Dear Ficcer in a Box

[extrapenguin]

I'm ExtraPenguin, and this is my ficinabox letter! Have fun!

Navigation:
Likes
DNWs
Knights of the Old Republic
Knights of the Old Republic II
Star Wars: the Old Republic
Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Star Wars AMT
Uplift

Likes

• Same-sex relationships, especially F/F.
• Narratives of reconstruction: fixing something, whether that be a country, a piece of equipment, a relationship, or a person. (Examples: Nirvana in Fire, Zuko's arc in Avatar: the Last Airbender)
• Journeys of discovery, whether the discoverers be the characters or the reader.
• Redemption arcs. Rehabilitative justice.
• Narratives where something happens; plot. External conflicts. Casefic. Action/adventure.
• Comedy of Errors -type things.
• [record scratch SFX] So You're Probably Wondering How I Got Into This Situation: the fic
• Crack taken seriously.
• Untitled Goose Game crossovers of the type where the goose comes to visit the canon.
• Alien settings: Dyson spheres, ringworlds, planets tidally locked to their red dwarf stars, artificial habitats on otherwise inhospitable planets, planets with large axial tilts, planets that are actually moons of gas giants, etc.
• Engineering, especially of the sort that keeps civilization running – sewage, maintenance, transport etc – plus infrastructure design stuff.
• Failure analysis/unraveling the causes of catastrophe, e.g. "why did the plane crash?" (yes, I like Mayday and Admiral Cloudberg)
• Characters expressing caring for each other by feeding each other/giving each other tea.
• Established relationships.
• Good mentor figures/teachers who have their students' best interests at heart and succeed.
• Class issues and other tensions between origins and current presentation (eg. alien whose species is considered monsters in disguise as a human).
• Worldbuilding!
• Weird physics.
• Tea.
• Competence porn.
• Enthusiasm in general.
• Xenobiology, aliens, very alien aliens.
• Loyalty, loyalty kink, people loyal way past the point of reasonableness.
• Loving descriptions of small details/of how systems run; insertion of Shown Their Work details.
• Happy endings.

I like both shipfic and gen. If you're choosing between something you think the characters would do in a situation and something on my likes list, please err on the side of what you feel is right for the characters and story in general.

DNW

• Setting change AUs (eg: Hogwarts AU, Coffee Shop AU)
• Christianity, mentions of "sinning".
• Humiliation, especially public.
• Unrequested incest, including foster/adopted relationships.
• Stories about motherhood.
• Unrequested het between humans or humanoid creatures. (Dolphins are fine, spiders are fine, people having parents is fine, the fabric of society being canonical and het-enabling is fine.)
• Requested characters being presented as/rendered utterly helpless; the "damsel in distress" trope; woobiefication.
• Stories about mourning unwelcome changes to/realizations about the body, with "body" defined broadly, (ex: acquiring a disability, infertility, weight gain) and the associated grief/angst.
• Stories about mourning a dead person.
• Requested characters dying.
• Stories where the characters have never loved or could never love anyone but each other, incl. soulmates, demisexuality, single-target sexuality, etc.

Getting up to speed on the canons

Knights of the Old Republic I & II: Two video games. Available natively for Windows and Mac, with II also available for Linux, cost about 10€ each the last time I checked. Available on GOG and Steam. Screenshot LP for I, all game dialogue for I, all game dialogue for II. Time to completion should be about 30-40 hours each.
Star Wars: The Old Republic: A MMO. You can get the class stories (incl. Sith Inquisitor) as a free to play player – they take about 30-40 hours too, I think. For the Sith Inquisitor/Darth Zash request you can do with just the class story. For Acina, while you do encounter her after Makeb, you need the KOTET expansion, for which you need to subscribe for at least one month – 13€, last time I checked.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars: 133-episode TV series; episode length 25 minutes. It's owned by Disney so streaming options are probably country-dependent.
Star Wars Prequel Trilogy: 3 movies, each about 2 hours long. Again, owned by Disney.
Uplift: Series of 6 books and a sequel novella. For Creideiki, you can probably just read book #2, Startide Rising. For the worldbuilding prompts, you probably also want to read books #5 (Infinity's Shore) and #6 (Heaven's Reach) plus the novella Temptation. Chissis and Tkett appear in Temptation, but you'll want to read books #2, #5, and #6 at least.

Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic I

I really enjoyed the reveal and companions' reactions to that. The potential for identity stuff/doubting one's recollections is super cool; I'd appreciate a chance for Revan to yell at the Jedi Council.
Revan preference: Light Side(-ish) but not necessarily aligned with the Jedi Council/forging her own path. Not the distracted from mission to kick all the puppies type DS actions that a DS playthrough involves, at any rate. Please ignore any EU material from outside the game. My favorites among the companions are Juhani and Jolee. My least favorite is Carth.

Yuthura Ban/Female Revan

• Revan and Yuthura going on a grand mission of slave liberation!
• I love the redemption/"was Sith, now no longer" thing they have in common. Did Yuthura recognize this was Revan? What did she think, when the Dark Lord herself told her to return to the Light Side? Did she have a crush on Revan with her mask and helmet?
• AU in which the Jedi Council thinks Yuthura should join Revan in her quest to find the Star Maps. Do they need to go look for an extra Star Map after the canon ones prove inconclusive?
• Post-canon exploration of the Uncharted World.
• Revan takes Yuthura with her to face the threat in the Unknown Regions. (Please ignore all of The Old Republic. Feel free to disregard as much of the rest of the EU as you wish.)

T3-M4

• This tag is very inspired. What does T3-M4 think of canon events?
• What was T3-M4 doing before canon? What is T3's mysterious and no doubt tragic backstory?
• What does T3 really think about the identity reveal? What opinions does T3 end up acquiring on Revan over the course of the game?
• Post-canon fic! What does T3 end up doing, with or without the Ebon Hawk crew?
• Some sort of AU where they need to go find extra Star Maps?
• Or maybe T3 (and someone else?) gets sent on a side quest to do something extremely important! Disabling an enemy ship? Infiltrating the Star Forge? Hacking into a military database?

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Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

For KOTOR 2, I am very much into the "there's something intrinsically metaphysically wrong and horrifying about the Exile and that makes them unstoppably compelling to everyone they meet" schtick, so leaning into that is very welcome! I really enjoyed the tone of the thing and the colossal loyalty kink possibilities, plus the slow unfolding of the premise and realizations.
Exile preference: inscrutable and mysterious, ideally Light Side(-ish). Light Is Not Nice -type stuff is welcome if that inspires you. Meetra Surik is an acceptable name, though please ignore any EU material from outside the game. My favorites among the companions are Visas, Handmaiden, Bao-Dur and T3-M4. My least favorites are G0-T0 and Atton.

Female Jedi Exile/Visas Marr

• Breaking the oath. After only just meeting her, Visas already considers the Exile a paradise valley. How? Why? Does she realize it's a reflection of the Exile being a wound in the Force, creating Force bonds with all?
• Visas falls from the darkness to the light, in a way. What is it like to fall in that direction?
• A fully-trained Jedi is a dangerous thing, as the denizens of Dantooine would no doubt inform you. After serving Darth Nihilus for so long, what would Visas expect from the Exile she now serves? How does the exile compare to the expectations?
• Dark F/F where the Exile is like the lure on an anglerfish, and Visas cannot help but fall.
• Missionfic of something unknown, either during or after canon. The tomb of a Sith Lord? Some political snare? Has Czerka regrouped to threaten the Ithorians again?
• Post-canon fic with the Exile and her followers/students reforming the Jedi Order
• Does Visas sneak off to join the Exile to confront the threat in the Unknown Regions? What is the threat, and what must be done about it? (Please ignore all of The Old Republic. Feel free to disregard as much of the rest of the EU as you wish.)

Brianna/Female Jedi Exile

• As above: breaking the oath. How did the Handmaiden fall for the Exile, when did she realize it, and would she treat it as a fall (from the light, from morality, etc)?
• Dark F/F where the Exile is like the lure on an anglerfish, and the Handmaiden cannot help but fall.
• Missionfic of something unknown, either during or after canon. The tomb of a Sith Lord? Some political snare? Has Czerka regrouped to threaten the Ithorians again?
• Post-canon fic with the Exile and her followers/students reforming the Jedi Order
• Does the Handmaiden sneak off to join the Exile to confront the threat in the Unknown Regions? What is the threat, and what must be done about it? (Please ignore all of The Old Republic. Feel free to disregard as much of the rest of the EU as you wish.)

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Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic

SWTOR! I got into the MMO in Feb 2021; the Sith Inquisitor was the first character I played and I have mine current with all content (so no need to fear spoilers). I liked the [electrocute] options and the hilarious quantities of sass and snark, as well as the focus on ancient mysteries and Sith archaeology. Like, seriously, write me a 10k fic that is just the Inquisitor investigating Rakatan ruins and I will be ecstatic. Please refer to the Inquisitor as Darth Nox/Occlus/Imperius if set at an appropriate place in the timeline. My personal Inquisitor is a Zabrak, but I like the other alien options as well. I'm not really into Zakuul or Valkorion family drama.

Darth Acina/Female Sith Inquisitor

• Acina's the questgiver for the Dread Seeds mission, so something with Acina going along with her new colleague on the Dark Council to capture all the Dread Seeds and stop the Dread Masters?
• Maybe a visit to a Sith Temple at some point in the timeline – ancient artefacts for the defeat of the Republic?
• Or, once Acina is Empress, some rival (Vowrawn? Ravage?) has established a base somewhere, time to go in with her right-hand woman to eliminate them?
• Visiting Ziost and its Sith tombs before the Cataclysm? Visiting Ziost after the Cataclysm? How much has survived, buried beneath the soil?
• Investigating Nathema's suitability to be an Imperial outpost?
• Or something more war-related – I'll be caught up with the upcoming expansion once it's been released; feel free to use stuff from there if you want.

Female Sith Inquisitor/Darth Zash
Please have Zash be in her original body, not Khem's. Thank you!

• "Here is the lightsaber I had when I was an apprentice! Now assassinate my enemies for me" is 100% exactly what I want in my femslash ships. So, uh, more of proud Sith master Zash setting achievable murder targets for the Sithquisitor?
• Sith archaeology field trip to some ancient temple! Korriban, Dromund Kaas, wherever. Just the two of them doing evil archaeology together.
• AU where Zash gets her eternal youth not through body snatching but through some dark side sex ritual.
• AU where the ritual Zash comes up with doesn't necessitate either her or Khem dying, but manages to reconstitute her body along the way, and all the awkward reactions that ensue.
• Zash said she almost forsook the ritual – what if she had? Zash and the Inquisitor shopping for a new body for Zash together?

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Star Wars Prequel Trilogy

I like both the Prequels and TCW, so feel free to look at the section below as well. Anyway! I really enjoyed the prequels in all their ridiculous glory, especially the lightsaber fights and the sense of sweeping world and the Jedi and the Jedi Temple.

Anakin Skywalker/Mace Windu
Please nothing set before Attack of the Clones. Thank you!

• All the weird Force bantha poodoo! Anakin takes Mace to Mortis instead of Obi-Wan and Ahsoka? Anakin touches a Force artefact and oops, now they have some sort of Force bond?
• Discovering ancient Rakatan devices! Trying to figure out WTF happened with them! Anything dealing with the legacy of the Infinite Empire.
• Honestly, anything in the genre of "Anakin and Mace go on an adventure together and end up getting together". Levels of peril and number of witnesses up to your discretion.
• A new Separatist stronghold has been discovered! Who's in charge? Grievous? A tactical droid? Some all-new non-droid General Count Dooku hired after one more disappointment from Grievous? What horrible trouble could befall our heroes this time?
• Someone gets kidnapped and potentially ransomed! Anakin and Mace get sent to rescue/negotiate/pay the ransom.
• Completely by happenstance, they're at a location when Something Interesting happens, and since they're Jedi, the local authorities ask them to solve the murder mystery/high-profile theft/terrorist attack.
• Or the interesting happens to them! A large diplomatic event between two planets that attach supreme importance to pod racing, Separatists attacking someplace and the 501st and 91st are the only ones close enough to respond, a bizarre Force Ghost starts haunting the Temple basement, etc! Or a smaller mishap, like them ending up in the rakghoul-infested sewers of Taris by accident and having to find their way out or something.

Anakin Skywalker & Mace Windu

• If you are aware of the Mace Windu Unfucks the Timeline tumblr post? That. I am 100% here for another take on that idea.
• Relatedly, anything involving Anakin as Mace's padawan.
• Anakin's mission assignments go differently (Padmé stays on Coruscant/someone else escorts her to Naboo), so he's part of the Geonosis rescue planning team with Mace.
• In preparation for solo missions, Mace takes Anakin with him on a mission somewhere! Diplomacy? Tracking down someone or something? An untrained Force sensitive thief? An ancient Sith artefact? Sent to investigate ruins with a strong Force presence?
• Or maybe the mission is very simple, but things go awry at the location, and since they're Jedi, the local authorities ask them to solve the murder mystery/high-profile theft/terrorist attack.
• Someone gets kidnapped and potentially ransomed! Anakin and Mace get sent to rescue/negotiate/pay the ransom.
• Or the interesting happens to them! A large diplomatic event between two planets that attach supreme importance to pod racing, Separatists attacking someplace and the 501st and 91st are the only ones close enough to respond, a bizarre Force Ghost starts haunting the Temple basement, etc! Or a smaller mishap, like them ending up in the rakghoul-infested sewers of Taris by accident and having to find their way out or something.

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Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)

Okay, so one of my bulletproof narrative kinks is mentorship, which this show delivers in spades. And the Jedi! I love the space wizards and their vaguely Buddhist philosophy and telekinetic powers. I really like people figuring out their place in the universe and helping others on their journeys. So here are a bunch of prompts for a variety of Jedi. I also love slash, femslash and milSF! (DNW exception note: background Padmé/Anakin is fine.) You are also free to include any general Prequels era stuff or set your fic outside the Clone Wars if that's where a prompt leads you. I'm not fussy.

Note regarding the Jedi: Please no Jedi bashing or Jedi Council bashing. They can be acting on bad/misleading information, but I'd like them to be well-intentioned and not be on a mission to be petty and rude to Anakin Skywalker. Canon-compliant fic is 100% fine, but please nothing set in a canon-compliant Order 66.

Mace Windu
Potentially relevant: I have read the Shatterpoint novel and enjoyed it, including the Mace Windu characterization.

• Mace Windu is a good person, decisive, and really good with a lightsaber! Something where he gets to show off his skillz? Clone war battle, Jedi mission, Anakin takes a nap so he can decapitate Sidious in peace?
• Teaming up for a dangerous/complicated mission? Civilians found some highly dangerous Sith/Rakata/etc artefact that needs to be retrieved? Dooku escaped into a Sith Temple and needs to be stopped? Mace gets trapped by the Senate Budget Committee and desperately needs to be rescued?
• A new Separatist stronghold has been discovered! Who's in charge? Grievous? A tactical droid? Some all-new non-droid General Count Dooku hired after one more disappointment from Grievous? What horrible trouble could befall our heroes this time?
• Someone gets kidnapped and potentially ransomed! Mace gets sent to rescue/negotiate/pay the ransom.
• Completely by happenstance, he's at a location when Something Interesting happens, and since he's Jedi, the local authorities ask him to solve the murder mystery/high-profile theft/terrorist attack.

Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano

• I like how Anakin's very protective of his padawan, even if Ahsoka chafes against it a bit at the start, and then grows to trust her, so: saving each other from trouble!
• Any and all padawan raising schmoop. I am 100% here for it.
• A new Separatist stronghold has been discovered! Who's in charge? Grievous? A tactical droid? Some all-new non-droid General Count Dooku hired after one more disappointment from Grievous? What horrible trouble could befall our heroes this time?
• Someone gets kidnapped and potentially ransomed! Ahsoka and Anakin get sent to rescue/negotiate/pay the ransom.
• At Anakin's insistence, they get sent on a mission with as little to do with the war as possible. Tracking down an ancient Sith artefact? Sent to investigate ruins with a strong Force presence?
• Completely by happenstance, they're at a location when Something Interesting happens, and since they're Jedi, the local authorities ask them to solve the murder mystery/high-profile theft/terrorist attack.
• The silliest, crackiest fix-it you can come up with! The Force enables the help menu and the Jedi figure out Palpatine's deal in time to expose him? Ahsoka gives the Chancellor a pet goose, except oh no, the goose is actually Darth Honkius the horrible? Sidious, Maul, and Dooku all put to motion their next plans – except they're working at cross-purposes, leading to an entertaining explosion?

Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano

• I love the dynamic where Obi-Wan enjoys Anakin's padawan raising problems much too much and the way Ahsoka quickly gets included into Anakin and Obi-Wan's banter!
• A new Separatist stronghold has been discovered! Who's in charge? Grievous? A tactical droid? Some all-new non-droid General Count Dooku hired after one more disappointment from Grievous? What horrible trouble could befall our heroes this time?
• Someone gets kidnapped and potentially ransomed! The gang get sent to rescue/negotiate/pay the ransom.
• At Anakin's insistence, they go on a mission that has as little to do with the war as possible. (Just like Anakin's own, not-in-the-middle-of-a-war padawan times! Except he's a Knight and he brought his own padawan with.) Tracking down an ancient Sith artefact? Sent to investigate ruins with a strong Force presence?
• Completely by happenstance, they're at a location when Something Interesting happens, and since they're Jedi, the local authorities ask them to solve the murder mystery/high-profile theft/terrorist attack.
• The silliest, crackiest fix-it you can come up with! The Force enables the help menu and the Jedi figure out Palpatine's deal in time to expose him? Ahsoka gives the Chancellor a pet goose, except oh no, the goose is actually Darth Honkius the horrible? Sidious, Maul, and Dooku all put to motion their next plans – except they're working at cross-purposes, leading to an entertaining explosion?

Obi-Wan Kenobi/Darth Maul

• Obi-Wan is the one to find Maul on Lotho Minor!
• Due to Dooku, Sidious, or forces of nature, Obi-Wan and Maul are stranded somewhere and can only get out if they cooperate.
• Maul decides that actually, he also wants vengeance on Sidious, and the best way to get that is via the Jedi. Now, if only Kenobi would believe him...
• Before killing his beloved nemesis, Maul absolutely needs to monologue at him about how he ruined his life. Then monologue some more, because he can only kill his nemesis once, so he better say everything he's ever wanted to say first. Wait, that turned out much too personal and revealing, abort – why can't he kill Kenobi? What is this colossal betrayal of his hand???
• Maul's revenge quest is, like all revenge quests, awfully personal. What if it took a turn for the physical/erotic? Obi-Wan decides to try flirting with him to get out of this and oh look, suddenly the sexual tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife and serve it for dinner?
• Obi-Wan comes to the tragic conclusion that Maul is hot when they're fighting with lightsabers and also really hard to kill. Maybe he should try redeeming the guy instead? You know, just to minimize collateral damage. Anyway, here's his comm code, please call first if you feel the urge to kill anyone, Maul!
• Time travel! Rebels/TCW-era Obi-Wan/Maul travels back to TCW/TPM and tries to convince himself/the other one to change approach, with varying levels of success.

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Star Wars - All Media Types

Anakin Skywalker is from the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy (and also The Clone Wars); Feemor appears on two pages of a Xanatos du Crion backstory comic as Qui-Gon Jinn's very first padawan.

Feemor & Anakin Skywalker

• Feemor gets wind of the stunt Qui-Gon pulled with Anakin and Obi-Wan in the Council chambers and decides he absolutely needs to fall on this sword and take Anakin on as a padawan before Qui-Gon does something even more stupid, like bringing a youngling to a war zone.
• AU where Feemor reaches out to Obi-Wan and Anakin after Qui-Gon's death.
• Or it's Anakin who comes across Feemor – he gets sent on a mission with Feemor, and everyone's ??? when they don't actually know each other already.

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Uplift Series - David Brin

My very favorite dolphins! I love the setting with its "and even the kitchen sink" attitude towards space opera worldbuilding eg the five different means of FTL travel, and the fact that the universe is vast and wondrous and has umpteen billion alien species in it. Pragmatic Hikahi and Creideiki the wily philosopher were the standout stars of Startide Rising, and Chissis and Tkett, both mad in their own ways, were of Temptation. I'm grouping the Chissis and Tkett prompts and the Creideiki and Hikahi prompts together, since they're sort of different cast herds, but the pre-canon prompts in the Creideiki+Hikahi set should work just as well for any subgroup – feel free to mix and match. WRT hetships, Creideiki/Hikahi and Chissis/Tkett are both OK, as are the & variants of both.

Chissis & Tkett

• Chissis and Tkett were the outstanding stars of Temptation for me! I'd gladly read more of their adventures exploring Jijo, maintaining things in the face of entropy, Tkett doing science (and founding a scientific journal just to get a place to publish it in?), and Chissis clawing her way back to sentience!
• Is the Buyur plan simply what they said it would be in Temptation, or is there yet another layer hidden there? Do they have things hidden on Jijo beyond the things mentioned in Temptation? What was the method to their choice of things to leave behind?
• How does being stuck on Jijo affect Trinary? Do the alien shores mean their favorite imagery in Trinary changes? Their favorite wordplays? Their views on art
• What's it like to be mad in a completely unique way?
• What else is there that lurks in Jijo's depths?

Creideiki/Hikahi
Note: Please don't dwell on Creideiki's head injury. It's okay if he has it, but I don't want a fic that's All About him having a head injury and how he copes with it – I'd prefer fic about his adventures instead.

• I'd love to see more of Creideiki & co's galactic escape adventure! How do they reach Earth?
• Does their escape adventure/some training cruise of Creideiki's go through E-Space, and perhaps yield them with some new knowledge of how E-Space works? Or do they actually encounter a mad sentient who prefers it to other modes of hyperspace travel?
• Are there still Progenitor relics to be found? Did the Progenitors all unifiedly disappear one day, or did they gradually fade out? Does their find in the Shallow Cluster lead them to another set of clues, or did Creideiki's hunch to investigate the Shallow Cluster come from some prior experience with Progenitor relics?
• How did Creideiki and Hikahi first meet? (I do ship it!)
• Do they stumble across some (illegal) Uplift process? Or a failure/"failure" of an Uplift process?
• What's it like to think in Trinary all day? What does a Trinary courtship look like? What are Creideiki's and Hikahi's (and Chissis's and Tkett's) favorite wordplays?
• Do they have some additional encounters with Galactic bureaucracy, either before or after the whole "everyone wants to murder Earthclan" thing?

Worldbuilding

• What's it like to think in Trinary all day? What sort of poetic imagery is most popular? What sorts of things count as undertones of Primal that e.g. Makanee is worried about Brookida displaying?
• How did Trinary form exactly? (Dolphins finding haikus cool and just unilaterally to only communicate using them?)
• How does thinking in Trinary affect dolphin views of art? What are the images that are considered most poetic, and why?
• How often do they use Trinary to subtly or not-so-subtly troll humans?
• What does a Trinary courtship look like? What're dolphins' favorite wordplays?
• I'd love to see some sort of opening up of what the Whale Dream is and what it means, and how it's reflected in modern Trinary! Is the Whale Dream something found without, to be sought in the oceans, or something found within, carried with the fins to the ends of the galaxy? Do our spacegoing fins miss the song of the humpbacks of Earth's oceans?How much of the Whale Dream is cultural and how much is ... not?
• What were the Progenitors like? Why did they make the choices they did? Did they unifiedly disappear one day, or was there fractiousness? Why did they leave?
• How did First Contact between the Progenitors go? What sorts of traps did they leave behind?
• Is the Buyur plan for Jijo simply what they said it would be in Temptation, or is there yet another layer hidden there?
• Do they have things hidden on Jijo beyond the things mentioned in Temptation? What are they? What was the method to their choice of things to leave behind? Was there one?

* Hands and fire?
      Hands and fire!
* Use them, use them
      To leap higher!
* Dreams and song?
      Dreams and song!
* Use them, use them
      To leap-long! *

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