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Finished the Revanche Cycle - I know it's Fantasy to the UF, but considering how it ties into the Daniel Faust series (stopped reading that to read the Revanche) it's actually surprisingly good as a standalone series.
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Jul 21, 2019 14:05
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Omi no Kami posted:I just caught up with the Rook show, and holy crap this is garbage. We all knew it was gonna be, but holy cow. Did they really make Gestalt a love interest?
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Jul 21, 2019 14:23
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:Did they really make Gestalt a love interest? Unless I totally mistook who they were supposed to be, since like 70% of the original characters are gone, Myfanwy sleeps with both Gestalt and van Syoc, and Grantchester likes to put women's husbands in superpower-induced fugue states so he can sleep with them in front of their spouse.
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Jul 21, 2019 14:35
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So what you're saying is Stephanie Meyer's influence is clearly visible.
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Jul 21, 2019 15:15
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Maybe the rights for Anita Blake were too expensive but they really wanted to make a supernatural sex show where the characters sex. Boners. I always knew they were going to screw it up but it's funny that this is the direction they took THAT book. The one that was actually kind of refreshing for the fact that it was a UF novel with a female protagonist where the primary concern wasn't riding the were-sled to the bone zone
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Jul 21, 2019 17:14
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Omi no Kami posted:I just caught up with the Rook show, and holy crap this is garbage. We all knew it was gonna be, but holy cow. it's impressively bad
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Jul 21, 2019 19:27
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:I always knew they were going to screw it up but it's funny that this is the direction they took THAT book. The one that was actually kind of refreshing for the fact that it was a UF novel with a female protagonist where the primary concern wasn't riding the were-sled to the bone zone That's a real shame. It's relatedly why I stopped being unable to stand Bones (the show about the bones expert who works for the police) because the show's primary concern quickly became the bone zone.
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Jul 21, 2019 19:35
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Kchama posted:That's a real shame. It's relatedly why I stopped being unable to stand Bones (the show about the bones expert who works for the police) because the show's primary concern quickly became the bone zone. This is why fanfiction became a thing in the first place. I don't know why shows have to turn into dating sims after 3 seasons, but the writers ought to let the niche internet communities do that for them.
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Jul 21, 2019 19:42
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Rook did a way better job of that, but I also appreciated how the Harmony Black books basically went Jessie: "Hey look, a sexy cowboy." Harmony: "Um?" Jessie: "Aren't you going to go do the sexing?" Harmony: "Meh."
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Jul 22, 2019 01:30
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I like Stiletto, but this bit, Scorchy posted:(Odette has a great arc) Is 100% wrong and the garbage conclusion to Odette's arc nearly ruined the entire book for me. The whole climax is her doing literally nothing while the plot happens around her. And it was simple enough to fix, just have it so using the weapon is Odette's choice. Her conflict is built around split loyalties and forcing her to choose to kill her old eugenics crazy pals to save Felicity would be a satisfactory conclusion to her story. Instead, she's totally passive and strapped to a table with zero agency while the Grafters use her as a weapon. It suuuuuuuuucks. Skippy McPants fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Jul 22, 2019 |
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Jul 22, 2019 01:40
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Skippy McPants posted:I like Stiletto, but this bit, That's about where I ended up... I enjoyed reading Stiletto, and it was fun to inhabit that setting again, but I always found the Grafters less interesting than the Checquy, and depriving Odette of literally any agency whatsoever in her role was super-frustrating. My proposed alternative is pretty shallow, but I kinda wish he'd stuck with a more serial format and just written 4-5 crisis-of-the-week books where bored x-men civil servants run around dealing with weirdness.
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Jul 22, 2019 03:00
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Skippy McPants posted:I like Stiletto, but this bit, You're right, the ending had zero agency for both the main characters and that sucks. It's not out of nowhere, all the clues and setup was there, but still. I don't actually like Odette because she reminds me of people I know and hate, but where she began in the book and where she ends up forms the emotional backbone of the story. It's less about what she does and more about how she feels about it.
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Jul 22, 2019 06:12
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Sure, and her maturing from a spoiled socialite into something closer to a real adult is fun to watch but because nobody has any agency in what unfolds the result is a story that kinda lacks for a protagonist. If I'd been one of his beta readers I'd have suggested something like, Her uncle has an attack of conscience and confesses to her about the bomb, which leaves Odette feeling used and betrayed. During the climax, she purposefully avoids looking at her friends to keep from killing them and doesn't change her mind until she learns Felicity's life is at stake. Oh well, it was still decent enough that I'd enjoy another book. The supernatural world O'Malley put together has a balance of menace and whimsy that's difficult to pull off and fun to read.
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Jul 22, 2019 06:40
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Skippy McPants posted:Sure, and her maturing from a spoiled socialite into something closer to a real adult is fun to watch but because nobody has any agency in what unfolds the result is a story that kinda lacks for a protagonist. If I'd been one of his beta readers I'd have suggested something like, Hmm, the problem there is that basically van Syoc's defining characteristic is that he'll do whatever it takes to preserve his family and their work. Maybe instead of it being an act of conscience, he spends the first 10-15% of the book maneuvering her into position while she bonds with her bodyguard and the Checquy, then right when she's started to overcome people's suspicion and make new friends he goes "Btw, you know how we told them we're cooperating? Those are total lies, please look forward to lying to and betraying everyone you just met." It's a nice way to generate antagonism between she and her uncle without actually alienating them, and gives her something to be visibly split over from the getgo. This is splitting hairs, but I also wasn't too thrilled with how the evil science kids were introduced: it felt like the book was bending over backwards to misrepresent them as a third party that chased the Grafters out of continental Europe and/or motivated them to see the alliance with the Checquy,, and both Odette and van Syoc spend most of the book discussing them in a very indirect and awkward way whose sole purpose was to hide the fact that the big bad were grafter rebels from the reader. I think it would've almost worked better if we learned that it was a grafter faction immediately after Odette's bodyguard friend's squad were all slaughtered.
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Jul 22, 2019 07:02
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I'm onto the third Alex Verus book and whoooo boy you guys weren't wrong about all the mages being total assholes holy poo poo. I mean drat there is some solid comic book level villainy going on for what seems like some pretty dubious reasons and Alex himself does a pretty good job of shrugging off him slaughtering a bunch of random mooks.
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Jul 22, 2019 11:38
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basement dweller posted:it's impressively bad It’s Dark Tower levels of bad without any special effects budget. They showed a new trailer at SDCC that has clips from the back half of the season. Van Syoc is definitely a love interest and the memory eating kid is just a normal kid and not a creepy genetic experiment. biracial bear for uncut posted:So what you're saying is Stephanie Meyer's influence is clearly visible. As much as I’d like to blame Stephanie Meyer for this abomination, she left it a while ago due to creative differences with the showrunners, one of who... Kchama posted:That's a real shame. It's relatedly why I stopped being unable to stand Bones (the show about the bones expert who works for the police) because the show's primary concern quickly became the bone zone. ... was also the showrunner for Bones. They supposedly redid large parts of the show after her departure. So the well was poisoned from a lot of different people. It’s just amazing that someone could get the rights to weird as gently caress British X-men and decide to make it a spy thriller/romance with as little superhuman/supernatural as possible. Especially with how well superhero properties are doing right now. It doesn’t even make sense from a business perspective.
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Jul 22, 2019 13:37
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Lawlicaust posted:It’s just amazing that someone could get the rights to weird as gently caress British X-men and decide to make it a spy thriller/romance with as little superhuman/supernatural as possible. Especially with how well superhero properties are doing right now. It doesn’t even make sense from a business perspective. It's reminding me of that time Fox bought the TV rights to Neil Gaiman's comic about lucifer owning a piano bar and having long, introspective conversations with angels, demons, and everyone in-between, and turned it into a police procedural. Like, TV Rook is so far removed from the source material that they could've just called it MI7 or something and saved the licensing fee.
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Jul 22, 2019 14:38
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The Rook show reminds me of John Carpenter's Vampire$, which used absolutely nothing from the book beyond part of an opening scene and a couple of character names. The author of the novel was genuinely baffled, in interviews, that they licensed his (relatively obscure) book and paid him money for it when they really didn't have to.
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Jul 22, 2019 15:58
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The weird thing is that I don’t have Starz so I found out about the romance subplot when I stumbled onto an lgbt blog gushing about the show’s lgbt representation because I guess myfawny kisses the Eliza gestalt? Whoever was writing it had clearly never read the books and I just felt bad for her because, lady, you are in for a rough ride.
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Jul 22, 2019 16:27
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Omi no Kami posted:It's reminding me of that time Fox bought the TV rights to Neil Gaiman's comic about lucifer owning a piano bar and having long, introspective conversations with angels, demons, and everyone in-between, and turned it into a police procedural. Like, TV Rook is so far removed from the source material that they could've just called it MI7 or something and saved the licensing fee. Oh man don't remind me of the Lucifer TV show. I came home from work one day and my boyfriend was watching it and asked if I was familiar with it. I told him I'd read the comics and really liked them, but didn't know there was a show. So I ended up watching an episode or two with him and honestly there was just enough references to piss me off. The show is SO BAD if you're familiar with the source material, but my non comic reading boyfriend loves it. So now he just watches it when I'm not there to nitpick at it.
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Jul 22, 2019 17:08
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Lawlicaust posted:As much as I’d like to blame Stephanie Meyer for this abomination, she left it a while ago due to creative differences with the showrunners, one of who... Holy poo poo really? Well that absolutely explains literally everything. I'm officially of the opinion that the Twilight lady was probably a better choice than the person responsible for museum workers literally boning on priceless artifacts every single episode while the lady in charge of making sure they don't bone on the bones fondly approves in Bones. Also is this a Starz show? They love doing stuff like this. They've been trying to make an adaptation of Noir which literally had this problem too. The casting call including a bunch of men to be the main characters as opposed to the titular Noir.
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Jul 22, 2019 18:25
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Harry Connolly is going to write a 20 Palaces sequel and is doing a kickstarter to determine how many words it will be. Not sure this is a great way to go about deciding that, but it's probably worth $4 for a future copy if you already liked the series. http://harryjconnolly.com/the-iron-gate-a-new-break-kickstarter-campaign/
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Jul 22, 2019 18:48
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Omi no Kami posted:Unless I totally mistook who they were supposed to be, since like 70% of the original characters are gone, Myfanwy sleeps with both Gestalt and van Syoc, and Grantchester likes to put women's husbands in superpower-induced fugue states so he can sleep with them in front of their spouse. hooooooo boy I knew it would be but I didn't know it would be this impressively bad Has Starz done anything good recently?
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Jul 22, 2019 19:33
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Deathlove posted:hooooooo boy I knew it would be but I didn't know it would be this impressively bad Black Sails was basically downington abbey with pirates, which is a winning concept, and I thought american gods had a lot of potential until the showrunners developed an obsession with making the show shoot itself in the foot all episode, every episode.
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Jul 22, 2019 19:43
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Drone Jett posted:Harry Connolly is going to write a 20 Palaces sequel and is doing a kickstarter to determine how many words it will be. Not sure this is a great way to go about deciding that, but it's probably worth $4 for a future copy if you already liked the series.
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Jul 22, 2019 19:44
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https://twitter.com/longshotauthor/status/1153374999673069569
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Jul 22, 2019 19:47
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Wizchine fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Jul 22, 2019 |
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Jul 22, 2019 19:56
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That might be the first time I've backed a kickstarter.
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Jul 22, 2019 20:28
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Saros posted:I'm onto the third Alex Verus book and whoooo boy you guys weren't wrong about all the mages being total assholes holy poo poo. To be fair Alex himself acknowledges that he's far from normal and kinda reflects on his acts of violence when things get slow. Book 3 and 4 are some of the best in the series in terms of pacing, events, and characters, so enjoy.
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Jul 22, 2019 23:24
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Kchama posted:Holy poo poo really? Well that absolutely explains literally everything. I'm officially of the opinion that the Twilight lady was probably a better choice than the person responsible for museum workers literally boning on priceless artifacts every single episode while the lady in charge of making sure they don't bone on the bones fondly approves in Bones. Yeah, the showrunners have previous made a lot of romance drama/thriller only tangentially related to a plot (ER, Bones, Flash Forward, One Tree Hill). Meyer was the only person associated with the project that seemed to actually know or care about the source material. But don’t take my word for it, let’s here from the new showrunner: quote:Speaking at a TCA panel Tuesday afternoon, “The Rook” executive producer Stephen Garrett said Meyer — who was hired as showrunner, before exiting early in production — parted with the show “amicably.” He said Meyer, who adapted Daniel O’Malley’s 2012 novel, had a “different take” than what the other producers decided to pursue. This led to, as you might imagine, a departure over “creative differences.” The current producers intentionally decided to go this direction instead of what Meyer had planned. Now, her plans may have been atrocious and involve Myfanwy being a self-insert that starts banging Alberich who now sparkles. We will never know. But the current direction is definitely on the new showrunners and not her. I hope it gets put out of its misery after this season.
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Jul 23, 2019 00:11
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I’m now imagining they got Meyer expecting herto do her freaky vampire sex thing but in this case it got too bad even for her or something.
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Jul 23, 2019 09:38
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:To be fair Alex himself acknowledges that he's far from normal and kinda reflects on his acts of violence when things get slow. Book 3 and 4 are some of the best in the series in terms of pacing, events, and characters, so enjoy. I think it really struck me in book 2 when he was wandering around the Ice mages sanctum 360-noscoping a bunch of guards without any real effort that he really is as deadly as any of the other battlemages and that his poor me i'm so afraid and outgunned all the time act is uh, a bit overblown. Also Onyx seems fairly chill for a dark mage. Man just wants to smash n slice things with his jedi powers and not have to do what Morden says the whole time.
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Jul 23, 2019 10:48
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Avalerion posted:I’m now imagining they got Meyer expecting herto do her freaky vampire sex thing but in this case it got too bad even for her or something. Maybe her proposal for the show was for there to be like 10 Gestalt bodies instead of 4, and 90% of its runtime would be dedicated to him hanging out at home after work doing live theatrical re-enactments of all the Twlight fanfiction he wrote as a teenager. It would be the dumbest thing in the world, and also amazing. (Also, a lot more entertaining than what we ended up with.)
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Jul 23, 2019 11:03
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It'll be hilarious when it turns out Meyer was actually trying to make a good, faithful adaptation because she's a fan.anilEhilated posted:As much as I love the series, that is weird. It's fun as a one-time experiment, IMO, but I wouldn't want this to become a model that more people do. Megazver fucked around with this message at 13:20 on Jul 23, 2019 |
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Jul 23, 2019 13:16
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Oh, is chapter 3 of Peace Talks called "The End"? (I kid because I love)
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Jul 23, 2019 14:19
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It's done, Jim.
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Jul 23, 2019 15:24
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Saros posted:I think it really struck me in book 2 when he was wandering around the Ice mages sanctum 360-noscoping a bunch of guards without any real effort that he really is as deadly as any of the other battlemages and that his poor me i'm so afraid and outgunned all the time act is uh, a bit overblown. The thing is, Verus’s power level is extremely quantum in a way other mages’ powers aren’t: if he can beat you, he will beat you easily, because he can just save-scum the right result, but if you can put up a solid defense against fists and bullets and he doesn’t have any of his tricks on him, he’s as good as powerless. There have been multiple times when Cinder and company have had him dead to rights if they’d actually gone full out. It’s just that no one else but Verus is ever sure which quantum state he’s in.
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Jul 23, 2019 16:26
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Saros posted:I think it really struck me in book 2 when he was wandering around the Ice mages sanctum 360-noscoping a bunch of guards without any real effort that he really is as deadly as any of the other battlemages and that his poor me i'm so afraid and outgunned all the time act is uh, a bit overblown. Nah. Onyx might not, at the surface level, like any authority that is not his own- but he also somewhat clearly wants Morden's respect and is super-pissed Magic Dad loves his step-son Alex more than him. Also, Cinder remarks upon that. He talks about how Alex isn't like the light Mages, how he's more ruthless. Alex starts talking about how he isn't really that dangerous, and Cinder tells him he's full of poo poo in so many words. Says that he expects that by the end of the night, Alex will be alive and everyone against him won't be. And that kind of takes him aback. It's a mixture of Alex' rational acknowledgment re: the limitations his magic places upon him, and the inner conflict that forms a line throughout the books and takes central stage at the end of seven leading into eight. Given the title of the ninth book is 'Fallen', we're likely going to see that go even further in September.
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Jul 23, 2019 17:21
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:Nah. Onyx might not, at the surface level, like any authority that is not his own- but he also somewhat clearly wants Morden's respect and is super-pissed Magic Dad loves his step-son Alex more than him. "How many people that have gone against you are still alive?" Cinder is one of the few people who have gone against Alex and realised just how loving dangerous Alex is. Everyone else (including Alex himself) keeps underestimating him and getting wiped. Iirc, at some point they mention most diviners keep to themselves and Alex is pretty much the only one we've seen fighting, so a lot of this comes from the perceived power difference between a guy who can "only" peek at the future and someone like Cinder or Onyx that can level a loving building if they want to. Last (maybe second to last?) book spoilers: And maybe Morden, because after that vault fight I wouldn't be surprised if he was a diviner as well, but if he is... well, it only cements how dangerous diviners are 
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Jul 23, 2019 19:38
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Morden!=Drahk
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Jul 23, 2019 20:03
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