LO-LIFE: A DateQuest

[x] You work as an ANIMATOR. Your apartment is strewn with sketches and reference materials.
[x] Head to the LOCAL GYM.



Your work as an animator provides a combination of flexible hours but also tight deadlines. Animation isn't taken very seriously on the EU mainland and the overseas markets are relatively competitive, so you mostly do work for indies- work that satisfies more than it pays. A couple of French and Canadian studios have branches here in Neue Palas to access the local talent pool and benefit from the city's special tax exemptions for media companies. These provide really good work now and then, though you imagine your availability might plummet if you take a serious position with one of them for a film or TV show.

The apartment you rent reflects this. Your desk is a dedicated media workstation, drawing table and display for a half-dozen reference drawings and figurines. Some of your favorite projects are on display:
- Cyrien, a film about a rabbit rafting between the Greek islands to reunite with his family in Berlin (that went to Cannes).
- A collector's edition box for Zaikuwar, an anime-styled game that you did the opening animation for.
- An Animator's Webby for Starducks, a weird little video of CGI short film that basically replicates the trench run from A New Hope… with ducks.

Naturally you also have a decent movie collection of animated films that were personally influential to you, or generally influential on the industry.

But enough of that.

Your mind is set: you'll head to the gym for your first try at picking someone up for a date.

You peel out of bed and shed your pajamas, switching to perhaps your best and cleanest athletic clothes, and douse in a bit of deodorant and cologne to mask the faint funk you have going on. A shower will wait until after- you're going to smell bad anyway right?

Finding your sneakers and duffel for a change of clothes takes a little effort, given how messy your apartment is. Art supply clutter and boxes full of backups of key animation from old projects inhibit your movement slightly, forcing you to traipse around carefully. Eventually you assemble everything and head out the door, slipping outside without running into any of the other people who live in your block or the landlord's family.

It's balmy enough that a tank top seems like the right choice to make, a good breeze from the sea keeps it from being too hot or humid but you don't want to get any sweatier before you've even start out. The streets are full of people going out to enjoy the weather and nightlife in your low-mid income borough of IL ROSSO-BOHNENFELD, trendy hipsters and bohemiennes out in full force. The creatives began migrating out here when the working class started purchasing houses on the secondary islands.

As with a hundred cities before it, Neue Palas is vulnerable to gentrification of its districts- though allegedly rent-fixing and mixed allocations have prevented rents from spiking. You haven't noticed a difference, so you're grateful enough. The walk to the nearest gym passes an Armenian patisserie, a Turkish bathhouse and a German delicatessen. Voices ring inside, and above in the high stacks of apartments.

You arrive at GINTO GYM after just a few minutes. The world inside is concrete and glass and plastic, the smell of antiseptic and lavender fighting a losing battle against the scents of body odour and cheap spray-on deodorants. Inside you see rippling, moving bodies in various states of semi-dress. Some are attractive to you, some are not. At least the number of women is roughly equal to those of men here.

The receptionist is a smallish tan man with bristly black hair and a patchy beard, wearing a purple basketball top. The desk is glass and his shorts are not very long at all, providing of dark legs that are hairy as they are muscular. He perks up, giving you a nod and quasi-smile as you step up.

"Hello." He says in English, in that practiced almost-pleasant customer service tone.

"Hello." You reply in the same, without it.

"Welcome to GINTO GYM. We are currently having a promotion in vitamin waters, which are free at the juice bar. Do you have a membership?"

[ ] "Yes." Despite your profession and lifestyle, you're actually pretty ATHLETIC. (Acquire new Reference Pool.)
[ ] "No." You're just here to pick up girls.