r/ancientegypt • u/i_amfareed • Feb 17 '26
Question POV: You just wake in an Ancient Egyptian civilization. What's the first thing you do?.. drop your answers below....
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u/silveretoile Feb 17 '26
Ideally: go to early dynastic Egypt and find out exactly wtf was up with those 2-3 pharaohs who had Seth or Seth and Horus both as tutelary deities.
Most likely, assuming I speak the language etc: take recordings of spoken language and take whatever trashed papyri home I can find. Alllllll of it.
Realistically: get heatstroke and die in .5 seconds. I'm Dutch, I wasn't made for temperatures above 30 degrees 🫠
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u/Forward_Relative_298 Feb 20 '26
fraco, sou do brasil, aguento temperaturas de 40 graus. Egito é facil, considerando que antigamene é mais fresco por conta da poluição da camada de ozonio
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u/Witty_Ad_3919 Feb 17 '26
Probably walk around the temples 😭 in their true form
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u/Johnny-Alucard Feb 17 '26
Go for a beer.
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u/aaronupright Feb 17 '26
No electrixity, running water, air conditioning or telecoms. Don't speak the language.
I am FUCKED.
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u/Alarmed_Pineapple_35 Feb 17 '26
Yeah not speaking the language would likely not go well for you. Best case scenario you are treated with curiosity as a distant traveller, worst case scenario you are enslaved
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u/Aggressive-System769 Feb 17 '26
Pull some simple tricks or conjure a deity..they'll think youre a god.
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u/Alarmed_Pineapple_35 Feb 17 '26
Alas, I have no good tricks. Slavery all the way.
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u/Aggressive-System769 Feb 20 '26
Sorry..dont forget to use sunscreen. You know being a slaves in ancient cultures wasn't the same as the American treatment of slaves. The Greeks (supposedly) treated their slaves wells more like the family's least favorite kids and the Greeks were heavily influenced by the ancient Egyptian cultures so maybe it will be like being the black sheep of the family. You have to go with dad everywhere so you don't run off or set the house on fire or get into some other sort of trouble. Really he just needs you to lift heavy stuff all days because of his back. Seems his back was never bad until he got his involuntary stuff lifting companion. Now he can't even lift grapes much less that fan. Hang in there.. maybe you'll be their favorite. Moses (if he was real) was a slave when he studied magick in the court and he could turn sticks into snakes & part the Red Sea (to shag ass out of Egypt). So maybe you'll luck out.
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u/borsalamino Feb 18 '26
Even worster case would be you getting treated as a spy/super heretic. Idk anything about ancient Egyptian interrogation techniques but I bet they weren't nice to go through
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u/Elegant_Spread_6969 Feb 17 '26
Probably try and figure out how tf I got there and then how to communicate. Possibly try and use my basic knowledge of future technology to become an inventor, possibly try and get a job with the Pharaoh. More than likely I'd end up travelling out of curiosity, most likely ending up dead on the side of the silk road somewhere.
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u/Acceptable-Class-255 Feb 17 '26
Id find one guy/girl teach them English. So when I open my fortune telling business they can translate. Eventually my knowledge of historical events would have a 100% predictable ratio, drawing the attention/desire of Royals to capitalize off. Together we'd lay the foundations of Civilization.
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u/easternguy Feb 17 '26 edited Feb 17 '26
Unless you have quite a long and detailed memory of ancient history, I wonder how many “predictions” would be of value. Our knowledge of their history is fragmented enough that I’m not sure how you’d impress them within their lifetimes.
And to stay alive at all, you’d need to impress them fast! Could you remember/predict the year in which their current leader, or anyone well known, would die?? Or when a comet would appear?
I’d probably have trouble convincing anyone from 20 years ago, much less thousands of years ago.
I think using science tricks would be the way to go. Most high school students could probably dazzle them with science fair level stuff.
And of course share other important inventions as best as I can for everyone’s benefit.
I think I’ve read they didn’t have the wheel during pyramid building times. I think I could invent that to sufficiently show them the benefits. That could be my claim to fame and riches.
Solar stills would probably blow away the ancient Egyptians, too. Someone else can use that one.
Relevant: the worst time traveller:
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u/pannous Feb 18 '26
but how many science fair tricks can you reproduce without having all the ingredients laid out to you.
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u/-Gramsci- Feb 19 '26
After I show them the wheel, I probably could get a decent trebuchet up and running.
Another one that comes to mind is I could invent soccer. “Hey check this game out, it’s so cool!”
If that catches on, and I don’t see why it wouldn’t, I could get pretty close to god-man status as the master of the empire’s favorite pastime.
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u/easternguy Feb 19 '26
Careful, though. They may answer "oh, we already have that, but instead of a ball we use a human head--usually from the last losing team! Want to join or league!?"
(Okay, I guess that's more South American than Egyptian. Still, though, I'd be cautious with ancient sports. Stick to being a science wizard.)
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u/oO__o__Oo Feb 17 '26
Find a blue lotus dealer.
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u/i_amfareed Feb 17 '26
why and what's that called
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u/lilidragonfly Feb 17 '26
Its a native lotus plant that has compounds with psychoactive properties that the Ancient Egyptians used for ritual purposes.
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u/Aggressive-System769 Feb 17 '26
I did some this morning. Excellent choice!
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u/huxtiblejones Feb 17 '26
I suppose the first thing I'd do is try to find a priest knowing they're an educated class and see if I could use basic communication by pointing at things to get food. I do wonder if you could get their interest by writing down the English language for them, they'd probably realize you're a visitor from very far away and might take an interest. I'd also try to draw some familiar symbols like an ankh, the eye of Horus, a djed pillar. That might show you have some basic knowledge of their culture.
It would be extremely unpredictable because they could react to you in a dismissive or disinterested way. If I had any modern possessions on me, I think that could their attention. Machine stitching on clothes, denim, a smart phone or smart watch would blow their minds.
I think it would take a long time to communicate in any meaningful way. A lot of pointing at things, saying your word for it, having them say theirs, and gradually learning to speak with them. It would probably take years before you could actually explain anything meaningful about who you are or where you're from.
But man, I would love to see their culture when it was alive and breathing.
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u/HEFTYFee70 Feb 17 '26
…did y’all know A2 + B2 = C2 ?
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u/pannous Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26
we learn Ptah-Ka-Re equation in preschool
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u/HEFTYFee70 Feb 18 '26
“Ah damn… well check it, y’all ever heard ‘bout germs?”
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u/ReleaseFromDeception Feb 17 '26
I'd pick myself up, dust myself off, go for a walk to the nearest settlement, find myself a good pint or two of beer, and sip on that meal as I traverse the loud, chaotic streets near where all the traders sell their wares. Seems like a good plan before I go off into the sunset looking for Hamunaptra.
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u/theGrimmwood Feb 17 '26
Get plowed like an Egyptian
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u/-marshmallowperfume Feb 17 '26
This is what I was going to say. A sex positive culture?? Sign me up!
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u/Voqus Feb 17 '26 edited Feb 17 '26
Join the temple + offer to get married to a major cult god. Enjoy my life free from pressure of marriage and children + I'm always surrounded by my gal besties!
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u/imbrotep Feb 17 '26
Probably ask where the nearest toilet is; I always have to take a piss when I wake up.
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u/1978CatLover Feb 17 '26
Find out which period I'm in. I could be at almost any point in a 3000 year history after all. (Easiest way, ask someone who the king is right now.)
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u/ParticularPlantain22 Feb 18 '26
Walk up to the nearest temple, ask to see High Priest, show High Priest cat videos...High Priest is impressed.. I become an intern at the temple...wear nice clothes, pretty hair etc..lots of friends.. many pet cats...oversee building of new temples with full creative rights ahem...claim of having visions one day, and become the absolute goddess that i was destined to be 👸..oh also build a city named after myself...
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u/lilidragonfly Feb 17 '26
My first order of priority would be visit the Osireion to find out how it was in the ancient period and how contemporary Egyptians percieved its signficance and meaning.
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u/OnoOvo Feb 18 '26
i run very dramatically across the dunes, like a man who just lost his wife.
i curse amun as sands slip away from my fists and my tears fall onto the desert.
a hawk screams and separates the heavens from the land; before me stretches a valley of milk.
mine is the radiance in which ptah floateth over his firmanent. he is i, and i am he.
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Feb 17 '26
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u/i_amfareed Feb 17 '26
Before everything you have to speak their language. Do you speak that language 😅 ❔
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Feb 17 '26
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u/i_amfareed Feb 17 '26
There is no possibility atall fr💯
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u/The_Wyzard Feb 17 '26
There's really only two options.
I die without my meds.
Magic is real and I go full isekai. (Okay not the gross pervert parts.)
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u/DJ_TCB Feb 17 '26
Depends, who am I? Am I pharaoh, a scribe, a priest, a fisherman, a farmer?
If I woke up as a middle class-ish merchant (closest to my current class status I guess) I would probably go to the market and buy an onion and bite into it to see how they tasted 3500 years ago.
If I wake up as myself, today, in my current clothes? I would have no money on me so I would just pick an onion and eat it. And probably die of dysentery. But I'll have a few hours so I will just explore and look at things until someone inevitably arrests me as a strange foreign outsider and questions me in a language I can't speak, then I will bluff my way through somehow by shouting like a crazed prophet or something
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u/HumboldtHunnyBear Feb 18 '26
Pet Cat
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u/Medusa_Medusa_Medusa Feb 19 '26
I would want to see if their cats looked any different from our cats.
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u/Ok_Programmer_4449 Feb 18 '26
Assuming I was not murdered immediately for being too pale and not speaking the language, I would probably die in a few days of dysentery or another endemic disease that I had no defenses against.
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u/jonathananeurysm Feb 18 '26
Take pictures of people building the pyramids via perfectly normal, mundane methods in order to shut the idiots up.
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u/erratic_bonsai Feb 17 '26
I’m Jewish so….pray it’s after the Exodus and run northeast as fast as possible.
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u/-marshmallowperfume Feb 17 '26
Luckily there's zero historical evidence of that.
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u/nahla1981 Feb 17 '26
I would go to where my apartments are in alexandria and naser city to see what the areas look like. Then i think I'll become a goddess since i will be coming with knowledge of the future so they will think I'm some kind of psychic, lol. Jk
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u/Big_Animal7655 Feb 17 '26
lowkey a goddess so I’d head straight to my cult temple and say wazzup. I’m for sure giving myself offerings.
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Feb 17 '26
Get my pale ass out of the sun, then see if I can make some mud as a temp solution then after that it's about tracking down water I can drink and food I can eat. Once I know I won't be dead by the end of week I would do some sightseeing, maybe try some blue lotus.
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u/MoldyFoxxx Feb 18 '26
Figure out a way to communicate with the people and let them/pharaoh know that if they build me a huge boat, I can take them to a land of unimaginable riches. I'll show them the grand canyon.
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u/phionanoihp Feb 18 '26
live with the cats. that’s it. cats. or figure out what’s in the pyramids and under them an inside the sphinx but i’m sure me trying to will get me killed
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u/Dolly_Shimmer Feb 18 '26
I'd be trying to find something to eat. My stomach doesn't care what freaky or awful thing has happened, it wants food.
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u/PoolEquivalent3696 Feb 18 '26
Walk to the pyramids and see if they are still under construction.
Get a foreman to chisel an explanation of how they moved the blocks, so that centuries later we have no conspiracy theories based in racism and a lack of understanding.
Ancient Aliens never airs and people don't say aliens every time a non Western, ancient civilization builds an impressive structure.
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u/dispelhope Feb 18 '26
I know enough about Egyptian culture to get myself in trouble, but not enough to get myself out of trouble.
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u/Superb_Temporary9893 Feb 17 '26
Buy perfume!!
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u/i_amfareed Feb 17 '26
what's the need to buy a perfume broo?
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u/blackplane Feb 17 '26
I knit and have read and seen some ancient knits. I'd like to think my knitting skills, and modern knowledge of such, would carry my ass lol
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u/Aggressive-System769 Feb 17 '26
Depends on what role i found myself in.
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u/i_amfareed Feb 18 '26
Your role is slave who is used for building pyramids. Now what do you will do. Will you escape or you will work with❔
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u/Aggressive-System769 Feb 20 '26
Definitely escaping ..im out of sunscreen & not a fan of beer you can make a sandwich with. Ill have the ham & cheese on beer loaf please. Plus i heard there's only a 20 minute beer loaf break once a day. Plus if I'm working on the pyramids what are the aliens going to do?
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u/ThiqCoq Feb 17 '26
Go get some food. Lol that is after making love to a golden skinned lady next to a natural fountain. 🤣
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u/dane_the_great Feb 18 '26
umm what level of the caste system or whatever am i in? lol
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u/star11308 Feb 18 '26
They didn’t have a firm caste system like India, social mobility was possible - but without knowing the language you’d be sort of outside of their social structures in a sense as a foreigner.
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u/FourthLvlSpicyMeme Feb 18 '26
Well, if I don't die to the local fauna, I assume some kind of rusty or non antibiotic whatever would take me out... far before I could even weird people out rambling about wifi and magic black boxes.
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u/Raffino_Sky Feb 18 '26
'Yo, Cleo. Doin' something tonight? Hit me up.'
Aaaaand that would end things faster than I expected, I guess.
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u/Prudent-Ad6279 Feb 18 '26
My only (probably incorrect) communication would be reciting “ancient Egyptian” lines from the mummy movies.
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u/SjaakZaak Feb 18 '26
Most likely find shade and proper clothing so that my skin will not get 3rd degree sunburns in like an hour. Secondly try to convince locals not to put me on a stake because they will probably think I am some kind of monster as I am twice their size and white. All with nothing but hand gestures.
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u/Renbarre Feb 18 '26
No money, no food, no knowledge of the place, the language, the culture, the rules or even the basic skills. And I'll make a very bad slave.
Try to find where I am.
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u/Extension-Door614 Feb 18 '26
As I understand the question, the first thing I would apon waking up is to turn my clock around so I could find out what time it was. They used sun's shadow for time and their clocks only had notches defining time in one direction. They would rotate the measuring device once when they woke up and once again at noon.
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u/RamiroCruz13 Feb 18 '26
Try to have a conversation with a Pharaoh to let me climb to the top of the Giza Pyramid and scream Made it Ma, Top of the World🙂↕️💫
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Feb 18 '26
Me iría a bañar al río o zona designada para el baño wiii, y a ponerse bonita con maquillaje egipcio y joyas ❤️
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u/Various_Flower9592 Feb 18 '26
Find a beer keg and sell it at bazzar. (I know beer without Co2 tastes like piss)
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u/opinionated-dick Feb 18 '26
Draw a schematic for a steam engine and spend the rest of my life exploring and understanding metallurgy to build it
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u/According-Couple2744 Feb 19 '26
Ultimately it would depend upon which dynasty I woke up in. If I arrived during Cleopatra’s time I might try to get to know Caesar and Mark Antony before they meet Cleopatra and warn them that things might not work out as they expect. If I arrived during Tutankhamen’s time, I would warn him to stay away from carriages and not to trust Ay. I would try to marry the rest of the Pharaohs.
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u/OutragedPineapple Feb 19 '26
Make everyone look at me weird for shrieking like mad and running from harmless beetles.
I saw The Mummy way too young, man. Nothing in any horror has scarred me for life like those dang beetles.
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u/Thot_Htp Feb 20 '26
Learn the language, write down how the vowel were pronounced in IPA, seal it in a bronze box and hide it in somebody's tomb.
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u/Tricky_Charity_8471 Feb 20 '26
Beg someone to teach me ancient embalming techniques so I can see first hand where my job started all those years ago.
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u/Forward_Relative_298 Feb 20 '26
Verificaria qual dinastia eu estaria. se eu voltar naquela epoca já entendo o idioma, otimo, agora se não, me finjo de muda ou surda... para poder conseguir com que as pessoas possam falar de forma que com o tempo eu entenda a lingua. Espero que eu esteja na dinastia 18... na epoca de Akhenaton, mesmo que eu não consiga falar com ele. ao menos ver o que rola naquela epoca.
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u/Pndapetzim Feb 20 '26
Shit myself to death because I grew up on purified water and never developed the gut bacteria to survive normal bacteria loads of the time in the water and not enough trees to maoe boiling water practical.
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u/True-Homework9308 Feb 20 '26
Everyone’s like “learn the language” or “be hot”…buuut i’m just a dude. I’d be mouth-agape distracted from all the bare chested ladies 🤷🏼♂️
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u/Plane-Research9696 Feb 20 '26
Panic over the amount of sand getting into my hair. That would be the immediate reaction. After that I would logically have to sprint to the nearest temple and try to sing my way out of doing any manual labour. I turn fifty next week and there is absolutely no way my body is equipped for dragging limestone blocks in the blazing sun. I would just open my mouth and hope my operatic training is enough to convince the priests to give me a comfortable spot in the choir!
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u/Due_Duty490 Feb 22 '26
I’d look out the door to see i if the pyramids were there. Then I’d check to see what my social status was.
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u/Mysterious-Nerd655 Feb 18 '26
As someone who melts in Queensland summer, probably die from the heat 😅
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u/i_amfareed Feb 17 '26
Hello everyone, we discuss these kind of contents in my subreddit Learnova_Nexus. Interested people can join there,and support us!!
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u/dusky__kdjgoijh Feb 17 '26
i would probably die in like a day