#I Solve Practical Problems
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The Dwarven Engineer and his Turret
With the bugs all done, the major things left to paint are the dwarves, and I started with the engineer. This was the first miniature I tried using the Xpress colors over a white base coat, instead of the shaded base coat used in slapchop. And it worked out very well! The contrast paint gave a really good head start to laying in shadows and highlights, and I was really pleased with how it turned out. The Engineer's turret was a fun and quick project. I did the entire miniature as silver, starting with Vallejo Tinny Tin over a black base, and then dry brushed up to silver all over. Then two coats of VXC Plague Green was carefully applied where I wanted the panels to be metallic green, leaving the pipes and vents silver, and then everything was edge highlighted with Vallejo Game Air Silver. The green lens effect came out, and I even painted the ammo counter to show that bullets are the answer to everything.
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I always have a problem with sending my comm skittering backwards across my desk when I’m trying to turn it on in a hurry.
Solution: just gaff taped a pen to the desk lol. Wish I’d thought of this years ago 😆
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Yes, Ren genuinely thinks cramming his wolf ears under that hat will distract people from his sharp canines, his tendency to tell Zedaph what to do, and his bad habit of barking at moving objects.
Yes, Doc genuinely thinks hanging an old rag over his face and wearing those ancient spectacles with no lenses will help distract people from... well, everything.
Yes, they're both delusional.
#hermitcraft#my art#rendog#docm77#I'm having fun with this lil cowboy au if you couldn't tell#I just love drawing these block men in the most random outfits. It's practically all I do on this blog#Convenient strip of cloth covering the sides of Ren's head because I STILL don't know how to address his lack of human ears in a way I like#I've been drawing this man for four years. You'd think I would've figured that out by now but noooooo#We use CONVENIENT STRIPS OF CLOTH to solve our problems#Also btw Doc's design here is my standard design for him. Mans is beyond insane to think an old dishtowel will help him blend in#Like half your body is made of metal and the eye not hidden behind an eyepatch glows in the dark. Sweetie
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genuinely insane how if you don't know you're autistic sometimes you go like 25 years of your life just thinking you're evil because you randomly get mad you have to speak out loud to other human beings. and you think you're lazy for having to lie on the couch alone like one day per week. the accommodations can be so simple and yet you do not think you're allowed and in fact don't even realize it's what you need so you go to like therapists and try to push through and be better and the Entire fucking time it would have solved half your problems just to like. lie down and be quiet.
And then you want to go back to your past self and simply say hi did you know about this thing called lying down. And being quiet. Sound of the summer
#it's so crazy to me how much energy i put in trying to solve problems that had. an EXTREMELY simple practical solution#bosses don't want you to know about this thing called resting when you are tired but it's life changing
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I found fibrecraft tumblr after searching drop spindles because my dad *didn’t even know what that was.* And despite having been firmly of the opinion that I didn’t intend to learn it, y’all have me getting ever closer to giving in. However, I’m also growing ever more enamored with the idea of weaving - and despite recently deciding to give knitting and crochet another go - I think it looks the most fun of the fiber crafts. My issue is that I have absolutely no space.
But I’m beginning to realize there’s a lot of different looms and types of weaving. So I was wondering if you have any resources or tips for small space methods and storage?
welcome to fibrecraft tumblr! it's fun here, we have enablers.
i will admit that while i love knitting, weaving is amazing, and is much better with regards to instant gratification—weaving for an hour gets you a lot more fabric than knitting for an hour.
so let's talk about weaving, because i have great news for you: you can 100% totally weave in a small space if you want to, and you even have options for how you do it. i'm going to go through basically all the small space weaving options that i'm aware of in roughly size order, and if you make it to the bottom of this you'll have a pretty good overview of space-saving weaving methods.
the first question to ask yourself is what you want to weave. maybe you're not sure yet, which is totally fine. if you don't immediately have strong feelings about it, though, maybe consider if band weaving strikes your fancy. this is pretty limited in size, but lets you weave belts, straps (like camera or bag straps), lanyards, etc.
if you think that sounds neat, it's worth looking into tablet weaving, an inkle loom, or a band/tape loom. tablet weaving takes up no space at all—if you can fit a stack of index cards into your life, you can fit tablet weaving. the tablets are small square cards, often made out of heavy cardstock, and even with a project on them, you can probably fit them into an index card holder.
inkle looms are larger, and to be honest i've never used one and don't know a ton about them, but they're also used for making woven bands. the looms can also be very aesthetically pleasing, if that's something you're into. they can be very big, but the ashford inklette, for example, is only 36 cm long and maybe 12 cm wide.
tape looms are—in my experience, anyhow—larger than tablet weaving but smaller than inkle looms, and even the larger ones are only about shoebox size. they vary widely, from gorgeous, complicated little looms to a handheld paddle that you use to create a shed, which is what you put your yarn through when you're weaving.
if that doesn't sound like good times, consider a frame loom. these are pretty simple—if you ever wove potholders out of stretchy cloth strips as a kid, you probably used a frame loom to do it on. frame looms are generally inexpensive and readily available, and can be used for small woven objects like potholders, coasters, placemats, etc. they can also be used to make some truly stunning tapestries. while you can buy a huge frame loom, you're still only talking about huge in two directions—it might be as wide as your armspan, but it's still only a couple inches thick.
another option is a pin loom. these don't get mentioned a lot, and i'm not totally sure why. pin looms are shapes with a bunch of pins (metal points, usually) coming out of them. on one hand, you're limited to making things that are the shape of the loom, but on the other hand, if you've been hanging around fibrecraft tumblr, you've seen all the things crocheters get up to with granny squares, right? there's no reason in the world that you can't do all those things with the squares made on a pin loom. or the hexagons! or the triangles! i've been kinda thinking about getting a little hexagon or triangle pin loom and using it to sample my handspun, then turning the shapes into a blanket.
if you hate all of that, that's ok! we have more options.
you could consider a backstrap loom, which is an ancient way of weaving that's still practiced today in many places. backstrap looms are cool because you can weave probably 24 inches wide on them, but even with a project on it, they take almost no room at all. backstrap looms are fairly easy to diy, because they're basically a bunch of dowels, so they can be a good low-cost way to try out weaving. backstrap looms will let you make longer, wider fabric than anything else we've mentioned so far!
another option—stay with me—is a toy loom. there are a number of cheap looms for sale on amazon/ali express/some local places that are actually fully functional looms. recently i've seen a number of people (like sally pointer, though i'm sure i've seen someone using one of the brightly coloured harness looms, as well) who've used them and report that they're functional, if basic, looms. you're fairly constrained in terms of project size, since there's not a lot of space for the finished fabric to wind on, and there's a very limited width, but the looms are quite small and tuck away easily.
ok, but so what if you hate all of those options? don't worry—there are more options! this is the part where things get expensive, though.
as looms go, rigid heddle looms are actually quite reasonably sized. i think the smallest one i've seen is a 40cm (~16") weaving width, which is about 50x60 (20x24") in length/width, and 13cm (5") high. so that's more space than anything else we've talked about, but it's still not a ton of space, you know? a 40cm rigid heddle will let you weave lovely scarves and things of that nature—table runners, placemats, strips of woven fabric to whipstitch together into a blanket, etc.
but maybe that's enough. so let's talk about table looms. some of them are quite large—mine, for example, is about a metre square and sits on a frame that it came with. it is not what you would call space efficient. but many of them, especially modern ones, are very compact, and can even be folded up into something more or less briefcase sized. (weird way to consider it, since the last time i saw a briefcase was probably the 80s, but you know what i mean, i bet.) the cool part here is that you can weave damn near anything you want on a table loom. the less cool part is that for the compact ones that fold up, you're looking at hundreds if not thousands of dollars. the smallest one i'm aware of is the louët erica, which folds down to 42x62x42cm (16.5x24.5x16.5") and gives you 40cm (16") of weaving width. i feel like that's impressively small. you'd have to decide for yourself if that's enough to justify the $500 usd/$800 aud price tag, though.
finally, we've come to folding floor looms. i don't think someone who's never woven before should run out and buy one of these unless money is just literally not at all a concern for you, but they are basically the dream for those of us trapped in crappy rentals, and it seemed weird to leave them out when i'd come this far.
some floor looms are various levels of collapsible. to be clear, this does you absolutely no good at all when you're actively weaving, because you have to unfold them to weave, but it does you a lot of good if you'd like to have a floor loom and still have the ability to, say, walk through the living room when you're not actively using the loom.
most relevant to our discussion about small weaving footprints, some looms fold up entirely. they are incredibly fucking expensive and incredibly fucking cool. the two that i'm most aware of are the leclerc compact and the schacht wolf line, both of which fold up to about half of their unfolded depth. they're still not small—i think that they're both the better part of 75cm (30") wide and tall, so even if they fold down to 40cm (16") deep, they're still 75cm wide and tall. which is Fairly Large, though much better than having something 80cm deep sitting in the middle of the floor.
this was a very, very long post, but hopefully makes it clear that there's a surprisingly wide range of options, and they all have advantages and trade offs. if you're asking my opinion, my suggestion would be to try something—anything—with a backstrap setup and see how you feel about it. maybe you love it and keep at it forever, in which case you're in good company: there are entire cultures that weave exclusively on backstrap looms.
if you like producing cloth but don't love the backstrap setup, or don't like using your body to tension the warp, you have a lot of other options, and you're out maybe ten dollars of dowels.
personally, my next loom is probably going to be a pin loom. unless i win lotto, in which case it's going to be a house that has a weaving studio and like four floor looms in it. but probably a pin loom.
#weaving#i really hope that this was helpful#i get so excited about solving problems that i sometimes go way too hard#but i love thinking about this kind of thing#sorry for infodumping#also weaveblr i didn't forget about warp weighted looms i just don't think that they're super practical#admittedly i am biased by sharing my house with three cats#but also all the learning to weave content is...not on those#if it weren't for the cats my next loom would be warp weighted tho#fibercrafts#fiber art#textiles#smartest raccoon i know#(it's an ironic tag)
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Okay, so we all agree that Luke having to marry Mand’alor Din for political reasons is a quality au. What if Luke accidentally gets politically engaged to some other planetary leader instead?
Let’s say that perhaps his connection to Leia automatically made him a candidate for diplomatic marriage, especially after Leia and Han get married. Maybe it was a major clause in the funding for his Jedi school, but Luke didn’t really think they’d ever actually marry him off. For the sake of the au, let’s also disregard bits of TBOBF and Mando S3.
Luke’s been building his school on Ossus, Grogu is enjoying Jedi training, and there are a couple other students. And perhaps, Din actually becomes Mand’alor and retakes Mandalorian space. Maybe he visits the Jedi school pretty often to see his son and get away from politics.
Luke can really sympathize with having the weight of the universe and a glowing sword tossed at you with no warning. So maybe he and Din become friends after a while and maybe that friendship becomes something different. There start being blushes when someone gets pinned in a spar, falling asleep together on the couch after dinner, running around after the younglings constantly. Din visits as often as he can and has about made up his mind to just ask Luke if he would consider moving the Jedi school to Concordia so they’d at least be in the same star system most days, if not on the same planet.
That's when Luke gets an urgent holocall from Leia, informing him that he’s just been engaged to some bigwig princess as part of a treaty with a rich planet the New Republic has been courting. Luke is absolutely panicking to Din, going on about how the terms of the treaty basically forbid him from keeping his school. He’s looked at his funding agreement with the New Republic and he can’t get out of it without losing money unless he’s already married to someone.
And then Din thinks of the most beautiful solution to both of their problems. Everyone else thinks that they’re already a couple, as much as Din has denied it. Bo-Katan has been harassing him for months about spending so much time off-world to go see his little family. Mandalore could really use a trade agreement with the New Republic.
The next logical step is, of course, for Din to propose in the middle of Luke’s kitchen while his Jedi friend is struggling not to go into a dark spiral about losing his school funding. It's simple, really. They just have to get married right that moment, which would fix the school funding issue. Luke moves the school to the Mandalore system so Din can see him and the kids all the time without giving Bo-Katan a new gray streak. And Mandalore probably gets a trade agreement out of it. What’s not to like?
Luke is so stunned he accidentally pours the calming tea he was making directly onto the kitchen floor.
#dinluke#the mandalorian#text post#au#mand'alor din djarin#listen i love the aus where they meet for the first time already engaged#but think how funny this would be#din thinks the best form of flirting is showing how practical and good at problem solving you can be#he is an acts of service kind of guy#luke on the other hand has a major crush on din and up until that moment was pretty sure din was just tolerating him for grogu's sake
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finally finished this fucking book

it took me almost a year because it’s so hard to get through oh my GODS
#every time Leo and Calypso interacted I wanted to bang my head on the table until I passed out#I’ve already reblogged 2 posts about this ik. But seriously how the hell does uncle Rick not realize how toxic that ship is#Leo’s character is practically ruined bc of Caleo WHY CANT MY POOR SON JUST HAVE ACTUAL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT GOTDAMN :(#also Lester literally pissed his pants like every other chapter wtf???#and the new characters were kinda boring imo#Leo finding a mother figure in Josephine was really sweet but other than that I had no strong opinions on anyone#i do appreciate Meg and her backstory but she really does get on my nerves sometimes#istg if Grover pookie is mid next book I’m going to sob#and I already know my baby boy Jason dies next book so sobbing will happen either way#percy jackon and the olympians#percy jackson#lester papadopoulos#the trials of apollo#pjo hoo toa#jason grace#meg mccaffrey#leo valdez#grover underwood#(I’m just saying if Leo and Jason kissed all my problems would be solved)#how tf did I accidentally become a valgrace shipper#idc it’s much better than caleo anyway 🤷♀️#this book was repulsing it never happened
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sometimes I'll see pushback against criticism of a work of fiction that ultimately just comes down to "I'm just feel grateful that I got to see this" and I cannot stress enough that you should love yourself enough to have higher standards than "this was made available to me" for things that aren't time-limited/ephemeral/actually specifically made for you as an individual with that as the creative intent.
#in general honestly i feel any pushback against the practice of criticism itself#rather than specific points within a criticism#to be an automatic oh i am freed from listening to this fucking idiot pass#if you were smart you'd address the points of criticism with an argument you're just trying to shut the door against a fight you'll lose#or you don't want a fight you just only want to see positivity in which case. that is your problem to solve.
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Being John Lennon for a day
In 1971, British journalist Ray Connolly went to New York for the Concert for Bangladesh. Here’s what else happened.
To be at the Bangladesh Concert was a thrill in itself, but for me the whole weekend was bizarre. Arriving in New York the previous day I’d discovered that John, whom I’d expected to see, had left after a row with Yoko when George Harrison wouldn’t agree to her being on stage, and had flown back to Paris. (Yoko, I discovered later, thought he should have fought harder for her.) I’d also arrived without my bags, which had been mislaid en route by Pan American.
Yoko had a problem, too. She wanted to follow John, but had invited her younger sister, Setsuko, a postgraduate student, over from Switzerland. In a moment she solved two problems. I should cancel my single room, move into one of the several bedrooms in the Lennons’ suite, wear John’s clothes until mine turned up, and take care of her sister over the weekend.
And, oh, yes, to enable me to do this, her new assistant May Pang (whom I’d met in London) would help organise things. Setsuko and I would have the use of the stretch limo and chauffeur, money would be provided for anything we needed, we’d have front row seats at the concert and all I had to do was sign everything ‘Lennon + 15%’.
So, there I was in John’s French, black leather jacket and his blue gingham shirt, hurrying with Setsuko across the stage at Madison Square Gardens at the end of the concert to get down to the row of nine waiting limousines, which then revved up the ramp and out on to the New York streets. Then off they went like a Presidential motorcade, police motorcycle outriders flanking the procession, while, all the way to the post-gig party on Central Park South, other police held back the crosstown traffic.
‘Glad you got a buzz out of it,’ John said casually when, back in London, I called him. ‘What did you think of being a Beatle?’
‘I liked it.’
The Ray Connolly Beatles Archive
#ray connolly#yoko’s very yoko approach to problem-solving#wearing john's clothes really adds to the weirdness#i know there was a practical reason but it makes it feel like an impersonation#concert for bangladesh#this is from ray connolly’s collection of his beatle journalism#both published and unpublished#which i’m really enjoying#there’s a certain amount of hindsight in the linking passages (inevitable)#but lots of in the moment responses#he’s closest to john without being jann wenner about it#he’s sympathetic to both cynthia and yoko#and completely fascinating as a snapshot of how john and yoko worked with journalists#john and yoko’s pr genius#is a tag I’m going to need#john and yoko
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can i be so honest i hate sewing
#i love designing my own clothes conceptually but in practice. i hate this.#there are so many steps to keep track of and so many tiny problems to solve. and i do not have the right kind of intelligence for it.
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I am, once again, a GENIUS
#gopher rambles#I solve practical problems. This time the problem is 'computer very hot'#how solve? Ice pack. Towel. Cookie rack. and blocks to support the rack#the temp went down a solid 30 freedom degrees. I am god
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This isn't completely related to selfshipping but i unironically love making up shipnames for my s/i and the tf2 characters.
[also to note: some of these are not canon; pyro and scout are friends; and saxton hale is just kinda there. idk he's alright.]
Engineer x Morale: Radio Repair
Soldier x Morale: Roger That
Spy x Morale: Esprit de corps, Radio Drama
Medic x Morale: Herzschlag / Heartbeat
Demoman x Morale: Boombox
Sniper x Morale: Radio Silence, National Outback
Heavy x Morale: Tea and Jam
Scout x Morale: Skip Distance
Pyro x Morale: Smoke Signals
Miss Pauling x Morale: Two-way Radio
Saxton Hale x Morale: Mating Calls [this one is just dumb ignore]
Proships DNI
#if you are wondering: yes i've completely exhausted any possible communication term that personally sounded cool#{insert me becoming autistic over radios because of my s/i having a radio motif}#half of these have a radio / communications motifs on morale's end bc see above#also some explanations on the name bc why not:#radio repair is self-explanatory (engie solving practical problems and all)#roger that is slang in the military (but mostly in general) to say ' i understand ' and ofc that would remind me of him#the english word morale was originated from the french term espirit de corps (so of course)#i had so much trouble w/ medic until i remembered 'heartbeat' a few days ago and i facepalmed by how long it took me to figure that out#by comparison; boombox was the fastest and by far the easiest to think of (radio motif + boom)#radio silence was also self-explanatory#but the 2nd one references yosemite national park and the outback (since morale originates in mariposa and sniper lives in the bush)#i kinda want to do more w/ morale originating in mariposa bc that place is gorgeous#fun fact: adding jam (strawberry blackberry ect.) is a common addition for russian tea culture and i wanted to use my knowledge somehow#both miss pauling and morale would communicate via two-way radio or walkie-talkie (so that was a easy pick)#smoke signals because get it fire + a form of communication im a genius#skip distance is a distance a radio wave travels in and it usually includes a hop in the ionosphere (<- NERD)#tf2 oc#oc x canon#and thats it#💞📻#[just me yapping]
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i have officially returned. ask me anything.
#random thoughts#i'll probably answer it tomorrow because i'm tired. i don't know why.#ciel if you see this i've been nicer to myself these past few days following your birthday. taking care of myself in general aspects.#which i sort of hate myself for but it's okay because. uh. i won't be like this forever. i'll be better at what i'm trying to do i promise.#new year's resolution is not fucking with me.........#oh also!! i've been sort of feeling like a dead person at times. and also like a cockroach. i have had to repeatedly tell myself that#i'm not dead i'm not dead!!!!#because i'm not. obviously. and i know i'm not. my brain is just silly. it likes to tell me i am things i am not like book characters.#and recently my mother got me my own rosary and we've been practicing praying together with my brother.#can you imagine how bad it must be for me to turn to christianity as a coping mechanism? not even when i was terrorized with death thoughts#not even in august for fuck's sake.#but it's actually not that bad. though i think i like the idea of organized religion more than i like being a part of it.#also i feel like my being catholic (mostly non-practicing) is betraying the queer community somehow. like. queer people have suffered#so much because of the christian church in general. so it's like. being christian is weird when i'm also queer.#but also then i feel weird when i try to do things in relation to christianity. like. put saint in my artist name.#that feels blasphemous i don't know. is it?????? it's not that serious either way but. augh.#i am going to write a song about this. also fellow christians is it okay to use the lyric 'uselessly clutching her rosary' or is that bad?#because i mean. technically. the she i'm referring to sort of is. because god isn't solving any of our problems.#he's just fucking. watching. if he's even real.#(and no my disappearance isn't related to the catholicism thing it's something else. as in the one thing i haven't told anyone else but cie#and an irl friend. if you are ciel then i am completely open to talking about said thing.#otherwise i will continue to drop cryptic little notes on my blog because I AM SILLY. {: )#going to play roblox now and maybe say hello to you fuckers on discord for a bit of fun. goodbye.
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wiress with cats.
#that’s it that’s the post#im kidding i’m going to rant in the tags now#wiress had a cat before her games who was a descendant of the cat her mother had. basically there’s a whole family tree for these cats.#and when her cat dies after she wins the cat already had three kittens.#beetee has beef with these cats. like i’m not kidding. the first time he came over and met them the original one scratched him#and he never got over it#wiress realizes that her cats literally hate him after a while and sits them down (the cats and beetee) for her version of an intervention#on one side are the cats and on the other is a grown man. they are both glaring at each other.#then wiress just leaves them there. like straight up just walks out.#beetee is very skeptical he doesn't think him staring at three cats who are glaring at him is going to solve their rivalry#and wiress is just like trust me on this and honestly beetee is just curious at this point. skeptical but curious.#(it works. beetee never questions wiress’ problem solving techniques again.)#the cats stop scratching him which in itself is a miracle. now it’s only when wiress turns away and they go back to glaring at each other.#idk something abt a guy who’s usually practical having beef with cats is really funny to me#also once they start dating and wiress starts spending the night at beetee’s house i feel the cats are like#“stop stealing mom” “where did mom go” “what did you do to her” and so now the cats hate beetee again.#it’s a vicious cycle#atlas (the first victor from three) also has cats but. he has like twenty. there’s so many cats. beetee is surrounded.#(he’s a dog person. he has never told wiress this. he’s kind of scared to.)#anyway i’m done#i promise i can be normal#sometimes#wiress#wiress thg#the hunger games#thg#district 3#beetee latier#dayne’s wiress thoughts (TM)#dayne’s beetee tag
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My headcanon is that Jean's hair is usually a scruffy mess but it's pressed flat in his portrait from wearing the wig all week lol
#disco elysium#jean vicquemare#linophryne's art#also wow I need to practice drawing facial hair more#sounds like a problem that can be solved with... MORE Jeans...
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one of my favorite Andrew things was in blame it on my youth, where he's like yeah I remember but I can't USE the info, I just have it but there's not the backing to apply it and I think that's beautiful and really does add layers and reality to it. yeah Andrew can remember. but how much of life after undergrad is trivia? its about application, nuance, holding the differential for what it could be and having to be creative and critical enough to fix it. when new problems arise, you have to take the trivia problems from school and extrapolate.
#Andrew minyard#his brain is probably so cluttered with trivia#which I use as like#facts or memories whatever catch all#that he needs to practice the problem solving#but this is also something that a lot of pre 25 don't necessarily gert#because yeah you can google whatever#but what do you do with it#that's the whole point of so many gen ed things#taking what we know#and asking#and then what#but when your life revolves around memorizing stupid ass facts#looking at u my undergrad classes#it all feels so wortthlesssss and uselesssss
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