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  1. Other Paw

    Other Paw Member

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    How do I subvert these action tropes?

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Other Paw, Nov 19, 2017.

    I recently got a screenplay analysis back a few days and although the analyst said relatively good things about my script, he did say that my characters were cliches and falling prey to reused action tropes. He didn't say they were terrible, but just that he was disappointed by it.

    My main character is the protagonist who only wants to work alone.

    One character is the badass warrior that mows down several people at a time.

    Another is a guy that's haunted by the guilt of his past, and has become an alcoholic.

    The basic story is about a team of agents who have to stop a rogue agent. I didn't want to change them because their characters all fit the story I'm trying to tell, and quite frankly, I like them a lot. How do I subvert these tropes, but still make the story work? And what if I just don't want to? Not out of stubbornness, but because I like the story I've written?
     
  2. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Hmm. I can see what you mean about not wanting to change your story too much. I also don't know much at all about screenplays. But I think the answer might be to add depth to your characters.

    Surely there is more to the protagonist who only wants to work alone, other than the fact that he or she wants to work alone? Maybe give him a theoretical backstory that allows him many other characteristics, not just that one. And make sure his desire to work alone doesn't stem from some clichéd source ...his parents were both killed, his partner didn't love him, bla de bla. Take your first two or three ideas and reject them. Go for something new. Possibly he's just one of those people who likes to pursue an idea to its conclusion without interference from others. He might be better than most other people at getting to the bottom of things, and has an aversion to time wasting just to keep other people happy? This person MIGHT be the sort who would be happy to work with somebody else who is totally on his wave length?

    Ditto badass warrior person. Even the notion of 'badass' has become a cliché, and, for me, an extremely irritating one. We need more. Round out his character. Lots more. What is this person like underneath? How does he treat an elderly relative? Can he cook? If so, what kind of cooking does he enjoy? If not, where does he get his food? Does he like to eat, or just eat to live? Who are his friends? (Give him some ...don't let him be the 'badass' loner.) Give him a hamster, or a series of hamsters. Let him spend his spare time building imaginative habitats for them to run around in. What is he particularly bad at? Not badASS, but just bad? By that, I mean incompetent? Play with these kinds of ideas and see how you could add depth to this person without changing the scene (or scenes ...beware of too much repetition of the same kind of scene) where he mows people down.

    Give the alcoholic an amazingly charismatic personality. Everybody loves this guy, even when he's rat-arsed, because he has a killer sense of humour. Do something unexpected with your characters.

    You've taken the time and trouble to get an expert analysis of your script, so make sure you don't fight it. See what you can do to incorporate their concerns—even if it DOES mean changing your story around. As livelier, more unique ideas come to you, this won't seem like such a bad thing.
     
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2017
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  3. Other Paw

    Other Paw Member

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    Way back in my first draft of the script, I felt like the protag was too perfect, so I took a trait from myself and added it to her. I have trust issues and sometimes would rather work alone. My protag's source was originally that her partner died during a mission they were on together. They were husband and wife, and he was shot in front of her. That made her just not want to work with anybody again, until she had to. Maybe the fact that they were together is a cliche?

    This is my fault. I should've been a little more specific. This is a sci-fi story and the badass warrior is an Alien -- the only Alien on the team. When his skin is cut and he sees his blood, his eyes turn black and gains super strength. Something passed down from his people's lineage. He also likes to meditate to calm himself. This all before the analysis I got back.

    The new thing I added was that he lives by a code of honor. Giving him a pet, or a healthy appetite isn't a bad idea. I hadn't thought of that. There was literally only one scene in my script where he mowed a bunch of people down, so that critique was a bit confusing to me.

    Oddly enough, the alcoholic is the comedic relief haha.
     
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  4. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Well, it sounds as if you're working in the right direction—but something made your critic point out the cliché elements, so see what you can do to discover what the cliché issues actually are. Obviously I'm barking up the wrong tree, to some extent, but I've not read it. Was the problem that the critic thought your characters were clichés, or was there some clichéd issue about the plot?
     
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  5. Other Paw

    Other Paw Member

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    Yes, this is it exactly. But I really went out of my way to make sure they weren't cliches, but I guess I didn't do a good enough job.
     
  6. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    This does feel fairly cliched. The 'becomes super powerful when angered' thing is pretty common, and this is very similar to it. Also, the idea of mowing down multiple people has the potential to feel pretty overpowered, and overpowered is often uninteresting.

    Can you change this one?
     
  7. Other Paw

    Other Paw Member

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    I'd be open to suggestions, honestly. Maybe take out the whole "Blood/Super Strength" thing? I figured the only Alien in the group should have a little something special that nobody else can do.

    That pet idea Jannert recommended is actually not bad. I may give the warrior a dog or a little panda or something just to add to the character.
     
  8. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    The cliche would be if she was the one who died so that we could have a story about him becoming a brooding loner ;)

    Granted, I would love to see more writers portraying platonic love as not being "less" than romantic love, but I would also like to see more romantic relations being portrayed as equal partnerships :)

    Is he the comic relief in spite of, or because of, the fact that he's struggling with self-loathing and potential PTSD?

    I have a main character who's been struggling with PTSD since she was 15, and she's one of the funniest characters in my cast. But that's because she works so hard at resisting the darkness by consciously making her life as happy as possible. When she's in the middle of a flashback or a panic attack, she stops being somebody we laugh about.

    Maybe instead, his blood releases a deadly toxin when exposed to the air? That would be a serious tactical concern for him and his allies to work around if they're not immune to the same things that his species is immune to :)
     
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  9. archer88i

    archer88i Banned Contributor

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    Warning! This response employs the following equipment:

    [​IMG]

    You have been warned!
    Between you and me, I really don't like those tropes in the first place. Not because they're tropes, but because they're fucking lame. Lemme give you the example of one of my favorite all-time heroes: Beowulf!

    You know how many people he fucked up? Me neither, because no one can count that high. You know how many of them he'd mow down at once? Same answer. Know how much drinking he did to kill the emotional pain of it all? Not one little bit! I mean, sure, he drank all the time, but not because it hurt... But because drinking is fun!

    "I don't have a drinking problem. I drink, I get drunk, I fall down... What problem?!"

    Yeah, sure, guys like this occasionally have to work alone, but it's not because they're all butt hurt about their whole team getting mowed down except for them and they can't go through that again because it would just destroy them and they carry the pain of it all alone blah blah blah blech! Beowulf works alone because no one else can keep up, and he doesn't need your help anyway.

    Funny how the idea of a real badass is subversive these days.
     
  10. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    The difficulty is that "mow down a bunch of people" is no longer something special--every other adventure hero seems to be able to do it. :) It should ideally be something that the reader hasn't seen before--or at least not seen many times.

    The little panda strikes me as more of a problem than a solution, because it's so very exotic. I think that @jannert 's idea (tell me if I'm wrong, Jannert) was for something pretty everyday and easy to identify with. A character with an exotic pet like a panda feels sort of "meh", while a character, especially an alien, who stops to check out the pet shop for more Habitrail pieces feels simply delightful.
     
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  11. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    I agree the whole working alone thing is kinda burnt.
    Honestly the only time they should be working alone
    is if they are out on mission, and all their guys/gals
    get killed before the mission is complete.
    Or if they are a complete jackass that is too stubborn
    to wait for backup to arrive. But even then they should
    not shirk the help when it is there.
    While it is fun to play the 'one man army' thing in video
    games, it is always going to be highly unrealistic.
    Besides it is always good to have a squad/team for support
    and they might have skills that no single member can have
    all at once. For instance you can have a team such as thus:
    Medic
    Tech
    Tank
    Sniper
    Stealth/Scout
    and on, and on.

    Each being a key player in a larger cohesive unit,
    not one player trying to be everything all at once.
    Also they got no one to watch their ass when shit
    gets hot.

    Also on the note of rage induced badassery, that is nonsense.
    Skill is a much better answer, than 'you mad bro?', or 'Hulk Smash'.
    Just getting a paper cut and going into a rage sounds funny,
    more than badass. Mindlessly killing faceless goons really is
    a big cliche, along with mowing them down like they didn't even
    put up much of a fight. Just not realistic if your crew is fighting
    a bunch of Stormtroopers, ya know?

    If that were the case then Helen Tasker is a brutal killing machine. :D
     
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  12. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Yeah. I was hoping to get @Other Paw to flesh out his characters a bit more. Explore every side of their nature. Not just give them more exotic toys/pets to make them even more of a 'badass' cliché. This panda/warrior dog idea sounds like 'trying too hard' and in the wrong direction.

    The feedback from the critic was that the characters were a cliché, not that they didn't have enough stuff or character tags. This screenplay project is beginning to feel a bit like an interactive computer game. Is that the goal? That's fine, if a game is what Other Paw is constructing. I'm not a fan or player of interactive games, so I guess my feedback here probably isn't helping all that much.
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2017
  13. Primordial Knight

    Primordial Knight Member

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    While I don't dislike Cliches(Especially if done extremely well), The most important thing you want to do, is show how they aren't. For instance, giving the badass alien, a pet wolf would be seen as trying too hard, However giving him a pet hamster or rat, some tiny little thing he perhaps likes to cuddle with or take care of in his spare time, is different than what you would expect.
    For the girl, Maybe make her a complete cluts at certain normal daily activities such as Cooking. Maybe she likes Saturday Morning Cartoons. I'm just throwing random stuff out here. You want them to seem like they are people, and No one is Cool all the time, No one is Badass of smooth all the time. Vulnerabilities. Things they suck at and such.
     
  14. Other Paw

    Other Paw Member

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    I didn't want to multi-quote all of you and unnecessarily take up space on the post, so I hope it's cool if I just tag you like this.

    @Simpson17866

    - I think the alcoholic character is more comic relief in spite of it. Like, he's funny, but I don't have him with a drink in his hand and getting plastered in every scene. You just meet him that one time in the bar and he's drinking... a lot, because of what happened.


    @archer88i

    - I was giving this a lot of thought. Instead of the character losing his whole team and blaming himself, maybe he just loses a few people, and on the mission, he shoots a little kid or something. Say the kid's Dad was the bad guy in the aforementioned mission, and he had a gun pointed at the Agent, and was gonna shoot. It was either him, or the kid and he shot the kid and that's what screws him up royally. Would that be better?


    @ChickenFreak

    - Oh! I like that stopping by the pet shop idea. Perhaps the character doesn't actually buy one, but just takes a quick look, just to let us know that this person is an animal lover, or something. Or the character is walking around the town and plays with one of the stray animals? I think maybe I'm trying too hard.


    @Cave Troll

    - I think you're right. The more I think about that, I guess I can see how silly it may come off. I guess I wanted to give her a unique ability, or something. One of the skills you mentioned could be useful. Especially that stealth/scout/sniper thing. I think I could have some fun with that. Or possibly fuse two of them with one -- e.g. Stealth/Medic?


    @jannert

    - My apologies. I guess misunderstood what you meant by that.

    - It's not an interactive game, but just a summer blockbuster-esque type of screenplay. Your advice is helping. Everybody's is!


    @Primordial Knight

    - You're right. Giving the tough, hardened "badass" something cute and cuddly that he cares for could be a little fun. Like if The Hulk had a pet kitten, or something.

    - The cooking thing is something I didn't think. I think that's a problem I have. In my story, the team is always moving because the mission is paramount and we learn about them along way. But having one or two scenes with them on down time, and tossing in imperfections to flesh them out and make them more human sounds great.
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2017
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  15. archer88i

    archer88i Banned Contributor

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    Here is some food for thought. I wrote that stuff about losing his whole team without reading the bulk of your OP or any of the responses. I had no way of knowing that this is exactly what happened to your character.

    Do you really want to write anything that predictable--or even a variation of it?
     
  16. Other Paw

    Other Paw Member

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    I guess not. Not if it's that predictable and overused.
     
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  17. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I think a good idea to keep in mind is one I've heard applied to word choices, to avoid choosing clichéd terms. If you've seen something done before, don't do it yourself.

    Obviously there is a limit to how much 'new' there is out there, but maybe try really hard to NOT replicate anything you've heard or seen before. Don't just give a stock badass character new clothing and toys and hope nobody will notice that it's the same old character, or the same old plot that has been done before. Actually push yourself beyond it.

    For example, if you happen to be interested in 'superhero' stories (I'm not saying you are; this is just an example) it might be fun to forget ALL ABOUT comic book heroes or ones you've seen on TV or in recent movies. Forget Batman, Supergirl, Spiderman, etc. Instead, go back a lot farther, into dim history.

    It was @archer88i's suggestion about Beowulf that got me thinking in this direction. You could try any kind of mythology. Or hero stories from non-western cultures. Read about these stories, and get a feel for them. I think you'll find the 'tropes' are much different. While you won't be creating from scratch if you use them as a base for your thinking, you won't be using something that is instantly identifiable as a modern cliché either.

    You can update Achilles and put him into modern (or futuristic) clothing, and use elements of his story—which is complicated, multi-toned and fascinating—to construct a new one. Was Achilles a good guy, or just fortunate? Did he abuse his abilities? Could he have done better? He found himself embroiled in a conflict between equally powerful gods, and he had to choose sides. Not between good and evil, but between two sides, each of which had equally supportable grievances. And he himself was equally hated and loved as a result of his choices. And some say he had no choice, because of the way the gods manipulated HIM.

    Pick any hero from behind the mists of time, and they should give you some new ideas. You can find armies, wars, crimes, revenge stories, groups of unbreakable comrades, monsters, supernatural beings that work with humans, etc. Just try for something you don't read or see every day, and then fling them into a different sort of environment altogether. Look for the basics, and then change the circumstances.

    That's what Tolkien did when he constructed the Middle Earth world and his now-unforgettable characters. He mined all sorts of existing mythologies that were NOT well known and popular, and these mythologies inspired him to create his own. You can play around with history too.

    Playing around like this with people, events, places, and legends that already exist can give you ideas you wouldn't have come up with yourself. That's different from choosing a particular kind of plot which has been done to death and designing the characters so they fit.
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2017
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  18. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I don't want to sound all Puritan and...something, but I think that using alcoholism as comedy is going to pall quickly, unless you're making it really dark comedy, and then it stops being comic relief. I have been watching occasional clips of Game of Thrones, and I admit that drunken Tyrion can have some comedy, but it tends to be highlighted against serious darkness. Maybe that's what you mean by comic relief, but I really think that having an alcoholic character for the purpose of comic relief is risky. Now, if you're saying that he's funny, and by the way he drinks, that's somewhat different. It's funny drinking that has limited value.

    This is still feeling pretty tropeish. I'd suggest thinking of some more scenarios, making a long list of them, and seeing if your thinking starts to stray to newer things after a while.

    I feel like you're trying to communicate a checkbox here: "Animal lover". What's wrong with specifics, say, "Has a pet hamster named Muffin Top, who lives in a Habitrail paradise informally known as Muffin Top Castle."? And why not actually buy something? You could end up being followed in there and have a shootout in the pet shop.
     
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  19. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    I like the pet idea, but as an alien, the Badass could also have some other completely unfathomable interest in human culture. For example, perhaps it loves watching Antiques Roadshow- but is convinced it's a sitcom, and laughs uproariously through the whole thing. Or it collects trophies from the enemies it has slain. Not fingers or ears or heads or anything cliche like that, but socks, since the feet are the holiest part of the body in its faith. And it loses its shit when it kills someone who wasn't wearing socks and threatens suicide or something. When you think alien, think alien, think as far outside the box as possible. This can add either a lot of depth to a character, or just serve as a bit of comic relief to tone down the "berserker badass" trope.

    I don't know where I've left my copy of Moby Dick, but when Ishmael first meets Queequeg, the harpooneer nearly kills him since he wasn't aware that he'd be sharing a bed. After the innkeeper explains the situation, they share a pipe together (in bed, don't try this at home kids) and talk. Queequeg decides then and there that they are brothers and carefully divides all of his money with Ishmael. For Valentine Michael Smith, who was raised by Martians in Stranger in a Strange Land, the offering and acceptance of water was also enough to make two beings something even closer than siblings. W.R. Thompson's "Kya" series had intelligent, herd-based herbivore aliens (I know that's different to yours, just go with me for a bit) who played a non-competitive professional sport called "bagdrag" that the human visitors could never understand. The aliens also had highly developed senses of smell, which meant that shaking hands (exchanging scents) was more akin to a full-on French kiss than a social pleasantry, and the error drove one of the short stories.

    Point is, think beyond some sort of Viking hero and get weird. It may be a summer blockbuster, but make it one that people will remember.
     
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  20. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    May be the bad ass warrior is also the alcoholic, because as an alien he has very low tolerance for alcohol

    Maybe the guy with the bad past rather than being haunted by it revels in it - and continually talks about it (south Africans call that a 'when we' mostly in relation to exrhodesians - when we were in Rhodesia this happened...)

    may be the protag wants to work alone because he finds 'when we' so damn irritating, and the alien is constantly rat arsed
     
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  21. Azuresun

    Azuresun Senior Member

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    First up, remember that clichés become clichés for a reason--because people like them and enjoy reading them even when they kind of know where this is going. Think of movies like The Expendables or nearly any Jason Statham or Dwayne Johnson movie, books by Clive Cussler, Lee Child, etc. Strong, relatively simple characters can work very well. Most people who complain about clichés or tropes are actually complaining about when they're done badly or unimaginatively, but this sometimes gets distilled down to "If it has a TVTropes page, putting it in your story makes you a bad writer!"

    Speaking of TVTropes, I recommend a read of this page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropesAreTools

    Apart from that, there's some good suggestions in this thread. The cast can be badasses, but they should feel like plausible and relatable (not necessarily the same thing as completely realistic) people at the same time, with some depth in addition to the clichéd aspect. You probably don't need to rewrite the characters, just develop them a bit.
     
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  22. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    I was about to say the same - some people like characters out of the cliché mine because they aren't realistic. When after a hard days work they sit down with the latest Reacher novel , they know big jack is going to kill the bad guys, get the girl and save the day before they turn the first page, and they don't care at all that its a trope/cliché because all they want is some relatively light escapism (the same is true of romance and many other genres - who cares if it isn't real, real life sucks)

    EOTD it really depends what sort of ouvre you think your screenplay will fit in .... if its going to sit along side big jack, guardians of the galaxy, captain America and so forth then just write the tropes well. If on the otherhand you want a gritty, realistic drama which really 'means something' and where the alien is a metaphor for racial intolerance and its impact on the soul of America then you need to kick all the tropes into touch
     
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  23. Shadowfax

    Shadowfax Contributor Contributor

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    I was watching an old Star Trek last night...the one where O'Brien explains why he hates Cardassians...he was protecting some civilians when a couple of Cardassians break in...O'Brien stuns one to sleep, but the other one gets hand-to-hand with him...a civilian throws O'Brien a phaser - set to maximum...the Cardassian incinerates...first person O'Brien had ever killed...he hates them because he hates what they turned him into.
     
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  24. John Calligan

    John Calligan Contributor Contributor

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    Maybe the loner likes working with the alien because he doesn't value the alien's life or thinks the alien is unkillable. Then, when you humanize the alien character, the main character could reject him.
     
  25. Other Paw

    Other Paw Member

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    You guys are great. Thank you for all the advice. It's really helping me out a lot.

    I always have been interested in researching mythology, but I never got as engrossed in it as I wanted. This seems like the perfect time to do so. I could read up on some heroes and stories from the past, possibly cherry pick some ideas, or it'll inspire to create something entirely new. I could maybe look into what inspired Tolkien's stories and research those too.


    So, the funny drinking is a no-go for you? Maybe the drinking isn't particularly a vice, except for that one time where we meet the character in the bar. And with the last part, you're saying they already have the pet and they're buying additional stuff for it? I apologize if I'm misunderstanding what you said.


    Thanks for all this. I needed to think more outside the box for my alien character to really make her unique and that she's not just one of the humans. The Alien has its own way of doing things and etc. Maybe include some verbal tics or something. I like the idea of "trophies" being human possessions like a shirt, or a pair of socks or something as a way to get more insight into humans. Is that what you meant?


    I think I understand what you're saying here. If it's not too much trouble, could you possibly explain to me a bit more?
     
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