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[Laurels]

Noah Whitley: Pregame Start

Noah flashed a pretty, pearly white smile at the webcam before him, getting an idea of what he would look like when recorded on his computer. He was sitting in his bedroom, which was a lot cleaner than usual for today's video shoot (at least the part that the camera could capture). His computer desk was a lot more cluttered. Around his computer desk were a few makeup sets, brushes, moist towelettes, a blonde wig, a small mirror, and a few other accessories lined up. There were also two sheets of paper, one with a list of details for the video Noah was about to film, and one with a rough sketch of what he was aiming for with this video shoot. Once he felt he had everything ready, Noah clicked a few buttons on his computer and leaned back. It was time to record.

"Heeeeeeeey!" Noah said cheerily to the camera. "How are y'all doing? Today's a special video because I am going to show you how to get the Pina Bucket look. Why am I doing this and not Pina? First of all, I can't believe you're expecting Pina to put any effort into something. But there's two serious reasons why she's not here today."

Noah raised his index finger. "One: Pina doesn't like to be seen without her makeup on. Believe me, it's scary. Remember that scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark?"

Noah didn't have much of a script for this video. He was planning to do a makeup tutorial based on his drag character today, and only detailed a few basic jokes and directions to take it. He knew when he'd be cutting shots in the video and what other footage he'd have to splice in later. This was the part where he'd show a clip of those Nazis melting after opening the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark, something he thought was pretty accurate when he didn't have makeup on. He paused and sat quietly for a beat in order to make that part flow naturally and be easy to edit when the time came.

"And Two," he continued, raising another finger, "Pina's currently doing her weekly detox, so she's unavailable for this shoot. I have her locked in my bathroom while she comes down-"

Noah jumped slightly in his seat, looking over his shoulder. This was where he'd add the sound of someone banging against the wall later. Most makeup tutorial videos on YouTube tended to be a bit static, so he wanted to put some action in, hence the pantomime.

"Bitch! Be cool!" he shouted at nothing. "Just three more hours. And don't try to open the medicine cabinet, okay! I cleaned it out this morning, so don't expect there to be any Vicodin squared away."

Noah turned back to the camera and smiled. He'd edit this part later to make the cuts more rapid.

"Well, let's get started," he said, clasping his hands in front of his chest.

Noah paused the video in order to get ready for this part. Noah was presently wearing a white tank top, something that would be fine to get makeup powder on. He put on a sweatband to push any hair away from his face. He had shaved earlier and made sure to wash his face before the video shoot. Once he was ready, Noah turned the camera back on to begin.

"We're going to start with the eyes first," he said to the camera. "Pina told me she likes her eyes to say two things: 'Come fuck me' and 'Buy me stuff.' So basically, we're gonna put a lot of black on. Pina's a fan of black things getting put on her face anyways. Just ask Drake."

Noah grabbed some primer and began to put it around his eyes. "Heh. Like Drake would ever fuck Pina. Flo Rida, maybe. But Drake? Please. Pina doesn't have the ass or the pink hair to attract Drake."

"So once you get the base coat down, you want to start with some color."

Noah held up a colored makeup kit and showed it off to the camera. "Pina tends to buy her shit from CVS. I know, you think it'd be Rite-Aid with Pina, but she's not allowed there anymore. I don't know why she thought she could walk out of the store with one of those heart pressure chairs, but God bless her she tried."

Pause for effect...

"Anyways, we're going to use the pink and the purple shadows today. Oh, and this product is Mac, by the way."

Noah began to brush the eye shadow over his eyelids. "You know, I probably shouldn't identify any brands in this video. Pina tends to be marketing poison. Just ask Kodak and Blockbuster."

Noah spent a few minutes putting the eye shadow on. He knew there'd be a lot of editing involved in this video, so he figured that if he couldn't figure out a joke to make, he'd just sit quietly and put makeup on. He made sure to look in the small mirror standing on the table to ensure he was doing it properly. The last thing he needed was for his makeup to look really sloppy for a video he hoped would get a lot of views.

"Okay, now that I have the eyeshadow on, we can move on. Pina told me her makeup tends to fade out, like there's an explosion in her orbital bone."

Noah paused for a moment. "Yeah, I don't get it either. Anyways, let's do the eye liner."

Noah began to draw around his eyes with black eyeliner. "Pina tends to get a bit heavy with her eyeliner. I think she tries to make it look like the outline of a cartoon character's eyes. She has tried to break into voice acting for cartoon shows, but with little success. I told Pina she needed to take voice acting classes or at least learn to lose her accent. But of course, that requires work, so she didn't do it."

"Okay, so my eyes are done," Noah said. "If I wanted to really look like Pina, I'd wait a few hours, put my face under a ton of lights, maybe mix some sweat in to make the eye liner run a bit, but I've got other things to do today, so we're not going to aim for complete accuracy. I'm not Stanley Kubrick, I don't need to be a perfectionist."

"Next thing we're going to do is foundation." Noah began to apply foundation on his face. "This is how Pina gets her pancake batter face. I'm not joking. One day she had a show and didn't have any foundation on hand, so she went into my kitchen and poured pancake batter on her face instead. She ended up licking most of it off, so it was all gone by the time we got to the club. She did at least have a little shimmer on her face from all that saliva."

"Anyways, that was Pina's little adventure with salmonella. Hospitals sure are fun."

"So once you've got foundation on, we do the highlight. Pina likes to accentuate her nose, her cheeks, and her chin. I think she wants to show the parts of her that haven't been altered by surgery. Heh, I'm just kidding, she can't afford plastic surgery. She can't even afford black market silicone. Most money Pina earns tends to go towards Skittles, tequila, and lube. Meanwhile, I have to work two jobs in order to keep the lights on, and the bitch doesn't even share those Skittles with me."

Noah had earlier in his web series tried to create the idea that he and the fictitious Pina Bucket were roommates. Sure, they never appeared in the same video together (Noah was saving up for a green screen to fix that), but he thought it was funny for there to be a strange relationship between the characters on the show.

"Next is contouring," Noah said, holding another set up to the camera. "We've got some color that says 'my skin is basically leather at this point.' Strangely, Pina doesn't smoke. It's the one vice she's avoided, so I don't know what happened to her skin." Noah began to paint his face, taking a few minutes to complete the task. "After that, we do blush." Noah held up a large brush and some red powder. "Pina says she likes the brushes to be dry and rough when she puts blush on her face. I guess it's supposed to be like her vajayjay or something."

Noah began to put the blush on his cheeks. "Now, when you're applying blush like Pina, you want it to look like a baboon's ass is growing out of your face, so go heavy. When it looks sufficiently ass-y, you're good. Just be careful, because people will try to face fuck you if you look too ass-y. If that happens, do like Pina does and point them in the right direction, and you'll be fine."

Noah took a moment to look over himself in the mirror. The makeup job was going well so far. Sure, he'd never go outside looking like this if he wasn't in character, but he thought he was at least selling the video.

"Now, we're going to do lashes. Pina says her eyelashes grow like bamboo, so she doesn't need to wear false lashes. But I'm not Pina, and I'm not blessed with her eyelash forest, so we're going to put false lashes on."

Noah grabbed a package of false lashes. "Pina's eyelashes can get really heavy. It's why her eyes look so droopy. I'm almost certain there's a menagerie of animals we thought were extinct hiding out in her lashes. If she blinks, a few dodo birds might fall out. To try and match Pina's eyelashes, I'll probably put on about three pairs."

Noah began to bend and put eyelash glue on the false lashes. "Heh. There's going to be white stuff on my eye. Now I'm really going to look like Pina on a Saturday night."

Noah took a few minutes to put the eyelashes on. Eyelashes were the thing Noah hated putting on the most. They were time consuming, required a steady hand, and looked awful if he didn't do them properly. There wasn't going to be anything funny during this part of the video, just a lot of obscenities muttered under his breath.

"The lashes are done, yay!" Noah cheered, doing some jazz hands. "Next is mascara." Noah began to put mascara on his lashes. "If you're Pina, and you're wearing mascara, it will be running before the night is over. Most nights, she ends up looking like fucking Ronan from Guardians of the Galaxy. Fortunately, it's early in the day, and Pina has yet to put any narcotics in her system, so we'll still look mostly decent."

Noah shook his head. "Not really," he whispered to the camera.

"After that is lips. Now, if you're going to have Pina lips, you need to be carefully with whatever you use here. Any given night, there will be a lot going in and out of Pina's mouth, and you don't want your lipstick to smear. So before your cheeseburger starts to wear so much red it swears allegiance to the Communist Party, we're going to put some primer on the lips to keep it on longer."

Noah began to put the primer on the lips. "I bet you thought I'd make a dick joke there. Get your head out of the gutter."

"Now we're going to line the lips. Pina tends to make her liner the same color as her lipstick. That's generally a no-no since it makes her mouth look like a squished tomato, but she does it anyways."

Once the liner was on, Noah began to put red lipstick on, smacking his lips together when he finished. "Ooh, I'm going to be the prettiest girl at the trailer park ball tonight," he exclaimed.

"Next, we're going to add some clear gloss to the lips," he said before putting the gloss on. "This is to make it look like your lips aren't as dry as wheat toast. Pina once ate a whole loaf of wheat bread because she thought I said 'weed bread.' She didn't get high, although it did make her fat enough to be Melissa McCarthy's stunt double, so she had that going for her."

"So, we're looking done, right? But wait, we didn't do our eyebrows. That's understandable. Pina often forgets to highlight her eyebrows. Her reason is that she can't see them if she looks up, so what's the point?"

In actuality, Noah had forgotten to highlight his brows. That was something he was trying to break the habit of, but he at least figured out how to make a joke out of it. He was just glad he realized it while he was putting the eyelashes on a few minutes earlier.

Noah shook his head. "Ah, I stay with her because I love her."

He grabbed a highlight pencil and brushed over his brows. "Pina dyes her hair every six months or so. She had no idea you were supposed to dye the brows too. She says dark brows make her look like Cara Delevingne, but I know Cara doesn't like being compared to Pina. The last time Pina and Cara met, Pina very nearly went Single White Female on her. But that's what restraining orders are for. Remember that, kids," he said, pointing directly to the camera.

"Well, the face is about done," Noah said. "As you can see, you want your Pina look to be somewhere between out-of-work clown about to turn tricks and Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Oh, but now we get to do hair. Yay!"

Noah snatched the blonde wig from next to him. "Pina doesn't pay a lot of money for wigs. She thought a lace front was a kind of panty, which made for one awkward Victoria's Secret visit, so she has to settle for bargain bin wigs or making her own. I think she said this one was made entirely of her high school coach's back hair." Noah began to run his fingers through the long wig. "He must have had a lot of volume and length because this is actually pretty good. I'm also surprised Pina had the time to collect this much hair since I think she was only in high school for about a month before she got expelled. The poor thing, she didn't realize you weren't supposed to use hairspray near a Bunsen burner."

Noah threw the wig on his head, making sure it was pinned in place. Once that was done, he grabbed a hairbrush. "Pina told me that when she brushes her hair, she likes to count to twelve, then start brushing a different part of her hair. I think twelve is the highest she can count to, so we're going to do that too."

Noah began to brush the wig. "Pina says she likes her hair to really stand out, mostly looking like it juts out in multiple directions. Today, we're going to do Pina's traditional pigtail look. I don't know why she's so fond of pigtails. Maybe she likes to wheelbarrow whenever she brings a guy home."

Noah brushed the hair in front of his shoulders. He grabbed two hair ties from the table, each one pink and with plastic flower charms on them. He placed one in his mouth and began to tie a pigtail with the other. "Pina's the reason Claire's Boutique has yet to go under," he said once he started on the second pigtail. "Seriously, she got a plaque."

"Once you get the hair styled, spray the fuck out of it. Pina's not allowed near the North Pole anymore due to how much hair spray she uses." Noah began to spray the hair. He began to cough and tried to wave away the leftover spray in the air. "Ugh, it smells like a Sadie Hawkins dance in here. Ugh."

"Now that we've got the cosmetic part done, we can get to the styling. Pina told me her style icons include Rizzo from Grease, Snooki, Electra Heart, and Nomi Malone from Showgirls. Thus, anything low cut, cropped above the navel, leather, animal printed, and slightly dated will do."

Noah paused the video. Hanging on the hook of the door behind him was the outfit he chose for this video. The next part was something that wouldn't matter too much for the viewers to see. He wasn't desperate for views that he would start doing strip teases for the camera. He spent the next few minutes getting ready for this part. He put on a black bra, making sure to stuff it with tissue (as Pina would), then put on the outfit.

The outfit he chose for this video was one of the signature Pina Bucket outfits he had put together. He found a white leather motorcycle jacket at a vintage store in Kingman, which even he thought looked good on him, but would look awful on Pina. He also had a black tube top and a black leather skirt to go with the outfit. Part of him knew how silly he looked (who wears a bra with a tube top?) but figured it would work for the character he had created. Once he was dressed, he went back and turned the camera on, standing in the middle of his room to show the outfit off.

"Pina likes to wear this because it makes her look tough and vulnerable at the same time. The jacket says 'I have a boyfriend with a comical nickname like Snake-Eyes or Jimbo,' but take the jacket off," he said, removing the jacket, "and now she looks like the kind of woman John Travolta would claim he fucked back in the 70's. Y'know, when people actually believed he fucked women."

Noah put the jacket back on and sat back down at the table. "Next is jewelry. I have a few rings here that I pilfered from her jewelry case. Seriously, girl thought an empty Folgers can was a good place to put her jewelry." Noah began to put on a few plastic and cheap looking rings, putting two on his left ring finger and one on his left middle finger. "Then again, all her jewelry total probably costs less than a dinner for four at T.G.I.Fridays, so she's probably not at a great loss if they're stolen." Noah put a few more rings on his other hand, before showing them off to the camera.

"Pina likes to wear a ton of rings. It's how she usually wins fistfights behind the club. But those aren't really fistfights as much as 'mugging homeless men,' but that's just semantics."

Noah held up a gold chain necklace. The necklace had several triangle shaped pieces hanging off the chain, fused to make one large, upside down triangle.

"This necklace tells guys where to look when Pina's performing. Next is earrings."

Noah held up some gold hoop earrings. Inside the hoops was the word "PINA" in gold metallic letters.

"Someone owed Pina a favor, so he made these earrings for her. Trust me, you don't want to be in debt to Pina. I was once in debt to her, and I got my driver's license suspended because of it. And the buses in this town smell like piss."

Noah put the earrings on, turning his head to show them to the camera.

"And that's it. Now it's time for some modeling!"

Noah adjusted the camera so that it would show him from the chest up if he stood in the middle of the room. He began to pose and model the best way he could for the character. This mostly meant posing with his mouth open and tongue hanging out, putting his hands against the side of his head, removing the motorcycle jacket and swinging it around, and keeping his legs hips-length apart. He would edit this part later, probably put some EDM over the montage, and add some visual effects. Once he was done, he sat back in front of the camera, adjusting it back to the close-up it was before.

"And that's my tutorial for the Pina Bucket look. If you're going to go out and look like this, wait until the sun sets because then you'll probably be mistaken for someone beautiful. Seriously, there's a reason Pina sleeps in until 5 pm. Okay, so if you liked this video and want to find out more, please subscribe to my channel," he said, pointing down where the subscribe button would be once the video was uploaded to YouTube, "I try to post a new video every two weeks, so if you want to see more of me and my best friend, Miss Pina Bucket, check us out and-"

Noah jerked his head to the side again. He would add banging sounds to this part. It was his idea to remind the viewer that the real Pina Bucket was still locked in his bathroom detoxing.

"Okay, I'm done!" he shouted at the empty space. "Hold your horses, Jesus."

He got up and walked to the side of the room, where the camera couldn't see him.

"No! Pina! Put the plunger down! Aaaaaah!" he shouted from off camera.

Noah hurried back to the desk and stopped recording. He began to chuckle to himself as he saved the video file.

"Alright. I finally did a makeup tutorial," he said to himself. He sat down and began to wipe the makeup off his face using the moist towelettes by his side. "Eat your heart out, Gigi Gorgeous."

((Noah Whitley continued in Extraordinary Machine))