Crossover Chick (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
crossover_chick) wrote2025-05-13 11:53 pm
crossover_chick) wrote2025-05-13 11:53 pm
Still Pretty Reasonable Tuesday
Like, it wasn't as good as yesterday, but it wasn't absolutely horrible either, so *shrug* I'll take it. And I did, as you will see below:
Work – A “meh” day at work today – while the work itself wasn’t so bad, with me spending most of the day with a QC file for the latest thank-yous to go out, then putting on some Easter gifts, my coworkers were VERY yappy behind me today, and it kind of made me want to scream at times. Ugh – I will NOT be sad to see the chatty one go, that is for DAMN sure! We’ll see if it’s any better tomorrow...
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, and back with “Baldur's Gate 3 But it's Only Bad Choices” by OXtra for another night! And I’m very pleased to tell you that Shove Fighter Luke and Newbie Warlock Ellen continued to make all the worst decisions now that they were out of the tutorial area, including –
A) Discovering that the game WOULD let Ellen attempt to play the lyre she picked up – but since she lacks Musical Instrument Proficiency, she absolutely SUCKED at it. They had a lot of fun watching her mangle songs – she even broke it out once during the battle with the intellect devourers in the ship to provide Luke some terrible, terrible background music! Fantastic – I had no idea the game would let anyone who wasn’t proficient in music try to play in the first place! :D
B) Encountering Shadowheart trying to get into the chapel, with Luke being as rude to her as possible (as he’s the one who accidentally initiated the dialogue – Ellen was busy gathering fish off the nearby corpses). Very interesting to see how she reacts to your character’s presence if you left her stuck in her pod – she is understandably bitter, but still informs you that you will become a mind flayer and that you’d better find a healer, and makes a few “maybe we should team up” overtures. Luke of course rejected them, and she left after telling him to kill a few of the monsters around before he died, make things easier for her. XD Shadowheart, you’re lucky they didn’t try to immediately kill you right afterward – as a couple of other companions are going to be able to attest to...
C) Refusing to loot anything useful OTHER than fish (complaining all the while about how much they really DID want thieves’ tools and the like)
D) Encountering Astarion while exploring the area around the ship, with Ellen being as rude to HIM as possible. Which involved refusing to even pretend to look for the “intellect devourer” he said he’d cornered (which actually led to him just coming up behind Ellen, putting his knife to her neck, and wrestling her to the ground anyway); trying to lie to him about being on the ship; attempting to twist the knife out of his hand after the moment of tadpole connection instead of explaining to him what was going on (specifically chosen as it was the roll Ellen was most likely to fail with her poor Strength); refusing to tell him any of her backstory, instead just nodding; and refusing to tell him anything about the tadpole and what it would do before leaving him to his own devices. And then Luke tried unsuccessfully to pickpocket him. And then the chat got Ellen to use Tasha’s Hideous Laughter on him, which started a fight between him and the pair (well, just Ellen at first, but Luke ended up joining in after another unsuccessful pickpocket). And then the pair straight-up murdered him, and Luke stole his clothes while Ellen stole his boots, leaving the corpse in his undies. XD Given that Astarion is the fandom’s darling, they were in full agreement about this being the worst choice they could have made. XD (Even better, the whole encounter came with a free story about poor Ellen embarrassing herself by talking about the time she met Astarion’s voice actor, Neil Newbon, was impressed by his dagger earrings, and tried to show off her own...forgetting that she hadn’t put them in that day. XD)
E) Luke specifically running around in bare feet after looting Astarion’s outfit – this started because he didn’t notice he’d unequipped his boots, but once he did notice, he was like “bad choices!” and ran with it – quite literally. XD
F) Encountering the dying mind flayer in the ship wreckage, with Ellen choosing to succumb to its mind control and allow her brain to be eaten, and Luke choosing to fight the revived mind flayer afterward just to see what would happen to Ellen afterwards. Unfortunately, the fight went very poorly for Luke, and ended with him making the extremely bad decision to throw his sword at the mind flayer after it moved out of range for a proper attack. Forgetting that he only had the ONE sword because this isn’t his main save file and he doesn’t have five million spare. XD Yeah, after that, the mind flayer completely smoked him. XD Second total party wipe, yay! Of course, they couldn’t continue to make bad decisions once dead, so they reloaded their save and Ellen ended up murdering the mind flayer with an Eldritch Blast in the new timeline. *shrug* Occasionally they have to do something right just for progress purposes!
G) Encountering the unstable sigil and Gale’s hand within – Ellen chose to slap the hand, which I think we can all agree was accidentally the RIGHT choice, but then turned around and walked away, causing to be stuck in the rock forever. Another companion forever dead, yay~
H) Going up to the big balcony ledge overlooking the ravaged beach atop the chapel ruins...and then taking turns to jump off onto the sands below. Ellen went first, and after she and Luke were done being surprised she survived, Luke attempted to see if he could land directly on top of her. XD He could not, but he gave it his best go anyway! And then he downed himself by running through one of the fiery bits of the ship wreckage in his bare feet anyway. XD This is why you wear your boots when camping, kids!
And that’s about where I left it! This is an absolutely delightful livestream of horrors, I am pleased to say. XD And it is VERY interesting to see the consequences of some of these decisions that I personally would never make. Somebody’s got to make the bad choices so the rest of us don’t have to! I’m looking forward to seeing what might happen next time – trying to get into the chapel? Stumbling upon the refugee camp? Opening the door on that bugbear and ogress having sex? The possibilities are endless… :P
2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – Alice made it into the library today, neutralizing its resident ghoul with a dictionary to the head before putting him on a nearby couch and pondering the puzzle of the electric candles he was playing with. Mostly because Cheshire let her know that she needed to, granted, but… :P Anyway, she’s guessed that the aim of said puzzle is to get all three candles lit up and that they’re linked somehow, and discovered the symbols on the base of each lever sconce, but hasn’t quite figured out how to get the results she wants. Fortunately, when I left off, she’d just spotted an accent table with a very handy note upon it – tomorrow, she can read that, and then do the (admittedly absurdly simple) puzzle, yay. XD
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Usual Tuesday Substitution Check – nothing in the Subs meant that today we instead had “CaFae Latte Season 47 - TikTok Compilation” by C. M. Alongi! Because I try to watch at least one episode a week, and this is the best day for it. :) Anyway, today’s compilation featured:
A) The break-up that Husniya predicted at the end of the Season 46 compilation between the controlling “you have to be skinny” asshole and his girlfriend – turns out she brought him to CaFae Latte specifically because the staff have a tendency to get involved in messy situations like this. And they did indeed get involved, with Rethu showing up to stop him grabbing the poor woman, and Erik on “getting his full name” duty once he started making noises about how the girlfriend couldn’t live in the cafe. Ended with the abuser fleeing and Husniya giving the ex-girlfriend the address of the Stoughton Street Coven if she wanted some protective charms
B) Husniya having to bring her four-year-old Kwala to work after her babysitter canceled on her last-minute (her younger twins were still in daycare, fortunately), and having to deal with an asshole customer accusing her of not being a “real” wife and mother as a result – fortunately Yarn Granny was on hand to verbally slap the shit out of him for being judgey, and Kwala happily colored in the corner and never noticed anything wrong at all
C) JC finishing their last class with their asshole chocolate teacher Vincent for the school year! On the plus side, Vincent apologized for how they handled the whole “apprenticeship” mess (admitting he hadn’t realized the scholarship was the only way JC could afford to be there); on the minus side, he immediately was like “why are you working at this tiny little cafe in the middle of nowhere, there are so many other places that could use your skills – like my shop.” Fortunately, JC was like “I do not have any ambitions to own my own bakery and I love working at CaFae Latte so see you next school year.” Hehehe >D
D) JC and Nicole foraging for some special magical wild flowers in the woods – only to be surprised by a sphinx (who’d just moved to the area) demanding that they answer a riddle to access the flowers or else face physical combat! ...JC found a laser pointer and distracted the hell out of the sphinx with it while Nicole got the flowers. XD Though Nicole DID also figure out the answer to the riddle (what kind of room has no doors or windows – a mushroom), so it was all good in the end :P
E) Ben the autistic kid and his mom showing up at the cafe again (Ben having just graduated sixth grade), and his Mom (who is now at least a somewhat better person) sharing a school horror story with Husniya about a diabetic student calling the fire department to open up the nurse’s office after the nurse went home early for the day and she needed her insulin (which had to be kept in the nurse’s office because the school was nervous about the kid carrying around the needles). Turned out Vet Grandpa was on that call and had been only too happy to chop that door open before the superintendent magically produced the keys. Fortunately now anyone with some basic medical training can open the door and give the kid her insulin, and the kid was NOT suspended for calling emergency services for an emergency, so, progress.
F) Drek asking Bob for time off for his graduation and complaining about having to go, only for JC to remind him that not everybody made it through high school in one piece and that he’s already in a better place than THEY were at his age, so…
G) Cyrus and Rethu decorating the cafe with all the flags for Pride Month, and giving baby gay Drek the talk on how asexuality and demisexuality does not necessarily bar you from occasionally wanting sex (it all depends on what kind of ace or demi person you are), and how sex and love are NOT the same thing at all (emotional intimacy is distinct from physical intimacy!). Drek didn’t quite get all of it, but acknowledge he didn’t have to and went to do the dishes while the tall people hung up the flags XD
H) Rethu sharing cute photos of her nibling (who just started breathing fire) with the folks at the cafe...then coming in the next day and being confronted with a picture of a scorpion and being asked to vote on a potential name. Turns out Drek’s parents got him a pet scorpion because he graduated with a high GPA, and Erik, JC, and Cyrus were arguing about naming it “Scorpius,” “Mr. Pinchy,” or “Orion” respectively. Poor Rethu was like “or we could just burn the house down.” XD
I) And finally, a mother coming in with her newly-transgender son and getting annoyed with herself for deadnaming him...and then realizing “hey, I’m in the cafe with the fairy who curses people” and asking Bob to DELIBERATELY curse her so she couldn’t deadname or misgender the kid for about a month so she got into the habit of using the correct name and pronouns. Bob gave her two months (60 days) for $50. :) I’d read about this particular incident in the cafe’s history on TV Tropes and was very happy to see it in person.
Good stuff as always! :) I really do enjoy this series...though I think the next episodes are gonna be really rough, because I’m pretty sure that’s when the shit hits the fan with one of the characters...
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check and Check –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Decided to go VTMB-heavy this week thanks to Squid’s birthday fic (which is a piece of VTMB fanfic based on our private RPs) being posted on Friday – accordingly, I queued up:
A) A post from “renaultmograine” about what a wild character Beckett is (not just a snarky archaeologist who cunts around VTMB, but also one of Dracula’s brides – yes, this is canon) for Wednesday
B) That fanart of the male Gangrel Fledgling by “gllerr” I dropped into the drafts recently for Thursday
C) And of course Squid’s birthday fic for Friday – though admittedly that post isn’t QUITE done, as I still have to finish off the tags and do a last quick typo search. But it’s in there and pretty much ready to roll!
*nods* So now I just have to finish off the Friday post and think up an appropriate Song Saturday – should be able to get that done tomorrow! (If I haven’t just jinxed myself, of course.)
Valice Multiverse – One anon ask for the queue tonight over here, asking: “If cold blooded animals need heat to stay awake, does that mean they’re solar powered?” I had High School!Smiler go “well, considering a lot of them bask in the sun to warm up for the day, I think it’s safe to say they are! Maybe don’t use that in an official paper, but otherwise, go nuts.” :P I mean, it makes sense to ME.
Other: Another nice day, another afternoon playing beanbags after I got home – though sadly I ended up having a piss-poor day today and lost every game. :( Granted, in the third game I got a little distracted by a bee buzzing around the nearby flowers, but that doesn’t explain why I was throwing so poorly in games one and two! Meeeh… Anyway, final scores were me 3-3-3; Dad W-W-W; and Mom 2-2-2. Very consistent, at least. We’ll see if I can do better tomorrow – provided the rain doesn’t roll in early, of course!
I think you can see what I mean about the day not being great, but not horrible. Any day with CaFae Latte can't be horrible. :p And now I need to hit the sack, because we're not even past the middle of the work week yet. *sigh* Night all!
Work – A “meh” day at work today – while the work itself wasn’t so bad, with me spending most of the day with a QC file for the latest thank-yous to go out, then putting on some Easter gifts, my coworkers were VERY yappy behind me today, and it kind of made me want to scream at times. Ugh – I will NOT be sad to see the chatty one go, that is for DAMN sure! We’ll see if it’s any better tomorrow...
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, and back with “Baldur's Gate 3 But it's Only Bad Choices” by OXtra for another night! And I’m very pleased to tell you that Shove Fighter Luke and Newbie Warlock Ellen continued to make all the worst decisions now that they were out of the tutorial area, including –
A) Discovering that the game WOULD let Ellen attempt to play the lyre she picked up – but since she lacks Musical Instrument Proficiency, she absolutely SUCKED at it. They had a lot of fun watching her mangle songs – she even broke it out once during the battle with the intellect devourers in the ship to provide Luke some terrible, terrible background music! Fantastic – I had no idea the game would let anyone who wasn’t proficient in music try to play in the first place! :D
B) Encountering Shadowheart trying to get into the chapel, with Luke being as rude to her as possible (as he’s the one who accidentally initiated the dialogue – Ellen was busy gathering fish off the nearby corpses). Very interesting to see how she reacts to your character’s presence if you left her stuck in her pod – she is understandably bitter, but still informs you that you will become a mind flayer and that you’d better find a healer, and makes a few “maybe we should team up” overtures. Luke of course rejected them, and she left after telling him to kill a few of the monsters around before he died, make things easier for her. XD Shadowheart, you’re lucky they didn’t try to immediately kill you right afterward – as a couple of other companions are going to be able to attest to...
C) Refusing to loot anything useful OTHER than fish (complaining all the while about how much they really DID want thieves’ tools and the like)
D) Encountering Astarion while exploring the area around the ship, with Ellen being as rude to HIM as possible. Which involved refusing to even pretend to look for the “intellect devourer” he said he’d cornered (which actually led to him just coming up behind Ellen, putting his knife to her neck, and wrestling her to the ground anyway); trying to lie to him about being on the ship; attempting to twist the knife out of his hand after the moment of tadpole connection instead of explaining to him what was going on (specifically chosen as it was the roll Ellen was most likely to fail with her poor Strength); refusing to tell him any of her backstory, instead just nodding; and refusing to tell him anything about the tadpole and what it would do before leaving him to his own devices. And then Luke tried unsuccessfully to pickpocket him. And then the chat got Ellen to use Tasha’s Hideous Laughter on him, which started a fight between him and the pair (well, just Ellen at first, but Luke ended up joining in after another unsuccessful pickpocket). And then the pair straight-up murdered him, and Luke stole his clothes while Ellen stole his boots, leaving the corpse in his undies. XD Given that Astarion is the fandom’s darling, they were in full agreement about this being the worst choice they could have made. XD (Even better, the whole encounter came with a free story about poor Ellen embarrassing herself by talking about the time she met Astarion’s voice actor, Neil Newbon, was impressed by his dagger earrings, and tried to show off her own...forgetting that she hadn’t put them in that day. XD)
E) Luke specifically running around in bare feet after looting Astarion’s outfit – this started because he didn’t notice he’d unequipped his boots, but once he did notice, he was like “bad choices!” and ran with it – quite literally. XD
F) Encountering the dying mind flayer in the ship wreckage, with Ellen choosing to succumb to its mind control and allow her brain to be eaten, and Luke choosing to fight the revived mind flayer afterward just to see what would happen to Ellen afterwards. Unfortunately, the fight went very poorly for Luke, and ended with him making the extremely bad decision to throw his sword at the mind flayer after it moved out of range for a proper attack. Forgetting that he only had the ONE sword because this isn’t his main save file and he doesn’t have five million spare. XD Yeah, after that, the mind flayer completely smoked him. XD Second total party wipe, yay! Of course, they couldn’t continue to make bad decisions once dead, so they reloaded their save and Ellen ended up murdering the mind flayer with an Eldritch Blast in the new timeline. *shrug* Occasionally they have to do something right just for progress purposes!
G) Encountering the unstable sigil and Gale’s hand within – Ellen chose to slap the hand, which I think we can all agree was accidentally the RIGHT choice, but then turned around and walked away, causing to be stuck in the rock forever. Another companion forever dead, yay~
H) Going up to the big balcony ledge overlooking the ravaged beach atop the chapel ruins...and then taking turns to jump off onto the sands below. Ellen went first, and after she and Luke were done being surprised she survived, Luke attempted to see if he could land directly on top of her. XD He could not, but he gave it his best go anyway! And then he downed himself by running through one of the fiery bits of the ship wreckage in his bare feet anyway. XD This is why you wear your boots when camping, kids!
And that’s about where I left it! This is an absolutely delightful livestream of horrors, I am pleased to say. XD And it is VERY interesting to see the consequences of some of these decisions that I personally would never make. Somebody’s got to make the bad choices so the rest of us don’t have to! I’m looking forward to seeing what might happen next time – trying to get into the chapel? Stumbling upon the refugee camp? Opening the door on that bugbear and ogress having sex? The possibilities are endless… :P
2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – Alice made it into the library today, neutralizing its resident ghoul with a dictionary to the head before putting him on a nearby couch and pondering the puzzle of the electric candles he was playing with. Mostly because Cheshire let her know that she needed to, granted, but… :P Anyway, she’s guessed that the aim of said puzzle is to get all three candles lit up and that they’re linked somehow, and discovered the symbols on the base of each lever sconce, but hasn’t quite figured out how to get the results she wants. Fortunately, when I left off, she’d just spotted an accent table with a very handy note upon it – tomorrow, she can read that, and then do the (admittedly absurdly simple) puzzle, yay. XD
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Usual Tuesday Substitution Check – nothing in the Subs meant that today we instead had “CaFae Latte Season 47 - TikTok Compilation” by C. M. Alongi! Because I try to watch at least one episode a week, and this is the best day for it. :) Anyway, today’s compilation featured:
A) The break-up that Husniya predicted at the end of the Season 46 compilation between the controlling “you have to be skinny” asshole and his girlfriend – turns out she brought him to CaFae Latte specifically because the staff have a tendency to get involved in messy situations like this. And they did indeed get involved, with Rethu showing up to stop him grabbing the poor woman, and Erik on “getting his full name” duty once he started making noises about how the girlfriend couldn’t live in the cafe. Ended with the abuser fleeing and Husniya giving the ex-girlfriend the address of the Stoughton Street Coven if she wanted some protective charms
B) Husniya having to bring her four-year-old Kwala to work after her babysitter canceled on her last-minute (her younger twins were still in daycare, fortunately), and having to deal with an asshole customer accusing her of not being a “real” wife and mother as a result – fortunately Yarn Granny was on hand to verbally slap the shit out of him for being judgey, and Kwala happily colored in the corner and never noticed anything wrong at all
C) JC finishing their last class with their asshole chocolate teacher Vincent for the school year! On the plus side, Vincent apologized for how they handled the whole “apprenticeship” mess (admitting he hadn’t realized the scholarship was the only way JC could afford to be there); on the minus side, he immediately was like “why are you working at this tiny little cafe in the middle of nowhere, there are so many other places that could use your skills – like my shop.” Fortunately, JC was like “I do not have any ambitions to own my own bakery and I love working at CaFae Latte so see you next school year.” Hehehe >D
D) JC and Nicole foraging for some special magical wild flowers in the woods – only to be surprised by a sphinx (who’d just moved to the area) demanding that they answer a riddle to access the flowers or else face physical combat! ...JC found a laser pointer and distracted the hell out of the sphinx with it while Nicole got the flowers. XD Though Nicole DID also figure out the answer to the riddle (what kind of room has no doors or windows – a mushroom), so it was all good in the end :P
E) Ben the autistic kid and his mom showing up at the cafe again (Ben having just graduated sixth grade), and his Mom (who is now at least a somewhat better person) sharing a school horror story with Husniya about a diabetic student calling the fire department to open up the nurse’s office after the nurse went home early for the day and she needed her insulin (which had to be kept in the nurse’s office because the school was nervous about the kid carrying around the needles). Turned out Vet Grandpa was on that call and had been only too happy to chop that door open before the superintendent magically produced the keys. Fortunately now anyone with some basic medical training can open the door and give the kid her insulin, and the kid was NOT suspended for calling emergency services for an emergency, so, progress.
F) Drek asking Bob for time off for his graduation and complaining about having to go, only for JC to remind him that not everybody made it through high school in one piece and that he’s already in a better place than THEY were at his age, so…
G) Cyrus and Rethu decorating the cafe with all the flags for Pride Month, and giving baby gay Drek the talk on how asexuality and demisexuality does not necessarily bar you from occasionally wanting sex (it all depends on what kind of ace or demi person you are), and how sex and love are NOT the same thing at all (emotional intimacy is distinct from physical intimacy!). Drek didn’t quite get all of it, but acknowledge he didn’t have to and went to do the dishes while the tall people hung up the flags XD
H) Rethu sharing cute photos of her nibling (who just started breathing fire) with the folks at the cafe...then coming in the next day and being confronted with a picture of a scorpion and being asked to vote on a potential name. Turns out Drek’s parents got him a pet scorpion because he graduated with a high GPA, and Erik, JC, and Cyrus were arguing about naming it “Scorpius,” “Mr. Pinchy,” or “Orion” respectively. Poor Rethu was like “or we could just burn the house down.” XD
I) And finally, a mother coming in with her newly-transgender son and getting annoyed with herself for deadnaming him...and then realizing “hey, I’m in the cafe with the fairy who curses people” and asking Bob to DELIBERATELY curse her so she couldn’t deadname or misgender the kid for about a month so she got into the habit of using the correct name and pronouns. Bob gave her two months (60 days) for $50. :) I’d read about this particular incident in the cafe’s history on TV Tropes and was very happy to see it in person.
Good stuff as always! :) I really do enjoy this series...though I think the next episodes are gonna be really rough, because I’m pretty sure that’s when the shit hits the fan with one of the characters...
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check and Check –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Decided to go VTMB-heavy this week thanks to Squid’s birthday fic (which is a piece of VTMB fanfic based on our private RPs) being posted on Friday – accordingly, I queued up:
A) A post from “renaultmograine” about what a wild character Beckett is (not just a snarky archaeologist who cunts around VTMB, but also one of Dracula’s brides – yes, this is canon) for Wednesday
B) That fanart of the male Gangrel Fledgling by “gllerr” I dropped into the drafts recently for Thursday
C) And of course Squid’s birthday fic for Friday – though admittedly that post isn’t QUITE done, as I still have to finish off the tags and do a last quick typo search. But it’s in there and pretty much ready to roll!
*nods* So now I just have to finish off the Friday post and think up an appropriate Song Saturday – should be able to get that done tomorrow! (If I haven’t just jinxed myself, of course.)
Valice Multiverse – One anon ask for the queue tonight over here, asking: “If cold blooded animals need heat to stay awake, does that mean they’re solar powered?” I had High School!Smiler go “well, considering a lot of them bask in the sun to warm up for the day, I think it’s safe to say they are! Maybe don’t use that in an official paper, but otherwise, go nuts.” :P I mean, it makes sense to ME.
Other: Another nice day, another afternoon playing beanbags after I got home – though sadly I ended up having a piss-poor day today and lost every game. :( Granted, in the third game I got a little distracted by a bee buzzing around the nearby flowers, but that doesn’t explain why I was throwing so poorly in games one and two! Meeeh… Anyway, final scores were me 3-3-3; Dad W-W-W; and Mom 2-2-2. Very consistent, at least. We’ll see if I can do better tomorrow – provided the rain doesn’t roll in early, of course!
I think you can see what I mean about the day not being great, but not horrible. Any day with CaFae Latte can't be horrible. :p And now I need to hit the sack, because we're not even past the middle of the work week yet. *sigh* Night all!
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And Cyrus and Rethu putting up pride flags reminds me I have flags I can put up in my cubicle at work. My ace flag and my printout of the apothisexual flag stay up all year round, but I have a few others I'll put up for June.
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Aw, nice! :) Always good to be able to show your pride. :) Don't have any flags here, sadly, but I do have my ace socks, which I will have to try and find a reason to wear in June.
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