dimplyowl
49K posts
Ally, she/her, bi/demisexual, I've been off Tumblr for about 70 years, I'm here for gay pirates and other gay things, and I write about gay pirates too! Dimplyowl across all platforms.
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dimplyowl · 6 days ago
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There's something that's been sticking with me about Izzy's insistence that he "manages" Ed for the past two years, something that's always landed a little sideways for me, and I've finally nailed down what it is.
Of course, even on a surface level, this insistence is bullshit. It's nonsense. Izzy acts like Ed should be grateful to him for "managing" him, as if Ed is a large stupid toddler who is not perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Izzy doesn't even do what he claims to do, besides - he goes around blaming anything the crew doesn't like on Ed, and it's clear from how he talks to Ed throughout the show that what he's actually doing is trying to force Ed's emotions to fit what Izzy wants.
And here's the thing - it's backwards. Izzy acts like he deserves gratitude for "managing" Ed, and it's entirely the other way around. The biggest part of captaining that we see Ed do by the time he joins the show is managing Izzy.
We see Ed having to convince Izzy to just follow his orders in his very first scene. He has to tease out information, later, as Izzy is just straight-up lying to him (how well Ed understands that Izzy is full of bullshit is up for debate; he's got no other frame of reference so my take is he probably doesn't realize just how fully Izzy tries to control narratives Ed isn't there for). Izzy acts entitled to Ed's emotions and time and is prone to nagging and throwing tantrums when he doesn't understand what Ed is trying to get at - he assumes that Ed is just dicking around at the start of s1e4, even though talking about clouds should be a pretty obvious lead into something for any sailor, and Ed spends a large chunk of the episode trying to placate Izzy. He's always having to worry about Izzy's feelings, Izzy's reactions, the harm Izzy might cause if he gets upset.
And it's just another way that Ed is recreating his trauma with his father, isn't it? Just another angry white man who Ed needs to manage?
It's honestly pretty fucking brilliant how OFMD turns your expectations on their head here. Our media landscape has conditioned us to genuinely expect a dynamic with a brown man and an angry white man behind the scenes who actually controls everything, and OFMD gives us the exact opposite.
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dimplyowl · 11 days ago
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who wants to see a deeply cursed item that I need with every fibre of my terrible and sticky being
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dimplyowl · 15 days ago
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(This has been in my drafts for over a month [<- written in the summer of 2022 lol], let's just finish chewing this thing ...)
Part of the reason I'm obsessed with Our Flag Means Death is the magic of hyperfixation, but there's also something about it that just ... certain scenes, certain gifs, I see them and I absolutely melt. And I'm no stranger to romantic media, especially historical romance, so I had to ask myself why this, so much?
And I think the thing that really gets me about the romance in OFMD is that it's so entirely different from mainstream het romance (and again, especially historical romance) and that mainstream het romance is so often lazily written.
How often do you go to read/watch something where the protagonist and love interest immediately have a positive rapport, understand each other, smile at each other, admire each other, have fun together? And in contrast, how often is the love interest marked out by having immediate hostility with the protagonist, sniping, irrational disagreement, disapproval?
I watch Sanditon and Bridgerton mainly just to be aware of what's going on in them, because like it or not I'm kind of a Regency historian of sorts, but I can't really stand them. In the first season of Sanditon, the heroine, Charlotte was presented with two potential love interests, Sidney Parker and James Stringer. The former was the classic "we act like we hate each other because of our sexual tension," the latter was really adorable and full of smiles and care for each other. And ... Charlotte barely seemed to realize that Stringer was a real possibility, all narrative heft was given to her plotline with Sidney and of course they turned out to be in love. Then the second season rolled this back and brought in two new love interests, again with one having a positive relationship with her and the other constantly arguing and criticizing; the apparently positive one turns out to be a creepy Wickham while the one she initially dislikes turns out to be a good Darcy with manpain to deal with. (Same thing with her sister's love triangle.)
And there are loads of other examples where a potential love interest who is immediately pleasant turns out to be deceptive/meh while a potential love interest who spurs fights is endgame. Basically, this is because you need some kind of obstacle to stop the characters from getting together immediately. In historical romance written in the present day, social class and money aren't acceptable obstacles unless there's a pressing need for them written in (hence the prevalence of "father gambled away our fortune and you must marry well, my dear, to save us from the poorhouse" plots), and "we met in an awkward way and will not get over it" works, narratively, as an obstacle.
In contrast, what goes on in OFMD s1 is so much more complex - the characters liking each other but having internal reasons not to recognize their feelings or act on them gives more room for showing why they actually are good together.
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dimplyowl · 19 days ago
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me when other people tag me in things: this person??? thought about me???? i'm so flattered??????? 🥺💕🥺💕🥺💕🥺💕
me when i consider tagging someone in a post: i am annoying!!!! i am overstepping every single boundary!!!! i am making an absolute fool out of myself!!!!!!
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dimplyowl · 20 days ago
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I've been wanting to do a poll like this for AGES, thanks to @dracothelizard for inspiring me to finally do it (and go take their poll too!)
Keep in mind with this poll nobody needs to have a dick or even be human. When I say prefer I really mean it, so like, if your favorite is mostly bottom stede but he tops on special occasions, that's bottom stede.
To be very clear, this isn't about meta, this is about porn
Optional bonus in the tags (because it's super personal) what did you pick and what's your own preference when you're fuckin.
Basically I'm curious how closely our smut preferences align to what we actually like. Why? Thanks for asking it's because I'm
deeply unsure of my sexuality
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dimplyowl · 20 days ago
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New Rhys Darby's selfie for OFMD S2 archive!
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dimplyowl · 20 days ago
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So many brilliant background characters in OFMD, but the two who always get me are the “fucking racists” guy who ABSOLUTELY has a massive crush on Olu (gotta respect that) and just has the absolute best comic timing and facial expressions (also he’s hot and wears a loin cloth, don’t judge me, but YUM)
And the other is King George (and his gay little scribe) He’s has, like, two minutes of screen time, but he OWNS the scenes and is just so detestably funny, his mannerisms, his voice, snorting coke off his fingernail. I always forget about him, but then he makes me chuckle every time.
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dimplyowl · 23 days ago
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"Namby-Pamby in a Silk Gown": Our Flag Means Death, Toxic Masculinity, Queer Culture, and the Feminine Man
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So. Masculinity. Piracy. Our Flag Means Death. Gentlebeard. Izzy. Colonialism. What the heck does all this mean?
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I've watched a lot of queer media in my life, from John Waters movies to more contemporary modern queer cinema like "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" and "The Handmaiden". I even watched through all six seasons of "The L Word". I had the original DVD box set and everything. But when I think of queer cinema, I think of camp. I think of old classics from the seventies and eighties and nineties. The Watermelon Woman, To Wong Foo, But I'm a Cheerleader!, Female Trouble, etc.
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Our Flag Means Death is very camp. I'm not comparing it to classic queer cinema, it's a completely different experience from, say, watching a John Waters movie. But the show clearly pulls influence from classic queer cinema, at the very least for aesthetic purposes, i.e. Wee John's drag look in "Calypso's Birthday" heavily inspired by drag queen Divine. What makes Our Flag Means Death unique is it's artful sincerity and unabashed queerness for a show made so long after artful sincerity and unabashed queerness have become "taboo" in Western cinema.
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This isn't me trashing modern queer cinema and modern queer fiction. I immensely enjoyed The Handmaiden and Badhaai Do, two excellent pieces of queer cinema that have come out within the past decade. Our Flag Means Death has entered the coveted position of best queer TV show I've personally seen in a very long time because of it's artful sincerity and unabashed queerness, not because it's better than anything that came before it...because it's not better or worse than anything that came before it! OFMD is it's own thing, it's own vibe, it's own story.
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Our Flag Means Death is a story. And you can either engage with the story as written or engage only with certain small parts of it. The disconnect between audience and writers (and I say this as a writer myself) is that writers (most of them anyway) write stories for a media literate audience. But fundamentally, you do not need to reach a certain threshold of media literacy before you are allowed to engage with a story...you just engage. And this is both bad and good. No one should be barred from engaging with a story because they won't get it or even can't get it. Because if we prevent people who don't get it from engaging with the text, how are they ever going to learn how to engage with the text? They won't, is the answer. You can't gaslight gatekeep girlboss people into media literacy.
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Our Flag Means Death is not a complex story. It's very straightforward. If you do not understand what the story is doing, it's not because you're being tricked or lied to: it's because, somewhere along the line, you've misunderstood. So when the story isn't making sense, it's useful to ask yourself: is this bad writing or have I misunderstood what's being said? And sometimes it is bad writing! Sometimes it is! But which is more likely: it's all bad writing or I've personally misunderstood what the story is trying to do? If you don't understand what a story is doing, all these little moments might look like bad writing--because your brain does not know what's happening! Your brain is trying to put a puzzle together but the pieces are all flipped over so you can't see the actual picture!
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What is Our Flag Means Death is trying to do? If it's trying to do anything at all, what is it? And why does it make perfect sense for some people while others are confused, angry, even upset? And do they have a right to be? Fundamentally, if you think a story is trying to do something and it's failing at that, you have a right to be upset--and stories have a right to try and fail! That does not necessarily make the story objectively bad!
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Our Flag Means Death is trying to commentate on masculinity. Like the oft misunderstood Fight Club (coincidentally, Fight Club was written by a gay man). This is relevant. It's actually all very relevant. There is a difference between what Our Flag Means Death is attempting to do vs. what it actually does. And the line between is thin to the point of nonexistence. The discussion surrounding masculinity and what it means to be a man is just so vast, so entangled with white colonialism and imperialism and racism that any discussion requires an understanding of how these systems function. And Our Flag Means Death invites this discussion--perhaps not intentionally, but it's there. It has to be there. We can't talk about what it means to be a man without talking about race. You cannot write a story featuring an indigenous brown man that partially centers masculinity without at least grazing these topics, intentionally or unintentionally.
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This show is a comedy. A romantic comedy. I know that. We all know that. It's not going to spend forty minutes talking about race and colonialism. What it is going to do is have an indigenous man choke out a white colonizer while reading a love letter from his foppy fem boyfriend. What it is going to do is have little Ed murder his abusive white father to protect his mother. What it is going to do is have a bunch of British colonizers die horrifically after being poisoned by a black woman whose establishment they took over. What it is going to do is have Stede burn down a ship full of racist aristocrats while making sure we (the audience) see the servants escaping on a boat in the background while several of the aforementioned aristocrats jump off the burning ship to their probable deaths.
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ed you are so fucking hot holy fuck oh my godd holy fuck
Ahem.
Our Flag Means Death is not a subtle show. So when it looks you directly in the eye and says "HEY!! THIS CHARACTER IS BULLYING THIS OTHER CHARACTER WHO JUST SO HAPPENS TO BE A FEMININE GAY MAN! I WONDER WHY THAT IS HMMM???" you should perhaps take that into consideration.
This show loves it's small details, it's winks and nods at the audience. Stede not wearing his rings the morning after "Calypso's Birthday", Wee John having a place to sit at all times, etc. But when it comes to overarching super important plot points? It's never whispered, always shouted. Or whatever Hozier said.
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"Some namby-pamby in a silk gown pining for his boyfriend" --Izzy to Ed "A proper little seductress" --Izzy to Lucius "Who's the big gal?" --Jack to/about Stede "a heavyset woman in a silk dressing gown" --one of the British naval officers about Stede
White colonial masculinity tightens a proverbial vice around all the men in Our Flag Means Death. Some of them die for it. Others overcome and live beyond it. But it is a system enforced through emotional and physical violence. Bullying from your peers, threats of physical or emotional retaliation for stepping out of line. The coveted status of Man (patriarch, father, husband) and the inferior status of Woman (mother, wife) that must never touch. The status of Failed Man (feminine, weak, soft).
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I think Orville Peck and Willie Nelson said it first.
"And I believe to my soul that inside every man is the feminine And inside every lady, there's a deep manly voice loud and clear" ... "And inside every lady, there's a cowboy who'd love to come out And inside every cowboy, there's a lady who'd love to slip out"
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The answer to the question What is Our Flag Means Death trying to do? is a simple one. The show tells us, in very few words, what it is trying to do. The answer to Does it succeed in what it's trying to do? is subjective.
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Stede's escape from traditional colonial masculinity and his subsequent disavowing of it are subjective interpretations. But what is objective is how Our Flag Means Death chooses to approach masculinity. "Gal", "woman", "namby-pamby", and "seductress" are words used against the least traditionally masculine characters by characters who (arguably) exemplify what being a man is supposed to look like--in other words, they are being degraded by men who exemplify that traditional colonial masculinity. And because they exemplify traditional colonial masculinity, degrading men who do not follow the doctrine is an essential part of that. There must be the status of Man, the status of Woman, and the status of Failed Man that overlaps with the status of Woman. Stede is the Failed Man who overlaps with the status of Woman.
And what of Edward Teach?
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This is where the status of Man, Woman, Failed Man, Failed Woman becomes less relevant. Because of course it's all fucking made up and the whole damn concept of the gender binary is colonial nonsense. But it is especially colonial nonsense when we're talking about an indigenous brown man whose concepts of masculinity are so very removed culturally from the fast encroaching shadow of colonization. The divide becomes more vast and deliberate than when we talk about Stede, because Ed and Stede's concepts of what it means to be a man are not fundamentally identical. And then we arrive at the part where Ed chokes out a British colonizer with one hand while reading a letter from his boyfriend with the other hand. And you know, it's very hot and I think we need more of that.
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"Calypso's Birthday" is a celebration of queer love and queer joy and it's also where the themes of masculinity and embracing the feminine become so relevant. Because what else is there to say, except how much of this episode hinges on the transformative powers of love and the transformative powers of self-expression through gender fuckery? Wee John and Jim in drag, Izzy (the guy who spent most of last season getting upset that everyone on the fag ship was fagging it up all over the place) in drag, Stede and Ed's first time. And let's not forget the original plan for Episode 6 was for Stede to get a sexy makeover that involved him wearing eyeliner. We were robbed and I will be mad about this for the next 20,000 years.
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There's a part of Our Flag Means Death that's about the transformative power of love and another about how toxic masculinity literally kills and another about how artful sincerity is more attractive than ruthless cynicism in fictional media and a big huge one about how you can't critique traditional toxic masculinity without getting into these discussions about colonialism. And Our Flag Means Death does these things very well, even when it's not doing them very well it's still doing them okay. I think the gay pirate show is going to be one of those "classic" pieces of queer media that people look back on fifty or so years from now in the same way people look at queer cinema from the seventies, eighties, nineties, etc. "Oh, Our Flag Means Death? That was a fun time. I wish there were more shows like that nowadays".
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dimplyowl · 23 days ago
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the thing about stede is he needs plans and goals and structure. if he doesn't have an achievable goal set in his mind he goes berserk. and he's spent his whole life feeling trapped and aimless and hated it. and the thing about ed is he just wants to vibe. he's not without his high strung tendencies and maybe he has to learn how to relax but all he wants to do is chillax and vibe. he's spent his whole life making plans and having goals and he's sick of it. he doesn't wanna make any more plans. however he spends the day chilling and vibing is good for him.
basically stede needs side quests. ed needs to start giving him side quests. once stede has side quests he'll be much more content. look at how useful he's being! look at how he achieved his goal! look at how he's gone out and had a day!! meanwhile ed took a nap in a hammock with a pineapple coconut drink resting on his tummy in the shade and when stede gets home with new curtains for the living room window and a daring story he's like "good job, babe, wow!" and it's amazing because for once in his life ed didn't have to do everything and for once in his life stede actually did something.
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dimplyowl · 23 days ago
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I love that we get to see how much 'you wear fine things well' meant to both Ed and Stede.
First we see Ed turning that moment over in his mind when he is at his most heartbroken, right before he lets go of the red silk. Perhaps he is regretting not stepping in for the kiss; maybe he is wondering how things might have turned out had he been braver. Or perhaps he has convinced himself that he misinterpreted Stede's words altogether, that they never had a deeper meaning to them at all.
And then we see Stede reminiscing about that moment as he lays on the deck of the Red Flag. Whether he understood the significance of his words at the time, Stede clearly does now. And perhaps he also understands Ed's reaction to them in a new light now, too.
And, of course, finally, we get that moment in the moonlight when Ed echoes Stede's words back to him. They both know the true meaning of those words now. And more importantly, they both know that the other knows just how meaningful that first moment was.
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I will never ever be over 'you wear fine things well'
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dimplyowl · 28 days ago
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Addition: As Izzy himself continues to lick said boots.
It’s so interesting to me that some people choose to believe Izzy’s skewed narrative instead of the things shown onscreen.
“He’s half-mad”. He’s actually bored and depressed.
Izzy has to manage Ed’s “erratic moods.” Are the erratic moods in the room with us because all I see is someone with ADHD and depression.
He’s soothed the crew’s worries about Ed’s judgement. By calling him half mad behind his back.
Stede’s “done something” to Ed’s brain because apparently Ed is incapable of making his own decisions. He needs guidance, he needs to be managed, he’s so easily influenced. Sorry Izzy, hate to break it to you, but Stede’s just nice to him.
Eds love for Stede is the cause of the bad atmosphere on the ship. Actually it’s because he’s miserable and you pushed him there.
He shot izzy because Izzy told him he loves him. Nope, he shot Izzy because he can’t take responsibility for the way his actions hurt Ed and the crew.
“He was a mad dog”. Was he? Because it looked to me like he was a heartbroken, depressed, borderline suicidal man who shut himself up in his room, made sure the crew got cake, and went on raids looking like a zombie.
You know, wonder what might influence people to believe the word of a white man, rather than the actions of a poc.
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dimplyowl · 28 days ago
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It’s so interesting to me that some people choose to believe Izzy’s skewed narrative instead of the things shown onscreen.
“He’s half-mad”. He’s actually bored and depressed.
Izzy has to manage Ed’s “erratic moods.” Are the erratic moods in the room with us because all I see is someone with ADHD and depression.
He’s soothed the crew’s worries about Ed’s judgement. By calling him half mad behind his back.
Stede’s “done something” to Ed’s brain because apparently Ed is incapable of making his own decisions. He needs guidance, he needs to be managed, he’s so easily influenced. Sorry Izzy, hate to break it to you, but Stede’s just nice to him.
Eds love for Stede is the cause of the bad atmosphere on the ship. Actually it’s because he’s miserable and you pushed him there.
He shot izzy because Izzy told him he loves him. Nope, he shot Izzy because he can’t take responsibility for the way his actions hurt Ed and the crew.
“He was a mad dog”. Was he? Because it looked to me like he was a heartbroken, depressed, borderline suicidal man who shut himself up in his room, made sure the crew got cake, and went on raids looking like a zombie.
You know, wonder what might influence people to believe the word of a white man, rather than the actions of a poc.
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dimplyowl · 29 days ago
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feel free to reblog with your favorite long fics
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dimplyowl · 29 days ago
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Just a little thing I wrote as a Christmas present for a friend! Technically a sequel (prequel?) to my fic Bonnet & Teach's Inn at the Beach, but you don't need to read that to enjoy this, I hope. Features Ed, Stede, and their daughter Ivy experiencing their first Christmas!
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dimplyowl · 29 days ago
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Ed Teach regaling guests with hyped-up versions of Stede's exploits, my absolute beloved. Two years and he is just as disgustingly down bad for his man as when we last saw him. Ed Teach is just so earnestly precious and in love, I can't TAKE this
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dimplyowl · 29 days ago
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Wondering if a day will ever go by again where I don’t cry over the wonder that is Rhys Darby.
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dimplyowl · 30 days ago
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To be completely fair it wasn’t even a c*nyon person, just someone who I guess generally likes him? But we were having fun talking about a hypothetical Ed/Stede fic and all of a sudden they mentioned him as part of the sequel and I was like. Um no thanks?? At no other time was he mentioned. Please get your steddyh*nds out of here
Why must we bring him up in conversations that have nothing to do with him? Why? Please keep him out of my boys. I’m having fun talking about Ed and Stede and now you’ve ruined it. K bye.
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