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Post by Pool Boy on Oct 28, 2013 22:37:39 GMT -8
How do you go about the process of creating an original character? It's a big question, so I'm going to break it apart. How do you add depth to your original conceptions? Are your conceptions normally regarding personality, physical qualities, or histories? How do you go through the process of adding depth and complexity to their rough outline?
So, basically, I would like to know everything you guys think about regarding an RP character before you actually RP them!
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Post by redox-kun on Oct 28, 2013 22:49:53 GMT -8
i have favorite themes/archetypes. sometimes i think of a sort of struggle that would go well over an animanga rp and i form a character around it
sometimes it's as simple as finding a really hot fc and everything falling into place. the collection of icons actually have some impact on how i play the character. i stare at their faces for a long time and try to figure out wtf is going on
...so yeah it's kind of a visual process for me too since i suck balls at imagining things happening inside of my head. visual aids ftw
usually i start with the struggle tho. i also think a lot about how 'villainous' or 'noble' the character is in regards to their values. are they grasping at straws or are they fully aware of the direction that they're going in?
my favorite characters are the ones who were initially screwed over by fate - terrible tragedy hits them, but everything else that comes after that -- that's their own choice. stefan and sophia are both children of misfortune, but they take ownership of the cruelty that they inflict on others. they don't blame their past for what they chose to do in order to survive. i really like that in a character, which is why i like dumping them in several verses and seeing how they will react.
a lot of times, i make a rough development outline, but i also allow them some leg room. their free will is important to me. playing total victims is kinda hard (and boring) for me.
i change face claims a lot, but i do have some base idea of what i'm looking for in a face claim.
fuck i wrote a novel
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the greatest general under the heavens
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Post by Egao, Egao Everywhere on Oct 28, 2013 23:08:37 GMT -8
I'm one of those who do tend to grab an fc and make a character out of them. I did it before it was cool okay. I'm not good with shaping people in my head from out of nowhere. I like being able to browse through images, be it pictures of characters I know or not, and making a story out of them. I don't think it makes me less creative. I'm just one of those who's more into spontaneous storytelling. It's like giving me a set of random objects and I'll be able to tell you the history of each of them and work on it along the way.
After that, I put in many pieces of myself to that character. Each piece is like a seed. They're to grow on their own and have their own identity, separate from mine yet I still see that part I gave to them. Sometimes, I also put in the traits of other people. I probably do this a lot more. They're not necessarily good or bad traits. Just traits that I thought would be interesting to work on.
But I haven't really made an original character recently. At least not much this year? A lot of my OCs were old characters that I made back when I was 14 (Shamees, Joshua, etc). Last year, I was able to add more in my list but like my old OCs, they're all related to a certain fandom (last year being Digimon). I'm able to pull them out of their fandom and into an original setting just fine though.
I think the latest OC I made was for Digimon too. Cyrus Duessel. I really like him. Oh, and speaking of Cyrus, I guess names are important too in creating OCs. I really like Bible names. I wanted Caleb but Cyrus feels more common and fitting meaning-wise I forgot what it mean an Duessel is...who's familiar with Fire Emblem? |D Yeah, I enjoy randomly picking out names from fictional works.
But hmm, I guess I don't always choose an FC first. Or maybe it goes side-by-side. Because I remember back when I made Cyrus, I was on a Digimon Frontier spree and I wanted to make a character based on Kouichi Kimura. I don't like Kouichi exactly but I've been rping with one and thought I would be able to give him a try too via an original character. Basically the idea I had in mind was to make this mellow, ordinary kid who you would undoubtedly call "nice." And me being me, I want to put a sort of a dark twist that doesn't really make a person bad, but it makes them human. A fatal flaw. And Kouichi's fatal flaw was holding grudges to those who hurt his loved ones. What struck me about that Digimon guy was that one line he said where he said "I'm fine but Mother is really sad." I know there are a lot of generic, shounen characters out there who hates seeing their friends get hurt but not many of them are ordinary kids who are helpless to do anything about it. Not like you could gain magical powers and use them to solve financial problems.
From there it started growing on its own and I was able to muse on how I was able to relate with Kouichi. Hating others who hurt your mother when it's really yourself you hate the most because you're not able to do any better about it. I didn't want a tragic route of generic divorced parents though. I thought, "what if your parents actually love each other? Doesn't that make things more painful? In a situation like that, there's really no right or wrong. Misfortune just strikes."
And it just keeps rolling like that. It's an idea from one thing to another. I evaluate the idea, change it, reverse it, keep it. I know I also based Cyrus' story to a biographical account that I vaguely remember watching when I was a kid. It was about this illiterate mother who couldn't read from one medicine bottle to the other. She used a wet paper to mark the right one but rain dripped in and both of the bottles had a wet mark on them. The mother took a guess and ended up giving her son the wrong medicine, almost killing him. I thought it worked well that you know, you love your kid but you...have your flaws. So I just mix them all in as they come and viola.
And often times, I like to add something Filipino-related. Family is a constant theme for all my characters - no exemptions. It's probably the aspect I begin with for each of my character. I recall back when I was 14, I had a "runaway kid" theme revolving about coming back home, and whether there's a home to return to. How you're supposed to move on and who you have to live for now.
Despite the details, I don't spend really long creating my OCs but I'm not able to mass create them either. I'm usually inspired by something first before creating a new one and I don't hold back pouring in past and recent experience in them. I don't reuse concepts but I reuse characters to develop them further. When you see me playing a bunch of characters in one site, chances are they're all old characters.
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the greatest general under the heavens
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Post by Egao, Egao Everywhere on Oct 28, 2013 23:10:01 GMT -8
if that's a novel then what was mine
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Post by redox-kun on Oct 28, 2013 23:28:29 GMT -8
if that's a novel then what was mine a fucking epic speaking of family, my characters tend to have missing parents. it's fairly unlikely that they miss them, and i feel like that's almost a reflection of my attitude lol. or if their parents matter to them, it's more like...they're elevated to an ideal instead of...intimate people honestly family is hard for me to figure out. unless they're siblings, which i tend to overly idealize as well. i blame shounen manga. to my characters, siblings are often platonic soulmates. i'm not sure where my values fall in character creation sometimes, but i do believe that the world is rather cruel by necessity. happiness is a limited commodity, so blessed are the people who are able to create it for themselves. there is only so much love that your loved ones are able to spare for you. there is only so much hope that you can have before it starts to fall apart. you can only be so much better than others before the pedestal gets lonely. you can only let so many people in before they start to color your identity too much. how many of your values can you satisfy before you become a hypocrite? those are the things that i like playing around in my characters. how does a person deal with not being able to fill their needs? i want to see what kind of people they become in order to cope.
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Post by CRANE on Oct 29, 2013 2:24:44 GMT -8
i think physical qualities are much more fluid compared, although i guess you can get your constraints from things like how well they can do things by what their body is capable of. or something like that. but basics like colors, even gender can ...bend anyway. and are very subjective. but same goes for me too with the whole stare at this imgur album until a backstory comes to life sort of thing. tying a personality with history is really fun, but so is filling in some gaps with what they want or how they intend to acquire it, or if they're even going to bother. i look into passivity and vice versa a lot when i make a character, but try not to limit them to do that, since there's really no automat for character types or reactions. there's also thinking about the kind of people they might interact with. sometimes i already have like, an idea for what kind of foil might suit a character best or bring out some things that other characters (when uh...pitted? or...no HELP LANGUAGE GAP) can't. so i like to think about how they'd do in certain situations, react/deal with certain people, compared to say, older characters (i guess?) or other people's characters. And often times, I like to add something Filipino-related. Family is a constant theme for all my characters - no exemptions. It's probably the aspect I begin with for each of my character. and ^ !!!! /family is something i take into consideration too. past and/or present. like if my character is still supported by their parents, how they feel about that or how often they think about going home for the holidays. i do this for all my characters (especially the latter lol) ...i have a thing for writing characters who are kind to a fault but for very...neutral reasons, which they don't really think about. it's just what they know how to do. |D they seek something out from that, if only to be treated fairly. and sometimes they'll have to learn the hard way that that won't always be the case and not everyone is clued in on the whole 'do unto others what blah blah blah' yeah there's bunches more. mostly about how i begin because it's usually the easiest part. like, sometimes a friend or anyone really, will say something "interesting" --not in particular, just enough so that it calls my attention. but like quietly. and i nod along and try to remember bits of it because it has to seem like i'm not developing a character around it. and i usually just build on it (could be as short as a phrase a whole monologue about ...life or whatever) with the stuff i wrote above ++ things i do/think about in the hours i sit down typing things and sorting through face claims
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Post by darth vader on Oct 29, 2013 3:13:54 GMT -8
when i start a character (or even remake an old character for a new rp), i begin with three things:
1. an image in my head of them doing something extraordinarily mundane in that verse, and how they do it and why. 2. an ic secret about them that isn't a secret ooc (i usually put it on the app) 3. a secret about them no one knows but me
so with snk verse thalia for example:
1. when i started to try and work on her app i had the scene in my head of twenty year old thalia, newly promoted to squad leader, sitting at a desk and staring a stack of paperwork she had no idea how to read. and then i started asking myself: well why can't she read? she's always been able to read before? and the answer came. because even though she ran away from home in other verses as a kid, they were more advanced RPs technologically, and she either learned how to read at school beforehand, or had the chance to learn after her time on the streets. in snk-verse, she never got that bc she was drafted straight into the military from the streets. she can maybe scratch out a signature, but that's it. so how does she handle this? she calls in one of her squad members, once sh trusts, to help her. so are there squad members she doesn't trust? and then before i know it i've wasted like a fucking hour thinking about little details like that ;________; 2. she enjoys fighting titans. she enjoys being good at killing. she's had to be violent her whole life to survive, and even if it started as a necessity she's learned to find joy in it, to feel alive and powerful, and she's worried she's becoming a monster and she'll hurt someone innocent one day. i said this on the app, but it was a lot more needlessly wordy and poetic lol. 3. it's a secret uwu
once i have those, i usually feel confident, and everything else begins falls into place. of course, time spent rping a character also counts for a lot, because by necessity you begin to create more and more details as you post for them. so thalia is pretty "original" because i play her a metric ton and know loads about her to distinguish her from the archetype of other characters like her. characters i try to create on a theme, rather than as people, usually also fail. (see: calliope) i can create a character and begin to explore themes w/ them organically after time, but i can't do it the other way around apparently.
i also really enjoy playing characters i would loathe in real life because i think writing thought processes that are just completely alien and despicable to me forces me to work on them harder and flesh them out and make them more solid. in the same vein, writing characters who share my ideals of mine i'm not exactly proud of and know aren't healthy is also good, because again, confronting things tends to add a layer of realistic depth to the character.
and i usually have the char in mind first, and then find an fc to suit them.
but tbh the most important part of my char development process is that i work 6 hour shifts at a food and bev service job and have nothing to do but think about rp and what my characters are like while i ring customers out.
i don't know if i put any of my culture into animanga rp characters, other than naming conventions. it just wouldn't seem to fit. especially given the dearth of good brown fcs... maybe themes like roman excess and blood, the catalan desire to be free mixed w/ a fierce unity for those who are "yours" pop up again and again but nothing overt like making characters roman catholic or speaking spanish.
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Post by Pool Boy on Oct 30, 2013 21:11:53 GMT -8
Okay i guess its my turn. i posted this up because i've been thinking how the heck i do it for rp when i'm clueless as to how to invent character for a novel. So this is my process boiled down. 1. Inspiration. My characters tend to be based off of real people (both famous and daily life), song lyrics, and character from films and books. I know it sounds iffy that I draw inspiration from creative works, but it helps me project myself and envelope myself in the proper vibe. I'm really awful at understanding my own characters from the get-go, so I need the crutch. Some stuff I've based my characters off include: George W. Bush, my roomie, my mother, this song, the 80s hardcore punk movement, Alexander Hamilton (my first character, and rejected as a sue LOL), Johnny Cash, my high school tennis team captain, my kid neighbor, that asshole nazi from schindler's list, Cruella Deville, Pippi Longstocking, Tigger, and the Quentin Tarantino film soundtracks. 2. Family - like tanz said, parents and socioeconomic background play a huge role in picturing a character. 3. Honest to god, I have to RP them out to truly know who they are. Creation processes only gets me about 10% into them.
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Post by BIG FUCKBOI GAMBINO on Oct 30, 2013 21:32:42 GMT -8
i think making a character and rping one is the same. and so i like to be very vague when it comes to making characters. i generally make adolescents and lost /wandering adults, though i prefer to make more stable and wise adults, i generally always make them naive in one area or another (mostly the area they're wise(st) in).
self destruction is perhaps the only real theme i focus on when making my characters. that and sacrifice, betrayal and deceit.
when it comes to inspiration, movies are perhaps my biggest source. music, books (when i do read) and other writings help too.
but, i guess my real process of making a character begins with their life. i like to plot out how their life may or may not go, and depending on who they'll be at the end i like to take the best one and begin thinking about ways to ruin them. from there ill pick them out in a stage of their life, generally when they'll be approaching one of the crossroads in their life, and rp that version.
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Post by pascaline on Nov 12, 2013 18:23:27 GMT -8
I'm going to necro this thread because I haven't really been around at all so there.
Anyway, there are two ways I create an original character:
1. I get an idea stuck in my head and it will not leave me alone. I either get an idea for a dynamic or theme, or I see a face claim that inspires a character, or I hear something and my imagination spirals out of control.
2. The other way I create an original character is because there are/were times in my life when I needed to cope with something. I once made a character based on someone I didn't like, because I wanted to understand their psychological makeup more. I've made several characters to help me cope with aspects of my life, and sometimes even aspects of myself. However, I don't always realize that's what I'm doing until later. I have two characters I love to play, a brother-sister pair where the brother represents most of my negative aspects and the sister represents mostly my positive aspects though also some of my negatives. None of my characters are ever me, they have their own personalities and psychology, but they are therapeutic in some form or another.
Overall, I see my characters as separate entities whose stories need to be shared. They're apart of me and they're also their own being as well that deserve to live outside of my head.
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Post by HIMA on Nov 15, 2013 15:25:50 GMT -8
lol i was meaning to pop in
well
i make characters based on a focal point? be it a central personality trait - apathy, or a certain philosophy in life - get girls to get going, or it could be something else like an illness - narcolepsy, being mentally unstable (although that one isn't specific enough to build a whole character around) you get the idea. it could even work with certain occupations, yeah. especially if your work is your life. or hobbies. like maybe you're a pianist. i don't know. that requires me to know about pianos and i know nothing. same with poetry
then i like to move onto their morality, and their beliefs. see, what they believe, and what they don't, are very important. also, i like to find out who are they nice to. i go off the rule i read somewhere that even evil characters have their nice points and i like to try and do that.
and then again, there's the point where you wanna know if they connect with other people or not.
other stuff like history, doesn't tend to bother me unless it shapes their entire character. (if they used to be rich, etc.) tbh, i don't find it fun having extremely complicated, elaborate histories. i've sworn against them now. (minus vivien. im sorry my love.)
and then you have the characters that came from me wanting to use a certain name or a certain fc i make characters for stupid, not really serious reasons ok
i think that's it really i mean i just blag everything else and hope it'll be ok
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A seadog looking for crewmates
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Post by Elena on Nov 24, 2013 3:50:17 GMT -8
I first start with what kind of character is needed most for the story. Male or female? Which profession/ social group? Then I start from there, with an ethnicity, a name corresponding to the ethnicity, a history trying not only to conform with the setting but to give the widest interactions possible, and a personality influenced by the history. Sometimes, the choice of a playby and theme song help with fleshing the personality and history with little bits. Sometimes they come only afterwards. How do you add depth to your original conceptions? How do you go through the process of adding depth and complexity to their rough outline?I go in a shuttle between personality and history when writing them up, because the personality is influenced by history. I ask myself all the questions "what? when? why? where? how? what impact did it have?" and I answer them, then I read for coherence and consistency, making the needed corrections. Are your conceptions normally regarding personality, physical qualities, or histories?All of them. Everything has to make sense together and to avoid inconsistencies. Certain physical qualities are needed for a pirate/ navy man/ mercenary/ prostitute. History and personality influence each other and there must be no contradiction between them. * * * And let me show you a different way to come with my latest character... People who said that character graphics inspired them made me look strangely at them... until these days. These days, I made character graphics which inspired me. Time for character creation secrets... but not exactly my usual character creation process. I was told that a pirate master gunner was needed on a steampunk fantasy site I am on - and I came with Leftheris Vunos. I was free to choose any nationality for him from Steamhawke's Wikipedia. I chose Elladia (made after Greece, of course) because it made the most sense to me: 1) it would have been possibilities of conflict with another crew member which would become interesting and 2) I speak Greek, I love Greece, so writing a Greek character came quickly to me. Once choosing the nationality, next step - the name. Leftheris (meaning Freedom, or rather a derivate from it) is one of my favourite names. I used it for a rebel captain (captain of partisans) before, and it made sense for a master gunner too. He needed a short family name, easy to pronounce, and after analysing a few alternatives, I set with Vunos, meaning (or coming from) Mountain. These two associations convinced me that, in the past, besides having been a soldier (natural for a master gunner) he had been a rebel too somehow. I chose as playby Nikos Xiluris, a dead singer from Crete that I love. He was the one I envisaged for the master gunner. And given that the site doesn't actually have avatars, but it has a DeviantArt group for character graphics, I was inspired to make a graphic for him, with an appropriate quote.... Well, you also know that I can't photoshop. I usually only crop, resize and write on photos on AcdSee. But a while ago, my husband showed me a site I can play on, and I recommend it to all of you - funny.pho.to/ . I made greetings for birthdays and character art as well with photomontages from here. And some of the montages/ settings / backgrounds (not sure which is the appropriate word) inspired me, so I made more than 1-2 graphics as initially intended... and given that I was doing it in a break before writing his history, it got twisted and enriched because some photo settings inspired me... First, he was a war veteran, because only a good artillerist can become a master gunner. Then, he became a wanted man, because otherwise how would he have ended joining the pirates? Being in love with an elphin girl and not wanting to fight the second war against the elphins made sense. Even more that we have elphins aboard the ship, and it was important that he didn't see them as enemies. (Besides, which sailor hadn't dreamt of mermaids?) This was how he went up to the mountains and became a rebel... and when the war was lost, he left to sea. And a pirate can be a good gambler too. Yes, I wouldn't have thought about him being a gambler if the photomontage setting wouldn't have inspired me! So yes, it is possible! If you want to hear other stories, how a theme song helped me flesh out a character, I am ready to tell you this one too...
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Post by Zozma on Dec 4, 2013 23:39:57 GMT -8
For me, the process is pretty quick and simple. A character idea sprouts from something small, usually an NPC in a thread, sometimes a family member, and sometimes from a want ad that I later pick up.
From there, the first things I need to make a character I will stick with are two very important items: motive and family. Of course, if this is a want ad, I'll already know the basics, such as the character's age. But motive and family are very important starting points for me. When I know what motivates a character, I can craft their personality around it through a series of why questions. Why does this thing motivate the character, how hard does it effect their life, their decisions, and what they do? If a character is motivated by money, for example, why?
My process would go something like this: Bob is motivated by money. Why? He grew up in a slummy neighborhood where his mother was always struggling to make ends meet. He never had any of the cool stuff growing up and his friends made him intensely jealous by having the newest cool thing and bragging about it.
Now we're moving along to family, which intertwines with Bob's motivation. He grew up the oldest son raised by a single mother. He loves his mother but has to watch her suffer through long, hard work days just to keep the roof over their head and food in their mouths. So as soon as Bob is old enough, he starts working, too. His younger brother is a stingy kid though and is always asking why he can't have the cool stuff that Bob never had as a kid. This breeds resentment between Bob and his younger brother.
And it goes on.
For me, motivation and family build who the character is right now but then I like to start building relationships onsite. So I'll poke through profiles or if I already know of a character they might know, I'll poke the player and say "Hey, I'm in the process of making Bob and I noticed your guy also works in the grocery store where Bob works. Since they're co-workers and have a few similar interests, I think it would make sense if they were friends." And then I'll outline some ideas about what kind of relationship they might have. "Maybe every Friday, they meet up after work for drinks at the local bar and rant about work, then play pool together. It's become a tradition for them." It's best when the other player is awesome and works with me by adding in "OH and since they both love money so much, how about they bet money on their pool games?"
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Post by DARKEE on Dec 6, 2013 13:54:24 GMT -8
step 1) sex step 2) get preggerz step 3) birth the character
though seriously, a lot of my characters take elements from other characters. for example, i have a character called amaryllis, who is a sorceress based on melisandre from asoiaf/game of thrones. they're not totally similar, but they do share elements such as both being priestesses of a religion and the fact that they serve under a king. amaryllis is different from melisandre in that the king she serves under is kingslayer and "the mad king" though through her visions, she has seen that he is currently plagued by a certain something and she works to make him as great as her visions have shown her |DD
so yes, for me, i make characters because i get inspired by other characters. a lot of the time, the faction from which a character is from / the member group influences me greatly.
sometimes i also think of a random, idk, moniker?? a general title for the character. i had an idea for a character called the Black Reaper. simply known as the Black Reaper. so, i developed him. what does he do? where does he spend his time? a 'Reaper' isn't going to hang around a park and do face paints on little kids. tbf, the reaper part of his title doesn't work because he doesn't reap, he just protects a castle from 'intruders' at the expense of almost mortally wounding someone in order to make them get out or knock them out and dump them outside the castle, but 'Black Knight' is a tad overused, don't you think? though anyway, 'Black' is for his use of darkness as an element, his general state of mind being dull and his preferred colour of choice. after i've thought of these ideas, i ask, who are you, and what person were you were before now?
then i just splurge a bunch of ideas into a history.
but sometimes histories are difficult when you've got a character, and you've got so many wants for who they are but you can't fit them all in because it's conflicting. i'm looking at you, mccarly, ye twisted little monkey
my last point because i'm lazy: i leave my characters 'unfinished'. like a lot of characters, they are continuously developing. i leave my characters in a constant state of development because i will get an idea, and i will like that idea, and i will use that idea for a character of mine. my first character, Keith Gray, has had so many changes to him, and while he's more similar to how he used to be when i first made him, he's had drastic differences to his original character. another character, i've left unfinished because i don't know their history. i don't know who they are, and how their history has made them who they are. i just know their current status. i don't know their past, and i find it exciting when i finally come up with an idea for them later. generally, i will have an idea, but the reason why i leave a character mostly unfinished is because i will find concepts i like better than the ones i have now.
clusterfuck i'm sorry if you don't understand i just felt like posting here gomen
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Post by Siren on May 12, 2014 22:23:48 GMT -8
i've always wanted to answer this. this is fantastic.
so you wanna know how i make my 'original characters'?
well,
i take two random, seemingly incompatible character archetypes
put them in a blender called my mind
blend it until it's evenly mixed
add a dash of my tears as i try to figure out a name and history (personalities are always set idk why)
add just a pinch of whatever mood i'm in (usually heavily influenced by the song i'm listening to at the time)
and then i serve it on a pretty plate/profile
voilà
there is my character, and that's how i made my 80+ year old gold digging cougar and self-loathing clown that works at mcdonalds
as you can tell, they're really ridiculous, but they're really fun to make.
will fix this post when i've gotten sleep and it's not 1:23 am.
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