#i have plans to hang up their POSTERS and decorate CD CASES

[donutcats]

normally my fixations only last about 3-4 months before they fade away and I only think about them once in awhile. but my hyperfixation on stray kids has lasted so long that they've genuinely just become a Permanent Fixed Interest at this point.

[thesaltyoceanwaves]

Adrien’s Room and Memorabilia: A Sequel Post

Well, I hinted at a similar arc for Adrien in this post, so let’s brainstorm.

CW: mentions of harassment

The major difference between Adrien and Marinette in this instance is that Mari’s room is about her working through her social anxieties and developing meaningful relationships. Adrien’s focus is on his lonely nature, as well as discovering and cultivating hobbies that he really enjoys, and aren’t just forced upon him by his father.

His room starts off with very few photos of his loved ones, namely his parents, Chloe and Felix. These photos are professional in nature, clean, crisp and very much lacking in color. Even Chloe and Felix are behaving for the sake of the photos. Notably, their photos show them when they are much younger, to indicate that Adrien hasn’t spent time with them lately.

There’s a large emphasis placed on the amount of stuff that Adrien has in his room. The video games, the TV, the climbing wall, etc. Everything is completely clean and dust free, because he spends a lot of time in his room, but he doesn’t have anything he’s particularly drawn toward, so whenever he’s done with something, he puts it away and grabs something else. His room is also likely clean due to his strict father demanding he keep up appearances.

The only exception to this are video games, but they are very specific ones: simulators. Particularly, ones that focus on dating and romance. Life simulators, farming simulators, RPGs that offer a romance subplot, etc. Even if the sim only offers the option to make friends, Adrien is fine with that. Stuff like Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons (the ones made by Marvelous), The Sims, Undertale and so forth are right up his valley. And again, lots of dating sims.

Following his mother’s “passing,” and at the start of the show, Adrien keeps a corner of his room dedicated to her. As more time goes by and Adrien gets closer to his new friends, this will shrink down to a photo of the two of them, and most of her memorabilia will be stored away. This will show that he’s open to the possibility of his father dating someone else, as was shown in “Felix”. 

He will often turn to photos of his mother when he wants deeper, more worrying thoughts that he wants to voice and get off his chest, or if he needs advice about something and he doesn’t know who to turn to. S1 would focus more on friendship advice, because in this version, he would need to put in more time and care to make friends (Nino and him would still stay buds, Mari is still crushing on him but is hesitant to approach, and Alya is kind but cautious, with the rest of the class being wary because of his friendship with Chloe). Later on, he’s more likely to ask about plot-relevant stuff, his feelings for Ladybug and Kagami (and romance in general), his growing resentment towards his father, his meet-ups with his friends, and his discomfort with Chloe and Lila’s touchiness. Coupled with Felix’s harassment in “Felix,” this causes Adrien to realize his boundaries are being violated, and to also wonder if he has adopted similar behaviors. He goes to speak with either Sabine, Tomoe or Nino’s mom about the matter (maybe all three to get a variety of perspectives), and then with Ladybug. I would set this conversation sometime after “Frozer,” with him mentioning how he acted there, and apologizing for leaving her in the middle of battle (if the episode isn’t rewritten to include that there).

Overtime, he would start to depend less on talking to Emilie’s photo, and instead talk to whoever he asked for advice. Instead, he would talk to her prior to a larger battle or facing a bigger threat and had something he wanted to get off his chest.  

At the beginning of their superhero career, Adrien is into collecting Ladybug merch - he’s likely to even have one of those “Do it for her” boards set up. He has some Chat Noir stuff as well, but it’s not as prominent. When other heroes arrive on the scene, he’ll have stuff of them too. He would even go so far as to recreate the heroes in his games (mostly in what Sims knock-off this universe would have), and roleplay scenarios with Ladybug. He doesn’t fully get rid of his merch over time, but he does likely downsize as he spends more time getting to know Ladybug and the team.

There’s also the obligatory Ladrien scene that I hinted at in Marinette’s post. To recap, Chat Noir, during an emotional moment with Marinette, mentions that he has Ladybug memorabilia in his room, and that he ought to downsize. Sometime later, Ladybug comes to check up on Adrien for plot-related reasons, and discovers that he “too” collects Ladybug merch. Adrien is notably embarrassed by this, but Ladybug replies by saying that she’s a fan of his as well. This will allow two sides of the ship to feel closer to each other and open up about certain things.

Similar to Marinette, Adrien will start picking up little things as mementos from previous episodes to decorate his room with (a class photo from “Reflekta,” a copy of the movie from “Horrificator,” his autographed Jagged Stone CD from “Guitar Villain,” etc).  I also imagine him holding onto clothing items such as Nino’s hat or Kagami’s jacket, that get left behind after hanging out. Over time, he is eventually gifted a mannequin to display these items.

I remember seeing a post that called into question whether Adrien’s activities were something he genuinely enjoyed or if they were just foisted upon him by his father. I like the idea of a laid out arc that explores what Adrien might like to do in the future, by having him go through various hobbies (sort of like Daphne in “Be Cool, Scooby Doo”). 

One hobby I’d give him from the start is tricking. (For those not familiar, tricking combines moves from martial arts and gymnastics, usually flips and kicks, and can be used to create super cool combos, yes I am biased about this). We often see him showing off stunts in battle and would fit Chat’s tendencies to be flashy. I could also see this becoming a hobby he shares with Nino and Kagami later on, maybe with the three of them sneaking out to meet other trickers at gatherings.

(For those who need visual reference.)

However, I also want to give Adrien a more traditionally feminine hobby. There’s a couple of ideas I had for this, including, again ones that he cycles through as he explores himself a bit more. After meeting Luka and noticing that he paints his nails, Adrien might tiptoe in nail art. I could also see Adrien getting really into writing romance, starting off as a fanfic writer and eventually writing his own novel or comic. Alternatively, he becomes a poet. Maybe he spends an episode learning to sew with Marinette so he can make his own cosplays. Or he starts a cottagecore aesthetic blog, and additionally starts taking care of some plants to give his room some needed greenery.

I think for the sake of irony, it would be interesting to see Adrien eventually take up baking as a hobby. I know there’s a couple of AUs involving this concept already (I forget who it was, though I’m tempted to say @lenoreofraven​ ​ but correct me if I’m wrong), but I like this idea because it would give him something extra he and Marinette could bond over in the future, especially since he doesn’t want to do modelling long-term. It would also give him a good excuse to visit the Dupain-Cheng bakery, and grow closer to Sabine and Tom. Perhaps they take him up as an apprentice, or give him a delivery boy job alongside Luka (giving that relationship a chance to grow as well, as well as a Delivery Boy shenanigans episode).

When he’s either in between hobbies, in a tumultuous state, or growing distant from his father, his room will appear far messier. In the latter case, it may be an attempt to rebel against Gabriel, saying “it’s my room, I can do what I want!” If he’s not comfortable immediately speaking out against his father, he may rebel in more passive aggressive ways. I could also see him roleplaying scenarios in which he tells his father off or planning escape routes for hero patrol or tricking gatherings. I think he would also have padded mats stored somewhere in he case he can’t leave, and wants to practice, or have his own tricking gathering in the house.

As he collects more mementos, they start filling up the empty spaces in his room, so when his father prevents him from leaving the house, he doesn’t feel as lonely. He starts finding ways where, from the comfort of his room, he can hang out with friends (like in “Anansi” where he uses the facecam to see what everyone is up to). More friendly, casual photos give the room some life. These mementos may also cause him to start downsizing on the Ladybug and Friends merch.

He will only attempt to remove them altogether if his identity is revealed to Marinette, and she doesn’t seem to process it well (at least at first). Anything pertaining to her, as Ladybug or Marinette, he may attempt to remove, until he realizes just how present she is in his life. He would then consult his mother’s photo about what to do. 

And similarly to Marinette at the end, when they start dating, he would start to incorporate couple’s photos. I think both of them would have those photo booth strips, but I could also see Adrien commissioning posters of his OTP, LadyNoir, and bringing back some of his merch (in a teasing, well-meaning way). 

[warofshadowstheorder]

Chapter 13

The sudden blaring of “(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais” over the iPod/clock radio in Alexis Bledsoe’s room snapped her out of the deep sleep she had been enjoying.  It had taken her a while to fall asleep the night before; she couldn’t help feeling like she was being watched.

She didn’t think she’d ever get used to the idea of not going to work.  The mere thought of spending entire days without the routine she’d constructed for herself left her almost paralyzed inside.  She’d eventually gotten to sleep, the image of the one who jumped her at the pavilion still dominating her dreams, and had consigned herself in the knowledge that she had her investigation to keep her busy.  Her mission in life now was to find him and make him pay for what he’d done.

Her apartment was fairly small, but was all that she needed.  Besides the bedroom and bathroom, it only consisted of one all-purpose room with an adjoining kitchen.  She got out of bed and changed from her pajamas into a sports bra, a pair of blue running shorts and a white tank top before putting on some socks and a pair of running shoes.  She let the radio continue playing while she dressed and enjoyed the music.

Her bedroom was decorated with pictures and other memorabilia.  She had her full-ride acceptance letter and degree from Yale framed and hanging on her wall.  She also had a picture of her with her parents and brothers at her graduation, as well as a similar picture taken at the family ranch in Rory.  There were also framed wedding portraits of her brothers and parents, along with a recent family portrait.

Posters of the “London Calling” album cover, and movie posters for “Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten,” and “Way of the Dragon” also adorned her walls.

In the next room, a giant poster of Bruce Lee and a shooting target showing very impressive results with a date handwritten by Bledsoe herself in the bottom right corner decorated the wall adjacent to a black Everlast punching bag hanging from the ceiling, a chin-up bar bolted to the wall beside it, and a Mook Jong.  Some handwraps and grappling gloves were on the floor just below where the bag hung.

Adjacent to the bag was a small table with a large combination radio/cassette player/CD player/record player stereo.  A cardboard box filled with several vinyl records, along with a few stacks of CDs and a shoebox with several cassette tapes, most of which were homemade mixed tapes, were underneath the table with each item inside sorted into alphabetical order.

After she finished dressing, she turned off the radio just as the song was concluding.  She then removed the iPod and strapped it to her left arm, carefully putting in the earbuds.  She got her keychain and used the miniature carabiner on it to clip it onto the iPod strap.  She took a reflective belt and put it across her shoulder, and lastly got some cash and stuffed it into a small pouch on the strap.

She did a few stretches, and then made her way out of her apartment.  She locked the door behind her and went outside.  It was early enough in the morning that it was still dark outside, and she relished the opportunity to run during a time when most people were still in bed.

She did some stretches, walked around for a bit to warm up, and then started running.  Her favorite way to start her morning was with a jog around the mall area, on this particular day she was also using her customary jog to clear her mind and focus on planning the rest of her time away.

“Safe European Home” played in her earphones as she continued on her way and took in the familiar but still captivating sights of the area around her.  She always liked running early in the day because of the quiet and serenity that the area offered at that time.  She ran around the Jefferson Monument and always stopped there to take a break and spend some quiet time reflecting.

She thought that monument had the best location and loved how it was away from the main part of the mall.  She particularly loved it when the Cherry Blossoms were in bloom but always enjoyed her stays there regardless.  She sat on the steps of the Monument and paused her iPod before gazing out over the water.

She figured that the disc and information she’d requested from Andrews would be waiting for her when she got home and was considering what to do first.  Given that she had the whole day ahead of her, she decided that she’d make an appointment with the Coroner, then go over the disc, and then go see the body.

She continued looking out over the water, and wondered if she should leave town for a few days on a real vacation.  She thought of going back to the family ranch and visiting with her parents and oldest brother Matt, who was preparing to take over there.  But she knew that first she had to resolve what had gotten her to the point she found herself in professionally.  After several minutes, Bledsoe started her iPod and ran back to her apartment.

She noticed a few other runners passing her as she returned home, which further reminded her of why she went running as early as she did.  There was one more stop to make before finishing her run.

There was a newsstand not far from her apartment, laden with several magazines and newspapers.  It was run by a husky Polynesian-American man in his late-fifties named Bernard Ka’ahanui but known as Bernie to his friends.  Before he opened his newsstand, he’d served honorably in the U.S. Army for twenty-three years and retired as a Sergeant Major with combat tours in Vietnam and Operation Desert Storm.  He served with the 1st Cavalry in Vietnam and their unit crest prominently adorned the back of the newsstand.

He had ended his career serving in an administrative capacity in the Pentagon and grew very fond of the area.  After he retired, he and his wife bought a home near the District and Bernie opened his newsstand mostly to keep from going crazy after retirement.  He didn’t have as many customers as he would have liked, but he did have a few loyal regulars.  The loyal customer whose visits he most looked forward to was Alexis Bledsoe.

Bledsoe’s breathing was labored when she approached the newsstand, she would have been completely exhausted had it not been for her lengthy experience as a distance runner and ability to pace herself.  A big smile came to Bernie’s face as Bledsoe approached, and it only increased when she came to a stop in front of the stand.  Bernie immediately handed Bledsoe a bottle of water, which she stopped to drink while walking in place as Bernie spoke.

“Good morning Alexis,” Bernie greeted brightly, “nice to see you back again.  I’m sorry for all the troubles I’m sure you’re having at work.”  He said the last sentence with a tone of sympathy while gesturing toward The Washington Post with the headline of “Nation Still Reeling in the Wake of Saunders Assassination.”

“Thanks Bernie,” Bledsoe said between heavy breaths and another drink of water, “but I’d rather not think about that right now.  Trust me, you have no idea the kind of shit I’ve been through these past few days.  Right now, I’m just out for my morning constitutional.  I figured I’d catch up on the important stuff if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Of course,” Bernie said with a smile as he reached down to the floor on his side of the stand and brought up a small stack of Rolling Stone and Black Belt magazines along with the latest copy of The Washington Post.

“Do you want the latest editions as well?” Bernie asked.

“Sure,” Bledsoe answered, “I’m going to be doing some work at home for the next little while and could use some reading material for breaks.”

“Good call,” Bernie answered with his same upbeat tone, adding two more magazines to the stack.

She set the stack of magazines and her newspaper gently on the road as she continued walking in place and chatting with Bernie while she drank her water.  Her conversations with Bernie were about the only purely casual ones she had on a regular basis with her work schedule, especially after joining the protection detail.

“So,” Bledsoe asked after a while, “how was the Luau?”

“Oh,” Bernie said brightening up even more, “it was great.  I think I overdid it on the Pork though.”  Bernie put his hands on his stomach to emphasize his point.  “But it was great having the entire family together and doing something from the islands.”

“I bet,” Bledsoe said with a smile, “it almost sounds like the last time I went to the ranch.  Only over there it was barbeque and stuff from the heartland of America.”

“Eh,” Bernie said, “it’s a Melting Pot Culture.  What are you gonna do?”

Bledsoe laughed and Bernie joined in.  She and Bernie went back and forth until a little while after Bledsoe finished her water.  At that time, Bledsoe bid Bernie a fond farewell and paid him for the merchandise before making her way back to her apartment.

After entering her apartment building, she unclipped her keys from her iPod strap and unlocked her mailbox at the front.  She put a few envelopes of junk mail and a catalog into a recycling bin conveniently located nearby, and to her delight saw a package from Andrews.  She made her way back to her apartment with her mail in hand.

Her first stop was her sink where she filled a pint glass with water and took a long drink.  After draining the glass, she left to take a shower.  Following her shower, she dried and brushed her hair, changed into jeans and a t-shirt, and went directly to the coffee maker in her kitchen.  She poured some water into the reservoir and got her container of Folgers out of her pantry.  She scooped a significant amount of grounds onto the filter, having inherited her rancher father’s penchant for strong coffee.  While the coffee maker did its work, she completed her breakfast by preparing a bowl of Cocoa Puffs; looking at the front of the box differently after Odin’s comment at Gitmo.

She opened the package from Andrews and saw a small DVR in a case, and a piece of paper with a phone number and the name of the Coroner.  She dialed the number and had a brief conversation with him in which she set up an appointment to come over and view the body that evening.

Satisfied, she hung up the phone and turned her attention to her big-screen HDTV.  She grabbed the remote and turned it on, waiting a moment when she saw a news program talking about the Saunders assassination and it’s still powerful aftermath.  The coffee maker having finished, Bledsoe transferred it to a mug and poured a small amount of thick cream into it to complete the mix.  She then poured some milk on her cereal before sitting down and eating while she watched the report.

She couldn’t help but feel partly responsible for what had happened, and guilt came over her hard when she saw interviews with people who’d been affected by her failure.  She continued to eat her cereal and drink her coffee while watching the report, using the guilt and sadness she felt to motivate her to find the people who were responsible.

After she finished her breakfast, she put the DVD into the player, she poured what coffee was left in the pot into the mug to top it off and switched the TV to the appropriate input for her BluRay player.  She stepped back and saw that the disc started from quite some time before Saunders had even entered the Pavilion.  She sat down on her couch and watched closely looking for anything out of the ordinary, occasionally sipping from her coffee.

After seeing Saunders enter the Pavilion, she watched even closer.  She’d been on Saunders’ detail for several months, but this was the first time she noticed how much enthusiasm he inspired in the people.  She watched them stand and applaud for him and felt herself stiffen up emotionally at the prospect of what she knew was about to happen.

She watched the recording, paying close attention to everything that was happening.  She felt herself stiffen inside as every moment that passed on the tape brought her closer to reliving the horribly tragic event she knew was set to occur.

Since she was incapacitated at the time of the event itself, she had no idea as to exactly when it would happen.  The only clue she had was that she knew Saunders had started speaking before he was shot.

Bledsoe could feel her pulse beginning to rise as the event progressed.  Her hand that was holding her remote control was trembling and she could feel her teeth chattering as her lips quivered.  The anticipation of what was coming and the memory of her failure to stop it was bearing down on her.

She stopped the disc and took several frantic and labored breaths.  She felt dizzy and could have sworn that the room was spinning around her.  She closed her eyes and brought her hand over them before resting her arm on the arm of the couch.

Bledsoe’s pulse continued racing as her breathing became heavier.  She didn’t want to continue watching the proceedings, but knew that if she wanted to catch the ones who had done the killing that she would have to pick up whatever she could from the tape.

After a few minutes, Bledsoe calmed down and once again faced the TV monitor.  The scene was still frozen, taunting her.  She could only sit motionless, as frozen as the scene she was facing, and prolong the inevitable.  Relenting, and knowing that the only way to move on was to catch the shooters and that in order to do that she had to witness the terrible event; she took a deep breath, finished her coffee and pressed the play button on her remote.

Although it was very difficult to watch, she did her best to look for anything out of the ordinary going on, regularly pausing the disc to observe every detail of the scene as it unfolded.  She tried to see something, anything that would help her better understand how the assassination happened.

She remembered Taylor’s accusation about the assassination being an inside job and hated to admit that it made a lot of sense.  She began to keep her eye out for suspicious activity among the agents on the detail.  The most suspicious thing she noticed was when Cruz quickly picked his nose.

When she got to the point where she heard the shot, she quickly skipped ahead to a point when the camera turned in the direction of where the shot had come from, not wanting to see the event itself and not thinking it to be necessary.

She remembered the famous incident from the Kennedy assassination where a figure was seen ducking away from a window in the Book Depository building.  She was hoping for something like that from what she was watching, and she scrutinized every frame of it trying to find anything she could use.

She watched it at normal speed first, then in slow motion, and then she watched it frame by frame zooming in as close as she could.  Before she knew it, four hours had passed and she hadn’t found anything even resembling a clue.  Frustration was setting in by this point, and she was beginning to question her decision on how to spend her time off.

When the thought of stopping her private investigation crossed her mind, she remembered seeing the people on the news that had been crushed by the terrible tragedy and her vow and commitment were instantly renewed.  She glanced at her watch and saw that her appointment with the coroner was still a little while away.  She poured herself a glass of water and started watching the disc again from the beginning, keeping her eye on anyone sitting in the pavilion that left their seat and making sure that they returned before the shot was fired.  She examined the footage a little more, and then got up to use the bathroom.

Unknown to Bledsoe, someone else nearby had been spending his day in his main room intently watching something.  However, this person had not been watching any kind of program but rather had been watching Bledsoe.

To keep up the appearance of his cover, he ate breakfast in the hotel lobby and left the building.  Unnoticed, he scaled the building via a blind spot and had been observing Bledsoe from a handheld device while sitting on the roof until his room had been cleaned.  Then, he reentered via his window and continued his vigil through the nearly microscopic surveillance cameras he had installed the night before while Bledsoe slpet.

Olcán kept the curtain in his room drawn and the area around him completely dark.  He hadn’t slept since arriving.  His evening had consisted of dawning one of the black bodysuits he and his compatriots used to turn invisible to infiltrate Bledsoe’s apartment and plant the cameras in key areas.  He then went to an all-night grocery store after testing his equipment and formulated a plan of action for the duration of his assignment.  He spent the time before Bledsoe woke up training and exercising, keeping an eye on the laptop for signs of movement.

After Bledsoe woke up, Olcán had begun his observations.  Olcán had been detailing Bledsoe’s schedule on a notebook, detailing when she had gotten up, when she left to run, when she got back, and her subsequent activities.

After Bledsoe left, Olcán used the time to get in a workout of his own at the hotel gym before cleaning up and having his breakfast.  When he heard the cleaner coming down the hall, he quickly put the surveillance laptop into its case, slung it on his back, and went to the roof.  While on the roof, he looked over the notes he had taken up to that point and took a moment to enjoy the view.

Olcán went back into his room as soon as he heard the cleaner close his door and walk away, having seen Bledsoe get home not long before.  Later, as Olcán observed Bledsoe’s own observations, he made a note about her close scrutiny of the footage, and that she didn’t appear to have found anything incriminating.  Bledsoe continued scrutinizing the video, and Olcán patiently observed Bledsoe like an Eagle perched on a high cliff scanning the ground below for prey.  Bledsoe never watched the actual shooting, but she scrutinized every other second of the recording.

Bledsoe stared at the screen, it seemed to be daring her to continue watching.  She decided to clear her head and went back to her room.  She changed into a pair of boxing-style trunks and a black short-sleeved Under Armor shirt before tying her hair back in a tight ponytail.  She picked out a CD labeled “Warmup” and put it in the stereo.

A few moments later, the strains of “Silent Lucidity” echoed through the apartment as Bledsoe slowly stood up and took a few deep breaths.  Once the introductory portion of the song concluded and the drums began, Bledsoe began to gracefully move in time with the music around her living room area.

She bounced and twirled in time with the music, doing so on her toes for several seconds at a time.  If Queensryche had ever composed a ballet, Bledsoe’s movements would have comprised the choreography.  Her focus became solely dedicated to allowing the music to dictate where and how she moved, and the increases in the tempo only served to goad and encourage her.

She moved with the music, showing off her flexibility, stamina, and overall skill to an invisible audience as she moved toward the chin-up bar.  As the song led to its climax, Bledsoe jumped and grabbed the bar and spent the duration of the climax doing chin-ups in time with the music.  Anger and frustration added to her usual intensity as she completed more repetitions than normal before letting go and using a momentary lull in the music to take a relaxing breath before resuming her dancing for the remainder of the song, ending with a brilliant ballet-style finish.

At the conclusion of the song, she found a CD labeled “punching bag” and put it into her stereo.  She downed most of a bottle of water before wrapping her hands with a pair of reusable wraps and selecting a specific track, “Gimme Shelter” on her CD.

During the first part of it she put on her grappling gloves and did some stretches, letting the music flow through her and loosening up inside.  She moved slowly to the music and lightly bounced up and down on her feet.  When the song began in earnest, she let loose on the bag with punches, kicks, knees, and elbows as The Rolling Stones set the tone and pace of her barrage.

She was borderline savage in the way she attacked the bag; completely aware that she wasn’t just using her time on the bag to clear her mind, but also taking out her frustrations.  She was a more than formidable fighter in any circumstance, but when she had pure rage fueling her she was like a tornado tearing through a trailer park.

Her footwork was as precise and flawless as the strikes she landed as she moved in time with the music.  She only stopped pounding on the bag long enough to allow the transition from “Gimme Shelter” to Metallica’s “Some Kind of Monster” to complete.  She then went back to ruthlessly destroying the bag.  Her barrage sped up and slowed down to the music, Bledsoe allowing the music to dictate the pace and ferocity of her workout.

What Bledsoe was doing was far from lost on the man watching her from his hotel.  Olcán couldn’t help but be somewhat impressed at the sight before him.  He wondered about Bledsoe’s abilities before and could see that she measured up to the descriptions of her field performance that he’d read in her dossier.  He dismissed how skilled she appeared by reasoning that hitting a bag was one thing, but real combat was something else entirely.  Regardless, he made a note to approach her with caution if he needed to engage.

As “Some Kind of Monster” concluded Bledsoe jumped up, grabbed the chain above the bag, and brought one knee after another into the upper part of it with enough force to knock out a man three times her size.  At that point Bledsoe was caked in sweat, and with her energy depleted she decided it was time to get back to work.

She took off the gloves and wraps, and then her shirt before making her way to the shower.  It took every ounce of discipline Olcán had acquired through his years of training and service to remain focused on his mission.  But despite his best efforts, he used the time Bledsoe spent cleaning up to take a shower himself…although the one he took was much colder.

Bledsoe finished her shower and continued to go over the tape until the sound of the alarm on her watch reminded her of the upcoming experience with the Coroner that she was sure was going to be anything but pleasant.  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  Images of the prone and lifeless form of the man she had been trusted to protect lying motionless on a slab looking up at her with lifeless eyes were already beginning to haunt her.

Knowing that she needed to go through with it in any case, she cast her fears aside and went into her room.  She dressed in some more formal attire then went out to her car and started off for the Coroner’s Office.  She played U2’s “One” on her car stereo to help her relax and continued on her way.  She stopped at a red light and used the moment to let the music completely enfold her.

For the briefest of moments, she felt the calming symphony that had gotten her through so many assignments come over her again.  Once again, she was abruptly snapped out of her symphony when she could have sworn that she felt her car sink slightly and then rise up to where it had been before.  The sinking only lasted a moment and would have gone unnoticed by most people.

Bledsoe however was not a normal person.  She felt the sink and, being especially jumpy ever since the Pavilion, quickly turned her head to look at the back of her car.  She saw nothing, and she hadn’t heard a sound accompanying the sink.  She briefly considered getting out to check the trunk, but then the light turned green.

Not wanting to obstruct traffic, she drove through the light to the Coroner’s Office.  She frequently glanced at her rearview mirror to check the trunk, still unable to shake the uneasy feeling that the sink was more than a figment of her imagination.

After a few minutes, she arrived at her destination.  She shut off the car, then popped the trunk.  She quickly moved to the rear of the car and threw open the trunk.  Nothing was in it other than the usual items she kept there.  Flares, a first aid kit, some collapsible road cones, a roll of duct tape, a Maglite flashlight, a green wool blanket, and a 3-gallon can of gasoline.

Bledsoe looked on confused.  She was sure she’d felt something when she stopped at the light, and her experience at the Pavilion when Saunders was killed only convinced her to never doubt her hunches.  She took her flashlight and turned it on to take one last thorough look in the trunk bed, carefully looking for any kind of evidence that something was out of place or different in any way.

After looking through for two solid minutes, Bledsoe was satisfied and comfortable in the notion that the sinking feeling had been nothing worthy of note.  She closed the trunk and returned to the front of the car.  She picked up a notebook and pen she had there and locked the vehicle before walking to the office door.

She’d never been to a coroner’s office, and the anticipation of the experience and what she was about to see and do filled her with a sense of grim anticipation and dread.  The apprehensive feelings inside her intensified with each step she took.

She opened the door and walked in.  After checking in at the front desk, she was told where the morgue was and made her way there determined, but slightly hesitant.  Her determination outweighed her dread as she stepped closer to the element of her investigation that she was looking forward to the least.

When she got to the office she immediately found herself awash in new and unique sights, and especially smells.  The only similar smell she’d encountered to what was now perforating her senses before this was when she helped her dad and brothers carve an entire steer and then deliver it to a meat locker.

She heard music after opening the door.  She recognized the music as Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.  Two slabs with shrouded bodies caught and held her attention.  She wondered which one was Saunders.

For a moment she considered walking out of the office and abandoning her investigation.  The moment was short lived when she remembered the aching feeling that accompanied the fact that she failed in her mission and was now on suspension because of it.  That coupled with the burning desire to bring the guilty parties to justice renewed her resolve.  After a moment, she heard the sound of a flushing toilet followed by running water from a sink.  A door in the back of the room opened and the Coroner stepped out.

The Coroner was a man about two inches shorter than Bledsoe.  He had thinning brown hair and sunken dark eyes.  He carried a brown paper towel and finished drying his hands before picking out a couple of latex gloves from a box on a counter and beginning to put them on.

Upon noticing that he had company, his eyes opened wide for a moment.  On the phone he hadn’t been expecting anything like what was in front of him.  He’d imagined some kind of hard-nosed pants-suited ball-breaker professional type, possibly with a hygiene problem.  Instead, he found a very beautiful and pleasant-looking young woman.

“Agent Bledsoe?” the man asked in a slightly nasally voice, unsure of who the goddess facing him was.

“Yes,” Bledsoe answered as she approached him, “and you must be the Coroner.  I’m sorry,” she said politely as she extended her hand to him, “but I didn’t get your name when we spoke on the phone earlier.”

“I’m,” he said extending his hand and tensing up slightly, “I mean my name is Jonah Greeley.”  It was apparent by his demeanor and the way he spoke that Greeley didn’t have much experience with women, at least ones who were alive.

“Pleased to meet you Doctor Greeley,” Bledsoe said as they shook hands.

“So,” he said after a few moments of awkward pause, “Director Andrews tells me you want to see Senator Saunders’ body.”

Bledsoe tensed up and focused her gaze to the tables behind Greeley.  A myriad of images of what awaited her when the sheet would be removed ran through her head.  The apprehension returned, but her iron will allowed her to push that aside and nod in response.

“Ok,” Greeley said as he held out a pair of latex gloves, “put these on and I’ll show you the body.”

“I apologize in advance if the smell bothers you,” Greeley said, “it can be a little overwhelming when you aren’t used to it,” Bledsoe nodded in understanding as Greeley put on his other glove.

“If you’re ready,” Greely said using the opportunity to take a moment to marvel at Bledsoe’s beautiful face, unable to resist admiring the sight before him despite the serious expression she sported.  He was so taken with his visitor that he didn’t realize over ten seconds had passed since Bledsoe had given him a nod indicating that she was ready to proceed.

Bledsoe was still not looking forward to the task at hand, so she didn’t say anything.  She had become accustomed to people staring at her, she didn’t like it but knew she had to accept the fact that she was beautiful and people would always stare.  After a while, Greeley’s staring was making her uncomfortable.

“Doctor Greeley?” Bledsoe asked in a polite tone.

“Oh, sorry,” Greeley said apologetically, “he’s this one.”

He gestured to the closer table and walked to the end where the head was with Bledsoe following close behind.  The feeling of grim anticipation she had had while walking up to the office returned tenfold as she approached the table.  Greeley slowly walked to the other side of the table and took the highest corner of the sheet.

“I should tell you,” Greeley said, “that what you are about to see will be very gruesome.  Do you have a strong stomach?”

“Yeah,” Bledsoe answered, attempting to mask the nervous trembling that threatened to manifest inside her.

“Okay,” Greeley said cryptically, “here we go.”

Greeley gripped the other side of the sheet and slowly brought it down to Saunders’ waist.  Bledsoe’s eyes shot open and she took a gasping breath as she staggered for a moment from the sight before her.

The initial shock for Bledsoe was to see the body that she had seen filled with life so many times for so long now motionless and devoid of life.  After she mustered the courage to look at the hope of the nation that had now been reduced to a corpse, she was grateful that what she said about her stomach was true.

Saunders’ skin had gone pale with the complete loss of life.  There was dried blood on the front of his torso, and his right shoulder was dislocated.  As her eyes made their way upward, the blood on Saunders’ body increased.  There was some other material mixing in with the blood, and Bledsoe’s eyes stopped when they got to the base of Saunders’ neck.

She closed her eyes, turned her head down to the ground, and took a few drawn out breaths.  After a few moments, she took one last long breath and quickly looked up.  What awaited was far worse than anything she’d anticipated.  She was afraid to see Saunders’ head looking mangled or dismembered in some other way.  Instead, she saw his brains and other pieces of his head in jars above his neck.

“Have you ever seen a dead body before?” Greeley asked.

“Yes,” Bledsoe said between short gasps as she took care not to vomit, “just nothing like this.”

“I understand that,” Greeley said callously, “I thought the same thing when I first saw it.  And I’m sorry for the smell, but I was told to tamper with the body only minimally until I can determine the exact cause of death.”

“I mean,” Greeley said in a joking voice, “I can tell what the cause of death was.  They just want me to be able to get some more detail.”

It was obvious that Bledsoe didn’t share Greeley’s sense of humor about the situation, and Greeley immediately regretted his moment of levity.

“When you feel comfortable taking a closer look,” Greeley said returning to his professional tone, “there are a few things I want to show you on the body that you should see if you’re investigating.”

Bledsoe nodded in response and continued to breathe slowly in an attempt to calm herself down.  She found herself able to focus when she remembered the Prussian blue eyes she’d seen at the rally and felt renewed with a resolve to bring in the killer.  The hatred she felt in that moment far outweighed her apprehensions.

She took one last deep breath before turning around to face Greeley.  She gave him a nod, which he returned.  Greeley then turned to face the body on the table and Bledsoe moved next to him, grateful for the material underneath her nose.  Every time Bledsoe felt herself getting queasy, she remembered the eyes and got the resolve to continue.

“Obviously the first thing I noticed,” Greeley said pointing to the remnants of Saunders’ head, “was the huge extent of the wound.”

Bledsoe looked where Greeley pointed.  Being in the Secret Service she was very familiar with the Kennedy assassination and knew exactly what Greeley meant about the wound.  Now that she’d gotten past the initial shock of the scene in the office, Bledsoe was able to focus much better and could observe the body as she’d planned.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Greeley paused for a moment before adding, “to even fathom this kind of damage is…the guy that did this has to be the best shot in the world.”

“Were you aware that this was a two-man job?” Bledsoe asked having recovered her professional demeanor.

“I read the report that was provided,” Greeley answered, “but there was only one shot and we only found enough material for one bullet.  It may have been pulled off by two men, but only one of them actually did the deed.”

“I figured as much,” Bledsoe said remembering how much she’d seen from where she was against the wall that night, “what kind of angle do you figure the bullet came in from?”

“Well,” Greeley said pointing to Saunders’ head and tracing a trajectory, “it’s obvious that the shooter was facing him.  I figure that it was a straight-on shot.  This guy’s aim was amazing.  It couldn’t have been better placed if he’d fired through some kind of tube that led from where he was to the point of entry.”

Greeley let out a sigh as he looked down at Saunders’ body.

“It’s really too bad though,” he sighed, “I was planning on voting for him in November.”

“A lot of the people I work with were planning on doing that” Bledsoe replied.

They both paused, Greeley thinking about what might have been if the man on the table was still alive.  Bledsoe couldn’t help but blame herself for the sight before her.  As the feelings of guilt and remorse began once again rising inside her, she quickly got back to business.

“Do you have any idea what kind of weapon was used?” Bledsoe asked.

“It was definitely a high-powered rifle,” Greeley said as he walked over to a nearby desk and picked up a small glass container, “but no one found it.”  Greeley handed the container to Bledsoe.  “We were able to recover this from the body after we performed the initial autopsy.  Some of it’s also from the crime scene.”

“So,” Bledsoe said after taking a quick look at the dust in the container, “what do you make of it?”

“Well,” Greeley said pensively pointing to the main wound, “this looks like it was done with a 50 caliber round.”

Greeley leaned in closer to the body, Bledsoe remained where she was.  Greeley looked closer then looked back at Bledsoe, gesturing for her to move in next to where he was.  Bledsoe moved in and tried to hold her breath as much as possible.

“Now this,” Greeley said pointing to what was left of Saunders’ head “is what I can’t understand.  The only thing I’ve seen capable of any tissue damage remotely like this is a hollow-point round.  But,” Greeley continued gesturing to the same area, “I’ve never seen a hollow-point, or anything for that matter, take someone’s head completely off like this.  And, from what I’m told, the head exploded.  There’s nothing I know of that can do that, especially at the distance indicated in Director Andrews’ report.”

Bledsoe never studied medicine when she was at school, but she had picked up on some basic points concerning ballistics.  She knew enough to know that everything Greeley said was right on the money, she continued to observe and listen intently.

“The other thing that bothers me,” Greeley continued, “is the fact that the shell was reduced to dust.”

Greeley grumbled a little, and it was obvious that this topic was a constant source of frustration for him.

“The only possible explanation I can think of is that the bullet used was some kind of exploding round.  But the only time I’ve ever even heard of one of those was when I saw ‘Day of the Jackal.’”

Bledsoe could only look on in confusion and couldn’t suppress a sense of wonder and dismay at who she was dealing with.

“This guy wasn’t only the best shot I’ve ever seen,” Greeley said, “he’s probably also the best equipped.”

“How do you know that dust is from the bullet?” Bledsoe asked.

“I told you we analyzed it,” Greeley said, “and we found traces of gunpowder mixed with whatever the shell is made out of.  If you look closely at it you can see some of the fragments shine.”

Bledsoe took the container and examined its contents.  There were some metal pieces, obviously the remains of the bullet that ended the life of Senator Saunders, but nothing stood out at first glance.  After looking at it for a moment she noticed the metal bits shining in the light.

“Do you have any idea what material this is?” Bledsoe asked holding the container up so that it was between her and Greeley.

“We have no idea what it is,” Greeley answered, “it’s some kind of metal that we’ve never seen before.  It certainly isn’t lead.  All we can determine is that it’s not an alloy, it seems to be composed of a single element.”

“You really have no idea what it is?” Bledsoe asked.

“None whatsoever,” Greeley said with a shrug mingled with genuine frustration.

Bledsoe let her gaze shift downward, looking for any excuse to not look above the Senator’s neck.  That’s when her eyes caught something she hadn’t expected.  She gazed at the senator’s downturned right arm, and saw stained blood surrounding the lower part of it between the tendons of the wrist.

“What’s that?” Bledsoe asked pointing to the area she’d just noticed.

“Oh,” Greeley answered, “I was so wrapped up in the little mystery up here that I forgot to go into the other one.”  He came next to Bledsoe and turned over the Senators’ forearm.

“I have no idea what the element making up the bullet is,” he stated, “but we think it might be composed of some kind of element that causes an adverse effect in the bloodstream.”

“What makes you say that?” Bledsoe asked equally intrigued by the wound on the forearm as she was of the shining metal shards in the container she was still holding.

“Take a look” Greeley invited as he finished turning over the arm.

Bledsoe set down the glass container and walked back to the table.  She let out a slight gasp at the sight that awaited her.  There was a long slash on the forearm that looked like it had been made by a thin, sharp knife.  The slash was bathed in dried blood and Bledsoe couldn’t take her eyes off it.

“There’s blood around it,” Bledsoe observed out loud, “that means it must have occurred around the same time that he died.”

“Exactly,” Greeley replied, “that’s why we’re looking into any kind of element or mineral that could cause disruption in the bloodstream.”

“What was the extent of this wound?” Bledsoe asked after she’d recovered enough from the initial shock.

“Hold his arm like this,” Greeley instructed almost sighing.

Bledsoe nodded and moved to where Greeley was standing and held Saunders’ arm in the same way Greeley had.  Greeley walked back to the desk and picked up a pair of tweezers.  He walked back to the forearm and carefully used the tweezers to move back the flesh around the slash.

Bledsoe noticed that there was a great deal of loose flesh, and that the right forearm was noticeably more defined than the left.  After a few moments Greeley had peeled back all the loose flesh and was now using the tweezers as a pointer.

“You see the flesh here,” he said to Bledsoe earning a nod, “well the only possible answer for this is that sometime after the bullet entered the head some kind of material entered the bloodstream.  Then, after entering the bloodstream, this mineral made an extremely precise cut and slash on this forearm and no other part of the body.  And finally after all that, caused an explosion strong enough to dislocate the adjoining shoulder and send blood shooting out of the slash onto the pavilion floor and the torso region of the victim’s shirt.”

There was a pause between the two of them as Bledsoe processed what Greeley had just said.  She looked at the wound and then over the entire body remembering all that had happened starting with when she’d looked into the haunting blue eyes floating in the darkness.

She took a good long look over the entire body of Senator Saunders, careful to take in every detail and embracing rather than shying away from the more shocking or gruesome aspects of her present task.

“Would you mind holding his arm?” Bledsoe asked Greeley, “I want to take some notes before I leave.”

“Not at all,” Greeley said moving back and deliberately attempting to smoothly brush his hand against Bledsoe’s.  She was so engrossed in her final observations and getting down all the information she could that she didn’t notice Greeley’s clumsy pass.  She was so consumed that she would not allow herself to feel uncomfortable or queasy.

After a few minutes she looked over her notes and the body one last time and decided that she was finished.  She closed the notepad and turned to face Greeley, extending her hand to him.

“Thank you Dr. Greeley,” she said politely, “you’ve been very helpful.”

“My pleasure,” Greeley said fighting off a blush, “if there’s anything else I can help you with,” Greeley handed her a business card, “give me a call.”

“I will,” Bledsoe said taking the card, “thanks again for everything” she added with a smile.

She walked out of the room, fully aware that Greeley would be staring after her.  She was so consumed with all she’d learned and going over what she should do next that she forgot about her gloves.  The gloves getting in the way of her opening the door out of the office brought her back to the present.

She took off the gloves and threw them away in a nearby trash can.  The smell of the substance Greeley had put on her still permeated her senses.

She went to her car and took a moment to clear her mind and think about what her next course of action would be.  She immediately knew that she had to watch the recording again, but this time she would have to watch the shooting itself.

Greeley was motionless in his office, still enjoying the lingering scent of Bledsoe.  He paused for a few moments, then went to the phone in the office and dialed a number.

“Hi,” Greeley said after a few moments, “you told me to let you know if anyone came snooping around…”

Dread mingled with frantic need filled Bledsoe’s mind as she sped off back to her apartment and the ordeal that awaited her there.  She barely noticed the traffic lights and other barriers between her and her destination as she drove.  Once she parked her car she quickly got out and ran back to her apartment, locking the car via remote as she sprinted back.  The pressing need to see the moment she’d been intentionally skipping over consumed her.

She turned on her TV with the disc from the rally still loaded and immediately fast forwarded to just before the shooting.  She let it play at normal speed and waited, oblivious to everything else that was going on except for every move that Senator Saunders made.  Her need to see what happened overpowered the internal stiffening that had previously come to her at that point.

She saw the Senator thank the crowd before seeing the graphic mess that occurred when the assassin’s bullet hit its mark and his head, along with the bullet itself, exploded.  Bledsoe struggled not to close her eyes and watched Saunders, the man who it had been her assignment and sworn duty to protect, fall to the ground.  She broke down inside at the reminder of her failed assignment, and her eyes watered with tears as the complete flood of memories of all that had transpired that night, beginning with the eyes that haunted her thoughts, came back to her.

She continued to watch the disc until it ended.  She couldn’t help a few more tears welling up in her eyes at seeing the moment when the hopes and bright future that Saunders had represented died with him, and remembered that it had been her post that was used to bring that about.

Bledsoe would have been weeping for hours, but she knew she had to be tougher than that.  After taking a moment to regain her composure, she backed the disc up to just before the shooting.

This time, she focused all her attention on the Senator’s right forearm.  She held her gaze, happy that she had something to focus on besides the gruesome sight of the Senator’s head at the moment of impact, and waited.

After a few seconds, she gasped in surprise as a quick, unnoticeable except for anyone who was watching that specific part, flash visible only at the end of the sleeve emanated.  This was accompanied by a bulge in the sleeve that Bledsoe was certain was the blood splash.  Saunders’ right arm jerking violently as if by some kind of explosion focused only on that limb followed, the ordeal concluded with his body falling to the ground.

Bledsoe moved the disc back to before the shooting, zoomed in as close as she could while still maintaining a view of the forearm, and played it at the slowest possible speed.  Her eyes widened in surprise at what she saw.

The moment the bullet hit Saunders, Bledsoe saw the beginning of the perfectly straight line she’d noticed at Greely’s office materialize just above the heel of his hand between the tendons on the forearm.  Bledsoe saw a grey mist exit through the jacket sleeve before the explosion of blood and arm jerking.  After she could tell that the bizarre show with the forearm had concluded, Bledsoe stopped the disc and stood up.

The expression on her face reflected that Bledsoe had no idea what to think.  She desperately attempted to formulate any explanation for what she’d just seen happen.  Bledsoe’s knowledge of the medical field was limited, but she knew enough to know that what she’d just seen was not normal or even feasible.

She considered taking the disc to Greeley to see what he thought.  Then, she thought of calling Andrews and telling him what she’d seen.  She was so awash in her sea of thought that it took the sound of her window shattering behind her to bring her back to the present.

[charlenelouise-gdc]

3.4 — FMP:

Fan Culture: FMP Development

After much thought, more research and further exercises, I came into the conclusion that I would like to pursue my third FMP idea revolving around fan culture. Even though I am passionate about all the subject areas from the other ideas and the way I plan on executing them, I feel like this is the right one to pursue at this stage of my creative career. I would like to use London as a resource to find content, as well as use the studio facilities available.

Overall, I think the project covers a topic that is both equally fun to do, but also something insightful and offer interesting commentary (on women, society and community). I like the challenge of bridging “low art” (pop music) and “high art” (documentary filmmaking). More so, documentary style filmmaking is one of my stronger skills as a creative, as proven by my FMP in Year 02, and is something I would like to build on. This project would allow me to level up my skills on this technique/style of filmmaking. I think there’s something comfortable as well as challenging in this project. 

The following bellow details some development I made on the idea, as the laying foundations for the project...

RECAP FROM THE EARLIER BLOGPOST:

“Fangirl” Culture

Like I said earlier, I’ve always wanted to champion women or pursue female centric stories in my work. Out of all the things out there regarding the feminine experience, nothing speaks more of it other than boybands and fandom culture. Its always been a persistent part of girl culture; whether it’ll be a pop band or a rock band. I think this would be an interesting world to explore.There’s already a preferred narrative around fangirls - the rabid, crazy kind. Although that is true in some extreme cases, it would be unfair to only present this as the only side of the story. I would like to show the other, more wholesome side. Fandom culture goes beyond the band and the music; in fact, they are only mere catalysts. Fandom culture is ultimately about identity and community; through the band and music, many young girls across the world is given the opportunity to own something and begin to have a good sense of themselves - ultimately forming an identity. Also, its about community; they’re able to connect with others and form strong bonds simply because of the band/music. You can see this, in the queues before gigs or the excitement they discuss their favourite member. Above all, it speaks about a different kind of joy that is often belittled.At present, a lot of the coverage around fandom culture are often done by people outside the community (with negative preconceived ideas which already suggest a bias). It would be interesting to see it from the people in the community themselves. I want to give the girls the voice and and let them reclaim the narrative. Ultimately, tell it from a loving lens. Also, I believe this is quite telling on how female passion is portrayed and what is acceptable, depending on the demographic. Football fans chanting? Perfectly fine. Girls screaming at concerts? Insane. This is aligned with women’s negative and dangerous relationship with hysteria throughout history. I think there is an interesting window to explore the social implications around fan culture. Additionally, I like the challenge of taking something from pop culture and considered as low art, and give it context and background. After all, it deserves to be studied carefully as much as its high art counterparts (From Stuart Hall’s theory Representation: feminine taste = low art, Masculine taste = high art). Above all, I think it would be equally as fun as well to do. It’s would be cool to celebrate fan culture, where its alive and present. Not just through a nostalgic lens. References: BTS’ documentaries: Bring The Soul (2019), “I used to be Normal” Documentary on fangirls across the ages (2018). 

FMP Development

I would still like to focus this project on BTS and their fans specifically. They’re the biggest boy band in the world right now and their fans are ones of the most active, both online and offline. I want to be able to document a part of this culture, while it is still happening and its best (rather than through a nostalgic lens). Most importantly, their work and music are monumental in many ways; they’re crossing boundaries, not only in the music but in race relations, toxic masculinity etc. Their global influence must not be undermined. 

Documentary Style

For this project, I would like to mix both real life footage to stylised setting. My main point of stylistic reference is Roxy Rezvany’s “Little Pyongyang”. She used a stylised set for her interviews, while also having real life, observational shots of her interviewees natural habitat/form. 

I think this would be a good technique to use for this documentary. 

I would like to build my own “teenage bedroom”. After all, this is one of the main touch points for fan culture and feminine culture in general. We learn so much about our tastes right there; this is evidenced in the posters on our walls and the CDs we used to collect. This is referenced a lot in Teen/Coming of Age films. I feel like this would an interesting setting for my interviews to take place. Anyway, it would be harder to film into people’s individual bedrooms. It would make filming easier if I can take my interviewees into one place, rather than going to theirs with my crew (setting up and wrapping up in all of them). More so, I think this is a good opportunity for me to use and improve my art direction skills (see image above for reference). I would decorate the set, referencing the 90s, personalised to a Kpop fan’s perspective (see reference above).

Content

The narrative will be crafted from the content being produced; the interviews will play a crucial role into this and will be the key part of this project. From the emotions to the personal anecdotes, it all stems from this. Therefore, I need to craft the interview questions I’m going to be asking, to trigger the “right” answers or reactions. More so, I really need to pay attention on the actual filming day, so the rhythm/energy of the interview is kept and the questions isn’t answered twice/already embedded on what they formally just said. More so, a technique I was taught/learned from my old FMP was to keep silent in some parts of the interviews, as the interviewees would naturally fill the silence themselves and bring their own thoughts onto the table. 

In terms of content, London is rich in terms of resources. It hosts so many hot spots for this fan culture and explore it in real life, in real time.

Some ways this can be executed:

Recall past major events (e.g. BTS Samsung AD that played in Piccadilly Circus that garnered so many fans).

Fan Hang-Out Places (e.g. Gaza cafe, specialising in Korean dessert, in Soho decorates their stores when members of the boybands and make special one-off desserts to commemorate their birthdays. A tradition among fans has then been developed where they make a pilgrimage to this place, to celebrate their favourite members’).

Replicating their steps (e.g. when BTS visited London in their last tour, they took pictures around London when they went exploring in their own time; fans replicated the pictures they took). 

Regular Kpop dance classes are held (e.g. BASE studios near Vauxhall).

BTS has an upcoming tour for their latest album, Map of the Soul:7, which includes London as one of their stops. There will be fan-led events leading up to the concert to celebrate their return. 

Potential Interviewees

There are few interviewees I think would be good options. Twitter was a good resource to look into, as it is one of the main hot spots for this culture to exist in. In particular, I would like to interview the following:

Lucy Ford (@lucyj_ford) - social media for Netflix

Ellie Bate (@eleanorbate) - buzzfeed reporter

Ikran (@ikran) - buzzfeed reporter

These girls are all what I call “professional fangirls”... They all have media jobs and respected in their profession, yet have unapologetic enthusiasm for BTS and their community (they have good followings on their social media too). They offer insightful but also equally fun things on the day to day through their twitter accounts; I think they would offer the same in a personal interview. Most importantly, they’re all close friends. I think they would have excellent chemistry on screen and their natural friendship would light up the interview. 

I would like to interview fans too, of all different backgrounds and races, inquiring how the band has impacted their lives. I want to achieve something similar to this, but communicated in my own personal style and design (rather than the typical, point and shoot interview). The content I want to capture is definitely there (in what they’re saying, how their band affected them personally, their community)...

Note: Professionally, I would like to only involve fans who are 18 years old and above, so it doesn’t interfere with filming; if I choose people who are 16 years old, it would require a legal guardian to sign a consent form and they have to be on set as we film - this could be a lot of hassle. Even though I’m not getting a full scope of the demographic this way, I think this would be the more sensible option. In addition, I feel like leaning towards the older end will give me more articulate, in depth answers. I think it would be a good idea to contact those who already has a platform, whether its a Twitter account with a reasonable following or a Youtuber who post videos. In a way, I feel they would feel more at ease at being in front of the camera and good at expressing opinions/feelings. I feel like I would do less teasing out of information during the interview if they naturally bring the information themselves.

I also plan on getting in touch with some UK based fanbases to help me boost the idea and find people to interview. This includes:

@BANGTANUK  @BTSUKUNITE @UKBTSARMATION @BANGTANSCHOLARS

____________________________________________________________

I look forward into narrowing this project further and progress onto fully forming the project. It feels very much my own and I’m ready to take care of it. 

Next steps:

Create proper pitch deck to send to interviewees*

Compile list of potential interviewees and rank them

Contact and introduce myself to interviewees

Create skeleton structure of the documentary*-

Create draft for interview questions*

Run a test interview (to check which questions work)*

Refine Set Design with accurate measurements*

Prop Buying

Contact potential Builders for the set

* urgent tasks - just because the film is non-fiction, planning is required and I must recognise where the beats of the film should be. This is something I failed to do in the D&AD project. Although I am crafting a narrative from non-fiction pieces of information and is dictated by the content of the interview, I should’ve known where to place them in advance. 

[corescorner]

Charmberry Cove Chapter Four.

Chapter Title: Settling In.

Wordcount: 4,818

AO3

Ch1, Ch2, Ch3.

Taglist: @unsocialchapeau @aularei @softest-emo

It's the day after the move and Virgil is already sick of all the boxes in his way and he misses his stuff, these walls are too bare and monotone; he wants his fairy lights and posters.

He needs to fix this, now.

Today is room arranging day he decides.

He stands in the middle of his room and looks around trying to figure out where to put what, he figures placing the large furniture is probably the first thing he should do before anything else.

He starts with the bed, moving it to the far left corner, diagonal from the door; moving the small side table next to it and putting his large, black fluffy carpet underneath that, the carpet takes up a lot of floor space but that's fine cause the floor is cold anyway.

Placing the bookshelf across from his bed in the far right corner and putting his desk next to that, close to the door. Yeah that looks good, so he now only has to place his dresser, T.V and bean bag chair.

The dresser fits perfectly on the wall that the door is on in the left corner but his T.V can't fit anywhere in here, his stereo goes on top of his dresser and takes up all the room. He moves it and the bean bag outside of his room for now.

He puts three CDs into the multi-stereo for them to shuffle between them while he works, cranking it up.

Now, for the fun part. Decorating.

He has three different fairy lights, the skull ones go directly above his beds headboard, the ghosts go on the other wall his bed is situated against and the bats go above his desk. Nice. He should get pumpkin ones next.

His posters are plentiful in number, he has enough to probably fill all the walls in this room if he spaced them out in an organized manner, but that's not his style. Instead of doing that he places them artfully around his room in collage like clusters and now there's still room to get more if he wanted to.

He starts to organize his books and collection of movies/shows on to his shelves, adding figures, knickknacks and toys.

Placing all the small stuff around and storing things in boxes under his bed that doesn't need to be out in the open, he's finally done his room.

He looks around at his hard work. He's proud of what he's done with it, it’s definitely cozy and very him. The rafters look like they can have stuff hanging from them; maybe he'll do that if he gets something that would go good there.

Walking out he almost trips on the bean bag chair. Well he does trip, but the chair is soft so it doesn't matter, no one needs to know.

His face scrunches up as he thinks of what to do with these.

Why not just... leave them out here? Make himself a makeshift living room.

Placing the television on a crate, with his game consoles on the floor in front of it and the chair in front of those. That's good for now.

Well, that was a lot of hard work. Rewarding though, he smiles to himself.

His stomach rumbling takes him out of his gazing.

Oh, yea it's probably around lunch time.

He checks his alarm clock on his nightstand.

Wait, what? It's four pm! How could he have not noticed how late it got, how come one of his dads didn't call down or lunch? Did his music drown them out? No they would have come down in that case...

He goes upstairs -Hex jumps off of the dryer to follow at his heels- he needs to check what's going on with his dads, they're probably just working as hard as he has been and they also lost track of time is all.

That's definitely it he tells himself.

Opening the door separating the basement from the rest of the house he stops in place looking around. They have been busy, there's not one box to be seen, all furniture and other items are in their rightful places and it's clean everywhere.

He peeks at the kitchen and it's the same there, same for the dining room that they're probably never going to actually use.

No dads to be seen. Hex chirrups up at him, he looks down at her mismatched eyes.

“I know, it's weird right?”

They must be working upstairs then. He hasn’t been up there at all yet, so that's where he heads. Hex ever his tiny shadow follows along.

When he reaches the top of the stairs, the first door he notices is to his left and it leads into a large bathroom, there's another door on the same wall a bit farther down that is only slightly open.

To his right there's a door that is fully open so he goes to that one, standing in the doorway he realizes it's a large master bedroom, his parent’s room.

It's the length of the whole floor and there's a bay window to his left from where he's standing in the doorway.

On the other side of that is their bed, which actually takes up quite a bit of space in the large room. He's not sure why they have such a big bed, every time he's seen them sleep they're always cuddled together or tangled around each other in the middle of it, seas of bed on either side of them.

It's a very plush bed though. Dad doesn't seem like he sleeps often but with everything sleep related he's very nit-picky about.

He leaves this room, cause there's no Dads here either.

So that leaves the slightly open door on the other side of the hall.

He creeps up to it, to see if there's any sound coming from beyond the door.

He only hears typing so he knocks.

Pops’ voice answers it “come on in!”

Virgil steps into the room that is clearly Pops' office, everything is set up and in order on this floor too. No wonder they haven't seen each other all day.

“Hey Virge, what's up?” Pops asks, stopping his typing to look at Virgil.

“Um, where's Dad?” Is his first question.

“Oh!” -Pops jostles himself upwards a bit- “He went to figure out the funeral plans and deal with will stuff, he wanted to go alone to make it a quick experience” he explains.

“Okay, what's for supper?” His second question.

Pops shakes his head a little and looks towards his computer monitor.

“Oh gosh! I didn't notice it was this late, I'm so sorry about that buddy you must be hungry.”

Virgil shrugs, he could have made himself something if it was just lunch after all. “It's alright, I didn't notice the time either until I finished setting up my room, I couldn't fit the T.V and bean bag though so I made myself a little living room area.”

Pops smiles wide “that's such a good idea Virge! We should get a couch, oh and more bean bag chairs in case you bring home friends.” His voice was cheery throughout the sentence but that didn't stop Virgil from frowning.

“I don't have any friends Pops” he says, stuffing his hands into his hoodie pockets and looking away. Hex slinks around his ankles and props herself on her hind legs, her two front ones resting on his shins.

He picks her up, cuddling her to his chest in the same way Patton did yesterday, she immediately starts to purr.

Pops’ face falls slightly before brightening up again.

“What about that Patton kid who helped you move in yesterday?” He asks like he knew what Virgil was thinking.

Virgil wrinkles his nose. “I don't think that counts as being friends?” he says with a questioning tone.

Emile laughs softly, “well don't tell him that.”

Virgil squints “you really think we're friends?”

“Absotutely I do!” his smile is genuine, Virgil softens a bit.

He gets up off his puffy office chair, slapping his hands to his thighs as he does so.

“How about some dinner huh?” He asks, fluffing Virgil's hair as he walks past him out of the office.

Virgil follows him down the stairs, he drops Hex as she wriggles in his grasp and then she darts to his chair in the living room to sleep. Fine, he sees how it is.

They walk into the kitchen and Emile claps his hands once and addresses Virgil.

“What would you like for dinner tonight? Your dad should be back soon-” he checks the time on the stove clock “-we should start making it so it's ready for when he's back, wanna be my Little Chef?”

“You're lucky Dad isn't here for that Ratatouille reference” Virgil smirks.

“It had nothing to do with him, he'd be fine” Pops says, sticking out his tongue, cause ya'know he's an adult.

“Well if you didn't go overboard with quoting it at him when it came out, he'd be even better.” Virgil now with a shit eating grin in place, sticks his own tongue out.

“You sassafrassin' me mister?”

“Of course not Father Dearest.” He slaps on a fake smile that reads 'I'm being good, honest'.

Emile nods his head once in a quick motion that says 'that's that then' and smiles at Virgil goofily, turning around to face the fridge he opens it with a flourish simply exclaiming: “food!” He drops his arms limply, staring into the fridge. “Huh, well okay then” he says lowly.

Turning to Virgil and closing the door he claps his hands, keeping them together and raised to his mouth.

“Here's the thing-” he starts, pointing his clasped hands towards Virgil “-there's no food,”

“What?” Virgil deadpans, Pops smiles sheepishly.

“Well we did everything and forgot to grocery shop, I forgot we we're supposed to do that today but we couldn't cause Remy got called in for will stuff from the lawyer guy” his hands gesture left and right while talking as if to state his points.

“You don't have to explain yourself to me Pops.”

“I know. Now what do ya wanna order?” Emile asks with a wide smile, cell phone already in hand.

“Do you need to ask?” Virgil replies, Pops looks at him over the rim of his glasses like Dad would.

“You could want Chinese.”

Oh, that actually does sound good. His face must have shown his thoughts cause Pops giggles and admits: “Actually, I want Chinese.”

Virgil looks at him unimpressed.

“Hey! There's this really amazing place here that I haven't had for ages and I still know the number, your Dad and I used to get take out from there basically every Friday when we lived here, we were just out of collage living with Clem at the time” he has a soft smile on his lips, “ah memories.”

He stops dialling the number like he just realised something.

“What if it's not there anymore” he whispers, eyes wide.

Virgil shifts where he stands “you won't know until you try?” He says slowly.

“Right you are Virge” and he presses the call button.

Virgil can hear the rings, once, twice, thrice? Whatever, three times. Then the other line picks up, he can't hear the other person but Pops' smile is wide enough to tell him that they're gonna be having Chinese tonight.

Pops talks on the phone longer than necessary for a food order so Virgil sits on his chair with Hex, petting her lazily.

After about twenty minutes he hangs up.

“Wow, I wasn't expecting it to be the same people and for them to remember me! That's pretty Wild Thornberries” he says cheerily, Virgil snickers and rolls his eyes at the unnecessary cartoon reference.

Pops’ phone blips and his head instantly snaps down at it like it startled him, a smile breaks across his face.

“Remy's on his way back, good timing too” he muses.

He always has good timing Virgil thinks.

Pops takes plates and cups out of the cupboards, silverware out of the drawers and places them on the breakfast bar. He looks at them in contemplation for a moment. Virgil has an amused look on his face watching his father balance everything on the plates and then trying to balance those in his hands, the glasses wobble and Virgil figures he should help, so he gets up to grab the cups from their precarious positions, Pops pouts.

“I could've done it, I worked at a diner in collage you know” he states.

“I do know, that's where you met Dad, I've heard that story a lot. I just wanted to help you not break anything” he says placing them on the coffee table, Emile does the same with his handful.

Virgil practically throws himself on his large cushy chair, disturbing Hex's perched slumber.

Pops sits on the couch, turning the television on and switching to their recorded shows.

“Wanna watch the newest episode of Gravity Falls while we eat?” he says waggling the clicker.

“That's another 'not question' Pops” he replies.

“Not necessarily, you changed you mind about pizza, how do I know if you'd wanna watch something else” he says with a kind smirk and head waggles.

The front door opens, Dad comes in with a few plastic bags.

“I ordered Chinese!” Emile says brightly, moving his head around the couch to keeps his eyes on his husband while Remy walks into the kitchen to deposit the bags.

He slips his shades on to the top of his head “Oh my god I love you” he says sauntering over to the couch and dropping himself next to Emile, laying on him in exhaustion he lets out a long sigh. Emile runs his hand through Remy's hair, snagging the sun glasses removing them from Remy's person, setting them aside and continues scratching Remy's scalp.

“Aw hon, you have a rough day?” He asks softly.

As much as he loves his parents, these little tender moments that they unabashedly share makes Virgil feel like he's intruding in on something private, he shifts playing with his hoodie zipper.

“Nah not too bad like, considering” Dad answers waving a hand in the air. “Dice is coming down tomorrow for the funeral on Wednesday” he informs, Virgil jerks his head towards his dads.

“How long is he staying?” Virgil asks.

“Like, a week or so, don't worry you'll def get uncle bonding time.” He can't see his Dads face from this angle but he can hear the smile in his tone, he continues talking in a softer voice, “he wants to help clean out Moms apartment, said he's gonna stay over there for the week, I was thinking of staying with him.”

Emile, never stopping from petting his husband, has a soft, sweet smile playing on his lips he answers in the same tone Remy spoke in. “That's alright honey, do what you need to do. Virge and I will still be here when you get back, we can handle being by ourselves can't we Pumpkin King?” Pops turns his soft expression to Virgil.

“Yea, we can handle a couple of days without you...”

“Hey, you guys can totes come and help us pack stuff up if you wanted, we can all check out the cafe together.”

The doorbell rings.

Emile nudges Remy “you're gonna have to move hon”

Remy whines “Ugh, but do I really?”

“If you want food you do, silly” he boops Remy's nose.

Remy playfully rolls his eyes and whines dramatically this time “fiiiiine, you win Picani.”

“Always do” Emile says, placing a kiss to his forehead as he gets up.

As Pops pays for the food Virgil goes to the episode titled 'The Time Traveller’s Pig' to start it when ready.

Dad hands Virgil a plate, cup and utensils then gets up to retrieve two two litre sodas from the bags he brought home.

They eat and watch Gravity Falls, commenting here and there about certain parts of the episode.

They stay there, in the living room watching more shows that they've recorded for a couple of hours, styrofoam containers and dishes littered around. The living room is warm and comfortable, Hex purring curled up in his arms as he's curled up on his chair. Virgil feels like he might fall asleep.

He hears Dad chuckle, then soft carpeted footsteps coming towards his chair, he lazily opens his eyes looking up at his Dad standing just at the base of his chair smiling softly down at him. He closes his eyes again as Dad just bends down and with zero effort he picks Virgil up like a baby, Virgil's head resting in the crook of his neck.

“He must be super tired, it's not even close to how late he usually stays up” Pops whispers, “he was working in the basement all day today,” a hand brushes his bangs to the side.

“Well, we should totes go marvel at his hard work shouldn't we?”

Virgil feels movement then hears the basement door creak; he feels the motion of going down the stairs and hearing them groan in protest as they descend.

He hears Pops gasp “oh look at how cute this little corner is that he set up, we should get more comfort items down here for him.”

He feels Dad nod while hearing his bedroom door swish open, he doesn't turn on the main light, but from the soft glow and small click Virgil assumes one of his fairy lights was turned on.

“Nice, he like really worked his ass off with this room huh?” Dad whispers.

He feels a kiss on his forehead, then he's being lowered in his bed, the blankets cover him Dads hand is on his head and a whispered “sweet dreams Pumpkin.”

Virgil is out before they leave his room.

 ~ 

 Virgil wakes up with Hex snuggled under the covers with him, his skull lights giving off a low glow around his bed, he looks to his side to read his alarm clock.

7:33 am. Okay, earlier than he usually wakes but it's fine. It's Monday and school starts in a week’s time so he should probably start getting used to the early hours again he reasons to himself.

So instead of doing what he wanted, which was to curl around his cat and go back to sleep, he wrenches the blankets off of himself, Hex opens her blue eye to look at him in a way that he thinks she'd be saying 'excuse you, I'm still sleeping', so he covers her up again.

Walking to his dresser he gets out his clothes for the day and decides to take a shower, which he supposes is going to be in his personal bathroom basically, considering he practically claimed the basement as his.

Neat, he's never had his own bathroom before. Maybe he'll decorate it too.

After his shower he goes upstairs to see if there's at least cereal to eat.

“Mornin' Dad” he murmurs then double takes. That's not his dad.

Uncle Dice is sitting at their breakfast bar, laptop open in front of him, large travel mug full of black coffee in hand. He looks at Virgil, his large rounded sun glasses nestled in his hair which happens to be up in a messy bun.

What's with the Tempest brothers and sun glasses?

“How's my favourite nephew?” He asks.

“I'm your only nephew, not many choices to work with, you're stuck with it” Virgil mutters.

“Okay, none of that. It just means I don't have others to disappoint when I choose you, I know what I'm talkin' about. I'm a professional.” He says matter of factually. Waving his hand towards the other counter “I brought breakfast” he says as an afterthought.

Virgil smiles he goes straight to hug his uncle, Dice hugs back immediately. “Did you drive all night?” He asks muffled by Dice's shoulder.

“Mmn, something like that” he pats Virgil's head.

Virgil moves away, looking around the kitchen noticing the distinct lack of fathers.

“How'd you get in?” he asks quizzically, Dice puts a finger to his own lips in the universal sign for 'shh'.

“I have my ways” he says cryptically, Virgil can respect that.

 ~

Virgil is finishing his breakfast while Uncle Dice has been typing furiously at his keyboard, when Pops bounds down the steps still in his rumpled sleep clothes, he doesn't stop in confusion to ask when Uncle Dice got there or asks how he got in, so Virgil assumes that he's the one who let him in.

“Heya Die! Rem told me that you were here” he cheerily says.

Okay, so maybe not. Dad then.

“Oh yea? And he can't come down here to greet his older brother?” He begins.

Or not?

“His rating as a brother is lowering in ranks with every interaction, or well, lack thereof. That's why you're my favourite Emi” he finishes.

“Yea just keep talkin' out of your ass brother dearest. I like, actually have a life” Dad says coming down the stairs. “Also, don't like, flirt with my husband.”

“I'm not flirting, I'm stating a fact” his lips turn up in a lopsided playful smirk.

“Children, please” Emile says with his hands up in a placating way, “play nice or I'll have to separate you.”

Virgil snorts harshly, hand flying to his mouth.

“So, what ungodly hour did you drop in here?” Dad asks pouring his own large mug of coffee, also pouring some in Pops' cup as well before handing it to him.

“Four am, no biggie” he says with a shrug.

“Four am, gurl you've been sitting in my kitchen since four freakin' am?”

“I had work to keep me preoccupied, it wasn't that long of a wait don't feel too bad about it” Uncle Dice says in a playful mocking tone.

“Oh I don't, no worries there” he sips his coffee, “and you like, judge people for a living, I call that playing.”

The brothers stare at each other, neither of them willing to crack into the fit of laughter that Virgil knows they want to erupt in, but this is a game and one of them is going to win.

“You would think it's all play you demon. It's very serious work you know” Uncle Dice says his smile wide enough that it almost made him lose.

Dad is glaring a bit, Pops hops into the conversation once again.

“Alrighty! What shall we do today?”

“What shall we do?” Virgil mimics and Pops smiles wide.

Dice sighs “I was just waiting for Rem to get up so we can loot Moms apartment” he gets up and closes his laptop; he waits pointedly for Dad to hurry up. Which, he doesn't.

“Mmm” he 'thinks' on it “fine, I guess. We're taking your car though.”

He refills his mug before stepping up to Emile, planting a light kiss on him “you boys can come and check out the cafe in about an hour if you want to do that today” he says, pressing keys into Emile's hands.

Pops hums and steals another kiss before letting his husband go with his brother.

They leave and Virgil asks the question he had since this whole interaction started.

“How the heck did he get in?”

Pops laughs almost, nervously? “You know what, I have no clue.”

 ~

Virgil is playing on his (previously Dads) purple see-through Game Boy Colour, while Pops takes a shower and gets ready for the day.

He's sitting sideways in his chair his legs dangling off an arm, head resting on the other. Game Boy held up above his head, Hex is sleeping on his stomach; Pokémon music coming from the small speakers on the hand held.

“Hey Virge!” Pops yells from the top of the stairs “get ready bud we're leaving in ten okay?”

He doesn't bother answering, too focused on a battle at the moment. Pops won’t expect an answer anyway.

He finishes the battle before Pops comes down stairs so he sits there petting Hex in comfortable silence, minus her purring. Which honestly just made it more comfortable.

Barley two minutes later he comes downstairs, dressed in very casual clothing as opposed to his 'work clothes', a faded grey Voltron shirt under a loose pink cardigan that’s left open.

“Ready?” He asks, Virgil gets up and places Hex on the cushion, and off they go into town.

Town square is about a ten minute drive from home and they pass by the school on their way there. It’s awfully small and they put all the grades from Kindergarten to grade eleven in there, how?

They park right in front of the cafe, it’s one of several shops littered around this area, seems like this is the shopping part of town. There isn’t much though. He did take note of a cool looking antique shop that might be fun to look through.

Pops takes the keys Dad gave him earlier that morning out of his jeans pocket to unlock the cafe and they step in.

He doesn't know why he thought it would be old and dingy or even abandoned maybe. It was up and running just last week after all.

But it looks nice and clean, it has a homey vibe to it with nice worn couches and mismatched chairs with mismatched tables scattered around. The colour of the walls are a lilac with yellow accents, there are lanterns and fairy lights strung about the room and the crystals hanging in the large windows throw rainbows in all directions thanks to the sun.

It’s beautiful and Virgil could see himself spending a lot of time in here.

“Okay, I'm gonna go check out the kitchen to see if I still know my way around it” Pops informs, then adds: “the stairs at the far end wall go up in to the apartment, it's the second entrance so we're going to get rid of it before renting it out. My point is, it should be unlocked right now, go see if you can find your Dad and Uncle hm?”

He doesn't give a verbal response, he just walks to the stairway. Being on top of the staircase shows him a closed door with muffled voices coming from behind it.

He opens the door but pauses before he can get very far, his uncles voice stopping him cold in his tracks.

“You have to tell him soon Remy.” He sounds agitated.

“Mind your own business, I didn't hire your judgey ass to rate my decisions Die” Dad spits out.

“You know that's so not what I'm doing! I'm just trying to look out for you, for Virgil! Don't you want to warn him before anything happens?” Uncle Dice hisses. 

Virgil flinches. They're arguing about... him?

“Don't you dare use my son like that, you know very damn well I'd kill for that boy! He's just not ready yet and I don't think you have any say in this matter!” Dad says his words dripping venom.

Uncle Dice scoffs “okay, but what about The Cove? If you don't tell him soon, something will it's just a matter of time.”

“I have enough time I'll tell him when it's time to tell him” he sounds like he's talking through gritted teeth.

“He's already twelve Rem, you remember when you were twelve? How hard that was on you without any guidance?”

Virgil doesn't know what to do. He's rooted to the spot. He's not sure if he wants to listen anymore. But it feels like he should know. But if Dad says he's not ready to know whatever this is, then... should he trust that? Should he walk away like he heard nothing? 

“He's not like me Die, he's-” Virgil makes noise to signal to them that someone is coming and walks through the door.

Dads head is snapped to his direction, shades folded in his shirt collar -which he only does when extremely angry, too many times knocking them off his head while flailing his hands make that their temporary home-

He looks spooked, and angry. Virgil's never seen him like this.

“Oh” he falters “I didn't notice anyone coming in the building” he says nervously, Virgil lifts his shoulders a tiny fraction in a pathetic shrug.

Dad looks worried for him “you okay Pumpkin?”

He does a half nod, half shake of his head. He can't form words right now, too much going on, too many thoughts screaming at him.

Dads expression melts into something soft and understanding, a warm smile now in place of the scared scowl he walked in on. He opens his arms and Virgil rushes into the hug.

“Just one of those quiet days hm?”

Virgil nods/shrugs noncommittally.

Uncle Dice, hasn't said anything or even looked his way since he came in.  

[zeroglitchtic-blog]

Here To Change It All...

Hey Guys -

So hmmm… What can I say? Ok, well I have been working on this Business Plan for the past 13 years. I took the past 13 years and developed a final plan to solve Homelessness, Poverty, and Sexual Exploitation. It took me around 3 years just to get an idea about and to learn how Crypto Currency can fund the entire business. Unfortunately due to Crypto Currency Mining the video cards I need for it are about $4,500.00ea. And I need 20 of them to complete one Build. On another note I invented a game app and the other night I invented another App idea too. It will be cool to get them made for real. Right now I’m kind of in an obsession with this Pastel Goth look and I want to create my own look by taking some Bell Bottoms from this company called Gypsy Rose and a cool Hoodie and then order Bulk Boxes of the same color Boas and a Hemp Back Pack and some clothing LED Lights and to sew them on to the clothing really carefully to get an amazing look and to buy some books on Cosplay Makeup, Glam Makeup, and Tutorials on Makeup for Black People and create my own Glam Goth look. I want to produce the images into products for my new store when I open it. I have worked for over a decade on my plan to rescue the homeless, people in need, exploited kids and adults and it took me three years of researching Ethereum Mining to0 figure out how I would fund my company. One NVIDIA.com Video card will cost me around $4,500.00 to get the best one they have and the most profitable of them and my build that I designed takes 20 Video Cards and brings in around $10K/mo. So I’ll make Hundreds of Thousands of them and fill every business location I gets basement with as many Builds as will fit and warehouses full of them too. Once I get going a lot of people will want for little anymore. I told my fiancé that I would set him up with another personal place of his own, like a loft or something and have several Ethereum Miners there just for him and I’ll show him how to use them and make money with them so that we’ll be on more equal footing and I’ll have legal documents setup that will supply him with his own place and no matter what our relationship turns out to be that I can’t cut him off or affect him in any way to upset his stability and financials. I hope to have it setup before we get married. I plan on having several locations to live over time but one of the very first locations that I get and setup is going to be a three bedroom apartment that I’ll setup to be displayed on my company’s home page in the same way that a 365 degree display of Real Estate Property is displayed except that I hope to use the help of Ad Agents to have special products setup, like displays from Coca Cola, and other Brands and to get the Companies displayed to provide donations for the advertisements.

I hope to land contracts that are with like laundry soap and cleaning supplies and brands of Pre-Paid Credit and Gift Cards, and Electronics, etc. To use only their brands at my locations for special discounts or with some kind of residual donations from them, so things like Bed Bath and beyond and Companies that sell bedding and so on. I hope to get special accounts or even to open Hundreds of Reseller Accounts and purchase from my own accounts. I’ll have fractureme.com High Def Glass Photos hanging on the walls that display images of homelessness and people living in poverty, etc. As the artwork and otherward the location will be setup with Height of Technology in i9t and Luxury and excellent decorations and renovations with new smart appliances and if possible in home laundry too. The entire apartment will be setup to look as if a family lives there that has two kids, a boy and girl and the rooms will be fully setup and stocked with clothing and desks and school supplies, software, text books, reading books, game stations and games, CDs, DVDs, Anime, and Desktop and Laptop on the bed with MP3 Player and cell phone on its charger and even a few pieces of trash in the trash cans and so on, even the adults rooms will be setup the same with a Home Office and files in the living room, etc. Every room will come with their own safes and have finger print and key pad locking doors and in the safes will c0ome an envelope full of cash and several types of pre-paid cards. The computers will be top of the line and Extreme types, totally maxed out, with extensive external Hard Drives and full of useful software that is fully paid for and more. Once the 365 degree walkthrough Video is made than everything will be packed into specially positioned glass cases for display, so like the laptop, cell phones, digital cameras, camcorders, Gift Cards, and some other things will go into displays so that when there are walk trough's to help gain donors less can be stolen easily. I will spend a lot of time setting up the location with a simply safe security system and register everything in the apartment with renters insurance and register them with their own individual companies. I’ll have the entire place setup with services and each room with smaller Ethereum Miners that work and are actively earning money and have monitors on the walls that display the earnings and exchanges pricing in each room. But the apartment will be maintained by my financial Company that I get. Every Account would be active, the lease, the cable, the Home Phone, mobile phones, Internet, and all the individual emails, and all the software will be registered to those emails and even Turn-Key online businesses and so on setup as examples and displays for the apartment and newsletters, and more with ads for the Turn-Key Businesses. The files in the Offices and kids rooms will hold the Hard Copy files of all the Accounts and Registration Info and Gamer Info. Emails and Advertisement info and more, including the online versions, Browser favorite links, and profile saves, address books filled out and more. It seems like a lot but every tiny detail will be through of from every item being photographed and filed with their own insurance, registrations, and receipts, to even unique personally searched out and handpicked USB Drives that are installed with PortableApps.com software and paid versions of the software on those apps and all of it filed and registered both digitally and in Hard Copy.

And there will be a personalized welcome Manual for each person and all their accounts and how the apartment works, the Wi-Fi locks, the smart TV Accounts, their personal safe’s codes, and every computer log-in, how and where to find all their Hard Copy and Digital Account info and if something comes up missing or breaks how to file for renters insurance to replace it and police reports and how to contact their financial Agent for financial Aid and for when they want to go to college or to file a new bill or account for them to manage and also how their personal Ethereum Miner earns them their own money so that they are not tied to their financial allowance’s leash. There will be so much attention to detail because it will be the display house/apartment used for fund raising. It will be decorated and setup with extra details like Artist’s Piggy Banks around the rooms to collect donations and drop safes for people to donate Pre-Paid Cards and Checks and Cash, cell phones and I’ll have a Turn-Key Business in the home that people can buy and donate gift cards and cell phones, clothing cards, and tablets, laptops and to donate money by credit cards too. I’ll even setup cat climbing towers in all the corners and High End cat walks and rests on the walls and toy holders, etc. even Automatic cat boxes that clean and wash their own litter and cat supplies and dog products if the apartment allows dogs and more considerations that are suited for hosting gatherings and even just ease of today’s technological society like a moveable arm under a cabinet in the kitchen that holds a water proof tablet that is dedicated solely to cooking sites, and Home Food Delivery services. There will be cool little personal touches too from unique USB Drives to interesting lamps like this collectors Yoda Lamp and displays of air plants and even like on the desks will be pencils and pens with my company’s custom website on them and possibly even Antique Typewriter on a typing desk with several boxes of extra ribbon and Company Letterhead Quality Paper stacked next to it, possibly with a sheet in the type writer with the beginning page of one of my novels on it or a letter addressed to my First Business Location. And a typed and stamped addressed envelope next to it. I’ll do things like add magazines to the coffee table and things like expensive items will get locked inside display cubes or fastened to where they are. But most of the place will be meant to be fully interactive and the greeters and Hosts of the Donor Parties will be able to show the guests the fully interactive features of the apartment and all of its services, etc. From Posters on the kid’s walls and little Anime and Action Figurines to online Gamer Merchandise of in-game-content from the most popular games like Fortnight and stuff and most of the Books and movies will be excellent Sci-fi Hard Copy Novels of the Greats and books I’ve Loved. The Anime will be Deluxe Full Seasons with all the extra content and really cool 0ones and really good DVD Collections that are kid appropriate and in the parents room they will have more Adult titles like the complete Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal TV Series and Dexter Series, and John Wick Series and other Good Ones and in the kids room will be Ultimate Gamer Setups in a relaxation area away from sight of the desk so the kids won’t game and watch TV while they do homework and out of the bed area so they can have a shut down time and not game and stuff while they are supposed to shut down and sleep and they’ll have an Xbox, Play Station and Gamer Computer with all the VR and Bells and Whistles and even google Home Video Slate Devices on their Desk and By their Beds. The home will have several of them by each sitting area and then the Dot versions mounted on walls around the halls and a water proofed one in the bathroom so that there is whole home connectivity along with all the Tablets and Laptops and PCs connected to the Norton Secured Network as well as smart lights and even security cameras and a Door Peep Hole Device that Projects a large Video of who is at the door and takes photos of who comes to the door and sends it to the owners phone and that also allows for smart lock activation. The apartment will be the epitome of Beauty, Luxury, and Comfort and people that come to the home will be able to view installed manikins that are wearing company uniforms for all around seasons and types, the most expensive being the Winter ne that comes with heated gloves and socks and shoe insoles and Extreme Cold Military Boots and heat shell Jackets and full snow outfits. The outfits will come with their own pedestals that will have fliers on them that explain what the services that they go to are and the equipment needed for each one, like the House Keeping one, the Personal Assistant, the Odd Job, and snow removal, the Food Delivery one and like how much it will cost for the work vans and trucks and snow blowers and shovels and painting/cleaning supplies and the storage unit rentals for the equipment and cost of the uniforms that will each have my company Logo Embroidered on them and on each will be an employee Tag just like all employees will have. Another presentation will be video presentations played on loops on the screens in the living room that explain how my company will hire students fresh out of colleges that are entering the fields of nursing, psychology, and social work, legal aid, and about the services that will come with my company that will help any homeless person with absolutely nothing and addiction issues fully recover their lives with personally adapted services and complete financial support so that even if they are dealing with drug issues that they won’t need to sell their new property or prostitute for funding and that they will receive full support while they attend to their rehab needs as well as fully paid trade and college schooling and financial investments that are everything from timed trust payouts at major age milestones, to retirement and regular funds for travel around the world. There will be full employment programs inside my company and in the mainstream markets and my company will pay companies to keep employees hired and to hire people in need as well as options for customers that do things like use our yard service as incentives to keep my employees hired like getting major yard work done, in ground lawn sprinklers installed and landscaping, home repairs, and other improvements and upgrades to their utilities and home like the best water heaters, Hot Tubs, new Fences and so on to keep my company on contract for lawn care and snow removal and housekeeping and food delivery and so on. It will all be done by professionals in the fields when done and then my clients will up keep it with a flawless and no questions asked insurance and replacement process in case something is ever broken or stolen and there will be tons of other services since everyone in the world suffers from some state of poverty and need, that my company will collect even my customers into my fold and provide them with financial aids, paid schooling, debt payment, and doing things like picking up car and home payments and medical needs. Some families that have Autistic Children or Severally Handicapped family members or people with major medical needs or who are getting too old to take care of those family members, my company will search out and supply them with things like 24/7 live in Aids and money for uncovered medicines or experimental Treatments that their HMOs won’t cover and cosmetic Treatments and more. My company will do more than just that. I’ll use schools of Architecture to create fortified locations of Housing for over 100 Ethereum Miners that will bring in over $1 Million per month and have them built into schools so that teachers will be able to receive Top Pay and the schools will have more than enough for the best in school supplies and equipment and teaching Aids and like an example would be that the limited language learning classes would have a full computer network setup with every language that Rosetta Stone’s Language software offers and every student will have the ability to choose what language to learn. There will be funds for every extracurricular activity and my plans are to adopt the Chinese and Japanese attendance unit where kids swipe in and out of classes except I’ll make it so that kids will actually get paid cash to attend classes and to do homework and extra credit and science fairs and if they aren’t doing well to get tutors and to help others and that it will do things like give economics classes real money and be able to do real things with the money and learn firsthand and school papers and news how to do very real publications and run ads and more. My company will invest in local Mom & Pop shops and the community and get them to keep selling at rock bottom prices but selling High End Products so that the struggling community that uses them will suddenly be able to afford things like really good toilet paper, and snacks for their kids and eat well every day and even though I won’t be able to reach everyone and help the whole city, by proxy the community will become happier and their mood change will make the community better as a whole. I’ll do the same for places that serve food and coffee shops too so that they can drop their prices and use better quality foods and cleaning supplies and decorations and pay better because than the community will be able to come out and eat more and have more family experiences to build a healthier family around and memories and the community will become stronger for it. I’ll do things like take a Digital Camera and GoPro and go to every run-a-way shelter, and battered woman’s shelter and Underground Railro0ad project and Drop-In Center and Teen Challenge Center and photograph the entire area and interview everyone and find out what they need and what needs fixing and what they wish they could provide and install the best beds and most comfortable sheets and fluffiest comforters and turn them into wonder locations and expand their services and get all the kids and people new clothing and school supplies and make it rain and put them on above comfortable expense accounts. I’ll do the same for Orphanages and Un-Adopted kids that are too old, all the while setting up Luxury Apartments and Auction Houses and emptying out every shelter and soup kitchen and giving these Betrayed Souls what society should have done for them from day one. There are a million tiny things that I’ll be doing and I’ll write you all about them in upcoming letters. It took me 9 years to figure out how to do all this and it will take major Donors and Corporate Donors for me to afford to build enough Ethereum Miners to afford to do it quickly. But I’m going to dedicate the rest of my life to thi9s. Mommy Anne is giving me a $10,000.00 Trust and I’ll put it into my first beginner Ethereum Miner and it will only earn me about $2K/mo. And I’ll have to save and buy more of the best NVIDIA Video Cards and add to it. My build will hold 20 Cards and cost me around $88.505.70 to complete and make me around $10K/mo. when done. My goal is to reach 100 builds as fast as possible using Kickstarters.com and every crowd funding site on the internet and every social media network from around the globe. My work won’t just start and stop in Minnesota or even the USA. Once I am at a point where I have enough Ethereum Miners I’ll be able to expand them at a rate of 50-100 or more at a time creating $1 Million/mo. Jumps in income and higher with more donors and my work will jump boarders and I’ll hire kids and young adults from ar0und the world to locate and rescue their needy and sexually exploited and Brothel Children and people living in Poverty. I just hope I can do it fast enough to see it all happen before I die. I would start gofundme.com and kickstarter.com and dozens of other crowd funding sites and spread them across every social media and network possible but I need a cell phone. I’d also write to several Ad Agencies and give them a rundown of my plans and what I want them to do and have them create the Crowd Funding Ads for me because each site is different, has different formats, options for photos and Banners, and voice and the amount of words for each site and burn them onto disc for me and label them so that when I get out all I have to do is cut and paste and upload image 1,2,3 into spot 1,2,3 and know that there’s no grammar errors and I don’t come off sounding like a scam artist but I have no money for that. I’d also like to get Uncle Steve to help me setup my Business Financials so it’s fully tax exempt and so I can do angel giving like write random checks or give out cash or life time paid phones and more and write it off but he refuses to acknowledge me. Anyways… I haven’t written or spoken too many of you in over a couple decades and I wanted to tell you about my new life. Oh I’m an ordained Minister now too. There are several fun things that I want to do that are just to do because they are fun and good for the kid at heart and things that all kids wish they could do. I want to invest a lot into kid’s lives and their fun factor so I want to do things like get big into street fashion from around the world and to create an opportunity for kids to dress in amazing outfits from Japan and that are High Fashion and Cosplay styles and totally awesome so that going to school and dressing up crazy and amazing just becomes a daily part of life. In schools I want to start Drone Racing Programs with Regulation Drones and awesome courses. I want to get schools into robotics and nautical robotics and aerial Drones and to inspire kids to create water cleaners and air cleaners and alternate fuel and to program the most popular Virtual Reality World Communities as classes and to setup classes that have real life work training to them like how to use complicated office copiers and corporate email systems and multi-line phone setups and digital faxes and to change toners and create orders and write and produce proposals for meetings and run projectors and make digital presentations transfer from your personal office to the proper conference room on time and run flawlessly and to be able to do it using multiple types of software and types of the leading tools found in companies today.

I want to create several Safe Zone Houses in Drug Zones that were “Trap Houses” where people use drugs or sell drugs out of and clean them out and fix them up really well and set them up to be locations that street kids can come and Game and to get Hot meals and Great sandwiches at any time Day or Night and that people can come and get Hot Showers and wash their clothing and get Hygiene Products and fresh underwear and new clothing and shoes and Back Packs and school supplies and can get medical care from the nursing staff and have emergency beds Sometimes prostitutes and Drug Addicts need a hot shower, some good food to eat and a place that is safe to sleep at night behind a door that locks where they can feel safe for a moment in the Hell they are experiencing and a locker and safe to lock their property in so that they know that they can actually fall completely asleep without fear that someone will go through their pockets or demand sex. I want to setup each room with as much luxury and comfort as I dare with addicts coming and going and kids without safe homes. I want the beds to be super comfy and to even have weighted blankets and body pillows because weighted blankets give people a sensory feeling of safety and comfort and body pillows allow people to cuddle with someone who takes nothing in return. That is important. The bed must be super comfy and cozy, with too many pillows with a sitting chair that has a throw on it and book case filled with great novels and Manga Books and Built in Computers with a wide variety of Downloaded music and complimentary MP3 Player and paper for writing and an Antique Typewriter with Letterhead typing paper and Envelopes with a sign that says “free mail service down stairs.” I’ll have a laser printer attached to the computer and scanner and hookups for phones available. There will be a decent sound system and gaming counsel with downloaded and installed games on it and Xbox Live Account Active and setup, all secured so it can’t be stolen. There will be an intercom system and by the bed sweets and pamphlets for my Life Recovery Services. The rooms will not be meant for long term stays, usually just one-three days unless there are special and extreme cases. In the common areas will be ultimate gaming setups and multiple mounted TVs that have the ability to connect to wireless headphones so people won’t have to compete for sound if they are watching multiple TVs at once. In the back area will be a full computer lab and education center setup for kids and I’ll have staff that can help anyone with school work they need to get done. Like I said there are a million little things that I plan on doing with my Business. I found a vending company that allows for digital pricing and for an extra $900.00 I can add a credit card processer to it so I’m going to set several types up in different locations. I’m going to use retro ones that take coins and place them in apartment complexes that dispense single serve laundry detergent boxes and fabric softener packs and snack machine pop machine mixes. Than in some locations I’m going to use sources of pre-painted and sculpted fingernails that you can buy off line like on Etsy.com, Tumblr.com, and other sites and put them in machines that are at like malls and possibly schools and arcades and places kids go and have them wired to process credit cards and then put in random packs Pre-Paid Credit Cards with High Balances and advertise the chance to win one. I plan to run donation funding campaigns so that I can afford to supply them free and laptops with paid wireless PCI Cards for free to the kids at St. Jude’s Cancer Research Hospital and other Hospitals and Mental Health Programs that can’t afford to provide them for their patients but who’s patients need a distraction from their extreme illnesses and to do something with their families when they come to visit and for patients to be entertained by with their families. Something that happens to every person with a mental health issue that goes into the mental health system is that they end up losing every possession that they own and their entire apartments full of their lives get tossed in the trash. It’s happened to me 13 times and when I was young and pretty I ended up prostituting to replace over $26,000.00 of property some times. And so do many others. So one thing I’ll do is setup an apartment and property cleaning and packing service that washes all the dirty clothing and sheets and dishes and surfaces and professionally packs everything properly in bubble wraps and garment bo0xes and move and packs the entire apartment, moving it to self-storage units that the patients social security will pay for and for the paranoid patients photos and videos of the process will be taken and delivered on DVDs and the entire apartment will be cleaned and painted back to white with fire resistant paint so that their deposit will get returned to them. Because the mental health system never slows down from sending people back to mental hospitals the business will be a stable service from the start. I want to do some really cool things for kids in schools and all around on buying they super amazing clothing from Japan and China and other fashionable street looks that they normally couldn’t get or are too expensive for them and their families. There was this young boy that actually did it for his school but he got suits and proper fashion and I think it’s really important for kids not to lose that childhood part too soon so instead of suits I want to buy them awesome clothing that fits their aesthetic and that is beyond their reach financially and make it really fund and cool to be able to dress in their own uniqueness and not the regular jeans and T-Shirts. I am also going to download countless tutorials on how to do Beauty Tips like nails crafting, Hair and Makeup techniques from the simple to the extremely complex and to create DVD Collections of all of them and put them in special DVD Cases that hold 10 and 20 DVDs and maybe over 100 Tutorials and then sell them in Genre collections in magazines like Teen Beat and 17 and Girl Magazines. I’ll also do the same for people that are into crafting from the easy to really technical and some from landscaping to building computers and smart mirrors and more and collections of clothing patters and fashion techniques and cosplay techniques and more and sell those in collections in their genre of magazines too. I’ll do the same with cooking tutorials and recipe collections that are all both video and photos and print .pdf formats. I’ll do genres of Home Design and Projects from hanging pictures to making gardens to extreme projects like building underground Prepper Bunkers. Most of these collections I’ll build up over time I spend surfing the internet. I do a lot of Data Mining and read and learn a lot because I'm curious but now I’ll have focused products to create. Something else that I’ll do is assemble teaching tools for classrooms by using paid accounts on sites like curiosity stream and locating lectures and explanations on sciences and other subjects from simple math to high level theoretical math, sciences, biology, space science, robotics and AI, Virtual Worlds. I’ll even put together sex education presentations of different types and present them to multiple schools for review. Some schools don’t allow real sex education, some teach abstinence, others only teach STDs and so on. It will be a balancing act. Some might want diagrams and some might actually allow real images of sex organs and then there are practices of different cultures to consider and explanations of circumcisions and the Muslim culture that clip or burn off female baby’s clitoris and the explanations of their shawls. There are the full stories behind puberty and when females go through maturity and what they need to do when that happens. The changes in Boys and Girls the ages they change at, Birth Control, options of rape pregnancy pill options and the ways that people can give up a child if it’s too much for them instead of killing it. How adoptions work, the options of sperm donations, egg donations, and surrogacy, the birth process, C sections, and vaginal bi9rths, the drugs (epidermal) the effect of drugs and alcohol that will go through breast milk into the baby and HIV and how HIV is inside Breast milk. Types of parenting same sex parenting and relationships and even same sex rapes and domestic violence and more. The healthy beauty behind same sex relationships not just straight ones. Also things like medical issues, Handicaps, Autism, and more and pre born and medical dangers that can happen and what to do, ways to prepare for if your baby has a disability and more. It may take a ton of work to do but once a school accepts the educational program the work will be worth it. I want to create Job skill development programs and more. I want to actually change the entire education system. And the Prison Reform system. I’ll write more about those things in another letter. I (have a ton of personal experiences that give an insight into the world that most people don’t have and motivations that people don’t understand why someone would spend a fortune only to give it all away again. The thing is that money and wealth mean nothing to me. It’s just an annoyance and an obstacle and a social retardant. My Business will solely be about making people and their lives and futures and not about making profits and products. My entire life has consisted of setting up stages and being an advertisement so that I could make money and void of friendships, love, or connections, not even to my own family which has been my greatest sadness. Mommy Anne has been my only connection to hearing about my family’s lives and what’s going on with them my whole life and Aunt Barbie writes me about her farm life but that is about it. Rarely do I get a letter from Julia or Aunt Beverly. Once I went 5 whole years without coming into physical contact with another person or speaking to anyone and I think it really freaked mommy Anne out that I’m not talkative or Haggier but I’ve been conditioned as a child and again since the age of 11yo. When I entered the mental Hospital Systems and group homes never to touch or hug anyone because it’s not supposed to happen in hospitals and group homes which is where I was raised for 89% of my life. I’ve maybe spent 10 hours with my own Brother during my entire life and maybe spoken with him about half that without having actually any meaningful exchanges other than casual polite conversations not counting just being in the same location at the same time. And dramatically less with the rest of my family. I mainly just dressed nice and sat around waiting to be talked to or asked questions. I faced Addiction, Mental illness, multiple sexual assaults, rape that left me with HIV, Contracting HIV, Homelessness twice, forced prostitution, Two Attempted murders on me, a Home invasion and six suicide attempts and child abuse and a laundry list a mile long including starvation and eating out of dumpsters because I refused to prostitute alone without even a card from my family like “Hey sorry you got HIV” or “Too bad you ended up with a mental illness for 30 years” or “Hey heard you are struggling with addiction, that’s rough.” or “hey your homeless, it’s not much but here’s $20 get some dollar burgers at McDonalds.” or “hmmm… raped! Rough.” or “Hay when you are going to bring a boyfriend to X-Mass?” or “Suicide, wish you wouldn’t do that we like having you around.” Once I went into the Hospital after a suicide attempt that involved 3 cop cars pulling me off a ledge on the side of a parking ramp and I weighed 118lbs. I usually weigh 175-180lbs and that is skinny for myself. I know things like friendships and Love from a boyfriend and happi9ness because of the absolute void of it in my life. I know it perfectly and intimately on a deep level because I have never experienced it. It’s an odd kind of knowledge to have. I use to watch YouTube videos and Troll peoples feeds, not so much as to observe their lives as much as to see what they had on their bedroom walls and what they wear and what was around them and try to figure out what it was that gave them all the feelings and excitements and joys in life that I never knew. All my life I never had a single poster on my wall or anything that wasn’t a tool for survival, no plants, no color paint on my walls, nothing that would display warmth or comfort or personality or a Home. And it was all trappings of a stage set that I occupied but never truly lived in. The only thing that had decoration or meaning of any kind was inside my Computers and Hard Drives and my Data Mining Collections of Music, .pdf files, photos, and social media and blogs and modeling photos. Outside of the digital world I had nothing but pain and suffering, rage, and sadness, and isolation, and complete loneness and mental and emotional damage that eventually became so vast and so deep that I had to use as much drugs as possible not just to fight it back and numb myself to it but to even remove myself from the equation, for many years I just stayed alive out of spite of it all. It was one thing that broke me out of my inner bondage and that was a homeless man that I’d passed over a dozen times and he always sat in his spot and I saw him that morning while going to a client’s house and then that night after dancing into exhaustion at a club. It was late and the snow had started to fall but in a ring around his body was a bare circle from his body heat and he hadn’t moved all day. Across the street was a Target and the man had nothing, no food containers around him, nothing. People had walked by him all day and shopping at Target and no one thought once to go across the street and give him a pop or can of soup and I had been a prostitute for years helping dozens of homeless kids and minors with a safe free place to stay, even pulling tricks to pay other people’s rent and maxed out two credit cards buying a fellow meth addict food and toiletries and that one man sat there all day, every day and no one helped him and Target Managers never gave him a job. Shortly after that I came to this Center and for the last 13 years here in this long term treatment program, every single day for hours a day and deep into the night I have written thousands of pages in Journals, collected every magazine and catalog I could find, filled over 45 journals with notes and resources and links and scrap booked and spent my Dad’s entire $4,800,00 inheritance money from when he died on Business Manuals and researched Crypto Currency for 3 years, read 5 books on it and spent years going to every site in the books and checking them out, watching YouTube videos, going onto bulletin boards and blogs until I learned what I needed to learn to design the most powerful Ethereum Miner possible all the while with a goal to end Homelessness, Unemployment, sexual exploitation and to improve the world and fought for years just to have the right to use my free time to write and study. And I solved it. I figured out a social service Business that will fully recover almost anyone's life and it has finally given me an ounce of peace. Now I just need the people here to give me the chance I need to get out and do it and to live a better life than the one that was quickly killing me. I’ve spent 13 years working on my plans and there are a lot of them and I hear repeatedly to focus on one thing but what people don’t understand is that it is all one thing. I’m not helping one or two people. I’m helping over 30,000 homeless people and exploited kids and people living in poverty. One thing can’t solve that. An entire population of people not only need money but a place to live, jobs to support themselves, and other help and those helpers need to get paid and other communities need fortifications to help the rest of the population that is in need and it’s not for one summer or one year or even 30 years. Every year hundreds of kids become exploited, thousands become homeless and more live in poverty and the cycle will continue long after I’m dead. I have to start building the strongest foundation possible that will last and support generations of people now and long after I’m dead and that won’t happen with me getting a pizza delivery job or a lawn mowing business going. I have to start something so revolutionary that those that pick up where I leave will one day be able to change the lives of Millions of people in need and people in need around the world and it will take Huge Donors and Crowd Funding and rewriting of policies and dismantling of antiquated industries and building new ones.

[quicksilversquared]

How to Fake a Marriage ch. 10

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(AO3) (FF.net)

"Madam Rosalie chased most of the reporters off," Marinette told Adrien that night as they sat down for dinner. "And then Emily and Rachel walked back with to the apartment building with me so no one could try to get me alone. Hopefully the reporters will leave me alone within a week."

"That's good. I did an interview today with one of the better reporters," Adrien told her. "If she posts the whole thing, they'll probably pick through it for quotes. I made it clear that I wasn't going to be talking to all of them, thought, and hopefully I channeled my father enough that they'll listen."

Marinette looked interested. "Did it go well?"

"As well as it could, I think. I talked with Madam Addison. Someone leaked the wedding video," Adrien added, figuring that it would be a good idea to give Marinette a heads-up in case any of the other reporters had gotten their hands on it and decided to spring questions about it at her. "So I said that Madam Rosalie had been planning a photoshoot and we used the opportunity to pull a prank. She thought it was hilarious."

"It was hilarious. I couldn't believe so many people actually thought we would get married like that."

"I think that learning about the prank was enough of a distraction for her," Adrien finished. "She really didn't ask too many questions after that. How was your day? You said something about the other interns making a scrapbook?"

Marinette groaned, burying her face in her hands. "They're trying to embarrass me. They were getting all of the photos from the wedding photoshoot, plus ones they've taken, plus all of the tabloid articles..."

"The press will find another target soon enough," Adrien said soothingly, reaching over and patting her shoulder. "And your coworkers will get bored of teasing you eventually."

"I'm more concerned about the press than my coworkers," Marinette said with a sigh. "I just don't like them digging around about my life."

"Ah, but what would they find?" Adrien said, giving Marinette's shoulder a gentle shake before going back to buttering his bread. Marinette really didn't have much anything to hide, as far as he knew. "Class president, designer of Jagged Stone's favorite glasses and three CD covers, most popular kid in class all through collège and lycée-"

"I wasn't the most popular kid in class," Marinette protested, a blush rising on her cheeks. "I- I wasn't- Why would you think-"

"You were, though," Adrien said with a laugh, grinning as Marinette turned even redder. "Chloe might have tried to claim that she was the most popular, but you were the one that everyone actually liked and listened to. Wherever you were, that was where people wanted to be."

Marinette closely resembled a tomato at that point and she seemed to have forgotten her dinner completely. "B-but- okay, but they didn't- I mean-"

"Don't even try to deny it, Mari," Adrien said with a laugh, ruffling Marinette's hair and grinning even more when she squealed and ducked away. "Ms. Most Popular Girl."

"I didn't even have any real friends before Alya came!" Marinette blurted out at last, batting away Adrien's hand. "I mean, I hung out with people sometimes, but I didn't, like, sit with anyone, or have someone I hung out with when I wanted to do something."

Adrien blinked. He hadn't known that. He had always assumed that Marinette had always been popular, simply based on the photos he had seen of the class in previous years. "But everyone has photos with you from before Alya came!"

Marinette bit her lip. "I hung out with people, sure, but it was more during whole-class things instead of small groups. I was shier then, and Chloe always picked on me. I was a floater, really."

"And then you came out of your shell, and people flocked to you," Adrien pointed out. "Does it really matter what you were like before? That was more circumstance than it was actually you."

"I suppose," Marinette admitted. "But I still think that you're exaggerating."

"I'm not. Ask anyone- actually," Adrien corrected himself. "Not everyone, I guess. Chloe and Sabrina would disagree, probably, but they're biased."

"I think you're the biased one," Marinette muttered with another blush. Adrien grinned, then changed the subject before he made Marinette too uncomfortable.

"So what do you think next week's tabloid headlines are going to look like?" Adrien asked, cutting into his dinner. "Will they just drop things, or will they pick and choose quotes from the interview?"

"They'll pick apart your interview to try to find inconsistencies, and then they'll make as big of a deal as they can about the wedding video. They'll play the kiss over and over on T.V.-"

"And a damn good kiss it was too."

"-and say that we look too into it, or something." Marinette was on a roll. "And they'll probably make a big deal about the signing thing, even though you showed her the picture of the fake certificate-"

"I'm tempted to bring it in if they don't believe me," Adrien said with a laugh. He gestured to where the framed piece of paper hung on the wall. Plagg groaned about it endlessly and Marinette didn't understand why he kept it, but Adrien still thought that it was hilarious. Besides, he didn't exactly have a ton of photos or posters to hang up, and the walls looked too bare without a little decoration. "It's not like they can deny that it exists then."

"Except they could just say that you printed that up yesterday and we both sighed it last night," Marinette pointed out. "Or that we signed two papers, one a legal wedding document and one a fake decoy."

Adrien grinned at her. "Wow, that's some nice speculating. You planning on giving up on the designing and becoming a gossip reporter instead?"

Marinette snorted. "I'm fairly certain that it would be considered a conflict of interest if I were to report on myself."

"Oh, but you'd get the best scoops! Imagine how the world would go mad if they knew that we ate dinner together every night, or that we share a blanket while watching movies on the couch, or-"

"Or if they found out how much of a dork you are," Marinette teased, flicking his nose. "That cool guy image, gone in an instant-"

"Someone released the photo of me dipping you for the wedding kiss," Adrien reminded her smugly, tapping her nose in retaliation. "And I look pretty darn cool."

"You're lucky I didn't freak out when you did that," Marinette said with a laugh, dodging out of his reach before spooning some fruit salad onto her plate. "You gave me, like, a half second's warning before I was falling backwards."

"Your squeak was adorable," Adrien assured her, pulling the bowl of fruit towards himself. "And thank you for not looking supremely uncomfortable with the kiss. I was worried that it would be really awkward, but it turned out looking like we were both really into it."

Marinette turned red again and stuffed a forkful of food into her mouth instead of answering.

  That night, Adrien just happened to see Ladybug streak past his window. Grinning- it had been so long- he transformed and raced after her, glad that Marinette had opted to turn in early tonight. He only had to run over a couple buildings to catch up with his partner as she raced along.

"Chat Noir! What a coincidence!" Ladybug exclaimed in delight, only slowing her pace slightly as he joined her. "I was hoping I would see you tonight, but we really don't have a schedule at all or anything and London is so big so I wasn't sure-"

"You went right past my living room window," Chat Noir admitted with a grin. "I was lucky that I glanced up at just the right time. And I wasn't particularly busy tonight, so here I am!"

Ladybug had gotten a weird expression on her face at his words, making Chat Noir's grin falter. He hadn't said something weird, had he? He mentally reviewed his words- and no, nothing weird there. So what...?

Ladybug shook herself and her expression settled into something more normal. It wasn't completely normal, though. She was still distracted by something. "I'm glad to see you, Chat Noir. I'm sorry I haven't been around recently, but I was terribly busy."

"So was I," Chat Noir assured her. "I haven't gotten out for forever. I wanted to go out Thursday two weeks ago-" he wasn't going to tell her it was because he had seen her, she had already reacted oddly to the same comment tonight "-but I couldn't go. I probably could have spared the time for a quick run, but then my kwami would have insisted on a trip to the store as well for more of his favorite cheese and I really couldn't spare that much time."

"It's fine. It's not like we're actually doing anything while we're on patrol." Ladybug snorted a laugh. "Did we ever get anything done on patrol?"

"I think we might have caught a shoplifter once," Chat Noir said, returning her grin. "Not exactly busting huge crime rings or anything."

"I'm sure the shopkeeper appreciated it, but there were probably better uses of our time."

"There's no better use of time than spending it with you, my lady," Chat Noir purred back automatically, sweeping into a deep bow. He knew she was right, of course- when they were in collège and lycée, both of them had had homework to do and sleep to catch up on and patrols got in the way of that and sometimes left him scrambling (and probably her as well). Still, he wouldn't trade it for anything. Akuma attacks really hadn't been good times for goofing around and learning about each other.

Well, learning as much as they could about each other without giving themselves away. It had actually turned out to be a surprisingly large amount. And Chat Noir had fallen deeper in love with her with every little detail she let slip.

"I remember a few nights where another hour or two of sleep would have definitely been a better use of time," Ladybug said with a short laugh, raking her bangs back with one hand. "I was running on caffeine and a few hours of sleep. Not exactly top form to fight akumas."

"You always did a fabulous job," Chat Noir claimed as they started up their run again. They leapt in easy unison over the street and landed with a roll on the rooftops on the other side. Ladybug managed to laugh even as they rolled to their feet and continued their run.

"That was the caffeine, not me."

Chat Noir laughed at that and was about to argue his point- it wasn't all the caffeine, she really had to give herself more credit- when something wet hit his face. He let out a quiet hiss, wiping away the droplets just in time for more to hit him.

"It's raining, I think," Ladybug said with a sigh, slowing to a stop. Chat Noir did the same. "We should probably cut this sort and head back home before the rooftops get too slick."

"As much as I hate to leave you, I think you're right. I don't want to fall." Chat Noir spun around, following Ladybug as she jogged at a slightly slower pace than before back towards his building. "And I don't want my kwami to get sick. I don't know if there would be any kwami doctors in London and the dude never told me what he did to cure Plagg whenever he got sick."

"Yeah, I wouldn't want to have to try to explain that sudden trip back to Paris if my kwami got sick again," Ladybug agreed. Her bangs were starting to get plastered to her face as the rain soaked her hair. "Hopefully we don't have a lot of nights like this. It's bad enough trying to see in the dark; I can barely see my own hands in front of my face with this rain- whoa!"

Chat Noir reacted immediately, catching and steadying his partner before she could fall on the slippery rooftop. His brow furrowed in concern. "Do you want me to escort you back to your place? I can see in the dark, it's no problem for me-"

"I'll be fine," Ladybug assured him, as he had suspected she would. "There's enough lights near my place that I'll be able to see where I'm going. I'm just being grouchy."

They jumped over a street and Chat Noir paused to make sure Ladybug had landed all right. He could see the lights from his building up ahead, only a couple blocks more. Hopefully Ladybug didn't live too far past the building.

"You might want to take the streets back home, Bug," Chat Noir said as Ladybug slipped again and he caught her before she could hit the roof. "You okay?"

"It's not far," Ladybug assured him as they slowed to a brisk walk over the rooftops. He kept his arm wrapped around her waist to steady her- well, and because she was warm and smelled nice, but he wasn't about to tell Ladybug that. She probably suspected it anyway. "I'll be fine, promise. We've fought akuma in the rain before, remember?"

"Not when it was dark and raining!"

"And now it's dark and raining but I don't have any akuma to dodge," Ladybug teased him with a laugh as he poled them across the street. She hung from his side as naturally as ever as they swung through the air. They landed lightly and headed across the next set of rooftops. "That makes it easier for sure."

"True, true." Chat Noir couldn't argue with that too much. Still... "Are you sure?"

"I'm wearing a supersuit," Ladybug reminded him. They reached another street, and Ladybug reached for him again. "We've fallen off of roofs before and been fine. We've fallen from higher than roofs before- higher than the Eiffel Tower before- and have been fine. If I slip and fall, I'll still be fine."

He knew that. He just fussed a lot when it came to his Lady and her safety.

"We should probably split up here," Chat Noir said as they landed across from his building. He could see his room- he had left his dining room light on in his hurry to chase after Ladybug. From their position, he could see that across the hall from his apartment, Marinette's lights were already off.

Apparently she could really get ready for bed quickly when she wanted to. He had rather been under the impression that she dragged her feet and got distracted most of the time when she was tired, which made her whole going-to-bed process a hundred times longer.

"Sounds good," Ladybug said with a smile, stepping out from under Chat Noir's arm. She pulled her yo-yo off of her waist and gave it a little spin. "It was good seeing you tonight, kitty. Don't forget to dry off when you get home."

"And the same goes for you, bug," Chat Noir said, ducking down to kiss her hand. "Get yourself a hot chocolate or something."

Ladybug nodded and waved to him before she tossed her yo-yo and took off. Chat watched as she vanished over the building next door before he made the easy vault across the street and over the building to his balcony. He didn't waste any time in ducking in his door and detransforming. Plagg spiraled out of the ring, groaning the whole way.

"It wasn't raining that hard," Adrien said with a sigh, digging a fleece that he kept just for this purpose out of a drawer in the kitchen. He bundled Plagg up and plopped him down next to the baseboard heater before digging in the fridge for a slice of Camembert. "And I wasn't out for long."

"It was long enough."

"It was not! I haven't seen Ladybug for forever and we only got to talk to each other for a few minutes before we had to head back." Adrien sighed as he opened his refrigerator and pulled out his milk to make some hot chocolate. "It's really a pity. I wanted to hang out with Ladybug again. We don't get to do it often enough here."

Plagg only rolled his eyes and let out a long sigh.

  Ladybug circled around the block and waited another three minutes for good measure before swinging down onto her balcony. She yanked open the door and dashed inside, just starting to shiver as she did. She detransformed as she dashed down the hallway to her room.

"I h-h-hate the rain," Tikki complained, even as Marinette grabbed a fluffy wool scrap to wrap around her. "The cold is fine, but I can't stand the rain and the wet!"

"We'll get you warmed up in no time," Marinette promised, bundling her kwami up and pulling a sweatshirt over her own head. She picked Tikki up and headed back out to the kitchen, turning her lights back on as she did. "Do you want hot chocolate with your cookies or just warm milk?"

"Hot chocolate, please!"

Marinette fell into thought as she heated up the milk and stirred in chocolate. A small crease formed between her eyebrows as she puzzled over what Chat Noir had said earlier. Tikki watched, confused as she nibbled away at her cookie, and finally spoke up.

"Marinette, what's wrong?"

"Chat Noir lives in my building," Marinette murmured, then repeated herself louder. "Chat Noir lives in my building! I've probably talked to him as a civilian, oh my god-"

Tikki looked startled. "He does? How did you find that out? Are you sure?"

"He said I swung past his dining room," Marinette said with a frown, remembering what Chat Noir had said. "But I had literally just gotten out."

"You were several rooftops away when he caught up with you though, right?" Tikki asked. "So couldn't he live in one of those buildings?"

Marinette shook her head. "Once I got past this building, I was running across the rooftops, not swinging down in the street between buildings. If I really did swing past his window, it would have been someone in this building."

Tikki looked curious. "Do you know which windows you swung past?"

"No, because I swung away across this side of the building and then decided that I wanted to go the other way, so I kicked off the next building over and swung back around the building to the other side. It could be almost anyone living here." It had definitely taken her by surprise. Part of her itched to look up who else lived in building, while the other part knew she shouldn't. She needed to respect her partner's privacy.

"Do you think he saw you two weeks ago?" Tikki asked.

"Maybe. He mentioned wanting to go out two weeks ago, specifically on Thursday- and that's when I went out." That had been strange. Why mention such a specific day? "Either he saw me or we were just thinking eerily in sync again." It had happened before, not just with akuma fights but also with things like heading out for spontaneous patrols. Still, she was putting her money on Chat Noir having seen her either heading out or coming in.

Frustratingly, she couldn't even remember which direction she had gone out on that particular night so she couldn't even narrow down which side of the building Chat Noir lived on.

Not that she wanted to. Obviously.

"Do you think he knows you live in this building?" Tikki asked. She took another big bite of her cookie, finishing it off, and reached for the next one. "Should we be more careful leaving the apartment?"

Marinette shook her head. "I don't think he knows. And would it really be so bad if he found out now? Hawkmoth is gone. If anything else pops up, we might need a way to contact each other, especially if we're in different countries."

Tikki looked pensive.

"But if you think it would be a problem, I suppose I can go down to the street to transform," Marinette said with a sigh. She poured out two cups of hot chocolate, one normal-sized and one in a shot glass for Tikki. "It's just so much easier to transform in here and jump off the balcony. I really didn't think anyone would find out. I mean, I transformed in my room and headed out from my balcony for years back in Paris."

"I think it might be fine," Tikki said at last. "If he just happens to find out, I mean. You're right, it's easier to transform in your room, especially with Adrien next door. He'd ask questions if he just happened to open his door and saw you heading downstairs when you said you were going to be going to bed. And unless Chat Noir sees you leaving your room or if you say something about happening to see him going past your room, there's not a huge chance of him figuring you out."

"Yeah, well, I'm not about to tell him that," Marinette said. His confused kitten expression would probably be hilarious if she let him on to the fact that they were in the same building, but it wasn't worth it. If Tikki wasn't 100% on board, then she wasn't going to tease her partner.

No matter how fun it would be.

  The tabloids, as expected, had varying responses to the released video of Adrien's interview. Madam Addison was, of course, the friendliest of them all. She had clearly believed him and had focused quite a bit on the prank. There was of course some speculation about if Adrien and Marinette would get together- or, rather, how soon they would get together, if did not seem to be a question- but nothing too bad there. Other tabloids were a bit more skeptical of what Adrien had said.

"They're probably just sore that we refused to do any interviews with them," Marinette said from where she was curled up on the couch, sketching on the tablet on her lap. Adrien had been glaring at one particularly scathing magazine for five minutes straight. "Just ignore them, Adrien. Your father can't say you didn't try."

Adrien snorted. "That's not going to stop him from trying to blame me for what they write. He'll say that I was too rude to them or something."

Marinette couldn't hold back her own snort. "You, rude? Wow. Pot calling the kettle black at all? Has your father forgotten what the tabloids have written about him when he's been rude to them? And that was actually justified."

Adrien ducked his head, trying to hide his grin.

"Most of the world knows that that rag is trash anyway," Marinette said, returning her attention to her tablet and erasing a line that wasn't quite where she wanted it. "And it's not that big. I think that was one of the ones that Abbey and Sarah took forever to find."

"That's good. They're speculating on your 'motives'," Adrien said with a disgusted look. "Because, y'know, up and coming designer and son of fashion designer."

"Really?" That... okay, maybe she should have expected that. But the magazines that she had bothered reading hadn't done any speculating of that kind.

"They clearly didn't do their research," Adrien sniffed, thoroughly offended on his friend's behalf. "You don't need any help getting your foot in the fashion industry. Pretty much all of the other magazines managed to figure that out on their own."

"They dug around in my life, you mean," Marinette said with a sigh. She was just thankful that they hadn't found anything questionable- no one from her school days had said anything about her obvious, cringe-worthy crush on Adrien, thank god. Clearly they hadn't interviewed Chloe or Sabrina at all.

"Nothing bad. Other magazines talked about all of the fashion design contests that you've entered and either placed in or won, and then obviously they talked about your Jagged Stone glasses line and the CD covers you did for him." Adrien beamed over at her. That was the only good part of the whole ordeal, honestly. Marinette worked so hard and she deserved to be recognized. "So people know how very talented you are."

Marinette felt herself turning red from the praise. Adrien had said it so casually, like her being talented was common, unquestionable knowledge. He had a habit of doing that on a fairly regular basis and even after years of knowing Adrien (and months of daily hang-outs), she still wasn't used to it.

"Paul thought that the articles were hilarious," Adrien added, closing the magazine and tossing it to the side. "Or, rather, he thought they were funny but he didn't get why me pranking my father was such a big deal, and then he looked him up."

Marinette snorted. It was truly difficult to understand what Gabriel Agreste was like without meeting him in person. It was one thing to hear about his strict, snappish nature; experiencing it was a whole different story.

"Paul said that he understood why everyone found it so funny once he saw a few news reports and interviews with my father," Adrien added with a snicker. "And then he was asking how in the world we actually dared to prank him. Paul said that he would have been too intimidated to pull something like that."

"I can't blame him," Marinette said with a grin. "I was really nervous about pranking your father, too." Her tablet let out a beep and she glanced down at it. There was a pop-up for a software update, and she dismissed it. She didn't want to change anything on the tablet without Madam Rosalie's permission. With the pop-up gone, she could start doodling on the designing program.

Adrien glanced over at Marinette, noticing her distraction. Interested, he pushed the magazines in front of him to the side and turned his attention to his friend. "What are you up to over there?"

Slightly startled, Marinette looked up from her tablet. "What? Oh, this?" She glanced down at her tablet- which, Adrien couldn't help but notice, was not her normal one. This was newer, and looked a lot higher-end. "I'm designing prints! Or, well, I'm trying, at least. Madam Rosalie heard about me designing CD covers for Jagged Stone through the tabloids, and then she looked at them and really liked them. So she lent me one of her designing tablets and asked me to design some prints. If she likes them, we'll produce them and use them in some of our designs!"

Adrien couldn't help but frown. Even though it was definitely fantastic that Marinette was being recognized for her design skills outside of clothing, Marinette was meant to be able to relax once she left work. Designers never fully stopped, Adrien knew that- inspiration could hit at any time, and this certainly wasn't the first time Marinette had designed something at home- but if Madam Rosalie was piling this on top of Marinette's other work without further compensation, that wasn't cool. He had seen his friends- including Marinette, at her university internship in Paris- bend over backwards trying to satisfy and impress their supervisors. Adrien could understand how tempting it was- he had certainly gone overboard to try to get his father's praise before- but it wasn't particularly fair or healthy. If Madam Rosalie was adding to Marinette's workload, maybe the older woman just hadn't realized it and would adjust accordingly if Marinette just said something.

In Adrien's experience, though, interns in Marinette's position rarely said anything.

"Are you getting paid extra for that?"

"No, but Madam Rosalie said I could count it as working from home." Marinette made a mark on her screen before glancing back up. "So then I can have more vacation time, because I already would have worked the hours. It's nice, because then if I go back to Paris for a weekend or something I could stay a couple extra days without tearing through all of my vacation days."

He couldn't help but grin. "Oh, that is nice!" He knew that Marinette really missed her family at times, and it really wasn't worth it to go back to Paris for only two days to visit. Adrien crossed the room and scooted over on the couch so he could see what Marinette was working on. At the moment, it looked like a whole lot of aimless scribbling and random color streaks. "Is it a lot different from designing CD covers?"

"Yeah, definitely. I mean, I just got this today so I'm still trying to figure out how it works, but there's just so much to consider. Patterns can repeat normally, like you normally see on, like, couch cushions or patterned button-ups, or they can repeat in one direction only. That's easier, and it's closer to what I was doing with the CD covers."

Adrien blinked, confused. "...what? Repeat in one direction only?"

"See, it's like- oh, I'll just look up an example." With a flick of her finger, Marinette navigated out of the program she had been playing with and opened Google. In a few seconds, she had pulled up a page full of different fabric pattern images. "See, this one has a pattern that repeats along the length of the fabric, but one edge looks obviously different than the other."

"Right, right, of course." The picture Marinette was pointing out had fabric that was patterned to look like a sunset behind some trees. One edge of the cloth was purple and then it graded into red, then orange, then yellow vanishing behind the treeline. "But what would you even make with a pattern like that?"

"A dress, probably. Or a skirt, depending on the width of the fabric. Maybe a dress shirt. Mostly casual clothes."

Adrien tilted his head. Okay, yeah, he could see how the fabric might be used. It was just a little more, well, fun than most of the things his father designed. "Wouldn't the skirt be mostly the same basic pattern but with different fabrics?"

Marinette shrugged. "Yeah, mostly. But there's a lot of people who don't necessarily want the most fashion-forward, never-seen-before skirt designs. Basic can be good when we're working with a pattern like this that's already attention-grabbing. If we overdesign, then things can become unwearable."

"Makes sense. So here, the pattern would be what makes it designer and not the silhouette."

"To be fair, some high-end companies take a completely normal off-the-rack shirt, slap their logo on it, and call it designer," Marinette pointed out with a grin. "Your father's done that before, haven't you noticed?"

Adrien's brow furrowed as he thought about it, and then it came to him- the casualwear lines that his father produced. He had sweatshirts in his closet (very upscale, of course, only the finest materials but still comfortable) that were stamped with a giant Gabriel logo. They were more fitted than the average sweatshirt from a department store, maybe, but there really wasn't much anything special about them if you took the logo away.

...huh. Yeah, he hadn't thought about it that way before.

"So which kind of pattern do you think you're more likely to make?" Adrien asked. "Repeating one direction or all directions?"

"One direction," Marinette said immediately. "Especially to start. I have to make sure the pattern can repeat without it being obvious about where the repeat is."

"Is that hard?"

"A bit, yeah." Marinette turned her tablet around so Adrien could see the screen. "But this program is nice. I can move the pattern around so that- see, here it moved what used to be the bottom of my pattern up to the top, so I can draw right where that dividing line used to be, and the same thing happens for the sides. I'm mostly figuring out how the program works right now."

"Do you have any pattern ideas?"

"Some. They need work, though." Marinette drew another absentminded line. "I need to make sure that I make designs that aren't super-similar to ones that are already out there, and it's hard to visualize how wide the fabric for the pattern will be once it's printed. It was easier for the CDs, because the cover size and the tablet screen size were close enough in size."

"I still can't believe the level of detail you got on Jagged's covers," Adrien said with a laugh, shaking his head. He had every CD, of course, all signed by his friend. They were propped up next to the fencing trophies on his shelves in his room in Paris. "They're amazing. I was just looking at a picture of the last cover the other day and I kept noticing little details I hadn't seen before. How you draw so well that small is beyond me."

Marinette snorted. "There's a zoom feature. See, if I want to draw something small here, I zoom in and draw it." She picked a fairly clear section and zoomed in before drawing a star with a smiley face on it. A pattern of dots decorated the outer edge before Marinette zoomed back out.

"That's nice," Adrien said appreciatively as Marinette cleared her entire page and started doodling again. "So how is this tablet compared to your old one? Is there a lot of difference?"

"This is more sensitive," Marinette explained, showing Adrien the screen. He really couldn't see any real difference right away, but he was sure Marinette knew what she was talking about. "It has both pressure and tilt sensitivity, and there's more options for line stabilizing, and there's higher resolution and reports per second, and there's almost no lag when I want to zoom or rotate. My old one didn't use to lag as much as it does now."

"Well, if you look at it in electronics years, your tablet from collège is pretty much a senior citizen at this point," Adrien said with a grin, deciding not to get too bogged down in the technical talk. He could ask for more details some other time if he was really curious. "Maybe you should get a cane for it."

Marinette looked puzzled. "Electronics years?"

"Like dog years," Adrien explained, grinning. "You know how one human year is, like, seven dog years, right? So a dog might be twelve and actually be an elderly citizen."

"Right, right. I get it." Marinette was trying not to look too amused, Adrien could tell. "Yeah, I'd like to replace my old one or at least get some work done on it, but I can't exactly justify the expense. I don't do detailed enough work often enough to really need a new graphics tablet. Once the screen goes, though, then I'll buy a new one."

Adrien made a absent humming sound and made a mental note to look into graphics tablets. Depending on how expensive they were, maybe he could get Marinette a good one for Christmas. He would have to ask around to figure out what the best one for what she did would be (or maybe he could sneakily get her talking about the subject), but it would be a lovely present for her, and one that she would definitely use if or when (when, definitely when) Jagged Stone asked her to design another CD cover and if she decided that she liked doing fabric pattern designing on top of clothing design.

"So do you have to actually be actively be creating a pattern for it to count as work time?" Adrien asked as Marinette played with the color wheel. "Did Madam Rosalie say?"

"She didn't say. I'll count some of my learning time, I think, but not all of it." A streak of blue appeared on the screen as Marinette tested something out. "After a point, I'm just screwing around and doodling instead of actually learning anything new."

Adrien couldn't help his grin. "Funny, I think I've seen you doing that before when you were supposed to be designing clothes."

Marinette flushed and stuck her tongue out at him before returning her attention to the tablet in her lap.

"Do you have any more ideas of what else we could go and explore around London?" Adrien asked, changing the subject. As much fun as teasing Marinette was, he probably shouldn't get too carried away. "I've been looking around, but I'm kind of tired of museums at the moment. I asked Paul what else there was to do about here, but, y'know..." He shrugged. "He lives here. Everything seems normal and boring to him since he's used to it."

Finally Marinette set the tablet aside to focus on Adrien. Apparently she had gotten tired of the doodling. "Yeah, actually! A couple of the other interns went up to Stonehenge and Bath a few weeks ago, and they were talking about it the other day. It sounded really interesting so I asked them a few questions about their trip, and they said that we could probably do both on the same day without a problem. I've been meaning to tell you about it but I keep forgetting."

"Ooh, that sounds good! It would be fun to get out of London for a day. We would take a train there, right?" Adrien had done a bit of research on exploring those areas at one point, since they were so iconic, but he had yet to visit either despite their relative proximity to London. He had kind of been a little busy with other things.

"Yeah. They said that we would have to start early and would get back late if we want enough time to really look at things, but it would be a fun day out." Marinette pulled out her phone out and navigated to a train schedule to show him. "See, we would take a train to Salisbury. There's a bus that runs out to Stonehenge and there's a stop right at the train station. It's the off season, so the bus comes once an hour."

"So we would have to pay attention to the time while we're out there. It wouldn't be any fun to accidentally miss it."

Marinette nodded. "Right. And then we would take the bus back into town and maybe poke around the Salisbury Cathedral- it's supposed to be pretty- and then we'd take another train to Bath."

"That sounds like fun," Adrien said cheerfully, already looking forward to it. "A whole day of being a proper tourist. We can pack a lunch so we don't waste any time trying to find a place to eat. Maybe you'll even get some inspiration for patterns while we're out!"

"That would be nice," Marinette agreed. She glanced down at her phone again, checking the train schedule one last time. "Does Saturday work for you?"

"Of course." Adrien grinned at her. "I can't wait."

[sonmain]

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50,51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60,61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 82,83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89,90, 91, 92, 93,94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99 and 100.

1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk?More milk2: do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day?No, it's hell3: what random objects do you use to bookmark your books?Tissues, wrappers, receipts 4: how do you take your coffee/tea?Idk5: are you self-conscious of your smile?Yes, very6: do you keep plants?Yes!!! I had a fairy garden but one of the pots broke 😪7: do you name your plants?Yeah, I named the tree in our backyard Venosaur8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings?Oh, painting on canvas, or drawing with a pencil9: do you like singing/humming to yourself?Yes!! V v good stim!10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach?Side11: what's an inner joke you have with your friends?Fuckin...Furries12: what's your favorite planet?Earth, I love the animals and plants. She's so cute13: what's something that made you smile today?My friend said my story was good14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like?Probably kind of bright but also with some posters and nice decor and nice beds and a little window we can sit on.15: go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is!Space lightning is a thing16: what's your favorite pasta dish?Alfredo17: what color do you really want to dye your hair?Magenta, or turquoise 18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up.Oh I fell on my ass in the hallway and threw my MacBook. Only two people saw it19: do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it?Well not a conventional one but I've had journals before.20: what's your favorite eye color?Blue21: talk about your favorite bag, the one that's been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces.It's this golden and red bag and it's soft22: are you a morning person?Hahahahaha funny. Next question23: what's your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations?Make art or browse tumblr24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets?Yes25: what's the weirdest place you've ever broken into? I haven't broken in anywhere26: what are the shoes you've had for forever and wear with every single outfit?I don't have any shoes like that27: what's your favorite bubblegum flavor?Blue raspberry28: sunrise or sunset?Sunrise (ironic)29: what's something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing?Giggles30: think of it: have you ever been truly scared?Fucking yes31: what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks.I guess, sometimes, no32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends.I fucking tripped over my friend at a sleepover after she said "person here!"33: what's your fave pastry?Any really34: tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it?MOG, he was a green stuffed monkey thing with no hands or toes so I called him mog the monkey frog, I think I do still have him35: do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often?Idk36: which band's sound would fit your mood right now?Imagine dragons37: do you like keeping your room messy or clean?Clean but it usually ends up messy38: tell us about your pet peeves!LOUD NOISES AND PEOPLE MAKING FUN OF ME ASKING THEM TO STOP39: what color do you wear the most? black40: think of a piece of jewelry you own: what's it's story? does it have any meaning to you?Um...my bracelet I got from my friend for Christmas 41: what's the last book you remember really, really loving?Artemis Fowl42: do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it!Starbucks, and the wonderful smells and hot chocolate43: who was the last person you gazed at the stars with?My friend Tori44: when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything?Never45: do you trust your instincts a lot? Sorta46: tell us the worst pun you can think of.A man went to court for wearing only underwear. It was a brief case.47: what food do you think should be banned from the universe?48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today? Losing friends, yes49: do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought? No50: what's an odd thing you collect? Idk?51: think of a person. what song do you associate with them? Tori-blu 52: what are your favorite memes of the year so far? Pure memes53: have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them?No54: who's the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face? Tori55: what's the most dramatic thing you've ever done to prove a point?Idk56: what are some things you find endearing in people?Laughs 57: go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics?It made me feel crazy and yes58: who's the wine mom and who's the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why?CHARLIE IS WINE MOM, TORI YOU KNOW YOURE VODKA AUNT FOR A REASON59: what's your favorite myth? Idk60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves? Not really 61: what's the stupidest gift you've ever given? the stupidest one you've ever received?Leaves, leaves62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind?Orange, apple63: are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be?Kinda leave them be64: what color is the sky where you are right now?Light blue 65: is there anyone you haven't seen in a long time who you'd love to hang out with? OOhh um, Cheyanne and Kennadie66: what would your ideal flower crown look like?White and pink alternating with Blue and yellow over it67: how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel?Oh they make me feel...amazing. I like the different feel! And like the soft glow. And the new feelings of being on a dark bus during rain.68: what's winter like where you live? Well it used to be frozen hell...but now it's not 😥69: what are your favorite board games? Monopoly70: have you ever used a ouija board?No and I plan to never71: what's your favorite kind of tea?Peach72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you'll forget it? Not really, it's more procrastination that destroys me73: what are some of your worst habits?Procrastination, forgetting to eat, disregarding self care, self hate, 74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns.They are the sweetest most amazing halminerd that loves my stories 75: tell us about your pets! Kiwi is my two year old boxer. We call her Moose, Meat brick, lazy doggo, and basically everything else lol76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren't?Probably a project 77: pink or yellow lemonade?Eh I like both78: are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub?Hate79: what's one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you?Made art for me. Omg I die 80: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why?Grey81: describe one of your friend's eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of.Like swimming in the clearest and most murky waters, and feeling relaxed at free82: are/were you good in school? Sorta83: what's some of your favorite album art?I actually don't know84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones?No85: do you read comics? what are your faves?Well like..,Rock and Riot86: do you like concept albums? which ones?No87: what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives? Zootopia, hocus pocus, 88: are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy? Idk89: are you close to your parents? Yeah, sorta90: talk about your one of you favorite cities. The sky lines reach amazingly high, the city gets washed in the glow of the riding a setting sun. (It never said I couldn't be vague)91: where do you plan on traveling this year? Europe!92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch? Drowns it93: what's the hairstyle you wear the most? Up in a pony94: who was the last person you know to have a birthday? My sister's 95: what are your plans for this weekend? Going to the mall with a few friends 96: do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot? Procrastinate 97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house? Uhhhh aquarius and ravenclaw 98: when's the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it? Yes! 99: list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them. Arrietty's song, Sail, rocks, fireflies100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why? Past, so I can do over and cause myself not to become an anxious fucky fuck that messes every thing upPhew!

[kisuruby]

A Clubroom Christmas (A Secret Santa Love Live gift fic)

Title: A Clubroom Christmas Rating: G Fandom: Love Live! School Idol Project Summary: Honoka gets excited over Christmas. She wants to have the best Christmas party ever in the classroom! The only problem is, NIco is standing in her way.May or may not be set before the Christmas story in SIF. Characters: Kousaka Honoka, Yazawa Nico Tags: Christmas, Humor, Holidays, Canon Compliant, Friendship Notes: Written as a Secret Santa story for MikanOrangePawaaa on the Love Live! SIF subreddit. Hello  /u/MikanOrangePawaaa I wrote you a short Christmas-themed story with Honoka and Nico. I hope this is something you end up liking. Read this story under the cut or go to AO3.

With the overhanging realization that the end of the year would be upon them soon, Honoka had thought about what they should do. Every moment should be cherished between her and her beloved friends in Muse. Out of all the things in the world there was only one thing that could bring their club of school idols together in the icy month of December.

Honoka sat up straighter in her chair. On the other side of the table, Nico leafed through papers, taking out a bookmark in one of her books. Honoka didn’t know what she was doing but inspiration struck. Honoka bolted upward in her seat. “Nico-chan!” Honoka yelled. She pounded on the table in the clubroom, eyes flashing determinedly. She glanced around herself, pleased that none of the others were there to hear their conversation. For today, it was them while the others were busy. Nico flinched. The lid of the book in her hand slammed down on the page. Looking forlornly at the lonely blue bookmark in her hand, she scowled. “W-what!? Stop yelling so suddenly,” Nico reminded her irritably. She shuffled through her papers again. Nico had homework to fill out. She didn’t need Honoka bothering her at that moment, but she didn’t mind the break in silence. In fact, it was strange that Honoka had been so quiet for the last twenty minutes. What had she been thinking about? To her dismay, Nico wasn’t impressed with her. But Honoka would bring her other to her side eventually. “I know what we should do,” Honoka said excitedly. Nico blinked. “Should do about what? The next song and choreography we need done in a few weeks?” Silly Nico. Those things could wait for some fun, Honoka pushed herself out of her chair. She twirled around in a circle. After all, she was an utter genius. “Do about making things even more fun around here. Let’s have a Christmas party! Eat cake, open presents, talk about whatever. All the fun stuff.” Nico wasn’t sure if cake was even served for Christmas events. It didn’t seem like a bad idea in theory, but she thought of all the accidents that could happen with food. She shuddered. Usually, she was strict about that sort of thing in the clubroom. “Sounds like trouble if you ask me.” Honoka pouted. She wasn’t going to give up for that reason. “No, it’s not,” she declared. “I think it’ll be super, super fun! And—and! One of us can dress up as Santa for Maki and she’ll be super happy.” Maki, star-eyed and amazed, would love to see Santa. It was the full-proof plan, although Nico doubted she would be that engrossed in one of the Muse members playing Santa unless they played their role so well they didn’t sound out. Maki would probably be critical if someone messed up the role! But she wouldn’t say that she didn’t want to see it. Nico didn’t want to be the one dressed up. On the other hand, Maki would praise her for being amazing and her childhood idol. Was Santa technically an idol? He was to most little kids, anyway. Nico could snicker at her later for believing she was the best. Nico sighed. Besides, she didn’t want to reject her. She should accept whatever she was planning. Everyone knew that they couldn’t avoid Honoka when she decided on something for herself. “Shouldn’t we ask everyone what they think?” Nico asked. Doing that was default around the club. The others would have their preferences this-and-that. Everyone would have a role to play whether that was about food, games, or especially presents… Honoka waved her hands frantically. Nico was trying to blow down every shred of suspense in this entire plan, wasn’t she? “No. That’ll ruin the surprise. We’ll tell them after we get a few things prepared, okay?” Nico knew this would turn out chaotic, but... “Then…” Nico frowned and absorbed the scene around them. “How do we decorate this place?” The room was sparse minus the bookshelf with idol research material, the colorful posters on the walls, and the pamphlets and paper scattered on the table. It was rather ordinary for a clubroom. Nico never thought much on the matter, but decorating it up might put some color it didn’t have normally. “That’s easy,” Honoka said. Her imagination started to run away by express. She paced the room and started to point. “We’ll put streamers everywhere.” She indicated the walls, windows, and the chairs.  She stopped in front of the bookshelf and spread out her arms, grinning triumphantly. “And we’ll take everything off the bookshelf and put decorations and cute plushies and make it really Christmas-y, and-“ Nico cleared her throat. Honoka’s blood went cold. Nico shot her a deadpan expression. “Honoka, do you know how long it took me to put all of these research materials on these shelves?” Wide-eyed, Honoka started to open her mouth. Nico beat her to the punch and pointed accusing between her and the shelves. “It’ll take ages to put them back up where they belong in the first place. Ages. Everything is alphabetized, I don’t want to store my best books in dusky boxes for too long, my CDs need to be out to give me all the inspiration I—” She indeed had opened a can of worms… Honoka turned, sheepish. In a way, she hadn’t thought about things being that complicated with Nico’s idol merchandise. Nico’s tone only made her realize that she might have had problems before. “Well…” Honoka shift uncomfortably. She was losing this battle, terribly. “If you’re worried about dust… At least you can dust up there on the highest shelf? And starting from scratch might… be good…” She trailed off at the sharp look Nico shot at her. Nico stood and put her hands on her hips and glared. There was no way she would not let Honoka force that much trouble upon her. Where would they even put so many books, CDs, and magazines? The boxes in the room weren’t exactly empty, either. Getting the hint, Honoka clenched her fists.

“Hahaha.” Nervously, Honoka tapped her feet. She didn’t relish the idea of putting every book back from once it came down from the highest shelves. “Okay, that is a bad idea. I couldn’t help. Knowing these idols is yours and Hanayo-chan’s responsibility.” Nico was proud Honoka was aware of that much. She nodded her head, pigtails flying proudly. “But!” Honoka reasoned. She placed her hand on the ledge. “There’s still room, so we can put stuff in front of them if we can move over the books enough and squeeze them between everything.” “Alright,” Nico said. She could live with that. but there was something even bigger left to deal with than some decorations. “What about the tree?” Honka was stumped for a moment. The room wasn’t quite that big for a full-sized tree, but if she had to decide something concrete… Wasn’t it normal to have a big tree with wide branches? A tree Muse could decorate together with ornaments and candy canes and stuff like that. Honoka raced next to the window and nodded at the spot around there. “In front of the window,” Honoka said. Nico hummed thoughtfully, but she wasn’t sold on it. “I don’t know. It might be a tight squeeze…” “That’s okay, we’ll make it happen!” Honoka wasn’t going to sweat the small details. Nico pointed to the middle of the table. “How about a small tree? It could fit right in the middle, see?” “But we can’t all decorate a little tree…” Honoka said, crestfallen. Nico didn’t understand the holiday spirit. “Then… we’ll hang things from the window, and the ceiling,” Nico decided. “We can do a lot with that.” Honoka’s mind burst into a million bright lightbulbs. She was right! In fact, she was so excited that she didn’t want to wait anymore. She bounded towards the clubroom door. “I want to go look for the tree right now! See you later, Nico-chan!” The door slammed behind her. Frozen, Nico watched after her, amazed at her full-blooded. enthusiasm. It wasn’t anything new, but… Her eyes landed on her difficult homework and she gulped. How could Honoka selfishly leave her here!? “Honoka, wait!” Nico called after her. She started the chase to catch up. She wasn’t quite in the Christmas mood quite yet. However, she did want to spend time with everyone, and she had to make sure that Honoka was making decisions that wouldn’t make the room look too overdone. In that case, break the entire club budget. Besides, she wanted to see if they had any cute  Santa hats that weren’t just tradition white and red and might be cuter. Maki telling her she was the best for Christmas was present enough. She didn’t need anything else. Later, when Honoka calmed down, they would tell the rest of the club. But for now, Nico would start getting some ideas. Only by going shopping herself would she get ideas for cute presents to give.

[lilianbenavides-blog]

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