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professorfandango — Mario FC Sketches

#bandit #goth #guy #mario #shy #super #toad
Published: 2018-08-19 11:08:34 +0000 UTC; Views: 2044; Favourites: 61; Downloads: 5
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Description A little while ago I revisited my old Mario fan characters which was a pretty interesting exercise because while two of them are just jokes, one of them was, at a time, designed in earnest.

From left to right:

Mr. Bandito, the greatest thief the Mushroom Kingdom has ever known. Many years later Nabbit was introduced who basically served the same function and I think they did a much better job by making him a unique creature instead of just a modified enemy. I hope Nabbit appears more often.

Emp. T, the goth Toad.

King Shy Guy, a fighting promoter who claims to have been the one who set up the original battle between Mario and Bowser which he calls "The Hassle in the Castle."
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Comments: 35

Pokemoniac [2020-05-01 21:03:48 +0000 UTC]

Big fan of Emp T. No offence but I think Em T is better because its easier to say and Em could be short for Emily

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professorfandango In reply to Pokemoniac [2020-05-02 07:50:35 +0000 UTC]

I hear you, but Emp is short for Empath!

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Pokemoniac In reply to professorfandango [2020-05-03 23:18:29 +0000 UTC]

em could also be short for empath

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professorfandango In reply to Pokemoniac [2020-05-04 21:17:03 +0000 UTC]

It could.

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BobALinx [2019-02-08 17:32:42 +0000 UTC]

I love how Emp. T looks like Suzi from Little Witch Academia!

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professorfandango In reply to BobALinx [2019-02-08 21:05:08 +0000 UTC]

Well, I'm not familiar with that character so I can assure you the resemblance wasn't intentional!

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MurdererMarioCookie [2018-08-24 13:15:44 +0000 UTC]

Im SCREAMING SO BAD I ADORE EMP T SOOOO BAD

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MurdererMarioCookie [2018-08-24 13:15:40 +0000 UTC]

Im SCREAMING SO BAD I ADORE EMP T SOOOO BAD

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professorfandango In reply to MurdererMarioCookie [2018-08-25 13:12:46 +0000 UTC]

WOAH WOAH WOAH many thanks! I'm surprised I had never seen a Toad character with this theme before!

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MurdererMarioCookie In reply to professorfandango [2018-08-25 13:29:00 +0000 UTC]

Your welcome and same really. (I have so many toad ocs)

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Angel-Rose28 [2018-08-20 02:08:31 +0000 UTC]

Emp T. is amazing!

And I hope Nabbit shows up more too. I am surprised and rather disappointed that he was not in Odyssey since that game features rabbit rather heavily. It's a wonder how the Carrot power was not in the game in some capacity as well....

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professorfandango In reply to Angel-Rose28 [2018-08-20 19:38:00 +0000 UTC]

Many thanks!

I see what you mean about rabbit references, but some people were also hoping there'd be a Sarasaland reference in the Sand Kingdom.
Personally I think thy just wanted to include as many new things as possible without getting too bogged don in historical content so that it could be its own thing and feel fresh.

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Angel-Rose28 In reply to professorfandango [2018-08-20 23:13:43 +0000 UTC]

No problem

Yeah, I know about the want for the Sarassaland reference in the Sand Kingdom. That was a bit of a shame too. I can see Nintendo's vision on the matter....but the problem with introducing all of those new things is that a lot of it is rather very likely to go unused in the future since that is how Nintendo, or the Mario team specifically, seems to operate with this sort of thing.

.....Maybe things will be different this time around.....?

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professorfandango In reply to Angel-Rose28 [2018-08-25 12:45:21 +0000 UTC]

I guess maybe i's because Ntendo prioritses innovation so they don't like to get too bogged down in their old stuff (and maybe since the New Super Mario series did it quite a lot and got criticised for being stale) but at the very least I think it's a fair bet that some of the new characters and elements from Odyssey might show up in spin-offs.

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Angel-Rose28 In reply to professorfandango [2018-08-25 16:45:07 +0000 UTC]

They were getting criticized for the repetitiveness of the New Super Mario Bros series right when they release NSMB2/the third game in the series and yet they still went and released NSMBU as well as tried to treat New Super Luigi U as a different game when it was not. It was definitely just a separate mode with a $60 price tag. Just like how the Mario Kart 8 port on the Switch is basically a third $60 DLC pack.

There was also Mario Party for a long while and then they changed it up. I do believe Mario Party 9 was the only one of the new formula games to have gotten at least decent reviews since everything else after MP9 that ND Cube made was not liked very much.....by fans or the critics.

Nintendo can still do a lot of interesting things with their old stuff. I do not see a reason for why they need to keep making new things when said new things are just going to not be used later. I mean, it's hard to keep a favorite thing regarding Super Mario since a lot of it disappears. Just like a lot of the Super Mario World stuff or Super Mario Sunshine stuff, you know?

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professorfandango In reply to Angel-Rose28 [2018-08-26 10:39:08 +0000 UTC]

Tough to say. I wonder how much of it is down to employee rotation.

What good is hiring a character designer if you're only using pre-existing characters, right? And maybe younger developers who come onto the projects want to make their own mark on the Mario legacy with their own creations? Maybe that's why those things show up a lot in spin-offs: by borrowing existing assets from the main games they can cut down on development time and cost and get them turned around faster.

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Angel-Rose28 In reply to professorfandango [2018-08-26 22:04:13 +0000 UTC]

What do you mean by employee rotation?

True. But then it might eventually get to the point where they are designing so much that it becomes too much and we never get to see certain things anymore. Like characters from SMW such as Rex, Eerie or Blargg, the various Mario Party hosts from the earlier games, Toadsworth, Koopa Kid, Wart, Wanda, Boshi or anyone from the first three Paper Mario games (though that is a bit of a different situation) or locations like Sarasaland, Dinosaur Land, Subcon or any of the RPG locations (again, different situation but still), etc.

And yes, it does make sense for the younger developers to want to leave something that would go on to be used in the Super Mario legacy and I definitely encourage that......but we still run into a similar, if not the same, problem. Games like Super Mario Odyssey introduce so many new things all at once that there is a risk that a lot of it will go unused in the future, which is rather unfortunate. I have noticed a sort of pattern that the Super Mario development team has followed up until 3DS/Wii U era. Like you say, they take things from the main games to use in the spin-offs to cut down on development time and other things and it is a good strategy in my honest opinion. Some of the best examples of this would be Mario Kart. Double Dash had Bowser Jr., Petey Piranha and King Boo (but not Toadsworth and E. Gadd for some strange reason) as playable characters. They would represent the big games on the console like Super Mario Sunshine (BJ, Petey and Toadsworth at least appeared) and Luigi's Mansion (King Boo). Mario Power Tennis would also include Isle Delfino and Luigi's Mansion representation in the form of courts and mini-games, etc. as well as feature BJ, Petey and Toadsworth again while all Mario Party games on the Gamecube (4,5,6 & 7) would make at least one reference to E. Gadd. Mario Kart DS did not introduce any new PLAYABLE characters from the main series game on that console since it was Super Mario 64 DS at the time, though characters like Goomboss, Eyerok and Chief Chilly did appear. Mario Kart Wii had Rosalina and other very obvious references to Super Mario Galaxy such as Rainbow Road's appearance in that game (NSMB and NSMBW both would have came too late in the respective console's lifetime to have very many references going on). Mario Kart 7, however, is where that pattern was seemingly broken. At the time, the main series game for the 3DS was Super Mario 3D Land. Now, the game admittedly did not have a lot to choose from in terms of practical characters to use as new playable ones for future 3DS spin-offs.....but there was Boom-Boom and Pom-Pom! It was where Boom-Boom made his reentrance to the series and Pom-Pom was a new character altogether. Those two along with maybe a Hammer Bro since he was cut from Mario Kart Wii (they are always considered important too) would have been better new characters than the ones we did get in MK7 in my honest opinion. Though, I would like to say that I still think Honey Queen is a fine character and makes for another good Galaxy rep.....but I think it would have made a lot more sense to put her in Mario Kart Wii instead.....
Mario Kart 7 & 8, Mario Tennis Open, Mario Golf World Tour, Mario Party Island Tour & Star Rush....even games like NSMB2, Color Splash, Paper Jam, the Superstar Saga remake and maybe even Smash for Wii U/3DS.....they all would have benefited from having BB and Pom as playable characters (or extra bosses) in my honest opinion. But I digress... Since NSMBU and Super Mario 3D World were the main series games for the Wii U, Mario Kart 8 and Mario Party 10 continued to break the pattern by not having Nabbit for NSMBU as well as Plessie and/or a Sprixie Princess for SM3DW (Mario Tennis Ultra Smash did have a Sprixie though). I would also give a vote to Wanda and Wart since I think it was a very big missed opportunity for them to not be brought back in 3D World. Dream Team also would have worked for those two as well as Birdo.

Very sorry to have gone on such a large tangent there, but I wanted to make certain I was thorough with what I wanted to say.... But anyway, the overall point I am trying to make here is that since there is already a lot for them to work with and since more and more continues to be made, the development teams, specifically the newer/younger members or even teams that only occasionally get to work with Nintendo (such as Intelligent Systems, Alpha Dream or Good-Feel), may potentially become overwhelmed with what they have to work with.

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professorfandango In reply to Angel-Rose28 [2018-08-27 11:43:22 +0000 UTC]

Whew! Well that certainly was a mouth full!

I understand a lot of what you're saying, and the truth is I can't say why they do or not not bring back old character and locations. All we can really do is speculate but I feel more and more like that's simply wasted time because we as fans don't have any control over the matter.

I would say that Odyssey might have done some things to cater to your wishes, actually. Sure, there were a lot of new things in it, but the entirety of the Mushroom Kingdom was a love letter to SM64 and it was very well received, as was Pauline, so maybe they'll start moving in a direction that involves the occasional retro reference within the new elements.

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Angel-Rose28 In reply to professorfandango [2018-08-27 19:01:59 +0000 UTC]

Yeah....I talk too much sometimes...

You are right about it being a waste of time...but I honestly have nothing better to do

I honestly found the Mushroom Kingdom rather boring with nothing much to do. I was not really impressed with Odyssey as a whole and the Mushroom Kingdom was one of the low points in the game for me. I know how everyone else loved it all though.
I very much liked Pauline's return as well. I don't know why they did not keep her in the first place....but still.

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professorfandango In reply to Angel-Rose28 [2018-08-28 18:40:34 +0000 UTC]

Oh, well that's a shame, I thought the game was fantastic though I do admit there were some aspects that were so heavily emphasised that they ended up being a little bit underwhelming in the end.

But hey, I respect that opinion and I'm glad you shared it!

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Angel-Rose28 In reply to professorfandango [2018-08-28 20:21:43 +0000 UTC]

Oh my, I completely forgot to say that I don't hate the game at all! I just did not enjoy it as much as everyone else.

I mean, to me, it did not do much different than the other 3D Mario Games. Sure there was the capture mechanic, but I found it to be a rather poor substitute for the power-ups since each capture could only do one or two things. It severely limited Mario's abilities and as well as his overall movement. I did not have much of an opinion on most of the capturable enemies....but I will say that I disliked the Pokio. I did not have very much fun scaling the walls of Bowser's area with them, which is a shame because that place would definitely be among my high points of the game. I would have preferred something more stable for scaling the walls....like Yoshi (who I was disappointed with the most out of them all sadly). Since he has a new wall clinging ability, I would have very much liked to have seen them expand upon that and Bowser's area would be a great place to do it, in my opinion (they could add a few more walls for that hehehe). The Tropical Wigglers were pretty "meh", in my opinion. I also would have liked something more interesting than a Cheep Cheep as an underwater capture. Perhaps a Blooper or even a new enemy? I would have suggested Dorrie and/or Plessie as the underwater capture.....however they would probably be too big......so how about a non 8-bit Koopa Troopa? There were Troopa shells that were used to go faster underwater in the Galaxy games after all! I would not be surprised if Troopas could breathe underwater since they are constantly associated with it......and they are turtles. Kind of like how Kremlings can apparently breathe underwater.
I, however, did somewhat enjoy Chargin' Chunk, Hammer & Fire Bro (their hair is pretty cute. I was...rather disappointed to find out that Boomerang, Ice and Sledge Bro were absent from the entire game though), Goomba/Paragoomba and Parabones. I kind of wish that the Stairface Ogre was capturable too...

The NPCs were ok for the most part, but I must say I think that it was a big missed opportunity for them to not have used the humans from the early Mario tennis and golf games as the residents of New Donk City. Disregarding the fact that the New Donkers were......not pretty to look at, Pauline stuck out like a sore thumb since she was still noticeably "cartoony" compared to them. Just my opinion though... Since they were seemingly completely rewriting Pauline, maybe they could have even made it Diamond City and have the Warioware characters appear as well? Probably not though.

The only other "complaint" I have about the game was that I found the bosses to all be rather underwhelming. Especially the Ruined Dragon/Lord of Lightning and Madame Broode. The Broodals themselves were also not too interesting....but I have a whole different problem with them.

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professorfandango In reply to Angel-Rose28 [2018-08-31 19:49:17 +0000 UTC]

I'm not sure I can agree with all of these things:

Mario's movement is greatly improved by Cappy - though I guess you mean the captures themselves. The thing is, every 3D Mario game has had time-limited power-ups. It would probably be quite difficult to construct a 3D world where you can move around using any power-up infinitely while still making it challenging or even having a through-line that the player can follow. Imagine if the Red Star from Mario Galaxy was available in all levels infinitely? It would make much of the game trivial, which is why I assume adding those types of limitations are what makes the developers able to make a tighter, specially curated set of level designs.

I do sympathise somewhat about the enemy selection though. And while I did like the enemies in this game (I love the Ogres) I just expected more varieties. But again, I guess for every one new capturable enemy there needs to be a number of puzzles built for it and to some extent it needs to be integrated into the greater game.
I would have expected a Koopa Troopa to function like the shell in 3D World, where you can tuck into it and bounce around. And I'm still surprised that Paratroopas haven't shown up in a 3D game and Parabones have appeared instead.

The Broodals have grown on me somewhat, though there are aspects about them I don't like. As for the bosses in general I really loved the as concepts and designs, but I do think they were all a bit too short. If the fights we got were the first of two or three phases that would have been nice - I was especially surprised there wasn't even a second Bowser phase!

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Angel-Rose28 In reply to professorfandango [2018-09-01 03:57:57 +0000 UTC]

Yes, I did mean the captures themselves. Was I not clear enough on it? Sorry about that...
Mmm....I see what you mean....but I honestly was not comparing them to anything like the Red Star power-up. I WAS thinking of the other power-ups from the Galaxy games however. I know that every 3D Mario game has time limited power-ups, but those tended to only show up in specific areas where all the captures, that appeared in all areas, were all time limited. Let's compare some of the captures to some of the Galaxy power-ups. Like say.....the Bee Mushroom with the Goomba/Paragoomba capture. Bee Mario looses the ability to swim (if one wants to keep the power-up) however I do not recall the Bee Mushroom ever being near places where Mario would need to swim and instead it would be in places with shallow water. Bee Mario also looses most of the different jumping techniques however, the hover makes up for all of the techniques that are lost since it can hover a bit higher than Mario can jump otherwise. Now if we look at the Goomba & Paragoomba captures, then also lack those abilities...however, they also lack the ability to do almost everything else. I think that as a Goomba, Mario should still be able to preform at least the triple jump, long jump, spin jump, side summersault and possibly the Ground Pound (I mean Toad, who has equally as stubby legs, is shown to be able to do all of that so why can't a Goomba do it to?). I know the point of the Goomba is to stack them to reach higher places...but they could just raise the ledges (and increase the number of Goombas around) so that Goomba Mario still would need the Goomba stacks to reach them since the other jumps he would still be able to do would still be too low. As for Paragoomba Mario, I would say that he functions pretty much the same as Goomba Mario, but can also fly. I would make the flying closer to Bee Mario's flight at the very least because it felt very awkward for them to fly so low to the ground and not be able to get any higher. Another thing Bee Mario can do but no capture can do is grab ledges. I think Goomba and Paragoomba Mario (as well as any other capture that Mario can jump with) should be able to do that too but it would probably be a lot slower due to not having hands/arms, making Mario most likely use his mouth. I do believe that the Spring Mushroom is the best/closest example of how the captures were--limiting Mario's abilities down to one or two things (hopping/higher hopping and automatic wall jumping in Spring Mario's case). Does that explain what I mean about the captures more clearly to you?

That is most likely how the Koopa Troopa will function on land. I would honestly be a bit shocked if it was not. Giving them those new underwater abilities in addition to how they work on land would only serve to diversify the capture, wouldn't you agree? Since the non 8-bit Troopas are all friendly in Mario Odyssey, the Troopa capture would most likely be like Glydon or Yoshi and probably be an individual that must be found somewhere in the level in order to use. I am not certain of which color Koopa Troopa they would go with for this capture though... Sure there is the standard green....but perhaps they would want to use something more unique like the gold shell since the gold shelled Troopa would show up as an extra racer for the Koopa Footraces on the second/more challenging time? Or perhaps they can go with a pink shell to reference Yoshi's Safari a bit? Maybe the development team can even have a little fun with it by having the other NPC Troopas be amused by Troopa Mario like how the Boos were with Boo Mario in Mario Galaxy? They said the theme of the game was surprise, and I would think that having a Troopa capture like this would be on the surprising side. At least for casual players. And like I said, I would take just about anything over a Cheep Cheep as the underwater capture. Sorry, I was just thinking of how cool this would be as something that was actually in the game...
Yeah, I was also surprised and a bit disappointed to learn that Paratroopas have still not been in a 3D Mario game. Mario Odyssey would have been as good a time as any of the other ones, I think. I also did not quite understand why they made the Parabones play exactly the same as the Paragoomba... Perhaps with the Paratroopa capture, Paratroopa Mario can use the shell to break and defend against airborne hazards? While Parabones Mario (as well as a Dry Bones Mario) could maybe be able to enter areas that would be inaccessible to other captures such as an area filled with poison gas? Both would still be able to fly like the Paragoomba (in a similar way to Bee Mario hopefully), but they would have those things unique to them. What do you think?

Oh? What are the aspects that you disliked about the Broodals? Oh that's right! I completely forgot that Bowser only had one phase to him for both of his fights. It is a shame that the harder versions of the boss fights did not really do much to make them feel like they were supposed to be different fights/phases or a rematch with them.

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professorfandango In reply to Angel-Rose28 [2018-09-01 09:00:06 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, I do understand the differentiation between captures and traditional power-ups, and I see why you would want it that way, but I think that might be losing the point somewhat.
The Goomba enemies you face can only run and stack, so capturing one deliberately limits you to those abilities - I guess if you could do all of your acrobatics there's almost no point in being Mario!

I do know what you mean though and I can understand your disappointment.

Some of the finer aspects of the Broodals designs I wasn't a huge fan of - Spewart's hair and shorts, for example, but those are very small, personal hang-ups.
Obviously when they were first revealed - riding an airship no less - I did wonder why they weren't the Koopalings, but then I reasoned that they wanted to d something completely new and upon learning they were the wedding planners I liked them more because they actually had a reason to exist, rather than just being random sub-bosses for the sake of it.

However, when I first saw the Harriet fight I did expect the various Broodal fights to incorporate all sorts of different attacks hats and that wasn't quite the case, but they did at least use their hats in interesting ways, which I liked.

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Angel-Rose28 In reply to professorfandango [2018-09-01 23:41:09 +0000 UTC]

Well if the main gimmick of the game is to capture other beings and use their powers to your advantage, I would think that being just Mario for the most part would be disadvantageous, right?
But seriously, I suppose I was just....bothered(?) by the severe lack of movement options for pretty much all of the captures. Like...you use each capture for such a minuscule amount of time that it makes me wonder why bother with it in the first place. I suppose that I just wished that I found the captures more.....useful? I am not sure if that is the correct word to use for how I feel about it. But then again, my opinions are not very good in general, so I probably should not have said anything in the first place.

Oh I see. Well, if they really wanted to do something completely new, they probably should not have made the Broodals so similar to the Koopalings. I mean, since they are no longer Bowser's children and are just minions now, why not have them randomly be wedding planners now too? Mario is a plumber but is also a doctor, a professional in many sports as well as an Olympic athlete. Is professional Go-Kart driver an actual profession? That's not all and Mario is not the only one who can do all of that, so why not have the Koopalings as wedding planners?
But anyway, their fights were very Koopaling/Boom-Boom/Pom-Pom-like in my opinion. To the point where I think the hats could be substituted with Koopa shells (or the Koopaling shell) and there would be no difference with how the fights play out. Perhaps the Broodals could have taken advantage of the capture mechanic as well by having them have their own Bonetter possessed hat?

So, disregarding their apparent "death" at the top of the Dark Side tower, do you think the Broodals will show up in any future titles?

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professorfandango In reply to Angel-Rose28 [2018-09-02 08:29:51 +0000 UTC]

I don't really think opinions can be classified as "good" or "not good," you've made plenty of good points and really if there's something you didn't like, you don't necessarily need to justify it!

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Angel-Rose28 In reply to professorfandango [2018-09-03 03:36:51 +0000 UTC]

Hmm...but would you say opinions can be classified as "correct" and "incorrect"? Just wondering since I have never heard anyone say it quite like that.

Um...I suppose so, but I feel like I am too logic focused to be ok with liking or disliking something for no reason or not being able to explain why I like or dislike something. It bugs me but I know that it should not. But thank you for listening to my rambling.

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professorfandango In reply to Angel-Rose28 [2018-09-03 06:22:40 +0000 UTC]

No, I think opinions can only really be agreed with or disagreed with, because any claim that your opinion is "bad" or "wrong" or "invalid" is itself an opinion!

But hey, that's only my opinion!

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Angel-Rose28 In reply to professorfandango [2018-09-03 06:57:31 +0000 UTC]

Hmm, I suppose that IS true.

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YourClairyGodmother [2018-08-19 11:11:24 +0000 UTC]

I love her chain-chomp necklace.

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professorfandango In reply to YourClairyGodmother [2018-08-20 19:38:45 +0000 UTC]

Why thank you! (Maybe I should start an Etsy shop...)

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YourClairyGodmother In reply to professorfandango [2018-08-20 20:43:52 +0000 UTC]

(Sure!)

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Aso-Designer [2018-08-19 11:09:58 +0000 UTC]

These are good looking FC's.

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professorfandango In reply to Aso-Designer [2018-08-20 19:38:08 +0000 UTC]

Thanks!

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Aso-Designer In reply to professorfandango [2018-08-20 21:00:05 +0000 UTC]

No problem

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