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Misty Shadow

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Blog Entries posted by Misty Shadow

  1. Misty Shadow
    I just checked my bank account and noticed that the fraudulently transferred $15,000 is in the process of being refunded. I was in a long call with my bank on the phone this morning about the fraud claim and transferring my money to my new account that's still in the confirmation process, a call in which I was promised a return of the stolen money that had thankfully not had its unauthorized transfer fully processed yet. Very relieved that it's now set in stone that I'm going to be reimbursed. 
  2. Misty Shadow
    Just two hours ago, I was looking at my bank statement and noticed that a fraudulent transfer of $15,000 had been made today. I contacted my bank immediately and learned that this was likely the result of someone finding out my account number. I immediately requested for my bank account to be frozen and started a new one that will hopefully be available soon. Because I made a report right away while the transfer had just happened and was still being processed, I could get my money back by disputing the fraud. This is absolutely horrible though how someone was able to do this, insane how this happened after everything I just went through two weeks ago with having to change all my passwords after my e-mail got leaked. 
  4. Misty Shadow
    For the first time ever, one of my stories will be getting adapted into a comic! 
    https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/1039891/pipp-the-poltergeist-is-getting-a-comic-adaptation
    https://www.deviantart.com/mistybrightshadow
    The first chapter of Pipp the Poltergeist is going to have a thirty-page comic produced for it, as I've described in my FiMFiction.net blog post. I've also added the option to donate money on my DA, something that is ENTIRELY optional. Even though commissioning this comic is definitely costly, I'm satisfied with any story of mine getting any kind of adaptation. However, if this comic ends up making enough of a splash, I just might be able to have my story adapted in its entirety! 
  5. Misty Shadow
    Last night, I had this very odd dream about me being on this boat with the character cast of Persona 5, all the playable main characters of Persona 5 Royal being there. They didn't say anything, I just saw them looking somber on this ship that somehow was able to dock at this old church I used to go to. I walked towards the church and called my dad for some reason, telling him about how I was a top performer at my job. This made him ecstatic, then something weird happened with the phone call. After I was off the phone, I had to do this weird thing with getting rid of ice and ended up dumping it in the corner of this room in the church. A guy got mad at me and started yelling gibberish at me before showing me the proper way of getting rid of the ice. Then I went outside and saw this van was leaving, so I chased after it to no avail, thinking I was supposed to be on it. After it left, I was told about this other van I was actually supposed to be on. When I went over to that van, an image of the Persona 5 main cast flashed through my mind and I woke up. 
    For the record, I have played the original Persona 5 game, but not Royal, which I do want to play eventually. Definitely bizarre how I had a dream about P5 like that when I've not played it in forever. 
  6. Misty Shadow
    Hawk Nightwing, my favorite reviewer of MLP G5, just told me that he's read the essays I've done on the main characters from the series and wants to reference them in his videos while giving me full credit! As someone who has been a fan of the guy for a good while and someone who has never received a shoutout from a YouTuber before, this is a big deal to me and I feel very honored! 
  7. Misty Shadow
    Props Valroa, a friend of mine on this site, was in a surreal dream of mine last night. I dreamt that he was showing me this evidence for an MLP theory I was writing about Diamond Tiara that had gotten him very upset, to the point where he was crying. Then, he was being lectured by my mom for not outgrowing MLP while I was thinking about the evidence he had shown me, which for some reason involved an anthropomorphic teddy bear from Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo hopping into this pool Diamond Tiara was swimming in. Then, I was thinking about how my house had no electricity and how this was the worst day of my life before I felt I should look at the situation with an optimistic outlook. I woke up after that.
  8. Misty Shadow
    Just like last year, work raised everyone's salaries again. What sucks is that our incentive pay got reduced because of a decision made by a new CEO, but I'm still being recognized as a top performer and getting extra pay for it. 

    I hope this won't be followed by a furlough in early June like last year, but in any case, I'm still glad to have this recognition. 
  9. Misty Shadow
    This can also be found on my DeviantArt gallery. 
    https://www.deviantart.com/mistybrightshadow/art/The-Importance-of-the-Unity-Crystals-MLP-Essay-973931576
    Opening
    Twilight Sparkle did a great service to Equestria in making the Unity Crystals. This, I know for sure, is a controversial statement. However, I’ll even go a step further and say that what Twilight was revealed to have done to help Equestria in the second issue of the G5 comics is her greatest accomplishment in the series we know of thus far.
    I’ve already never seen why Twilight making the Unity Crystals was such a bad thing. However, what led me to take that step further and say that what she did was a great thing? It’s not simply because I can break down in extensive detail how the criticism of Twilight sealing away the magic of the ponies into crystals, describing it as “character assassination” and “making her a dictator”, is entirely ill-founded. It’s also because I can break down in extensive detail how Twilight sealing away the magic of the ponies into crystals helped Equestria in ways so many fans have never considered and is the kind of accomplishment that Twilight could have never matched beforehand. I’ll begin by touching on why the disparaging of Twilight as a corrupt leader for her actions is irrational, as I’ve done in the past.
    The Greatest Misunderstanding About Twilight in G5
    If you read my “Top 10 Bunk Criticisms of G5” list, you likely remember what I wrote about how the criticism of Twilight’s supposed character assassination in creating the Unity Crystals was founded on false information. At the time I made that list, I was mainly rebutting this bunk criticism with what had been revealed in the second episode of Make Your Mark Chapter 2, Growing Pains, where a message from Twilight reveals that she created the Unity Crystals to stop Opaline from taking over Equestria and stealing its magic.
    This flew completely in the face of the false narrative that was being promoted for months since Issue #2 of the G5 comic’s release, where people were reproving this expansion of G5’s lore as writing Twilight to be acting as an autocrat and forcing the ponies to come together after Opaline stirred up division among them. In actuality, she was just trying to protect them from falling under Opaline’s tyrannical rule, not being a tyrant herself. Now that it’s been confirmed that what had been perceived to have happened didn’t transpire, you would think that would be all. But no. I later found out this criticism was even more bunk than I once thought.    
    Another thing Twilight often gets criticized for in creating the Unity Crystals was taking magic away from the ponies, something they not only have the right to, but something that is shown to be very important to Equestria. The problem with this criticism is, contrary to popular misconception, Twilight never denied the ponies access to their magic. It was always explained in the comic that the magic wouldn’t leave Equestria so long as the ponies lived together in harmony after the Unity Crystals were made and explicitly shown that the ponies still had their magic before their tribes were segregated.

    It wasn’t something Twilight abruptly jumped to do either, another criticism I’ve heard with her creating the Unity Crystals. Discord explained that Equestria had been terrorized for many moons of unrest with things happening that were so terrible, he couldn’t speak of them. Things had clearly gotten so bad that Twilight had no choice but to do what she did.

    I meant what I said at the start. Out of every fallacious G5 criticism that’s been made so far, this is the one that can be debunked most thoroughly. However, since I’ve already done a thorough enough debunking of it in my aforementioned list, I’ll leave it at this. Now that you know the truth that Twilight had nothing but good intentions in creating the Unity Crystals if you were previously uninformed, I can move on to explaining why this was her greatest accomplishment.
    Saving the World with Her Own Magic
    I’m sure the million-dollar question that has been on your mind from the start is, “How can Twilight’s greatest accomplishment be creating the Unity Crystals when she and her friends saved the world in Friendship is Magic numerous times?”. Because in almost all of Twilight’s world-saving endeavors, she needed help from not only her friends, but other ponies and outside forces. It’s a recurring pattern throughout the show, Twilight having to depend on others to help her pull through. She always used the magic of friendship to overcome her greatest adversaries, not her own magic.
    One notable exception was The Cutie Re-Mark, where Twilight held her own against Starlight Glimmer with her own magic, not magic she borrowed from the other princesses like when she first fought Tirek, and was able to convince Starlight to change her ways by herself. However, think about it. Twilight wouldn’t have been in the threatening situation she was in with Starlight had she and her friends succeeded in apprehending her in The Cutie Map. More importantly, if all Starlight needed was a conversation in order to change her mind, is this really the kind of personal achievement you’d consider greater than protecting Equestria from the worst threat we’ve seen so far?
    That’s not an exaggeration, Opaline is indeed the worst threat to Equestria we’ve seen thus far. What other villain in the show have Twilight, her friends, and all of Equestria failed to defeat? The most powerful villains they faced in the show, Tirek, Cozy Glow, and Queen Chrysalis powered by Grogar’s magic, tried something similar to what Opaline tried, turning the citizens of Equestria against each other, and failed. Why did they fail? Because of the Student 6’s efforts, not Twilight’s. Yet in the G5 comic, who stops Opaline from doing this, bringing Equestria back together before the pony tribes decide to split apart again? Twilight. Using her own magic.
    It is true that Discord credits “The Mane-ificent 7” for setting things right and Sunny credits Twilight’s friends for helping create the Unity Crystals. However, who clearly sealed the magic away, made the Unity Crystals what they are, and effectively saved Equestria with only a spell? Twilight. Her message clearly states that she summoned all of her magical strength in order to place the magic in the crystals, not her friends. Could Twilight have ever done this at any point before in FiM? No. This Twilight we see in the comic is Twilight at the pinnacle of her power.
    It makes sense for Twilight’s greatest accomplishment to be made at this point, since this is her at her most powerful. It also makes sense from a writing standpoint, as Twilight’s character arc is finished. This is what she can do with her full potential realized. And even with this full potential realized, it still took everything she had, making this feat all the greater. Not only did she save Equestria from disaster in this moment, she saved Equestria from disaster for generations. I’ll conclude this writing after elaborating on this point.
    Saving Future Generations with Her Own Magic
    Another popular misconception about the Unity Crystals, this one being inspired by a bunk criticism I have yet to tackle, is that because of them, ponies won’t just lose their magic if they fight, they’ll also be sucked into a void if the fighting gets out of control. This bunk criticism is that Twilight “doomed the ponies to be forced to get along.”
    First of all, the ponies were already “being forced to get along” because of the Windigos. For all we know, Twilight could’ve permanently gotten rid of the Windigos, but I digress. Second, who makes the rules with how magic works in Equestria? Twilight, or magic itself? Twilight said that magic is alive and always changing. And even back in her time, how did magic work? It’s right there in the title of her show. It’s how they always defeated the villains in the end. Friendship is magic. Finally, the reason why the ponies were almost sucked into a void in the Make Your Mark series premiere was not because of the Unity Crystals. It was because of the recently returned magic they had not yet stabilized causing damage to the Unity Crystals after their hate made the instability of the magic much worse.
    It's also because of the Unity Crystals that earth ponies can now use magic, meaning they have much less incentive to feel inferior to the other pony tribes and are therefore far less susceptible to the influence of hate propaganda about the other tribes. Furthermore, the ponies are now in a much better position to fight back against Opaline than they were during the time of Twilight’s reign. This was no happy accident, as Twilight showed with her message that she knew ahead of time that earth pony magic would activate, calling magic more powerful than it’s ever been. She knew from facing Opaline that she couldn’t be defeated unless ponies in future generations had access to stronger magic...as well as a strong alicorn to lead them.  
    Without the Unity Crystals, where would Sunny Starscout be? They not only gave her a reason to push on with her quest to reunite all of ponykind, they also made her an alicorn. However, a convenient coincidence that this happened, I think not. After all, Sunny lives in the place where the Unity Crystals were meant to be brought together and the episode of Tell Your Tale, Starscout Code, reveals that she and her friends are part of a prophecy. Yes, Twilight even knew from her own experiences that this strong alicorn who would lead the ponies in the future would also need friends. That prophecy is also something that Sunny and her friends would have only been able to put together through exploring Zephyr Heights and Bridlewood Forest and using earth pony magic.  
    Take a moment to muse over all this. Can you appreciate just how much thought and care Twilight actually put into her plan for the generations that would follow her? The level of foresight she had? And then can you look back at what so many believed about her and think that her creation of the Unity Crystals was just some reckless action of a desperate despot? Or can you accept the fact that she did all this because she deeply cares about Equestria? I’m not writing from the standpoint of an apologist. I’m not writing in defense of Twilight. I’m writing to laud Twilight. To honor her for saving Equestria from a villain none could defeat with her own magical prowess, keeping the magic safe for generations, and giving the future generations the resources they needed to save Equestria from this villain themselves. All of this was accomplished through the creation of the Unity Crystals. I rest my case.
    Conclusion
    This is where what I know for sure will be my most controversial MLP essay yet ends. I’ve never made any promises to always play it safe, there’s a time and place to take risks. I already know this writing is not going to change the minds of people who will never accept G5, but I'm confident it can change your mind if you genuinely wanted to give G5 a chance but were dissuaded from doing so by G5 criticisms rooted in fallacies. Honestly, however, this isn’t even really about G5. I’m more or less just incredibly tired of the pretense that a character who will always have a special place in my heart was done dirty by what has clearly been done in honor of her. The creation of the Unity Crystals is far from Twilight’s greatest folly, it is actually her greatest accomplishment yet.   
  10. Misty Shadow
    I had a really awful dream on Sunday night where people broke into my home and tried to kill me. One of them was someone I knew from the past who hated me and somehow lit me on fire with these flakes I was trying to get off my clothes before they burst into flames and set me on fire. I ran towards the person screaming something and I don't remember what happened after that. Probably the worst nightmare I've had since my dream about my mom and the guns. 
  11. Misty Shadow
    It was only a matter of time after I did my essay on Izzy that I did one on Sunny. 
    https://www.deviantart.com/mistybrightshadow/art/Understanding-Sunny-Starscout-MLP-Essay-1007900134
    It will also only be a matter of time before I do one on Hitch. 
  14. Misty Shadow

    The Root of G5 Negativity

    By Misty Shadow,


    Essays
    I've already discussed G5 criticisms I feel are bunk, so how about trying to get to the root of all the negativity? 
    https://www.deviantart.com/mistybrightshadow/art/The-Root-of-G5-Negativity-MLP-Essay-1001126731
    I think there's more to it than meets the eye. 
  15. Misty Shadow

    Make Your Mark Chapter 6 Review

    By Misty Shadow,


    Reviews
    After watching all of Make Your Mark Chapter 6 hours after its premiere, I got straight to work on my full review of it, which I now have up! 
    https://www.deviantart.com/mistybrightshadow/art/Make-Your-Mark-Chapter-6-Review-996798944
    I'm really going to miss reviewing MYM if this is the end of it, but I think I'm going to like reviewing the next part of G5's story. 
  17. Misty Shadow
    Last night, I came home from work to find that my bedroom door was locked on me. It has a European style handle with a lock that got turned slightly somehow and locked me out. This had me freaking out last night, since all of my important stuff is in my bedroom, including my computers. I couldn't find any bobby pins or good, sturdy cards for sliding to help get the door open, so I just had to make do with the cards I had in my wallet and brute force. After fifteen minutes of trying, I was finally able to force the door open. Very glad I didn't have to call a locksmith, but I really do need to get a new door handle in case this happens again... 
  18. Misty Shadow
    I had a pretty disturbing nightmare last night where I was overhearing two relatives talking about how I wasn't doing good enough in life, which got me depressed and led me to taking all sorts of antidepressant drugs. Then I was in this truck that was on its way to see popular Youtuber, penguinz0/MoistCr1TiKaL. When we met, we had this conversation. I don't remember what we talked about, but the next day, it was all over the internet that he had committed suicide. I was blamed for his death for being the last person he was in contact with. I took some more antidepressant drugs to cope with everyone being angry at me and I passed out on a bed before I woke up. 
  19. Misty Shadow
    Pipp the Poltergeist, the "ghostified" Pipp from my latest story, was in a dream of mine last night. I dreamed I was with Mordecai and Rigby from Regular Show in this resort's outdoor pool area. Rigby was complaining about this coffee he got when Pipp the Poltergeist showed up and started telling us to chase her. We gave chase, and this song about ice cream started playing. I can only remember one part of the song distinctly, where during the chorus, someone is saying, "Ice cream's great! Yeah, ice cream's great!". Then, all of a sudden, I was in a movie theater where this guy dressed in white robes like a priest was selling movie tickets and I don't remember what happened after that. 
  20. Misty Shadow
    Yes friends, I disliked something from G5...in a dream. I dreamed last night that I was watching this G5 movie that I believe was supposed to be this MLP adaptation of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, like a Classics Reimagined kind of thing. The reason I say that is because Hitch was dressed like Tom Sawyer and the way the characters were talking made it seem like the makers of the movie were trying to adapt dialogue from a book while not doing a good job of it. It was so boring to watch I started yelling things like, "This is worse than Rainbow Roadtrip!", "Even the worst Tell Your Tale shorts are more entertaining than this!", and "We're an hour in and I haven't laughed once!".  Then, right after I said that last line, something funny in the movie happened and I yelled, "I jinxed it!". Then I saw that Izzy's head was split in two down to her throat area. There was no blood though and she made a joke about it before she made herself whole again. All I remember after that was her making some movie references before I woke up. 
  22. Misty Shadow
    I may have reviewed MYM Chapter 4 already in its discussion thread, but that was just for a warmup. This is the real review I always wanted to do for it. 
    https://www.deviantart.com/mistybrightshadow/art/Make-Your-Mark-Chapter-4-Review-971157815
    I also wanted to do this after watching all the episodes more than once because I didn't just want the writing in the review to be just right, I wanted all my thoughts to be just right as well. This chapter deserves that extra polish for a review. It's that awesome. 
  23. Misty Shadow
    This was already posted in the Make Your Mark pilot thread, but it's been a long time since I last posted a review in a blog post, so here you go. 
    https://www.deviantart.com/mistybrightshadow/art/Make-Your-Mark-Chapter-1-Review-970891594
    The pilot special to the MLP G5 series, Make Your Mark, deserves more credit than what it’s generally given. I don’t believe that to be a particularly controversial statement, given the evidence that shows this special is actually generally regarded by the majority of MLP fans to be good, just not great.
     
    I was in this apparent majority at the time when this special was brand new. However, it has always been common for me to come across some bizarre and questionable criticisms for this special coming from fans who would definitely be shocked by the subject of this writing. Usually, people who don’t like this special, which is their right, just say they find it boring, that the oddities in the animation were a turn-off, and that they felt the story had pacing issues. Those are the normal criticisms I usually see. The outlandish stuff I’ve come across is people saying that it’s “proof G5 has already failed”, viewing it as worse than the worst specials of Friendship is Magic, worse than Tell Your Tale, and a “return to the pandering, substance-lacking, girly mushiness” that the worst of pre-G4 My Little Pony is notorious for.
    Remarks like this have been given a fair share of reproval. However, the stigma surrounding this pilot remains. Why? Even with its flaws, the writing, animation, world-building, and humor are still clearly competent at worst. I can admittedly say the same for Tell Your Tale too, but that series, despite being something I generally enjoyed more than the pilot when I first watched it, very clearly has far less effort put into its production. My theory as to why this special has the stigma it does, however, has to do with just that. It’s because this special had a higher production value that people held it to a higher standard. Not only did people who don’t like the Tell Your Tale shorts want this special to make up for them, they also wanted the special to make up for flaws in the G5 movie, My Little Pony: A New Generation, giving them more lore explaining why Equestria changed.
    MLP content in general is too often held to an unreachably high standard of quality. It’s even worse in this case too once you consider this pilot’s true role. It’s not to “clean up a mess”. It’s to get the audience settled into the world of a TV show, and that is a job that takes any show time. It already is “making up for Tell Your Tale”, not just by having higher production value, but a much more intricate plot than several of the Tell Your Tale shorts put together. That plot is also not about Equestria’s past and why it changed. This pilot’s plot is about Equestria’s present. Trying to squeeze in a subplot about what happened in the past, something that was already planned for the comics, would’ve been jarring, especially to viewers unfamiliar with the full story of Friendship is Magic.
    Long story short, this pilot needs to be judged on its own merits. I admit that I had my own personal biases too on what it “should’ve been” my first time viewing, which caused me to not like it very much. I wanted a story focusing on Sunny, not Zipp. I quickly dismissed Posey as a “less entertaining” Sprout. Having been spoiled by Tell Your Tale’s fast-paced shorts, slower-paced scenes felt like they were dragging on. But when I re-watched the special after putting those sentiments past me, it was far more entertaining than I remembered.
    The big contributing factor to me enjoying it much more upon re-watch was realizing that there were no true flaws with the plot’s structure. The world-building aspect of the story picks up right where the movie left off, providing essential development about how the magic works, there are no filler scenes, and every main character plays a role that contributes to the story. I’ve heard criticism of how this special gives every main character a role to play, saying "their stories don’t come together", calling their plot points “random detours that aren’t connected to the main story”.
    I believe this critique to be bunk. First of all, of course the stories of the main characters come together, the entire plot is about the ponies uniting to create new magic while discovering how it works, the actions of the main characters are vital to that development of the series' world. Second, nothing about their plot points is random or meandering at all. Sunny needs to learn to control her powers in order to save the ponies who fall into the void, she needs Izzy’s lamp to light the way, Zipp does not randomly become a detective with her progression as one being a staple of the series, Pipp’s scene at the salon is important buildup to the scene where the characters discover what causes the magic to glitch, and Hitch’s plot is necessary for adding a new character to the series. Even if Hitch's plot point might not appear necessary to one's idea of this opener’s plot, it is necessary to the series’ overarching plot. Writers for a series like this can not just write with no semblance of a plot. This special is part of a series with lore that has been planned in advance and impacts all of G5’s media.
    A more understandable criticism I’ve heard of this special is the lack of elaboration on what the holiday, Maretime Bay Day, meant to the earth ponies. It is explained as a celebration of their traditions, but doesn’t go in-depth. This is for the special’s benefit though, as focusing on giving every main character a role to play in a character-driven plot is far more important that giving a holiday an extensive background. However, since this is my own personal re-assessment of the special, I need to move onto deconstructing past opinions of my own.
    A criticism of the plot of my own I am honestly contemplating retracting now is how the story focuses on Zipp instead of the main character, Sunny, even as the subplot surrounding her is predictable, having an easily foreseeable conclusion. I realize now that since the plot is about figuring out how the magic works, it makes perfect sense for “Detective Zipp” to be put in the spotlight. As for the subplot, of course we all know Zipp is not going back to Zephyr Heights. But is it really so needless if you look at it as progress for Zipp’s character, choosing where she feels she really belongs?
    More on my own criticisms, I still don’t find Posey as amusing as Sprout…but I appreciate her character more now. Despite the fact that she’s a jerk, much of her frustration is easy to empathize with and I enjoy how that seems to be the writer’s intent. In real life, people are not the way Posey is for no reason. They generally just want to be left alone, like Posey, so when you see Posey face obstruction and the destruction of her property, you feel a sense of understanding. You can also understand why she and the other earth ponies would feel a sense of inferiority to the other pony breeds for not having magic like them, driving them to bad behavior. When she and all the other earth ponies get their own magic, you feel happy for them even after the way they act. This is also crucial for the world-building this special provides, since now, Posey and the earth ponies are less justified in feeling that their behavior is acceptable.
    Finally, while I am still more partial to stories with faster pacing, I did not find any flaws with the flow of this special’s storytelling after viewing it again. I already mentioned how there’s no filler, every scene is important to the plot, and every character plays an important role. Animation oddities can still be a distraction from the viewing experience, most notable to me upon rewatch was color shading around the eyes of the characters that made them look tired at certain parts. It was still easy for me to be invested in the plot though as I appreciated more how elaborate and colorful the animation was and noticed how much humor sprinkled throughout the scenes there actually was. Izzy’s reaction to Pipp singing her very unfinished song in the kitchen, for example, is priceless. Other great moments include Izzy’s explanation of the secret ingredient, Hitch’s “It’s not not allowed!” line, and Zipp’s timeless “I can zip it.” pun. Some of the humor is stupidly amusing, definitely, but it’s the good kind of corny humor Friendship is Magic gave us plenty of too.
    Overall, this pilot is nowhere near as mundane or poorly done as some have framed it to be. This is another high-quality MLP special that you may have been led to believe is far worse than it actually is because of biased criticisms from fans trying to only focus on its shortcomings while ignoring its accomplishments. It’s still up to you to make up your own mind, but I hope my re-assessment will encourage you to go back to the special and re-assess it for yourself.
  25. Misty Shadow

    Job Applying

    By Misty Shadow,


    Life
    I'm applying for jobs right now to fill the gap in the wait for my furlough to end, so please wish me luck. To my displeasure, unemployment has not helped me out in any way whatsoever and I had to get in touch with a manager from Macy's last night about why I hadn't received my call for my return-to-work date within two weeks. I was told that they "hadn't received word yet on return dates for furloughed colleagues". I'm very tired of this, very unhappy right now. 
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