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gale-gentlepenguin · 3 years

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ML Analysis: Love Rival: Why Kagami works but is still hated and why Luka doesn’t but is loved

Now this will be my most controversial Hot take, a lot of you already saw the title and are already organizing your complaints. I don't care, you are free to do so.

In a previous post, I discussed what makes a good love rival and if you want a good explanation of that, click the in bold link.

This is a VERY LONG POST, so I am posting a read more. I would love to hear your thoughts on this analysis. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Did you want to include something? Let me know.

I think in order to organize this post I will be splitting it up as follows.

Why Kagami Works as a Love Rival

Why She is Hated for it

Why Luka Doesn't Work as a Love Rival

Why He is Loved despite it

Final thoughts

So lets get to it

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Why Kagami Works as a Love Rival

Kagami Tsurugi was introduced in the episode Riposte, where she is established as a straightforward, no nonsense fencer that wants to be the best.

Her introduction is solid, she establishes her base and what the audience is supposed to know about her from the getgo. We also get the impression that Kagami when introduced would be a rival to Adrien, as they are competing in Fencing, which makes for a nice twist when they end up getting along and Kagami begins the task of being a Love rival. She starts off as a foil for Adrien, but then the reveal is she is actually a character foil for Marinette.

What also helps Kagami is that the show is mainly from Marinette’s perspective, so we get to see Kagami as Marinette does, as someone that is competing for Adrien’s affections, cementing the Rival aspect of the Love rival. Kagami clashes with Marinette causing Marinette to in turn be more upfront with her feelings and push harder to try and win over Adrien. This is something a good rival does, pushing Marinette forward and making her have to try. This rival aspect of Kagami’s character give Marinette urgency, which is something that is needed in order to drive Marinette towards a conclusion, whether it is to pursue Adrien or move on.

Now as a love interest, Kagami establishes her relationship with Adrien in a different way then Marinette. Kagami’s straightforward nature allowed her to tell Adrien how she felt much earlier on, she pushes and asserts herself. This contrasts Marionette’s approach to wooing Adrien, and also has an interesting parallel to how Chat Noir handles his feelings towards Ladybug. Acting as a mirror towards that relationship. While Kagami is not flirtatious like chat noir, she is upfront about her feelings. She puts it out there and is understanding when Adrien isn't ready to respond, much like how chat noir is with ladybug. But the difference being that ladybug and Chat noir’s dynamic has a bit more complexity to it. Regardless, Kagami checks the boxes needed to be a true love rival.

Now the last and most crucial part about Kagami is the character at the core. Cause in the end, we know her and Adrien’s relationship wont be endgame, and interestingly she will be better off afterwards. Ikari Gozen does an excellent job filling in more information about Kagami’s character. In this we get to see that Kagami’s life doesn't revolve around being Adrien’s love interest, she is someone that has her own struggles and wants to find freedom in her own way, be friends with people, but she is awkward. Her development from this and Loveater shows how much she has grown on her own, how she has come to see Marinette as a friend, how she understands that there is more to life than just fencing. She wants to prove she is good enough, and wants to show she is worthy of friendship and love. Those are themes and traits that can be cultivated and grown. Kagami’s greatest appeal is that she can grow beyond her role as a Love rival, and that is why she succeeds.

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Why She is Hated for it

Now despite all of these great qualities Kagami has demonstrated as well as how perfect her character is for such a role, the fandom is mixed about her, some even down right hating her. Interestingly enough, the reasons they dislike Kagami is not because of her character. Especially when you consider the rise in popularity of Marigami. Its because of 3 other factors outside of Kagami’s control. Over-saturation, Writing, and Fandom trends.

Over-saturation seems like an odd choice but it perfectly describes the situation. In season 1, we are introduced to two other female characters that were reoccurring characters AND were romantically interested in Adrien. Chloé bourgeois and Lila Rossi. Now both of them can be considered antagonists, and that is kind of the problem. Two reoccurring female characters already have a thing for Adrien, and both of them are jerks (that being the lightest term I can use). Now we know Adrien would never end up with a bad girl, but that impression starts to stick and make it seem like a pattern. That Adrien only attracts bad people (excluding Marinette). By season 2, when Kagami was introduced, it just seemed to the fans like, “Oh great, ANOTHER one”. Despite Kagami being a good character, and someone that actually cares about Adrien outside of the shallow aspects that Lila and Chloé were invested in, fans were ready to write her off and, with how the show was written, you couldn't really blame them at the time.

The second is a bit more obvious, the shows writing. The largest offender being Frozer and Oni-chan. While Oni-chan was salted on by fans a bit excessively, I have no real defense for Frozer, Frozer was an awful episode and everyone involved should feel bad. Kagami suffers like many ML characters do from poor writing, now this doesn't destroy her character like many would like you to believe, but she gets portrayed in a more negative light when the intentions are not meant for it. Its a bit harder to explain, but just know poor writing and assume Zag interference was what caused issues.

The Last one is something that is a bit more controversial, Fandom trends. Now in season 2, fans really, REALLY, did not like Kagami. The first two reasons having a large impact on that, but what really made it hard for Kagami, was the fandom itself. Since she was introduced first, certain lovesquare shippers LOATHED her appearance, HOW DARE she jump in and disrupt the love square! There are more words that were used, most of which are very degrading towards women and I would not want to repeat. Kagami took the brunt of the fandom backlash, the one that ‘Ruined the Lovesquare’. And when season 3, or as I call it, the season of Salt, fans really hit her hard with hatred, the Adrigami fandom took a lot of salt from toxic stans, some of which didn't like adrigami because they hated Adrien and didn't want him to be happy. It is gross to think about and its tragic that she is hit hard by hatred simply for things outside of her control.

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Why Luka Doesn't Work as a Love Rival

Luka is the alternate love interest of Marinette and was introduced in Captain Hardrock. He is Juleka’s older brother and is a guitarist.

His introduction is not terrible, but it is not as strong compared to other characters, but I do believe it sets the mood for what he is as a character. His character is the friend’s nice older brother musician, thats kind of it. It sounds like I am being mean but that sums up his character. He isn't really a foil to Adrien or Marinette in anyway, there is no shocking twists or clever parallels to be made, its just Luka. Simply put, Luka doesn't work as a Love rival.

Luka isn't a rival character. He isn't competing with Adrien, he doesn't clash with Adrien in anyway that would help him develop. Adrien and Luka get along fine, there is not a single bit of tension or conflict between them. This isn't a good thing when they are suppose to be competing for the same girl. I already hear what you are thinking, ‘But Adrien likes Ladybug.’ you're right, why isn't Luka interested in Ladybug then? Why is there no clash with chat noir? The point of a Love rival is to push another character towards something, to be a measuring stick. Luka doesn't do that for Adrien, and that is why the rival aspect fails for Luka.

The next course would be the love interest part. Surely Luka is someone that works well as an alternate love interest for Marinette? You are somewhat right, he does work better as a love interest for Marinette rather than a rival for Adrien. But that doesn't make him a good love interest for her. In my take on Love rivals, there needs to be three criteria met to be an effective love rival/love interest, an unequal development of both character, a differing connection that the two share, and a character underneath that can exist outside of the relationship. Luka fails to meet 2 of these criteria. The unequal development of both of them, Marinette has shown some development from her interactions with Luka but the reverse is not provable, we have yet to see Luka really change because of his relationship with Marinette, we don't know how much Marinette has helped/hindered Luka with his struggles, the best argument I could think of was that Marinette helped him be more bold in silencer, but really that sort of falls flat because he has shown bold actions outside of that. Captain hard rock said that he wasn't really good at expressing himself with words, but he shows pretty capable of doing so with people outside of Marinette, like his sister, or expressing anger to Bob Roth, so I don't really see how that works. The other criteria he fails to meet is having a character should the relationship end, Luka’s relevance is tied to him being the other guy for Marinette to choose, we as a viewer have no concrete reason as of yet to see him grow or change after the split. It doesn't help that Luka has even encouraged Marinette to go after Adrien on multiple occasions. People say thats because he is truly selfless and ‘Because he cares’ but really it just shows how little interest he has in trying to win her over, it almost comes off as insulting to Marinette. The only thing that Luka managed to pass was by having a different dynamic with Marinette than Adrien had with her. But that dynamic is shoulder to cry on. I guess that explains why salt fics really try to make Luka into Adrien.

Luka’s character in itself isn't awful, he isn't a bad person or anything of the sort. He is inoffensive and thats the problem. A love rival is suppose to be a point of tension, one that pushes, one that causes development, a force that at its core is meant to help the characters grow, and Luka just isn't the character to do that. He isn't a love rival, or a love interest. Luka is a wall, a wall put in between the two main leads in order to cause a divide without causing tension.

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Why He is Loved despite it

Luka isn't a love rival, and yet despite it he is one of the more popular characters in the fandom. It was something so mind boggling to me, what did this character have that made him so well liked in the fandom? Why wasn't he as hated as Kagami was during her introduction? I found myself coming up with three reasons why this was the case. Luka was so loved because of Necessity, writing and Salt.

Much Like Kagami suffered from Over-saturation, Luka had the Opposite problem. Marinette’s other love interests all ended up losing interest by the end of the episodes they were in. Nino, Nathaniel, Theo (though it was for ladybug). All of them just got paired off with someone else shortly after. Marinette didn't have another person outside of Adrien that was potentially going for her attention. This necessity allowed for Luka to slip in and fill the gap. The fandom saw him show up and were excited! With Kagami *ruining* the lovesquare, they needed someone for Marinette to help mend her should kagami ‘Win’, and Luka won by default. So Luka was the one the screeching fandom saw as there answer.

The next key that helped Luka was the writing of the show. The problem with the writing in the show is that often the writing will clash and hurt the strong characters of the show. Luka, as someone that does not have any strong defining features is flexible and easy to write for the writers. It makes it easy for him to be written in a way that wont infuriate people because of bad writing. He is able to coast by without having his character be in jeopardy. In a way, he has nothing to lose.

The last factor is of course salt. Now in fandoms, salt is used as a means of criticism or used to describe problems with characters. Luka is someone that people don't really have a problem with, which during the season of salt, made him perfect for all those fics where they needed someone to be on Marinette’s side because Adrien was ‘the devil’ or Lila was an extra mean jerk. Luka didn't have any problems that were agitated by salt, so he was the perfect replacement for Adrien when the writer wanted to hate on the blonde. Luka was the substitute, he was the easy fix that took little effort to include. He was a nice older brother that already liked Marinette, perfect fix for any situation. Its rare to see Luka written in a negative light without his character being warped so far that he is a completely different character.

Luka is loved not because of the things he is, but simply because of the things he is not. He is used more as a means to an end rather than as a character. In the writing, he is more of a wall, while in the fandom he is more of a stand-in. At the end of the day, I don't know what is more tragic.

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Final Thoughts

Kagami and Luka are characters that were introduced in order to spice things up and add development for the main characters. I find that in some ways they do achieve that goal, but in other ways they fail. One of them embodies the spirit of a Love rival while the other embodies the love obstacle. Regardless of this analysis, your thoughts on Kagami and Luka are your own and you can love and appreciate them as you see fit.

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If you want to support my insanity. Buy me sushi please

#ml #ml analysis #miraculous ladybug #love rivals #love rival #Gale's analysis #Here is a f***ing thesis on them #Kagami Tsurugi #Luka couffaine #luka critique #luka salt #Im tagging it because I will get that one angry anon that complains I don't tag it #adrigami #lukanette #lovesquare #ml fandom salt #ml salt #salt talks #lovekagami

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flukeoffate · 7 years

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Governor Pryce Appreciation

(Contains spoilers for the Thrawn Novel)

There has been a few anti-Pryce posts on my dash this week and My thoughts on her spiraled out of control. I just wanted to throw my two cents in without making a mess of those posts. This is in no way meant to attack other people’s opinions, just studying what I like and dislike and considering reasons for the various reactions she gets.

(Extremely long character examination essay that I may have spent the better part of three or four hours on under the cut.)

I like Pryce. And I admit, the more I thought about her story and personality while writing this, I have maybe even grown to love her.

Is she a likeable person? Well, by the time of Rebels: no. Definitely not. But how many villains are likeable within the time of their introductory story? Few, I think. What I believe makes a villain likeable is their backstory, and also how charismatic they are during their screentime.

I want to examine some famous Star Wars villains. IMO there are very few Star Wars villains that are interesting until you dig deeper into their characters.

Unpopular opinion time: Vader and Tarkin are stupidly boring characters in A New Hope. They show up, kill some people, then lose a battle. We don’t know about Vader being Anakin Skywalker. He just looks cool. And Tarkin-well, I frankly think his interest came more from Peter Cushing’s acting more than the character itself. It is no secret that I’m a huge Hux fan, but the thing that drew me to him initially was his screaming speech. Other than being the ‘Tarkin’ of TFA, (and I use this description begrudgingly for the comparison) Hux doesn’t do much more than Tarkin ever did. All three of these guys are boring cardboard villains until you delve into their histories. Vader=Anakin? Holy shit, tell me more! Tarkin is classy AF and came from Space Australia? Sign me the fuck up! Hux has an abusive father and the weight of the First Order’s future on his shoulders? Damn, that is something to examine!

Pryce has the same problem as the above three: when they are introduced, they are already fully formed villains. You don’t see their developement. It’s done. Their story is pretty much over. No development is expected within their initial debut, their sob stories are not the focus of the plot. Like the aforementioned three, Pryce is 2D boring until you read her backstory. Why is she singled out as terrible compared to the others?

Well, without playing the gender card, I want to say it’s because she doesn’t display the charisma of the others. She is cold, doesn’t look flashy, and lacks charisma in Rebels. She just has one thing going for her: a generally evil and contemptuous thirst for authority and control. It’s standard and boring. I will grant that.

Where I differ from a lot of readers: I think she is a fantastic villain after reading the Thrawn book.

The most popular villains are either someone who has characteristics that you either identify with, or you aspire to have. And the more I think about Pryce, the more I realize that her story is actually very relatable, at least to me.

Pryce starts out as a member of a prominent family with a profitable mining company. She has aspirations of getting away from her backwater planet. Fuck, a lot of people have that urge. It’s not an evil trait in itself. When it the mine is forcibly taken from her family (more specifically her parents are threatened) she vows revenge, and it catipults her into motion. She gets out of there and to Coruscant. Ok, pretty basic. A lot of people hold grudges, it’s not super villain stuff yet. It’s a pretty simple vendetta focused on destroying one obviously corrupt and dislikable government official. (Which, seeing as the entirety of Star Wars is based on fighting evil and corruption, I find it ironic that her initial motive has come under scrutiny.)

All things considered, Pryce is pretty crafty in her plans. Sure, she can be devious. She has the makings of a good spy if she were properly trained. But for the most part, her plan revolves around using the established system against her enemies. THAT is a direct parallel to Thrawn himself. He makes his plans work through ingenuity and finding loopholes. But where Thrawn lacks the ability to manipulate the politics of the system, she can. But more importantly, she grows: she isn’t perfect at navigating the political system to start. It takes a fall from grace to lead her there.

And here we come to the crux of her relatability: her biggest downfall was betrayal from those she trusted the most. People she worked with, people who claimed she was their friend, people who claimed the friendship was genuine even after their schemes had been revealed.

I have had ‘friends’ betray me. Let me tell you it is a mind-blowing and traumatic experience. My therapist actively made me recognize my ex-friend drama as a real traumatic event that should not be trivialized.

And Pryce faces trauma. She was betrayed in the worst of ways, systematically and over a period of years. Pryce was physically, emotionally, and professionally assaulted. When she was drugged during ascension week and threatened? Holy shit, that is the kind of scenario associated with kidnapping and rape. And it was used as blackmail. You don’t shrug something like that off. I felt genuine disgust and fear for her in that scene. Then later, her ‘friends’ involve her in a plot that mixes her up with SAME PERSON who attacked her? Holy shit, wonderful way to reinforce that trauma. And then her friends bring her deeper into their plot by actually endangering her in order to manufacture more trust. And that same plot was made to FRAME Pryce in the event of a take down. She could have been imprisoned or worse, all because of her ‘friends’.

But you know what? Pryce overcame all of this. She fought any fear and pushed it down. She took control of the situation with grace and dignity. She knew what she wanted and how to get it. She manipulated her attackers, destroyed them with cleverly obtained evidence, and took them down with the law at her side. And she never forgives them.

I think that is something people don’t like. That she doesn’t forgive.

Frankly, she doesn’t owe her ‘friends’ a goddamn thing. They are as brutal and manipulative as Pryce becomes. They don’t get a free pass on this for being on the “right” side of things. They are horrible people. Good on Pryce for letting them rot. They fucking deserve it.

I often find myself wishing I could do the same to the people who hurt me. I’m glad she got the opportunity and took it. I would not have the same courage. Fuck all that nonsense about forgiveness being the brave thing to do. In my experience, forgiveness is a lip service phrase followed by a societal pressure to ‘be nice’. Fuck that. I want to be angry. I want them to suffer. But I don’t follow through—because revenge is seen as a negative trait, especially for a woman. There is a reason women resort to sneaky tactics for revenge: it is unbecoming to outwardly express our rage.

Pryce is never shown to have more than a few friends. All of them betrayed her trust.

I relate to that. Viscerally.

You know who has not betrayed her?

Her parents.

We don’t have the full scope of their relationship, but from the getgo we see that Pryce is ready to pounce on anyone threatening her parents. That is a constant through the book. And her parents obviously love her at least as much as any parent should be expected. They are concerned for her wellbeing, and are generally in touch with her. And by the end of the book, she isn’t the same person who vowed to ruin a corrupt official. She has taken up her mantle of anger and distrust. She discovers that she is ready, willing, and able to kill for her family and damn the casualties. She doesn’t care about other people. Other people never cared about her. Her life has proven to her one truth: trust no one. Beyond her parents, she has no love for anyone. The times she tried were a disaster.

There is a tragedy in that. I have experienced betrayal. But I have also had true friendship. We have no indication she ever had the good with the bad. I’m pretty sure that if I can pity Hux for having a shitty childhood, I can pity her for the events that left her so jaded.

So, yes. I like Pryce. I think she has damn good reasons for being the way she is. Do I condone her actions at Batonn? Hell no. Do I hate how she affects Thrawn? Yes. But Batonn is her Anakin to Darth Vader moment, the point where she truly goes to ‘the dark side’. I’m glad to have been given the opportunity to see it unfold. She can continue to be the frigid flat villain in Rebels, because now we know where she comes from. Rewatching Rebels shows her in a new light just as much as it changes how we see Thrawn. And we might see her comments now and think: you evil bitch! But damn, if that doesn’t make me like her more. Before the book, she was a generic Imperial baddie. Now I actually have an emotional response to back it up, and that is WAYYYYY more interesting.

I think the one big thing that prevents her from getting more love is that she doesn’t have the traits that fans typically like to explore in fanfic. She is closed off, and has no real big candidate for shipping purposes. And she doesn’t have any meaningful commonality with the heroes in Rebels beyond being the Governor of Lothal and therefore the enemy. She doesn’t have a specific vendetta driving her actions, she is just doing her job. By the time Rebels takes place, Pryce is not making impressive plans of destruction and she is done with any self reflection that might garner sympathy. But I don’t think she needs it. The book is enough.

With characters like Kallus, you could see than he had a sort of joy for the hunt in the first seasons. Then you learned more about his personality and he grew. Pryce doesn’t get the same treatment. Some people love Phasma for being an absolutely cold monster with no emotion. But Pryce isn’t cold or monsterous enough to have the same level of ‘wtf?’ that makes Phasma interesting (again, adding to the list of boring characters that are only great with their backstory considered...) Most of us can’t relate to the sheer heartlessness of Phasma and are compelled by it. Both Pryce and Phasma are self centered and power hungry individuals. But where Phasma has no conscience or hint or moral code, Pryce does have the capacity for such things, and that make readers see her selfishness as a negative trait to be hated instead of studied.

Maybe people find Pryce’s motivations too easy—a lot of us have friends who aren’t friends, and love our parents. Maybe her relatability is so common that we forget that these still qualify as three dimensional traits. Maybe we are afraid to admit that we have anything in common with her.

Pryce is a good character. I liked her parts in Thrawn. I was scared for her when she was drugged. I felt her loneliness when she couldn’t confide in her friends. I laughed my ass off at the unemployment office scene. I felt her shock and sorrow when she realized no one could be trusted. I envy her tenacity and bold resolve. I don’t have half her courage.

I like Pryce.

#arihnda pryce #governor pryce #pryce appreciation #anti-pryce #pryce love #tw: rape #a strong comparison but I felt it needed to be addressed in this so the R word stayed in.

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no-sxnctuxry · 7 years

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“Cardinal Corrections. Supposively the top of the line in long-haul convict housing. The place might as well be Guantanamo where the prisoners have free roam. If that doesn’t sound good, that’s ‘cause it ain’t. Whatever laws there are that provide some safety to cons in other prisons, they don’t exist here. We’re the throwaways that society ain’t got time to care. In here for life. That might not be very long; with the daily shankings, uppity COs, and what have you.”

Riley Normandy Cellblock F Cell 14 Serial number 18754F “Riley is a decent kid with some really bad luck. From what he told me, he was only supposed to do a month at their local county for a misdemeanour. Vandalism. Spray painting some choice things on an abandoned building. Would have only gotten community service if the judge did not dislike his dad so much. So, the kid winds up in county, and only a week into his sentence a riot breaks out. Cons going nuts, guards going nuts; the usual BS. A guard that did not like Riley from the getgo tries offing him, knowing it would be written off as another inmate, but ends up getting offed himself by the kid in self-defence. There is an investigation, no trial, and Riley is immediately on every COs shitlist and transferred here.”

Robbie Hawthorne Cellblock D Cell 3 Serial number 29981D “Robbie is a tight-lipped one about why he is in, but I’ve managed to get a bit out of him and his big boyfriend on what their deal is. Both were former Marines and got sick of how shit was handled after Robbie was discharged for a leg injury and got no benefits for whatever reason. Next thing you know, both of them are running a gang and trying to overthrow the government. They get caught, have some friends that managed to keep them out of actual Guantanamo, and they get sent here. Got to admit, I see exactly what Robbie was trying to do. He’s a good guy, just wants things to be fair.”

Marius Kalani Cellblock D Cell 7 Serial number 29982D “Robbie’s previously menioned big boyfriend. The man is as big as he is loyal; he had the chance to pin everything on Robbie, but refused. He could still be a free man, but did not want to betray his boss and lover. I’ve seen people claiming to be more loyal backstab people for far, far less. He’s a one in a million person.”

Colette Clearwater Cellblock H Cell 17 Serial number 7774H “The sweetest little lady you will ever meet, and it always blew my mind how a kind young woman could end up in a place like this. Turns out she was down right sick of her boss copping a feel anytime she best over for coffee filters, or taking any order, or anytime really. Final straw was when he made her close late and tried doing more than feelin’. From my understanding, they still haven’t found all the pieces she chopped him into and scattered from Texas to Kansas.”

Hiroshi Hatake One of the doctors of Cardinal Corrections “The doc is not very friendly. Polite. almost painfully so, but not friendly. He’s the only one around who gives a shit about inmates health though. It is in your best interest to not fuck with him though, for a whole shit ton of reasons. One being that if you get sick or hurt and the doc does not like you, he’ll pass you onto one of the people who thinks an advil will do you fine enough. If you fuck with him in person... well, let’s just say you’ll have a lot more problems going out of the medical ward then you did going in.”

Daniel Aerov One of the COs of Cardinal Corrections Usually asigned to Celblock B “Doctor Hatake’s adoptive son, and one of the few decent officers here. It’s almost surreal talking to him; he’s just as polite as his father, and treats cons like actual human beings. It’s a lowbar to be impressed by, but you take what you can get here.”

James Boone Cellblock F Cell 1 Serial number 56590F “And then there is me. I don’t much like talking about myself. I did some bad shit, nothing redeeming about it. I keep my nose clean in here, stay out of the way, and advise everyone else to do the same.”

#V;; J A I L B I R D S

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