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This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm a Digimon Analyzer. You can find all my work at MJMunoz.com

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It's been a long couple days or something like that. Anyway, so I'm talking about Fable Waltz, which is episode 5 of Digimon Liberator.

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This is a five-part episode, so it was five issues of the webcomic. It was part one and part two, and part one was, I think, three parts long, and part two was two parts long.

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It doesn't really matter, but I'm being pedantic because it's who I am. Anyway, so in Fable Waltz we get to see the battle between Violet Inboots, or Vi, and Orisa.

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And it was a lot of fun. The story advancement pretty much didn't happen at all that I can think of, but it was a really entertaining battle.

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There was a lot of exciting back and forth. We had some good character moments. I frequently go back to the old adage that conflict reveals character.

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And since this story, or this webtoon series, is all about conflict, literal conflict in card games, we're getting the revelation of characters.

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So what are we getting on Vi's character, what are we getting on Orisa's character, and what are we getting on Shuman's character as well? And also last but not least, Shoto? Shoto. Shoto Kazuma, right?

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What are we getting revealed about Shoto's character? So I'm going to start with Shoto because, I don't know, I like to pick on him a little bit, so here we go.

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Shoto is shocked that Orisa is having fun and she's smiling throughout the whole battle, and he doesn't understand why she's having such a good time battling Violet when Violet is doing so well against her and pulling out all these crazy tricks and really performing at a high level.

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Shoto is kind of an interesting protagonist or co-protagonist because he doesn't really like conflict and he gets flustered by the battles, at least in the Lekuna, in the digital world in Liberator itself.

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As far as the card game is concerned, on tabletop, it seems like he does well there, but it's been months and he's still kind of overwhelmed by it all for some reason.

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Which, I don't know if that will become plot relevant later or if that's just an aspect of his character that you roll along with, I'm not sure.

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It's kind of an interesting aspect of his character to have, but it almost seems like it should be more relevant or have something to do with the overall plot, but who knows?

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But it's funny, he is shocked by the fight and by how things are going and how much Orisa is enjoying it, and Teruman tells him, this is what being a card battler is all about, this is what being a gamer and playing this game is all about.

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Which, I mean, he basically, well actually what he literally says to him that I remember for sure is a quote is, shouldn't you be taking notes? Or something very close to that.

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And it's a good funny moment. If it gets into, you know, this is what a card battle is all about, then isn't it strange that he thinks that he lives in a real world but his real world is where he and his fellow Digimon can be pawns in these kids' games?

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I don't know. But then again, with the way Shuman is characterized, I did that on a fly but I'm kind of structuring this, okay?

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With the way Shuman is characterized, she, I would say Shuman's a girl, she is a living Digimon, she's a wild Digimon, but she's also an active participant in the game, and you know, like she knows it's a card game and she wants to fill her role,

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and her knowledge of herself is limited because she doesn't know that she can become Syndraemon. She doesn't know all the different forms she can be in, and she doesn't know things about herself that Arisa does know.

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And it's interesting to see her realize things about herself or be shown things about herself in the battle and even have a little like mid-battle conversation with Arisa,

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where she basically says like, hey, I want to help you and I'm excited to help you, I'm willing to help you, but I just don't know if I can.

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And Arisa assures her that, oh, believe me, you can help me, and you're going to, and this is going to be great, and I've been waiting to play with you in this way and have this opportunity to do these things in this game since I met you.

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That sounds a little cold in calculating. It's a lot warmer in the actual content of the story, and it feels like she wants to have fun with this friend.

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And she talks about, now I'm going to transition away from talking about Shuman's character and characterization to talking about Arisa's.

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Arisa says that she stayed up all night, she couldn't catch a wink of sleep because she was planning out her deck and how she would fight Vi,

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because she knew, yeah, Vi issued her the challenge, and then the next day it happened.

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So in the intervening time, she was trying and trying and trying, working out card combinations to build her deck to battle and defeat Arisa, or rather, Violet.

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So we get to see that she's like dedicated and she's like obsessed with the game and with like cracking the meta and things like that.

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And I haven't played the Digimon card game and I still can't quite figure out exactly how it's played and what all the rules are to it.

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In fact, it was funny the other day I saw kids playing Digimon or the Pokemon card game and I was going to go up to them and ask them how it's played.

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But I thought, I know Yu-Gi-Oh! And that's about it.

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As far as like a collectible, is it collectible trading card game or is it just TCG? I don't know.

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Anyway, that's about all I know and I don't really feel like getting involved in anything else right now.

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I do want to buy the Ultraman trading cards though when those come out in October just because I think that'd be cool.

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I don't necessarily want to play but I don't know, sounds kind of interesting.

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Anyway, tangent.

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But yeah, so like she's obsessed with the game and I was going to say with this, this is my Yu-Gi-Oh! experience.

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I spent time, I had a deck, I would duel my brother and my cousins, two of my cousins, so the four of us would do it.

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But like not really anybody else for a while there. I went to the card shop and I tried to duel people and I was like way behind on the meta so I had no idea what was going on and I got trounced.

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And I just couldn't believe what was going on. I think it was somewhere around Pendulums and I was like, okay this is not for me anymore. Oh well.

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But anyway, like I remember like poring over my cards and spending time going through them and you know, putting them in, you know, changing sleeves and like figuring out, okay if I run this Mahavilo deck I need these cards over here.

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If I want to run something else I'll figure out this or you know, just like I know what it's like to go over your cards or you know, whatever.

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Stick with the cards here and like try to figure out what the best ways to play with that.

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And that was a real like neat moment of connection with the character because you know, while she's a fictional character in this crazy Digimon universe, there's something relatable.

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And it's not just limited to card games but you know, I have the direct one to one card game experience, almost one to one card game experience of going over your deck and trying to figure out you know, what it is, what you can do with it.

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And there's a line she says in there like, you know, the feeling when you get a new card and you figure out how you can play with it and put it into your game.

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Like that's so exciting and that's something I've been looking forward to doing and playing with you, Shuman.

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So I thought that was really cool.

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But I like that she's like super into the game, that's a lot of fun to see in the character.

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But then also to see like her positivity and her good attitude is really cool to see because throughout his battle, Shoto was freaking out and Arisa is just pretty much staying positive and smiling throughout her battle with Violet and that's really cool.

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The context is a little different, it's less dangerous but it's also, you know, she's putting her ability to continue playing Liberator on the line by playing her wild Digimon at all, Shuman.

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And that's kind of something interesting.

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Getting to Violet now, we don't really know what her motivation is, we don't know what the stakes were.

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Originally she asked if she could play for Shuman but they ended up changing the stakes and saying that you can't do that so it's not fair for her to do that.

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So then she said, if I win I'll tell you after the battle.

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So we never know what she's after, after all, like does she still want Shuman or is she going to settle for something else or what?

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And yeah, like, I don't know, through the battle you get to see how crazy she is and how willing she is to go for broke and how willing she is to make hard plays.

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And again, I don't fully understand the mechanics of the game but by Shoto's reaction it's obvious that she is playing really hard, like she's playing super high cost stuff

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and seemingly putting herself at a disadvantage but it seems like either her deck is structured so well that she can, well, in whatever mechanism it is, her deck seems to be structured so well that it can handle those costs.

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But she's this kind of like, oh nothing go for broke kind of character and that's a lot of fun to see.

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I'd like to see her against somebody else and I'd like to see how they interact when they're working on a common goal.

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If that's something that's going to happen I don't quite know because is it just the Digimon card game and is it just the Digimon, the wild Digimon that are alive

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or is it the actual deck partner Digimon of each character, each player that is kind of alive and has this heightened sense of self and ability to speak and things like that?

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Because Ghostmon, I'm not convinced that Ghostmon isn't a wild Digimon that she encountered and has partnered with.

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I don't know that it's the Digimon that came with her deck like Muchomon was or like that weird claw construction worker gopher guy that Arista has, I don't know his name, sorry.

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It's not Digimon, it can't be. But anyway, yeah, so like I still don't quite understand what's going on with Violet

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but like it's kind of sweet to know that she likes something about Arista and that like from the time that she transferred into her class she's had this fast friendship with her

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and has constantly pulled her into things. Like that's an interesting revelation about her character but I don't really feel like I know anything more about her.

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I feel like I know a lot more about Arista because of this and I guess that's enough for now. I'm sure we'll get a chance to know more about Violet later

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but she's a lot of fun. She's a fun character to see at play even if I don't quite understand as much about her as I could.

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I have to say I like the fact that I don't understand how the game works yet but that the way that things were presented I was able to understand the big moments

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and the crazy turns and feel the tension ratchet up. That was really cool. Like very effectively done storytelling.

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There's lots of great shots, these vertical format. We got like this really cool western shot with Deputy Mon and like a dusty, deserty background

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and like Violet's behind him and she kind of like works in with that desert western shoot out high noon type of image that was being portrayed there.

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That was really cool. Seeing Chaparroman which is Chuman Chuchuman which is a weird little creature. I don't quite understand what it's supposed to be.

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I think it's Chupuramans like this puppet of, and they're all puppets supposedly, it's a puppet of Little Red Riding Hood and then I did Evolves into Sindromon

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which is the mega level I believe. I think that's right. Yeah I would think so. Mega or whatever perfect I think it's called in the Japanese version.

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Anyway, the design for that was really cool because she like dances in the story at a ball. They put her in like a dancing leotard type thing with this belt on her

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which is you know very complimentary for the way, that's a complimentary way to dress. And then instead of her glass slippers there are these glass greaves which look super cool.

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And I love how at the end the clock tower comes into play and she uses it as this giant cannon and it's called like date break, midnight date break or something like that

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which makes sense because the clock ringing at midnight broke the date in the Cinderella story because the spell was broken so she had to leave the date and all that stuff.

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So those are really cool fun like tie ins for the lore and then like she even has, this is more like Disney Cinderella, she has like a little mouse helper and a little bird helper who do something or other.

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But in the original Cinderella stories, or at least one version of it, there are birds there who when her mother, stepmother and step sisters try to come out the house to go to the wedding

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or go after her to stop her leaving with the prince or go anywhere really outside of the house, the birds come and they attack her which is crazy.

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Also the fairy godmother sends a bunch of birds to help her sort through like barley beans or barley or some sort of beans or something that she, the stepmother throws into the ash pile in the cinders and the ashes and says if you can pull all this out and put them in a bowl then you can go to the bowl by X time.

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So the birds definitely play in there to the imagery, iconic imagery of Cinderella but like these ones specifically look like they have little kerchiefs on their head like in the Disney Cinderella adaptation, the animated one.

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So like very cool design, kind of felt like a persona which I think a lot of persona designs are wonderful, so that was really cool.

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Like again not much story stuff going on but we get to see cool character things going on and the imagery is exciting and engaging and it was a lot of fun and I'm happy to stick around for the ride even if the story does play out very slowly.

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I'm thinking about Yu-Gi-Oh and how long Duel's Kingdom took to get through and how long it took us to go from you know teaching Joey how to duel to Yu-Gi's grandpa has been kidnapped to well I guess with a type of thing first with grandpa going to the hospital and the Exodia and all that.

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And then being on the boat and then going through all that different stuff just to save you know everybody and win the prize money and all that stuff.

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Like it's like you know a lot of episodes like 50 episodes just to cover that little bit of story and we're not even in a tournament yet like there could be things that go on and then there could be a big card tournament or like a raid boss or whatever that they play in you know tournament style or something like that.

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That can reveal more things about the characters but like I'm liking these characters so far from what we've seen from them even if the story is a little thin we don't know exactly what's going on just yet so that's pretty much all I have to say about this.

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Stick around for more I'm going to be doing weekly Digimon coverage for at least a little while.

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I'm going to finish out the covering Liberator catching up to what they've released I want to do a whole episode at a time so I can cover it in one go.

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In the meantime I'm going to be switching to the Liberator debug novel and after that there's the five for a new series and one is the non-going or a spin off.

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I'm going to be checking out the five Digimon stories that are from volume one Digimon comic that's released on the Digimon net website.

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I'll be doing that and then we'll see what happens next.

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We'll see what happens next with Digimon.

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I'm also doing a ton of stuff I'm doing a big project over on Fortress Fiction my other channel which I'll have linked here in the show notes and you can find through MGMino.com.

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Where I'm talking about the book Peter Pan from 1904 by J.M. Barrie chapter by chapter.

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I'm a few chapters into that and it's a great book and again I'm going to talk about it chapter by chapter a few minutes at a time sharing my thoughts and my reactions my feelings on the book.

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And then at the end of that I'm going to talk about the whole book as a well the book as a whole and then I'll be moving on to the next book.

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I'm going to be talking about lots of classic and modern middle grade books because it's something I'm interested in.

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Digimon is technically a children's media project.

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Peter Pan is a children's book but there's lots of great wonderful things in there that are fun for teens and adults and for people of all ages and that's the kind of storytelling I'm into.

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And yeah that's about it.

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Oh I do not like that B-Stormon.

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B-Bellstarmon character design it's way too much.

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Syndromeon is like a very much improved upon version of well Lady Devimon is trashy and Angemon is a little trashy and this is like a much more nicely put together cute but not like vava boom in your face you know otaku bait waifu type material design in syndromeon.

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But it's really cool. I like it a lot.

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But just yeah B-Bellstarmon is ridiculous and I really hate that kind of stuff in Digimon.

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I really feel like it's trashy and I think it's too trashy to be a kids thing.

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But anyway here it is and here I am talking about it so anyway until next time folks take care be well and be brave.

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And keep growing that's what I meant. It's a brave show me your brave heart reference thing.

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Be brave and keep growing.

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Alright bye.

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I hope you enjoyed that.

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Subscribe to keep up with me.

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Like and share to help me reach more people like you.

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And go to mjmunoz.com to find your next favorite things.

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And don't forget to let your voice be heard.

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Stories are always better when you're part of the conversation.

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Until next time be well.

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This is MJ signing out.

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This has been a story over everything production.