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The year is 2009. Ralph Nader just finished his second term in office. The September 11 attacks targeted Playboy and Hustler et al, instigating a shorter and much more amusing war, now finished.

Your name is Méibh "yes I spell it with the Pokemon mark" Morrisey, and you're one of New York's superheroes. Sometimes it's firefighting and rescue, sometimes it's journalism, and sometimes, there are supervillains.
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Who Are You?

HoratioVonBecker

Imperfectly Aligned
Let's start in the middle, this time.

You're the Goblin, and you're a hero. You've saved people, fought villains, and gotten to fly your rocket-board indoors. You're starting to figure out a healthy work/life balance, and your dating life is actually going pretty well. Even your fanboy at the Bugle has been giving you a bit of space!

Life is actually pretty good right now.

But you're still somebody, with hopes and trials and need to express things, with friends and family and interests and stuff. You won't stay at rest forever.

Your Alias
[ ] The Green Goblin​
[ ] Golden Goblin​
[ ] Goblin-Girl​
[ ] Write-in​
Name
[ ] Write-in (Bonus for Assonance)​
From Where?
[ ] New York City, obviously.​
[ ] Battleworld​
[ ] Write In​
From When?
[ ] 2017​
[ ] 2009​
[ ] 1997​
[ ] 1977​
[ ] Write In​
You have a specialty. Something that sets you apart from most of the Goblins that might exist. You will, with time and interest, develop all of these... but this is the one you have now.​
[ ] Lunatic Laugh. Weird reaction to goblin formula means you have a semi-directed sonic weapon instead of a belly-laugh. It doesn't notably increase your resting food requirement, since it's not a passive ability, and by now you've got a pretty good idea of why it happened - putting you in the top twenty metaphysiologists worldwide, and in the top eight for chemically-induced powers in particular.​
Pros: Pretty big gun for your weight class, especially for something mostly nonlethal | Basically can't be disarmed while in-atmosphere | Larger-scale area attack than basically anything else you have access to​
Cons: Can't laugh properly without breaking all the glass and eardrums in at least a twenty-foot spread | Basically can't be disarmed while in-atmosphere | 'Semi-directed' means 'less precision than literal hand grenades'​
[ ] Turbo Tinker. You've managed to make rocket shoes. You can fly without a glider. It's not as fast, admittedly, but it's still really cool - and very useful in melee, double-super-especially in aerial melee. You're also really good at small-scale flight mechanisms in general; your goblin gliders are already capable of folding up to backpack-size, remote guidance for observation and bombing, and a reasonably smart automated summoning function.​
Pros: Melee is a bread-and-butter skill, and you're really good with flying kicks | Considerably less risk from scouting and crashes | Flying and otherwise-aerial enemies are common Spider-foes, and you're unusually well-equipped to fight them​
Cons: Relatively few ranged options | No really big attacks, you'll have to improvise against anything tough | Seriously, that's enough, tough Spider-foes are also pretty common​
[ ] Pumpkin Boom. You have a knack for grenade design. In addition to smoke and ball-lightning bombs, your standard kit also includes glue, sleeping gas, and high-incendiary. Your special-occasions kit expands from normally-semi-lethal concussion bombs to normally-very-lethal razor spreaders, and you carry all the standard tools and parts you need to make custom bombs, which you can usually do pretty quickly once you have an idea.​
Pros: Lots of combat options, so long as you control the range or have the right equipment | Chains fairly well with other growth routes, such as homing grenades or anti-power gases | Sort of the most tinkery starting option​
Cons: Most of your powers need ammo | 'Make a grenade to solve the problem' is one of the easiest growth routes in general, so this is easier to pick up as a secondary than the others are | Apart from being an obvious weak point, your bag could cause some serious damage if it gets lost​
Info
Unmentioned pieces of your standard kit include electrolaser gloves, 'aluminum' scale mail like Captain America, and a handful of batarangs because you can. Your origin and formula choices will occur next vote, in around 4-7 days (including writing time). Also, approval voting, in this case by plan, is both accepted and encouraged.​
 
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Rules and Assumptions for this Quest
This quest is going to skew very heavily toward the 'guided writing exercise' end of the novel-to-boardgame scale. When I offer a vote, it's as a way to draw on your interest and emotional investment - and as such, vote majority is technically subordinate to that. Approval voting is great. Analysis, tactics, and strategizing, are great. Cranky campaigning is not great. Please act accordingly.
Second, there are some things I won't write, however much you'd like me to. At the moment, that list is: swearwords; explicit sex; ideas I don't have enough handle on to do justice.
If I think of an option I might want to write but don't feel I could do justice, I may put it up as a [LOCKED] vote. These represent a standing invitation to help me get a handle on the subject.

Also: this particular superhero setting is designed for you to poke at. People are going to have internal lives, powers are going to function consistently, and vagueness is a tool to allow fudging, rather than a sign to look away. (If I have to ask you not to look too closely, I'll just come out and say it.)
 
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Media Inspirations
The Spider-Liv series showed me the fun of writing a proper Marvel AU, that a quest could be popular around here without formalized mechanics, and that a good story is actually a really good means to talk about Real World Issues. I disagree with it on more than one of those issues, but that doesn't stop me from liking or recommending it!
Clown Corps is a superhero series with a lot of good ideas about what superheroes even are, and is also very funny, and well-choreographed, and generally just well-executed. I likewise recommend it.
The Bishop Cases is a wonderful example of a maniac-depressive author working through his issues via art, and also just plain fun. I was fortunately not subjected to most of the absurdity of the US/Canada School System - I read about it second-hand, via Gordon Korman and Louis Sachar and others - but I very much appreciate this Dick Tracy/Nancy Drew mashup.
Chris Hastings' run on Gwenpool is a very funny series where all the characters seem to have internality, and is thus generally effective when it invites you not to overthink it. (It's also approximately the most irresponsible superhero SI I have ever seen, and drop dead hilarious as a result. It helps, too, that most of the art is vibrant without being over-busy.)
Spider-Girl is the longest-running print-comics serial I ever read, and is probably one of the things that made me such a well-adjusted teen.
The Teen Titans Go! comics from 2006 were a formative influence on my sense of humor, being mostly concerned with silly puns.

Iron Man: Armored Adventures (Season 1) has some pretty entertaining superhero worldbuilding, and alongside Generator Rex, gave me an interest in teen superhero sci-fi.

Finally, I've been interested in Jack Kirby's Utopian Sci-Fi For Kids ever since I found Marvel samplers, rather than the DC collections that predominated in my previous library. I've always tried to just love everybody, and it turns out that writing for a child audience is a really good way to do that!
(I, uh, maybe didn't do a great job this time; dangerous levels of sleep deprivation will do that.)
 
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Guiding Bolt's Build Plans
[x] Plan Mab
-[x] Golden Goblin
-[x] Méibh "Mab" Morrisey
-[x] New York City, obviously.
-[x] 2009
-[x] Lunatic Laugh

Origin-wise, I picture a recent Irish immigrant family into New York City working in the city's tech-sector (likely OsCorp, but that's a setting dependent detail). The "Lunatic Laugh" specialty reminds me of the Banshees of Irish legend, so I think that's a good thematic binding. The name Méibh/Mab refers to a legendary Irish deity/Ulster cycle character, and also relates to a wide variety of fey and Shakespearean mythos. Morrisey for alliteration and partial assonance.

Golden Goblin is my preferred title for Mab for three reasons: (1) it doesn't claim the mantle of Green Goblin, allowing an Osborn Goblin character to exist under their main name inside of the story; (2) it doesn't make the character's gender the highlight of their alias, which I think the Goblin-Girl option and a lot of the traditionally female aliases do; and (3) it ties in with the costume I envision for the Mab-Goblin (Mablin?). The legendary figure Mab has flowing, golden hair, and I think having a costume that highlights Mab's hair would give her a unique silhouette and appearance compared to the other Goblin family characters.

I've made some other sample plan ideas here, in case people aren't interested in the Mablin.

[] Oscorp's Finest
-[] The Green Goblin
-[] Norman Osborn
-[] New York City, obviously.
-[] 1977
-[] Turbo Tinker

Original!Goblin-plan, with a heroic take on Norman Osborn. This would be the furthest back in the timeline we could reasonably go.

[] Harry Situations
-[] The Green Goblin
-[] Harry Osborn
-[] New York City, obviously.
-[] 2007
-[] Pumpkin Boom

Heroic!Harry plan, in the middle of the 2000s. This sets up for the closest to canon situation I believe and it would set up for father-son conflicts against Norman Osborn.

[] Goblin... Gwen?
-[] Goblin-Girl
-[] Gwen Stacy
-[] New York City, obviously.
-[] 2017
-[] Turbo Tinker

Goblin-Girl Gwen instead of Spider-Girl Gwen, I think this option would work well for a corporate-sponsored hero type approach. Gwen Stacy is heavily tied to OsCorp, so having her developing a new Goblin suit and working with OsCorp would be a cool approach that deviates heavily from the usual Spiderverse shenanigan's. Sets up for interesting relationships with a Harry!Goblin if present in the setting, and if the romantic arc between Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker continues, that's also an interesting scenario to explore.
 
Nice. I'll be adding that to Sidestory or Apocrypha, depending on whether one of those wins. Also, I forgot to specify that approval voting (by plan, in this case) is totally kosher here, so I'll go add that.
Edit: Done!
 
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[x] Plan Inazuma Kick
-[x] Marvelous Goblin
-[x] Rose Jones
-[x] New York City, obviously.
-[x] 2009
-[x] Turbo Tinker.
 
[X] Harry Situations
-[X] The Green Goblin
-[X] Harry Osborn
-[X] New York City, obviously.
-[X] 2007
-[X] Pumpkin Boom
 
[X] Harry Situations
-[X] The Green Goblin
-[X] Harry Osborn
-[X] New York City, obviously.
-[X] 2007
-[X] Pumpkin Boom
 
Alright. Plan Mab has a lead on both votes and arguments, and I've realized that actually waiting four days would mean having to wait until Monday to start writing. As such, I'm doing a last call. If you're still making a plan, please tag me within the next ten minutes.
 
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...And closed. I guess I'll be editing the update in over this.
(Wait, that wouldn't give you guys alerts. Never mind.)
 
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Two Hundred Words of Picture
Your name is Méibh "Mayv-but-you-flap-the-end" Morrisey, and yes you actually spell it like that, even though it gives most databases a fit. It may not be your most convenient inheritance, but you have standards.
You also have a preposterously beautiful new Goblin suit. The last one wasn't actually bad, all things considered, but this one you like. You're taking your time with this equipment check, mostly to admire it.

Pointed grey boot-socks made from ultratensile pseudosilk; Parker Industries doesn't really advertise their dirt-cheap printing scraps, but you're friends with the manager's son. Gold-plated scale mail, which looks amazing, is basically immune to chemical burns, and you've layered with stuff to make a really good electrical barrier. Gloves a lot like your boots; elbow-length with floppy cuffs, large enough to look like a witch's sleeves. (Enough tricks in them to justify it.) Shawl in case you need to hide, which is... not standard, but enough more common than acid that you put the silk layer outside the gold layer wherever the shawl won't easily cover. It's swept back at the moment, draping your modestly-sized grenade pack. Whose dispenser works great!
Finally, your mask. A beautiful wax-colored goblin queen, your eyes, your mouth, big pointy ears, grey kerchief atop golden hair. (Your natural hair is nearly white.) You crack a grin and that doesn't ruin it. Yes!
The final effect is a young crone, hump and all, and you absolutely love it. You can't keep staring forever, though; you do have a job to do tonight.

What, exactly, are you planning?
[ ] Interrupting what you're pretty sure is a midsize mob shipment. Mobsters aren't idiots, and some will be experienced combatants, but they aren't really equipped to fight you. That would take... flamethrowers? An army? Not the sort of thing a clandestine organization can resort to, basically.​
[ ] Roxxon has been acting even shadier than normal, cancelling all local plant tours and bringing in a lot of weird vans. Not the right sort of equipment for renovations, and they don't look like feds, either. Go commit an investigative journalism.​
[ ] Fire patrol. It's July, there's a heatwave, not all apartments are up to code. Grab a lab-carpet, a brace of extinguishers, and your heavy-loads board; it's going to be a long night.​
[ ] Write-in. (Needs to be something Méibh thinks fairly safe, and could reasonably have known about beforehand.)​
And how did you get all your wonderful toys?
[ ] Your dreams show you other worlds, giving you a lot of useful technical insights and also a lot of highly unreliable premonitions. Your kit still isn't cheap, but you make do on patents semi-anonymized through a holding company.​
[ ] You inherited a lot of them. The Green Goblin was well-known, and that gives you a fair bit of credit in some circles.​
-[ ] She was a hero, did a lot to help in the Magneto Riots when you were a kid. From what you can tell, both sides respected her. She's retired now, but you've gotten her blessing, advice, equipment, boltholes, and friendship. It's gotten you through a lot.​
-[ ] She was a villain, more or less. Stole a lot of stuff from various companies, put it together in really impressive ways, evaded law enforcement for more than a year. You found one of her caches during Hurricane Jones, and your following role in the cleanup made it politically nonviable to take it from you. She's in Rykers now.​
Finally, which serum do you have?
[ ] Literally just Super-Soldier. Your strength and speed are basically permanent, but so is your appetite. You eat like half a football team. (Well, actually more like a quarter.) This is expensive, and you get kind of mean when you're hungry. You've been working on that.​
[ ] Three-hour potion. A temporary super-soldier emulation drug, whose worst side effect is mood swings as it kicks in or wears off. You're fairly safe, but it can mess up pre-existing conditions something fierce. Still, as a last resort when someone's badly injured, it works like nothing else.​
[LOCKED] When exposed to things that would kill it two to five times over, the human body is sometimes known to undergo radical transformation - surviving, and developing occasionally-heritable superpowers. And by analyzing your unusual reaction to super-soldier treatment, you've isolated a set of radiochemical triggers to reliably induce it. You call it Extremis.​

A/N: There should be fewer votes next time, and more description. I'm not yet sure what your lair looks like.
 
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[X] plan the living legend

-[X] Fire patrol. It's July, there's a heatwave, not all apartments are up to code. Grab a lab-carpet, a brace of extinguishers, and your heavy-loads board; it's going to be a long night

-[X] Your dreams show you other worlds, giving you a lot of useful technical insights and also a lot of highly unreliable premonitions. Your kit still isn't cheap, but you make do on patents semi-anonymized through a holding company

-[X] Literally just Super-Soldier. Your strength and speed are basically permanent, but so is your appetite. You eat like half a football team. (Well, actually more like a quarter.) This is expensive, and you get kind of mean when you're hungry. You've been working on that
 
It's a shame Extremis is locked. I wonder what selection in the first vote would've gotten it (Norman, maybe? Or the 2017 starting date?).

[] "Interrupting what you're pretty sure is a midsize mob shipment" and [] "Roxxon has been acting even shadier than normal" are both interesting options, but I don't think either is a good decision for our first mission out. Interrupting the mob shipment is a medium-risk, short-term reward situation that puts us further into the mob's crosshairs. Until we're actually in a position to stop mob activities or to deal lasting damage to the mob, I would prefer not to make them our primary enemy. Roxxon is a bit of a mystery box with the low amount of detail that we have so committing an investigative journalism would be beneficial, but I think that we can scope out what they're doing a bit more externally before we commit any invasive journalism.

[] "Fire Patrol" strikes me as a safer option than either and one that should improve Méibh/Mab/Mayv's PR with other local heroics. I think that makes it our best choice for our intro adventure.

[] "Your dreams show you other worlds" is a pretty cool option. I don't know if it's alluding towards a Battleworld presence, towards Goblin Queen-like magics, towards the Goblin Entity or to something else entirely, but it seems to me like a good thematic fit with the witchy look that Golden Goblin is going for. As an added benefit, this option doesn't disclose our secret identity to anyone, which the Heroic!Goblin option seems to do, and it provides an additional stream of income through our patents that the other options can't go for.

[] "You inherited a lot of them" and its sub-options are interesting, but I think that they have less of a connection with our chosen build from the first vote. Of them, I prefer the former villain Goblin option over the former hero Goblin option to preserve our secret identity. Having our tech being based on stolen or gifted gear isn't my favorite (we won't be able to monetize it) and depending on which one we choose, we'd either inherit the enemies of the former Hero Goblin or we'd inherit the Villain Goblin as an enemy when she inevitably breaks out of Rykers.

[] "Literally just Super-Soldier" is big. If the QM is going by the standard super-soldier serum that shows up, we're putting ourselves physically at Captain America levels and we're combining it with a sound-based explosive attack. With or without our suit, we're a major threat. If it's based off of the Oz Formula/Goblin Formula (which would make a lot of sense), we're looking at physical levels on par with Spider-Man and potentially madness/memory loss over time. I suppose the downsides are that since it's always active, it's more likely to compromise our secret identity than the other options? If we combine it with the visions option, we should be able to use our patent-based income to cover up a good amount of the food-based expenses while remaining 'normal' to outside perspectives.

[] "Three-hour potion" is cool and might be a better thematic fit with the other elements of the build, esp. with witchy-image we've developed. It also gives us a pretty neat healing option (but if we were to be discovered for that healing option, I'm pretty sure SHIELD and others will want to put us in a box for on-demand super serum) and lets us easily expand our party with capable fighters given the right opportunities. OTOH, the three-hour element of it seems like a major drawback. I'm not too worried about the severe mood swings, those can be handled by being careful in where we ingest the potion, but they're something to take note of. They're probably more annoying to deal with than the angry-when-hungry aspect of Super-Soldier, but that's really hard to say without knowing how encounters will be structured.

[] "Extremis" is really cool and fits with the sound-based powers we've already selected. OTOH, while I think SHIELD would be on trying to put us in a box for three-hour potions, they'd be doing a lot more than that if we were discovered as an Extremis-producer. That's a kill-order type power. The option also doesn't highlight exactly what our form of Extremis would be granting us, while the other formulas are a bit more clear (though maybe there's a third Character Creation that would be discussed in). This option also seems more distinctly villainous than the other choices.

[x] plan the living legend

This seems fine to me for now. As a side-note, @HoratioVonBecker is Méibh/Mab/Mayv a college student, high school student or some other age entirely? What's the family situation?
 
Commentary I
It's a shame Extremis is locked. I wonder what selection in the first vote would've gotten it (Norman, maybe? Or the 2017 starting date?).
Nah, I just need to feel like I'm up for a 'you can reliably induce superpowers' plot, which has a significant possibility of 'you're going to have to open-source them to avoid neofeudalism'. The one where that sort of power wouldn't have been particularly Ambitious is Battleworld.
[] "Interrupting what you're pretty sure is a midsize mob shipment" and [] "Roxxon has been acting even shadier than normal" are both interesting options, but I don't think either is a good decision for our first mission out.
Remember, Méibh has actually been at this for a bit. Two decent-sized plotlines, more or less.
[] "Your dreams show you other worlds" is a pretty cool option. I don't know if it's alluding towards a Battleworld presence, towards Goblin Queen-like magics, towards the Goblin Entity or to something else entirely, but it seems to me like a good thematic fit with the witchy look that Golden Goblin is going for. As an added benefit, this option doesn't disclose our secret identity to anyone, which the Heroic!Goblin option seems to do, and it provides an additional stream of income through our patents that the other options can't go for.
It's original - I'm often surprised by how much comics stuff I know, but I haven't read that much. As for money, the heroic mentor also had enough income to finance her gadgets, and she's not going to give you equipment you can't keep working.
[] "You inherited a lot of them" and its sub-options are interesting, but I think that they have less of a connection with our chosen build from the first vote. Of them, I prefer the former villain Goblin option over the former hero Goblin option to preserve our secret identity. Having our tech being based on stolen or gifted gear isn't my favorite (we won't be able to monetize it) and depending on which one we choose, we'd either inherit the enemies of the former Hero Goblin or we'd inherit the Villain Goblin as an enemy when she inevitably breaks out of Rykers.
Méibh is an inventor in all options; this is just why she already has like ten weird technologies despite being at this for a year or less. Also, Villain Goblin might not necessarily be an enemy - you've never met her, but she mostly hit megacorps...
[] "Literally just Super-Soldier" is big. If the QM is going by the standard super-soldier serum that shows up, we're putting ourselves physically at Captain America levels and we're combining it with a sound-based explosive attack. With or without our suit, we're a major threat. If it's based off of the Oz Formula/Goblin Formula (which would make a lot of sense), we're looking at physical levels on par with Spider-Man and potentially madness/memory loss over time. I suppose the downsides are that since it's always active, it's more likely to compromise our secret identity than the other options? If we combine it with the visions option, we should be able to use our patent-based income to cover up a good amount of the food-based expenses while remaining 'normal' to outside perspectives.
I headcanon all Goblin formula as being derived from super-soldier, or at least inspired by it. It's developed at least twenty years after Cap's, Goblins often wear scale mail, it's a pretty obvious line to draw. I also headcanon Goblin Gliders as needing superhuman might to ride safely, and Spider-Man honestly has better strength feats than Cap? You're not as good at jumping as a spider-person, but you are going to be seriously strong in any build.
As for downsides, it's more the opportunity cost of not having emergency healing, and the appetite problems. Don't underestimate the sheer inconvenience of needing five large meals a day...
[] "Three-hour potion" is cool and might be a better thematic fit with the other elements of the build, esp. with witchy-image we've developed. It also gives us a pretty neat healing option (but if we were to be discovered for that healing option, I'm pretty sure SHIELD and others will want to put us in a box for on-demand super serum) and lets us easily expand our party with capable fighters given the right opportunities.
Mixing chemicals from recipe isn't a superpower, so no extra risk on that front. Party expansion might be a bit easier, but not enormously; Méibh has reasons for going solo, not least of which is her area attack.
OTOH, the three-hour element of it seems like a major drawback. I'm not too worried about the severe mood swings, those can be handled by being careful in where we ingest the potion, but they're something to take note of. They're probably more annoying to deal with than the angry-when-hungry aspect of Super-Soldier, but that's really hard to say without knowing how encounters will be structured.
They're meant to be more-or-less equivalent, but not usually issues in combat. Stuff to keep track of, like web reserves or armor power, but mostly they're for the Spider-theme of Normal Person Problems.
[] "Extremis" is really cool and fits with the sound-based powers we've already selected. OTOH, while I think SHIELD would be on trying to put us in a box for three-hour potions, they'd be doing a lot more than that if we were discovered as an Extremis-producer. That's a kill-order type power. The option also doesn't highlight exactly what our form of Extremis would be granting us, while the other formulas are a bit more clear (though maybe there's a third Character Creation that would be discussed in). This option also seems more distinctly villainous than the other choices.
I'm not sure what you'd get with Extremis, but I might go with a side-effect-reduced Super Soldier - the ability to ramp up your strength and metabolism, then ramp it back down for standby mode. The downside would be that you've made an outright world-shaking discovery, and need to figure out what to do with it.
That would make for a very different sort of story, though, and I don't think it's right for the introductory arc. Possibly you'll develop it later.
Edit: Oh hey, Extremis would probably also let you throw fireballs. Classic Goblin power, and explains why you'd have it when you try to keep your kit nonlethal.
Further Edit: On that note, I forgot to mention that Pumpkin Boom would also have grenades that inflate into body-doubles, though they're too expensive to use regularly. Oh well.
 
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[X] Plan Goblin in a Bottle
-[X] Fire patrol. It's July, there's a heatwave, not all apartments are up to code. Grab a lab-carpet, a brace of extinguishers, and your heavy-loads board; it's going to be a long night.
-[X] Your dreams show you other worlds, giving you a lot of useful technical insights and also a lot of highly unreliable premonitions. Your kit still isn't cheap, but you make do on patents semi-anonymized through a holding company.
-[X] Three-hour potion. A temporary super-soldier emulation drug, whose worst side effect is severe mood swings as it kicks in or wears off. You're fairly safe, but it can mess up pre-existing conditions something fierce. Still, as a last resort when someone's badly injured, it works like nothing else.
 
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