Moschel

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Though she has a habit of doing things for shock value and playing up her rebellious, evil image, Moschel has a strong devotion to both Neherenia and Neherenia's best interests - so much so that she is willing to take on tasks that are both unsavory and immoral to ensure their protection.

Sailor Moschel

Sailor Moschel
Profile
Name: Zivena Upureshana
Birthday: November 22
Age: 19
Affiliation: Velis
Powers: Blood, Sacrifice
Player: Laris


Contents

Character Information

The Basics

Character Name: Zivena Upureshana. Zivena is Slavic in origin, meaning "vigorous", or "alive", and Upuresana is Latvian for "sacrifice" or "oblation". Literally "Sacrifice of vitality" or "Sacrifice of life-force".

Character Position: Sailormoschel, senshi of COWS- err, blood and sacrifice.

Birthdate and Age: 19 years old, born November 22nd. She's a Sagittarius on the cusp of Scorpio, adding a dash of secrecy to the reliabiliy and lack of tact of the archer. What a stunning combination, I know. But it does add a good dose of brooding crankypants Issues(tm) to an otherwise humorous and reasonably stable (albeit occasionally vulgar) sign.

  • Likes:
    • Jewelry - Due to her abundance of piercings, she tries not to load down the rest of her person with bling at the same time. She usually sticks to one or two favorite pieces. She shops the bazaars for older things; very little of what she wears has any value.
    • Adventure stories - If there are any books available in the Moon Kingdom about pirates, or knights, or anything else that could be made into a multimillion dollar action flick, Zivena is all over it. She prefers the lighter reads to anything that makes her think too hard about deeper meanings or is wretchedly poetically sad, or mushy. She'll skip straight to the swordfighting scenes.
    • Independence - True to Velis form, Ziven prefers to work with only loose boundaries on her activities, on-duty and off. She likes being able to call the shots for her own little niche of the collective task, work without someone breathing down her neck, and of course, ample alone time away from the social circles.
    • Spontaneity - The kind of girl who'll rarely back down from a dare, and likes to face a day with a blank schedule to fill in as she sees fit, she enjoys living in the now. Definitely not the one you want to come to for financial advice.
    • Charity - Zivena is a firm believer in the importance of helping those truly in need, no matter how much they collectively make her cranky and hateful. Her only true emergence onto the political scene, the time when she uses her post as one of the Princess' retainers, has been to collect money for those unable to help themselves -- widows, orphans, and one-legged puppies.
    • Shock Value - Zivena will do anything to offend your delicate sensibilities, if she's in the mood to upset you. Any sign of prudishness in those around her is like an open invitation, and though she will usually avoid anything blatantly sexual, because there is a whole tender area in her psyche related to it (also, you know, she has to be unique, and one suspects Janis has that covered if anyone's gonna), but she will say anything that comes to mind, run down the halls singing loudly and off key, and please god someone bribe and/or threaten her into submission before any tea parties or formal events. Hey Neherenia, check it out, I took the tiny little bride figure on Lady Grieta's wedding cake and put the tiny little groom's decapitated head in her hands, it's like a praying mantis cake! ...what?
  • Dislikes:
    • Waffling - Whatever you want to do is fine by her, really, just DECIDE and GO. Indecisive behavior sets Zivena's teeth on edge and she can be unpleasantly sharp once the end of her (short) patience with this kind of thing has been reached. She has been working to curb her outbursts as far as this is concerned, but whether or not she lets it show, prolonged indecisiveness bugs the hell out of her.
    • "Helpful" elders - And most of them are indeed "helpful" in quotations. The older generations have a notorious knack for wanting to tell youths what they should do and what would be best, and Zivena thinks it's a load of hooey that just because someone is older, they're also wiser. Her problem really stems from a deep dislike of being told what to do by anyone that she feels does not deserve the dubious honor of being her superior, and the Kingdom elders are the most frequent sources of this aggravation. (Are you the Captain of the Guard? No? Are you the Princess? No? Then back the fuck off.)
    • Insincere niceness/touchy feely affection/sympathetic gushing - Zivena has never been appreciative of niceness for niceness' sake, or politeness' sake. If people are just sweet natured to strangers, that's fine, but if you actively dislike someone, don't fake it to save face. She finds false kindness extremely offensive, and should she be certain she's on the receiving end, will not hesitate to make it known how she feels about it. Don't tell her you feel sorry for her, or she gets twice as mad. She forgives a lot more of the sweetness and lovey-dovey behavior from Neherenia, because she loves her sum'n fierce, and is rather confident that she means it when she's being kind. A brief, honest word of praise or even an affirming nod is more the reinforcement Zivena appreciates. Or, heck, don't praise her at all, just don't condescend or disrespect her in her official capacity. But if you laugh at her jokes or she can get a rise out of you, well, then that's even better.
    • Guys, Dudes, and Bros - If you read Dave Barry, you understand the clear difference between "men" and "guys". She hates the put-on macho behavior, the "no honey, I'll handle this" coddling mentality, all the behavior that people like to excuse with "boys will be boys". She's a bit more lenient on the less harmful behavior, say, belching and being a slob - but she staunchly defends this right as belonging to men and women alike. In fact, she's an advocate of princesses and noblewomen being allowed to belch at the dinner table. ..in truth, she kind of hates men a little bit too.
  • Hobbies:
    • Swimming - Though she is fond of a pretty wide variety of physical activities, Zivena has a peculiar fondness for swimming, and will no doubt be excited to see the huge natural bodies of water in the worldly kingdom that dwarf whatever pools Neherenia's kingdom has lying about.
    • Dancing - You wouldn't think it looking at her, but she's a very talented dancer. She won't do it in front of you, if she can at all weasel her way out of you knowing about it, but she's got incredible skills beyond the garden variety ballroom variety and is capable of putting on a fearsome performance. Her relationship with dancing is love/hate, however -- she feels the desire to do it, but it bothers her and she'll stick to getting it out of her system in private. It's all tangled up in her unsavory past.
    • Cruising the bazaars - She has to get those funky ensembles and jewelry from somewhere, doesn't she? The more obscure the shop or merchandise, the better.
    • Forbidden knowledge - As the senshi of a rather taboo element, Moschel has little to no reservation about snooping into things she ought not to know, the forbidden secrets of arcane. Not that she's just the most academic or brilliant New Moon denizen to be delving deep into the Restricted Section of the library, but once she's on the trail of something best left obscure, she can't help but be drawn into finding out aaaaall about it. She has no interest in the useless obscure, however, that's all Dievs and his freaky library of scrap papers. She wants real knowledge, usually pertaining to black magic, rituals, scary cults, Cthulhu, what have you.
    • Hassling you - Zivena likes to give the other senshi - and the princess, and everyone else under the sun - a bit of a hard time. Her way of socializing is to give her teammates a hard time, or for the people low on her respected list, all out prank-pulling. She's been known to torment the elder advisors to the throne especially viciously. They end up with a lot of unscrewed saltshakers and pitch spread on the doorway so they get stuck by their footsies. She can take it pretty well, too, when the same kind of treatment falls upon her, though she will take it with reasonable grace if it doesn't push those specific "Don't Go There" buttons - let's face it, she doesn't have much poised dignity that she can be deprived of - she can laugh it off, but she WILL take it as a challenge to retaliate in an all out prank war.

Appearance

Zivena is hard to miss, despite being tiny and slim, because she is both garish and spiteful-looking. Her slick, garnet-red hair would tumble down to her calves were it not worn in the style of Moon Kingdom women -- elaborately -- and taken to extremes. It's done up in a series of loops starting at the top of her head and increasing in size with the largest falling to her biceps, held in place by a wickedly barbed metal clip. Short, extremely shaggy bangs frame her delicate, feminine facial features, with long wisps falling freely over her ears. Her narrow, red-gold eyes regard the world with suspicion and smirky amusement in turns, the rest of her face equally dainty, almost lovely, and completely at odds with her harsh scowly expressions. Despite her attempts to look like a bouncer or a hired thug, she's slender in her frame, standing all of 5'5" with narrow shoulders and hips and all lean muscle.

The first thing people tend to notice in terms of dress is Zivena is awash in pale gold facial piercings, and likely more that no one lives to tell about on the rest of her body. She's a known fashion iconoclast or offender, depending on one's outlook, combining men's and women's clothes to her liking. She typically prefers a tunic and leggings with heavy boots, but she'll wear anything peculiar and flashy just to upset the delicate and keep others at arm's length.

Personality

Zivena is an affront to polite New Moon Kingdom society. She puts her elbows on the table, she says exactly what she's thinking about someone at any given moment, and she has a total lack of respect for tradition, elders, and the words "because that's the way it's done". She tends to rub the more refined person the wrong way, not only because she's rude, but because she has a bad habit of needling uptight people on purpose. She is energetic, and apparently sees no reason to rein herself in with constricting rules about not laughing at raunchy jokes.

True to Velis form, Zivena is a very independant individual, relying on her own strength to get through most adversity. She hesitates to call on others for assistance for fear of being seen as weak willed or vulnerable, or revealing too much of herself. She has a long history of playing pufferfish - trying to look big in the hopes of never seeming too scared or too weak to accomplish something. For those who are simply curious or trying to nudge closer to her, she reins it in, but she will do her best to change the subject from anything too prying by saying something outlandish.

Unsurprisingly, she is at her heart a frightened, skittish thing. She puts on an elaborate song-and-dance to keep others at bay even as she won't tolerate them hiding behind niceties around her. With anyone who's not Neherenia, she believes there is a distinct chance that she'll be used or discarded once they've gotten past her defenses. She is so insistant on ignoring how she is perceived because she has to constantly bolster her OWN belief that she shouldn't worry about it, or else she'd totally collapse into never talking to anyone ever again for fear of letting slip something to bring on disapproval. She is fully aware of how a royal retainer SHOULD be, and since she automatically assumes her seedy past makes her ineligible for true acceptance, flinging herself wholeheartedly into showing she does WHATEVER she wants, look how NOT worried she is about your opinions.

Though Zivena is every inch trying to look the bad girl, she's awash in the same insecurities and quirks as everyone else, sometimes more so. Her sense of justice can be riled easily - Exploitation of the helpless will send her into a righteous (probably on occasion *self* righteous) fury, as does abuse of those with no means to defend themselves. This is not to say that in her constant impishness she's *unkind*, to those who fall into her acceptable terms will find her giving her own oddish brand of affection, and she genuinely likes most of the people who can tolerate her - in her mind, anyone who's looking past the shocking exterior is a worthy companion.

On the upside, all this inner crap about social rejection and trust has given her a very clear vision of what she must do concerning her unorthodox powers. She feels absolutely certain that she will always know who to entrust her abilities to and who she's willing to step into the line of fire for, her own personal barriers will prevent anyone with ill intent from ever misusing her again. Her manner of speaking when she's actually letting the tough girl act slide can be remarkably charming and effective. She likes her sarcasm and she likes it good, and even if she pulls it out and the least appropriate moments. Still as energetic and graceful as in her childhood, as a slightly off adult she puts it to constantly moving in a slightly exaggerated manner.

For those who manage to get through her barriers like the the Cloistered Princess has, she is as self-sacrificing as her senshi power suggests, and will make absolutely unbreakable oaths to them, put them before herself, and remember not only their birthday but the color of their eyes and exactly how tall she has to stand to intercept a bullet aimed at their heart.

  • The good: Independent, capable, witty, wordly, tough-as-nails exterior, strong sense of protection and love for certain individuals, skilled, knowledgeable in the unpleasant/taboo.
  • The bad: Inability to trust, rude, headstrong, questionable ethics, wild and uninhibited, inwardly exremely self-deprecating and believes she's an irreversible wreck.
  • The ugly: Zivena WILL follow her Princess into the gaping maw of hell, she would torture and kill anyone on behalf of her Princess, or her cause, since she suspects Neherenia would disapprove of the killing if she KNEW about it.

History

Born to an unremarkable family in an equally unremarkable tiny Meness hamlet, Zivena's life took a turn for the better and the worse when as a small girl, she took a marked interest in the festival dances in her hometown's tiny square. Sensing that their child's natural talent and boundless enthusiasm might earn her a better lot in life, her parents arranged for her to study dance under the tutelage of an elderly woman who had once, years ago, been a dancer at the Royal Court of Queen Meness.

She took more strongly to the art than anyone could have predicted, going on to study the traditional forms in all their beauty -- rhythm instruments, acting, singing. But always and forever her true love was for dance, both in constant refinement of technical skill and in conveying every ounce of her rampant emotions... and Zivena's special talent was always in the latter. At sixteen she had gone as far as her Mistress could take her, and so she outgrew her childhood home and was sent packing to find her fortune at the Royal Court. With a handful of coins and a homemade lunch, she struck out to find the capital, the royal palace, and the rest of her life.

Unfortunately, she met Raitis before she could get there.

Raitis was the one who showed some charity to the poor country girl after the inn turned Zivena away for a decided lack of sufficient funds. He was the one who laughed when her eyes lit up upon mention of a hot meal for the first time in many days. He listened to her story with serious interest, offering to help her in any way possible to find her break, to become a true performer for the lords and ladies, the well to do, the princess. Where some of the more refined folk has turned up their noses at Zivena's dire financial situation and blunt naivete, or assumed her to be an urchin looking for a quick buck, Raitis was the very image of compassion and concern, and she latched onto him with the utmost gratitude.

Though the New Moon Kingdom may be small, and it is peaceful, there is no kindgom that is without men like Raitis. He was a magician of a sort, though not a terribly powerful one, and likely could be referred to in magicking circles as a hack. He supposedly made his living in the tranquil capital by working as an aide to various merchants coming through, arranging meetings between whoever needed what from where, though in reality he made more substantial earnings through shady dealings and cons.

He offered to take her in until she could find her own lodgings, and though the blushing country girl was hesitant about the propriety of such an arrangement, she agreed. He promised to help her get her career off the ground, she was all too happy to put her trust in him. He asked for a few small errands run in return, who was she to refuse? She kept his house, cooked meals, ran packages to and from his little study to other shops in the capital city. It was hardly any time at all before he'd taken her as his lover, after what she had found to be a stunning and horribly flattering confession on his part about how he felt about her. At first it seemed Raitis' chances to fulfill his promise and arrange a meeting between her and the royal courtiers were slim, but it hardly seemed important.

Of course he had absolutely no intentions of giving her up to some blossoming career as a courtier. She was the perfect unwitting bagman, and her total naivete meant he was turning away curious nobles offering to get her an audience with the Royal Dancemistress or the Princess herself. It was during this time, when he had Zivena rather thoroughly in his thrall, that Raitis found that through various incantations calling on Zivena's strength, he could work bigger, badder spells, spells with huge fat WARNING labels on them, rife with power. He was meeting remarkable success given his lack of mageish experience, though it never occurred to him that it was the test subject, and not him, that was the cause. He discovered the method of transferring his negative emotions to her, even, so he was free of the guilt that accompanied his escalating sins - unaware that her dormant senshi powers were all that kept his rituals from backfiring out of incompetence.

As she approached her eighteenth birthday, she was utterly desolate, weakened, and indeed losing her faith in her supposed protector and anyone else in her life. She started to resist what was ultimately culminating in magical abuse, only to have Raitis threaten to leave her out in the cold, and once that lost its effect, told her that she was in trouble just as deeply as he was, for aiding him and his inner circle of con men in the first place. She stayed out of fearfulness, though soon it hardly mattered, as she was growing too weak to even protest. She knew she was being used, but she allowed it to continue rather than face the fact that she'd royally screwed up her attempt to make good in the big city.

When she finally mustered the will to walk out, Raitis didn't take it well at ALL. He attacked her, threatening to kill her in the hopes of scaring her out of rebellion. Instead, it was the awakening of a very, very disgruntled senshi whose bond to him was nullified at that moment as she lost all desire to willingly sacrifice her own well-being for his. He escaped more or less intact from an infuriated Moschel, and was all too happy to swear on a stack of holy books that he'd never seen her before in his life to anyone who asked from that moment on. Zivena, glad for freedom and fearing she would be arrested by association, simply let him disappear, in return. Her life and her freedom were hers again, though it came as a somewhat bittersweet victory. She lost most of her trust in other people, more or less all of her innocence.

To move from her very unpleasant life as Raitis' pawn to Neherenia's court was overwhelming. Where she had lost her faith, the Princess seemed to radiate it in great huge waves, and she was willing to make Zivena a real part of her court, a retainer. At first she resisted a bit, too uncomfortable to even enter the royal council room, but Neherenia's complete and utter failure to use or abuse her in any way rekindled much of her confidence. Eventually Zivena regrew into a pillar of strength in her own right, able to reclaim things like pride and independence that she'd lost, though she was a very different person than when she'd struck out on her own. The only person she confided the unpleasantries of her past to, even in part, was Neherenia, though even now she is unable to tell the whole sordid tale. The princess' innocence remained, and though she taunted her about it from time to time, Zivena never could bring herself to shatter it with ugly details about how she'd let herself be twisted into something so degraded and despicable. Better to let the Princess sleep sound at night, every night, for as long as Zivena was around to protect her.

Senshi Information

Special Skills

  • Sin Eater - Very few people are aware that she possesses this skill. Basically, any person Zivena will permit can transcribe their sins (or any kind of guilt/emotional distress) onto her, where she will bear the burden and the other person is totally absolved. As you can imagine, this is NOT the kind of thing one advertises, not only because someone would take advantage, but I'm sure many people would feel this kind of moral cop-out is very wrong in and of itself.
  • Unsavory job skillz - She is the one they call when things go wrong. And things have indeed gone wrong. If you need someone to sing like a canary, call Zivena. If you need someone to take the fall for some necessary evil like lying to the Pope or taking candy from babies, Zivena will take the blame to get the job done. As long as you don't mind looking the other way and letting her do her job, she can be effective where other people hesitate. In fact, she might go so far as to handle things without telling you, if she thinks you'll balk at the hardline tactics.
  • Dress Adds +10 to Charisma - Self explanatory, though extremely rarely used. XD
  • Culture Savvy - Zivena can be a halfway decent source of knowledge on who's who in art, theater, and dance on Meness. She just hates having to sit still and be civilized long enough to be in on the kinds of discussions that usually cover those topics.
  • Taboo knowledge - Zivena understands the workings of blood magic and can recognize (not *do*, mind you) other forms of unsavory magic/power usage, such as mind control, curses, hexes, voodoo, poison, zombificationAnd although there's very little worldly knowledge to be had in the Moon Kingdom, Zivena's background gives her some of what little streetsmarts are to be had there.
  • Bendy Straw - A background in dancing makes her flexible and coordinated. She can do that cool thing where you prop yourself up on your toes, ballet-style, though it's suffered some cool points in the time she's been shifting from life as an entertainer to that of senshi.

Senshi Powers

Blood Bind

  • Stock footage: Moschel appears in floaty space on a dark background, hands held over her head gracefully and head bowed slightly so she can view her target through an ominous gaze. She intones as she makes a small cut down her palm, "As I shed my life upon the ground, I claim power over your own - Blood bind!", a glow around her heart and the surrounding veins is visible in brief pulses, and as she extends her hands in front of her to gesture in the direction of her target, the glow flares up once more and then extinguishes. On the target(s), a red glow surrounds them briefly, before diving into their bodies.
  • The haps: This attack strikes any targets inside a small diameter - approximately 6 feet - that Mo can center anywhere within her line of sight. Anyone caught in its effects experiences a sudden barrage of sensory abuses, that is, first the blood seems to boil within their veins, then freezes, then seems to rush away from the extremeties. The attack causes no real physical damage, but it packs a painful wallop and leaves the targets feeling dizzy and exhausted. The effects can be lessened by opponents with a strong will to disbelieve in the hallucinatory effects. It works as an excellent fear inspiring move to lead opponents into thinking she is MIGHTY BLOOD MAGE OF D00M.

Dance of Secespita

  • Stock footage: Moschel lowers her head and holds her hands directly over her, one palm over the other and fingers splayed. When she lifts her head again her eyes have done dark and pupilless and she begins to move in a perfectly timed dance against a dark backdrop, with highly stylized movements to an echoing beat of drums and sitar strings. The dance leaves blurry trails of white in her wake, all the while Moschel chanting unintelligible syllables under her breath. Once she's done, there is a hazy white triangle on the ground for her to stand in the middle of, whereupon she draws her ceremonial knife and spills some of her own blood inside the confines of the shape. The blood evaporates instantly on contact and the white light flares up and burns away quickly. There is no external effect on the target.
  • The haps: Secespita is the Roman term for the sacrifical knife (there is a text on sacrifical blood rituals by the same name), and using such Moschel performs a hasty ritual in which some of her lifeblood is sacrificed, not to gods, to the opponent, who is then "appeased". The attack can be piled on with impunity for as long as Moschel has the physical strength to do so, though it is nigh impossible to avoid so long as she is aware of her target, and the target is within range. Those with extreme mental discipline can diminish it by consciously resisting. One good shot would be enough to convince a stoopid youma that it had fulfilled its tasks and send it packing for at least an hour or two, a couple more blasts may destroy recognition of its desire to kill completely. A shard-powered Kartiba can never be FULLY robbed of their awareness that they aren't finished fighting (short of Mo bleeding herself dead, that might do it) but repeated assaults with this attack can diminish their desire to squash the senshi for hours, even days. A weak minded Kartiba might flee the scene while the attack wears off, unwilling to stay in a hostile zone where it had no need to scrap, a stronger one may press on with a lack of motivation, especially if Cuska or someone is there to see to it PERSONALLY that they do what they're supposedta.

Esoteric Offering

  • Stock footage: Moschel puts both arms out from her, hands together in front of her as she calls out, "Esoteric Offering!" and then goes limp and close-eyed. Light around her fades to dark, and a circle of brilliant white braziers appear around Moschel, who hovers a few inches above ground. She floats upwards as one floats to the surface of a pool, until she is fully prone, arms out from her sides just slightly and palms up. An illusory altar glowing white appears there to hold her up, and a sphere of red energy seems to be drawn right out of her body. It floats up and out of sight, a split second later, Moschel is back from her trancelike state, positively crackling power. She shoots this off like blazing missiles at any number of targets within her sight. Once the attack leaves her hands, however, she instantly dehenshins.
  • The haps: The beams that fire from her hands are extremely thin, precise arcs of senshi blasting power that can strike multiple targets and pierce many types of shields. They hurt. A LOT. The generally supposed theory by any other Velis that see this in action is that she sacrifices her henshin state to make the attack. In reality she she is indebted to the Powers That Be to give up little portions of her essence every time she uses this, and it takes ages, if not some special recovery techniques of Goodness and Light, to get it back. At present Moschel is not aware of any such healing methods, so she is confined to waiting for her power to "grow back" on its own, a slow and painful process that leaves her unable to henshin for days, sometimes leaving out of whack for a considerable length after that. Moschel suspects that the effects are never fully recovered, given the nature of her Starseed, but she can't confirm it.

Fuku

Fuku is pretty true to form: The tiara has a round, red gem with a three-pronged, clawlike decoration fanning out from it. Her neckband and her belt each feature a red gem, though with a rounded, fat-teardrop shape to it. Her primary color is a darkish red, a few shades lighter than her dark-garnet hair. This same blood red forms her skirt, wrist cuffs, and collar. Her secondary color, a pale bone shade of off-white, colors her bows, and the tiny accents on her braid. The braid is a standard black, and the gold of her uniform on the neckband, sleevelets, and belt is a more muted tone to match the rest of her color scheme. The big difference on Moschel's fuku is the band wrapped around her upper right thigh, made of gold with black braid to match the rest of her outfit, which supports a small dagger sheath where the ceremonial knife she carries can usually be seen, the twisty, spikey hilt visible. Now that you've suffered this, go look at the picture.

Henshin

"Moschel Cardinal Power, Make-up!"

Zivena slowly kneels, hands slack at her sides and chin tilted upwards. A column of gentle red light bathes her as she turns her palms up and lifts her arms skyward as though offering herself up to the henshin gods, and her silhouette forms in a cool, off-white light. Sailor Moschel brings hands down and springs back up to her feet, sparkly henshin space granting her the grey bodysuit of her uniform. Closing her eyes, she puts both hands on her heart and draws out a sphere of that same red light, holding it up where it vanishes into the henshin space, and in return she's granted her red collar and skirt in a flurry of red special effects. Patches of red light seem to pool on the surface of her arms, legs, back and neck, then proceed to lace themselves into her bows, front and back, her choker, armband and dagger sheath. With a quick turn, she's in her finishing pose, legs crossed at the ankle and head tilted down reverently, hands slightly out from her side palms up.

Roleplaying Hooks & Connections

I'd love for Raitis to be an evil NPC - he's still a sleazy vulture who could be problematic for people trying to save kingdoms and political relations. Also if someone wanted to adopt him as Kartiba senshi material, he would totally be interested in their ideas and wish to subscribe to their newsletter.

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