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🤡🤡🤡
✖ THE CARNIVAL
Ⅰ. ARRIVAL & THE TEMPLE
You can read all about your character's arrival in the game lore.
You can see the lights of the Ferris wheel from the water, and by the time you pull into port you can smell popcorn, cotton candy, grease, sawdust. Music drifts on the air, interspersed with screams from the rides.
The carnival is in town.
Not just any carnival, either - the carnival. The one to end all others. Every circus you ever read about or saw in a movie, with striped tents filled with acrobats and sideshows, midway games complete with carnival barkers in straw boater hats. But it's also every shitty fair that ever rolled through your hometown, with unreliable looking men with greasy mullets smoking as they jockey the Wild Mouse, the Gravitron, the Zipper, the Corkscrew. There's a constant stream of 80s hair metal playing underneath the roar of the rollercoaster tracks, blending somehow with the traditional piping organ of the carousel.
Experienced Travelers will know by now that every island has its own temple, and this one is no exception. It’s not in the carnival proper, though; if you step away from the lights of the midway and tents, you’ll notice dozens of old wooden circus trailers, arranged in a circle, growing tighter together the closer to the center you walk. The trailers are functional living places, with built in beds - sometimes one, sometimes two - and a small table and an old wood burning stove with a cooking top just big enough to boil a kettle on. There’s a toilet, but if you want a shower you’ll have to go outside and find a tent set up at the outskirts of the makeshift trailer park where there are tent showers set up, locker room style.
The clearing in the middle of the parked caravan is completely empty except for a solitary midway game: a towering high striker. It must be at least twenty feet tall, surmounted by a round, red bell. A wooden mallet is leaned against a sign next to the game that reads, predictably, TEST YOUR STRENGTH.
Step right up.
Ⅱ. HALL OF MIRRORS
When it comes to amusements, the Hall of Mirrors has always been second-fiddle to the Haunted House. But the line for the former was shorter, so here you are. The guy working the door has weasel eyes and is smoking. He gestures for you and whoever is behind you to enter together; "No singles. For safety."
The lights are a dull neon, cycling from deep blue to cyan to purple and back again. You find that your outstretched fingers will bump against smooth, clear glass as often as not. The mirrors reflect the maze back into itself over and over, disorienting and strange.
Some of the mirrors are convex, some concave, and as you pass them your reflection warps and bends alongside that of whoever you're stuck inside the maze with.
At some point you will realise that the reflection looking back at you isn't quite right. It's still you, sure, but it's not how you really look, not on the outside.
Looking back at you from the cold glass is how you perceive yourself. Perhaps that's stronger, perhaps uglier, perhaps as a sniveling child or an ancient hag. And this reflection is going to follow you from mirror to mirror as you desperately try to find your way out.
One of you spots an exit sign, bleeding red light. Only catch is that it's behind a pane of glass. And another. And another. You could break your way through all of them, certainly, but it's not as if there's anything laying around for you to use to do so. Just yourself, which might work in action movies but tends to cause a lot of physical damage in the real world.
Above the glass someone has placed a sticker that reads, “who are you really?” in black sharpie. Answer it, and the glass will swing open. Don't, and well...
Guess you'll have several years worth of bad luck.
Ⅲ. THE CAROUSEL
CW: childhood trauma
Old fashioned organ music and a million flashing lights draws you to the carousel. It's a vintage delight: huge, with ornate animals carved out of wood and lovingly hand painted. There are horses, of course, but also lions and leopards and birds and rabbits and wolves... any animal you could want! In fact, you'll see an animal that looks perfectly YOU. You just have to climb up on it for a ride.
When it stops and you step off, you will be younger. You will in fact be the same age you were when a formative event happened to you.
You're a kid at a carnival! How fun! Well, maybe you're not that young, and it's probably not very fun at all considering that now your trauma is fresh.
The only way to become your proper age again is to get on the carousel and get it to run forward. Depending on your age, you might not be able to figure any of that out, but surely one of the other Travelers can help you. You'll definitely need someone to man the carousel controls. Oh, and be careful not to knock it into overdrive...
Ⅳ. COULROPHOBIA
CW: clowns, suffocation
Who can possibly resist the big top? Not you! You're ushered into the tent and you take a seat in the stands, where you have an excellent view of the huge ring before you. The excitement in the air is palpable, and even if you're the grouchy type you'll find yourself a little bit thrilled.
It's a little surprising when the lights go up to the sound of screaming guitars. Mist belches from hidden foggers, and flames shoot from near the center of the ring. The lights stutter red, blue, green. The whole thing is a lot more rock show than it is Ringling Brother's.
At any rate, even if the ringmaster looks like a reject from a trailer park metal band and the music is liable to burst some eardrums, it's still a circus. There are trained horses and riders, contortionists, and a score of talented trapeze artists. It's all sparkling and impressive and terrific fun.
The trapeze artists take their bows, clearly ready for a break. And if a break is needed at the circus? You know what happens next, don't you?
SEND IN THE CLOWNS!
The clowns spill into the ring, all sorts of them! There's Harlequin and Pierrot, Auguste and Tramp. There's Bozos and Ronalds and Clarabelles and Krustys. Hopefully no Gacys, but there's so many of them that it's hard to know for sure.
One of these clowns - the one you hate the most, of course - approaches you in the stands. With comically exaggerated movements, it leans close to you and whispers...
Well. It whispers horrible things to you, really. It recounts to you some instance in your life where you delighted in the suffering of another, a moment where you really and truly were happy that somebody else was hurt. It's not a moment to be proud of, for sure, but as the clown tells your own secret shameful joy to you, you start to laugh. Really laugh - soon you're bent over double, tears running down your face, absolutely howling with laughter.
Your stomach hurts, and you're running out of breath. Very soon you won't be able to breathe at all.
Eventually, one of your fellow travelers won't be able to resist asking you, "What's so funny?"
The only way to stop laughing is to tell them. Otherwise you're going to pass out right where you sit, a creepy clown leering over you the whole time. Maybe your fellow traveler will be nice enough to drag you out of there if that happens, because if you're left alone? Everybody knows clowns get so much scarier alone in the dark.
It wouldn't be a party without some jams.
You can read all about your character's arrival in the game lore.
You can see the lights of the Ferris wheel from the water, and by the time you pull into port you can smell popcorn, cotton candy, grease, sawdust. Music drifts on the air, interspersed with screams from the rides.
The carnival is in town.
Not just any carnival, either - the carnival. The one to end all others. Every circus you ever read about or saw in a movie, with striped tents filled with acrobats and sideshows, midway games complete with carnival barkers in straw boater hats. But it's also every shitty fair that ever rolled through your hometown, with unreliable looking men with greasy mullets smoking as they jockey the Wild Mouse, the Gravitron, the Zipper, the Corkscrew. There's a constant stream of 80s hair metal playing underneath the roar of the rollercoaster tracks, blending somehow with the traditional piping organ of the carousel.Experienced Travelers will know by now that every island has its own temple, and this one is no exception. It’s not in the carnival proper, though; if you step away from the lights of the midway and tents, you’ll notice dozens of old wooden circus trailers, arranged in a circle, growing tighter together the closer to the center you walk. The trailers are functional living places, with built in beds - sometimes one, sometimes two - and a small table and an old wood burning stove with a cooking top just big enough to boil a kettle on. There’s a toilet, but if you want a shower you’ll have to go outside and find a tent set up at the outskirts of the makeshift trailer park where there are tent showers set up, locker room style.
The clearing in the middle of the parked caravan is completely empty except for a solitary midway game: a towering high striker. It must be at least twenty feet tall, surmounted by a round, red bell. A wooden mallet is leaned against a sign next to the game that reads, predictably, TEST YOUR STRENGTH.
Step right up.
Notes:
1. Please remember to mark threads appropriately with Content Warnings when necessary.
2. These prompts are a jumping off point - how they affect your character and their development is up to you.
3. The island temple is accessible to all. The High Temple is only accessible to new characters this month - it will re-open to all others next month.
4. The Test your Strength game can be played by anyone. How well your character does is entirely up to you, but the game does not necessarily measure physical strength.
5. These residents of the island are normal humans. Killing them is possible and will affect the colour grading of your Scrywatch depending on the situation.
6. Any food found on the midway is safe to eat, and is consumable by non-human entities.
7. Have fun!
Ⅱ. HALL OF MIRRORS
When it comes to amusements, the Hall of Mirrors has always been second-fiddle to the Haunted House. But the line for the former was shorter, so here you are. The guy working the door has weasel eyes and is smoking. He gestures for you and whoever is behind you to enter together; "No singles. For safety."
The lights are a dull neon, cycling from deep blue to cyan to purple and back again. You find that your outstretched fingers will bump against smooth, clear glass as often as not. The mirrors reflect the maze back into itself over and over, disorienting and strange.
Some of the mirrors are convex, some concave, and as you pass them your reflection warps and bends alongside that of whoever you're stuck inside the maze with.At some point you will realise that the reflection looking back at you isn't quite right. It's still you, sure, but it's not how you really look, not on the outside.
Looking back at you from the cold glass is how you perceive yourself. Perhaps that's stronger, perhaps uglier, perhaps as a sniveling child or an ancient hag. And this reflection is going to follow you from mirror to mirror as you desperately try to find your way out.
One of you spots an exit sign, bleeding red light. Only catch is that it's behind a pane of glass. And another. And another. You could break your way through all of them, certainly, but it's not as if there's anything laying around for you to use to do so. Just yourself, which might work in action movies but tends to cause a lot of physical damage in the real world.
Above the glass someone has placed a sticker that reads, “who are you really?” in black sharpie. Answer it, and the glass will swing open. Don't, and well...
Guess you'll have several years worth of bad luck.
Notes:
1. Yes, characters can bash their way out of the maze, but it is real glass and will cut anyone who isn’t invulnerable. There is a first aid station run by extremely unreliable carneys on the premises, so hopefully they can patch themselves up enough there.
Ⅲ. THE CAROUSEL
CW: childhood trauma
Old fashioned organ music and a million flashing lights draws you to the carousel. It's a vintage delight: huge, with ornate animals carved out of wood and lovingly hand painted. There are horses, of course, but also lions and leopards and birds and rabbits and wolves... any animal you could want! In fact, you'll see an animal that looks perfectly YOU. You just have to climb up on it for a ride.
When it stops and you step off, you will be younger. You will in fact be the same age you were when a formative event happened to you.
You're a kid at a carnival! How fun! Well, maybe you're not that young, and it's probably not very fun at all considering that now your trauma is fresh.
The only way to become your proper age again is to get on the carousel and get it to run forward. Depending on your age, you might not be able to figure any of that out, but surely one of the other Travelers can help you. You'll definitely need someone to man the carousel controls. Oh, and be careful not to knock it into overdrive...
Notes:
1. If your character does not get back on the carousel and ride it in reverse, they will revert to their actual ages at the end of the month.
2. Please be especially mindful of content warnings with underage characters. A reminder that the game does not allow explicit sexual content with minors.
3. You do not have to regress your character to childhood - if a very formative event happened at age 20 for example, you can choose that route instead.
4. Speeding up the carousel while it is moving forward will result in, you guessed it, aging your character UP. Obviously you can ride it backwards again to fix this, or again the aging will be reversed at the end of the month.
Ⅳ. COULROPHOBIA
CW: clowns, suffocation
Who can possibly resist the big top? Not you! You're ushered into the tent and you take a seat in the stands, where you have an excellent view of the huge ring before you. The excitement in the air is palpable, and even if you're the grouchy type you'll find yourself a little bit thrilled.
It's a little surprising when the lights go up to the sound of screaming guitars. Mist belches from hidden foggers, and flames shoot from near the center of the ring. The lights stutter red, blue, green. The whole thing is a lot more rock show than it is Ringling Brother's.
At any rate, even if the ringmaster looks like a reject from a trailer park metal band and the music is liable to burst some eardrums, it's still a circus. There are trained horses and riders, contortionists, and a score of talented trapeze artists. It's all sparkling and impressive and terrific fun.
The trapeze artists take their bows, clearly ready for a break. And if a break is needed at the circus? You know what happens next, don't you?
SEND IN THE CLOWNS!
The clowns spill into the ring, all sorts of them! There's Harlequin and Pierrot, Auguste and Tramp. There's Bozos and Ronalds and Clarabelles and Krustys. Hopefully no Gacys, but there's so many of them that it's hard to know for sure.
One of these clowns - the one you hate the most, of course - approaches you in the stands. With comically exaggerated movements, it leans close to you and whispers...Well. It whispers horrible things to you, really. It recounts to you some instance in your life where you delighted in the suffering of another, a moment where you really and truly were happy that somebody else was hurt. It's not a moment to be proud of, for sure, but as the clown tells your own secret shameful joy to you, you start to laugh. Really laugh - soon you're bent over double, tears running down your face, absolutely howling with laughter.
Your stomach hurts, and you're running out of breath. Very soon you won't be able to breathe at all.
Eventually, one of your fellow travelers won't be able to resist asking you, "What's so funny?"
The only way to stop laughing is to tell them. Otherwise you're going to pass out right where you sit, a creepy clown leering over you the whole time. Maybe your fellow traveler will be nice enough to drag you out of there if that happens, because if you're left alone? Everybody knows clowns get so much scarier alone in the dark.
Notes:
1. What happens if you really do get ditched with the clowns? Great question. Maybe they make you one of them. Maybe they eat you. Maybe you just wake up in the Big Top dressing room and see all the clowns smoking cigars and taking their floppy shoes off to film Clown Foot Erotica.
Yep. He just watching all these bells
"Molly Hayes," he greeted her with a nod. "You've definitely identified me correctly, but Tommy tends to insist I'm a nerd, and who am I to argue?"
Wait, she's aware of X-Factor? Wow, he's definitely going to laugh.
"Jean-Paul is haughty, which isn't shocking. But he takes care of us all. Though he keeps butting heads with Logan's son, which isn't shocking at all. And sometimes Logan needs thrown across cities."
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"THE LITTLE GIRL OF THE AMAZING STRENGTH HAS WON THE PRIZE SHE MOST DESIRES - THE BELL THAT IS THE SYMBOL OF HER GREAT STRENGTH! IF YOU WISH TO SEE MORE OF THE CURIOUS, THE BREATHTAKING, THE FASCINATING, AND THE WEIRD, DON'T MISS THE FREAK SHOW!!!"
"Hey!!! I'm not a freak! You take that back!! I'm a mutant, like Northstar, and one day I'm gonna be an X-Man too!!!" She pauses. "X-Person, I mean." She nods decisively. The voice of Gert in her head railing against things like sexist naming schemes never lead her astray.
She pouts as she picks up the bell. It's pretty big, but she has no problem slinging it on her back like Captain America's shield.
"I'm a nerd too. I know all of your names better than I know Social Studies. What does haughty mean?" She grins as Prodigy approves of her throwing Wolverine around.
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"No, while my psychomimetry would possibly give me that, it's... limited here. No, someone told me there was a girl named Molly here, and then seeing you quite strong and recognizing me specifically made me realize you're the Molly that Tommy told me about."
Because if there was one thing Tommy did, it was talk. A lot like Molly. Which meant at length. And David had always adored listening to him.
"Haughty means... Well, sorta like snobbish but it's less to do with money? Even though he has a ton of money. And yes, you could totally grow up to be an X-Person. Though I suggest a better team, like maybe Marauders as they are now."
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Okay, so she was a nerd for the mutants, but her vocabulary was pretty much what you'd expect of a 12-13 year old. Worse, actually, since her schooling had been extremely intermittent.
Case in point. "Ooooooh. Haughty is a fancy word for snob! I get it!" She blinks. "Tommy...Tommy...OH! You mean the Tommy! Your boyfriend!!" She giggles, because of course she does. Talking about romance inspired giggles.
"Wait, how does he know I'm here?? I didn't know he was here! That's so cool!!! I bet this island doesn't have a super hero team. Maybe we could form one! One of the better ones, of course."
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"It's not an actual tree. Psychomimetry. One word. Means my mind gets knowledge and skills from others. It's different from real telepathy."
The Tommy indeed. He... Oh god. His smile faltered at having Tommy called his boyfriend. They weren't though. He'd never had that term applied to them and it hurt.
"He doesn't know you're here. He's... He's not here. But a woman named Clarice told me there was a girl named Molly, and I just put it all together when you saw me."
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Molly might not be the most well educated kid, and next to David she was damn near an imbecile (but so were most people, tbh), but she was pretty good at being emotionally intelligent. When David's mood faltered, she was suddenly there, reaching out to pat him on the back. They weren't exactly friends so she wasn't about to hug him, but he seemed like he needed a friend right in that moment and she wanted to help. She didn't understand why, and she certainly didn't know that he and Tommy weren't actually together (her knowledge wasn't perfect, and in fact was pretty fragmented), but she knew a sad face when she saw one. More, she knew that face when she saw it, because more than one Runaway had worn that expression over the years. Karolina, Nico, Xavin, Chase, Gert, Victor...all of them at some point had looked exactly like that when the person they wanted to kiss had come up.
So maybe, at that look, she did know that he and Tommy might not be boyfriends. And she knew enough not to press the issue.
"Clarice?" She screws up her face in thought. Now it's her turn to put two and two together. "Do you mean...Miss Chloe?"
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Still, emotional intelligence was a valuable thing, and her touch made him smile at her. That was comforting. Thanks, Molly. Even if he won't say it out loud.
"Right. Chloe, that was her name. She just gave me this 'Silence of the Lambs' vibe I guess."
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"Silent lambs?" Careful there David. She's about to make you feel a little old. It seems to be her other super power.
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"Uh, yeah, silent lambs," he sighs, rubbing his temples. He did, in fact, feel old. "It's, uh, a story. But not a very good one."
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"Well, tell it!! Now I gotta know. It sounds like a fun fairy tale. Does the lamb lose its voice and have to go get it back? Are there other talking animals that help, like pigs?"
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"Uh, it's really not. It's, um... It's a book for adults that are stupid and old and cranky and mean."
Molly please no.
Look I am terrible and I own it.
She sighs and kicks at a piece of trash to send it skittering away. "So I guess no happy pigs then."
Are you though?
"I can make you a story about happy pigs."
You doubt this after I invoke the pigs??? XD
"You can?!? Are you a good storyteller??? Or can you Prodigy up being a good storyteller???" She looks terribly enthusiastic at the idea. "I bet you could find a really cool Carnival person to Psycho Mime!" It's still a hard word for her to just say off the cuff, okay. And she likes her shorthand.
About that time, an actual mime wanders by, because why not, they're in a carnival after all, and hearing her exclamation he comes up to them and mimes a comical version of sneaking up on somebody with a knife, EEE, EEE, EEE! But because he's dealing with a child here, he mimes being attacked by a person wielding a frying pan and runs around in circles, holding his head. Molly can't help but snicker.
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"I can prodigy it up," he answered. Not from anyone here, but he knew how to do it. "Trust me, I've met people who tell good stories. I can probably manage. And..."
Oh god, a mime. David pauses and looks at the mime. He just stares, hard and cold at the performer. This was not the time. Not to mention he was NOT a fan.
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"That's Gert. And Chase. And Karolina, and Nico, and Victor, and Doombot, and Klara, and Xavin, and Gib."
She pauses. "I'm not a good storyteller, but that's my story."
((ooc: If that actually works, feel free to have him suddenly know as much or as little of Runaways history as you want based on what you yourself know of it!))
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And he's grateful for that.
"I've heard about Chase, I've met Karolina once before, a big team up thing. Heard about Nico, know about Victor because of Tommy's family stuff, and Teddy has mentioned Xavin. I think they're related."
But the rest? He doesn't get.
[OOC: Sadly his powers wouldn't be able to grab much even if they, as they are now, weren't something he tightly controls to protect himself.]
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"Oh! Well...you know a lot of my friends then. We are kinda a team, although most of them don't want to be called super heroes. But we've called ourselves the Runaways before. We're not really like the X-Men though. Just...friends. With mean parents that we had to fight."
She rubs the back of her head and looks down. "Sorry about, uh, touching you. I thought it'd help."
[ooc: Nodnod! That makes sense! Although it was admittedly fun to have her try and oopsfail, heh.]
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"It would, normally. At least for me knowing the things you have knowledge of. Which is different from memories, Molly. I just... The last place I was, it changed me, changed my powers. And it made it so bad that if I touched people enough I started to hurt. A really good telepath, think Emma Frost but nice, he helped me learn to control myself, so I could touch people again. So I could give hugs to all my friends-" among other things, "without getting hurt."
So yeah, touching him wasn't going to be enough.
"Tommy's told me a bit about you guys, Teddy and Billy don't talk about your first meeting. Kate does, though. I hear that you're a really good kid, Molly. And a really super strong mutant too."
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Because there weren't any friends here, she thought. Or rather, there were a bunch of strangers that could be friends, but weren't yet in most cases, and that could feel really bad when you thought about your friends back home. Chloe was maybe a new friend. And Kyle and David seemed nice. Maybe they'd made more friends than her since they seemed to have been here longer? But they had to have people who weren't here.
"I'm glad you got help from Nice-Emma." She makes a face. "Sometimes mutants are confusing, and I am one. I thought I got your Psycho Mime powers but I really didn't! Mine is easy peasy. Strength and invulnerability."
When he mentions Kate and the others, she beams. "They're so cool!!! I want to grow up to be like Kate!!! Just, you know, with punches instead of arrows. Nobody can shoot arrows like her. She is the best Hawkeye."
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But yes, her powers were a bit standard and he didn't think that was a bad thing. Though wanting to be like Kate made him smile.
"She really IS the best."
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But on the subject of Kate Bishop, she's all smiles. "The VERY best. And she doesn't even have powers! How does she do that?! I heard somewhere that Boy-Hawkeye was a mutant with super eyes, but most people think that's dumb. But Kate doesn't even have that!"
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Still, he has to smile at the idea of Clint having fucking mutations. But nope, it wasn't that.
"Both Hawkeyes are just human. And humans can be amazing if they train a lot, like Black Widow or Mockingbird, or more than a few others."
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"I guess...I guess I'm..."
She was about to agree with him, but then she frowns and kicks a rock. How can she agree to that when it wasn't true? Chase had gone off into the future - she'd literally pushed him there - and Karolina had run away off planet to fix herself and find Xavin. Her friends weren't together. And now she wasn't together with them too. That really sucked.
"..I'm...just another one who makes my friends not together now," she finishes glumly.
She squints up at him. "Isn't Black Widow like a Russian Captain America though?" A little pause. "I get what you mean though. Some of my friends are normal humans who are amazing."
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But wow, he has to reach out to hug the girl now, because that glumness is just too much. He hugs her and holds her and wishes he knew how to do this better. Downside of losing all of his memories of his sister was that he didn't know how to be a big brother anymore.
"From my understanding she's more training than she is serum. And Red Guardian was more their Captain America."
Normal humans who are amazing. Yep, sounds like Kate to him.
"Kate would like to be considered amazing."
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