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Saturday, 14 October 2017

CSA-Lass Isn't Going To Convince Anyone, Assholes

So Vox Day has announced that he's making a foray into the world of comics. After helping Jeffro Johnson remake pulp into retarded and unbearable pseudo-intellectual navel-gazing fantasy-nostalgia for some kind of paleo-con dream world of "burroughs as high literature" that never was, he's moving on to fight back against the motherfucking SJWs at Marvel (who certainly deserve to be fought), with a huge kickstarter to create his own comics universe.  He's calling it "Alt-Hero".

And this is his centerpiece of the whole line:


Now, I wasn't going to write about this on my blog at all, but I did get caught up in a Tweet argument about it with the "Supreme Dark Lord" himself. And then Jeffro over on G+ decided to take a screenshot of a tiny tiny bit of it where I basically said nothing, and claim that I was some kind of 'cuck' who was saying we had to keep any "heroism, truth, nationalism, family, marriage, and Christianity" from comics to appease the left or some shit like that, which had NO resemblance to what I was saying.
In other words, Jeffro Johnson is a cowardly lying fuck who can't stand to actual debate and just makes up shit instead. So I'm going to post the bulk of my Tweet arguments below. But first I'm going to explain just why I'm so disappointed in this project.

Before that, I should note that everything else they've released in the previews is equally bad. Note, not bad as in "this is morally bad because it isn't politically correct" or something like that (before Jeffro decides to "creatively reinterpret" my argument again), but bad as in motherfucking retarded.

Stuff like the vigilante character who "cleans up the streets one (rapist) illegal at a time":


or the obviously flamingly gay villain that's part of the EU superteam:


Again, retarded.
Now in the twitter argument Day assured me that Alt-Hero was going to actually have deep storytelling and be all about the comics. But he wouldn't explain why there is NO sign of that in anything I've seen him release to the public so far. All we've seen tells us that this comic will be full of stuff meant to trigger SJWs, which is fun and good, but will essentially just be using comics as an ideological medium rather than caring about comics as a hobby itself.

So here are most of my relevant tweets that Jeffro was too much of a fucking pussy to show, and you will see the gist of my argument there:

"I don't want them up to the current level. What's the point of that? I want them to be BETTER, & not put ideological propaganda first."

"Every preview you have so far seems more interested in pissing off SJWs than winning over comic fans."
" Is the best way to win comic fans sick of comics being a political battlefield to show a chick in the Rebel flag?"

" Instead of doing stuff that will scare off the normies, make the SJWs go nuts over things the normies will see as no big deal.
Then we win."

"It's "Supergirl wears Confederate flag" vs "wonder woman wears hijab"? Or "batman beats up illegals" vs "Storm kicks out Harlem whites"."

"I'm saying, show us ANYTHING to prove this is actually about comics, not just irritating SJWs!"

"I'm concerned it's a missed opportunity. Culture > politics. Win people with better worlds. Then you win them ideologically."

"You don't win video games or #RPG culture wars by making a game that's more about ideology than game. You can't do that with comics either."

"When you betray the medium you automatically concede ground."

"The thing that beat back the wave of Ctrl-Left incursions in RPGs wasn't making some kind of alt-right-wankfest game. It was the #OSR"

"What turned it around in RPGs was when I made them condemn #DnD basic as racist, or Aleena the Cleric as "rape culture""

"When you stake the center ground, they define the center as evil, & suddenly everyone already at the center has joined the Deplorables."

"Instead of setting yourself up, make the same heroine wearing a US flag, then let the SJWs get outraged about that. You know they will."

"That's how you win."

"Not by making a stupid and meaningless gesture over the Confederate battle flag. That's you playing THEIR game."

"It makes your loyal fanboys cheer but accomplishes NOTHING."



And that's what bothers me about Alt-Hero. We certainly could use someone coming along and making a new comics universe that was ABOUT THE COMICS in the same way the OSR is about the games. One that didn't ignore politics completely, or shy from moral lessons, or push a leftist agenda, but that wasn't just a facade for right-wing propagandism either.

I would love to see a universe that had heroes that actually embodied heroism, that had moral values, that were patriotic, that believed in family, that stood up for classical Enlightenment values, who saluted the flag. And this would have the "Aleena Effect" of SJWs protesting against a hero in a US flag, and everyone who likes US flags abandoning the SJWs.

But above all, that it would focus on the comics. Instead, Alt-hero has every appearance of being something that will involve someone who is fundamentally not really all that into comics (at least, not enough to value the subculture) injecting ideological propaganda into the medium of the comic, with the comics' conventions being largely an afterthought to sledgehammering their political agenda.


That means Alt-Hero looks like it's going to be pretty much just like SJW Marvel.

What we need is someone who loves comics enough to actually make them great again. Not someone who is just using them to get their attacks across.

You aren't doing something like the best of comics history and the values you claimed to uphold with this job. You're not doing this:



Or this:





Instead what you're doing is stuff that is doomed to fail, because the fans will see it for the ploy it is. It's been done before. Alt-hero is going to be stuff, at best, like this:



Or this:



Or this.




Like I said. Retarded.


RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Mastro De Paja Rhodesian + Image Virginia

51 comments:

  1. A lot of dumb, terrible stuff has made it big... just look at Donald Trump.

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  2. Well said, Pundit. Well said.

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  3. Except Mr. A is pretty good stuff. I'm guessing you dont actually own a copy of any issues of Mr. A.

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    1. I did say he was the 'at best' scenario there. But even then, Mr.A was still largely a propagandist mouthpiece for Ditko's objectivist ideology.

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    2. Just looked it up and I'm relieved that Mr A was in the 60s (and actually looks okay) and not, well, something created by an MRA.

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  4. This looks to me as deliberately triggering outrage to get free advertisement and easy monies rather than something that would be likely to convince anyone.
    This is just terrible, as retarded as what it's trying to counter. Ideological trench warfare, basically.

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  5. Glen Beck, Mitt Romney, RPGPundit, these names will go down in history as the ones who tried warn the right against heresy.

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    1. I'm trying to warn them not to be idiots who fall for the Left's game, led by assholes who are in essence just as self-serving as the SJWs are.

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    2. Yes, it's very important we not listen to anyone who behaves in an assholish & self-serving manner. Who knows where that might lead.

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    3. Yes. People who have no real interest in a subculture that are using that subculture to further their own ends. Like the entire staff of Marvel, and apparently Vox Day too.

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  6. What is currently produced is designed to motivate new backers to provide the money to produce the comic, which it has done quite admirably.

    Now that they have the financing they have already obtained new, arguably superior artists, and Chuck Dixon to write for the line. I'll wait for the final product before clutching my pearl's and declaring it horrible. Or is the argument that Chuck Dixon is just like SJW Marvel and doesn't love comics?

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    1. I'm NOT into comics (although I'm supporting Alt*Hero and will receive the digital comics and the paperbacks). I DON'T know who Chuck Dixon is. I DO know from the joyous celebrating by the guys who absolutely know comics over his arrival at Alt*Hero, that this is NOT about 'tweaking the noses' of the horrid crybully SJWs (OR about 'dosing' the normies)! This is about returning comics to being part of the AMERICAN mainstream. Why do you think Mr. Dixon -- who apparently is VERY well respected in the actual comics field -- is going to waste his time and talent writing what you describe?

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    2. I'll be very glad if Vox Day ends up showing me something from his comic that convinces me I'm wrong, and that his product is actually a well-thought out world with high-quality comics writing that isn't just meant to be a propagandistic preaching of his anti-SJW trolling.
      I would be pissing my pants with joy if I was wrong, and would readily admit it.

      I asked him to show me some proof that Alt-Hero was not like what EVERYTHING so far released pointed to it being, but he ignored those requests so far.

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  7. "I would love to see a universe that had heroes that actually embodied heroism, that had moral values, that were patriotic, that believed in family, that stood up for classical Enlightenment values, who saluted the flag."

    Ahh, so what's why you're mad, you want comics pushing YOUR politics rather than Vox Day's. Ok, but it's a bit hypocritical to complain about Day or SJWs when you're the same.

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    1. I think you're confused about the relative scale of values, and the difference between genuine artistic production and propaganda. The artist's values are naturally going to emerge from the work, and not all values are equal.

      This is very obviously Vox trying to play edgelord, and so it's juvenile and cringeworthy. It's bad art. Moreover he's just aping what the SJWs are doing. He's not taking the high ground. There's a place and time for a dirty brawl, but this is just bad tactics.

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    2. Does Vox Day not claim those are his beliefs? Does he have other beliefs? Please, do tell.

      In any case, the key part of that paragraph is "I would love to see a UNIVERSE". As in, an actual comics world for its own sake, and not a fucking Potemkin Village just there as a cheap facade for the shoving of ideology in people's faces.

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    3. Vox Day is definitely not a fan of Enlightenment Values, I'd say.

      I got my copy of Alt*Hero number 1 a couple days ago. It was quite good, I liked how the EU's superteam were presented as the protagonists - and if anything seemed rather less evil than their real-world counterparts.

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  8. I read the backstory described on the FreeStartr page and Alt-Hero appears to be a well developed story as promised by the promo video. It appears this comic, unlike SJW Marvel, prioritizes story telling and narrative structure over political messaging. I can't wait to get a copy!

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  9. Years ago... there was this women who let a bunch of teenagers throw a party at her house. She wanted the teenagers to think she was really cool so she let them pretty much do whatever they wanted. They ended up setting the house on fire.

    When the firefighters showed up and were busy putting the fire out.... she was standing in the street screaming at them to stop spraying so much water on her house because the water was doing more damage than the fire did.

    Congratulations Pundit.

    You are that woman.

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    1. What? Who are the teenagers and who are the firemen in this idiotic analogy?

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    2. I may be a little tiny bit responsible for the existence of Vox Day. Maybe.

      Likewise, you're responsible for the existence of the Totalitarian pieces of shit that want to recreate Pol Pot's killing fields over on the Left. The ones that don't just want to burn down the house, but want to tear down all of civilization until there's nothing left but ashes.

      The blood of everyone killed by a terrorist in the west is literally on your hands.

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    3. No child. Pinochet was not to blame for throwing the commies from the helicopters.

      The blame is not upon the first to resort to violence.

      The blame goes to those who make the violence unavoidable.

      Cancer has to be cut out. Cutting things out is violent and painful.


      A purge is certainly coming. The blood however is not on our hands. The blood is on the hands of those who made the killing unavoidable.


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    4. Nate, I doubt you are an oncologist. Nor do I think that you have actually chucked anyone out of a helicopter. Nor do I think that you have anyone's blood on your hands. There is no purge coming. What's coming for you is a straight-jacket and a padded room if you try acting on your words. Best Regards.

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    5. Well so it seems there is actually an audience for this. A crazy, angry, hating audience.

      I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the relationship between SJWs and terrorism, but this might just have been an Alex Jones moment there.

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  10. I just noticed something. You said you were disappointed in this project (Alt-Hero) but it hasn't been published yet. Do you see the problem with your statement?

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    1. I'm disappointed with what I've seen so far. I would be so happy if it turns out that new material released reveals that the project is not actually like what the stuff they've released so far makes it look like. But that would be quite the swing at this point.

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  11. And you're doing something better? No, just impotent opining.

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    1. No, I'm pointing out the the fact that the dude has formed a decision on a particular thing without ever experiencing it. How can a person have an opinion on things for which they know little about? I think that I am positing a meaningful question.

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    2. My position is based on all the preview material released thus far. As I've said repeatedly to Vox Day, PLEASE show me something else that disproves that impression and I will gladly admit it and express my support. But so far, it's all been done for no other purpose than to troll the SJWs, with no apparent regard for comics as an actual subculture or to win over actual comics fans.

      Again, I'd be overjoyed if my assessment was wrong.

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    3. And here is where I call BS. 1) You're not identifying any specific reason for your disappointment. It's quite easy to do as there is enough promotional material that is not SJW critique related for you to peruse. 2) Alt-Hero is not created for the sole purpose to troll SJWs. The amount of funded content, as well as the backstory described on the FreeStartr page makes that obvious.

      You're lying.

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    4. Are you kidding? How am I "not identifying the specific reason"? I've explained it all in the post above? What part is unclear to you?

      Please show me ANY promostional material that isn't SJW critique. PLEASE. I have seen none of it. Maybe it's somewhere I didn't look. Maybe something new has come out. But so far EVERYTHING I've seen in this project is clearly designed just to annoy the SJWs rather than to be about creating a great comics world.

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    5. No, I'm serious like cancer. The promo video was quite clear at 00:37 when the graphic said "Storylines, not Social Justice." You never spoke on that piece. And then there is the quasi "Tolkien-esque" world formed as a backdrop for the entire line of comics. You said nothing about that. What's up with that?

      I'm not trippin' over your reservations, you have a right to entertain such but your critique makes no mention of those aforementioned elements. Your game is suspect like college football in New England. That's the reason is why I think you're perpetratin' a fraud.

      If you was real, you would have written something like this:

      "Yo, I think Vox Day's claims that Alt-Hero is about story lines, as per the promo video, are phony. In this brutha's opinion, that comic will degenerate into nothing but a protracted anti-SJW diatribe. Yeah, I can understand that folks are vibin' off the pseudo Tolkien universe construction and the claim that Alt-Hero prioritizes story telling and narrative structure over a clumsy insertion of talking points and imagery. I'm maaaaad skeptical though, I ain't gon' lie. And my sense is not without justification. Y'all seein' how anti-SJW bloggers and vloggers have been blowin' up. That ish is like sellin' like Afro-picks and dashikis in the early 70s (y'all know that trend was reactionary, right?). At any rate, I think Vox is fakin' tha' funk, and Alt-Hero gonna be just another reactionary diatribe devoid of meaningful story telling. Watch, y'll gonna be like 'Yo RPG, you was right my n!gga!' ."

      That's what you should have written.

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    6. Saying "storylines, not social justice" is just talk until we get shown otherwise. Instead, what we get shown is "anti-SJW trolling, not storylines". How is immigrant-hunting Batman or Confederate Supergirl any less propagandistic than Carl Manvers or Black-supergenius Iron WoMan or She-Thor, or all the black Marvel heroes teaming up to drive white renters out of Harlem?

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    7. Once again, when those two elements were made available, you said nothing and defaulted into your "disappointment". Any person not familiar with the promotional materials would think you gave a complete analysis. That which you have said is misleading. Add to that, you're complete lack of familiarity with the text upon which you've opined. So that's three items that impeaches your commentary: 1) failing to mention the imaginary world constructed as the backstory (was that intentional?), 2) the failure to address the claim that "storylines" and "not social justice" will take priority (you've only done this after the fact - when I brought it up), and 3) expressing a final decision on this text before it's published. That's a problem.

      No one is saying you have to like anything and I'm not trying to sell you on anything. I'm just pointing out the fact that you are writing a review about a text without ever having read it. You would have been better off saying "This Alt-Hero text doesn't appear to be my cup of tea. I could be wrong but I'd rather wait until it's published and for all the reviews of such to be written before I pass any judgement." You didn't do that.

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    8. I was addressing the actual SAMPLE MATERIAL. Not promises being made about future material. Everything other than the actual comic material is just pretense until proven otherwise.

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  12. Even if it's bad, I'm sure it's going to be better than SJW-Marvel. Just going by the pages on the funding campaign, the EU-villain guy appears to have more depth than the current Marvel lot.

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    1. The art is better than most of the art in SJW Marvel.
      But really, is that the standard you want to hold it to? "It's still slightly better than Squirrel Girl! And it's blatant sledgehammer political preaching isn't attacking me directly, so that's slightly better too!"?

      If you're a comic fan, that's just not enough.

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    2. You may be right, it may not be very good. So far from what I've seen I quite like the art; the sample story panels are ok and better than the recent Marvel comics I've seen, but not particularly grabbing me.

      I'm not a big comics reader these days, though my son is. I guess from my POV I'd really prefer a satirical anti-SJW comic to the fairly serious world-building effort they seem to be going for. For one thing I'm used to British '2000 AD' type comic stories which have a heavy dose of satire. US ones tend to avoid satire and come over a bit dull, even before the SJW takeover.

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  13. RPGP, why so concerned? Why would Vox Day need to prove himself to you? Does he need your permission to publish? If he does, then maybe I get some say over the hacks who keep reimagining Jane Austen's novels.
    If you're disappointed by what you've seen so far, don't back the freestartr. When they come out, maybe check them out. Perhaps they will be up to your noble standards. So far, they look pretty fun to me.

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    1. I'm not concerned. I'm disappointed, at a missed opportunity. In one sense, Vox Day doesn't need to prove himself to anyone. In another, yes, he very much does need to prove himself to me. Not because it's me, but because if his claims about making this series about making comics great again will hold any water, he needs to be able to have those comics be appealing to someone beyond the Socio-Con Right who form his cheerleading squad, many of whom don't even actually read comics (which makes them no different from the thousands of tumblrinas who cheer and applaud every feminist comic about a Ant-man now being a transexual African paraplegic or whatever, but are not part of the comics hobby nor have any real interest in ever being part of the comics hobby; or much like the feminist bloggers who cheer on leftist virtue-signalling in the RPG scene but don't actually play nor would ever play RPGs).
      If he fails to convince me, then he's failed to convince the ACTUAL COMICS FANS, who are the people he's supposedly doing this on behalf of, and he proves himself just another opportunistic propagandist.

      So yes, in that sense he absolutely does need to prove himself to me.

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  14. I eagerly await the RPGPundit crowdfunding campaign to make amazing comics that will show Vox how it's done instead of just lecturing him and demanding that he do things your way.

    That's what you're working on now, right?

    ...Right?

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    1. That's your best argument? "Either raise hundreds of thousands of dollars and dedicate the rest of your life to creating a new comic company, or you're not allowed to point out what a tool Vox Day is and how shitty it is that he's wasting all this time and money for cheap shots instead of something that could actually make comics great again!"?

      By that standard, I eagerly await to see you be part of the design team for the next edition of D&D and create an run one of the top RPG discussion forums, instead of thinking you're just allow to criticize what I said. Don't come back until you've done it.

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    2. You're proud of what you've done to D&D? Not much of a recommendation in my book, sport. In fact, it's the sort of thing that makes me assume any future project you're even peripherally involved with will be dogshit.

      I guarantee I'm doing more to help win the culture war than you are because as little as it is so far, at least I'm going in the right direction and supporting the right people.

      As far as the subject at hand, you're clearly not part of the intended audience for this project, yet you're using the pretense of being on the same team as the supporters as an excuse to be a major concern troll about it. You're trying to tear it down under the guise of lamenting it as a "missed opportunity". You're a basic bitch cuck at best.

      So get fucked, you disingenuous faggot.

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    3. Another lovely example of Vox's boi-brigade.

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  15. Comics rooted in traditional values are going to appeal to a much wider audience than the SJW-converged crap coming out of Marvel and DC. How is this a difficult concept?

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    1. Yeah. It's too bad what Vox is making doesn't seem to be comics. Just propaganda in comics form. Not even propaganda, really, just a big childish troll, a massive shitpost meant to annoy G. Willow Wilson. All this sound and fury for fuck-all, when instead he could be creating a comics world that would promote American values and would appeal to a wide number of people.

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    2. I think the problem with recreating the past is that the past led to the present. We had mostly reasonably good moral values in most comics, TV, etc, now we have what we have. Compare 1960s Star Trek (or other sf) to modern Star Trek & sf. (More importantly perhaps, old stuff was usually entertaining, post-SJW takeover stuff is dreary).

      So at the very least, modern stuff needs to have some awareness of what has happened, and have defences in place against SJW takeover.

      But I guess what I really want to see is good, punchy, fairly apolitical superhero comics my young son can read and enjoy. Just the values & pacing of the Hollywood Marvel Cinematic Universe would be ok - I don't ask for much, just not SJW-Marvel. Just something he can enjoy reading and won't throw down in disgust.

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    3. There is always The Adventures of Asterix the Gaul ;)

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  16. You can't have a story without a moral framework, but as far as I can tell no one has clearly delineated the difference between message fiction and stories informed by a particular point of view. Not Vox, and Pundy, no one. We'll see. Until that argument is settled, it's a lot of "I know it when I see it" - which is fine, but it doesn't leave much to discuss.

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  17. Guess Vox is trying to troll folks on both sides of the spectrum. A busty character wearing a wardrobe malfunction prone costume based on the flag of a failed state based around a slave economy tells me everything. But then I'm from East Tennessee and we didn't have a very high opinion of the CSA and planter class anyway.

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