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January 3rd, 2018 Dorm Room, Claremont Alexa sat in her room scanning through her YouTube channel at some of the comments. Her fingers did not grace the keyboard even as the screen scrolled and flicked from topic to topic. When she had been in Shanghai, her presence on her channel had been constant as her schoolwork had barely occupied a fraction of her time. Yet, with the move and transition to Claremont and her work to assimilate into American society she had barely put out anything in the past couple of months. While the comments on her work were positive, there was an undercurrent of restlessness from the posters wondering if she had dropped the channel or not. "Zhu, you need to post more!" "Where have you gone? We miss your stuff!" Of course there were some of the more rude and crude posts, but she had learned long ago to filter them out. The inevitable crude propositions and inarticulate rage that the internet seemed rife with were taken care of with a reasonably good set of filters. Still, she missed producing videos and now that she was feeling a little more settled in, the urge to create had crept back up on her. The question always was what to make this time? She was known for her special effects and short films with elaborate sets. Ideas were always the hardest part, but once she had one, then she could start laying the groundwork for it. Jumping off her own channel, she started to scan the news, looking both at current and past events. Thankfully, Freedom City had more than enough colorful material for her to look through and she was soon awash in photos of epic struggles and colorful heroes. As she was scanning she paused on a story about an Olympian hero, Scion. Reading through it she grinned as an idea for a short came to mind. She could practically picture the set with sweeping Greek architecture and who wouldn't want to do immortal special effects. Right! Idea found, now to find a leading lady. She didn't think that anyone would really want to see a comically underage Chinese girl play the part, so starring in it herself was out of the question. She didn't have the money to hire a professional, but probably could get some funds for an amateur. Especially someone who might be looking for some supplementary income. Grinning, she started a scan across social media outlets searching for someone who would have the right looks. Her ability to work the computer without having to operate it manually was a godsend as images and threads blazed by across the screen. Suddenly one paused and she gave it a good look. The woman, Moira Morley, had a face that would really suit the Greek Goddess part... well with a little post processing at least. She wasn't a professional and worked at a bar in the West End. That was about as perfect as it was going to get. Hopefully she would want the money and perhaps some exposure! To: Moira.Morley@morleyspub.com From: Zhu.Xieng@gmail.com Subject: Hi! Would you like to star in a movie? Hello, I know this is really kind of random, but I produce YouTube short movies and have been looking for someone to feature in my latest one. You have a perfect look for what I want to do and was wondering if you might be willing to spend a couple of afternoons to star in my film. I'm a student at Claremont but have some money to pay you as well as a successful channel. While the money wouldn't be great, if you are at all interested in acting, the exposure would be pretty good. I would love to meet with you and show you my work and talk over the possibility of you working with me. Sincerely, Alexa Xieng