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#rambly thoughts
anstarwar · 1 year
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Do you ever just stop mid scroll with the sudden realization that we have this trash fire of a site literally chock full of amazing talented kind silly people just doing their thing and sharing their things with each other???
Like, we have art, we have writing, we have witches, we have crafting, animation, gifs, fandoms, vines/TikTok’s, and infinite more things, this site has so much amazing, all just here for us to absorb and share with each other!
And on top of all that, sometimes you make neat connections with strangers who aren’t strangers for long!
I just…I just think that’s neat
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agender-witchery · 9 months
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It hurts
After talking with people in discord for the week that this has been going on, I think my feelings on the Project Moon situation are just. Like, this was a company I felt was "safe". Obviously corporations are not your friends, but this was a studio that consistently pushed out games with progressive - and at times even radical - messaging. This was a studio that has consistently written solid characters with gender as an absolute afterthought. Emma is a boy! Harold is a girl! That's how little gender matters, which, ironically, is something that matters.
I can't think of another franchise I've engaged with that just... writes women as people. I've heard George R.R. Martin is like that, but I never engaged with the TV series that introduced the US to the concept of filler or the book series it was based on. I'm gonna gloss over Lobotomy Corporation a bit here because the story only has 13 characters, but 12 of them return for Library of Ruina. In Ruina you have Binah, Angela, Nikolai, and Elena as assertive women that take control of the situations they're in. You have passive uwu smol beans like Hod and Eileen! You have characters who are war criminals and that's not a mark of a villain, that's just a part of their backstory! Some of the women here have just Done Crimes! One of the women IS a crime! And men are treated the same! There are characters with traumas and behavioral disorders who act like real people would! Lesti saw the aftermath of Love Town and started talking about food! Beef intestine no less! Philip saw his colleagues get murdered and physically manifested a mental breakdown! Xiao saw her husband get murdered and physically manifested literal burning rage!
All of the writing has been good! All of it! And it has consistently written women in a way that is flat out rare, even in 2023. And Limbus has been doing the same! Outis is assertive! Ryoshu is assertive! Hermann is assertive! Don is an idiot and Faust refuses to talk half the time! Heathcliff is assertive! Meursault is assertive! Gubo is assertive! Hong Lu is an idiot and Sinclair is/was a pathetic sop! Across the board, the character writing is just GOOD. As Lobotomy Corporation progresses, Ayin's shitty behavior becomes more and more apparent! And that all culminates with Angela being tossed aside like garbage once she's no longer useful to him, as you hear her desperate wishes to just be seen!
All of that, or at least most of that, was Kim Ji-hoon. But Kim Ji-hoon is also the person who hastily fired VellMori at 11 PM, over the phone, while he was out of office in Japan, because some incels accused his company of being sympathetic to feminists in 2023.
And it fuckin hurts that the source of those stories, the stories that I just spent three paragraphs praising, the stories that are so important to me, could turn heel in half a second like that. As if he was writing completely different stories than the ones I've been reading. And I hate that? I hate that. Because there isn't a replacement! I don't get Grandma War Crimes and Dumbass Justice Enactor in other stories! Like, maybe some will come close, maybe some will have the same exact character somewhere, but never all of it together. Never written as amazingly as the City is.
So it hurts. And the silence is loud.
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autotrophwannabe · 6 months
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My thing with the ofmd s2 finale is that each scene was so well written, so well done. But it was like they wrote all these significant scenes and had to fit them all into one 30 min episode, so we jumped from plot point to plot point without letting the previous one breathe.
Ed’s realisation that he was stupid to run away from Stede, and their subsequent reunion was PERFECT. But we definitely needed to see more than “sorry I was a dick, no life’s a dick” to believe that their innkeeper / living together ending makes sense.
Izzy’s speech about piracy to Ricky was beautiful and everything that the show is about. Izzy’s death scene, (while I REALLY WISH HE HADN’T DIED, like I honestly don’t get why he had to die) was good! What Izzy said about how We Are Blackbeard was very interesting, I just wish it wasn’t just ed mourning him?? The crew bloody loved him. “They love you, Ed.” I don’t know about that but they love YOU, Izzy. And no one was crying?? Okay.
Also I don’t hate that they used Izzy’s leg as his tombstone. I did feel put off by it, it was a little messed up, but they are pirates after all, and this show often juxtaposes heartfeltness with macabre / messed up shit. I personally wouldn’t have handled his funeral that way but I get it lol.
Then Zheng’s proposal. Felt like the tone shifted way too quickly after someone as much of a linchpin as Izzy was, died. But anyway. Zheng asked to team up with them, and yes they had a lukewarm response, but from that to the wedding to them at the Inn was such whiplash?? I was like, oh okay, cool we’re doing this now, oh and then this. They could have had a conversation where they really talked about Zheng’s proposal and how they actually don’t want that, and how they just want to be with each other.
The wedding it self though, was so sweet and Ed’s look to Stede?? Literally all of that could have been a whole episode.
I can totally imagine all of ep 8 having been At Least two episodes. I think the budget cuts fucked them. And I get that it’s not worth it to wish a piece of art had been made differently, I should be trying to understand and appreciate how it actually Was made, but I love these characters and the relationships and the scenes these writers craft, and I would just love for everything to have had more breathing room. Like ya I’m no TV writer but I KNOW WHAT THESE WRITERS ARE capable of. S1 was so GOOD at pacing. All arcs and characters were given their due.
I just wish they get more time and money to play with in season 3.
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throughalleternity · 2 months
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Ahhh thanks for answering my ask and Do you know if the fic(s) you mentioned are on AO3? And with dominant/submissive I didnt necessarily mean in a sexual way, but more in a relationship in general. Would Leon be swayed to change his mind on things like what to Cook for dinner/where to go for dates or would he stand his ground on things like that. Would he want to be in Charge when making those decisions or would he welcome the opinion of his Partner etc? Sorry if that didnt came across right, englisch is my second language 😅
You're welcome, thanks for the asks!
To love and to be loved is the fic I meant! It's a very brief mention. (There was a short period of time after posting it where I had deleted the phrase in question, so there is a small chance you read the fic without it. I added it back in a while ago.)
Ah, yeah that makes sense! So in a non-sexual sense, I think there could be small differences, and it's complicated partly due to different social perceptions of (trans+poly) bi men vs women in relationships. I'm thinking out loud below, though you may have thought through this already!
With Alex and Maggie (and this is mostly applicable if they're women, so excluding nb!Alex), there are ideas about What A Man Should Do In A Het Relationship. They don't believe in those, but it can affect how certain things feel - it's slightly different when Alex holds the door for Lucy compared to when she holds the door for Leon. Now, I don't think these things are a big enough deal that Leon cares, generally, but like. They're there, and sometimes he notices.
Being with another man can feel like there's less expectations for some things, which makes it easier to be more or less masc/submissive/dominant/etc as he feels like it, and in many different ways. But! That's not counting relationships where Leon is dating a man who is more or less traditionally masculine—that easily comes with similar assumptions about relationship dynamics. In that situation, it can be easier to feel emasculated and dysphoric, so I think Leon would care more about them both feeling affirmed/secure in their genders.. Which again might affect how and in what ways they act masc/submissive/dominant/etc, especially in public.
For those reasons, I think there could be certain stuff that Leon and his boyfriend would prefer to do or not do, which differ from Leon with Alex/Maggie. I don't have specific examples right now that I definitely headcanon, but like. It could definitely happen!
That said, I think Leon would want a relationship where this stuff isn't a big deal, since I'm into a genderfluid!Lucy who, while usually binary in gender, also really likes flexibility in expressing that. I just prefer him to be in relationships where he feels equally able to be more or less masc/sub/dom/etc! But again, I think it's complex, and the ways in which he expresses that masculinity etc could be different with different people, where their gender does kinda matter.
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On Artifice (and other thoughts)
(Edit: I forgot to mention that this was written without having seen Season 2 Episode 9)
I think what has started to strike me more and more, especially watching episode 8, is the role that artifice plays in Yellowjackets. Episode 8 is simply full of it and its deconstruction. Take the scene of Natalie trying to get the other members of the team to open up and truly talk about what happened in the wilderness. Lottie immediately cuts her off and tells her that therapy -- at least as far as the wilderness is concerned -- is useless, she reveals the artifice. Natalie has at this point bought into the snake oil that Lottie is selling (is it snake oil if it really worked?) and is struck by the way that Lottie dismisses it before revealing the "truth."
Then, of course, there's the titular hunt that the past gang engage in. The entire ceremony of choosing a card and sacrificing one of their own was artifice, it was never real. The team cannot be allowed to sacrifice one of their own because it was never really in their control, it was never really their decision. The wilderness was always going to sacrifice one of them, and so the artifice could not be allowed to come to its conclusive end -- Javi always had to drown because he was chosen.
Even as far back as Doomcoming, we're shown that Jackie is still buying into the artifice of their prior social hierarchy even as it's being violently dismantled in front of her eyes. Later, Jackie dies clinging onto the artifice of the relationship she had with Shauna before they were stranded.
Consider Ben. Why does the audience feel so passionately that he's on the shortlist to be sacrificed? Because he still follows the artifice of the outside world. He still follows the social norms and refuses to be seduced by the cult of the wilderness that has so captured everyone else. He needs to die because, in some small way, the show is about the destruction of artifice that a stranded scenario creates.
Adult Lottie is so sure that they cannot return to a normal life as they have tried. Why? Because once they've peeked behind the curtain of artifice that modern society runs on, you cannot cleanse yourself of that knowledge. Lottie is convinced that the group has formed a special bond with the way things actually work in the wilderness, and brought it back with them. Through some readings, the text even seems to support that.
I certainly don't want to support Lottie's reading of things too much, but is she right? Shauna killed a man, and while I'm certainly not stating outright that she doesn't feel guilty about it, how can we be sure she does? It strikes me as intriguing that in the circle when Shauna finally bears her real feelings, she apologizes forcefully for endangering her friends by talking to Jeff, Callie, and the police, but she never breaks down over the fact that she slaughtered a man in cold blood. She wistfully recalls that she nearly killed two others, but in a way that highlights how fucked up she is as a person without showing terribly much contrition for for actual act. She fights with her instincts in the chop shop not to shoot the man running it when he doesn't give her what she wants, but this action only seems to shake her in the realization of how much that thought process is a part of her. She admitted she would kill the spouses of any of the team if they did what Jeff did, and her admittance was said in a way that suggested she was embarrassed of that fact and not horrified by it.
Misty is, of course, Misty and so feels no guilt about both murdering Taissa's oppo researcher and helping to cover up Adam's murder, but the question that I think strikes to the heart of Lottie's proposal is: Would Misty have been a sociopathic murderer if not for the events in the wilderness? Was it that break in artifice that allowed her to give herself to such atrocious acts?
Consider Taissa, even. She seemed rightfully upset and ostensibly mournful about her actions toward her dog, but her wife is in the hospital. She put her wife in the hospital. Then she runs off to be with Van and then to Lottie's health retreat. She wants rid of her sleepwalking because it's causing problems, we know that, but do the problems themselves cause her grief above and beyond their inconvenience to her personal life and career?
It's becoming my theory that the answer to all of these things lies in the fact that nothing is real in the same way it was in the woods. There is no spirit guiding their lives anymore -- at least not before Lottie setting out the hemlock -- and as such, their actions don't seem to carry moral weight.
Jeff: Why is he alive? Shauna said that she would kill any of the Yellowjacket's spouses who did what Jeff did. We've seen the way that Shauna acts towards people she doesn't know; she would have killed anyone else who did what Jeff did. So I ask again, why is he alive? Because for Shauna to kill him would be an inconvenience. She still wants him in her life and that's enough to earn him pardon. She didn't feel the same about Adam and so he's dead. The removal of societal artifice surrounding justice and due process and peaceful resolution leads to the cold, Machiavellian calculation that we see Shauna making. If you want my honest opinion on why Shauna didn't kill the owner of the chop shop even though she truly wanted to, I would say that it's because the downsides of having to run from the police were higher than her urge to kill him, so she didn't. Adam's calculation didn't turn out in his favour, so he's dead.
Artifice. The artifice that they were a team died when they crash-landed and split into factions over whether to move or stay and was reborn under the watchful eye of the cult of the wild. The artifice of social hierarchy was destroyed and consumed in subtle ways early on and then utterly with Doomcoming and the cannibalization of Jackie. The artifice that they had a choice in their destiny was ripped away when the wild chose Javi instead of Nat. What I think is interesting about Yellowjackets is that it proposes a scenario for what happens when artifice is destroyed and then the affected people are thrust back into society: Namely, that they won't accept it again, and that they are ultimately governed by the truth they both discovered and fabricated out in the wild.
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Watching through Campaign One for the first time, and watching Episode 70, and had an interesting thought about what they might change in the upcoming seasons of TLOVM. Seeker Asum isn't a major player character in season 1 of TLOVM, so the Raishan reveal wouldn't be as impactful. But there is another subplot in the stream that seems to me likely won't make it into the show due to lack of time, and that's the rakshasa arc. It would be interesting if instead of Hotis masquerading as Gilmore, if it was Raishan.
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crqelsummer · 1 year
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i havent even watched past the school festival arc but i have two more new villain/vigilante/SOMETHING babies. if it doesnt make sense its because hitomi especially is so up in the air rn lol
chisaki gou, a quirkless (as far as everyone knows -- im thinking he can actually fuck with people's brains. manipulation maybe, voices in their head, probably) yakuza legacy who's not all on board with this quirk love. eri remembers him, and in the oha canon eri only ends up telling midoriya and mirio after shes rescued. this haunts them for years, knowing there was another child chisaki still managed to keep his hands on. but even after investigation, gou was never found. he mostly makes use of throwing knives and a magnetic bracelet. no one's super sure what he thinks of his father, and no one knows who his mother is.
takami hitomi, (im SORRY i fell down the dabihawks rabbit hole -- i havent even seen them interact yet im just so normal about how they look together. i could not tell you when hitomi was born bc i dont even know if dabi's alive rn) who honestly is bouncing around with parentage rn lol. she went from being a shigdabi kid to a dabihawks kid. bit of a bitch, but is in more of a grey area than gou. she only really works with him because she believes the quirk dominance of the world is killing it and other people. her quirk, phoenix, allows her a pair of fire wings but shes also capable of pyrokinesis...sort of. she can manipulate the heat from anything to effectively combust it from the inside out -- you can imagine she occasionally does this to people.
EDIT: i do not know how fckin old hitomi is. this will be updated eventually.
these two are at the sorta kinda head of a lot of trouble in oha. oha suffers mostly from the very distinct hero worship of those on the billboards (deku specifically and pressure on him to 'make up for' kimiko's quirklessness). gou specifically restarted the shie hassaikai just to get the rumor mill going and throw people off his scent. hitomi, whether shes still with keigo or not, is disturbed her quirk could eventually kill her and is overall disgusted by it and with how many people that tell her she could either be a villain or tell her she could be a hero, she fell down the quirk hate pipeline ... which led her to gou.
fallen angels (the working title for the actual villain/vigilante org) wanted hitomi specifically because of her connection to the hpsc, and as a susceptible teenager...well they succeeded in convincing her. gou however took quite a bit more convincing until they really nailed into him how his quirklesness was useful to them. and then he cracked and,, well now the pair of them just run odd jobs for the angels together.
they hate each other but the angels are the only family gou's ever known. kai was the only person he ever really cared about but gou was a means to an end, especially when kai sent him away shortly before the raid. he has mixed feelings about kai, noted when he restarts the shie hassaikai but rejects his father's methods.
and yeah idk im just rambling at this point. (also in my brain hitomi's kinda hot and their banter makes me want to write lol)
gou goes by cavalier, the same way his father went by overhaul.
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goldiipond · 5 months
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if there's anything i've learned from the current state of social media it's that this is one of the worst possible notifications you can receive upon opening an app
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i love this character so much......i hope they get seriously injured and almost die
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klngfili · 5 months
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lord of the rings bigatures my beloved
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anstarwar · 1 year
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This week has been stressful so I’ve been dabbling in the crossover doodles to destress
Todays is How Ghost and Soap Reunite Post O66. Soap has an ouch
My long rambly thoughts about 141 and Ghost/Soap below:
-during the end of the republic there was a natborn squad 141 in GAR SpecOps. so same players: Price as leader, ghost, soap, Gaz, roach, etc.
-when the republic fell and the empire began shuffling and changing the rules Ghost deserted…both because he adamantly opposed the empire’s beliefs etc, but also cuz he’s Elomin and the empire doesn’t take kindly to non-humans
-which means he had to sneak off when price and the rest weren’t paying attention and yeah this lead to some hard feelings towards him.
-Also I’m thinking that the empire tried doing experiments on their more covert operatives via brainwashing indoctrination to keep them loyal…which means the lads of 141
-they were then repurposed as an elite team tasked with finding lost/stolen weapons, money, and resources from TCW that the Empire wants
-Meanwhile it’s been let’s say a year and a half since Ghost deserted. He’s taken up work as a bodyguard for hire and treasure hunter, whatever work he can get, trying to lay low in case the imps are searching for deserters
-he gets hired to go find a weapons and credits stash that was thought lost on remote planet [insert name here]….
…meanwhile his former squad, now brainwashed indoctrinated to be loyal to the Empire, are sent to find the same thing
-they both arrive at the same time, there’s a shootout, someone throws an explosive which causes the ground in the base or temple where they were to crumble and vwoooop down falls ghost and soap
-141 grabs the stock of credits and weapons per their assignment and bounce, thinking soap died in the fall when the ground collapsed
-blah blah blah Ghost and Soap survive the cave in but Soap is pretty banged up to the point they need to get him to a doctor or else
-ghost takes him to a doctor he’s helped before on small planet (I was thinking Ferrix cuz why not indulge and throw some Andor in this mix)
-Soap discovers what’s really going on in the Empire and how it’s affecting the people, questions his beliefs
-Surprise! They end up becoming friends again and they decide to go after the weapons and credits and steal it back from 141…along with their old teammates
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agender-witchery · 11 months
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I'm having rambly thoughts about Pokemon Scarlet/Violet and it's too long for a tweet so I guess this is where I put it.
A lot of people criticized the game's open world structure as not being "really" open world because while you technically could go anywhere, you'd get your ass handed to you if you went too out of order too early.
This is not an issue in open world game design, in my opinion. It's... fine, I guess, if an open world game provides a world that scales with you, but my personal preference is a "You can go this way, and you can also die" approach. There are two glaring issues with the way Pokemon handles this before I even get into the 3 story routes.
The first issue is that, in order for this sort of design to work, you need to have leveled zones. Encounters in areas such as main roads should generally be easier to handle. The further you fuck off into the wilderness, the more difficult the encounters become.
Using Breath of the Wild as an example, because Zelda fucking knocked open world as a format out of the park on the first try, the area forming the perimeter of Hyrule Field is where you encounter the easiest enemies. Not much more than Bokoblins and Chuchus if you stick to that route. This is also the area you'll find yourself in immediately upon leaving the Great Plateau. Now, if you head too far toward the center of Hyrule Field, you get Guardians. Too far north, also Guardians. But in every other direction you can take, the variety and difficulty of enemies gently scales up, introducing enemies like Moblins and Lizalfos gradually, while at the same time introducing environments that try to murder you. If you head East toward Kakariko Village as the game gently pushes you to do, you will reach a region that does not try to murder you, have time to gear up to tackle the regions that do, and still get that gentle difficulty scaling. And, as long as you stick to the main roads, you're not facing anything more difficult than a Moblin until you delve deep into Lanayru on your way to Zora's Domain.
Pokemon, on the other hand, decides simply that the further north you go, the further fucked you are. This WOULD be fine... if it weren't for the story routes.
The second issue is that... the map's too small. This appears largely due to massive development mistakes where they just decide to render unseen portions of the map for whatever reason. Compare it to Breath of the Wild, a game initially designed and released on the PREVIOUS console, and it's painful how small the Pokemon map is. Whatever the reason, this forces areas that would have otherwise been perfect "This area will be a bit tougher than you're used to, but you gotta cross it" spots far closer to the school than they had to be. The rocky area right outside the east gate comes to mind.
And then there's the way the map interacts with the story routes. Sure you CAN tackle things in any order... but the gyms don't scale. This, I feel, is a mistake. Since the Pokemon League is an organization, and its been shown in other Pokemon media like the manga that gym leaders can pull out different teams depending on how many badges the challenger already has.
And because gyms don't scale, and because the further north you go the further fucked you are, and because the map is a donut with a forbidden zone in the center, you are forced into an awkward zigzag pattern when taking on the story that forces you to fast travel after every few major fights if you don't want to be completely outclassed too quickly.
So if Pokemon wanted to be open world, I don't think the world necessarily had to scale, but I do think that gym leaders should've scaled, each titan should've been roughly the same level as each other, and Team Star would be fine as is, which would additionally make each story path feel a bit more distinct. Victory Road would always be appropriate for where you were, each titan would be roughly on par with one another, and Team Star would do whatever they could to get in your way no matter what because they're Team Star.
BUT ALSO?
Pokemon never needed to be open world. Pokemon never should've been open world, open world is a fun thing when done correctly, but you also need the property to accommodate open world! For Pokemon, this would require restructuring what were previously the game's core mechanics from the ground up, like they did with Breath of the Wild being a HUGE departure from Zelda games before it, or like they did with... Pokemon Legends Arceus. Pokemon keeps wanting to reinvent their formula, but they need to give up the existing formula if they're gonna reinvent it. You could make a Pokemon game that is open world, but just like Breath of the Wild, you'd need to just throw everything out the window and keep only the essence of Pokemon.
And they'll never do that, because The Pokemon Company are cowards, and they do not let those games cook long enough.
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broadwayfangirl222 · 3 months
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The contrast between these two dances!! They both lead Angel in a dance but it's night and day:
Angel's Dance with Valentino
Angel doesn't have a choice in dancing with Val. It's purely for work
You see these moments of discomfort and worry but Angel quickly puts on a mask. It's choreographed and things are prettied up (just the environment and angel's outfit) it's very artificial all the way around for this spectacle/performance
Valentino isn’t just leading, but quite literally is dragging him on a chain
Val’s also not really dancing with Angel, it's closer to Angel doing a performance for Val's entertainment. There's no real connection between them beyond the chains
Angel's Dance with Husk
It's starts more as a small offer to dance, very old time-y gentleman at some formal dance kinda thing
It's this goofy, little spur of the moment kinda of thing just for them. The dancing is a little awkward and imperfect but they're having fun and just a nice moment together.
Husk gently guides Angel through the steps
Husk and him are on even footing, they're both hand in hand and are trying to go through the motions/steps together. This is the beginning of them forming a genuine connection
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goldensunset · 7 months
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did you know? if you do your laundry you can get your clothes back
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suburbanlegnd · 5 months
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women's thighs. you agree. reblog.
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everwizard · 1 year
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My anthropologist partner dislikes the 1.20 update because it refers to pieces of pottery as "shards" rather than the correct term, "sherds"
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