The build ideas just keep coming this week, and the latest of my exploits is the latest iteration of the Hidden Blade (of Assassin's Creed fame). This build, while not as storied as some of my other creations, has a bit of history to it, so I wanted to take a look back at its evolution throughout the years. Unlike most of my builds, the Hidden Blade wasn't an idea I thought up at random. Rather, a friend challenged me to try and build it. Well, "challenged" is a strong word; it was more of a suggestion, but I certainly took it as a challenge. I don't remember when exactly the build idea was suggested to me, but I do know that it took me a long while to create the first version of the Hidden Blade. I put this together in 2015, so by this time, I had a good amount of experience with wearable builds. However, that wasn't the main challenge of this build. As you can see in this video, there is no mechanism to the blade at all. It's just me flicking my wrist like an idiot. It's not fixed in any way, so it moves up and down whenever I move my arm, and I couldn't lock it into place, either. It's very much a proof of concept more than anything, but I'm still quite happy with this prototype, because I proved to myself that the idea was doable. The second version came about many months after the first. It still operates via a combination of the law of inertia and gravity (as you can see here), but with a couple of key changes. As I mentioned above, the blade in the first version wasn't fixed at all, so I tried to mitigate that by building a sort of "rail" for the blade to go along. However, this doesn't fix the other issue of me not being able to lock the blade in place when I don't want it deployed, so I built a glove-type thing that let me hold the blade when I move my wrist inward. While a considerable improvement from the previous version, I was still not satisfied with how the blade worked mechanism-wise. In the Assassin's Creed games, the blade has an internal mechanism that lets the assassin deploy and retract the blade with relative ease. I was only getting into mechanism-based builds during this time, so I figured I was far off from something like that and decided to hold off on building another version. An entire two years later, I decided to revisit the idea on a whim. I had been experimenting with worm gears at the time, and thought it would be the perfect solution to my "locking" problem. Thus, Mk. 3 was born. Again, it still relied on gravity (as shown here), but thanks to the locking mechanism, it was less likely to move around when I don't want it to. While I was pretty proud of myself for figuring out how to lock the blade in place, I was still not satisfied with how the blade actually deployed or retracted. I started experimenting with a rubber band-based mechanism (a common occurrence in Lego Technic sets and the like), and, mere days later, produced Mk. 4: You can clearly see how the mechanism works here; the rubber band locks the blade in one position (in this case, retracted), extends when I move it to its other position (I push the blade forward), and returns to its default position with the application of a tiny bit of force. While effective, it did require the use of my other hand, which kind of defeats the purpose of the Hidden Blade, but nonetheless, I was happy with how this turned out. The mechanism posed a few problems, however; it slightly bent pieces that should not be bent, and the way it locked into the deployed position was... questionable at best. With the next few attempts, I aimed to improve upon the rubber band idea with these issues in mind. I don't usually document shelved or otherwise failed builds, but I deemed it important to show this unfinished version of the Hidden Blade. As you can see, it uses the same rubber band mechanism, but this time, I implemented it such that it worked in reverse (i.e. its default position is deployed, extending the rubber band retracts the blade). I designed it this way to be more in line with how the Hidden Blade worked in the games, where it pops out with pretty much no effort at all. Unfortunately, the mechanism was ineffective. While the blade deploys with ease, I couldn't devise a way to retract it that wasn't otherwise contrived or potentially damaging to my pieces. I spent a long time trying to figure it out, but I had to concede after a while. It's not often that I just call it quits on a build, but it does happen every now and again. Frustrated by the previous attempt, I decide to try another mechanism for the blade, this time inspired by my retractable claw build. This was even less effective than the last, because there was no way to attach it to my wrist without hindering its movement. Despite being a failed attempt, the resulting build was fun to play with on its own, so I decided not to dismantle it. And thus, we return to present day. After my attempt at using a different mechanism didn't pan out, I went and gave the rubber band mechanism another chance. This time, it was slightly more successful, as I was able to devise a system that did two jobs: lock the blade into place when retracted, and deploy the blade when moved. See it in action here.
Obviously, I ended up with the "it requires two hands" dilemma again, but seeing how this has been the most stable and effective mechanism so far, I'm still satisfied with the outcome. I even made the entire thing look kind of presentable instead of just a garbled mess of pieces on my arm. That's pretty hard to do with mechanism-based builds; often, you have to sacrifice design for functionality. Whenever I stumble upon that breakthrough that allows me to build a Hidden Blade that operates smoothly using only one hand, I'll get right on Mk. 6, but for now, I'm closing the book on this one. - end -
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I've been in a building mood this weekend, and one of the things I worked on today is my latest take on Iron Man's iconic repulsor glove. This type of build has a special place in the pitch-black chasm that is my heart, so I felt like it deserved its own blog entry. Like most of my builds, the first repulsor glove was born because I had a random idea in my head. To be specific, I felt compelled to build the glove because I saw that wheel piece and thought, huh, I could probably build Iron Man's glove with this. Of course, this was in 2013, long before I hit my stride with wearable builds, so this "glove" wasn't much of a glove at all, but more like the portable repulsor blaster Tony Stark had in Iron Man 3 (which was my main inspiration for this first build). As I mentioned on my blog entry on wearable Lego masks, Lego isn't something that's made to be worn, so this first build really did a number on my wrist. Unlike the subject of masks, though, the repulsor glove idea felt doable to me, so I was compelled to keep iterating on the build. I felt a lot better with my second go at the glove. Not only did it not cut off the blood to my hand, I thought it looked cooler. This was the build that bolstered my confidence in my ability to assemble wearable builds. In addition, this was the first build where I felt the need to expand on the original idea. This is what the "enhanced" version looked like: While it's still nowhere near a full-on glove, I was pretty proud of myself for figuring out how to expand the build to partially cover my forearm. This build got me to go all in with glove-type wearable builds, and it ended up being my springboard to more ambitious builds. One of these builds ended up being a pivotal inspiration for a lot of my recent work: This red glove build (inspired by Baron Strucker's signature weapon in the comics: the Satan Claw) was, at the time, the culmination of my foray into the repulsor glove build. It's the first of my glove builds to feature fingers, and while it'll be a long time before I figure out proper articulation, this felt like such a massive accomplishment all those years ago. I was so proud of this build, I didn't disassemble it for at least two years. During this time period, I was starting to put out a lot of wearable mask builds. Not to be left behind, my list of glove-type or otherwise wrist-mounted builds started to grow as well. It was also during this time that the genesis of my Infinity Gauntlet build came about (a story I've already told). Here are a few examples (featuring my attempt at a Winter Soldier robot arm, which is something I'll have to try again in the future): Though it may seem like I put out a lot of these types of wearable builds, I haven't actually built that many. As the years went on, my focus shifted more to masks and pixel art (and more), which led to wrist-mounted builds falling to the wayside. Of course, there are notable exceptions, like the aforementioned Infinity Gauntlet, and the Hidden Blade (a story for another time), but if you look through my work from 2015 to now, you won't see too many of these wearable builds. What I find personally interesting, though, is that despite all this progress being brought upon by the humble repulsor glove, I never really built a proper, new iteration of it since the third one (which I built all the way back in 2013). That brings us to today, when, while working on another project, a bunch of circular blue pieces in my containers caught my eye. And, as if to bring this story full circle, I thought, those would be perfect for a repulsor glove build! Thanks to my work on the Infinity Gauntlet, I was able to make the latest iteration of the repulsor glove actually feel like a glove, as opposed to just a wrist-mounted blaster. The fingers aren't as well articulated as the Gauntlet, however, but that's an improvement to strive for in the next iteration. For now, I'm simply in awe of how far my builds have come seeing today's build and looking back at where it all began, which seems to be the overarching theme of this blog series. I love taking these trips down memory lane and looking at old builds, and I hope you, dear reader, enjoy my ramblings about them. Of course, the future is just as exciting, so if you want to see my future builds, keep your eyes on my Instagram for the latest on my shenanigans. Also, stop by my YouTube channel; there'll be more Lego-based shenanigans heading there that I can't wait to share (and possibly write about here)!
- end - Having just cashed in my one week free trial of Nintendo Switch Online, I decided to make the most of it by playing through as much of the games on the NES Online launch catalog as I could. In this listicle-ish blog entry, I'll share some short thoughts on each game. GENERAL FEATURES: What sets NES Online apart from the emulation services that came before it is, well... the online. That's right, you can play games from the '80s online now with a friend. I unfortunately didn't get to try any of the games online, so I can't really say how well it performs. Of course, you can still play traditional couch co-op by sharing Joy-Cons, and you've got the standard issue save states, but a weird omission is the lack of button mapping. NES games aren't as comfortable to play with modern controller layouts, so I really hope they address this oversight. THE GAMES: ![]() BALLOON FIGHT - It's a classic game, but I personally prefer playing Balloon Trip over actual Balloon Fight. ![]() BASEBALL - Baseball doesn't interest me much, and this game doesn't do the sport any favors. ![]() DONKEY KONG - A bonafide arcade classic that one should play at least once. Disclaimer: it controls like ass. ![]() DOUBLE DRAGON - Classic side-scrolling beat-'em-up action. My advice: it's best played with a friend, and always spam jump kicks. ![]() DR. MARIO - Fun puzzle game that still holds up today. Do not confuse with Puyo Puyo. ![]() EXCITEBIKE - It's less a racing game and more a glorified time trial game, but it's still a fun time-killer. ![]() GHOSTS 'N GOBLINS - Hard as fuck platformer. Gonna try and beat this later. ![]() GRADIUS: - Still an amazing shmup (shoot-'em-up) game after all this time. I'd argue that this is a gaming essential. ![]() ICE CLIMBER - Basic arcade platformer. Also controls like ass. ![]() ICE HOCKEY - Pretty fun. Would probably be better if played with a friend and if there's yelling involved. ![]() MARIO BROS. - Not to be confused with Super Mario Bros. This is the original arcade game. It also controls like ass; just play the better, remade version of it in Super Mario Bros. 3. ![]() PRO WRESTLING - Incredibly hard to figure out. Go play SmackDown vs. Raw or something instead. ![]() RIVER CITY RANSOM - Another classic side-scrolling beat-'em-up. Has super basic RPG elements. I like it better than Double Dragon. ![]() SOCCER - GOOOOOOOOOOAL. More fun with two players. ![]() SUPER MARIO BROS. - This game launched the side-scrolling platformer genre. Important cornerstone of gaming that must be played at least once. ![]() SUPER MARIO BROS. 3 - All-time classic. Many people hail it as the best 2D Mario game (and one of the best platformers) of all time. I'm inclined to agree. ![]() TECMO BOWL - Found this pretty fun despite not being huge on American football. Zero risk of concussions. ![]() TENNIS - Again, another sports game that would be even better with a second player. If I were you, play Mario Tennis instead. ![]() THE LEGEND OF ZELDA - Another gaming essential. I advise pulling up a walkthrough if it's your first time playing. ![]() YOSHI - Weird, but enjoyable puzzle game. Has a bit of a learning curve. There will be more games coming to the NES Online library as time goes on, and I'll try and talk about them in the future. If you find one of these games interesting in any way, go and check them out however you can.
- end - Welcome to Derryck Reads: an entirely new blog series dedicated to the shit I read (which is mostly comics). I've been meaning to work through my backlog, and I thought that writing about what I read afterwards would be fun. For the inaugural entry, I decided to start with The Adventures of Tintin: The Calculus Affair. WHY I BOUGHT IT:
Tintin comics were a big part of my childhood. As a lot of my fellow schoolmates from SBCA can attest to, our grade school library had most of the books in their collection, and my friends and I would borrow them rather often. We read the shit out of these comics, and it got to the point where we'd start incorporating lines from the comics into conversations. Fast forward many years later, and I spot a shelf of Tintin comics at a bookstore during a sale. Overcome by the might of nostalgia, I went ahead and bought The Calculus Affair. I chose this title in particular because Professor Calculus became a bit of a meme with my friends back in the day. In another Tintin comic, Destination: Moon, he loses his shit over being accused of "acting the goat", and because we're dumb, we thought this was the pinnacle of comedy. Hell, I still think it's hilarious today. THE WRITING: Like most Tintin stories, the plot follows Tintin and Captain Haddock off on some sort of adventure to find or discover something. In this case, it's specifically about rescuing Professor Calculus from kidnappers after he invents a device with potentially dangerous implications. It sounds like your typical spy thriller affair, but considering this particular title was published in the '50s, it's probably some sort of allusion to the Cold War. Political overtones aside, everything about this comic is as silly and fun as I remember it. Everything from the slapstick shenanigans, Thomson and Thompson being goofs, and Captain Haddock's penchant for stringing together insults all make me laugh to this day. The humor isn't sophisticated by any means, but it's still enjoyable, and it takes me back to the simpler times. THE ART: I didn't know until I looked it up that Hergé's art style actually had a name. It's called ligne claire ("clear line"), and, as the name implies, it's defined by the use of strong, distinct lines. You'll see clear, black lines, minimal shading, and lots of bright, mostly flat colors when looking at works drawn in this style. A good, non-Tintin example of something that uses this style is Where's Wally/Waldo. The Tintin comics go as far back as the '30s, yet the art still looks as great as ever in 2018. Sure, it's not the most realistic style out there, but I really enjoy how simple it is. Then again, I'm rather easy to please when it comes to visuals, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. VERDICT: The Calculus Affair is as enjoyable today as it was when I first read it (give or take) 12 years ago. While it's nothing revolutionary in either department, I'd still highly recommend this (or any Tintin comic) if you're looking for a short, but fun read. If you've never heard of Tintin until now (which is absurd to me given how goddamn iconic the character is), I think you're missing out, and I hope you give the series a chance. - end - BoJack Horseman's fifth season is here, and after putting it off yesterday, I finally watched all of it today. This show has managed to climb the ranks as one of my favorite animated series ever, so I had high hopes for this season. For this blog entry, I'll go over some talking points and share some overall thoughts. Here's your obligatory spoiler warning.
It's been an agonizing wait, but the Nintendo Direct meant for last week finally dropped today. It's a shame that a good number of announcements supposedly meant for the Direct have surfaced throughout the week, but delaying the Direct out of respect for the victims of the Hokkaido earthquake is undoubtedly the best course of action. Anyway, if you haven't caught up yet, watch the Direct below: The Direct starts out strong, with a teaser for a Luigi's Mansion game for the Switch. Still gotta play the first two games, but I'm hyped nonetheless. The first segment of the Direct was on games coming to the 3DS. I'm rather amazed that, nine years on, games are still coming out for the damn thing.
I thought the 3DS segment would be a little bit longer, but the Direct moves on to Switch games in quick fashion.
The Direct switches over to a segment about the Nintendo Switch Online. They haven't done a very good job at selling the service to people, so it was nice to have this little segment. There isn't really any new information in the segment apart from glimpses of what NES games will be available, as well as some sort of tease for "special offers". I'm still not sold on this service, but I need it to play Splatoon 2, so I guess it doesn't matter. To tie in with the online granting access to NES games, they also show off new cool-looking wireless NES controllers that you can attach to your Switch just like the Joy-Cons. I thought that was neat. The Direct heads back into Switch game announcements after this brief tangent.
We get a sort of sizzle reel for a few more games, mostly for the annual games like FIFA, NBA 2K19, and Just Dance. They also show off Lego DC Super Villains, Team Sonic Racing, and Warframe (which finally has a release date). Square Enix gets their own little segment for Final Fantasy games in here. It's nice to see Square supporting the shit out of the Switch, which can only mean good things.
As expected, the Direct ends with Smash Ultimate shit. First, they announce the Smash Ultimate Switch bundle, which looks cool. Second, we get a new fighter: Isabelle from Animal Crossing, via what is probably the tamest and most chill character reveal trailer in the history of Smash Bros. And finally, to end the Direct, they go ahead and confirm Animal Crossing Switch. Goddamn, dude. Despite the delay taking the air out of some of the announcements in this Direct (we had already heard about a good number of the games shown here), I still think this was a solid showing for Nintendo. Sure, I didn't get more Metroid Prime 4 or Bayonetta 3, but I'm more than satisfied with what they announced here. If you'll excuse me, I have to save money for Katamari Switch.
- end - I've been meaning to write this blog entry for a while now, but I waited on doing so until I built a new mask. Now that I've finished my latest design, there's no better time than now to talk about one of my favorite Lego builds to work on: wearable masks. I've always been big on masks; I'd like to think that it's because I'm such a huge fan of Bionicle. Bionicle, for those of you who are unfamiliar, was a line of buildable action figures Lego put out from 2001 to 2010 (and again in 2015 and 2016). It is a defining (if not the defining) aspect of my childhood, and I have the collection to back it up. In the Bionicle lore, there are items called Kanohi masks, which, when worn, grant the wearer all sorts of abilities. When I was a kid, I'd make cardboard Kanohi masks all the time, either based on the ones that already exist in Bionicle's story, or new designs with bullshit powers like... "all the powers". I still love the concept of Kanohi masks to this day, so much so that my username on everything is 16N1K4, which is a play on the Kanohi Ignika, the Mask of Life. If you ever wondered why my blog is called The Mask of Life, well... there you go. When I was still getting into making Lego MOCs (My Own Creation; this is how Lego fans refer to their builds), one of my long-term goals was to make a wearable mask out of Lego. I was inspired by a wearable Lego helmet built by Pee Herron, which was featured on The Ultimate Lego Book (a book I owned as a kid, and actually still have). Like most high-level builds, shit like that felt like it required some dark magic (and lots of glue), so I never really made any serious attempts at making wearable masks. Fast forward to 2012, during the time when The Dark Knight Rises came out. I mention this because in that movie, their take on Bane has a mask that I thought looked cool. At this point in my building "career", my furthest venture into wearable builds was some shitty-looking wrist blaster thing. Inspired by Bane's mask (and Tom Hardy's weird voice), I put together my first wearable mask (pictured above). As you can see, it looks nothing at all like in the movie, and as an added bonus, the backend assembly (the obfuscated parts that actually allow me to wear the mask) really hurt my face. Lego bricks aren't exactly meant to be worn, and I found that out the hard way in my early stages of working on wearable builds. Regardless, I was still happy with this build, as I basically proved to myself that building wearable masks is possible. However, it'll be a while until my mask designs get any better. Roughly one year later, I put together my second wearable mask. This was an original design, and while the overall look of the mask isn't really remarkable, what makes the second mask important is how I managed to attach it to my face and have it not hurt (that much). The key to this particular build is this piece pictured below: Officially, this piece was designed to function as a torso piece for Bionicle figures. This particular torso piece has space in the middle to attach a gimmick play feature (a story for another time), and as it turns out, there's just enough space for my nose to rest comfortably if I wear it like so: I only discovered this by messing around and putting various Lego pieces on my face. All I had to do now was build the backend so that it's wearable, and voila! I now have a mask "base", and all I have to do is build my design around the base. Having this as the foundation of my mask builds saved me a lot of grief, because all I have to worry about now is the design. Here are a few masks that used this base (featuring a Bane mask that's way better than the first one): While I got a lot of mileage out of this mask base, there were only so many connection points available for me to work with, so I found myself actually not using this base for a lot of my mask builds. A fair amount of my favorite masks have entirely different internal structures to accommodate the designs I wanted. Two of my all-time favorites fall into this category: For the next two years or so, I alternated between using the base and building custom structures for mask builds, to varying degrees of success. While a lot of the builds from this time period drew inspiration from existing ideas (mostly comics), I started coming up with more and more original designs as time went on. One of these original designs ended up being rather important: This plain, gray mask you see here ended up replacing the black torso piece as my new mask base. Compared to the original base, this was easier to put on, slightly more comfortable, and addresses a major flaw: the eyes. Since the original mask base primarily covers my nose, I often had to build something from the ground up to cover the eyes. The new base already goes over my eyes, so all I have to do is build around the base to cover the upper half of my face. Because it had more connection points to work with, I found this mask base significantly easier to use as a starting point, and I still use it for mask builds to this day. In fact, my latest mask is built on this very base, though it's not obvious at first glance. Over the three years I've been using this base, I've gotten better at obfuscating the underlying internal structure. A couple of months after the new mask base was born, Bionicle's official Facebook page announced a mask building contest, with the prize being some exclusive collectibles and all the 2015 Bionicle sets. I've never seen people other than me build wearable Lego masks before this contest, so I was excited to see how other people approach the challenge. Obviously, I didn't win, but my years of experience helped me put out a lot of masks just for the contest, which impressed a lot of fellow builders. Here's a few of my favorites from that period (they all used the new mask base): By this point, most of my mask builds were entirely original designs. There's really no rhyme or reason as to how I come up with these designs; I often just stumble upon them by messing with a combination of pieces I thought up in my head. Sometimes, designs would come about because I had a specific concept or goal in mind (e.g. build with this color scheme, build a plague doctor mask, build a mask reminiscent of Two-Face, etc.). In the rare occasion my mask design was based on something, I often go the extra mile and build a few accoutrements to complement the mask. For example, I built a repulsor glove to complement my Iron Man mask. In an extreme case, I bought a foam sword to tie in with my Katana mask and looked like a complete doofus at that Halloween party I went to. As of late, however, I haven't been building masks as often as I used to. I think I'm having trouble thinking of new concepts or ideas to base designs off of. It's also rather challenging to figure out new piece configurations to experiment with. I often find myself looking at my previous mask build (I don't disassemble them immediately) and thinking, "have I finally scraped the bottom of the barrel?" It's not the end of the world, though. If today's build is my last mask build, then I'm more than satisfied with what I've put out for the past six years. If not, then the next big idea will come to me one way or the other. In any case, I'll still be building in general. Hopefully you, dear reader, found this little retrospective on my mask builds enlightening (or at least mildly interesting). It's pretty fun to look back on my progress as a Lego builder (and shit on my old builds), so look forward to more blog entries like this in the future. In addition, you can check out my Instagram for my Lego exploits, past, present, or future.
- end - Listen, I know it's like 5:30AM when I write this, but I feel compelled to talk about Iron Fist's second season right now. Bear with me.
Before I get into it, I should put this out there: I didn't think S1 was that bad. Yes, it had problems. Big problems. Given its rushed production, such issues, I feel, were a foregone conclusion. But the Internet, ever the dealer in absolutes, decided that it's a living dumpster fire that needs to be put out of its misery. And because of this, people who couldn't be arsed to form their own opinions have now decided that both the show and the comic are garbage, which is an absolute shame given how awesome the Iron Fist comics are. So before you tell me, someone who actually bothered to watch both seasons, that I'm wrong, take a second to reflect on whether you got to your conclusion on your own, or you let the hyperbole get to you. Anyway, that's enough of my soapbox tirade. Let's move on to actually talking about S2. Warning: spoilers, so only read on if you're done watching/don't give a shit: In what is seemingly an out of the blue announcement, Capcom has dropped the Mega Man 11 demo on the Switch (with the demo coming to other consoles shortly). Being the Mega Man fan that I am, I scrambled to download it as soon as I could and played it immediately. This blog entry will detail my first impressions on the game.
WHAT'S IN THE DEMO: The Mega Man 11 demo lets you play through one of the Robot Master levels: Block Man's stage. This stage has been seen heavily in promotional material and is the stage plenty of game journalists have played in early demos, so it's nothing new. In addition, Mega Man has access to two additional Special Weapons in this level, so you get to play around with something other than the regular Mega Buster. You can choose to play the level normally, but there are two easier difficulties available for those who aren't as good at platformers, or know how Mega Man is notorious for being hard. I played through it in Normal mode, and it's pretty challenging. I'm glad they're not holding back on the difficulty but also accommodating less experienced players. While the demo doesn't really show us anything we haven't already seen, it's still wonderful to be able to play a little bit of the first Mega Man game in a very long time. The level design screams Mega Man, with sufficiently challenging layouts, enemies both old and new, and all sorts of new gimmicks that, in true Mega Man fashion, are in theme with the stage's boss. If this is the caliber of level design we're getting for the rest of the game, then I have high hopes that Mega Man 11 will be a worthy addition to the franchise. The one thing I was really curious about since the game's announcement, however, was the Double Gear System. It's the brand new mechanic making its debut in this game, and you get to test it out in its full glory in the demo. I'll talk about it more when I cover the full game, but I really like this mechanic. It adds an entirely new layer to how you take down enemies, as well as approach tough platforming segments. There's also a whole risk/reward system tied to the Double Gears as well, so it's nice to be able to get a feel for that aspect of the mechanic. VERDICT: While you only get to play one level, the Mega Man 11 demo is a good showcase of what the game will offer, with the platforming and combat you know and love from the franchise, plus all sorts of new and cool shit to mess around with. I was already excited for this game, but after this demo, I feel compelled to pre-purchase the digital version on the eShop right now. For the Switch players out there, the demo's already out. For the folks on other consoles, sit tight, because it'll be out for you tomorrow. - end - |
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