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Zenos is a thoughtful, well written character, but good writing does not require every character to be psychologically complex and have sympathetic motives for their actions. In Zenos's case, as others have said he works because he represents an end point of Ascian and Garlean imperialism untethered from any of the ideologies he was created to advance. He's basically Kefka or Sephiroth in a more detailed setting in that sense.
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Jul 11, 2021 18:31
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Here’s hoping he gets a Luca Blight treatment
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Jul 11, 2021 18:35
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the_steve posted:Zenos is Himbo Sephiroth. multijoe posted:Zenos is a thoughtful, well written character, but good writing does not require every character to be psychologically complex and have sympathetic motives for their actions. In Zenos's case, as others have said he works because he represents an end point of Ascian and Garlean imperialism untethered from any of the ideologies he was created to advance. He's basically Kefka or Sephiroth in a more detailed setting in that sense. Yeah, both of these things. Also got shades of Yakuza 2. The shonen aspect is more like Yakuza 2, in that the Omi Alliance has their own dragon themed fight-man who has been fighting mans in his town and faught you in your town and now you're going to his town to have the inevitable showdown. Sure the Warrior of Darkness is an alternate universe version of you, but Xenos is your rival. It's very cool 😎
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Jul 11, 2021 18:41
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The problem with Zenos is no matter how much he makes sense thematically as the end point of Ascian/Garlean imperialism and brutal military autocracy, he's still just too one note to carry an expansion. And right now his main counterpart in the villain category is...ALSO too one note to carry an expansion, in the exact same ways. I'm not asking for another Emet-Selch, but I hope they have somebody waiting in the wings to provide contrast because otherwise ugggghhhhhhhh.
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Jul 11, 2021 18:41
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If the expac is about trying to minimize the damage he does as he goes whole hog and then crushing the poo poo the other villain is trying to sneak by him he 100% can carry an expac. A very horny force of nature destroying the world that you're trying to fix as you flee is fine. But he won't be the only antagonist, you'll still deal with the Sharlyans and Fandaniel and other secondary antagonists like in every other expac so it feels weird to assume he'll have to carry the whole thing.
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Jul 11, 2021 18:45
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Captain Oblivious posted:The problem with Zenos is no matter how much he makes sense thematically as the end point of Ascian/Garlean imperialism and brutal military autocracy, he's still just too one note to carry an expansion. And right now his main counterpart in the villain category is...ALSO too one note to carry an expansion, in the exact same ways. Zodiark should be the “real” antagonist of the expansion. Especially if we’re going to the moon.
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Jul 11, 2021 18:52
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I like Zenos and Ran'jit. I wish that their unnwinnable boss fights had been better designed .Don't rely on a one shot move to end the fight. Just scale up his regular attacks the less health he has. By the time the boss dips below 50% HP, the boss' DPS on you will be outpacing your ability to self heal/mitigate with CDs, so you eventually succumb to his blows. Thus, it is more believable when you level up a few times and come back for round two, you'll have already seen most of his attacks and do better. But that ties into FFXIV's overall lack of difficulty; there is a cognitive dissonance where the game keeps hyping up how terrifyingly strong Titan, Garuda, Ultima Weapon, Nidhogg, Zenos, the Light Wardens, etc, but then in gameplay you just queue up and kill them on your first try and forget about it. The most threatening villain in the game is the one from the level 60 Red Mage duty because he wasn't a pushover. As for the soldiers of Garlemald... it's nice seeing people follow you at the end, but those weren't Garleans. Those were soldiers from foreign provinces. Where are the actual pureblooded Garleans?
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Jul 11, 2021 18:55
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Don’t worry with the stat crunch trials roulette will probably be less of an ilvl carry.
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Jul 11, 2021 19:04
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hobbesmaster posted:Zodiark should be the “real” antagonist of the expansion. Especially if we’re going to the moon. Zodiark is the antagonist in the storytelling sense but tbh if the big finale is literally just a fight with him with no extra layer of 'Zenos goes crazy and goes full Zeromus on us in an attempt to channel Zodiark's power' that's kinda a boring end to this story. Zodiark was a tool, as was Hydaelyn, that's the point of the big reveal, our 'mother goddess' figure was just a thing summoned by some ancient guys to do a thing. This huge cosmic battle between light and dark is just the side effect of incredibly powerful beings being scared for the first time in their lives, it's a backdrop to their story and it should be the backdrop to ours. Zenos is the end of our story, the last gasp of these Ascians, who doesn't even care about them and their agenda, just hungry for death and destruction up against the WoL who's purpose in life is to protect and defend, unstoppable force vs immovable object and all that jazz. We don't have any connection go Zodiark beyond it being what the Ascians talk about, but it was the Ascians we always fought. Obviously Zodiark will be a part of things, like you said we're going to the moon and there's Ascian poo poo up there already, but if he's the big final fight it'll be a bit of a letdown to me.
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Jul 11, 2021 19:09
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Oh I 100% expect Zenos to be Zodiark’s champion. In fact he’s definitely already got a blessing of darkness or whatever.
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Jul 11, 2021 19:25
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MAN FORGES HIS OWN DESTINY. Xeno's destiny is to fite. It has been foreshadowed.
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Jul 11, 2021 19:42
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i doubt zenos is gonna be zodiark's champion so much as zenos just completely hijacking zodiark. it's either that or both zodiark and hydaelin throwing their weight behind you because neither of them has "literally end all of life forever" on their agenda
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Jul 11, 2021 19:59
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If it weren't for Azem's superpower of making friends wherever they went, Zenos would still be in the grave. We befriended him so hard that instead of just accepting his loss and staying dead, he was compelled to come back to life just so he could keep on being our friend.
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Jul 11, 2021 20:00
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a cartoon duck posted:i doubt zenos is gonna be zodiark's champion so much as zenos just completely hijacking zodiark. it's either that or both zodiark and hydaelin throwing their weight behind you because neither of them has "literally end all of life forever" on their agenda Consider this: the WoL is Hydaelyn’s champion. Wouldn’t zodiark’s tempered champion have a single minded obsession with defeating Hydaelyn’s champion? Zodiark needs to sacrifice all life on the source to complete its mission right? That still follows. As far as hijacking, I guess evil pope did successfully double cross lahabrea.
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Jul 11, 2021 20:04
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Andrew Verse posted:If it weren't for Azem's superpower of making friends wherever they went, Zenos would still be in the grave. We befriended him so hard that instead of just accepting his loss and staying dead, he was compelled to come back to life just so he could keep on being our friend. No, he came back because Elidibus stole his body. Zenos killed himself after losing, after all
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Jul 11, 2021 20:11
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thetoughestbean posted:No, he came back because Elidibus stole his body. Zenos killed himself after losing, after all Also not accurate. He discovered Elidibus took his body later. His resurrection was literally accidental. He didn’t know the full extent of his stolen Echo powers and blundered into coming back to life.
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Jul 11, 2021 20:14
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Incidentally, isn't Zenos's Cyber-Newtype status mostly based off the remapping of Krile's Echo?
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Jul 11, 2021 20:15
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hobbesmaster posted:Consider this: the WoL is Hydaelyn’s champion. Wouldn’t zodiark’s tempered champion have a single minded obsession with defeating Hydaelyn’s champion? Zodiark needs to sacrifice all life on the source to complete its mission right? That still follows. zenos just wants his rematch and doesn't care if all of existence has to end for it in the process, and he's backed by someone whose official stance on things is gently caress this zodiark business, i want all of existence to end. that doesn't necessarily mean zodiark won't back them because they would be useful for his short-term plans, but zenos doesn't care and fandaniel is actively opposed to his long-term goals thetoughestbean posted:No, he came back because Elidibus stole his body. Zenos killed himself after losing, after all i don't think being bodyjacked by an ascian makes your soul suddenly come back. if anything that would make bodyjacking harder since seemingly ardbert's soul being around made possessing his body unfeasible for elidibus and it only lost any light-blessing protection after he fused with the wol the initial explanation for zenos coming back was resonance giving him echo powers, like that one sahagin chief whose soul got slurped up by leviathan two seconds later. the MEANWHILE, ZENOS sections of 5.x are kinda implying there's more going on with him though, since he stated he had dreams of the final days as a child, way before he had an off-brand resonance echo. since the echo is left-over bits of ancient souls remembering the final days, and zenos didn't have the echo until recently, my guess is he's more connected to the cause of the final days or the noise or whatever, rather than zodiark or hydaelin or some ancient
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Jul 11, 2021 20:18
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Fair enough. Resonance does some nonsense
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Jul 11, 2021 20:25
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The real revelation is that Krile cannot be killed Though we should have known
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Jul 11, 2021 20:33
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Zenos being somehow connected to the noise is a more interesting plot point than Zodiark ensuring his ressurection or Elidibus' possession accidentally, or directly, causing it anyway. Though vissions of the end days have been more related to Hydaelyn and Zodiark stuff so far. Noise stuff would give us a hook to progress from after whatever Big Crystal story gets wrapped up. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if Zenos does try to channel Zodiark powers to counter our blessing and Zodairk just says 'lol no.' But also ya he did kill himself after losing once already, it would be entirely in character for him to tough things out alone. Maybe Fanny tries to warp him onto a Zeromus beast because 'gently caress it.' Maybe Light and Dark see Zenos and our WoL duking it out and say screw it to their original plans in order to gate off the noise for another several eras because we're not ready for that eldritch chaos yet. We've already got G'raha's story about Midgardsormr becoming more of protector of the realm type character. Maybe we get post 6.0 or 6.2 leads into some serious Dissidia territory after our trip to the moon. Though I more expect moon stuff to involve Daniel plans.
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Jul 11, 2021 20:35
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Chillgamesh posted:Incidentally, isn't Zenos's Cyber-Newtype status mostly based off the remapping of Krile's Echo? I think Zenos' Echo came from someone else. Possibly multiple someone elses. (Both of his eyes turn when he uses his Echo powers, as opposed to Fordola's one.) I think there was always the potential for the Echo with Zenos, but because he's Garlean, and lacks the ability to manipulate aether, nothing came of it. And once he underwent the Resonance treatment(s?) it bridged the gap that prevented Zenos from using any Echo powers he might have originally had and super charged them. And I think his gaining of the Echo predates Krile's capture (I agree with Ethys' theory that he went through the treatment right around the time of the first Doman rebellion.) so we may never know who was the 'donor' for Zenos' Echo. Tinfoil Hat theory: It was Venat. 
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Jul 12, 2021 00:11
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the_steve posted:Zenos is Himbo Sephiroth. See, I hate both of those two, but I don't hate the notion of either of them in terms of 'complex vs. simple'. My problem for Zenos is that they don't even handle his simplicity right. The strength of a simple villain is that it should never be hard to motivate yourself into fighting them. Consider Exdeath in FFV, or any classic gaming villain like Bowser of Robotnik; you see them, you fight them, because they are comically, cartoonishly evil, have to be stopped, and are fun to fight. Zenos... can't even manage that. And there's two problems there for me: First, the forced plot losses against him came too often for me to ever actually be excited at the notion of fighting him. He felt like a chore, and there were so many arbitrary losses that I can never look forward to the notion of fighting him. How do I know he won't just decide that he wins halfway through the fight again? He doesn't even have the decency of Ran'jit to have variety between his fights, or to fail at the reason he's there beyond fighting; he's just a bad time to have around in every respect. And then personality-wise... he's just not fun. He's bland at best, and annoying at worst. I'm never all that happy to see a cutscene go over to him, because he just doesn't have a compelling performance or motivation. The only time he's managed to barely scrape 'interesting' was when he was amusingly frustrated at Fandaniel's bullshit, but that's not compelling villainy. He's just got nothing for me, he's totally empty of charisma or motivators. EDIT: Also, he can't have had the Echo back in his Doma Days, because it's still an experimental project even during Stormblood. Fordola's explicitly a test subject. Zenos wouldn't be an immediate go-to for such an experimental procedure, because he's too important to risk. Why would you even run the test with Fordola, if apparently the procedure was so refined that it was something worth risking on the Emperor's son or direct descendant, who was either way a high-ranking commander, back roughly in ARR/HW? There's no evidence for that theory, there's no logic, and it directly refutes facts put down by the game. When faced with that opposition you need more than just 'wouldn't it be cool if'*. *It would not be, incidentally. Cleretic fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Jul 12, 2021 |
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Jul 12, 2021 00:21
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I can understand not liking Zenos, but the idea that his VA doesn't give a compelling performance is the most  take.
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Jul 12, 2021 00:30
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The process of becoming Resonant doesn't seem to really involve "copying" a particular person's Echo abilities, but rather endowing someone with the properties of the Echo. Whatever that means and entails. Krile's not exactly known for having combat foresight, like Fordola now is, she's known for being able to sense aether trails. I don't think Misija gained perfect foresight, either; she mostly just seemed to use it to embody and control a primal.
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Jul 12, 2021 00:38
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Fordola's powers are explicitly a copy of Krile's, she's just unable to control it and so has it on full blast 24/7, and Krile doesn't fight. Also, when Fordola was given her powers it was already a known quantity with known risks, which tells me that Zenos probably already had them.
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Jul 12, 2021 01:26
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Fordola was the guinea pig for Resonant trials. She was an inferior savage (see: Non-Garlean), and so if the experiment killed her, it would be no big loss to the Garleans. Just make a note and try again on the next poor bastard. And Echo havers are rare, that's why them capturing Krile was such a score for them, same with Mikoto assuming they Echo-jacked her too.
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Jul 12, 2021 01:53
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the_steve posted:Fordola was the guinea pig for Resonant trials. Mikoto was very clearly used for Misija's Echo, there's no way to argue she wasn't. It's straight-up a plot point that Misija has the same future sight as Mikoto afterwards. But yeah, Fordola was a guinea pig. Which all but confirms that it was still in testing stages at that point, Zenos can't have had it. Because... well, why would it still be in those testing stages if it was already used on such a high-value person as Zenos? SirSamVimes posted:I can understand not liking Zenos, but the idea that his VA doesn't give a compelling performance is the most And I dunno what to tell you, I literally can't remember a single line from the guy. You could put his most iconic line in a lineup of other voice clips from the game, and the only way I'd be able to pick out Zenos' is by process of deduction.
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Jul 12, 2021 02:25
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They tested it on Zenos because he likes to have Big Power and Varis's whole deal was using the empire to surpass his Grandfather/father and prove he's the coolest and strongest so turning his son into a walking experimental nuke was right up his alley. It's also Classic Final Fantasy poo poo:tm: turning your already emotionally hosed up kid into a experimental super solider. That's what gave us Sephiroth and Kuja and Kefka.
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Jul 12, 2021 02:38
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I also think Zenos has been in maybe one or two voiced scenes since 4.0 so I can kinda understand forgetting what he sounds like.
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Jul 12, 2021 02:47
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Varis straight-up said monsters don't get to be emperor when asked about Zenos. I don't think he considered the guy too valuable.
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Jul 12, 2021 02:50
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Yea Varis never respected Zenos because even pre-Ascian Bullshit he was apparently always a sociopathic little poo poo. He got put in because A) he wanted it and not a lot of doctors are gonna tell Prince Stab Murder 'no', and B) they had a proof of concept with Fordola so they knew there were at least good odds he wasn't gonna come out inside out or whatever the worst case they imagined was. Zenos wasn't 'expendable' proper because, ya know, he's the loving prince, but I doubt Varis cared much once Fordola proved the process wasn't fatal.
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Jul 12, 2021 03:07
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there's a short story in Chronicles of Light about Zenos that outlines how he's been cruel and bored since he was a little child, i believe it's called The Hunt Begins
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Jul 12, 2021 03:34
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Ivypls posted:there's a short story in Chronicles of Light about Zenos that outlines how he's been cruel and bored since he was a little child, i believe it's called The Hunt Begins yea that's what I was thinking of but forgot the name of, thanks. Yea Zenos was always a little evil creep even before his WoL boner and suicide and all, I doubt his dad cared too much about the wild animal that was poised to take over the empire he carefully managed
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Jul 12, 2021 03:40
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If Cleretic hates Zenos, that's your easiest indication that Zenos does, in fact, rule.
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Jul 12, 2021 04:02
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Waffleman_ posted:I also think Zenos has been in maybe one or two voiced scenes since 4.0 so I can kinda understand forgetting what he sounds like. Going back and listening to him at the end of 4.0 5.0 and now 5.5 and man when they give that actor lines he nails it out of the park every time, even with the 'calmer' version of his fight horniness.
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Jul 12, 2021 04:05
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Xarbala posted:I get the feeling Fandaniel's gonna be Zenos' Reaper void companion It's gonna be Anima. Change my mind. 
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Jul 12, 2021 04:27
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Melomane Mallet posted:It's gonna be Anima. Change my mind. Yeah I feel like he's gonna grab some End Beasts and they're all gonna be too weak until we get to Anima.
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Jul 12, 2021 05:02
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Melomane Mallet posted:It's gonna be Anima. Change my mind. I hate that you're right, because Anima deserves way better than that... but you're right, it fits both Zenos and Anima too well not to be exactly what's gonna happen.
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Jul 12, 2021 05:10
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Mordiceius posted:If Cleretic hates Zenos, that's your easiest indication that Zenos does, in fact, rule. I accepted Xeno's in that dialog choice so long ago. Edit: oh right the patricide angle. 100% were not gonna be the ones to kill Varis before this lil sucker.
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Jul 12, 2021 05:29
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