Juliette Emilia Abel

Jet

8 August

18

Leo

Female

Bisexual

Poor

Scholarship

Dance

Music

Jet works as a waitress in a cafe called Ghost Roasters, located just across campus. It's a popular hangout for university students, and she likes to build up her network while she's there.

She gets dance gigs every so often, though not enough to quit her part time job, and when money gets tight, she'll perform for tips where she can.

Jet is only 5'4, but she appears taller because of the poised way she carries herself—back straight, head held high, with a self-possessed grace that can intimidate the more insecure. Her passion requires her to be at peak physical condition, and she maintains her trim and lithe figure through proper diet and religious adherence to her workouts, on top of all the practicing she does. She has golden brown hair that falls to her lower back in soft waves, often messily tied up in a bun or ponytail so it's out of the way. If she weren't so horrible at it, she would style her hair differently every day, but as it is, she struggles enough with a simple ponytail. Her eyes are a soft blue, with the slightest hint of gray ringing them. They never shine as brightly as when she's lost in the music, her body instinctively moving in synch with the melody. She has a small tattoo of the infinity symbol on her left wrist—her constant reminder that nothing is impossible.

Sporty with a bit of an edge. Jet likes bright and bold colors, and is usually never in just black. It just seems so dull. Rompers and casual dresses are her favorite because they take the least amount of effort to get right—no need to worry about matching tops and bottoms!—and she pairs them off with high tops or booties. She's on the shorter side, but has long legs, and so looks best in clothing that accentuate them. At least once a day, she'll be in sportswear, either shorts or jogging pants with loose tanks and sport bras, for her daily practice. Wherever she is, a small, teal duffel bag with spare workout and regular clothes and shower supplies is somewhere in the vicinity.

Jet could care less about brands, but she doesn't just get what's cheap either. She goes to off-price retail stores and looks for the best steals.

∞ Rain and thunderstorms
∞ Music
∞ Video games
∞ Musicals she can dance along to
∞ People who are hardworking and passionate
∞ Jumping into any body of water, fully clothed or not at all, when she gets too hot

∞ Anything that disturbs her sleep
∞ Overly uptight people
∞ Being hungry
∞ Anyone who mocks others' passions
∞ Super hot days

∞ Has trouble keeping still; often bounces her feet or drums her fingers when idle
∞ Sings when doing any task
∞ Bites down on her lower lip when she feels herself grinning too widely

∞ Binge watching shows to unwind
∞ Capoeira
∞ Collecting tiny music boxes
∞ Remixing songs with killer dance beats

∞ Getting heartbroken. It's already in pieces, she's afraid of what would happen after it shatters one more time.
∞ Catching feelings and exposing her true self
∞ Tight, enclosed spaces
∞ Getting an injury that will render her incapable of dancing

Ah, the sass is strong in this one. Jet struts across campus like she hasn't a care in the world, a quip ever-present at the tip of her tongue, mischief permanently etched on her face. Cracking snarky little jokes during inappropriate moments is a skill Jet has long since mastered, and she is very much fluent in sarcasm. It's really like a second language. She is blasé about everything and takes things in stride (is that a buck naked homeless man smoking pot and talking to himself? Hope he doesn't get too cold), almost as though she is physically incapable of taking things seriously. This general jauntiness combined with some slight devil-may-care tendencies is the perfect recipe for trouble, and it's safe to say one is always brewing when she's around. If she hasn't lost her touch, her professors would associate her name with a headache before the first week is up. And just to piss them off even more, she does well in her classes.

Jet's almost got the world convinced that nothing fazes her, but sometimes, the gleam in her eyes give her away. Catch her in a rare off day and you'll know that the opposite is true; it's not that she doesn't care, it's that she cares too much. Jet keeps people within arm's reach and doesn't let herself get attached because she's been burned enough times to know to stay away from the fire. She's built walls surrounded by bigger walls surrounded by bigger ones to protect herself—she's already broken enough as it is, thank you very much.

It's only when she's dancing that everything—every pretense, every barrier, every issue deflected with snark—is stripped down, revealing the Juliette she keeps under lock and key. Passionate and genuine, afraid to hope because she'll only get disappointed. She'd rather be lonely than hurt any time.

$11/hour, plus tips (both from the cafe and her occasional street performances). She nearly triples her cafe paycheck when she manages to land a gig.

Upper Lower Class. The working poor.

Growing up with little money has primed and disciplined her, and Jet has learned to keep herself alive without spending too mcuh. She saves whatever she can and treats herself to something nice once a month.

Cars are over-rated, says someone who can't afford one.

She stays at the dorm.

Reykjavik, Iceland

Jet's a victim of the usual sob story: deadbeat dad and barely there, half a mom. They used to be a happy family, once upon a time, but it was hard maintaining a smile when they were knee-deep in debt. She was eight when their parents hightailed it out of the country in the middle of the night, dragging her half-asleep self into a cab and to the airport. That year had been particularly tough on her, and it would have marked the first (of many, so, so many) big loss that would chip away at her rose-tinted glasses. Jet didn't get to say goodbye, to her friends, to her home, to her old life. It was as though her world was turned upside down. In a matter of hours, they were in a new country, in shabby apartment, surrounded by strangers in every sense of the word.

Her dad lasted all of a year before he gave up. There were no dramatic displays or any other traumatizing crap; he just left for work one day and never came back. His disappearance set off a chain reaction of unfortunate events. With her dad's income, they barely made enough to scrape by. With just her mom, making ends meet was nearly impossible. The two of them moved into an even shabbier apartment and ate meager meals; her mom even juggled multiple jobs in order to pay the bills.

Through it all, Jet had but a single means of coping. Dancing was her escape, the last thread that held her sanity together. She danced to forget the present, to remember happier times, to envision a better a future. Back in Reykjavik, she was enrolled in ballet school, and she loved every second of it. She was a natural, and her instructors had said many times over that she had a bright future ahead of her. Of course, because life seemed to hate her, it was the first to go when their financial problems arose.

Jet never stopped dancing, though. Perhaps one of the best things that came from moving to America was broadening her horizons and deepening her love for the art. Los Angeles was home to many street performers she could emulate and learn from, free of charge, and in a rare stroke of luck, her mom happened to befriend a dance instructor in her second job. Jet would stay with him during evenings when her mom was out working, and in return for helping him with chores, he would teach her, help her hone her skills. Elementary, middle, and high school passed by in a haze. Friends came and go, many of them promising to keep in touch although no one ever did, and the only constant in her life was her unofficial dance lessons every 7pm. For nearly a decade, it was the only thing she looked forward to.

But because she was Juliette and nothing good ever lasts for her, even that had come to an end. Physically and emotionally drained, her mom had taken her first vacation in years and chose to go back to Iceland. It was supposed to be for a week, but it turned into months. She was left under the care of her dance instructor, but as compassionate as he was, he couldn't take her in forever. He had reluctantly sent her away after the third week, and whether it was due to his guilt or because she was troublesome, he never contacted her again.

Her scholarship to Hollywood University was a godsend—she'd been couch surfing all summer, and so the free dorm room that was included was immensely helpful. Funnily enough, she had enrolled on a whim, with no actual intentions of going into higher education. They held auditions for the dance program and she thought it would be a fun challenge; she didn't once entertain the thought of getting selected.

Game design class!