Line #92 Main/ClockTampering


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6	%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
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13	[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/RegularShow https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/regular_show_clock_song_8.png]]]]
14	[[caption-width-right:350:"This is the clock song! We're setting all the clocks wrong!"]]
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16	->''Though the clock says 7:30, it's really after ten\
17	Looks like Lulu's been "repairing" it again.''
18	-->-- ''ComicStrip/LittleLulu'' theme song
19
20	Clock tampering is the art of changing the time on a clock so that you could make time be in your favor and trick others into believing it to be the true time. Some kid may do this in school when the teacher isn't looking, so they and their classmates can get out of school early, while an adult may make a clock go backward to forge his timecard and avoid getting in trouble with the boss for being late.
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22	This trope is also used in mystery and thriller works, in which the murderer may alter the time on a clock to establish a false alibi about being somewhere else at the time of the murder.
23
24	Might lead to ImplausibleSynchrony (all clocks show the exact same time of day). Compare ClockDiscrepancy (the time of an event doesn't happen at the time it was said).
25	----
26	!!Examples:
27	[[foldercontrol]]
28
29	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
30	* ''Manga/CaseClosed'': When Ayumi stayed at her dentist's house, the dentist committed murder while Ayumi napped. The dentist altered the clocks and watched a recording with Ayumi she pretended was live TV, creating a witness for her false alibi.
31	* ''Manga/CatsEye'': Ai Kisugi's classmate Kasumi becomes suspicious of Ai's sister Hitomi after an accidental photo at night captured the infamous thief "Cat's Eye" on film. Although the developed photo only shows Hitomi's silhouette, Kasumi notes that [[AwesomenessByAnalysis she has a near-identical physique to that of "Cat's Eye"]] and decides to see the thief herself by staying over at the cafe the night a heist was supposed to take place and holding all three sisters in a poker game before the 1AM deadline of the heist. To disprove her suspicions, [[SlippingAMickey they spike her drink with an hour-long sleeping drug]], then go commit the heist while Ai sets the clocks back an hour before Kasumi wakes up. When she does, the sisters claim she fell asleep for about a minute.
32	* ''Anime/TenchiMuyo'': In one of the manga issues, Ryoko pulls this prank on Sasami to make her think she's late for school. And all because Ryoko wanted to see the [[ToastOfTardiness "Girl running late with a piece of toast in her mouth"]] trope for herself.
33	[[/folder]]
34
35	[[folder:Comic Books]]
36	* ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'': In "Better Luck Next Time" (''ComicBook/CartoonNetworkBlockParty'' #44), Billy is resetting all the clocks in the house for Daylight Saving Time. When he sets Grim's cursed cuckoo clock, he and Mandy get sucked into a time vortex where a mysterious cloaked figure at the End of Time tries to return them before their presence causes a disaster.
37	[[/folder]]
38
39	[[folder:Fan Works]]
40	* In ''Fanfic/HolidaysWithHolmes'', Holmes sets Watson's clock back several hours on his birthday so as to allow the doctor a long rest after the exhausting previous night and to give Mrs. Hudson more time to prepare.
41	[[/folder]]
42
43	[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
44	* ''WesternAnimation/OneHundredAndOneDalmatians'': At the beginning, Pongo forwards the time on Roger's clock so he can go for his 5:00 walk in the park and get Roger and Anita, plus him and Perdita, to meet.
45	* In ''WesternAnimation/PeterPan'', Peter, Wendy, John, and Michael, while on the way to Neverland, land on the minute hand of Big Ben, setting the clock forward 10 minutes and changing the time shown from 8:05 pm to 8:15 pm.
46	[[/folder]]
47
48	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
49	* ''Film/TheBigClock'': While cleaning up the crime scene for Janoth, Steve Hagen turns a clock back several hours and stops it, making it appear it had been broken in the struggle, so it will appear the crime had occurred several hours earlier.
50	* In ''Film/{{Exam}}'', [[spoiler:Deaf]] changes the clock when no one is looking, so when [[spoiler:White]] talks to the Invigilator as soon as he thinks he's won, he disqualifies himself because they are still within the time limit.
51	* In ''Film/DieFeuerzangenbowle'', this is part of a more elaborate, that is, downright epic school prank pulled off by the (alleged) student Johann Pfeiffer. While at his teacher Professor Crey's home, he sets back all clocks he can find by one hour, [[BatmanGambit expecting "Schnauz" to believe his pocket watch is the one that's wrong, setting back that one, too, then his alarm-clock, and then being late for school the next day so that Pfeiffer can impersonate him]]. [[HilarityEnsues It ends up getting even better than this]].
52	* ''Film/Gremlins2TheNewBatch'': In an attempt to trick the Gremlins into going to the lobby of Clamp Enterprises while it's still day, the protagonists blind the windows and set all the clocks in the building ahead a few hours.
53	* ''Film/LostInAlaska'': In order to keep Joe from trying to get away and attempting suicide again, Tom and George decide to sleep in two-hour shifts. During his turn, Tom changes the time on the clock so he can get more sleep and George will get less.
54	[[/folder]]
55
56	[[folder:Literature]]
57	!!Authors:
58	* Creator/AgathaChristie:
59	** ''Literature/TheClocks'': the murder victim is surrounded by six clocks, four of which have been stopped at 4:13. [[spoiler: These clocks turn out to be {{Red Herring}}s. The unpublished book that the clocks imitated, however, directly implicated the killer as she was one of only a few people who had access to it.]]
60	** Every time the old whodunnit trope where the victim's [[StoppedClock watch was stopped]] by the force of the murder, thereby giving the time of death, gets raised in a Christie book, someone will point out what an easy clue it is to fake.
61
62	!!Individual works:
63	* Literature/{{Discworld}}:
64	** One book mentions that the clock tower of the Teachers' Guild strikes noon early, in accordance with all the teachers' wishes and prayers for class to be over.
65	** In ''Literature/ThiefOfTime'', Jeremy Clockson ''thoroughly'' disapproves of the practice. One time he heard another clockmaker deliberately kept his watch five minutes fast, and while we don't get the details, we do learn there was a ''lot'' of blood to clean up.
66	* ''Literature/GoblinsInTheCastle'': The morning after the goblins are released, it's discovered that they changed the time on one of the clocks as one of their pranks -- it's early morning, but the clock is striking two.
67	* ''Literature/NickVelvet'': In "The Theft of Twenty-Nine Minutes", Nick is hired to ensure that the passengers on a riverboat cruise 'lose' 29 minutes. Getting a job as a StageMagician on the riverboat's cabaret, Nick is able all of the clocks on the boat without being noticed. During his show, he collects the watches from all of the guests as part of a trick. As he places the watches in a bag, he uses sleight of hand to wind each one back 29 minutes. As they don't get their watches back till the end of the show, no one notices the change of time.
68	* In one of the ''Literature/StClares'' books, Bobby Ellis sends their form teacher a summons to a teacher's meeting, and once the teacher leaves she puts the clock forward ten minutes. When the teacher gets back, confused and annoyed because no one else showed up at the meeting, she doesn't check the clock immediately - which leads to her ending class without giving the surprise test that she thinks the girls don't know about. While the class gets the test the next day, everyone has had a chance to study for it. Bobby would have gotten away with it completely if she hadn't tried a nearly identical trick as part of a practical joke just a few weeks later.
69	* ''Literature/TheThinkingMachine'': Crucial to how the murder was committed in [[spoiler:"His Perfect Alibi"]]. Once Van Dusen works out what the killer has done, he then has to work out how he did it.
70	* In ''Literature/ThisIsHowFloodsBegin'':
71	** A young man tampers with the clock of the city tower to make it go slower. [[spoiler:It makes dawn arrive late, thanks to the planet's bizarre laws of space and time]].
72	** Later, when it becomes clear the main character has only a couple of days to live, [[spoiler:the Planet Council decide to put all the major clocks forward to make sure that the starship carrying medications arrives in time to save him. It is eventually revealed that many people put their small clocks and watches forward as well because the ship lands five hours earlier than expected]].
73	[[/folder]]
74
75	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
76	* ''Series/{{Columbo}}'': Several episodes have the villain tamper with the clock in order to establish a false alibi.
77	** In "[[Recap/ColumboS06E01 Fade in to Murder]]", the murderer uses this (combined with a video recorder) to establish an alibi. He slips up when he resets the watch of the friend he is using as an alibi: he sets it to the right time, not realizing his friend kept his watch five minutes fast.
78	* ''Series/DeathInParadise'': In [[spoiler:"Beyond the Shining Sea - Part One"]], the killer secretly sets a witness's phone five minutes ahead: leading her to believe that she last saw the VictimOfTheWeek alive five minutes later than she actually had. This throws out the supposed timeline of the murder and allowed the killer to murder the victim and still establish their alibi.
79	* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' story "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E2GhostLight Ghost Light]]", the Doctor at one point puts the house's clock forward to 6pm because he's fed up waiting for the nocturnal characters to become active.
80	* In one episode of ''Series/{{Hustle}}'', Mickey's alibi for a crime is that there's a photo in the newspaper of him shaking hands with a senior policeman, whose watch clearly shows that it's the time the crime took place. The OnceMoreWithClarity flashback shows him secretly adjusting the watch as they shake hands.
81	* ''Series/JonathanCreek'': In one episode, the murderer fakes an alibi by adjusting the clock in his house in order to make a respectable Christian missionary (whom he is caring for while she recovers from an injury) believe that the current time was the time when the murder was committed when she saw him in the house.
82	** Note that in order for the murderer's plan to work, he needs to change the time a lot, by whole twelve hours -- unlike most examples, this is a complex operation that happens over several days.
83	* ''Series/{{MASH}}'':
84	** The medics stage a patient emergency and turn the recovery ward clock back a half hour so Frank won't be able to operate a gun in bringing down "5 O'Clock Charlie," an inept North Korean bomber.
85	** When a mortally wounded soldier is brought in on Christmas Day, BJ is desperate to keep him alive through the day so that his children will not have to remember Christmas as the day their father died. He, Hawkeye, and Margaret manage to keep the man alive until sometime past 11 pm. Hawkeye then turns the wall clock forward an hour, so that they can declare the time of death as being on December 26.
86	* ''Series/MrBean'': In "Happy New Year, Mr. Bean," he invites his neighbors for an impromptu New Year's Eve party. Snacks include twigs dipped in Marmite (!) and sugared vinegar (!!). They immediately turn his clock to midnight, "ring in" the new year, and head to a ''real'' New Year's party. He wakes up to the sound of a party at what he ''thinks'' is 3:00 AM, and realizes that they've tricked him big-time.
87	* In the ''Series/MurderSheWrote'' episode "Frozen Stiff", the VictimOfTheWeek is found in an industrial freezer, with his watch broken at a time when nearly all the suspects, and Jessica, were together. Jessica quickly realises that, with the body frozen, there's no way to ''actually'' be sure that was the time of death, but has a harder time convincing the sheriff. [[spoiler: She eventually checks the power usage of the freezer and finds a big spike over an hour earlier -- the last time the door was opened.]]
88	* ''Series/MyLifeIsMurder'': In "Wild Life", following a EurekaMoment when the power going out in her apartment causes the oven clock to reset to 0:00, Alexa realises that the killer created an alibi by resetting all of the clocks in his house (including his wife's phone) ahead by twenty minutes to make it appear that a crucial phone call happened later than it actually did.
89	* ''Series/NewsRadio'': One episode has Jimmy in a deal to sell the station with a midnight deadline. While the staff tries to convince him not to do so, Matthew reveals that he set the clock back and the midnight deadline had actually passed. Jimmy tells him that the deadline was just a guideline and they still have time.
90	* ''Series/TheOfficeUS'': One ColdOpen features Michael falling asleep at his desk after eating a large chicken pot pie. Jim, Pam, and Dwight proceed to change all of the office clocks (plus Michael's watch and car clock) so he'll think it's 5:00 when he wakes up and let everyone go home.
91	* At the beginning of one episode of ''Series/PeppermintPark'', Snorkee attempts to slow down a clock to give her and her friends more time to work on the titular show. Knurkel has to explain to her that slowing down a clock doesn't affect time in any way.
92	* ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'': Inverted in "The Susie"; Kramer decides to ignore Daylight Savings Time one year, only to repeatedly find things happening one hour late.
93	* ''Series/VeronicaMars'': A third-season episode has a social science class run an experiment. One group of students will represent members of a terrorist group who have been arrested while another group represents the prison guards. The inmates' goal is to avoid revealing the location of a bomb before a certain time while the guards' goal is to get them to reveal it. In the end, the "guards" trick the "inmates" into giving up the location by setting the clock ahead and making them think they've succeeded.
94	[[/folder]]
95
96	[[folder:Pinball]]
97	* The central mechanic behind ''Pinball/FunHouse1990'' ''seems'' to involve changing the amusement park's clock to midnight, thereby making Rudy the ventriloquist dummy go to sleep and granting the player full access to the fun house.
98	[[/folder]]
99
100	[[folder:Puppet Shows]]
101	* ''Series/BearInTheBigBlueHouse'':
102	** In "Good Times", Treelo becomes impatient waiting for 6:00 so he and Bear can see the sunset together, so he turns the hands on his clock so that it reads 6:00. When he shows it to Bear, Bear has to explain to him that he can't make time go faster by turning the hands of a clock.
103	** In "Wait For Me", Tutter is making some cheesy fruit pops in the freezer, and after Bear sets a timer, he tells Tutter that when the timer dings, the pops will be frozen and ready to eat. Tutter sets the timer back to zero, having thought that they will be ready once it dings. Bear explains to him that he actually has to wait for time to go by, but advises him to do something other than look at the timer to help pass the time.
104	[[/folder]]
105
106	[[folder:Video Games]]
107	* ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair'': This is done in the 4th case by [[spoiler:Gundham Tanaka]] to initiate their murder plot. [[spoiler:While all the students were trapped in the funhouse, they are required to attend Monokuma's Tai-Chi lessons in the tower at 7:30 AM sharp, else they be punished. Gundham sets all the clocks in the funhouse back 2 hours while everyone was sleeping, making everyone believe that they still had more time to sleep (they were close to starvation and dehydration, so they wouldn't try to exert themselves). Because of this, the only one to go to the tower was the robotic [[HollywoodCyborg "Mechamaru"]] who had a built-in clock tuned to the proper time. There, Gundham intercepted him alone and enacted his murder.]]
108	* ''VideoGame/DeponiaDoomsday'': To get out of holding a lecture Rufus fast-forwards time in the building using a spacetime anomaly.
109	* ''VideoGame/SpyFox in: Dry Cereal'': In the White Water path, Sal, the sailor on the S.S. Deadweight won't let you look at the map in the control room. During his conversation, he mentions that [[PottyEmergency he needs to use the restroom]] as the result of drinking 17 bottles of prune pop, but he can't leave his post until his shift ends and his replacement arrives. You have to change the time on the time clock according to the time Bea Bear tells you, then show up in a sailor hat in order to get Sal to leave.
110	* ''VideoGame/VermillionWatch: Order Zero'': The zoo you need to search has a time-controlled automatic gate. To get in, you need to reset the clock controlling it.
111	[[/folder]]
112
113	[[folder:Western Animation]]
114	* ''WesternAnimation/AroundTheWorldWithWillyFog'': During the voyage across the Pacific Ocean, Rigodon discovers that his watch (which he has not altered since leaving London) appears to show the local time and accuses Tico of interfering with it. However, Fog explains that, because the travellers have reached the halfway point on their journey, there is a twelve-hour difference between the local time and the time in London.
115	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'': In the prologue to "The Last of Mary Moo Cow", Arthur sets every clock in his house to 4:00 to trick D.W. so he can watch ''Dark Bunny''. It doesn't work, since D.W. doesn't know how to tell time.
116	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Caillou}}'': Done in the AprilFoolsDayEpisode by Daddy as a practical joke on Mommy, moving the kitchen clock ahead an hour from 8:00 to 9:00 AM, to confuse her when she comes down in the morning for breakfast. After the prank successfully works, this leads to the parents explaining to Caillou what AprilFoolsDay is and inspires him to play a joke on Mommy as well.
117	* In the ''WesternAnimation/DennisTheMenace (1986)'' episode, "[[Recap/DennisTheMenace1986S1E30 A Step Ahead]]", Dennis sets his alarm clock back one hour so that he can stay up for another hour before having to go to bed. Marty, his babysitter, is prepared for this, as he has his watch with a built-in alarm for 9:00 P.M. set to the correct time.
118	* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'': In "Allowance Day", Huey, Dewey, and Louie [[FakedRipVanWinkle trick Uncle Scrooge into thinking it's a day later than it is]] so they can get their allowance before a sale on a scooter ends. The problem is, Scrooge is so influential and well-respected that all his business partners assume it ''is'' the next day, and their error travels to people all across the globe. This includes the shopkeep, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard so the triplets still miss their sale]], and the general of a BananaRepublic, who says Scrooge missed his shipment date.
119	* ''WesternAnimation/EdgarAndEllen'' did this in "Trickery Dickery Dock" when they invent a device to speed up the town's clock tower to get out of ballroom dancing lessons. The device soon gets stuck in the gears, and it seems as though they might be stuck in dance class for life unless they sneak out of class to fix the problem. They succeed in retrieving the device, but in doing so, they forget to set the clock tower back to its proper time.
120	* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': In "Stuck Together, Torn Apart", Peter and Lois have a trial separation and Quagmire leaps at the chance to ask Lois out. As she says she needs some time to think it over, Quagmire smashes open a wall clock, turns the time forward, and asks "How about now?"
121	* ''WesternAnimation/GIJoeARealAmericanHero'': A bomb is planted in a building, and the only one who knows where is Zartan, who was captured and is [[PerpSweating being interrogated in the same building]]. Gung Ho sets the watch Zartan was wearing to count down faster so, when he inevitably admits the bomb's location to save himself, the Joe team have more time to defuse it.
122	* The WesternAnimation/{{Goofy}} short ''Teachers Are People'' has a student doing this to make school end early, just as the narrator says "Little hands make the time pass quickly."
123	* ''WesternAnimation/HiHiPuffyAmiYumi'': The episode "Time Off" has Yumi setting Ami's alarm clock ahead a few seconds to get a few more moments of sleep. However, because Ami is such a ScheduleFanatic, she ends up doing things a few seconds later than normal.
124	* ''ComicStrip/LittleLulu'': Besides the trope's mention in her theme song, the short ''Lulu at the Zoo'' has Lulu fast-forwarding a clock so she won't have to wait for a 2:00 tour of the zoo.
125	* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes''
126	** In "WesternAnimation/SwoonerCrooner", several chickens punch the clock at Porky Pig's egg plant; one chicken arrives late and sets the clock back before punching in.
127	** In the first WesternAnimation/RalphWolfAndSamSheepdog cartoon, ''Don't Give Up the Sheep'', Ralph changes Sam's punch clock to trick him into thinking that it's quitting time so that he leaves, giving him a free shot at the sheep. Sam is just leaving when he sees the time on a clock tower and runs back just in time to stop Ralph.
128	** In "Tweet Tweet Tweety," Sylvester changes the clock to a few minutes early so he can jump into the Old Faithful geyser to try and snatch Tweety. Tweety has already escaped the crater and goes on to move the clock to 12:00. Old Faithful erupts on the spot, taking Sylvester up and down with it.
129	** "Porky's Badtime Story" has Porky Pig and Gabby Goat arriving at work late. Gabby turns the punch clock back two hours and tries to clock in -- the clock makes some ungodly noises that bring their boss over. (Remade as "Tick Tock Tuckered" with Daffy Duck in Gabby's place.)
130	* ''WesternAnimation/MuppetBabies2018'': In "The Froginizer", Kermit remembers that Fozzie likes to have a snack when the clock strikes noon (and Animal tries to take his snacks from him at this time), so without being noticed, he sneaks by Fozzie and Animal (as The Noodler and Meanimal) so he can set the clock to noon to distract them so he, Piggy, and Summer (as Super Fabulous and Captain Ice Cube) can get past them and to Dr. Meanzo's evil lair.
131	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Recess}}'': In "The Spy That Came in From the Playground", T.J. and the gang show their new friend James around their operation by setting the clock forward to get out of school early. The next day, they find the clock caged off to prevent them from doing it again [[spoiler: (thanks to James actually being an adult [[TheMole mole]] sent by the district to shut down the T.J. operation from the inside)]].
132	* ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'': In "Saving Time", Benson orders Mordecai and Rigby to set the park clocks back for Daylight Savings Time, but they decide to prank him by setting the clocks to the wrong time (along with the clocks on Benson's apartment). [[spoiler:This causes the park and Benson's apartment to move to the correct time zone, right in the middle of the ocean!]]
133	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In "The Boy Who Knew Too Much", Mrs. Krabappel announces the discovery that the clocks have been running early for a long time, so class that day is being extended by two hours. Bart groans and begrudgingly looks at the Lil' Bastard Clock Tampering Kit hidden in his desk.
134	* ''WesternAnimation/TaleSpin'':
135	** In "The Time Bandit", a RecycledScript from the ''[=DuckTales=]'' example above, Baloo alters the clocks and calendars (and even bribes a radio show host to say the incorrect day) to trick Rebecca into thinking it's Saturday and pay him so he can attend a party at Louie's. This causes a chain of events that end with Rebecca nearly getting executed in Thembria.
136	** In "Flying Dupes", Baloo is tasked with delivering a package to the Thembrian High Marshall by 3:00, unaware that the package contains a bomb. When he, Col. Spigot, and Sgt. Dunder stop at Ivan's bar, Spigot refuses to leave until after 3:00, when the showgirls perform. Baloo alters the clock at Ivan's to 3:00 and [[DisguisedInDrag disguises himself and Dunder as the showgirls]].
137	[[/folder]]
138
139	[[folder:Real Life]]
140	* Some schools have their clocks bolted shut or caged off to prevent such incidents from happening. Others have the clocks mechanically linked to each other so they will be in sync and can only be altered from a secure office.
141	* This is a common trick among gamers to manipulate their gaming system's clock in order to trick a game into thinking a lot of time has passed, e.g. to solve a real-time WaitingPuzzle or to take constant advantage of events that only happen every x hours/days, although most games that have this as a major part of their gameplay have some kind of mechanism to prevent it, such as ignoring the system clock and using server time instead or checking that the current system time isn't in the past when compared to the latest save game timestamp.
142	** ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'': This is basically the heart of the ''time-travelling'' cheat, where you manipulate the console's clock and calendar to get seasonal insects, fishes, and season-limited items sold at Nook's Cranny early. Some people also do it to manipulate the Stalk Market, the game's turnip gambling minigame. And of course some do it to exploit the CompoundInterestTimeTravelGambit since the game has a banking system that awards you a monthly interest based on the money you have in your account. Later games can detect this and will punish you by making your turnips become rotten and thus worthless if you attempt to do this and slip up (largely by detecting that the calendar and clock has regressed from the last save, a telltale sign that you attempted to travel back through time), and your villagers will allegedly guilt you by telling you that there is a rumor that you are a time traveller. A later update to VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizons would severely nerf the bank interests so that the compound interest time travel gambit is not as profitable as in previous games.
143	** ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'': By altering the PC's/Console's internal calendar to the dates circled on the Courthouse Basements Calendar would cause Calendar Man to recite unique dialogue linked to each holiday in question. There's an additional hidden one if you change the internal calendar to the 13th of December 2004 (the founding of Rocksteady Studios) which wasn't discovered until later. Adjusting the clock was a faster way to hear the unique dialogue as well as attaining the trophy linked to them. Depending on the player, it might even be the ''only'' way to get some of them, as some people might be obliged to spend some of the specified holidays at locations away from their PC/console for family reasons.
144	[[/folder]]

Context Main / ClockTampering