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#one for all and all four nothing
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lucifer has totally walked into the kitchen at 3am to get a glass of water just to see mammon and mc eating instant ramen. "are either of you aware of the time?" mammon almost chokes on the noodles in his mouth when he hears lucifer's voice, but mc doesn't miss a beat.
"we were hungry!" and of course because mc's the one looking at him with wide eyes, lucifer's willing to look the other way, sighing to himself as he finishes getting his glass of water.
"just clean up your mess when you're done." he's satisfied when he gets a joint response of: 'we will,' as he walks out.
he doesn't expect to walk back in to the kitchen a week later to find mc, mammon, levi and beel all eating ramen together.
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transmascissues · 8 months
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today, my coworkers’ refusal to see me as a man put one of our patients in a position where they felt unsafe for the third time. i’ve been at this job for less than two months total. i don’t even care about getting misgendered anymore, i just want the people we’re supposed to be taking care of to feel comfortable around me.
i work at a hospital where we have to supervise our patients in a lot of vulnerable situations. there are safeguarding rules in place for certain things that male employees aren’t allowed to be present for when it comes to female patients. and yet, the people training me and telling me what to do have repeatedly put me in situations where i’ve been forced to do things that the female patients aren’t comfortable with me doing. and because they have repeatedly failed to teach me the rules for doing my job as a man, i have no way of knowing when i’m crossing one of those lines unless one of the patients tells me.
i’ve had to watch a victim of SA stare at me in abject terror as my coworkers asked her to strip naked with me still in the room. it took several minutes for her to even be able to speak enough to ask if i could leave the room. i found out after that she broke down crying the moment i walked out. my biggest regret is that i didn’t realize what was happening fast enough to leave before she ever had to say something, because she shouldn’t have had to say it. i never should’ve been allowed in the room in the first place, because that’s not something male employees are supposed to be present for. but i didn’t know that yet, because i was training and i thought surely, they wouldn’t train me to do something that directly violated their own safeguarding rules. that moment was the first time, and it’s haunted me ever since, but it wasn’t the last time. not only did it happen for the third time today — it almost happened for the fourth, and would have if someone hadn’t spoken up to say they should pick someone else. i care for these people so deeply, it’s why i took this job, and i’m so tired of hearing the fear in their voices when they have to ask me not to do something i never should’ve been told to do.
i’m very used to the personal discomfort of being misgendered. i willingly deal with it a lot at work as well as in other situations, not because i’m in the closet (at this point in my medical transition that would be impossible), but because it’s such a frequent occurrence with my coworkers that we would never get anything done if i took the time to correct them every time. but to see it get to the point of causing such visceral discomfort in other people? people i’m supposed to be taking care of and keeping safe? that’s something else entirely, and i’m fucking exhausted.
and after all of that, some of them still look at me like i have two heads when they tell me what to do and i say “i can’t do that, only female employees can” because i’m learning now. clearly i’m already seen as a man by our patients, but my coworkers would still rather put them in an unsafe situation than just train me as a man.
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pythonscrypt · 1 year
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"noxcrew wouldn't do 4 games of buildmart that would be too boring" "noxcrew knows it would be unprofessional (???!!?!!?!?!) to play the same game so many times" "they know no one likes buildmart they would never" SHUT THE FUCK UP some ppl r so fucking annoying. noxcrew is a bunch of game devs who organize and code for a fun monthly tournament with absolutely zero monetary stakes not some major league professional sports organization that has to adhere to some arbitrary set of rules. if they think something is funny they will do it it's just not that deep like the coping and projection is insaneeee
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hellenhighwater · 10 months
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Hmm....how hard can large scale mosaic possibly be? I feel like my plans for the room I'm working on could use something really shiny and impactful and maybe I want to make a fold-down cutting table and maybe I want to do it out of mosaic, even though that will be ungodly heavy.
It's a fun idea. I'm not sure if it's a good idea.
I haven't done mosaic since a one-off high school art class but I feel like the component skills are ones I already have, sooooo....
I have been keeping to a blue and gold celestial theme for both my guest room and my art workspaces, because if and when I move those spaces are likely to be combined. Cutting table, even though it would be for a different room, falls in the same vein, so I'm thinking something with a nice dark night sky and maybe some branches or leaves...
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dykealloy · 10 months
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one piece filler ep where they run into another peto-peto villain of the week guy but this time instead the devil fruit power rearranges people's brain chemistry so they have the thoughts behaviours emotional intelligence etc of a dog. zoro gets hit but he's just exactly the same
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they-didnt-last · 2 months
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anyone interested in talking about the iconic 2000's middle-grade-bordering-on-ya book series gallagher girls??
#okay incoming rant about this series#i read the first book when i was 10 or 11 and i was absolutely obssessed with it. i read it so many times i had the entire story memorized#the issue was that i could not find the rest of the series anywhere. it was either sold out or out of stock#and then i found out that only the first 3 books had been translated into my first language so at that point i kinda gave up on them#anyway#flashforward to a couple of weeks ago#i was re organizing my bookshelf and on the back i found LYKY (is this how y'all are abreviating it??)#and remembred how much i loved it#and since i'm now fluent in english and was stuck at home recovering from a surgery i decided to download the entire series and read it#to find out what the fuck happened afterwards#long story short i read all six books in 4 or 5 days#and i haven't stopped thinking about them since#it's actually so funny how little information we have in the first book#i went all of these years thinking it was mostly a silly series about a boarding school for spies when actually SO MUCH happens afterwards#i can't believe i went all of these years unaware of zach goode's existence#truly character of all time#but also i can't stop thinking about how interesting it would have been if zach had come to hate the circle and his mom during the series#rather than before#make it a true enemies to lovers#and have us witness that portion of his character developement in real time instead of being told about it#like him slowly realizing through cammie and his time at gallagher that maybe what they were doing is wrong#i think it would have been very interesting to read#although let's be real it took me until halfway through book four to trust him and he was fully one of the good guys so..#but yeah i have a lot more to say but these tags are long enough#gallagher girls#okay i just want to add another funny anecdote about my experience with this series#my copy of LYKY has an age warning in the back recomending that readers should be above 13 yo to read it#and i distinctly remember finishing it and thinking the warning was kind of dumb bcs besides a few mentions of death and other heavier topi#nothing really happened#and now i realize it was a warning for the rest of the series not just the first book because jesus fucking chirst everything after
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blueskittlesart · 1 year
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cold fruit in a hot kitchen (so i had this great watermelon last weekend)
#so I had this great watermelon last weekend. and the thing is it probably wasn't even that great of a watermelon#but I was four hours into an eight hour shift and we had thrown out all the watermelon salad because no one was eating it#and then our manager ran in and yelled that the client really fucking wanted watermelon salad.#so like six of us servers started frantically chopping watermelon. and the kitchen got really hot#in the way it does when everyone inside it is really stressed because there's no fucking watermelon salad#and after we chopped all the watermelon and the client got their fucking watermelon we all had a moment#where we looked at the remaining watermelon and we were so hot and cocktail hour was almost over anyway and the salads were all plated#and we all went for the watermelon and we ate it with the kind of rabid intensity you only get while eating cold watermelon in a hot kitche#and it was the best watermelon I have ever tasted and several days later i am still chasing the high of that fucking watermelon#and the thing is i know it isn't even the watermelon i'm actually missing#it's the feeling of cool liquid on hot skin and the feeling of a crisis averted and the feeling of camaraderie#that comes with devouring a watermelon in a hot kitchen with six other people who you have nothing in common with except that watermelon.#i don't dream of labor but i am dreaming now of being 4 hours into an eight hour shift eating watermelon in a hot kitchen.#i dream of laughing around the cold fruit in my mouth. I crave that watermelon like i'll die without it.#< honest to god this is real and that watermelon left such an impact on me that i had to draw it and write this. having a normal one#maybe this is insane but working in a team of people you truly like to do something you actually enjoy is so underrated#if only they fucking paid me i could work as a server for the rest of my life. unironically#skribbles
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starrystevie · 2 years
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i don't care how impractical it is... i want steve, eddie, robin and nancy to all live together in a massive house somewhere with land and trees, but still close enough to the city that they don't go stir crazy. i want newly-an-official-couple robin and nancy to be the ones to suggest it with linked hands and matching grins. i want nancy to pull out spreadsheets that prove how it'll be a good way to split rent and get away from the overbearing eyes of hawkins, so they all pack up and move to the outskirts of indianapolis.
i want steve and eddie to start with twin beds in the bedroom not occupied by the lovebirds and then merge those beds into one large one once they figure their shit out. i want early riser nancy to make their breakfasts and learned-to-fend-for-himself eddie to make their dinners. i want chaos when steve and robin go to the grocery store for the first time and come back with half the things they actually need and armfuls of pringles cans. i want them sitting around a beat up kitchen table with socked feet knocking into each other and mismatched wine glasses trying to feel like adults.
i want steve and nancy deciding to get married after they crunched the numbers, saw the tax breaks, thought about the insurance benefits, thought about much easier things would be for all of them in the future if the law was slightly on their side. i want eddie and robin to follow suit because they want an excuse for a bigger party. i want them all falling into their lumpy bumpy couch after their joint weddings before steve runs upstairs to grab his and eddie's suitcase to head out for a mini-honeymoon leaving nancy and robin for one of their own.
years down the line, when hairs are greying and the skin around their eyes start to crinkle, i want there to be kids somehow. i want them to move in to the new build down the road with a more room than they probably need but with enough for their love to grow. i want robin and nancy to move in to the in law suite out back because it's closer to nancy's garden anyway, and expand it to a house of it's own. i want them all to have an open door policy so their kids can grow up side by side with barking and music and kid giggles echoing through the halls.
i want steve in the backyard teaching their crew how to throw a baseball and pressing gentle kisses to their sweaty foreheads to show he's proud of them. i want robin and eddie teaching them how to read music, little legs swinging off their kitchen chairs as they curl their fingers over the neck of too big acoustic guitars. i want nancy taking them on scavenger hunts around the yard, cats weaving between her legs as they use mini-magnifying glasses to observe bugs and leaves.
i want them going to parent teacher conferences in a mass group because, of course, steve charmed the head of the pto to get the kids in all the same classes. i want them to watch as the kids grow up, as they turn into moody teenagers and eventually off to college. i want never-expected-to-grow-old-let-alone-together steve, eddie, nancy and robin to make it a point to have dinner together every night with socked feet knocking into each other but with matching wine glasses this time around.
it's impractical, i know, but man do i want it.
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starry-bi-sky · 7 months
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i made a rough timeline for the clone^2 au, just for my own convenience sake when dating things. some things might be out of order from the episode date, and thats also for my convenience.
September 3rd: Danny, age 14, has the accident in the lab that turns him liminal
September 10th: Danny is discharged from the hospital and given two weeks leave from school
September 24th: his sick leave ends, and Danny returns to school
October 14th: Danny sneaks into his parents' basement and releases the ghosts they have trapped in cages. Official birth of the vigilante, Phantom
November 27th: Danny fights Pariah Dark, and wins
December 24th: the Ghost Writer torments Danny
February 12th: Danny's 15th birthday
March 3rd: its been six months since Danny's accident
March 7th: Danny fights his evil future self
May 8th: Danny meets Ellie [age 15] and they become twins
December 14th: Danny finds out from his parents that he's a clone
February 12th: Danny's 16th birthday
Early-Mid April: Danny meets Damian [age 6] :)
Mid-Late April: Damian runs off for the first time, damages Danny's hands the first time
May: Damian runs off two more times in the span of three weeks, he damages Danny's hands both times.
Early June: Damian runs off one more time, damages Danny's hands again, resulting in permanent nerve damage.
Mid-Late June: Damian finally gives up on the League coming to get him and joins the Fenton Family.
July: Damian finally coaxes Danny into letting him come along with him on patrol: Wraith is born.
#danny fenton is not the ghost king#dpxdc#dpxdc crossover#clone^2#danny fenton is a clone#this only focuses on the earlier parts of the au because those are most important imo. figuring out when danny's accident was. when he#became phantom. when he met damian. etc. is all pretty important stuff and helps me figure out ages beyond '10 year gap'#not super important stuff to much anyone else i think but its nice to have it written down as reference#i usually put danny's accident as happening at the beginning of the school year. tis convenient that way#me: hmmm when do i make danny find out he's a clone. beginning of the school year makes the most sense right???#me:....or.... i could ruin his christmas again :)#thought about increasing the amount of times damian runs off but... thats a LOT of time he's run off and i didnt want to go overboard#same thing with danny's hands. thought about hurting him more frequently but honestly taking a blade to the hand is already damaging enough#on its own. catch a blade with his hands four times would be enough to cause permanent nerve damage and also he would have learned his#lesson if it happened more frequently.#so damian runs off 4 times in the span of essentially 2 months#and four times danny catches his blade. three times he got cut. one time he needed stitches#anyways thats the timeline for now. made totally for convenience sake and no other reason#totally dont look at my google docs there’s nothing there but half forgotten wips and cfau master doc
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wqnwoos · 2 months
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on today’s episode of hana’s slightly insane family
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greentrickster · 3 months
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After making it through the trials of Water, Earth, and Air with Pain and Suffering, but also Success, then rage-quitting the entire game over the third level of Fire because My Brain Does Not Do Mental Mapping Like That, Especially When Avoiding Mostly Invisible Enemies That Make You Start Over, I returned tonight with the vague hope of maybe finding a group I could follow through the Trial of Fire or something.
Not only did I luck into a group, a person who turned out to be an Older and Wiser Player (who's also into simple outfits) friended me and another player, then kindly dragged us through the entire thing with no deaths in a shockingly quick time. I gave them a candle of high-five-ness, which they accepted, and sent them a heart from my constellation afterwards, because they my gods the mental anguish and frustration that trial gave me and which they just saved me from!!!
Anyway, they have been named Fire Master in my constellations, in honour and respect for their great skill and their kindness.
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the-obnoxious-sibling · 6 months
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I must admit I always thought buggy wouldn’t want to brag about his romantic connection to shanks because people who know him see him as someone who’s worthless and tries to beg his way through life And sleeping with someone much more powerful in that situation seems like using bed to get what you want and I don’t think buggy would want to be seen this way especially when it comes to shanks
i think that's definitely something to take into consideration with a shanks/buggy get-together in buggy's pre-emperor days.
if they've been together since they were both young upstarts, well, the people who think he's a gold-digger simply can't do basic math. but if they don't get together until shanks is widely recognized as one of the most powerful pirates in the world, then... yeah, it looks suspect. same as anyone attempting to romance an emperor, if it doesn't appear to have political motives then it appears manipulative.
which... buggy is, but he's not sexually manipulative. he steals his treasures honestly, thank you very much.
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danwhobrowses · 5 months
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So after four months, Bell's Hells are off the moon
0.5/5 Stars - Some of the locals were nice but activities were shit and needs new management.
But what's this? Aabria with a steel chair!? She's probably cackling looking at the socials right now
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quarks-pussy · 1 year
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Marinler wedding but when the priest says "you may now kiss the bride" Mariner dips him
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confetti-cat · 7 months
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Twelve, Thirteen, and One
Words: 6k
Rating: G
Themes: Friendship, Self-Giving Love
(Written for the Four Loves Fairytale Retelling Challenge over at the @inklings-challenge! A Cinderella retelling feat. curious critters and a lot of friendship.)
When the clock chimes midnight on that third evening, thirteen creatures look to the girl who showed them all kindness.
It’s hours after dark, again, and the human girl still sleeps in the ashes.
The mice notice this—though it happens so often that they’ve ceased to pay attention to her. She smells like everything else in the hearth: ashy and overworked, tinged with the faint smell of herbs from the kitchen.
When she moves or shifts in her sleep (uncomfortable sleep—even they can sense the exhaustion in her posture as she sits slumped against the wall, more willing to seep up warmth from the stone than lie cold elsewhere this time of year), they simply scurry around her and continue combing for crumbs and seeds. They’d found a feast of lentils scattered about once, and many other times, the girl had beckoned them softly to her hand, where she’d held a little chunk of brown bread.
Tonight, she has nothing. They don’t mind—though three of them still come to sniff her limp hand where it lies drooped against the side of her tattered dress.
A fourth one places a little clawed hand on the side of her finger, leaning over it to investigate her palm for any sign of food.
When she stirs, it’s to the sensation of a furry brown mouse sitting in her palm.
It can feel the flickering of her muscles as she wakes—feeling slowly returning to her body. To her credit, she cracks her eyes open and merely observes it.
They’re all but tame by now. The Harsh-Mistress and the Shrieking-Girl and the Angry-Girl are to be avoided like the plague never was, but this girl—the Cinder-Girl, they think of her—is gentle and kind.
Even as she shifts a bit and they hear the dull crack of her joints, they’re too busy to mind. Some finding a few buried peas (there were always some peas or lentils still hidden here, if they looked carefully), some giving themselves an impromptu bath to wash off the dust. The one sitting on her hand is doing the latter, fur fluffed up as it scratches one ear and then scrubs tirelessly over its face with both paws.
One looks up from where it’s discovered a stray pea to check her expression.
A warm little smile has crept up her face, weary and dirty and sore as she seems to be. She stays very still in her awkward half-curl against stone, watching the mouse in her hand groom itself. The tender look about her far overwhelms—melts, even—the traces of tension in her tired limbs.
Very slowly, so much so that they really aren’t bothered by it, she raises her spare hand and begins lightly smearing the soot away from her eyes with the back of her wrist.
The mouse in her palm gives her an odd look for the movement, but has discovered her skin is warmer than the cold stone floor or the ash around the dying fire. It pads around in a circle once, then nudges its nose against her calloused skin, settling down for a moment.
The Cinder-Girl has closed her eyes again, and drops her other hand into her lap, slumping further against the wall. Her smile has grown even warmer, if sadder.
They decide she’s quite safe. Very friendly.
The old rat makes his rounds at the usual times of night, shuffling through a passage that leads from the ground all the way up to the attic.
When both gold sticks on the clocks’ moonlike faces point upward, there’s a faint chime from the tower-clock downstairs. He used to worry that the sound would rouse the humans. Now, he ignores it and goes about his business.
There’s a great treasury of old straw in the attic. It’s inside a large sack—and while this one doesn’t have corn or wheat like the ones near the kitchen sometimes do, he knows how to chew it open all the same.
The girl sleeps on this sack of straw, though she doesn’t seem to mind what he takes from it. There’s enough more of it to fill a hundred rat’s nests, so he supposes she doesn’t feel the difference.
Tonight, though—perhaps he’s a bit too loud in his chewing and tearing. The girl sits up slowly in bed, and he stiffens, teeth still sunk into a bit of the fabric.
“Oh.” says the girl. She smiles—and though the expression should seem threatening, all pulled mouth-corners and teeth, he feels the gentleness in her posture and wonders at novel thoughts of differing body languages. “Hello again. Do you need more straw?”
He isn’t sure what the sounds mean, but they remind him of the soft whuffles and squeaks of his siblings when they were small. Inquisitive, unafraid. Not direct or confrontational.
She’s seemed safe enough so far—almost like the woman in white and silver-gold he’s seen here sometimes, marveling at his own confidence in her safeness—so he does what signals not-afraid the best to his kind. He glances her over, twitches his whiskers briefly, and goes back to what he was doing.
Some of the straw is too big and rough, some too small and fine. He scratches a bundle out into a pile so he can shuffle through it. It’s true he doesn’t need much, but the chill of winter hasn’t left the world yet.
The girl laughs. The sound is soft and small. It reminds him again of young, friendly, peaceable.
“Take as much as you need,” she whispers. Her movements are unassuming when she reaches for something on the old wooden crate she uses as a bedside table. With something in hand, she leans against the wall her bed is a tunnel’s-width from, and offers him what she holds. “Would you like this?”
He peers at it in the dark, whiskers twitching. His eyesight isn’t the best, so he finds himself drawing closer to sniff at what she has.
It’s a feather. White and curled a bit, like the goose-down he’d once pulled out the corner of a spare pillow long ago. Soft and long, fluffy and warm.
He touches his nose to it—then, with a glance upward at her softly-smiling face, takes it in his teeth.
It makes him look like he has a mustache, and is a bit too big to fit through his hole easily. The girl giggles behind him as he leaves.
There’s a human out in the gardens again. Which is strange—this is a place for lizards, maybe birds and certainly bugs. Not for people, in his opinion. She’s not dressed in venomous bright colors like the other humans often are, but neither does she stay to the manicured garden path the way they do.
She doesn’t smell like unnatural rotten roses, either. A welcome change from having to dart for cover at not just the motions, but the stenches that accompany the others that appear from time to time.
This human is behind the border-shubs, beating an ornate rug that hangs over the fence with a home-tied broom. Huge clouds of dust shake from it with each hit, settling in a thin film on the leaves and grass around her.
She stops for a moment to press her palm to her forehead, then turns over her shoulder and coughs into her arm.
When she begins again, it’s with a sharp WHOP.
He jumps a bit, but only on instinct. However—
A few feet from where he settles back atop the sunning-rock, there’s a scuffle and a sharp splash. Then thrashing—waster swashing about with little churns and splishes.
It’s not the way of lizards to think of doing anything when one falls into the water. There were several basins for fish and to catch water off the roof for the garden—they simply had to not fall into them, not drown. There was little recourse for if they did. What could another lizard do, really? Fall in after them? Best to let them try to climb out if they could.
The girl hears the splashing. She stares at the water pot for a moment.
Then, she places her broom carefully on the ground and comes closer.
Closer. His heart speeds up. He skitters to the safety of a plant with low-hanging leaves—
—and then watches as she walks past his hiding place, peers into the basin, and reaches in.
Her hand comes up dripping wet, a very startled lizard still as a statue clinging to her fingers.
“Are you the same one I always find here?” she asks with a chiding little smile. “Or do all of you enjoy swimming?”
When she places her hand on the soft spring grass, the lizard darts off of it and into the underbrush. It doesn’t go as far as it could, though—something about this girl makes both of them want to stand still and wait for what she’ll do next.
The girl just watches it go. She lets out a strange sound—a weary laugh, perhaps—and turns back to her peculiar chore.
A song trails through the old house—under the floorboards—through the walls—into the garden, beneath the undergrowth—and lures them out of hiding.
It isn’t an audible song, not like that of the birds in the summer trees or the ashen-girl murmuring beautiful sounds to herself in the lonely hours. This one was silent. Yet, it reached deep down into their souls and said come out, please—the one who helped you needs your help.
It didn’t require any thought, no more than eat or sleep or run did.
In chains of silver and grey, all the mice who hear it converge, twenty-four tiny feet pattering along the wood in the walls. The rat joins them, but they are not afraid.
When they emerge from a hole out into the open air, the soft slip-slap of more feet surround them. Six lizards scurry from the bushes, some gleaming wet as if they’d just escaped the water trough or run through the birdbath themselves.
As a strange little hoard, they approach the kind girl. Beside her is a tall woman wearing white and silver and gold.
The girl—holding a large, round pumpkin—looks surprised to see them here. The woman is smiling.
“Set the pumpkin on the drive,” the woman says, a soft gleam in her eye. “The rest of you, line up, please.”
Bemused, but with a heartbeat fast enough for them to notice, the girl gingerly places the pumpkin on the stone of the drive. It’s natural for them, somehow, to follow—the mice line in pairs in front of it, the rat hops on top of it, and the lizards all stand beside.
“What are they doing?” asks the girl—and there’s curiosity and gingerness in her tone, like she doesn’t believe such a sight is wrong, but is worried it might be.
The older woman laughs kindly, and a feeling like blinking hard comes over the world.
It’s then—then, in that flash of darkness that turns to dazzling light, that something about them changes.
“Oh!” exclaims the girl, and they open their eyes. “Oh! They’re—“
They’re different.
The mice aren’t mice at all—and suddenly they wonder if they ever were, or if it was an odd dream.
They’re horses, steel grey and sleek-haired with with silky brown manes and tails. Their harnesses are ornate and stylish, their hooves polished and dark.
Instead of a rat, there’s a stout man in fine livery, with whiskers dark and smart as ever. He wears a fine cap with a familiar white feather, and the gleam in his eye is surprised.
“Well,” he says, examining his hands and the cuffs of his sleeves, “I suppose I won’t be wanting for adventure now.”
Instead of six lizards, six footmen stand at attention, their ivory jackets shining in the late afternoon sun.
The girl herself is different, though she’s still human—her hair is done up beautifully in the latest fashion, and instead of tattered grey she wears a shimmering dress of lovely pale green, inlaid with a design that only on close inspection is flowers.
“They are under your charge, now,” says the woman in white, stepping back and folding her hands together. “It is your responsibility to return before the clock strikes midnight—when that happens, the magic will be undone. Understood?”
“Yes,” says the girl breathlessly. She stares at them as if she’s been given the most priceless gift in all the world. “Oh, thank you.”
The castle is decorated brilliantly. Flowery garlands hang from every parapet, beautiful vines sprawling against walls and over archways as they climb. Dozens of picturesque lanterns hang from the walls, ready to be lit once the sky grows dark.
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen the castle,” the girl says, standing one step out of the carriage and looking so awed she seems happy not to go any further. “Father and I used to drive by it sometimes. But it never looked so lovely as this.”
“Shall we accompany you in, milady?” asks one of the footmen. They’re all nearly identical, though this one has freckles where he once had dark flecks in his scales.
She hesitates for only a moment, looking up at the pinnacles of the castle towers. Then, she shakes her head, and turns to look at them all with a smile like the sun.
“I think I’ll go in myself,” she says. “I’m not sure what is custom. But thank you—thank you so very much.”
And so they watch her go—stepping carefully in her radiant dress that looked lovelier than any queen’s.
Though she was not royal, it seemed there was no doubt in anyone’s minds that she was. The guards posted at the door opened it for her without question.
With a last smile over her shoulder, she stepped inside.
He's straightening the horses' trappings for the fifth time when the doors to the castle open, and out hurries a figure. It takes him a moment to recognize her, garbed in rich fabrics and cloaked in shadows, but it's the girl, rushing out to the gilded carriage. A footman steps forward and offers her a hand, which she accepts gratefully as she steps up into the seat.
“Enjoyable evening, milady?” asks the coachman. His whiskers are raised above the corners of his mouth, and his twinkling eyes crinkle at the edges.
“Yes, quite, thank you!” she breathes in a single huff. She smooths her dress the best she can before looking at him with some urgency. “The clock just struck quarter till—will you be able to get us home?”
The gentle woman in white had said they only would remain in such states until midnight. How long was it until the middle of night? What was a quarter? Surely darkness would last for far more hours than it had already—it couldn’t be close. Yet it seemed as though it must be; the princesslike girl in the carriage sounded worried it would catch them at any moment.
“I will do all I can,” he promises, and with a sharp rap of the reins, they’re off at a swift pace.
They arrive with minutes to spare. He knows this because after she helps him down from the carriage (...wait. That should have been the other way around! He makes mental note for next time: it should be him helping her down. If he can manage it. She’s fast), she takes one of those minutes to show him how his new pocketwatch works.
He’s fascinated already. There’s a part of him that wonders if he’ll remember how to tell time when he’s a rat again—or will this, all of this, be forgotten?
The woman in white is there beside the drive, and she’s already smiling. A knowing gleam lights her eye.
“Well, how was the ball?” she asks, as Cinder-Girl turns to face her with the most elated expression. “I hear the prince is looking for fair maidens. Did he speak with you?”
The girl rushes to grasp the woman’s hands in hers, clasping them gratefully and beaming up at her.
“It was lovely! I’ve never seen anything so lovely,” she all but gushes, her smile brighter and broader than they’d ever seen it. “The castle is beautiful; it feels so alive and warm. And yes, I met the Prince—although hush, he certainly isn’t looking for me—he’s so kind. I very much enjoyed speaking with him. He asked me to dance, too; I had as wonderful a time as he seemed to. Thank you! Thank you dearly.”
The woman laughs gently. It isn’t a laugh one would describe as warm, but neither is it cold in the sense some laughs can be—it's soft and beautiful, almost crystalline.
“That’s wonderful. Now, up to bed! You’ve made it before midnight, but your sisters will be returning soon.”
“Yes! Of course,” she replies eagerly—turning to smile gratefully at coachman and stroke the nearest horses on their noses and shoulders, then curtsy to the footmen. “Thank you all, very much. I could not ask for a more lovely company.”
It’s a strange moment when all of their new hearts swell with warmth and affection for this girl—and then the world darkens and lightens so quickly they feel as though they’ve fallen asleep and woken up.
They’re them again—six mice, six lizards, a rat, and a pumpkin. And a tattered gray dress.
“Please, would you let me go again tomorrow? The ball will last three days. I had such a wonderful time.”
“Come,” the woman said simply, “and place the pumpkin beneath the bushes.”
The woman in white led the way back to the house, followed by an air-footed girl and a train of tiny critters. There was another silent song in the air, and they thought perhaps the girl could hear it too: one that said yes—but get to bed!
The second evening, when the door of the house thuds shut and the hoofsteps of the family’s carriage fade out of hearing, the rat peeks out of a hole in the kitchen corner to see the Cinder-Girl leap to her feet.
She leans close to the window and watched for more minutes than he quite understands—or maybe he does; it was good to be sure all cats had left before coming out into the open—and then runs with a spring in her step to the back door near the kitchen.
Ever so faintly, like music, the woman’s laughter echoes faintly from outside. Drawn to it like he had been drawn to the silent song, the rat scurries back through the labyrinth of the walls.
When he hurries out onto the lawn, the mice and lizards are already there, looking up at the two humans expectantly. This time, the Cinder-Girl looks at them and smiles broadly.
“Hello, all. So—how do you do it?” she asks the woman. Her eyes shine with eager curiosity. “I had no idea you could do such a thing. How does it work?”
The woman fixes her with a look of fond mock-sternness. “If I were to explain to you the details of how, I’d have to tell you why and whom, and you’d be here long enough to miss the royal ball.” She waves her hands she speaks. “And then you’d be very much in trouble for knowing far more than you ought.”
The rat misses the girl’s response, because the world blinks again—and now all of them once again are different. Limbs are long and slender, paws are hooves with silver shoes or feet in polished boots.
The mouse-horses mouth at their bits as they glance back at the carriage and the assortment of humans now standing by it. The footmen are dressed in deep navy this time, and the girl wears a dress as blue as the summer sky, adorned with brilliant silver stars.
“Remember—“ says the woman, watching fondly as the Cinder-Girl steps into the carriage in a whorl of beautiful silk. “Return before midnight, before the magic disappears.”
“Yes, Godmother,” she calls, voice even more joyful than the previous night. “Thank you!”
The castle is just as glorious as before—and the crowd within it has grown. Noblemen and women, royals and servants, and the prince himself all mill about in the grand ballroom.
He’s unsure of the etiquette, but it seems best for her not to enter alone. Once he escorts her in, the coachman bows and watches for a moment—the crowd is hushed again, taken by her beauty and how important they think her to be—and then returns to the carriage outside.
He isn’t required in the ballroom for much of the night—but he tends to the horses and checks his pocketwatch studiously, everything in him wishing to be the best coachman that ever once was a rat.
Perhaps that wouldn’t be hard. He’d raise the bar, then. The best coachman that ever drove for a princess.
Because that was what she was—or, that was what he heard dozens of hushed whispers about once she’d entered the ball. Every noble and royal and servant saw her and deemed her a grand princess nobody knew from a land far away. The prince himself stared at her in a marveling way that indicated he thought no differently.
It was a thing more wondrous than he had practice thinking. If a mouse could become a horse or a rat could become a coachman, couldn’t a kitchen-girl become a princess?
The answer was yes, it seemed—perhaps in more ways than one.
She had rushed out with surprising grace just before midnight. They took off quickly, and she kept looking back toward the castle door, as if worried—but she was smiling.
“Did you know the Prince is very nice?” she asks once they’re safely home, and she’s stepped down (drat) without help again. The woman in white stands on her same place beside the drive, and when Cinder-Girl sees her, she waves with dainty grace that clearly holds a vibrant energy and sheer thankfulness behind it. “I’ve never known what it felt like to be understood. He thinks like I do.”
“How is that?” asks the woman, quirking an amused brow. “And if I might ask, how do you know?”
“Because he mentions things first.” The girl tries to smother some of the wideness of her smile, but can’t quite do so. “And I've shared his thoughts for a long time. That he loves his father, and thinks oranges and citrons are nice for festivities especially, and that he’s always wanted to go out someday and do something new.”
The third evening, the clouds were dense and a few droplets of rain splattered the carriage as they arrived.
“Looks like rain, milady,” said the coachman as she disembarked to stand on water-spotted stone. “If it doesn’t blow by, we’ll come for ye at the steps, if it pleases you.”
“Certainly—thank you,” she replies, all gleaming eyes and barely-smothered smiles. How her excitement to come can increase is beyond them—but she seems more so with each night that passes.
She has hardly turned to head for the door when a smattering of rain drizzles heavily on them all. She flinches slightly, already running her palms over the skirt of her dress to rub out the spots of water.
Her golden dress glisters even in the cloudy light, and doesn’t seem to show the spots much. Still, it’s hardy an ideal thing.
“One of you hold the parasol—quick about it, now—and escort her inside,” the coachman says quickly. The nearest footman jumps into action, hop-reaching into the carriage and falling back down with the umbrella in hand, unfolding it as he lands. “Wait about in case she needs anything.”
The parasol is small and not meant for this sort of weather, but it's enough for the moment. The pair of them dash for the door, the horses chomping and stamping behind them until they’re driven beneath the bows of a huge tree.
The footman knows his duty the way a lizard knows to run from danger. He achieves it the same way—by slipping off to become invisible, melting into the many people who stood against the golden walls.
From there, he watches.
It’s so strange to see the way the prince and their princess gravitate to each other. The prince’s attention seems impossible to drag away from her, though not for many’s lack of trying.
Likewise—more so than he would have thought, though perhaps he’s a bit slow in noticing—her focus is wholly on the prince for long minutes at a time.
Her attention is always divided a bit whenever she admires the interior of the castle, the many people and glamorous dresses in the crowd, the vibrant tables of food. It’s all very new to her, and he’s not certain it doesn’t show. But the Prince seems enamored by her delight in everything—if he thinks it odd, he certainly doesn’t let on.
They talk and laugh and sample fine foods and talk to other guests together, then they turn their heads toward where the musicians are starting up and smile softly when they meet each other’s eyes. The Prince offers a hand, which is accepted and clasped gleefully.
Then, they dance.
Their motions are so smooth and light-footed that many of the crowd forgo dancing, because admiring them is more enjoyable. They’re in-sync, back and forth like slow ripples on a pond. They sometimes look around them—but not often, especially compared to how long they gaze at each other with poorly-veiled, elated smiles.
The night whirls on in flares of gold tulle and maroon velvet, ivory, carnelian, and emerald silks, the crowd a nonstop blur of color.
(Color. New to him, that. Improved vision was wonderful.)
The clock strikes eleven, but there’s still time, and he’s fairly certain he won’t be able to convince the girl to leave anytime before midnight draws near.
He was a lizard until very recently. He’s not the best at judging time, yet. Midnight does draw near, but he’s not sure he understands how near.
The clock doesn’t quite say up-up. So he still has time. When the rain drums ceaselessly outside, he darts out and runs in a well-practiced way to find their carriage.
Another of the footmen comes in quickly, having been sent in a rush by the coachman, who had tried to keep his pocketwatch dry just a bit too long. He’s soaking wet from the downpour when he steps close enough to get her attention.
She sees him, notices this, and—with a glimmer of recognition and amusement in her eyes—laughs softly into her hand.
ONE—TWO— the clock starts. His heart speeds up terribly, and his skin feels cold. He suddenly craves a sunny rock.
“Um,” he begins awkwardly. Lizards didn’t have much in the way of a vocal language. He bows quickly, and water drips off his face and hat and onto the floor. “The chimes, milady.”
THREE—FOUR—
Perhaps she thought it was only eleven. Her face pales. “Oh.”
FIVE—SIX—
Like a deer, she leaps from the prince’s side and only manages a stumbling, backward stride as she curtsies in an attempt at a polite goodbye.
“Thank you, I must go—“ she says, and then she’s racing alongside the footman as fast as they both can go. The crowd parts for them just enough, amidst loud murmurs of surprise.
SEVEN—EIGHT—
“Wait!” calls the prince, but they don’t. Which hopefully isn’t grounds for arrest, the footman idly thinks.
They burst through the door and out into the open air.
NINE—TEN—
It has been storming. The rain is crashing down in torrents—the walkways and steps are flooded with a firm rush of water.
She steps in a crevice she couldn’t see, the water washes over her feet, and she stumbles, slipping right out of one shoe. There’s noise at the door behind them, so she doesn’t stop or even hesitate. She runs at a hobble and all but dives through the open carriage door. The awaiting footman quickly closes it, and they’re all grasping quickly to their riding-places at the corners of the vehicle.
ELEVEN—
A flash of lightning coats the horses in white, despite the dark water that’s soaked into their coats, and with a crack of the rains and thunder they take off at a swift run.
There’s shouting behind them—the prince—as people run out and call to the departing princess.
TWELVE.
Mist swallows them up, so thick they can’t hear or see the castle, but the horses know the way.
The castle’s clock tower must have been ever-so-slightly fast. (Does magic tell truer time?) Their escape works for a few thundering strides down the invisible, cloud-drenched road—until true midnight strikes a few moments later.
She walks home in the rain and fog, following a white pinprick of light she can guess the source of—all the while carrying a hollow pumpkin full of lizards, with an apron pocket full of mice and a rat perched on her shoulder.
It’s quite the walk.
The prince makes a declaration so grand that the mice do not understand it. The rat—a bit different now—tells them most things are that way to mice, but he’s glad to explain.
The prince wants to find the girl who wore the golden slipper left on the steps, he relates. He doesn’t want to ask any other to marry him, he loved her company so.
The mice think that’s a bit silly. Concerning, even. What if he does find her? There won’t be anyone to secretly leave seeds in the ashes or sneak them bread crusts when no humans are looking.
The rat thinks they’re being silly and that they’ve become too dependent on handouts. Back in his day, rodents worked for their food. Chewing open a bag of seed was an honest day’s work for its wages.
Besides, he confides, as he looks again out the peep-hole they’ve discovered in the floor trim of the parlor. You’re being self-interested, if you ask me. Don’t you want our princess to find a good mate, and live somewhere spacious and comfortable, free of human-cats, where she’d finally have plenty to eat?
It’s hard to make a mouse look appropriately chastised, but that question comes close. They shuffle back a bit to let him look out at the strange proceedings in the parlor again.
There are many humans there. The Harsh-Mistress stands tall and rigid at the back of one of the parlor chairs, exchanging curt words with a strange man in fine clothes with a funny hat. Shrieking-Girl and Angry-Girl stand close, scoffing and laughing, looking appalled.
Cinder-Girl sits on the chair that’s been pulled to the middle of the room. She extends her foot toward a strange golden object on a large cushion.
The shoe, the rat notes so the mice can follow. They can’t quite see it from here—poor eyesight and all.
Of course, the girl’s foot fits perfectly well into her own shoe. They all saw that coming.
Evidently, the humans did not. There’s absolute uproar.
“There is no possible way she’s the princess you’re looking for!” declares Harsh-Mistress, her voice full of rage. “She’s a kitchen maid. Nothing royal about her.”
“How dare you!” Angry-Girl rages. “Why does it fit you? Why not us?”
“You sneak!” shrieks none other than Shrieking-Girl. “Mother, she snuck to the ball! She must have used magic, somehow! Princes won’t marry sneaks, will they?”
“I think they might,” says a calm voice from the doorway, and the uproar stops immediately.
The Prince steps in. He stares at Cinder-Girl.
She stares back. Her face is still smudged with soot, and her dress is her old one, gray and tattered. The golden slipper gleams on her foot, having fit as only something molded or magic could.
A blush colors her face beneath the ash and she leaps up to do courtesy. “Your Highness.”
The Prince glances at the messenger-man with the slipper-pillow and the funny hat. The man nods seriously.
The Prince blinks at this, as if he wasn’t really asking anything with his look—it’s already clear he recognizes her—and meets Cinder-Girl’s gaze with a smile. It’s the same half-nervous, half-attemptingly-charming smile as he kept giving her at the ball.
He bows to her and offers a hand. (The rat has to push three mice out of the way to maintain his view.)
“It’s my honor,” he assures her. “Would you do me the great honor of accompanying me to the castle? I’d had a question in mind, but it seems there are—“ he glances at Harsh-Mistress, who looks like a very upset rat in a mousetrap. “—situations we might discuss remedying. You’d be a most welcome guest in my father’s house, if you’d be amenable to it?”
It’s all so much more strange and unusual than anything the creatures of the house are used to seeing. They almost don’t hear it, at first—that silent song.
It grows stronger, though, and they turn their heads toward it with an odd hope in their hearts.
The ride to the castle is almost as strange as that prior walk back. The reasons for this are such:
One—their princess is riding in their golden carriage alongside the prince, and their chatter and awkward laughter fills the surrounding spring air. They have a good feeling about the prince, now, if they didn’t already. He can certainly take things in stride, and he is no respecter of persons. He seems just as elated to be by her side as he was at the ball, even with the added surprise of where she'd come from.
Two—they have been transformed again, and the woman in white has asked them a single question: Would you choose to stay this way?
The coachman said yes without a second thought. He’d always wanted life to be more fulfilling, he confided—and this seemed a certain path to achieving that.
The footmen might not have said yes, but there was something to be said for recently-acquired cognition. It seemed—strange, to be human, but the thought of turning back into lizards had the odd feeling of being a poor choice. Baffled by this new instinct, they said yes.
The horses, of course, said things like whuff and nyiiiehuhum, grumph. The woman seemed to understand, though. She touched one horse on the nose and told it it would be the castle’s happiest mouse once the carriage reached its destination. The others, it seemed, enjoyed their new stature.
And three—they are heading toward a castle, where they have all been offered a fine place to live. The Prince explains that he doesn’t wish for such a kind girl to live in such conditions anymore. There’s no talk of anyone marrying—just discussions of rooms and favorite foods and of course, you’ll have the finest chicken pie anytime you’d like and I can’t have others make it for me! Lend me the kitchens and I’ll make some for you; I have a very dear recipe. Perhaps you can help. (Followed in short order by a ...Certainly, but I’d—um, I’d embarrass myself trying to cook. You would teach me? and a gentle laugh that brightened the souls of all who could hear it.)
“If you’d be amenable to it,” she replies—and in clear, if surprised, agreement, the Prince truly, warmly laughs.
“Milady,” the coachman calls down to them. “Your Highness. We’re here.”
The castle stands shining amber-gold in the light of the setting sun. It will be the fourth night they’ve come here—the thirteen of them and the one of her—but midnight, they realize, will not break the spell ever again.
One by one, they disembark from the carriage. If it will stay as it is or turn back into a pumpkin, they hadn't thought to ask. There’s so much warmth swelling in their hearts that they don’t think it matters.
The girl, their princess, smiles—a dear, true smile, tentative in the face of a brand new world, but bright with hope—and suddenly, they’re all smiling too.
She steps forward, and they follow. The prince falls into step with her and offers an arm, and their glances at each other are brimming with light as she accepts.
With her arm in the arm of the prince, a small crowd of footmen and the coachman trailing behind, and a single grey mouse on her shoulder, the once-Cinder-Girl walks once again toward the palace door.
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alluralater · 4 months
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hey everyone, i won’t be as active for a while. got home last night super late after being on the road for 20 some odd hours. dealing with some family things and as an older sister, my priority of taking care of my siblings comes first before anything else. being on here is amazing for me but i don’t think i’ll have much time for it. reminder to please treat those in your life who are battling addiction with patience and care. i lost my older brother (sweetest person i’ve ever known and he remained that way up until his last night) to suicide and alcoholism, trauma and ptsd, depression and his feelings of hopelessness. talk with the people you care about. another of my siblings is dealing with the same and i refuse to let it escalate to such a terrifying end twice in less than a fucking year. remind the people you care about that there are beautiful things to live for. show them kindness and love. there is all kinds of misinformation out there but know this, you can make a difference for someone. don’t let them suffer in silence.
#if you have me on snap then you saw the super gorgeous views and such on my way to idaho but what you did not see was me picking#up my little sister. propping her body up with pillows in a hotel room to make sure she didn’t aspirate on her own vomit in her sleep.#pouring out her water bottle of white claw and talking to her about drug use.#i never make her feel as though she has disappointed me or that she should feel ashamed. shame helps nothing. love helps everything.#i’m going to get her back into treatment soon- i just need her to know she has a home when she’s out. detoxing here first and being#positively reinforced for every single step of the process is so fucking important. it was terrifying to learn that if i had not gone to ge#her when i did that she probably would have died there in the next few weeks.#my fear of death for her is not what guides me though and there’s a huge difference between that and doing something out of love. being#there in dire moments is important yes- but being there through the mundanity of recovery is JUST as vital. it’s a process and it’s hard.#she’s moving in with me for awhile so i can help her through this sensitive time in her recovery.#she’s trying so hard and being recognized for that has literally been making her sob. knowing she has people who truly care for her is#everything. now that my stepdad is away from her like across the country i can actually finally help her. she’s starting to understand and#without me saying anything- she is starting to see what he’s done to her and our family. she needs love and support and stability. she need#reasons to live. sorry im kinda rambling a lot in these tags but i just… i can’t lose another one. the love i carry for my siblings is#unlike any other. i’ve treated them like my children since i was a child and those are my own issues but our mother is gone now too so it i#up to me.#losing my brother last september and my mom the year before that- grief has just been back to back.#in the hotel room i couldn’t sleep. she fell asleep so quickly and all i could do was watch her and think about all of the things i want to#do to make her feel like her life has value and worth enough to stay here and not go. my little sister is forever four years old in my mind#yes she’s an adult of 23 but she is a baby to me. she’s so young and she has so much ahead of her. she deserves a happy and fulfilled life.#our lives have been… very hard. 4 out of 5 of us are still standing and i plan on keeping it that way.#this is not the pain olympics or whatever but listen- if i put an adult in any of the situations we were in as children they would not#survive. we only did because there was no other choice. now there are escapes and we are old enough to try them all- every single one of us#has searched for some escape. it spirals and escalates and it doesn’t help but it is an escape. giving her love and affection and getting#her the help she needs and doing it the RIGHT way- it lessens the need for escape. there is nothing wrong with being an addict.#addiction ends one of two ways. life or death. unfortunately there is no in between. she��s going to feel everything- bad and good. i want#her to know there is so much good. that she is good. every move i make right now matters so i don’t think i’ll have time for tumblr or#much socializing.#just a heads up yk. thank you for your patience in advance <3
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