Geektionary

Note: You will notice that The Geektionary occasionally uses first person references in violation of this site's standards and practices. This is the exception that tests the rule. Don't anyone else do this.

Introduction

Like anything else, geeks have their own unique subculture, and Evangelion geeks are no exception. The aim of the Geektionary is to provide a little guide to the incomprehensible geek-culture saturating the entire commentary (the FGC community in particular). People who actually have lives are bound to ask these kinds of questions: “What the heck do all those acronyms stand for? What is this ReDeath they keep on mentioning, or Thumbnail Theatre, for that matter? And what's all that weird Japanese they keep on throwing in? I speak English, goddamit!”

Some terms, like “AMV” and “shipping”, are hardly specific to NGE geekdom, but we will explain their significance to the fandom nonetheless. For explanations of various other Internet geek memes you might see in use (like the omnipresent “n00b”), I recommend Urban Dictionary and Wikipedia.

Acronym Quick-Reference Guide

Acronyms/abbreviations/TLAs are a running joke at the ANF Evangelion forum. Terms from the show quickly become TLA (three-letter acronyms), but then, inevitably, new acronyms need to be invented for any often-referenced idea — and sometimes merely for their own sake. Many of these are self-explanatory, but those marked by asterisks will be further explained in the lexicon section.

2I: Second Impact

3I: Third Impact

AATF: Anti A.T. Field

AEL: Artificial Evolution Laboratory

AMV*: Anime Music Video

ANF*: AnimeNation Forums

ATF: A.T. Field (Absolute Terror Field)

AU*: Alternate Universe

AWL*: Amanda Winn Lee

BIB*: Big Irony Bomb

CE: Contact Experiment

CI: (NGE2) Classified Information

CP: Commentary Page

D&R: Death & Rebirth

ED*: Ending

EGK*: Evil Gekijouban Kyoko

EMF*: Eva Monkey Forums

EMK*: Evil Manga Kaworu

EoE: End of Evangelion

EoTV*: End of TV

EU*: Expanded Universe

FAR*: First Ancestral Race

FGC: (Evangelion) Fan-Geeks Commentary (Project)

FMttM: Fly Me to the Moon

FoK: Fruit of Knowledge

FoL: Fruit of Life

GGNR*: Giant Giant Naked Rei

GNK*: Giant Naked Kaworu

GNR*: Giant Naked Rei

GOS*: Girlfriend of Steel

GOS2*: Girlfriend of Steel 2

GSF*: Genetically Similar Facsimile

HCP: Human Complemention Project (see HIP)

HIP*: Human Instrumentality Project

JA: Jet Alone

JSSDF: Japanese Strategic Self-Defense Force

KFR*: Kentucky Fried Rei

LAEM*: Live Action Evangelion Movie

LCL*: Not what you might think

LnY*: Longinus no Yari

LoL*: Lance of Longinus

LTP*: Literal Translation Project

MGNR: Mini Giant Naked Rei

MP*: Mass Production (Model Evangelion)

MPB*: Metaphysical Biology

N²*: No(n) Nuclear

NGE: Neon Genesis Evangelion

NPC*: New Production Cut

OP*: Opening

P3II*: Pre-3I Instrumentality

RCB*: Red Cross Book

REGK: Really Evil Gekijouban Kyoko (see EGK)

RIAO*: Rei in Appearance Only

RNR*: Regular Naked Rei

S²*: Super Solenoid

SoL*: Source of Life

SDSS: Secret Dead Sea Scrolls

ToL: Tree of Life

UBF*: Über Bitch Fight

Lexicon: A

Addition Drama Track

To save Reichu's phalanges some effort, look here. Then, go here and download the picsub. There is little more to say.

ADV

A veritable empire in the realm of anime localization, which acquired the NGE TV series when the Texas-based company was still young and localized it for western countries*. The English dub they produced remains — as part of the bigger, perpetually futile Dubs vs. Subs debate — an apple of discord within the NGE community. Their pre-Platinum releases were not, like many domestic anime releases of that time, up to par with the expectations of today. While the horrendous picture quality was not their fault, the translations used for both the subtitles and the dub obscured, distorted, or outright erased many of NGE's finer points — thus making deeper understanding of an anime that so heavily utilizes subtlety more unobtainable than would a reliable translation. (And the dub, by the very nature of dubs, exacerbated the problem.) Other strikes against ADV include:

• The promotion of misinformation via the descriptions on the video packages and “supplemental” materials included in their releases.
• Their failure to wait for the Japanese video releases of the final TV episodes, resulting in an unnecessarily long wait for the NPC episodes. (But as an unintended “bonus”, this meant that we did get the original TV cuts of these episodes. ::p)
• The utilization of overlays in the Collection volumes.
• Their decision to release Platinum in such close proximity to the long-delayed release of the “Directors' Cut” episodes. Getting the pre-Renewal NPC episodes locally is still a boon for completists, but this bad commercial decision — “bad” as in “respectibility meter down another point”, not “bad” from the cold and inhuman money-milking POV — was still a peeve for many.
• No need to go on with various other minutiae… Despite the bad timing of Platinum, ADV has largely redeemed themselves with it. See Platinum for more details.
• I'm only certain about the US, UK, and Canada. Not sure about elsewhere, or how releases lacking the ADV label were, or weren't, connected to ADV. Anyone?

Akira

A fanon name for Dr. Katsuragi, coined by Reichu, and sometimes used as a shorthand identifier. Borrowed from Akira Ishida (Kaworu's seiyuu) due to speculation that Kaworu was cloned from Misato's father. That it is buried, in reverse order, in the string "Katsuragi-hakase" (= Dr. Katsuragi) is coincidental.

AMV

Anime Music Videos. A popular pastime of gaijin (i.e., non-Japanese) anime geeks is editing together video from one or many anime to go along with a song. The resultant monster is an AMV, and making these things is an art in and of itself. Evangelion music videos are extremely commonplace, but only a few are truly great; a couple of fan favorites are Kevin Caldwell's Engel and ShonenDizzyCow's Evangelion Opus. Go to [1] for more info (along with tons of shiznat to download).

ANF

AnimeNation Forums, the popular anime-centered forum community of [2]. Over the years, its "Evangelion" subforum has been a great place to talk Evangelion and was, during its Golden Age (possibly starting Summer 2003), arguably the best NGE community on the Internet. It saw the birth of the Commentary Project, and the vast amount of discussion that has been generated there (or by the associated people, in general) acts as the heart and foundation of everything FGC. The "good ol' days" appeared to be officially over towards the end of the prior August 2005, when commentator thewayneiac began to mourn the forum's death. While the forum is not actually dead, a lot of old favorites have either vanished, gone irregular, or become lurkers, but, at least, some of the vets are still around, and enough newbies flow in to keep things from going altogether stagnant.

Angel Tower

The grotesque form that bubbles out of EVA-00's back in episode #23', a conglomeration of Armisael's dead siblings, immediately after Rei's metaphysical interchange with the 16th concludes, and a matter long perplexing fans. Infrequently referenced by its Japanese equivalent, "shito no tou" 使徒の塔. Coined by Reichu.

Angelic Days

See Love Eva.

Anti-shipping

See Shipping.

AWL

Amanda Winn Lee, the dub voice of Rei and ADR director for the English adaptation of the two movies (and unofficially for parts of the TV series). She has earned a harsh reputation among most of us geeks for a number of reasons — most highlighted by her Commentary of Evil. This acronym is particularly useful because, as tv33 put it, “Her true name is too evil to be typed in full.”

Apostle

The literal translation of "shito" 使徒, although "Angel" is used instead as the official English-language counterpart. (See e.g. the OP sequence and computer screens throughout the show.) The term "Angel" creates significant confusion among fans due to the fact that, for the majority of the time, it's used to reference Adam and her offspring (it's "us vs. them" = "humans vs. Angels") -- sometimes implicitly just the latter -- only to have Misato later reveal that "we humans" are the 18th Angel. (And Lilith is, of course, the 2nd, though never directly stated in the show.)

• The entire issue of what "human" and "Angel" actually mean aside, we are left with one other problem: There isn't any term that refers specifically to Adam's children, Angels #3 through #17. As I thought it would lend some long-needed clarity to fan discussion, I proposed the utilization of "Apostle" as the easiest and most straightforward option.

AU

Alternate Universe. This acronym is certainly nothing new, but in NGE fandom it specifically refers to the infamous sequence from episode #26, wherein we get a frightening glimpse of what NGE might have been like were it a teenage school romance/comedy… without Evas or Nerv, and with a Rei who is Rei in appearance only. A lot of people seem to think that this sequence is the pinnacle of the series, but Reichu thinks that said people are all missing the point. This particular AU was elaborated upon in the video game Girlfriend of Steel 2, but… well, look here.

• The live action sequence that was cut from EoE could also be considered AU.

B-C

BIB

Big Irony Bomb. I.e., this.

Bridge Bunnies

The operators of the command center in general, but more specifically Maya, Aoba, and Hyuga. No one seems to remember where the term originated.

Bridge Entity

Coined term used to describe a being who physically spans, in essence, the gap between Adam and Lilith. According to the premises involved: Kaworu is one, resulting from the fusion of Lilim genes into one of Adam's ova, thereby producing a hybrid organism via "immaculate conception". EVA-01 is the other, as, here, suggestions that she is merely a "clone" or "copy" of Lilith are rejected, and instead she is considered a surrogate daughter -- an otherwise normal Eva (i.e., based on the Adam template) generated by Lilith.

Commentary of Evil

A term, popularized by Dr. Nick, that refers to the notorious commentary track spanning Manga Entertainment's two NGE releases (Death & Rebirth and End of Evangelion), featuring the ever-insightful Amanda Winn Lee, Jason C. Lee (her husband and dub voice of Aoba), and Taliesin Jaffe (who does… something or other). While the track has some comedic merit, it is good for little else, packed head-to-toe with misinformation and shameless endorsement of the movies' dub (which even NGE dubbies tend to agree is a disappointment!) and the oftentimes horrifying decisions she made producing it (including this one). Jaffe gets a break because he at least attempted to present some worthwhile material, even if he wasn't 100% on track either (“Samhel”?). For something meant to accompany a very complicated and serious work of art, their commentary is offensively inadequate. Adding insult to injury, of course, is the fact that many of the poor n00bs who listen to it will, not knowing any better, parrot the commentary's BS until set straight by more wisened geeks.

D-E

Duel of the Seeds

Adam on Spear

The theory that the dominance of Lilith-based life on Earth was determined by the outcome of a primordial battle that took place between Lilith and Adam (with the name referring to the battle itself, as well). We know that Lilith is essentially an imposter on Earth, whose Black Moon collided into the planet (= First Impact) after Adam's own arrival, and that, obviously, the "true successors from the lost White Moon" (Adam's offspring) got the short end of the stick. The show contains an image of Adam being exhumed, wherein the tines of the Spear of Longinus are visible emerging from her back -- i.e., she's skewered on it -- and Shin-seiki offered, way back, that Lilith is the one who did the skewering. The concept of a full-fledged duel -- perhaps echoing that between EVA-01 and EVA-02 in #24 -- gained further momentum later, spurred on by glimpses into the NGE2 Classified Information (intimations that every Seed was sent with her own Spear, for example) and various theoretical dabblings. However, once the relevant parts of the CI were fully translated, the only thing that seemed certain was uncertainty.

ED

Ending. I.e., the ending sequence of an anime (you know, the one that has credits and stuff). Genuine anime industry shorthand, BTW.

EGK

Evil Gekijouban* Kyoko(-sama). EGK — which probably resembles a gagging noise on purpose — is the EVA-02 who resulted from a most unfair design overhaul that was somehow deemed necessary for EoE. At best, gekijouban EVA-02 has a slightly modified head design, shrunken pylons, a slight slouch, and the body proportions of a harpy. At worst, the animator of a large number of cuts for the UBF turned her into THIS. :screams in horror:

The latter is so completely abominable, it merits a new acronym: REGK (REALLY Evil Gekijouban Kyoko). What's really strange is that Takeshi Honda did the cited illustration of REGK, along with an illo for the Reprise of Evangelion CD where EVA-02 has the same frelled-up head design. Is he the one responsible for those dodgily-drawn cuts in #25′?!?

• For those not in the know, gekijouban means “theatrical edition” and is generally used in reference to, well, a theatrical adaptation of something that wasn't theatrical to start with — sort of like saying “<title>: The Movie” or “<title>: The Motion Picture”. With regards to NGE, it refers to both D&R and EoE — but, here, we specifically mean EoE, since it's, you know, the NGE movie.

EMF

Eva Monkey Forums. Although an "Eva"-exclusive forum with Reichu as a mod (always a good thing, right? …right?) and notable member overlap with ANF, it doesn't see as much activity and suffers from some problems, like frequent downtime (due to some unfortunate technicality), a rather fragmented layout, and an emoticon selection that stinks like a Vogon's armpit. On the plus side, you can actually use curse words and mention things like Amazon and E-bay, and there is no thread culling!

• EMF is currently down, and the latest word from EM himself is that it might not be back.

EMK

Evil Manga Kaworu. Sadamoto's Kaworu is a stalker who kills kittens, and the gentle, elegant Kaworu of the anime isn't; ergo, the manga Kaworu is Evil. Well, it's a popular fan sentiment, anyway (and requires an acronym for easy reference, which was provided by Magami No ER). The "kitten-killing" part inevitably inspired some unknown individual to weave a spin-off on a certain infamous meme involving kittens, Domo-kun, and God, which is: "Every time you masturbate, Kaworu kills a kitten". Although some continue to extract endless entertainment from Kaworu's autosex-inspired felinocide, others wish it would just go away. However, Evil Manga Kaworu has reportedly said, "This meme is destined to live forever, even though it may result in the destruction of the human race." While this comment seems contradictory at first -- as the continued existence of the joke results in the death of kittens and not humans -- there is perhaps some truth to it.

EoTV

End of TV. Specifically, this refers to episodes #25 and #26 as the counterpart of EoE episodes #25′ and #26′. An exceptionally useful acronym.

EU

Expanded Universe. This idea is quite familiar to the geek: The universe of a franchise is “fleshed out” with apocryphal media (books, video games, collectible card games, etc.) that satisfies the fans' collective lust for MORE!!!, while having the nice bonus of putting lots of dough into the pockets of a select few. NGE is no exception, of course, and its EU includes such wondrous [/sarcasm] things as the original Sega Saturn, Second Impression, and Girlfriend of Steel video/computer games and the Evangelion RPG. These items aren't canonical by any means, but they provide new characters like Mana Kirishima and Mayumi Yamagishi (i.e., alternate side dishes for fapboys), various new Angels, and kickass mecha like the Toyota T-RIDEN-T Land Cruiser.

"Every time you masturbate, Kaworu kills a kitten."

See EMK.

F

F Type Equipment

We hear about B and D Type Equipment in the series. A and C are never mentioned, and, when it came time to fabricate a merchandising gimmick for the NGE2 game, they skipped straight to F. The F Type Equipment is ungainly magenta-and-orange-colored armor that is dumped right on top of EVA-01's normal purple getup. Not only does it look like it would impede her movement in general, it also, incomprehensibly, places a pylon right in front of the Eva's face… @_@ Fortunately, Yamashita — who was given the task of designing the thing — was well aware of the problematic nature of the F Type Equipment's concept (see the January 2004 issue of Newtype USA for further details), so he can be forgiven for this monstrosity. (Well, except for that one pylon, anyway.) Reichu is convinced that the “F” stands for “Fugly”.

Fan-Geek

See Geek.

FAR

First Ancestral Race (Dai'ichi Shisho Minzoku). NGE's mysterious "behind-the-scenes" players: An ancient, humanoid species endowed with extraordinary technology, which they used to send "Seeds of Life" throughout the galaxy. This was for the purpose of populating other planets with life -- namely, forms of human life. Their presence in the show is a shadowy one indeed, with the initial sounding alert of their existence being the "clearly artificial" and "nearly identical" structures of the White Moon of Adam and the Black Moon of Lilith, and the pre-excavated state of the latter's Geofront. The NGE2 Classified Information provides the "FAR" appellation and much more detailed information. It seems likely that Adam (and the Evas by extent) was created in their own image.

Food Court

A site famous for its doctored images hilariously parodying late 90's pop-culture … AND anime. A critical source of fan humor, especially for us NGE folks, with such marvels as “Who Killed Kaji?” and “There's Something About Misato”. Its (former) URL — foodcourt.cyril.com — implies that Patrick Budmar (of Revelations: The Savior Anthology infamy, one of Dr. Nick's favorite bitching grounds) is the unknown genius behind this thing… but try to purge the thought from your cranial circuits and just laugh instead.

Well, I guess you would need to get ahold of the images first… In what was a devastating tragedy for fans everywhere, the site vanished at one point, only to magically reappear out of the Dirac Sea later -- and then vanish yet again (circa Late Summer 2005)! At least THIS time, I was able to save every last bit of goodiness from the site onto my HD. Here are the NGE (and Gunbuster, just because) ones — about 6 megs, so use GetRight, you bandwidth t'eif! HOWEVER, if'n you want the rest, you'll have to try your luck with the Wayback Machine.

Fuzzy Logic

This pun on the algebraic term is an endearing reference to our old friend Fuzzy Chickens (see Troll), whose thought processes were oftentimes frustratingly — and famously — unfathomable: in other words, “fuzzy” (definition 4). An example of "Fuzzy Logic": Fuzzy claimed to disbelieve that Rei had Lilith's soul. When it was pointed out to him that Kaworu said to Rei, "We have both taken the Lilim's form on this planet," Fuzzy replied, "So what? So has everyone else."!!!

G

Geek

Here this term is used in an entirely neutral way, implying no more than (to borrow from Wikipedia) "a person with a devotion to something in a way that places him or her outside the mainstream. This could be due to the intensity, depth, or subject of their interest." A "fan-geek" is simply a gender neutral variation upon "fanboy" or "fangirl" -- but, again, has only neutral connotations at FGC.

Gender

This entry is kinda long, so I'm giving it its own page. (Warning: Said page is, like some other things on a this site, a rather out-dated relic which will be replaced with much better things soon enough.)

GGNR

Giant Giant Naked Rei, in case we need to differentiate between the smaller GNR of pre-3I and the much, much larger one that emerges to conduct the Instrumentality process.

GNK

Giant Naked Kaworu. The counterpart of Giant Naked Rei: the gargantuan, nude, and sexually androgynous Kaworu that briefly appears in EoE to calm poor Shinji's overtaxed senses (and do other mysterious things). While this acronym seems blindingly obvious in retrospect, HeWhoPostsStuff was the first one to put it to use.

GNR

Giant Naked Rei. One of the most beloved acronyms, and also one of the most useful. This refers to the giant Rei from End of Evangelion, produced by the conglomeration of Rei 3, Adam, and Lilith (eventually sucking up the Tree of Life -- EVA-01 and the Spear of Longinus -- for good measure). Sadly, no one knows where this acronym originally came from.

GOS

Girlfriend of Steel* (from Koutetsu no Girlfriend 鋼鉄のガールフレンド). An EU side story/dating sim released for the Sega Saturn and PC back in 1998, placed at around the end of the Action Arc (after #13, perhaps?). It is lent some “authenticity” by the fact that actual anime staff did work on it: Sadamoto and Yamashita contributed new character and mecha designs, the seiyuu reprised their character roles, it was illustrated by animators from the show, and so on. However, “playing” it is akin to sitting through a couple-hour-long fan-fiction presented in Flash format — albeit a Flash with almost no actual animation to speak of, the game instead resorting to cut-out characters moving around (think motion tweens) on painted backgrounds, if they move at all. Likewise, there is virtually no interactivity at all, but, apparently, sitting through these “A/V novels” is par for the course among Japanese gamers.

Suffering through GOS should be considered a rite of passage for NGE geeks, so I'll keep the synopsis short and spoiler-free. Essentially, GOS revolves around a new character named Mana Kirishima (who continues the NGE tradition and has a surname taken from a WW2 naval vessel), who shows up as a transfer student in Class 2-A. She's a nauseatingly cute, genki schoolgirl (voiced by Megumi Hayashibara) who immediately begins hitting on Shinji — since, you know, Shinji is 100% babe magnet and all. But, oh, what a dark secret she holds! Could it possibly have anything to do with that giant robot (the T-RIDEN-T Land Cruiser) that's prowling around Tokyo-3 at night? Or that hospitalized kid who drove his mecha off a waterfall? Or the really weird way Shinji's superiors at Nerv are acting? This couldn't be some kind of conspiracy, could it?!? Further questions abound! Will Asuka succeed in keeping her Baka-Shinji away from that Mana tramp? More importantly, will Rei actually get more than three lines of dialogue?? Get ahold of the fan-translated PC version if you just have to know!

The game has also spawned a beefed-up PS2 version released in March 2006, with the complimentary titles "Girlfriend of Steel Special Edition" (Koutetsu no Girlfriend Tokubetsuhen) and "Iron Maiden: Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring". Apparently it has new scenarios, voices, animations, and even a new mecha designed by Yamashita-san (thanks for the tidbits, AA), but not much else is known right now.

• The official English title is actually “Iron Maiden”, but very few Westerners actually call it that, presumably because of the band by the same name. Shame — considering what an “Iron Maiden” is, the title is all-too-appropriate… (The title of a certain Iron Maiden song is also strangely applicable.)

*GOS2

Girlfriend of Steel 2 (as it is called among Westerners, even though the official English title is Iron Maiden 2nd). A sequel to GOS in spirit only: The only things this game really has in common with its predecessor are the dating sim premise (with much more dating this time around) and the basic gameplay engine. To avoid unnecessary work on my part, just check out my Walkthrough, which has a Q'n'A section at the beginning.

See also Love Eva.

-gouki -号機 The Japanese way of saying “Unit # <so and so>”, usually in reference to pieces of machinery and other artificial constructs (like the Pokémon Porygon). This suffix is used in conjunction with the Evas' individual designations in spoken Japanese: So, even though a certain purple-clad Evangelion might have “EVA 01” written in big green letters on her arms and be referred to as “EVA-01” on computer monitors throughout the show, everyone speaking Japanese will instead call her “Shogouki” (with the sho meaning “first” and not “one”, for some incomprehensible reason; it's a -gouki tradition not limited to NGE). Of course, ADV/Manga's localizations do NOT use the “EVA-##” setup presented as the English equivalent for “-gouki” and instead just do a literal translation, resulting in “Unit” this and “Unit” that.

Due to some strange personality quirk, I hate to see Evas being called “units”. (It's probably Butt-head's fault.) Then… in translation, the tradition of substituting “#-gouki” with “EVA-##” poses certain problems when the “#-gouki” is preceded by “Eva” or “Evangelion”. In those instances, you will see in the FGC scripts that I do, in fact, resort to that horrible “U” word after all. Thus, “Eva Shogouki” becomes "Eva Unit 01".

To the point, despite the fact that Shogouki, Nigouki, etc., are terms that essentially treat the Evas like pieces like machinery, I got into the habit of using them on forums because (A) they sound cool when pronounced correctly (hint: ou is a long “o”, like in … grope), and (B) having them as alternatives to the usual monikers spices up NGE conversation. As with many things, this habit eventually began to catch on, and -gouki mysteriously started showing up in other people's posts… Anyway, here's the run-down so you can use these appellations yourself. Japanese (kanji) Japanese (romaji) English Equivalent 零号機 Zerogouki EVA-00 (Unit 00) 初号機 Shogouki EVA-01 (Unit 01) 弐号機 Nigouki EVA-02 (Unit 02) ３号機 (or 参号機) Sangouki EVA-03 (Unit 03) ４号機 Yongouki EVA-04 (Unit 04) ５号機 (or 伍号機)、６号機、７号機、８号機、９号機、１０号機、１１号機、１２号機、１３号機 Gogouki, Rokugouki, Nanagouki, Hachigouki, Kyuugouki, Juugouki, Juuichigouki, Juunigouki, Juusangouki EVA-05, etc. (Unit 05, etc.) Ultimately, these monikers are okay, because one can simply change the kanji and turn them into names without any mechanical connotations whatsoever! Take -gouki for example… If you form it with the kanji 強鬼, it means “strong oni”! (Or something like that. It's apparently a real kanji compound.) </lame justifier>

Greenfield, Matt

The president of the ADV Empire, husband of Tiffany Grant (VA of dub-Asuka), and a figure of some notoriety amongst many NGE geeks — primarily owing to his tendency to talk pretentiously about aspects of the show he knows very little about.

GSF

Archaic. Genetically Similar Facsimile. Created by tv33 as a replacement for the term “clone” in reference to the relationship between the Evas and Adam, due to my consistent bitching about how the Evas cannot be “clones” of anything considering the physical variation they exhibit amongst themselves. GSF ends up being an oxymoron, though, since ”facsimile” is essentially synonymous with “clone” — which sorta defeats the ”genetically similiar [but not quite the same]” part.

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