#but all of my other tattoos are basically just from street shops i never developed a rapport with anyone

[brattybottomdyke]

i really want to get more tattoos and there’s a couple that i’ve been thinking about for a while but i just can’t find an artist 😭

any NYC mutuals have any recs? im not in the city but i could get there relatively easily and im really itching for another

[willow-lane]

I saw [WILLOW LANE] at a coffee shop in [BROOKLYN] today. I forgot how much [SHE] looks like [MADELYN CLINE]. They are a [TWENTY-THREE] year old [WAITRESS] who’s been in NYC for [A YEAR] now. Every time we run into each other, they are always [SPONTANEOUS AND FREE SPIRITED] but I’ve heard people say they can also be [NON-COMMITTAL AND SELF-INDULGENT]. [OUT OF THE BLUE BY KATIE PRUITT] reminds me of them every time it comes on the radio. / @villagestart​

Hello everyone! I’m Ella and I’m super excited to be part of this roleplay and introduce Willow to all of you, she’s a new muse but she’s based on an old muse of mine so I think I have her figured out or mostly lol. I’d love to plot with all of you, so please like this or hmu. If you want my discord, I’d be happy to give it to you, just ask :D

basics

NAME: ava willow lane

NICKNAME: will, lolo, pillow

GENDER: cis female

PLACE OF BIRTH: burlington, vermont

DATE OF BIRTH: september 28, 1997

AGE: twenty-three

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: bisexual

OCCUPATION: waitress

NEIGHBORHOOD: brooklyn

background

Burlington was a dream within a dream, the station next to heaven. A town in love with itself and whose residents gloated about the wooded land, creased by hills, and threaded by streams. 

The Lanes were living the typical American dream: the big house with the white picket fence, a large backyard and two perfect children. It was dreamlike.

Their kids could count themselves lucky and Willow Lane certainly did for most of her life. As the youngest daughter of a successful surgeon and a renowned psychotherapist who taught at the University of Vermont, she was taught that receiving an education was the only way to get ahead in life.

Her parents made sure to set their kids to success and while most of the kids from her street were out there playing, she was holed up in her room, reading the stacks of encyclopedia books her parents bought me for her birthday. 

As a young child, Willow was filled with a sense of wonder, and encouraged by her curious personality she wanted to learn everything.

By the time she was in the sixth grade, she was smarter than most of the kids in her class, still her parents reminded her every day that she must outrank them all. Her parents took pride in her achievements. They were quick to boast about it in public, but they remained strict in private. Anything less than gold didn’t deserve a place on the wall.

Her afternoons were always full. Whether it was ballet class, french lessons, piano lessons or soccer practice. She had no time for herself.

Then high school started and by then she was overworked. Tired of chasing perfection and only being met with a “try harder”. 

TW: DRUGS, ADDICTION, VOMIT MENTION, PANIC ATTACK: While she was still number one at her school, it was taking everything in her to keep it that way. Her parents didn’t know about those panic attacks she suffered at night or how she threw up before any competition. To them, she was handling well and she was very good at pretending but she also had a little secret. In her sophomore year, she was introduced to Adderall and she was quickly hooked. END OF TW

When she got accepted into a prestigious university, her parents didn’t hesitate to brag about how their kid would attend an Ivy League but Willow was mortified. 

Back in Burlington, she was the biggest fish in the sea but at Princeton there were students who were better and shone brighter than her. 

Maybe it was because she was suddenly cast into a whole new world that was so different from the one she grew up in. Maybe it was because she had harbored a bit of resentment towards her parents for her wasted youth. Whatever it was, by the end of her freshman year, university had swallowed her up. 

TW ALCOHOL, DRUGS, DEPRESSION She got into a bad crowd, drank herself into oblivion, partied harder than anyone, and developed a penchant for bad boys who were much older than her. All this while trying to maintain a perfect GPA. Thanks to her magic pill, she was able to function and not feel guilty about not being as perfect as her parents wanted her to be. After all, she was only trying to recover the freedom that they took from her. 

But this coping mechanism only turned to worse. The more she tried to drown her feelings in alcohol, the harder it came to bite her in the ass. It was clear as water: Willow Lane, picture perfect daughter, was depressed and had been for a while, and now it had caught up to her. 

She was fighting a battle she was slowly losing. Willow was in a constant state of helplessness, staring into the void, and completely unable to pull herself out of it. If it hadn’t been for the upbringing she had, she would have been completely fine with self-destruct. END OF TW

The summer after her freshman year, she came back home and decided to have a talk with her parents. Her parents sat across the table, and they were not celebrating the end of a successful first semester, instead, they were fuming with betrayal. 

Willow told them that she had dropped most of her classes and she explained to them how she was exhausted beyond repair. They were displeased, so disappointed that looking at them was painful. For the first time in their life, their perfect daughter had failed them.

By the end of the evening, her father was livid. Threatened her that if she didn’t take more classes and got excellent grades he would stop paying her tuition. That’s when it hit her. To her parents, she was nothing but an object, an accomplishment to brag about to her friends. That was not love, that was selfish and a wake up call.

She packed up her stuff that evening, went back to Princeton and emptied her dorm as well as she dropped out completely. 

Freedom at last. With only a few bucks in her account, she bought a random bus ticket that took her to Montreal, Canada where she stayed for a couple of weeks, while working as a waitress before she moved to a new location. For the past three years, Willow has been living off a backpack. 

She moved to New York a year ago, but she comes and goes. Whenever she gets bored or too attached to someone she escapes. 

She’s been clean for three years when it comes to Adderall, although she still drinks but only socially.

personality

Despite her strict upbringing, Willow is a free-spirit! She’s always looking for a new adventure and she wants to live her life to the fullest, she doesn’t care about rules or schedules. She lives a pretty hedonistic lifestyle, always chasing a high in life and sometimes that makes her take some reckless decisions. A naturally loving person, Willow is always there to lend a shoulder to cry on or offer to wipe off your tears, however, she does struggle with connections. If she feels a deep connection with someone she runs away as she believes that being attached to someone will tie her up to one place and as we know, Willow lives a pretty nomad life. She keeps coming back to New York because she loves the vibe but when she gets bored or overwhelmed she leaves without warning. As loving as she is, she can also be ruthless and cold, especially when feeling vulnerable. She has a sharp tongue and it’s not afraid to hurt some feelings if that means shattering the pristine image some people have of her.

headcanons

She has a rib cage tattoo that reads “Eternity bores me, I never wanted it.” It’s a quote from Sylvia Plath.

Speaks French fluently and sometimes she likes to pretend she’s a lost French tourist just for fun.

Volunteers at the animal shelter. Because she doesn’t have a set home, she can’t have a pet but she loves animals.

Never has enough battery on her phone and sometimes she sings in the subway to earn some coins because she tends to forget her wallet.

Really good friends with the homeless woman who lives down her street, she brings her food from the restaurant.

Keeps many scrapbooks from the places she’s been.

Sometimes she goes to music stores and plays the piano, one of the few activities she enjoyed as a child.

Loves reading and whenever she’s not getting in trouble or working, she’s at the library.

Wears too many rings, so don’t try to mug her.

connections

Older brother: Willow has an older brother who followed her parents’ plan. He graduated college and now has a very important job. Willow hasn’t spoken to him in three years, even if he’s tried to contact her. She just doesn’t want any ties to her old life, including her family.

“Best Friend”: I put it between quotations because she doesn’t stay in one place long enough to actually form long lasting friendships but this person is the closest to that. She adores them and actually sends them a postcard when she leaves.

Partner in crime: As stated, Willow is pretty reckless and she does a lot of stupid shit but she’s always seeking for someone to be her partner in crime and just go crazy with them.

Co-workers/Clients: She works as a waitress at a restaurant (if your character has a restaurant let me know, bc idk where she would work). 

Neighbor: She lives in a small apartment in Brooklyn with two other roommates, it’s not ideal but it’s what she has.

College friends/hook ups: Oh during her college year, she was a party girl and she made a lot of “friends” (She attended Princeton btw) and also hooked up with a lot of people (f/m/nb), most of them were older than her.

Flirtationship: She is a natural flirt and she doesn’t even try to hide it.

Unrequited: Maybe your character has a crush on her (and depending on chemistry maybe she does as well but since she moves often she tries to ignore it). It’s angsty, it’s fun, give it to me. (f/m/nb)

Hook ups: Y’all know the drill

Bad tinder date: Willow thought it would be fun to go on a tinder date and she proposed some crazy scheme and they both had to spend the night in a jail cell.

Roommates: She lives in Brooklyn with two more roommates.

[hopeandharmonizing]

RP Plotting Sheet : Briar Rieka

Want new-and-exciting plots for your character? Long to reach out to more of your followers, but don’t know where to start? Fear not! Fill out this form and give your RP partners both present and future all the of juicy jumping off points they need to help you get your characters acquainted.

Be sure to tag the players whose characters YOU want more cues to interact with, and repost, don’t reblog! Feel free to add or remove sections as you see fit. Template here.

tagged by: stole it from an old blog

Mun name: Rachel or Teceraca OOC Contact: Start with tumblr IMs. I have discord as well. Talk in the tags.

Who the heck is my muse anyway: 

Creeping up on middle-age, part-time Happy Huntress, part-time musical performer, wolf faunus lady who occasionally plays with gender presentation, mostly on stage. She has a painful past, but it only hardened her into a stronger, kinder self who wants to help everyone else to never hurt that badly, or at least not have to shoulder the pain alone. All she wants is to empower people, and yet all she seems to do it make them weaker and intimidated in her presence. Regardless, she continues to try and inspire through words and music, and protect through fists and claws.

Points of interest: 

black and white wolf tail, thorny vine tattoos wrapping most of her body, a semblance which cancels out others’ semblances, skilled in Aikido, guitar, keyboard/piano, and vocals. Graduate of Sanctum and Atlas Academies. Her huntress license lapsed after its first expiration date and remained that way for ~10 years until she reinstated at the behest of Robyn Hill. She will love you if you love yourself, and likewise do her best to truly scare the shit out of you if you mistreat others.

What they’ve been up to recently:

In mainverse, she’s living her best life in Mantle city, trying to bring hope to the masses and occasionally going on stake-outs for Robyn Hill or acting as entertainment or security detail for her rallies.

If you want to meet her somewhere in the past, you can find her either just looking to survive, mastering her music, or completing combat training followed by huntress training. then, trying but failing to work effectively as a licensed huntress, and slowly feeling like she’s lost herself before she finds music again.

Where to find them: 

In chronological order:

Morkmani Village Anima forests Argus Sanctum Academy Atlas Academy Mantle city  - wherever the work was   - performances at nightclubs, bars, street venues, coffee shops, etc  - libraries, cafes, anywhere she can sit and work on her stuff  - her apartment  - supporting other people’s shows! having fun in the crowds.  - out shopping, especially to add to/update her wardrobe with cool shit

Current plans:

make the world better! or at least feel like less of an oncoming storm. continue to be a badass? love as many people as she can. from a distance, usually.

Desired interactions:

WHEEZE. A lot of this is similar to the associations bit in my page but here we go.

Robyn recruiting her to join the huntresses, any and all shenanigans that may follow. Fraternizing with fellow huntresses in general, or missions together.

Qrow and/or Clover semblance shenanigans and training. Also her and Clover generally giving each other shit bc it is just So Much to have those two egos in one room.

Bitching at Ironwood about what trust and loyalty REALLY means or maybe just her venting to someone about him, but this requires her getting to know him somehow in the first place, or at least to hear from others what he is like. idk. this muse has meta feelings about micromanagement, I would love to thread them.

Giving Weiss vocal training classes when she was a lil’ girl. and/or catching up in current verse. 

Briar getting to meet Blake and absolutely gush about her speech at Menagerie bc she saw it from some scroll recordings.

Basically anything with Jaune. I still have no idea what is going to happen when these two semblances meet each other. I do know hers can basically act like a spiritual resistance weight to help his get stronger. It probably goes both ways. Semblance arm wrestling is what I’m sayin’. But also she just.......... she has a lot of feelings. It’s like a Qrow/Clover thing too where she looks at him and sees everything she could be, but isn’t. She’s too proud. Help her work through this and question herself a little bit so she can come out better for it, and realize they are both different yet who they are supposed to be.

Silver eyes training with Ruby!!!! She doesn’t know anything about them besides what she’d find out from the crew, but she does have plenty of skills and pep talks that can probably help Ruby focus and/or project her power. Briar's semblance color is silver for a reason.

Semblance/aura training with anyone in general. But when I say that I also mean “learning not to rely on your semblance” training. She’s good for that. She may get being a professor for it added to either her history or her future, idk yet.

This also leads into being able to have a discussion with Oscar/Ozpin about a different take that can help her fully realize her semblance abilities. If you’re interested, we can chat mun to mun so I can let you know my ideas and you can decide how your muse wants to guide her through it.

Other OCs idk who what where when why how but that’s exactly the point. the whole verse is our oyster, let’s see what happens. come @ me. let’s let our muses help develop each other.

Offered interactions:

Briar’s actually pretty easy to have interactions with villains? She probably won’t know any better if she runs into them and they aren’t immediately stirring trouble. For better or worse, she’ll give them the benefit of the doubt if they are trying to confide in her about something or just chatting.

Also I haven’t made one yet but she’d be damn good for a villain herself AU.

She will listen to you! She will sing to you!! She wants to make you happy and help you grow, plz come to her with whatever. (Or vice versa! She’s not difficult to get to open up and she will talk with you about her own doubts and demons if u want).

Anyone can watch one of her performances and/or come find her hanging around the venue afterwards. I’ll probably make some opens for this kind of thing.

Are you another performer character??? Duets??? duets.

Faunus mentor!! Music mentor!!

Sanctum or Atlas Academy student days can be a thing. Likewise for her more interspersed street performances during those times.

future volume interactions if you’re comfortable with hcs of what goes down until we find out canon. She can go after Robyn/Qrow in the immediate timeframe, or run into any of the kids in the process. I like to think she joins up with the main cast to head to Vacuo when that happens. Whether to just bring her music along for them and/or to start spreading it to more reaches of the world bc hopefully Atlas/Mantle is under control at some point and in good hands with Robyn and however that leadership shakes out, and damn the whole world needs hope right now, so it is... Time To Dream Even Bigger.

Current open post/s: 

here’s the open starter tag!

Anything else?:

I thought there was a shipping section on here but uhhhhhh i’m too much of a wuss to make one myself right now. maybe a bias list in the future. I feel like I should get some general interactions going first. 

Tagging: I’m not making anyone commit to this beast. If you want it, take it and most certainly blame me and tag me so I can read it.

[abracadora-archived]

Blindspot

This small fic was inspired by the #greasykeith movement started by @baeyards. 

Pairings: Keith/Lance

Word Count: 3004

When a cute boy with lots of piercings and the coolest jacket Keith has ever seen walks into the mechanic shop where Keith works, Keith is… really gay. And slightly confused by how friendly said boy seems to be. 

Featuring Mechanic! Keith and Punk! Lance

(Sha/adins don’t interact!!)

Read on AO3 [Although reblogs are appreciated :) ]

The door of the lobby tinkles as someone walks in, bringing in a swoosh of heat from the outside and a burst of noise from the street outside. Keith, in the kitchenette attached to the lobby, ducks his head down and busies himself with the coffee. He briefly considers adding cream or sugar to the dark liquid, and then decides that he can’t be bothered. 

He scurries out of the small room, weaving his way through the lobby. He catches a snippet of the conversation between the lady at the front desk and the man standing in front of it. Keith’s eyes flit to the side and he nods shortly at the lady (he’s pretty sure her name is Lilian). The guy, who’s currently leaning with his arms rested on the top of the desk, is slightly taller than Keith but looks to be around his age, and Keith frowns, because this means that he’s most likely here for some car repairs, and that means that he’ll be going to one of the other mechanics.

Keith goes through the lobby and the lounge and pushes past the door that leads into the actual garage. There, he is met with mechanical sounds of metal clanging and tools squeaking and scraping- all of which is familiar and comfortable to Keith. He sees Rolo, an older coworker of his (that Keith is pretty sure he had a crush on in the first few weeks of working here) with half of his body disappearing underneath a car, and Hunk, a coworker of Keith’s age who is pulling out the dents from a recently crashed SUV. 

Keith goes over to Hunk. 

“How close are you to being done?” he asks. 

Hunk glances up at him and frowns slightly. “Half an hour, maybe? Why?”

“There’s this guy at the front desk,” Keith replies monotonously. “He’ll probably need one of you.” 

Hunk is observant, and he’s probably known Keith long enough to detect the frustration in his voice. He clucks sympathetically, and then takes a look at the coffee in Keith’s hand. “That thing has no cream or sugar in it, I’m assuming.”

 Keith shrugs, and takes a sip of it. Hunk makes a face. 

“How,” he says, before turning back to his work.

Keith leans against the wall, not bothering Hunk as he works, but just lazing in his company. Sometimes Keith wishes that he had been hired as a car mechanic instead of a motorbike one- he knows how to work with cars pretty well- but Keith much prefers bikes to cars. Keith He barely scraped by his actual driving test in high school, and nearly got arrested the last time he tried to properly drive.

Customers that need bike repairs aren’t common as those who need car repairs, for understandable reasons. That leaves Keith, who always needed something to do with his hands, with a lot of impatient and jittery energy.

He bounces his leg up and down as he glances back into the lounge. The guy from before leans against the wall of the lounge. He’s dressed in a dark jacket, one of those with the body made of denim and sleeves made out of leather. 

People don’t usually pull those off, Keith muses. The jacket is dotted with multiple pins, which Keith can’t describe from this distance, but what Keith can see are the multiple piercings that line his ears. Something akin to envy spikes up within Keith.

“Who’s that guy over there?” he says offhandedly. “He looks legit.”

Hunk’s head pops up from behind the car and his eyes follow Keith’s gaze over to the boy in the lounge. Inexplicably, Hunk barks out a laugh.

“Who? Lance?” he asks.

Keith looks back at Hunk with an expression in his eyes like Hunk just said that tomorrow the sun would turn green. “Who the fuck is Lance?” 

“That guy over there.” Hunk ducks back down to the car but continues talking to Keith. “His name’s Lance.” Hunk pats the car and stands up. “He’s a friend of mine. You think he looks legit?”

“Well, I mean.” Keith isn’t sure why he feels flustered. “I like his piercings.”

Hunk clicks his tongue. “Yeah, you would, they’re cool. He has that whole aesthetic going for him, you two could get along. Although-” Hunk pauses, and he eyes Keith outfit. “Your clothes are…a bit less put together than him. And he thinks that fingerless gloves are tacky.”

Keith scowls at him but doesn’t argue. Someone calls his name from near the front building and Keith’s head whips up. The manager of the place stands there with a clipboard in his hands. Keith says bye to Hunk and walks off in that direction, eager for something to do. 

“You have someone here for you,” the manager says when Keith approaches. 

“For me?”

“Well, for his bike. We brought it out back, it’s a basic gas tank repair. He’s in the lounge right now. He’s Lance McClain.”

Keith’s heart jumps, and he wonders why. A gas tank repair isn’t the most interesting, but Keith is itching to use his hands for something. He nods and heads into the lounge.

The burst of cool air when he walks in is almost a relief to him. He rubs the back of his hand against his forehead, rather uselessly, in an attempt to wipe off the sweat, and then looks at Lance.

“Are you Lance?” he asks, even though he already knows.

Lance turns to him with an eyebrow raised. Keith (for some reason) counts exactly four piercings on each ear of his, each pair carrying a different set of earrings. The lowest hanging ones on his earlobes glinted silver, and Keith’s stomach dropped. 

And then Keith notices the stud screwed through the right side of Lance’s lower lip. The realization vaguely feels like someone punching him in the stomach and then releasing butterflies.

Lance snaps his fingers just a bit away from Keith’s face. “Hello? You said my name.”

Keith winces, feeling his face flood with warmth. “I- yeah, sorry.”

Lance peers at him with eyes the colour of the ocean depths. “You good bro?”

“Yeah, I-” Keith fumbles over his words. He never was the best at talking to people, especially not with someone like Lance. “I like your piercings,” he says rather gruffly.

It wasn’t a lie- Keith is hot with envy- but Keith probably isn’t admitting the full truth, even to himself. (At least he’s self aware?)

“Oh.” The corner of Lance’s mouth curls up. “Cool, me too. You’re here to fix my bike.”

Keith clears his throat, quickly redirecting his mind back into business mode. “That’s right. What’s the issue with it?”

Lance lifts one hand up to scratch at the back of his neck, and Keith’s mind supplies, That’s so hot.

Shut up, Keith thinks in response.

“I kind of got into a crash, like, a week ago?” Lance scrunches his nose and Keith feels short of breath. “I punctured my gas tank, I think. I’m pretty sure.”

“Oh. Were you okay?” Keith asks automatically, glad that he can keep a semblance of politeness while his mind feels like it’s short-circuiting.

“Yeah, I just got a bit scraped up,” Lance says in a casual way that Keith can respect. “I haven’t even ridden my bike again.”

Keith nods. “Okay, we can… head to your bike then.”

They leave the building together and Keith tries not to be hyper-aware of Lance’s proximity to him. He scolds himself and tells the back of his mind that he’s being unprofessional and ridiculous.

He finds Lance’s bike pretty quicky since it’s the only one the garage. It’s sleek and looks pretty new, with a black and blue colour theme. 

“Wow,” Keith says, legitimately impressed. 

“It’s a Honda CB500,” Lance says with pride thrumming through his voice, as if Keith doesn’t have three motorcycle catalogs sitting on his desk at home as they speak. “It’s the 2017 model, too.”

“Nice,” Keith says. 

“Thanks,” Lance says genuinely, and the sideways smile he gives Keith makes Keith’s heart want to jump out of his chest. 

“I’m going to take a look at it.” Keith gestures towards the bike and he urges himself to get focused. Repairing motorcycles was something he was familiar with, and he shouldn’t let himself get distracted by some (admittedly cute) guy.

He wheels the motorcycle over to his station and starts to crank it up. He’s vaguely aware of Lance strolling up behind him. Keith forces himself not to glance over, and continues on with his work. 

“So… do you have a bike?” Lance asks. Keith pauses for a moment in the middle of taking out the tools he needs from his toolbox. 

“I don’t,” Keith answers. He goes on with the work; he doesn’t mind the attention, at least not from Lance, but it’s surprising to him that Lance would say anything. “I’m actually trying to save up for one right now. I’ve been interested in them since I was a kid.” That was the sole reason why Keith didn’t have more piercings or any tattoos right now; his desire to not have to walk to work in Miami’s heat and humidity was greater than his desire for an aesthetic, currently. 

“Really?” 

“I had, like, a collection of like 50 toy models when I was a kid,” Keith explains. His hands move, almost by instinct, over the different parts of the bike, making sure to handle everything with care.

Lance makes a noise that could be a laugh. 

“What?” Keith asks. 

“Nothing.” He hears Lance shift behind him. “Just. It’s different from my childhood, I guess. My siblings and I always played those make-believe games.”

Keith hums. By the time he was adopted, Keith’s own brother was already  starting college, so he was never given a chance to do anything of that sort. 

“Is that why you’re a mechanic?” Lance sounds curious, and Keith, for the life of him, doesn’t know why.

“Kind of.” Keith’s tongue pokes out of the side of his mouth as he concentrates- it’s an involuntary habit he developed, probably after a year of working with Hunk. “My older brother’s also a mechanical engineer and was interested in this stuff… I kind of learned from him, too. He’s getting his PhD this year,” Keith adds necessarily, feeling a warm glow of pride for Shiro.

“Cool, tell him congratulations for me.”

From anyone else, Keith thinks, that would have sounded sarcastic, but somehow Lance makes them seem like the most truthful words ever spoken. It’s an odd trait for someone that has spiked rings stuck in his ears. 

“I will.” Then Keith frowns and sets his tools down, turning around on Lance. “Why are you talking to me?”

Lance blinks, clearly offended. “Excuse me?”

“That came out wrong.” Keith resists the urge to massage the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “I mean, you know, customers don’t usually talk to the mechanic while they wait.”

Luckily, Lance doesn’t seem to be angry (Keith usually has no qualms about riling someone up, but it seems unfair to do it so someone as uniquely nice as Lance). He reaches up and tugs at a stray piece of hair that peeks out from the front of his black beanie. Keith’s stomach does a flip.

“I don’t know,” he says, and he almost sounds sheepish. “I was just. Making conversation.” 

“Oh.” Keith feels nonplussed. “Well, you can get coffee and lemonade in the lounge. And like, cookies.”

They stare at each other for a moment, and Keith is sure that neither of them have any clue what exactly is going on right now. 

“I’ll leave you to it, then.” Lance holds two fingers up like a salute, and then contorts his face into a look of half-embarrassment, half-confusion. He walks off, leaving Keith also half-embarrassed, half-confused.

With his distraction gone, Keith is able to throw himself fully into his work. He works swiftly but meticulously, and by the time he looks up and realizes that an hour has passed since the manager spoke to him, the gas tank is already fixed. 

He sends a last, longing look towards the bike and then turns around and makes his way towards the lounge. His fingers are sticky with drying grease and dust, so he drags his fingers over the denim of his jeans, thankful that they’re black and will, for the most part, cover up the multiple stains he gets during the work day.

He actually breathes a sigh of relief as the air-conditioned air hits his skin, feeling the sweat on his skin cool instantly. The fans installed in the garage are literally never that useful during the peak of summer. 

“Lance?” he asks, searching with his eyes for that friendly smirk. Keith hopes that he didn’t grow impatient and leave, or they would have to store the bike for him and it would be another hassle. 

“I’m here!” says Lance’s voice, and he comes in through the door from the lobby. “I was having a chat with our lovely receptionist.”

Keith finds it a bit hard to swallow. “Right. I’m done with your bike.”

“Sweet.” Lance looks pleased, so that’s a bonus. “She’s all fixed up?”

“Good as new. They’re taking her to the front right now.” Keith tries for a smile, but he’s realizing that Lance will now leave forever, and for some absurd reason, that’s making him feel down.

“I can’t wait to ride her again,” Lance says mournfully. “It’s been a whole week.”

“I can see you’re attached to her,” Keith says, half-jokingly.

Lance smiles. “I named her Hermosa.”

“Nice,” Keith says, for lack of anything better to say.

“You know,” Lance says after a beat, lowering his ocean-blue gaze to meet Keith’s eyes. “If you’d be interested, I wouldn’t mind taking you on a ride one day.”

Keith’s brain isn’t able to comprehend Lance’s words. “Wait, what?”

Lance takes a step forwards, and the smile on his face transforms into (if Keith isn’t horribly, horribly mistaken) something that he could almost call flirtatious. “I mean, don’t think I didn’t notice that you’ve been flustered around me.”

Is Lance hitting on him? Is that what this is? There isn’t a possible way that Lance can actually be interested in Keith. Keith isn’t exactly the most appealing person in the world, as shown by his stained clothes and slightly matted hair and generally closed off personality. “I- wait, just- what?”

The confident looks falls off Lance’s face faster than Keith can blink. “Please tell me I’m reading that correctly. Holy shit, this is really fucking awkward if I’m not.”

Keith’s mind moves in fast forward, his thought process zipping forward to catch up with the situation that surrounds him. “No!” he splutters, taking a half-step forward. “No, I- I’m pretty sure you’re reading this exactly correctly.”

Lance’s face lights up, which makes Keith’s heart feel like it’s running a sprint in his chest. “Oh, really? I mean-” He clears his throat. “Yeah. Of course. I saw that.”

“I just didn’t assume that you would…” Keith’s voice is rather flimsy and he makes a vague gesture in an attempt to get his point across.

“Think I liked guys?” Lance grins, a whole wide smile with his white teeth showing, and his eyes crinkle up with something like amusement. He points to something on his vest and Keith follows the direction to a pin with the bisexual pride colours, resting over Lance’s heart next to a pin of the Cuban flag.

“Oh,” Keith says faintly. “Obviously I didn’t notice.”

Lance lets out a laugh that’s half a snort, half a giggle. Keith finds that it does inexplicable things to his heart. “Clearly.” His expression, looking nearly shy, and the change in demeanor gives Keith whiplash. “Do you think… maybe we could meet up something? To be clear, go out sometime.” He grins again and gives Keith a small wink of jest.

“Uh.” Keith coughs and curses himself for being so stilted. “Yeah. That’d be great.”

“Awesome.” Lance starts to speak so fast that Keith can barely catch what he’s saying. “I know this amazing Cuban bakery that we can go to. Actually, it’s owned by my aunt so I’m biased, but I promise you that the pastelitos de guayaba there are to die for. I’ll ride you there.” He whips out a Sharpie from his jeans pocket and grabs Keith’s hand, pulling him forward to scribble down a number on his skin. “Don’t forget to save the number before it rubs off.”

“I will,” Keith promises, feeling his cheeks warm up. It’s a good feeling, Keith decides.

“Cool.” Lance’s eyes are bright and Keith feels a faint rush in his chest and something like butterflies hatching in his stomach. “I gotta go pick up my bike, but I guess… I’ll see you around.”

“For sure,” Keith answers, and he tries to press down the oddly nice nervousness that bubbles in his stomach.

Lance squeezes Keith’s hand for a brief moment and then starts to walk away. Before he completely turns away, he looks back and Keith and gives him an impish grin and states, “I hope you plan on wearing cleaner clothes when we next meet.”

Keith glances down at his own grease-spotted shirt and looks back up at Lance, then rolls his eyes. “Yes, Lance, I do.”

Lance laughs, and to Keith it sounds like sunshine. “See you around, Mullet,” he says, and Keith is sure that he imagines the fondness that lies over the teasing nickname. Keith touches his own hair in mock offense and Lance shoots him a last smile before exiting the lounge.

Keith turns back to the garage and resists the urge to sigh like a lovestruck middle-schooler. Before he steps outside, he makes a mental reminder to save the number on his arm in his phone when he gets home, and when that thought brings a fluttery feeling to his stomach, Keith welcomes it.

[mini-min-yoongi]

September AO3 Yoonmin readings:

This are all the fics I read this month. There are many because the majority are oneshots and because i had a lot of free time :p

1) No place in between (*)

Prompt: Yoonmin and sign language

I’m in love with stories where one of the characters is deaf. In this one it’s Yoongi and I loved taking a look at his insecurities and his strength. The way in which he confesses is the best thing in the world, i loved that so much as well as when he gets mad at Jhope for not telling Jimin beforehand about his condition.

2) Calling your bluff (*)

Jimin's gotten himself into plenty of awkward situations when he bluffs his hearing, but this one really takes the prize.

(“I’m hoh and brilliant at bluffing, you’re my best friend who insisted on meeting me in the middle of a loud cafe. I can’t hear a word you’re saying but I’m smiling and nodding like I can hear and suddenly you seem really happy — Wait, what do you mean I just agreed to be your boyfriend??” au)

In this story Jimin is the one who has hearing problems. My favourite part was when Yoongi realises that there’s being a misunderstanding but Jimin keeps denying it. I thought that it was quite realistic and i really liked that.

3) Every day and all at once

There are things you said that i really wish you hadn't.

Not a happy short fic: unrequited love.

4) Staring at the stars

"I've seen the way you look at me when you think i won't notice."

Yoongi doesn’t know how to be subtle.

5) Look it up

“Are you serious? Your top result is a yoonmin video?” Hoseok asked.

“Yeah, but I don’t know what that even is."

“Okay, let’s go,” Namjoon declared, swinging his bag onto his shoulder as he lifted himself from the couch. Everyone made an effort to move themselves toward the front door.

“Hey, hyung?” Namjoon said quietly beside Yoongi.

“Yeah?”

“Look it up.”

Yoongi glanced away from the manga he planned to finish during downtime at the recording. “Huh?”

“Yoonmin. Just look it up.”

-- Yoongi stumbles on a "yoonmin" video while trying to find his most viewed fancam. Upon realizing the fans have noticed he tends to stare at Jimin, Yoongi becomes hyperaware of their interactions. Did the fans realize something he himself didn't even know?

BTS universe

6) Playground

Jimin’s daughter’s favorite place is the playground opposite Yoongi’s apartment. 

Single parent Jimin au.

7) Swimming pool

Jimin jumps into Yoongi's swimming pool at 3 in the morning. 

8) Body language

Yoongi really liked to touch Jimin, for no special reason.

9) Before the cold seeps in

"Kiss me before we get frostbite, asshole." 

10) Pick me up

"yoongi-hyung?"

"what is it, jimin?"

jimin tilts his head to the side, one side of his mouth quirking up in a smirk. "did the sun come out, or did you just smile at me?"

(five times jimin tries a pick-up line on his hyung and one time yoongi finally gives in.)

BTS universe

11) You’re jealous (is it an inferiority complex?)

The five times that Yoongi got jealous, and the one time that the tables turn. 

College/University au

12) Love is not a coincidence (it’s fate) (*)

Thirteen years into their friendship, and Yoongi finally realizes that he's in love with his best friend.

I’m a sucker for fics where they are childhood friends and we can see how they don’t only grow up physically but also how their relationship and their feelings develop for each other along the years. It was very well-written and I liked the Namjoon/Hoseok/Yoongi friendship, for me that’s always a plus. Also, i felt in love at seeing how even though Yoongi and Jimin were in different schools because of their age, Yoongi still went to pick up Jimin so that he didn’t have to go home alone. My heart melted a little bit at that, protective Yoongi has that effect on me.

13) Make a move (before I make a move) (contains smut)

Yoongi thought that taking Jimin down into Gyeonggi-do for spring break was a great idea. Jimin thought talking Yoongi into staying in a love motel for the night was a great idea.

A.K.A. - the Road Trip!AU that nobody asked for.

Sequel to So Kiss Me (which I read in July)

14) It’s your birthday but you’re my gift (*)

Yoongi celebrates 5 birthdays with Jimin over the course of 20 years. (aka Yoongi growing up with Jimin only to realise he's falling for his childhood friend).

Another childhood friends yoonmin fic. I don’t know what to say guys, I just really like these fics and every time I see one which is lengthy, well-written and where Yoongi and Jimin are in my opinion well portrayed I just have to recommend it.

Special mention to chapter 4 (I’m in love with that chapter, their conversation, Yoongi’s thoughts and insecurities EVERYTHING IS PERFECT ABOUT THAT CHAPTER) and chapter 5 (hey, it turns out that i’m also a sucker for long distance relationship yoonmin fics. SEND HELP I’M DROWNING).

15) Math Tutor (*)

Min Yoongi is the school's resident Bad Boy™. He's covered in tattoos, is pierced, curses like a sailor, smokes like crazy, doesn't give a shit about anything, possesses a hot temper that has people steering clear of him, and is desperately in love with Park Jimin, the adorable math nerd. When Jimin is tasked with tutoring Yoongi in math, who is in danger of failing the class and being held back a year, both boys are hesitant. Yoongi because he can't think straight around the boy with startling red hair, and Jimin because Yoongi is scary as hell and looks like he can easily kill someone. Gradually, though, the two grow closer, and Jimin finds that Yoongi is nothing like how he'd imagined.

BAD BOY YOONGI WHO HAS PIERCINGS AND TATTOOS AND NERD JIMIN. WHAT ELSE DO I HAVE TO SAY?? No but seriously, this was such a great read. It is so well written and Yoongi is so whipped for Jimin. I love it when Yoongi is a tough cookie with other people but immediately turns soft when he’s with Jimin. Namjoon and Hoseok are Yoongi’s friends and you already know that i’m totally down with that. Also, bad boy yoongi playing the piano. Summing up: Good stuff.

16) Home is where the (kittens) are

Calico Hybrid Jimin can't stop bringing in strays off the streets and into he and Boyfriend Yoongi's apartment.

Alt: More of whipped Yoongi; only now he's got a spoiled cat hybrid to deal with.

17) I’ll be a gentleman (’cause I’ll be your boyfriend) (contains smut) (*) 

Yoongi isn’t an easy man to surprise, but kisses out of the blue and sudden boyfriend proposals can do the job.

College au + Fake relationship. Yoongi and Jimin are roommates and there’s a boy who is kind of obsessed with Jimin so that’s why he asks Yoongi to be his fake boyfriend, to see if the other boy leaves him alone. Basically, as the story continues you can see both of them pinning and both are kinda oblivious to the other’s feelings. There’s also some smut which is also a plus. It was a great read, I really liked this long oneshot.

18) 13 Iconic Yoonmin Moments (Yoongi/Jimin & Taheyung/Jungkook)

"Taetae

https://youtu.be/jESuM-NRS9k 23:59 I feel like you might want to watch this, hyung ;) 23:59"

Or, the one where Taehyung sends Yoongi a video that shows the top 13 Iconic Yoonmin Moments, and suddenly Yoongi is way too aware of the way Jimin acts around him.

BTS universe

19) Dear santa

“Please? Just once? And it’ll be really quick, hyungie, I promise,” Jimin tries again, plump lips curled up into a cute pout—the pout which they both know Yoongi can never say no to.

And, well—

“Ah, fuck. Fine, fine, baby, I’ll do it.”

(or: Yoongi dresses up as Santa under Jimin's request. Jungkook takes it the hard way.)

Jimin and Yoongi are baby Jungkookie’s parents. Very sweet.

20) Honey’s Secret (contains smut) (*)

“Me: So, are you going to send me a selca now or not?

Jimin is getting a little impatient now. He needs that picture, and he needs it now.

Me: hyung hyung hyung

Me: pretty please?

Yoongi hyung: Later, Jimin. I’m still at work and I really want to continue earning money by talking about sex toys on the phone with you

Yoongi hyung: And I have a feeling you enjoy those conversations as well.”

Yoongi is working for an online sex toy shop hotline. Jimin is calling said hotline. Many many times.

This story was awesome from start to finish and not only because THE SMUT IS FREAKING AWESOME. Because let me tell you: there’s not only phone sex but Yoongi is the one controlling the vibrator that Jimin is using while he’s at work and Jimin is at home and WOW. I didn’t know how much i needed that in my life but i did. If you want to read a strangers to lovers au with great smut this is your fic.

21) You’ll be okay

Yoongi and Jimin meet for the first time in an emergency room for two very different kinds of injuries.

Bad boy Yoongi.

22) Light me up (I’ll keep you warm) (*)

He’s already taking a deep breath when he hears someone twisting the doorknob. “Jung Hoseok, I have a bone to pick with you, you absolute asshole,” he starts.

It is not Jung Hoseok.

Definitely not.

Min Yoongi.

Jimin coughs awkwardly into his fist. “Hello,” he finishes.

(In which Jimin has a crush, yells a lot, and maybe falls into like.)

Another college au. It was lovely seeing Jimin being so protective of his best friend Taehyung and how that’s Yoongi’s first impression of him. I loved seeing how even though Jimin is the one who has a crush on Yoongi first, it’s Yoongi who takes the initiative to get to know Jimin once he meets him. JIMIN IS AWARE OF YOONGI’S FEELINGS WITHOUT HIM TELLING HIM WHICH IS AWESOME AND RARE TO SEE. Yoongi still doesn’t say anything so it’s Jimin’s job to take the initiative this time. There’s side vhope which was very sweet.

23) Bring on the sunshine (*)

With the help of their five year old "matchmaker" Taehyung, Yoongi and Jimin stumble into each other's lives. Cue the awkward, messy pining and dating adventures with a noisy kid in their way.

Single parent Yoongi with tragic backstory and kindergarten teacher Jimin. WHAT ELSE CAN I SAY? This story was the sweetest story in the world please read it. I loved it so much. Everything about it was so good and kid Taehyung is the cutest and best matchmaker in the whole wide world. I think this is the best single parent au I’ve read yet. I will for sure reread it in the future.

24) You wish I was yours (and I hope that you’re mine)

Jimin is getting ready to sleep his summer away now that all his friends have left for college except for him. That is, though, until he meets Yoongi. A boy two years older than him from the city, who has been kicked out by his parents and is now living with his aunt.

Because of Yoongi Jimin learns more about himself in one summer than he has his entire life.

25) The weight of everything (*)

When Jimin enters his life, Yoongi discovers how it feels like to be flying, but also realises how it feels like to fall...desperately in love.

Childhood friends au (seriously i just realised that i read a lot of childhood friends aus this month lol). What I liked the most about this fic was Yoongi’s struggles to accept his sexuality and his parents reaction at the end. It was great. There’s angst but it has a happy ending. The cliff scenes are also very memorable imo.

Special mention:

~Celebrity Crush (Namjoon/Seokjin)

Right now Namjoon was exhausted and he'd been saying rude shit and he kept snapping at Taehyung and then they'd had to sit through that interview ("Who's your celebrity crush?") and Seokjin had tried making a joke ("Rap Monster," he'd said, thinking he was being clever) and even as everyone around them cracked up the look that had flashed through Namjoon's eyes belied something that looked almost brittle.

The kiss scenes will kill you. Both Namjoon and Seokjin are so well portrayed in my opinion. A good namjin story right here. BTS universe btw which is always great.

* my favourite fics

[theunitedrealms]

AUs for you to consider ❤ True as a dragon. They literally find a captured or abandoned baby dragon and Fisk is all "Michael, don't" and Michael does anyway. Also, ER surgeon and nurse- could go either way with them. Or Michael as the person constantly injuring himself and Fisk as the only nurse who puts up with him.

FIRST OF ALL, “Fisk is all “Michael, don’t” and Michael does anyway” is a summary of the entire series

but aside from that observation lemme address these Vitally Important AU’s

Baby Dragon True: I have nothing to add to this perfection? 

except that True still climbs into bed with Fisk in the night, even when he starts getting to be so big that the beds just collapse. Not that the inn owners charge them for the beds. Hard to say “hey, pay for that!” when there’s a fucking dragon watching you with beady lil eyes. 

Bonus: True develops telepathy bc dragon bonding and shit and Michael just sighs deeply and long-sufferingly when he realizes the dragon considers its name to be Trouble and not True.

-

Trauma Surgeon Fisk & ER Nurse Michael, because I love Nurse!Michael and also? Fisk with steady hands trained to do fine embroidery and repairs by his mother who worked for a tailoring shop as a seamstress, going into med school after both his parents die of infectious disease but becoming a surgeon because of his mother’s craft. He winds up working as a trauma surgeon because it’s way easier to help people without insurance when it’s on an emergency basis. 

(There’s a man named Willard in the Accounting department who is meek and stutters a lot and everyone thinks he’s a coward but his hands are steady when he shreds records and rearranges the bookkeeping to protect people who can’t pay.)

Michael is high empathy so he is always drained after shifts. Fisk tries not to learn names but never forgets faces; Michael knows the name of every single patient and the John/Jane Does haunt him. He absolutely volunteers in his free time and Fisk is just. Baffled by how Michael can spend basically 100% of his waking hours doing this stuff.

Also: Rogue’s Home AU in this verse. Michael gets suuuuuper burnt out after a really bad large-scale emergency and Fisk takes it upon himself to get him back into the groove of things (maybe Michael gets fired/suspended for doing something to save a patient. that sounds like a Michael thing to do.) Obviously this means introducing Michael to his family. 

See also: nurses tend to be pretty strong from all the lifting and Michael has tattoos (because obviously) so outside of scrubs he looks pretty rough? Muscular, tall, scar on his chin, tattooed, strong jawline, and he rides a motorcycle so he’s almost always wearing a leather jacket and boots.

Fisk makes a LOT of money so he’s always well dressed and he’s short and broad, freckles, curly hair, ambiguously dark skin tone, chubby cos fuck you it’s hard to get a workout routine in when you’re busy sewing people’s organs back together and also his mother was a tailor so he’s probably judging you for the fit of your suit if you’re rich.

Fisk looks like the slightly-plain-but-cute doctor your parents want you to bring home, but is very much not a person to do the whole Meet The Parents thing and tries his hardest not to care so he’s a little cold at times. And Michael looks like the roguishly handsome guy you bring home to piss off your parents but then he opens his mouth and he’s soft and polite and sweet and offers to fix things around your house.

Also also: because of above “Fisk seems cold; Michael looks rough”, no one thinks they’d be good with kids, but holy shit are they the greatest people with pediatric patients.

cos Fisk will tell a concerned spouse “they’re fine. get some coffee. i have other patients. ask the attending if you have questions, i’m just the surgeon.” but he will crouch down to talk to a kid about their parent/sibling’s status without ever once being condescending, and he’ll spend half an hour explaining the surgery and what happens next.

and Michael is nice to mostly everyone (oh my gods tho my boy and his snap moral judgments - i just pictured him seeing an abuser bring their injured victim in and hooooo boy that’s probably what gets him suspended now that i think about it) but with kids he’ll go out of his way to make sure they’re alright. kids probably ask for him if they’re repeat ER visitors

…both of them keep stickers in their pockets for kids

-

ER Nurse(/or Doctor) Fisk + Injury-Prone Michael

gods after like the third time he shows up Fisk probably tries to figure out if he’s a battered boyfriend and Michael is confused by Fisk’s insinuations and then startled when he realizes what’s going on and he’s like “oh!!!! no!! i’m single! and not being abused!!”

and that’s when Fisk is like “then what the fuck is your problem?” in the most judgmental tone possible because Michael is here every week with a black eye or bruised ribs or a broken arm, Michael, what the hell

so they get into an argument because Fisk gets sarcastic and Michael gets defensive, and a supervisor of some sort tries to scold Fisk but Michael’s like “huh? oh, no, this is the most fun i’ve had in ages”

and without missing a beat Fisk goes “even more proof of your messed-up psyche” and they’re back to bickering about whether not backing down from a deserved fight is the same as picking fights

Fisk probably distracts him with arguments as he relocates shoulders or pops the cartilage on his nose back into place. he’ll wait until Michael starts in furiously on his counterpoint and then realigns his broken nose and the initial wave of pain won’t even be gone before Michael’s claiming that this is just a cheap way to win an argument

“i was already winning, michael”

“then why’d you have to interrupt my counterargument?”

“because your should was dislocated, michael”

(most of the time fisk absolutely does wait until he’s being outmaneuvered to do it. he swears it’s because that’s when michael is most engaged and therefore better distracted.)

eventually fisk genuinely asks “why are you always injured, anyway” and michael says “i’m a knight errant”

and fisk is like “a WHAT” even though he’s read his medieval literature, probably in the original form of the old language. because IT’S THE 21ST CENTURY, MICHAEL.

mostly it consists of helping senior citizens across streets and and walking college students to their dorms, and attending parties and going to bars to keep an eye out for shenanigans, but inevitably you get a guy like michael in a room full of drunk people who are stupid and aggressive enough when sober, and then inevitably one of them is sufficiently assholeish to merit michael’s interference, and long story short michael gets beat up a lot.

[musevassal]

An Edmonton Stroll

Every time I return home to Edmonton, I make a point of walking Whyte Avenue from 99th Street to 109th Street. Whyte is a shopping and bar strip near the university that's the closest thing passing for culture in Edmonton. It has some of the city's oldest buildings (about 120 years old), and, depending on the time of day, is a reliable place to find suburban yoga moms doing coffee, hipsters looking down on their betters, breeder yahoos getting in vomitous fights, and lurking inner-city urban poor (mostly Native American). Walking from 109th  to 99th takes one from the more upscale residential university side of things, across the tracks to the light industrial, more inner-city, crack-ridden, stabby parts. I grew up just off Whyte, and worked for ten years on Whyte's dodgy side; pumping gas and fixing tires at a full-service gas station and automotive shop (Edmonton's last in operation, in fact). So while I'm no street-hustling hard-case, Whyte Ave is one of those places that I can walk and a feel the pulse of through the soles of my feet. It was my hood, and when I get home I like to poke around and see what's what. Not all that much has changed, really. The station where I worked is now just a chain-link fence enclosing a heap of contaminated dirt, and there's been a couple of horrid, yuppie condo/retail developments. But that's all window dressing; the pulse and vibration of the place is just the same as always.

At Joy's Lucky 7 Food Store on 101st (where, along with your regular convenience store fare, you can get Chinese kitsch, crack pipes, pepper spray, swords, telescoping batons, and flickknives), I noted that the Somalis were now managing the retail crack business in the parking lot. Interesting! That used to be strictly a Native street gang deal. Now, those same cats seem to be slinging for young, willowy Africans with exquisite bone structure. I suppose that refugees with real AK47 time in a civil war can carry more water than the local talent when it comes to taking care of business for the 1%ers. Good to know. On we go, down to the center of the commercial foolishness: the Calgary Trails (North and South). Oh so many breeders and yuppies and suburban duds wandering around slack jawed looking for a reason to keep breathing. Let's get a Starbucks and listen to a busker! Oh yes, lets. How does Dave like his new truck? Oh yeah? No doubt, eh? It was around here that my old street sense perked up, and I pulled my gaze from the Lululemon encased ass bobbing all around me to a shady doorstep for an upstairs property. Sure enough, there was one of Whyte's many homeless occupying the prime real estate. This was no poseur, neither. A real career professional. Dood was about my age, white, and looked healthy enough. He was decked out in rugged, well-worn bush gear, with a rucksack and all the rough camping stuff you'd expect. He had a big dog tethered to his thick, shoulder-high walking stick. Also, dood was sporting a head full of dreds and his face was covered with a badly done, full-on, “Maori” face tattoo. So, a real unique, beautiful mess. Which was staring right at me. I make a point of making eye-contact with the homeless. That way, with simple body language and stink-eye I can get right out in front of letting them know to fuck off. And I will talk to them, sure, but their approach had best be fucking correct. Now, this guy was not just looking right at me. He was taking me in. I've been around enough to know that when a homeless person starts such a personal interaction, they have probably decided that you represent something for them right now. This is never good. When it happens, it's time to get your feet under you in preparation for fight or flight, and reorientate yourself with your pocket knife's location. But Guy didn't make a move on me, so I gave him the jail-house, reserved, respectful, “I see you man” nod before breaking eye-contact and moving on down the street. A couple of shoulder checks over the next bit to make sure he wasn't tailing me, and I was on with my day. At this point it is relevant to mention that I was pretty high on this walk. The kind of high you can only get from smoking a bong of hash and weed salad when you're totally jet lagged and have been completely sober for two years previous. So as I kept walking, I went into an emotional deep dive on my five second interaction with the homeless man. The kick off was a quick indulgence in schadenfreude. Basically, an exploration on the theme of, “well, I can see that face tattoo is really working out well for you!” I have to say, the interaction remains satisfying to me on this level. With one foolish and egregious cultural appropriation, our dipshit hero managed to completely burn through his reservoir of white privilege. “You know what I want? I wanna have the visible minority experience of the 1950s. You know, where the vast majority of people who first meet me assume I am some mixture of criminal, moron, lunatic, wastrel, and pervert. But I want that without the benefit of any real community of my own. This is gonna be tits!” The next stage of my dive was one of self-congratulation. There I am, high as a kite, walking a semi-dangerous environment for the first time in years, and I spot the potential danger and deal with it correctly. The scary homeless dood with a weapon in hand and a big dog as backup tried eyeballing me and I backed him off with a look. There's no question the guy tried to intimidate me. Skillful beggars will usually blend eliciting sympathy with intimidation. They'll start with the sob story, but if that doesn't get traction, they'll build up the threat level as the interaction continues. The goal is basically to achieve a non-criminal mugging, where the target winds up paying a fee for the privilege of being left alone. This means there's nothing strictly criminal taking place to get the beggar in trouble, and the target also has the face-saving measure of engaging in charity to alleviate any wounded pride at having been extorted. When the guy noticed me looking at him, he looked back. What with his whole deal, probably only about one in a hundred passersby ever send anything more than a peripheral glance his way, so he'd have to take advantage of every interaction he gets. But he read my look and posture and saw it was a nonstarter, so he let me drift by without pushing it. However, there was some pensive element to his look as he disengaged that stuck with me. It wasn't shame, and it certainly wasn't fear (I have no illusion that I'm capable of eliciting fear from a tough homeless guy like that; I was simply able to communicate that I'm more trouble than I'm worth). It was more exhausted embarrassment. It was a couple of blocks later that I became pretty sure I went to high school with the guy. Not someone I ever spoke to, but a person that I was in a number of classes with. His was face I had spent many a bored moment glancing at. Then I realized that all of that confrontational and tough guy thinking was possibly bullshit. The guy probably recognized me and was trying to place my face. And, all posturing aside, I was scared of him, so I thought his attention was an intentional attempt to intimidate. (The visible minority experience indeed!) But I didn't recognize him, and treated him just as so many others had. He didn't blame me (how could he), he just took it on, along with so many other small, troubled moments. Just a bit more weight to carry. Because yeah, it's all his own doing. It's his mistake playing out yet again, keeping him on the path he can't escape. I wonder what he saw in me in that moment. Did I represent to him some road not travelled? What might have been if he hadn't fucked up his face in a willful expression of self-vandalism? Probably not. Probably he thought, “fuck that guy.” But I did think on it. Hey, look! I've looped back around and we're at the Second Cup coffee shop. I think I'll pick up a brew to take back to my dad's house. Maybe I'll walk by Old Strathcona school on the way; I'd like to see that again.

[shatteredskies042]

NaNo Day 16-17

Michael watched her go and sipped his coffee, watching the sunrise for several minutes before he finished his mug and headed up to his quarters. He showered quickly, making a note to try and find some basic hygiene products in town next time he went. His travel gear worked well enough, but he did not want to be using that regularly.

Once he was dry, he dressed and found a jacket. The garment fit, but too snugly. He would be printing his firearm if he wore it, and added a new jacket to the list of things he needed to get. He would do well with some shopping, but clothes shopping had never been his strong suit. He eventually found a tan, fleece lined jacket and slipped it on, loose enough that concealing his weapon was hardly an issue. He secreted a pair of magazines on his person, then headed back into the living area.

He saw Allyson, dressed similarly to him, just casual enough to blend in with the crowds. “Ready?” she asked when she saw him, leaning on the same handrails they had conversed on last night. At his nod, she grabbed a shiny ruby red, leather half jacket from the behind her and slipped it on, before starting down the stairs and to the garage.

Michael fell in behind her, and followed her up into her Jeep. The blonde turned the vehicle over and withdrew a pair of sunglasses from the visor, glancing at him. “Gets you familiar with town, too,” she mused as she toggled the door and they headed for the bridge away from the island. “I’ll get you a garage door opener, and one of the keys to get inside,” she added.

Michael wished that he’d brought his own pair of sunglasses, choosing to lower one of the visors of the skeletonized cabin of the Jeep to shield his eyes. “Your travels take you off road a lot?” he asked her, reaching up with his off hand to wrap around one of the rollbars over the passenger’s side.

“It’s nice to have,” Ally admitted, “and I’ve always really had a thing for these since they came out,” she told him. “And it’s just fun,” she smiled as she drove, merging onto the highway for the second leg of the drive into town. “Going out some back road and tearing it up, splashing through the mud, or climbing over rocks. Great for the snow, too,” she added. She glanced over at Michael for a moment, before speeding up to pass a slower car, the wind whipping through the open cabin.

“I’ve always wanted to get an SUV or something,” Michael admitted, “we got a lot of snow where I grew up, so driving the Camaro isn’t super realistic for two or three months out of the year.”

“And you can’t really take her onto the backroads, or off road, either,” Ally pointed out, with a hint of a proud smile at the corner of her lips.

“Pass up the opportunity for a walk through the woods?” Michael raised an eyebrow, “besides, it’s much quieter to walk through the woods instead of following the road.”

“You’re not wrong,” the blonde admitted as the town came into view. None of the buildings he could see were over three stories tall, and everything seemed to be grouped together fairly well. Ally navigated through the busy early morning city streets, before they stopped in front of a coffee shop. The window etching said Scarlet’s Beans, both the cold neon signage and a placard in the door said the store was closed. However, Ally climbed out, and Michael followed after her as they walked to the door.

The door was unlocked, and they both walked into the clean storefront, a bell over the door dinged to announce their entry. “Sorry!” Came a voice shouted from the back, “we’re not open yet!”

“Scarlet?” Ally called back, “it’s me.”

“Oh,” she responded, “I’m just in the back,” she responded.

Michael and Ally headed for the rear of the storefront until they reached a door clearly marked Employees Only. With Allyson’s blatant disregard of the sign, she pushed through the door and held it open for Michael into a lounge, then through an open door into a humid room. A single figure stood hunched over a row of green plants, inspecting the small green bushes with a notepad nearby. She perked up when she saw the blonde, making a few last notations as she looked up. “I’ll meet you two in the lounge, just give me a minute,” she smiled disarmingly.

The two retreated to the lounge, Ally gracefully flopping back into an overstuffed couch while Michael took a chair across from her over a low coffee table, having to adjust his posture a few times as he sat on his gun.

It took over a minute, but finally Scarlet appeared. She had a head full of fire-red hair the same length as Allyson’s, but much paler than her with the inky lines of tattoos running across her arms. The designs were lost on Michael, as her clothing obfuscated much of the artwork as she sat in the other table around the coffee table. “Sorry,” she apologized as she crossed her legs. “I’m trying to figure out a new, faster method to grow the beans,” she explained.

“Tell Michael what it is you do,” Ally urged with a small smile.

“You don’t know?” the redhead looked at the male, then sighed, “sorry, I’m a horrible entertainer. I’m Scarlet, I run this establishment, and I’ve known Allyson since I was a child,” she told him. “And you are?”

“Michael Haghn,” he responded, “I’ve known Allyson for less than three days.”

Scarlet laughed, “so I guess that means you’re new to the world behind the veil, and all the things that go bump in the night.”

“Greener than those coffee plants of yours,” Ally quipped with a smile.

“Well, I’m a witch,” she shrugged, “and before you ask, yes, I can make a broom fly, and no, I don’t kidnap children to boil in a cauldron. I don’t even own a cauldron,” she said, the latter part mostly to herself. “Can I get you two anything?” she asked the pair. “I just got done getting the pastries and such ready for today,” she stated. “Coffee?”

“I’ll take one of those apple danishes,” Ally stated, smiling a bit.

“What do you have?” Michael asked, “haven’t been to any coffee shop in a while,” he admitted.

“Bagels, danishes, muffins, cookies,” Scarlet shrugged, an easy, automatic routine for her. “What do you like?”

“How about a plain bagel and some cream cheese?” he asked politely, “and do you have any of those home grown coffee beans ready?”

“Of course I do, I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she said with a polite smile, before heading back into the storefront.

Michael looked over at Allyson at the same time she looked at him, the blonde starting to explain: “I’ve known Scarlet since she was born, her mother was a good friend, too,” she stated, “her mom and I worked together back during the second world war.”

“Doing what?” Michael asked curiously. “I love history, so I’ve studied that in pretty good detail.”

“Nothing that made it into your history books,” the angel promised with a smile. “There was a whole other war that was fought at the time, between much of the same enemies and some others,” she explained. “And before you ask, yes, I worked for the Allies. I even borrowed some of their support a few times,” she said quietly, staring past him into a memory before focusing on him again.

“Like?”

“Couple of heavy bomber raids, some paratroopers,” she shrugged. “When I worked in the East I got to use Soviet artillery a few times, I still love the sound their rockets made,” she laughed. “Scarlet’s mom, Rose, got hurt early in the war, and she wasn’t exactly cut out for the front line in the first place. She ran things for us pretty much,” Ally crossed her legs as she leaned back in thought. “Without her, the world would look much different than it is today.”

“Other than ideology and the Nazis being well dressed assholes, what was the war over?” Michael asked.

“Some of it was use of magic, some of it was vampires who’d grown comfortable and too bold,” she shrugged. “A lot of it was focused around the Academy of Destructive Arts, both because they were absolutely full of themselves and the fact they were teaching and harboring practitioners of banned magic. Stuff like necromancy and demon summoning. The rest of the world thought what they were doing was unacceptable, and went to war over it.”

Scarlet returned with a tray in her hands, setting it on the coffee table. “Here you are,” she smiled at the two slightly, looking at Ally, “are you two talking about the war?”

Ally nodded, reaching out to take the small plate her pastery was on. “Michael is still very new to all this,” she explained. “Tell him about what you do,” she urged before taking a bite of her snack.

Michael turned his attention to the redhead as he picked up the bagel, coating the interior in cream cheese. “I need to learn as much as I can if I’m going to be effective,” he explained.

“Well, as Ally told you, I’m a witch. I do things with magic,” she stated as he took a sip of the coffee. “The coffee beans, what you’re drinking,” she nodded, “I grow them with the help of magic.”

Michael stopped mid sip, before slowly setting the mug down and looking at her. “Is it-”

“Yes, of course it’s safe,” Scarlet assured as Ally chuckled. “I only use magic to accelerate the development of the plants,” she explained further. “Any dangerous issues I’ve already worked out. The early testing was far from perfect, but I’ve figured out just the right amount to cut the time to grow from two or three years to just a handful of months.”

“And the taste?” the soldier asked.

“The magic does affect it somewhat, but I’ve only heard positive reviews about my homegrown coffee beans,” she smiled. Michael nodded slowly, then took a sip of the coffee again, until Scarlet stopped him, “do you want sugar or creamer or something? I forgot to ask, I’m so-”

“It’s fine,” Michael promised, “I like mine simple,” he stated. He took another bite from his bagel shortly after, chewing as he thought of questions to ask. When he was finished, he had one, he thought at least. “How do you tell if you have magic abilities?” he asked.

Scarlet laughed, “you either do or you don’t,” she stated. “I was almost guaranteed to have it, because my mother was a witch, and my father was also magically inclined,” she explained. “There’s ways to tell, and very few capable people get missed,” she added. “There’s no concrete theory on it, nothing concrete at all about magic, you see,” Scarlet told him, “the only thing that seems to work is two magic users, or otherwise magically capable people having kids, and even then it’s hit or miss. I had a sister who didn’t have any affinity for magic at all.”

“I don’t even have a real ability to use magic,” Ally pointed out. “I have some abilities, but that’s because I��m an angel. I can’t learn anything new like Scarlet can,” Ally explained quietly as she finished her bagel.

“And I’m going to guess I don’t have any aptitude for it either,” the soldier mused, shrugging. “No big loss for me.”

“There’s a few perks,” Scarlet noted with a grin, flicking her wrist. A door flew open to a small closet, and a broom flew around sweeping the floor in concentric rows. Michael watched curiously, eating his bagel, as Scarlet laughed. “The shop and my apartment over it would be an absolute mess if it weren’t for easy magic like that,” she smiled.

“So what can you do?” Michael wondered, “what’s within the realm of possibility?”

Scarlet stretched out, and rest her socked feet on the coffee table. “I work with plants and animals a lot,” she said, “I’m also really good at healing. Not so much where I want to go into business as a healer full time, but when I need to,” she said proudly, looking at Ally. “Fixed up your new girlfriend a few times,” she said with a pointed smirk.

“We’re not dating,” Ally responded quickly, looking everywhere but at Michael.

Scarlet didn’t seem impressed, but nodded anyway. “Sorry,” she apologized to Michael, “I’m not the best person to ask about this. I’m just a user, not a scholar,” she said. “If you want a straight answer, and you probably won’t even get one then, you’d have to find one of the magic academies and talk to their faculty.”

“If they let you in,” Ally noted. “They’re not the kindest people.”

“Speaking of unkind people,” Michael responded, “you mentioned the Destructive Arts, is that offensive magic?” he asked.

Scarlet furrowed her brow and tilted her head back and forth a few times in thought as she mulled over his question. “Looking at it from a very, very broad angle, yes,” she confirmed as she looked at him. “It’s not just fancy stuff like fireballs and shooting lightning out of your fingers,” she explained. Scarlet put her hands together, then separate them for a second, before arcs of lightning sparked between her fingertips.

“It’s stuff like making diseases, inciting violence in others, not just direct means of attack,” she explained. “The vast majority of magic users are just like you and me,” she gestured between her and Michael. “Human, and the human body can’t tolerate a whole hell of a lot of punishment. Sure, you can learn ways to create constructs to stop an attack or wards to take the blow for you, but you won’t often find a witch on the front lines.”

Michael nodded slowly, “what would they be capable of?” he asked in wonder.

“A lot of the records and books were lost when the Academy was destroyed in the bombing, the real reason for attacking Dresden,” Ally explained. “The knowledge still exists in what survived, but it’s few and far between,” she promised, looking to Scarlet, “witches do know self defense spells for if push comes to shove, but nobody really uses magic offensively since then.”

“As for what they were capable of, use your imagination,” Scarlet said with a shrug as she looked at Michael. “Giant fireballs, manipulating the weather, making it rain horribly corrosive and dangerous toxins, using cursed beasts as mounts of war,” she shook her head. “There was a reason it was destroyed.”

“And if we were to encounter one on our journeys,” Michael said quietly, “humor me, how to I take them down?”

“Provided you encountered one, and weren’t vaporized or mutilated the moment they spotted you,” Scarlet shrugged, “unless they’re waist deep in the real dark arts, they’ll die just like any other person.”

Michael nodded thoughtfully, adding it to his personal mental index of how to kill and destroy various things and people. “And if they are waist deep in the real dark arts?”

“Run,” Ally said simply.

“Pretty much, then you get into the real nightmarish stuff,” Scarlet agreed. She craned her neck to look at a clock, then back at the two, “I hate to do this, but I have to get ready for the day and my opening workers should be arriving.” She stood, and the two visitors followed shortly after. “It was very nice meeting you, Michael,” she professed.

“Thank you, Scarlet, it was-” he thought for a moment to find the right word, “enlightening.”

“Always a pleasure, Scarlet,” Ally smiled.

“Oh hush, I’m not some scholar or important person,” she waved off their thanks. “My door is always open if you need a warm drink, snack, healing, or magical advice,” she promised the two as she led them back into the cafe. Ally pushed the door open as Scarlet flipped the placard on the door around and turned on the neon signs.

“I don’t have to worry about stuff like hexes and voodoo dolls, right?” Michael asked as they returned to Ally’s red Jeep.

The blonde shrugged as she put her sunglasses back on, having hung them from a pocket of her jacket while indoors. “I’ve been cursed a few times, all you really have to do is find whoever put it on you and convince them to lift it,” she stated while climbing up into the vehicle. “It also ends on the caster’s death, so there’s that too,” she added.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

“A big part of magic is the ingredients used,” Ally stated. “Don’t quote me on any of this, okay?” she said quickly, to dispel any reliance he may put on her advice, “but say, Scarlet wanted to curse you. Right now she has maybe a couple strands of hair. With that bare link to you, she could put something minor on you. Like, every hour you get an itch in the same place, or every third thing you eat tastes sour, something mundane.”

“Something annoying,” Michael continued.

“Whereas if she had say, blood, or an organ, or your body, she could do much worse,” Ally finished. “It’s actually something you have to try for, getting cursed,” Ally shrugged as she drove them through the more lively streets of town.

“Good to know,” he stated, shifting in his seat as the blonde drove. As they stopped in traffic, he glanced over at her, “where now?”

“Now, we’re going into the woods,” she told him, “more than just Bambi out there,” she warned.

They drove for a couple minutes in comfortable silence as they left town on the backroads, taking a few dirt paths off the road deeper into the brush. Michael couldn’t help but look around and wonder where it was they were going, “how far in the woods are we talking?” he asked.

“Not far left,” Ally promised, as they came around a gentle bend and the vehicle rocked as they passed over a small, rocky creek. Around the corner was a large house, paling in comparison to the Institute, but impressive nevertheless. They stopped in front of the house, and Ally motioned for him to get out. “Just don’t make any sudden movements, okay?” Ally warned, “some of these guys are pretty jumpy.”  

Michael nodded as he stepped down into the grass, then followed Ally to the door. He caught a few eyes from people walking around, and mostly ignored it. There was something off about this place, but he couldn’t quite tell yet.

“Ally,” a voice greeted as the door squeaked open, causing Michael to turn to face the speaker. “Who’s your friend?”

“My new partner, where’s Cole?” she asked pointedly.

“Cole’s inside, but I’m not quite sure having an outsider here is safe.”

“I wouldn’t be worried about his safety, I’d be worried for yours,” Ally replied with a cold smile, before the door opened. The two entered, and Ally led Michael inside.

The man who had opened the door was easily taller and heavier than Michael, and stood in an aggressive manner designed to intimidate him as he passed. Michael simply stepped past into the living room with the blonde. “He doesn’t look like much,” the man who had opened the door said aggressively.

“I’ve been here less than a minute and someone is already threatening me?” the soldier mused.

“They’re territorial, Michael, and you’re on their territory,” Ally did say.

“And who exactly are they?” Michael asked, glancing at the blonde.

“Werewolves,” came another voice from above them. A tall, well built man with silver hair descended the stairs, joining the pair. “Tony, it’s okay, you can leave us,” he urged the man at the door as he smiled at Allyson. “Good to see you, Allyson,” he wished, “glad to see you get out of that stuffy island too.”

Word Count: 33400

Note: Was unsatisfied with the writing from Day 16, and reworked it all today.

[paradisefovnd]

what is something everyone should know about your muses before interacting?

multimuse ask meme accepting

i told vicky to send this to me again bc i’m a dumb and didn’t understand it the first time

ruth balakov  - she is SUPER high energy. if you interact with ruth, expect her to be just short of bouncing off the walls. also, she’s super random, so don’t be surprised if she just rambles on and on about all kinds of random shit

samir chaudhry - this guy may seem immature, but he’s actually very thoughtful and considerate

tutankhamun “tut” mcmullen  - he’s emotional. look up “emo” and there will be a pic of tut. however, he’ll try and hide it if he thinks that his emotions will hurt the other person (well, that’s if he cares about them. if he doesn’t, then he’ll let it all out) 

jughead jones - he’s a little shit. he’s also not the dark and brooding jughead from riverdale. i cannot stress that enough. my jughead is asexual, loves burgers more than life, and doesn’t say shit that sounds like a young chuck palahniuk. instead, he’s more like roald dahl minus a dash of the whimsy

melody valentine - again, she is NOT riverdale based. that’s honestly the most important thing about her and jughead. my melody is sunshine in a person and sings everything she says with the occasional bit of cryptic wisdom

mark darcy - basically, he’s a modern mr. darcy. something to know about him and my portrayal is that i’m probably not going to write him with a lot of people. most of the muse i have for him is when i’m writing him against bridget, and i can’t really change that. he’s deeply in love with her, and ??

choi han-kyul - this kid is the grandson of the chairwoman of a company so like he’s hella rich, and he takes it for granted at first. but then, he’s put in charge of running a coffee shop, and he matures a lot through the process. however, he doesn’t lose his playfulness. he’s honestly one of my favorites, and if anyone ever wanted to write with him, i would be beyond happy. 

dr. noelle akopian - she’s a psychiatrist who’s done with ur shit

greg serrano - self-sabotaging but currently working on improving his life. in business school, used to be a bartender. recovering alcoholic. 

maya - she’s the most pure and pls don’t hurt her

valencia perez - used to be a yoga instructor, but is now an event coordinator. hella gay even tho the show doesn’t admit it. deserves to be appreciated. is working on improving her “mean girl” tendencies. the “mean girl” tendencies tho are partially bc she’s never really had female friends and she just...doesn’t know what to do? she’s actually an awkward bean, but her beauty prevents a lot of ppl from realizing it

johnny castle - soft. again, don’t hurt him. he’s a dance instructor at a resort, but he can work in a lot of different verses. you need a dancer? he’s there. he’s very serious about his craft, and is a genuine human being. he appreciates honesty. 

blair warner - she’s rich af and can be super conceited, but she knows how to have a good time and has a little bit of a devious streak. depending on the verse - is either in law school or a lawyer. intelligent altho ppl don’t expect it. 

jo polniaczek - looks tough, is a soft. don’t let her leather jacket and motorcycle fool you. jo polniaczek just wants a simple life and she wants people to be happy and respected. respect is big with her. 

emily gilmore - a socialite altho she prefers the term “philanthropist.” emily might seem “evil” to some people, but she has good intentions (in her mind). she only does things when she thinks they’re the “right” thing to do (at least, before the revival), but she also has a bit of a mischievous streak that’ll come along every now and then. her upbringing instilled certain lessons in her that she’s unlearning little by little. 

meredith quill - she loves classic rock, motown, her son, and the world. she’s one of those people who’s in love with life, and her enthusiasm is genuine. 

alice longbottom - she’s kind and altruistic. however, she’s not a pushover. my alice isn’t “soft” alice. she’s “u said something super ignorant and im gonna tell you why youre wrong” alice. gryffindor. 

arthur weasley - arthur wants to learn everything he can about the world around him. a bit of an absent-minded professor, even tho his mind is always turning. he just has so many thoughts happening all at once, he can tend to jump from subject to subject without connecting them sometimes. gryffindor (altho he was almost a ravenclaw)

victoire weasley - read this here

helga g. pataki - helga is someone who came from a bad situation and pretty much raised herself. most of her interactions will be after high school. my headcanon is that she finished school and got a scholarship to ivy league and after that, she went to law school at another ivy. she hopes to be the first female president one day. she’s aggressive, but deep down, she cares a lot. 

effie trinket - seems like an airhead, but effie is smarter than you think. she grew up in a society where certain things were expected so she fulfilled them. her upbringing was also extremely different in the sense that she was fed propaganda from a young age and never knew differently, but her experiences in district 12 (or other verse equivalents) have shown her that the world isn’t what she thought it was, and she’s learning what life actually is little by little 

katniss everdeen - i won’t write katniss a lot just bc it takes me into a place that’s harder to get out of, but my katniss is a sacrifice of her circumstances. she never wanted to be a revolutionary figure and never felt comfortable with her position in it even after the war was over. her “toughness” that people seem to see is just katniss trying to survive. survival is her driving aspect. 

jane villanueva - jane is a mama who is also an incredible writer whose first book is in the process of being published. she writes romance novels so essentially she’s just like us! she likes having a plan for everything, and her family is number ONE in her life

michael cordero a detective. is also a major nerd. thinks he could be a comedian, but he’s not actually that funny. like maybe if you have a certain sense of humor. he lives with a certain code of ethics, however, they might get bent at points if he thinks it’s for the best of the situation. 

rogelio de la vega - telenovela actor. if your character met him on the street, they might not know him if they haven’t watched telenovelas, but he will assume that they know who he is and that he’s famous. SUPER dramatic. don’t be alarmed.  

elle woods - amazing lawyer, loves the color pink, member of delta nu. in my version, i take pieces from the movie and musical. for my elle, vivienne was the one who told her to come back to the case (like in the musical), but at the end, elle doesn’t propose to emmett. instead, she and vivienne start dating and fall in love and get married 

ryan atwood - he came from not a great family, and then he got adopted by this uber rich fam in the oc (orange county, california). he’s navigating his new life, and grappling with who exactly he is and what his place is in the world. just know that he’s deeply loyal and cares a lot about people

pam beesly - receptionist at dunder-mifflin paper company. insecure, but is slowly coming out of her shell. is an artist and outlawed at chili’s. is a huge dork, but also adorable. 

fitzwilliam darcy - super rich bc he inherited everything from his parents after they died. they died when he was young, so he was thrust into responsibility at an early age which is part of why he is the way he is. seems stuck-up (and kind of is), but he just doesn’t care of societal expectations of friendliness even though he gets caught in what society expects when it pertains to manners, etc. is his sister’s guardian, and she means more to him than anything else in the world

jane bennet - pure, the sweetest. the oldest sister of five. in modern verses, i have her as a preschool teacher

queen clarisse renaldi - queen of genovia. a literal queen. tries to be diplomatic. expects people to do as she tells them bc she’s a queen. has dealt with some shit in her life - her husband died, her SON died. tries to stay optimistic. 

sabrina fairchild - suicide attempt tw: her father is a chauffeur for a super rich fam. suffered from depression. attempted suicide, but thankfully, was found before it was too late. after that, she was sent to paris and attended cooking school. fell in love with paris, and also healed. developed a love for life. became a fashion designer. 

capheus onyango - son of a local leader who was murdered when capehus was young. was raised by his mother who he loves more than this earth. spent awhile driving a bus called the “van damme.” is a sensate, meaning he is connected to seven other people. idealistic, kind, and too good for this world. 

princess fiona - i’ll mostly be playing her with a real life fc. she’s a princess, an actual princess, and her parents had her in a tower for years bc there was a spell on her that turned her into an ogre at night. so kinda like the swan princess but instead of a swan, she’s an ogre. black belt. enjoys burping. 

shrek - an ogre, however, if i keep him, ill be playing him mostly with a real life fc. isolated from a young age, had to take care of himself. is insecure because of how he looks and who he is. enjoys burping as well. has layers. 

charles brooks - in charge of a publishing company. divorced. has two daughters. is cautious when entering new relationships because of his position and his family. respectful. intelligent. is finally starting to live life in a way that aligns with what he likes. 

josh - tattoo artist. human golden retriever except more funky. is just trying to enjoy life while he can. definitely a millennial. spontaneous. knows how to have a good time. is super duper loyal and kind. 

[nazih-fares]

Another month of September and here’s come another version of Visual Concept’s award winning basketball franchise, out now with NBA 2K18. For several years now, Visual Concept has evolved its prized franchise and manages to come back every time with new fresh ideas. Not particularly perfect ideas, some even completely pointless, but we can always be sure of one thing: every new NBA 2K is always impressing me. It’s all generally thanks to its highly technical gameplay, life-like realistic graphics, or the game mode galores; so how can the studio top last year’s edition, considering we gave NBA 2K17 a 9.1/10?

For the past four years, Visual Concept has been relying heavily on its career mode, which allows the player to create a virtual player to his own effigy, and discover the life of a basketball players on his professional road in the great American NBA league. The formula has never really stayed the same throughout the years, but the studio is always more ambitious and it feels perfect in NBA 2K18. In this year’s MyCareer, things start in a very classic way: After creating your player (note that the customization options are more limited this time), you start with a series of street basketball matches. DJ, the big mouthed character that will be the voice of your character is no random streetballer, as he dominates the competition and takes the title with his friends, and eventually gets spotted by a Scout of an NBA team (the one chosen by the player as a favorite team at the beginning of the MyCareer mode).

This start will not necessarily appeal to all players. Since many would probably have preferred more realism, and why not even a return to the previous NBA 2K17 path: you start with College basketball matches, the NBA draft, and then transition to the league teams when picked. Inevitably, the basketball fan will question realism, especially since NBA 2K has done better in the past. That being, this new approach has its own interesting take on MyCareer, that it dramatically changes the relationship that DJ will then have with the rest of the NBA universe, because as an undrafted rookie, he is not a potential star, and so will become the eternal underdog. This will always provide more motivation to the player who holds the joystick, which will be constantly provoked by his teammates, but also opponent team players, as he works hard to prove himself.

NBA 2K18 illustrates rather well the transition between streetball, where DJ shone to where he lands in the NBA. The first matches are of a disconcerting ease, as if the avatar is some sort of reborn Reggie Lewis. Once in the NBA, things are much harder: your player has officially a ranking of 60 and it will have to train hard before reaching peak performances worthy of a true league player. First of all, the question arises as to how an NBA team has been able to offer a contract, even a temporary one, to a guy who can barely make a simple shot. Then because the performance improvement is still dependent on the VC, (in-game currency), is only after many hours of play that you will finally have stats worthy of the NBA players. Some will think that this is a good thing, especially since the NBA is extremely competitive and the simple fact remains that there’s a lot of work to be done to get to a good level. Other players though will probably find it a somewhat vicious way to direct players to the game’s microtransaction system, which allows you to buy large amounts of VC. Plus I’d like to point out that at the silly way the game also handle the player’s energy levels through the season, which degrade after each performance, and has a direct impact on his ability to run faster for example. It’s a logical concept, but in the game, to recharge your batteries, the game invites you to go to a gym, where you can practice in many ways. If this adds a wealth of gameplay features, it also invites whether lazy gamers to spend a few extra real life money to buy Gatorades, sold exactly in the same spot.

As a new member of an NBA team, your in-game character will have to show attend numerous training sessions. Forget the “Doin ‘Work” system of NBA 2K17, because NBA 2K18 allows you to go to the training room before each game, where you can participate in up to three exercises. These exercises will allow you to accumulate XP for each of the available Badges, depending on your post and the archetype you have chosen for your player. The system is rather smart but because of the imperatives (maximum score to reach, limited time, etc), it is sometimes difficult to work out specifically some components of his game. We would have appreciated, however, that some basic exercises allow us to improve certain skills, especially shooting at mid-distance, three points, or even free throws.

Fortunately, it would be a bit simplistic to limit NBA 2K18 to micro-transactions which, let’s face it, are quite optional. Visual Concept rolled up the sleeves to propose novelty and this time, it’s done with a miniature open world hub called the neighborhood. You will find absolutely everything there: your apartment and private plot, Foot Locker to buy sneakers, NBA official product store, hairdresser, tattoo artist, arenas for ProAm matches, a room to bet on matches… The Neighborhood manages to bring together in a single space all the modes that are linked to your avatar. As a concept, it is damn impressive and the first hours of roaming around the Neighborhood are very pleasant, but the fun is short-lived, especially for those who would like to just play official matches, and possibly live through the story mode created by the developers. Crossing the streets of NBA 2K18’s Neighborhood is long and laborious; there is no shortcut, except the one allowing instant access to the NBA matches. To give you some ideas, if you want to talk to your agent, you will have to walk to his home which can take you up to 3 minutes. Buy a new pair of basketball? Walk to the shop! Even to get out of the house, you will have to physically go to the door. We understand the willingness of developers to come up with something more realistic, but a little more flexibility would’ve not hurt on that front. Ultimately, if the proposed result is rather impressive, it will not appeal to everyone, and could be considered as an added gimmick.

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Other than the changes listed above, Visual Concept took the opportunity to review their game mechanics and give us more realistic sensations on the court, if that’s even possible given how lifelike everything was already. The physics engine of the game has been improved and this is noticed especially on the player animations, which are much less calculated than in the past. This is particularly noticeable on steals, jumps or rebounds, and depending on the point of contact, the hit applied to the basket, the bodies twist, pivot and ultimately give a very pleasant feeling of fluidity, instead of being just a formed cluster of pixels. Controlling the players is therefore very pleasant, and visually, the sensation of realism is striking.

It is now possible to make a pass while jumping, without going through the “fake jumpshot + pass” combo which had its limits; a longer and more accurate pass can be made by holding down the A key and then quickly selecting the desired player. The power gauge is now displayed at the player’s hands, and provides greater clarity on the difficulty of shooting and the intensity of the opposing defense. Everything in this NBA 2K18 gives the impression of being more natural and obvious. Especially when it comes to attacking, because in previous episodes, it could be annoying to see how some players, even the smallest, could stop a monster such as LeBron James, but thankfully in NBA 2K18, the biggest dunk masters are truly powerful beasts!

Besides the MyCareer mode, NBA 2K18 launch with a plethora of game modes that are all rich in content. We talked about Career and Pro AM, which largely benefit from a new system of player archetypes, but we could also spend a moment talking about the MyTeam mode, which is the equivalent to NBA 2K of the FIFA Ultimate Team, or even MyGM, which allows you to play as the General Manager of an NBA team of your choice. It is the latter that has changed the most this year, since Visual Concept has decided to endow it with a small story mode scenario, which to my regret, was not a good idea.

After several tries, I quickly realized that the scenario was exactly the same from one team to another. Barely named General Manager, you meet the owner of the team, a man obviously a bit obnoxious with a lot of investments done over the years. As the season progresses, we learn via social networks that the owner has “lost” an enormous amount of money, which leads to the same conclusion: the man is forced to sell his team, and the new owner, friendly as he is, wishes to move the franchise to Seattle. This evolution may be appropriate for your party if you have chosen a team like the Kings, which has been in turmoil for years, but it is much less credible when we talk about teams like the Lakers, Knicks or other franchise attached to the cities they represent.

Disregarding this added – pointless – story mode to MyGM, it is still safe to say that this mode hasn’t lost its depth. The possibilities are still numerous, especially since this year the game allows to sign “two-ways contracts”, or to benefit from the Hardship Exception, in case of many injuries in the team. On the trade side, the whole is rather coherent, even if we continue to see quirks, such as the Spurs able to propose Tony Parker in exchange for a random rookie like Brook Lopez early in the season. Overall, the game regularly overlooks the small specificities of some players, or some teams, which is a weird thing for a game that is proud of its realism.

Last year, despite its many qualities, NBA 2K17 annoyed me because of absurd little bugs. Things have improved this year, and I’m happy to say those random issues are fixed, like faces not loading properly on players, and more. The online part of the game also offers a much nicer experience and during my test, there’s been barely any lag, even with my humble connection. However, difficult not to be impatient in front of too many loading times that seem to have multiplied, and present almost everywhere now, even when opening your smartphone. It breaks the mood and pace of the game, especially in Career mode, which is already wasting a lot of time with its endless displacements in the Neighborhood.

Besides all this, NBA 2K18 is still the greatest sport simulation in the market. I might be a bit too harsh on some points, but this is expected from a game that seeks perfection on all fronts. At least from a purely technical point of view, the game is still a high-end graphical feat, with textures always finer and more precise, especially regarding the skin of players and their small imperfections. Small other details lack in details, like the coaches, the face of the national anthem singer, and the trio of Shaq, Ernie and Kenny is still not very expressive, despite an excellent dubbing.

NBA 2K17 was reviewed using an Xbox One retail copy of the game provided by 2K Games. The game is also available on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC in both retail and online store releases. We don’t discuss review scores with publishers or developers prior to the review being published

It's no surprise that this year as well, NBA 2K18 is a very strong entry in the franchise. Another month of September and here's come another version of Visual Concept's award winning basketball franchise, out now with NBA 2K18.

[graceivers]

Review #42 - Park Avenue Prince

Park Avenue Prince Author: Louise Bay Genre: Billionaires & CEOs, Contemporary Romance Rating: ★★★½ Recommendation: it’s a toss-up; once was enough Summary: Sam Shaw is a self-made billionaire who has closed himself off from basically anyone and anything. Enter Grace Astor, an art dealer who claims men like Sam aren’t her type. But as Sam wrangles for her time and intimacy, Grace worms her way into his life and shows him what it means to have attachments.

Female Lead: Grace is a decent female lead. I think the best part about her is her assertion for independence. She’s consistently described as a Park Avenue princess, though for the majority of the book, Grace removes herself from associating with that part of her—her childhood, her past. She doesn’t want to be defined by her wealth, by who her parents are, by where she grew up. Another thing I really like about her is her perspective on passion and business. It’s so clear that she has a passion for what she does, that she’s knowledgeable about it. She understands that there’s business to be done as the owner of an art gallery, but she also manages to reveal her own penchants and connection to art, which I enjoyed reading about.

I thought for the most part, Grace handled her attraction, feelings, and relationship with Sam well. I was iffy on it at first given how easily she gave into him, but she was coming off of a bad end to her previous relationship. She seemed to want to dodge Sam’s advances, but in his presence, she didn’t seem to put up much of a fight. Her character kind of felt indecisive at that point, which I wasn’t a fan of. The way she handled Sam’s fears and insecurities in the latter half though, I thought that was well done by Bay. Grace showed raw emotion and vulnerability when Sam pushed her away, but she never lost herself. Sure, it took time for her to get it together a little, but there were some minute details Bay inserted in there that did in fact illustrate how Grace grew and developed from the experience. Male Lead: I’m not sure what to make of Sam Shaw. On one hand, I get where he’s coming from. His fears and insecurities are more or less warranted given his tragic history, and those fears subsequently lead him to lead the lifestyle he has with zero attachments. I mean, he doesn’t even like furniture, what the heck. He’s so emotionally closed off, which is why his feelings for Grace take him by such surprise. I liked those moments—where he was trying to figure out who Grace was and what she meant to him. On the other hand, Sam didn’t seem like he wanted to learn or change. Even when he realized that he was in love with Grace, he didn’t fight or try like he said he would. One accident and he was running. That didn’t make me feel confident in his character. I didn’t always think he deserved Grace. And yeah, he eventually came around, but I thought there were still some things he needed to work through before everything just came together so nicely for him in the end. Plot & Writing: Park Avenue Prince is genuinely a ‘it’s a toss-up’ kind of book. I honestly don’t know where I land on the scale. There were some good parts, some bad parts, some parts I wanted to skip, some parts I didn’t care about. There were moments when I thought the book was more erotica than story driven, but then other parts made me think otherwise. It was kind of all over the place for me, and I just didn’t know what to make of the book.

First of all, the summary of the book is rather misleading. Nothing in the summary is wrong per say, but that blurb does not give an adequate description of what we discover about the characters and what’s going to happen between them. It’s one of those set the stage summaries rather than actually giving readers a brief and intriguing synopsis. This is not always a big deal, but for Park Avenue Prince, I reread the summary after finishing the book and was like, ‘this is not what the book is about’. Yes, Sam is a billionaire. Yes, Grace kind of pegged him a stereotypical playboy billionaire in the beginning. But it wasn’t just about the sex or Sam chasing after Grace to get what he wants as this pseudo alpha male. There was actually some discussion about love, relationships, attachments, histories, etc. by realizing a deeper connection between the two leads.

I believed in the relationship between Grace and Sam up to an extent. I think for Sam, it was genuinely this love at first sight thing for him that he just didn’t recognize until much later. The opposite kind of happened to Grace—not love at first sight but realizing her feelings for Sam before he did. For the most part, the relationship developed nicely for me. I was not a fan of the Grace getting a tattoo moment because despite her assertion that she wanted to get one, it still felt like Sam was forcing her after he all but demanded her to do so in exchange for her taking him furniture shopping. And yeah, I know the tattoo has meaning and all that, but I still didn’t like the way I felt reading that moment. Ultimately, though, I couldn’t quite come to terms with the happy ending of the book because I thought Sam was way too easily forgiven by Grace. That and that he probably needed to work more on his fears and insecurities, but we didn’t get to see that when Bay went straight to an epilogue with them married and having a kid. Rushed? Perhaps. Undeveloped? I believe so.

Briefly, I did not categorize this as a workplace romance despite the fact that Sam became a client of Grace’s. That part of their relationship wasn’t exactly a straight-up boss-employee relationship, so I didn’t give the book a workplace romance tag. Although… I really should be more consistent with some of my tags, this one in particular. I’ll probably go through all my reviews and retag things sooner rather than later… Secondary Characters & Plots: Uh, so I totally read King of Wall Street by Bay back in late February of this year. It’s not on my review list because I only remember it being mostly erotica, so much that I did not even realize Harper and Max in Park Avenue Prince was in fact the main couple from King of Wall Street. I didn’t remember much if anything about those individual characters except that Max had a daughter, Amanda, who also appeared in this book. All of them were okay secondary characters—provided input when necessary and disappeared when not necessary. I am glad, though, that Harper was there for Grace when the latter was in that accident and then when Sam pushed her away. The same goes for Angie, Sam’s only friend. I’m happy that she pushed through and got to Sam.

I guess some of the art stuff could be considered a secondary plot. Of course I loved that Grace’s hard work paid off and that her gallery was becoming more and more successful. And again, I enjoyed the fact that Bay included the right amount of detail to illustrate how passionate Grace was about her career and where that passion came from. Favorite Part(s): Probably the conversation between Sam, Grace, Max, Harper, and Amanda when the first two went to visit Max and Harper’s. It was a fast moving scene with people going in and out, but at the same time, they were talking so realistically about anything and everything—Amanda’s cooking, Sam and Harper’s relationship, marriage, etc. I actually really liked that sequence. Final Thoughts: I’m on the fence. Park Avenue Prince is this weird jumble of sex scenes and deep conversations about fears and insecurities as well as love and marriage. I mean, when I put it like that, it honestly doesn’t sound bad at all, yet when I read and finished this book, I just didn’t know how to feel about it all. The only thing I can chalk my reaction up to is that the book just wasn’t for me. There are certainly worse books than Park Avenue Prince, but this one apparently isn’t any kind of standout to me.

[newstfionline]

The architecture of fear: how Caracas has adapted to constant threat of violence

Sofia Barbarani in Caracas, The Guardian, 1 March 2017

The last thing Corina expected on the night she and her two children were carjacked was for her kidnappers to scold her.

“It’s extremely irresponsible of you to be driving at this time of night, ma’am,” Corina recalled her captor saying. “You shouldn’t be going around in this tiny car at night.” He then kicked her out of the car, took her cash and left her and her children on the streets of Caracas in the dead of night.

The story is just one of many on a list that has gone viral in Caracas about criminals advising their victims on how to avoid falling prey to their traps.

Although the article, published by El Estimulo newspaper, has a humorous tone, it highlights a fact of life in the world’s most dangerous city. A self-imposed curfew rules over the Venezuelan capital where, according to Organised Crime Observatory, 3,102 murders took place in 2016 alone.

Only the brave walk the streets of Caracas after sunset, when the dizzying frenzy of the daytime city gives way to an eerie stillness as residents seek refuge indoors: the wealthy hide inside their gated communities and the poor lock the doors to their makeshift zinc-roofed homes. A handful of speeding cars tear through half-empty roads and solitary figures walk briskly down dark pavements.

It was not always this way. Dubbed the Paris of South America, Caracas benefited from a strong oil sector and an influx of European immigrants in the 1950s. The city boomed for decades, feeding on foreign investment and building modern infrastructure. Mass housing projects began to materialise as residents from the countryside arrived in search of a better life.

But in the 1980s, oil prices collapsed and decades of government mismanagement led to soaring inflation and an economic crisis that has only worsened since the death of Hugo Chávez four years ago.

Shortages in the capital have caused a desperate lack of food and access to basic medical supplies, prompting a humanitarian crisis and testing the already delicate social fabric: according to polling firm Datalanalisis, 95.1% of the population is unhappy with the state of the country.

Meanwhile, a cocktail of poverty, corruption and the propagation of illegal firearms have peppered the capital with booby traps in the form of malandros (thugs). This has forced the estimated 3.5 million Caraqueños--and the city itself--to adapt.

Maylen Rincon, 54, points towards the towering metal barrier in front of her block of flats in east Caracas. “This fence was erected five years ago,” she says. “People now use three to four locks on their doors.”

She had left her building early that morning to see a group of young men chasing a thief down the road. “I like the theatre, the cinema, but not anymore,” she says. “We don’t even go to shopping malls and we’ve stopped wearing nice clothes, watches or using mobile phones [on the street].”

“We no longer have a life,” adds her elderly neighbour.

Further down the road, Andres Goudett is busy sweeping the floor of his clothing shop. He explains that he only stays open until 5pm, because heading out after sunset means risking your life.

“It’s a pretty dangerous area,” says the 43-year-old. “[Thieves] don’t care about killing you to take your phone. Twenty years ago you could go out, walk around.”

“This is a country of great architects,” says Venezuelan architect and urban designer Hannia Gomez, recalling the Caracas that once was. “[But] the development of the city has been a wild one.”

Beneath the backdrop of the Avila national park, a lush mountain range that frames the skyline and separates Caracas from the Caribbean sea, lies a city split in two.

A divisive fault line runs through east and west Caracas, forming a border between the “dangerous” areas and the “safe” ones. West Caracas is home to slums such as Catia and 23 de Enero--interminable clusters of redbrick or colourful makeshift homes, where rundown buses laden with passengers labour though narrow, unlit streets. Market stalls line the chaotic roads, while black market vendors have sprung up to sell staple necessities at exorbitant prices.

East Caracas, by contrast, primarily houses the city’s middle and upper classes in high-rise buildings and lavish homes. The roads are dotted with lofty trees and expensive cars. It’s a reality that belongs only to a very small minority.

These areas have essentially gone into lockdown. In the wealthy Country Club neighbourhood, sturdy walls, barbed wire and electric fences now block off homes and gardens that were once visible from the street.

In the slums, there is less money for protection, although shards of glass embedded in concrete attempt to serve the same purpose. But that didn’t stop thieves from breaking into 21-year-old Gustavo’s supermarket. “We have fences and cameras, but they broke down the back wall with a metal rod,” he says. His uncle recently returned to his home town in China after being shot on a busy commercial street in Caracas.

“It affects different classes in slightly different ways, but it’s certainly affecting everybody,” says Phil Gunson of the International Crisis Group, who has lived in Venezuela since 1999. “If you live in a poor area, even if you manage to get home before dark, you have to get up so early in the morning to leave your house--and many robberies and assaults take place in the early dawn.”

In one gated community in the north of the city, residents have installed a machine that reads visitors’ ID numbers. As a result, what seems like an interminable queue of cars waits patiently each day to be allowed inside.

“Fences have always been there. However, they have become higher and people have added barbed wire,” says architect Maria Isabel Espinosa Marturet. “They’re reminiscent of prison or a concentration camp.”

This “architecture of fear”--a term coined by scholar Tunde Agbola--has seen not only the bolstering of walls but also the use of a variety of security systems, including dogs, shotguns, two-way radios to communicate with police officers, and if you can afford it, private security.

At times on quiet streets you can hear the “click, click, click” of the electric wires running across tall walls. Some shop owners choose to keep their doors locked, buzzing clients in once they have been vetted. Even the windows and some balconies of high-rise buildings are fenced off with metal bars, like teeth snarling down on the city.

Crime has affected the city’s architecture. While once Venezuelan homes were designed homes based on comfort and Caribbean-style open spaces, today the focus is on security.

But it’s not just about buildings. Nicolas Kasang, an urban development consultant, has argued that this type of urbanisation has had a negative impact on the city’s social dynamic. “[It] fragments public space, breaks down social cohesion, perpetuates widespread insecurity, and, ultimately, diminishes the overall quality of urban life,” writes Kasang.

Caraqueños from all walks of life have become accustomed to fearing the “other”.

“There’s mistrust in everyone,” says Osnaider Vizcaino, a 22-year-old graphic designer with multiple tattoos, who says people on the street often go out of their way to avoid him. “I’m not a particularly posh-looking guy, even though I live in a posh area. But I prefer to be feared rather than look like a target--that’s the reason I wear chains and have tattoos. Even though I look like this and try to be confident on the street, I do fear other people.”

Caracas was never exactly safe, but tales of glitzy nights out and partygoers stumbling merrily through the streets at 4am are recounted like distant memories of a bygone era. One nightclub owner, who asked to remain anonymous, says that nightlife in the once-buzzing capital has dwindled considerably since he first bought the club 17 years ago.

“The sense of insecurity has multiplied and our target clientele has left the country, particularly over the past three years,” he says.

“Crime has had a major impact in terms of people’s willingness to go out, see friends--ordinary social interactions which would take place outside,” Gunson adds. “[Nightlife] is taking place in people’s homes, because that’s the only way people feel safe.”

Indeed, today many Caraqueños are more likely to gather in houses--and often opt to sleep over. If they do choose to travel at night, they are likely to do so in convoys of three or four cars, and under no circumstances stop at red lights for fear of carjackings.

“Everybody does [sleepovers],” says 22-year-old Emiliana Lante. “If you’re at a gathering that ends at 2am or 3am, you’d rather stay in that house because that’s when kidnappers will have enough time to abduct you and ask for ransom.

“I only drive until 8pm,” she adds. “After that time, I stay over at my friend’s home, or my parents pick me up and escort me [in convoy].”

The steady deterioration of the city’s public lighting has also served as a blanket of immunity for thieves and kidnappers.

“The light situation has been dramatic for all of Caracas,” says Marturet. “Both in the richer areas and in the slums, people use the lights in their homes to illuminate the street.”

Even in broad daylight, one of the greatest sources of anxiety for Caraqueños is getting stuck in traffic. Lante has had her mobile phone stolen three times while stuck in traffic--twice by the same thief.

The richest can afford to armour their vehicles and tint their car windows, filling the already chaotic streets of Caracas with tank-like SUVs. But those who can’t afford to pay an average of $25,000 to stay safe in an armoured vehicle are forced to play Russian roulette with their belongings, and sometimes with their lives.

The police say they are doing the best they can in a difficult situation. “We’ve increased our patrolling since last year: there are now at least eight police officers per five square kilometres,” says Einer Giuliani, head of security of El Hatillo, one of the city’s five municipalities.

Other measures taken to fight crime are the government’s controversial Operation Liberation and Protection--aimed at cracking down on gang crime, but often accused of human rights abuses--and bettering relations and communication between Venezuela’s fragmented police agencies.

But as crime seems to worsen, some Caraqueños have devised innovative ways to continue enjoying life’s small pleasures. They combat the loss of public space and dwindling nightlife by relying on safety in numbers.

Joggers form social media groups to run in the evenings. Initiatives such as Trasnocho Cultural offer theatre and art lovers the chance to see plays and exhibitions during matinee times, and be home by sunset. Meanwhile, schemes such as #ccsen365 bring together large groups of Caraqueños to rediscover their love of the city and its history through guided tours.