Further Buffycation: Season 3
Jan. 25th, 2010 05:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xparrotSo, thanks to a marathon weekend, we made it to 4x01 of Buffy tonight! Must say, season 3 was a romp indeed.
So many great episodes! I'd be hard-pressed to pick a favorite. I like the show best when it's doing humor with most of the drama played for laughs, and a couple eps were perfection in that. Most particularly "The Zeppo" (aka The Ep Where I Actually Liked Xander) (hey did they ever explain in the ep who Zeppo even was? I was raised on the Marx Bros, but I thought most modern kids would be tragically deprived...) - is anyone else dying to see the ep's B-plot in full, even if it could never be one-tenth as awesome as it was as background action ("The bravest thing I've ever seen!") ZOMG the scene where Xander comes in to Buffy and Angel having their dramatic teary-eyed argument about who gets to die and awkwardly excuses himself - SHRIEKING WITH HYSTERICAL GIGGLES. (That's why I like Buffy/Angel, for the comedy potential!)
Even better was the ep where the alt-Vampire-Willow shows up - that might be one of my favorite episodes of the show. (...And not just because Willow gets tackle-glomped by everyone including Giles. Though that is part of it. ...This show is severely lacking in hugs, I take what I can get!)
The arc was great fun - agree with the bro, the Mayor was a fantastic Big Bad, not your usual mild-mannered villain. AHAHAH his final "Darn it" (or whichever). The final Graduation showdown = EPIC, ahh, I cheered when all the students threw off their robes and had the full artillery underneath. Also cheered when Buffy got the umbrella at the prom - they actually noticed! Not everyone's oblivious! AWWW! Yay Buffy! (LOLOL to the lowest student death-rate in Sunnydale history. I've been asking for three seasons why the heck would anyone still be living in Sunnydale* with the way they lose kids, but no, this was a GOOD YEAR!)
*For the incredibly low property values, so maintains the bro.
Oh, and of course Spike's return! Love/hate relationship with that episode, as the Spike stuff was fantastic (him passing out, waking to being fried by sunlight and dousing the flames in HOLY WATER = WHAHAHAH COMEDY GOLD.)(Also him pouring out his heart to Willow and then Buffy's mom. And then pretending to bite Buffy's mom while Angel watched outside helplessly. BWAH.)
The other stuff, not so much...one of my issues with the show is the amount of emotional drama which hinges on romance - there's other relationship dynamics, but the heaviest hitting emotional beats still tend to be romantic love. It was better this season, but still there. --This isn't really a criticism of the show; it's a perfectly valid storytelling style, it's just not one that appeals to me personally for the most part. (Slash fic and shoujo manga being the obvious exceptions, the possible reasons for which would take an essay all on their own.) Teen romance especially more bore than entertain me. While SV I could just make fun of and/or fastforward, I like Buffy enough to watch it, but it's less than successful for me. So the end of "Lovers Walk", with everyone broken up and moping alone, all "my life is over" - yeah, whatever, crie moar.
Except the show won points back because the next ep after that is "The Wish", in which we get to see how all their lives actually being over would go, which put things in perspective very nicely and, I think, entirely intentionally. Very clever, that. Also post-apocalypse scenarios are always fun. Also also as already mentioned the return of Vampire!Willow is one of the highlights of the show for me.
Not to mention "The Wish" introduced Anya, who I very much like so far; she's hysterically funny and so very frustrated with her newfound humanity, which she is REALLY BAD AT.
(Almost as bad as Spike is at being a vampire. Spike's got the amoral evil thing down, but he sucks at actually being a vampire, being a heartless monster, staying out of the sun, etc. Which is awesomely amusing.)
...Somewhere around here I must confess that, to my embarrassment, I've sort of fallen hard for Angel. ...I know, it's so uncool. And I still think David Boreanaz is kind of funny-looking (in a good way) and not much of an actor (he reminds of of Jared Padalecki; he's pretty good at body-language but has trouble selling lines. ...Except whimpering in pain; he does that very nicely. Eheh.*) But, well...Angel! He's such a dork, with all his mopey looming and skulking and stalking and trying to do the right thing. I like that he was once a weak man, a useless mostly-soulless loser to begin with and that's probably why he became so dangerous a vampire, because he had so little to lose. And he's really not that strong now but he's trying, and learning how to try, and awww. ...Yeah, I'm a sucker for an immortal sob story.
*Okay, fine, he makes a good puppy in the baddest of ways. And the X-mas ep with the One True Evil torturing him and the sacrificing and the staggering about, I enjoyed that way more than I should've.
...Even if Hollywood has no idea what actual snow looks like.
Really want to see Angel:tS now, as I've found I like Angel best when he's interacting with people-who-are-not-Buffy, because he's so incredibly bad at it. Also because I'm hoping he makes a friend or two - I feel sorry for him now; Buffy loves him, but all the others only tolerate him because Buffy loves him and they love Buffy. Which is entirely understandable, I can't blame any of them for holding a grudge (except maybe Xander, who I tend to want to smack when it comes to Angel. Especially when he goes on about the dangers of Angel as if he's the same thing as Angelus, when they're sitting there with Oz who also becomes homicidal, oh, a few times a month...)
(Nothing against Oz, mind. Oz is taciturn & thoughtful love and he and Willow are adorable. ...Yeah, okay, I like teen romance when it's sticky-sweet cute. :P)
And I just realized I've gone all this way without mentioning GILES! Just in case you were wondering, Giles still is <333333 4-ever. Especially in s3! I kind of like Wesley solely because he makes Giles so very snarky, and snarky!Giles I've found is my very favorite Giles of all. (I wish I could remember some clever quotes here. There have been many I've loved, but it's difficult to remember all of them...!) Giles is also one of the only characters who's never once made me cross at him. (Except that one ep where he was bowing to Watcher tradition (if grudgingly) and drugging Buffy and OMG I was flailing so hard in helpless frustrating, GILES NOOOOO~~! But he redeemed himself and made up with Buffy so it was okay in the end.)
Oh man, Giles and Buffy are SO MUCH LOVE...they hit my older guy/adopted child button hard (this button was installed a long time ago - I blame DuckTales and John Bellairs - and can get overlooked in favor of newer ones, but it's still there.) The surrogate-father thing is much awwwww, and them teaming up against Wesley was funny every single time. And Buffy being freaked out by the thought of Giles having sex is lolarious even if I personally am always like RIGHT ON to whichever woman is smart enough to get a piece of that hot British action. (...except Buffy's mom. That freaked me out almost as much as it did Buffy. Even if it was also hysterical. And I love Ripper's accent.)
I also love Giles and Angel having to work together to help Buffy, because, yeah, it's not like there's any conceivable way Angel can realistically apologize, ("Sorry. Coming from you that phrase strikes me as rather funny. 'Sorry to bother me.' ") but they both love Buffy enough to get over it anyway, and awwww. Or Giles helping Angel entirely for Buffy's sake, which is also aww.
(Or Willow and Oz - "He thought I was Buffy." "You too, huh?")
Speaking of Buffy - really loved Buffy this season. She's developing in cool ways. I like her perky and badass more than angsty and losing, but I've almost never been actually annoyed with her - even when she's doing what is clearly the wrong thing (HOMG DO NOT SAVE ANGEL WITH YOUR OWN LIFE, END OF THE WORLD HERE, I LOVE HIM TOO BUT THIS IS A VERY BAD CALL!), I always understand why she's doing it. She gets too caught up in her own stuff sometimes, but she always realizes it in time. And hey, professional world-saver is a difficult job, cut the girl some slack!
My biggest complaint with the season would be Faith. It's not that I dislike her character, so much as I dislike what was done with her character. Her fall to the dark side seemed clumsy, cheap emotional shortcuts instead of convincing development/regression; the move from rebellious teenager to amoral killer went awfully fast, and while there were a few nods to it being a psychological reaction, they mostly were glossed over. Didn't help that "Bad Girls" had a weirdly passive OOC Buffy who made it seem all the more like both girls were suffering from a bad case of Plot Device, and I kept wanting it cured. But maybe it was in the end? Will see how that goes...
Oh, and Cordelia was still a bit confusing til the end, but more coherent and thus more sympathetic this season than before. Also she had some killer comedy - "Oh God Is the world ending? I have to research a paper on Bosnia for tomorrow, but if the world's ending, I'm not gonna bother." Am curious to see her in Angel. (Not sure about Wesley yet, but we'll see? his and Cordelia's 0 Chemistry Catastrophe was XDDD...)
Okay, need sleep - but enjoying myself, looking forward to more! And thank you, everyone, for avoiding the spoilers before - please keep that up! ^_^
So many great episodes! I'd be hard-pressed to pick a favorite. I like the show best when it's doing humor with most of the drama played for laughs, and a couple eps were perfection in that. Most particularly "The Zeppo" (aka The Ep Where I Actually Liked Xander) (hey did they ever explain in the ep who Zeppo even was? I was raised on the Marx Bros, but I thought most modern kids would be tragically deprived...) - is anyone else dying to see the ep's B-plot in full, even if it could never be one-tenth as awesome as it was as background action ("The bravest thing I've ever seen!") ZOMG the scene where Xander comes in to Buffy and Angel having their dramatic teary-eyed argument about who gets to die and awkwardly excuses himself - SHRIEKING WITH HYSTERICAL GIGGLES. (That's why I like Buffy/Angel, for the comedy potential!)
Even better was the ep where the alt-Vampire-Willow shows up - that might be one of my favorite episodes of the show. (...And not just because Willow gets tackle-glomped by everyone including Giles. Though that is part of it. ...This show is severely lacking in hugs, I take what I can get!)
The arc was great fun - agree with the bro, the Mayor was a fantastic Big Bad, not your usual mild-mannered villain. AHAHAH his final "Darn it" (or whichever). The final Graduation showdown = EPIC, ahh, I cheered when all the students threw off their robes and had the full artillery underneath. Also cheered when Buffy got the umbrella at the prom - they actually noticed! Not everyone's oblivious! AWWW! Yay Buffy! (LOLOL to the lowest student death-rate in Sunnydale history. I've been asking for three seasons why the heck would anyone still be living in Sunnydale* with the way they lose kids, but no, this was a GOOD YEAR!)
*For the incredibly low property values, so maintains the bro.
Oh, and of course Spike's return! Love/hate relationship with that episode, as the Spike stuff was fantastic (him passing out, waking to being fried by sunlight and dousing the flames in HOLY WATER = WHAHAHAH COMEDY GOLD.)(Also him pouring out his heart to Willow and then Buffy's mom. And then pretending to bite Buffy's mom while Angel watched outside helplessly. BWAH.)
The other stuff, not so much...one of my issues with the show is the amount of emotional drama which hinges on romance - there's other relationship dynamics, but the heaviest hitting emotional beats still tend to be romantic love. It was better this season, but still there. --This isn't really a criticism of the show; it's a perfectly valid storytelling style, it's just not one that appeals to me personally for the most part. (Slash fic and shoujo manga being the obvious exceptions, the possible reasons for which would take an essay all on their own.) Teen romance especially more bore than entertain me. While SV I could just make fun of and/or fastforward, I like Buffy enough to watch it, but it's less than successful for me. So the end of "Lovers Walk", with everyone broken up and moping alone, all "my life is over" - yeah, whatever, crie moar.
Except the show won points back because the next ep after that is "The Wish", in which we get to see how all their lives actually being over would go, which put things in perspective very nicely and, I think, entirely intentionally. Very clever, that. Also post-apocalypse scenarios are always fun. Also also as already mentioned the return of Vampire!Willow is one of the highlights of the show for me.
Not to mention "The Wish" introduced Anya, who I very much like so far; she's hysterically funny and so very frustrated with her newfound humanity, which she is REALLY BAD AT.
(Almost as bad as Spike is at being a vampire. Spike's got the amoral evil thing down, but he sucks at actually being a vampire, being a heartless monster, staying out of the sun, etc. Which is awesomely amusing.)
...Somewhere around here I must confess that, to my embarrassment, I've sort of fallen hard for Angel. ...I know, it's so uncool. And I still think David Boreanaz is kind of funny-looking (in a good way) and not much of an actor (he reminds of of Jared Padalecki; he's pretty good at body-language but has trouble selling lines. ...Except whimpering in pain; he does that very nicely. Eheh.*) But, well...Angel! He's such a dork, with all his mopey looming and skulking and stalking and trying to do the right thing. I like that he was once a weak man, a useless mostly-soulless loser to begin with and that's probably why he became so dangerous a vampire, because he had so little to lose. And he's really not that strong now but he's trying, and learning how to try, and awww. ...Yeah, I'm a sucker for an immortal sob story.
*Okay, fine, he makes a good puppy in the baddest of ways. And the X-mas ep with the One True Evil torturing him and the sacrificing and the staggering about, I enjoyed that way more than I should've.
...Even if Hollywood has no idea what actual snow looks like.
Really want to see Angel:tS now, as I've found I like Angel best when he's interacting with people-who-are-not-Buffy, because he's so incredibly bad at it. Also because I'm hoping he makes a friend or two - I feel sorry for him now; Buffy loves him, but all the others only tolerate him because Buffy loves him and they love Buffy. Which is entirely understandable, I can't blame any of them for holding a grudge (except maybe Xander, who I tend to want to smack when it comes to Angel. Especially when he goes on about the dangers of Angel as if he's the same thing as Angelus, when they're sitting there with Oz who also becomes homicidal, oh, a few times a month...)
(Nothing against Oz, mind. Oz is taciturn & thoughtful love and he and Willow are adorable. ...Yeah, okay, I like teen romance when it's sticky-sweet cute. :P)
And I just realized I've gone all this way without mentioning GILES! Just in case you were wondering, Giles still is <333333 4-ever. Especially in s3! I kind of like Wesley solely because he makes Giles so very snarky, and snarky!Giles I've found is my very favorite Giles of all. (I wish I could remember some clever quotes here. There have been many I've loved, but it's difficult to remember all of them...!) Giles is also one of the only characters who's never once made me cross at him. (Except that one ep where he was bowing to Watcher tradition (if grudgingly) and drugging Buffy and OMG I was flailing so hard in helpless frustrating, GILES NOOOOO~~! But he redeemed himself and made up with Buffy so it was okay in the end.)
Oh man, Giles and Buffy are SO MUCH LOVE...they hit my older guy/adopted child button hard (this button was installed a long time ago - I blame DuckTales and John Bellairs - and can get overlooked in favor of newer ones, but it's still there.) The surrogate-father thing is much awwwww, and them teaming up against Wesley was funny every single time. And Buffy being freaked out by the thought of Giles having sex is lolarious even if I personally am always like RIGHT ON to whichever woman is smart enough to get a piece of that hot British action. (...except Buffy's mom. That freaked me out almost as much as it did Buffy. Even if it was also hysterical. And I love Ripper's accent.)
I also love Giles and Angel having to work together to help Buffy, because, yeah, it's not like there's any conceivable way Angel can realistically apologize, ("Sorry. Coming from you that phrase strikes me as rather funny. 'Sorry to bother me.' ") but they both love Buffy enough to get over it anyway, and awwww. Or Giles helping Angel entirely for Buffy's sake, which is also aww.
(Or Willow and Oz - "He thought I was Buffy." "You too, huh?")
Speaking of Buffy - really loved Buffy this season. She's developing in cool ways. I like her perky and badass more than angsty and losing, but I've almost never been actually annoyed with her - even when she's doing what is clearly the wrong thing (HOMG DO NOT SAVE ANGEL WITH YOUR OWN LIFE, END OF THE WORLD HERE, I LOVE HIM TOO BUT THIS IS A VERY BAD CALL!), I always understand why she's doing it. She gets too caught up in her own stuff sometimes, but she always realizes it in time. And hey, professional world-saver is a difficult job, cut the girl some slack!
My biggest complaint with the season would be Faith. It's not that I dislike her character, so much as I dislike what was done with her character. Her fall to the dark side seemed clumsy, cheap emotional shortcuts instead of convincing development/regression; the move from rebellious teenager to amoral killer went awfully fast, and while there were a few nods to it being a psychological reaction, they mostly were glossed over. Didn't help that "Bad Girls" had a weirdly passive OOC Buffy who made it seem all the more like both girls were suffering from a bad case of Plot Device, and I kept wanting it cured. But maybe it was in the end? Will see how that goes...
Oh, and Cordelia was still a bit confusing til the end, but more coherent and thus more sympathetic this season than before. Also she had some killer comedy - "Oh God Is the world ending? I have to research a paper on Bosnia for tomorrow, but if the world's ending, I'm not gonna bother." Am curious to see her in Angel. (Not sure about Wesley yet, but we'll see? his and Cordelia's 0 Chemistry Catastrophe was XDDD...)
Okay, need sleep - but enjoying myself, looking forward to more! And thank you, everyone, for avoiding the spoilers before - please keep that up! ^_^
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-25 01:34 pm (UTC)I was a huge, huge, HUGE AtS fan, back in the day (which is, curiously enough, a phrase I picked up from Buffy-watching). I liked Angel better on his own show than on BtVS for pretty much exactly the reasons you give here -- he had wonderful relationships with characters like Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, Charles Gunn, and especially with Cordelia Chase. I shipped Angel/Cordelia hard, but they had a wonderful friendship vibe thing going on as well, especially in the early days of the show: Cordelia didn't let Angel away with brooding all the time, and tended to puncture his self-pity in a way that couldn't happen in the Angel/Buffy romance because it had been written and played as Grand Tragedy.
David Boreanaz has matured very nicely as an actor (and physically, too -- he's ageing well). I haven't seen much Bones, but it's remarkable how far he's come since the early days of Buffy. Bless.
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Date: 2010-01-25 01:42 pm (UTC)It's always interesting to see how actors develop! ...Oh dear. I hope I don't end up watching Bones for Boreanaz. I was afraid of this...I have a long history of getting mad crushes on actors named David; I was thinking it wouldn't apply this time because I didn't think Angel was my kind of character, but it seems I was totally wrong there, so...!
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Date: 2010-01-25 02:27 pm (UTC)Glad to hear you liked it. Anya is pure love, Oz is adorable and laconic, evil!Willow was awesome, Giles is Giles and needs no more explanation than that for his awesomeness, and Spike is often hilarious.
I'm impressed at your marathoning skills- that's a lot of tv in a little time!
Angel: the Series is awesome. You meet so many awesome characters (Fred, Gunn, Lorne, Lindsay, Doyle, etc) and without Buffy, Angel as a character is able to grow in some pretty awesome ways. The show also takes a few more risks in storytelling than BtVS, in that there are some plots I never saw coming, because who would do that?
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Date: 2010-01-25 10:48 pm (UTC)Heh...Gnine's marathoning abilities put mine to shame - she's been watching as well on her own, and is now through 4x08 - which is more impression when you know she's watching concurrently with A:TS so she's now some 16 eps ahead of me!
Am very curious about A:tS - it seems very popular, and I want to meet the rest of the cast!
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Date: 2010-01-25 03:06 pm (UTC)Not gonna spoil anything, but I'd recommend watching s1 Angel and
s3s4 Buffy simultaneously because that's how they aired, and there is the occasional crossover. (Boreanaz's acting improves in leaps and bounds, too.)no subject
Date: 2010-01-25 10:50 pm (UTC)You're the second fan to recommend simultaneous Buffy & Angel viewing - don't have the Angel DVDs yet so will probably be starting s4 without them, but hopefully will get them soon!
Well, hell, nevermind
Date: 2010-01-25 05:17 pm (UTC)Oh and Angel was at his best in his own show because of his interactions with Cordy and Wesley. Trust me, you'll eventually love Wesley. And if you don't, then you're dead inside...j/k...sort of.
Re: Well, hell, nevermind
Date: 2010-01-25 10:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-25 08:05 pm (UTC)Yes! Yes! OMG yes. I have belittled Padalecki for years for his lack of acting ability (though I confess he's better now) and for depending on his manly physique. I didn't realize that's why I had issues with David Boreanaz, who, unlike Jared, hasn't really improved much on Bones. Of course his co star there, Emily Deschanel, is one of the worst actresses ever. Except maybe Zoe Deschanel. Apparently lack of talent runs in that family.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-25 11:01 pm (UTC)Never seen Bones! But yeah, at least in Buffy I think David Boreanaz is one of the weaker talents in a mixed bag...which doesn't stop me from liking him quite a bit anyway, for his char, and for his looks. And I do think he's good with the physical stuff (...by which I mean writhing in pain, mostly. Eheh? ^^)
no subject
Date: 2010-01-25 09:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-25 11:07 pm (UTC)Double points if she's like Vala - I adored Vala! (heh, actually "funny & emotionally obtuse" is why I like Ziva, too...you're right, it's sadly difficult to find female chars in that mold. I'm not sure about Buffy's claim to mastering feminism, but I do really like that the girls in Buffy can be and are as funny as the guys!)
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Date: 2010-01-26 02:14 am (UTC)S3 was a very good season - it's been a while since I watched it, but I remember it being good. And yes, the mayer was a great Big Bad. :) And yay for Buffy as class protector. :)
I'd forgotten about Spike and Joyce - that was a hilarious scene. :)
There is a lot of romantic emotional drama in Buffy. Some of it works for me - some of it not so much. As far as Buffy/Angel went, I was fine with it as far as it went, but I can't say I was sorry to see Angel go, either. I only have so much patience with the star-crossed lovers thing - there's a time for angst, and a time to move on. You're right that Angel is better when with people not-Buffy (which may be another reason why my patience with that particular relationship was running low by the end of the season). I actually went for several years without watching A:tS - I caught a few random episodes here and there, mostly in the last season, but just recently I watched the first two seasons and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
Hee, yes, Anya is hilarious. :D And Faith - I like Faith, but... you're right....that particular storyline could have been handled better. I think I was just always intrigued by the possibilities of the whole slayer bond thing between the two of them. There were possibilities there that I would like to have seen explored more.
(except maybe Xander, who I tend to want to smack when it comes to Angel. Especially when he goes on about the dangers of Angel as if he's the same thing as Angelus, when they're sitting there with Oz who also becomes homicidal, oh, a few times a month...)
This, exactly. Thank you.
Looking forward to your thoughts on S4! :)
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Date: 2010-01-26 09:40 am (UTC)Heh, yeah, Buffy/Angel hits the star-crossed angst bad. It doesn't irritate me as much as it might mainly because for all my feelings about romance, the really over-the-top intense passionate True Love affairs amuse me. I was giggling through a lot of the Buffy/Angel scenes...which means I end up feeling positively toward them as a couple. Still, I was glad that Angel got the strength to walk away, because it is the best for them, and it's better that he do it than Buffy - she's so young, she shouldn't have had to end it herself. I think Angel proved well how truly he does love her by leaving (awww!)
Faith - ah, yeah, that's the thing, I can totally understand why you'd like Faith. I liked her myself in the beginning of the season, when she was bonding with Buffy; it was good for Buffy to have a friend who could really understand the slaying part of her life. But the dark-side storyline just didn't work for me, and that kind of spoiled the character for me...probably not permanently, though; will see how I feel about her later...
4 eps into s4, enjoying it thus far! Still need to get Angel...
no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 05:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 09:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 09:08 am (UTC)I actually really like what happened to the character that ended up in Angel, it worked for me. Hope you like it too.
Yes, I agree Faith's dive to darkness was a little haisty, but they had their moments. But I love Faith and the mayor, I thought they were a cute/strange/sadistic adopted/soroget father daughter pairing.
Sorry if my spelling's bad. I'm rying to watch Bleach on tv and not really looking where I put my fingers.
Oh to see more of David Boreanus check out Bones. It's a nice wholesome murder mystery show.
:lots of love, keep watching
no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 09:42 am (UTC)Am looking forward to Angel:TS...and seeing more of David Boreanaz, yes, I might be getting a smallish thing for him :P
Have fun with Bleach, and I'll have fun with more Buffy! ^^
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Date: 2010-01-26 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 11:03 pm (UTC)