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bulkhummus · 1 year

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I'm so glad you asked! (cw for discussions about unreality)

A. It's been a minute since we had an actual villain. Most bad guys/conflicts get resolved in an episode or two, and it seems like Janet Lubelle and the University are here to stay. She is being worked into everyday life on the show and is directly effecting the narrative every episode. You can't ignore her actions because they're encroaching upon the town. It's new! It's different! And most of all, it's a villain that I can envision coming to a small town and disrupting the status quo < more on that later.

B. Stories get boring when there are no stakes. Welcome to Night Vale is known for its unconventional plot structure (ie. vague continuity and plot from episode to episode lol) because it supports the happenings that are occurring in the show. A problem with this structure can be the inability to create tension or suspense, or have choices mean something within a narrative. I'm so happy to listen to the comings and goings of my little favorite podcast town, and I genuinely enjoy the silly episodes, don't get me wrong, but it's not fun for a writer or a listener when the same stuff happens over and over and everything is resolved and happy. The mini arcs they write are amazing. The time to build up the space around them is equally interesting. Conflict is interesting. Drama is interesting. Making smart choices that hold weight/ value to them is interesting, and the show would not still be running if the writers were unable to create that impact in spite of a more freeform narrative structure. Why isn't Carlos helping? Why is Lubelle so concerned with doubles? How is this all placing strain on Cecil's relationship to his husband and his town?

C. The show has been running for 10 years and they are cashing in on that time and commitment. The impact of Carlos' backstory after all this time (equal, might I add, to his time in the DOW) is immense. The killing of characters we have loved for over a decade is harsh and feels unfair and heart breaking. Patterns we are accustomed to in the show are being altered. Things we have been led to believe are changing before us, and it's almost like we are experiencing them and these feelings in real time with the townspeople of Night Vale. We watched a love story centered around the fact that a man was new to town, and we, along with the town, were tricked into thinking not all strangers are there to do harm, until it was too late. There has never been a villain that has been sustained for this long without turning into a joke (ie. Huntokar, The Distant Prince, etc.) other than maybe Strex, and even that was not so encroaching upon every show. Suspense is building, who or what will be explained away next? What will that mean for the town and for the story?

D. Lubelle is a fucking villain. I have seen a few people say they dislike her character and while I respect that this post is about why I love her haha so stay with me there. You aren't supposed to like her, but not liking a character is different from thinking the character doesn't do anything for the story. She is endlessly interesting to me because of what she represents. She has stated her intentions, clear and clean and is operating under her own moral code. That's such a tasty place to be narratively speaking. So far, she is a well written villain. Not to mention her past relationship with Carlos not even being touched yet, and that whole can of worms ( the only thing being the implication that Carlos used to be her right hand man). To me, the best kind of villain is the one who truly believes they aren't doing anything wrong. She is cold, she is condescending and she is out to do her fucking job, and no one is going to get in her way. She is not there to take over the town, or end the world. She is there to explain things. That is her motivator, and she is literally feeding off of the town. She is the embodiment of normalization, of conformity, of categorization. She is looking at something that is weird and unexplainable, a big gray area, and demanding black and white terms from it. Maybe it's just the queer in me, and the queerness that is Night Vale, but god isn't that horrifying?

E. The characters and dynamics Lubelle is explaining away are still leading to more questions. The monstrous Station Management is no longer a horrifying monster behind closed doors, but we are left wondering just who has been managing the station for all these years (40 years, from 1983 to be exact lol they're so good for this one) if no one was ever in the office to begin with. There are layers to the unreality that is occurring in Night Vale. Time is still weird. They are still sectioned off in some way. Cecil is still caught amongst these intersecting time frames and realities. Shit is still weird. Not to mention Lubelle being there is coinciding with doubles, Cecils parents and childhood, Carlos' backstory, and time/reality weirdness. It's also so DENSE right now and I'm loving it. How is she gonna effect all that? Is she gonna propel any of it?????? She is as much of a tool to spur the stories onward as she is to disrupt them.

F. Cecil is being directly effected. Do you understand what it means to question the narrator? It's so easy to forget that Cecil is an unreliable narrator because we don't often hear other townspeople question him. Janet looked directly at Cecil and told him that he is disturbed, that his reality is fractured. We as listeners all know that, and Cecil sure as hell does, but he does his very best to avoid it. One of the main new sources in town, and the narrator of a show we let tell us biased opinions and stories as fact, is suddenly ripped out from beneath us like a cheap rug. His credibly is at stake here and this began the moment people started questioning why Carlos wasn't speaking out against the University.

G. She's so fucking hot. this arc and its potential is so. so so fun.

#anyways #so ill stop there #I didn't even include like episode specific “evidence” or whatever #it would have gotten too long and im lazy #I love wtnv #and I love janet lubelle #this arc is so so so fun for me #wtnv #welcome to night vale #cw unreality

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bardinthezone · 1 year

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I am... disappointed with the latest episode. It felt like the last episode had a very clear set up, it ended with Lubelle taking over the damn radio station, and then.... nothing? No real acknowledgement of how that got resolved? I was certain we were going to start with Lubelle, that they were going to do something really clever with the format, maybe start with an "explained" Cecil. But nope. Just business as usual. And Tamika becoming a bit of a wet blanket, the hefty shift away from a tactic that definitely worked in night vale's recent history. No Carlos other than "oUGhHHHHhHHhh my husband's a scientist, cmon guys don't ban science," and all this constant referencing to old plot points that I'm worried won't go anywhere!

This latest episode was unsatisfying because it seemed clear where the story would go and they veered completely into left field. And to be honest I'm less excited for later episodes now because they've shown they're willing to take the story in directions that don't really make for a great cohesive narrative? They set the stakes so high and then said "that doesn't matter" so now I don't feel invested with any of these new, lower stakes (because I'm sorry but "the character we've gotten no time with recently can't legally do science anymore" is no where near as compelling as "the voice of night vale has been kidnapped/explained and the whole show is in jeopardy").

Cluttered. This episode felt cluttered. It felt like they were trying to dangle a dozen different potential plot threads in front of us and as a result none of them really stuck the landing.

Except the extra hour in the ball pit

Fucking golden joke, A+

#it just.. bugged me #why on gods green earth did they do that???#it doesnt make sense #im curious if there will be a “lubelle is defeated by something she cant explain” or if that was just a red herring #but yeah not super happy with this one lads #loved the sandwich bit though #and i am a bit worried for Josh #oh and the Song was a nice touch #although they did still refer to it as ''the weather'' in the ep description #i dont have much hope for a desert bluffs appearance though #i think theyre just trying to build tension by referencing popular imagery #what an ep #dr janet lubelle #cecil gershwin palmer #carlos the scientist #wtnv spoilers #wtnv 228 #wtnv #welcome to night vale

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this-is-a-podcast-fanblog · 8 days

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Night Vale Obscure Ship Tournament

art is by @kerink and @cecil-apologist respectively

#for those of you asking: why?#i have no idea i would love to know #ask tim #tim submitted them and even made the art for them so thank you tim for your contributions #i just want everyone to know that the metadata for the pizzacat art called it “mona lisa”#wtnv #welcome to night vale #janet lubelle #blake jones #silas the thief #big rico

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faultyvessel · 1 year

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So I've been downright obsessed with the way the current arc has been teasing Carlos having to look his past in the face and reconcile so here's some random thoughts. Carlos mentions when the U of WII first shows up in ep 212 that he's worried about Lubelle's lack of an ethical code, a trait shared by all of the faculty. We also know that him and Lubelle were grad students together, and that later Carlos goes on to become a member of the U of WII faculty. Carlos mentions how brilliant Lubelle is. Even though he's afraid, he can't fully speak ill of her, almost as though theres a minuscule piece of jealousy left over from bygone days when the two of them would push the limits in their pursuit of (and devotion to) science. Lubelle was always willing to go further, and it ate at him constantly, even when they set out on different scientific paths after school.

It still eats at him now, though for a very different reason.

The Carlos of those pre Night Vale days was less ethical (we've seen the bleed through of this past in his recklessness in It Devours and the lengths he was willing to go for the experiment ). I like to think that in pursuit of his past research, Carlos somehow gets himself into very hot water. (Insert whatever dubious scandal you like) He risks losing everything: name, funding, future. That is, until an old classmate turned faculty head reaches out to him, offering a position at the school and to vouch for him. Carlos accepts and he becomes a member of the faculty. After all, it's only logical to once again combine their great minds together. That far outweighs any previous consequences, and those vanish seemingly forever. Carlos doesn't think twice. He strives even harder now to be ruthless because seeing Lubelle in that position of power has rekindled the competitive jealousy of their grad days. Current Carlos now lies awake, thinking of two situations in his life where another has stepped in to wipe his past clean and give him a fresh start. Thinks about how much destruction is imminent because he's run so far those two iterations of himself have finally collided.

Carlos doesn't want to look that earlier scientist who shook her hand and accepted her salvation in the blink of an eye.

#welcome to night vale #wtnv #wtnv carlos #carlos the scientist #faulty’s carlos slandering continues #wtnv spoilers #wtnv 227 #janet lubelle #dr janet lubelle #the university of what it is #welcome to night vale 227 #wtnv episode 227 #wtnv cecil #welcome to desert bluffs #desert bluffs #it devours!#I REALLY JUST WANT HIM TO SUFFER OK #BUT ITS ALSO IMPORTANT TO THE PLOT #IDK I JUST LOVE THE IDEA OF THAT ACADEMIC BITTERNESS

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ihaveapodcastproblem · 4 months

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I would sell my soul to anyone who can take it to get this horror show to stop

#wtnv #wtnv cecil #janet lubelle #i hate her #i pray for her downfall on a daily basis #please for the love of the gods stop this madness #welcome to nightvale

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mindless-hyena · 11 months

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wtnv ep 230

wow

spoilers ahead

Ok so wow

I opened this episode expecting for Carlos to be killed or gone or a shell of his former self

I was ready to bawl my eyes out

BUT I DIDNT 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

instead I found Carlos stepping up and facing the worst possible thing and being confident in his definition of science

instead I found night vale willing to stand up and say no you are wrong we will decide what science is to us

instead I found dr jones willing to change and admit his mistakes

BANGER OF AN EPISODE SO GOOD IMG

ALSO THE TEASER OF DESERT BLUFFS OMG IM DO EXITED FOR KEVIN AND LAUREN AND THE SMILING GOD AND EVERYRTHING IM SON ECITED

#Also love that Janet was killed by the new glow cloud #I love that SO MUCH #the first thing she explained away is coming back #Also I cried when Carlos revealed that the glow cloud original isn’t comming bqck #wtnv #cecil palmer #welcome to night vale #nightvale #carlos the scientist #wtnv cecil #cecil gershwin palmer #wtnv podcast #janet lubelle

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janis-1987 · 1 year

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I am ✨crying✨ over my fictional comfort character.

Spoiler warning for NightVale Episode 227

I am having severe flashbacks to when Strex Corp took over and it is terrifying. I was begging Cecil not to go even though I knew he couldn't hear me. And the moment I heard Dr.Lubelle. I was so upset.

This is how fiction is meant to be, it should always make you so invested that when something bad happens you care that it has. But besides that.

I sincerely hope that Lubelle comes face to face with something unexplainable. Something that breaks her rational brain into pieces and turns her into a catatonic wreck.

I want to see her suffer for what she has done to Cecil, to NightVale. And I sincerely hope she does and we all get to hear it. I want to feel that moment of excitement again of when during the Strex Corp arc, we here Kevin say, "And he is holding a cat." Because that would be so satisfying.

#welcome to night vale #cecil palmer #cecil wtnv #dr.lubelle #janet lubelle #fuck that bitch #ahshfj i love them so much #literally crying

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maxgicalgirl · 1 year

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Really throwing me off that things are just Back To Normal this episode. What was Janet’s whole “I can do the radio :)” speech at the end of 227 about then ? She just wanted to hop on for a minute and say “fuck you I do what I want” ? Very odd, but I’m glad my best friend Cecil Gershwin Palmer is alright.

#wtnv spoilers #wtnv 228 #like what’s her motive ? what’s her angle ?#I love you girl you’re very scary but where’s your commitment to the bit ?#also ???? no Carlos ????? BABY WHERE ARE YOU ?????#dr janet lubelle #cecil palmer #carlos the scientist

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mississpissi · 1 year

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THANK U CECIL U CALLED HER OUT!! CRIMES AGAINST FIST SIZED RIVER ROCKS EXACTLY!! TORCHES AND SCREAMING FOR BLOOD FINALLY!! JUSTICE FOR SARAH SULTAN FIST SIZED RIVER ROCK WILL COME!!

yeah it failed this time but NIGHT VALE IS PATIENT AND THEY DO NOT FORGET!!!

#and is strex corp in the room with us tonight? no? no?#this is exactly what i asked for i feel so vindicated #also i’m glad it wasn’t just a one and done attack. i really want to see where this goes #‘my arrival was inevitable’ ok knockoff thanos janet lubelle #no but fr night vale doesn’t forget… ok slay i cannot WAIT to see how they approach this #this was such a good episode i loved every second of it #wtnv spoilers #wtnv

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waterfishlol0 · 1 year

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Throws breadcrumbs and seeds at the lubelle fans

#welcome to night vale #wtnv #janet lubelle #lubelle wtnv #i love her mentally ill and tired news woman voice #real #urmybbq

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bulkhummus · 1 year

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butch lubelle for @this-is-a-podcast-fanblog <333333

i cant stop thinking about lubelle thinking carlos is a lesbian and carlos thinking she is a man thats top tier humor

#i love gender and queers but most importantly?#i love. butch women #janet lubelle #wtnv #welcome to night vale #night vale #commissions #art tag

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bardinthezone · 1 year

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Night Vale and the Power of Stories

So I’ve been losing my mind about this latest arc. Full hyperfixation. Studying for finals? Calling my parents? Enjoying other hobbies? Eating?? Who’s she, never heard of her. There is only the “#wtnv spoilers” tag.

Anyways, inspired primarily by this post, this post, and this post, I have been thinking about Night Vale as a place of stories.

Night Vale is a deeply weird place. It is a place where all the crazy conspiracies and contradictions and creepy crawlies can coexist (try saying that 5 times fast), and it is built on stories.

We know from “109: A Story About Huntokar” that Huntokar singlehandedly saved the town from nuclear destruction in 1983. This in and of itself is beautiful, tragic, terrifying and wonderful (I could write a whole essay on the lasting effects of the Cold War on the American psyche and how that’s impacted our media, but that’s not what this post is about). But what Huntokar says in describing this moment is fascinating: “ The people of Night Vale huddled, waiting for the end to their story.” The use of the word “story” here is so poignant and poetic. This was her town, a narrative she had lovingly followed since its inception, with an ever rotating cast of characters, finally seeming as though it would come to an end. And yet she managed to continue their story. The people of Night Vale, of every alternate universe Night Vale, are kept alive because Huntokar wanted to keep the narrative going. It is a town kept alive-- inverted and shattered and bizarre, but alive-- because someone saw the tale coming to an end and wasn’t satisfied with that. Night Vale is a place of stories.

And Cecil. Cecil Gershwin-Palmer is such a wonderful enigma. He’s a deeply troubled man, he’s the town’s beloved radio host, he is the voice of Night Vale. As the town’s only (?) regular source of news, he carries incredible weight in shaping the public’s perception of reality. It is his radio show that keeps the people informed through all of these earth-shattering events-- it is Cecil who, for as goofy and cringefail (thank you @bigcommunist for that phrase) as he can be, has been responsible for keeping his citizens safe. In “227: A Word With Dr. Jones,” Dr. Janet Lubelle notes that one of his traits is “town leadership.” When Cecil speaks, things happen. He rallies the people, against Strexcorp or the Beagle Puppy or Steve Carlsberg and his dry, dry scones. Hell, he says “weather” and everyone stops, or sometimes (Like in “204: Audition”) it literally saves his life. @lostboywriting raises a fascinating theory about Cecil having inadvertently brought the Faceless Old Woman into existence through his repression of his complicated relationship with his mother-- and while this contradicts with the backstory presented in "The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives Inside Your Home," who’s to say that both origins can’t be true, with how splintered and fractured Night Vale’s existence (and especially relation to time) is? Perhaps Cecil, as the Voice Of Night Vale, is capable of changing the world more than he knows.

Either way, this is why Dr. Lubelle’s Explaining of the town has so much of a tangible effect on it-- because she’s coming in and using something “empirical” to change the narrative. That is why she’s so threatening-- because how do you argue with the facts? How do you argue with science? She is using logic to insist that her reality is right, that these stories and poetics used to keep the town alive are meaningless. That it would be better for them to not exist than to exist outside her narrative. She said it herself-- she cannot imagine that anyone thinks differently to herself about anything, and she is all to happy to provide any who disagrees with an Explanation. No matter the cost.

In 227, Cecil remarks that “Science is not good or bad, as language is not good or bad, as religion is not good or bad, because humans are not inherently good or bad.” This sets up a fascinating play between science, language, and religion that I think is perfectly encapsulated by Dr. Lubelle, representing science, Cecil, representing language, and Huntokar, representing religion. Whether she knows it or not, Dr. Lubelle is directly undoing all of the hard work of Huntokar, and attempting to use Cecil as the most powerful tool at her disposal.

And this works in conjunction with my distinction of the What vs. the Why. We can take the incursion point of November 7th, 1983, and view it through both lenses. From Huntokar’s perspective, we get the Why: Night Vale was in danger, and it needed saving, so she saved it. But from Dr Lubelle’s perspective, we just get the What: Night Vale was the target of a nuclear missile. Nuclear missiles are unstoppable by any force known to science. This is a town that should have been empty for 40 years.

I posit a world in which Dr. Lubelle reduces Night Vale to what it “should be:” A town ruined by nuclear destruction. The empirical facts, the anchors that held Night Vale down to reality, the threads that Huntokar broke-- Dr. Lubelle is seeking to tie them back together. And with the Voice of Night Vale on her side, Explained and ready to share the Truth, of course she can make that happen. Perhaps Huntokar takes center stage again to show that science is not the end-all-be-all. Perhaps Carlos steps in to replace Dr. Lubelle as the Scientist in this equation, to provide a good alternative to her callous methods.

Or I could be totally off-base with that prediction. I imagine the bodies being dug up in the sand wastes and the murals of flesh will play a major role in the finale. Maybe she’ll uncover the splintered realities of Night Vale and won’t know how to explain them away. Hell, people keep hyping up a Desert Bluffs return, what with the Sandstorm tapes and the talk of doubles-- Maybe Kevin and Lauren will be the “religion” in the triumvirate, and drive Dr. Lubelle mad with their unrelenting fervor. Who knows? I have my theories, but I’m just excited to see where this all goes.

.

Also from a meta perspective, this is 100% harkening back to all those early-days fan theories that “Night Vale is a normal town and Cecil is just off his rocker” (Thanks @maxgicalgirl for that one!). Welcome To Night Vale is a show that has never been about continuity and tight lore-- it’s about spinning a fun narrative, it’s about the poetry, the music, the aesthetics; it’s about everything that Dr. Lubelle HATES. From a meta perspective, Dr. Lubelle is every theorist who tries to ruin the magic of a story, who nitpicks it endlessly because it doesn’t adhere to how the “real world” functions. She doesn’t care about why story elements are included, she just needs what’s included to adhere to her worldview. And I can’t wait to see her get taken down, no matter how it happens.

Thanks again to @maxgicalgirl, @lostboywriting, @eclipse-song, and everyone who’s been sharing their thoughts about the latest arc on tumblr. I would not be writing this without y’all!!

#im sorry to everyone who says shes hot but shes basically a colonizer #''im new to your community but your culture is backwards and wrong''#''let me fix it with my superior science and reasoning''#shes so evil i hate her /pos #finknor wrote her so well #and janet varney is an incredible VA #i cannot express how much I love this arc so far #i really hope we get more on the 1983 storyline because that is just positively fascinating #a town that should have died long ago #that should have been reduced to ashes #and yet here they are #lubelle would fucking hate that if she found out #also WHATS GONNA HAPPEN TO EVERYONE WHO GETS EXPLAINED???#cause if cecil is getting explained i dont think itll be permanent #but #ough its just so GOOD #also carlos. my man. where are you. when are you gonna show yourself #when will we get to know your tragic backstory cause there is SOMETHING going on there #i swear she was just trying to get to carlos and the rest of the town was an added bonus #wtnv spoilers #wtnv 227 #wtnv #welcome to night vale #welcome to night vale spoilers #cecil gershwin palmer #dr janet lubelle #uowii #huntokar

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this-is-a-podcast-fanblog · 1 year

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what if “That guy” was Blake Jones. What then.

[ID: a screenshot of the transcript from episode 55 of Welcome to Night Vale: The University of What it Is. The transcript reads, “She shouted that she is from the University of What It Is, and that they have been looking for some time for a faculty member named Carlos, who is a professor of science. He has been missing for decades and they were getting very worried. They had no choice but to hire a new professor of science, but it isn’t going well, because the guy they hired is a new media artist interested in collage as it intersects with social media, and he isn’t even sure what science is. They don’t know why they hired that guy. It had somehow made sense when they did it.” End ID.]

#in my head blake doesn't actually care about or respect science so this tracks #i mean he straight up told carlos that he was his replacement #so the idea that he wasnt even a scientist at all to begin with makes it even worse to carlos #who loves and respects science so much #to be replaced by someone who literally doesnt care and just wants to seem smart #wtnv #the university of what it is #blake jones #janet lubelle

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faultyvessel · 1 year

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Given that we are on the eve of a new episode, I figured I might post my Lubelle design from when I first heard her described in the current arc and absolutely HAD to draw her.

#welcome to night vale #wtnv podcast #wtnv #cecil palmer #carlos the scientist #janet lubelle #wtnv fanart #podcast fanart #fanart #fiction podcast #i know she’s done terrible things but I can’t help but love her #the university of what it is #i crave more suffering

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takavasen · 1 month

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Tumblr dashboard in Night Vale simulator

🧪homo-genius

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