LGU
Senior Member
Gender: Unspecified Location: Mega-City One
Respect William Gravel, Combat Magician!
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Gravel is a character created by Warren Ellis and Mark Wolfer, so I guess I'll leave the short snappy descriptions up to them.
Wolfer says:
quote: "First, dispose of everything you know of comic book anti-heroes, their weaknesses, their angst, their personal codes of morality and their inner demons," Wolfer said. "This isn't that book. Now: Picture the hardest bastard you can imagine, a man who wants nothing more than to be left alone in a world that seems to be eternally dragging him into the hell of its political and societal woes. William Gravel is a Combat Magician. But this is not the fuzzy, wand-waving, broomstick-riding kind of magic. It's brutal, it's bloody and it springs from the blackest pit of the occult ever conceived."
Ellis says:
quote: "William Gravel is a soldier in the British SAS, the crack Special Air Service," Ellis said. "He is also a Combat Magician: a student of magic as it applies to the art of war. This has been something of a plague on his professional life. He also has a tendency to moonlight, taking on illegal security work and the like for extra beer money. Because soldiers aren't paid very well, and Bill Gravel likes a bit of extra cash in his pocket. That's how you define William Gravel: he's not a big spooky look-at-me magician, and he's not a gung-ho soldier. He's just a bloke who wants a bit of extra folding in his pocket and who wants to be left alone to enjoy it. That's all. He's a very simple man. It's a shame that it's not a very simple world."
Check out the next post for some notes on organisation and why I've included what I have etc. After that, the thread is arranged in chronological order by arc. The most impressive stuff from a battleboard perspective is later on, but the most awesome scenes are earlier. Enjoy!
Order:
I. Strange Kiss
II. Stranger Kisses
III. Strange Killings
IV. Strange Killings: The Body Orchard
V: Strange Killings: Strong Medicine
VI: Strange Killings: Necromancer
VII: Gravel - The Minor Seven
VIII: Gravel - The Major Seven
IX: Gravel - Last King of England
Last edited by Digi on Dec 3rd, 2013 at 09:35 PM
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:13 PM
LGU
Senior Member
Gender: Unspecified Location: Mega-City One
1. Gravel has (intentionally) a very vaguely defined power-set. This is particularly true in the earlier mini-series Ellis wrote, although his magic abilities get fleshed out a bit more in the 21-issue ongoing the character eventually appeared in. As such, there is no real easy way to organise a respect thread for the guy. Usually I like to do these things in block, "Strength", "Speed" etc. That doesn't really work with Gravel at all.
So, in terms of organisation I have gone with a simple chronological order. The thread is split into parts for every arc Gravel appears in.
2. As he is an obscure character operating within his own universe I have tried to include as much context for the guys he is fighting with and against as I could. I've also included a lot of showings for Gravel that aren't necessarily impressive, just to give a fuller picture of what the guy is and what levels he operates at on a daily basis.
I think this gives a more accurate impression than just a highlights reel of his best showings and nothing else.
However, the flip-side to this is that it means there are a lot of scans and most people probably won't want to read them all. SO: I've added "***" next to a selection of what I consider to be Gravel's best showings. If you just want to look at a much smaller selection of scans to see why Gravel is a beast, either scroll down keeping an eye out for the "***" or press Ctrl + F and type "***" (without the quotation marks).
3. Gravel features in adult series and is the product of a pretty warped mind. So there is a LOT of extreme violence and general weirdness, and also a fair bit of nudity. I've censored any full-frontal nudity to comply with the board rules but if you are easily offended/disgusted, avoid these scans like the plague.
And without further ado...
Last edited by LGU on Dec 3rd, 2013 at 08:18 PM
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:13 PM
LGU
Senior Member
Gender: Unspecified Location: Mega-City One
Last edited by LGU on Dec 3rd, 2013 at 08:19 PM
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:13 PM
LGU
Senior Member
Gender: Unspecified Location: Mega-City One
Last edited by LGU on Dec 3rd, 2013 at 08:20 PM
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:13 PM
LGU
Senior Member
Gender: Unspecified Location: Mega-City One
Last edited by LGU on Dec 3rd, 2013 at 08:21 PM
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:14 PM
LGU
Senior Member
Gender: Unspecified Location: Mega-City One
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Gets into a firefight with some coast guard guys. Displays another illusion and does a pretty passable Jesus impression. Â_Body Orchard #1
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Finally, a proper fight! It’s Gravel vs an elite 4-man hit-squad of SAS Combat Magicians. He’s either got really good eyesight or this is another example of a kind of pre-cog/danger sense right at the start. Some nice agility and speed showings mixed in too. Â_Body Orchard #1
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Immediately after the above, Gravel finds himself cornered by a lot of police. Now we get on to some serious displays of magic – minor telekinesis, invisibility, more illusions, some apparently pretty solid stat-amping and finally, full-blown teleportation. Â_Body Orchard #2
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Displays some nice speed, skill and strength when ambushed by a SWAT team, before teleporting to the titular “Body Orchard” – a kind of magical in-between realm where guns and ammunition grow out of some questionable-looking flowers, and other assorted strangeness. Â_Body Orchard #2
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In a flashback sequence, Gravel pulls off an impressive magic bullet trick – intercepting point-blank automatic gunfire from two different shooters with a single bullet of his own. Â_Body Orchard #3
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Still in the flashback, Gravel gets into a fight with another magician. Gravel can see through his illusions… not so much the other way around! Now *this* is bad-ass. Â_Body Orchard #3 ***
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A rematch with the team of SAS Combat Magicians, this time in the Body Orchard. Some nice tricks and Crouching Tiger-style agility from Gravel here. He also no-sells being shot in the arm by an MP5. Â_Body Orchard #4
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Last edited by LGU on Dec 3rd, 2013 at 08:22 PM
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:14 PM
LGU
Senior Member
Gender: Unspecified Location: Mega-City One
Last edited by LGU on Dec 3rd, 2013 at 08:22 PM
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:14 PM
LGU
Senior Member
Gender: Unspecified Location: Mega-City One
__________________
Last edited by LGU on Dec 3rd, 2013 at 08:23 PM
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:15 PM
LGU
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Gender: Unspecified Location: Mega-City One
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Shows some pretty fine control to (apparently) teleport the wig off a guy’s head. Â_Necromancer #1
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Long distance teleporting – London to the Philippines (via the Body Orchard) in a matter of seconds. Â_Necromancer #2
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Mind-wipes a guy to avoid paying him money. Â_Necromancer #2
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Gets into a fight with some more zombies, mostly hand-to-hand. He looks pretty strong, kicking one in half, decapitating another with a punch. Â_Necromancer #2
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After saving the damsel in distress from being zombie-raped, Gravel casually rips a guy’s head off with his bare hands and then shows off his magic head-bursting trick again. Â_Necromancer #2 ***
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Gravel’s magic bullet trick apparently extends to shots not fired by himself. Here, he “catches” a bullet fired at his head from point-blank range and uses the single slug to kill four zombies. Â_Necromancer #3 ***
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Invisibility and some serious zombie slaughtering. Â_Necromancer #3
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Instantaneous resupply courtesy of the Body Orchard. Apparently, the stress of the teleportation process would leave a normal human a “pile of smoldering meat.” Â_Necromancer #3
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Another fight with zombies, more invisibility. Gravel also demonstrates the ability to extend his invisibility magic to others. Â_Necromancer #4
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Later on, Gravel is ambushed by a crap load of zombies (he was distracted because he was nailing the damsel in distress). He shows some more decent striking power, basically exploding skulls with backhands and the like, but eventually falls into a bamboo spike trap. Â_Necromancer #4
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He has been impaled and cut up by the spikes, which KO’s him for a while. He wakes up to a pretty ****ed up scene (“zombie birds on the game… can’t get more twisted than this, can it?”) and just kind of flays a zombie’s entire head by looking at them. Â_Necromancer #5
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The bamboo spike punctured an artery. Gravel improvises a healing spell using some anti-biotic tablets and the tail of a lizard before he can bleed to death. Â_Necromancer #5
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Another example of Gravel extracting information from the dead by… erm… shagging them. Â_Necromancer #5
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Without moving, Gravel is able to pinpoint a small magical artefact in another room and teleport it from the Philippines to his London home. Â_Necromancer #6
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Demonstrates a few neat tricks to get out of a sticky situation. Telekinesis to grab himself a gun and remotely detonate explosives, invisibility for himself and the girl, possibly another exploding head trick. Â_Necromancer #6
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Bullet-time reflexes (and a cheeky boob-grab). Â_Necromancer #6
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Teleports a large container full of equipment and notes to the Body Orchard. Â_Necromancer #6
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Apparently mind-wipes the aforementioned damsel in distress. Â_Necromancer #6
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__________________
Last edited by LGU on Dec 3rd, 2013 at 08:23 PM
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:15 PM
LGU
Senior Member
Gender: Unspecified Location: Mega-City One
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So now we come to Gravel’s ongoing, which deals a lot more with his magical abilities (particularly later on). In general the fight scenes are much longer and more detailed so we get to see more of what he is capable of.
First, we see what Gravel has been up to. Deployed to Afghanistan, here he is brutally ****ing up some Jihadists, using invisibility, head-exploding and TK to strangle a guy with his own scarf. Â_Gravel #0
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We then get set up with the plot for the first arc. Before he was deployed to the Middle East, Gravel was a member of the “Minor Seven” – an elite group of British magicians who essentially are meant to police the occult and safeguard the normal public from the dangers of magic. In his absence, he has been replaced by a guy who brought his way in using the Sigsand Manuscript, an ancient mystic text of incredible power (Gravel later describes even half of it as “the atomic bomb of the occult”). The Minor Seven (six at the time as Gravel was believed to be dead) split the Manuscript between them as it was too dangerous for any one person to possess. Gravel evidently disagrees. Â_Gravel #0
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Gravel can “see” magic and follow it to its source. Â_Gravel #1
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Creates himself a doorway using a lighter and his fingertip. Â_Gravel #1
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Gravel’s meeting with the first of the Minor 7, Jerome de Montfault. He talks a bit about the power of the Sigsand, and it becomes apparent that he’s been driven quite insane by its power… Â_Gravel #1
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And so it’s Gravel vs a snake-like deity summoned from the Far Outer Ring. I’ve had to pretty heavily censor some bits of this scene because of graphic nudity, but one of the highlights is Gravel hacking open the thing’s giant swinging ball-sack with his combat knife. Â_Gravel #1
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Now possessing one sixth of the Sigsand, Gravel is visited by the incorporeal spirit form of the second member of the Minor Seven, Joanna Garden. We get some more story development (and a neat trick on show in that Gravel can apparently mystically alter his guns to kill spirits). Â_Gravel #2
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With the context out of the way, it’s Gravel vs Joanna to the death. Â_Gravel #2
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Gravel apparently absorbs her power once she is dead, and takes her section of the Sigsand as well. Â_Gravel #2
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Next Bill meets his mentor and senior member of the Minor Seven, Sykes. We get some interesting exposition on the power of the Sigsand (“one mind in a generation could use it safely… it’s a bomb disguised as a doctor’s bag”) and on Gravel’s character (“you’d kill your own mother if she called you a ****”). Sykes gives Gravel his portion of the Sigsand without a fight, too old to want one and knowing he would probably lose even in his place of power (much more on these later). Gravel now has half of the Manuscript. Â_Gravel #3
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__________________
Last edited by LGU on Dec 3rd, 2013 at 08:24 PM
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:16 PM
LGU
Senior Member
Gender: Unspecified Location: Mega-City One
Minor Seven - part 2
A look at Gravel’s collection of magic items and texts accumulated over years. He adds some intestinal rocks from the snake deity killed in issue #1 (“I should have collected the thing’s cock, too, after I hacked it off”) – one of these comes in handy in a little while… Â_Gravel #4
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Immediately following the above, Gravel is ambushed by the fourth member of the Minor Seven, Royston and his army of magic acolytes. What follows is possibly my favourite example of Gravel in combat, breaking out all the best tricks; illusions, speed, strength, agility, brutally efficient use of TK, magic bullet tricks, exploding rib-cages… Gravel #4 ***
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And finally, the coup de grace on Royston himself! “I’m a combat magician… I don’t run out of bullets.”
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On the point of exhaustion, Gravel is then attacked by the penultimate member of the Seven, Monty Colgrave. Colgrave has used the power of just one sixth of the Sigsand to control the “Wild Hunt”, a legendary occult force of the undead who hunt the living. Â_Gravel #5
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Lots of cool powers on display here. In addition to the usual combat magic, Gravel uses one of the intestinal stones from the snake deity to open a portal to the Far Outer Ring and summons the horse spirits he absorbed from Joanna earlier. Â_***
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Easily figures out how to unlock Royston’s mystical barriers (compare to Colgrave’s attempts at breaking through Gravel’s in #4!) and then releases the spirit of Joanna, which had been bound by Royston using his portion of the Sigsand. Â_Gravel #6
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Gravel now possesses five-sixths of the Sigsand, but the only remaining piece of the puzzle is in the hands of Jacobus Hook – by far the most powerful and dangerous member of the Minor Seven. What follows is a good example of how dangerous Gravel can be with a little bit of prep time (and a pretty cool scene that is well worth a read, so I’ve left the whole thing mostly intact – enjoy!). Â_Gravel #7 ***
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So, as a result of the above the entire Minor Seven have been wiped out, Gravel owns the “atomic bomb of the occult”… and he has been invited to join the ranks of the Major Seven, the overseers of all magic that flows through Britain.
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Last edited by LGU on Dec 3rd, 2013 at 08:24 PM
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:16 PM
Galan007
|Quantum Observer|
Gender: Male Location: Mars, 1985
You can only edit posts for 15 minutes. After that it requires a mod-edit to change them.
...So you better hurry, is what I'm saying.
__________________
"I am tired of Earth. These people.
I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives."
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:18 PM
LGU
Senior Member
Gender: Unspecified Location: Mega-City One
(please log in to view the image)
Gravel sits down and reads the Sigsand Manuscript (the WMD of mystical texts) in a single night. The ramifications of this will be seen later. _Gravel #8
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He then goes to meet the Major Seven – or six of them, anyway. This is mostly plot stuff and set-up which I’ve left pretty much intact so you can get a feel for context of the fights and stuff that follow if you want (it’s not essential – basically, Gravel is tasked with rebuilding the Minor Seven, creating his own place of power and figuring out who killed the missing member of the Majors, Avalon Lake – “the heart of Britain”). There are some interesting allusions to the Major Seven’s power-levels though; each of them is apparently a “keystone” of British magic, and they apparently mind-wipe the entire country, including making any paper record of Gravel’s existence disappear. _Gravel #8
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Back to the more mundane, Gravel uses illusion and TK to take care of some petty criminals (including making one of them shoot his own cock off – crime doesn’t pay kids). _Gravel #9
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Created a spectral guardian to watch over the Body Orchard (presumably after its sanctity was invaded by the rogue SAS unit). _Gravel #9
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Teleports from London to Somerset using the blood from a severed cat’s leg and a few street-lamps. _Gravel #9
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It’s almost entirely off-panel, but Gravel apparently heals having his entire arm cut off at the shoulder. _Gravel #9-10
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Flashback scene to the 1991 Gulf War. Gravel mercs some Iraqi troops and shows some pretty decent TK to stop a bullet in mid-air and then blow the shooter’s brains out with it, and more impressively, diverts a SCUD missile in mid-air. _Gravel #11
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Gravel goes after Admiral Black (one of the Major Seven) and we get the first hint of the new power the Sigsand Manuscript has given him. _Gravel #11 ***
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__________________
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:25 PM
LGU
Senior Member
Gender: Unspecified Location: Mega-City One
__________________
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:25 PM
LGU
Senior Member
Gender: Unspecified Location: Mega-City One
__________________
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:26 PM
LGU
Senior Member
Gender: Unspecified Location: Mega-City One
Last King of England - part 2
With a little bit of prep time, Gravel is able to use an artefact to reveal the identity of the big bad. Turns out they had met before… _Gravel #19
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So as it turns out, the big bad – “Bible Jack” is on quite a personal crusade against Gravel himself. Unfortunately, Gravel doesn’t figure this out in time to stop Bible Jack blowing up his safehouse and every magical artefact inside… including the Sigsand Manuscript. _Gravel #19-20
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Bible Jack goes to great lengths to weaken Gravel, attacking and either altering or erasing all of his magical properties, places where he has used magic, even distant friends. _Gravel #20
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Bible Jack then goes after each of Gravel’s newly recruited Minor 7, brutally killing them all and inheriting all of their individual powers and abilities. _Gravel #20
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For his coup de grâce , Bible Jack conclusively outsmarts Gravel and uses some major, city-wide mojo that destroys the magic Gravel had used to make London his place of power. _Gravel #20-21
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So, after all of that context, it comes down to one awesome fight scene.
In one corner we have Bible Jack, wielding the combined powers of the Minor 7 (and a substantial amount of his own).
In the other corner, Gravel, stripped of the protection of his place of power and of all the various magical upgrades and artefacts he had added to his repertoire during the series.
What’s left when you strip Gravel of all of these upgrades? “Not much. A simple magician,” according to Bible Jack.
But Bible Jack forgot one thing: Gravel is still a combat magician… _Gravel #21 ***
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__________________
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:26 PM
LGU
Senior Member
Gender: Unspecified Location: Mega-City One
Okay I'm done! Not the longest respect thread in the world but the guy doesn't have many appearances. He does, however, feature in some cool scenes so I hope some people enjoy them!
Any feedback welcomed.
Cheers.
__________________
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:31 PM
LGU
Senior Member
Gender: Unspecified Location: Mega-City One
Oh and that time limit thing sure doesn't make posting this kind of thing too easy! Which mod would I need to speak to in order to fix the whacky formatting in the first post (and maybe some of the random characters which seem to have appeared in the other ones when I've copied and pasted the text over)?
Thanks in advance!
Cheers.
__________________
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:33 PM
Rage.Of.Olympus
Senior Member
Gender: Male Location: Asgard
I love Gravel. Nice work.
For future reference, you can only edit your posts within 15 minutes on KMC. Afterward, you'd need a mod's help. I know, it kind of sucks for respect threads. It's always been my opinion that for this part of the forum, there should be no time limit if possible.
__________________
Dec 3rd, 2013 08:33 PM
Galan007
|Quantum Observer|
Gender: Male Location: Mars, 1985
quote: (post ) Originally posted by LGU
Oh and that time limit thing sure doesn't make posting this kind of thing too easy! Which mod would I need to speak to in order to fix the whacky formatting in the first post (and maybe some of the random characters which seem to have appeared in the other ones when I've copied and pasted the text over)?
Contact either Digi or Badabing .
Both of them are very active users, and are usually willing to help out where they can. The other mods of this forum aren't really active at all, so your PM would likely fall on deaf ears with them.
Great work on the thread so far.
__________________
"I am tired of Earth. These people.
I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives."
Dec 3rd, 2013 09:16 PM
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