Even if I actually did remember it well enough to search for, there's a solid chance it was just a random enough product that I'd have to have some extreme luck to ever find any mention of.
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Sep 17, 2023 04:00
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Captain Hygiene posted:Ah, that's awesome, I'm glad you found it out. One of the things that I had in mind when I started the thread was hoping it would jog my memories enough to identify a little flying saucer toy I remember playing with when I was five or six, that's popped up in my mind every so often since then. The kind of thing that I have a good mental picture of when it's just generally in mind, but instantly starts fading away the moment I try to come up with specific details to search for. Oh well, maybe someday A google image search for 'vintage flying saucer toy' brings up a ton of different old toys, see if any of them ring any bells
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Sep 17, 2023 04:36
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a couple more of my childhood favorites that i haven't seen anyone post about yet: Brio wooden train tracks!!!  apparently they make way fancier ones now than they did when I was a youngin. They were just super durable wooden train track pieces and trains, I remember building big sprawling tracks all over the living room and the hallway and making a train station out of the big blocks of Duplo from toddlerhood we never got rid of. There was something really satisfying about how well they interlocked and how smoothly the trains ran on them, and I had some sloped up/down pieces that were fun to make routes that looped under.  Probably inspired my love of Rollercoaster Tycoon's coaster designer later in life.since someone brought up Mouse Trap, Goofy Golf Machine!!!  this was like a board game version of mini golf and it was absolutely my favorite board game to screw around with. you used a finger-sized golf ball launcher to putt at the various holes, the elevator has some levers to set which floor it will go to. not super challenging, but entertaining as heck if you're a kid who really likes rube goldberg machine kinda stuff.
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Sep 17, 2023 05:42
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someone awful. posted:Brio wooden train tracks!!! drat I don't think I've been near one of these sets in almost 3 decades and I can still remember exactly how they felt and the noise they'd make if you smacked two track pieces together lol Being a kid and staring longingly at the Brio catalogue ftw 
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Sep 17, 2023 06:11
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PinheadSlim posted:drat I don't think I've been near one of these sets in almost 3 decades and I can still remember exactly how they felt and the noise they'd make if you smacked two track pieces together lol My kid's real into this right now. We have a dope semi permanent track setup between the ottoman/coffee table thing and the TV.
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Sep 17, 2023 09:25
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Ikea has a clone of that and they improved on the design by making the connecting piece that sticks out out of plastic, so that if it would snap, you could probably replace it - instead of trying to glue the brittle as all get out carefully woodturned balljoint back together after it inevitably broke.
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Sep 17, 2023 11:15
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someone awful. posted:I have no idea why I loved these dumb things so much. I had the one you posted, plus a star-shaped one that came with some little fairy girls with delicate little wings. I had this one too! And this swimming pool one with a scary clown slide 
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Sep 17, 2023 11:22
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Deep Glove Bruno posted:My kid's real into this right now. We have a dope semi permanent track setup between the ottoman/coffee table thing and the TV. My nephew and niece are now at the age that when we're all at my parents' house I can get the box of Brio out of the loft and  
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Sep 17, 2023 11:49
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loved z-bots operation desert storm c-3po >>>>>> 
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Sep 17, 2023 19:04
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Animal-Mother posted:This guy ruled and I still had little laser and missile bits in random boxes years later after the dino himself got lost in a move or something. I still have the dinosaur but none of the accessories Also apparently Polly pocket is coming back with licensed sitcom sets. I’m just like mighty max needs to do the same with horror movies. Are they the actually the same company behind them? I have no idea.
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Sep 17, 2023 20:04
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Lol, what the  
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Sep 17, 2023 20:10
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That makes me think of an old Dave Barry line, "Papa Smurf visits the toaster oven" ...
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Sep 17, 2023 21:27
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Captain Hygiene posted:Lol, what the lmao what in the world
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Sep 17, 2023 21:48
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Yeah the TV show Friends is apparently still extremely popular among kids 5-16 even though none of them were even born when it originally aired, thanks to streaming services. It's a show about non-threatening adults having fun low stakes adventures centred around friendships and relationships, apparently that's like crack for kids.  In the UK it's apparently the most watched TV show in the kids 5-16 demographic: https://www.bbc.com/news/education-47043831 Snowglobe of Doom has a new favorite as of 22:54 on Sep 17, 2023 |
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Sep 17, 2023 22:39
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BalloonFish posted:My nephew and niece are now at the age that when we're all at my parents' house I can get the box of Brio out of the loft and here's ours. thomas classic episodes on heavy rotation. the engine in back is battery powered, forward and reverse, and has not broken yet. 
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Sep 17, 2023 23:07
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:Yeah the TV show Friends is apparently still extremely popular among kids 5-16 even though none of them were even born when it originally aired, thanks to streaming services. It's a show about non-threatening adults having fun low stakes adventures centred around friendships and relationships, apparently that's like crack for kids. Whoa, I never would've guessed that in a million years. I guess I'm not in the right demographic to know what the kids are into these days, but I don't remember the last time I heard anyone talk about the show, period. e: Deep Glove Bruno posted:here's ours. thomas classic episodes on heavy rotation. the engine in back is battery powered, forward and reverse, and has not broken yet. Nice, I didn't have those, but my brother was massively into Thomas & co and had that, among other things.
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Sep 17, 2023 23:33
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someone awful. posted:a couple more of my childhood favorites that i haven't seen anyone post about yet: We didn't have Brio. We had this set of really tough plastic trains and tracks, and a truck or two. The track pieces were black, roughly cast, and fuckin dense. We got chewed out if we ever so much as thought of using them as swords...
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Sep 18, 2023 16:54
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