It's not bad as most the reviews out here, but certainly has its flaws

Well looking at the trailer and the title, I wasn't exactly expecting anything way too serious and dramatic and anticipated it too be all the way fluff for the mainstream female BL watchers out there. But I was wrong! The progression of the two guys slowly getting close and intimate with each other, until one of them gave in and braced his inner desires, felt very natural and realistic to me (Me being a gay guy myself). The situations is somehow believable and something which may happen in real life.

Well most of the watchers out there may disagree with me, but as for the mainstream BL watchers out there, whom I know are mostly female fangirls and not actual LGBTQ people out there, I sincerely request you guys to take know how most real gay relationships work by perhaps asking any gay friend or colleague you may know, before you go ahead and start ranting about your expectations from the show. Most gay relationships, at least the major 90%, evolve from lust, sexual explorations and curiosity, and hardly from just mere emotions and conversations, and your cutesy falls and cheesy gestures. The gay world won't really fit into your typical stereotypical straight world.

The show had its fare share of BL tropes, but were not as much evident and cringey like say Light On Me or Tasty Florida, which I felt had mostly plasticky 2D characters with no sense of realism at all.

The show gave somewhat indie vibes, paired with good amount of OSTs made it a very pleasant and refreshing watch. The show doesn't go hardcore into the gay world like the small production houses like strongberry and matchbox go, but doesn't go too BLish either. It was a subtle watch. The chemistry between the leads felt intimate enough, though i expected more of a proper passionate kiss from them.

Now coming to the bad parts. The script had very lousy writing. The writer just made sure to fit in every cliché BL trope into the time slot, enemies to lovers, evil female villain, drama, happy ending. The female character is not exactly a villain here in the story, for it is her restaurant and the shortfall of profit gives her every right to replace the head chef, but just to maybe have a more diplomatic approach as to not come off as extremely materialistic, made her first employee go through a self test (not so plausible justification of her actions, but yeah :/). The story did have hell number of plotholes. Everything was going on smoothly until we reach the final two episodes

The ending was the worst part of the show. Without giving any sort of justification by Jung Woo for his actions, Do Gun was so quick to forgive Jung Woo for his inexplicable actions which stopped his source of livelihood, just for the pure sake of a Happy Ending. The concepts for the names of the dishes were too lousy and just felt like a freshman winding up his last minute assignment. The colleagues who spend more time with Do Gun, instead of feeling bad for their star chef, started cheering for Jung Woo instead. Why would any sensible colleague do that?

Not the worst show to be watched, but rather a laid back and relaxed watch. Best to be enjoyed in your free time and preferably binge watch as it's short enough. Not to keep too many expectations.

*I AM MOSTLY LENIENT WITH THE KOREAN BL RATINGS AS THEY HAVEN'T YET FULLY EVOLVED INTO A PROPER MARKET YET, BUT I CERTAINLY WOULDN'T LIKE IT DELVING INTO A CRINGEY UNREALISTIC FANSERVICE WHICH MAJORITY OF THAI BLS DO*

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One of the Worst KDramas in history! Period!

I don't even understand where to start with! I honestly, on a very serious note, beg you to not get swayed away by these high ratings on MDL. After all these 26 hours of utter headache, I can very rightly say that all these are either paid or written by crazy, illogical, shallow Song-Joong Ki fangirls. And the entire show just seems to be a total SJK fan-service, and nothing else!

There are several reasons as why to this show piqued my frustrations levels, so let's get to the point with what went wrong with the drama.

WHAT WENT WRONG?

1) STORY/SCRIPTWRITING:
What the heck was with the story??? It merely felt like the show was written by a mere 16-17 year kid expecting the audience to get apalled by lame comedy, which can't even be called BLACK, just dumb lame. The ML just sitting blindly staring at his TV predicts every move of the villain from GOD knows what kind of premonitions. One skinny ken doll crippling an entire mob of gangsters? A middle aged guy stabbing thugs with scissors? The villain killing off all sorts of guys without even bringing a trace of doubt to the public? An international security service police fan-boying a Mafia? Lol even kids can write a better story than this! And don't even get me started on INZAGI!!! Like wtf!! Am I sitting here watching a cartoon in the name of black comedy? The entire point of Vincenzo coming to Korea to come and retrieve his Gold and ends up keeping it back in Korea as a bed for his lover? The main villain can kill off every damn person involved in his heinous deeds, but failed to harm an ant from the Geumgo Plaza? My goodness, it felt like I'm watching some illogical bollywood movie just earning in the name of a Hero!

2) ACTING:
The FL (X_X), I would've been really happy if she was the one killed off first instead of her father! Like honestly, how can you even look at yourself in the mirror after all those indigestible doses of overacting! Like you can call yourself a righteous competitive lawyer and can't even fight a single case with sincerity? All the slapstick comedies from the supporting actors were way too overdone and lame, I couldn't even bring myself to a chuckle, they were all plain annoying! The writer seemed to shock the public with innumerable deaths like some sort of a GOT genre, but failed to bring out even an ounce of emotional attachment for the deceased for such bad character developments! It was majorly Taecyon's and the Female villain's acting that desperately tried to save the show from churning to pieces, but in vain!

3) EXCESSIVE GLORIFICATION OF VIGILANTE JUSTICE:
If some people might be thinking that the core concept of the show was this, let me correct you, it is not. The main character was just an egoistic self righteous dickhead who just wanted to procure his belongings, but got stumbled upon nonetheless. Vigilant justice should be never be, at least in my opinion, ever be justified. There are layers and layers behind any sort of criminal case with loads of loopholes and connected people and it should always be dealt with sensitively with a lot of afterthought. Unlike here, where the law was turned into an entire state of mockery.

4) EXCESSIVE AMOUNT OF QUEERBAITING/ HOMOPHOBIA:
The number of times the show portrayed really unnecessary uncomfortable queer-baiting scenes, with the ML being a total homophobe. Even the gay character was portrayed in such a cliché manner with such terrible portrayal of lgbt characters, as if South Korea doesn't have it's fair share of innate homophobia!

5) NO RESPECT FOR RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS:
There wasn't any direct attack on anyone's religious sentiments, but it wasn't even shown in a good light, but was instead portrayed as a mere comedic tool!

WHAT WORKED???
Well, I really tried to find it but couldn't! :( No hate here but there wasn't a single likeable element in the entire show that I felt so far. It was a total waste of my time!

I usually have really high expectations out of any KDrama, cause they have never actually ever let me down, at least not to this extent that this drama did, solely the reason that I pulled myself together to finish this hoping something might pull the strings! But Alas! If would've been my 2nd or 3rd Kdrama I would've totally stopped watching KDramas altogether XD! It is really disturbing to see to what extent people can go just to support and promote their favourite actor/idol, even if they make utter shit! Luckily I've chose my dramas list carefully and trusted my instincts! :P

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Cliché plot done well saddled with lacklustre chemistry!

Overall the show is quite enjoyable with beautiful setting and backdrops and fitting engaging music. The show has its funny and quirky moments and moments which will give you butterflies in the stomach.

But there were quite a few elements in the show which kept pulling me back! Let me list a few of my reservatios:-
1. The show still felt heavily targeted towards the female audience, where the entire plot can be easily replaced by a female character and nothing shall change. There is no specific BL or LGBT element that makes it stand out except for the physical traits of the actors!
2. DEAD-FISH KISSES: Well i am certainly aware that the actors cast for the role are slightly veteran actors and their may be a lot of awkward moments during shooting, when the actors themselves maybe straight! But let me get this straight, please don't do BL dramas if you aren't comfortable representing a community if you aren't able to play their roles with full justice! We've come a long way with korean BLs and i feel they certainly shouldn't limit themselves soothing the fetishes of BL fujoshis and have some substance!
3. Flat one dimensional characters: There was no sense of realism in the plot, the entire ambience felt the actors being forced to proximity! Wonyoung being a 26-27 year old behaved like a 20 year old school girl did not befit his role.
4. The second couple had a better build-up and more convincing story, sadly they received very little to no screentime!

Keeping my personal reservations aside, the show is quite enjoyable overall and wouldn't disappoint the likes of people wanted to watch some unrealistic fluff! Thank you! :)

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Gorgeous cast with terrible writing

The show had sooooo much potential. Amazingly gorgeous cast, beautiful sets, chic-ass costumes, vistas and a nice sports theme fallen into the infallible unrequited love trope which unfortunately turning into some weird in unhealthy obsession! This show is nothing but a train wreck!

One thing I don't understand, when MAME decides to write a drama which may have quite a lot of mature scenes, none of the on-screen drama which happens seem to have no maturity at all? No exploration of sexuality, no coming to terms, no bullying or homophobia around, a strict and overprotective parent but none of them seem to have any problem with their kids being gay, mother happily accepts a promiscuous son-in-law, MAME since when have we started living in such LA LA LAND? Even I'd like to know it's address so even I could live by such an overprotective and spoiling partner and not have even a sense of guilt or fear.

Looking at the production quality, music and setup, it had no doubt a high end production value, but did it really do justice to the mainstream LGBT populace you are using in your writing? The writing would have been wayy better to have an in depth character exploration of both the main leads, how their relationship evolves, instead we get a dumb headed ML who goes bonkers whenever his wifey is at threat.

Plus you can't really put this drama in a singular genre, there's slight comedy, but isn't funny at all, there's thrill, isn't thrilling at all, emotional, but couldn't empathise at. The story lacked impact, I feel there wasn't even a story at all, just selling the show for some steamy NC scenes which *no comments*

I found myself mostly struggling to get done with the show even though I wouldn't exactly call it boring but rather unconvincing. People looking to watch it just for the pretty cast may go ahead, those looking for anything more may prefer skipping it. Thank you!

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A Really Pleasant Unexpected Surprise!

I really did not have much hopes from GMM TV because of their usual tendency to go with kiddish unrealistic BL tropes, unlike a few exceptions! But this one really left me short of words! In the beginning it seemed more like a BL version of Crash landing on you, but the story and execution was so unique and captivating in a way and it leaves you with such pleasant and good vibes. The Morales put up at the end of every episode were so thought provoking. The show gave me all sorts of emotions whatsoever, I was happy, sad, excited, numb, thrilled, all at the same time.

The chemistry between the leads was so strong, their gaze, the expression portrayed so much intimacy that no kind of skin-ship was even needed. And Mix's acting was unbelievable, totally couldn't believe he was Rookie actor, his eyes can ease up even the coldest of hearts.

I really hope thailand makes more of such unique and beautiful shows in future! <3

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Started off well and quickly went downhill to the point of being BORING!

Well it was one of my most anticipated dramas of 2021 and it did start off really well but it somehow just slipped down the slope, real quick!

Well the overall concept was to pick out toxic fan-girling and exposing the reality of the BL industry, the producer seemed to pick out the easiest and most obvious issues and just simply decided to not uncover actual darker secrets. And as the producers were trying to portray the ills of the shipping culture, I was sincerely hoping for a much more realistic portrayal of a gay couple than a fantasy BL couple, but all it did was just the LATTER! I mean an industry making off really good money shipping straight male guys, it's high time Thailand use the opportunity to portray more mature, realistic and believable GAY portrayal. The couple really lacked character development!

Well many of you might disagree by arguing by saying how it showed the coming out scene realistically, I would say it absolutely did not! The intense ultra dramatic scene at the dinner table and then everyone being SUPER nice the next day, totally ruined it. I mean no my dear, reality is not that nice! People don't change overnight! The parents should have had dragged the reluctance for a little while at least, you may say one must portray positive and empathetic attitude, but just overnight transformation with little confrontation and absolutely no portrayal of struggles or issues of the leads, totally nullifies the moment. It actually puts an actual LGBT person in a false notion and risk themselves being outed or kicked out by their families, by living in false dilemma without understanding the circumstances. I mean they should live a life without hiding and fear, but not showing struggles and setbacks and expecting someone to just empathize with something to which there is a lot of stigma already attached, it doesn't really go hand in hand.

The chemistry of the couple degraded more and more as the story progresses! I dunno somehow with majority of the thai BL this is always the case, it is all steamy and attractive in the beginning and the moment they actually get together, it just becomes non existent! And yes the childhood connection! I am already bored the Kdrama trope of childhood connections, and here it gets all the way worse, the seriously unnecessary addition with a totally unacceptable age gap!

The only person I could praise in the entire show was Aeoy! Haters can attack, but he was actually one person in the entire show who actually looked like a real human. He showed all emotions that an actual person feels and how one's past affects a person's current state of mind. Even Mork! His affection and yearning felt real. I was really disappointed that the director decided to just ditch them in the end and just show Aoey in the negative light. And yes, the twist in Aoey'e affection from Nubsib to Gene just to garner audience shock was totally stupid and unbelievable!

The story had great potential but failed to pull the strings! I'm sorry!
Thank you!

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An absolutely splendid show ruined by unnecessary Melodrama!

A really well written and gripping drama but somehow got really disappointed by the way it turned out into a typical cliché Kdrama. Expected some nerve wrecking noire psychopathic thriller genre but got served a melodramatic soap opera.

Though indeed I really loved the meticulous and fine details taken into consideration and amazing transitions and cinematography by the director! Beautiful OSTs give a breath of fresh air! And how could you forget the amazing acting by Lee Joon-gi! This guy really gave his all! I literally refused to believe that he wasn't actually the antagonist until the reveal! The show really did not fail to keep me on the edge till the end!

I definitely did not understand the thought process behind the writer, like she was really inspired by Hollywood psychological thrillers yet wanted to maintain the likes of typical KDrama watchers, but I really feel negating or at least subduing a little bit of the melodrama would've heightened the psyche of the show multifold! They seemed really unnecessary and forced to me and took away the charm the show would've otherwise upheld! Have a look at Bates Motel if you guys want and see what I'm trying to say! You can literally travel through the protagonists mind!

YET A THOROUGHLY ENJOYABLE SHOW! Period XD

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Disastrous show with terrible writing!

First of all, let me get this straight! The amount of hype and ig edits endorsed by the PR team has absolutely spoilt the entire drama for everyone! I have don't have much problem with those somewhat beautiful Bollywood edits, but it made me feel like I've already seen the entire show through the reels and there was nothing exciting to be anticipated in every episode, like i already know what's going to happen next. There needs to be certain limits to what extent the clips are released to the public!

Coming back to the show, the kind of hype that was created towards this show had me keenly awaiting for the show to end, so that I could binge watch it to the core! Judging by the premise it gave me hopes that it would deal with actual adult gay complex relationship dynamics which we face in a day to day basis! But I was let down so bad! It was just awful romanticised toxic obsessive 'Girl in trap' BL trope! Even Only Friends did better in showcasing actual gay culture!

THINGS WHAT WORKED:
• Relatively fresh cast was refreshing, yeah Joe was definitely one of the prime most reason I wanted to watch this show
• Miniscule addressal of coming out to family
• Repressed emotions portrayed by Ming towards Tong when he learns about his marriage
• Initial 3-4 episodes did show some potential and were gripping

THINGS THAT MADE CLENCH THE FEW STRANDS OF HAIR LEFT ON MY HEAD:
• The decision of keeping the same actor for portraying both the Old Joe and New Joe just for the sake of pushing the better looking actor shows the shallowness of the director and totally nulls the entire meaning of the show. The New Joe flashed at certain points was so dull and expressionless that it made it absolutely impossible to thing of him being in the character. Like even Chains of Heart does such a convincing job of making both actors likeable.
• The amount of times Joe has spilled the beans from his daily conversations looks so lame and unrealistic.
• Which mother who's spent entirety of her life living in a dilapidated house, just blindly walk in a super expensive villa with a private servant without even getting into any details of how his struggling son was able to provide it.
• The entire redemption arc of Tong was an absolute nonsense filler.
• Cringey trope of promises by his elder brother for helping Ming out from his father.
• Joe's friends did not even take a moment believing that he has been reincarnated
• The usual trope of parents being extremely repulsive and immediately accepting in a flash of a second without any convincing set of repercussions and consequences sets a really bad example to young LGBT individuals, whose lives can be at stake after coming out
• The extremely disturbing stereotypical portrayal of the Indian/Pakistani Sikh or muslim loan shark in an already racially conservative country, which the writer is himself confused about portraying in EP11 is what irked me the most in the entire show. If you are thinking of promoting a show to such a global level, you really need to be sensitive of the racial stereotypes that you are representing.
• The NC scenes had absolutely no build up and lacked intimacy!
• Why does Ming breakdown after the fencing shoot looking at the New Joe's back? He's not even the Old Joe and how does he realise that it was the Old Joe's back not Tong's the entire time when it is the New Joe playing the role.

The amount of plotholes delivered by this script is endless. I could go and on about this ridiculous writing of the show, but I have listed the major factors that frustrated me the most. This is one the biggest let-down of a BL dramas I had in a while.

Viewers beware of the hype, this show is extremely passable!

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Compelling writing set in an extremely unrealistic premise!

There's a decent amount complex topics addressed in the show, some of which are quite questionable to me even though I belong the gay community. There are certain good parts and quite a bit of bad parts in my opinion. But the overall premise felt extremely forced and unrealistic.

There's further the topic of incest, which necessarily isn't in technicality, but if someone has been living under the same roof sharing a rather fatherly than brotherly bond, the entire dynamics become a bit questionable. Though I'm not here to argue on this topic.

The acting by Chris is spectacular and quite gripping, but the rest of the cast felt like 2D characters in a comic strip, even Xiao Yuan, his character doesn't seem realistic at all. This show follows almost all typical tropes of BL dramas and even though there's enough emotional depth, fails to make it relatable and is rather unconvincing.

The pacing of the show is pretty slow at times and does get really boring at times where you feel like when is this going to end, especially the last episode was a complete filler.

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An Incessant Surge of Emotional Upheavel!

This show has left me in anguish, despair, hope, loneliness and a relentless magnitude of emotional turmoil, that is going to take ages for me to heal. Every line, every scene, every emotion cuts skin deep and makes you relive the life of the protagonist, as you sincerely long for his life to get better. It may open up unhealed wounds for some, and if God forbid, you may have lived the life of an LGBT individual, be ready for sleepless nights that the situations flashed in the show might punch your guts with!

This show, in its innate sincerity have served one of the RAWEST and REALISTIC forms of representation of queer life. Every episode made me relive the adolescent joy of new found relationship, and at the end of the next episode left me in absolute emptiness as though it's narrating my own life ordeals. It's as RAW as it can get. The fear of losing hope, the feeling of uncertainties in every step of your adult life, losing friends, dealing with the harsh denial of parents, dating a strongly religious and closeted partner, and also the most taboo topics such as HIV, the show absolutely doesn't shy from any of it!

In a world of heteronormative feminine centric BL dramas, that encash majorly on the looks and fetishes of its audience completely neglecting the negative repercussions it can have on an adolescent LGBT individual, where they are steered far from reality and make them set extremely unrealistic expectations from both relationship and family, only to pave the way for depression and disappointment in future, this show is a an extremely good and genuine steep that draws the necessary line between fiction and reality. Though I do certainly enjoy the optimism and ray of hope that some traditional BLs give, it sets extremely unattainable expectations which I feel does more harmful than good. The characters are GREY, and may not be reminiscent of your idealistic fictional protagonists.

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT:
Even though this show has been a major milestone in how it deals with queer media, I did have some reservations regarding it. The choice of choosing four different directors to direct the four phases of the protagonists life seems a good idea to display the drastic arrays of life, but unfortunately makes it suffer from an incoherent narrative. The hurdles and losses the protagonists encounters through the passage of every two episodes is devastating enough, but it fails to show what impact it has on his mind clearly. People and issues just bluntly come and go, even though that is the way of life, but the initial fervours have little implications on his life moving ahead. Plus even though with the progression of HIV treatment, little has been shown on the implications of it on his health, though that may not have been the motive of the author. Packing a decade of the protagonists story in 8 episodes was a bit too fast paced for the audience to actually feel the depth and sensitivity of the most of the issues presented, albeit some viewers like me who have been through the protagonists shoes to understand the gravity of the situations.

THING THAT IRKED ME THE MOST:
I genuinely applaud and commend the leads for their bold and courageous attempt at displaying genuine intimacy and affection and sex drive on mainstream media, but one has to be really careful on what you show and ask for! Even though with the advent of PreP and HIV medications and use of condoms, having shared a decent amount of time in the gay dating pool, I am still of the stern opinion that YOUR PARTNER HAS TO ABSOLUTELY KNOW OF YOUR HEALTH CONDITION BEFORE YOU ENGAGE IN ANY SEXUAL ACTIVITY WITH HIM OR HER!! This is downright criminal and the poor soul is going to be traumatised for the rest of his life! And no form of contraceptive and medication have been proven to be 100% effective in prevention!

Thank you for my listening to my rant!

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Extremely disappointed after such a beautiful 1st season

It looks like after heavily investing in the first season with its astonishing and beautiful visual treats and color exploration and constantly on loop OST, they felt a bit disappointed with the audience turnover and suddenly decided to trim down the budget to such an extent that the show ends up becoming a cheap indie production (which are still better most of the times, at least when it comes to stories).

The production was extremely choppy, music ends abruptly anywhere and there's sudden transitions from one scene to the other. There isn't any grayscale theme or color rush exploration done at all in the entire second season which totally nulls the core concept of the entire show. The charm of the first color rush was it totally transported to an entirely another dimension and gave an strange and mysterious vibe to it. The visual exploration was phenomenal, so much so that it had a potential of a full fledged Kdrama. So naturally viewers will have a lot expectations from the second season, for which the show so badly disappoints.

One thing they were pretty consistent with from the first season regarding the show, the CHEMISTRY! Which was still extremely awkward and felt too forced! Please cast actors who are comfortable with their roles and not just doing it for the sake of clout! Thank you!

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More of a Scenario Building Exercise than an actual plot

CHEMISTRY:
Okay so hear me out! This has got to be by far the best level of intimacy and bareness I've ever seen in BL so far! Like i have no clue how they've got Fuaiz to shoot those bare sex scenes when he was barely 18 is still goes all over my head, but his level of maturity and acting makes me confident enough that he knows what he's doing and is of legal age.

PLOT:
Now coming to the plot, there were many reminiscence of DFF in the plot and by the end of ep 4 I knew it's going to take the Messier route just as DFF took but not as mad. But the entire 4minutes thing was really messy to be honest. Like what were the writers really trying to convey, like how the scenario building as we do in urban design ?, showed how things would've been different if characters behaved in a certain way in those 4 minutes, or these were mental patients who were living in their own trance struggling to grapple with reality, or actually did time travel? It's seriously a convoluted mess!

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT:
I loved how every character was shown to be a grey character and shown them in their exact realness with no useless fluffy like we see in typical BL dramas, and had managed their own flaws and struggles. Though there was little character development in most of the characters except Korn, for that matter yeah just his realisation what he did wrong was enough for me ?. DFF had really good development and plot build-up, even though this did try really hard with those mind boggling plot twists, but it has lesser of an impact.

ACTING:
Fuaiz and Bas really stole the show, to be real honest. Those two were literally the main characters of the entire show than Jess Bible themselves. Like i really didn't care by the ending of the show as to what shit they were upto, I was most concerned where the rat of Fuaiz is upto ?. Jess is a veteran actor so need not talk much about it, and Bible really didn't have much to offer.

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Simply Beautiful and Captivating!

Extremely beautiful and compelling!! Simple plotline yet portrayed so well! The chemistry between the leads felt so connected and real! Everything was produced extremely well. The cinematography and visuals were top notch, the locations were enthralling! The pacing of the show was perfect, never felt it was stretched or rushed, considering the tight time frame it was packed in.
The OST are gonna be on my loop for a long time in my playlist, especially the opening track. The show indeed raised bars! The show is a must watch not just for a BL but as a regular show well! ❤️❤️

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