Adrian Sterling's Questionnaire

Adrian lives in New York City, he hasn't quite been there long enough to be considered a native New Yorker but he's almost at the 10 year mark. He moved there when he was still just a teenager, got on the first bus he could out of his home town and never looked back. When he first got there he had to share a studio apartment with 5 other people signed to the same agency. They had to sleep in bunk beds and they were still overpaying. Now he has a small loft apartment in SoHo with lots of exposed brick and natural light. It might still be a little cramped and expensive but it has high ceilings, a bathtub in the bedroom, and for the first time, no roommates! There's a little kitchen mostly used for coffee, an exposed rack for hanging clothes to supplement the lack of storage and a half dead lucky bamboo plant he occasionally waters by the window. His most consistent relationship is with his goldfish that he also sometimes remembers to feed, Dorian III (don't ask what happened to the first two.). He lives in a little glass fish bowl on the counter with a tiny statue of liberty to keep him company.

Adrian is a model, he gets paid to walk runways and do editorial photoshoots- or at least he did. Lately the work has been drying up; opportunities that would've been his two years ago are getting passed along to other people and his savings are drying up fast. He's had to start promoting teeth whitening kits on Instagram to make ends meet. This is the first year he hasn't walked at Paris Fashion Week since he was 19. He still feels like he has to keep up with his other successful friends' lifestyle and "maintain his brand" so after aside from rent he isn't saving anything. He's going out to expensive dinners and exclusive clubs and slipping closer to being in debt with every tab he picks up to show off.

Adrian is terrified. His true power that has gotten him through everything in his life has been his ability to charm and influence people with nothing but his looks and his confidence. Wether that's getting other people to feel protective of you, intimidated by you, or in awe of you, he's built his whole life on it. It's like that magnetism he had is fading a little bit every year as he becomes just a little less relevant. He can feel 30 coming at him like hearing the whistle of a train you can't see yet and he's stuck on the tracks looking for any way out. More than anything he wants to stop the clock, stay young and beautiful and never lose that power he has over others. The way he sees it, to grow old is to die so he'd rather die young trying to stop it.

After going to castings for a full year without getting anywhere, Adrian knew he might not get a chance like it again when he and one other guy he knew were the only two models at a callback for a major ad campaign. They ended up choosing the other model but the night before the shoot, Adrian put something in his food. It was just supposed to make him too sick for the job but it overshot "food poisoning" and he had to be taken to the hospital. Meanwhile, with no time to find another replacement, the photographer had to use their second choice and from there Adrian launched his whole career. He never thought he was capable of stabbing someone in the back like that but it taught him that sometimes the only way to win in an unfair system is to cheat and you have to make your own luck.

His talent agent, Deb. She's the closest thing to family he has in New York and the only person he can actually confide in, they've been together since he arrived and he knows he can count on her to tell it to him straight if there's ever a problem. She doesn't take shit from anybody and seems to have the phone number of everyone who's anyone in the city. Still has a BlackBerry.

His "best friend", a socialite/ influencer named Becca. She's a lifestyle blogger and nepo baby that fills everyone's social media timelines with pictures of her on David Beckham's yacht or the most exclusive popup you've never heard of. Everything is always perfect to the outside world and you only have value in her eyes if she has something to gain from it.

Jordan Gould, the competition. Essentially a clone of Adrian 5 years ago, Jordan is set to become the biggest model in the world. He only showed up on the scene 6 months ago but he's already everywhere. They've met at a few industry events and while there haven't been any open hostilities if looks could kill it would've been a blood bath.

His childhood was great when he was little, he lived in a small town where there wasn't much to do so it could be boring but it was peaceful. At school he made friends easily, he joined the basketball team because of his height but quit after one year to be the lead in the school play instead. His dad traveled a lot for work and wasn't around much when he was a kid. As Adrian got older his relationship with his father grew strained but his mom could always diffuse things and keep the peace. When he was in highschool she got sick and passed away. Without her there as a buffer their relationship only got worse so given the choice between spending the rest of his life in this quiet little town with a deadend job and having to deal with his father or leaving he chose the latter. He packed a duffel bag with as much as he could, took the money he'd been saving up from his summer jobs, left a note on his pillow and snuck out to the bus station early one morning before dawn.

Adrian likes falling in love; he does it often. Sometimes falling in love with somebody else the next day. He's never actually let himself fall completely but in a controlled way, without any real vulnerability, falling in love is a great way to pass the time. The only thing more fun is getting others to fall for you. He once spent 6 months traveling with a designer who called him their muse, that's the closest thing to a serious relationship he's had aside from the kind of flings people like to read about in tabloids where they tip off the paparazzi when and where to just happen to catch them holding hands.