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caterpillarinacave · 1 year ago

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Got any random Fairchild family headcanons, especially ones pertaining to Matthew and Henry?

Oh, I always have headcanons!

Also, sorry I took so long to answer, I am currently withering away to sawdust.

Matthew was one of those “nicely disobedient kids”. Someone will be like “okay, keep your shoes on okay? It’s important not to take them off in here alright?” and he's like “yeah yeah yeah! I got it!” then tears his pants and shirt away and takes off running.

Both Matthew and Charles were those kids who just hung off their parents 24/7. Actually, all the TID gangs kids are like that. Someone is always carrying at least one child. Henry’s lap is prime real estate. So are Will’s shoulders. What are adults if not your personal chauffeur?

Henry and Matthew actually do have very similar hair, although Matthew’s is straighter. Matthew can’t tell because, you know, he styles it, and Henry absolutely does not.

Matthew’s concern about not looking like his father in GOTSM is distressing because its so unfounded. He looks a lot like both his parents, and frankly he’s the only one who's never noticed.

Christmas is soooo fun there. Mostly because they dont do any of it at their own house, they just go to all the christmas parties they get invited to and watch shit go down. Every shadowhunter party is a madhouse. Matthew and Charles get released into the crowd of children to play, and Henry and Charlotte just kind of sit to the side and watch everything dissolve into chaos. They’ll send Matthew and Charles home with an uncle or aunt, they're staying to watch 24 year old Micheal what's his name from some corner of Britain tries to fight his 64 year old uncle over the rise of livestock taxes in liverpool. Charlotte doesnt feel morally obligated to step until chairs become involved.

Other than the entertianment of christmas chaos, holidays are fun. They come with markets and present shopping. Matthew and Charles get paired off with whatever parent, then their basically free in a christmas market (provided they stay within five feet of said parent.) Matthew goes with Henry and has the time of his life. He comes home with pockets full of peppermint candies choclaty little fingers and a whole lot of happiness. Also, did you know theres fun holiday stuff in the shadowmarket? Whats better than sitting in your dads lap while he chats with a warlock in a demon language like forty people in the world speak, then going back to the cities for a chocolate croissant. Hey, it's safer than you think, Henry's not letting Matthew go anywhere in that market lol.

Of course, there a lots of bedtime stories and songs. Matthew is big on bedtime stories, though he has a few favorites. He's quite keen on Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, and he asks for it at least once a week. That was Henry's favorite as a child, and there are several copies to pick from which may be part of why Matthew likes it so much.

When Matthew gets a little older they move onto more interesting stuff. You know, the normal books for a nine year old; like The Travels of Marco Polo. Matthew is a well educated nine year old.

There's a lot of checkers and chess. Charlotte is decent at chess, and Henry's amazing at it, though Charles Buford and Matthew are more average. Matthew does, however, enjoy the aesthetic, and can play a mean game of checkers.

Tea time is important. World might be burning down but there will be tea on the Fairchild's table.

Matthew and Charles get sent flowers on special occasions. Doesn't really matter if they want flowers, or if they are "far to old for such frivolaty, I have things to do they'll simply die-" (coughcharlesbufordcough), they get them anyway. Henry and Charlotte have had the same ancient florist from Yorkshire doing it for decades, and considering she's been ninety since Henry was about six, and shows no signs of mortality, Charles and Matthew should prepare to have flowers forever.

One good rule for the kids in that house is to a) knock, and b) if that door is locked, do NOT open it. Really a rule all the TID gang kids know. If you decide to open, or try to open, or even hang out near, a locked door (or any thin walls) may the consequences be on your own head. Look, everyone in that group loves their partner very much,

That’s why Charles Buford is so bitter btw. Didn’t know the rule, scarred for life. Pretty much like that vine.

#also constanly thinking about the fact that matthew is so much like henry and doesnt realize it in ghosts of the shadowmarket #the fact that one of the reasons matthew thought he was gideons bastard was because of his height when Henry is taller than gideon???#never leaves my head. think about it every day. killing me right now. matthew my little meow meow #if i could animate the very first thing i would do would be to animate that vine with charles budford and will. will would think thats hila #hilarious. besides whats charles whining about imagine what james and lucie live with.#i have more naturally but you know #tid #tsc #matthew fairchild #charlotte fairchild #henry fairchild #charles fairchild #charles buford fairchild #charlotte branwell #henry branwell #tlh #the last hours #ask #thanks for the ask #answered #cc

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enthusedbambi-jjba-au · 6 months ago

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Monster AU - Monster Hunters [P1]

[The Guild, silver weaponry and can we please talk about how these bullets break the fucking Geneva Conventions]

Monster Hunting!

I am sure that the term is self explanatory. You probably know already.

But if you don’t, here’s a quick rundown:

Monster hunting, also known as “Field Exorcism”, “Damnation”, “Befliction”, and fucking “murder”, among other things, is the practice of tracking and killing non-humans - that is, “monsters” (or pretty much anyone they believe to be non-human), usually with the overall goal of completely eradicating all “dangerous” cryptian species. It’d be a hate crime if only cryptians were a protected class. In case you haven’t guessed, they’re not (though some of them look human enough that murdering them is still generally frowned upon in most jurisdictions, like most vampires and lycanthropes that shift back upon death).

”Cacciatori”, in Italian, means hunters, and is the word used for monster hunters here as well. Not to be confused with a dish prepared alla Cacciatora, or the surname Cacciatore (we are not here for nominative determinism!!!). They’re majority ‘Catholic’ by which I mean most hunters in Italy seem to be semi-religiously-motivated “Italian Catholics” (they’re Christian at least, I don’t know; the religion scene here is wild). I assume this is primarily due to proximity to the Vatican and general historical contexts. I thought they were all Catholics but apparently most of them just self-describe themselves as Catholics, and I don’t know much about Christianity in the first place. (I had a Bible when I was younger and naturally I drew all over it because I was a child. I do not know what they expected. I also went to a Christian summer camp but I only retained the fun parts of that.)

Okay, back to monster hunters before I get off topic any more.

Most of them hunt:

to ‘protect’ their communities

for religious reasons, usually also an extension of the above

for money, obviously

for money but the other kind

It's hard to say which motivation is the majority, like, I can't exactly do a survey or anything; in Italy, as far as I've seen (I haven't really seen that far, admittedly, mostly just near Naples), it seems to be a somewhat even split, between the general public's subconscious fear of being out at night (as well as the influence of religious institutions) and the financial prospects of mark-hitting and marketing. To be clear, monster bounty hunting (as a casual term. monster-mercenarism might be a closer fit, but... much harder to say) isn't quite the same as regular bounty hunting; monster-mercs actually rarely go after an individual who has a bounty on them—though some do take shady jobs to 'find out' if someone is a monster—they mostly just hunt monsters and then get paid based on their kills.

You probably assume all hunters are human, of course, right? Yeah. I fucking wish. I fucking wish there weren't monsters out there willing to off other cryptians for money. There are even werewolves out there hunting werewolves. Etc. I think sometimes it's like internalised hatred, but sometimes monsters are also out of their fucking minds just like human beings.

I always wondered if they fully grasp just how fucking quickly their fellow hunters would take a gun to their head the second they found out.

But yeah, most of them are human.

Anyways, you might be wondering who the fuck is paying them. Monster hunting isn’t exactly legal since normal non-believers and the government generally will see a dead humanoid cryptian and go “ah, murder”, so I have to assume most of the payment for the mercs (as opposed to the shadowmarket suppliers and shadowmarketers who obviously get paid for merchandise) is funded by the Guild.

now on the subject of the guild: I’m sure a lot of you are curious what in the fuck that is, which is fair, since you probably hadn’t heard of it before i started saying words.

La Gilda dei Cacciatori Mostri

La Gilda dei Cacciatori Mostri d'Italia (GCM), the Italian Monster Hunter's Guild, is precisely what it sounds like: a guild of monster hunters. In Italy. Surprise. I just call them the Guild, mostly. Hunting seems to be sort of culturally hereditary, and Guild membership is somewhat exclusive; for "safety reasons" allegedly (though I personally think at least half the time they're just a bunch of fucking self-righteous elitist bitches), as they need to 'make sure they can trust their members' or something like that. They signal membership of the Guild with these little silver pins with insignias that they wear. They're silver because you have to be able to wear the pin to be in the Guild, I think. I guess they assume that anyone who can touch silver must be a human. I'll get to silver's importance later. I think the bottom of the pin is a tiny out-the-front knife for, like, the most dire of emergencies or something? I've seen some where the bottom comes out more or less, so there's probably a switch on the back that extends the blade, but I can't really say for sure because I just can't seem to get my hands on one. Whatever.

Bunch of smug bastards; they have one of those fancy Latin mottos. Translates to 'Sanctity and Safety; Keeping The Faith'. Or something. No fucking idea what that means, but sure. Anyways, the Guild spans across all of Italy (I don't know if San Marino or the Vatican or Sicily or Sardinia are included; I'm assuming Sicily and Sardinia are, but I can't say for sure). They keep in contact with each other through this Guild… meetings, and stuff. I know there's a Northern Division and a Southern Division, and then a bunch of local chapters in each division. It's sort of hard to find out the specifics since they have to be careful with what they talk about, but it seems like the whole Guild isn't super closely knit because it's just not practical to have everyone at every meeting and such. The divisions are closer amongst themselves than one another, but they all support each other, at least for the most part. I understand them as having a representative system where reps from each chapter are assigned to meet up instead of having everyone meet together to stay connected. They probably keep in touch with everyone so they can alibi each other if police come poking around.

I dunno what the deal with Sicily and Sardinia is, but the distribution seems to split right above Lazio; anything above Lazio is Northern Division, and Lazio plus Abruzzi and anything south of those two regions is Southern. They have Guild ‘capitals’: the Southern one is definitely Rome, though Naples apparently has one of the most ‘powerful’ hunter families in the country (and just a lot of families in the area? From what I’ve seen?); I’m not sure what the Northern capital is but based on population I’d have to guess probably Milan? I don’t really know if the chapters are region- or city-based; I think it might depend on size and population. I’m just gonna call them based on the most notable nearby town/city.

The Guild actually isn’t all that big; most of the smaller chapters are actually just a single family, if that—like I said, hunting seems to be culturally hereditary, so people seem to be passing it on to their kids, which actually means their numbers are starting to dwindle slightly as kids are denouncing or declining the occupation, or people die before their kids get old enough to carry the tradition on or something such. Many known monster hunter families have actually retired semi-recently due to various circumstances. In areas where the primary family or group of hunters have stopped hunting and whatnot, it seems that leaves room for foreigners to step in or hunters already patrolling another location nearby to absorb the unsupervised region into their territory. It’s also when the shadowmarketers swoop in and start ‘poaching’. Shadowmarket suppliers and Guildists seem to have issues with each other, too, even though they’re hunting the same thing. I assume it’s primarily due to greed. Or desperation. Or both.

Here are some notable hunter names and families I’ve heard about (for some reason, there seems to be a lot of them in or around Naples? Or, you know, I’ve only noticed more of those because I’m here):

Mista - Napoli Chapter - wolfhunters, long-standing lineage, Campania representatives (presumably)

So, the Mista family is arguably the most well-known and respected hunter family in the Southern Division. Maybe even in the whole Guild. They specialise in hunting lycanthropes and other zooanthropic creatures (mostly the lycans, though). They’re incredibly successful at killing monsters, and they—as a family—are known for this… ‘faith override’ ability they have. See, faith and belief are super powerful, so religious implements are ineffective against a creature whose theological alignment doesn’t jive with it. A Christian cross isn’t going to do much to an individual of a different religion, because the symbol doesn’t mean anything to them. But the Mista family’s ‘override’ is something about their belief outweighing a general lack of belief, thus making their religious iconography effective against enemies whether they should be affected by it or not. I guess magic is fine if YOU get to use it, huh? Bit self-righteous if you ask me.

The Mista family has been in the Guild for a good while now, allegedly from the beginning, and the youngest member—Guido—seems keen to keep up the family tradition even though he’s not living with his family anymore.

So I think it’s safe to assume he has no clue what’s going on in the group he’s currently part of.

James - bayside Napoli - not actually in the guild

A foreign family, and by family, I mean a guy named Damien James came to Naples from London and was seen for a while with a woman he claimed was his wife, encroached on the Mista family’s territory, and then went missing. He was known but not well-liked and wasn’t allowed in the Guild due to a refusal to respect regulations, adhere to territory rules and cooperate with the Mistas. Nobody knows where the fuck he is. His supposed “wife” is still spotted around the bay occasionally, though. She’s really scary, and apparently, when she got approached by someone asking about Damien, she seemed to get super mad about it. Stupid games, stupid prizes. Don’t fuck with widows. Especially not strange widows who spend a lot of time by the water. That’s how you become sea-food. Dumbass.

Fugo - Napoli Chapter - vampire hunters, long-reaching lineage, seemingly recently retired

I’m not sure how true the stories I’ve heard about are, but I’m under the impression that the Fugo family, a bunch of high-class wealthy rich people, came from a lineage of vampire hunters. But they apparently retired a generation or so ago because they were satisfied with being a bunch of rich assholes. Feel bad for their son but that’s none of MY business!!! Hahaaaaaaa that might also just be a load of bullshit. I don’t really know. I’m telling you what I’ve heard alright. Like I don’t want to hear people bitching because my specialty is researching cryptians not humans!

Verga/Ventura - Roman Chapter - variety hunt

Presumably, they are the descendants of the Guild founders, but half of them—the Venturas—have stepped away from hunting, while the other half—the Vergas—continue to hunt whatever they come across. Despite the surname difference, all currently surviving members of the Verga and Ventura families are actually siblings. I think. The little one in the Ventura family might be one of their kids but I dunno I’m pretty sure one of ‘em called her their sister. I think the Venturas changed their surname to distance themselves from the family history, but I’m not really sure. They also seem to have some connection to Passione, but I can’t elaborate on that for reasons.

There’s, uh…. Nine—NINE?! NINE OF THESE LITTLE BITCHES that is so many. Um, even though they’re all attached to the Roman chapter, only three of them are actually, like, Roman. Or even southern, for that matter. The other six are from, uhh… if I can remember… Venice or Verona (though four of them are twins (or quadruplets?) two claim to be from Verona, and the other two claim they’re from Venice, so I don’t know who to believe). The two eldest and the youngest (the kid) are the Roman ones. Fuck I regret meeting these bitches because now I have to explain shit!

To clarify, while the Verga family seems to have been the founders of the Guild ages ago, the current Verga family don’t seem to be leading it (I don’t know who is) but are just carrying on the tradition. I hear that a lot of them have political or governmental positions which might also have some relation to their connections with Passione. Dunno. They were in Naples a while ago, which was when I met them, but they didn’t stay super long, so most of what I know is also from rumours and poking around.

Cacciatore - Venice Chapter - therianoid hunt - retired

Yeah I know I said with the nominative determinism and whatnot. It's not nominative determinism. Just think about it logically. They're not hunters because they're Cacciatores; they're called the Cacciatores because they were hunters. It's called an occupational surname! (It's pretty much the same as the English surname Hunter; same principle as Baker or Cooper or Smith or Miller).

From what I can gather, along with the Vergas and Mistas, and possibly a couple others, they are the oldest known hunter family, hunting mostly animal-like monsters like werewolves and animal demons; they split from the Guild and eventually from the profession as a whole, citing that the Guild’s recent modern innovations on their weaponry—the Crackling Silver in particular, I’m to believe—are fucked up and incredibly unethical even against monsters. I would have to fucking agree with them! Who in the fuck comes up with a thing like crackling silver?! Ugh. More on that later. It’s bad.

Zatta - Chapter and hunt unknown - allegedly silversmiths, or at least close with the Guild’s

I don’t know if they’re the ones making weapons or just coming up with ideas, but based on my ‘research’, I’m of the understanding that they have something to do with the production of the more advanced and fucked up weapons the Guild has taken to using, like the aforementioned Crackling Silver, as well as burst bolts and Stoppers. I don’t know what their main hunt is, if they have one, though I have heard that they’re kind of on thin ice for not getting along with other hunters. Something about how silver is for monsters and not humans. They’re close with another hunter family that also has ties with weapon production, but I don’t know what the other family is called.

Apparently, the youngest daughter severed ties and outright denounced monster hunters as a whole—something about hunters being way fucking worse than the monsters they go after, and she can’t take being around them anymore because they’ve done more than enough damage to her life. You go, girl! There is definitely a LOT of issues and trauma going on there that we are NOT going to unpack! I’ve heard rumours that her brother also split from the family but has been seen in various towns and cities, allegedly “appearing to be hunting”. No clue what that fucking means.

Okay. That’s about all I’ve picked up from trying to sneak around and infiltrate hunter circles.

Which means now it’s time to talk about the super fucked up part. The weaponry.

Silver

so I was going to wait till a future post to really delve into Silver and related topics, but it’s important for this topic to give you the groundwork:

Silver is the single most widely effective and secular monster deterrent and defence. ‘Course, a lot of the Christians think it’s a holy metal. That’s not why it works; it’s not religiously aligned, and that’s why it’s so widely effective. For a lot of monsters—or at least the most commonly known ones, like vampires, werewolves, demons and their ilk—silver will burn. And bad. It hurts and does physical damage. Humans are actually super lucky to be incredibly resistant to silver, but humans also love to push that envelope and give themselves argyria by excessive use of silver as an alternative medicine which by the way, totally do not recommend; please be fucking responsible and don’t turn your skin blue by fucking about with colloidal silver and the such. I can’t believe I have to go out of my way to say this. Anyways, yeah, humans can get silver poisoning too, but monsters are very magically-infused, which is why silver is so much more hazardous to them. I’ll explain that fully at a later date.

Just know—silver? Great against the common monsters. So of course, when hunters (who’d have their crosses and holy water sometimes fail) found that silver worked on nearly everything, they immediately turned to it as their weapon material of choice. Started out with swords, though silver isn’t exactly super cheap or super easy to get, so most silver swords were actually made chiefly from more affordable, more available materials, like steel, and then the blades were tempered with a thin layer of silver, which seemed to work alright.

Blades were traditional for hunters, they’re the oldest silver weapons used by the Guild. First swords, until swords turned out to be unwieldy as fuck. And impractical in the modern day. And expensive. And heavy. And just fucking ridiculous. Swords were replaced by silver hunting knives since they were more subtle, quieter and cheaper.

Are they good?

…no? absolutely not

Come ON! Does close-quarters combat with a transmissive werewolf sound like a great fucking idea to you?! Lycanthropy is transmitted through saliva-blood contact, LIKE GETTING FUCKING BITTEN. Traditional doesn’t mean fucking GOOD. I imagine shit would be fucking awkward if these guys were trying to kill monsters with KNIVES. Swords could be fine, at least at the time when it was all they had, since they had longer reach than knives, but they were superseded by ranged weapons pretty sharpish.

Still, every monster hunter (at least in the Guild) has a hunting knife, probably for emergencies. Only the blade is really silver, not the back of it, to my knowledge, and they’re made to be practical. If the dagger is super fancy, it’s probably fake silver, for religious purposes, or the owner is just a massive fucking bitch. A real hunting knife is simple. Practical against humans, too, kinda, but mostly good as a utility knife. You can throw them if you’re out of your fucking mind (or that one gayboy in La Squadra who is obviously already out of his fucking mind).

Anyway, swords were short-lived for monster hunters. The primary weapon for hunters was crossbows with silver bolts for a while, and then guns became a thing. A few hunters still use crossbows, but most carry guns now and silver bullets. Innovation is mainly made with long-distance hunting weapons since they’re safer to use. I’ve seen a hunter use a fucking slingshot. Didn’t stick around, obviously. I ain’t out here triflin with David. I’m under 4’, and I still want NO part of that

So anyways, yeah, maybe I'm a bleeding heart that doesn't agree with monster hunting, but it's normal-ass guns and silver bullets. Those aren't the worst shit; maybe you don't think it's that inhumane to kill with that (hunters don't see monsters as human anyway), so what's the big deal.

The big fucking deal is the fucking mods they started putting on the bullets and whatnot.

The primary purpose of ALL silver ammo innovations is to prevent the monsters—generally the zooanthropes, I think; surely they don't use this type of shit on vamps and stuff, at least I fucking hope, 'cus if they do, they're more fucked up empathetically than I thought—from being able to recover from their wounds, thus dooming or at least weakening them with unending afterpain.

Which is fucked up. AND AGAINST THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS BY THE WAY. JUST SO WE’RE CLEAR.

I am especially talking about what I’ve mentioned earlier:

Crackling Silver

The “crackling silver” bullet (named for the crackling noise they make as they exit the chamber) is designed with looser shards of silver that loosen with the heat of the gun upon firing, then break off and embed in the wound upon impact, which prevents the wound from healing itself as the silver shards never stop burning the flesh until removed. It’s not just designed to hurt like all fuck; it’s also designed to keep the wound open since the shards mostly embed into the front of the wound where they break off. By keeping the wound open, the monsters are not unlikely to slowly bleed out unless they’re able to find someone who can help them dig the shards out.

Stopper Bullets

The good news is that since silver burns most of these common monsters, the bullets—even crackling silver—will pass right through their body, so only the shards are left inside the wound, so the bleeding out is more of a concern that they can focus on, since the pain isn’t so bad! Apparently, that was a problem! So, someone came up with Stopper Bullets. Stoppers are silver bullets that (don’t ask me how they work, I don’t know) somehow jam themselves halfway through the monster’s body, never coming out the other side, meaning they just sit inside the body and BURN. Stopper bullets are more of an auxiliary weapon, I think; they’re more meant to slow down the monster because they focus on the pain.

there is a special place in hell for whoever the fuck thought to make the crackling stopper. You can infer what that does based on the above.

Silverdust

It’s silver dust. I’ve heard hunters with more silver to waste like to throw silverdust in lycanthropes’ faces to blind them. I feel that some of these hunters are only hunting to go on a power trip.

Burst Bolts

Kinda like the crossbow version of Crackling Silver, except I'm not super sure how they work because I know next to nothing about crossbows?

Like, just, do you get why this shit drives me up the fucking wall?? It’s not even that they just casually use this crazy shit; it’s the fact they don’t seem to care! Like, even giving them the leniency that they don’t think monsters are free-thinking creatures, did NOBODY but the Cacciatores see this and think it was fucking sadistic?? Even if monsters were like animals with no complex awareness or comprehension, even IN the case of frenzied lycanthropes, why go out of your way to make them suffer unless you enjoy the suffering of other living creatures? Would you go to the same lengths if you hunted deer, or rabbits, or birds?

It was never necessary! That’s why it’s so fucked up! A normal-ass silver bullet will kill with a shot to any mortal creature’s vitals, so these mods exclusively serve to inflict a painful and needlessly prolonged death upon a creature and would only be useful for people who can’t fucking aim and need to slow their target down, right?!

The worst part, the way I see it, is that a lot of them—take Guido Mista, for example, the youngest of the Mista family—have more-or-less noble intentions, like wanting to keep the streets safe, and they genuinely believe they are by hunting monsters. I’m sure that if a lot of these people knew that they were close to monsters, or even just that monsters aren’t necessarily evil, they probably would realise that the monsters aren’t always the aggressors.

I’m sure if a lot of them knew that some of their close friends weren’t human, those hunters wouldn’t have it in them to hold true to their convictions and turn on the people they love and trust.

I don’t think it’s impossible that some of the hunter families that have retired might have done so because this happened to them in some way. Monster hunters make me angry, but they also make me pretty sad sometimes, especially knowing that a lot of them just had the monster-hunting thing pushed on them by their families.

And hey, even if you're one of the people who actually hates monsters and support the Guild in eradicating them all, you do realise a lot of regular ass humans can and do get hurt by this shit, too, right? like, sure, silver doesn't burn humans, but that doesn't mean it's not going to fucking hurt to have silver shards jammed in your fucking body. Nobody is perfect, no matter how experienced, and mistakes are bound to happen while hunting every so often.

That's assuming it's a mistake, anyway. if you'll recall what I said about the Zatta family being on thin ice. I doubt they're the only ones.

oh well whatever

That’s all I got for now. Stay safe.

#golden wind #vento aureo #jjba #jjba fanart #monster au #jojo fanart #jojos bizarre adventure #jojo's bizarre adventure #jjba monster au #jojo au #jjba au #monster au lore #Pannacotta Fugo #Guido Mista #jjba oc #jojo oc #enthused cryptotaxonomist moments #monster hunters

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