#anyway this took me. 3 days i guess
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syxeye Ā· 1 year ago
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āœ¦ ā€” happy halloween šŸŽƒšŸ‘»
for the fleuros monthly prompt! miya is on the ghost team this year,,, mischief are sweeter than any treats, apparently.
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ruporas Ā· 2 years ago
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invisible scars (referenced previous talkĀ here)
[ID: A colourless, digital Trigun comic of Vash and Wolfwood talking about Wolfwood's scars. They're both laying in bed and topless. Vash lays on top of Wolfwood, playing with the rosary around his neck. Then, Vash kisses a spot on Wolfwood's chest. Wolfwood asks, "What are you doing?" Vash smiles sadly, "You got shot here. In the last town we visited. You didn't even bother moving."
Vash props himself up over Wolfwood, who frowns slightly. Wolfwood is quiet for a moment before he says, "You remember that, huh?" Vash grabs Wolfwood's left wrist and brings it to his face. "And here." He kisses another spot there. "When you helped free the hostages from that robber..." Wolfwood dismissively says, looking away, "Was a lucky shot." Vash huffs, ā€œDonā€™t brag. Jeez.ā€
Half of Wolfwood's expression is shown, eyes returning to Vash who is now sitting up, continuing to say, "And..." Vash goes on and kiss Wolfwood's right palm. "You got cut here, even though that girl was aiming at me." A moment from the past flashes, of Wolfwood grabbing a knife aimed at Vash, his hand bleeding.
At present, Vash moves down and puts another kiss on Wolfwood's right shoulder. "And here, from watching my back." Another memory flashes of Wolfwood and Vash back to back. Vash looks back as Wolfwood grins while holding Punisher, bleeding from multiple gunshots in his shoulder.
"And," Vash combs up Wolfwood's hair to reveal his forehead, "Here." A final memory shows Wolfwood with a regeneration vial in his mouth while getting shot on his temple. The next panel is framed in blood with Vash at the center, eyes wide and stunned in horror. The next panel is a closed up shot of Wolfwood's eye, locked on Vash's face.
Back to present, Vashā€™s head is bowed down as Wolfwood raises a hand to his nape and says, ā€œSpikey.ā€
Wolfwood looks serious and frowns as he says, "We talked about this. Those were my decisions. They're not there anymore. Forget about them." Vash looks very sad before he smiles ruefully and says, "I still see them. All the time." He leans down so they touch foreheads. Wolfwoodā€™s sorrowful expression can be seen as Vash says, "You protect so much. I could never forget what you've done to me. And many others..."
In the last image, they're drawn more cartoonishly. Wolfwood sweats and asks, "You don't actually remember every wound, right?" Vash points at a spot on his chest. "Kuroneko left a scratch here 7 times." Wolfwood, startled, says, "Why the hell are you keeping countļæ½ļæ½ļæ½" End ID]
Credits for ID here and here
#vashwood#vash the stampede#nicholas d wolfwood#trigun#trigun maximum#another scars comic for one of the vw week days!!!! frankly i think about their scars WAY too often . most notably wolfwood's because#it really symbolizes a lot for him imo bc for vash it's a history of all the people that's ever harmed him betrayed him and the trust he has#given to humanity despite it all. its a beautiful reflection of his character and then u look at ww and presumably#since we dont really see him half naked Ever (shame) and i mean. i guess technically its a hc -- i assume he wouldn't have any scars bc#of the regen potions (which is why he doesnt have his t scars btw the regen pot took them away :pensive:)#in a way its like washing his hands of blood. giving him the body of someone who might never been involved in a fight never held a gun#but he knows thats not true yet he cant really do anything about it anyway bc he's still just human. if he stops taking the regen pots#he can't press forward. so its just a rinse and repeat and growing accustomed to whats inflicted on him because he knows it'll go away at#the end of the day. he's human but he's also not he's far beyond what could be considered a normal human but he still just is.#mortal but also not immortal. idk. i overthink about it a lot GMSKGMDK frankly i dont think it matters THAT much in the context of trimax#but it means a lot to me somehow. also thinking about how no matter how many times ww kills he's never numb to the sensation of it. maybe#the adrenaline gets to him for the beginning half but ive been rereading like.. vol 3? and that entire fight for ww#u can slowly see him spiral as he keeps on going on. anyway anyway. i love ww#ruporas art
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inkskinned Ā· 1 year ago
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it just sucks because nothing is ever fucking made for you, and if it is made for you like 75% of the time it gets chopped into little pieces by every person alive because this is the one thing you have, so it has to prove itself to you.
like, a thing can't just be for women. men need to assign it to women. women have to experience "must" or "should" before their hobbies and passions - women are allowed to do silly, passive things like tuck our ankles and titter behind a fan, or something. women are allowed to, they are welcomed to. like the world is a house and we are supposed to be in the kitchen and now we are being given the divine right to enter the living room if we bring chips
because when it becomes for you, or about you, that is when the thing is vile. you should/must wear makeup so you can appear beautiful to men. once you wear makeup for yourself, or because you yourself enjoy putting it on, then you are no longer doing the right thing. there is a reason men hate certain fashion trends. there is a reason men hate things like the pumpkin spice latte - because it's not about them. you are buying it because it is good for you. they degrade your passions and interests. there is a reason women-led fields are largely seen as being "not a real" profession. when you are a good cook, that is because you can provide for him. close your eyes. you're not going to be a chef, be honest. that is a man making food for himself.
bras are made so breasts will be appealing to men. they are rarely about comfort or support. you have given up entirely on the idea of pockets. young girls have to worry about a shorter inseam on their shorts. a girl on instagram gets her septum pierced, and men in the comments are rabid about it - i just want to rip it out of her face. she'd be beautiful without it.
and fucking everything is for them. even the media that is "for you" is for them, eventually. remember "my little pony"? remember how hard it is to convince any executive to believe that little girls are worth selling to? in the media that is for you, you see little ways that you still need to make it accessible for them - the man is always powerful, smart, masculine. he is a man's man. the media usually forgives him. it usually says okay, some men are awful, but hey! gotta love 'em. because if you don't hold their hands and say "this is literally just a story about my lived reality", they shit their pants about it. they demand you put them into the media that's for you.
these are people who are so used to glutting themselves on the world. they are used to having every corner and every dollar and every place of leadership. so you say can i please have one slice of cake, just for myself, please, holy shit. and they fucking weep about it. they say you're being unfair, because some of their one-thousand-slices aren't beautiful, and your singular cake slice doesn't have their name on it. and aren't you being rude by not offering to share?
and honestly. fucking - yeah, man. you were kind of surprised, because the cake is a little basic (you bake at home, you're way past this stuff). but holy shit, it was nice just to be offered cake in the first place. you're used to having to starve. you're used to getting nothing, but going to the party anyway, because you're expected (professionally) to show up. you liked that it is a simple cake, and that it is warm, and mostly: you like that there is, for once, a cake-for-you.
in the real world, outside of metaphor, it feels like fucking being slapped. barbie didn't even say anything particularly unusual; it literally just made factually evident points. there are less women in leadership than men. we can look at that fact objectively. that is a real thing that is happening. and the movie is aware that it has to defend itself! that it has to spend like half an hour just turning to the camera and saying: i know this is hard for you to understand, but this is a real thing that women experience.
it's just - this is that one kid on the playground who thinks its allowed to hog all the toys. he builds this hoard that nobody else is allowed to even look at, or he'll get aggressive. everyone's a little scared of him, so they let it slide, because his daddy gave him the golden touch. he hates when people cry and thinks bullying is cool. he writes boys only! on a big sign and makes all his friends take "alpha male" classes.
and then girls pick up barbies, because there was nothing left for them. and in the void they've been given, with their scraps: they make long, spiraling narratives about how barbie is actually descended from snakes and has given her righteous followers magical (if concerning) powers and can speak 32 languages (2 of which are animal related) and has big plans for infrastructure (beginning with the local interstate). and the boy comes over, and he has a huge fit about how the girls aren't "including" him. he wants to know why the girls aren't making the story about ken.
"we didn't like your story." the girls blink at him. they point to his war stories and the gi joes and the millions of male-led narratives and how still in the modern day men get two-thirds of the speaking roles in movies and they point to men making mediocre shows that don't get lambasted and they point to men encouraging toxic masculinity and they point to men everywhere, men and men and men. and they say: "how is this our fault? you had ken."
"no!" he is already back to screaming and stomping his feet and tearing at his hair and intentionally reminding them that men are holding back thinly concealed violence and he says: "if it's not for me, it's actually sexism."
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bestagons Ā· 6 months ago
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What Dan and Phil Text Each Other 4 + Familect (article)
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kimtaegis Ā· 6 months ago
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@ye-xiu's favourite taemin looks ā†³ happy birthday, al! āœØ
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averlym Ā· 4 months ago
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ghost story premiere day! check @melliotwrites for more info
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#*there's less than a day left* me: does this count as a prediction :33 sorry it's vague i just predict Vibes. stream sheep in wolf country#last several hours i can post this before it comes across as a Reading Comprehension Cringefail! due to the new update (premiere)#which is also to say i've rushed it in the last 24h after cc told me ''go for it''. i haven't digitally rendered like this since i was 15#in lieu of character designs falling into my lap from above i give you wolf & sheep & wolf & sheep. also House. also fire and water concept#brought to you by (1) general excitement i've been swept up in // (2) cc; who i messaged yesterday with a sketch on a half-wet receipt#and was an enabler of this nonsense // (3) copious usage of the procreate liquify tool and eyedropping colours from the pinterest boards#(4) '' rotatable šŸ‘ '' from cc which means that the house in water isn't beset by reflections and vague. and this work is rotatable.#bonus points if you treat both sides as a spot the difference game.#tempted to print this out as like a6 merch. lowkey. // (4) me rendering last minute on the last possible day [art proj flashbacks] //#(5) ghost story art draft 1 i did like dec last year involving a shelf; incense sticks; peeling paint; spilled cup; the whole shebang -#if you look at the water house there's incense sticks in the window. yippee! had fun with that... it never made it out of sketch.#and then i lost the paper. alas. sorry i guess that was fated to never be. here's attempt 2.0 with months of hindsight#anyways let's talk really quick about song assocs! water imagery @idk you anymore // sheep in wolf country!! pretty obv. above#there's a house & there isn't a house. much House. idk how else to put it. // also that one timeline (not a song) saying <house burns down>#incense sticks mentioned in i breathe in you breathe out // the lighting for the field of grass comes from there's a house:#'where the grass looks like fire sick with anticipation'. also in the same song: pond mentioned šŸ’„šŸ’„Ā body of water moment //#also also the house in this work is like. if you took the ghost story header & the ghost story programme houses and smushed them tgt#except i was lazy to render wood that clearly. and last note here is that the smoke was kinda insp from how clouds are done in chinese art.#ghost story musical
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rickybaby Ā· 6 months ago
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Genuine question as I am curious ā€” I know itā€™s pretty obvious with his expressions/ body language that Daniel seemed shy/insecure(?) about having his braces, but has he ever outright said anything about feeling that way with them? Just out of curiosity as I am new around here!
ā€œI feel very different in terms of looks. Fortunately, experience also bought me better looks. Iā€™m not really too fond of showing people photos of me when I was youngerā€
#well he doesnā€™t exactly say he was self-conscious of his braces but he was definitely very self-conscious about how he looked#itā€™s always very interesting to me the way Daniel talks about his younger self#itā€™s so different from how other f1 drivers talk about their early days#heā€™s so self-critical of younger him that I wish he was a bit more forgiving of younger him#the way heā€™s admitted he was never a standout talent during his karting days#that he was so hesitant to get involved in battles that his dad got mad at him#the way on the gypsy tales podcast he talks about Motocross riders being fearless and how he doesnā€™t have that until jase interrupts him -#to say how how mad he is because just a few days ago he was throwing a car around on a street circuit at some 300kph#the way in this video with will he describes himself walking into the paddock like a ā€˜headless chickā€™#the way he has said so many times he was scared to move away from home. how uncertain he was he would ever succeed#and then that one video towards the end of 2022 when he says ā€˜I was just Daniel thenā€™ in reference to his younger self#like he has such a distinct way of looking at his younger self. like he views that part of him almost as a separate entity from the him now#and I guess thatā€™s because it took a lot of work and years to build that confidence of becoming Daniel ricciardo#a confidence he got as he managed to survive the shark tank of the red bull junior academy#a confidence he got from beating his 4x wdc teammate. from winning the most insane races#and that confidence then getting completely decimated in the space of a few months in 2022#and even now the more he says he is confident you can still see that tiny hesitancy#how every time he gets a good result you see how he yearns to lean back into his confident Daniel schtick#and he may just completely embrace it soon anyway <3#daniel ricciardo#anon ask
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hella1975 Ā· 5 months ago
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so there's a reason my new job got back to me so quickly about my application and that's bc it's an absolute fucking shambles like actually perfect timing for me to decide to rewatch the bear bc i have never more felt like ive been thrown into a broke on-its-knees establishment trying to crawl its way up the ladder where i am somehow a godsend to them. my old job was crazy and shambolic in the sense that the industry is just Like That but this one?????? insanity. every 5 mins i am questioning what im doing with my life. ive already had a walk-in fridge moment
#so i explained before that there's 3 venues and on my very first shift they had me doing the restaurant venue for 2 hours#which was FINE like i was a bit cautious bc my manager is VERY stressed all the time and the place generally feels like it's falling apart#not the building itself just. the way it's run like it's just got new owners and the previous manager apparently#EMPTIED THE TILLS AND TRASHED THE PLACE like cost them THOUSANDS of pounds and on top of that#there was beef with the head chef and the new owners that meant he left and took the ENTIRE BACK OF HOUSE WITH HIM#THERE ARE NO KITCHEN STAFF ATM. I HAVE TO LIE AND TELL CUSTOMERS WE DONT HAVE FOOD ATM BC OF 'REFURBISHMENT'#WHEN IN ACTUALITY THE /RESTAURANT/ DOESNT HAVE CHEFS. DO YOU KNOW HOW CRAZY THAT IS#and then the front of house staff are very lacking aside maybe 2 people we're ALL NEW and all of them EXCEPT ME#LIKE LITERALLY JUST ME IM THE ONLY EXCEPTION. ALL OF THEM ARE UNTRAINED#so when i applied with bar training coffee training and very solid waitressing skills they genuinely treated me like a saviour#like i am FENDING off shifts tbh im in a v good position bc they need me too much to get shitty w me if i refuse hours but i can literally#have as many as i want bc they will just give me them. like they're obsessed w me im rota'd for over 60 hours this week#but anyway that very first shift after 2 hours in the restaurant i then walked to the mini golf venue on the OTHER SIDE OF TOWN#and my manager stayed for 30 MINUTES. IF THAT. and showed me around the place + how to close THEN LEFT ME THERE#FIRST DAY HE GAVE ME THE KEYS AND LEFT ME TO RUN AN ENTIRE VENUE. IT'S NOT SMALL EITHER IT'S A WHOLE BAR#AND I HAD TO CLOSE ON MY OWN TOO and ironically the shift itself went rlly well like it was so chill#it was kinda boring but honestly i kinda rated it it's v easy money and the close went perfectly nothing cropped up that i was unsure about#and then. AND THEN. i havent even ranted to my mutuals about this yet bc i was acc so horrified by it but i locked the front doors#and went to lock the gate AND THE KEY GOT STUCK IN THE LOCK. WOULD NOT COME OUT. HELLA VS KEYS ROUND 3927593#my mum even showed up and tried to help me wrestle this thing out i called my manager and he literally told me to just snap it#bc he'd rather a snapped key that NO ONE could get out than just leave it there overnight but bc of my recent house key moment#i was like AM I FUCK SNAPPING THIS KEY. WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING. so i had to just leave it and at the time#i was realllyyyyyyyyyy beating myself up but my manager is actually rlly nice he's just stretched v thin#and ive also had time to be like uhh actually they shouldnt have left a random 21 y/o girl alone with the keys on her first day#omg i havent even talked about what happened on saturday. ACTUAL SHAMBLES#LIKE THIS /\/\ ISNT EVEN CLOSE TO EVERYTHING! IM RUNNING OUT OF TAG ROOM! IM GONNA REBLOG THIS TONIGHT W MORE PROBABLY!#BC GUESS WHO IS WORKING A CLOSE LATER AT THE NIGHTCLUB THEN OPENING THE RESTAURANT AT 8AM. GUESS#hella slaves to capitalism
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cherealta Ā· 23 days ago
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I've gone back into an huge high school story hyperfix for No apparent reason for this past month and half so i decide to make a new tumblr! it's been a while since i've been in an fandom space so i decide to stick to an more niche(? i guess) fandom with not so many people still here as it's not as overwhelming for me.
these girls have been with me since 2013 and 2014 respectively with many many different changes! however their core characteristics have stayed the same.
(more info under the cut!)
i was planning on drawing them about a week ago buuut my drawing tablet has decided to die on me and my only drawings of them are from <2022. which isn't ideal. then i remembered a few days ago i can just create them on sims, so for the time being i'll use ts4 as a way to visualize them until i get a new tablet!
a little brief introduction to them -
vivienne is my high school story prime mc and she transfers over to berry high in her sophomore year. bc of this the timeline is a bit different to the canon one (especially since the choices games are canon to the original timeline) as in my tl hss prime takes course from her sophomore to senior year (there's NO way all the stuff that happens in hssp happens in one year!!! pixelberry u can not convince me otherwises!!!). side confession but despite hss/hwu being an defining part of me i've never touched choices... which means i've just never considered were those games would fit into my timeline. so i guess i'd consider my tl an au.
agnieszka or angel is my hollywood u mc who i miss dearly and i'll forever be torn up by the fact that hwu is unplayable now. she's vivienne half sister (vivi is a product of affair. there's A LOT of lore that i'll hopefully go into in later posts) and the two aren't aware of eachothers existence until around 2010. despite this angel loves the fact she has an younger sister, even in unconventional circumstances, and wishes to grow closer to her. vivienne is hesitant at first but by 2018ish they have a very good relationship!! sure it takes a while but the two had to overcome a lot when it comes to their family.
for the years vivienne starts berry high in 2013 and agnieszka starts hwu in 2014 (basically when the games came out). they don't start having an consistent relationship until about mid-to-late 2015.
also this is my first time doing character sheets that aren't heavily drawn so hopefully they aren't too hard to read/understand. this is all i'll say for now as i don't want this post to get too long! i'll drop more info abt them as this month goes by.
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kaiserkisser Ā· 2 months ago
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can someone nice (!!) please please please adopt me im begging you im requesting you (huge word vomit and vent in tags, pls dont read if u dont want to!! and if you don't want this stuff on this blog PLS lmk!! i dont wanna make anyone uncomfy! )
#tw vent#yes ik i have a vent blog#but idk why i dont wanna go there#ill prolly delete this in a while + if i vent here (which ill try not to) ill always tag it#but if any of yall aren't fine with it pls do lmk!!! ill stop <3#Anyways.#fucking hell i hate this.#dude#i very specifically told them to hurry the fuck up THEY were the ones making us late#i have told them a hundred times the minimum time i jeed to get ready#i told them this morning too that you guys make us late then put it all on me#nad she went like oh no dear dont worry that wont happen#WELL GUESS WHAT BITCH#and like the lecture and huge ass scolding and then cold shouldet ive been getting from BOTH of them before i left for coachinh#im just tired atp#idk its not even that big a deal this happens everyday#i dont know how to feel#idk if im even rly feeling anything atp#its just that i really fucking hate being here#I wanna get the fuck out#but thing is this makes me feel kinda guilty occasionally#for eg a few days ago i was rly sick and she took care of me kinda#and then that made me feel bad for hating her#but then things like this happen and i cant help it and i feel so conflicted#i dont want to stay here i know that for sure but i feel guilty for it#if i speak im being rude and backtalking#if i dont speak im being rude and ignoring#the fuck am i supposed to do????#she always tells me to 'stay silent and just hear it'#and when i do that she keeps shouting again and again and finally i say smth bc although its extremely fucking dumb of me to open my mouth
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chibishortdeath Ā· 5 months ago
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Simon doodles I drew at like 1 AM or so recently. In an absolutely genius move, my dumbass started getting sleepy and decided to draw him being sleepy too about it instead of just going to bed šŸ’€šŸ’€šŸ’€šŸ’€šŸ’€. Literally thought about The Guy before I realized I could (and should) go sleep
#castlevania#castlevania games#simon belmont#akumajo dracula#akumajou dracula#art post#my art#at this point I just determine which things I havenā€™t posted yet by what images donā€™t have a cropped version lol#heā€™s so eepy#yeah heā€™s got a plushie and nightgown of courseā€”#haha the plushie totally isnā€™t a rabbit cause I collect rabbit plushies hahahaha no not at all erm uhā€”#and uh random microwaving the plushie so itā€™s warm image#heā€™s allowed to have a microwave in the 1600s as a treat :3#eh but honestly I just draw these characters in a random void and make them do whatever so itā€™s the character interaction voidā€™s microwave#I usually draw him on his side or face when laying down cause I imagine laying on his back is probably uncomfortable#never healing scars are probably not very great to touch very much#this is totally me when iā€™m suffering from the curse#imagine having posture and back problems already and then Dracula goes ā€˜hehe Iā€™m gonna make that worse :)ā€™ šŸ’€šŸ’€šŸ’€#uh dumping headcanons in the tags I guess lol#heā€™s probably an insomniac tbh like who else would be taking a week or more of no sleep like a champ like that#dude up walking around and talking to people for days and only gets like teeny tiny breaks at the church every so often???#yeah this guy already had sleep set on veteran difficulty#that being said I think when he does sleep he does like a rock donā€™t even bother trying getting him up#and why would you tbh he would be so sad :( it took him so long to do that :( let him sleep until 2 pmā€”#yeah anyway yippie doodles! of The Guyā„¢ļø!!!#I canā€™t think of anything else
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starsheet Ā· 7 months ago
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GUYS I CAN STILL DRAW I PROMMY
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(not intended nor drawn as a ship but idrc if u see it as that at this point. i think they're good buddies and i love them)
bonus version without all the very. drastic shading/lighting under cut
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(they look BALD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
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mitamicah Ā· 5 months ago
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A serious question for my brain: Why!??
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michi-chelle-draws Ā· 1 year ago
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ace solo sesh whennn šŸ˜©
(full censored versions & a bonus under the cut šŸ’¦)
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seaofreverie Ā· 2 months ago
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Anyway how is everyone doing
#had to get up at 6 in the morning and therefore had 4 hours of sleep today (a weekly occurence pretty much)#so i just took a nap which took all evening and i'm still tired yayyyyy. because naps only work how they should about 10% of the time#and also i did nothing else today because sleep and now i'm truly wondering what to do with myself anymore#meanwhile i have to get up and go to school again tomorrow šŸ˜‘ and the day after that šŸ˜‘ and the day after that šŸ˜‘#or i could drop out again and have nothing else to do anyway and continue rotting in my room#(whether it's my dorm room or my actual room doesn't matter). what's the pointtttttt#might be reaching some kind of limit or maybe i'm truly just dramatising and should just chill about it all#save me 4 hours of music listening now probably. idk man#got my minimal amount of social interaction today in the form of riding the elevator with 3 of the ppl from my course#when i could have (and normally would have) just taken the stairs instead#i feel like i made a big important step today that will help me later on through this year (no not really)#at least one thing i've noticed recently is that i might have the reverse of what is i guess is usually called seasonal depression#in the sense that now that it's chilly and cloudy and it gets dark earlier i feel like i'm finally LIVING in a way#the good effect of that will probably pass after a week or two though#but also just a bit over a month left now until my birthday and then my long awaited trip!!#anyone else get unreasonably excited for their birthday each year even though there's never anything special about it in the end#and that only makes the day more depressing lol#ok whatever i'm done whining now i think. music time then#celebrating (a bit late) one year of gratsax and lil beethoven today. some of the albums of all time for me personally#goosepost
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skrunksthatwunk Ā· 1 year ago
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ok so. kiwami 2. rooftop scene. the ending. it's a bit of a clusterfuck but i wanna talk about one detail, a problem they bring to your attention by Fucking. Talking About Her.
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haruka is watching all of this unfold.
[this post is like 4.5k words long + pretty critical + has spoilers for kiwami and kiwami 2, and really minor/vague ones for a couple others. they're not that bad though, trust me (and i added a warning in the one place it is major)]
ALSO CONTENT WARNING i'm gonna talk about kiryu's passive suicidality a good amount in this one, so stay away from this if you think that might affect you negatively/you'd be better off skipping it. i'll also make a tl;dr (which i will highlight in red) at the very end if you really wanna know what my point is that will exclude those elements <3. i am also going to use a lot of choice-based language in regards to kiryu's contemplation of suicide because i think it's the lens through which the games treat the topic, but i personally don't find it a productive or realistic way to look at suicide or suicidal ideation at all. someone dying by suicide absolutely does not mean they don't care about their loved ones enough to fight on or whatever. i love you, and proceed with caution on this one.
(also i'm using the kiwamis as my point of reference because i uh. don't have a ps2? those are the games that i played, and though the differences are likely slight, i wanna be clear about that. also,, ignore the watermark on these screenshots,, i didn't notice them and i'm not retaking them. we're all gonna have to settle for youtube cutscene comps for now xoxo)
first, we have to talk about the ending of the first game.
[note: i am Really Really Confident kiryu has a conversation earlier in the game about his going to jail in nishiki's stead being him running away and choosing not to resist his two options (go to jail or let nishiki go to jail) and define his own path, fighting his way against fate to make it happen. part of why i'm so confident it exists is because it made such an impression on me at the time. it's pretty important to my interpretation of things but i also can't find it for the life of me, so uh. sorry āœŒļø i really tried. this post's takes/analysis will be dependent on this scene existing, so keep that in mind. if anyone knows where to find the scene/screenshots of it, lmk and i'll add a follow-up with it]
kiwami stuff
so as she's dying, yumi tells haruka this:
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that she may be dying (painfully, and right as she's getting everything she wanted), but she doesn't regret it, because at least she did something rather than running away from it all. that you shouldn't run away, ever.
shortly thereafter, when the police find kiryu and haruka, this exchange happens between him and date. here's the play by play:
date tells kiryu he can get him out of trouble with this, and that if he doesn't, he'll get life in prison; kiryu declines his help:
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kiryu is so devastated (understandably) by the back to back losses of the three people closest to him that he resigns himself to life in prison, and the death-in-effect that would be. he would prefer to waste away rather than struggle through a life without them. prison was monotonous and isolating, but coming back after a decade was overwhelming, and coming back to everything being so warped and twisted, and then losing the corrupted scraps he had anyway, well. he wants to go back to sleep. he doesn't want to be in a world where everything's the same except he's on his own. better to return to safety, to die slowly in a hell he knows well than weather a new one where he has control and agency, and thus one where he has the ability to fail and to lose anything at any time. he explains to date that that loss is why he can accept his death:
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date shakes him and asks him if there's really nothing left for him, no reason to keep living at all:
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then echoes yumi's advice to haruka:
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which makes an impression on kiryu:
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date gives him a reason to live in the form of haruka, saying she'll be on her own again if he goes to jail. he hijacks kiryu's tragic protector complex to keep him alive, because she needs him, and because she's someone precious to him:
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after the dust has cleared,
kiryu and date also have this exchange, where date tells him to stay away from the cops (and presumably arrest and a return to prison, the aforementioned fate akin to death), and kiryu cites haruka as his reason to stay away, one he holds to with no uncertainty (showing again that he's accepted date's logic, that his reason to keep living even when it's incredibly difficult is to care for the more vulnerable haruka). given the weight of the consequences, to me, it feels like date's telling him not to be alone with his thoughts or something. it's almost frightening:
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so, what's our takeaway from kiwami?
kiryu lost everything and hit rock bottom, but he chose to fight, and to live life on his own terms, even when it got difficult. that's the narrative life lesson he had to learn to avoid repeating the events of 1995. he made that choice for haruka's sake. it's seen as growth.
and without him, haruka would've just returned to the orphanage (assuming she could make it back to sunflower at all) with no one who knew or understood what she had been through, no one to mourn with her, and no one to give her the attention, care, and protection she needs. kiryu knows what it's like to be an orphan with a limited parental figure who only checks in every so often (kazama, "aunt" yumi), and what someone will do for attention/affection from that person (via both himself and nishiki swearing up, climbing the ranks, etc. arguably haruka coming to kamurocho by herself to find "mizuki" is similar), and what it's like to lose them anyway (again, kazama, yumi). their situations parallel each others' somewhat, and that binds them further. and after losing everyone (which he blames himself for to some extent, as one can probably assume from this and 2, and something key to his arc in later games), he chooses to protect her. and this time, he won't fail. at least partially because failing would hurt him, too. he'd have nothing left again.
okay. now we get to kiwami 2.
if you forgot, the context is basically:
everybody's fighting on the roof of a building which i'm sure will not be a running theme or anything as the series goes on
there's a bomb that's about to go off and they don't know how to/can't defuse it
ryuji shot the twist villain to death, but took fatal hits to do so
sayama's like hey!! let's get out of here!!! and kiryu and ryuji are like nooo we have to settle this oughh it's punchin time and they stick her on an elevator and send her down so she doesn't have to watch
ryuji loses. sayama returns, they have a cute sibling heart to heart, and ryuji dies in her arms. sad
kiryu is in rough shape as well, and there's like 2 minutes left on the bomb's timer
here's the scene itself:
sayama tells kiryu they have to run, and kiryu says he can't. the gist is "let's run!" "you go without me" "i'm not leaving you!" "i'm in no condition to run" "i'll carry you then!!" sayama: *sees how fucked up kiryu is, realizes he's Going To Die Anyway* "ok, then i'm staying with you!" and then further bickering about that, before they give up and make out (as one does i guess)
date (he's here now) yells this at them from a helicopter:
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before someone else in the helicopter tells date this:
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we get this shot of haruka calling out to kiryu as the helicopter swerves away:
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and kiryu and sayama have this exchange about haruka where they say they let her down, but that she'll understand:
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then they hug and the bomb ticks to zero right when the credits hit. in post credits it's revealed that the twist villain defused the bomb when they weren't looking, betraying his co-villain for reasons i truthfully do not remember and am unwilling to look up. it's not about that right now.
so, how does this scene interact with the ending of the previous game?
the short answer is "badly <3" but here's the long answer:
it's about choices.
the thing about fiction is that anything you want to have happen, as a writer, can happen. it may not be effective, internally consistent, or logical, but you can write it regardless. audiences suspend their disbelief for the sake of engaging fully with your fiction, but everyone has a threshold past which they will stop being engaged in a story and either become uninvested or annoyed. writers usually have lines they're unwilling to cross as well. but in almost every story, there's at least a couple of places where they stretch reality a little to make the narrative they want happen. this is not a bad thing at all. that's how stories get told.
now, i'm gonna be real with you. i don't care about how feasible plots are like 95% of the time. it's not something i think about much, nor is it something i prioritize. i am a very character-centric media consumer, so if world building and/or plot are a bit stale or contrived, that doesn't really bother me much so long as i'm invested in the characters involved. some people can't stand plot holes or the ways musicals burst into song or whatever, and that's fine for them. but it's not something i tend to find that all that important.
this is all to say that i have a sorta affection for rgg's flavor of bullshit pulling. and it is a powerful flavor, maybe even an acquired taste, but i can and do rock with it so long as it doesn't damage the characters too much. this is why i'm not making a lengthy post howling into the void about joji kazama or the second joon-gi han or how many secret relatives there are. those things are silly and endearing and a clumsy yet heartfelt part of a series i care about very deeply. i'll joke about it, but i don't consider it much of a flaw. it's more like personality. flaws are texture, and they help a piece's identity. point is i am very, very willing and able to suspend my disbelief for these games in exchange for a good time, particularly via good characters.
(if you want another example of where i draw the line from within rgg, the answer's the YAKUZA 4 SPOILERS INCOMING rubber bullets twist, because i think 1) it's actively horrifically stupid (especially retconning a scene we SAW HAPPEN. WE SAW BLOOD ON EACH IMPACT, AND RUBBER BULLETS DON'T OFTEN BREAK SKIN THAT DEEPLY (THEIR DAMAGE IS MORE PERCUSSIVE THAN PENETRATIVE). THESE EVENTS HAPPEN IN THE SAME GAME YOU DON'T HAVE TO RETCON IT JUST REWRITE IT. OR DON'T SHOW THE HIT AT ALL SO THERE'S MORE PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY. DON'T DO THIS JUST TO HYPE UP YOUR SHITTY VILLAIN NO ONE CARES ABOUT. and 2) (a bit more importantly) i think it actively removes saejima's primary internal conflict for that game, that being his intense guilt over the 18 murders he thinks he committed, one i was invested and interested in. but this isn't a rubber bullets post.)
characters in this series walk off a lot of life threatening injuries. they survive miraculously, they escape in the nick of time, and they pull through in the end. kiryu still somehow hasn't killed anyone. almost every game in his saga ends with an "is kiryu gonna make it out this time?!?" shortly followed by a "yeah lol. lmao" postcredits reveal. kiryu fucking punches a marble statue into dust in the first game. having a story that asks you to suspend your disbelief so much and so often means that when a decision is made, it's not the writers saying, "well, this would have to happen so we are obligated/forced to write it happening" so much as "we wanted this to happen for some reason(s)," because you already know that they're not guided solely by logic. again, this is true of all writers, it's just amplified in stories like these because they've already given you so many hard mode suspension of disbelief moments (they've broken you in like leather, yeah? or like how obvious internet scams allow for self selection by being so obvious that only the most vulnerable people would fall for them. they curate an audience willing to play along with their bullshit flavor so they can tell a story that's more likely to satisfy that audience. in a good way, in a fun way! mass appeal is overrated). there is not much limit to what this series is willing to try and sell you.
so when ryuji takes lethal damage taking out the big bad, that's a choice. when he doesn't die immediately, that's a choice. when ryuji and kiryu send sayama away in the soon-to-be-forgotten elevator so they can settle this like men or whatever despite the literal actual bomb about to go off, that's a choice. when sayama comes back, that's a choice. when ryuji does die, that's a choice. when kiryu determines that he can't escape in time, that's a choice. when sayama is unwilling to leave him, that's a choice. when she says she'll carry him out and there's an elevator right fucking there and then she's like never mind i guess i won't anymore we're dying together right now kiryu like they're not gonna even try?? wouldn't distancing themselves from the blast give themselves a better shot, something that's super possible given the 2 minutes they have with that elevator??? sayama you met him like a week and a half ago why are you ready to die with him that's not a plot hole i just think that's kinda strange whatever anyway, that's a choice. when kiryu stops arguing with her so they can kiss (next to her brother's corpse), that's a choice. when date shows up, that's a choice. when the helicopter can't save them because the bomb was going to go off too soon, that's a choice. when they put haruka in that helicopter and take her away, let her only impact be reminding kiryu and sayama that they can't help her, that's a choice. when they spend their last moments talking as if they're already dead, then simply waiting, that's a choice.
they're all choices that the writers made for the characters, and we are asked to believe them for the sake of achieving the writers' vision, as with any story. the only problem is that the writers' vision here fucking blows.
i'm not saying it would be realistic for kiryu and sayama (and even ryuji) to make it out alive, but it wouldn't be out of character for the series in the slightest. kiryu is suddenly unable to power through here, and that's a choice. so, what is their vision?
put simply, i think they wanted a romantic last stand for kiryu and sayama, a tragic scene of doomed, devoted lovers. and i think they wanted an edge-of-your-seat fake out death. they wanted spectacle.
here's how some specific choices they made undermine all that shit we talked about earlier from the first game.
once again, kiryu is called by date to live, to pick himself up and keep going, no matter how impossible the odds are. he's even reminded by haruka's presence, his one anchor in keeping himself going. the growth he had in the parallel scene in the previous game is challenged, and he fails.
it's not enough this time. and that's a choice.
it's also one i can't think of a good reason for, and that's the real kicker.
characters can have developmental backslide just like people do, and if they're given good reason for it, it can be just as, if not far more compelling that purely linear growth (i am a chimera ant arc enjoyer, and that's all i'll say. sorry if you haven't seen hunter x hunter. uhh. i am also a zuko avatar enjoyer if that helps). but i can't think of anything that happened in that game that would cause this from a character perspective. if anything, kiryu should be less likely to do this intentionally. he's spent around a year raising haruka, and a year has passed since he lost his loved ones. at the very least, the pain should be more dull, though it is established through an early nightmare sequence that his ass is (justifiably) not over it yet. given that their deaths were the initial motivation for his willingness to rot forever, theoretically, he should be more motivated to stay alive than before now that he's got more investment and stability in his life outside of them, particularly when it comes to haruka, his reason for surviving. and if the ongoing nature of the trauma was the motivator for this, then they should've had it affect him more past that nightmare scene (it really serves more as a recap of the last game than anything else) so it didn't come out of nowhere. so the reminder of the lesson that saved his life and then guided it for at least a year afterwards, one that the whole resolution of the previous game relied on heavily falls flat for... some reason.
i think this is a good time to mention that, generally speaking, you don't write arbitrary choices into characters. sure, people in real life are often sporadic, but when analyzing fictional characters, every choice is filed into a portfolio of characterization that can and should be analyzed. going for pure realism can obfuscate their development, motivations, themes, etc. their choices and reactions may be unorthodox, but they must be internally consistent. this is very related to how i view plot contrivance as well. characters drive the plot, not the other way around. stories are about the ways characters affect their worlds/lives and vice versa, and they're the human face to the themes and ideas the writers are trying to explore and express. maybe my stance on this seems hypocritical. i don't know if it is. but to me, plot issues are usually a matter of engagement and investment, while character issues are a matter of substance.
i hope this doesn't feel patronizing explaining all of this, but i want you guys to know where i'm coming from in my analysis. starting at my base philosophy on writing is the easiest way to do that, i feel. defining the terms of the debate, and all that. anyway
and i mean, look. they survive because "it was defused the whole time we just didn't see it happen", so it's not like narrative tension or realism or whatever was THAT big of a priority overall. if it was gonna be a cop-out anyway, they should'nt have ruined kiryu's development too, yeah?. and sayama fucks off to america after this game anyway, so it's not like the doomed lovers thing had much payoff or meaning after this one (though you could argue that's more an issue with yakuza 3 than yk2, which has some merit to it). which means that they chose to sacrifice kiryu's prior development and internal logic for the sake of cheap tension for their finale that was both kinda illogical in and of itself (the elevator!! the elevator!!!) and a romantic climax that neither required nor really benefitted from this staging. (like. you coulda had them make out and then get saved by date, or kiss on the elevator in a "it's moving, but will we make it in time??" way or whatever. look i'm not saying those are great options either but they're SOMETHING okay. it would remove/reduce the amount of time wasted on characters sitting around with their thumbs up their asses for no reason in this finale).
instead the message of this finale is that, actually, sometimes it is impossible to change your circumstances and fight for your own way out of an awful situation. and what should you do about this unfortunate truth? uh. die! i guess. it's the exact opposite of the encouraging, optimistic message of the last game. zetsubou chou pride my ass.
note: i feel i should mention that when suicidality is brought up within the series (particularly in substories), it is always something someone has to overcome themselves through wanting it badly enough. they simply need the inspiration and the motivation to keep going. it's arguably treated as a moral obligation. frankly, the series is broadly very meritocratic (<- bad) when it comes to this topic (and others, but that's a Whole Other Thing. see akiyama's weird loan shark tests as well). sheer will and resolve is enough to conquer any problem, be it physical or mental/emotional, and it's irresponsible to act/feel otherwise. this is the logic the games operating under, and kiryu is often the mouthpiece for this bootstrap-pulling "tough love" sentiment. so when kiryu "chooses" to die, yet faces no emotional fallout from date, haruka, or anyone else, it feels very out of place. it's not just an odd choice; it's specifically, once again, an odd choice to make in context of the game/series/character it appears in.
kiryu's just like eh, haruka'll watch her only family die right as she gets some sense of tentative stability and lets her guard down after a devastating month the year prior (and a relatively dismal upbringing before that) that we trauma bonded over. sure, she likely came to view me as the one who would stay no matter what, who was too strong to be taken out, who she could always rely on, and so i know that dying would hurt her immensely, but she's smart enough to know it'd happen eventually. her eventual recovery means it's okay for me to do this (somehow, in a way it wasn't in the first game). it's an excuse within the narrative's logic, and one it is uncritical of simply because it's kiryu. he gets a pass.
and i think with the previously mentioned passive suicidality and general series-long mental health issues kiryu displays (i mean. yakuza 5's literally his depression arc), this could be retroactively seen as an interesting choice, like a piece in that particular narrative. i don't even dislike that viewing, especially in terms of fan approach. but (assuming this went down the same in yakuza 2), they likely didn't have that in mind. all they had then was the first game and the movie. and they took the first game's Entire Message and contradicted it for nothing but a scene they wanted to have happen because it'd be suspenseful and/or emotional (without actually doing the work to earn it). and they're not fans trying to analyze his character, they're the ones making choices for him. and they chose to massacre my boy. and if the subject of kiryu's mental health was a priority of theirs, why didn't they explore that? haruka and date's feelings on him not resisting and their words not being enough (whether that blame is justified by the narrative or not (it shouldn't be btw)), the uncomfortable drifting that resigning yourself to death and living afterwards anyway often brings, literally any conversation about it besides the minimal shit we get post credits of date being like "did you know about the bomb not having a fuse?" which like. bad answer either way (which is why they weren't straightforward about it, the cowards). you can't just be like "oh uh. idk he just gave up this time. yeah he was gonna die on purpose for some reason. good thing the bomb was fake lol" and then pack up and go home!! that's stupid!! any merit the idea of kiryu dying by suicide in this scene and in this way could have had from a character-based perspective loses its weight because 1. it didn't happen (for kinda stupid reasons), which makes it fall flat and 2. no one is really affected by the fact that it almost did, including him. they sacrificed his ass and replaced it with nothing, even when there could have been interesting outcomes to it.
so the narrative effectively chose to kill him by making the situation impossible, and this impossibility is ultimately arbitrary, given the series' usual approach to miraculous, illogical escapes. that, or the choice to stay was up to kiryu and sayama, one that 1. doesn't make sense and is actively regressive in context of kiryu's arc in the only other game in the series (as well as his whole saga in retrospect) and 2. one that contradicts how the series sees/treats resignation to death/death by suicide in all other contexts without being addressed, challenged, or condemned in ways it would in all other contexts. because they don't want you to think about it like that. they want you to think he (and the narrative) had no choice, that it made sense to do that. but it didn't. it doesn't.
and look, honestly? if i was bleeding out and had like 2 minutes to live, there's a non zero chance i'd say fuck it and kiss a girl too. i get it. but i am (and this is crucial) not a fucking yakuza character. and i'm certainly not kiryu kazuma.
tl;dr (basically just rephrasing the second to last main paragraph)
there are not sufficient character reasons for kiryu and sayama not trying to escape. additionally, because the narrative regularly facilitates even less likely escapes, it's not so constrained to logic and reality that it couldn't pull this one off. the choice to let their situation be impossible this one time was a cheap and arbitrary way of forcing a scene they thought would be cool and dramatic, and in doing so they chose to cannibalize a key emotional note of the previous finale (namely kiryu's mission to dedicate his life to protecting haruka) for hollow last minute stakes-upping in this one. it is then completely disregarded anyway. god damn.
#got so into this post that i used tumblr on my laptop for the first time to surpass mobile's image limit#i also added transcriptions in the alt text (which i should do more often)#actually thinking about it in the movie kiryu teaches haruka that lesson about stumbling on.. and she's the one to ask to follow him... hm.#just interesting given that the movie came out before 2. i don't think it makes much of a difference to the post it's just neat to me#one of my favorite parts of writing this was skimming through a bunch of yk1/yk2 cutscenes and noticing how often kiryu pats haruka's head#it happens a lot more than i remembered and it's very sweet to me. get bonked little one <3#another good thing was realizing you can edit tags when you're not on mobile.... fucking life changing. i have lost hours to mobile tag#editing and i'm not even kidding about that#speaking of editing this one took like 6 hours.. my brother used ā€œyakuza autismā€ (verb) for me earlier and it's so true. source: this post#i did have a short break to get food bc i hadn't eaten all day but that's mostly because i woke up at 3pm. anyway#also if you like kiwami 2's ending you're not even remotely alone. i looked at the comment sections of the scene comps and ppl love it#and more power to you!! i like it when people enjoy things. and tbh i DO have feelings that i'm supposed to about that ending#i just also have feelings you're not supposed to. like. anger. i guess.#rgg#ryu ga gotoku#skrunk meta#aww yeah it's a new tag babeyy#yakuza kiwami 2#kiwami 2#yakuza#like a dragon#yk2#kiryu kazuma#sawamura haruka#sayama kaoru#maybe my thoughts'll change after replaying the games...? it's been like a year and a half since i beat yk2 so i am a bit fuzzy on it#yakuza kiwami spoilers#yakuza kiwami 2 spoilers
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