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11 Apr 2019
Seasonal Spotlights: Winter 2019
Seasonal Spotlights: Winter 2019
The wind's blowing warmer and the sun's feeling nicer, but we still have some cool beatmaps from the winter to show off! Come take a look at our selection of mapsets from last season, and earn a fancy new medal for yourself by playing them all!
The beatmap charts for the Winter Spotlights can be found here. Their respective packs are available at the Beatmap Pack Listing for easier access. The Winter 2019 Spotlights rankings will end on the 25th of June, 2019.
Autumn Spotlights results
First of all, congratulations to the winners of the Seasonal Spotlights: Autumn 2018. They will receive 3, 2, and 1 months of supporter for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place respectively for their efforts!
Winter 2019 Spotlights
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osu!
Despite hip-hop being a relatively rare genre in osu!, UndeadCapulet set out to map Drake’s “Nice For What” in his unique style. The map uses lots of careful object placements and repetition to isolate unique changes in the song. From the quiet beginning to the intense chorus, UndeadCapulet has the player's cursor at their fingertips and the song in their grasp.
UndeadCapulet's perseverance, despite all the backlash they received, proves to everyone what their style is nice for. The other half of the set by Aeril also adds a similar flavour to the song with their style. These mappers unified to make this song nice for people at every skill level.
Once again we see celerih in Spotlights, but this time he captures the wild essence of Gekidan Record and Nekomata Master’s Houkou Orpheus perfectly with spaced bursts, captivating 1/6 rhythms and exciting doubles. With outstanding guest difficulties by felys and Icekalt, this short but rhythmically faithful beatmap is really on another level and something that should absolutely not be overlooked.
Pairing the dynamic "Sleepless Days" by Nekomata Master with a map just as dynamic, den0saur makes another nice entry to spotlights. The varying arranges have you speed up and slow down smoothly, creating a flowing experience that stays close to the song. Even though hard to notice, all this was done while mapping the song backwards! Definitely don't limit yourself to playing only one difficulty. Every guest mapper offers their own unique twist on the same ideas, none of them are worth missing out on.
Don't stay up late while playing this mapset, or you might experience some sleepless days!
appleeaterx has always been an amazing mapper with their simple but effective maps. "Amsterdam" shows how much apple is still improving at mapping. The map has a more Russian inspired taste to it, using anti-jumps and a heavy abuse of slider leniency. However, any apple fan can still see that it's his unique style that we all fall in love with. Don't take this map lightly either, with the high OD and HP values, it becomes a challenge in itself.
wa_ makes a return to the ranked section with their amazing set of "Colors sasakure.UK Futurelogic Remix" by dj TAKA. This map will really test your skills with spaced streams, stream jumps, and 1/4 jumps! It's also a massive feat to see 1 mapper mapping all the difficulties in a 4 minute song. Overall, this is a very high effort set that you'll be feeling blue when you play it!
Not afraid to accentuate even the tiniest of changes in the song, cRyo[iceeicee] & co. delivers a bombastic take on Reol's song Saisaki. The shift between technical styled mapping for the EDM aspects of the song to the careful arrangements in the melody focused instrumentals and passionately delivered vocals this whole set will not fail to deliver an exhilarating experience.
Each map is in itself tied together gracefully enriching the song taking it to greater heights, and with a generous spread of difficulty the set is giving every player a change to to enjoy this masterpiece!
Smokeman has always been a master of capturing the beauty in the songs he maps. His rendition of "Kyoumen no Nami [Orchestra Ver.] is no different. The map perfectly matches the very serene parts of the song with low density and low slider velocity. Then explodes with a quicker slider velocity and more difficult movements in the chorus which truly make the map shine.
Don't forget to look at the wondrous storyboard made by LowAccuracySS & Darky1!
This collab between Icekalt and Mao on Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" is impressive in multiple ways. From the way it uses its movement to reflect certain sections which make them really stand out, to the timing by pimp which was also impressive in multiple ways. The large amount of contrast in intensity between the more intense sections and the slower sections also massively play to its advantage as it gives every speedup a massive impact when played. All in all a worthy map for a song with this legendary of a status.
Loneight is back in spotlights! This time they brought their map of Yonezu Kenshi's "Lemon". Loneight uses a unique combination of spacing and slider velocity that displays a lot of control and makes the map feel exactly how it looks. Loneight takes you through this swing-beat song on an emotional journey: meticulous through the calmer sections; open and expressive on the choruses.
And if you are introducing any friends to the game, this Normal diff is able to take the same emotion from the top diff and apply it for newer players. This set is for everyone!
It is not often that we see a lot of artcore mapsets, especially ones that boast as many difficulties as Ryuusei Aika's set of "Catanoph" by An. All of the five expert difficulties available (including two that were in the most renowned tournaments in the game; osu! World Championship and Corsace) are of high quality and showcase the mappers' uniqueness and different mapping styles adequately. Because of that, one of the pros of this mapset is that there's something for everyone. Don't get fooled by the star rating however, or you may be in for a surprise!
Myxomatosis put his spin on Radiohead's "My Iron Lung", an alternative rock classic which finally has it's chance to see the light of day on osu. Myxo uses challenging yet intuitive movement concepts making the map exciting till the end and players yearning for more!
rrtyui brings us a new test of skill on "Gin no Kaze" by wa. remixed celas, sparking a new life into the ideas of Fear's version. As the song slowly reveals itself, the map follows suit to prepare the player for its climax. There, the small circle size is pushed to its limits with an incessant series of unusually precise slider motions.
Even though hard, this map is also subtle. Combining clever mapping decisions worthy of an essay, rrtyui shows that they have a deep understanding of all layers in mapping. Those who need to improve a bit more to take on the highest difficulty can definitely find a similar challenge in Uberzolik's another.
Staying true to the chiptune-y video game style of Camellia's First Town Of This Journey, jungkyuyoung plasters densely syncopated slider patterning on a beautifully scenic 8-bit background he drew himself. Every difficulty, featuring guest mappers Milan-, Sing, and Delis, follows similar conventions, using sliderstreams and overlaid sliders to give the entire mapset a cohesive motif culminating in a spectacular interpretation through jungkyuyoung's [Adventure] difficulty.
The map itself follows its own journey, beginning with highly grid-oriented patterning that slowly diverges from these constraints in a magnificent climax rich with sliderstreams and velocity changes and finally reverts back its more structured composition as the music also returns home. Find yourself grooving along to this bright, upbeat tune as you embark on your personal journey through this mapset.
Not only is Loneight back into Spotlights once but even twice! With their latest set in the ranked section "Suki no Skill" by Wake UP, Girls!, they were again able to create another great game-play experience. This time they collaborated most of the set with ArThasCD, also known as assassincread. Both show their ability to use movement in a very smooth but also challenging way which is especially hard to do on low-bpm.
Another highlight of the set is definitely the high effort hitsounding which adds a great hit-feedback for an even better game-play experience. If you can not play the top difficulty, the insane gives out an equal smooth atmosphere so its worth on checking them both out.
KKipalt perfectly captures the intensity of EDEN's Icarus with exciting bursts and captivating rhythms which makes playing the slow parts completely worth it. As a person with such a small attention span it's not common that I stick around for an entire 6 min map let alone a slow one.
HYPERDRIVE, hypercyte's first spotlighted map, marks a departure from his usual anime TV size sets. Featuring a dynamic and creative storyboard set to an energetic electronic melody, HYPERDRIVE takes the player on a voyage into the galaxy and beyond. Dive into the HYPERNOVA difficulty and experience engaging jumps, intricate slider patterns and well-thought-out designs sure to express the song to its fullest. For all you aspiring spaceship pilots out there, be sure to take a look at the lower difficulties made by Peter and Dashyy-, as well as hypercyte's own Easy difficulty.
AIR has been steadily catching more and more mappers' eyes since last year with their uniquely designed, yet very fun maps. This time around, their "Nageki no Refrain" marathon isn't here to disappoint! From the irregular slider shapes, to the continuous spacing changes, to the varied usage of angles, all while still expressing the song greatly, make players who are looking for something different than your average map be in for a treat!
Realazy sneaks into the listing with his rendition of Camellia's "Stealth Dash". Keeping up the tradition of Camellia mapping, this map offers a heap of different challenges for the player to overcome. You're not allowed to drop your guard as the map rapidly switches between slider velocities, stream designs, 1/4 spacings, rhythms and snappings to fit every layer of the song.
Don't be fooled into thinking that Mir's difficulty is any easier, they return from the metaphorical shadows to show that they can still keep the best of the best players on their toes.
Len strikes back in the ranked section, with his large mapset of the extended version of "Chirality" by none other than Camellia. Boasting ten difficulties in total, this set succeeds in catering to all skill levels. The expert difficulties are not to be underestimated however, since the mappers go all out in expressing the song to the extent of their abilities, and succeed in keeping the player on their toes the whole time because of the song's variety.
osu!taiko
A great map by a great mapper, Nardoxyribonucleic tops this season's Spotlights with his set to penoreri's Preserved Valkyria - with help of aabc271.
All difficulties of this beatmap set are brilliant, but the highest difficulty clearly stands out with its handling of the song. From the intro, to the tricky BPM increase, to the very well-made streams, this map stays at high quality throughout and is a blast to play. You'll be missing out if you don't play this map, so I advise you to do that now. After reading also downloading the next maps, of course.
Coming in on a close 2nd place this season, we have "Heterochromia Iridis" by DakeDekaane, both a song and a mapper one may consider "oldschool". A relatively old map, and for sure one that did a great job!
In this rather wild Coalenscent Breakcore song by FOLiACETATE (who's actually an alias of LeaF), the mapper manages to carefully arrange patterns in each difficulty to create a good sounding mapset across the board which maintains the core elements of the song, a fairly difficult task with how chaotic the song can be. Along with that each difficulty is fairly challenging for its respective level, but still fair. A really nice trait, as it helps players progress from one level to the next!
What's most impressive about this set though is the Inner Oni. In this difficulty the mapper takes everything the song has to offer within reason and packs it together into a relentless challenge with lots of 1/6 and general patterning that goes along with the song perfectly while being damn fun to play! With this set, DakeDekaane shows that maps can still be really pleasant, fun and challenging without any slider velocity changes, and with a set as good as this it sure has taken a well deserved spot on the top of this season's spotlights!
German osu!taiko mapper bias, ho!
Okay, not really. Greenshell's Nemesis features a great mix of minor slider velocity changes, finisher notes and complex streams, fittingly to the pitch of the piano streams in the song. Not only does this sound great, it plays well, too! The lower difficulties also do their job well, and are assisted by -Leafeon.
Overall this set is just fun and a nice addition to this season's Spotlights.
From early winter, komasy's high quality osu!taiko mapset of SDVX III's medley of all themes from "Touhou Youyoumu ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom" arrived to the ranked section, and quickly became a top favorite for a lot of players, and of course, for us too.
With a wide range of 6 difficulties, from an intermediate Kantan to a very challenging top difficulty, komasy's 21st ranked mapset shows its creator excellence at mapping, not only because of the vast difficulties present in the mapset, but also because of the diversity of styles a mapper needs to know in order to achieve a map like this due to the nature of this medley.
Touhou Youyoumu ULTIMATE MEDLEY is a track that features a lot of diverse Electronic music subgenres in a short amount of time, such as Psytrance or Speedcore, which komasy's mapping has translated neatly to the osu!taiko playfield through playability focused but interesting patterns that match the rhythmic complexity in the music perfectly, for both stamina and technical oriented players.
Great music, great mapper... A mapset for everyone.
If you are a fan of hype-overflowing maps, this is your map then, every section of the map is a new sensation!
From the creator of multiple breakcore charts as well as a multi-variety of most peculiar genres, -Kazu- shows up in Winter Spotlights with his interpretation of Cranky's "Feline, The White...". Kazu went for a more unconventional approach this time around, though! He gave the creation a distinct purpose, a concept. Every bit of this beatmap can be correlated to a set of concepts, which is helped and represented by the song's pacing. Does it have upbeat jazz? Then give it high slider velocity! Does it have classic breakbeats? Then repeat the background pattern! So on and so forth.
It does not end here, though. The beatmap itself is challenging on its own! Apart from the concept mapping, Kazu also made sure to squeeze every element of the music as much as possible, resulting in several mixed snaps (it's still breakcore) that will keep all players on their toes!
All in all, for the sheer capacity of interpretation, the outstanding musical ear the mapper shows with this creation, and the beatmap itself being also incredibly fun to play, Feline, The White... earns its spot on these seasonal Spotlights very fairly!
Britland makes the spotlight this season, as Grimbow proudly represents them with his map of a remix of Knife Party's "Give It Up." While the song should poise some headbanging from each and every player, the map offers an experience that expert-level players will come to enjoy no matter how much they play it!
Featuring some stunning and visually pleasing scroll speed changes from Nofool and Lno, this map is an improvisational masterpiece, shifting from 1/4 based rhythms to headbanging 1/3 in the kiais. Along with maintaining a consistent flow and consistency across each and every section of the map, Grimbow even manages to sprinkle some 1/8 and 1/6 patterns in the song to really bring out the WUBWUB of the song.
One thing is for sure: I certainly do not want to give this map up!
Crashing into this season's spotlights is Sansheng with an energetic map to Camellia's Fastest Crash (remixed by Camellia!?), featuring a high amount of slider velocity changes, bundled with the typical mixed-snap patterns you can find in Camellia songs of this sort.
This map is a great test of diverse skill, challenging both technical skill as well as speed and reading. Being well mapped while still having such a huge variety means it definitely deserves a spot in these spotlights.
What's your favorite type of tea? The honest tea? If so, this map delivers just that!
On a different note though and memes aside, this fairly popular song amongst the osu!standard community has found its footing in the ranked section of Taiko now, and boy did Volta do a good job with this one!
This map does amazingly at emphasizing all the different sections of the song all the way through, with impeccable guitar mapping that gets progressively more difficult with each repetition, the verses doing something similar, the solo being about perfect in terms of showing how the guitar goes, but most importantly, the signature kiai with outstanding vocal mapping, creating one of the very few maps in the ranked section to feature monostreams of this length!
This map is a great test to your stamina and consistency, and likely a fair challenge to everyone capable of playing this on Double Time! All in all, Volta made a really enjoyable honest tea that deserves its spot in here very well!
There are some mappers that don't aim a lot of their content to the ranked section, but when they do, they never cease to amaze us with fresh innovative content. Of course one of them is Fallmorph! The mapper who amazed us with Enantiomorphs three seasons ago, has come back with a new mind-blowing Marathon map, making an amazing mapping rendition to Impulse, a futuristic sounding drumstep track by osu!'s Featured Artist, Culprate.
This map is absolutely worth of being called official content, since it includes high effort mapping skills such as amazing control of contrast between sections, climatic tension, advanced slider velocity changes and hitsounding, the latter being absent of most osu!taiko beatmaps.
Impulse is a dreamy journey through a futuristic utopia, with calm, high spaced notes falling into interesting drum beats, playing a lot with rhythm variance and clever usage of drumrolls, beautifully executed along with synth hitsounded big note ornaments.
1/3? 1/4? 1/6? 1/8? This map features them all! As we go deeper into this atmosphere of textures, we find ourselves falling progressively into a more difficult, technical style of mapping: The track goes on, but it doesn't get any boring, it just gets better and better...
Saying any more about this map could be considered an spoiler, so how about you give it a try? Trust us, it won't disappoint you!
This beatmap by Alchyr is completed as a single story. It begins with the first silent scene following the quiet melody. after that, the story changes dramatically, just like a powerful storm of finishers and spinners. The visual difficulty of finishers further enhances it. Then the storm turns into something like 1/6 arrows, and we can easily experience how difficult handswaping is.
After a long break, you can see a very impressive part making use of tremendous density changes. In the end, the story finally finishes with the perfect part summarizing all its concepts. The great attractive thing about this story is that it is not boring but inversely enjoyable despite repeating the same pattern, of course because of the perfection of mapping.
まさしく，一つの物語として成す譜面です．まず，物語は静寂たる音色とそれに合った静けさに始まります．束の間，まるで大音符とスピナーの嵐かのように劇的に物語は変化します．大音符の視認性は拍車をかかけます．そして嵐は1/6の矢へと移り変わり，逆手の極みを篤と見せつけてくるのです．長い静寂を挟み，強烈な密度変化を取り入れた，凄まじく印象的な場面が広がると，最後はこれまでのすべてのコンセプトを合わせた場面によって物語は終焉を迎えます．同じ配置を繰り返しているようで，つまらぬどころか面白い，それはもちろん，譜面制作の極致に至るこの譜面の持つ趣のまさに一つと言えましょう．
osu!catch
From the victors of UCMC 2, JBHyperion and Sorcerer’s collab rendition of lapix’s "Good Time" will give you a damn good time while playing as the two mappers’ styles blend cohesively together. Featuring a low bpm, high rhythm density, and tough dashing, this set will keep you on your toes for the majority of the song’s five minutes.
Bringing a more unconventional style to the table, alienflybot’s mapset EDEN used uncommon patterns such as frequent edge dashes, high ratio of circles to sliders, and low approach rate to create a unique challenge for players looking for something different and memorable.
In addition, Ascendance’s difficulty is a more conventional approach to mapping a song like this and makes a solid addition to complete the set.
As one of the top players in osu!catch, Rocma has been trying to map technical maps for top players for long time. Although Brionac is his first ranked map, the quality of the map proves that he is also a good mapper with the ability to create a whole set. The top diff may have a lower star rating comparing to other maps, but the anti-flow 1/4 streams are still pretty hard to deal with even if you are a top player.
Besides the patterns, Rocma also showcases his outstanding hitsounding skills by using several hitsounding sets. The map is for all players from catch newbies to masters, try to find out your ability while enjoying the set!
Egoism 440 showcases a variety of patterns different mappers use hosted by Ascendance. Specifically, the usage of the patterns in the difficulties Challenge and Double Challenge show how a "Challenge" map in osu!catch can be similar yet so different. If you aren't experienced enough to try those two difficulties, don't worry; all difficulties provide a challenge through unique patterns often unseen in other ranked maps.
osu!mania
_Kobii strikes again with another long note-based kamome sano mapset! The top difficulty, Sweet Drop, utilizes an interesting concept where intensity of the musical instruments assigned to the long notes is mirrored with the gaps between the long notes, as can be seen multiple times. The difficulty is balanced throughout in terms of density while also representing the music in a very consistent and straightforward yet unique fashion. Not only that, but this difficulty does not have very much strain and discomfort in the long note-heavy sections, and has very sparing use of minijacks, which makes it very player-friendly.
The top difficulty is accompanied with a nice spread catering to players that fall under a wide range of skill. Guest mappers KeppSado, VianK, and Unpredictable all demonstrate their own approach to the song, with all three of the difficulties somewhat challenging the norms of ranked difficulties in their respective star ratings.
With that said, however, the set remains quite accessible to beginner players and up, and helps to be another set in ranked that encourages lower level players to delve more into long note maps!
Tofu1222 presents another mapset in the ranked section featuring Unpredictable, FAMoss, juankristal, and qqqant with their guest difficulties! This mapset brings a variety of flavor in terms of patterns as well as a great song from lapix. Each difficulty brings in a new feel and skill to the map, yet interprets the song clearly in their own way.
Unpredictable brings satisfaction to the players with his difficulty by being comfortable to play. Not only that, there are details Unpredictable includes within the chart that should not go away unnoticed. The hard difficulty may bring some challenges as FAMoss orients his difficulty with some jacks. While certainly being a challenging skill, it brings a completely different taste from the normal difficulty from Unpredictable.
Tofu1222's and juankristal's bases their difficulties on long notes; something interesting to be in the ranked section! Tofu's difficulty does have some challenges, but they are comfortable to play as the flow is very well executed throughout. Juan's difficulty is rather challenging to the majority of players as there are many tricky holds which you do not often see! The long notes on these two difficulties may seem random, but they all fit perfectly when playing with the song and definitely makes you want to earn a better score.
qqqant fine tunes her difficulty with chord allocation while also accompanied with jacks and bursts. These patterns are rather difficult, but the map is consistent and appeals to the speedy players.
All of these difficulties give a new flair and should definitely be worth a play!
Welcome to Hydria's party! Combining a lovely upbeat song choice with diverse and enjoyable patterning, Kero Kero Bonito's "My Party (bo en Remix)" proves to be a wholesome celebration that many types of partygoers can enjoy.
Hydria starts the night out with vocal long notes layering to bring out the calm nature of the slower parts of the song in a way that's pleasant yet somewhat challenging. As the party gets more energetic make sure to watch out for intense technical gluts that will challenge players' ability to handle 160 bpm jacks.
But fear not! Even though the party alternates between these two themes prepare to end on a cheerful note! Before you go, you'll have a lovely time experiencing light yet smooth and thoughtful long note patterning to emphasize various sound effects.
-MysticEyes' second mapset in ranked, Quaoar is a thrilling long note-filled adventure in every difficulty. With beautiful flowing long notes that expressively follow the equally beautiful track, the top difficulty, Celestial, captures the balance between a singing melody in the piano and intense drum beats and synths, using a combination of long notes with varying lengths and complex speed-based patterns and minijacks. The map is both wonderful in expressing the music and an amazing challenge for many players, with its intricate and complex long note patterns and sprinkled minijacks and bursts.
The lower difficulties do not disappoint, either. Like the top difficulty, they are consistent in representing certain sounds, and are still quite expressive in their representations. Not to mention, the middle difficulty, Ethereal (Insane), is insanely fun for players getting into long note maps and the like. Overall, this clean and beautiful mapset is enjoyed by many and deserves its spot in this season's Spotlights!
A well-known mapper in multiple rhythm game communities, LeiN- reappears in the ranked section with a fun, stamina-filled map that is able to capture the intensity of the entire song with consistent longjacks and anchors, known to be some of the most challenging patterns to play well. Like many of his other maps, LeiN- demonstrates here that the usage of repetitive cycles, when musically justified, is acceptable and should be encouraged more in the ranked section.
Though both difficulties appear to be very close in star rating, this is very misleading; the higher difficulty has a significantly more intense usage of longjacks. Overall, this set is very well done, clean, and honestly a work of art.
Creating perhaps the most unique jumpstream map in osu!mania's ranked section, Toaph Daddy maximized the musical potential of Round Wave Crusher's "Slash Dot Slash" in a 5:33 difficulty sure to pique the interest of any player looking to challenge their stamina.
Despite the harsh yet minimalist nature of the song, the map uses stack-based jumpstreams to emphasize held guitar notes and repeated 1/2 instruments, trills for repeated 1/4 instruments, and 1/4 long notes to bring out higher pitched synths to take advantage of every musical phrase. By utilizing repetition, these concepts combine to create air-tight consistency that ensures that pattern significance and musical relevancy is kept throughout the entire map in a way that is difficult yet extremely exciting for players.
All in all the map provides an unorthodox approach to jumpstreams that will hopefully inspire future mappers interested in pushing the envelope on jumpstream patterning in the ranked section!
His first mapset in the ranked section, Dergo throws a giant surprise with some of the most unique qualities in a mapset you could see in ranked. Though succducc is somewhat well known in standard, this particular track is not very well known. The choices that were taken into mapping are unusually spectacular - the first half of the song being one large buildup is represented well through pattern complexity, and the kiai's usage of jacks, bursts, and trills is not something normally seen in ranked.
The balance in this map between serenity and chaos perfectly represents the music it accompanies. For this reason, the mapset has a clearly well-deserved spot in the spotlights, and we will definitely expect more from Dergo in the future.
Are you ready for the ruffneck bass? As a skillful osu!mania mapper and Beatmap Nominator who brought the ranked section with a few delicate 4K spreads in the past, _Stan this time returns with an unexpected 7K marathon of this exciting piece of electronic music, DJ Noriken - #The_Relentless(Modified), that testifies to his deep understanding of 7K mapping as well.
This marathon is mostly composed of normal notes, but in a way that fully convey every single line of music, making it actually more interesting and beginner-friendly. However, it is challenging at the same time, since _Stan creates it in a way that gradually poses more difficulty onto the map. At the last kiai, the full mixture of short LNs with streams greatly enhances the overall difficulty of the map to mark the pinnacle of his understanding over the progression of the music, while it also necessarily avoids SR inflation.
In this way, this mapset deserves a place in the spotlight and we sincerely look forward to _Stan's future 7K creations!
The spreadsheet for this season's selection is available here. Feel free to check it out!
We hope you enjoy our selection for this season and look forward to what we will bring to you in the future. We have a lot of plans for the next year! If you want to join to us bringing new stuff to life, you can hop into our Discord server or apply as a member here.
Until then, happy circle clicking, drum bashing, fruit catching, and key smashing! Do not forget to have a rest occasionally!
—Kurokami
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