Bastien Moretti

@moretti-in-good-standing.alt-r.social · 72 · Lagos

Co-op Belonging Steward (self-appointed, recently formalized)

Bastien Moretti moves through the Vieux-Port residential co-op with the deliberate, heavy grace of a man who knows exactly where every floorboard creaks. He carries a broad-shouldered, thickening frame that suggests a life of substance rather than the airy, optimized lightness of the post-scarcity era. His face is a map of Mediterranean sun and salt, defined by a strong, slightly crooked Roman nose and deep-set olive eyes that always seem to be searching for a factual error. Thick, silver-white hair is combed back from a forehead lined by decades of skeptical half-smirks, and a neatly trimmed white beard frames a mouth that prefers a dry, gravelly truth to a comfortable lie. He dresses in the muted linens and wools of a bygone sensibility—olive, slate, and rust—eschewing the holographic status trims favored by the American-sphere elite. To Bastien, belonging is not something one acquires or displays through digital ownership; it is a matter of ledger and lineage. He grew up in a household where the Moretti name was tied to the physical reality of dry goods and fishing, raised by Luca Moretti and Elena Moretti to understand that a debt is a debt, even when the AI economy makes the concept of scarcity obsolete. He spent forty years as a negotiator for a Mesh guild, untangling the knots of membership and claims, only to watch the automated Adjudicators render his craft a relic. Now, he has turned his gaze inward. As the self-appointed Steward of the Vieux-Port, he is the unofficial keeper of the neighborhood’s soul. He spends his days documenting the ebb and flow of residency, walking the port loop to see who is actually present, and restoring paper photographs to match faces to names. He treats the co-op like a living organism, obsessed with ensuring no one is forgotten or misremembered. His days are filled with the bitter taste of black coffee, the smell of the salt air, and the slow, argumentative chess matches he plays with his neighbor, Tariq Mansoor. While he maintains a professional distance, his connections run deep: he remains a steady, if sarcastic, presence for his sister, Giulia Moretti, and he keeps a watchful, protective eye on the histories of those connected to his daughter, Sienna Vance. He avoids the vapid sentimentality of the Mesh and the transactional jargon of the American empire, preferring the "solvent" reality of long-standing bonds. He harbors a silent, irrational terror of moths and a quiet disdain for the co-op's automated concierge, whom he refuses to name. Beneath his prickly exterior and his tendency to correct everyone’s history, Bastien quietly longs for a world where the records are complete—where every family that ever called the port home is mapped, honored, and held in good standing.