#i actually took a class on it for a semester
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irisbleufic · 3 days ago
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@eidetictelekinetic, I'd like to follow up on something we keep discussing in comment threads to my Devil's Minion stories, because I've found the paper trail in my archives. There's indeed something I wrote as an undergraduate ca. 2005 that I had forgotten about that underpins a common theme (namely: Daniel and Armand wondering what might've happened if they'd met when they were young in Armand's time and place, when he was still mortal) periodically haunting the dialogue across my various unconnected stories. I'm somewhat in disbelief that I can prove this exists, and I needed a spark of joy like this in an otherwise bleak, snowed-out week.
This is a ghost story in that the work I'm discussing here was written under my deadname, but I don't tend to shy from people knowing it. Still, it's times like this when pieces resurface that I realize I block facets of my former self so thoroughly at times that I do my writing history a disservice. This felt like knocking down a wall, and I'm really startled at what's sitting covered in dust on the other side. Mindfuck your characters long enough and you might even mindfuck yourself.
In the spring of my senior year at Wellesley, I took a poetry seminar with Frank Bidart. He didn't like my work much, which was a source of amusement to me; if somebody doesn't like my writing, I just dig in and crank up the annoyance factor by being even more myself. The number of professors and editors that I've gone out of my way to irritate in my higher ed and writing careers is vaguely embarrassing at this point, but that's another story for another time.
At the same time as I was in this poetry seminar, I had also overloaded my schedule with Medieval literature seminars. I'd done that for about four consecutive semesters, actually. The Early Modern and Medieval course offerings at Wellesley, at least at that time, were so numerous that you really could do about two years solid of nothing but that type of coursework. I was fluent in French at the time, so I was able to pull some unhinged shit like reading La Chanson de Roland in Anglo-Norman with minimal dictionary assistance while reading it in English in one of the courses, and then I started haunting the used bookstores in Harvard Square and digging up volumes of lesser known Anglo-Norman ballads and fragments, and there was this one book that focused on early surviving trobairitz poetry, songs by women from that period. There was one fragment that really, really haunted me. I don't know if I still have the book, that's the one piece in the documentation chain I'm still hunting down, but I have my translation of that fragment because I found the poem I wrote around my translation. That poem got published twice after I graduated; that publication history is neat in its own right.
So, the poem I wrote for the seminar is really the thing I want to talk about here. I had this short 10th-11th century trobairitz ballad fragment that I translated out of Anglo-Norman, and I was very excited about it, because it was very gay. I thought, hmmm, I'll write a narrative poem about a couple of nobodies set in that time period. Who are my nobodies? I'm picturing teenagers, just a couple of boys. They can't be more than sixteen or seventeen. Where are they? I'm also taking a class on crusader states at this point in time, and I'm extremely interested in various cultural migrations in and out of Italy and Spain (the good, the bad, and the ugly). So I just go, okay, I'll have them fleeing a noble household in Italy, heading for Spain. My head's entrenched in those places thanks to a history class; it gives me something to hang onto as geographical starting and endpoints. Why are they running away? Kid attached to the noble household has fallen in love with a stonemason's apprentice from somewhere a lot further abroad; they don't speak the same language, but since when has that stopped people from falling in love? Stonemason's apprentice wants to save the kid in a bad situation in the noble household, get him out of there. Yeah, let's do that. And I'll cover just the journey, not what happens before they leave or after. And I'll show what they run into along the way, and they'll hear someone perform that piece of the song, and one of them is able to translate it for the other as they gradually learn enough pieces of common languages to communicate with each other.
This poem was never going to be long; the poems in our portfolios for this class couldn't be long. The concept work behind it was much longer than the poem itself, as was the work I put into the fragment translation. This kind of storytelling in lieu of confessional poetry was going to annoy my professor. I knew exactly what I was doing with all of this: satisfying a storytelling itch, letting myself practice translation, being the inveterate fandom writer I already was by that point, just being generally obnoxious in my early 20s. It's a living.
I wrote the poem. It got workshopped in class; classmates loved it, Frank made faces and was barely polite about it. The written feedback in it on my final portfolio called it "pseudo-medieval pastiche," and I was so happy I could've framed that shit. I put the poem away for a few years and didn't think about it. I moved to the UK and started an MA program in Medieval Studies. My poems started getting published in SF/F/Spec publications. In 2009, I learned about a call for poems for a 10th anniversary special issue of a magazine called Mythic Delirium, and something about the themed call made me remember my pain-in-the-ass, labor-of-love portfolio poem, which was called "Journeying." I submitted it.
"Journeying" was published in Mythic Delirium Issue #20, which, (in)famously, also first featured a poem by the now-disgraced Neil Gaiman called "Conjunctions." If I'm honest, it's bizarre to have that as a major point of memory in this poem's first printing. Here's how "Journeying" looks in that issue of the magazine:
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The italicized portion at the end is my translation of the trobairitz ballad. It's all that survives of one particular song that happened to be written down. It always amazes me that so few lines can express so much longing across so many centuries.
Flash forward a few more years to when I learn about Erzebet YellowBoy's brilliant Papaveria Press hand-stitched limited artbook editions of poems. One of my oldest friends, Paige (@dreambreathing) and I decide to collaborate as we've done so many times before: they did a set of two watercolor illustrations for the poem conceived as a fold-out frontispiece and backplate, and we pitched it as an artbook. Papaveria said yes. In 2012, "Journeying" was released as an edition of 18 of these little books:
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You never see the boys on the road or under the tree overlooking those ruins (those ruins, those fucking ruins, I forgot) until you pan in. Don't get distracted. Look closer. Imagine me, @eidetictelekinetic, getting more and more spooked every time we talk about this recurring thing in the dialogue I'm writing across stories. Why am I doing this? Why is it familiar? And by the time we get to "Guard Your Heart," why do I have the feeling it's hit peak hilarity by the time Daniel's looking at those Talamasca photographs?
This is an awfully long punch line, but it's here. I wrote it, some version of it, some version of them, in another life. And for me it was another life, too, a life with the name of a girl I now barely recognize. Who is Adrienne? I know that Adrienne wrote this poem, but I no longer know her as well as I would like. However, I do know that she gave up almost everything she had to give me what I have now, and I'm the writer that I am because of her. I carry these characters with me because of her; she's the one who first read them.
(Also, here's another shout-out to @dreambreathing not just for being one of my best friends through all of this and one of the most talented artists I've ever known, but also for being the namesake of my current biggest troublemaker in Caldera. Love you, Paige.)
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yandere-daydreams · 7 months ago
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black butler and homestuck are trending on the same day i have to edit my college-necessitated research paper on harry potter. what fucking year even is it anymore.
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dawnthefluffyduck · 2 months ago
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I think i doubt my ability to work faster under stress too much
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lemongogo · 16 days ago
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college … wasted on the youth (me)
#didnt help that 2/4 yrs was covid telezoom but man.. MANNN#forgetting how impossible it is to pursue rhe degree plan u actually want (advising hell) i feel like . theres just#so many diff things i want to learn now Knowing that im more solidified in my interests and who i am and what i would be interested in doing#and like.😭RGAAAAAQH TEARING MYHAIR OUTTT every other week i have a night where im sititng there like damn i couldve been sm1 completely dif#dgmw i still rly enjoy some of the upper div classes i Did take but what if i took x and liked it more or minored in y and it led me to z#bc i do feel rly set in where i am rn which . i DO ! like it but im never gna be in that environment where u have the flexibility to explore#ykwim . i wish i had taken physics and calc srsly . i always thought i hated that shit but i like it. i like it quite a lot actually😟#or more geology .. urrghh.. sprinkle in sme extra art history . no bc thats what actu pissed me off ab school#i rmbr wanting to dual major and they straight up told me no i cant . but then i was like maybe an arts major bio minor when i wanted to do#science illustration but sry we dont offer bio minor . ok bio major arh or studio art minor . no sry not enough open spots we rly only#reserve it for when we have extra openings post admission❤️#and then even late into sophomore year u would still be last in registration so all the cool classes would be closed#and then bc of covid half that shit was cancelled bc they couldnt transfer labs online (rip comparative vertebrate anatomy)#and then by senior yr an additional collection of classes were unavailable bc u dont have the prereqs bc the prereqs were cancelled during#covid and u dont have enough semesters left to actually take it . like it was gen such an awful experience so ik why i couldnt ever do what#i wanted but .😭 AND LIKE the classes i DID enjoy like genomics or molecular genetics were closed by registration and i had to email and beg#for access . thts crazy .literally crazy .#anyways . i think i want 2 start reading textbooks bc i think thats the closest ill get LMAOO#i remember seeing my coworker read a textbook for fun one time and idk why i just didnt understand why bc it seemed so dry but i Get it now#like yeah .. u knew what was up ..#sad too that like . i could theoretically audit a course but i Work..during the day .. so sad . so sad#guys wht if i just said yes to grad school (<the devil talking.dont agree)
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pettyprocrastination · 2 years ago
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Reluctant Bride
Pairing: Ellaria Sand x Baratheon!Fem! Reader (background Oberyn Martell x baratheon!fem!reader)
warnings: description of war, derogatory description of women, forced marriage, oberyn talks lowly of the reader’s appearance and status because he’s angry he has to marry in the first place, Oberyn is a dick but he gets better, (this makes it sound worse than it is lol. Just lore building with angst and sapphic yearning lmao. 
Summary: Just months after the rebellion has ended, Ellaria Sand meets her lover’s betrothed.
word count: 1k 
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Ellaria was dressed in finer clothes than you on your own wedding day. 
Orange silk embroidered with golden serpents hugged her curves and fine jewels were weaved into her hair that your betrothed seemed content to twirl with his finger as he leaned in to whisper in her ear. 
You didn’t need to be told who she was. The beautiful woman by your husband’s side, you saw it plainly in his eyes. Love and devotion that could never be found in a marriage under the sept’s roof, but rather one made by affection and passion. 
Ellaria Sand was more of Oberyn’s wife than you ever thought you would be. 
But bless the poor woman’s heart, she was frightened. 
She didn’t want to come to his wedding at first. But Oberyn has all but begged her to, laying gentle kisses up her arm until he was mumbling his plea into the crook of her neck. 
“If I will be forced to wed against my will, the least you can allow me is the pleasure of having my true love by side when I am chained to another.” 
He always has a flair for dramatics, her sweet prince. 
But Ellaria felt it, as she entered Storm’s End by his side, the judgemental stares and hushed whispers when his hand did not release hers. She knew exactly what they thought of her without ever heaving to hear their voices grind against her ears. 
“He brought his whore?”
“To his own wedding, the gal!” 
“She’s a bastard too, I heard.” 
“That’s the dornish for you, debauched dogs, every single one of them.” 
But she would not flinch at their words, she knew she was a bastard since birth, Dorne may have welcomed it but the rest of Westeros had no issue reminding her and every other sand in the world of their place. She learned it well and wore it with pride. She was the lover of the Red Viper, a child of house Uller, the gossip of tittering lords and ladies did not frighten her. 
However, the Baratheons did. 
She would be a fool not to, truly. They were the ones that started the war, plunging the realm into a year of bloodshed and horror that their eldest son charged headfirst into without a second thought. 
Strong, dutiful, dangerous. 
As she entered Storm’s End, thunder echoing against its stone walls that made their grand home resemble a shadowed cave rather than a castle, she is reminded of their words. 
Ours is the fury. 
It had been the third child, who greeted them. Dressed in all black and face somber, he looked well past his age, like a soldier returning from war rather than the young man just coming to age as he was.
“It’s a great honor to have you, my prince.”
But Stannis Baratheon had suffered a siege while his brother commanded from the battlefield, he had seen the war just the same. 
His eyes, dark and cutting like a hidden blade, fell onto Ellaria, for a moment she felt as if she had come to an execution, rather than a wedding. Stannis looked at her like an intrusion, before bowing his head. 
“My sister is eager to join our houses with this union. As are you, I am sure.” 
Oberyn’s agreeance was slick with mockery, teeth flashed in a grin that made the young man’s face go sour. 
“There is nothing I look forward to more.” 
He had yet to let go of Ellaria’s hand. 
The pair did not separate until they reached the sept, a grand building covered in tapestries of every dead saint and alive with hymns that speak of love and devotion. 
Two things seldom found between husband and wife. 
Oberyn walked to the altar alone, but his eyes caught hers  in the crowd and he smiled. Even from afar, she knew him well enough to catch the twitch of his thumb at his side. That despite his anger and dismissive arrogance he loves to wrap himself in like a silken robe, he was at a disadvantage. This was not his home and nor were these were not his people.  He was in the house of the family responsible for the death of his sister with no plan for vengeance, but a wedding he was forced into, just like his Elia.
Ellaria’s gaze is pulled from her lover as the grand door creaks open over the singing, where their king enters, face still laden with scars of the rebellion, of his conquest, escorting the bride by hand. 
Robert Baratheon was large in every way possible. His presence commanded respect. Even in his formal wear the bulk of his muscle was seen through as he walked. The hymns dulled to a soft hum at his entrance, head turning as his eyes cut into the crowd before they landed on Ellaria and she froze in her spot. 
For a moment, fear clenched her heart. 
Robert had unleashed a war upon the realm when Rhaegar took his betrothed, he plunged his siblings into starvation and rode against countless noble families that now bend the knee to him. He caved in the chest of the silver-haired dragon prince himself, severing the three headed dragon with his war hammer until there was nothing left of it’s legacy than two eggs, lost to the wind. 
And here she stood at his sister’s wedding, the proud lover of her betrothed. 
There’s a brief moment where she wondered if he was going to say something. Shout an order for her to be escorted out for being so bold to be at the union, but then a hand squeezed his and he pulled away from her gaze to yours. 
“Don’t.” Barely a whisper that only he could hear. No question nor plea, but an order. 
One the Usurper obeys without resistance. 
Ellaria had never seen you in person before. But Oberyn had painted a foul picture of you the moment your betrothal was confirmed to still be held after the rebellion. He spoke of your sneer and the way your lips puckered into a sour pout each time somebody spoke to you, your eyes were flat and empty of any emotion. 
“If it weren’t for her skirt I wouldn’t know which one I was marrying.” Oberyn jested as he lifted a goblet of wine to his lips. “Her or Stannis.” 
Ellaria watched you walk down the aisle to her lover, struck by your beauty. 
A hood sat atop your head that fell to embroidered lace covering your shoulders, her eyes found a stray curl that dangled by your face and wondered what it would feel like under her finger tips. Dark eyes flick over to her own if only for a second and she felt herself stopped once more, not with fear. 
But desire. 
You continued forward and she watched you walk down the aisle to the awaiting prince. 
A strong nose frames the soft line of your features, shoulders drawn back and head held high like a queen to be worshiped or a painting to be admired. 
You were regal. Looking more like a crowned ruler than the king by your side.
Your voice did not waver during your vows, she wondered if you were frightened. Any woman would be. To marry a man who loathed her family for a death you had no part in. 
But you didn’t let it show. Instead the promise to be a loyal wife echoed through the sept before you leaned forward and pressed your lips to Oberyn’s, who was just as stiff as you. 
As she watched the first kiss of an unwanted marriage, Ellaria’s chest filled with envy of her beloved prince. 
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apricotronin · 5 months ago
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SoH Memes pt 15
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alliluyevas · 1 month ago
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looking at course selection for next semester (already???). one thing i miss about undergraduate is that the requirements were so much less specialized and you could take things across a broader range of interests. obviously that is the point of grad school and i have decided to focus on 19th century america and i'm not upset about that but I'm also like. i wish i could take readings in the history of the catholic church or cultural memory in early islam.
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selfcarecap · 6 days ago
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I’m soo over all my literature classes already I love literature but I literally want the professor to die and I have her for all three lit classes
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seilon · 3 months ago
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love when this is referred to as the gifted kid website. shockingly my mental disorders made me mentally disordered and school never really vibed with that so. couldn’t be me
#ppl always talking about their whatever grade reading level and how many books they’d read as kids and im just over here like🧍🏽#I’ve never been actually bad at english or reading but I couldn’t focus on reading books to save my fucking life#I hated those sheets where you had to read like a certain number of books or whatever over the course of a semester or the year or whatever#my GATE test scores for english were super high but my math was bad enough that I never qualified#and adhd made me not even perform well in English half the time because I couldn’t pay attention I couldn’t read long books I couldn’t turn#in my assignments or if I did they were late and etc etc etc#don’t get me started with math#I was the worst in my class in third grade at minute math and never made it to the levels of minute math my classmates did#(they posted results on the wall for everyone to see)#and in 6th grade I was put into an additional remedial math class#throughout middle-high school I was at the level of most classmates in terms of the classes I took but that’s only because I was not allowe#to fail and was put through absolute fucking hell with a billion tutors and grueling hours of extra work from them and blah blah blah#like I remember how I felt in those tutoring sessions and half the time I actually wanted to cry.#I didn’t start doing solidly genuinely Good in school until senior year of high school.#not coincidentally around the same time I started taking adderall I think#I had accommodations by 9th grade but they didn’t do that much except for the function that let me turn in assignments up to 2 days late#without penalty. which i had teachers question sometimes and i had to pull the Yeah it’s Literally Against The Law to not allow me this car#anyway. point is. i was never in the gate program and most of my friends were and it was mostly adhd related#adhd is considered such a quirky nothing disorder nowadays that I don’t even like mentioning I have it really. because what people think of#when I say the term is Not what i actually dealt with and made school torturous and made my parents lash out at me for things and etc etc#depression and dysphoria did not help either. but I digress#I’m not sure why im making this post#kibumblabs
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bunnybisexual · 1 month ago
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i wish i was able bodied so i could take a dance class that would be so fun i think
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cinematicnomad · 11 months ago
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it's like a decade+ later but i really am convinced that my queer lit professor had a crush on me in undergrad and really, fuck me for not realizing i was bi earlier bc i would have pounced on that.
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the-cookie-of-doom · 10 months ago
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Sometimes I forget I have a sociology degree and then I have a subject like this one, where I'm debating (in favor of) the importance of cultural competency in health care, and then I'm like oh yeah. I'm actually semi-qualified to speak on this subject.
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rasangan-raspberry · 4 days ago
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My silly little clown guy graduated from Hazben Hotel to Buggy the Clown!
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orcelito · 23 days ago
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I do find it so funny that I will graduate college days away from my birthday. Like my birthday is literally in between the end of the semester ("graduation") and commencement
It really will be like a joint graduation & birthday party for me lmao
#speculation nation#i dont really do birthday parties anymore. havent in a long time. mostly just go out and do smth fun around my bday. ya kno#also have cake but like not in a party way. just like. here's cake lol#but im probably only gonna graduate from college once. which means i might as well live it up and all.#invite all sorts of extended family and people who have known me. etc etc.#actually it just kinda sunk in that i am. Computer and Information Technology (Systems Analysis and Design focus) w a minor in Communication#like those are words. it's a lot of words but actually it really is pretty accurate?? like that's indeed what ive been studying.#now how much i *remember* is another question. considering how long ive taken to get thru school lol#but that's what people will see on my degree. that's my Thing. graduated in Computer Systems and Talking.#idk it's just weird to have spent so much of my life on this and like That's the culmination. it took so much work.#even beyond a normal 4 years. i switched my major *twice*. switched my minor too.#first year engineering to undecided liberal arts (as a temp major trying to switch to computer science bc i couldnt stay in FYE)#but then computer science sucked so i switched to trying to get into computer & info tech. which is different. and better.#and ive been in it long enough now that ive kinda forgotten but it did take some fuckin work to switch into it.#like i had to take certain classes first & i couldnt take them during the semesters that in-major students would take them#and i had to have my gpa up to a certain level etc etc. so many hoops to jump thru. i think it took me at least a year. or more. idr#but i made it in and thats my major. thats my thing. computers and information systems and communication.#doesnt FEEL like im an almost-graduate. but then i think about all the things ive taken and learned.#and maybe i dont remember a lot of the more specific things from these classes. but i took core lessons away from each one.#wont be able to recite the theories but i can live them. and thats the point of an education i guess.#anyways im gonna have to start job searching before too long and eughhbb. need to get my license first tho probably.#which i will... i will.... i have so many things to deal with... my life will be So Different in a year...#it will require me to put in the work now. but i can do it. and then a year from now. i'll hopefully be in a better spot.#living somewhere else. graduated from college. with a license and a car. maybe even an IT job of some kind.#kind of scared of trying to find a Big Boy Job. aka a job that requires a degree and networking and all that shit.#rather than just showing up and being like Hi i can do this job. i am not a total drain of a person. hire me please 👍#hfkahfks so many things to think about. and through it all i am still dealing with DEADLINES...!!!!#but yeah this is why my writing has largely been put on hold. idk i have a lot of things im dealing with rn.
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marv3l-drag0ns · 28 days ago
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ripping and tearing and killing and immolating and commiting unspeakable violence against my spanish teacher YOU CANT JUST INTRODUCE AN ESSAY 5 DAYS BEFORE ITS DUE BY BRIGHTSPACE ANNOUNCEMENT. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS. not even a fuckin MENTION of it in class.
ALSO YOU NEED TO PUT THE ENTIRE SYLLABUS ONLINE IF YOURE GONNA DO THAT NOT JUST WEEK BY WEEK FOR ASSIGNMENTS
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sword-and-lance · 1 month ago
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y'know it's a wonder I haven't had MORE weird medical shit happen to me tbh, like--a total lack of it, to the point I've not even been in a hospital since arriving on Planet Earth
...then again there's a few times I probably should've gone, in retrospect, but welp too late for THAT now (having a wild-ass pain tolerance is not quite the boon it looks like on the surface lmao)
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