#Seren
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foxish-draws · 2 days ago
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OK, I’m going to put down some details, plot things, character things, etc for my original nonsense. Some might be a bit subject to change as I puzzle this story back together, but should largely be consistent. Under a read more because I am allergic to brevity, if you open this up, I am SO sorry. 💀
THE SETTING:
The world exists in two halves, the ethereal and the physical (I might try to give them cool names, but for now that’s what I got). The ethereal is all energy and malleable forms, it’s where the souls of the dead filter in from the physical plane, and is the power source of magic. The worlds interact kind of like the water cycle – energy seeps into the living/physical world like rain from the ocean, and energy returns to the ethereal when magic is discharged and especially when souls pass into it. People in the physical world can draw out power for magic, or summon creatures, but largely the interactions will balance each other out one way or another.
There is a society of sorts in the ethereal, as it’s possible for the dead to retain a human form. Those able to hold onto their identities will maintain a shape and be able to cultivate their equivalent of an afterlife and the balance with the living. The physical/living people can gain the ability to use magic through measured exposure to the ethereal energy that seeps into their plane – but too much exposure can be harmful. It’s not an exact sceince and how much is enough depends on the person. What’s more, the pockets of high energy appear sporadically, it’s hard to know when or where a large enough concentration will appear. Also, those high concentration areas can allow creatures to pass through unsummoned and uncontrolled, and not all ethereal beasts are friendly. As such, trying to gain the ability to use magic, which must then be practiced, etc, is considered a huge gamble that could very much kill you.
In the ethereal plane, creatures can spasm into existence from areas with power build up. They’re functionally just animals by default, “living” by absorbing the ambient energy of the place. These creatures are made of pure energy and lack soul, which is largely believed to be the reason why they can traverse the planes, while the dead cannot. Entering into the physical world grants them solidity, but their forms remain pretty changeable. If for some reason they consume each other or any human souls, in either plane, they can mutate into monstrous creatures. It’s a known thing in the ethereal that a soul retaining its human shape can suffer the same transformation if they engage in what’s basically soul cannibalism. But nobody considers it because doing so would make them forget who and what they are, they’d just be a mindless monster stalking along the outer reaches of the world.
THE PREMISE:
An unprecedented creature, a monster with a mind and a soul, appeared and took over the ethereal plane. He calls himself Mayfly, and he’s managed to severely bottleneck the amount of new souls entering the ethereal, effectively cutting off the means of replenishing the ambient energy all creatures there need to survive. The resulting famine has pushed many beasts to become monsters, and the human soul civilization to crumble. Anything with a mind and a shape has been coerced into Mayfly’s service, either to be made into creatures like himself (monsters with the capacity for thought, but having had their identities stripped away) or be consumed.
His big plan? He wants to throw off the equilibrium of the ethereal and physical planes so hard that they collapse into each other. No more split halves, he wants to unify all of existence. The living and the dead fused for eternity in one glorious malignant mass. With the ethereal closed off, the build up in the living side is soon to border on catastrophic. Creatures and magic sickness are more prevalent, and Mayfly and his followers have spent years now tipping the scales. Whatever they are now, or maybe as a consequence of the warped environment they’ve cultivated, it seems they can travel back and forth between the planes, making them neigh impossible to pin down. 
Fighting against all this is the Bureau of Spectral Management. They’re an organization set up to help people deal with otherworldly nonsense, but they are now being run pretty ragged trying to figure out how to stop the world as they know it from ending. 
THE PROTAGONISTS:
Nori: Nori is in hiding. As far as he can gather, he was a human soul pressed into becoming a monster by Mayfly after he took over. As a consequence of his transformation, he doesn’t remember who he was before all this, but either way, he wasn’t happy with the situation. For a while though, he was given the name Marauder, and acted as an enforcer and bounty hunter sent off to find anyone trying to escape Mayfly’s grasp. Unsure of any way to possibly escape his fate and unwilling to be eaten himself, he did as he was told. He was sent to retrieve an escaped archivist and to destroy anything the guy had on him. The job felt weird from the start, and the unflappable Mayfly seemed to really resent that the little nerd had gotten away. Once the archivist was found, Nori realized why. The item he had was a ledger, THE ledger. A book that magically kept recorded the names of all the dead that passed into the afterlife. Names were the thread leading back to who they were before, and if each and every one was in that book, then Mayfly’s was too. If Mayfly gained power after shedding his identity, then maybe giving it back could regress him. Nori could hardly think straight, the only thing cycling through his head was that somehow, someway, this was the key to bringing him down. Nori used passing off the archivist as cover, stole the book, and ran. He was found out and pursued quickly, but not before he slipped through a rift into the physical plane. Being a pretty powerful creature of the ethereal AND a thing partially engineered by Mayfly, Nori was not hard to track. He found himself chased into a corner, accidentally leading a mob of monsters to a small town. Chaos ensued, and Nori had precious moments to find a way to hide himself. He came upon a woman trying to get her daughter to safety and basically said “hey, let me hold onto your soul, it won’t even kill you, I just need to hang on to it.” Keeping a living human soul inside him would mask his presence and finally let him escape. After a tense discussion he managed to convince her he wasn’t a malicious monster despite all evidence to the contrary. But his pursuers were closing in. With time running out, the woman revealed that she was mortally wounded and made a counter offer. Nori would take her daughter and if the human needed to remain intact for the soul to effectively conceal him, he would just have to swear to keep her safe.
Cut to years later, Nori remains in hiding, with the new name Seren (the daughter whose soul he houses) gave him. No longer Marauder, he’s been focused more on managing his new human ward, growing ever more attached. He hasn’t forgotten the ledger, Mayfly’s real name is definitely in there, but he has no way of deciphering which name it is. His big idea for going against Mayfly was a bust from the start, an act of desperation and the frantic notion that he finally had a way out. Seren doesn’t know about it, he only told her that Mayfly’s minions came after him cause he ran away, which isn’t UNtrue. Regardless, it didn’t matter now, Nori has new problems. He needs to keep Seren safe and them both from getting found and subsequently killed. Not to mention his secret worry that his own monstrous nature could start eating away at her soul, if it hasn’t already.
Seren:  Seren’s upbringing was nonstandard, even before being adopted by a monster masquerading as a wolf. The town she grew up in had a persistent ethereal leak nearby that was dangerous to leave alone. So her mother, a mage from the Bureau came to stay a while to help disperse it. It was supposed to be temporary, a stay of a few months, but she found she liked the place and settled in, starting a family etc etc. When Mayfly began his reign, the echos of it violently reopened the rift she’d closed. The resulting fall out killed her husband, but made a mage of Seren. Knowing something was off about all that, her mom started training her up immediately. Seren had mixed feelings about the whole thing, saw magic as a blessing and a curse, especially considering the energy that gave her the power also killed her dad. But training with magic also got her mom to teach her how to fight, which she very enjoyed. Though her mom wasn’t as connected to the Bureau as she used to be, she still knew enough to tell something was very definitely Wrong. Seren saw her mom on edge and insisted she be allowed to go along on patrols of the area, since she could help disperse any magical build up. Naturally, the day her mom relented and let her walk along, Nori, then still known as Marauder, came barreling into town with a horde of beasts on his heels. The chaos ensued, leading up to the deal. Her mom, mortally wounded from the fight, the town neigh overrun, decided the only way to make sure Seren made it out alive was to bind her and Nori together. Seren did not like this plan. It took some heavy urging and tearful farewells to get Seren to at least leave their soon to be surrounded hiding place. The horde would divert and come after Nori, but Seren’s mom would cover their escape. The town was overwhelmed, the creatures relentless, and with no time left, Seren accepted the terms. With Nori finally hidden, they were able to make their escape. 
Knowing that Nori was indirectly responsible for what happened, it was difficult for Seren to accept her situation in the aftermath. But Nori wouldn’t leave and at least was sorry it had happened. After slowly getting to know this wolf monster as an overcautious mother hen, Seren started to warm up to him. She started to see this as a way she could help people, between her and Nori, they could settle somewhere like her mom did and keep them safe. As long as they were together, Nori wouldn’t be found, and his power bolstering hers would make quick work of most challenges. Seren wants very much for her survival to not be in vain. She feels like whatever strength and skill she has came at the cost of both her parents, and her entire hometown. Now she just needs it to mean something, to be more than just the one who survived. Nori is supportive to a point, but is usually more concerned about drawing attention, especially now that Mayfly is getting more active. Seren appreciates his concerns, but is losing patience with his attitude. She can’t live hiding from dangers she knows she can fight against.
Quinn: He comes from a long line of Bureau of Spectral Management officers. No one is a mage without exposure to the ethereal, but his family seems to have an affinity for it. They take to it with relative ease and can perform an array of magical wonders from offensive blasts to summoning – but not Quinn. Post exposure and all the training his family could get him, his body remained resistant to channeling most magical wavelengths. At the risk of becoming the family disappointment, Quinn found the style of magic that flowed through him easily: defense. Barriers, wards, bindings, anything that stopped or stalled one force acting on another became his specialty. Was it glamorous and fulfilling? Well, not really, he mostly sat at a desk drawing out spells on paper that teams could take and use in the field. But things changed once the monster appearances started kicking up. Smarter and more savage, the creatures were often slipping around the single use papers. Even the rifts were more volatile and harder to disperse. Thus, for better or worse, Quinn was released from his desk and sent out to help field agents in person. After a number of close calls, several injuries, and a death or two, Quinn found himself more motivated than ever. He threw himself into crafting new defensive spells, figuring out how to cast them faster and with more power. As Mayfly started to become a more apparent enemy, Quinn started to feel even more pressure. Nobody could pin them down long enough to figure out a weakness, or just study what they even were. He needed to find a way to hold them, or at least a better way of shielding against them. 
Then news came through of one of Mayfly’s creations roaming around a city in disguise. Quinn was the best defense mage they had so of course got sent out with the team, but none of the details made sense. This was a known creature, a white haired beast of death and decay sent out to destroy small populations, and yet it was just – there. The only reason they even knew about it was because it had killed a man suspected of murdering a waitress and didn’t bother to hide the incriminating evidence. The behavior didn’t match with any previous encounter, and as someone who’d spent way too much time trying to understand these new monsters, Quinn was very confused. The team caught up to it as it was leaving a bar, scuffled in an alley, but the creature just laughed at them, threw some insults, and vanished. As if to mock them further, it showed up at the same bar the next night. The team was staking the place out when Quinn decided he needed a new approach. Something was very off and he needed to figure out what. He walked in and sat across from the creature he learned was named Reave. After a very tense and careful conversation, Quinn discovered that Reave had in fact gone rogue. Suddenly Quinn found himself sitting across from their best chance at getting any insight on Mayfly and his minions. It took a LOT of convincing both for Reave and for the Bureau, but Quinn managed to get Reave to help in an official capacity. What he probably should have expected was for him to become the person directly responsible for managing Reave. 
Reave: Reave is the result of an experiment by Mayfly. A cluster of resentful souls cauterized together with the body of a beast grafted onto them. Engineered to feel the presence of living people as an abrasive sensation, with speed, stealth, and skin deathly toxic to touch, Reave was meant to be quick and effective tool for clearing villages and towns. Reave experienced all sensations as though they were underwater until they found themselves dropped in an area full of people. The soul tinnitus would kick up, and Reave would tear through everyone to stop it. Once the job was done, Reave would get sluggish and docile enough to get picked up again. They weren’t mindless, they understood most of what was happening, it was just so – distant. Their consciousness was a comfortable place that was periodically disturbed by the desperate need to silence the noise around them. Then after another village had been destroyed, Reave didn’t get picked up again. For some reason, they were left alone. The longer it went on, the clearer they found they could think. Eventually, they started to resent Mayfly, for making them to be a pet, set loose and then obediently awaiting its master. When they briefly lost consciousness (something that should not happen as they do not need sleep) Reave panicked. The stagnation of being alone so long felt like its own kind of death and they ran off to find people. With this new perspective, the buzzing sensation of a crowd now feels less like a maddening itch, and more like being active, alert, and alive.
They learned quickly how to cope with bustling spaces and what their limits are for interaction. As much as they want to be around people now, they are what they are, and too much exposure will end very poorly. They also know the dangers of accidental contact, and cover up as much as is fashionable. Even so, they’re anxious and jumpy about physical contact – at least when they’re not interested in hurting anyone. Reave with skin bared is out for blood and will be more than happy to indulge in their nature just a bit. Thankfully, they try to avoid doing anything that will get them barred from any of their new favorite places, but there are exceptions. A man killed a waitress. Reave liked her. She was nice. Whether or not the authorities were on to him was irrelevant, Reave is not a patient beast. They shoved his face into an alley wall, bare handed, and left him there. Apparently, it was noticed. The Bureau caught up to them, but after a laughable attempt at capture, Reave decided they didn’t care and ignored them. 
Then they met Quinn. He approached them, talked to them, and tried to figure them out – but in the way that humans do to each other. The way some humans talked to Reave, but only because they didn’t know what they were. Quinn knew, in fact he was very interested to hear all about it. Reave knew why, they weren’t stupid, but it felt flattering. Quinn was interesting and easy enough to make sweat, knowing that the slightest touch could kill him. But even with that, Quinn wouldn’t be scared off, and Reave decided they liked the idea of hanging around. At least for now. Plus, what better opportunity to throw it in Mayfly’s face how much he lost out when he failed to retrieve them.
Aida: Head of the Bureau of Spectral Management, Aida is having a hell of a time right now. Staff is spread thin dealing with just EVERYTHING but finding/creating and training more mages is a beast of a task in and of itself. She is one of the few people with a line to the ethereal and the means to use it. Contained in her office is a beast caught between worlds, nicknamed Luca. Snagged in a web of binding wards, floating in a massive cylinder, Luca provides something of a conduit to the other side. But there’s only so much its trawling feelers can tell her. Aida has a loose understanding of how all this happened, what Mayfly did, what he hopes to achieve, but knowing hasn’t helped stem the tide. What it HAS done is gotten her noticed. It started predictably enough, Aida, metaphysically connected to her giant bug in a jar, got caught spying on currents through the ethereal. Mayfly felt the figurative eyes on him and snapped at them, giving Aida quite the headache. Fine, she’d try again later. The next time, Mayfly stared back, snatching her gaze, looking for a crack in the warded wall of her office, and Aida barely managed to cut him off. She didn’t like flying blind, but further attempts could be disastrous. So she fell back on Luca’s other function as needed – a summon beast. If the occasion called for it, she would subsume pieces of it, granting her power enough to brawl it out with monsters or handle any dangerously energized spaces/items. 
It wasn’t clear how they were going to move forward, actually stop Mayfly instead of chasing after him, until Quinn came to her with insane luck and an insane plan. A monster made by Mayfly who’d broken off the leash, and Quinn had talked it into cooperating. There was only so much Reave was able to tell them, since they’d spent most of their time in a stupor, but it was better than nothing. Maybe it’d buy them time until they could finally figure something out. 
So yeah, Aida is dealing with a lot right now and regularly tells Luca all about it. She doesn’t have much of a support system, the work was far too important, but she knows the emotional benefit of talking things out with someone. Her staff needs to see her strong and resolute, but Luca, well. Luca is a husk of a creature. She could pretend at it having a listening ear.
THE ANTAGONISTS:
Mayfly: [_____] was dead. His family was dead. But he alone remembered them. Only he had opened his eyes in the afterlife with a body that didn’t bleed and a mind riddled with the memories of lives too soon ended. It wasn’t fair. His wife. His child. They were out there, in the ether, just floating bundles of energy now. They would waft around until they burnt out like dying stars, becoming just more fuel for this place. What good was having a form, a conscious memory of life, if there was no one here to recognize him? The souls all intermingled, all the looking the same. His family should’ve been allowed to join him. Or if he at least could know which of the multitude of souls were theirs so he could absorb them into this body of his. They could all become a beast, he’d lose his capacity for thought, but at least they’d be together. [_____] didn’t want to remember, but he was too angry to submit to the fate of a creature on the fringes. It wasn’t fair. He saw the others who’d kept their form and wondered how they could stand the injustice of it all. Was there no rhyme or reason to who got to wake up and who became a wandering ball of energy? How could he have been the only one of his family to hold the threads of his mind together after death? He shuddered to think of what was left of his dear ones being sucked up and spat out to power some arrogant mage’s spell. [_____] envied the monsters. But the power their consumption granted them was aimless and wasted, as they were happy enough to graze like cattle on the fringes. 
To give into greed was to relinquish one’s sense of self, which was the only thing of true value in the ethereal. But how much was it really worth? [_____] certainly didn’t want it, not anymore. But he also didn’t want to be a mindless nothing of a creature, wasting away like everything else. But if losing himself, his identity, was punishment – what if he gave it willingly? Without transgressing first? Could he do that? And if he could, what then might be possible?
Mayfly doesn't remember himself, but he doesn't need to. The resolve echoes through his core, and he knows what needs to be done. The split existence of this world is over. It's time to bring everyone together. Forever.
Caradmine & Chamomile (and Chamomile’s baby): Did they enter into Mayfly’s service willingly? It’s difficult to say, they were his first acolytes and the process used to be messier. The question was irrelevant anyway, the creatures they were now were dutiful servants of Mayfly’s glorious vision. They were rarely apart, Cardamine, the charismatic gentleman, and Chamomile, the quiet, doting mother. Were they together before? Who can say. It didn’t matter now, Cardamine would protect Chamomile with everything he had. Chamomile would remain placid and silent, as always, but she needn’t trouble herself. Her baby was a dutiful thing, always eager to help with the task at hand. If the task was to release living souls from their fleshy bonds, it would leave the snug comfort of mother Chamomile and get immediately to work. Meanwhile, Cardamine, lovely orator that he was, would soothe the masses with promises of a bright, unified future, aiding in their passage where needed. Chamomile would oversee her child’s work, a beacon of serenity, until such a time when her baby’s body was mangled beyond repair. A terrible tragedy that would be met with wailing grief and swift action. Chamomile would burst into movement, gathering up the nearest living body and embracing it as her own. Carefully folded into the maw of her belly, the body would suffer a brief moment of wondrous metamorphosis. And with that, the grief would pass – a new baby, as fit as the previous, would be there to assist. 
Finch: Finch is broken. He isn’t sure exactly how, but he knows he is. From the rattling difficulty he has forming thoughts, to the way the others avoid him. Mayfly assures him he merely has a gentle soul that doesn’t need to fight, and that his talents are better used elsewhere. “Elsewhere” meaning hidden away in the physical plane, managing his birds. He isn’t allowed back in the ethereal, not unless it’s an emergency, which he thinks is pretty unreasonable. His fleet of spy birds can cover great distances, but they don’t need much direction. Finch supposes it’s just as well, making an argument to leave his post would require him to string more than one coherent sentence together, and he is not great at that. He wonders if his previous self was any better at it, but tries not to think too hard along those lines. All it ever leaves him with is a headache and the intense, staticky sensation that there is a book he’s supposed to have.
BEHOLD. OC SHIT.
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Still in the process of reconfiguring everything for this absolutely ancient set of characters, but I wanted to get through the general re-designs at least. I had fun ;v; I haven't felt the drive to be this indulgent in OC things in a very long time. I might attempt to write up like a general synopsis or whatever, but in the meantime, here's some bonus interaction bits I decided I wanted to throw together:
A Silly One™
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An Angsty One™
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gargoylesister · 17 hours ago
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Duet of the Gods
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🎧 headphones are recommended 🎧
@myz-wykkyd's Nerissa is a harpist, and I thought that was just perfect for The Duet of the Gods (the Wind Waker theme). She and Seren are having a little practice session by the seashore-- can you hear the waves?
↪️[directory]
The damn file got corrupted, and there's this bizarre section at the very beginning where you'll hear a jumble of notes >:0 sorry! It refuses to be fixed, so I'll probably come back later and try to rerecord that. God forbid I have to redo the whole thing.
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intriga-hounds · 4 months ago
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I made them do an activity and they got real mad about it
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doekis · 3 months ago
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seren ♡
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leidensygdom · 7 months ago
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Seren Gautier, for @ydteus ! Someone was in need for a surrogate and it's always a good time to revisit the world's best Holes Georg out there!! Please do give a good peek at the lines though, they're full of hatching and shapes and I'm pretty proud of them!
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aethira · 2 months ago
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D&D/Pathfinder OCs as Warhammer 40K chaos cultists :3
choices for Nepenthe and Seren were obvious lol. Tzeentch probably works better than Khorne for Aidina plot-wise, but I didn’t wanna repeat and Khorne works well enough XD I haven’t got anybody for Nurgle tho.
Bonus: Alethia as a Sister of Battle
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emperorsgf · 7 months ago
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🤗
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gr3yart · 21 days ago
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YEEEEEEEES BLORBIES. featuring Chimera, Doll (the centipede), Seren (the black haired kid) and Mavira (the guy at the end, he partially had raised Chimera and Seren). Maybe one day i should talk more abt all of their lore..
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ydteus · 8 months ago
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Seren got to see her twin again 😭
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phooka-animation · 1 year ago
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foxish-draws · 10 days ago
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BEHOLD. OC SHIT.
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Still in the process of reconfiguring everything for this absolutely ancient set of characters, but I wanted to get through the general re-designs at least. I had fun ;v; I haven't felt the drive to be this indulgent in OC things in a very long time. I might attempt to write up like a general synopsis or whatever, but in the meantime, here's some bonus interaction bits I decided I wanted to throw together:
A Silly One™
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An Angsty One™
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intriga-hounds · 4 months ago
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Seren, appeased after several minutes of screaming
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doekis · 1 year ago
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chibis of my characters miette and seren ♡
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alastor-artist-seren · 11 months ago
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Just a sketch of the current Alastor I'm working on.
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sugaryspirits · 6 months ago
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Thank you @breakfastalex for new best guy
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