Short chunk from a draft

BlackShanglan

Silver-Tongued Papist
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I'm looking for feedback on the piece below. I'm trying to work out the female lead's motivations for staying in her current employment. Things get rougher before they get better, so she needs a strong reason to stay in a place where she will face some ugly challenges. However, I don't wish to descend into outright bathos. I've been fiddling with this from an earlier draft and can't decide if I'm headed in the right direction. I'm particularly interested in whether the description of her family's circumstances is too melodramatic. Oh, and I should point out that this chunk is the opening to the story, so there is no other information or context around it.

Many thanks, any who comment!

Shanglan

***************

Lizzy was scouring the back stairs when it came again – another rough reminder of her status in the home of Lord Sebastian Vayne. As she bent into the hard work, scrubbing another day’s worth of grime from the bare planks of the landing, she heard a lurching step in the hall. She moved to jump up, but damn Watt Thompson, he was fast on his feet and stealthy for a drunken sot of a coachman. He shot his hand under her petticoats and groped upward. Damn the red-faced pig! She cracked his rough, calloused hand with her scrubbing brush, hard, and scowled up at him as he snatched it back with a muttered oath. She sat back on her heels, as much to tuck her skirts swiftly under her as to face him.

“I’ve these stairs to do, Mr. Thompson, so please leave me to do them. I’ve no need to be chasing you off from me every moment I set about my work.”

She glowered fiercely at him, although admittedly it was difficult from her position kneeling on the floor. Still, she stayed down. Down here, on the floor, she was close and crouched, and if he pushed this much further she’d be glad of that. There was less of her to get at and a better chance of dodging him in his unsteady state. She watched him warily.

“Little cock teaser,” he muttered sullenly. His eyes were bloodshot and there was a reek of gin from him. Lizzy shifted her weight back just a bit, bringing her balance to her feet. He’d taken a proper skinful this time. It might be best to run.

Thompson eyed her a long moment. Then finally he curled his lip.

“Fucking judy to half the stable boys,” he sneered. “I wouldn’t touch yer with his.” He jerked his head at the shape of a man emerging swiftly from the kitchen hallway, then spat on the floor in front of her and staggered off, pushing past the newcomer on his way to the yard.

“Lizzy. You’re all right?” Alexis offered her his hand, helping her quickly to her feet. She realized quite suddenly that she was trembling. He peered at her in concern, darting his gaze between her and the departed figure of the coachman. Without warning, hot, angry tears burst from her, and she groped blindly for the stair. Alexis guided her hastily to sit, and she let the sobs come.



She’d been in service three months now, and it got worse every day. She had tried to prepare herself for what she knew would be hard – the long days of cleaning from dawn until past dusk, the fierce physical labor, the constant summons and almost total lack of privacy. She’d thought herself equal to it. The ruin of her hopes she’d tried to put behind her; there was nothing to be done. Her parents had dreamed of better things. They’d prayed she might become a governess, perhaps, or even a teacher in a girls’ school. But money had run short, and debts had mounted, and where in the world was there, really, for the daughter of a seamstress and a broken schoolmaster who’d lost his sight and his living? To be able to read, but have no money for books – to spell, and write, and figure, but know no French or German or science – to have a fine wit, in short, but stocked with what rags and ends of knowledge could be garnered in the blind alleys of Spitalfields – what trade did that leave open to her? What life, indeed, but illuminated misery: drudgery, with always a glimpse of what might have been.

She shook her head, putting it from her. Self pity was of no use. But she was neither one thing nor the other, and that was the problem. Things might have gone well enough if she’d never had any learning or thought of some other life – if her words were rough, her manners coarse, and her thoughts firmly located in the back alleys of the world. But they were not, and they marked her out in an ugly way.

It had begun with Kate. She’d taken a dislike to Lizzy from the start. God knows she’d had no reason to; they’d come to the house together, not a day’s difference in their time of service. And they were housemaids alike, part of his lordship’s expansion of staff in preparation for his coming marriage. But Kate had set herself above Lizzy from the first. And she’d swallowed it, Lizzy thought bitterly. She had thought to ingratiate herself, but her humble submission had only marked her an easy target. Mrs. Crouch, the housekeeper, was equally dour to them both at first, but it had only taken a few days before Lizzy found herself looking in from without. She’d meant no harm, only wishing to work hard, do her job well, and prove her worth. Yet the very things on which she’d hoped to found goodwill had turned against her. They sneered at her for her diligence, though it saved them the trouble of their own effort, and resented her when she would not join them in their career of petty theft and idleness. They had all turned on her, and Bill as well – the upper footman, who was always swaggering around Kate in an openly leering fashion. Mick, the lower man, was decent enough, but new like her and with no desire to make himself the whipping boy for the house. It had grown more open day by day, until finally one night she’d come to the servants’ hall late to dinner and heard them as she approached.

“Nose-in-the-air little cow,” sneered Kate in her sly, spiteful voice. Lizzy had stopped in the hallway, less to eavesdrop than because she was too stunned and humiliated to face them. “Runs about with that bloody dustrag of hers like it’s a badge of office, into everyone’s business. You can’t have a stretcher or half a belt without her turning up.”

“Aye, and simpering like a nancy,” grumbled Mrs. Crouch. Lizzy felt the jibe painfully. She’d tried all she knew to please the woman. “Oh, I’ve seen her, the little suck-up. Thinks she’s a site better than the rest of us, don’t she? Mind you, she reads.” She drew out the last word with a lengthy contempt. “Wouldn’t want to mix herself up with the rest of us ignorant folk.”

“Holds herself a damned sight too high,” growled Watt. She knew that hoarse, drink-thickened voice. “Frigid little bitch, too good for any man in the house.”

“Happen she fancies his lordship,” smirked Kate, and they burst into raucous laughter. Lizzy had slunk back down the hall then and sat on the cold back stairs until at last they departed and she crept in to eat what was left.

From that day on she’d avoided them, speaking only when she must and doing her work with as little contact with the others as she could manage. But it had done her no good. Her isolation they took for pride, and her silence for insolence. Nothing she did seemed to assuage them; they resented her regardless. She had the coals and water to carry every day, backbreaking work, and she no longer even tried to guess what tasks she could possibly have been spared to give to Kate. She hardly ever saw her out of Mrs. Crouch’s dayroom. When the stableboys spoke rudely to her, Kate sniggered behind her back; when she complained to Hodges, the butler, of Bill’s wandering hands, she was carpeted for “bearing tales” and troubling him with the concerns of the lower staff. When she’d tried Mrs. Crouch she’d only been sneered at and told that she’d best learn to work with the others, and Kate had smirked openly. The next time Bill had tried it he’d been bolder, and she’d been thankful that Mick had walked in as Bill held her wrist in a bruising grip and ran his hand over her thighs. He’d turned her loose as Mick glared at him from the door, but she read the message clearly enough in his triumphant glance. She might complain all she liked. Nothing would be done.

Desperation was setting in. She longed to flee, but she needed the money so badly that she dared not. She knew how little hope she had of a new position with the character Mrs. Crouch would give her; the dour old housekeeper would poison Lizzy’s name with any employer she tried to find. Mrs. Crouch might detest her personally, but she gladly loaded her work upon Lizzy and would keep her a slave as long as she might. No – she must stay. Every time she looked longingly at the door to the yard, her mind went back to her mother, hard-driven with her work and the other children still to feed, and her father sitting blind by the fire. His books were closed to him forever now, their joyous light extinguished. He who had brought her Blake’s fiery illuminations and Wordsworth’s divine vision could now see nothing himself – a bitter irony, a last joke from a god who had abandoned him. He clung to his faith yet, but for Lizzy it was harder. A good man, devoted to his family, he’d given himself unstintingly and struggled to better them all. What had God given him in return, she thought bitterly. Blindness and poverty. Now he sat there in the corner raveling cotton or pasting matchboxes, whatever rough work he could find that needed no sight and paid a pittance. He was spared only this: the sight of her mother grown paler each day, placing meat upon his plate to cradle his illusions while she ate coarse bread dipped in watered milk and hushed the children over their porridge.

And so Lizzy stayed. Her wages were tiny, a painful sum to see set in her hand on the quarter-day after three backbreaking months of slavery. Yet they loomed larger when she brought them to her mother, eight shining sovereigns. Eight sovereigns, and a gift that had wrung her heart with gratitude – a meat pie fit for a lord’s table, a gift from Alexis.
 
BlackShanglan said:
I'm looking for feedback on the piece below. I'm trying to work out the female lead's motivations for staying in her current employment. Things get rougher before they get better, so she needs a strong reason to stay in

I'm particularly interested in whether the description of her family's circumstances is too melodramatic.

Melodrama. To me the families circumstances did not seem too much except in the quoted paragraph below. I felt this paragraph went a bit overboard and could be cut back a touch. Throughout this intro, references to Lizzie's family circumstances added a certain believability to why she might stay without giving a solid reason. It helped flesh her character as hard working during duties, persevering - the kind of person who would never give up.

Desperation was setting in. She longed to flee, but she needed the money so badly that she dared not. She knew how little hope she had of a new position with the character Mrs. Crouch would give her; the dour old housekeeper would poison Lizzy’s name with any employer she tried to find. Mrs. Crouch might detest her personally, but she gladly loaded her work upon Lizzy and would keep her a slave as long as she might. No – she must stay. Every time she looked longingly at the door to the yard, her mind went back to her mother, hard-driven with her work and the other children still to feed, and her father sitting blind by the fire. His books were closed to him forever now, their joyous light extinguished. He who had brought her Blake’s fiery illuminations and Wordsworth’s divine vision could now see nothing himself – a bitter irony, a last joke from a god who had abandoned him. He clung to his faith yet, but for Lizzy it was harder. A good man, devoted to his family, he’d given himself unstintingly and struggled to better them all. What had God given him in return, she thought bitterly. Blindness and poverty. Now he sat there in the corner raveling cotton or pasting matchboxes, whatever rough work he could find that needed no sight and paid a pittance. He was spared only this: the sight of her mother grown paler each day, placing meat upon his plate to cradle his illusions while she ate coarse bread dipped in watered milk and hushed the children over their porridge.

I do feel you need to work on her reason for staying. These seem like tough circumstances, but she did not strike me as the kind of character that would not be able to find her way through anything. If she needed to leave, it seems she would, and so for her to simply stay because she needed money, and also that she would not get a good reference seems a bit, well, bluntly lame.

Perhaps focus on the little money that she does take home and how happy it makes the family. Perhaps focus on her determination to set a bit aside to save for greater things. I think many people would stay in a job, certainly I have, because others relied on you to bring home the dough. Perhaps also (god my short term memory, sorry - tired - I think it was her who had a bit of an infatuation) that she has a thing for one of the men, gives her added motivation to be at work, in hopes of catching a glimpse of him? This kind of thing sure as hell made me go to certain classes at school ;)

Well, I hope this helps a bit. If you need clarification on anything I have said, please mention it. I think better in the morning than at night :D
 
Re: Re: Short chunk from a draft

CharleyH said:
Melodrama. To me the families circumstances did not seem too much except in the quoted paragraph below.

Well spotted. The same damned paragraph both draft reviewers picked up on, which has been lightly re-written and still - oh, I knew it; hence I posted my plea - is too much.


Perhaps focus on the little money that she does take home and how happy it makes the family. Perhaps focus on her determination to set a bit aside to save for greater things.

Bless you, Charley, a thousand times. Surely that is the answer. Not passive suffering, but determination to win through to better. Thank you very much. Your fresh perspective is invaluable.

I was clinging to the father's blindness because it sets up a scene I like near the end of the story. That said, I am beginning to think that I am committing that worst of structural sins - clinging to a weak, pointless element because it lets me do one thing I rather like that is not at all essential to the plot. My gut instinct is telling me to let it go, especially as it gets sappy here and the payoff doesn't come for 8o pages and can be worked around anyway. Perhaps I should let him be a hard-working, struggling man, let them all have a little more fight in them and not just be crushed helplessly under the wheel of Fate.

What's your take? I could make them poor enough - God knows a petty schoolmaster earned next to nothing - to still be in need of Lizzy's salary while also working and struggling for better. Perhaps Lizzy keeps her job partly because she realizes that their one real chance is for the eldest children to chip in their salaries in time for the youngest to get better education/training and rise in the world. I think that would help Lizzy as a character as well and give her a bit more backbone - she's not just there to exist dully, but because she's determined that her sister will have better opportunities.

Yes?

With gratitude -

Shanglan
 
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A technical point: someone called Lord Sebastian Vayne is not a lord, and can't be called 'lordship'; he's the younger son of a lord, and therefore has no title of his own. The style 'Lord Forename Surname' is a courtesy title.
 
Re: Re: Re: Short chunk from a draft

BlackShanglan said:
What's your take? I could make them poor enough - God knows a petty schoolmaster earned next to nothing - to still be in need of Lizzy's salary while also working and struggling for better. Perhaps Lizzy keeps her job partly because she realizes that their one real chance is for the eldest children to chip in their salaries in time for the youngest to get better education/training and rise in the world. I think that would help Lizzy as a character as well and give her a bit more backbone - she's not just there to exist dully, but because she's determined that her sister will have better opportunities.

Yes?

Well, it is often my feeling and better articulated by someone I know that you need to let the character lead the way. So stop forcing yourself on them! :D Half joking of course.

Yes. What you posit is more than plausable. Perhaps not in the current century, but certainly for those of my Grandmother's age or older, specifically in the time you seem to be writing, this was more common. My Grandmother was the eldest of six. She was also of working age, 13 upon emigrating during the depression. She wanted to go to school, but had to help bring in money and take care of younger children. To this day, she was happy to have done so. They all managed to go to school, and her fortitude led her to start her own business. (just example).

I believe you set out Lizzie, as I have mentioned, to have a certain strength of character, and I feel that this is much more desireable in a person than not. Even at the hands of fate, even if fate creates obstacles for her at every turn, and in the end fate triumphs - she can be a determined creature. The irony, I suppose, could be that all of her movements to escape fate lead her to follow it in an Oedipal kind of way, and by doing so she also determines the fate of her sister and others. :) Does this make her a pawn, or not? Well, it's a question anyhow.

I don't know why I am on a fate kick here. I guess, you mentioned it and it is the thing that sticks out to me, that appears to permeate your response even though you mention it only once. Maybe it is something that lingers from reading this particular piece of writing - stations in life etc.

Perhaps I should let him be a hard-working, struggling man, let them all have a little more fight in them and not just be crushed helplessly under the wheel of Fate.

There is no reason that you have to 'get rid' of the father's blindness. In the context I have just mentioned it actually suits the story on a symbolic level if your plot surrounds Lizzy's fate. It could stand as a reflection of her in some way. Perhaps not to make so much of an issue of the blindness in the beginning, but rather have the significance of it grow more apparant as the story gets further along. This might be a way of retaining what you want for page 80?

I am not sure what the whole story is about, so it is hard for me to do anything here except hopefully stimulate your imagination. :)

In any case, I hope my babbling helps.
 
Rainbow Skin said:
A technical point: someone called Lord Sebastian Vayne is not a lord, and can't be called 'lordship'; he's the younger son of a lord, and therefore has no title of his own. The style 'Lord Forename Surname' is a courtesy title.

Thanks, Rainbow Skin, and quite right of course. Scrutinization of nomenclature is on the cards for the next round of revision. I keep hovering between just killing off his father and rewording the elements that refer to title. On the whole I think I will keep the father, but then it's harder to work in references to rank - "viscount" is just so much easier than "heir presumptive to the current viscount." Damned awkwardness ;)

Thanks, Charley, on the comments on Fate, blindness, and entanglements thereof. I would say more, but I have a puppy threatening to detonate on the carpet if she doesn't get a quick walk. All the best and many thanks -

Shanglan
 
I really enjoyed it, I agree that the money siuation as it stands doesn't look like enough to keep her there. If it were more serious, like she owes someone money or her family owes someone money and it could be a life-threatening debt, then it would be very plausible.

Good writing, can't wait to read the rest!
 
You know, one of the things that I really like about CharleyH's suggestion is that it also makes her staying more likely. That is, if she's more determined and has a bit more sand in her craw, then it also makes her facing this sort of potential threat more plausible. Then when she takes a poker to the valet, it won't be an immense surprise ;)

Revisions are underway. More backbone to Lizzy - which was the major goal of the revision anyway, and now I can see better how to incorporate it here, thanks to Charley's excellent advice. A more clear sense of where the money will go - check. Sort out the damned, damned titles - back to the books ;)

Thanks all for your kind advice.

Shanglan
 
Revised last fews paragraphs. I think they've improved? The first paragraph here takes up after "nothing would be done" and replaces the last paragraph above - the one beginning "Desperation was beginning to set in."

Shanglan

**********

So it had gone. And so it would continue to go. She smeared the tears from her eyes and met Alexis’s glance with determination. It would continue, and she would continue. There was more at stake than her own happiness. Lord Vayne’s wages were twice what she could have gotten hemming shirts or working in the scullery of a public house – enough to keep Tom and Milly at school instead of scrounging coppers. There was hope yet, if only the money kept coming. Her mother gave all she had for it, wearing out her life in a milliner’s close workroom. Even her father, sunk in blindness, sat raveling cotton or pasting matchboxes, whatever rough work he could find that needed no sight and paid a pittance. Could she do less? Her wages were still a painfully small sum to see set in her hand on the quarter-day after three backbreaking months of slavery. Yet they loomed larger when she brought them to her mother, eight shining sovereigns. Eight sovereigns, and a gift that had wrung her heart with gratitude – a meat pie fit for a lord’s table, a gift from Alexis.

She leaned on him, taking the big florid handkerchief he proffered and wiping her eyes with it. He put a fatherly arm around her shoulders and spoke to her in his soft voice to which the music of his native France still clung.

“Now. You are well?”

She nodded, blowing her nose with some embarrassment in his beautiful handkerchief. He shook his head at her guilty look and smiled wryly.

“Keep it. The laundress will see it comes back to me. Perhaps it is better she sees it first, eh?”

Lizzy laughed, though still a bit raggedly, and clasped his hand.
 
BlackShanglan said:
Revised last fews paragraphs. I think they've improved? The first paragraph here takes up after "nothing would be done" and replaces the last paragraph above - the one beginning "Desperation was beginning to set in."

Shanglan

Much, much more effective, giving a thorough description of the whole family's struggle and perseverance, and emphasizing their gratefulness for what little they do have. For whatever reason, the way you have re-worked it makes me 'see' or illuminates the meat pie and the money this time around. I think I was so caught in the misery prior, that these small, but important details escaped me.

I loved that Lizzie continues to have a fire in her soul that stretches her character - despite her tears, this is a woman who will not easily resign herself to fate, and the handkerchief, "Keep it . . ." is a hopeful touch in addition to the pie and money as mentioned.

The way you have re-written it adds much more sympathy toward their struggle and gives more cause to her predicament, which is in a way hopeless, but in a greater way hopeful. It is touching, human and well-re-written without being overly sentimental. :)
 
Thanks very much for the kind encouragement, Charley. I greatly enjoyed your story on the SDC, so I value your comments. Plus, of course, in this case they were simple dead on. As soon as I read your suggestion about focusing on what she wants to do with the money, its cogency was obvious. I'm delighted because it's shown me the way to give that character more backbone without completely screwing the power dynamics of the relationship - something that I've been needing to work on throughout the story, but that up until this point has been tricky to pin down.

Cheers -

Shanglan
 
Please let me know when you finish. It has so far been a pleasure that I hope to complete. :)

In addition: A humble, thank you. :rose:
 
Will do on the notification of completion. The story is finished in terms of plot and rough draft - I'm in revision at the moment. However, be careful what you wish for - it's 63,000 words long ;)

Shanglan
 
On the titled ...

Halllelujiah. I think I've found the answers to all of my name problems.

Lord Vayne was intended to be the eldest son of a viscount, with "Lord Vayne" being the title applied by courtesy to heirs presumptive. That, however, came a cropper when I re-read my etiquette manual and realized that only the son of a duke, marquis, or earl got this - tediously stopping just short of viscount, the next stop down.

Then I realized that the elder sons of earls on up did adopt the next lowest title of the father - i.e., if the father is the Earl of Picket and a viscount, the elder son takes the vicsount title as a courtesy until inheriting. Handy too, as I'd accidentally referred to him as a viscount here and there and was thinking "heir presumptive to a viscount" rather a mouthful.

SO ....

He's Lord Vayne, Viscount Vayne, or Lord Sebastian to friends, and his father is Lord Reginald, the Earl of Somewhere I Shall Have to Make Up. I do think that I shall introduce him first as "Lord Sebastian Vayne," not because it's thoroughly proper, but because it's internal monologue and we need to know who he is.

There!

I expect you all to remember this. There will be a test ;)

Rainbow, have you any guidelines available as to if/when someone is addressed as "your lordship?" I can't find a reference in my own sources and am wondering if I am making it up.

Shanglan
 
Just thought I would say I really liked the revisions and also cannot wait for the finished product, no matter how long. :)
 
You'd only refer to or address someone as Lord Reginald if it was short for a younger son's title, Lord Reginald Vayne. The Earl of Picket's friends would address him as Picket (or for his intimates Reginald) and his family would address him as Reginald (or Picket).

If the Earl was also Viscount Vayne (and it's common enough to have a minor title that's the same as the family surname), then Sebastian would be referred to as Viscount Vayne or Lord Vayne, and his friends would call him Vayne (or Sebastian).

Non-friends, including servants, would refer to the earl as "his lordship" or "Lord Picket", but address him as "my lord" ("your lordship" doesn't sound quite right, going on my memories of Georgette Heyer). I'm not sure about courtesy titles. I suppose Lord Vayne would get treated as if he was a lord, and therefore also get "his lordship" and "my lord".
 
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Many thanks, Rainbow! That clarifies helpfully. I was torn for a bit - that is, his servants are not a very pleasant bunch for the most part, and they probably call him something quite different behind his back ;) But they don't refer to him freqently enough for it to be clear, so I'm sticking with either "Lord Vayne" or "the master."

I did decide not to make him the earl "of" anything, which I'm given to understand is possible for earls and viscounts. It just made it simpler, as the first time his father shows up it's at a dinner party and I was concerned that readers might not realize he was Sebastian's father, or that his father was being referred to, if they were Lord Vayne and Lord Whatever instead of both Lord Vayne. So they're Lord Vayne and the elder Lord Vayne - I hope?

Shanglan

(PS - oh, and thanks very much for the encouragement, postobit!)
 
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Oh dear, I'm afraid that won't work. :)

I don't think there can be two people styled Lord Vayne. In modern Britain, if a politician surnamed Vayne was elevated to the Lords and there was already an Earl Vayne there, the new one would have to take a different title even though he was becoming a baron: usually he'd choose a territorial title like Lord Vayne of Chipping Sodbury, or possibly hyphenate his forename to become Lord George-Vayne.

Now it is true that some families have the same title in different ranks. An ancestor becomes Viscount Vayne then he or a subsequent one is elevated to Earl Vayne. But in this case the son uses a junior title to avoid being Lord Same-as-his-father. Example: the Duke of Buccleuch is also Earl of Buccleuch (created 1619). When he was elevated to Duke of Buccleuch in 1663 he was also created Earl of Dalkeith, and his son is styled by this junior earldom Dalkeith. Note that this applies even though dukes aren't styled "Lord": the only Lord Buccleuch would be Earl of Buccleuch, if he used that title. But the thing is you effectively have two lords Buccleuch, so it's disallowed.

If his father was a marquess and Sebastian was a younger son, they'd be Lord Vayne and Lord Sebastian Vayne (whom you can call Lord Sebastian). But I don't know that surnames are ever used for marquessates. You'd have earned something territorial once you get this high.

Hope this helps, though I doubt it does. :) You have to face that the elder son always does have a different style to the father in this system, and subtly bludgeon the readers into accepting that.
 
Rainbow Skin said:

Hope this helps, though I doubt it does. :) You have to face that the elder son always does have a different style to the father in this system, and subtly bludgeon the readers into accepting that.

Oh bother ;) They'll just have to have a lesson in etiquette then. It's all right; I've already considered offering a version of the story with footnotes as is. *grin*

All right. If the father the Earl of Whatever, then he's Lord Whatever. If the attached viscount title had not originally had a regional appellation, the son would then be Lord Vayne or Viscount Vayne. Yes? I know that I am fudging the rules in the first paragraoh by adding his first name ("Lord Sebastian Vayne"), but it's interior thoughts from a servant and damnit, the man needs to be introduced ;) I tried "Viscount Vayne" and it just didn't come off right.

Shanglan
 
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