#i love his face more than anything else.
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dirtytransmasc · 9 months ago
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the Sully kids' reaction to Jake saying Spider "knew everything" breaks my heart.
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they knew him better than anyone else, better than their parents. they knew his love for Eywa, for Pandora, for The People, for the clan, for their family. they knew he would never tell the RDA anything... not willingly at least.
they knew they were leaving because Spider would be tortured for information, he'd be forced to reveal their home, their plans, their numbers, their weaknesses. their brother would be tortured and they were being forced to leave him behind.
they knew they were being forced to find a new home, without their brother, because their dad knew he would be tortured.
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withthewindinherfootsteps · 2 months ago
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Wei Wuxian and Narrative Agency – Part Three
For Xiantober Day Five: Past and Present, in which the author gets very unhinged about what parts of the past are shown and how that’s affected by the present!
(Part One | Part Two | Full version on AO3)
The Power of Agency: Shaping the Narrative
When I've discussed Wei Wuxian's agency previously, I’ve talked about how what’s shown and omitted tells us about a character, and we’ve talked about the character himself. Though this is a niche topic, it’s not necessarily something out of the ordinary to analyse, and we can assume everything up to here has been in some way intentional.
This? Linking structure to a character’s in-universe preferences?
This is where we get unhinged.
Before I start, let’s quickly establish something which will be important later: although Wei Wuxian is the central character, MDZS isn’t strictly from his POV. While omitting events a character doesn’t like to dwell on and concealing things the character wishes to hide is common in books with only one narrator, MDZS has multiple narrators which it switches between relatively quickly. This includes Wei Wuxian, but it also includes nearly every major character that appears in the story, and omniscient narrator as well. As a default, this format doesn’t lead to this deliberate shaping and omission because of one character’s preferences, since we have many other sources of information and events – which is what makes Wei Wuxian’s influence over the narrative and structure so interesting. We could have access to a lot more information, and access to it at different times, than we do (and that’s not an insult, quite the opposite!).
To begin: we’ve established that times such as Wei Wuxian’s time on the streets, his three months in the Burial Mounds and his loss in the Siege aren’t shown because Wei Wuxian has little agency there. But that’s not the only special thing about them. They’re also the three most traumatic times in his life, and so moments Wei Wuxian himself either can’t remember, or doesn’t like to dwell on.
This is why discussing Wei Wuxian’s treatment of tragedy in his life was important. Firstly, it shows he doesn’t focus on the tragedy in his life, so the idea that the narrative not focusing on this tragedy relates to his character has merit; secondly, it affirms that this is not a passive trait, but a choice. Therefore, when the narrative omits events due to this aspect of Wei Wuxian, it’s respecting not only a character detail – which would be cool by itself – but also an active decision. One that shapes the story it’s made in.
In other words, its very structure is respecting Wei Wuxian’s agency!
Now, of course there are flashbacks to other moments of his past he probably wouldn’t like to dwell on, too. But within the structure, they’re only shown when Wei Wuxian is thinking about them (or when he has reason to)!
Wei WuXian hadn’t woken up yet. His eyes were still tightly shut, yet his hand didn’t let go either. He seemed to be dreaming, muttering, “… Don’t… Don’t be angry…” Lan WangJi seemed somewhat surprised. His voice was gentle, “I am not angry.” Wei WuXian, “… Oh.” Hearing this, as though he finally felt assured, his fingers loosened. Lan WangJi sat beside Wei WuXian for a while. Seeing that he was motionless again, he was about to stand up when Wei WuXian grabbed him with his other hand, hugging his arm and refusing to let go. He shouted, “I’ll go with you, quick, take me back to your sect!” Chapter 63, EXR translation
Which, of course, is him dwelling on…
Lan WangJi spoke one word at a time, “Go back to Gusu with me.” Hearing this, both Wei WuXian and Jiang Cheng were surprised. Quickly afterward, Wei WuXian laughed, “Go back to Gusu with you? To the Cloud Recesses? Why go there?” He immediately seemed to realize, “Oh. I forgot. Your uncle Lan QiRen hates crooked people like me. You’re his proudest disciple, so of course you’re the same as him, haha. I refuse.” Chapter 62, EXR translation
…the painful flashback immediately preceding this. The third set of flashbacks (which are also painful) are a similar case. Look at the contex:
He lifted the bottom of his robe, revealing a prosthetic leg made of wood, “This leg of mine was destroyed by you, that night in the Nightless City (…)” (…) “Wei WuXian, I won’t ask you if you remember or not. Both of my parents died by your hands. You owe too many people. You definitely won’t remember them either. But, I, Fang MengChen, will never forget! And never forgive you!” (…) “In the fight at Qiongqi Path, my son was strangled to death by your dog Wen Ning!” “My shixiong died by poison, his entire body festering due to your cruel curse!” Chapter 68 (immediately preceding the flashbacks), EXR translation
And Wei Wuxian’s own thoughts and words:
Wei WuXian looked at the cultivators before the Demon-Slaughtering Cave. Their expressions were the absolute same as those of the cultivators from the night of the pledge conference, pouring their wine on the ground as they took the pledge to scatter the ashes of the Wen Sect’s remnants and him.  (…) Wei WuXian, “Now it’s time to ask just whom it is that treasures it so much. It’s like Wen Ning. Back then, some certain sects or so were scared to death of the Ghost General. They said they’d kill him on the surface, but behind their backs they hid him for over ten years. How strange. Who was the one that said his ashes had been scattered back then?” Chapter 79 (immediately succeeding the flashbacks), EXR translation 
Once again, Wei Wuxian’s own thoughts relate to the flashbacks we’ve just been shown. And, as I previously mentioned, though all the events which are shown are tragic, they’re also events which Wei Wuxian’s own choices and actions shaped – which he has this to say about:
“The things I did, not only do you remember them, I remember them too. You won’t forget them, and they’ll stay even longer in my mind!” Chapter 82, EXR
Admittedly, this applies more to the third set of flashbacks than the second (which is still fitting as the third set was the most recent), as in the second, although he still had agency within and influence over his circumstances, the majority of the pain was caused by others’ actions (excluding, of course, the Golden Core transfer… which is something we know stays for a long time in his mind, albeit with a caveat we’ll soon discuss). But it’s still important to note – especially considering that otherwise, focusing on this very painful time in his life wouldn’t seem like something very in-character for Wei Wuxian to do.
Of course, this can all just be explained by good writing. It is best to insert flashbacks when they’re relevant to the characters and events in the present day! But it is interesting to compare these to the start of the (not painful) Gusu flashbacks, which open this way:
At a later time, Wei WuXian pondered upon the reason why his relationship with Lan WangJi wasn’t good. Getting to the root of the matter, everything started when he was fifteen, coming to the GusuLan Sect with Jiang Cheng to study for three months. Chapter 13, EXR
Again, considering the circumstances around which these flashbacks take place – returning to the Cloud Recesses for the first time since the lectures, and meeting Lan Wangji once more – it makes complete sense for Wei Wuxian to be thinking about these events*. So it does fit the pattern of Wei Wuxian dwelling on something, thus leading to the narrative dwelling on it, too (and being shaped by his thoughts)… but there’s another layer to this. Importantly, it is the only flashback where Wei Wuxian’s present thoughts don’t lead to this happening, with his thoughts at an unspecified future time leading to it, instead. I like to interpret this as the text saying that, since these events aren’t something Wei Wuxian wouldn’t focus on in normal circumstances, he can dwell on them at any time. Therefore, they’re free to come up in the narrative at any time as well, even if he’s not dwelling on them in the present moment!
So, to summarise: Wei Wuxian’s decision not to focus on the painful times in his life directly influences the narrative to not focus on these times. When painful times are brought up and shown to us, it’s in the context of him thinking about them in the present day, and even then, his most painful moments still aren’t shown to us. His agency in this regard is still respected by the narrative structure.
This is the main way his agency influences the structure of the narrative, but I’d like to talk about the revealing and concealing of information, too. For example, I said I’d talk about the Golden Core transfer – though Wei Wuxian does think about this many times, as evidenced by his internal narration in Chapter 103. But unlike everything we’re shown through the flashbacks, this is something Wei Wuxian is actively trying to hide from others. And the narrative respects this choice (Wei Wuxian’s agency, again), never reveals it even when it would be relevant in the flashbacks, and we find out not through narration, but through a character’s dialogue!
And to clarify – I know these aspects may not be in the book for this exact reason. Showing flashbacks in relevant moments is good writing, concealing an important plot point you want to do a reveal for is necessary writing, and MXTX has said she didn’t want to write about Wei Wuxian’s time in the Burial Mounds, due to not liking to write transformation sequences (and also because it would not be pleasant at all, which likely also applies to Wei Wuxian’s death). That doesn’t prevent it from also being intentional – MXTX’s intelligence is shown in many aspects of this book, and there’s nothing disproving it – but there’s no proof for either option, so I won’t pretend there is. I bring this up because I know this feels like I’m overanalysing, as I feel that way as well.
But, whether it’s intentional or not, it exists in the text, and I adore it – so, regardless, it’s something I’ll explore. Because taking this into account… We aren't just told about Wei Wuxian having agency, we aren’t just shown it in the text, we aren’t even just shown it through which parts of his past are shown and hidden in the structure of the text (as I talked about in Part One). The parts of the past that are shown and hidden also have an in-universe reason for being shown and hidden, this reason being the choices he makes! Agency is the ability of a character to influence the story they’re in, but Wei Wuxian’s agency, as a property of a character who only exists in-universe, shapes the out-of-universe structure as well! That’s how we’re shown its importance! How cool is that?
At The End Of The Road: Summary and Final Thoughts
In this essay, we’ve covered how important Wei Wuxian’s agency is not only to the events of the plot, but to the structure of the narrative as well. The narrative omits periods in which Wei Wuxian has little or no agency, in favour of showing us periods in which he does, even when important events happened in the former. This indicates that who Wei Wuxian is without agency isn’t important enough to be shown to the audience, and therefore that his agency is an integral aspect of his character in MDZS. We’ve discussed how both in-universe and out-of-universe, tragedy does not define him – out-of-universe, the tragic events in Wei Wuxian’s life are used not to build sympathy but rather to show his strength of character and who he still is despite going through them; and in-universe, he chooses not to focus on the negativity and resentment caused by his circumstances or others’ actions, instead staying true to his moral compass and enjoying his life in the present day. Finally, we’ve also explored how this choice is another reason for the omission of certain events from the narrative, resulting in his agency shaping the story in a very literal way – it affects the out-of-universe structure, as well.
It’s quite fitting, for a story whose essence is about defying a conventional narrative – that of righteous clans rising up and defeating a great evil – and about a character who defies many conventional narratives on his own – that of status defining how skilled you could be, that for a golden core being necessary for cultivation and other paths being unavailable, that of a tragic but complete story of someone killed for staying true to their moral code (instead, that character returns to life and has a happy ending) – to have its own narrative play a role in such an important and interesting way.
(Or, if an image would be preferable:)
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Thank you for reading!
(Part One | Part Two | Full version on AO3)
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*This strong relation to the present day circumstances is another reason I love the flashback placement so much (and why I think it’s such a loss both screen adaptions altered it so strongly)! 
#get ready for tag thoughts because there are a LOT of them#it’s for THIS reason that fanon wwx bothers me so much (didn’t want to get negative on the acual post)#bc so often all the changes are changes that woobify him!#self-sacrificial idiot wwx?? only doing things because… poor him he has so many internal issues and values himself so little-#-so of course he’d sacrifice everything before thinking of another option? woobifying#(whenever he sacrifices something it’s a deliberate choice to act on his morals because he values his morals so much – and he’s also very-#-capable and DOES often find ways for no people to get hurt!)#wasn’t aware that what happened to him at lotus pier was wrong and needs lwj to tell him that for him to have any idea if it?#woobifying (as we see in the lotus seed pod extra he KNOWS it’s unfair)#(he downplays it retroactively in his memory (links into not focusing on the bad things in his life))#(but that’s the actions themselves that are being downplayed not their fairness!)#he chooses to act! he is defined by acting! not tragedy – all the more impressive in the face of the amount of tragedy that’s happened#he could SO EASILY have been a woobie but instead he’s the opposite of one: defined BY his agency instead of the absence of it#that doesn’t mean he’s not impacted by tragedy or trauma – he is! but it’s not the most important aspect of his character (bc he doesn’t le#it’s also something that bothers me about the changes cql made#by making qq path and nightless city the fault of someone else it means he IS someone who’s more a victim of circumstance than anything els#he had no control over the tragedies of his first life at all#apart from ig his death being controlled by him? because he just leaps off the cliff during the nightless city siege?? but in THAT case it’#i watched that part recently (i’m getting through it very slowly) and yeah it reaffirmed my love for this aspect of the book even more#despite. having these exact thoughts for two years already#he also dwells on the past events a lot more than book wwx which adds to that version of him BEING defined more by tragedy rather than who#anyway over 7.3k words total (and 400 more in the tags apparently)... it'll be posted to ao3 in its completion this evening!#mdzs meta#my meta#wei wuxian#mdzs#mo dao zu shi#魔道祖师#grandmaster of demonic cultivation#gdc
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luck-of-the-drawings · 1 year ago
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IMAGINE. working at ur stupid uhhh job or whatever. pulling into your drive way and ready to work on some crazy project in your garage. opening the door to the most unfamiliar silence. did your wife and kid leave for something? could you imagine knocking on your kids door, hardly getting an answer, and opening it to find the splattered remains of your wife across his room your child is scared! hes hardly consolable, in a state of shock and terror. you are too, but youre the adult here. you need to take charge. you need to protect him. you need to do something. you need to do something.
#cw gore#jrwi fanart#jrwi show#jrwi prime defenders#jrwi pd spoilers#ashe winters#LOOOORRRD HELP ME THIS IS A YEAR OLD AND I HAAAATE LOOKIN AT IIITTTT ALL I CAN SEE ARE MY MISTAAAKESSS RRAAGHHHGGG ITS FINE THOUGH#ITS FIIIINE ITS ALL FIIIIIIINE!! IM HARSHER ON MY ART THAN ANYONE ELSE ITS FIIIIIINE IIITTSFFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINEEEE#ANWYAY SO I THINK ALOT ABOUT THE FACT HE KILLED HIS MOM. FUUUUCKED UP. POOR GUY.. i wish i could learn more about what that day was like#the lil scenario wrote is my own silly little headcanon. but what really happened on that day? was mark there? or did he come home to it?#how violent was it really? was ashe awake the whole time? does he remember exactly how he killed her? does he remember?#who was mrs winters? what was she like? i like to think she was the one that gave ashe the book. taught him what she could before. yknow.#did ashe or mark try to destroy it afterwards? i could imagine mark throwing it into a fire. only for it to reappear with ashe#maybe ashe couldnt destroy it but i could imagine him hiding it. hiding away from it. and yet when we find him he holds it so close#its the only thing he can do! no super powers or anything. this was it. why would he ever throw away the only thing hes good at?#AND GOOD GOD MARK... TURNING TO MERCENARY WORK OVER IT ALL... SELLING HIS SOUL TO A LAbortory that changed him in immense ways#when did it get bad enough for him to start covering his face? what was ashe thinking? he knew his dad was up to something but what?#maRK HAS SUUUCH A CRAZY KILL COUNT TOO. I THINK THE HIGHEST IN THE SERIES IF WE'RE NOT LOOKIN AT THE GODS OR WATEV#MASS MURDER. MAN HAS COMMITTED MASS MURDER AND BROKE OUT OF SUPER VILLAIN PRISON WITH A PEN. MAN BUILDS IRON MAN SUITS IN HIS BASEMENT#OKay okay enough of my ramblin okayokay i just REALLY LOVE THIS SSHHOOOOWWW DUUUDEE EEUUGHTHTHHRHGHGH I LOVE THE WINTERS FAMILY...
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milkbreadtoast · 6 months ago
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looking back at the yjh webtoon screencaps i have saved and giggling... hes so cute... moe... my pookie ^___^ 🥰🥰 poor little meow meow woof woo- *eliminated where i stand*
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also these poses are sooooo... 꺄아악🖤🫣🫣🫣🫣
#talk tag#orv liveblog#<--gonna just tag my orv misc posts as this now#i looooove when the webtoon artist draws him like a demonic beast#its genuinely so moe to me smdbsndn like hes supposed to be rly handsome but theyre not afraid to make him look unhinged#i rmbr livetweeting that yjh hibernation pic captioned 'hes so moe'... apparently that was 2022(just dug it up)#more than 1 person has told me that theyre surprised i bias yjh from the webtoon alone#bc apparently they dont do his chara justice(v 😔😔😔 to hear that...thats not good..)#BUT HOW COULD I NOT BIAS HIM!!!! (apparently this is not a universal experience aldjskdj)#this just makes me even more uncontrollably excited to read the novel i cant wait to love him more than i alr do#and i love when he glares and makes a disgusted face at kdj... its so cute 🤭 he's like an angry black dog to me. hes like a wolf puppy#*tries to pat his head and gets cut down in .00001 sec... no he wouldnt waste his sword on me... i would simply perish from being in the#the presence of his aura#literally the tsundere ever#aside from hiei... hiei rly primed me to like male tsunderes guys#like after him i have loved sm tsundere male charas since#yjh is in a league of his own tho. like idc how many similar/near identical charas have come before or since#he OWNS the yjh archetype literally everyone else is just copying him <33#even if it was a choice btwn yjh and cedric id have to go w yjh... he is the original im sorry... i love u cedric#and i love that the whole point is that his design/chara archetype ISNT supposed to be original... thats the Point#he's the typical op dark haired stoic cold brooding (and sexy) protagonist...#his chara concept is supposed to be that trope... but what orv does w him is so subversive#and the fact that he is supplanted from his position as the protag in the narrative... i love it sooo much#like maybe i wouldnt care as much if he actually was the protag? bc again it wouldnt rly be new#but the fact that he isnt the actual protag is sooo good#IM NOT RLY SAYING OR ANALYZING ANYTHING RN BUT I JUST FELT LIKE YJH LOVEPOSTING#o sidenote his webtoon faces make great rxn images slfnsmd I LOVE USING THE FIRST ONE#i love using heartwrenching anime/comic moments out of context as rxn images its so funny to me#me @ the orv live action cast announcement
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time-is-restored · 1 year ago
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btw not to make everything about My Fucking Guy but i honestly think one of the things that seperates q!phil out from the other islanders is the approach he takes to dealing with the lack of agency + control all the islanders have over whatever the fuck the federation's doing.
it shows up most prominently whenever tubbo is excitedly telling him about the 'progress' he's made with cucurucho or various investigations (ie: trapping him into a corner with the 'do you have free will' questions), and phil always shoots it down w an immediate 'that doesn't mean anything. curucuho will say anything to mess with you. you can't take anything he says as true.'
and it's not that phil is... a paticularly pessimistic character? he's just EXTREMELY practical. like, he's yet to give up on anyone EVER finding ANY answers (he was the one who initially gave the federation that one week ultimatum w the cage for a cage stream), he just doesn't trust the idea that curucuho is ever going to voluntarily give them. they're uncontrollable + senseless - you might as well argue with the weather.
and like, if that's how he sees the one (1) and only point of contact the islanders HAD with the federation for months, it explains a lot abt his characters lifestyle! ofc he sits on the wall all day, talking to his kids, and keeping his head down. he believes that the federation wants nothing more than to drag the islanders into sick games + tasks just so they can fuck with their head (ie: curucuho revealing he was the one cellbit gathered all that information for). and while he can't totally PREVENT any of that from ever impacting him, he can make sure his kids are well fed, well protected, and as happy + comfortable as he can manage. this is objectively not a perfect situation, there is a guaranteed amount of suffering + fear that he can't mitigate, but he can at least account for it.
like, he REFUSES to engage. whenever curucho shows up, he treats them with total ambivalence. he's not going to get riled up by anything they do, he's not going to get super attached to the guy, he's just gonna laugh it off and irish goodbye it when things drag on. the ONLY time he's strayed from that general guiding principle has been since he's lost his eggs, and can no longer afford to let the federation's fuckery go: those are his fucking kids.
hence the completely unprecedented levels of outward rage and sadness and terror he shows throughout the birdcage streams - almost all directed directly to cucurucho. it's all a completely fair + proportional response to the horror the islanders are being subjected to, but it feels so different bc until now, q!phil has been so dedicated to not reacting, and not giving the federation any sign that they're actually getting to him.
#qsmp#q!phil#LIKE. does anyone else think this! i genuinely believe its like one of the major#traits of his character i feel like u can trace it through Everything.#the man lives with the constant knowledge that sometimes all it takes is a tempting ravine and a badly timed creeper to end a life#whether that life belongs to a stranger or someone you love more than anything else in the world#you COULD rage against that. you could scream and shout and tear your hair out and grieve for the futility of it all#but what does that change? the days march on. death waits either way#and that's not to say he's a laizesfair kind of guy. anyone who's seen him stress out abt chayanne's risk taking + freak out#whenever his kids don't have enough autofeed grist can see that he cares DEEPLY. which resolves into his very distinctive#defensive + protective playstyle. the goal is not to win the fight the goal is to *survive* the fight etc#but the only way that mindset doesn't spill out into unchecked paranoia + complete agoraphobia is with acceptance#'shit happens: the philza minecraft story'#i also think it even manifests in the nightmare sequence w his last words to chayanne? 'they didn't want us to live. we were never supposed#to survive' or whatever the exact wording was#he is FURIOUS and deeply hurt and sad abt the deaths he says so explicitly later#but at the time the first thing he reaches for is. exhausted acceptance. it wasn't their fault. it wasn't his fault. they did their best.#they could only do so much in the face of the federation's Overwhelming Hostility. y'know?#mine
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xcziel · 4 months ago
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has anybody else thought about how jk could easily manage sofia's parts of slow dance or is it just me?
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#jikook#bts#everybody is working to insert jk in who where i just don't see it (other than the seven parallels)#and not talking much about what i see as WAY more obvious nods most especially in rebirth#like jm sings about wanting to be worthy of someone - maybe someone who just became a huge SOLO global popstar?#and mentions 'real love' - what was the name of that chapter in the bangtan book again?#and the feminine pronouns not present it's just the nebulous 'you' that in jimin songs often stands in for 'army'#(and one very specific 'fan' who has said he is ALSO army)#it's the 'i wanna be with you'#the answer for jk's 'i am still' with its unspoken additional 'still with you' layer#and then we get slow dance and we're back to the nebulous 'you' - on an island he-#oh wait what was that about a pair that traveled to an island? and filmed some stuff there that we'll see soon? hm#the reason this set me off though is the lines about 'cancelling my plans' to live to 'the tempo of our favorite song'#the falling deep into lines etc etc#because we know what happens when those two get together - they lose track of time everything else fades away#it's why they haven't done lives. why 'you and me' are 'up all night' why jm knows that as soon as jk is around#his self-discipline will crack and he'll fall into the pattern he tried to head off by separating from jk while making face#and we *know* jimin wrote on this song#frankly if he *hadn't* gotten a female feature everybody would be JUMPING on this song as a jikook anthem#the inclusion of sofia works perfectly - like hammering the pin back in a grenade#but i was reading those lines and thinking how high she went and going who else could sing this ...?#huh. who do we know of who can sing *anything*? and who has a range that can hit and blend with jimin's perfectly?#so. i dunno. y'all do your delulu the way that works for you and i will do my delulu my way lol#personally i think the eyes in the mv look like a screenshot from the love wins all mv but that's only me#i think the parallels with seven work more#and speaking of parallels (there are so many) i think this album was built to ensure jm is on equal footing with a certain someone#it's the commerciality of it - as though jm was like we will be together in this as well#when he seems not to be super interested in global domination but still 'special' enough to be on the same level with his love
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queenlucythevaliant · 9 months ago
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Northern Lights
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I heard a voice that cried, “Balder the Beautiful is dead, is dead!” 
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Who knows what to call the lonely exhilaration of gazing out into a bright Northern sky? Who can name it? 
Jill could.
It was the same feeling that came to her at the teetering edge of a cliff at the end of the world. The same feeling as when she said her goodbyes to Puddleglum and Scrubb before they freed the prince. It was the same feeling that engulfed her now, sitting in the professor’s library with a volume of poetry before her. 
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The wild northern wastes were well named: utterly wild, perfectly desolate, and terribly Northern. 
It was lonely there and often cold, but the sky was an endless whorl of gales and gray clouds. The stones were indigo under the pale winter sunlight, and at sunset they glowed a soft gold, as though lit from within. The gorges and moors lay before her, and Jill loved them for their vastness and their distance. Little grew in that country, but that which did was full of vigor. The grass was short and coarse. Every tree was victorious. 
On a still, deep breathing winter night, Jill lay on her back beneath a covering sky. It seemed beautiful to her, rich and strong and glorious. Her eyes drank in the breadth of it until her tears began to blind her. Yet even then, she still couldn’t look away.
She felt bigger here in the wastes, like the landscape. Stronger, wider. The further she walked, the more she felt herself stretch out. One of these days, maybe, she would catch hold of herself at the edge and tug, and Jill Pole would open up clear as the Northern sky. 
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And through the misty air passed the mournful cry of sunward sailing cranes.
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The thing that surprised Jill most about the battle with the serpent was this: there wasn’t any yelling. Always, it seemed, whenever she read stories about people fighting with swords, the combatants would let loose some guttural yell before their blows fell. They would scream and writhe in pain as they died. They would shout instructions to their fellows, “Look out!” or “Hit him there!” But the whole affair with the serpent passed with very little noise. 
The poison-green coil constricted around the prince; he raised his arms and got clear, struck the serpent hard, and then Scrubb and Puddleglum dispatched the creature with heavy, hacking blows. The monster died writhing, but not screaming. And then it was over. 
The thing that surprised Jill most about the moments before battle was, of course, the noise. She could hear her own heartbeat in her ears. She couldn’t stop listening to her own breathing. Every footstep rang out like a gong, and any words exchanged rang with a kind of finality that made them sound louder than anything. 
“You are of high courage,” Rilian told her when it was over. 
Yet the thing in Jill’s chest just then didn’t feel like courage. It was a deep breath, a plunge, and a release. It was loud and quiet all at once, till she was standing, blinking in the night air as snowballs whizzed round her, and maybe that was something like courage after all. 
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And now, there was a stirring in her chest as she reread the words on the page. Sing no more / O ye bards of the North / Of Vikings and of Jarls! / Of the days of the Eld / preserve the freedom only / nor the deeds of blood! 
She thought of grief. Of freedom. 
The lonely ache in her belly grew stronger. She felt herself uplifted into the huge regions of sky that were just beyond those cliffs, weightless as the breath beneath her buoyed her up, further, further…
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When she saw Caspian up close, Jill thought that he looked like the sort of person who was meant to live in a castle. A silly thought, perhaps, since she knew he was a king– only she wasn’t thinking of Cair Paravel. No, Jill was picturing the ruins of an old British castle she’d visited once on holiday. She still remembered how the stonework had loomed over her, all towering arches and crumbling walls. That was where Caspian seemed to belong. He had an air of ancient tragedy about him. 
When Rilian disappeared, all things had wept but one. The serpent coiled beneath the earth and flicked its forked tongue, spewing poison. 
Now, the king half rose to bless his son. He whispered a few words as he caressed Rilian’s cheek, words meant only for those beloved ears. Jill saw Caspian’s lips move and wondered what a man like that could possibly say, when time ran so short. 
.
They laid him in his ship, with horse and harness, as on a funeral pyre. Odin placed a ring upon his finger, and whispered in his ear.
.
Jill furtively took Myths of the Northmen and held it up to the professor with a question in her eyes. She was still shy around him and Miss Plummer, though she wished she wasn’t. 
“Would you like to take that with you?”
“...Please.”
.
It takes a certain kind of person to be exhilarated by the heights. You’ve got to love vastness more than you fear falling. 
.
They walked to the train station with an autumn wind blowing hard, and though Jill couldn’t fathom why, she turned and saw Lucy grinning, fierce and joyful– grinning and reaching a hand out towards her friend.
Jill reached back and grabbed it. “What will you do, once we’re back in Narnia?” she asked. 
The wind blew harder. The feeling of anticipation grew and grew, until it felt so big that she couldn’t dream of containing it. And there was Lucy, holding Jill’s hand and laughing like it was easy.
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Preserve the freedom only, not the deeds of blood!
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The second time Jill went to Narnia, she found herself not at its edge, but at its end. 
The thing about the Norse apocalypse is: it feels believable. It doesn’t reach beyond earth’s horizon to pull down hope beyond hope. It’s only the kind of courage that hopeless humans have: you are going to die, so you might as well die bravely. 
They found the last king of Narnia bound to a tree. His eyes were faintly red from crying, and his wrists and ankles red from the coarseness of his fetters. 
In the Norse myths, Loki broke free of his fetters at the end of the world. He escaped to the helm of a ship made from the fingernails of the dead.
The last king of Narnia fell forward onto the ground when Eustace cut his bonds. Jill crouched down beside him and watched as he rubbed feeling back into his legs. He wasn’t so much older than her, she thought. Jill was sixteen years old; the last king of Narnia could not be older than twenty-two. 
In the myths, the gods were ancient, hewn from the bodies of giants old as the earth. 
Jill put out a hand and helped the last king of Narnia to his feet. Not for the last time, she shivered. Something deep inside her (deeper than her chest, than her heart, than the marrow of her bones, deep as her soul, deeper) was singing an elegy and she didn’t know why, or how, or where it had come from. The king clutching her hand, who could have been her older brother, would have no heir.
Yet when he asked, “Will you come with me?” Jill could only smile. 
“Of course,” she said. “It’s you we’ve come to help.”
.
And the voice forever cried, "Balder the Beautiful is dead, is dead!"
.
“This really is Narnia at last,” murmured Jill. The springtime wood had little in common with the wintry lands she had traveled the last time she was here– but it awakened the same feelings of Northernness in her chest. 
Their party may as well have been the only people in the world, for how isolated their little wooden path seemed. Yet it wasn’t lonely, really, cocooned in all that green with the wind in the leaves and the primroses nodding and blue of the sky peeking through above. 
Jewel told stories about what ordinary life was like when there was peace here. As he spoke, Jill could almost hear the trees' voices speaking out of the living past, whispering, stay, stay. She was caught up to a great height, looking down across a rich, lovely plain full of woods and waters and cornfields, which spread away and away till it got thin and misty from distance. 
“Oh Jewel–” Jill said with a dreamy sigh, “wouldn’t it be lovely if Narnia just went on and on– like what you say it has been?”
She needn’t be a queen, as Susan and Lucy had been, but Jill would’ve liked to stay. She would've liked it all to stay, if it could. She might have been a woodmaid in a place like this: with the turn of the seasons, the swaying trees, swords into plowshares. Oh, if only she could stay!
Ahead, the last king of Narnia was softly singing a marching song. Jill tilted her head back and let warm shafts of sun caress her face. 
.
I saw the pallid corpse of the dead sun borne through the Northern sky.
.
“So,” said the last king of Narnia, “Narnia is no more.”
He tried to send them back. Jill shook her head. It was very loud and very quiet. “No, no, no, we won’t. I don’t care what you say. We’re going to stick by you whatever happens, aren’t we Eustace?”
They couldn’t go back anyway. Neither would they flee, not south across the mountains nor North into the great wide wastes. No, they would stay. They slept in a holly grove on the edge of ruin, waiting for the bonfires to light.
Jill slept fitfully, but in between she dreamed. She was high up in the air, buffeted by clouds and pierced by shafts of silver sunlight. 
.
They all died, in the myths. Jill knew that. It seemed beautiful and brave when she read it in her book, tucked away safe in the Professor’s library. It was terrifying now– and yet it was beautiful and brave still.
The dogs came bounding up, every one of them, running up to the king and his men with their tails wagging. One of them leapt at Jill and licked her face, tongue roughly lapping up the sweat and tears that had dried on her cheeks. 
“Show us how to help, show us how, how, how!” the dogs were barking, almost ebullient in their enthusiasm. Jill bit back a sob. How lovely, she thought. How terribly beautiful. How dreadfully brave. 
.
So perish the old Gods!
.
The white rock gleamed like a moon in the darkness when Jill finally reached it. She ran back to it alone, her hands shaking, while her friends stayed forward with their gleaming swords and Jewel’s indigo horn.
The while rock gleamed like the moon. Jill’s first shot flew wide and landed in the soft grass. But she had another arrow on her string the next instant. It was speed that mattered, not aim. Speed, and turning aside when she cried, so as not to drip tears on her bowstring.
The white rock gleamed. In the myths, a wolf devoured the moon. Peter’s wolf, slain many thousand years ago in this world, opened his jaw wide and darkness fell over everything.
Her next arrow found its mark. After that, she lost track. She pulled, and she prayed that her hands kept still another minute. 
The unique thing–maybe the appealing thing–about the Norse myths, was that they told men to serve gods who were admittedly fighting with their backs to the wall and would certainly be defeated in the end. Jill let loose another arrow, felt the white rock at her back, and she knew that the clawing fear–beauty–bravery deep in her gut was the same feeling that she felt on the heights. The same feeling, but a different face. You’ve got to love vastness more than you fear falling. 
.
“I feel in my bones,” said Poggin, “that we shall all, one by one, pass through that dark door before morning. I can think of a hundred deaths that I would rather have died.”
“It is indeed a grim door,” said Tirian. “It is more like a mouth.” 
“Oh, can’t we do anything to stop it,” said Jill. Better to be dashed to the ground than it was to be devoured. 
“Nay, fair friend,” said Jewel. “It may be for us the door to Aslan’s country and we sup at his table tonight.”
A hand tangled itself in her hair and started to pull. Jill braced herself hard, for a moment, until her strength gave out. She was standing on the edge of a high, Northern cliff. She took another step, and fell.
.
Perhaps when the moment comes, our bite will prove better than our howls. If not, we shall have to confess that two millennia of Christianity have not yet brought us to the level of the Stoics and Vikings. For the worst (according to the flesh) that a Christian need face is to die in Christ and rise in Christ; some were content to die, and not to rise, with Father Odin.
.
The world inside the stable was beautiful. It made Jill’s chest ache in all the loveliest ways. 
.
Build it again, O ye bards, fairer than before!
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numbaoneflaya · 1 year ago
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@summer-solemnly-swears sometimes yeah :/ I’ll imagine or write cute little scenes and shit but eventually again I’m like hmm.. well what if she was going through the horrors again . Anime monologue in the tags as usual
#jilly#no bcs literally actually fr#she gets the epic high and lows of being in a relationship w a man literally nicknamed pisswolf#though funnily enough I’ll usually make my sweet stuff canon (like awww they are on a rollercoaster look she’s making him eat sushi)#and the worst of it (what if he cut off both her legs or gave her permanent brain damage etc etc) does not get canonized#so yes jilly DOES get to have dinner at 7 pm sometimes and cuddle her man to sleep but there’s also yeah. the horrors.#the horrible complicity of being stockholmed into genuinely loving the person who has hurt you more than anything else in the world…#and then sticking around and being willfully ignorant as he continues to do terrible things to living people….#his blood money is paying for her xxl panda plushies#but I mean not like she has any choice but to stay lmao. like he wouldn’t kill her if she tried. would he?#still? is she afraid that he would or that he wouldn’t at this point?#ferret and pisswolf#does she even want to be taken off the leash at this point or would it make her come face to face with that she’s stayed this long?#that she’s liked staying?#and what can he say besides he’s sorry when it’s already too late for anything else#maybe all he wants is for her to be the one to kill him even though he’d kill her if she tried. or atleast sometimes he thinks that that#would be best#other times he thinks anything is possible and it’s just because of her. the girl he tortured and the love of his life
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weidli · 4 months ago
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i like to watch well made fanvids and i always think it's really funny when people make lestat vids and then use dreamstat quotes in then. Like you know lestat didn't say that shit right. louis's subconscious did it was just wearing lestat's face
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crossbackpoke-check · 4 months ago
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about to be sooo nosy so. my apologies. but. morgan frost? girlfriend? do share (or don’t! again this is so nosy i’m sorry)
for legal purposes i can neither confirm nor deny anything about morgan and his girlfriend but afaik i think he’s single right now? at one point (within the past four years 😭) he did for sure have a girlfriend and that is the extent of my wag knowledge
#anon PLEASE i am the nosiest person in the world i understand i want to know everything. ever. however#because i have no evidence and don’t want to spread unfounded rumors i will state for the jury i am not a gossip blog#& anything i say should be taken with a grain of salt. or a vsco deep dive & also maybe a dig into the flyers media archives. wrt UNfounded#but i will gossip in your dms because it’s a vital method of communication and important for community building.#also i’m like 95% sure i just osmosed the fact that morgan and his girlfriend broke up sometime earlier in the hockey season from someone#else (probably flyerskay) and accepted it at face value like absolutely i’d trust kay with my life. she would never lie to me and therefore#i can’t be lying to you. i can’t remember morgan’s gf’s name tho but i can like. vividly remember her artsy possessive vsco photos 😭 help#that man posts more about tom petty than he does anyone else in his life besides joel so really how would we know if hes posted her less#the answer is we wouldn’t and i want to say her name is katie SO bad but i know that’s tyson’s gf it’s like. victoria or stacie or somethin#& i want to see if SHE deleted all her vsco pictures of him bc that’s how we’d know they broke up. frosty stop following so many girls#i want to try and find her and see (she’s a model and she was public and had her vsco linked so all of this is public info btw.)#ANON I LOVE YOU SO MUCH AND YOU HAVE NO IDEA OANDJRIWNDHOWHDB IT IS 1:38 AM AND I HAVE JUST MANAGED. OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD ANON HOLD ON#BUCKLE YOURSELF THE FUCK IN FOR AN ANSWER YOU DID NOT ASK FOR BECAUSE THIS IS A R I D E AND I NEED TO YELL ABOUT IT I CAN’T MY GOD I CANNOT#B R E A T H E i’m about to start crying again but the backstory is that. i have had a fic that i have been working on for literal years.#my version history says March 15 2021 and it started in my notes app about 3000 words before that and it’s based off of a tweet i thought#calla had quoted and just said ‘Joel’ about but in my notes i never#saved the actual tweet and many times throughout the years i have gone back and advanced searched every version of joel and joelle and bee#and behavior on calla’s blog that i could possibly think of and just assumed like. it must’ve gotten deleted or the account suspended and i#could never remember the wording well enough to just google it but believe me i tried and put in every variation. never found it in 4 years#i try periodically. fast forward to about twenty minutes ago i am looking through kay’s twitter and searching vsco because i SWEAR she has#the picture of frosty’s gf’s fingernail marks in the back of frosty’s shoulders i am talking about / I can’t find her vsco linked anywhere#but i’m like ok. search up a couple other things and think about who might have it and on a WHIM look up vsco in ash notthequiettype’s acct#no results okay whatever i think about what else could maybe pull it up for me so I have SOMETHING for you. I search frosty. I scroll. GUES#WHAT I FUCKING FIND FROM NOVEMBER 13TH 2020 it is THE FANTASTIC TWEET THAT SPAWNED 16K OF NOTES & FIC & A SPREADSHEET OF JOEL’S CLASSES#AND I NEVER WOULD’VE FOUND IT AGAIN IF NOT FOR THIS!!! LOSING IT!!! by it I mean my mind and my sleep schedule!!! it’s 2AM now good night!!#liv in the replies#morgan frost#philadephia flyers
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jekyllnahyena · 2 years ago
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Tadaaaa, meet one of Juliette’s siblings and the family member she’s closest to, François!!
He’s in his late 40s when he meets the lads, he’s an archeologist and very renowned in his field and known as an absolute menace, he hate-watches Indiana Jones, he’s his mama’s son from her first marriage, he wants to kill his father but leaves that honor to his mama, he spents most of his time overseas, he speaks seven languages fluently and many more brokenly and can insult you in all of them, he’s been in the same open relationship for a decade now, he’s an introvert, he has no shame, he keeps an insta account documenting his projects and has a few thousand followers, his biggest regret is not being there when Juliette was adopted and stopping her from going to the military, he loves his family more than anything else, he’s 1.69 m tall and vain as fuck  
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chronic-claire-universe · 2 years ago
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Incoming Matchup for @aasouthteranoswife​​​​​​
Tokyo Revengers
Terano “South” Minami
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Shuji Hanma
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Chainsaw Man
Yutaro Kurose
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Blue Lock
Ryusei Shidou
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read the tags 💜
REBLOG ARE APPRECIATED!
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koishua · 7 months ago
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shining solo ep 8. my reaction rn 😐😐 took it a bit hard lmao
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#tp#very mixed feelings. as someone who associates herself with jeongwoo and having very similar personalities... this ep hurt a lot#idk idk#i mean i get it but i also absolutely do not get it#so many thoughts im taking this very personally what the heck#i cant really warm up to half of this part's girlies im sorry#i loved everyone on part one#as someone who also struggles with managing my social energy lvls... this was a slap in the face#bc my boy jeongwoo truly gave it his ALL the whole day and even managed to perform a couple songs for the girls#despite already having spent the whole day together#and his energy must have been SPENT already and then they pick him as MVP of the day and he has that 1:5 date with all of the girls#by himself!! which is so terrifying imagine being the one person who everyone's attention is on and you have to interact with these ppl#that you arent very comfortable with but you still try your best to give them a good time#AND THEN!! they give you NOTHING in return?? not even a recorder?? no jewel no recording nothing. just ignored like that by everyone#and i get that the girls dont know who's voting for who so they might have believed someone else was gonna give him a jewel or sth#but no one gives him anything (positive OR negative)#and yeah. he was absolutely shocked at the empty safe. i would have been too.#and why did they not give him a jewel y'all might ask??? IT WAS BC HE FELL SILENT DURING THE LAST BIT: THE DINNER#my gosh that's the part that i take offense to personally bc it's really really really difficult to always engage in convos with ppl#after spending the whole day with them already?? and your social battery is down so you quietly enjoy a simple meal??#and then all the girlies threw him away like that??#i mean yeah you're surrounded by sweet men who spend the day appealing themselves to you but come on??#i would have been so impressed by jeongwoo and thankful that he put that much effort in and would understand how difficult it is to#maintain it till the very end because not everyone has hyunsuk's boundless social energy#no offense hyunsuk i love you dearly#and also??? what's up with admitting that you lack some confidence upfront??#the girl's reasoning for giving yoshi the voice recorder was that he said he holds himself to a high standard and lacks confidence sometimes#and i get it. being confident is more attractive than someone who's always insecure and puts themselves down#(and makes the other person uncomfortable) but they were having an honest and deep convo when the thing he said in that convo was used#against him in the end? i would feel kind of betrayed too bc being able to admit that you feel insecure sometimes is a v brave thing to do!!
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fslurusami · 2 years ago
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my brainworms make me believe tsurumi rlly does love usami genuinely. theres a sliding scale of how requited u can read any given tsurumi pairing and its def fun sometimes to write tsurumi as just toying with usami and leading him on or w/e. but i think he genuinely likes him, mainly bcuz that entire 256 situation wasnt necessary in any way, like usami was dying. there would be no practical reason to manipulate him further, no potential future plan to use usami in. nothing would have changed about the plot, he could have done his little standard japanese speech for the morale of the other soldiers or w/e and then literally ignored usami for the few minutes it took for him to rlly die lol. he didnt HAVE to say that gay shit and bite usamis finger off romantically. but he did. gay freaks who luv eachother
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allpromarlo · 1 year ago
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i'd rather be bad now and really good in the future than be kinda average now and really bad in the future idk
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ectoplasmer · 2 years ago
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I think it might be literally killing me that I will never get to hug him or kiss him or anything.
#curse you anime boy for being fictional and still managing to make me fall in love with you#every time i want to hug him or cuddle with him or rest on his chest#i just. lay on my body pillow and squeeze my eyes shut and think really hard about how it would feel#sometimes it works and other times i just feel silly#it sort of helps having things that could simulate it (heating pad heartbeat audio etc)#but i don’t think anything could ever match what the real thing must feel like#i would do anything to hug him for even a second#i would do anything to just bury my face into his shoulder and feel him there#but i can’t. ever. and i think that really sucks#i think it’s a lot more than just ‘it sucks’ but i don’t know how else to legitimize the real deep ache i feel about this#i love him so much and i don’t think there’s anyone i could ever love more#and i can’t hold him#i can’t ever hold his hands#i can’t feel the way his chest would rise and fall or hear what his heartbeat would sound like#i can’t ever lay with him and feel his body heat and feel him actually *there*#and it hurts#instead i am limited to my brain and whatever i can fool myself into feeling#i can think about holding him as much as i want and that’s a good thing#but i will never stop yearning for the real thing :(#i think he’d be very comfy… a lil cold but in a good way#spooky ghosts#erm. just in case this also gets#tw vent#even though this is like… the most surface level thoughts i have about this���
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