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Welcome to the Lego Masters thread! This thread is for discussing the U.S. version of the show Lego Masters on Fox. (feel free to discuss the U.K. version or any of the other international versions as well) Lego Masters is a reality show where lego enthusiasts are tasked with creating incredible lego MOCs that are not only impressive in their own right, but also tell a story, display a specific theme, and/or fulfill some kind of goal as set by that episode's challenge. Here's the cast! Host: Will Arnett The voice of Lego Batman and Bojack Horseman! Judges: Jamie Berard Jamie has been working with Lego for 13 years. As a designer for the Lego Company, he's worked on many products in the Creator Expert and Architecture lines. He was the lead creator on the 2019 Toy of the Year, the LEGO Creator Expert Roller Coaster. Amy Corbett She's a Senior Design Manager at The LEGO Company and worked on their Friends line as well as the concept team for the Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. Contestants: Boone and Mark "The Bearded Builders" from Oregon! Flynn and Richard The "Married Thespians" from Oakland California! Manny & Nestor "The Father and Son BFFs" Christian and Aaron Team "Clark Kent and Superman" Sam & Jessica "The Eccentrics" Krystle & Amie These cosplay enthusiasts from Dallas Texas make up "The Unicorns" team! Travis & Corey "The Brothers who Brick" Mel and Jermaine "The East Coast Bricksters" Jessie & Kara Best friends who believe "The higher the hair the closer to God" Tyler and Amy "The Newlyweds" New episodes premiere on Wednesdays at 9/8c on FOX. It's also available on Hulu! Jamie Faith fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Mar 4, 2020 |
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Mar 3, 2020 17:59
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Cool, thanks for the thread on this. So we're 3 episodes deep, and it is entertaining and I'll be sure to keep watching, but the sort of deliberate gaming of the system from the producers is silly. It's like watching the AI rubber band in a mario kart. A few of the teams are obviously top tier and should always be winning, but the show is trying to keep everyone in the spotlight to imply that there's still real competition from everybody. I really wish there was less of this silly gamesmanship and more emphasis on the actual builds and how they go together. I think I'm spoiled by the Great British Bake Off for reality shows that drop the BS artificial tension to just focus on the task at hand. It really fails to land the most when the judges are giving inconsistent critique for why certain builders are the winners for a given week. edit: and yes, Will Arnett keeps lampshading the artificial drama nonsense and highlighting the reality show tropes, but doing that does not excuse you from them, especially when they're so prevalent. It just draws even more attention to them. Carbohydrates fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Mar 3, 2020 |
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Mar 3, 2020 18:05
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All the shows I watch don't seem to get threads until halfway through the season.
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Mar 3, 2020 18:05
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All of the gamification so far has sucked. The "second theme" in episode 3 was almost malevolent, and dividing the builds into a "top" and "bottom" in the 2nd episode felt more malicious than anything. That said, in a few more episodes when we have fewer teams and more time to focus on the builds individually it should get more interesting from an AFOL perspective.
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Mar 3, 2020 18:35
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Some of the prompts seem lovely as well. The half objects, for example, seemed like they were hit or miss. Some objects had obvious themes they could work with and had lots of studs to attach to. Others, like the laptop, and a very small amount of studs, and were difficult to even figure out what to do with them. And when the two guys did think of something for the laptop, the judges poo poo on their idea for not having enough cool shapes or whatever. I thought their theme fit perfectly with something as rigid and compartmental as using a laptop. It is interesting though to see people struggle with a prompt that they just don't know what to do with. Like the two bros who clearly have no idea what romance is. I was confused when Manny seemed to not know what the fantasy genre even was and thought he was supposed to just build what he thinks his cowboy dude fantasized about.
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Mar 3, 2020 18:44
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Carbohydrates posted:Cool, thanks for the thread on this. I kind of disagree. This competition is all about challenging folks to work outside their comfort zones. If the whole comp was just "build something huge and cool" then yeah the "Clark Kent and Superman" team would win no doubt. But that's not what the competition is about. They seem to have trouble sticking with the theme of the challenge and just do whatever and that always comes around to bite them in the rear end later. In episode 2 they were tasked with building a huge space thing that will look cool when blown up and they built a cool but none the less small thing with lots of negative space that barely came apart.They did get kind of screwed unfairly in ep 4, I'll give you that. Overall, I think either the beard builders, the newlyweds or the married thespians will win. Their builds have been the most consistent. They're always impressive and nail the challenge's theme well imo. Edit: I agree with your edit tho. The show's tone can be kinda insufferable sometimes.
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Mar 3, 2020 18:53
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Dropping in on this thread, awaiting the eventual poo poo storm when the engineer team gets kicked out.
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Mar 3, 2020 20:59
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Jamie Faith posted:(feel free to discuss the U.K. version as well) How about the Aus version?
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Mar 3, 2020 21:02
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Chairchucker posted:How about the Aus version? Of course! Sorry! I forgot there were other versions. I'll update the OP.
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Mar 3, 2020 21:25
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Is there any place to watch the UK / Aus versions here in the US? I'd love to check 'em out.
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Mar 3, 2020 21:29
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PowerBeard posted:Dropping in on this thread, awaiting the eventual poo poo storm when the engineer team gets kicked out. If you mean Christian and Aaron then yeah. Everyone keeps saying they're the best, and while they are clearly super talented builders, they keep ignoring the challenge goals and just build whatever. That's going to cost them and will probably be the thing that sends them home.
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Mar 3, 2020 21:37
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They are definitely very good at building display models that you'd see at a Lego convention or something, but it is definitely "build a cool model first, figure out how to shoehorn it into the theme last". You can see it in the destruction challenge. The newlyweds got drop, so they built their model in a way that would hopefully have that bomb drop into the alien's maw when it hit the ground to make it seem like it caused the whole thing to explode. They built to their challenge prompt. The two bros just built neat looking space station under construction but gave no real thought to if it would look cool when blown up, and it didn't look cool. It just looked like some things falling down but it didn't really explode. Them hamming it up when their destruction was lackluster really shows that they are just trying to convince people that what they make fits after the fact rather than something that really does fit. Though, they will probably run away with the city theme because that seems like something they already build normally.
Cojawfee fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Mar 3, 2020 |
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Mar 3, 2020 21:41
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I think they focus too much on technically challenging builds without realizing there are no points awarded for technical aspects or creative part usage. Actually, the more I think about it the less meaningful the winner of the competition will actually be. The biggest challenge they've presented so far is the time limit in terms of what real Master Builders do. The builds that real Master Builders do are all planned out and sketched and developed before bricks click for the final model, and then they have days or weeks to work on them. I'd be really interested in a challenge that emulated the real work, with maximum and minimum dimensions and a task to represent something specific where each team is working on extremely similar models. It might be bad tv, but it would really allow a better comparison of building skill between the teams. One team being bad at "finish a scuba helmet" and another team being good at "finish a laptop" means not much, skill-wise.
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Mar 3, 2020 21:53
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Cojawfee posted:Them hamming it up when their destruction was lackluster really shows that they are just trying to convince people that what they make fits after the fact rather than something that really does fit. OMG Them going "YEAH WE DID IT! WOOOOOO!!!!!  " while everyone else were just  was amazing.
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Mar 3, 2020 21:55
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Plastik posted:I think they focus too much on technically challenging builds without realizing there are no points awarded for technical aspects or creative part usage. I like this. Maybe give every team the same two pieces that they need to connect using different techniques, or say "piece one needs to be standing vertically, with piece two being the base". Just something technical. I heard there was a car racing ep coming up so I'm interested to see that one.
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Mar 3, 2020 22:45
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Plastik posted:I think they focus too much on technically challenging builds without realizing there are no points awarded for technical aspects or creative part usage. There's a competition style show similar to this where it's three or four people competing to blacksmith weapons - usually swords or daggers. The first couple challenges are similar to Lego Masters, where it's timed challenges, but the final challenge is one done over the course of a few days at the blacksmith's personal workshop at their house. Granted it's not a huge portion of the show, but I could see Lego Masters doing something similar - following the builders at home as they plan out and execute on a large-scale project over the course of several days.
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Mar 4, 2020 00:01
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Jamie Faith posted:OMG Them going "YEAH WE DID IT! WOOOOOO!!!!! I loved that bit.
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Mar 4, 2020 00:47
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What is going on with Will Arnette? Is he on the sauce? He seems bloated and out of breath all the time. It's really weird. Every line sounds like he had just run up a flight of stairs to deliver it.
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Mar 4, 2020 02:07
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So, something I'm not 100% clear on... do they split up the build into a few days? 15 hours building lego nonstop would be brutal, not to mention the poor crew. Might also explain why Mayim Bialik showed up for only a few hours of the episode, and didn't stay for the last hour, which I thought was super bizarre. Also curious what the contestants know about the build before they even start. Like, it wouldn't degrade the show at all to be honest about these kinds of things. I hate the manufactured reality tv aspect of it... I completely agree with Carbohydrates, the lack of pretense and pettiness is what makes the Great British Bake Off, well, great!
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Mar 4, 2020 02:44
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Brickset has been posting exit interviews with the eliminated teams each week and there’s some interesting bits in there about the process behind the show https://brickset.com/news/category-TV-Shows
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Mar 4, 2020 02:52
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ixnay posted:Brickset has been posting exit interviews with the eliminated teams each week and there’s some interesting bits in there about the process behind the show These are good, I wish we could have gotten more info like this during the show.
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Mar 4, 2020 03:13
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Bilsy from the Australian version did an AMA a while back, which implied that they definitely do it over a number of days. https://www.reddit.com/r/LegoMasters/comments/bonc2s/ama_with_contestant_bilsy_from_2019_australian/ Also implied that Kale was about as much of a dickhead as he was portrayed as on the show. CodfishCartographer posted:Is there any place to watch the UK / Aus versions here in the US? I'd love to check 'em out. Might need a VPN, but https://www.9now.com.au/lego-masters?onm=nine.com.au-9now-a849-showslegomasters Here's the Aus version. I thought the Aus version was fantastic. Bonus, clip of Kale being a dickhead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1Vsj0tP0vM Chairchucker fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Mar 4, 2020 |
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Mar 4, 2020 05:03
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Cojawfee posted:These are good, I wish we could have gotten more info like this during the show. You don't "get" reality tv, and that's fine, but part of the formula is leaving out just enough to make people engage with the show in different mediums (like online) but not enough to actually piss people off. Say what you will about the show, but they follow that formula like a religion.
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Mar 4, 2020 15:36
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Christian and Aaron are both great builders but they cannot work within a structured challenge, which is going to be their downfall. The castle and dragon looked cool but barely had anything to do with the theme by the end. It almost feels like they have a preset number of builds they rehearsed doing and don't want to deviate from that. I also really like this show but admit I cringe at like half of the show's "humor".
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Mar 4, 2020 17:41
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I think an interview said they hadn't built together until the show, but it is possible that they both have some default designs that they've done in the past that they keep in the back of their minds. I thought it was just played for effect in the show, but the first exit interview confirmed that, in the first challenge, they pretty much had that ferris wheel going right out of the gate. As if one of them had built one before and just remade it. I would have trouble getting something technical like that going in the whole 15 hours, but they had it already working and looking like a finished product within an hour or two.
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Mar 4, 2020 19:44
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Hey cool a thread for this show. I like this show and I like Christian and Aaron. Even without the twist I'm not sure they would have been in the bottom two after their tower fell over. I felt bad for the girls this week but when you can't even describe your big monster that's not great. The one big problem with the show is that I also watch the masked singer but I usually want to watch this on my DVR first between the two, and the DVR starts with the last minute of the Masked Singer, so I either have to wait until the next day to watch it (because after Dynamite and Survivor I only have time for one more show) or just do my best to avoid the reveal.
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Mar 5, 2020 16:05
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I don't see how they could have kicked Crystal and Amy off. They had an amazing build before the twist and it was still pretty decent after the twist. Mel and Jermaine's was all over the place. It was bad before the twist, and wasn't all that great after the twist. It was disjointed and all over the place. It feels like they were so obsessed with building a tall tower that they lost sight of everything else. I think it all comes down to Crystal and Amy getting a bit flustered when the judges asked them to explain the monsters. Their build was so full of detail compared to Mel and Jermaine's build which featured a large, empty tower. A good episode, but this is the first decision that I disagree with.
Cojawfee fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Mar 5, 2020 |
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Mar 5, 2020 22:02
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I agree and think Mel and Jermaine had the worst build but it was close and I assume there was a bit of overall performance bias going into the judging and that was Crystal and Amy's third straight time in the bottom two.
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Mar 5, 2020 22:34
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IcePhoenix posted:I agree and think Mel and Jermaine had the worst build but it was close and I assume there was a bit of overall performance bias going into the judging and that was Crystal and Amy's third straight time in the bottom two. Mel and Jermaine's builds have been kind of average each episode. I did like their giant Lego blocks, but it felt a bit disjointed this week. It's like they see someone building something and say "okay, lets try make something close to that". To be fair though, I might still be pissed about them copying the Giant Baby for the movie twist. But yeah, the twists are good fun and help to highlight some cool ideas and build techniques!
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Mar 5, 2020 22:42
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On the point about idea theft, it's clearly happening like all the time and I'd really prefer if they were curtained off from each other for the first, like, quarter of the builds. I think it would add a lot more variety to the builds, which cannot be a bad thing.
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Mar 5, 2020 23:32
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I think I'd be more into this show if it was like GBBO rather than the regular trashy Reality TV show format. Just amateur builders paling around and enjoying the craft and supporting each other. It doesn't help that since the UK is so small, the participants can just commute there over the weekend or a few days and still live their regular lives. Also that the show has an extra 15 minutes to show stuff and also not worry about commercials.
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Mar 6, 2020 04:16
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Xelkelvos posted:I think I'd be more into this show if it was like GBBO rather than the regular trashy Reality TV show format. Just amateur builders paling around and enjoying the craft and supporting each other. It doesn't help that since the UK is so small, the participants can just commute there over the weekend or a few days and still live their regular lives. Also that the show has an extra 15 minutes to show stuff and also not worry about commercials. That would be better. Everyone having the same challenge and being able to pre plan would make the show a lot better.
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Mar 6, 2020 04:43
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GBBO or Making It I'd take. Mostly to see Will Arnett as stoned as Amy Poheler is in every episode.
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Mar 6, 2020 05:26
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Man, I was so frustrated when Aaron and Christian's tower fell over. I feel like they shouldn't have had to wheel it across a messy floor while still on a timer. Glad they got a chance to fix it, though. The elevator was such a tasty touch. Also agreeing that Mel and Jermaine should have gone home, but I'm not too worried about it. They'll be gone soon anyway, I think. The criticisms over how poorly Amie and Krystal adapted to the twist are legit, regardless of how good their initial model was (it was a decent build with really good color blocking, IMO).
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Mar 6, 2020 07:12
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I'm watching the Australian version and does Bilsy owe Kale some sort of life debt? What self respecting person would put up with any of that crap?
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Mar 6, 2020 08:51
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Scipiotik posted:That would be better. Everyone having the same challenge and being able to pre plan would make the show a lot better. One way to compensate for this in an Americanized version would be to do something like give all of the participating teams a list of potential builds that they might have to do, maybe a month in advance so they can plan for some or all of them in some degree when they have to go to the site for filming for however many weeks. Not all of the builds on the list are guaranteed to be used, but it'd give the teams some time to prepare theoretical builds and have a more proper plan. Of course, being American reality TV, there might be unannounced twists, but they should be something in theme like having to incorporate Duplo blocks or having some sort of motorized component like in the first episode. And then say, every other challenge, it'd be something blind like a speed building challenge or a limited piece one (no more than X amount of pieces or must use only the provided pile) or single color/shade or something. There's a lot of potential for some really weird sorts of smaller challenges, but for the big impressive builds, there needs to be time to plan and test and stuff. Edit: Dumb challenge ideas: Making a build using only Standard Bricks Make a build that's only supported with a small (say 20 x 20 or less) base Make a build that's meant to be displayed upside-down Make a build around a non-Lego object like a computer or a toilet Make a boat that can move on its own in the water Make a life sized model of a person or object Xelkelvos fucked around with this message at 09:45 on Mar 6, 2020 |
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Mar 6, 2020 09:37
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Fragmented posted:I'm watching the Australian version and does Bilsy owe Kale some sort of life debt? What self respecting person would put up with any of that crap? lol Check out Bilsy's AMA I posted a little way up thread. He was originally slated to go in with someone else, but his partner had a kid and that took precedence. So he'd never met Kale before.
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Mar 6, 2020 12:40
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Carbohydrates posted:The criticisms over how poorly Amie and Krystal adapted to the twist are legit, regardless of how good their initial model was (it was a decent build with really good color blocking, IMO). Amie and Krystal had a boring build. If they'd greebled the hell out of the solid black slabs their buildings were made up of, or made a single, large attacker that was a distinctly different color from their buildings I don't think they'd have gone home. If they'd done both they might have been Top 2.
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Mar 6, 2020 14:16
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Plastik posted:Amie and Krystal had a boring build. If they'd greebled the hell out of the solid black slabs their buildings were made up of, or made a single, large attacker that was a distinctly different color from their buildings I don't think they'd have gone home. If they'd done both they might have been Top 2.
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Mar 6, 2020 14:20
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Who is left: tech bros, black dudes, lumberjacks, newlyweds, gay guys, misfits. Sticking by my final 3 of tech, lumber and newlyweds. I think the misfits are gone next week. They don't seem to be up to the challenge of building something with strong physics.
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Mar 6, 2020 20:23
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