Constance Blanchet

[Salic]

Name: Constance Marie Blanchet
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Photojournalism, philosophy, hiking, history, leftist theory, photography

Appearance: Constance stands at a slightly above average height of 5’7” and weight of 154 pounds. She is top-heavy, with broader shoulders and a very large bust compared to her narrow hips and vaguely-defined waist. Her complexion is fair due to her French heritage. She has a faded scar on her left hand from a bike accident when she was 12. She has sandy blonde hair which cuts off just below her jaw, but keeps in a tight bun near the center of the back of her head. However, she always keeps a few loose strands around her face for aesthetic effect.

Her hair frames her oval-shaped head, with a narrower forehead and jaw and slightly wider cheeks and cheekbones. She has large, almond eyes that are icy blue in coloration. They are capped by thin eyebrows that have a slight arch near the middle. Her nose is straight, short, and turns slightly upwards at the tip. Her mouth is small, but her lips are large and always plastered with cherry red lipstick. Her lips have a heart-like shape to them. She takes good care of her teeth, and they are uniformly straight, though they have taken on a slight yellow tint due to her smoking habit. She has small ears with lobes that protrude about a half-inch away from her head.

Constance has a few piercings, with two silver hoop earrings, a metallic purple tongue barbell, and a metallic red belly button stud. She also has a few tattoos: a small hummingbird tattoo just below her left collarbone, a rose tattoo on her left shoulder blade, the words “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite” wrapped around her left ankle, and a tattoo of a dove carrying an olive branch just above her belly button. All of her piercings and tattoos have been recent additions, with all of them being added after her 18th birthday during the months of July and August of 2021. Her parents have given their consent for this, with them scouting for places that they thought would be the safest to administer the piercings and tattoos.

Despite her family’s wealth, Constance doesn't put too much attention into her fashion, though it appears she does since her wardrobe is full of nicer clothes. She tends to wear clothes that are comfortable and practical for long days of constant motion, though she relaxes this rule during the winter due to her lack of outdoor activity during those months. On the day of her abduction, she was wearing a cream-colored cashmere sweater with light brown buttons, a sky blue undershirt, blue skinny jeans, and dark brown boots which went midway up her calves. In addition, she had all of her piercings in as well as fuzzy purple earmuffs. She also had a red lighter, a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, and her white Nikon camera in her pockets.

Biography: Constance was born on June 21, 2003 to Matthew and Marianne Blanchet (nee La Fleche) in Salem, Massachusetts. Matthew, an executive for a local bank, came from a family of rich industrialists who could trace their origins back to the earliest French colonists in the Louisiana territory. Marianne was born in Bordeaux and went to study abroad in Boston for her photography class. The two met in a bar and hit it off immediately. They maintained a long-distance relationship while Marianne finished her degree, and when she finished, she immediately moved to America to marry him. Two years later, Constance was born. She has no siblings. Since both Matthew and Marianne were fluent in French, they worked to teach their daughter the language from a very young age. They often spoke in both French and English around the house, and Constance’s first words were in French. Constance’s parents were successful, and she became bilingual early on.

From an early age, Marianne took her daughter on walking trips around Boston, Salem and the surrounding wilderness while she photographed the whole area. During these trips, Marianne’s hobbies began to disseminate on Constance. Her constant exposure to photography and hiking helped kick off two of her lifelong hobbies.

When Constance was five, her mother bought her a camera, and helped her learn to take pictures herself. She was immediately fascinated playing with it, and found she enjoyed taking pictures of people. While she didn’t understand it at the time, she enjoyed preserving people’s faces and unique reactions that could be admired and appreciated even years later.

Constance was a large personality in primary school, as she liked to talk quickly and talk often. This got her into disciplinary trouble with her teachers, as she would often disregard schoolwork in order to talk to friends. She also proved herself to be somewhat bossy, trying to order her classmates around when it came to toys or work. In response, her parents took away her camera until she reformed herself, which hastily mellowed her out. While she still talked in large mouthfuls, she was usually not the one who initiated the conversation, and she tried her best to drop the authoritative part of her personality, with moderate success.

Her elementary school years were rather uneventful, and it was in middle school that she began to get a clear picture of what her future would look like. Constance had always enjoyed history class, but it was in her 6th grade history class during the Great Depression unit that she could connect it with her photography. She had been enraptured by the Migrant Mother image by Dorothea Lange, and felt a burst of inspiration when she realized just how much influence photographs had on the entire public’s perception of historical events. Doing further research, she also fell in love with the photographs of Mathew Brady and his efforts to document the Civil War. It was through this that she discovered photojournalism, and she immediately decided what she wanted her career to be.

Despite her love for history class, her grades in school were never particularly high. She had an immense disdain for math and science, rarely scoring higher than C’s, and she performed adequately, but with no real interest, in English classes, usually scoring B’s. Her dislike of math and science stemmed from her belief that they were too focused on raw numbers and hard logic and not enough on open-endedness and creative interpretation. As for her English classes, she simply didn’t care enough about it, and was never very big on reading in the first place. In 9th grade, her father signed her up for John Endecott Memorial Academy, the school he went to in his youth. While it was no longer private, he still trusted in the quality of education there and believed it would help his daughter improve her grades.

Constance struggled slightly with the change in school, but she adjusted rather quickly and used her generally sunny disposition to make a new group of friends. She loved John Endecott’s history programs, and through them, she discovered her passion for philosophy. She had learned about the theories of early philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, and was interested in learning of the theories of more modern philosophers. Through this, she found the theory of existentialism and the works of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. She also found the theory of nihilism and the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. Constance found that the existentialist belief of the absurdist world resonated strongly with her, and in contrast, detested the nihilistic conclusion that all of her actions were meaningless. She questioned how her actions could be meaningless when they brought a sense of fulfillment to her life, and eventually came up with her own conclusion: while she believed that the world was absurd and that her actions really were meaningless on a cosmic level, she thought that her actions were very real and meaningful on a personal level, and she determined that she should continue doing what she loved in order to inject as much meaning and fulfillment into her life as possible.

During her hikes and walking trips around Boston and Salem, she noticed how many impoverished people were hiding in the alleys and sleeping on the streets, and she stopped to think about why these people were homeless and starving when people like her had all of her needs and wants met without worry. When she went home that day, she looked up initiatives to help the impoverished and disadvantaged in her community. She read up on welfare and other social programs, and began a transition from political apathy to leftist support. She learned of the oppression of the lower class by the aristocracy throughout history, and began reading leftist philosophy. She found that she resonated most strongly with the writings of Kropotkin and Bakunin, who advocated for anarcho-communism, an ideology she thought would best bridge the gap between social classes and allow everyone enough individual freedoms to pursue what brings meaning and fulfillment to their lives.

Starting in 11th grade, with the consent of several homeless shelters and the homeless people themselves, Constance started a photography collection which she called “The Destitute in Salem and Boston”, which is a collection of photographs of the homeless and poor around the area she lives. She thought that this would be a good start into photojournalism and leftist activism, and she eventually plans to broadcast these photos to the local government to campaign for improved welfare for these people. During these visits, she has been accompanied by at least one adult for mentoring and safety reasons. She also joined the photography club at this time, hoping to spread her ideas and expand her social circle. She also picked up her smoking habit around this time, after someone offered her a cigarette at a party she was attending. She believes that it brings an air of elegance to her, and has found it as a good way to burn off stress from schoolwork. She keeps this hidden from her parents, however, as she is convinced that she’d be punished severely for it.

As of 12th grade, Constance is an average student, consistently ranking around the middle of the pack due to her apathy towards most subjects. She excels in history, is adequate in English, and is below average in math and science. Socially, she’s quite friendly towards others and enjoys attending parties with people. She’s still retained her talkative side and has tried to purge the bossier side of her since she believes it runs counter to her anarchist ideals. She doesn’t share her ideas of philosophy and politics to the general student body, and only really talks about them at length with her close friends and people on similar political wavelengths.

She is bisexual, preferring women, but she’s held attraction for a few boys in the past. Like with her political and philosophical beliefs, she keeps this information closely guarded, with only the people closest to her knowing.

She has an amicable relationship with her parents, but she’s generally closer to her mother than her father. Her parents have recently entrusted her with a credit card and a bank account, which she makes frequent withdrawals from to purchase cigarettes. The attitude in the house is generally relaxed, though Constance now makes dutiful attempts to cover up the smell of smoke before she interacts with them. Her parents have designated Tuesday and Thursday as French-only nights in order to make sure Constance doesn’t lose her fluency in French.

In her future, she plans to continue doing photojournalism full time, using it to advocate for the lower classes and for leftist ideals. She does not know what college she wants to attend, but with her family’s money she could afford most colleges in the States. She plans to double major in photography and investigative journalism, aiming for a Masters degree in both.

Advantages: Constance has a large social network that she could draw allies from, due to her outgoing nature. While she’s not physically strong, years of hiking have improved her endurance and tolerance of outdoor activity.
Disadvantages: Constance has never faced true adversity in her life, and may not have the mental fortitude to overcome the nature of SOTF. In addition, she may suffer from nicotine withdrawals during her time on the island, worsening her odds of survival.

[Ruggahissy]

Hello again, Salic. So I have a few questions/concerns regarding Constance before she can move forward

- Occupation for dad? All it says is he's from a wealthy family and mom is a photographer. But surely dad has some kind of job.

- In the state of Massachusetts you have to be at least 18 years of age to get piercings or tattoos unless you have the approval of your legal guardian. Did she obtain permission and was she escorted by her parents for all of these various piercings and tattoos? How do her parents feel about this, if they gave their consent?

- Let's talk about her photography project for a moment. I've done reporting from homeless encampments and shelters in the past with a photographer in tow. How is this organized? Is it just high schoolers? One of the things to be aware of in this situation is safety. Some unhoused people have mental illness that makes it difficult to interact with them. It's also generally a good idea to get the consent of the people you're photographing, so for ethical reasons this group should be approaching and talking with their subjects. In my experience, not everyone I approached within encampments or shelter wanted to be photographed or spoken to. Are there any adults that are a part of this?

- I'm really sorry to be nitpicky on this, but that orange Nikon is an unusual choice since I'm assuming it's the Nikon Coolpix (since that's the only one I could find that's still available). Is that her camera?

- How does she get her cigarettes?

That'll be it for now. Post when ready!

[Salic]

I’ve made the requested edits.

[Ruggahissy]

APPROVED