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The Better Writing Topic; FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T WANT TO WRITE SHIT
Topic Started: August 26, 2012, 6:56 pm (2,388 Views)
Perascamin
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You should critique me too!
In War; Victory. In Peace; Vigilance. In Death; Sacrifice.

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oniskieth
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No cutting in line perascamin!
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Onime No Ryu
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oniskieth
January 2, 2013, 7:23 pm
Just don't tear me down.
Both you and your bro have come a long way since you started, and when you're regularly active there aren't too many problems. However, there are still some things you could improve on.

Onis, you have a lot of typos in your posts. Even if your keyboard or word editing software is to blame, a thorough re-read of everything you write before you post can fix this. Another thing is, you don't really get inside your characters' heads a lot. Try to step further into their shoes. Tell us what they're thinking and feeling, not just what they're doing--and tell us why they think and feel that way too. And if they change how they're feeling, if they change personalities, they need a reason to develop that way over the course of the RP. You could also stand to get a little more detailed in your interactions with others, and not just throw out a quick sentence of dialogue every now and again.

Peras
 
You should critique me too!


You've gotten a lot better at character development; even though the whole "demon inside me" thing is pretty cliche, it's still interesting to read about Basuro and his interactions with other characters. You do plenty of getting inside his head, but in contrast to that you don't seem to interact with others very much unless they start it or you have a good reason, like Basuro feeling guilty for hurting Yu. But if it's not one of those two things, Basuro stays very heavily in the background. I understand that this is because you've got a job and whatnot, but even if you have to play catchup a bit I think it would help a lot if you got more involved with other characters.

And now I've noticed that this isn't so much writing advice as gameplay advice as it pertains to RP. As far as writing actually goes, I think you guys are pretty solid. Anything I would have to say is mostly opinion and personal taste, and you guys should tailor your writing to your own tastes. I believe you've reached a point where a lot of improvement would come from analyzing the kinds of books and stories you like to read and figuring out why you like them, and from the simple experience of writing more. I'd like to see you guys try to write some original short stories and stuff. I think you'd do well at it.
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Onime, could you look at that and tell me how I could make the action more descriptive/better? Though feel free to point out anything that isn't good.
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Onime No Ryu
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It looks alright to me, but if you want to spice it up, I'd suggest breaking it up into shorter sentences to give it a faster pace, and changing your word choices. Also, play around with your direct objects and the verbs they're associated with.

Reacting quickly to the appearance of a Deku Baba, Splice pivoted with his front foot and swung his axe in a swift arc, cleanly severing the monster's gaping maw from its roots.

If you break this up, you have 3-4 "stages" that could be made into individual sentences. The Deku Baba's appearance, Splice's movement, his attack--which could possibly be merged with movement--and the result. Next, your verb choice: "pivot" is specific as to how he moved, but considering that this is a "quick reaction," you should replace it with something speedier. To help suggest speed, go short and sweet. Whirled tells of a wild, spinning motion, but the word itself is a little long. So going with the simpler "spun" would, in my opinion, be better.

Next, I just don't like the phrase "swung his axe" because it's too passive. What was swung? The axe. The axe is your direct object, and I'm of the opinion that during a battle scene the target should always be the direct object, if there's a direct object at all. To show instead of tell, try to personify the axe, give it movement and animation. Since, again, we want speed, let's use "flashed" just for this example. Also, we want to change the wording describing the result so that it SHOWS what happened instead of telling. The Deku Baba's head is severed from its roots, okay. But we don't really see that happening. Think about what happens when you cut a Deku Baba up in the game. Describe that.

So now, here's how I'd do it:

The Deku Baba lunged out of the grass, jaws gaping. Splice spun upon his front foot; the axe flashed in a swift arc. The plant's bulbous head fell from the stalk with a yelp. It lay writhing, until it stilled and began to wilt.

I hope this helped.

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Oh ok, so break it up into stages. That's really helpful advice, Onime. I never thought about doing it that way.

Thanks man, that helps a lot.
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Dreaming Sun
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MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO MOO
I... Honestly feel I've been in a slump with my writing lately, but whatever, go for it ~

Fortunately, I think I've gone past the purple prose stage I had so heavily before, but now I feel I've fallen in the other direction and am too brief? What do you think?
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Onime No Ryu
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I'm not all that familiar with you or your style yet, Em, so you may find my advice somewhat lacking. But after reading most of your posts in TIW, I think the biggest problem I see is that you don't separate your character from the narration. Now, in first person, this is fine because the character IS the narrator, but when you're writing in third person like we tend to do in RPs, you need to keep them separate. Now you have a few choices--third person omniscient or third person limited, subjective or objective, etc. Pick one of those and stick with it; don't let your character's thoughts and feelings on what they're experiencing bleed into the narration. Instead, separate these with italics for the character's thoughts. I know that when I was reading your posts, especially Emily's, that it was somewhat confusing because her thoughts were jumbled in with the narrative, and it gave the entire post the effect of being scatterbrained.
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Onime No Ryu
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After re-reading this I feel like I should re-state that this is all my opinion and any advice garnered here should be taken with a grain of salt, especially considering that I consider the earlier me to have been more than a little arrogant about some of this stuff.

Also the topic's re-opened if anybody wants to continue discussing writing. I think it'd be interesting to hear some other people's takes on what makes a piece of writing good.
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Person A
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Onime No Ryu
January 3, 2015, 8:54 am
After re-reading this I feel like I should re-state that this is all my opinion and any advice garnered here should be taken with a grain of salt, especially considering that I consider the earlier me to have been more than a little arrogant about some of this stuff.
Really? I come to this topic every now and then and read over some of the posts just to get a better grasp of how I should write. Harsh or not, arrogant or not, you still raised some valid points. For example, the Active/Passive voice thing right in the second post and the meta-reading about typing out posts and choosing words carefully.

I don't consider myself a good writer at all, though. I feel like I never keep the same feel I start with initially, and that tends to be without any character development yet. I mean, maybe context shifts their character around, but then I forget how they were portrayed before and when I finally reread the first few posts I realize they're different characters altogether. I'm pretty damn sure Ritzea was a lot more snarky than she is now, for example, and not much development to actually push her that way. But then I try to make her snarky again and I can't remember how I did it. I guess the long and short of it is that I don't keep my characters consistent enough, heh. I'll find some personality trait that hasn't come up in a while and think, "Man, how'd I forget about that? It would've been perfect for so-and-so... Uh, how do I write like that again?

...

Crap, I forgot!"
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Sin
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Slow and steady...
Onime No Ryu
December 30, 2012, 4:36 pm
Reviving this, and issuing a challenge to all who would partake!

Send me a character, a bit of your writing, or just ask me what I think about your work and I'll do my best to overcome any problems that you want help with! You want to make better characters, I'll critique what you've done so far and give you tips to improve! You want to write better, I'll read what you've got and help you edit it to be better! Just bring me anything and everything; all I want is to help make people better writers so that they can be more proud of what they do!

Note that I will be as honest as possible, and that while I don't intend to insult anyone, sometimes our feelings get hurt when something we made with loving care is torn apart by a critic. So just understand that my only intention here is to help people improve.

So who wants to be first?
Do one of my characters!
Edited by Sin, January 3, 2015, 1:42 pm.
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DVD Player
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You can take a look at Aria, but I'm looking more at how my posts generally flow. Writing a single character in a group of other characters that I am not in control of can make writing the post rather disjointed at times, and also forces me to be more objective in my descriptions and events.

Overall, the post system can tend to make more back-and-forth conversations harder to do, so I'm wondering how I can make my posts more solidly written while still keeping other people in control of their characters.
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Onime No Ryu
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Sin
 
Do one of my characters!


Niroth
 
You can take a look at Aria, but I'm looking more at how my posts generally flow. Writing a single character in a group of other characters that I am not in control of can make writing the post rather disjointed at times, and also forces me to be more objective in my descriptions and events.

Overall, the post system can tend to make more back-and-forth conversations harder to do, so I'm wondering how I can make my posts more solidly written while still keeping other people in control of their characters.


Sorry guys, but I think I'm going to hold off on starting up critiques again for a while, for a couple of reasons--one big one being that I want to sort out my own writing after seeing all this again and reminding myself of some of the ways I used to write and how I've changed and/or debateably improved.
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Mdl. No. 00X "Burrito"
Don't worry; I got us covered

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yuna
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I might get into rping after reseeing this topic. Many good stuff in here
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Onime No Ryu
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January 10, 2015, 1:41 am
Don't worry; I got us covered

god

FUCKING



DAMMIT
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Arcvalons
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That was a pretty amazing video. I want to read what happens after Ness walks in,
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Sin
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Slow and steady...
I believe we've de-railed... :(
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Onime No Ryu
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Here's some questions to get the discussion back to the mechanics of writing.

How would you describe your writing style?

What makes you like your writing style/Why do you like writing that way?

Who are your favorite authors, if you have any, and why do you like their style?
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Person A
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Onime No Ryu
January 11, 2015, 6:27 pm
How would you describe your writing style?

What makes you like your writing style/Why do you like writing that way?
These two questions are the ones I'm only interested in answering for this post. Mainly because I haven't done enough reading for fun to have a proper favorite author. I know, I'm pretty ashamed of it myself...

Honestly, my writing depends on the character that I'm writing for at the moment, and, even then, depends on when I'm doing the writing. They say that people stray from what they originally intend, that their characterization grows into another branch. That's all well and good and all, but then I look back and I realize I could never really capture that first bit of essence that I had in the first place. I'm going to use Ritzea for this example, if only because she's kind of fun to write.

An earlier Ritzea Post
 
...I stopped staring observing them and looked over at the northerly parts of the camp. Sure enough, seemed like some of them were coming back...
---
...Doubt they'd like it if they hire me to fight, and all I did was sit back and record everything...
---
...Over to the side, the elf from earlier was really staring at developing some brain damage staring hard at a bucket and a rope...


For example, here I used to have her snark a lot, before crossing it out with a strikethrough and replace it with some proper or less... cruel, I guess, narration. Later posts, I know I definitely don't do this as much, or do it in a different way.

A later Ritzea Post
 
Except... Gee, cliché much? Guess it'd get the job done, though. I started rushing out, avoiding as much of the rocks as I could. Didn't work out, though, I felt a bump or two on my head. I swear the stories never have that happen to the heroes. Guess I can't expect much for reality.

I stopped partway when I saw Xenon scoop up Volke. That was one less thing to worry about...

But Sera! She was unconscious! Rock? Or did was she just plain exhausted?... No time to ask myself questions, dammit, just... I rushed down to her, threw her arm over my shoulder, and tailed the armored guy out of the rock dome, Aran pushing me from behind. I get it, geez! Don't have to sound like a monkey pushing me out...

...I totally didn't fall. Ever.


See, this is one of the later posts that I could find that's in a similar-ish style. But it's not nearly as... mature? snark or silly things, it's just me making her immature. Totally different way of roleplaying her. What I'm getting at is that the way I've been writing her has been pretty much in flux, and I'm not very happy because I know that this happens to every character I write. Different feel throughout, and I can't say it's character development, because it's not. It's just me being a terrible writer, in all honesty.

...But, well. That's just me nit-picking myself.

Like I said before, I have a different writing style for different characters. For Ryan Liang, my Pokemon character (Which the majority of the site won't care about, because it's Pokemon), I try to envision what I'd do, how I'd react... Mainly because he's supposed to be me as a character. Therefore, I write him as frankly and plainly as possible. As simply as I can. Because that's the only way I could pretty much guarantee that I could portray him as... me. I... doubt that I've actually conveyed that, but, well, hey, it's an attempt at the most. I... mainly hope that it shows that Ryan's a normal guy, but... well, a plainly-written character isn't that exciting in the first place. It's just... generic, really, hah.

And... back to Ritzea. Actually, both my Veil of Chaos characters, I guess. Mainly because Volke isn't anything special, let's be honest. Or, at least, how I've been writing him. There's been the odd post where I write him much, much more simply, mainly to show that he's... well, concentrating on what's in front of him, and he can only focus on that. But I haven't done that consecutively, and it all goes back to "writing what he's thinking, what he's doing." The generic thing for roleplaying. I do try to keep in mind that his personality would, mainly, dictate what he'd be focusing on, so I try to keep a focus on that. To cement the themes that I... hope are prevalent in it: idolizing stories of heroes, end up being way less than that. Or something. And then I get it in his head, so that people could see that, yeah, he really is thinking that.

Ritzea, well. I'll be honest, the other two characters were a bit of a formality, I just wanted to talk about her. Because I've been trying really hard for this character. Anyone who's glanced at a few of her posts can tell that I'm writing her in first-person point of view. I felt like that would... well, help people see her emotions better. Instead of being restricted to thoughts to... dialogue, pretty much, I could just have her narrate everything, and give her more personality. For example:

Angelo used his giant clone-sweeping attack
 
...Huh? What was - whoa!

...

...

...Welp. That's all of the Ebonscourge! Just like I thought, too, that seal thing Angelo was talking about was set-up for a bigger attack...

versus
If I did it normally
 
She stared, surprised at the scene that was playing in front of her. All the Ebonscourge were being quickly mowed down by Angelo clones. After everything was said and done, she slowly exhaled. Welp. That's all of the Ebonscourge! she thought. Ritzea nodded to herself. Just like she had suspected, the seals that he had talked about were a set-up for a bigger attack.


They do say "Less is more," heh. Just comparing, honestly, the stunned silence feels a lot more... pronounced? (at least to me) if I just did it like a plain reaction instead of just saying that she was surprised and staring. And... well, I'd hope it'd help her character more and make her more fun to read. It lets me get into her head more, too, to give a more honest look into her thoughts.

I was trying to make up with Angelo
 
...I waited a little more, but then he nodded to me. My only response was with the sincerely confused look on my face, the one i had for a while now. Did he not... know what "getting off on the wrong foot" was? Or did he think I was still pouting about earlier today?

versus
Third person limited PoV
 
She waited a little more before she saw him nodding to her. Ritzea could only respond with a sincerely confused look... which had been on her face for a while now. She started wondering if he simply didn't know what "getting off on the wrong foot" was. Or maybe he... somehow thinks I'm still pouting about earlier today...


...Well, actually, this is pretty similar, since I made sure to keep it as close to the original as possible.

But, well, it just feels like Ritzea's more honest about her emotions when she's saying it directly, instead of me telling everyone that's what she's feeling, or doing. That's what I ultimately wanted to do: have the readers relate to her much more. Maybe I haven't done her writing style well, upon retrospect in this post, but I've been enjoying it so far... heh. But, yes, this thought just came to me: Volke is probably a lot more distant because of how I've written him. Maybe a few different ways to show a different side, but then it's back to the usual third-person thing. Ritzea, on the other hand, is probably a lot more emotional, if only because we can see how she would talk about it instead of having someone else say it.

All in all, it helps establish their characterization a bit better (I hope!) if I write like this. And that's why I write like I do... I guess.

...I think there's a saying about how the harshest critic is yourself? I know I've said that before, at least. And I think this sorta kinda proves it a bit, haha... :$ (You guys need less Final Fantasy... "smilies," more actual smilies. Like a sweatdrop emot! I'd have used it instead of a blushing emot)
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Brute and Breaker.

Master, Tinker,
Blaster and Thinker,

Striker, Changer,
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DVD Player
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How would you describe your writing style?

Too objective and bland. When it comes to RPs, I have a harder time establishing a scene and painting a picture; for some reason my writing tends to lean heavily towards straight-forward information and only what the other RPer's need to know. To be perfectly honest, I don't like this and I would like to make more of an effort to have scenes painted but at the same time described through the eyes of my character. With Aria, I've been trying to have scenes and people described by how she would see them, which involves a lot of simple words like "Dumb" or "Stupid". For my next few posts, I want to change that and breath some new life into my posts.

If we're going to talk about my writing in my own work, I really like to lean towards heavily symbolism in what's going on and what can be seen. You can probably see this in my posts, such as my second-to-latest one in VoC where I symbolize Aria's outfits with the persona she sees herself putting. Putting on a face like a set of a clothes. In my own personal writing, the symbolism gets a LOOOOT heavier than that and when reading my stuff you'd want to pay close attention to what's going on. I put a lot of work into the little details, and I think some of you learned that in FA where something small would be barely pointed out or would happen and it would actually be pretty important.


What makes you like to write this way?

I love heavy symbolism and little details. When reading books, if I can see a lot of little details collect over time and culminate into something larger and very important; the impact is MASSIVE. I strive for those moments; to drop little hints here and there that may seem insignificant, but when the time comes for all of these to join together it not only causes everything to make sense, but makes the impact of that twist or event THAT much greater. I love plot-twists, but I also like having them make sense and not just be completely out of the blue; I love it when the plot twists basically says "If you were paying attention, you may have seen this coming."

As for descriptors, I love painting scenes and describing things. I've put a lot of work into finding the fine line between short and accurate descriptions and beautifully painted pictures. It's possible to tell the reader only what they need to know, but still set in atmosphere and mood. I think all of that's very important, and you can do a lot with dropping unwritten hints as to how a reader should feel entering a scene or witnessing something stand out. You can greatly influence HOW a reader reads what's going on simply by how you describe things, and I want to get good at that.


Who are your favorite authors, if you have any, and why do you like their style?

As a kid, I read a lot of books from a lot of different authors. I read Kenneth Opal, Eric Nylund, JK Rowling, etc. etc. In the long run, Eric Nylund has stood out the most for his work in the Halo books, which have been great reads for me. He did a fantastic job making the weight of a situation apparent and creating tons of suspense. He did a fantastic job painting scenes and creating atmosphere as well. Great author.

I've also read books by an author named Ted Dekker. This author does a lot of psychological thrillers, and I love his writing for his way of making the reader read things a specific way. If he doesn't want you to like a character, he won't say outright he's unlikable, but instead make the reader hate them for how they're described or maybe specific circumstances.

I've also read a couple books by Orson Scott Card. I bring him up because in Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, he did a fantastic job of dropping small hints and symbols that seemed out out place or insignificant at the time, but in the end were very important. Sometimes I felt the more political messages he tried to convey in his books took over the story-telling a little too much, but overall they were great reads.
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Onime No Ryu
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Persona

I've seen what you mean when you say you're having trouble keeping the character consistent, but at the same time I still feel like reading about Ritzea is still uniquely reading Ritzea, as opposed to other characters. When you say she comes off differently in each post, I think that part of that is just part of a character's being. I mean, we don't act and feel the same way all the time in real life, right? When we're angry we're more impulsive and we do things without thinking, when we're depressed we're heavily resistant even against things that, in a different frame of mind, we'd completely agree with. The fact that Ritzea doesn't sound exactly the same every time you post with her is, to me, an indication that she has enough moods and different feelings to go along with them, enough variety of mind, that she feels more fleshed out, as opposed to some characters that are always the same, always static, no matter what happens. Like Feng. Not that being a static character is a bad thing, it just depends on what's happening around them and whatnot. But in an RP, most of the time we want characters to grow. That doesn't always mean changing what they are, sometimes it just means showing different parts of them. And I think that's sort of what you've done with Ritzea, even though it's not intentional and even though it doesn't feel right. You've turned her this way and that and showed us how she looks from all the different angles, so to speak.

Maybe if you wrote down all the different personality traits you wanted her to have, and then sorted them out into "Concrete, never changing, fundamental to her core character," "malleable, could change if she were to have new information and experiences," and "will likely change as soon as she can find a reason to," kind of categories, it would help you pin down which facet you want to show more clearly?

Also, maybe before writing a post, taking a bit of extra time to figure out What the Situation is, How that would Make Ritzea Feel, Why She Feels that Way, and What She's Going to Do About it?

Niroth

If you want to paint scenes more vividly, I would suggest looking at actual paintings. Take a painting or otherwise an image of something really cool, a landscape or a person or whatever. Find something that you think is just really awesome. Now look at all the different pieces of it, and try to describe that work of art with words as if you were trying to get your reader to visualize exactly what you were seeing without them ever having seen it themselves.

Word choice and sentence structure also has a lot to do with it. Using Passive Voice is bad when describing actions, but when used with scenery it can help lend a poetic tone sometimes. Using similees and metaphors can help, but sometimes they come off sounding redundant. Whenever you feel that way about them, try to take the feelings you want to get out of the phrase, and look for adjectives and verbs and whatnot that give those same feelings. For instance, if I was describing something as being "like a roaring ocean," I could instead use verbs/adjectives like "crashing," "roaring," "sweeping," "storming."

I also like symbolism, but I also feel like there's a point where it becomes either too preachy, or too subtle to the point where no one but the author could have ever come to those conclusions. At some points it also feels like the pompous English professors I've had in the past, telling me all this shit about how the blue curtains represent depression and all that stupidity when all it means is that the curtains were blue in color.
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Onime No Ryu
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Bumping for Boxy.
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