Nesting pseudo-elements inside pseudo-elements

Question

I have a :before for an opening \'quote\' and an :after for a closing quote.

Now what I want is an :after:after for the \'cite\' reference but I cant get it to work.

Answer 1

The idea of nesting ::before and ::after pseudo-elements has been proposed; see this section of the Generated and Replaced Content module. However, that module has been abandoned pending a complete rewrite, so I wouldn't hold my breath on this document ever receiving implementation until it's republished. And even then, whether nesting content pseudo-elements will still be a thing is as yet unknown.