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onegirlatelier · 2 months

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April, 2024 | Shetland lace shawl

Hi there! It’s been a while. I’ve been kept busy by all my university work…and this shawl.

The shawl is knitted to celebrate the wedding of my friend (now friends, I should say). A wedding is really the perfect excuse for all the heritage crafts and heirloom projects that might seem too serious to gift in other occasions. I did ask the recipient beforehand if she would like it, though, and I was so, so honoured that I got an enthusiastic ‘yes’. I’m sure this sentiment is shared by many makers, whatever gift they are making.

Shetland fine openwork, a knitted lace, seems to have emerged with the beginning of the reign of Queen Victoria, who championed and popularised the craft. It was probably spread from the Isle of Unst to other parts of Shetland. What surprised me the most when I first read about it was that Shetland shawls and other lace pieces were largely exported as luxury items and rarely worn by islanders themselves. Women bought yarn from spinners and knitted mostly in their homes. They then took them to local merchants and exchange the finished objects for goods or (commonly after the 1880s) money to supplement the household income. The ‘supplement’ nature of this work probably means it was not compensated as much as a job outside the home would be for the same hours and skills. Besides, it was not always easy to spin an even 1-ply yarn at 1600 metres per 100 grams. For a piece of knitting with a large ‘plain’ area (i.e. only knit stitches), the unevenness was impossible to hide but could only be discovered after the area was worked. Then the maker had to either frog (unravel) the area or continue with the risk of the whole piece not being able to sell.

Whilst it is very reasonable to point out that Shetland ladies did not usually wear this type of lace (I’ve been to the Scottish Highlands once, in summer, and it was not fine lace weather), I imagine that at least for some, it wasn’t just about making money. Some sort of fulfilment must have been from the satisfaction of having a piece ‘properly done’ by continuing and adapting a traditional pattern, technique or material. I think this sort of satisfaction is also why many modern knitters are willing to spend hundreds of hours on lacework.

Intricate handknitted lace items can still be bought today (a quick search on Etsy would show many are form eastern European countries with a long and prominent craft tradition), but many are knitted for friends or family members. It always makes me so happy to see people share the gifts they have made, whether big or small, simple or complex. I joke with my online craft friends that no handmade fibre project can claim to be so unless they have a hair or two woven into it. It is the proof of existence for the maker, who tries to go against the irregular nature of handicrafts and, at the same time, accepts it. It is about wrapping up hours, weeks or months in one’s life, along with the songs they have listened to and the perfume they have worn and the memories they have made, and putting it squarely in someone else’s hands and saying: ‘All this, for you.’

A Wedding Shawl

I have not read anything about there being a standard form of ‘wedding shawl’ in the Shetland tradition. However, there is definitely a category of square shawls with similar sizes and a few construction methods. The samples I’ve seen mostly measure 1.5-2m on one side and have three parts: a central panel, four borders and a strip of edging. It is worked flat in garter lace from centre out.

Neither is there a standardised yarn weight. A widely available yarn is the Shetland Supreme Lace Weight 1-ply by Jamieson and Smith, which weighs at 400m/25g. The Queen Ring Shawl examined by Sharon Miller used a yarn at 700m/25g. From my experience, if you want the shawl to be a true ring shawl (i.e. you want to be able to pull the shawl through a ring) at the size of the Queen Ring Shawl (210cm on the side), go for 700m/25g or finer.

I chose a rectangular shawl because I had very limited time, but I did enlarge it because for me, an abundance of fabric does mean an abundance of cozy happiness.

Pattern

Shell Grid and Spider Webs Puzzle, pattern No.19 in the book Shetland Knitting Lace by Toshiyuki Shimada.

The names of the motifs are confusing. One motif (or two highly similar motifs) might just have two different names if they are produced in two different regions. Names do not mean everything, but I’ve had fun trying to match the motifs with names according to this article by Carol Christiansen at the Shetland Museum.

The double yarnovers (YO's) in the diamonds were called Cat's Eye, but perhaps the 'Spider Web' in the pattern name is referring to the three rows of double YO's in the centre panel. It has a really simple but effective edging.

Yarn

Mermaid Lace, in colourway #naturel, sold by Great British Wool in the Netherlands. This yarn is 75% merino and 25% sea algae silk. ‘Sea algae silk’ seems to be a semi-synthetic plant fibre like viscose, with algae involved as part of the raw material. (At this price point I don’t think it has anything to do with sea silk, which is fibre produced by actual shells.) The brand name for the most popular product of its type is probably Seacell.

I bought the yarn, because I had never worked with this fibre before and was curious. What I like: it was a little cheaper than a wool/silk blend and has blocked very well. The whole skein was continuous so I didn’t have to deal with a single yarn joint. What I do not like: it lacks the sheen and smoothness of real silk and doesn’t feel as strong, although it doesn’t shed. In conclusion, I’d rather use a traditional Shetland 1-ply or another natural fibre yarn.

It's also worth mentioning that whilst I prefer to support small businesses, it was disappointing to have received a 93-gram skein when I had ordered 100 grams. It was one of those days between Christmas and the New Year and I somehow did not contact the customer service, but I really should have.

Needle

2.5mm 80cm circular needles. See modification below.

Modification

This Japanese knitting book follows Japanese sizing for knitting needles. The suggested size was no. 1=2.4mm. I figured that I could use a 2.5mm since I knitted on the tighter side, and in any case it was probably okay to make the lacework a little more open by going up a needle size.

I am not going to give out the pattern, but it is probably necessary to explain the structure of this shawl. The centre is knitted first, and then an edging is knitted onto it by picking up either live stitches or the vertical edge of the centre as you go (see schematic below). The four ‘corners’ of the edging have short-row shaping to help it lay flat. I know that traditionally people can achieve this by other methods, but I haven’t tried any of those yet.

I enlarged the pattern by increasing both the width and the length. I casted on 133 stitches instead of 101 for the centre panel and knitted Part B 8.5 times instead of 5.5. The spider web pattern in Part B requires the stitch count to be (something dividable by four) plus two, so I made one central increase before the spider web to get 134 and a central decrease after it to get it back to 133. Due to the openness of the lace, the change of one stitch is not visible.

The enlargement meant I had to recalculate the edging as well, because the number of stitches available for pick-up changed. Originally, at each corner you do two repeats with four short-row shaping each. I did 1.5 repeats following the original placement of short-row shaping in order to make the total number of repeats fit the number of edge stitches on the centre panel.

The pattern says to Kitchener-stitch the last row of the edging to the provisional cast-on. It just didn’t make sense because that would be two rows too much (the Kitchener stitch row plus the provisional cast-on row). To make the number perfectly fit, I knitted only ten rows of the last repeat (there were usually twelve in each repeat). Then I Kitchener-stitched the end to the provisional cast-on, following the lace pattern. I am quite proud of this solution because it is completely invisible.

Somewhere in the pattern it said to purl (looking from the right side). It seemed strange because the rest of the lace was entirely garter. I knitted those stitches and so far I haven’t sensed a ‘mistake’.

The pattern originally calls for 45 grams of yarn. I estimated (based on the increase of stitches in the centre panel) to need about 80 grams. I ended up using 86 grams. Besides the inaccuracies in my estimation, it was probably also because I knitted much more loosely than expected as it was difficult to tension the yarn tightly at such a weight. Like I've point out in the Yarn section above, I was lucky not to have needed more than 93 grams.

The original finished size is 53*118cm. I ended up with approximately 70*170cm.

Conclusion

This shawl took about three months of my craft time i.e. one full day every week for three months and many mornings before I had to leave for university. Knitting outside my room just didn’t work because I was a) engaged in some other activities that made it difficult to steady my hands, and b) worried about putting a white shawl on any public surface.

The pattern itself is relatively straightforward. The first difficulty was, of course, to understand the instruction written in Japanese. Google translate was horrible so I had to rely on my knitting experience. Fortunately, much of the text description was also found in graphs and charts. Then I had to get my hands used to the tiny yarn. After that, it was only fiddly when I did the edging, because I had to turn about every twelve stitches, and by that time I was handling a giant cloud of stitches on my lap. It did give me a lot of time to go over my favourite documentaries and films, and the last bit of edging was surprisingly quick!

Traditionally, Shetland shawls could be sent back to the maker for maintenance. I think it only fair for me to offer that too because I don’t want a gift to become a trouble (same as how you do not use non-machine-washable yarn for baby knits).

In general, I am very pleased with this shawl. It does pass the ring test, despite not being a traditional wedding shawl size or thickness. I do have a whole lot of actual Shetland 1-ply in my stash, so I am really looking forward to taking my Queen Ring Shawl project out of hibernation in the near future.

Reference list for Introduction

Christiansen, Carol. Shetland fine lace knitting: Recreating patterns from the past. Marlborough: Crowood, 2024.

Mann, Joanna. 'Knitting the Archive: Shetland Lace and Ecologies of Skilled Practice'. Cultural Geographies 25, no. 1 (January 28, 2017): 91–106. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474016688911.

#knitting #knitblr #shetland lace #lace knitting #gift-knitting #stories

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fernsnailz · 2 months

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hello! i was wondering how long you've been animating for? and what got you into storyboarding & comic making? do you have any tips for comic making (paneling) & animating?

i've been animating since i was a teenager but i didn't start animating consistently until college, so a little over 5 years! but i've been making comics since i was little, so animating and storyboarding just kinda came naturally from that.

my general advice for comics is that it's all about flow and timing! flow is about determining the right pacing for your scene as well as making it readable. usually the panels flow from one into the other - like in the example below (by tracy yardley who is REALLY good at this stuff), the motion of the characters leads into the next panel, and the speech bubbles also line up with where the action of the panel naturally leads.

obligatory archie sonic mention complete

timing is just as important and can be conveyed in a number of different ways in comics. usually with my work, the size of the panel indicates how long i imagine the moment is. so a small panel is a short moment, and a large panel requires a bit more time.

long moments can also be split into multiple shorter moments if you break it up into numerous panels.

paneling itself can be pretty tricky - i tend to break a lot of my pages up into thirds first (at whatever proportion you need), then arrange whatever panels i need within those thirds.

these aren't really rules that are set in stone, just a few things that i've found have helped me. you don't need to fill a whole page with tons of Stuff for a comic - it's all about figuring out how you want your story to flow through the page's space. same with storyboarding, that flow and timing is important in an even more literal sense because storyboards flows through actual time, not just space on a page.

idk if any of this makes much sense so. i also highly highly recommend the Comics Devices Library for other elements and principles you can use lol it's very good 👍

i don't have as many tips for animating since 1) i consider myself to be a comic/storyboard artist first and an animator second, and 2) animating is. very complex lol. if you're new to animating then i suggest starting SMALL and trying out some beginner animation exercises and the 12 Principles of Animation.

if you're already an animator and just looking for general advice then uhh. idk arcs are important. arcs are SO fucking important do not forget that most motions move in some sort of arc. also remember to label your keyframes and looping animations. and put secondary actions and limbs on different layers if you don't want to go crazy. also animate your character's eyes and pupils moving if a shot feels too still. yeah that's all i got good night tristate area

#i hope any of this makes any sort of sense lmao #fernasks #long post

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probablyhuntersmom · 1 year

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An Uncommonly Discussed Trauma Symptom

Disclaimer: This is in no way a substitute for therapy: it’s only psychoeducation. Please consult a therapist and/or hotline and get the help you need if you are experiencing mental health difficulties, especially if experiencing distress or issues that feel unmanageable.

Warnings: Mentions and discussion of suicidal ideation, death, abuse and violence.

Special thanks to @ashanimus and @childlikegoblinqueen

Ever heard of "the sense of a foreshortened future"?

If you have suffered trauma over a sustained and long enough period of time, you may find that you can't imagine yourself living long. You can't see yourself reaching milestones, because it hardly makes sense to your mind that you can go on for that long...given how much you have felt like you've escaped danger, given just how many close calls you have had in life.

Yet the sense of a foreshortened future is a separate thing from suicidality.

If you have both of those together though, it really isn't fun because they may feed one another in a cycle, in the way that symptoms under the same mental health condition have the potential to do the same.

It isn't a desire for pain to end (which is what suicidality is), more so a generated expectation that takes root, and a framework which a survivor tries to fit their experiences into, with the goal to get things to make as much sense as can be. Because it's often the easier thing to devise a simple formula, to feel certainty and to manage one's expectations: rather than embrace the grey areas of uncertainty about how life will turn out.

It's almost as if this feeling of a foreshortened future is in a tug-of-war match between what appears to be solid reasoning, and a person's natural survival instinct along with the hunger for a meaningful life.

This symptom isn't on the *official* criteria for a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist to make any diagnoses, it is not listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) or International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10). But informally it is sometimes categorized as an avoidance symptom under both PTSD and Complex PTSD, and also under longer-term depression.

(however, I think it can extend to other conditions. The key criteria is it emerges from repeatedly experiencing horrible things until it makes sense in one's head to expect themselves not to last much longer)

If you hop onto Google Scholar to find proper research about it, the findings are very scarce because it's hard to define it, empirically measure it and quantify it in the first place.

Again, it's not the same as suicidal ideation because a foreshortened-future view is an expectation, while the latter is about a desire.

I wasn't taught about this symptom in any training and supervision before becoming a licensed therapist, nor did any of my own therapists bring it up as psychoeducation when I saw them. It was only through online articles on informal websites that I stumbled upon the phrase and it all clicked for my long-term experiences.

But I feel it is good knowledge for anyone providing psychotherapy to bear in mind.

In The Owl House, the grimwalker lore weaved into Hunter's arc, can shockingly be linked with this symptom, symbolically and thematically.

But the show's age rating means it would likely be too dark for the writing team to explicitly incorporate it into Hunter's dialogue.

Hunter was a lamb marked for the slaughter early on.

He has questioned his survival and ability to thrive.

The following article on Psychology Today describes Belos's long-term influence on Hunter pretty well and provides info that strengthens the points I'm making in this whole post:

Link

It's bad enough that before Hunter and Luz found Belos's mindscape, he struggled with the fear of failure to the extent that there was already the raging inner battle between his primal survival instinct and the already knackered part of him that sought eternal rest from his suffering (showing up as suicidal thoughts):

Fast forward a number of episodes...and we see the looming horrors in Hollow Mind that culminated in Hunter's discovery of what his predecessors went through:

followed by permanent rejection by his parental figure:

The power held by a foreshortened-future view, and its potential to isolate you - to make you feel like you're invisible, or a ghost - can be strong.

What Hunter said to Gus in the following screencaps sums up what it feels like pretty well:

In the context of having an abuser, it emerges from the negative beliefs they impose on you. It gets tricky if those beliefs are internalized, and which may remain internalized even after you get to safety and away from said abuser. Internalized until they become what you expect of your life.

It's about those thoughts which you know in your rational mind are lies, but you feel their apparent truth. They go more silent when you practice self-care but they return to try and reel you in again, and to a degree, they succeed in getting you to believe them all over again, before you renounce them once more.

Being in the C-PTSD Club along with Hunter, I personally experience the feeling of a foreshortened future as a voice deep down which almost always says that life feels too long and it therefore feels absolutely weird, like it doesn't make sense. Life feels too long, contrary to that commonly heard cheesy quote, "Life is too short to blah blah blah".

When I reached milestone birthdays like my 21st, it was confusing and made me irritable, feeling an itch deep down that I could not scratch.

The voice asks me why the heck I'm still around when it apparently doesn't make sense. It's a pervading feeling which can be pretty annoying, though I have it far enough in the background that it's like noise instead of being a source of distress.

It's not the easiest thing to explain this, but Hunter may have confusing thoughts creeping into his head like "Caleb didn't last long, why would I?" whereby such thoughts have a strange feel to them. They aren't exactly hard rules, nor are they distant enough that they can be easily brushed aside. Brain hurty, emotions spooky.

After the horror of this night:

I can definitely see Hunter wrestling with this symptom from time to time. No doubt. It was a major loss of autonomy and control that would significantly aggravate what was already brewing deep down.

I'm doubtful that the crew even established this on purpose (unless they actually consulted trauma experts and/or experienced mental health practitioners), but...this one symptom ties in with grimwalker lore so perfectly...it's hella fascinating that all Hunter's predecessors' lives (including Caleb's) were cut short. Prematurely.

They came with an expiry date set by their abuser: something very characteristic of this foreshortened future feeling, though not unique to survivors of abusive home environments (e.g. if you experienced natural disasters over many years, yet had a loving family, you could also feel like you may not live long). And Hunter's experience of seeing the grimwalker graveyard in Hollow Mind is a shockingly visceral and visual metaphor to symbolize a concept like this, which matches perfectly with his symptomology as a Complex PTSD survivor.

The battle for inner peace has a high price: it is ongoing, and extends beyond him being physically free from Belos. Because Hunter can't just trim away the Belos-related memories from his earliest years and formative years. He can't forget, but he can choose to give those memories less attention, and choose not to let them take the steering wheel in the long-term.

In my opinion, the possession scenes don't just portray the physical experience of an abuser returning to try regaining control or restoring the status quo of having the survivor in their grasp.

The scenes also represent the abuser's imprint upon the survivor that lasts beyond the duration for which Belos is present in Hunter's life. Belos is the kind of abuser that is so insidious that he knows he could leave some marks that outlast his directly physical presence, in the event that he meets his own end. He would have definitely thought about this. Leaving the kind of grisly reminders that won't ever technically fade away (not to be confused with how they can certainly "fade further into the background" via therapy, new positive experiences and the support of loved ones).

For example, the patterns of the permanent scars on Hunter look so much like the patterns on Philip's own face and body. When possessed, the markings were dark green, later faded to the colour of scar tissue once Belos leaves his body.

As we all know, it's hella sad to imagine Hunter having to look at himself in mirrors throughout the rest of his life. It was awful enough that he had the haircut-related panic attack.

If we tie all that back to the symptom of a foreshortened-future view: Hunter might be left with a spooky nebulous feeling (that will alternate between coming back to haunt him, and subsiding) that he too has some expiry date that is different from how the people around him naturally and confidently expect to live a substantially long life. As a cult survivor with C-PTSD, Hunter can't afford the luxury of those natural expectations.

I don't mean that he might plan a day in the future to end his own life, not at all. But he may have a strange ghostly expectation of how long more he has till his life may come to an end, and he wouldn't be sure of how this subconscious expectation came about.

The darker days of navigating the confusing mess of his complex trauma may feel like exhaustion from paddling and swimming to keep your head above water to breathe.

Speaking of water and drowning, plus the theme of sinking down vs. rising back up above the water surface...the fact that Camila jumped in to bring him back up, his friends helped to pull him out, and Flapjack passes new life to him...this is also some crazy powerful symbolism for surviving complex trauma.

Falling back on a support network, your "tribe", that won't abandon you.

My other Hunter analyses (link) go into more detail about his support network and why he needs it.

I was talking to a friend about all this: she has relevant lived experience and mentioned that poor Hunter would reach a milestone birthday and perhaps cry at least a bit on that day, maybe even during the birthday party: out of sheer confusion. The confusion would be silently screaming "But...this doesn't...make sense?". And he might feel confusing waves of darker emotions along with a strange sense of joy.

He may make a decision to start a family with Willow, and a confused questioning voice will bother him now and then with "How are you still here, doing this and living to see this?".

(...also, when is his birthday...? Is it documented in some Emperor's Coven records that they will find..? Even the mere concept of having a birthday is messed up for him to think about, given the purpose behind his creation)

Complex trauma changes its survivors' relationships with the world, not just with people, and this can even apply to their relationships with things like joy and how joy is experienced.

Flapjack's absence would have bred survivor's guilt. It might translate into Hunter questioning whether he is worth the love and effort his friends put in for him. This feeling could emerge at random moments over the years in his life.

Visually, I feel that these two frames - the lighting (which I'd say is unique among all his scenes because they are parts of his arc that stand out so much), his pose, his expression - somehow capture the experience of how complex trauma is chronic and long-term:

The currently most known C-PTSD memoir out there, What My Bones Know by journalist Stephanie Foo, has some content that I feel matches nicely with what Hunter is experiencing in the two separate scenes above.

The author describes something she calls "the dread" (if you get the book, it's first mentioned on page 51). I would call it the amalgamation of multiple things such as shame, the fear of impending harm, self-doubt where you question whether you did something wrong, fearing that someone hates you, etc.

And basically, good lord my poor boy in the first screenshot..with that expression of suspecting what he thought was Belos's presence in the room: something about it fits the book author's words, feeling like she was "on the precipice of fucking everything up".

That's certainly something that would cross Hunter's mind multiple times as he processes the worst night of his life. That he could have done something to prevent all that.

With so much pre-existing worry that his friends and family might actually hate him, the possession scenes and Flapjack's death would definitely shake his foundation and I'm sure he isn't past this kind of ingrained thought pattern at all:

Second, the book author calls C-PTSD a shapeshifting "beast" (page 316). And when she fights it, she must use a different strategy depending on what form it takes, and that it will keep coming back from time to time in another form. Which is why there is a particular exhaustion one feels from having to adapt to each battle.

For Hunter, the second screencap of him fighting Belos's coercion in a direct physical manner is the first of many battles he has to win in his mind, even after Belos is gone for good. Outlasting whatever invisible assailant is trying to get him, as he faces inevitable episodes of being retraumatized in the future: these are called emotional flashbacks (one of the symptoms of C-PTSD).

Being a survivor of complex trauma who experiences a weird sense of time via a foreshortened-future view, can feel like being on the outside looking in.

But! To end this meta on a hopeful note, I should reiterate something from my most recent long meta about Retraumatization vs. Self-Soothing, the first part of Hunter's important speech in Thanks to Them touches on wild magic and palisman. Wild magic represents freedom, while palismen (quoting the Bat Queen) represent close bonds in relationships, emotion, and conviction.

Applying this to how we can navigate the swampy waters of a foreshortened-future view, Hunter can use his newfound freedom and sense of agency to create the story he'd like to tell about his life. It is pretty much impossible to avoid bringing beliefs from our young formative years into adulthood. But expectations (which have a direct link with emotions we end up feeling) of ourselves and of life can be altered over time, so they become less rigid and instead more open to new possibilities.

He has an inquisitive mind which is a big plus point in understanding the impact of what he has been through, and I have full faith that he'll do just fine in that regard because of the courage we have seen in him.

Among the hobbies he explores in the future, flyer derby will be one example of an excellent outlet for him because of its physicality: trauma and grief are not only emotional battlegrounds but also highly physical ones. The body is also very much involved e.g. feeling the lead-like weight of depressive moods in one's body, feeling the physical tension of hypervigilance, etc.

It's fantastic that he has Luz, Willow, Gus and company, he will have a very meaningful career, and he'll have everyone else in his large found family.

His story...his heart...his resilience and vitality...it's all truly inspirational.

We might learn even more about the grimwalkers in the finale and that would undoubtedly prompt me to do a shorter Part 2 on top of this meta.

#toh analysis #toh hunter #grimwalkers #the owl house #loz writes a meta #huntlow

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fatuismooches · 4 months

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Good day! Life is the definition of stress for me lately, so i turn to Dottie x Fragile!Reader for comfort once more. I hereby present you: bathtime!

Just before i begin - NO NSFW! Only wholesomeness! Horny will automatically have their names added to test subjects volunteers list!

Reader's mysterious sickness got worse over time. Fragile body forced them staying in bed and prevented them from completing even the simplest mundane activities, such as eating or showering. But it's no fun staying in sweaty bed, is it? So, while segments are busy changing sheets, Zandik brings his beloved to bathroom.

Let's address the obvious - reader would get extra shy. It's not the first time Zandik sees them naked, taking all physical health exams into consideration. However, man is more than willing to look away and wait - he will avoid looking at the Reader if that's what they want.

Bath time feels like luxurious spa complex. Scented bath bombs? Check. Bath bubbles? Check. Soothing music playing in the background? Check. Shoulders massage? Check. Hair-washing? Check.

Speaking of the latter, Zandik's long, slim fingers rubbing shampoo into reader's hair brings them euphoria. He's so gentle with every movement, careful not to get any bubbles into his dear's eyes. Zandik also uses shampoo of his own making (perks of being the all-knowing scientist!). If Reader's hair was greasy and messy before, once the bathtime is over, you bet their locks are smooth to the touch and extra soft.

Man would make sure the Reader has been fully dried off. He'll also personally dry their hair with hair dryer (...does Teyvat have hair dryers? Idk. Assume it's something similar then.), so they don't catch cold that could further worsed their condition! Once the spa procedures are done, Zandik will have reader dressed in fresh pyjamas and wrapped in a bathrobe, cuddled in his arms - he will then carry them bride-style back to bedroom where a bed with fresh sheets and a segment with a mug of hot chocolate was waiting for them.

Cuddles and kisses afterwards are a major part of whole bathtime procedure! Must not be skipped!

BATH TIME WITH DOTTORE. <3 Your illness frequently rendered you unable to do even the simplest of activities, most importantly the basics of living. Or perhaps your mental state was not the best and you could not bring yourself or find the energy to take care of yourself. But at least you have your lovers with you to do that when you can't yourself.

No matter how many times your husband sees you nude you still get a bit anxious about it, you know he loves you. But you still can't help but look in the mirror and wonder if he notices even more imperfections than you, after all, his eyes are very observant. However every time, he patiently holds and reassures you in his own Dottore-like very, despite how many times you two have done this same routine, he doesn't seem annoyed. You're thankful.

Dottore had honestly never used or cared for such extraneous products in the bath, he never saw the point of them. He always got in and out of the shower, he never exactly relaxed in it. It was only until you started using fancy stuff like that and forcing him into it that he started to warm up to the idea of bath time also being relaxing time (something both of you really need.) And he can easily see that this is something you need right now. However, he is clueless by himself so he probably found himself at the mercy of the Damslette and Regrator much to his dismay... but, it's for you, so he can endure...

Dottore's hands are very skilled, certain areas of his work require great control over them to avoid any mistakes, so it's not surprising in itself for them to be gentle and delicate. However, what is surprising is for that gentleness to be used on another person. It wasn't easy for him at first either, he loves you but being gentle doesn't come easily or naturally for him. But he still does try and it seems that eventually, you get so lost in the feeling of his fingers massaging your scalp that you don't notice if he messes up. I imagine you'd try to return the favor too if you have the strength. Unfortunately, it gets into his eyes but he has zero reaction to it for your sake.

After the bath, you would feel so warm and fuzzy from how good it felt, but most importantly you felt that Zandik cared, which was always very important for you. Sure, he wasn't the world's most perfect lover, but you didn't care about that. All that mattered was that he tried, and that he loved you. (He invented Teyvat's first and only hair dryer. End of story.) You'd nearly fall asleep as he dries your hair, barely hanging on by the time he dresses you in something warm. But you can't fall asleep now! You have to stay awake and treasure this moment with him! It's not often opportunities like this arise with your Zandik! And you have to be awake to feel all the kisses you'll get!

(His cup of hot chocolate definitely has a little too much marshmallows in it...)

#smooches talks #🐺 anon #fragile reader <3 #dottore love notes <3 #the *bonk go to h/orny jail* 😭#but anyway thank you for this brainrot... it's very adorable!!#i hope you can be able to relax soon... *hugs*

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racefortheironthrone · 4 months

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Now you mentioned i, I am a bit surprised Smallville is prominently and consistently in Kansas? It's Smallville, Kansas. There might be others and certainly cities located vaguely within a real region, but it's definitely the first fictional town or city of D.C. in a real-world American state to come to mind.

So this gets to the weirdness of D.C geography. When Superman was first established, there was much less of a cohesive "universe," so if Siegel and Shuster wanted Superman to specifically be raised in Kansas, that's where he was from and the rest of the geography would have to work itself out.

IMO, this early slapdash approach to world-building has (over time) led to some things that just don't make sense to me as a student of urban history and urban studies:

Metropolis shouldn't be in Delaware. It doesn't make sense in terms of urbanization, given the context of an already-crowded Northeastern Corridor - Delaware simply does not have the capacity to sustain a city of 11 million people, and you wouldn't get a municipality of that size right next door to New York City (as well as D.C's other fictional cities in the area). The whole idea of Metropolis and Gotham being across the river/bay from each other has never really worked for me; you can still do Superman/Batman team-up stories no matter where they are, because Superman can fly and Batman has his own personal fighter jets.

More importantly, it doesn't make sense in terms of historic patterns of urban migration. Moving to the big city in search of the American Dream is a big part of the Clark Kent story, but historically people moving from rural to urban areas overwhelmingly go to the nearest large city, depending on how transportation networks are arranged, whether we're talking about train lines or direct flights or highways or bus routes. There is a reason we can track regional movements of black communities during the Great Migration, because who went where depended on which train lines ran through which states:

This is why I've always felt that, while Metropolis has aesthetically been associated with New York City, it logically should be Chicago. It is the biggest city in the Midwest, one very much associated with robber baron industrialists and corruption at the highest levels, and absolutely stuffed with art deco architecture for Superman to pose on top of. Up until the Tribune Company began to strip it for parts, it's also been a major newspaper town with a long tradition of muck-raking investigative journalism that would inspire a starry-eyed cub reporter like Clark. As one of the original transit hubs and the U.S' own "nature's metropolis," it is precisely the place that a Kansas farm boy would hop a train to, because all trains go to Chicago. Also, culturally I like it better that Clark Kent represents the City of Wide Shoulders whereas Bruce Wayne is the typical Tri-State Area Type-A personality.

Going back to D.C's bizarro Northeast geography, I likewise have an issue with Gotham being in New Jersey...if New York City is also supposed to be a major metropolitan area in the D.C universe. Just as Delaware would struggle to support a city of 11 million people, it would be very difficult to grow Gotham into a city of 10 million people so close to the gravity well of the Greater New York Metro Area. New Jersey is a pretty urbanized state, but its biggest cities tend to range in population from 300,000 to 100,000 - which works very well for a place like Blüdhaven, which is supposed to have something of an inferiority complex vis-a-vis Gotham - because a lot of the population tends to gravitate to NYC for work and eventually housing as well.

I've already said my piece about the lack of cultural specificity of D.C's Midwest.

As far as the West Coast goes, I've always found it a bit odd that Star City isn't where Seattle is supposed to be. Let's face it, the only place where Oliver Queen's facial hair would go unnoticed is Seattle. Also, Coast City is often depicted too far north on the map - if it's supposed to be a half-hour away from Edwards Air Force Base, it should be significantly more southern, down by Kern County and San Bernadino County, not practically up in San Francisco.

#dc #dc meta #the world outside your window #urbanization #urban studies #urban migration #urban demographics

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aro-ace-culture-is · 7 months

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Another rant.

One day my grandma said, "You should get married soon"

I asked, "what if I don't want to? I have my friends....and you."

They replied, "Friends are never equal to a husband, no matter how close you are".

I was really curious. "Say, what is the difference between the two?"

"You know. The feeling of someone being there for you, with you, always, 24/7 no matter what? Friends are never gonna give that feeling. I have friends too, but my husband is certainly different. Irreplaceable."

Now this is an old lady who married in her teens and spent 60+ years with her husband. She was dependent on him, according to all the stories she told me about their relationship. Now she's over 90. I bet my ancestors were like, "A girl's gotta marry and settle. Marriage is a priority". Because everyone in that era (in our area) mostly married....and sustained in the relationship. It was obviously more than any other relationship. It's on a whole another level. And also because I picked this belief up from them.

What I knew in my heart:

That's bullshit. Friends can give that feeling too. If we try enough to focus on friendship. And can prioritize it enough. If we love our friends enough in our own way. People are different. And there are many among them who value friendship as much as romance. But I get where she's coming from. It is what she learned from her experience. I don't blame her at all.

What I felt:

It hurt. It made me doubt my new beliefs. Growing up, I was taught marriage was the norm. I grew up thinking I would marry one day, it's inevitable. It's impossible for me to be single cuz no one else would be with me. That I needed a person to be always with me. I grew up believing it hard. Now that's backfiring. Especially after I learned about my aroace identity.

All this rant is for one doubt. Is there a norm in this extremely diverse world? Either everything is normal or everything is abnormal. There is not one generalization or stereotype that is completely true because the world is fucking abnormal with kinds of conditions and people. There's not one invalid emotion or identity because humans are naturally complex. It's human nature. It's normal.

Nevermind this is all over the place, lemme just end it with some slogans.

BEGONE THE SO-CALLED NORM!

BEGONE STEREOTYPES!!

BEGONE GENERALIZATIONS!!!

Amen.

Posted on Nov 01, 2023

#ace #aro #questioning aroace #amatonormativity #questioning aro #questioning ace #generalization #stereotypes #aroace #queer #lgbtqia+#marriage #romantic relationships #norm #human nature #aspec

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punkeropercyjackson · 14 days

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As said yes when i asked my new moot @tubvoids,here is why Percy is autistic and in fact,objectively the most autistic-coded character in the entire franchise!

'Troubled kid' literally just means 'autistic kid who faces peer abuse and even adult abuse for it'.It's Percy's entire character and lingers into his adulthood

Was a bully beater and stayed that way no matter how many times he got expelled

Ass at school but really smart in every other area

Has his intellegence insulted nonstop his whole life and just takes it despite what a strong backbone he has because he thinks he deserves it

Anger issues and general emotional regulation issues

Mama's boy who's mom dosen't quite always understand how he works or why he is the way he is but loves and is good to him anyway and considers his differences from normal people a gift instead of a flaw or something that needs to be 'cured'

Canon safe food(blue food)and Resting Bitch Face(the 'scary default expression' he inhereted from Poseidon)

Dosen't even try to understand social norms because he thinks they're stupid as fuck

Super kind and earnest in a way that gets on normies' nerves both in-universe and irl because they think he's 'corny' and 'unrealistic'

Has a beyond weird as all fuck sense of humor that's just natural instead of actively trying to be funny and always lands

Wears layers/heavy clothes all the time

Complex feelings on morality leaning towards chaotic good but he's done some fucked up shit that was technically justified in the contexts but beats himself up over anyone even though the others deserved it

Dated Rachel because she made him feel normal for once and he specified what made him love her was her brutal honesty and enthutiasm that gave way for healthy communication on both ends

Hates traditional masculinity and wants to be free of it and acts a lot like a trans femme egg,including finding hypermasculinity on men gross and unappealing and often wonders what makes people attracted to boys(Gender fuckery and also even just binary transfeminity are common combos with autism)

Very goofy,silly,chaotic and unrestrained with kiddy interests and a digust towards 'true maturity' but also loves punk shit

Can never tell when someone is attracted to him but when he loves them back he's Rizz City

Anarchist who hates the rich,privilege and power and does activism and direct action both in the mythos world and the mortal world(the former onscreen/the aformentioned bully beating and implied to participate with Rachel in her protests and charity events)

Gets along so well with younger people he basically adopts them as younger siblings and pseudo-kids(P*rcico shippers please stop being jesters,Nico and Percy are peak transmasc 4 transfem and autistic 4 autistic found family realness,they're the BLUEPRINT for it and y'all wildin' for thinking Hazel's not autistic too like hellooooooo she's literally a creepy cute middle school weirdgirl who was outcasted from other kids,even the fellow black ones?Ofc she's autistic)

Dare i say.The fandom's denial of his blatant autism is in of itself proof he HAS autism and is audhd.They're always calling him stupid and insisting it's meant affectionaly when he's stated a millions of times he does NOT like it,they turn his special interests that's so important to him for coping growing up and now too into him being a childish ass mf with no culture(that is also racist with how popular afrolatino Percy but they don't care just like they don't care about making him actually look black lmao),defang his anger issues and meaness and brutality and anti-authority mentality to turn him into nothing but an idiot and give all the credit to Annabeth(and that's misogynistic cause it makes her boring)and finally infantalizing him as if HE'S not fatherly one in the mcs.I don't even mean making him younger,i mean making him act like a little kid and his friends literally parenting him.It's all textbook rethoric and bullying tactics to irl autistic people and they only say he's allistic so they don't gotta feel bad instead of growing tf up and being nice to mentally disabled folks they can't relate to perfectly and to develop senses of humor outside of John Mulaney bits

Is literally the protagonist of a book series that's ultimate purpose is representation for neurodivergent kids as their role model that grows up with them and showed us we can live good lives like he is now????????The idea of allistic Percy is genuinely incomprehensible ong

'Good Kid' from the musical?Yeah,it's literally a song about an autistic kid who can't mask and gets abused by everybody for it no matter how hard they try to be good

I'm exactly like Percy Jackson and always have been and i'm autistic.So,autistic Percy Jackson is canon.End👏🏼Of👏🏼Discussion!!!!👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

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thepaintedsable · 22 days

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Sketchbook page, but this time I think I've found a thing I like. That's Not My Neighbor OC and a few extra worldbuilding concepts for them + a little sketchbook Journaling to commemorate the northern lights being pushed down across the entire US!

Talking headcannons/fun concept stuff and closeups under the cut:

Have I played TNMN? No. Do I think I'd even like playing TNMN? Probably not for more than a few minutes or when I need a repetitive task to procrastinate or something. Not a fault of the game, just not my style haha. Does the concept of postwar/Cold War era monster horror intrigue me to no end? Hell yeah.

I'm not too into history, really, but I don't think people are digging into that fact enough. It is Febuary of 1955. Nineteen. Fifty-five. The Second World War was only a decade ago, the second red scare and McCarthyism is still on fire in the states, the US-soviet arms race is in full force, the Cold War is still weighing heavy on citizens minds, and a lot more stuff I’m not educated enough to remember!!! But what's this? There's non-human creatures of unknown origins preying upon citizens, often attempting to take the form of a human being but failing and producing horrible, mangled excuses for the human form as a result? To the point where we have a whole new protective service to deal with their capture and new jobs formed to watch communal living facilities?

Are apparement complexes more or less popular, considering the risks of living without a doorman and those of living in a highly populated area? Is the arms race contributing to more weapons being created for the common citizen, for the DDD? How does this change the political situation, the rumors, the drama? Gosh, the world must be on fire in that regard!

Why, the draft is in very recent memory. Why wouldn't they employ it to instate their doormen? I mean, not many would want to be face to face with a traumatizing, intelligent monster, even behind glass.

Meet Doorman #365, an unfortunate fellow drafted to be locked in the building, forced to wear a gas mask used in the last great war, and entrusted with a dozen human lives!!! Yay! He's been nicknamed "Leroy" by his residents, to give him a more... human touch. Really, they find the masks and military nature of this new batch of doormen to be highly unsettling, but it must be for their own good, right? I mean, just look what happend to the old doormen who didnt have these safety measures, the old tenants...

Drafted and unhappy about it, he is basically on house arrest within the building, and what used to be just an office space and surprisingly large janitors closet is now officially his apartment. Whenever out of the enclosed parts of his room, he is expected to be in full uniform, mask included. He is currently one of two Doormen stationed at his building, the senior of the pair. Neither knows what the other actually looks like. Doormen are escorted by DDD to new complexes and should not be allowed to enter otherwise.

The masks were found to confuse some of the less intelligent doppelgangers, producing much more obvious yet twisted forms as they attempted to replicate what they believed to be extra or less eyes (glass visors), intestines (breathing tubes), etc. at the residences that employed them. It swiftly became policy. With some tweaks, the old gas masks of the war could also mask voices as well. To avoid further issues of doormen being copied, doormen were bid to stay indoors and stay covered at all times. Being extremely unpopular job, a draft was set.

Doormen must appear friendly, though! So styling and care of uniform also became extremely important. This is mostly up to the doorman (to increase morale, of course!) so each uniform, and therefore each building, will have its own personality :) DDD graciously supplies all uniform pieces, room decorations, and weekly rations for their Doormen, selected from the catalog! Residents are encouraged to increase connection to their doormen, though, so home-cooked meals and outside trinkets are not uncommon.

Leroy is not... enthused about this job. Hes not even allowed to use his actual name outside of his coworker, and he thinks he might be going a little stir crazy at this point. He certainly wouldn't have chosen this position for himself, but his birthday was picked, so what can he do? Desert? And be hunted down like a doppelganger? Hell no. At least he gets to sit behind some hopefully bulletproof glass and surely reinforced walls all day. His residents aren't too bad (he thinks some try too hard at not seeming suspicious, though), his coworker is... undecided, and even though the doppelgangers are, well, scary they haven't been too clever at his location. He often gets handed newspaper clippings or used wrappers instead of the entry forms and IDs. They're getting smarter, just very slowly. He hopes he isn't around when they wise up.

I really enjoy thinking about all this lol.

#sketchbook 29 #sketchbook page #unfinished spread #Sketchbook #traditional art #oc #alcohol markers #watercolor #art #mixed media #that’s not my neighbor #tnmn #tnmn fanart #tnmn oc #That’s not my neighbor oc #sketches #Tw monster #tw holes #tw trypophobia

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vertebrates-and-pieces · 1 year

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... Alright, because my Morgott fluff craving is still strong.

What's the best way(s) to comfort Morgott?

For bonus: How would he comfort his partner?

Morgott, despite his complex of unworthiness, is also a paradoxically prideful individual. This combination makes him tend to lash out at most attempts at comfort, especially at first.

All platitudes will be swiftly rebuffed

"I'm sorry you went through that," Will only earn a huff and a terse response.

"Spare me thy pity."

He's not being rude or obstinate on purpose, mind you, he is simply so used to being almost entirely self reliant that accepting comfort or help feels like an insult. Wretched he may be, but who are you to look down upon him?! He has accomplished so much with so little, and to accept help or comfort almost feels like relinquishing a part of him that makes him who he is. He is firmly of the opinion that doesn't need your kindness as much as he doesn't deserve it.

The best way to comfort him when he gets into this whole thought pattern is to abstract it if that makes any sense. Find an example that seems unrelated but one that he can understand. He will likely argue at first but later return and begrudgingly accept what you have to offer. It is best not to rub it in his face that you were right, but to instead thank him for returning, for allowing you to help.

The Erdtree needs no help to stand tall, but his place as its staunch protector still has merit and does not devalue it's majesty. To begrudge a tree for being unable to hold a sword is to misunderstand its nature. As much as it pains him to admit defeat, it is hard to argue against that which he already accepts as true.

Be it truths, kindness, or even his own nature, he will become better at accepting over time.

If he's at the point where he is willing to accept touch and physical gestures, tactile comfort actually helps him a great deal. He is starved for touch and companionship more than he'll ever admit, so though he might say otherwise, the hand of someone he trusts rubbing up and down his arm means a great deal to him. The weight of this person leaning against him is grounding, keeping him firmly in the here and now where he is cared for and not alone. If they were to massage the tense knots of muscles that he refuses to acknowledge, he may grumble, call it unnecessary, but he won't actually complain. And if he leans into it and sighs, who's to say.

When comforting him with words, address things that he's actually proud of first before going into complimenting things that he does not like about himself, it lends credibility to the statements. Reassure him of your care and devotion often, he needs to hear it.

He will reserve his provision of comfort for those he deems worthy of it, but once that requirement is met, he is quite the giver. He will be stiff and hesitant at first as the comfort of another person is not something he is used to providing, but he is very good at lending an ear, and can be shockingly gentle and perceptive. He will mentally catalog what works and what doesn't, he will watch and learn how to be attentive to their wants and needs. Despite his sharp and biting tongue, he is capable of such genuine and heartfelt words, I know it I just know it.

I think his default comfort go-to is protection and service. He will instinctively assume a defensive position around you, glaring at any perceived threats as he ushers you away to a safer, more secure location. Need some water? Done. Quiet? He can make it so. Need someone tracked down and killed? The Night's Cavalry are currently scouring the area. Wait, you don't need any of that? You just need to be held? ….fine…. He can oblige. He's relieved you asked because he really wanted to hold you but he has a fearsome reputation to uphold and don't you laugh at him, this is a tactical choice he's is NOT shy the nerve

You really know you've made it once you are able to affectionately tease each other about these things. When you are able to call him an old sap and kiss him on the cheek when his eye becomes watery over a fond memory and only receive a snarl that is just for show instead of any actual indignation, that's the surest proof you've reached max affinity.

#emmie answers #morgott #morgott x reader #Morgott x tarnished #big fan of tsundere old men on this blog

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thefirstknife · 10 months

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What do you think about the season of the dawn mostly our guardians gravesite do you think it will come to fruition? I think it would be cool if they just killed us and had us come back someway. But I wanna know what you think.

I think about that very often. I think about Season of Dawn very often in general.

For those that weren't there, Season of Dawn had a community event that allowed us to explore the Corridors of Time. It was one of the most complex things that ever happened, only lasted for two weeks, and the solution to the whole puzzle led to a room called the Timelost Vault where we could see our own grave and hear Saint-14 saying an eulogy.

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One of the most fascinating places we've ever seen tbh. The whole Corridors of Time were incredible to me, but that final room that took the whole community working night and day to find was something else.

We still to this day don't know what it truly means. In the eulogy, Saint says that we've died and that there was some sort of "final confrontation" and that he left a weapon we used there, shattered. And he also says that if we come back and aren't truly dead ("you've performed miracles before"), that we can take it.

Is this a prediction of the future? Is it some alternate timeline? We have no idea. The nature of the Corridors of Time is such that we just can't know. And of course, this was referenced in Season of the Splicer in one of the Expunge missions where Quria talks to us through our HUD:

The area in Expunge where this happens is very reminiscent of the Corridors of Time, the only are that doesn't have colour:

Corridors of Time:

But Quria was a Taken Vex mind so Quria saying this also doesn't help us. It could still be talking about an alternate timeline and not necessarily a prediction of the future. I think that as an alternate timeline, sure; it's absolutely possible there's a timeline where we died in any of the numerous battles for the system.

As a prediction for our own timeline... Hard to say. The Vex can't simulate paracausality, though the Corridors of Time aren't something the Vex made; they are just able to visit it and use it to move through timelines. So can the stuff we see in the Corridors of Time be a real prediction of our current timeline? It's definitely possible, but not something we can either prove or disprove for sure. I personally think it's most likely not a prediction, but it's definitely something to think about. Corridors of Time in general, as well as any timeline shenanigans, the Vex, the Sundial and the rest of the stuff that happened in Dawn.

I can see a scenario that mimics what Saint implies in the eulogy; that we "died" but that we're secretly still out there somewhere and can return. A story like that could make the grave and the eulogy true, but not have any impact on the playability of the game. But how likely that is? Unclear. I think that this ominous setting of our grave is a really cool setpiece that basically constantly looms as a possible threat in the background and we can never tell if and when that might come to pass.

One of the best setpieces in the game for me, but one that was unfortunately only there for 2 weeks. This definitely gave it an extra air of mystery and intrigue, but also it was highly inaccessible from the time when FOMO was much worse than it could ever be now. Even if you played this season, you could've easily missed this event. I almost did, as I was away on a vacation for a week when this happened and only got back for the few days after it was solved to run through it. This short availability definitely made the whole event feel much more ominous than perhaps intended so it's really unclear what this meant exactly and how relevant it still is and whether or not it was a meaningful prediction or just the consequence of being thrown into exploring millions of timelines. If anything, I would really enjoy seeing a reference to it in some way!

#destiny 2 #season of dawn #corridors of time #young wolf #ask #long post

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i-am-trying-my-best-okay · 7 months

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Back On My Next Generation Shenanigans

Angeline "Andi" Jocelyn Herondale: The first Clary and Jace child. She has curly blond hair, freckles, and green eyes. She's very charming, but she's also been going through this life long crisis that the Shadowhunter's are in a never ending battle with the demons that will never end through the generations, only ending when the demons win; she's a bit of a natural pessimist. She thinks a lot about society and such, looking into the mundane forms of government, hoping it would be better then the Shadowhunter ones and was just like these all kind of suck, society sucks, I should make up my own form of government. She fights demons with knives, like a strange amount of knives; she'll hold like seven at once and slice away, she'll throw them and then pull some more out of nowhere. Thanks to this existential dread for her and the future generations thing, she ends up coming up with theories on how to just kill all demons forever, doing all kinds of research and experiments. With this, things get kind of messy. She also is kind of thinking about starting a coup, to overthrow the Shadowhunter form of government and implant a better one, which also gets kind of messy. Like I said, she's very charming, so she forms a whole group of people. Honestly, since she's so ambitious and willing to do many things to fulfil those ambitions, I think she might end up as a sort of antagonist, which should give an interesting dynamic with her family and friends. I can also see Shadowhunter's being like 'is it really surprising considering her grandfather' even tho she has a completely different set of ideals.

Jasper Robert Herondale: The second clace child. He has curly red hair, freckles, and black eyes. Much to surely everyone's surprise, he's a very quiet person, and to nobody's surprise, he would rather die then share even a hint of his true feelings. He gives big gentle giant vibes; man's just over here looming in the corner freaking people out, but the people who know him are just like 'nah, he's fine, he's just happy to be here'. He's the only one that got the tall genes, standing tall over all his other short siblings. He fights demons with a sledgehammer. When he was little he got kidnapped, but instead of pulling a Mina, he actually got traumatized. It was a mundane that kidnapped him, which is why it took a while to find him because nobody thought it was just some random mundane that took him. The mundane was going to sell him and some other kids to some rich buyer, but when the Shadowhunter's stormed the area to get Jasper they freaked out and started killing the kids as some sort of last minute cover up, not wanting to be caught with ties to the market cause then they'll just be assassinated in prison. But his parents got to Jasper before they could kill him, now the last survivor. This resulted in Jasper having a bit of a savior complex, feeling like he needs to save everyone since he feels like all those kids died because of him and he couldn't do anything about it, him, a Shadowhunter in training. It didn't help that he was naturally protective to begin with, now it was just twice as intense. This complex should lead to interesting thing when Andi goes all rouge.

Samuel Lucian Herondale: The third clace child. He has curly blond hair, freckles, and green eyes. He's the artist of his siblings, often drawing made up, disturbing looking creatures, along with other strange looking things. He's got this ever growing, hard to understand imagination, and it makes him come across as a bit strange and awkward, but he does have a lot of cool comics he's drawn but never published, though he wants to. The way he ends up fighting demons is sort of unusual; turns out, some of those creepy looking creatures he draws he can make come to life to fight alongside him, his parents angel blood coming through. Though he does have a weapon as well, that being a seraph blade. Despite it being angel power, and despite everyone literally knowing his parents whole Angel deal, Shadowhunter's are still side eyeing him for how demonic his creatures look. They're literally pulling out his family tree like 'oh wow Tessa the warlock is your great great great great grandma I bet that's those demon powers' or whatever. He's basically gaslit into thinking he's a demon, despite his parents being like 'it's probably just our angel powers but even if it's demon powers that's okay too'. But Samuel was already insecure, and this just fed into it. But ironically enough, he can't hate this power, making friends with the little creatures he makes; he just hates himself. I think out of all the Herondale kids he understands the most of why Andi went rouge.

Marigold "Mae" Celina Herondale: The youngest clace child. She has curly red hair, freckles, and gold eyes; kinda looks fox like now that I think about it. She's very quick witted, can talk on and on for hours and never run out of quips. Super competitive as well; whatever she gets into she will work herself to the bone to be the best. Although when she gets competitive, it just feels fun to her really, something to get passionate about, but then most people end up taking it wrong and get all heated about it or feel overwhelmed or something of that like, and she doesn't know how to correct it, especially in the moment. She fights demons with dual machete's. Mae often struggles with that connecting to people thing, but then there was the time when she actually connected with a demon more than a person. It was some random demon that could talk, and they were fighting but they both got sort of competitive about it and one thing led to another and now she and this demon are sort of besties. This led to her having a bit of a crisis of her befriending this demon so easily when she can't do the same with people, wondering what that makes her and if she's even worthy of being a Shadowhunter. Then there's the whole sneaking around to see her demon friend and worrying about when it came down to it what side would she be on. Honestly, she's more worried about what Andi will do to her and her demon friend then the Clave.

Noelle Rebecca Lightwood: Simon and Isabelle's first child. She has black hair and brown eyes. She's very much a poised, calm person. She's an introvert to the point where people think she's rude, but really she just can't handle socializing for very long, making her words seem clipped in dismissive, which she always ends up feeling guilty about. But she has a bunch of random, niche interests, that if you get her going on one of those she'll talk your ear off. She fights demons with a bow and arrow; Alec taught her. She's a bit of a glass child really, as her two siblings prove to be a bit of a handful, and she's seen as the 'easy to handle one'. Simon and Isabelle of course don't do this on purpose, they just have their hands full with the other two, and Noelle ends up festering in this. This leads to her physically unable to ask for help, not knowing how or if it's even allowed. She has all these insecurities and feelings she desperately needs help sorting out, and other people are always like 'wow your so put together and independent', making her feel this expectation and driving her into further isolation so people don't know she's not put together or think she's too needy.

George Maxwell Lightwood: The middle sizzy child, who definitely thought his name was inspired by 'George Lucas' before they told him about George Lovelace. He has brown hair and blue eyes; Will's eyes live on once again. He tends to feel things very deeply, doesn't know how to take things causally. Everything makes him feel these intense emotions, and people tell him he needs to 'calm down', or even think he's faking it, but that's just how he feels. He's also big into movies; he remembers every detail of every movie he's ever seen, researching the background of the movies as well. He has a multitude of screenplays he has written that he thinks aren't good enough to go on to become an actual movie. But his ability to feel things deeply assist him in writing these screenplays, able to insert such feeling in his characters and the presentation of situations. He fights demons with a seraph blade. George secretly doesn't really want to be a Shadowhunter; he wants to go off and make movies and such. But he feels guilty about it, what with feeling like if he takes irf he's betraying all of humanity. And there's also the stigma of his dad, Simon, being originally a mundane. People would say things like it was in his 'blood' to be a mundane, and that attitude would also go to his siblings, so he keeps quiet.

Lorelei Maryse Lightwood: The last sizzy child. She has brown hair and dark brown gold eyes. She's very much a free spirit, always running off and getting into shit, always disappearing and coming back after some strange misadventure. She just could never find it in herself to stay in one place. Girl will literally be missing for like a week and show up with jar of blood or whatever and is like 'I can explain'. She's a drummer, a very good one, hoping from band to band because she always seems to get involved in the shittiest bands who she insists 'have potential' but then they always end up falling through. That's how she gets into a lot of her misadventures really; she gives people the benefit of the doubt way too much, she looks for and finds people's best selves, which while sweet, can get her involved with bad people. She fights demons with this spiky baseball bat. Like I said, this trusting nature of hers gets her into trouble, but the biggest trouble she's gotten in is when she accidently got involved with some small that worships the demons and think they should take over the world. Now she knows way too much about this strange, ridiculously over funded cult, and is trying very hard to stop them while not telling anyone she has ties to such a treason. Worse yet, she ends up falling in love with someone in this organization, which makes things all the more complicated.

Eleanor Jia Penhallow: Helen and Aline's first child. She has black hair, freckles, and blue eyes. This was a planned adoption, a Shadowhunter orphan whose parents died fighting demons, now in need of a home. She's a bit of an actress, being able to disguise as different people as well as characters of her own creation. She really throws herself into these roles, using it to find out information and such, a bit of a spy in her own right really, pulling information for the Clave and for her allies. She's quick and able to read situations and people quickly, adding to her ability to act in difficult situations. This also leads her to know more then she probably wants to know, even of her friends, which can make her feel like she's being intrusive even when she's just looking at them. She fights demons with a double edged blade. A lot of the time she has trouble pulling herself out of said roles, sometimes feeling like she doesn't have a true personality and that even when she's not in a role and she supposedly 'herself' that it's not really her, that she's still acting. This leads to a bit of an identity complex, not really sure who she really is at a 'default', if the way she is is just another role or if it's natural, because she doesn't know.

Edmund Liam Penhallow: Heline's next child. He has curly black hair and brown eyes. This was more of an accidental adoption, a Shadowhunter abused by his parents that ran away to the Los Angeles institute at the age of only 9, of whom Helen and Aline get very attached to. He's very cautious and observant. He likes research; he knows every bit of Shadowhunter history and Mundane history, he knows how to fight with weapons he doesn't even wield, he learns about random things that one would think would never come up in a situation but when it does he's ready to info dump much to everyone's bafflement; guy's just a bundle of knowledge about basically everything. He fights demons with this hammer and nail thing, both using the hammer to hit the demons and for hitting the nails at a long distance at the demons. His parents were very much not careful with him. They put runes on him too young, they threw him in front of demons too young saying that was his training, and so on. The final straw that caused him to run away was when they had somehow got it in their head that he had the potential to talk to ghosts. His parents had heard of the Herondale's connection to ghosts, and one time they saw Edmund muttering to himself so they were like 'clearly he has the potential to talk to ghosts as well'. Edmund tried to correct this, as he very much could not talk to ghosts, but they just threw him into some sort of morgue for 'training', refusing to let him out until he made some sort of connection to a ghost. He tried to lie, say he did, but his parents saw through the lie every time. Two weeks passed before he gave into hunger and began eating the only thing edible in that room; the dead bodies. Another week passed, and at that point he thought his parents weren't ever going to let him out, but then they did. It was then that he ran away, the taste of dead people never truly leaving his mouth. Honestly, the way he saw it, his parents jumped the gun a lot on him, doing things to him without properly understanding, being so reckless with him. So this sort of fed into his obsessive 'I must know every detail before doing anything' thing he does, as he doesn't want to be like them, and he thinks this will prevent people from being hurt. I also think the whole eating dead people thing definitely led to an eating disorder of some kind, unable to eat a lot of foods without tasting dead people.

Andrew "Andres" Blackthorn Rosales: Eldest kiearktina child, born from Cristina and Mark. He has curly black hair and golden eyes. He adores the forest life, wants to explore every part of it. Though, the forest didn't naturally like him back at first, as he didn't have that natural connection to it like the Fae. But he learned the ways of the forest, able to navigate it like no one else, and now the forest likes him back. He wants to travel the world and explore all sorts of different terrains, map them out, understand them all. The guy has crazy survivalist skills he's both learned about and discovered through trial and error, and he can and will go on rants about them at any given moment. He fights demons with this mysterious sword the forest gave him as a gift that definitely won't lead to any sort of plot line don't worry about it. The Fae disapprove of his entire existence, looking at him in a sort of 'what is he even doing here'. He's only partially Fae, and they don't consider that to be enough, even though Andres feels more connected to the Fae then he does with Shadowhunter's. They don't even really consider him to be Kieran's son, despite the many, many times Kieran has made it very clear he is. They pick on him and do cruel tricks on him a lot, nothing to permanently damage him physically, since he does have that amount of protection from Kieran's name, but it does take it's toll on him mentally. His parents know what's going on, but he never tells him who did it.

Juniper "Junie" Kingson Rosales: Youngest kiearktina child, born from Cristina and Kieran. She has curly blue hair and silver eyes. She's very much attracted to the city life, lowkey hating the forest life, not vibing in their cottage core lifestyle; very much the opposite of her brother. Girl is super into architecture, learns about the different styles from all over the world, she's obsessed. She has doodles of her own architecture, and she wants to make them a reality someday. She fights demons with a three balled flail. She isn't considered to be a true heir, as Cristina is considered a consort. But that's good for her because she didn't want to be the heir anyway; life in the fOrESt? Forever? No thank you. Give her that industrialization. But there does need to be an heir, and Kieran very much does not want to have a child with some other Fae woman just to have one, so as time wears on it's looking like an illegitimate heir is looking better than no heir. That would skip over her brother and to her, because even though Kieran of course sees them both equally as his children, she has Kieran's blood in her, so the Fae would consider her first. Of course, Kieran has siblings it would go to first, but even the slight possibility of it ever going to her puts her on edge. She feels it in the other Fae's eyes, that they hate her, but they'll take her as a last resort. She feels it in the way they talk to her, like they want to hurt her so bad, but don't just in case she does end up ruling over them. As such, being around most Fae make her uncomfortable, and would rather be with the Shadowhunter's.

Benjamin "Benji" Livia Blackthorn: The only blackstairs child; I'd imagine after raising all of his siblings, Julian might opt to spend all his energy into one kid rather then several. He has curly brown hair, freckles, and blue green eyes. He has a love for making weapons, not just weapons that already exist, but ones he thinks up himself. He'll experiment with new ideas and even fashion to better suit the individual person. He's very passionate about it, leading him to come off as very intense. He'll go out and actively seek out demons to test his prototype weapons on alone. It's a very dangerous thing that Emma and Julian have desperately tried to stop, but Benji is incredibly stubborn and tenacious, a consequence of having Emma and Julian's genes. But when he's fighting with other people, he's less likely to just test something he hasn't before, as he doesn't want to put other people at risk, so when he fights demons with other people he switches between a multitude of weapons he's tested before that were successful. People are very wary of Benji's weapons because they're breaking tradition; he's mixing metals that have never been mixed. People call it a disgrace to the Angel's gifts, saying he's basically spitting in the Angel's face; so as you can imagine, Benji isn't very popular. There was this one time when he was younger that he was told some kids were going to meet up, so he met up with them without telling his parents because he didn't think it would take that long, only for to be locked in a closet in their house for like a day before Emma and Julian found him. The kid wasn't trying to kill him, the kid was planning to let him out after a few days, but he didn't tell Benji that. It was a very traumatizing event, and he became rather claustrophobic and suspicious of people who are nice to him after that.

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yellowocaballero · 1 year

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I love how your Bruce is traditional but it is also like a mix of different types of traditional. Like he comes across as both "Rich white old money type" traditional AND "member of a marginalized minority group who take great pride in their identity to cope with years of ostracization and going "the world wanted me dead for my culture and religion so i might as well die loud and proud instead of conforming to their unachievable ideals" " traditional

Thank you for this ask, I really love it! I have a shitton to say on this topic, including a lot of worldbuilding decisions on Gotham cultures, immigrant spaces, segregation, how it ended up like 1920s-1930s NYC/Chicago mixed with my own city, Jason "Foil" Todd's Inferiority Complex, but that would make this depressingly long. Long time readers would know that I have, like, really complex and discrete religion headcanons for everybody I write. It's important.

Any decent Batman Story (TM) is about Gotham. It has to be a huge presence. It's like writing Dick Tracy without Chicago, or Cheers without Boston. When he's written well, Batman is a reflection of Gotham, and they metaphorically represent each other.

Most Batman writers get this, so there's always a lot of historical worldbuilding and everything. But I'm a community health person, and I grew up in the inner area of my own very large city, and creating a Gotham that feels real and rich is more complicated than the Court of Owls stuff. For me, cities are the intersection of culture, community, history, oppression/SES/war etc, and the modern day to day lives of people. When I want to make a rich city that was relevant and important to the story, I wanted to focus on immigrants and cultural minorities. You know - the people who create the cities lol. I decided on a history that involved the idea that Jewish families were the oldest in Gotham, and that they were one of the people to help create it and influence its culture.

I read a Daniel Handler quote just now that said "there is something naturally Jewish about unending misery". What is more Batman, Bruce, and Gotham than that, lol. The Jewish diaspora experience - the traditional history just as you outlined it in your ask - is baked into Gotham, it's the foundation. Gotham is a city of unending misery, but it's a city that stands tall. It takes a thousand hits and always gets back up again. People within it experience unending poverty and suffering, but they stand together. Just fucking refuse to die, as a whole. What's more Jewish than that! What is more Batman than that! Gotham should always be allegorical for Batman and Bruce, and through Gotham existing in that traditional Jewish experience, I think that's where you got the impression of Bruce as very traditional too.

Tim and the Drakes are the modern reflection of this. I was extremely explicit that Tim is alone in the world because of the Holocaust. I talk a lot in the story about how war and violence destroy children's lives, and that stretches back to the 1940s. About how war and violence creates violent children, which is what Tim became. His acting out was from the trauma of seeing his family slaughtered in front of him, and like a lot of people he used his religion to justify it.

There's a reason why the very first moment when Tim and Bruce actually connect as a family is when they find kinship and understanding through their shared backgrounds and values. They both saw their families slaughtered, they're both alone in the world - but they found each other, and they'll keep living.

OK BELIEVE IT OR NOT THAT'S THE SHORT VERSION. Seriously, though, I'm not. Uh. Actually fucking Jewish. This is like the fourth time I've talked out of my ass about this. I'm actually really interested in reading about the actual Jewish themes in Batman, because from what little I know they HAVE to be there. Any smart people out there who know about it, or who can link something written about it?

#tw holocaust #my asks #my writing #fwiw I think of Bruce as an atheist and Tim as pretty religious #I always write Bruce as really alienated from his Jewish heritage/culture #and his relationship with Tim (or jason in rr) reconnecting him with that #in nw that generational trauma is also why tim's parents weren't great parents.#heartbreaking! 25 years ago your mom was a survivor!#sucks.#i think i accidentally started thinking of tim as religious #because of that one time i wrote him as having come back from the dead after killing himself #and like anybody would get into god after that. and it stuck a bit for me #new story covid puppy Tim makes like an extremely smug point to call judaism dumb #kid has stuff going on.#hm I think I may have very persistent themes of returning to religion and religious heritage as a method of healing #not gonna psychoanalyze that! bye!#i feel like a fucking fanfic writer conservative for all i talk about masculinity and jesus

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brookheimer · 1 year

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honestly, if the shiv pregnancy plotline is done well, i feel like it would end up being kind of, like, revolutionary for female characters in prestige television? 'revolutionary' is a strong word, but even so! just... prestige television is obsessed with the whole Strong Femininity-Rejecting Career Woman archetype and it's a trope that's often been lauded as empowering, as allowing women to be complex like male characters. except... often they're not complex like male characters, they're complex as male characters in that they're treated basically like a 'complex male character' stuck into a female body. the explanation is a legitimate one: the female character rejects classical femininity. sure. the better shows will depict the lengths these women will go to be perceived as 'masculine' in order to survive, to thrive in their patriarchal world. but regardless of the show, the vast majority of Strong Female Characters are never allowed a lot of things that their male equivalents would: namely, love and sometimes family. it's like we think that if a Strong Complex Female Character falls in love or wants a relationship/a family, she's no longer a Strong Complex Female Character, she's just a Female Character. that is so incredibly detrimental! it reifies the belief that love/family/etc are inherently 'feminine' things and that inherently 'feminine' things are inherently weak, and any woman who displays 'femininity' is no more Strong or Complex than a 1950s housewife.

so for shiv, a Strong Complex Female Character who admittedly has spent the majority of the series surrounded solely by men (she's had maybe three conversations without a man present?), ensconced in the 'masculine' defense she's created for herself... for that shiv, girlboss shiv, Strong Complex Femininity-Rejecting Career Woman shiv, to get pregnant and have to reconcile the version of herself she needs to present to the world with whatever she actually is or actually wants (because frankly, we as an audience have no fucking clue what shiv wants in life outside of logan and waystar royco) and her own fear of anything remotely approximating 'femininity'... well, assuming shiv remains shiv, remains manipulative and calculating and angry and machiavellian and 'masculine' and everything else she's inherited from her last name -- everything else that makes men on the internet call her a sociopath -- while also being allowed to explore her relationship with femininity, to maybe want kids or a family because that isn't just a Woman Trope that's also just a natural human desire for connection that many people experience, to be not just the woman or the anti-woman but a fully fleshed out person... i mean. that would kind of be huge, i think.

[more under the cut! like, a lot more. be fucking warned]

really, Strong Career Women were created as the antithesis of the television housewife. the housewife displays every emotion except for anger and deeply desires love and family. therefore, the Strong Woman will display no emotion but anger or pride (because those are the only masculine emotions) and have no interest whatsoever in love and family (because men don't have interest in love and family). and that, obviously, is horseshit -- men experience the entire human spectrum of emotions and desire love and family and all of that, because that's literally just part of being a fucking human. but while prestige television frequently explores the interiority, humanity, desires and dreams, etc etc etc of their complex male characters, they very rarely do the same for their women, at least not outside of the bounds of career and/or other areas where the woman in question demonstrates her power and masculinity (such as relationship power plays). we can't explore the humanity of Strong Female Characters because then they'd show emotion and desire love and connection, which would out them as women, as housewives, not Strong Female Characters.

we think emotion and yearning deepens male characters and lessens female characters, because we 'expect' that from women but not from men. when a woman cries on television, we think 'here they go again.' when a man cries, we think it's a shocking and meaningful display of vulnerability. both in-universe of the shows and in real life, in the writer's room and beyond, Strong Complex Women are only taken seriously so long as they reject 'femininity' as much as humanly possible. Strong Complex Female Characters have to be one-note, because if they show any other notes, they stop being seen as strong or complex. their lives begin and end in the office, in the presence of men, in the persona they've created for themselves. if there is a self beyond those boundaries, we never see it. we're not allowed to. Strong Women are uniquely forbidden from those basic aspects of human life, even more so than men, i'd argue, because to display any of those qualities would be to out yourself as A Woman and prove everyone right, to lose any and all credibility you've ever gained in your entire career because now they now you've been A Woman all along. but that's not realistic, that's not human. yet because they are still women and on some level do still want to be seen as women, but that's impossible to balance with the need to be seen as a man. there are almost no female characters that are allowed to simultaneously embrace 'femininity' and desire 'feminine' things such as love and family while still prioritizing their careers, being cold and manipulative and calculating, and presenting 'masculine' in the way they handle themselves.

i'm not saying shiv has been poorly written so far, or that succession has been, like, enormously sexist by keeping a lot of her interior life private. i think in large part this has been purposeful and makes a lot of sense -- after all, shiv is notoriously most resistant when it comes to self-reflection, possibly more than anyone else; kendall obsessively introspects, roman hates it and deflects but that's largely because he already knows what he is and can't bear to be reminded of it, but shiv is... well, a little delusional at times. forcibly delusional. she has to delude not only herself but everyone else around her in order to survive as a woman in a man's world, a liberal in a conservative company, a hardcore capitalist in a bernie sanders campaign. kendall wants to be a good person but knows he isn't, roman doesn't believe it's possible for him to be a normal person let alone a good one, but shiv clings onto these label of Good Person and, i don't know, Essentially A Man, with such intensity and desperation that any actual self-reflection would literally be suicide. it would burst that bubble entirely and then what's left?

well. what IS left? because, i mean, something would be. she's still a person. she's not a robot programmed to imitate men and show no emotion or desire (god knows she's not even good at pretending). but shiv would never take that step of her own volition. she'd never just sit down and think "hm, let's actually dig into what i really want from life and from myself" -- and even if she did, she wouldn't be honest about it.

then boom. pregnancy. "oh fuck i am a woman. oh fuck what if i do want a kid and this is my only chance. oh fuck" etc etc etc. it's not reducing shiv to being a womb (crazy take, by the way) but it's actually expanding her from being the lack of one. rather than simply being a Woman with a distinct set of qualities and no contradicting ones or an Anti-Woman with the opposite set of qualities and not a hint of anything that could be construed as a former, she'd become a person. obviously, you can be a person and a woman without being pregnant or wanting kids or a family, but we don't even know what shiv wants! she hasn't allowed herself to consider it seriously, because that would be betraying her Anti-Woman Survival Method! it's not saying that pregnancy/family/etc are necessary for a full and happy life, but rather, spending your entire life terrified of showing interest in anything perceived as 'feminine' and thus weak, of showing emotion or desire or love because you know how the men in the room will receive it -- that isn't satisfying! that isn't a happy life! that's a life lived in fear, denial, and repression masked as Masculine Self-Sufficiency to such an extreme extent that men don't even do that. the only thing worse than a man displaying 'feminine' characteristics is a woman displaying 'feminine' characteristics -- the feeling men talk about when displaying emotion is the disgust, judgment, and dismissal women (particularly those trying to perform masculinity/live in masculine spheres) experience on a day-to-day basis. while a man displaying emotion is met with shame in the moment, a woman displaying emotion is seen as a confirmation of what the men around her have been thinking all along: she's weak, she's not up to it, she's a 'woman.' men can shake it off. women can't. the reason displaying emotion feels uniquely hard for men is because it's their first time being treated like a woman.

anyways. i digress. succession has been hinting at things all along -- moments that show she genuinely loves tom, the conversations with her mother, etc -- and now that throughline can actually, y'know, follow through, and it might be fucking great, guys. that's what i'm hoping for with the shiv arc -- her trying to reconcile with the fact that she's a woman, and the show using it as a way to explore the bizarre and arbitrary way we assign 'femininity' to natural aspects of human life and desire, making those things impossible for women to ever even consider wanting or earnestly caring about if they want to be seen as people rather than as capital-w Women (and what is a capital-w Woman anyways?), and just, like, idk. i think it's idiotic to act like women like shiv aren't allowed to want kids and families -- and that narrative is so deeply ingrained in society that the presumably largely female/feminist/progressive online succession fanbase has been constantly reiterating that same trope as a genuine criticism levied against the writers' decision to make shiv pregnancy!

i said in another post that this plotline feels to me like... high risk, high reward. yeah, it's high risk, it could go terribly in so many ways, but to me personally as someone who has been endlessly endlessly fascinated with the internalized misogyny within so many 'feminist' narratives and the apparent belief that strong women aren't allowed to 'act like women' if they want to continue being seen as strong, as someone who has unironically written a multitude of papers and articles on this topic for college and for journals, the reward is just SO fucking high. like, this could be a fucking GAME CHANGER. if they pull this off it might genuinely alter the way prestige media writes 'strong female characters' which is something that has been needed for years. there will always be risk in storylines as historically ridden with misogyny as pregnancy/abortion/etc narratives are, but if there's any show right now i trust to approach this with care and deftness and real thought, it's succession. if it flops, it flops, and that will genuinely suck. a lot. but even if there's only 1% chance for success, that's still, like, 0.9% more than any other show i can think of. so fuck it. full speed ahead, baby. do this shit right

#jesus motherfucking christ this was a doozy #my blog is so funny bc it's like: 1min succession shitpost (5000 notes) 234298498k word essay about a character (12 notes)#perpetually in awe of people who can be concise. that is not me but godbless #if even a single person reads this entire thing i'll eat my hat. christ #hopefullyyyyy this makes sense and has value for some people. lolol yall must think im insane huh #look i'm in bed with a fever what else am i gonna do? my work? no #whatever. might reblog later if like Really really nobody sees it bc it's 4 pm on a tuesday but meh #succession #succession spoilers #shiv roy #succession meta #i guess. honestly more like prestige television meta LOL #casey shut the fuck up about shiv roy #< new tag. have one for roman but clearly need one for shiv too #long post

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gossipsnake · 24 days

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TIMING: April 19, 2024, immediately before this LOCATION: Airport / Airplane PARTIES: Anita (@gossipsnake), Metzli (@muertarte), & Xóchitl (@vanishingreyes) SUMMARY: Anita, Metzli and Xóchitl make their way to Ireland!

Despite having very little context for why this impromptu trip was occurring, Anita was quite excited to head off to Ireland - not just because of the vague promise of seeing Siobhan naked. Life had been so hectic over the past few months and she had begun to question the choices she made that had led her to this town, and all of the complications that came with living in Wicked’s Rest. A trip, a chance of scenery and pace, felt like exactly what she needed to refresh. So while it seemed odd when Siobhan had invited her to go visit her hometown but the inherent curiosity to learn more about her strange and beautiful co-worker was really all she needed to say yes. The fact that Xóchitl and Metzli had also been invited was really just icing on the cake.

The semester was nearing its end and Anita had been able to cash in a few favors from the other professors in her program to cover her classes while she’d be away. She had packed nearly twice as many bags as Metzli, not wanting to be in a situation where she didn’t have the perfect outfit for whatever activities they might be partaking in. It took a bit of rearranging, but there had still been plenty of room in the car to accommodate Xó’s bags. After all, it made more sense to carpool to the airport.

Knowing that Metzli was feeling a bit uneasy about the idea of going on an airplane, Anita had set the radio to their favorite station for the drive to the airport - turned off. “Have either of you looked up the area where we’re going to much? Seems like more country than city living. Pretty sure the whole state of Maine is bigger than the whole country, though, so I’m sure we’ll have time to see a bit of everything if we want.”

“There are going to be too many people.” Metzli rocked idly in the back, grumbling half to themself and half to their companions in the front. Normally they’d have taken the passenger seat, but given they were leaving during the day, the best protection from the sun that they had would be in the back, where the windows had been tinted perfectly for them. They were grateful for that, finding so much relief in the way Anita had been so accommodating. She even went as far as to keep the noise to a minimum, further adding to the comfort they were experiencing.

It felt important and necessary. Not just because Metzli needed it, but because Xóchitl still didn’t know their true nature. There were enough variables to keep the vampire from relaxing, but because Anita knew them so well, they were rolling their wrists contentedly and sipping on a bag of blood as if it were a capri-sun. Another of Anita’s accommodations. She insisted on the sunglasses too, and Metzli agreed so they could hide their eyes. Though, something told them it gave her some sort of amusement. Probably the snort and a laugh she released. That had to be a clue.

“How much longer?” They grumbled again, taking a sippy break. “I have been too anxious about flying in this metal bird to do Googling on Ireland. It is not natural to be in the sky in metal.” A shiver raked up their spine and they groaned into a sulk, continuing to sip to alleviate their irritation.

She knew that she could use some spontaneity in her life. Not that Xóchitl had been non-spontaneous recently, but still. Going on a trip to Ireland was something she hadn’t done before. Anita and Metzli were coming too, which only added to the fun. She’d immediately agreed when Anita had suggested carpooling, because that just meant less unnecessary complexity. Emilio had agreed to watch over Esperanza, so there was that taken care of, even though Xóchitl would’ve liked to take her, and even though that would’ve helped quell any sort of anxiety she had, Esperanza was better off with Emilio and Teddy and Perro.

“We’re here for you, Metzli. Just concentrate on that.” She offered them a small smile from the front seat. “You can wear headphones on the plane, and you’ll be safe.” Xóchitl knew that she couldn’t technically guarantee that, but even just mentioning it had to be some sort of helpful. Hopefully.

“Yeah,” she nodded at Anita. “I looked it up a tiny bit because I like research, what can I say? But it’s more country-like, but we should go to a city sometime if we get the chance. I just want to see an authentic Irish sheep. Which sounds silly, perhaps, but you’ve got to appreciate the little things. Plus I want to try Bailey’s Irish Creme and also whatever other classic alcohols are there.” Another turn back to Metzli, “it’s wild and not natural, yeah, but it’s also a miracle, according to some. I know it’s how Mama and Manman went to México and also Haiti, and it was more efficient than driving or taking a boat. Besides, I brought snacks.” She tapped her bag.

“We’re close. Not much further to the parking area,” Anita reassured Metzli. There were a lot of things that she wanted to say to Metzli, both to poke a bit of fun at them and to try and calm them further. After all, people always said normalcy helped calm people when they were anxious about a new experience, and normalcy for them was Anita poking fun. But she’d have to be careful, not just in the car but for the duration of the trip, with what she said around Xóchitl. Especially since Xó would still be able to understand her if she switched to speaking in Spanish. By this point, having known her for some time, Anita was fairly certain she was as human as humans came. A shame, really, but the reality of the situation. Not only was she exceptionally human but she was unaware of the fact that she was sitting in a car with two fanged beings.

“It’s not natural to be in a metal carriage driving around but you do that. You’ll see, the plane isn’t anything to be scared about.” Anita did not want to be dismissive about their concerns but she also wanted to show them that this was a normal thing to be doing. “I definitely want to check out some of the city life,” she agreed, turning her attention to Xó, “not sure they’re well known for tequila but I suppose the trip would warrant a departure from my drink of choice to test out these whiskeys they are supposed to be famous for.”

As they passed a sign noting that the airport was only a few more miles away, Anita relayed the information to Metzli in the back seat. “I’m also excited about exploring the countryside too, though. I don’t think they have a particularly diverse ecosystem but I’m interested to see what kind of insects might be around where we’ll be staying. Wouldn’t that be fun, Met? Going on some nature hikes. We could go at night, too, to get a sense of what kind of nocturnal creepy crawlies they’ve got.”

“Yes, but the metal carriage is closer to the ground and is not in the sky!” Metzli softly exclaimed, not really going into a true yell. They knew better than to raise their voice at their friends, especially when they’d done nothing wrong. It was just the anxiety and overall change in routine that put their mood on edge. They sulked, their head sinking in embarrassment. “I am sorry. I will not yell again. New things is hard.” With that clarity and awareness, Metzli clung to it and began to rock themself in their seat, counting up to eight before repeating themself. It was their safe number, and each one leading up to it would get them through the new experience.

Two of which were sitting up in front, while a few remained at home and a few others resided in Ireland. For now.

“I appreciate both of you. Almost forget about my phonies.” With another deep breath and a pat to their bag, the bristling at the back of Metzli’s neck began to settle, and taking a final gulp from their pouch relaxed them completely. “Crawlies are good. Will you help me take pictures on my phone? I want to have memories to show Leila.” They paused, thinking of all the things their partner had recommended they do on their first trip outside of home. “She say I should also take photos of myself. Maybe we can do this with the whiskey.” Their head tilted curiously as they searched through their memories with their roommate. “Have I had this, Anita?” If they had, Metzli couldn’t recall it. Then again, they rarely asked questions when Anita put a drink in their hand.

“Are we there yet?”

“You don’t have to say sorry, and that wasn’t yelling, promise.” She still felt a need to reassure Metzli at every turn, to make sure, perhaps, that they didn’t retreat into themself again, like they had when they’d first met. But right now wasn't the time to focus on things like that – on things that could be seen as a bad omen, or anything else. Not that Xóchitl was going to voice that particular train of thought right now (or ever, but right now seemed especially necessary).

“New things are very hard, and sometimes a lot of shit. But we’re here, and so it’ll be good.” Xóchitl would’ve winced at how falsely optimistic she sounded, because it wasn’t who she was (not really, though she supposed she was more of a cheerful person than she ever would’ve admitted, which, ick. Maybe.)

Still, she wanted to be there for Anita and Metzli even if she didn’t understand exactly why she was going to Ireland, but a trip wouldn’t be bad, right? It was even something that she’d wanted to do, and since Emilio hadn’t taken her up on her offer to go traveling.

“We’ll take lots of pictures, happy to help you, and to take some of you and for you too. My… boyfriend probably wants photos too.” Xóchitl rolled her shoulders back. “We’re not there yet, but we’ll make it work. Okay? That’s a promise.”

It wasn’t long after that Anita pulled her car into the long-term parking lot at the airport. They were a bit earlier than she would have been arriving for a flight by herself, but she didn’t want there to be any unexpected stresses that came up. “Okay, Aer Lingus is flying out of Terminal C. I already pre-paid for checked bags, so we just need to drop our stuff off at the main counter before going through security.” She took the keys out of the car after she parked, then looked back at Metzli, “People are going to be very dumb and annoying, okay? Just stand in between me and Xó so dumb people don’t bother you.”

The airport was expectedly crowded, full of dumb people all pushing forward to get to their gate only to sit around for an hour before their flight even boarded. Anita had been through many airports before, but she knew that the experience was going to be a lot for Metzli, no matter how much she tried to prepare them. As they were loading their items up on the security belt, the woman behind Anita kept trying to push forward and shove her in the middle of their group. “What time is your flight?” She asked, somewhat innocuously to the woman after her second attempt to squeeze in. “It’s at 3,” the woman huffed back in response.

Anita smirked, intentionally taking a long time to take off her shoes so Metzli and Xó could go through security ahead of her. “That’s fantastic. Sounds like you have plenty of time to calm your ass down, stop being a maldito pendejo, and still get to your flight with time to spare.” The group managed to get to their gate without incident, however, their journey was just getting started.

Anita was perfect to have around when there were crowds involved. She had an intimidating energy that parted people to the side without her needing to speak. Although, she always did take the opportunity to impart a little vicious wisdom on some people. It made Metzli feel seen and taken care of, like they finally knew what family meant. What it felt like.

They hardly minded the way the cool lights overhead buzzed and thrummed when they were required to take off the phonies for security. It felt pretty easy, for the most part. Their fake passport worked and Metzli had mentally prepared to manipulate the crew to let them through, but they were fortunate enough to not need that ability. Sometimes using it was inevitable, they knew that. It just felt better to not have the need to control people. They knew what it felt like to have everything taken. All too well, in fact.

“Thank you.” Quickly, Metzli took their bag and placed the phonies back on their head. Everything muffled instantly and a sense of calm surrounded them with warmth. “One…two…three…four…” Metzli counted quietly to themself, absentmindedly reaching for Anita’s hand once she stood next to them. Their thumb massaged the back of her hand, a pattern that kept in time with their counting. It kept them peaceful, from biting anything. Well, besides the inside of their cheek.

Anita had a good point about people being very dumb and annoying – there certainly seemed to be a higher concentration of that in airports. If she could help Metzli not have to deal with that as much, then that alone would be a win itself. Finding the gate wasn’t too bad either – and not that Xóchitl believed in good luck signs, not really (so much of her life would be different if those were real), but the three of them moving smoothly through the airport and finding their gate was seemingly seamless, and she’d take that win.

“Do either of you want drinks or snacks? I brought some, but figured we could always get more if we want. It’s overpriced but sometimes chips from airports taste even better than ones from the store.” Xóchitl shrugged. Thankfully, they’d be called in one of the first groups, if not the first group, which would undoubtedly make all of this easier. The sooner she could get a glass of wine, the better.

Without missing a beat after Metzli grabbed her hand, Anita reached over and linked her free arm in with Xóchitl’s as the group made their way to the gate. After finding the most secluded seating area possible near their gate, which was still not all that secluded, she pulled out her phone to see when their boarding time was. “Have you ever known me to say no to a drink?” She teased with a grin, “That’s one of the best parts about airports, if you ask me, there is almost always an open bar somewhere.”

“They should be calling our group to board in less than thirty minutes.” Anita almost noted that was the expected time provided there were no unforeseen delays, given how often those seemed to happen during air travel. But it seemed like an unnecessary possibility to speak out into the universe. “If you two want to hold down the fort here, I’ll go get us all a round of mezcal?” It was a question mainly to Metzli, as Anita wasn’t sure if they would want a drink or not. She had packed a few travel sized bottles of blood for them since it wasn’t exactly a short flight, and was thrilled that they didn’t raise any suspicions going through security. Then she turned to Xó, with a warm smile, “And whatever flavor of deliciously overpriced chips your heart desires.”

After getting everyone’s orders in, Anita went off to the nearest bar. Which was within spitting distance, practically. It didn’t take long for her to return with several overpriced libations, a few salty treats, and a few sweet ones. That was what humans did, wasn’t it? Bought way too many snacks for a trip that was undoubtedly going to provide them with some more snacks?

There was no rejection Metzli’s part. In fact, when Anita let go and went on her search, they went on their own. A single round of mezcal wasn’t going to be enough for them and their dead body. They needed far more than most to feel any of alcohol’s influence, and so they found themself at the same bar Anita found. Only, they were across the way where she couldn’t see them.

“Five tequilas in those little glasses.” They tapped the bar, “Please.” In a matter of seconds, they were placed in front of them, and they drank them in rapid succession. “And four more, please.” The bartender gave Metzli a look, and they stiffened. “They are for my friends.” A nod. “Here.” With four bills on the table, the bartender shrugged and gave Metzli what they requested on a platter. “Keep change. Goodbye.” They looked more than happy at the money, and without saying another word, the vampire rejoined their friends.

“These are for me.” The platter was placed on the table with a light clack, and they realized three shots between two people was uneven. With a grumble, they sacrificed one of theirs so Anita and Xóchitl could each have two. “Better.” Metzli smiled awkwardly and downed their drinks. “And more better.” There was hardly a burn on the last swallow, but it was enough to make them shift in their seat.

“Metzli Bernal, to the front desk.”

Metzli stiffened and lit up, realizing they were about to board first after the arrangements Anita made for their peculiar needs. “I get to sit at the window.” They chuckled, disappearing with their things.

Anita and Metzli both seemed immediately agreeable to the suggestion of alcohol, which, win. Not that Xóchitl had had any sort of real doubt about whether or not they’d agree, but it was still good. Maybe a drink (or a few) would get her brain back to actually working, rather than whatever nonsense was going on now. Lack of general eloquence, lack of understanding about just what on earth was going on. But she liked doing things without thinking about consequences, and doing things with friends was even more fun. It brought her back to college, and grad school, even. Not always in the best of ways (but that wasn’t the point right now, was it?), but now it could be in the best of ways.

Or in the goodest of ways. Which wasn’t a word, but again, not the point.

While Anita and Metzli went off on their ways, Xóchitl took a swig of a cap of alcohol she’d somehow managed to get through TSA. Not that things like that were hard, not for her, though she figured some of that had to do with projecting an air of confidence. That much she was quite expert at. It wasn’t self-centered if it was true, right?

Soon enough, both of her friends returned, and both with a few drinks. “I’m buying us a round or three of something when we get there.” She grabbed one of the drinks and the bag of chips from Anita, offering the both of them a small shrug. Metzli was called to the front desk, and Xóchitl felt her stomach clench for a moment, wondering if they were going to get in some sort of trouble (though she was ready to tell off anybody who tried to fuck with Metzli), but it turned out that they’d gotten a window seat. “You’ll love that. You can see how the world looks from way up high.” She offered them a kind smile. “Also you can cozy against the side of the plane, which makes relaxing easier. At least that’s my personal feeling on it.”

Anita was always quite amused when Metzli managed to surprise her. And surprised she was to see them coming back with a small tray full of tequila shots at the same time that she was returning from her own supply run. It was like they had read her mind. “Here’s to Siobhan, for bringing us all together for this strange adventure.” Anita saluted in Spanish before taking her first shot of tequila. It wasn’t Casa Dragones, but it wasn’t half bad. “And here is to all of the great Irish liquor I’m sure we will discover.” She said as she raised up the second shot, finishing it off just as the attendants called for Metzli.

If they were being called off to board that meant that the first class call wasn’t far behind. Sure enough, shortly after finishing up the rest of the drinks and reorganizing her bag a bit, the announcement rang out “We now welcome our passengers traveling in first class to board.” Anita grinned over at Xóchitl, “Vamos, mamacita.”

First class on a transcontinental flight was truly a luxurious experience. Separated from the main cabin by a hallway not just a flimsy little shower curtain. Not that it was the status that Anita really cared about, though. Sure, that was nice, but it was the comforts and small luxuries that made the expense worthwhile. “Miss me?” She teased once they ruined with Metzli in the cabin. After stowing her bags, she slid into the aisle seat and let out a soft sigh of contentment before reaching over and pointing at the screen in front of Metzli’s seat. “This can show you an overview of our flight path, can play music or movies, or you can just turn it off.” Then she turned across the aisle where Xó’s seat was. “This whole thing was so last minute I forgot to even ask, how do you and Siobhan know each other?”

It didn’t take long for the rest of the first class passengers to fill in and the attendant came around to offer everyone a complimentary glass of champagne, which Anita finished rather quickly. After all, she was on vacation.

Being the first person on a flight was interesting, especially when you had only seen pictures of what the inside of a plane looked like. It was only slightly overwhelming, and Metzli was surprised to find that even at their height, their area was spacious. “Oh…” They sat down and looked through the tiny window, anxious to see how the wings would fly in the sky. There was so much to touch and see. Maybe a bit too much for their liking. But Metzli thought it better to wait until Anita arrived, which felt like forever. Though, that was likely the anxiety altering their perception.

“Not really.” They replied, legs bouncing anxiously. “Will they make me sit all the way back? I…I do not like how it feels.” Metzli’s posture was stiffer than usual as they strained to avoid the seat. They could feel themself blinking more than necessary as they battled with how the lights seemed to grow brighter and the amount of people shuffling in produced more noise. With a swallow, the ringing in their ears reached a head, and they took a breath to just barely catch what Anita was saying about the small screen in front of them.

“Okay.” They nodded, swallowing once more as the flight attendant’s appearance startled them into focus. “Thank you.” Tentatively, Metzli took the plastic flute and held it firmly for a moment to gather their bearings before downing the champagne. Oh. It was the pointy liquid they didn’t like very much. They tried not to frown, to hide their discomfort and their cough, but with their leg advertising how they truly felt, it was almost impossible to get a word to not shake from their mouth. “I told you h-how we meet already. We-we had sex.”

She couldn’t help but throw a wink at Anita. It was all in good fun, and it was how the two of them worked after all, wasn’t it? She wanted to check on Metzli, anyhow, to make sure they’d done alright boarding and that nobody else who’d gotten on the plane already was giving them trouble. Which, thankfully, nobody seemed to be. Not that she’d expected anybody to be giving them a hard time, but it was another box ticked in the ‘things are going smoothly’ column. A column that Xóchitl realized she was likely relying on way too much. That didn’t mean she was going to stop. She relied on tequila too much sometimes, but she certainly hadn’t given that up (nor did she intend to).

“You can sit however you wish. The only rules planes have is about wearing your seatbelt, but everything else? You can take at your own pace.” She hoped that was comforting. She didn’t know if it was. Xóchitl didn’t consider herself a comforting person, but she also knew that there were quite a few people (maybe a handful, maybe less, maybe more) who might’ve disagreed with her on that.

Anita was now asking her how she and Siobhan knew each other, and Metzli had jumped in with an answer and so Xóchitl figured why not? “I also slept with her. Well, technically my neighbor tried to get us to hang out so she’d annoy me, but that didn’t happen. You and her work together, right?”

“I wasn’t asking you,” Anita clarified with only a slight twinge of annoyance, refusing to let her face show how that was amplified by Xóchitl’s response. Apparently Anita was the only one whom Sibohan thought she was too good to sleep with. Maybe this trip would change that. “Yes, we’re both professors. We also committed arson together once.” The comment slipped out, more of a jab to try and make herself feel a bit better since she doubted either of them had burned down a nightclub with Siobhan before. But then she remembered that Xóchitl was a human and that humans frowned on arson. “Kidding,” she added in with a bright grin and a laugh.

Once all of the passengers were boarded, the attendants began their safety demonstrations. The bright lights, the loud crackling overhead announcements, and the annoying dinging bells that preceded them, it was all very apparent that it was overwhelming for Metzli. Sometimes Anita didn’t know where the line was between being helpful and being overbearing and never wanted to inadvertently make things worse.

Anita reached down into the bag that was tucked underneath the seat in front of her and pulled out a small pouch that had a black-out eye mask, ear plugs, and some suspicious looking clearly homemade red “candies.” Whatever Metzli wanted to do with the materials was up to them. Not long after the safety demonstration ended, the plane started to taxi away from the gate and down the runway. The stiff air was mixed with sweat and people trying to mask that sweat with too much perfume. Anita adjusted herself more comfortably into the seat as the captain announced that they were about to begin their take-off.

Within an instant the noise in the cabin nearly doubled as the jet engines prepared themselves to carry the aircraft up into the sky. Anita thought about offering her hand for Metzli to hold onto but immediately thought better of it, intentionally or not they could break every tiny bone with just one squeeze. The wheels began to turn and the plane took off down the runway, the rumble shaking and jostling everyone on board slightly. After a few moments of that, the plane lifted off the ground and there was that strange pressurized sensation that was only felt when one was in an active fight against the laws of gravity. She looked over at Metzli, knowing there wasn’t anything more than what she had already done to help them through these moments of discomfort.

The plane rumbled and whirred, sending Metzli’s reflexes into attack mode. Even Anita’s attempts at being a good friend went missed as the sounds made their body tense. Muscle to muscle, from the shoulders and to their feet, everything flexed. With a swallow, a pitiful sound escaped Metzli’s throat and an even louder sound scraped on their right.

Trembling, they rose their fist to find that the armrest had been twisted and bent away from its place. “Oh…oh no.” The plane jumped forward, jostling the armrest from Metzli’s grasp and sending it to the floor. They looked to Anita and then to the floor, and back to her again. Well, that was a problem for later, they thought, feeling the metal carriage ascending into the sky.

“Well, so long as you were both safe,” Xóchitl shrugged. Not that she especially approved of arson, but she also wasn’t about to fight Anita about it. It had already been done, and the cops sucked and so who exactly was she even going to report it to?

Besides, Metzli seemed to be more in trouble and the armrest of their chair disconnected from the rest of the chair, all of a sudden, and that was both confusing and not something Xóchitl could bring herself to focus on too much right then and there. “We’re here for you, okay?” She whispered across the aisle to Metzli, giving a nod to Anita. “We’ll be there before you know it.”

#adventure awaits #para #metzli #Xóchitl #p:metzli #p:Xóchitl #snakes in ireland

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