ExtraPenguin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
extrapenguin) wrote2019-02-28 10:27 pm
extrapenguin) wrote2019-02-28 10:27 pm
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Guardian Episode by Episode: 02
Welcome to episode 2 of the Guardian rewatchalong! I'm traveling over the weekend, so I pushed this one up. The journal of hosting has changed by ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sid_guardian mods' request, so subsequent ones shall be hosted here at Chez ExtraPenguin.
The icon battle is still a-chugging, with linked screencap posts. This post has notes on characterization, mostly, plus canon details and cinematography porn. As well as an associated imgur screencap album!
Introductions
We get our first facial shot of our villain Zhu Jiu! He monologues dramatically, plays weiqi against himself in some sort of metaphor for his job, and works via minions. We will later discover this is part of a villainy pyramid scheme, but we've yet to meet his boss. Anyway, he's after the Longevity Dial and hadn't heard of the SID yet. He is very unimpressed with minons who fail him.
We get our first facial shot of our villain. This is not it.
Characterization
This is the opening moves of Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei's reciprocal cat and mouse. We open with Shen Wei trying to very unconvincingly fake having fallen off a roof into the bushes, instead of having teleported in to Dixing to do his makeup and then showing up late without Starbucks to nab the already-defeated perp.
Don't worry, I'm fine!
As part of the cat and mouse game, we see Zhao Yunlan probe at Shen Wei, asking him about, well, everything, from his educational history to his marital status. (Asking whether people are single the classy way!)
A minor detour into Shen Wei's academic timeline: he's 32 and a professor of some stripe. He did time as both 研究生 (postgrad student) and 博士生 (I assume they mean postdoc – 博士 means PhD), all at Dragon City University. Now, I calculated, and it's very very technically possible to be a professor at 31, if one is a super hotshotor beneficiary of frex nepotism. Shen Wei's professorhood being recent is corroborated by the Li Qian plot – he thought Li Qian's grandmother was always a bit demented, but we're told she was completely okay until last year, so Shen Wei and Li Qian's acquaintance must only be a year long. Combined with the way Shen Wei treats Li Qian vs how he treats literally every other student, the reasonable inference is that newly-minted Professor Shen has recently acquired his very first PhD student, whom he is very protective of. Are you doing okay, Li Qian?I notice you've taken on a lot of jobs, Li Qian; is everything all right? Li Qian, please don't jump off the roof! (The Envoy also seemed a bit harsher than usual on this episode's criminal.)
There's another conversation about Dixingians, similar to last ep's one, and instead of answering the question of Dixingian's origins like a good biology professor would, Shen Wei turns the quesion on its head and says Zhao Yunlan should instead ask about the future. In several moments in this episode, Shen Wei tries to not-that-subtly backseat run the SID and offer advice; no wonder Zhao Yunlan smelled a rat. Also the "I trust you won't interrogate me like a criminal" remark – it really is a delicate verbal dance around each other.
Shen Wei with a moderately displeased expression, Zhao Yunlan laughing at Shen Wei's evasion.
In general, this episode is the end of the first mini-arc of Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan's relationship: Shen Wei explicitly says that perhaps we can never get back the past (i.e. the relationship he shared with Kunlun), the cat-and-mouse game is established with Zhao Yunlan being suspicious of Shen Wei, and the Black-Cloaked Envoy appearing in action and answering the SID's calls. (He also chills a bit on the dramatic entrances and exists starting next episode, IIRC – no more flickering lights and clouds of smoke.) We're also told of Shen Wei's concerns about Dixing, as he explicitly says that Dixing is a "prison of torment" where everyone has been tortured into having two faces. We also get an interesting scene composition on the second time on the roof with Li Qian, where Shen Wei goes to stand with Zhao Yunlan, instead of with his postgrad student.
Zhao Yunlan, of course, sits down on the convenient thing.
We also see that Shen Wei can be hurt, and has to actively heal himself. The process seems to hurt him at least somewhat.
Gratuitous pain porn. You're welcome.
Another thread is Zhao Yunlan's interactions with his underlings – Da Qing claims he's spoiled them with disciplinelessness, and they're all colossal gossips due to the boss's bad influence. The SID does seem to be a bit of a sleepy place, especially since we're told Dixing activity has been ramping up as of late.
As part of the gossip, we're told that Chu Shuzhi is a colossal Envoy fanboy. This episode establishes the baseline of the Chu Shuzhi–Envoy relationship from which we can later track changes: the Envoy saved Chu Shuzhi and planted him in the SID as a spy; Chu Shuzhi is absolutely 100% loyal to the Envoy over anyone else
Chu Shuzhi wears his Envoy cosplay to take down this episode's villain.
We also see Shen Wei's first attempt at feeding Zhao Yunlan fail colossally.
Guo Changcheng tells us he was raised by his grandmother, and proceeds to make Li Qian's grandmother's death All About Him and delivers the suckiest motivational speech in the history of man. At the funeral, he cries more than the actually bereaved Li Qian does. His greatest virtue is his persistence and willingness to go into harm's way. Chu Shuzhi still hates his guts and resents being the designated babysitter.
An accurate metaphor for Guo Changcheng's personality and role in this story.
Canon details
Cinematography
We continue with shots through blinds...
...dramatic underviews...
...and add dramatic overviews!
Also, the secret meeting place is super nice – can anyone read the text on the gate?
Okay this shot is just here gratuitously.
Zhao Yunlan jacket watch
I suspect Jacket #2 is the same as Jacket #4. Jacket #5 is technically a shirt, but it reads "Good vibes only", which is a piece of advice we could all do with.
Shen Wei shoe watch
This week's professor shoes only have a moderate heel:
We do, however, also get a blurry shot of the envoy shoes:
We also get a shot where Zhao Yunlan and the Envoy stand right against each other without the camera being too tilted in the Envoy's favor, which shows how much of a gap must be bridged with shoes and floofy hair:
Did Shen Wei take off his mask?
No. He's wearing his mask or glasses in every shot. Yes, when he heals his shoulder and suffers prettily! (Thank you, goodgriefcharlie!)
sid_guardian mods' request, so subsequent ones shall be hosted here at Chez ExtraPenguin.The icon battle is still a-chugging, with linked screencap posts. This post has notes on characterization, mostly, plus canon details and cinematography porn. As well as an associated imgur screencap album!
Introductions
We get our first facial shot of our villain Zhu Jiu! He monologues dramatically, plays weiqi against himself in some sort of metaphor for his job, and works via minions. We will later discover this is part of a villainy pyramid scheme, but we've yet to meet his boss. Anyway, he's after the Longevity Dial and hadn't heard of the SID yet. He is very unimpressed with minons who fail him.
We get our first facial shot of our villain. This is not it.
Characterization
This is the opening moves of Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei's reciprocal cat and mouse. We open with Shen Wei trying to very unconvincingly fake having fallen off a roof into the bushes, instead of having teleported in to Dixing to do his makeup and then showing up late without Starbucks to nab the already-defeated perp.
Don't worry, I'm fine!
As part of the cat and mouse game, we see Zhao Yunlan probe at Shen Wei, asking him about, well, everything, from his educational history to his marital status. (Asking whether people are single the classy way!)
A minor detour into Shen Wei's academic timeline: he's 32 and a professor of some stripe. He did time as both 研究生 (postgrad student) and 博士生 (I assume they mean postdoc – 博士 means PhD), all at Dragon City University. Now, I calculated, and it's very very technically possible to be a professor at 31, if one is a super hotshot
There's another conversation about Dixingians, similar to last ep's one, and instead of answering the question of Dixingian's origins like a good biology professor would, Shen Wei turns the quesion on its head and says Zhao Yunlan should instead ask about the future. In several moments in this episode, Shen Wei tries to not-that-subtly backseat run the SID and offer advice; no wonder Zhao Yunlan smelled a rat. Also the "I trust you won't interrogate me like a criminal" remark – it really is a delicate verbal dance around each other.
Shen Wei with a moderately displeased expression, Zhao Yunlan laughing at Shen Wei's evasion.
In general, this episode is the end of the first mini-arc of Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan's relationship: Shen Wei explicitly says that perhaps we can never get back the past (i.e. the relationship he shared with Kunlun), the cat-and-mouse game is established with Zhao Yunlan being suspicious of Shen Wei, and the Black-Cloaked Envoy appearing in action and answering the SID's calls. (He also chills a bit on the dramatic entrances and exists starting next episode, IIRC – no more flickering lights and clouds of smoke.) We're also told of Shen Wei's concerns about Dixing, as he explicitly says that Dixing is a "prison of torment" where everyone has been tortured into having two faces. We also get an interesting scene composition on the second time on the roof with Li Qian, where Shen Wei goes to stand with Zhao Yunlan, instead of with his postgrad student.
Zhao Yunlan, of course, sits down on the convenient thing.
We also see that Shen Wei can be hurt, and has to actively heal himself. The process seems to hurt him at least somewhat.
Gratuitous pain porn. You're welcome.
Another thread is Zhao Yunlan's interactions with his underlings – Da Qing claims he's spoiled them with disciplinelessness, and they're all colossal gossips due to the boss's bad influence. The SID does seem to be a bit of a sleepy place, especially since we're told Dixing activity has been ramping up as of late.
As part of the gossip, we're told that Chu Shuzhi is a colossal Envoy fanboy. This episode establishes the baseline of the Chu Shuzhi–Envoy relationship from which we can later track changes: the Envoy saved Chu Shuzhi and planted him in the SID as a spy; Chu Shuzhi is absolutely 100% loyal to the Envoy over anyone else
Chu Shuzhi wears his Envoy cosplay to take down this episode's villain.
We also see Shen Wei's first attempt at feeding Zhao Yunlan fail colossally.
Guo Changcheng tells us he was raised by his grandmother, and proceeds to make Li Qian's grandmother's death All About Him and delivers the suckiest motivational speech in the history of man. At the funeral, he cries more than the actually bereaved Li Qian does. His greatest virtue is his persistence and willingness to go into harm's way. Chu Shuzhi still hates his guts and resents being the designated babysitter.
An accurate metaphor for Guo Changcheng's personality and role in this story.
Canon details
- The Hallows were scattered after the war 10k years ago and, Shen Wei doesn't understand how they work
- the name lao-Zhao can make even ghosts apprehensive (see: Zhao Xinci)
- Zhu Jiu in the purple wig and with the weiqi board had no interest in going after the SID, and didn't even know they existed, before the SID got the Longevity Dial
- Shen Wei thought that Li Qian and her grandmother's promise to stay with each other forever meant there was residual energy of the grandmother stored in the Longevity Dial, which would be interesting fodder for fic
- The Chu family are known as puppet masters, so Dixing powers must be at least somewhat hereditary
- Zhao Yunlan was doing rather well hauling up Li Qian all by himself, so unlike what I've seen claimed, the fact that Li Qian rose very easily when Shen Wei came to help is no proof whatsoever about Shen Wei having super strength – two Zhao Yunlans would've likely raised her just as easily
Cinematography
We continue with shots through blinds...
...dramatic underviews...
...and add dramatic overviews!
Also, the secret meeting place is super nice – can anyone read the text on the gate?
Okay this shot is just here gratuitously.
Zhao Yunlan jacket watch
I suspect Jacket #2 is the same as Jacket #4. Jacket #5 is technically a shirt, but it reads "Good vibes only", which is a piece of advice we could all do with.
Shen Wei shoe watch
This week's professor shoes only have a moderate heel:
We do, however, also get a blurry shot of the envoy shoes:
We also get a shot where Zhao Yunlan and the Envoy stand right against each other without the camera being too tilted in the Envoy's favor, which shows how much of a gap must be bridged with shoes and floofy hair:
Did Shen Wei take off his mask?
goodgriefcharlie!)
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I wish they had kept up with the dramatic foggy entrances for the Black-Cloaked Envoy, although can see why it would have been impractical.
The last pic makes me crave fic of bare-foot Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan cuddling him.
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OH ART BUNNY!
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Their height gap is optimal for cuddling! Shen Wei could easily plop his chin on Zhao Yunlan's conveniently located shoulder, and Zhao Yunlan could very easily curl up a bit around him for maximum hug.
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We also see Shen Wei's first attempt at feeding Zhao Yunlan fail colossally.
Do you really think he bought that food for Yunlan originally? I read it as truly being meant for Li Qian.
Combined with the way Shen Wei treats Li Qian vs how he treats literally every other student, the reasonable inference is that newly-minted Professor Shen has recently acquired his very first PhD student, whom he is very protective of.
I love that idea! His first Haixing human connection!
Chu Shuzhi wears his Envoy cosplay to take down this episode's villain.
haha I read it as excatly the same.
We also get a shot where Zhao Yunlan and the Envoy stand right against each other without the camera being too tilted in the Envoy's favor, which shows how much of a gap must be bridged with shoes and floofy hair:
I thought they were almost the same height? Wow. Shen Wei really is smaller.
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Oops! Uh, I'm glad I could provide extra eye candy. Be sure to check out the imgur album?
He said he'd brought extra food, and was disappointed that Zhao Yunlan wasn't there. I suspect his original intent was to feed Li Qian and Zhao Yunlan as well, so they could bond over food as a family. (Shen Wei definitely had very paternal feels over Li Qian.)
Shen Wei also has a mentor, Professor Zhou, whom he's pretty close to – we'll soon see him escort a drunk Professor Zhou out of an alcohol-serving establishment while Professor Zhou tells him he should practice his drinking, it's only civilized – so I suspect that he got halfway adopted by Professor Zhou when he was but a wee lost student, and thinks academic mentor relationships are just like raising children or something. It can also be pretty intense as a relationship, definitely akin to a parent-child one, since it's about raising the younger one into a respected member of the scientific community, and teaching them all the necessary life skills for that.
The show goes out of its way to make Zhao Yunlan sit down, stand on the downhill side of the slope, etc, and occasionally even tilts itself a few degrees (like in that shot through the blinds with the Envoy) to make Shen Wei look taller. (The actors' height gap is officially only 3 cm, but there are unsubstatiated rumors that Zhu Yilong is secretly a few cm shorter than his official 180 cm due to his height complex, and that Bai Yu is secretly a few cm taller than his official 183 cm due to there being a maximum height for male lead roles.) Also, the Envoy persona has a small slouch.
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LOL!
We're also told of Shen Wei's concerns about Dixing, as he explicitly says that Dixing is a "prison of torment" where everyone has been tortured into having two faces.
This is an interesting point that I frequently forget about. Shen Wei is really working for a pretty crappy system, and seems to be ambivalent about how much that bothers him.
The Chu family are known as puppet masters, so Dixing powers must be at least somewhat hereditary
Yeah, I found that detail really interesting! Unlike a lot of others, it stuck in my mind, and it was very interesting background for Chu's later arc...
Zhao Yunlan was doing rather well hauling up Li Qian all by himself, so unlike what I've seen claimed, the fact that Li Qian rose very easily when Shen Wei came to help is no proof whatsoever about Shen Wei having super strength – two Zhao Yunlans would've likely raised her just as easily
Totally agree with that - she's pretty tiny too. He only slipped because he lost his footing!
The collection of shots through blinds etc. is gorgeous!
Three jackets in one episode - I guess he had someone to impress. *g*
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It is in several ways clear that Shen Wei is a general, not a politician. The fact that he's more comfortable enforcing a suboptimal system than fixing it is one.
The inheritance of Dixing powers is interesting, especially considering our two sets of identical twins with nominally different Dixing powers. I suppose it's also partially epigenetic or something, but I'd be very interested in reading a fic where it was actually purely genetic, and the twins just conceptualized their powers differently. (Random thought: did Shen Wei go into genetics to understand Dixing power inheritance?)
And even if Shen Wei hadn't come to the rescue, he'd have likely managed to pull her up, though with more bruises and terrifying moments!
As for the jackets, well, it's one of their ways to show the progression of time. One jacket per day, and we get a minimum number of days each episode must've happened over!
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I certainly always assumed it was in order to understand Dixingren powers better, so yes. (Focus on Dixing might of course also have given him an edge in studying, so he could make professor even more quickly!)
What you say about conceptualising differently would be particularly interesting wrt Shen Wei and Ye Zun, since each can somehow learn the powers of others, but it works very differently in practice, and one wonders if for Shen Wei there was a choice involved there that Ye Zun doesn't think he has because his power was initiated the particular way it was.
(Not that I think Ye Zun would like awake at night and think 'If only I didn't have to eat people...')
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I'd imagine the root power would be something along the lines of absorbing people's essence, but Shen Wei managed to do it nondestructively by simply watching and learning and wanting to be able to do what the other person has, and accidentally letting that power mold him so he's able to do it. (My analogy would be electromagnetic fields inducing current in a conductor.) Ye Zun, on the other hand, developed his powers in extremis, after years of being hurt by the guy who was trying to kill him; no doubt one of his big desires was killing his oppressor. He might've also been starving, depending on how food was allocated; he certainly appears skinnier than his brother. Under other circumstances, it might've shown up as a power externally similar to Wang Yike's, for example.
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Another thing to consider: Zhao Yunlan canonically has a thing for heels. Shen Wei canonically wears height-enhancing shoes. Ergo: Shen Wei in heels.
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Shen Wei's shoes-they do those shots often,he polishes them well after all.
'We also see Shen Wei's first attempt at feeding Zhao Yunlan fail colossally.' HAHAHAHHAHA!I coudn't help noticing now,that first picture of Shen Wei,ugh!My heart is melting!His hand is just so cute,lol! And the hurt scene-mehhehehee. I like his face there. XD
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Shen Wei turned up with food for the family dinner ("Look, Kunlun, I even found us a daughter!") and then Zhao Yunlan just ... didn't turn up. How rude of him. :P
I agree, the hand is cute. And he suffers so well...
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However, the favorite jacket he wears is the one he steals from the guard in Dixing in ep 33 - that was very unf.
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love love LOVE the insight about shen wei being extra protective and fatherly with his first ph.d. student! and she is lovely too <3
Shen Wei explicitly says that perhaps we can never get back the past (i.e. the relationship he shared with Kunlun) - the show does a pretty amazing job of using episodic case plots to illustrate main characters' feels and relationships. this one hurt :(
thank you for highlighting the shots thru blinds - SO GOOD, SO NOIR-ISH, SO VISUALLY INDICATIVE OF SECRETS \o/
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Shen Wei projects his and Zhao Yunlan's relationship all over the place, and IIRC the next case is the one with the interspecies lesbians, whom Shen Wei projects all over.
OH WOW I didn't even think of that, but: yes! So very indicative of secrets. And noir-ish. I'll have to pay attention to whether the shots through blinds ever disappear. Very nice icon. ;)
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The final pic in your jacket watch also seems to show the big height difference between Zhao Yunlan and the Envoy. Same scene as your evidence pic, perhaps, but to me it seemed even more striking.
Are you doing okay, Li Qian?I notice you've taken on a lot of jobs, Li Qian; is everything all right? Li Qian, please don't jump off the roof!
LOL so much this!
Shen Wei explicitly says that perhaps we can never get back the past (i.e. the relationship he shared with Kunlun)
I find this so intriguing, how the first few episodes all seem to be meant to convey something about Shen Wei's feelings for Zhao Yunlan. This continues in the next one, and the Mirror Girl ep (5?) seems rather pointed with the Dixing/Haixing love, too. And then of course Shen Wei's little speech in the Hanga Arc, which even Zhao Yunlan notices. :)
Thank you for the gorgeous cinematography, fashion choices and pain porn shots!
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Huh, indeed it does! For the evidence pick, I wanted something relatively straightforward, where they're standing in the same plane; it was either that one, or one where the fact that they shot it through blinds revealed that they'd tilted the camera a few degrees to make our dear Envoy look less short. :P
The next case is that of Zhang Ruonan and Wang Yike, whom I'm informed are very lesbian-coded, and thus exist in the same space of Socialist Siblinghood as Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei. I'll have more to say about that once we get there, but I'd argue the parallels are obvious. Then there's Xiaobai and his Dixing girlfriend Zhou Weiwei, where 1. "Weiwei" would be an acceptable, albeit super-cutesy, nickname for a Shen Wei; and 2. Zhao Yunlan asks her about her jacket, stating he'd like to buy one for his girlfriend ... and one later turns up on Shen Wei.
The Envoy's speeches about Dixingren not being that different from humans (and Shen Wei's as well) keep growing in length and intensity, lol. It's very "Please don't be your father, please don't hate me, Yunlan, please" and would be sad if Zhao Yunlan actually held any antipathy for Dixingren.
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It's not just the speeches about Dixingren, it's also that really revealing one about Sang Zan's hatred for his own people, where the Envoy basically goes, 'yeah, I totes get that because grrrr reasons' (implication: do not touch my Xiao Zhao or I cut you)
But generally agreed, he is so desperate for Zhao to not hate Dixinren, far more than warranted because Zhao puts his cards on the table pretty early on.
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Poor Shen Wei. He should be wrapped in a blanket. Zhao Yunlan, put another jacket on him!
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Two questions:
1. Why does Lin Jing sneeze at 38:33? Is this a Chinese superstition or idiom that means "someone's talking about you"?
2. At 41:50, why does the Longevity Dial light up when ZYL picks it up? In the earlier scene when ZYL is talking with the Envoy, he's got the Dial in his hand and is fiddling with it, but nothing happens. What changed?
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Yup, it's the "someone's talking about you" bit! As for why the Longevity Dial lights up when Zhao Yunlan picks it up ... uhh ... the Hallows work in mysterious ways? We aren't ever given a grand unified theory of how the Hallows work.
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[note to self: I really need my own Lin Jing icon, though preferably different from yours]
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My icon is from
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One note: we actually do see Shen Wei without his glasses this episode -- when he's healing his shoulder! (It took me several re-watches to realize this; his everything is very distracting in that scene.)
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OOPS. I have amended my post! (He was ... very distracting, yes.)
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The juxtaposition of this with your screencap of ZYL laid on the sofa reading a car magazine made me lol. There are times when the SID team seem like a bit of a shower, but I guess they don't actually have a ton of experience because there hasn't been much Dixing activity recently, and they have to learn to step up really quickly when things get serious.
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