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 Runaways, the newest MCU tie-in from Marvel Television, is a Hulu original following six teenagers: Alex Wilder, Nico Minoru, Karolina Dean, Gert Yorkes, Chase Stein, and Molly Hernandez (aged up a few years from the comics). Together, they find out that their parents are evil and decide to work against them with their manifestation of their own various superpowers. Also there's a dinosaur. The first three episodes premiered today, November 21st, and for the rest of its run will go up weekly for ten episodes total. I've seen about fifteen minutes of the first episode so far, and it's good! I'm not sure how faithful to the comics it is because I've never read them, but I hear it's decent about that excepting the whole Molly thing.
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Nov 22, 2017 00:47
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soundtrack/score is superb
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Nov 22, 2017 00:49
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Yeah, these two always end up with pretty great music in their shows. e: lol the thread tag
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Nov 22, 2017 00:52
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To restate my thoughts from the couch chat plus a few more: Molly has none of the charm her comic counterpart has. and There's way, WAY too much emphasis on drama involving the parents. If they were going to stretch out the first volume of the comics they should have done it with backstories on the parents and having the kids go run around and do stuff that helps serve the narrative of them opposing their parents. They're also doing a lot of setup that makes the parents more sympathetic. Also there's some other eye rolling stuff like how Gert is a 'social justice warrior' and says stuff like 'Let's bring down the patriarchy!' with a straight face; later on she's ogling Chase's naked body through X-Ray goggles and when he tries to do it to her she's says something like 'I am owed that for centuries of female objectification.' Or the near rape of Karolina in the first episode. At times the writing is just cringe worthy. The main kids are all pretty good in their roles but a lot of the parents are super flat and giving some awful performances. Gert's parents seems lively enough but Nico's parents are about as wooden as you can get and Chase's parents are not very good either. Not sure how much of a budget for the special effects there is yet. They seem to be changing some elements of the plot specifically the parents don't seem to be sacrificing people to a group of elder gods but instead to keep an old man alive. Disney doesn't mind making fun of Scientology but it won't risk angering Christians/Jews with a depiction of ancient gods? Maybe that element is still there and the old man is just like a prophet or something. I guess we'll find out. All that mostly negative stuff aside, the camera work is good and visually they have a lot of well shot scenes. I didn't really notice the sound effects, but the music choice has been a good fit. The special effects have been good, with exception of Old Lace but it's a CGI dinosaur so you kinda just gotta go with that. edit: Just saw that the showrunners were responsible for The O.C. and Gossip Girl, I guess I shouldn't be surprised by lovely martial/relationship drama and shallow portrayals of social issues. PaybackJack fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Nov 22, 2017 |
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Nov 22, 2017 01:07
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I've seen the first episode. It was pretty, and I looooved Nico's mother's outfit in the first scene. Just the right side of ridiculous. ...this is the major thing I have to report. Okay, okay. What did people think of the acting? The adults are great, but I'm not feeling some of the teens. Nico's great, Karolina's good, (that scene in the bathroom was the high point of the first episode). Gert's dialogue randomly switches between two different registers but she's basically fine too. The boys are... not great. Alex I can deal with, but Chase. Euugh. Wooden doesn't quite cover it. His scenes with James Masters completely failed to convince me that he was scared of the man. Sulkin sure is pretty though.
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Nov 22, 2017 01:19
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Open Source Idiom posted:I've seen the first episode. It was pretty, and I looooved Nico's mother's outfit in the first scene. Just the right side of ridiculous. He says in a later episode that he hasn't been scared of him since he hit puberty basically and is more or less just annoyed by the fact that he has to put up with the guy and doesn't understand why his mom is with a guy that's such an rear end in a top hat. He's probably the worst of the kids in terms of acting but he's also got the shallowest role as nice guy jock. Karolina has to convince you she's a sheltered cult member. Molly isn't great either but they aren't really giving her complex stuff to deal with. Nico and Alex are both still trying to cope with the loss of Nico's sister, their lost friendship, budding romance, and everything else going on. Gert is trying to reconcile her feminist beliefs with her teen hormones that are telling her to have sex with Chase.
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Nov 22, 2017 01:30
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Got through the first two episodes, and while it's much slower paced than the comic (probably too much so for some tastes), it's pretty good. As far as the grounding stuff I was concerned about, they've definitely made some changes that I probably wouldn't have made, but thus far, this doesn't seem to be an Iron Fist or Inhumans situation where they've gone so far in that regard as to completely miss the point of the source material. Though that could change depending on how the rest of the show handles things like the explanations for Molly and Karolina's powers and the Staff of One.
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Nov 22, 2017 05:49
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Barry Convex posted:Got through the first two episodes, and while it's much slower paced than the comic (probably too much so for some tastes), it's pretty good. Saw you name, read your post, no big calls i can use against you later. Fix that.
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Nov 22, 2017 08:26
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The Molly change isn't great, but from a production standpoint, finding a good child actor then working around the limited schedule they're allowed would be tough. Molly isn't some kid character you barely see, she's a main part of the ensemble and that would slow poo poo down. They don't have that Netflix money. I don't blame them for going the easy route. The actress seems fine enough so far, and even with her aged up we can still have overprotective Gert via their new show relationship. It's not like a black mark on the adaptation for me. Chase's hair being so short, on the other hand ... Nah, I think they did a good job transplanting these character types into 2017. And that kinda includes his hair.
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Nov 22, 2017 08:35
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esperterra posted:The Molly change isn't great, but from a production standpoint, finding a good child actor then working around the limited schedule they're allowed would be tough. Molly isn't some kid character you barely see, she's a main part of the ensemble and that would slow poo poo down. They don't have that Netflix money. I don't blame them for going the easy route. People get nerdy about the weirdest things.
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Nov 22, 2017 08:40
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The only thing about this show making me nerdy is how goddamn much I love it. My favourite trashy teen drama show runners making an adaptation of the only comic I followed weekly when I was a trashy teen? I loving love it. I'll go ahead and admit I read and love all the Gossip Girl books, and I was happy with almost all of the changes Schwartz and Savage did in adapting that series and moving it into the present. I hope they do the same thing they did there, and adapt the first book/volume with a few changes, then do their own thing. Whedon's run in the comic was awful, anyway, scrap it. I just hope the show doesn't run long enough to go as bat poo poo and self aware as GG did. It remained fun but got pretty ridiculous one upping itself.
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Nov 22, 2017 08:50
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esperterra posted:The only thing about this show making me nerdy is how goddamn much I love it. My favourite trashy teen drama show runners making an adaptation of the only comic I followed weekly when I was a trashy teen? I loving love it. They talk a little in their Sepinwall interview about how they've learned to pace things better since the OC.
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Nov 22, 2017 11:28
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Open Source Idiom posted:Okay, okay. What did people think of the acting? The adults are great, but I'm not feeling some of the teens. Nico's great, Karolina's good, (that scene in the bathroom was the high point of the first episode). Gert's dialogue randomly switches between two different registers but she's basically fine too. The boys are... not great. Alex I can deal with, but Chase. Euugh. Wooden doesn't quite cover it. His scenes with James Masters completely failed to convince me that he was scared of the man. I agree that sometimes the writing is ham-handed and sometimes the delivery is ham-handed. Gert's feminist rantings in the beginning sounded like she was reading it off cue cards. I have some story decision issues with the show, but it's the "why go that route when there was no need to sway from the original" that comic nerds will often let bug them. I liked the book, but don't have an emotional attachment to it enough to shut it off.
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Nov 22, 2017 14:34
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Yeah, the changes to the source material don't affect me at all -- that, and I can't see any point adapting a piece of work if you're going to be slavish to the original. Like they're completely different mediums, it wouldn't work. Case in point: you can't tell a story like this, on contemporary television, unless you lock the actors playing the parents down with contracts. Which means making them regular roles. Which means that they need to have the kind of parts befitting the kinds of actors who'll lock in for regular roles, or they'll not want to do it. That in turn means expanding the cast to near unmanageable levels -- so you have to find a way to remove some of them from the story. You can't remove any of the kids, or there's no point doing the adaptation at all. So you bump off two of the parents. It's pragmatism -- it helps reduce the cast to manageable levels, and it introduces a murder mystery, i.e. something for the parents to do.
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Nov 22, 2017 14:48
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Norwegian Rudo posted:They talk a little in their Sepinwall interview about how they've learned to pace things better since the OC. Yeah, even GG was a big step up from The OC in that regard. It just ran too drat long.
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Nov 22, 2017 15:30
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Volume 1 of Runaways was one of the only comic books I’ve ever read, and one of the unexpected benefits of changing poo poo up is that it seemingly nullifies a lot of the motives for things that are supposed to happen down the line. I don’t want to get too deep into it and poo poo up this thread with spoiler chat, but if these things do still happen, I suspect the reasoning is going to be a hell of a lot more interesting than it was. And on that note, I love the fact that the parents aren’t as much of a united front as they were in the comics. Everybody’s struggling on different levels with what they’re doing, and it opens up so many other possibilities going forward. By the way? loving stroke of genius hiring documentarian Brett Morgen to do the pilot and dictate the look of the show. It doesn’t look like any genre series on the air right now.
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Nov 22, 2017 16:10
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The one thing that confused me was the shot of whatever it was in Mrs. Dean's 'meditation chamber'. Is that what they're sacrificing people to? For a brief second I thought that was what she actually looked like and had to go in there so frequently to keep herself looking normal. I'm familiar with the team, but never actually read the comics, were all the parents mustache-twirlingly evil, or were some of them kinda like 'ehhhhh I dunno about this human sacrifice Stuff/our kids are onto us!'. Mr. Dean seems kind of like he might not be fully on with the plan.
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Nov 22, 2017 16:22
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I'm curious if the gibborim are going to be in the show at all, or just a reference with the Scientology thing. My theory atm is the dude in the meditation room is Karolina's grandfather, which is one of the reasons I question whether Leslie is still an alien or what. Karolina's father not being involved in the Pride rules him out. Someone peeped a Kree symbol on Karo's necklace, I think, so again I wonder if these are cute little references to a comic origin we won't get, or if it's still in there.
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Nov 22, 2017 16:29
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LadyPictureShow posted:The one thing that confused me was the shot of whatever it was in Mrs. Dean's 'meditation chamber'. Is that what they're sacrificing people to? For a brief second I thought that was what she actually looked like and had to go in there so frequently to keep herself looking normal. All the adults in the comics were committed to the last full measure. The thing it helps to understand about the story is that Brian K. Vaughn felt compelled to hit the gas on it because he was working under the assumption that it was going to be cancelled at any moment. That meant a lot of wild poo poo happened in a short amount of time, but it didn't leave much room for nuance; the parents were utter monsters who still loved their children, and the children would always hang out whenever their parents met up even though they were 16 and shouldn't have had to be dragged along to an annual function that had nothing to do with them.
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Nov 22, 2017 16:37
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Having now seen the first two episodes, I thought the second one would be kind of a drag just from the description but I liked it a lot, honestly. It helped to think of it as the second half of the premiere instead of a standalone episode in its own right.
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Nov 22, 2017 16:41
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Yeah, other than a brief sort of coup the Deans and Hayes (Molly's parents) were planning we got next to no information on the parents in the original. If anything, I think making them a little more sympathetic (but not too much) and giving some of the parents reservations will make (major comic spoiler for the end of the first arc, do not click unless you've read them or don't care) Alex's heel turn all the more interesting. If he misreads their supervillainy to a fault and is super loyal to a cause his parents may not be so fully invested in, it makes it so much more tragic.
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Nov 22, 2017 16:48
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esperterra posted:I'm curious if the gibborim are going to be in the show at all, or just a reference with the Scientology thing. The first shot of the series being the cover of Journey to the Center of the Earth was probably foreshadowing of something related to the Gibborim, though I doubt they're going to go the same direction in depicting them as in the comics. LadyPictureShow posted:Mr. Dean seems kind of like he might not be fully on with the plan. The third episode seems to imply that Frank was a member of the Pride in the past, but screwed up somehow and had his memory erased. Or maybe he never was and just accidentally stumbled onto their activities, but I think the former is more likely. Barry Convex fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Nov 22, 2017 |
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Nov 22, 2017 17:14
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esperterra posted:Yeah, other than a brief sort of coup the Deans and Hayes (Molly's parents) were planning we got next to no information on the parents in the original. See, that’s the thing; I’m wondering if there’s even going to be a heel turn at this point because the circumstances are so different. The groundwork for it is still there (it’s Alex’s idea to invite everyone over, it’s Alex who finds the hidden room) but there’s no sense that he already knew what he was seeing like there was in the comics (“Our parents are superheroes!”) I’m thinking if there’s a heel turn, it’ll come from Alex thinking that the sacrifice rituals are a way to bring back Amy, because that would tie in nicely with Nico trying to bring her back at the end of the pilot. (Non-comic readers: I’ve been on your end of this, and I know how much it blows to see a thread turned into a CIA document. If it’s any consolation, the show is diverging just enough from the original narrative that what we’re talking about might not come to pass...but it’s safer to assume otherwise and not mouse over any of that. Sorry!)
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Nov 22, 2017 17:46
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DivisionPost posted:By the way? loving stroke of genius hiring documentarian Brett Morgen to do the pilot and dictate the look of the show. It doesn’t look like any genre series on the air right now. hmmmmmmm that explains the intro maybe, which i thought was sorta weirdly thematic/nicely shot. Not CG closeups of molecules and magic sparks and poo poo
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Nov 22, 2017 17:57
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Yeah, I'm going to try to avoid talking spoiler-y comic stuff too much in this thread, at least until the season is done and we have a better idea what changes are being made. That was just one thought I've been wanting to get out since I watched it.
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Nov 22, 2017 18:00
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Barry Convex posted:The first shot of the series being the cover of Journey to the Center of the Earth was probably foreshadowing of something related to the Gibborim, though I doubt they're going to go the same direction in depicting them as in the comics. Huh, I must not have been paying close enough attention in the first two eps, I thought he was in the sacrifice scene. Also, it feels kind of weird seeing Kip Pardue playing a dad in this show. I remember him from stuff like 'But I'm a Cheerleader'. I'm so old now. 
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Nov 22, 2017 18:12
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Open Source Idiom posted:I've seen the first episode. It was pretty, and I looooved Nico's mother's outfit in the first scene. Just the right side of ridiculous. esperterra posted:The only thing about this show making me nerdy is how goddamn much I love it. My favourite trashy teen drama show runners making an adaptation of the only comic I followed weekly when I was a trashy teen? I loving love it.
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Nov 22, 2017 18:15
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LadyPictureShow posted:Also, it feels kind of weird seeing Kip Pardue playing a dad in this show. I remember him from stuff like 'But I'm a Cheerleader'. I'm so old now. Yeah that was weird for me too, I was like "Motherfuckin Sunshine from Remember the Titans!"
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Nov 22, 2017 19:07
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This is not an ad but if you want to read entire series free, Marvel Unlimited is having a 1 month free promotion http://marvel.com/comics/unlimited It gives you access to pretty much every comic marvel has ever done. Would reading the series spoil the show?
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Nov 22, 2017 20:04
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We don't know enough about where the show's going yet to definitively say whether or not it would spoil anything, but it's quite possible that it could.
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Nov 22, 2017 20:06
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Arist posted:We don't know enough about where the show's going yet to definitively say whether or not it would spoil anything, but it's quite possible that it could. Good to know
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Nov 22, 2017 20:52
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Mr Ice Cream Glove posted:This is not an ad but if you want to read entire series free, Marvel Unlimited is having a 1 month free promotion Depends on your definition of a spoiler, but I’d say most of it is different enough that the comic probably wouldn’t spoil anything that hasn’t already been shown in promo footage. The exception is one specific plot twist that would be a pretty massive spoiler for the show if it does happen here (which I think it probably will, but that’s not a certainty). But I think you’ll be okay if you only read up to issue 15 of the first series. Others might disagree, though.
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Nov 22, 2017 20:56
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Man, the music in this is fantastic. I love the Retro New Wave intro. I'm only just watching episode 1, but I like how they're straight up got pyscho mantis in the room from the end of 2001. I liked how the drug trip had Karolina's comic arms. I'm wondering if this will actually show up later as she uses her actual powers Is this part of the MCU?
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Nov 22, 2017 22:50
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twistedmentat posted:Man, the music in this is fantastic. I love the Retro New Wave intro. It wasn’t a drug trip. She didn’t actually take the pill she was offered. Unless I misinterpreted something? As with most of these TV shows: officially, yes; in practice, not really.
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Nov 22, 2017 23:06
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I initially thought she took the pill as well, but she ditched it in Chase's car and I missed that the first go around.
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Nov 22, 2017 23:29
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I must have missed her not taking the pill. I could have sworn she put in her mouth. Glad they're keeping her as a lesbian. I really wish i had read more Runaways, as I honestly have no idea who Gert is.
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Nov 22, 2017 23:52
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Most of the deviations from the comic seem pretty straightforward so far. Hopefully there's still a good reveal regarding the origins of the Pride and the purposes behind all of their various dealings and rituals and whatnot, but if the last episode ends where the comic does, things are going to have to start speeding up soon. There's definitely not enough time for any vampire side-plot though, so that's a plus.
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Nov 23, 2017 00:37
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She didn't take the pill, she took off her bracelet which seems to dampen her powers. She also woke up as soon as whats his name clamped it back on.
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Nov 23, 2017 02:07
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I never thought she was tripping, personally, obvs she took off the bracelet and passed out from using her powers for the first time. I did think she thought she was tripping at first, though. Then I noticed her ditch the pill in the car the second viewing. They definitely wanted you to think she took it, though, til after Chase gets her out of the house.
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Nov 23, 2017 02:30
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esperterra posted:I never thought she was tripping, personally, obvs she took off the bracelet and passed out from using her powers for the first time. Yeah that's her power, I just assumed it was ecstasy powered similar to how the other girls power comes from fear. I'm a dummy and thought she must have had 2 pills. Also her mum doesn't look anything like her but the jocks mum does, it's weirding me out.
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Nov 23, 2017 04:20
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