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 Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2018 1:14 pm
 Outspoken OracleDesigner: RENstrawberry Model: Madison Description:For the past few submissions I’ve been using fairly modest and pale colors. To avoid this trend and try something new, I decided “go for the gold!” by keeping the silver to a minimum. I believe adorning Madison in mostly gold was the best option for this challenge. Her natural deep skin tone and hair allowed for great contrast between the gold outfit and vice versa. About halfway into this challenge I drew inspiration from the oracles of the Final Fantasy franchise. I began working on the top half of what became Madison’s dress. I layered several corsets, lingerie, and tops to create the dress’ torso. Next, I began with the headpiece, a key design element to the oracles of the fifth installment of the Final Fantasy series. The original adornment even matches the color scheme for this challenge!To continue the intricacy of the design of Madison’s laurels and top, I included the stunning lace collar that gently framed her face. To include some silver, I added a pose for Madison’s arms which were adorned in bracelets and arm jewelry that fortunately came in a silver recolor. Madison’s hand rests just behind her lengthy braid, I can imagine we caught her in a moment just before she was about to flip her hair. To continue the legacy of Final Fantasy’s most recent oracle (Luna), the inclusion of silver crescent moon earrings was necessary! Returning to the dress, to mimic the look of Luna I decided to use a simple mermaid shaped bottom to balance out the intricacy of the top half of the design, thus completing Madison’s attire. As to why I chose to go for an oracle-inspired look, the oracles of the franchise have always resonated with me. Particularly the personality of Luna, Final Fantasy’s most recent oracle. She was quiet, shy and overall a very underrated character of the franchise. Unfortunately, Luna’s legacy was cut short and I suppose I decided to announce Madison as the next oracle to continue the lineage. I imagine Madison to embody the same knowledgeable, driven, and well-spoken traits as Luna, but in a more outgoing and empowering manner. I suppose the transition between the two oracles could be compared to me coming out of my shell. Lastly, There has never been an oracle of color in the series, so I was super happy to be working with Madison again! The previous oracle wore white exclusively, so adorning Madison with elegant golds made her appear to be getting ready for a potential anointing ceremony.
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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2018 5:22 pm
Heaven's GatesDesigner: Tink_Bel Model: Zahara Description: The angel Zahara dances before the gates of Heaven, adorned in shining golds and silvers she twirls in the sunlight.It was difficult for me to not go overboard with this one, I tried to stay away from a clutter of golds and silvers and rely on simple pieces to create a shining, sparkling model. I attempted to create a sense of movement in my avatar, as if she was captured mid twirl. I was pleasantly surprised on how well the halo and arm mod work together, I tried to keep that theme going throughout my creation for a sense of balance and unity. I played around with a layered background on this challenge; this is something I leaned heavely on last cycle and have tried to avoid this cycle. But, I think the angel Zahara works will in this setting without the background taking over to convey the theme of this piece. Overall, I attempted to create a united piece that glows without being too overwhelming on the eye. If I may, I'd like the judges to especially pay attention to the color matching of the silver, gold, and ivory colors. I would also like to bring attention to the small attention to detail, such as the ripples at Zahara's ankles that are in line with her anklets. I also attempted to balance Zahara's dark features with the bright, light sliver tones by alternating the arms and legs (the left leg and right arm are more covered while the right leg and left arm are more open and outstretched). Anyways, thank you to the judges for the helpful compliments and critiques so far, I feel as if they've helped me concentrate and improve on my designs!
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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2018 5:54 pm
Model: Mia Desinger: POTR Knight in shining armor
Description: A sole knight in the hall, eyes ever focused forward at the throne room doors. "My queen, I shall never fall." I had a blast with this challenge, as I feel I had an upper hand with Mia's makeup and hair(although not gold per say, still in the range.) It seems I wasn't too original in the sense that we all went for a shared theme of castle times. However, I had drawn from some of the other models in thinking how to be original, seeing what was used and how it was used. In this, I figured that doing a knight in silver armor, with the golden lips and halo, would work well with the yellow complexion of Mia's skin and hair. At first I was trying to go all gold, to match the hair more, but I realized that that would be golden overkill and not look good. I pulled inspiration from many classic images of knights, and while cartoon female knights wear more skimpy armor, I went with a similar but not too skimpy look. I know the legs look off color but that is because the leg item has stockings on. This may cost me points, but I accept due to the item being too good to pass up in this theme.
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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2018 6:59 pm
 La Preciosa Sirena BrillaDesigner: x_suicide_is_inevitable_x Model: Ebony Description:I thought about creating a look with a ballgown at first, but then the idea of a mermaid popped into my head, so I went with it. This was actually almost finished the day the challenge was issued, but I wanted to sleep on it because it wasn't quite "complete". I came back to it a couple days later, filled in the blanks, and stepped back, amazed at how much better it was than before. Ebony looks magnificent here, and I'm 100% proud of how it came out in the end. Then, I asked myself some important questions. Is it reliant on the background? Are the colors balanced? And does it really portray the theme of gold and silver? I waffled back and forth on the background question, but when I did take it away, the outfit held its own. Yes, the background gives it something extra, but it's not necessary to complete the look. The last question wasn't as much about the gold as it was the silver, but, though there isn't much silver, what is here works well with everything. As for the color balance, I put the majority of the silver near the center of the image to bring focus to it first, then guide the eye to follow the tail around and back up. It is hard to find truly silver or gold items that aren't used with other colors, and an even fewer number with gold and silver together. Despite the difficulty, I thought about using mostly silver because it provides a stark contrast to Ebony's skin and hair, but while silver does look good on Ebony, she really shines in the warm hues of gold. The title translates from Spanish as "The Beautiful Mermaid Shines", but I specifically chose the word "preciosa", which means "beautiful", because it also means "precious", and gold and silver are considered precious metals.
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x_suicide_is_inevitable_x
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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2018 9:45 pm
"Okay, 1, 2, 3. Breathe. And.. Spin!"Model: Veronica Designer: khionna Description:Veronica makes such a lovely ballerina, no? I got stuck on this idea and I had to run with it! This theme was a little difficult for me. I started out with no idea where to start, then once I thought I had an idea, I was having trouble making everything mesh the way that I wanted it to. Couple that with the fact that I have difficulty discerning some whites/grays from the silvers used on gaia and it was a bit of a challenge. sweatdrop I'm not going to lie, I've had this sitting around for a couple days, tweaking it here and there until I was happy with it. I originally wanted to make an outfit based on Medieval armor. Kinda of like in a fashion show or something, but then I found the old ballet items. I love how shiny the silver ones are. So, I started there. Working with solely silver seemed like it washed Veronica out a bit because it was so light. After looking through golden items I decided on the shade above. It seemed to compliment the silver well and there were items in that shade which helped pull together the ballet theme. I felt that the tiaras layered together well. I liked the idea of combining silver and gold into one tiara. I also loved the way all of the pieces layered together to form the dress. She looks very shiny and i love it. I hope that you guys love it as well. <3
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Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2018 9:27 pm
The one who makes the stars.Model: Daphne Designer: Kiwi Cannoli Description: She grinds up crystals and then reshapes them into the stars we see.First, Thank you for the extension, Works been very busy this week I just didn't have enough time to focus on this until now, thank you again. I knew right away that I wanted her to have more gold with silver being an accent, the problem was trying to find gold items at all. You type in gold and you'll get items from 05, items that don't match anything else or items that have no gold in them at all. Its the same thing with silver really. For the gold I ended up using Sunshine, After I found this arm mod, I wanted to find a dress/outfit that didn't blend into the crystals. After awhile I found this overdress thing, which inspired the description. Almost right after this I found the sash and after that It was just a matter of putting the rest together
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Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2018 5:37 pm
One of the over all critiques for this challenge is that a lot of the colors weren't silver and gold enough, they were yellow and white or yellow and grey.
3. DAVlD DUCHOVNY (Keran)
Positive: The regal thought was a great one for this challenge, and Keran makes for a lovely queen. Keran also naturally has a lot of gold in her colors, so focusing on silver for the look was a great idea.
Negative: The idea of an eye was interesting, but having it as a black blob at the waist was not good focus. Some of the judges also felt like Keran looked kind of frumpy. The crown was a good color, but the shape and height were all wrong for Keran.
4. x_suicide_is_inevitable_x (Ebony)
Positive: Love seeing the mermaid tail and the fact you went fantasy this week! Over all this was a strong and simple look.
Negative: When you go fantasy, don't be afraid to go big! Put on horns, scales, don't be afraid to put on all the extras. The colors are also bordering on blocky with where they are on Ebony, some more balance would have been nice.
6. khionna (Veronica)
Positive: The ballerina idea is wonderful, especially with a silver and gold color scheme, says Nutcracker in a lovely way. Judges also loved seeing a model in dynamic movement.
Negative: This was very simple, and it toed the line of being boring. This is also one of the few occasions where the judges would have liked to see a background to really emphasize that Veronica is a ballerina and not a dancing princess.
7. Your Local Gay (Dita)
Positive: :(
Negative: :(
9. Princess of the Raindrops (Mia)
Positive: This is a cute armor look.
Negative: The gold behind the head looks like a poor after thought thrown in because it was gold and gold was required, doesn't look like it really had an intentional purpose. The mask is also pixelated much more than the other items are, which makes it look a lot darker, and results in the colors not matching each other well.
10. Tink_Bel (Zahara)
Positive: The judges were surprised to see you were the only one to go with the celestial theme, but we loved seeing Zahara as a literal angel. The pose is wonderful and dynamic, and everything is amazingly balanced.
Negative: There was a lot of white that didn't even hint at being silver. And after seeing Zahara in gold so much, a strong silver focus would have been refreshing to see.
11. METTAT0N (Brooke)
Positive: This was a strong concept, and the silver and gold choices were strong. This was a look that got stronger as other entries came in, kudos for that!
Negative: There are some weird layering things, with the head chains and the arm circling her hair a bit, but judges know some of that is just Gaia limitations. The idea of a cape is a great one, but the judges aren't sure this was the right one.
13. RENstrawberry (Madison)
Positive: Madison looks absolutely gorgeous in these colors, and she looks truly great. There is a great balance between the top and the bottom, and the gilded circlet was a great choice.
Negative: There is nothing technically wrong with this outfit. But there is almost no silver, which is a huge problem for a silver and gold challenge, and it is so freaking simple. There is just a handful of items, which leaves it coming off almost as lazy. Judges want to see you push yourself.
14. Kiwi Cannoli (Daphne)
Positive: There is a lot going on in this look, with a lot of movement and different dynamics, which while some of those aspects didn't work out well it was still appreciated to see Daphne in more than just a dress.
Negative: With your description, we want to hear more about why you chose this - or any - theme. This look left the judges with a lot of mixed feelings, and going back and forth on it. There's a bit too much going on, and not enough reason behind them.
15. egggoat (Xoco)
Positive: Girl, you saw the Eleganza Extravaganza title and ran with it! Xoco is the top royal queen of the week, and might even have a longer reign than that. This is also a prime example of how to put the model in a dress and have it not come off as lazy.
Negative: The way the crown and veil mesh didn't work for everyone, and really might have been better off using one or the other. This was one of the strongest looks of the week though, you should be proud.
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Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2018 3:44 pm
 Pop Succubine!Designer: RENstrawberry Model: Madison Description:Watch out! She’s hungry for love and will eat you up! Literally! The innocent act is over for Madison. She lures her prey in to feed on lust, devouring their bodies and souls! Spooky. After some short decision making, I decided the Oniki skin tone would be best for Madison. I chose the Oniki skin tone fairly carefully, I didn’t want to choose a skin tone that made Madison look paler/darker than her usual skin tone and went for Oniki because of it’s similar midtone value. The most interesting part with working with an Oniki model is the saturation difference! Initially, I knew Madison would look best in the vibrant effeminate color contrasted against a solid dark outfit, to compliment her natural dark features of course! In the end, Madison’s natural dark features allowed her skin tone to pop! Madison naturally has an enticing expression, and to bring out her sexier feminine side I decided a succubus themed look would work best for her features and new bright magenta skin. I began by adding Madison’s pointed ears. They added a fantasy-vibe to the look initially and worked well with the final product. Next up, to continue the succubus inspired look, I added her horns and then her tail to evoke a demoness appearance. Her wings were added afterwards, but came paired with a bunch of nasty bright yellow stars covering them. Luckily, the ‘your angel’ cutter worked to remove them, and revealed some sparkles on her wings to match the quality of her latex dress! Her dress was quite thin for the shoes and stockings I picked out, but it worked out to create an illusion of a slit in the side of her dress to add to her sex appeal. As for her shoes, I was torn between a pink recolor and black, but ultimately decided the pink hue that matched her skin wasn’t appealing to the eye as it brought too much attention to the bottom of the figure (I also thought it would be quite strange to wear a “nude” shoe…). The black shoes opted for her skin to stand out much more. One of the last items I added was her lace top to continue the same texture as her stockings in the look. The top covered the topmost region of her chest and neck, but kept her cleavage revealed, daring her victims to gaze upon her. Most of the other arm mods bothered me because they ruined the dynamism of the wings and tail pointing upwards and appeared to interrupt and redirect the viewer’s eye in an unpleasant way. To fix this, for the final item I chose to use an arm pose so Madison could touch her face, adding a seductive & excited quality, without distracting the motion of her wings and tail.
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Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 5:34 pm
 Crystal Healing GoddessDesigner: METTAT0N Model: Brooke Description:Thought I was going to be late for this one, but it turns out I'm still fairly early? A bit of good luck, I guess. I tried to use exclusively transparent body mods so that I could pretty much use any skin I wanted without having to rely on arm or leg poses for items, and that pretty heavily limited my choices on arm poses. I liked the idea of having her hand close to her heart, which is why I used Absolute Grace. The longer I left it on there the more I thought it was a divine-looking pose, so I decided to take the Goddess motif and run with it... for whatever reason, "crystal goddess" is what spoke to me the most as I cycled through my skin choices, seeing the many Crystal Witch recolors come up in the skins list. After canning my options thoroughly, I didn't end up using one of the Crystal Witch skins after all. Instead, I used This Vainful Universe, which created the illusion of light falling onto her face and body from within the crystals. However, I did use Crystal Witch Tourmaline's background feature, and paired it with Sorbet Eliora, just to create some contrast and a foreground, and cropped it with Circe's Garden Terrarium, just to bring some lovely green into this design. I think it matches her eyes, personally. Since the yellows in Sorbet Eliora weren't present in any other items I was using, I paired it with both Glacial Polar Tear and Virtuous Ruler, and used them to warm the center of the design overall. The further along I got, the more I had to edit myself down. By the end of this process, all I wanted to do was keep throwing glitter on it, but I feel like I've created a balanced image regardless.
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Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 8:41 pm
"I'll Be Your Light in the Night"Designer: khionna Model: Veronica Description:In this entry I have transformed Veronica into a firefly using the skin mod pose from the item of the same name! I love this skin and have always wanted to use it for something and just never found a reason to, until now. When given this task I wanted to do something a little extra. I didn't want to use a basic, single tone skin. With that in mind I started searching and remembered this skin. After that an idea came to mind. I wanted to turn her into a humanized firefly! after getting my concept and color scheme down, I messaged one of our mentors for help. She suggested adding the dark background to make her pop and I kind of loved the idea. While the background alone looked nice, it was missing something. After a bit of searching I found (and combined) the two lighting effects to really make her pop. I knew that her clothing was over all dark as well, but this really made her skin stand out and amplified the insect look that I was going for. When looking for arm/leg mods I wanted to find ones that would blend into the skin well, but not cover many of the skins features. Mine mine mine legs worked perfectly! I then needed arms. After searching for a while I happened across the matron arms and liked the carefree posing that they offered. Next, after tinkering with corset after corset and bustier after bustier I finally found a combo that I liked by layering together a few different corset tops. I also added the skirt/bustle to give the illusion of the insect I was trying to mimic. I love how it looks like a dress, yet is bare in the middle, while also alluding to an insect like shape. Then I needed to find wings and a set of antennae. I searched and searched and I (honestly) almost gave up on the idea lol, but I kept going. The wings that I originally liked didn't layer correctly so I had to keep looking. They needed to be semi-transparent but also resemble insect wings. Finally, I found these wings and they fit perfectly. After finding the wings I started looking for antennae. I was surprised to find that we actually have very few options considering how many butterfly/moth/insect items we have. I was torn between two different sets and ran them both by my chosen mentor. We settled on the ones shown above. They stand out well enough while also blending with the skin. I also like how the attached eyes are a bit translucent to match with the wings. Over all, I love my skin choice and the theme to my entry. Is she dark? Yes. But she just looks like she's shining and I love it. She looks like a glowing firefly illuminating your way through the dark. I hope that you guys love her as much as I do.
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Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2018 8:07 am
 Do Golems Dream of Clay Sheep?Designer: Egggoat Model: Xoco She stood, reciting the same four thoughts in her mind;
She was awake. She was waiting. She had a purpose. She would fulfill her purpose.
As she waited though, other thoughts slowly began forming; What was a 'purpose'? What was 'awake'? What happened if she did not fulfill her purpose? What happened when she was no longer awake?This was really fun! I've been wanting to have free reign with color and it just never really worked out until now. I knew almost immediately I wanted to use Crystal Witch Bloodstone as my skin but it is super dark on the head and the feet so I messed around a bit with maleficent yin trying to find a color that worked well with it. However, all the colors I liked were flat and clashed with the shiny crystal skin. I found Wollstone's Autumnal Craft and that worked so well with it and gave her a great patchwork of teal, pink, and yellow and it helped lighten her face. I really liked how it turned out. Originally I wanted to use an arm mod that would keep her skin but none of them worked out for me so I went with this teal and black cape instead. I started out thinking of making some sort of genie but all of the items I wanted to use covered her skin up too much. So I changed my mind and she started evolving into this shady character. I wanted to put her in some dark alleyway, looking like she was up to something nefarious but I realized that it made everything way too dark and her skin lost a lot of its appeal. I found this background and it worked so well with her, it looks like she was carved right out of it. That gave me the idea of her being some sort of golem made of stone and crystal and her creators are going to use her to enact their revenge but she slowly becomes self aware while waiting for their orders.
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Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2018 12:38 pm
 Scattered TreasuresDesigner: DAVlD DUCHOVNY Model: Keran "All the creatures skittered to collect the prettiest trinkets they could find before the house witch found them, this one found herself lost in her reflection in the kettle's shine"I decided to challenge my self with a gold shop skin that didnt change the eyes. I saw that this shade of blue dark elf matched the royal icing scme perfectly so I went from there. I ran into the speed bump along the way of having Keran's amaranth makeup stand out so brightly so I tied it into the outfit by having her have and amaranth ring for her head and wings, then came the fact it came with black. That matched well with Keran's eyes so it worked on top, but I added a bustle to keep the colours consistent throughout the whole body of the outfit. All in all I imagine Keran as some sort of goblin -like creature gazing at her beauty after stealing a bunch of trinkets in a rush. p.s. im gonna make one of my own avatars based around this lmao
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Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2018 10:02 pm
Grombie DragonDesigner:Tink_Bel Model:Zahara Description:Well this was fun! I always love messing around with skin mods. I tried the grombie skin with Zahara's features and thought it worked very well, and both work perfectly with the Dusk Rose color scheme! The whole ensemble only uses three colors (well, 4 if you count the sapphires in the treasure). I'm not exactly sure how I ended up landing on the dragon theme, I just kept experimenting and this came out haha. A few items I love working together are the tail and treasure, all together I really like how it looks like Zahara is floating into her treasure room. I would love more challenges like this, it was a very interesting creative process.
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Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2018 7:09 pm
A witch and her familiarsModel: Daphne Designer: Kiwi Cannoli Description: I'm not use to using skin tones so this was a little challenging for me. With Daphne's features I knew I had to use a lighter colored skin( Theres some shading around her eyes that looks super weird with dark skin tones.) I found the Fly With Me skin and knew I wanted her to be a witch. The hardest part was deciding what colors I wanted to use. At first I wanted to go with red or a dark pink, then it was monochrome, then it was seabreeze; I didn't choose any of those because they either clashed with the skin to much or in seabreeze case, blended in to much. Honestly, I didn't even think about using any type of blue until I found the hat. I really liked the way its overshadows part of the face and I liked how the color looks with her skin. I do want to say, I really like the arm pose I chose, to me it looks like she about to cast a spell.
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x_suicide_is_inevitable_x
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Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2018 2:17 am
 Too Hot to HandleDesigner: x_suicide_is_inevitable_x Model: Ebony Description:She turned and looked at him with those charcoal eyes, burning right through to his soul. He knew he wouldn't last long, not if she could produce such intense heat with just a snap of her fingers. Some emotion flickered across her face, surprise or recognition maybe, and that was when he realized he might actually have a chance, if only to escape. He tried to move, but couldn't. The flames blazed brighter, higher, hotter, deadly.So probably the first thing you'll notice is I didn't use a background this time. It was a tough choice, and I had a couple of backgrounds I really liked, but I felt like this way she doesn't blend into the landscape and it makes it easier to see all the details without being distracted by what's going on behind her. I wanted to try using the skin from the Halloween event with the Overseer and Sentinel, because it's one of my absolute favorite skins, but I couldn't remember what it was called or the year it was released. I decided to go through as many skins I could find and just pick one, but nothing looked as good as Ebony's usual skin, tone E. I eventually looked up the forum guide on the different skins, and found the one I wanted first - Sentinel's Gift. From there, I tried to make a volcanic outfit, but it didn't really celebrate the skin and looked too accurate to be fashionable - and I learned my lesson about that in the previous cycle. I scrapped it, reluctantly (blame my love of geology and the skin), and switched to a wood nymph. I only got a few pieces put together before realizing it wasn't different enough from her normal skin, so I trashed that idea as well. Then, I went through several different kinds of cats, an eldritch-horror-slash-octopus (then figured that doing half-human, half-sea creature twice in a row would be stretching my luck), a faun, and a zebra centaur, before giving up and starting with the Sentinel skin again. I knew Ebony's hair would work well with warm hues, so I played with some fire. (Not literally, of course.) I just kept trying different items until finding the armmod that worked with the red of the skin without being too pink and looked around for a top that would accommodate it and still keep the chest visible, because it has a beautiful pattern. The one I chose had black in it and I ended up not using it later, but it led me to the leggings that show off the skin and shape the legs, so I started leaning toward a demon-style outfit. Once I came across the skirt, I knew I had it, but then I remembered the critique from the last challenge and started pushing the limits of being fantastic while maintaining a human shape. The last thing I put on was the horns, and I love how they layer to create the illusion of reflected light from the flames and a slight glow from within. I struggled a lot more than I should have with balancing colors and shapes, but as soon as I removed the background and chose the horns, everything seemed to fall into place. I picked the title instead of any of the fire jokes I came up with because her face doesn't fit that brand of humor. It simply burns me up inside to not use them, but I have to re-ember: this is a serious competition. Any thing I say coal-d be used against me and lower my score-ch.
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