Posts Tagged ‘plot’

Transmundane – The Plottening

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

So I’m going to be writing Transmundane for the next month for Script Frenzy. I have done, like, nothing on the project so far, so I need to do a lot of plotting and skip the research now, getting right into the hard part. Plot and characters. Here I go!

Characters and Plots:

I made physical representations of the characters. It’s not quite how I imagine them, but there’s at least something to work off of considering I only came up with their named when I was saving them.

Brooke
The first girl and works mostly as a framing device. She is utterly typical high school girl. She doesn’t stand out, blending into the crowd and daydreaming about being more than she is. The story is going to open with her dreaming and we will meet the rest of the cast through her eyes, then follow her around for a bit while she tries to figure out why there are recurring people in her dreams and daydreams.

Plot: Brooke will start out with a dream. She will wake up, go to school, encounter best friend on the way to school and they will talk about how the friend has a boyfriend and Brooke only has a crush. Said crush will invite her to a party and Brooke will spend the day daydreaming, but see those people from that morning’s dream again.

That night, she will actually talk to said dream folk and start to come into the world and learn more, but be pretty much just a visitor there. She will encounter Gunnar and learn more, and Aries and Fumi will run across her and Selene will show up, not realizing she’s “one of those” and there will be more exposition.

On the reality side, Brooke will be getting ready for said party and end up having to drive for the night. This won’t be a big deal, except the climax will happen and she will get pulled into the dreams while she is driving. And then there is climax and at the end, she can’t get back to reality and her date.

Sage
One of the first people that Brooke encounters and one of the leaders of the separate factions of people who are inside the collective subconscious. He had a falling out with Gunnar a while ago and they have a little history together. He also maintains more of a teaching role, showing the new guys around and letting them decide for themselves, though is unhappy when they choose not to follow him.

Plot: Sage is going to start off by showing Brooke the basics and teaching her what she needs to know to survive, mentioning none of the parts about changing people by changing their inside scapes.

When he lets her go off to discover stuff all on her own, he meets up with Paige, Fumi and Aries for a bit of an update about what’s been going on. They report a growing number of people in the other side, that growing number being about seven, and how they aren’t actually doing much yet, instead working to organize their efforts and maybe get one more. They have some plan in effect to actually get more recruits to help change the world for the better. They don’t know what else to do beyond this, though.

The story from there with Sage revolves mostly around him trying to find out what’s happening with them and running into Gunnar to exposit about their pasts well. He accidentally lets slip about Brooke and Gunnar goes off, Sage not sure if he should go fix it or let her make up her own mind. He lets her go, instead worrying about planning for the climax.

Paige
A girl of many accents, Paige is generally a happy, peppy person to be around. She is quite independent, happier to go out and do things on her own so that she can handle them her own way, but also quite outgoing and social. She also has some history, though does not like to talk about it, frequently moving the topic to other matters or simply leaving if she doesn’t like where it’s going.

Plot: Paige hangs around with Sage for quite a bit at the beginning and is the one sent out to go collect Fumi and Aries when Brooke goes. After the meeting, she goes off to do a little spy work, watching Gunnar and eventually confronting him. They used to be allies and he knows all about that past she’s running from, giving her enough reason to up and leave before the painful memories bring her back to her own scape.

She runs and ends up with Aries, who is in the process of clean up. They exchange notes and Paige goes to see Brooke, who she knows is around there somewhere. They chat a little and she goes off to do more things I haven’t thought of until the climax comes around.

Gunnar
The so called antagonist who will try to sway Brooke to his side with promises that she’s going to be able to make a better world if she goes ahead and helps people. He’s actually a very nice guy, charismatic and honestly believes that what he’s doing is for the best.

Plot: He starts off with Paige encountering him. From there, he does mostly exposition and ends up paying a visit to his old friend, Sage. After that bit of exposition, he goes out to plant a few seeds in Brooke and checks in on her now and then.

The third time of doing so, though, he is stopped by Selene, who is more mocking than anything else. She disapproves and he doesn’t care, instead assured that Brooke will come to him in the end.

He moves instead to his plan. There are a lot of minds in the world that need changing and they don’t have the manpower for it. They need to bring more people in for things to happen. AMBIGUOUS EVIL PLOT. TO BE PROPERLY DEVELOPED LATER.

Selene
Quiet, but confident, Selene prefers to watch, wait and let things come to her rather than going out and making things happen. She is unaligned in the whole matter, instead enjoying her freedom and doing as she likes without worrying about what side she should or should not be a part of.

Plot: Brooke is the first person to encounter Selene. She doesn’t much like that she’s already chosen sides and that they’ve recruited her out of the womb, so to speak. She tells Brooke that there’s always another option and then goes off to have her fun.

She’s mostly bumming around, expositing about some of the cool stuff you can see and do in this particular situation, having mini adventures and playing along in dreams like she told Brooke to do.

Eventually she runs into Gunnar, who is on his way to see Brooke. She stops him and they obviously have a little history as she’s entirely too friendly and a touch malicious when she does talk to him. Still, not her problem and she takes off once he leaves the girl alone.

Still, she is curious about what’s going on and finds Fumi, who, as it turns out, was her brother when they were awake. He fills her in and she gives him a couple tips about what she knows about the situation too.

From there, she considers actually getting involved, watching and getting too close to the whole thing until she is caught in the midst of it all at the climax.

Aries
Happy, outgoing, but distinctly odd, Aries seems to be on the run from something as much as Paige is. He is quirky and curious, more interested in poking around and figuring something out than actually doing anything very proactive. He’s often seen trying to get Fumi to crack and actually say something.

Plot: After the meeting, he follows Fumi around and annoys the crap out of him until he eventually loses him. At this point, he goes back to his usual pattern, finding recently reconstructed scapes and putting them back to the way they were before the effects start being acted upon.

Paige eventually comes by and they talk a bit, both alluding to bits and pieces of their past. Once Paige is gone, he goes back to trying to track down Fumi, instead heading back to a place so he can get ready for the fight he knows is ahead and spying on the people who are doing things.

When he does find Fumi, he ends up hiding because of Selene and finds out about him. Not sure what to make of it, and his own previous experiences with Selene which are alluded to back with Paige, he leaves to go blow up some things. And then there will be climax after that.

Fumi
Another odd kid, he keeps to himself mostly when Aries isn’t trying to get him to talk. When he does talk, it’s usually something pretty important and otherwise he ends up leading the way to trouble and works with Sage to organize matters.

Plot: After he finally loses Aries, he ends up going to an information centre which is his own scape. He, apparently, has cameras that watch everyone else that is on their plane and ends up spying for a while, stepping into them and getting a good idea of the people who they are looking at gathering instead of watching over the actual offending people invading the places. He also occasionally sends Aries a tip on where to clean up next.

He reports to Sage what he’s learned so that he’s got something to work with and offers some ideas on what exactly the plan is.

When he returns back, he finds Selene already there and they talk about the past and what’s going on. Fumi fills her in and generally tells her everything, warning her to stay out of it. He is not pleased to see her in the climax.

Notes about the universe and whatnot:

  • Time is completely non-existant while in universe. No need to make time lines add up because any given area is time-wise moving faster or slower than the other ones.
  • Freud and Jung need not apply. This is going to be a set of several universes where everything will mean something different to different people, so it’s not really going to make sense to use Freud, though elements of Jung will get to stay. But is everyone mentally the same? Who knows. Dream dictionary can screw itself, though.
  • The evil plan involves pulling people into the place permanently. People with similar ideals so they will join and together they will all be able to change the minds of enough people so that they can make the world a better place.
  • Need to figure out names for the awake people. Brooke’s strand is going to involve a lot of back and forth between reality and not. Also, forgot to mention at some point she’s going to change something for the better and it’s going to end badly, so she’s not going to do it anymore.  Maybe give friend’s boyfriend more confidence sort of thing.
  • Fumi is the only scape we see besides a glimpse at Brooke’s.
  • The scapes are a temporary name. I need a better one. Also, think of them like Outbacks from The Maxx.

And that’s what I got so far. Script Frenzy is going to be very interesting this year.

If you want to help, give me more dreams. I can always use a few more dreams and daydreams. Otherwise, I’m going on autopilot for the next month, with everything pre-written and pre-made so I can write. Wish me luck!

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Script Frenzy’s Coming

Friday, March 5th, 2010

So, Script Frenzy is coming up very soon. I’m thinking I’m doing it again this year and creating another side project to my other side projects. And, as always happens whenever I have a writing month coming up, I am conflicted about what I’m going to write. This time around, it’s two stories and two completely different mediums to write for. Well, three.

Yeah, I need a hand again. But this time, I can link to the pages instead that I’ve already written up, since they’re going to be projects that I already have on the roster. So, here are the options:

Atlantis Project
Years ago several children had run into the gate and all but one disappeared. Since then, the children had grown up and caused problems for them in the shadows. When two of them, the more notorious twins, came to offer their help tracking down the others, they were dubious about their motives. Still, this was the best option they had.

Onyx, the only child from that day they had managed to catch, was put in charge of a team assembled specifically so that they could keep the twins in check and together they try to find the other children from that day, grown up now and twisted as the underworld of Atlantis.

Twilight
When they moved to the city, it was mostly so Bree could pursue her dreams to become a doctor and not have to pay extra for dorms. Unfortunately, after one day she realizes that her dreams can never be. Her dreams shattered, she is lost and doesn’t know what to do next.

She stumbles into being a hero quite by accident. With Auntie Cici training her, she delves deep into what the world of heroes is like and what that entails. Meanwhile, she gets a job and tries to decide what she’s going to do with the rest of her life now that her dream is gone.

Transmundane
Brooke has always thought her dreams felt a little too real. When a group of people come to visit her in her dreams repeatedly, she finally realizes that her subconscious is a little different and she starts to discover the realms of the collective subconscious and the people who dwell there.

Here, she has the power to enter different people’s subconscious and affect them, as do the others who walk among them, but the people are split into two factions: Those who think they should change the subconscious of people to help them and those who believe it’s best that people work out their own problems.

Both factions want Brooke to join them and Brooke doesn’t know what she’s going to do. Luckily, she can leave whenever she wants.

Which one should I write?

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Shut Up Brain!

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

Ugh. Sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes things go right. Sometimes things become a little clearer and it’s a combination of the two. So what is bringing about this particular rant-slash-whatever else it could be? What else? My book!

As I have mentioned, I’m working on Syndicate and writing/editing lots for it. A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that maybe I should add in the Tales for the Backstreets stuff at the end, just to tie things in together and give a little exposition about the universe. I thought about it more and thought, hey, it really is a pretty nifty idea. Let’s do it!

The problem came then. I realized that the Tales stuff all had a particular aspect or theme to it, which is wonderful. I needed to switch stories in and out, but that was fine. I scrapped two stories and added two different ones to the line up and moved those stories into another book where they would better tie in.

And then I looked at the lineup and had a horrible thought. These stories don’t work well as a first book. The stories I had dealt with a very particular and special aspect of the universe which would make for a nice second or third book to show how things are different here, but it missed a lot of context.

The third book in the series, however, was all of that context I needed t open up the series. And only a story and a half written. As much as I don’t really want to go ahead and put the work I’ve done so far on the back burner, a ser4ies called “Syndicate” should really open up with a book about the bloody Syndicate and not one particular aspect of the universe.

And so I spend today writing the drabble (word misused) versions the stories so that I can spend the next week writing first drafts. That and working on that script for Terradin.

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Alienating?

Friday, January 15th, 2010

Okay, so among everything else I’m doing these days and the projects I’m writing, I’m trying to figure out one of my stories. In this story, I’m working out a whole alien civilization right down to creating a whole other species of people. And so, I have run into a slight conundrum.

Reproduction.

Granted, it’s not really going to come up in the strictly technical sense of which parts go where to do what. I’ve already figured out most of that anyway. It occurred to me, though, that I never decided whether or not I wanted to have androgynous aliens with no gender or to have them actually have the classic male and female genders.

Granted, they are meant to interact with humans and most of their physiology is pretty humanoid. One of those like-us-but-really-not sort of situations.

So, those who do check out this blog, tell me. Should I have genderless aliens or is it too alienating (Yes, pun, shut up) and should I put in the genders to make them a little more familiar?

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Day 10 – Hello Alice

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

The time has come. That plot bunny is perfect for this month really, and now I can write it out. It’s time to get working on the prep work for the first book of The Looking Glass Saga. Or maybe Chronicles, but for now, Saga is what I had written down first. Let’s get to characters.

Alice Liddell
Alice just started at Lucena Academy, sent there because she had gone to Wonderland half a year before and driven her parents nearly mad with her incessant talk of her time there. She took this as they told her to take it: a chance to further her education and continue to learn to be a brilliant, polite young girl. She does, however, have a feeling her talk of Wonderland has caused them to send her here and is making an effort to not be so forthright with the tale any longer.

She is young, outgoing and not afraid to point out when someone is wrong or make a correction where she thinks it is necessary, but does so in the politest way she can manage. She is level headed and determined, working hard to make her parents proud and ready to continue to do her very best at anything that she attempts. Granted, it doesn’t always work out for the best, but her intentions are usually good.

Adrianna Case
Quite possibly the most beautiful girl in school, Adrianna certainly doesn’t let on that she is aware of that or anything at all. She has been sent to school for a good education at the same place as her seven brothers, all of them who remain at the school keeping a keen eye out for their little sister, who is quite prone to getting herself into unusual situations due to who she is.

Adrianna is an honest, caring and dim young girl. While she is beautiful, she has trouble understanding that there could ever be anything but good intentions when other people approach her and she is quite naive. While she does work hard, she is also a little slow to understand. She memorizes facts, but does not understand how to use them in any constructive way.

Cat
A somewhat aloof older figure in the school, he appears to only associate with Alice, it seems, and does not obey much of the dress code or anything else in the school. Those who have seen him say they usually find him looking to find a comfortable spot in the sun for a nap rather than attending any classes or homework. Some believe that he may not even go to this school, saying that he only appeared on campus this year and no one knows his name beyond Alice referring to him as “Cat.”

What he is, however, is the Cheshire Cat, come to bring Alice news of Wonderland and bring her back when it suits whatever his own motives may be. In all actuality, though, he is quite happy being a human at this school and doesn’t know why the children are so stressed. He certainly isn’t.

Adrainna’s Brothers
Adrianna has seven older brothers, all of them attending the same school as she is for the moment. They do not currently all have names and I am still trying to work out who is in what year, when they would graduate and all of that messy extra stuff that comes with creating families of more than two children. Well, even then, come to think of it. But there are triplets in there and they are mischievous. Possibly a pair of twins in there as well that are both perfect little angels. That would be five of them… we’ll see.

Their core function of the story, though, is to keep an eye on their little sister and make sure she isn’t getting into trouble again. She does have a bad habit of not recognizing obvious scams and being a little too sensitive. As well as that, they have their own issues and problems so that they can be well rounded characters as well.

Arthur Dragon
Doesn’t show up for a while, but he’s been a little frozen in stone for a while. When he wakes up, he is slow to pick up on how things work in the new world and his understanding that he’s not King and doesn’t have the power to do what he wants for the good of the mission doesn’t apply anymore.

He does turn into a good guy once he gets smacked around a little, though, but he does keep some of the arrogance. He’s also a bit of an unwilling hussy, kissing whoever Alice tells him to kiss because his kiss breaks curses. He’s not all that happy about this development.

Peter
Peter is the first refugee that Alice pulled out of the Looking Glass. He was on the run, trying not to get himself killed and scared for his life as well as carrying a lot of guilt over the people he left behind in the mean time. Not knowing what else to do, he ran from Neverland looking for a way out and found Alice, who pulled him out, but was unable to keep him at Lucena Academy.

He also returns at some point, though I don’t know how or what happens just yet. But he’ll be a hell of a lot happier than he was before, so everything should work out pretty nicely. Maybe a little rivalry between him and Arthur or something of the like. It would be nice to see the two of them try to show up one another.

And that’s more characters than are appearing in the book I’m working on right now. It’s being conceived as a series, so I’m working on the planning as if it’s going to be a series as well. Peter and Arthur, they aren’t getting into the story though they might be alluded to.

So this first one, Alice has been sent to Lucena and then Cat finds her and pushes her into a mirror. She’s supposed to try and save Wonderland, or just to deliver something to the White King, and fails. She goes back to her world with the gift of a book that she’s supposed to keep safe and not read.

Alice, of course, reads it and horrible things happen. And then more bad stuff happens and then the series is properly set up for all sorts of more things. Really.

And now I need to spend the rest of the evening looking for random stuff to throw into the story because, dammit, it’s Wonderland and Nanowrimo. I take that as license to have utter insanity happen. That, and I’m going to throw a fridge at a character at long last!

Oh, and I guess I should note that the looks and uniforms I have aren’t entirely accurate. I just couldn’t find a jumper. Alice and Adrianna are 12 at the start of this. They get the blue blazer when they get to the high school area in a couple years.

School uniform colours: Blue and grey. It’s the only time I’m having uniforms, I think, so I’m going to try and do a little consistency here. Just a little. But she’s still getting the black headband with boy.

Who knows, I might be able to start writing this thing tonight. Wish me luck!

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Dammit Plot Bunny

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

As always seems to happen when I’m waiting for Nanowrimo to get here, I have a plot bunny. It’s an idea for a series and something that I’ve touched on before.

Alice in Wonderland.

For some reason, I’m coming up with ideas on how to make it a whole series about Alice trying to free Wonderland. Wonderland has been plunged into darkness and is starting to claim other worlds. The white rabbit comes to plead for her help and Alice goes, but fails to save Wonderland in book one. What she does manage to do, however, is learn that the dark force behind Wonderland moved into Neverland. She leaves as they’re taking it over and takes with her their ability to open their boarders into other realms. Too late for Neverland now, but when she leaves, she takes their ability to expand into her world any longer.

Book two not only does she realize that she did this, but she meets the first refugee. Peter Pan ran away from Neverland. She tries to hide him and he pleads with her to come back with him and save his home. This fails, as does her attempt to hide her at the school and he’s sent away into foster care until they can locate his parents. Which they won’t be able to and he is soon enough out of their care, but vanished for the time being. That or he’ll become her flying cat and she’ll be utterly unable to break that curse.

She’ll also encounter Arthur, who will be able to assimilate into school with her thanks to Snow White due to that subplot.  And others will probably show up throughout the series. meanwhile, Alice is going to slowly grow magical and more powerful, probably fall in love once or twice if I can figure out how to do romance non-cheesy and eventually take on the big bad of the series.

It all takes place at a boarding school. Alice was sent off because of Wonderland in the first place. Borrowing from the Wizard of Oz sequel a little, she’s sent away because she became obsessed with Wonderland upon her return and her parents couldn’t take it. So they sent her away and she returns home on occasion, though not often as now her parents are travelling constantly and she will often not see them for years on end. She suspects that they may have separated and neglected to tell her too. They are awfully busy with work, after all.

Or something. We’ll plot this thing out proper once November ends and I have a little Christmas time inspiration.

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This Year’s Options

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

So it’s getting closer and closer to November and I’m looking into my options for what to write this year. The list was initially ten options long, but I took out the ones that I’ve only had the concept for a year. I should be getting the older ones written first, right?

And if you notice these have different types of summaries, I copied last years over that didn’t get written and added to the list.

Please vote in the sidebar for the one I should write.

Arcleo
Traditional fantasy story where I get to make a prophesy absolutely meaningless. The main character is a vapid selfish girl who wants to be princess and is convinced that she is the true princess of an overtaken land not because of the mark on her arm (The one that’s supposed to mark the princess but appeared on every baby girl in the neighboring lands) but because she thinks she deserves better than hard work in an inn for the rest of her life.

Raven Project

A class of first year university students get subjected to genetic experimentation and do pretty much nothing about it. They’re scared, don’t know what to do and have seen the footage of the last class who tried to fight and run away getting mowed down along with the rest of their families. And that last class looked a lot like they did. Told from the perspective of the least likely success of the story, a girl who, with the help of a serum and a few long moments of agony, can grow a forty foot long wingspan.

Background Noise
Once upon a time there was a sad little lonely girl. She got a voice in her head. That voice wouldn’t go away when she grew up and she was the only teenager with imaginary friends. She also had a book of words she had to memorize and never say, but that didn’t make sense so she never really did it. And then she got whisked away to a weird place where a big monster immediately attacked her and she realized the voice in her head was telling the truth (Or she had gone insane) and everything goes to shit. And then gets better. Yay!

Darkling

This one focuses around Rin, a lovely young girl who everyone wants dead because it’s time for the chosen one to be sacrificed, though no one knows she’s the chosen one yet. So her friends are looking for the chosen one so they can kill her properly, the bad guys are looking for her because if they kill her first they win and her mother is just pissed off with her one night and randomly beats her shitless.

Creatures in the Halls
Sandra is a new teacher at the school, but already she has made quite the impact on several students. These students know that the school is haunted by something and that she seems to not only know that these things are there, but knows how to get rid of them. There’s something more at work here, though, and Sandra can only do so much at once. Though she tries to defend the students and purify the school, others may have to take her place if she falls to the creatures.

FFTS 2
After Aiden returned from backpacking for the last several months, he returned to find his best friend had gone missing for several months and refuses to talk about it. They start at school only to find not only does Caelin already know several people, but they have history. Aiden, meanwhile, discovers some new things about himself and becomes entwined in a conflict where he is missing several peices of background information like who these people are, what is Carcer and why are they all terrified of the girl who seems scared just to be outside?

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OMG! It’s a plot!

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007

Plot time! White Mice. I have characters, now I need plot.

So, it’s the start of a new year and the start of reopening some very old dormitories. The first night is a party, complete with meeting new people and a little drinking for good measure. Not that everyone managed to get to get to all of that. Eight of them went to sleep early.

Late that night after the party had wound down and everyone had gone to sleep, five of them met up in the attic, some aware of it and others more surprised that they ended up there. Not that they were left to mull in their confusion long as strange and horrific creatures came to attack them and they were forced to act, lashing out at them although, as they vanish, they realize that something is amiss.

This is when the final three appear from the middle of the room. Dawn, Di and Ezra are not so much apologetic, Di and Ezra actually laughing more than anything else, while Dawn gets right down to business. Now that they all know each other’s secrets, they can get down to the matter of the hunters, a large organized group with the intent of hunting them down and killing anyone with powers, that are coming after them in a matter of minutes.

They manage to successfully detain them and send them away, trapping several things inside an igloo in front of the building. Dawn tagged it with something before going to sleep herself. Thus, the White Mice, a prank group was born. No one else realized it until the morning, when they found that everyone had been admiring the handiwork of the igloo. They all rather liked the idea of pulling a few more pranks around campus.

All was going all right at first, finding that the hunters were actually still on campus trying to catch them and pulling pranks coinciding with sabotaging the surveillance on the eight of them. Dawn and Don ended up orchestrating all of this, giving one another code names so that “The Dons” wasn’t kept. Not that it worked, but they tried.

Dawn was taken out of commission early on by some of the hunters, removing her charm and unleashing her, leaving her unapproachable and unavailable for consultation. Angry at the attack on Dawn, they went looking for them to find that they were ready for them. They managed to escape, taking Di to a small place pointed out by Ezra for treatment. Tori went back for Dawn, making a new charm for her and dragging her out of it.

Needing a way out, Gabriel stepped up and found them an escape and a place to hide out for a little while until everyone had recovered. This escape was an abandoned house that they live in for a while, doing house-y type things while some of them late at night located places with the hunters and attacked, taking out weapon stores and surveillance and such.

And now’s where I get cryptic because it’s climax material, but I’m adding it because I want a plot in full to go back to.

They find the big central HQ and they go and attack it, thinking if they take it out the whole thing will collapse. So they go and they fight and someone dies (OMG! Who woulda thought I’d kill off a character?!) and then they go back home and Dawn tells them that they didn’t take out central and no one believes her until they’re attacked on the way back. So Dawn’s not dead. She sees the future, she can avoid death for a good while, neh?

They return to school, walk in on their own funeral and decide to split up, since it’s best for all of them. They’ve become the notorious 8 or 7 and everything is ended with all of them going off on new lives.

And that’s all. 2 more days. 2 MORE DAYS!

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