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Invisible Clergy posted:I don't understand how he got A-list voice talent for the animated series. Jim Cummings is going to be on that. Why? The creator of Goblins is actually a woman named Ellipses, but yeah Goblins always felt like Mookie Unbound to me. Just constant gore, a weird blend of DnD elements and now that I’ve read Star Power I see they even share massive walls of impenetrable text. She made it work though where somehow Mookie didn’t? I don’t get it! Good god man, just telling the world that he is writing bad.
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Aug 24, 2020 23:04
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SardonicTyrant posted:Too late, I already said that when Legacy started. poo poo. I'll begin immediately. no not really TheHan posted:The creator of Goblins is actually a woman named Ellipses, but yeah Goblins always felt like Mookie Unbound to me. Just constant gore, a weird blend of DnD elements and now that I’ve read Star Power I see they even share massive walls of impenetrable text. She made it work though where somehow Mookie didn’t? I don’t get it! Aside from the visuals the most annoying part of Goblins to me is how there are characters that are supposed to be actual D&D players making references to the real world mixed with hardcore serious devastating drama. It's such a bizarre mix and doesn't work. oriongates posted:Why is he carrying the guy? when has anything snout done make sense Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Aug 24, 2020 |
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Aug 24, 2020 23:05
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Also, dude his skin came off, he's going to be at serious risk for infection and making sure to touch him all over as much as possible isn't going to help with that. I sort of got the impression that Snout was going down there because he thought the mongrelman might still be alive and wanted to help. Which is a reasonable motivation, I guess, it's just the way he's doing it that's so weird. Cause I don't think skin guy is the mongrelman because he looks like a normal human.
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Aug 24, 2020 23:17
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TheHan posted:The creator of Goblins is actually a woman named Ellipses, but yeah Goblins always felt like Mookie Unbound to me. Just constant gore, a weird blend of DnD elements and now that I’ve read Star Power I see they even share massive walls of impenetrable text. She made it work though where somehow Mookie didn’t? I don’t get it! Oh I didn't mean to deadname her since I didn't know she transitioned. Her comic is gross and sucks rear end though.
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Aug 24, 2020 23:21
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BattleMaster posted:Haha what, I have a hard time imagining actual good voice talent coming from his booger monster character designs Look at this poo poo the all time greats. Do you think any of them know what they're in for? oriongates posted:Why is he carrying the guy? In case Snout gets hungry later. We don't need a Goblins! deep dive, the bad webcomics wiki article has it covered. Invisible Clergy fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Aug 24, 2020 |
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Aug 24, 2020 23:25
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TheHan posted:She made it work though where somehow Mookie didn’t? I don’t get it! The art is awful but it's awful in a different way than "I never learned anything that wasn't in How to Draw Manga," and it much more directly targets people's D&D nostalgia.
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Aug 24, 2020 23:37
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Invisible Clergy posted:I don't understand how she got A-list voice talent for the animated series. Jim Cummings is going to be on that. Why? Presumably they like getting paid, so I could see them viewing it as just another job.
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Aug 24, 2020 23:50
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The dude having underwear and the lady not is actually the stupidest thing in this "story" arc. Like... why. You've already drawn schlongs, just do it.
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Aug 24, 2020 23:52
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Heliotrope posted:Presumably they like getting paid, so I could see them viewing it as just another job. Yeah it's nuts that there's this who's who of famous voice actors on the cast but all it says about anything is that there's the money to pay for them... somehow.
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Aug 24, 2020 23:53
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Chapter 2: The Curse [Part 1] Splitting this one up cause it goes on for a while and a lot happens So, as we start the first longer narrative in DD, it still early on follows the same newspaper beat to it's humour. The setup actually feels pretty good for some mild comedic hyjinx   An older lady, essentially the evil queen from Snow White, comes to Dominic to find out if she is the most beautiful woman in the land. Dominic insults her, so...  She curses him. He's dismissive at first, but it turns out she was an enchantress. Her name is Croona Travoria, which I actually think is a pretty good fantasy name.  See, this humour I still sort of like. Croona was delusional but Dominic is a dick so it's funny to see him mildly incovenienced. The humor from it is nothing special, but actually fits the newspaper serial feel.  Dominic figures out using his scrying that the cure to the curse is a potion in Croona's mansion. He ropes in Stunt and Bumper to steal the potion for him.   Again, a good premise. Dominic is a little amoral but it fits with his rural curmudgeon characterization so far. Here's where the story starts to take a turn. This is the first deviation into what DD will become. You see, Lady Travoria is having a soiree for some bigwigs of the kingdom, including...  Siggy! Given his violent nature, this could be a problem for our bumbling thieves. The situation is complicating. How exciting! But wait, what's this about?  Ok, that's strange. Weird way tot alk about your daughter. I guess she's supposed to be delusional so it's a joke on how she's old and a has-been.  Bad pun interlude (Mookietrope #2). Though I actually like this one Back to the main story, one of the worst characters in all of fiction is introduced. Here. Comes. Luna.  Here is where the reader realizes that Croona's beauty talk isn't a one-off joke, but is an actual part of the narrative. Luna hides her face because...  She's got fangs! And this makes her hideously ugly. Siggy flees in terror.  Back at Dominic's place, dominic is alerted to the plot via Mookietrope #5: The Plot Vision. Dominic is just handed the information needed to save the day. Here, on it's own, it's not that bad. But again this is the precursor to a million lazy decisions Mookie will make in writing. I do like that dominic is cooking the fish that the curse gives him though. That's a nice little bit of visual humour.  At the castle, Siggy has run into the thieves.  They flee in terror, and this prompts another blow to Luna's self esteem. Then this strip happens.  I actually forgot how suddenly this comes up in the narrative. It hit me like a brick. Just out of nowhere. Played as a sort of joke, but really a little jarring given the tone of the comic to this point. This is followed by this strip.  Mookie's classic fourth wall breaking scowl comes in. Now, at the time, I think it would be easy to gloss over this choice on Mookie's part. It is making light of some dark themes, but it's not that bad. But I do think the setup merrits some scrutiny given the rest of Mookie's work. Mookie at this point was obviously a nerd in the Ernest Cline mold, who's views one women are centered around a "progressive" male gaze. Both these authors use a setup that focuses on the idea of inner beauty or competence as attractive in women (we'll see that with Luna later), but who still focus the story and action around the male protagonist getting the girl, who he apprecaites so much more than those dumb bimbos, and who he treats better than the dumb jocks. This is really getting into the Maddona/whore complex a lot of male nerds carry around with them. I think it's interesting too that his first real antagonist is a women who is ridiculed for her vanity and who is drawn very prominently with makeup. This is obviously signaling a contempt on Mookie's part for "girly things" like makeup, again a very common nerd trope dismissing feminine activities as frivolous or vain. Mookie is also, though this would only become obvious later, fantasizing about having a women who is emotionally insecure, and therefore will need him to take care of her. More on that as we watch Luna's (lack of) character development during the course of the strip. I actually think if Mookie had not written her into the comic, it could have been much better. Come back for The Curse. [Part 2]
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Aug 25, 2020 00:53
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Heliotrope posted:Presumably they like getting paid, so I could see them viewing it as just another job. BattleMaster posted:Yeah it's nuts that there's this who's who of famous voice actors on the cast but all it says about anything is that there's the money to pay for them... somehow.
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Aug 25, 2020 01:03
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I think the early comics read easier at the time because a lot of media was more inclined to make jokes out of things like suicide. And with the tone of the comic at the time, the abruptness of it seemed more appropriate. There's a lot of jokes that a flinch at now that as a teenager I'd just pass by without thinking. Also, like, I unironically enjoyed comics like Penny Arcade so a lot has changed suffice to say. I started reading DD as a teenager and was genuinely really fond of it for a while - I think until it was far enough into the comic that you started to see the patterns forming. The thing that got to me the most was Mookie's constant murdering of any possible stakes during most of the story arcs. Which wasn't really an issue back when the stakes were generally pretty low.
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Aug 25, 2020 01:14
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Because of the art it's really hard to tell if the queen is ACTUALLY ugly or just looks like a once-beautiful women who is aging. She pretty much looks like everyone else but with more lines on her face. Also, wow, Dominic is a HUGE loving rear end in a top hat to her about her looks... And then he's progressive for seeing through Luna's deformity to her true beauty? Lol, gently caress off with that, especially because she's pretty clearly a conventionally attractive woman but with tusks. You're right, it's like in Ready Player One when the main character is practically given an award for being totally into the female lead even though she's gasp "rubenesque" with a birthmark on her face! But still pretty much an attractive woman, because plenty of guys are into bigger girls and don't care about birthmarks. These early comics are SO obsessed with women's looks in general. It's super creepy. Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Aug 25, 2020 |
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Aug 25, 2020 01:16
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Absolutely agreed that the strip probably would have been way better off if Luna had never become a main character. Sure, it still wouldn’t have been high art, but from what I vaguely remember from reading it years ago, she carries a boatload of unfortunate implications to start with, and only gets worse in that department as the story goes on.
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Aug 25, 2020 01:30
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TheHan posted:The creator of Goblins is actually a woman named Ellipses, but yeah Goblins always felt like Mookie Unbound to me. Just constant gore, a weird blend of DnD elements and now that I’ve read Star Power I see they even share massive walls of impenetrable text. She made it work though where somehow Mookie didn’t? I don’t get it! I wasn't aware Ellipses was trans or had transitioned. Good on her for that, and thanks for pointing it out because otherwise I'd have deadnamed her out of ignorance, but, like, yeah, no. Goblins doesn't work at all, Ellipses is a terrible writer and a terrible artist, and honestly her comic also betrays some pretty serious issues in general. Goblins arguably has even less stakes than Mookie's poo poo because at least within the framework of the stories, the events are real. The one panel Mookie Prime spends in mortal danger before revealing his trump card and that he was never in any danger at all is at least genuine danger. There's never any danger or tension in Goblins, just grotesquery, because one of the central conceits is that it's all a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Like, hell, the big titted Drow babe and her party all got TPK'd and then later we see their re-rolls and they even reference the prior TPK. And the Drow babe's player plays another big boobed lady who gets messily killed while her cleavage and gore are lovingly detailed.
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Aug 25, 2020 01:50
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Didn’t Goblins also have a mini-series with a side character that was the purest form of Pay to Win by threatening to horribly kill him unless the fans donated enough actual cash to the author?
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Aug 25, 2020 01:57
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Yes. I believe there was also some shady stuff around one of her kickstarters. I know she got screwed over by the Least I Could Do shitheads, but I vaguely recall there was some other fundraising thing Ellipses did where she herself was involved in something shady. I might be conflating her with some other webcomic artist though in which case mea culpa. I can get why so many webcomic writers/artists are awful because the barrier to entry is literally non-existant, but it is kind of remarkable how many are also just terrible people.
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Aug 25, 2020 02:01
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Regalingualius posted:Didn’t Goblins also have a mini-series with a side character that was the purest form of Pay to Win by threatening to horribly kill him unless the fans donated enough actual cash to the author? Yes. After collecting the money, she never finished this comic. RoboChrist 9000 posted:Yes. I believe there was also some shady stuff around one of her kickstarters. I know she got screwed over by the Least I Could Do shitheads, but I vaguely recall there was some other fundraising thing Ellipses did where she herself was involved in something shady. I might be conflating her with some other webcomic artist though in which case mea culpa. I don't want to talk about Goblins! though. It's bad too, but not in a way I would really like to dwell on. Luna really could have lifted out of oops all berries Deegan at any time because any time she's about to do something, Dominic swoops in and upstages her, or it's revealed that the thing she's doing wasn't the right thing after all. It, like many flaws of the comic, grows more extreme over time. Invisible Clergy fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Aug 25, 2020 |
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Aug 25, 2020 02:06
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Goblins is bad in the same way at all times, by and large. Like once you've done the first arc you've done it all. Mookie, in contrast, while his flaws are constant, still finds new and exciting ways to gently caress up every single arc. Mookie is an entertaining trainwreck. Goblins is a boring trainwreck. And while Mookie's art is loving awful bottom-tier anime bullshit, it's at least comprehensible most of the time and while amateurish, I confess to finding a certain charm to it in the nostalgia sense that it reminds me of the early internet and anime fandom. But regardless, I can look at his art and both not be repulsed AND parse what is happening. Neither of those two things are true of Goblins.
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Aug 25, 2020 02:16
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Thanks for the writeup, The Little Death. This is a blast. I can't get over how from the beginning, even Dominic himself was fed up with this poo poo.
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Aug 25, 2020 02:24
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Invisible Clergy posted:I don't understand how she got A-list voice talent for the animated series. Jim Cummings is going to be on that. Why? Let's just say Jim Cummings is lucky to get this after the things revealed in his divorce case and leave it at that.
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Aug 25, 2020 02:40
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Luna's tusks remind me of an old tv show called Gary and Mike, about two guys on an eternal road trip across America. Basically family guy but claymation. In one episode Gary meets and starts dating this woman with a huge fuzzy patch on her face. She is otherwise the perfect girlfriend for Gary (able to speak in fluent Klingon!), but in the end Gary can't see past the fuzzy patch. Then in a twist it turns out the patch is fake to ward off unenlightened suitors, and she tells Gary off and dumps him. It kind of seems like Mookie is trying to convey the tusks are as bad as that, but Luna looks attractive even with the tusks. So weird.
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Aug 25, 2020 03:08
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In retrospect Shallow Hal was not a good movie.
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Aug 25, 2020 03:44
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Kavak posted:Mookie is South Park's version of Francis Dolarhyde and we're all Eric Cartman screaming in sheer boredom. "This is Snout in front of the statues. Do you see?! This is Snout walking under a vaguely alien looking tree. Do you see?! And this is him looking at the same information we already know for the seventh time. Do you see?!"
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Aug 25, 2020 04:10
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SardonicTyrant posted:Luna's tusks remind me of an old tv show called Gary and Mike, about two guys on an eternal road trip across America. Basically family guy but claymation. lmao didn't C+A+D do that exact same gag but with a fat suit and the guy still ended up with the girl despite being horrified by it and only sticking with her long enough for her to take it off out of politeness
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Aug 25, 2020 04:21
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Dabir posted:lmao didn't C+A+D do that exact same gag but with a fat suit and the guy still ended up with the girl despite being horrified by it and only sticking with her long enough for her to take it off out of politeness Yes. Ethan's BFF who's name I forget had that happent o him.
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Aug 25, 2020 04:25
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:Yes. Ethan's BFF who's name I forget had that happent o him. Lucas. Lucas is gay in the reboot. Scott is the token wheelchair kid and
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Aug 25, 2020 04:30
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SardonicTyrant posted:It kind of seems like Mookie is trying to convey the tusks are as bad as that, but Luna looks attractive even with the tusks. So weird. EDIT: wait, this is mook "I don't plan ahead" ie he absolutely had not through that up yet at this point in the comic, nevermind
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Aug 25, 2020 04:35
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The dumb thieves would have been like "aaaaaah an orc!" or maybe "ewww an orc" instead if he had intended it to be that
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Aug 25, 2020 05:02
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Yeah he doesn't think of her tuskmouth being the result of the orc blight on the human kingdom for another 4 or 5 years.
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Aug 25, 2020 05:07
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it's a story about her mother putting a curse on someone, if he'd thought of that he'd have had at least three characters point out the parallel to the mother's face and written at least one blog post about how clever it is
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Aug 25, 2020 05:22
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Mookie is also a coward because IIRC over time Luna's tusks become way less prominent and her face doesn't look nearly as hosed up so the whole "external beauty doesn't matter" message gets lost.
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Aug 25, 2020 08:54
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Yeah, they basically become little nubs that barely stick out by the end, IIRC.
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Aug 25, 2020 08:59
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I think someone in this thread said that Mookie would be a bad DM and holy poo poo he would be the worst DM. He can't even motivate the characters to do things when he is the characters.
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Aug 25, 2020 09:03
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YF-23 posted:Mookie is also a coward because IIRC over time Luna's tusks become way less prominent and her face doesn't look nearly as hosed up so the whole "external beauty doesn't matter" message gets lost.
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Aug 25, 2020 09:17
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TheHan posted:Ellipses RoboChrist 9000 posted:Ellipses Ellipsis. And for what it's worth, she's still using her dead name for her work in an adjective form. (This PDF was uploaded after her coming out and name change.) RoboChrist 9000 posted:There's never any danger or tension in Goblins, just grotesquery, because one of the central conceits is that it's all a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Like, hell, the big titted Drow babe and her party all got TPK'd and then later we see their re-rolls and they even reference the prior TPK. That's true of the adventurers, not the main characters who are goblins. I think the idea was that it's a "real" world where adventurers project their characters but where stuff still happens on its own when nobody's playing. (A concept already explored in fiction by games like the Ultima series, or the Guilded Age webcomic.) The three rerolled adventurers have pretty much disappeared from the comic, while the remaining two have largely dropped the the "you're player characters" angle and gotten into stakes tied specifically to their characters. Cat Mattress fucked around with this message at 10:15 on Aug 25, 2020 |
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Aug 25, 2020 10:12
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As much as Goblins! is fascinating I don't think this is really the thread to go in-depth about it. I'd be up for a read-along in a separate thread if someone bothered to do that though.
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Aug 25, 2020 10:24
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oh i just remembered which character in goblins! is based after the author's mother oh no
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Aug 25, 2020 11:08
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Miss posted:oh i just remembered which character in goblins! is based after the author's mother It's the naga, isn't it?
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Aug 25, 2020 14:15
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Who What Now posted:It's the naga, isn't it? Yes.
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Aug 25, 2020 14:16
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