Is the reason this project has failed so many times because it's hard to monetize? I've been looking into creating a similar original game, with heavy inspiration from BSC. But I'm very new to this scene and have no clue where I could publish and monetize it. Anyone have some tips?
- Thread starter Novilon
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I think the reason this project has failed is that making games like this is more work than a lot of people realize when they first get interested, and a lot of the time people that pick up creative hobbies like this end up moving through them like a passing fancy, getting intensely interested in the for a while before they realize how much of their free time can be eaten up on making something before it's finished and eventually discovering that they could spend that time playing video games or watching movies or whatever else instead. It's the same reason that most fanfiction websites are graveyards of stories that get 1-3 chapters into a work where the author promises 50 chapters of intensely plotted, densely layered storytelling and then they vanish, never to be seen again. I once saw someone set up this grand proclamation that they were going to re-tell the story of Bleach with some changes on an episode-by-episode basis. When the series was like 300 episodes long already (and not over at that point). I think they made it 3 or 4 chapters in over the course of a couple of weeks before disappearing forever. It's just really easy to overcommit in the planning stages when you don't have a handle on the actual workload involved. Especially if you're doing it on your own.
But it's worse on something like this becuase writing a game is not just writing down the prose and having it work. It involves working on the code and essentially learning a brand new language and work process if you've never done something like this before. Even with something as relatively easy as Ren'Py.
Like 6-8 months back I started dabbling with the code for this game to see if I could make a forked version that might carry on Novilon's work if he never returns, but eventually I ended up bailing on it all summer because after like 2 months of fiddling with the code all I had accomplished was a trio of small changes that basically amounted to testing how to tweak and modify the way the game unfolds, with just one brand new and relatively complete "scene" and everything else being more or less a placeholder.
I've come back now and actually have a big document with ideas and a plan of attack of what I'd like to try and do, but it's still extremely early doors and there's every chance that I will be distracted by life and other projects and this could take forever to get around to if I ever do finish it to the point that it's releasable for other people to play.
I have to believe that my experience in tinkering with the game is probably very similar to a lot of others'. And I'm not even 100% abandoning my tinkering, just moderating my expectations of how much I'll actually get done.
As for tips on monetizing, all I can say is that the reason BSC has never been monetized to any real degree is likely because of how controversial its content is.
I would wager that almost every major artist monetization or crowd-funding platform that doesn't outright reject adult content probalby has very strict rules for what sort of adult content it allows to avoid getting into potential legal trouble. And that would almost certainly include disallowing content featuring underage characters, even if they are cartoons and not human.
For instance, big-time fan-funded adult game Summertime Saga is on Patreon, but as a result of that they had to rewrite the game in the early going to remove a bunch of explicitly incestuous potential character relationships and add some paper thin suggestions that the school everyone is attending is college and totally not a high school to create the impression that the cast is not broadly underage.
- Feb 9, 2020
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I agree with most of this. I've not got involved with 'game making' (much) - last time I tried was way back when Windows 3.1 was popular with something called 'Klik-&-Play' for 'easy' game creation IIRC (Yeah I'm THAT old)
Creating a game from scratch take a LOT of time.. first you need to come up with an idea, plan out how you want things to interact, figure out on how it should look, create the necessary resources then - as said - learn a new language to figure out how to get everything to work together.
In the case of BSC + Ren'py, you're lucky enough to have some things in place to help start you off - by looking at the code, seeing how things 'connect' you may get an idea on how you would change things.
I guess many of the takeover developers think 'Ohh this looks easy, lets give it a try' but as already said, they then don't realise the amount of work involved to modify it for their own expectations, & don't forget it's usually just the one person who planning to do this on their own - there's no multi person developing team around that can share the workload.
If there was a way to get all these single developers together, each with their own skill sets (programming, graphics etc), then each could work on a specific portion and then maybe there will be a time a complete BSC comes out however since each developer has their own ideas this could also cause problems with conflicts on how to do things
I so love to see this game properly finished & glad there's a few people who willing to take on the challenge so I wish them all the luck.
Yeah, this is a big thing as well. Just in this thread we've seen 1 person going in their direction with AI art (which not everyone is on board with) and making some potential changes to the story. There was a person who thought about doing a fork/remake that would change the story to remove the squick about Cream's age by making her old enough to be entering college and changing the pretext of the "babysitting". People have talked about changing the stats system. Or whether or not the whole game should be explorable in one playthrough or not. Or I swear once upon a time I saw someone who wanted to do away with all the early-game stuff and just have it so that the second you boot up the game Sonic can walk into Vanilla's house, drop his jeans, and rail Cream in every debauched way possible with no "story" or need to engage in the "babysitting" content.
And that's before you get into everyone's kinks and fetishes. Not everyone likes anal, or BDSM, or exhibitionism, or watersports/squirting, or gay/bi content, or having Cream be particularly naive to the extent that it makes thinks border on rape or abuse, or so on and so on and so on. We saw Novilon continue to want to get rid of a lot of the dark and rapey content which some people agreed with and others didn't. We saw AvalonX blow a gasket within the narration of the game, whinging about backlash for even suggesting gay content featuring Sonic and Knuckles (not even taking into account that to this day his scenes of Sonic revenge raping/dominating Tails purely because he seems to really hate Tails still exists). Getting people to work on stuff they don't like on their free time with no pay would be extremely difficult.
I have a document stuffed with every idea I've had to modify the game, from added scenes to adjusting the in-game economy to fixing or re-writing broken content to make it functional and enjoyable. If I gave that file to 10 people I would almost certainly get back 10 different revised copies and most would probably remove some things that they don't like and include some new stuff that I don't like. So getting those differing brains on the same page would be very difficult.
- Sep 22, 2020
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nah let's be real it's the questionable age of cream no one want to start making it and someone sees it and the gets in trouble
- Feb 9, 2020
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Not sure of just this particular point as a reason but will agree her age could be considered a probmatic area.
Based on what I've been seeing in the thread - some of which DSO has mentioned above - I'd like to post my views on how I'd like the game to be IF it ever gets completed.
As mentioned my views would be different from others but maybe if posters here post what they like/dislike with the current BSC then maybe some of it may match with what the current 'developers' have & maybe those developers could PM each other & come up with gameplan that 90% of the players would like & the game could eventually get 'finished' (wishful thinking though)
Anyway
> I quite like the concept of the idea of having her actually a little older - maybe not quite 'college age' but maybe a teen - rather than a pre-teen. Of course as a Teen she wouldn't need a babysitter but maybe may need a Private tutor in preparation for school, or maybe just doing bad at her current school & needs extra help (Hmmm
- 'Educating Cream' game instead of 'Baby Sitting Cream').> I also like the fact that Shadow Word Porn graphics make her look 'older' than the pre-teen & sort of matches how I would think Cream would look like.
> Of the original BSC game I generally like the locations/scenes that play out - most of these could still fit in with having an older Cream (dress shops may need a rework - playing in Arcade still works). Having an older Cream may also open possibility of new locations - Nightclub/Bar, getting work experience at Vanilla's place of work etc
> I also like the idea of the 'Mysterious' event so much that I had posted my own (basic) idea on how that could pan out (would need some expansion/tidy up but after all it's JUST an idea).. of course removing it completely wouldn't break the game flow, just that my idea may add a way of changing Tails route &/or also increasing RWC quicker
> Most of the sex events I'm quite happy/comfortable with EXCEPT the rape scenes with Tails / 3-way with Knuckles / Rouge . All the ones I can think of seem to be in par with a sort of 'sexual education & experimenting' way (Anal/Toys etc BDSM only seems to be with Rouge & could be risky but 'play acting/cosplay' could be included instead). Of the dodgy scenes some of it can 'easily' be altered to make them more 'friendlier' in some way
> I DON'T like the existing timing method.. I'd prefer certain actions having certain time limits that get's added to the timing. e.g watching movie at the mall takes 2hr, playing in pool takes 30mins - that sort of thing. So that if the time exceeds a limit then actions don't work - eg If in Mall after 6pm then you automatically go home, if it's past 11pm then next day starts - that sort of thing. There's also the fact that it's not always checked - you can stay at the Mall indefinitely for example or stay up late.
Energy also needs regular checks as well, you can make as many phone calls as possible even if you're down to 1 health - maybe add a feature that if you're hungry energy goes down faster.
'Moral' seems rather useless also - its only used for Tails & Rouge rapes mainly (although there are some Cream checks) not really necessary if you're trying to make a friendlier version of the game. 'Peep' and 'Touch' seems ok-ish since used mainly to see if Cream catches you or not in certain situations
There's probably more things I could post but atm can't think of them
Messed with a Pony Diffusion LORA of one of the IDW comics' artists and got... an actually decent result. Would be an interesting style to see the sprites for BSC done in.
Obviously Cream being young like she is in the game is going to severely limit the audience and acceptance (not without reason). But I don't know if I'd say that's limited the game's development because if people were afraid of the issue of Cream's age then we probably wouldn't have gotten the original AvalonX version nor the handful of subsequent edits, ports, continuations, and forks.
Beyond that, I wanted to add my 2 cents to the thoughts you shared, based on these with what I've been tinkering with in exploring the game and considering another fork
That would be a solid approach. Hopefully enough different contributors would allow people to not have to write content they're uncomfortable with but not need to exclude it entirely (aside from perhaps the extra rapey/violent stuff I generally take the attitude of catering the game to as many different peoples' kinks and fetishes as possible, but done in a way that if someone doesn't want to deal with a particular fetish they can avoid it. There could be BDSM scenes but you don't have to do them if you don't want and the game makes it clear when you're going down that road with the option to back out. Same with gay/bi content, exhibitionism, food play, threesomes and shared scenes, watersports and squirting, anal, and anything else.
This makes sense if you want to age her up. And I could see a way to excuse Sonic's presence if Vanilla says that Cream's never been home alone for an entire week and she's hesitant to leave Cream by herself for that long just in case something happens that requires an actual adult around (at least at first because it still can turn out that just like the current version, one of the endings reveals Vanilla's major motivation was leaving the pair in the house together so that Cream's first sexual experiences would be with a trustworthy person like Sonic.> I quite like the concept of the idea of having her actually a little older - maybe not quite 'college age' but maybe a teen - rather than a pre-teen. Of course as a Teen she wouldn't need a babysitter but maybe may need a Private tutor in preparation for school, or maybe just doing bad at her current school & needs extra help (Hmmm
> I also like the fact that Shadow Word Porn graphics make her look 'older' than the pre-teen & sort of matches how I would think Cream would look like.
Cream being annoyed about not needing "a babysitter" could create some plot threads to explore as a means of requiring Sonic to repair and improve his relationship with her to excuse the early-game RWC mechanics/necessity. Then you can include things like helping Cream with her homework (perhaps becoming comedy because Sonic was always a freedom fighter and maybe isn't super book smart).
You could also mine some meta-humor out of Cream dismissing the idea of a babysitter, referring to the original game. Like "I haven't needed a babysitter in X years" where X is however long it's been since the last Avalon update or another previous version of this game.
The only big personality issues with aging Cream up would be having to strike the right balance of making her sexually naive enough for Sonic to be able to "educate" her the way the current game works without her sounding so innocent like she currently does.
If Cream is a non-college-age teen I'm not sure you can have her go to a nightclub or bar since she would be under 18. obviously yeah, fake IDs and whatnot, but if Sonic's supposed to be playing the part of a mature and responsible adult that woudl be weird unless she actually is aged up to 18.
The Dress shop would only need a minor rework to go from a kids clothing store to some trendy teen sort of store or something generic like GAP or whatever.
I think the biggest rewrites would probably come from the events in Cream's room. Storytime, playing dolls, or the mommy & daddy game would all be too young for a teenager. You'd have to switch all of those for something nearly totally different. Studying, looking at a collection of merchandise or something that she has, asking her to talk about stuff (that could become asking Sonic about his romantic history), etc.
I said this last time that I posted an idea of how to play out the Tails visiting content which unintentionally turned out quite similar to yours (minus the hypno/brain altering game part), but that seems like a good way to rope Tails into things.
As for the overarching mystery plot, the idea that I had was a really weird, very meta interpretation/explanation.
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Yeah, this is where I'm at too. I get that there's some desire for darker and rapier fantasties, but it just doesn't sit well with me how much of an asshole Sonic randomly becomes to make those work. Like in the Rogue domming/rape scene he actually punches her a couple of times.
Theoretically you probably could set up the various other characters who can become involved with Sonic & Cream to represent different aspects and avenues of group sex. Rouge is there for BDSM and the kinkier toys. Knuckles is the more aggressive and carnal MMF threesome while Tails is the more passive one where Cream can perhaps take a leading role. Sally is the super kinky MFF threesome where the really wild stuff happens where Amy's are a bit more controlled and maybe a bit tender, but possibly with the option to find that Amy has some fetishes of her own, like how the current version is the only place that features repeateable deepthroating)
A lot of this would be interesting though I've heard from some people that fixing the time system would apparently be a gigantic pain in the ass. I do also think that you have to play a bit loose with some of the time stuff because otherwise it would become impossible to cram a lot of the things you can do in a day in before time runs out.
It's also a little awkward to have both time and energy be constant clock-ticking restrictions on what you're doing.
Maybe time just has to be a sort of general thing like morning/mid-day/afternoon/evening/night separated by necessary "gates" like eating. There's no specific clock but certain things are only available at certain times of the day. You can't call someone over, go to the movies, or order pizza in the morning. You can't go to the beach or the mall locations besides the movie theater in the evening. You can go outside into the back yard until the night time, with an event that perhaps lets you change that so that Sonic and Cream can do some late-night skinny dipping or other sexy shenanigans under the cover of darkness. During each time period the hunger levels of Sonic and Cream count down and when they hit zero and the pair are hungry you have to have a meal which will advance the period of the day to the next one. You can stall a little bit to finish scenes or maybe get a few more things in but doing so comes with penalties like reduced stat gains or incomplete scenes or something.
I know a lot of people seem to be against hte idea that the game limits how much you can do and don't like the fact that strictly adhered to game mechanics mean that you have to play through the game multiple times to see everything, so using time in this fashion may not work out best if someone just wants to get to the point where they can have Sonic have a 14 hour sex marathon with Cream, alternating between railing her ass and pounding her in the shower 15 times at night without ever going to bed.
that would be a good way to manage the necessity to eat (energy decreasing faster if you're hungry). There should probably also be some better options for energy restoration as well to counterbalance that.
Implementing energy checks on houseguest scenes probably wouldn't be too difficult. It's certainly better than the old phone battery issue, which I always thought was dumb.
As I've thought about trying to edit the game again, my first step was to do a ton of research into how things work and how various elements, stats, triggers, and flags function to understand what the game's good and bad mechanical points are and where there are issues. So I have some info on this:
Moral Alignment is mostly pointless. There are 5 checks against moral alignment in the game, all of which are for significantly negative alignment so that Sonic can be a bastard:
1) You need -7 or worse to be able to hide Cream's bikini top after the splash contest in the pool and not have Sonic give it back. This is also the only one that can be bypassed in other ways, as you can also do it if RWC is 400 or more or if Cream is comfortable taking her dress off already (which seems dumb because those alternatives don't change the scene. She still gets embarrassed and sulks away and Sonic still hides the top like a dickhead. It would've made more sense if: a) bad moral alignment makes Sonic hide the top, b) high RWC makes Sonic suggest that Cream doesn't need it because she looks cute like that (and serves as an alternative way to earn the ability to get Cream's dress off, and c) if Cream already has her dress off she shrugs off losing he top because Sonic has seen her topless already given that she doesn't wear a bra. If moral alignment were taken out then you could just ignore the check in situation a. Have Sonic find the top after Cream gets out of the pool where there's no moral decision to be made and then simply allow the player to choose not to give it back the next time swimming is proposed (which requires no moral alignment check when you do it anyways)
2) You need -10 or worse to attempt to steal the sexy panties from the lingerie shop in the mall (this does not stop you from potentially getting caught. you need the negative alignment to even try in the first place). Given that the panties have no other use that I can remember this is pointless, and it's dumb that this is the only time Sonic can shoplift (especially that he'd even want to) or that there aren't other avenues to getting them cheaper (like maybe seducing a shop clerk or something)
3) At -10 or worse if Sonic calls Cream a "button-mashing cheater" while playing video games and then goes to apologize to her in her room, you can choose to have Sonic jerk off on Cream's face while she sleeps. That's weird and random considering that there are other times where Sonic can choose to blow his load on Cream when she's unaware and it doesn't need a morality check
4) -10 or worse is needed to choose to rape Rouge if she tells Sonic that she knows about him and Cream. I've already said that I don't particularly like this scene at all and nothing would really be lost by its removal or replacement (like maybe the choice besides "I trust you" is "how do I know you'll keep this secret?" and Rouge tells Sonic that if he satisfies her she'll keep her mouth shut and it turns into a more consentual BDSM scene.
5) -12 or worse is necessary for Sonic to snap and assault Tails during the confrontation after Cream swims topless with Tails visiting. I believe this is checked right a the beginning of the scene, so it's for the whole scene, not just the "show him who the man is" choice in the middle.
That's it. Sonic and Knuckles all but raping Cream with their threesome has no moral check. nor does Sonic choosing to force himself on the drugged up Cream after eating the "special" ice cream. Maybe there were more checks in older versions? I seem to remember that Avalon's original flash game allowed Sonic to basically rape Cream after winning the racing game even if she resisted. Now if the stats aren't high enough and she resists, the scene ends.
there are no positive moral checks anywhere in the game that I can find. If the extra rapey scenes were taken out then 4 and 5 would be obsolete. 3 doesn't seem to need the check anyways. 2 is pointless since it doesn't go anywhere. And 1 feels clumsy and could be worked around in better ways
The other stats are kind of hit and miss too. I think the biggest thing with many of them is that they become obsolete pretty quickly once Cream starts opening up. And some of them have workarounds or alternate checks that render them pointless in a lot of situations.
Exposure has 6 checks, most of which make sense, including the ability to have Sonic and Cream shower together even if Cream hasn't taken her dress or panties off yet. A couple of other times they're to allow Sonic to show his cock even to an inexperienced Cream. It is a little inconsistent about when it is and isn't used.
Jerk Off has just 3 checks, 2 of which are bypassed if Cream is comfortable naked. And one of those is about being able to jerk off in full view of Cream, which would feel like it falls more under the umbrella of Exposure since the whole point of this stat is about doing it without getting caught.
Lust has 9 checks, most of which are about escalating slightly naughty scenes into something more explicit (playing with dolls, the mommy & daddy game, shower blowjob/earjob vs actual sex, etc). Most also are paired with another stat like Touch or RWC and only a couple can be bypassed if Cream is comfortable naked (getting naughty on the arcade racing game or grinding Cream on the park swing)
Peep has 4 checks all reating to spying on her without getting caught (in the shower, when she uses the toilet in two situations, or in the mall changing rooms). 3 of them (everything but the shower) can be bypassed if she's comfortable naked which doesn't make sense since it doesn't change the scene at all.
Like if you're in the bathroom and ask her "how are you doing?" and she says she needs to use the toilet, there's a check for a peep rating of 8+ for Sonic to be able to jerk off to her while she's doing her business unless Cream has already taken her panties off (this should probably be a check against the jerk off stat, but it isn't.). Regardless of which check you have to pass, the scene plays out the same way (Sonic beats it to Cream on the toilet, covers himself with a towel when he comes, then tries to play it off to Cream that he really needs to use the toilet too when she comes out of the bathroom.) You'd think that this would be done to change how the scene unfolds since it's possible to have a 0 peep score and have gotten Cream's dress and panties off. So instead it could've been that the peep score informs the odds of him getting caught, but if Cream's been naked then instead of her catching him and freaking out she instead teases him and says he doesn't have to hide, allowing him to come into the bathroom and watch while jerking off.
Touch has by far the most checks at 14. In most cases they are the difference between Cream freaking out at Sonic touching her in a sexual way or being fine with it, exactly as the stat is intended. And 11 of them have bypasses if Cream has been naked or, in a few instances, if Sonic has fondled her. These mostly make sense since the stat is about Cream not getting upset at being touched and if Sonic has stripped her and they've had some amount of sex then she shouldn't care too much about Sonic swatting her on the butt or rubbing her down when she's in a handstand without her panties or whatever.
It would probably be good to find uses or things for stats to represent that are useful or workable even after Cream has become a full-on horny bunny and is willing to do all sorts of degenerate things with Sonic so that they can still matter. Like the peep or exposure stats make her more willing to do things in public places without worrying about getting caught. Jerk Off makes her more likely to play with herself or give Sonic a handjob in different situations. Lust makes her hornier overall and maybe she will initiate things sometimes. That sort of stuff.
Sorry for the huge post. I'm not even anywhere close to looking at how to implement a lot of these ideas. I've wanted to do some extensive cataloging of the current code/events and fixing up some of its more clumsy things before I go anywhere near the idea of adding new content.
- May 9, 2022
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nope, the time code in the game is one of the best i've seen in any VN. its just not properly used by the scenes. the scenes themselves just blindly add absurd values without forethought
- Feb 9, 2020
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I can top that! "Thanks Mr Sonic for finding it"Messed with a Pony Diffusion LORA of one of the IDW comics' artists and got... an actually decent result. Would be an interesting style to see the sprites for BSC done in.
View attachment 4099989
Seriously, I think work posted so far here style wise is awesome. I'm just playing with those initial settings tbh.
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- Jul 28, 2020
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do you have more like cream with carrot toy ro at nude beach
- Jul 28, 2020
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The prompts and other info are in the posted picture. I mentioned that in one of my previous post. extra meta data is attached to originals.
Hmm, didn't attempt carrot one. Ill go over beaches one I have XD
Interesting. I could've sworn I remembered someone saying that they tried to play with the clock settings and it caused headaches. But so much has been talked about regarding the code and structure of the game's files that it's no surprise that I got mixed up about any one issue.
Not that I expect to personally tinker with the time coding for a while. I'm still sorting through some of the other mushier aspects of the code's design (like how some rooms have nice labeled jump points that neatly demarcate every scene/variation, but others have messy, nested if/then/else setups to handle branching paths, resulting in them being a bit more fussy to deal with or alter the flow of )
- Jul 28, 2020
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cream does not need a swimsuitshe looks better this way
I like this one better than the other one just because the other image's body is a little too close to the "trying to look sort of realistically human." which becomes uncomfortable given Cream's age. It doesn't actually look real, obviously, but the attempt to have some less cartoony angles and anatomy is off-putting to me, whereas this one has good body lines and fits with Cream being young but has enough of that conserved-detail cartoon look that it doesn't trigger the squirmy part of my brain that is repulsed by actual, pseudo-realistic kid proportions in lewd situations and instead can just look sexy. There's even a bit of camel toe in her bikini bottom, which is a surprising detail if it wasn't asked for (or even if it was)
My question is how you're doing this. like is it downloaded and trained? or done online? Because I would be wary of finding an online image generator and feeding it prompts that reference a pre-teen bunny girl being penetrated anally by Sonic, or eating out Amy, or getting DP'd by Sonic and Knuckles and squirting everywhere. I have to imagine those things keep records of what they're asked to make and if anyone ever peers into their records they're going to wonder about someone putting in dozens of prompts to make young bunny porn.
The camel toe IS in the prompt. And to answer your question: This is a done locally using Stable Diffusion + WebGUI plus a few models and loras obtained from civitai. I doubt anything free online would produce this (exactly). And I refuse to use paying services, for reasons you raised. I'm just learning the tools right now so not really into training my own models. I'm just leveraging the little knowledge that was shared here via some of the posts. Regarding cringe worthy stuff, there is plenty of it out there (nsfw anyone?). But I'm not using any of that explicitly anyway (Some of the models are trained using lots of public stuff that isn't always detailed...). I try to stick to limits of what was done in game already (We aren't reinventing the wheel are we?), and yes sometime the prompts have to go out of their ways to trigger the 'just right' images (which are still rolls of the dice, for me anyway). BTW, Someone stop being mean and give her back that bathing suit!!!
- Sep 25, 2021
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