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No. 7 - A jetBlue FaMintly ReBluenion - The Quest for the Bluest Plane

And now, for something completely different.

We're done with jetBlue. I said that and I meant it. But we're not done with this train of thought. This post might not be what you expect. This is a very long post (and I do mean very long), a journey through the history of the US low-cost airline, the cognitive dissonance of the everyman millionaire, the thinly-veiled cynicism of the start-up airline, human kindness squeezed through cracks of a soulless machine which can never stop churning, and above all one man's quest to make the bluest planes he can, and my quest to tell you all if they look bad or not.

Let's begin here: have you ever wondered how new airlines are started? Well, when a wealthy individual or group of individuals love making money very much, they get together and incorporate a publicly traded company, lease a few airplanes, buy some airport slots...

I'll get to the point. Readers, there's somebody I'd like you to meet.

"Never speak to me or my daughter ever again." image: Rick Maiman

This is David G. Neeleman. He's jetBlue's dad. And jetBlue...has siblings.

David Neeleman is a Brazilian-American-Cypriot businessman I would best describe as a serial airline founder. Normally the description 'serial entrepreneur', to me at least, implies flakiness and perpetual failure to get anything properly off the ground, but that's not the case for Neeleman. He's very successful. He's probably some sort of pioneer. I've seen him compared to Howard Hughes. There's really only one stain on his record, one failure to speak of, and it's been over ten years. He has a net worth of 400 million dollars.

image: bloomberg

He's an...interesting person. Very interesting. He was born in Brazil and raised in Utah by a wealthy Mormon family. There are many very funny images of him available through Google. He has ten children, an ADHD diagnosis, no university degree, a whole lot of money, and a weird, weird, weird personal philosophy.

This interview is hard to sum up, but there's clearly a lot going on here. This is a guy who wants so desperately to be down to earth and kind and generous, who thinks he is down to earth and kind and generous, but who just can't take the extra step to realize the implications of the truly obscene wealth involved in venture capital and the inherent contradiction of that with his own ostensible charity and drive towards a fair and comfortable experience for passengers. In a way he seems like he's just too wealthy to really understand what being wealthy means. (It's also an older interview, and I imagine any scrap of genuine convictions he held through cognitive dissonance are now long-gone, given the CoViD thing.) He's also clearly got a chip on his shoulder about being fired from jetBlue. To be fair, having seen what they've done with their livery...I get it.

What else...he's also been CEO of airline booking program Open Skies, was involved with bizjet charter airline Superior Air Charter (then known as JetSuite), is founder and chairman of security company Vizgul for some reason, and is a minority owner of TAP Air Portugal. His nephew Zach Wilson is quarterback for the New York Jets. Oh, and he funded a study to underestimate the prevalence of CoViD. Classy, David. Real classy.

This isn't about David Neeleman. Not really. Not yet, at least. At some point it becomes about him, about his journey, but even then it isn't. When you have 400 million dollars you cease to become a meaningful subject as a person and become a meaningful subject as a distilled effigy of the things which the money came from. I dislike the Tony-Starkification of real people and I refuse to approach him in a way that supports that view of him. His life only matters to me in the context of the airlines he makes, and in what the way he changed over time represents. There's at least one biography out there for anyone particularly interested in the lives of Mormon multimillionaires who take issue with making people die less because they want the line to go up more. He is worth 400 million dollars, which is roughly a million dollars times what I make in one paycheck, delivered every two weeks. He's a creature in a suit who owns an absurd amount of wristwatches, each of which could pay for some sort of surgery for someone out there. There's a bunch of those in the world and this one happens to have made something which eclipses him, and that something is what's been occupying me since Wednesday.

If you're a book-reader - and I recommend being one - I think you're probably better off reading Barbara S. Peterson's "Blue Streak: Inside jetBlue, the Upstart That Rocked an Industry", which talks specifically about jetBlue and the way it pioneered what we now consider normal for aviation in the US. Reading it brought back memories for me of seeing adverts for jetBlue's planes on television, guaranteed to have a TV screen on every seat, and having my little mind which was still scarred by hours upon hours of complete boredom flying all the way from Tokyo to the American Northeast completely blown. Air travel really is unrecognizable from what it was when I was a child, although 20 years feels a lot shorter than it really is when you've lived it. There was no one factor that changed aviation so much in my lifetime, but there were a lot that contributed. ETOPS, 9/11, the recession, geopolitics, gas prices, the internet, legacy airline mega-mergers, privatization...and the jetBlue way of doing things.

It's easy to forget from our current vantage point but low-cost air travel wasn't always like this. Southwest did a lot to pioneer the modern low-cost model but jetBlue is probably the second-biggest player in the airline industry's shift to a culture which tries less to be glamorous and tries more to be fun and approachable (they by no means invented the Fun Airline, but PSA had been gone for 20 years at that point and the market had a gaping hole). They were a huge player in the rise of in-flight entertainment as standard even on low-cost flights. They helped keep aviation going after 9/11, when it was one of the few airlines to actually make money. And jetBlue's story isn't Neeleman's story, even though he founded it. I literally just listed four other major involvements of his, and he hasn't been involved in the business side of jetBlue since 2008. His story involves the founding of four - count em! - other airlines. Let's take a look through them and see if we can spot any patterns.

Morris Air (1992-1994)

sources and further reading: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]

Never heard of Morris Air? Can't blame you. jetBlue's oldest sibling existed for two years in the 90s. Two years. That's pretty miserable. ValuJet was around for twice that. That said, you're actually probably more familiar with them under a different name: Southwest.

No, Morris Air did not become Southwest. Southwest existed at the time, and it was in fact Southwest which gave birth to Morris Air.

Morris Air was named for its founder, June Morris, who operated one of Utah's largest travel agencies. In 1984 she partnered with a then 25-year-old David Neeleman to launch Morris Air Service. The two had realized something that was about to shake the airline industry: plane tickets were really expensive, and you could charge even less than major budget carriers like Southwest by just buying all the seats on a charter flight and selling them on to customers at an attractively low price. If you did this, even regular working-class people trying to book a trip to Hawai'i or Disneyland could actually afford a plane ticket. This worked successfully, enough that Morris sold off her travel agency, until they incurred a large fine from the DoT for pushing too far and fraudulently passing themselves off as a scheduled airline (which mattered because commercial charters are operated under Part 135 regulations while scheduled services are governed by the much more restrictive Part 121). In response, girlboss queen June Morris and her investie David Neeleman went and started up Morris Air as an actual, genuine, fully certified part 121 carrier, making June Morris the only female jet airline CEO in the US. They operated a fleet of 21 737-300s around the west coast on both scheduled and charter flights, pioneering such cost-cutting measures as e-tickets (wrongly attributed to Southwest, they were actually first used by Morris). This fleet included N75356/N764MA/N697SW, the airframe involved in the TACA 110 incident, which was successfully landed on a levee after losing power in both engines.

image: Richard Silagi

Now, I don't know about you, but these planes don't scream 'vacation' to me. In fact, they don't scream anything. They barely whisper. They breathe lightly on my ear. There are a couple planes in their fleet with weird features, like multicolor painted noses or cheatlines, but these seem to be one-offs and I wouldn't even be surprised if they were just leftovers from previous paintjobs (the one with the cheatline does look suspiciously like the one used on Sierra Pacific planes, one of the operators Morris chartered from). So they don't count. What counts is this.

Maybe if Morris Air didn't want to be instantly forgotten they shouldn't have made their planes completely generic. I'm not sure they cared, though. They wanted to make money and they made money.

A D- for Morris Air.

In 1992, less than two years after gaining its air operator's certificate, Morris Air merged with Southwest and the brand was retired. Despite having posed a legitimate threat to the titan that was Southwest at the peak of its relevance, it's since largely been forgotten. June Morris and David Neeleman both worked in Southwest's upper management for some time, but it was only five months before Neeleman left Southwest for other ventures. Soon, something more familiar would spring up, fed by the dying rays of Morris Air's gargantuan profits.

WestJet (est. 1994, began operation 1996)

Not exactly a deep cut, is it? WestJet is actually the second largest carrier in Canada and the ninth-largest in North America. They carry over 25 million passengers a year. I've never been one of them, but David Neeleman probably has, because he was one of the group of absurdly wealthy individuals who founded this incredibly successful airline in 1994.

WestJet operates a primary fleet of over 100 Boeing 737s of various models and seven Boeing 787s; in the past they also operated the 757 and 767. They operate both scheduled passenger and charter flights, as well as having a cargo division, a fully-owned regional subsidiary, and a Delta Connection/United Express-style brand name under which Pacific Coastal Airlines operates.

These all use more or less the same livery, which has only slightly changed since the beginning of operations in 1996. Pictured above is the original livery. I like the colors, I like the angularity on the tail, but I despise the style of livery with just the isolated tail colored in. This said, they introduced a new, updated livery in 2018.

I am a very predictable person. Given a livery mostly seen on 737MAXes and Dreamliners, I will always pick the Dreamliner to use as a visual example. This is not a slight to the MAX. They are nice looking planes, but the Dreamliner's planform is just on another level. Look at that wing sweep. Immaculate.

I like this color scheme a lot. I just happen to really like sea-green-adjacent colors, this is not the first time I've mentioned this. The font is nice, big, legible. I like the all-caps, I like the descender on the J. I think removing the logo mark on the wordmark and making it solid color was fine as a choice, makes the whole plane feel more balanced between the turquoise and the dark blue. The 'l'esprit du Canada' feels utterly pointless and is blocked by the wing and too small to be clearly read anyway. Tail design not limited to the tail, but mostly white fuselage regardless. Boring, but there's nothing here I can really call...bad? It's what they don't do that feels like the issue here, not what they do. Like, some sort of design on the nose and directly above or below, maybe? I didn't even realize there's any paint on the engines until I was editing my first draft and from most angles you just can't see it. Come on.

Grade: D+

Before I move on, there is something I have to mention. And that is WestJet's sub-brands. WestJet Encore is a fully-owned subsidiary which operates a respectable fleet of Bombardier Dash 8 Q400s, and WestJet Link is a brand name under which Pacific Coastal Airlines operates a couple Saab 340s. And that is...fine, normal, even, but...

Is this a joke to you?!

Change your name to WestProp. Now.

...

Hey. Wait a minute.

David! The large blue plane is coming! It has no engine power because it ran out of fuel and is about to hit you on the racetrack during family day! Oh no, he has airpods in! He can't hear us! image: Cean W Orrett

This guy. David Neeleman. Yeah, him. We were talking about him. I mean, it's been a minute since he came up because as far as I can tell after founding WestJet he did nothing of note related to it again, but...what's he been doing? Wait...wait a minute. This is becoming a habit, David. All your airlines are...well...they share a certain trait, in a very specific area.

David knows what I'm talking about. After all, his next move, in 1998, was to found NewAir, which would shortly become jetBlue.

I have not stopped to count how many words I have written about jetBlue this week. It is a lot. I already delivered a verdict. We are moving on.

Because David didn't stop here. Why would he? It's 2008 and he just got fired from his own company because a winter storm went Southwest-holiday-scheduling levels of horrendous for the airline he raised from infancy. He's got time to kill and money to burn and he wants the line to go up, damn it! Well, maybe he can be in the right place at the right time again. Make a second jetBlue, win back what he's lost. After all, he's got something else up his sleeve - dual citizenship.

Just your regular average Mormon, lurking in forests with a model plane. Nothing sinister about that. image: conde nast traveler

I did mention earlier he was born in Brazil, right? That's always been part of his life. When he was in charge, jetBlue was actually the launch customer for the Embraer E190, an incredibly popular mid-sized regional jet made by Brazilian manufacturer Embraer.

Is it just me, or do the men in this picture somehow look like cardboard cutouts holding a real airplane? There is something very strange about this image. I would go so far as to call it unsettling. image: The Gainesville Sun

So, figuring he'd bled the US dry, I suppose, he moseyed on down to his birthplace with his millions of dollars and presumably a couple little blank model planes waiting to be painted and shown off at a press conference. If you've seen a pattern emerging, prepare to see it continue.

Azul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras (est. 2008)

Mmm. Helvetica Neue Heavy. Not impressed.

Okay, sure. Technically there was a 'naming contest' and this name 'was the most popular'. But I think at this point I would believe that David Neeleman botted his own vote years before I would believe that Blue Airlines of Brazil just happened to be the winning name.

Okay, all else aside, I would really love to gently hold a plane like this. There's a certain caressing nature to the way he's holding this plane's snout which I crave to someday replicate with a similarly sized model aircraft. image: Paulo Whitaker

Much like jetBlue, Azul began operating Embraer 190 and Embraer 195 aircraft before expanding its fleet to include Airbus models, a handful of ATR 72 tubroprops, and two Boeing 747s for cargo. They started with just five aircraft but grew rapidly, absorbing a bunch of other airlines and securing large investments from the likes of United and Hainan Airlines. Today they operate a fleet of over 150 planes to 161 destinations and are the third largest airline in Brazil. They have a set of crossover liveries with freaking Disney. (I might review those sometime.) They also have a crossover livery with John Deere for some reason. You know, the tractor company. In 2020 TripAdvisor named them the world's best airline.

In addition to the name of the company, they also name their airplanes. I do not speak Portuguese, but thankfully a close friend, @ametri-e, does. I asked him if the names were silly puns like jetBlue's are, and I got this response:

some of these are puns but not particularly funny, some of them just have the word blue in them, and one was funny

So there you have it!

Unlike Morris, which no longer exists; WestJet, which he seems to have minimally contributed to past its founding; and jetBlue, which tossed him unceremoniously on the tarmac with his bags, he remains the chairman of Azul at time of writing.

I find myself briefly wondering if this is all an attempt to recapture his lost glory. Is jetBlue, larger even than the impressive heights Azul has reached, the one that got away? Is he now forced to go forward modeling his work in the image of that which he was robbed of, that which he can never go back to?

I don't know and I don't care. I care about if the livery looks good or not.

Well, I wasn't just going to leave the John Deere plane out. It's a bit underwhelming, though, isn't it?.

So Azul is pretty different from jetBlue at first glance. Mainly, it uses a much darker blue and has a logo to go with the wordmark - a cute little pixel Brazil that looks a bit like a heart to me because of the specific way it's drawn. Everything is scaled nicely so it looks pleasing on the turboprop and I think the dark underside and the way it curves around the ventral fairing actually looks really good with the ATR's airframe, which has a very pronounced ventral fairing relative to similarly-sized props. But, okay, let's look at a jet.

This...is not terrible. I really like the highlights on the trailing edges of the winglets and the end of the rudder, and bordering the deep blue belly. Not crazy about the Helvetica Neue still. Why doesn't the 'u' being cyan carry over to the actual livery? Also, Detached Tail Syndrome. In fact, although it has features beyond this which make a further discussion worth having, the basic layout is what I call the 'Deltalike' because that's the airline I associate with it despite them certainly not being the first to use it - detached tail, painted engines, painted underside that's large enough to see from the sides. It avoids a lot of pitfalls of the other popular archetype, that of the very tail-heavy (which WestJet fell into), but has its own loathesome features. All said, though, I do think Azul is one of the better takes on the Deltalike.

In the first picture the highlights look green, but in reality they're one line of green and one of yellow, for the Brazilian flag. I think they look really nice with this particular blue color, but I am exhausted of this man naming his airlines blue and then having the planes be majority white. They have such a nice shade of blue here, couldn't they make that the primary color of the body?

That aside, the way that the line curves up towards the middle of the plane combined with the tailing-edge highlights creates a sort of aerodynamic feeling. You even see them in other colors sometimes, like the pink ones on the E190s and blue ones on the E195.

It also comes in pink! Were this not a one-off I would ask them to change their name to Rosa Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras, but it is a promotion.

It seems like reconnecting with his origin has given David Neeleman the creative push he needed to beat jetBlue in at least one way - livery. All said, Azul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras clocks in at a final grade of...

C+

Aww, not quite a B for Brazil. Better luck next time! Though I'll admit I considered putting it there for a bit. This is a very high C+. Still, no cigar. Next time try putting less white on the plane. If you're all about blue, why are all your planes still so white? Come on, David. You are spreading blue paint on every airline you've ever touched but never letting it get past the tailfin. Who are you kidding? You know you're holding yourself back. There's a desire deep in you. You know it's there. I know you want to. It's just a matter of when. You are going to give in to your most animal urges. This isn't enough for you.

You need a bluer plane.

You can feel the thirst for a plane blue enough that you might as well own a piece of the sky straining against the bonds you've tried so hard to impose on it all these years. When will you finally unleash it?

Breeze Airways (commenced operations 2021)

image: inc. usa

Here we are, David. Time has almost caught up to us. It's just you, me narrating, and a very, very blue plane indeed. We have finally reached jetBlue's youngest baby sibling.

"Together, we created Breeze as a new airline merging technology with kindness," David Neeleman said. "If you can just be nice, the people will be nice to you in return and your job will be more fun.”

This is an interesting pitch. When Cape Air, with its fleet of tiny airplanes and its founder who started the airline with himself as pilot just to fly one route that he found himself needing to travel regularly, makes their motto Make Our Customers Happy And Have A Good Time Doing It (Mocha Hagodti), it feels...well, it feels like the person who said that didn't understand yet what a company was. Cape Air is its own story with its own contradictions and the vicious cognitive dissonance of capital on stark display but you can sense the desire in its inception to provide a service before running a company. It is the opposite of cynical - it is naïve. It is hopeful and human and starry-eyed.

When a man on his fifth airline makes a pitch like that it's like trying to cloud-watch looking at the ceiling.

That's not the only pitch for Breeze. I mean, even if you've started four successful airlines already and it seems like everything you touch goes on to revolutionize some part of the industry I think that would be a hard sell to investors in 2021. There's a bit more going on here. I'm going to start with the bit that's boring and makes me roll my eyes.

Ever since JetBlue, Neeleman has, like the kid peering into the circus tent, longed to get back into the U.S. airline industry.

Bill Saporito writes for Inc. USA. I let out one tepid physical laugh. Yeah, David. You've got something great going in Brazil right now, but you want more. You want jetBlue and you can't have it. So instead...you give us an app.

The Breeze app is designed to eliminate chokepoints between passengers and planes. That means fewer people on the ground and lower cost.

Is this revolutionary? Is this destined to end in a Southwest-tier scheduling catastrophe? I'm not sure. I think David Neeleman's history suggests he could make this work, and I think the history of apps being used for things that didn't have apps before suggests that this could horribly blow up in his face. It seems to have gone fine so far, as I haven't heard anything else about it. To be fair, I wasn't exactly invested in the idea, so I haven't been looking. There's always time for some situation to happen nobody had foreseen and it all to go belly-up. Saying you never cancel flights works fine until a blizzard hits and then you have to start all over again, but he didn't build jetBlue by being afraid to take risks.

More interesting is the service they offer. Breeze has a bit of an identity crisis. Breeze wants to be an ultra low cost carrier with a first class cabin. That sounds contradictory because it is. The ULCC model as used by airlines like Ryanair and Spirit fundamentally relies on charging a low fare upfront with the expectation that customers will not receive a crumb extra without paying for it. Everything from seat reservations to snacks to anything else you can think of, you can pay extra for or you can do without. Breeze also follows other trends common with ULCCs, like a lack of seatback screens (the very thing jetBlue pioneered!) and flying point-to-point to smaller airports located outside of major metropolitan areas rather than routing through hubs. Yet Breeze insists it wants to have a first class cabin!

It does have a first class cabin, apparently. The classes are called Nice, Nicer, and Nicest. I wish airlines wouldn't do this. Air travel is the floorboards of stand-up comedy. Everyone already hates flying except weirdoes like me who spend enough time looking at pictures of airplanes to write reviews of their paint jobs, and even I get pretty tired of it if I go too long sitting there without the plane doing some sort of plane thing. You can be honest. You can call the classes Bearable, Unpleasant, and Painful. We all understand. It's okay. I would rather buy a ticket for Miserable But Cheap class than Nice. It probably won't actually be that bad, since Breeze doesn't do long-haul, which makes the presence of first-class even more bizarre. If you want first-class short-haul and have that sort of money just charter a private jet! And David Neeleman has been involved with at least two private jet charter companies too, so...what is he doing?

In 2011, almost exactly 10 years before Breeze began operation, Neeleman was interviewed for Business Jet Traveler. I linked the interview above. It's a powerful display of the cognitive dissonance of a man who considers himself a regular everyday Mormon dad, who donates his salary to his employees, who insists on calling his employees crewmembers, even as the line goes up, and up, and up. I've heard anecdotes about him sitting in the backs of his own planes at jetBlue, observing what he could change to make the experience better for the cabin crew and passengers, noticing a lot of those things could even save money, and I have no reason to disbelieve them.

As the head of a company he is by necessity exploiting those under him, as a businessman he is providing a service not from altruism but because he knows that people need it enough they'll give him money, and the more comfortable the experience for both the less likely he'll lose their labor and their money. Conscious or not, altruism is a means to an end, but it is still startling surrounded by airlines which don't even go that far. 'Nice' as a name for economy class is a pretty good summary of the man David Neeleman was, and the one he still tries to present himself as. But there's a specific question, and a specific answer, which I feel the need to place here.

The airlines have been cutting back on frills and first class, which is driving more people to business aviation. Do they need to find ways to treat their high-end customers better? Well, JetBlue doesn't have first class. We treated everyone the same. Maybe it's funny I'm in the JetSuite market because it's so weird to me that on a plane with 150 seats, you give 12 people a great ride and you stick it to 138-squish them all back there because of 12 people. There's something about that that just feels wrong.

Does it still feel wrong, David? Did something change about you between the first million and the 400th? When did this transformation happen? Was it the Ship of Theseus effect? Or...was this what you inevitably were working towards all along? Was it a fool's errand to pretend that there is a difference between what you do and what you are? Aviation is not immune to the society which it is built to serve - it is shaped by it. It feels wrong for 12 people to have a nice ride while 138 are squished in the back, but if you think about the life that 5 million Americans live and the life the other 326 million have to live, all squished back there so the lucky few can have a nice ride, doesn't it feel a little less wrong? After all, you've got the reclining bed. You can just pull the curtain closed. You've probably known what you were all along.

The airlines are a tough business. Why start another after JetBlue? Well, I've done this three times. It's what I know. I've always made money at it, always been successful. I figured out a formula that works and Brazil really needed it. And I had this idealistic view of trying to make a difference. I've got 3,000 people in Brazil that work for us and love their jobs and we flew four million people this year and a lot of those people had never flown before.

Air travel is life-changing. It's not just for those of us who stand outside airports and take a picture of every airplane we see. It is a faster, safer, easier way of getting people and things from one place to another. There are people who live in the remotest places in the world, who deal with mountains and oceans and even just being so far away from anywhere else. They can travel now, and they can do more than that. They can visit their family. They can get places even if they're somewhere railroads don't run to. Cargo planes bring these remote communities necessities. They take their children to university and its sick to lifesaving treatment. It's a lifeline and a fundamental part of infrastructure. Once we invented it we stopped being able to go back.

It isn't an inherently cynical thing to start an airline - not more cynical than starting any other company, anyway. At least, it shouldn't be. But I think it's an inherently cynical thing to start five. To have your position at Azul, which is both massively successful and your own brainchild, which you think is doing good...and to say to yourself "I need more. I need America. I need what I was robbed of when I lost jetBlue."

Very few people have ever started one airline successfully. David Neeleman started four and sat at the helm of Brazil's third-largest airline and decided it wasn't enough for him. He's always made low-cost airlines. To a not-insignificant degree he made the low-cost airline what it is today. But he needs a first-class cabin.

The Inc. piece on Breeze continues to discuss the airline's planned operations. In 2011 Neeleman's employees were crewmembers.

Breeze is also introducing a program in which it will hire college interns from Utah Valley University and mold them into customer-service machines. In exchange for salary, free tuition, and housing, the students will undergo training and then work 15 or so days a month while taking their college courses online. "The big thing is we are going to provide a great service with kind people on a beautiful airplane with a fun atmosphere," says DePastino.

In 2021 they are customer-service machines. They will spend not just their days but their nights in Breeze's living spaces at one of the most vulnerable times in a person's life, learning how to be cogs in a machine right when they're transitioning from being students to entering the turbulent world of trying to find a job. And all of us want a job that makes us feel like we're still us, doing something that makes the world better and that helps us touch the tip of Maslow's pyramid. Almost none of us get it. Most of us slog through something utterly pointless that is entirely separate from our own self-identity to just keep our heads above water. Breeze turns this into a machine and it starts its cogs young.

Would I take this deal if it was offered to me? I'm a university student with barely enough money to keep myself afloat in a very expensive city while paying for university and for medicine and for anything else that may suddenly come up. I love aviation. I have customer service experience. I work in customer service right now and will probably continue to for a long time. I would hypothetically be an ideal candidate for this sort of program. Would I take this offer knowing that nobody, myself included, says to themself as a child that they want to be an airline customer service representative when they grow up? College is supposed to be the place you lay the groundwork for trying to start a career. Nobody wants their career to be 'customer service representative'. Nobody wants their obituary to say 'beloved son, husband, middle management at an airline's call center'. Sure, lots of people end up there, and plenty of them are happy and fulfilled and they have nothing to be ashamed of, but nobody's 18, going into college, and thinks that's what they want to live and breathe for years. They want to intern in the accounting departments, to shadow engineers, to see the sleek jets and peer in on the lifestyles of the people who built this. They want to be David Neeleman. But that's not an option for most of us.

So what would I do? Live this concession to the inevitability of automation which overtakes much more than the flight deck? I might, because at least it's a guarantee of shelter and stability that I don't have trying to stumble my way through an utterly shambolic job market caught between the price of school and the need to earn that money and the costs inherent to autoimmune disease and the number of hours there are in a week. I want to write, or even just to do something that involves words, because even a data entry job might let me pretend I'm still the person I thought I would grow up to be, and even that seems off the table. But it's one thing to know your dreams are never going to be realistic and another to say it out loud and yet another to commit to it in a place that even refers to you outright as a machine as if they don't understand the weight of that word when you provide someone's lodging and pay and everything else they rely on. This is a few steps short of being a company town populated exclusively by the young and vulnerable who think they're going to be entrepreneurs one day.

"When I started JetBlue, it was a customer service company that just happened to fly airplanes," Neeleman says. "Breeze is a technology company that just happens to fly airplanes."

He was talking about the app when he said this, but I think it comes through in a broader sense. jetBlue was a customer service company. Humans interfaced with humans. The idea was in nature lively, giving names to inanimate flying machines. It was a corporation, it made money, it did not actually care about people and it could not because it was not itself human, but it did not wear this fact proudly. It was a regrettable necessity of running an airline, and the CEO donated his salary to the employees. jetBlue under Neeleman and beyond clung to the human element, and to kindness and to making low-cost flight fun and comfortable even though there was nobody on the plane with a first-class ticket. You might be part of a fundamentally unethical system known for cutting corners and lying and sweetheart deals and never suffering consequences when something as simple as a jackscrew nobody lubricated kills 88 people, but you're going to at least try to dampen that impact. It might kill you just as dead but it can hurt less, maybe so much you never realize jetBlue occupies the same slice of the world as Pan Am and as ValuJet.

Breeze Airways lodges young individuals and molds them into machines. It is an ultra-low-cost carrier with a first class cabin. It presents a scenario where people are optimally herded by an app, served by employees who go home at night to the same place they work, and all of it can be reduced down to numbers so easily. It takes the human and it makes it technology. It makes it profit. The human element is gone. It doesn't matter how much it hurts you because if you aren't a person there's nothing to kill. It says the quiet parts out loud and makes you get on the phone and tell your family you're happy here with a gun to your head. It is a machine built of anonymized mannequins who, irrelevant to their role in it, happen to be alive, and it calmly tells you that this is a good thing, and that is a threat. The lowest category of experience you can have is 'nice'. Breeze Airways does not name their planes.

When I was a child I thought airlines were people and airplanes. I've flown many times in my life. There aren't many other ways to get from Japan to the East Coast these days. The world is huge but we can see it all so easily, assuming taking us there can make someone money. I remember being eight and having the pilot standing by the door to greet passengers, having him hand me a little pair of plastic pilot wings I still have now. I remember the stormy night I flew alone for the first time and the stewardess who let me sit next to her for a little bit and answered all my questions about the noises the plane was making. I remember the first time I flew on a propeller plane and the pilot who explained to me what all the gauges meant, and who insisted there was nothing to be afraid of and pointed out all the landmarks we flew past, who clearly knew this route by heart.

That's not what aviation always is. That's not what it usually is. People don't usually start airlines because they wish they could fly everyone around in their little single-engine plane on a commuter route from Boston to Provincetown, from Hyannis to Nantucket, provide that service to the people who don't have a plane and a license of their own, but they just can't do it all themselves. People who start airlines aren't usually intrepid pilots searching for new heights to push themselves to or flight instructors looking to fly people around in a single rented DC-3. They're businessmen. They want money. Juan Trippe was a businessman. Howard Hughes was a businessman.

The corporation is where passion goes to die if it existed to begin with. They build machines to suck the life out of pilots, exhaust them, put them in planes that are falling apart and let them take the blame when they fail to do things they failed to teach them. These people aren't your friends and they don't care about aviation, and if they do it's in the way an American child plays soldiers at the same time a school in Syria is being bombed. They're usually not even pilots. They're people with a lot of money who want even more money. jetBlue isn't unique in that sense and neither is Breeze. One just says it a lot louder.

Sometimes an airline is a technology company that happens to fly airplanes. That's true. Every single positive experience you have is with people, not airlines. I've never once spoken to jetBlue, just a matrix of pilots and flight attendants and customer service representatives who make up its many limbs. Maybe it should come as a relief, a sort of coming clean, that Breeze is tearing back the curtain and reminding you that the time a stewardess calmed you down during turbulence isn't really any different from the time a drugstore cashier let you off even though you were a few cents short of your total and said they'd take care of it. It's not CVS doing that. It's always people.

So many businessmen say they're here to do good, to make the world a better place, to reconcile kindness with venture capital. Any of them could build a tower that reaches all the way to the edge of the solar system and let us all know how many beautiful things there are that we can reach if they can find a profitable way to get us out there, and yet it's still the people who see your transit card is out of money and scan you in using theirs that make me remember that we are capable of kindness despite our surroundings. It is up to all of us whether we wish to be kind or not and it's not something anyone else can build for us.

Companies can't build a kinder, softer, funner, more human place. They can make money. They can provide a service. A service you need, at a cost you can afford, predicated on the fundamental question: whether they think you can make them money. Desperation, need, giving people a non-choice, that's how you make money and kill criticism. That isn't kindness. That's finding a gap in the market. Always has been.

I read that at JetBlue, you also didn't have your own parking spot and you donated your entire salary to a crewmember crisis fund, saying, "It seemed hoggish of me to have all this stuff when others didn't because every time I would get something someone else would have less." Yet then I read about your $14 million mansion in Connecticut. It's my wife's mansion. I never would have built that, ever. I think she's repentant. It was a project for her and it kind of got out of hand. But we all felt funny moving in. That's why we want to sell it.

I'd wondered how you reconciled the mansion with your philosophy. I don't.

image: Bill Bernstein

Okay, Marx or Megatron or whoever you think you are, that's enough of that depressing schlock. You are a tumblr.com airline livery review blog. We're here to answer if the plane looks good or not.

It's not like Neeleman's only goals are money and vapid personal satisfaction. We've been with him from the start. It was just an unacknowledged bit of the tail. He probably didn't notice it at first, but we did, with the gift of hindsight. It germinated. It took root. It grew. It became identity. It became his white whale. Are the planes blue, though?

Well, everyone, meet N206BZ. She's an Airbus A220-300. She's just a year and a half old and was delivered brand-new to Breeze Airways. She doesn't have a name, just a registration, but that's sure one blue plane if I've ever seen one!

The color scheme is visually pleasing. It's all over but it keeps visual interest with the darker tail and rear fuselage, the darker engines, the big white check-mark that serves as an instantly recognizable emblem for the airline. The repetition of it on the winglets is a nice touch.

I hate the wordmark, honestly. The text feels like it's located too low, the lightest blue blends in with the main fuselage until it borders on illegible. As far as I can tell, the typeface is custom. I hate it. It's ugly. The text is bad and it weighs down the rest of the plane.

A lot of how a livery looks depends on the lighting. So let's look at another example. I'd like to introduce you to N140BZ. She's an Embraer E195-200 and she's coming up on 15 but she hasn't slowed down any. She flew for Air Europa for a long time, but from 2016 on she was in limbo, all sorts of holding groups leasing her to each other but nobody putting her into service. Now she's with Breeze. They'll retire their E190s somewhat soon, but for the moment they like to have them. It allows them to operate shorter routes and free up time for charters on other days, just to maximize productivity. She doesn't have a name either. I'd say she still looks pretty blue. A lot of the concept art has a very metallic and reflective feel which I'm glad isn't as present in the actual planes, because it looked a bit sci-fi movie and not in a campy way. It was very blue chalk marker.

I like these colors just as much in this sort of washed-out environment as I do in direct sunlight gleaming at full intensity. Maybe more, even, since the text of the wordmark is so much more legible now and you can even see that the checkmark itself is blue. There's almost nothing on this plane that isn't blue. The only thing not blue about this airplane is that she doesn't have a name to revel in it.

The Breeze livery gets a B-.

It is a competently executed version of the thing it wants to be. There's visual interest. There are choices made. It's more than a logo slapped on a tail and sent off to sit on the tarmac with hundreds of other primarily white airplanes. I like it, I think this is the best Neeleman livery. It's also the bluest.

I find myself thinking the checkmark is an apt logo. Azul wore the shape of Brazil - a country full of people. Azul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras S/A is a company. It cannot have a soul. But its founder says it does. He wants to make something better for people. Breeze Airways is a checkmark. It satisfies a need. It is 'nice' but there is no pretense that it is people.

The pilots will be kind all the same, and the stewardesses. People will agree to swap seats so families aren't separated. People will compliment strangers' outfits and help the person in line in front of them who's fifty cents short for a bottle of water. We will hold the door for elderly men with canes and exhausted women with strollers. We will take every little chance we can to be kind. We do this because we are people, and not because of where we work, and it's definitely not the people with 400 million dollars to put down on a shiny new airline making that happen. Everything is scheduled through an app, minimizing contact with humans even as the ones we do talk to are 'molded into customer-service machines' over the course of years. N140BZ wears her blue colors well, and not having a name doesn't make her any uglier. So what is it that's changed?

David Neeleman can't make jetBlue a second time. But he doesn't know that. To a man with so much, maybe it makes sense how he could fail to realize that. When you're high enough in the air a thriving uptown and an area of condemned slums look more or less the same, just little blocks of color all the way down there. He doesn't even realize he's given up the ghost. This is only a tragedy if your definition of a happy ending was us believing someone is better than they are instead of being left no room to continue failing to recognize what money is and what money does. The corporation wears two masks - the mask that it wears when it is a corporation wearing a mask, and the mask it wears when it is so close to human that you mistake it for your friend. The businessman wears these masks too. To be sad they've taken them off is to invest more in the virtue of these men than they ever do in the life or death of the 138 people squeezed in the back.

There it is. Two decades, five attempts, the bluest plane. If you've kept reading all the way to the end let me know in the replies what your favorite Neeleman-proximate livery is. I'll see you all tomorrow for our regularly scheduled Runway Runway livery review, and I hope you all have a wonderful night.

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mcdonaldnuggies · 5 months

Text

A Horrifying Beggining

Part 2 Part 3

My mother had always dreamed of owning a house, big or small; any house would do for her. Unfortunately, she never got to live out that scenario she so desperately replayed in her head, considering how many household members live in our apartment. With two parents, five children, and one dog—which is a large number of mouths to feed—my parents struggled to pay our rent. Let alone buying and renovating a house, which would cost us millions of dollars due to the place we live? Not only that, but me and my siblings are too young to get a job—my older half-brother doesn’t even care a penny for us anyway—so the only solution my mother could depend on was splitting our family.

My mother would take my younger sister and my youngest brother. While my father would take me, our dog, my youngest sister, and my younger brother. While the number of people in each household seems unfair, my parents would be sending money back and forth, and I would be the one caring for house chores and household members.

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We drove in my father's tiny little car, which had five seats in total. My father was driving, my younger siblings were in the back, and I was in the passenger seat with my dog, looking out the window from my lap. As I watched my puppy's reaction to the first time being in snow, I began to think about how our living circumstances would be compared to before the move. Our plane tickets to Colorodo were definitely not cheap, and our 2-hour car ride doesn’t seem to be either.

I glance over at the little rats behind me, scanning their reactions to the snow. My little sister is passed out, her neck arched forward and everything, while my little brother is looking out the window in awe, occasionally muttering out a few words under his breath. To be honest, I’m also pretty amazed by even the sight of snow. I’ve never seen real snow other than pictures or ads, and the closest I've been to snow is ice packs. But even so, amazing or not, the cold I'm feeling is too much to bear compared to Hawaii’s sunny, tropical weather! To be more specific, in Oahu’s sunny, tropical weather, I try to radiate more heat onto my puppy, as it’s getting more chilly and he’s beginning to shiver. I wait for him to climb off the window ledge to roll up my window. I let him jump down into the back, cuddling with my little sister.

As I watch their short interaction, I glance back to the front, reading the sign ahead of us. The sign read, ‘South Park’. Well, there go my fake little fantasies of the small possibilities of moving to the same place as an old friend. I don’t know where he lives or where South Park is, but I'm pretty sure this ain’t it.

As we drive by, I observe the houses we pass. All the houses we pass are practically copied and pasted in different colors and decorated slightly differently than the other houses. Gosh, who wasn’t creative on their copy of homework? I watched as the small, similar houses soon met shops and buildings. I think I see a mall, a few restaurants, and I think that’s a coffee shop. I take in my surroundings, trying to familiarize myself with the place to slow my nerves down. We pass by what seems to be a high school and an elementary school; we even pass by... wait, IS THAT A MANSION!?

I rub my eyes and take slow, long blinks to make sure I really am in reality. How can I be sure I’m not being fooled and what’s being shown in front of me isn’t the White House but with more money spent into it!? How much are the bills in this place? Can we even afford to live here? Please, God, don’t tell me we’ll live anywhere near that mansion. Not only would I look derpy compared to a goddamn mansion, but we would be kicked out before my father could even pay our bills!

I must have been zoning out from the shock I encountered because I flinched backwards from the sudden background change. Compared to those decently nice houses, this part of the town reminds me more of where I live. But more on the ghetto side than where I lived. Well, I’m sure we’ll at least be able to live here way longer than we could have near that mansion. I force myself back into reality as my father backs up in the driveway of what I guess is our new house. The house doesn’t look that different from the other houses I saw recently; it’s just a bit more worn out and moldy from the outside—and probably inside too.

Once my father parks the car in front of the house, I open and close my car door and walk over to the backside. I slightly crack the car door—to prevent a certain dog from running out—and ‘gently’ shake my little sister awake.

Soon after, we carry our belongings into the household. We set the bins of clothes and other bins onto the floor of the living room, making them all slowly stack up. Because the house is fenced all around, my dog is free to roam around and explore to his heart's desire while being safe and within our reach. Not too long, however, in this snow and compared to where we lived, he could freeze out here in any second! No matter the body fat he has gained!

While my dad and siblings are in the house trying to decide rooms and where to place everything, I walk outside to bring our fat puppy inside. As I'm walking towards the back of the house, I notice a little girl (maybe around my little brother's age?) kneeling down in the snow, sticking an arm out to our dog. She has light brown hair, tied into two short pigtails and held up in dark purple-pink bows. She wore a green jacket, black leggings, and black shoes on both feet. I can’t see her face that well from where I'm standing, but it looks like some dirt is scattered across her face, unlike her surprisingly clean clothing. I’m guessing she’s my neighbor from next door, judging from her appearance at least.

I took a few steps closer, watching the interaction between the little girl and my puppy. I kneeled down before getting too close to them and sat down on the snow. Shivering, I think about how to approach and interrupt the small girl because I don’t think I can handle staying out here for any longer.

I look at the girl’s face, take note of her wide smile, and listen to the small giggles she makes. I looked over at her eyes and also noted that she also had light brown eyes. Not as light as her hair, but not as dark as brown. Suddenly, my breath stopped. Probably from the cold once again. I should really hurry up and get inside.

Without thinking of what to say, my mouth blurts out the first thing I can think of: "Um, hi. The little girl flinches at the sudden realization of my presence. Suddenly, I feel embarrassed and don’t know what to say; the introduction I was preparing myself for is stuck in my throat. "I’m [name]." I force myself out, feeling stupid for worrying so much about a 7-10 year-old's opinion of me. I realize how awkward and straightforward I might’ve sounded and flash her a (hopefully not awkward) smile.

"My name’s Karen.” I heard the girl, Karen, shyly murmur out. She began fidgeting with her fingers, and my puppy ran over to me. She watched as I pulled my piggy-puppy into my arms and lifted him up, her entire focus on my dog. I rub my black jacket sleeves along my puppy’s fur in an attempt to warm him a bit. I walked over to Karen, her face showing she was taken aback by this gesture.

"Do you want to pet him?"

Karen looked up at me, her eyes sparkling and filled with life. I could practically feel her excitement and warmth radiating off of me. "Yes please!" She exclaimed, coming closer to our fence than she had before. I walk closer to the fence and slightly reach my puppy over the fence, him squirming in joy to be petted by the new stranger. Karen quickly reached the same arm out and petted my dog in delight. She had a big, soft smile plastered over her face. Seeing this, I couldn’t help but transform my forced smile into a genuinely happy smile. Karen seemed like a sweet kid after all; one day I might just kidnap her and make her my cute little sister.

"What’s his name? Karen asked me, still petting my puppy but giving me a toothy grin.

"Oxford."

Karen gave me a questioning look, most likely wondering how ‘Oxford’ is relevant to anything about my dog. "Oxford is a shade of blue," I explained. "His eyes were blue but turned out to be hazel. My explanation must have made more sense to Karen because soon after, she let out an ‘Oh’ and began to scratch behind Oxford’s ear.

"Do you like dogs, Karen? I asked purely out of curiosity.

"Yeah, they’re really cute, and soft, and silly, and playful, and—, I listened to Karen’s rambling on why she loves dogs, almost completely forgetting about an upcoming cold that could happen to either of us. But before that, I waited for Karen to finish her rambling. I didn’t want to make her feel bad about the accident!

"Karen, me, and Oxford have to go now. We can come play with you tomorrow! I suggested it to Karen. Karen silently nodded, and her smile softened yet again.

"Bye bye then, [Name] and Oxford! See you tomorrow!", Karen waved.

I smiled at Karen and bid farewell, and I and Oxford walked back inside. As soon as we went through the door, I put Oxford down and went to grab a wipe to clean Oxford’s paws. I peek into a bin, pull out a pack of wipes, and begin to clean him down.

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The rest of the day I spent cleaning the house and unpacking all of our belongings. So far, there was only one room that wasn’t assorted as the rest of the house, and that would be my room. Well, it doesn’t matter that much; I’ll just spend all of tomorrow cleaning my room. Plus, it’s not like I can do much tomorrow. I’ll be stuck at home since school doesn’t start until next week.

To get ahead of cleaning for tomorrow, I fold a few of my shirts and stack them on my dresser. I continue this until all of my shirts are on my dresser, saving the rest of the unfolded, messy clothes for tomorrow.

My phone suddenly goes off. I walk over to my drawer and turn my alarm off—a timer I set to let me when the food on the stove is done—then shove my phone into my front, right pocket. I walk out my bedroom and make my way into the front of the house, into the kitchen. I open the small pot that’s sat on the stove top and use the spatula placed beside the pot to stir the Kalua pig and cabbage. The food looks good enough for something I merely googled for a recipe. What i’m mainly worried about is the after taste.

I scoop a portion of the Kalua pig into three plates and scoop some rice to go along with it. I balance the three plates over to our tiny bit sized dining room table, setting the plates down—in front of three chairs. I bring out a pitcher of water and cup from the fridge and set it down onto the table.

“Dinner!” I call out, walking back to the Kitchen—digging out some raw meat and kibble. I cut and poured the raw meat and kibble into Oxford’s bowl and placed it down; besides his water bowl.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————

Washing the last plate, I set it down in the dishwasher and pressed ‘start’. I then made my way to my room to prepare for tomorrow.

When I got to my bed, I felt my eye-lids slowly close. I melt into my covers and pull my blanket over my head. Drifting asleep, I finally feel at peace.

As soon as I almost completely go unconscious, Oxford suddenly jumps on my stomach, leaving me there to lay down struggling to breath. When Oxford finally moves off my stomach—still not of me completely—I turned my head to my window, not fully processing everything due to still being half-asleep.

“Oxford, what-“, the words I had intended to voice out to my dog is suddenly stuck in my throat.

Standing outside my window; I see a medium-sized figure wearing what seems to be an orange jacket… or, parka? I’ve never been good at identifying clothes. Wait, no! That’s beside the point!

I instantly sit up and crawl on my knees over to my window. The boy outside my window waves at me causing me to flinch over so slightly. I merely stare at him form my bed, on my knees trying to process the situation I found myself in.

People looking at me from my window is nothing new, it’s happened to me even back at Oahu. But usually the people didn’t climb to the SECOND floor just to watch someone!

The boy points towards the window slider, gesturing me to open the window for him. Deeming him defenseless, I slowly slide the window open, scooting aside the window while a hand, my left hand, stays on Oxford’s back.

The boy leaps into my room, rolling on the ground of my floor, Oxford instantly goes hay-wire and jumps onto the poor boy, biting into his arm. I jump off my bed and pull Oxford into my arms, trapping him. Oxford must have wriggled out my grip and was now on the boy’s stomach, biting his right arm.

I reached for Oxford but I was too late. When I looked at the orange figure, my eyes bulged and I stood there frozen, horrified.

Oxford jumped out my arms and onto the—now dead—orange figure. My scream stuck in my throat, eyes trapped on his messed up, bloody face. God, I think i’m gonna be sick…

Finally coming back to reality, I dash to my phone on my drawer and dial 911. “Hello, what’s your emergency?”

“THERE’S SOMEONE DEAD IN MY ROOM” I uncontrollably shout, slightly shaking and holding in shaky breaths.

“Woah, woah, calm down will ya?” I hear the lady on the other line call, a slight sound of annoyance in her tone of voice.

Is this lady serious? How can she be so annoyed in this situation i’m in!? Suddenly I see a slight shift from the orange body, obviously still in a horrible condition. “Oh my god..” I mutter under my breath, my voice cracking and my throat stuffy. I feel this big lump in my throat, my eyes feel heavy and i’m slightly shaking. This is seriously not how bad I imagined this first day of my move to be, this is on WAY more extreme measures than I could have ever possibly thought..

“Alright, what do you need?” The lady on the other side sighed out, tiredly scoffing.

“An ambulance!”, I try my best to lower my voice for my father and siblings sleeping but this woman is being a real dick right now, I can’t help it.

I lean over to my bin of shirts and grab the first shirt on the top, a white Stitch and Angel shirt. Well fuck, desperate times come desperate measures I guess. I take the shirt into my fist and unzip the boys jacket. His chances of surviving at this rate may be 99% but hey, we still have that 1% worth fighting for! I internally pray to God that he has a shirt underneath and sadly my prayers weren’t answered. I mean, come on! He lives in a snowy hell-hole, are people from South Park indestructible when it comes to the chilly climate?

Gently sliding the jacket away from the boy, I take the conveniently placed water bottle near the ground of my bed and pour it on my favorite Stitch and Angel shirt. Squeezing the remaining water in the shirt onto my lap, I lightly dab the shirt onto the boy’s face. Flinching when he lets out a tired wince. Gosh, now that I think about it, isn’t this his fault anyways?

I look down at my hand clenching my shirt, noticing my knuckles are now white and shaking violently. Please, please, PLEASE don’t die in my house. Let alone my room, this is going to traumatize me enough! I set Oxford on the floor and push him out the room, closing the door behind him. I kneel down before the tangerine and gently dab the shirt on his face. Fuck, I don’t even know what i’m doing or what i’m supposed to be doing!

“Mm, alright, what’s your address?”

I look at my phone—that I put on speaker, across the room—my breath quickening. I didn’t know the address. I look at the tangerine laid before me but with the condition his face is in, I don’t think he can tell me. “I-I don’t know!”

“For fucksake, i’m sending an ambulance to you.” I hear the lady scoff, whispering something to someone near away from the phone call. Before I know it, she hangs up on me. Just great, am I right?

I regain my attention and pull it all towards the soon-to-be-smoothie in-front of me, soaking up any blood left on his face. The only thing I have is hope, hope that this stranger won’t die so that I can be seen as a hero and to make my life easier knowing that throughout all this trauma, I at least saved a person’s life.

“I am so, so, so sorry..” I whisper to the body of flesh apologetically. My vision blurring from the tears forming in my eyes. I don’t even know if this sack of blood and flesh is alive anymore, I don’t even know if i’m doing anything useful anymore. Looking back down to the body, my head begins spinning and I feel like I have to barf. With how much blood I cleaned, I can see the wound clearly now. And boy, it is not pretty. Where is the ambulance when you need it?

Eventually, I hear sirens, the sound coming closer and closer to the house. Past my door, I hear Oxford barking like crazy and my father’s footsteps running through the hall to the front door. God, how do I even explain this? Hearing multiple feet step into the doorway—which I am assuming is the people from in the car—I slowly stand up and head towards my phone. With just the reflection of my face from the black screen on my phone, I can see my red eyes and slowly red-turning nose and my tired-scared expression. As if i’m in a haze, everything goes black and I, temporarily, became blinded then my vision returning to me. My eyesight, still blurry from the tears crawling and scratching it’s way out my eyes.

Looking down at my phone screen—which is now for some reason lit—I stare at it in confusion. There are various pictures of the body in my photos, varying from various angles. How did this get in my phone? Gosh, am I becoming like those phone addicts who start taking millions of photos and videos without even acknowledging it?

I shove my phone into my front right pocket and walk out my door, eyeing the pair of people talking to my father who’s asking them millions of questions, blocking their way. I peek my head past the corner and knock on the wall, gaining the attention of the adults. “In here.” Gosh i’m going to be in so much trouble.

Speed walking back into my room, I lead the adults to the tangerine dying on the floor. Nervously looking back, I see the 2 men rush over to the boy and my father looking down at the boy in confusion, purely shocked. I glance back over to the boy laid out on my floor, following as the two adults rush him out the door and into the ambulance vehicle.

I watch at the front doorstep as the rashly drive away, almost hitting a curb. Closing and locking the door, I anxiously turn around. Fear overcoming me, I try to sneak past my father who seems to still be processing the situation. “[name].” I hear my father call out to me in a stern voice. He doesn’t sound sad or happy, but he doesn’t sound that far from angry either..

“Yes..?” I force out my throat, fidgeting with my fingers as I quickly turn around to face him.

“What happened?” He says, his eyes drilling holes into mine. I gulp, knowing he wants an explanation on who that boy was, why he was in my room with the door closed, and what happened to his face.

“W-well.. he just..”

DAMMIT [name], DON’T BE USELESS, NOT NOW! SAY SOMETHING!

“Oxford bit him and his face.. and..” I mumble out, the best I could. If my anxiety already reached it’s max before, it’s practically spilling out the bar now. I can hear my heart racing, my head is pounding so hard that I feel even more dizzy than I did looking at that kid’s face.

“How did Oxford bite him?” My father asks, this time his voice is raised a bit. With even more anger painted on his face and words.

“He jumped into my room from the window and Oxford bit hi-“

“How he get through the fucking window?!” My dad interrupts me, his voice raised way more than it had been before. He’s clenching his fists so hard that his knuckles are becoming white, I think I just might piss myself because of how scared I am.

I stop fidgeting with my fingers and grab a firm grasp of my wrist with my right hand, silently praying that I get out of this situation alive and deal with it tomorrow. My—once dry—eyes begin tearing up again, my hands fairly shaking. My father must have noticed this because his face softened not too long after this realization. Well, it didn’t soften a lot. But it did soften even just a bit! “Whatever, go sleep.” My dad sighs, stomping back into his room. He’s most definitely going to call my mother about this, I should expect a phone call sometime soon.

Walking back to my room, I see a shadow figure emerge. “[name], what’s going on?” My little sister asks, letting out a big yawn with her eyes lazily looking around the dark. Right, those sirens must have woken up everyone with how loud they are.

A/N: I accidentally deleted the looooong part of Y/N putting her sister (Harper btw) to sleep so… yeah! Also, this is a repost of this story from my other accounts on Wattpad and Quotev and my accounts are the same as this account’s name!

P.S. I’m new to this whole thing so I dunno how to do this stuff, please spare me 😭🙏

#south park #fanfiction #x y/n #fanfic #reader insert

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thatboxylady · 1 year

Note

i am beaming some expanded universe thruststorm thoughts into ur brain

YES EXCELLENT I got so many of those too hhhhHHH.

I'm thinking humanverse au atm.

• Human!universe continuity Jetstorm is a guy named Jeffrey Soucy, and Thrust is a guy named Thaddeus Barker. They're both from Canada, unfortunately.

• Jeffrey (from Quebec) is an only child with an absentee dad and weirdly uptight mother. He rushed into a marriage with his wife Blackarachnia Beatrice and was utterly goddamn miserable. He served her divorce papers twice, which she rejected, before finally bringing her to a coffee shop where he gave her the papers in a folder. Then he went to the mens' room, climbed out the very small window above one of the toilets, fell into a garbage bin in the alley, hopped half a dozen fences, got attacked by someone's dog, took the bus to the middle of nowhere, hiked in the woods with nothing but a small bag of belongings and a can of bear mace in the snow, took a train, hitched a ride on another bus after buying multiple tickets in cash to throw Beatrice off, and ended up in Vancouver to start over.

• Jeffrey is a recovering cocaine addict. He used exclusively during his marriage with Beatrice to cope, but he went cold turkey after moving to Vancouver and reinventing himself. He's never had a relapse. The one time he almost did, he asked Thaddeus to go to his place to make sure it was gotten rid of. Thaddeus scoured the apartment to be sure. Some people think it's weird he went that extra step, but they're friends, aren't they? Why not?

• Jeffrey is a type one diabetic which is EXTREMELY annoying because he was diagnosed at thirty-six. An absolute piss take, if you ask him. Thaddeus was the one who drove him to the ER.

• Thaddeus is trans and was born [REDACTED] McMahon. He named himself after his paternal grandfather who he used to shadow almost constantly. They used to work on his Harley before he passed away and the bike was sold.

• Thaddeus is the middle child of two siblings, Janice (older) and Monica (younger). His parents are Walker and Charlotte. Only Monica was accepting of him after he came out, and she's still the only one who he talks to after she reached out to reconnect with him one day.

• Thaddeus' motorcycle is a Suzuki GSX-R750, but he upgrades to a Suzuki Hayabusa post-beast machines adjacent timeline shenanigans wrap up. Jeffrey is the one who gets it for him. The GSX was ultimately destroyed by Cheetor Chester in a final showdown that he and Thaddeus had.

• Thaddeus has a prosthetic foot. He tells most people that he lost it in a biking accident, but in reality he shot himself through his boot on accident. Because he saw a spider. And was aiming for the spider. And missed. Waspinator energy prevails across space-time. Sometimes he gets phantom foot pain and Jeffrey goes out of his way to make sure he has decent painkillers for any particularly distressing episodes.

• Jeffrey is not a natural blonde (which he claims). He's a brunette. It's tragic. He also wears his hair long because Beatrice said he would look terrible with long hair, once. Thaddeus thinks it's pretty, though. Jeffrey values one of their opinions more than the other.

• Jeffrey has a biplane. He keeps it in reserve for potential emergencies, and if if the shit with Megatron Megan goes sideways, he plans and taking it and flying it to the states using a fake visa. After awhile, Thaddeus becomes part of the bug out plan.

• Nothing bad happens to them after the events of this timeline's beast machines saga ends, and they escape on Jeffrey's biplane and retire with several million dollars (stolen lol) in a small city off the Gulf of Mexico: Venice, Florida. They are very gay and very happy about it. Beatrice never finds them.

#beast machines #thruststorm #I GOT YOU COVERED

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11mswizzle05 · 2 years

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Inspired by Taylor’s To Apple, Love Taylor letter

To Ticketmaster, Love Molly (and many other Swifties)

I write this to explain why so many fans are disappointed in how Ticketmaster handled the presale for Taylor Swift's Eras Tour. I feel this deserves an explanation because Ticketmaster has been and will continue to be the primary seller for concert tickets when they are first released and key in creating ways for us to connect with our favorite artists.

I’m sure you are aware that many fans received an email saying that their spot in line was going to be boosted during the presale. I’m not sure you know that many fans who had this boost, as well as Lover Fest tickets, struggled to get tickets, while their accounts or friends/family member's who had non-boosted accounts got tickets way sooner and had better spots in the queue than boosted members. Of course, we are not saying this is the case for every sale but there are enough instances of this to cause one to raise an eyebrow.

Additionally, I’m sure your aware of the the thousands of tickets that are being sold by resellers looking to make a large profit.

I find it to be shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike any presale I have participated in for Taylor tickets for a tour. I particularly remember how well the reputation presale went and how few tickets were resold.

This is not about me. This is about the fans who are crying on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, etc. that will not get to see their favorite artist. This is about the young adult who can finally afford tickets. This is about the older sibling who worked tirelessly to afford multiple tickets to take their younger sibling. This is about the fans who have seen an artist for every tour or the fan who was finally going to see Taylor for the first time. Now, they cannot, because resellers are already selling hundreds of tickets for thousands and thousands of dollars over face value.

These are not the complaints of one fan. These are the echoed sentiments of millions of fans, for many different artists, in my social circles who are afraid to speak up publicly because we feel like there is little we can do to change anything. We simply do not respect how Ticketmaster has been dealing with fans recently.

I realize that Ticketmaster is working towards getting tickets into the hands of actual fans. I think that the reputation verified fan program was beautiful progress. Here is a statistic from it "the Verified Fan system has been effective, according to Ticketmaster, as about 95 percent of tickets purchased through it are not resold." That number is astronomically successful compared to the number of tickets already being sold for exorbitant amounts, just hours after they were purchased.

I say this with love, reverence, and admiration for everything else Ticketmaster has tried to do to help fans, but, why move away from these successful elements of the program when the percentage of tickets staying in fans' hands was so high? I hope that we, the fans, can join you in the progression toward a verified fan that seems fair to those who actually want to attend the shows. I think this could be the platform that gets it right and revolutionizes ticket sales.

But I say to Ticketmaster with all due respect, it’s not too late to change this policy and to actually remain "committed to getting more tickets into the hands of fans fairly." We aren’t asking you for free tickets, we just asking that fans actually get to buy them first.

Molly

#eras tour #taylor swift eras #ticketmaster #taylor tickets #the eras tour #taylor swift tour #swifties #taylorswift #taylor swift

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donnabroadway · 1 year

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Skin folk and not kin folk

I ask my millennial, Gen X, and Gen Z brethren that as we moved up in the world, get educated, get better jobs, make more money, have more access, and are able to move our kids into wealthier neighborhoods and private schools, make sure your black kids know black people other than you and their siblings. There are too many black kids online crying about how they've been rejected by the black community because they speak well, they have money, they like rap music, they care about their grades, are light skinned, have "good hair," ethnically ambiguous features, etc. And while colorism, texturism, and classism are big problems in the black community, black people don't really have the space to reject "our own." Although mulattos, and the upper and middle class have always existed with some proximity to whiteness, the law literally stated that children took on the status of their mothers, meaning it was expected and unofficially accepted, that slave masters would be procreating with their slaves and those slaves would become slave and would be counted as black at worst, at best, mulatto and acknowledged by their white fathers and given some privileges, educational opportunities, access to land and money, a skill that will allow them to make money and become the upper and middle class or their freedom. There is a reason why many of the "firsts" were by men and women who could pass for white or Italian. The proximity to whiteness, when acknowledged, allowed them opportunities to advance but don't get it twisted, they may not be able to tell with the naked eye but once they knew, you became another, you know what. Biracials, of all mixes, didn't have the right to claim their whiteness or more than once race, and it was usually the phenotype or colored one, until the 2000 census. It wasn't until white women starting having, and raising, babies of color in the 80s and 90s that biracial people gained some sort of proximity to whiteness.

The problem is we have these phenotypically black children being raised in environments where they are often the only person of color. Not only that, they are often raised in families where they, their father, and siblings are the only people of color their mother and their family has interacted with and there is a lot of internalized racism and prejudice and when the family is called out on it, they often justify it with a whataboutism of "blacks are racist too," "look at the jokes they tell about us," "it's true, look at statistics," or "do you think they want us over there?" And this becomes a shadow belief that blacks are just as racist and unaccepting of whites, so when the child decides they want a closer connection to the black community and they enter into black spaces with their internalized racism and the black community responds by either distancing themselves, trying to educate and correct a lifetime of ignorance and self hatred, or by becoming vocal opponents of what is being said, they feel rejected and start the "biracial people don't fit in either side or they have to choose" and I am not biracial and I don't have biracial children but my interpretation of this is "Society is telling me to choose black but I want to choose white, so I will blame black people because of white supremacy."

I am a suburban Baltimore black girl. What does that mean? It means I live on tree lined streets with half million dollar homes, luxury cars, career minded people, and not a white person in sight. This means I attended schools and interacted with majority of black people and I can tell you there is plenty of diversity in thought. Being a black republican won't get you exiled nor will speaking well, liking alternative music, or being educated but being intraracist and buying into the conservative talking points will. You can't make a living by being spewing racist talking points, saying that racism from whites to blacks hasn't existed since the 60s, there are no systematic issues holding people of color back and then dog whistle us when you're inconvenienced, reminding us that you're a black woman. Like we told the Asians, Hispanics, and white women who voted to Trump, get somebody else to do it.

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stegrossaurus · 2 years

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The Omphalos Stone

by Mary

They say Zeus was the youngest of his siblings, all of whom were eaten by his father, Chronos, the Titan of time. When Chronos tried to eat baby Zeus, his sister/wife Rhea tricked him into swallowing a stone instead. Zeus remained free and was able to free his siblings from their father’s stomach. The stone was liberated too and became the Omphalos Stone, the center of the universe.

I didn’t care about any of that, but Tomáš loves mythology and history. He always wants to study the lore of what we steal. It’s a little annoying how he can go on and on, but it makes him happy. The money and the thrill of being an infamous outlaw couple is what I’m all about. Lately, though, I’ve been wondering if that’s enough.

We visit the museum where the newly discovered artifact is being displayed. While Tomáš sneaks off to hack their security and copy a keycard, I stay behind to case the area and plan the heist.

The Stone itself isn’t all that impressive, honestly. It’s a perfectly round gray rock about the size of a soccer ball. If you looked at it from the right angle, you could see something glossy on the surface shaped like the continents. That alone made people question its legitimacy as an ancient artifact, but all I care about is that the buyer pays for it.

I get to work figuring out the guard rotations, escape routes, and security systems to trick. It’s a lot of work and sometimes I wonder if the pay-off is worth it. Tom and I have been stealing things since high school and it never seems to be enough. So much of our money goes to our fencer, launderer, student loans, and the rest we’re too scared to use for anything big or extravagant. We actually got married in a hotel lobby with almost a million dollars stashed in our closet at home.

The night of the heist, I’m reminded a bit of why I love the job so much. Everything goes off like clockwork. Tomáš remotely hacks the security from the van and sends the guards on a fake emergency to the other side of the building. I walk through the neutered laser wires, grab the Stone, and I’m out in less than five minutes. An hour later, we’re in our apartment with the Stone.

“Can you believe it, Mary?” Tomáš laughs, rolling the large stone around the countertop. “This is gonna make us rich!”

A year ago, I would have shared his enthusiasm. The hour-long drive to make sure we weren’t followed would have done nothing to dampen my fun and I’d have been right with Tomáš gleefully planning what to do with the money. But now, the drive, Tom cheerful energy, and the stolen rock in our kitchen just exhausted me.

“You’ve said that before, Tomáš. We both have,” I say, cutting across his ideas of buying a giraffe.

“No, Mary, I suggested buying a hippo, but they’re too dangerous. I don’t remember you wanting a giraffe.”

“Not that, Tom.” I tried not to shout but I was getting frustrated. “‘This will make us rich’. ‘We’re going to be rich’. ‘This will be our last job’. How many times have we said that?”

“I never said we would quit and neither did you,” he says, a little defensively. “Is that what you want?”

“Well, don’t you? Are we supposed to do this forever?”

“Mary, where is this coming from?” Tomáš asks, sounding a little concerned.

I can’t quite blame him. The Stone isn’t the first or even most expensive piece of stolen property we’ve had in the apartment, so why am I acting like this?

I look at the Omphalos Stone. Somehow, it was positioned exactly as the Earth was, tilted axis and everything. But it wasn’t moving. Kind of like us. We’re not moving or going anywhere. We’re just doing the same thing over and over. I reach out and gently spin the Stone backwards. What would it be like to go back and do things differently?

“I want more,” I say quietly.

“You mean a bigger score?” Tomáš asks.

“No.”

“A bigger apartment?” He was getting annoyed and so was I.

“No, Tomáš! You know that’s not what this is!”

He rolls his eyes. “It’s not the baby stuff again, is it?”

I start seeing red. “What if it is? You promised you’d think about it!”

“I did and I decided I wasn’t sure!”

“That’s not an answer!”

This was an old argument. I didn’t want to be a thief forever. I wanted to be a mom and I'd seen Tomáš with his nephews and the kids at the elementary school he works at. He’d be a great dad. But he won’t even discuss it. Frustration becomes anger. Anger becomes shouting and insults. Shouting and insults become ‘I wish I’d never met you’ and ‘I wish I’d married Darla instead’. Then I pick up the Stone, ready to throw it, not caring about the lost pay day or potential damage.

“I wish you were dead!”

I try to throw the Stone and Tomáš instinctively dodges, but nothing goes flying. The Stone is stuck to my hand. And it’s glowing. The weird embossed continents shimmer green and brown. The rest shines like blue glass. Patches of white slide in and out of visibility on its surface. Then, still attached to my hand, it begins to spin backwards.

“Tom, what the hell is this thing doing?” I ask, trying to pry it off. “Help me with this!”

Tomáš rushes forward, but he barely makes it a single step. His whole body explodes into cubes and chunks of matter, like a LEGO castle kicked by a child. Before I can even scream, the apartment, the building, the city, the world, the universe all follows Tom. An entire universe of matter, energy, and life deconstructs into cubes that can fit in my hand and soared around me counter-clockwise.

I stare in horror at the cyclone of existence around me, certain I’ll be next. I am. I can feel myself shattering, just not as quickly. And then, suddenly, everything stops. And reverses. The building blocks of reality reform and in between those blocks, I see things.

I see blackness bubbling up from the Earth’s core. A colony of bats circling a dying village. An exhumed grave with something laughing inside. A student screams as a skeletal, sand-clogged foot clicks on the linoleum floor. Scientists gasp as green fluid from a syringe fills a dead and empty vein, bringing an arm to twitching life. Crying and gunfire give way to meat, blood, and bone passing between sharp teeth.

In less time than it takes to tell it, existence is back. But it isn’t the same.

I stand up on shaky legs in an apartment that’s been stripped bare and decayed. Exposed wiring and woodwork, remains of a hobo fire, dried blood and worse. Flies buzz around something in the corner near a window that was in the process of being boarded up. Tomáš stands where he was a minute ago, with his back to me.

“Tommy? Baby?” I call out, inching towards the door. I can feel in every nerve what I’ll see when he turns around. But I have to see. “Are you okay?” Hoping to get an answer, I instead get a moan.

Tomáš lumbers around on his rotting legs. Half his face has already decomposed, exposing solid black bones. The remaining scraps of flesh are girdled with glowing green veins. Teeth like jagged finger bones ensure that his mouth will never fully close. Oozing hands twice as big as they should be reach out for me.

I bolt through the door and he follows on all fours. Tomáš’s zombie body is faster than it looks and is unbothered by smashing through part of the door jamb. If I hadn’t jumped left at just the right time, his flying leap would take both of us out of the hallway window instead of just him. The thick smack of him hitting the pavement is easily the least disturbing sound coming from the world outside.

The rancid air makes it hard to want to catch my breath, but I try to anyway. I fidget with my backpack and notice for the first time that I’m wearing one. It feels heavy, but my arms are thicker and stronger than they were a minute ago.I just sit on the floor of the abandoned hallway in a broken world, trying to cry. My husband’s dead and my heart feels shattered, but I can’t cry a drop. I feel like every tear I’ve had was used up a long time ago. That’s probably why I’m able to look out the window.

A small clutch of humans run from a pair of decaying hyenas with gorilla-like arms and legs. They laugh high and manic as they pounce and rip two of the humans’ intestines through their backs. The rest don’t get very far. Black mist floods from the alley and condenses into a three-story skeleton thrumming with shadowy energy at the joints, blocking the crowd’s way. It picks up one human from the crowd and cocks its head to the side curiously before squeezing him to a pulp. The crowd is then penned in by zombies. Tomáš is there, no worse for the fall and acting like an obedient sheep dog. The zombies, ghouls (how did I know that’s what they were?), and giant skeleton escort the humans back the way they came.

The world is overrun with the undead. I think it has been for some time. My body’s new muscles and scars told a story of years spent dodging zombies, hiding from ghouls, begging for sanctuary from wraiths, and watching friends drained by vampires. That part of me knows what to do, so I let it guide me.

Down the stairs so quietly it’s like I’m not wearing boots. Out the backdoor with my ears open for the sounds of giant leathery wings. Through the alleyway with a silver blade in one hand and a map to a human stronghold in the other. My guess is that the me from this timeline was traveling to the stronghold from wherever I lived before.

My memories of this world trickle in a bit as I travel, enough to know that I have no one to look for or go back to. I’m not sure I want the rest.

When I realize that the stronghold marked on the map used to be the same museum I’d stolen the Omphalos Stone from, I curse myself. My instinct was to travel as light and quick as possible, so I left the Stone in the apartment. That stupid Stone is the way to fix all of this. I can try to go back, but the undead are still rounding up humans and it’s a miracle that I made it as far as I have. If I’m going to get it back, I’ll need help.

The stronghold welcomes me after a thorough decontamination. Life there is hard, but so is life anywhere. Life support systems and food need to be maintained. Defensive walls, weapons, and enchantments constantly need repairs and upgrades. Day or night, there was always something trying to break in.

While training to be a scout, I’m allowed to work with orphaned children. Even under awful circumstances, it’s great to feel like a mother. And teaching them about the dangerous world of the undead helps the rest of my memories surface.

About 5 years ago, a zombie was caught on a police body cam attacking and eating an officer. Law enforcement tracked it back to a local laboratory, but something went wrong on the night of their raid. An explosion tore open a side of the building, letting a swarm of zombies loose on the police, the news crew, and civilians. The news camera fell to the ground as the operator was torn to pieces, and was picked up by one of the scientists who pointed it at himself and smiled. His eyes turned black and his teeth turned sharp as he showed the camera the carnage behind and around him.

“Cat’s out of the bag a little early, I guess,” he hissed. “Oh well. Buffet’s open, everyone.” A spade-shaped snout exploded from his face and the camera barely caught a man-sized bat taking to the air before it dropped.

The floodgates opened wide after that. Before all the news stations went out, there were reports of ghouls pouring from graveyards in droves, wendigos invading any settlement neighboring a forest, will-o-wisps leading whole buildings of people up to the roof and over the ledge. Mummies waited at the sidewalks below to put the newly minted zombies under their mental control. None of it was random; the undead had been planning this for God knows how long. I’d just barely escaped my neighborhood before a lich cursed the whole place. I don’t know what specifically it did, but I remember the screams as I drove away. I’d never even met Tomáš in this timeline before I took shelter in that abandoned apartment.

And now I’m stuck with the knowledge that I’ve caused all of this. I don’t know how far back in time the Stone had reached and how much it had changed to grant my foolish wish. Maybe these creatures don’t even exist in my world, or maybe I’ll fix everything only for the same apocalypse to happen a few years later.

But I have to try. And I have a plan. It’s risky. If I’m caught, the stronghold will exile or kill me. If I fail, I’ll just get a lot of people killed.

A few months later, when I’m certified as a scout, I already have what I need: a vial of green liquid and a fake report of a possible pocket of survivors. I slip the report into Commander Ruiz’s to-do pile. When he calls me into his office, I know this is it; he’s either going to assign me to the mission or have me executed as a traitor.

“Private Galuska, are you familiar with this territory?” he asks me, showing me a map of my former neighborhood.

“Yes, Commander,” I say. “I hid out there briefly before coming here.”

“Did you see any evidence of other humans?”

I consider telling him the truth. The corner of the military Commander Ruiz hails from seemed oddly prepared for a supernatural invasion, though no one had questioned why out loud. Maybe he’ll believe me.

I don’t, though. I just tell him of the hobo fires and lie about glimpsing a few possible humans. I’m assigned to a regiment of soldiers, scientists, and other scouts. Armed with binoculars, a radar, and a sniper rifle, my job is to wait by the truck and pick off any zombie that comes too close to the advance team. And there are plenty of zombies to pick off. The higher undead let them wander loose in the city to ferret out survivors.

They spot us quickly enough and swarm like beetles. Now or never.

I guzzle down the vial of green fluid; concentrated zombie enzymes kept for study. It will start turning me instantly, but without having to die like with most zombie infections. I break ranks and run for the apartment building, ignoring the shouts from my fellow scouts. The first few zombies I run into turn their eyeless sockets to me, but then they all ignore me. Just as I planned, I’m already infected enough that they don’t see me as prey.

My limbs start to loosen and grow flaccid before I even get to the stairwell. By the time I reach the fourth floor, my teeth and hair had fallen out. Blood pours from every orifice in thick, heavy splashes, making room for the green enzyme my blacking bones will start producing. I try to keep ‘Room 406’ in my mind as everything else drains out.

406. Need to find it. Get the Stone.

406. Do the…stuff…with the Stone. What was it again?

406. Wish. make a wish. Go…there and wish for…the stuff? What’s going on outside?

406. Food! There’s food outside! No! Go to Stone. Make wish. Wait, who’s that?

406. Can’t go outside, yet. Need Stone. Who are…oh.

406. A mummy. Talking in my mind. Can’t make me do stuff. Not yet. But changing quick. Run. find Stone. Wish. Get Tomáš back.

Yes. Tomáš. Think about Tomáš and the Stone. Mummy mind strong. But I want Stone! Eyes fall out. Zombie sight bad. Still want Stone! 406! Found it! Grab Stone. Mummy still in my mind. Say to wish for more mummies. But I know what to wish for.

“Wish never anyone use Stone!”

World goes away. Good. Don’t want it anymore. World changes. Get Tomáš back? No more undead? Changing. Wait; this not right. Not changing back. This is…

“Bad rock?” I hold with both flippers. Weird rock. Very smooth. Very round. But why bad? “I need this?” Do I? Is good rock? It make me think of stuff. Dead people and crying. But also Tome. “This good rock.” I know it is. But why?

“Maar!” Tome shout. He come to home cave so happy! “Bed, Maar. sleep for eggs.” he touch my stomach, with all our eggs in it. They come out in a few days and hatch later. We be mommy and daddy! Then he see rock. “Rock?”

“Good rock,” I say. “Not remember why, but good.”

Tome look with why-face. But then say, “Think of eggs? Happy for eggs?”

“Yes!” Well, maybe. Rock look like egg. So maybe.

Someone bark from outside. “Tall Ones! Tall Ones here!”

Everyone leave home caves and go outside to look. There they are. Over lake, playing on grass. One baby and one mother. Can tell; man Tall Ones got hairier horns. They look at us over lake and talk and play with little shiny tools. We look and talk, too.

“So big. Want!” Orgg say.

“Two legs. Want!” Torr say. He try to do it and fall. We all laugh. Fun game but sad game. Tall Ones have lots we want.

“Fur. Want!” Lake and caves cold sometimes.

“Looong neck and legs. Want!” They see so far and get fruit right from branches.

“Good flippers and shiny tools. Want!” They can hold things easy and build shiny tools. We use sticks and rocks.

“One baby. Very want!” Djou had many eggs. Two hatched.

“Very smart,” I say. “Wish!” Wait, why wish? What wish? I think of good rock back in home cave, but not know why. Everyone giving why-face. Say something. “But they not swim good.” More why-face. “They not, though! No tail and no flippers.”

Then Tome say, “Maar right. Tall Ones no swim. And no dig for clams. Good flippers not good for that. Ha!”

More people say good stuff.

“Lost of fur messy. Not want!”

“One baby boring. Not want!”

“Two legs fall easy. Not want!”

Everyone happy a little. Me, too. Love and happy with Tome. Still think of rock and what ‘wish’ is. And other things: moving dead people and green juice and stealing something. All of this I think about and not know why. I know one day, though. I wish I do.

#short story #wish #zombies #undead #post apocalyptic #mental_degredation #greek mythology

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alyjojo · 2 years

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A Karmic 🫥 Connection In Your Life - September 2022 - Pisces

Pisces in this connection:

10 Pentacles - 7 Cups - 2 Wands

Regarding: The Magician

This has to be a family tie, the two of you could even be siblings, or that’s the vibe this connection is giving off. You’re not meant to be super close, or it feels near impossible to be, because you’re literally opposites in so many ways. You’re meant to learn from each other and eventually gain understanding of the other’s perspective or life path, even if it’s the opposite direction from the one you are walking. One of you is the Sun ☀️ and one of you is the Moon 🌙 . One of you is heavily focused on the 2nd House of values, stability, finances, what you own. The other is more focused on the 8th House of shared resources, death & transformation, and the more mysterious or spiritual paths in life. In a chart wheel, these two houses are opposite, just like the Sun & Moon, but they balance each other. Both paths are necessary in different ways.

You are both already subconsciously realizing that the other somehow has what they need, because your person is more the 2nd House, and you’re more the 8th House, but they’re switched here. You’re trying to manifest 10 Pentacles in your own life but there are a million different ways to do that, and you don’t even know where to start, or how to plan your way forward. You have the ability, but none of the follow through, simply because you can’t decide and then act on those decisions, it’s all too confusing for you, and Pisces is very fluid and changeable in nature. What happens when you pick a path and then change your mind later?

The Karmic:

King of Pentacles - 3 Cups - Knight of Wands & 5 Pentacles

Regarding: The Chariot

Your person is very driven, ambitious, career and financially motivated. King of Pentacles may show they’re a Taurus, 2nd House is traditionally Taurus as well, this is someone that is motivated by stability, finances, what they buy or what they own. They are probably very hardworking and responsible, and are not ones to change their mind…ever, about anything. There is one way to the goal and it’s theirs, everyone else is wrong. In their mind, so far. They could be someone that gives you crap about being unreliable or needing money, being irresponsible and all of the things they see themselves as not. Probably in a bullying kind of way, maybe a brother? They act like they’re so much better, but inside they’re only made of dollar signs 💰, where you’ve got inner spiritual wealth and strength from life experience knocking you down again and again.

They’re either currently at or moving towards a more spiritual way of seeing things. Gemini being here with the Moon can show either their own deeply ingrained sense of “logic” is blocking the lessons, causing difficulty, or Moon Gemini can also be downright obsessive in the way that it thirsts for knowledge. They’re either developing this quickly or at a snails pace, there’s no balance there. Like most people, it’s probably the changing of the world, relationships, aging, things like that are making them see things more below the surface, at the heart of the matter. Friends and people around them may have gone through things you have, they’re having to see you from another similar situation in order for the cogs to fit in their brain, but it’s moving.

Mutual energy:

8 Swords - 10 Cups - Judgement & 8 Wands rev

Regarding: 4 Pentacles

Right now you both probably aren’t speaking, are probably both incredibly judgmental towards the other one based on your experiences. The stubbornness in you both are off the charts, and the way you both define the other one are deeply embedded in your conscious mind, and are probably not quite true entirely. People change. Forgiveness is a big lesson that will probably come around the both of you at some point. Until communication is restored there will be never be a change. That doesn’t mean a five minute hey how are you doing, surface level stuff. Eventually you two will have to have a deep heart to heart, dedicated bonding time together, and really see the other one for who they are, where they’ve been, etc. Then things can go forward how they’re supposed to, if they’re even supposed to 💙

Action taken within the connection:

Sun - Cancer - 2nd House

- Demonstrate your feelings patiently.

- Realize attitudes from the past about what you want.

- Act like a leader, use your intuition and get what you need.

Outcome in September:

Moon - Gemini - 8th House

- The nurturing of information to explain personal power.

- Feelings caused by communications about the mysteries of life.

- Reactions resulting from the fluctuations of a major change.

#pisces tarot reading #karmic connection #september 2022 #Pisces #tarot

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theveryworstthing · 4 years

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So over on patreon Trevor asked for my take on the Addams Family and I grew up LOVING the Addams family movies so here we are. Instead of doing a straight up style interpretation, I decided to do a full on design challenge, using the characters as bases to make a black southern gothic Addams au. I actually drew the kids first, using the character bases of Wednesday and Pugsley to create some delightful kiddos I'm calling Sunday and Blanche. I of course then redesigned Gomez and Morticia into Carlisle and Mortesha.

The Addams have a very specific high aristocratic goth aesthetic (they've got a butler and nobody really works among other things) so in this re-imagining I wanted to go with vibes that run a little more middle class/upper middle class. I thought it would be interesting to think about what would be considered weird and off-putting in an entirely different culture, and how being a big ol' goth is way less controversial than it used to be.

I tried to keep this short (HAHAHAHAHAHA) so I didn't spin off into an essay about villain coded families, black people in the horror genre, and normalcy as it pertains to social survival, but just...bits of that are in these designs and lore. Keep that in mind.

Also I made the kids twins because they've flip flopped in age so much in different media and also twins run in my family (i'm the daughter of one). And let's face it, I'm pulling a lot of their southern gothic traits from living as a southern goth so *shrug*.

10 thousand pounds of lore incoming loooooooooool.

The Parents

From the moment he saw her he knew that there was a 50/50 chance of him either never making it out of that swamp alive or marrying the figure that was creeping out from under the distant willow tree in a black cocktail dress. The third time she found him trussed up in one of her traps, he complimented her rope work and asked if she'd like to go out sometime after his head wound stopped bleeding.

Or while it was still bleeding.

If she was into that.

Some kids and a mysteriously burnt down Piggly Wiggly later, their love is still as strong and inescapable as a bear trap in a sink hole.

Carlisle Guillermo (now Addams through marriage but I wanted to give him two first names for a name since Gomez has two last names) makes a vaguely described living practicing ‘law’ around town. A loophole king, people come to him from miles around with contracts signed in blood, fights over chunks of hair buried in their rivals’ yard, dehydrated primate hands, memories that seemed like dreams until the evidence of their happenings became too real, and other regular Legal Items asking for counsel which he is all too happy to give. For a price. Sometimes that price is a homemade pie and sometimes it’s a million dollars, depends on who you are. Whatever you’re asked to pay it’s worth that price, and if you try to scam him out of work or he just plain doesn’t like you? Well. He knows how to twist a contract better than anything at the crossroads.

And he always gets his due.

He doesn’t just serve the local (living)humans though, there are many things that need proper legal representation in this day and age. You wouldn’t believe how many city councils try to build on sacred burial grounds even after he lets them know that his ghostly clients are totally gonna haunt the FUCK out of the ensuing shitty condos and curse their families for all eternity. At least 50% of his energy goes towards dealing with real estate bullshit.

Carl is an excitable and good natured(?) man who loves his family, cigars, dancing, and his many knife-based hobbies. People find him very charming once they get past the feeling that they’re talking to a sultry gator badly disguising itself as a human. I didn’t put a ton of deep thought into designing him, mostly I wanted to make a middle aged dude who looked like he would have been voted ‘most likely to smooch the literal devil’ in high school. Tbh he probably has, but no demonic ex’s can compare to his lovely wife~

Mortesha Addams(her name was already perfect so I just tweaked it)is a woman of many talents. A self proclaimed homemaker, she prides herself on a greenhouse full of Concerning Foliage, a beautiful wasp apiary, and a coop full of what are probably chickens that she keeps for what are probably eggs. She’s also an avid creator of the outsider art that can be seen around the estate. She has taken on the family business of selling her homemade goods in a little stall by the road just outside the swamp with her mom, and makes pretty good money doing so. A surprising amount of poison gets bought in quaint southern towns.

Speaking of poison, people who come out to the edge of the swamp to buy it are usually carrying a lot of secrets around, and Mortesha knows most of them. It’s not like she pries the truth out of people, it just so happens that many nervous hellos eventually turn into the tragic backstory power hour if she’s alone with a client for long enough. She supposes that’s just how people are. Despite the fact that the Addams are very active in the community (whether the community likes it or not) she especially, as a direct descendant of the first Addams matriarch, is seen as…Well not an outsider because the community feels A Certain Way about outsiders and despite it all the Addams are their people, but maybe something like an exception. They feel like whatever weirdness they’re hiding can’t be weirder than any given Addams, so they get a little loose with their words.

This is amusing to her, since Addams’ don’t naturally keep the kind dramatic secrets that their surface level prim and proper neighbors do. It’s much more fun to openly talk about those things.

Do they have a sadly decrepit yet terrifying grandma up in the attic? Yeah, like three. They got a tv, all the creepy porcelain dolls they could want, and they’re close to family. Where do you keep your gram-grams?

Any bodies buried on the property? Yeah some, but most are thrown to the gators.

Any creeping through the balmy summer night with ill intentions? Yeah dude, everyone loves a nice family stroll.

What about dangerous forbidden love? If an adult Addams isn’t incorporeal then they’re either queer or in a torrid romance with some person/thing mysteriously drawn to that awful swamp. Sometimes both at the same time. Most times actually.

Mortesha would know.

The current head of the Addams family is just as outgoing as her husband but a lot quieter and harder to read. She never really seems to get mad about much and always has a genteel smile for everyone whether they deserve it or not. A seven foot tall human shaped “Oh, bless your heart”. A perfectly composed Lady even when she’s, oh I dunno, burning down a Piggly Wiggly. You know. A regular southern mom. Chat her up at the hair salon for 50% off a jar of wasp honey with your next purchase of a mysterious but foreboding packet of herbs.

Designing her was pretty easy because I just drew a lankier Grace Jones and called it a day. I had some problems with her outfit simply because if we were going HARD southern gothic then she’d probably be wearing a white/cream dress with a fuller skirt but I thought keeping the silhouette and the black was more important. She’s supposed to be an anti southern gothic southern gothic character anyway. A woman who looks like she has a million secrets who is actually the most open person you could meet. For better or worse. The red hair came from a coloring error that I really ended up liking (my mom had red hair her whole childhood that only darkened up in high school so I can buy that an Addams can be naturally fire engine red) and the veil was to get more of that classic Morticia silhouette in there.

The Children

Sunday and Blanche are the twin children of Carlisle and Mortesha Addams. Some say the Addams clan got their cursed homestead when a wealthy local businessman made a deal with the devil and lost, leaving his grand mansion to his least favorite maid and cutting his losses once he realized that the swamp would do everything it could to drag the house into the water and take what was owed with its horrible curse. Others say that the family has just always squatted there and no one really cares because man, fuck that particular swamp. Have you been in there? Absolute horror show.

Anyway.

Blanche is the more outgoing sibling and quite the engineer/mad scientist in the making. He started going grey at 2 weeks old but considering he was also rocking some extra fingers, toes, and a tiny tail (he takes after his dad), his parents just put it on the 'not life threatening' pile and decided not to worry about it. He's the kind of smart that teachers find utterly infuriating, less a dog eagerly learning and obeying commands and more a hyena who keeps teaching itself how to pick locks. He has a few friends in his school's robotics club (which they honestly allowed him to make so the school could contain his... creations) but mostly hangs out with his sister exploring the swamp. They find all sorts of neat things in there! wedding rings, suspiciously lumpy garbage bags, cloaked cultists who can't read private property signs, it's an adventure every day!

Blanche is all about experimentation with his creations, his look, and his tether to this mortal coil. Is lipstick a cool thing to try? Let's find out. Can he get out of a strait jacket fast enough after being pushed into the depths of the swamp by his sister? let's find out. He's not dead yet and confused local doctors can attest to the fact that he's rarely attained more than a bad bruise so he's pretty set on continuing to kiss rattlesnakes on their cute little heads and have his sister practice her knife throwing at him until that fact changes.

Blanche is very much a country goth. Cowboy boots (customized by his mom), knife, and lighter are daily accessories. He likes to wear the crusty swamp jewelry they find (the rust adds a splash of color!) and despite appearances he does try to keep himself neat. He's just got natural Grunge Colors and a tendency to wear clothes he likes until they fall apart. Pugsley always seemed the most modernly styled to me (which might just be because little boys clothes have been the same for a long time) so I wanted Blanche to be the most purposely fashionable Addams. Everyone else is goth by nature, but he's the only one truly familiar with goth as an alternative fashion.

I got really into designing Blanche because honestly, I find Pugsley to be the most boring member of the family. And he was hard to design! I had to mess with his vibe a lot to get him looking how I wanted. I know he's supposed to evoke an " 'evil' little boy next door who's parents never reign him in", but that's just goth Dennis The Menace. I's 2020. We can at least go queer goth Calvin.

Sunday was much easier to design. Wednesday was my favorite as a child (of course) and I really wanted to keep the spirit of her look while adding things like billowy sleeves (it gets HOT down here), big poofy twists instead of braids, and a nice tie. She's a professional after all, been running the local pet cemetery since she was 6 and the previous groundskeeper met with an unfortunate accident after telling her that tarantulas don't have souls. Her specialty is creating beautiful naturalistic animal funerals similar to those that Maquenda (https://linktr.ee/artofmaquenda) makes, and she takes pride in creating miniature dioramas of her subjects after each burial which she uses as a kind of 3D catalog for future clients.

She really wants to try out her skills on humans one day. Well. Publicly try out her skills. Lotta random bodies float into the swamp. None of them have turned down her requests for diorama models so far. Most seem downright flattered. Plus, she usually figures out which graveyard/crime scene they floated over from and gets her parents to give them a lift back. She'll even help enact terrifying revenge from beyond the grave on whoever put them there if she's not, y'know, busy.

Besides arts, crafts, and pet based funerary arrangements, Sunday is an avid lover of archery (any ranged weapon really), books where little fantasy adventure animals die dramatic deaths, and history. She is That Kid who eagerly raises her hand when asked who Christopher Columbus was and ends up being sent out of class after 15 minutes for making 'a scene'. Her favorite party trick is just picking an item in the room and talking about how it relates to either some obscure historical figure with a buck wild life or a horrible disaster. At least one charity pancake breakfast ended with children in tears after her vivid description of the Great Molasses Flood of 1919.

Social-wise, while Wednesday is the girl that people ask to smile because they think she'd, "look so pretty", Sunday is rarely asked anything at all. People just kind of assume from her quiet nature (in between horrible history facts) that she's angry all the time and that she hates everyone. This is untrue. She hates some people but she's ambivalent to most everyone else and even downright friendly if you bother to talk to her like a person instead of a terrifying cryptid. Like, she IS a terrifying cryptid but she's also a little girl.

That’s about it for now. One day I might do the other family members but for now I’m happy with the four I’ve redesigned. Making an au! Lurch in a family that doesn’t do butlers could be interesting. Over on patreon I put forth that he could just be Motesha’s mute little brother (similar bone structure) but Amy Crook had the nice idea of quote: “ a mysterious "cousin" that "helps around the house" whose origins are both long in the past and faintly unsettling. He's good for lifting heavy things, like that tank of propane you're about to throw into the burning Piggly Wiggly... “ which i now consider canon. Who's kid is he? How old is he? Not important. Anyone willing to commit arson with you is family.

Annnnyway. This challenge was a lot of fun! I love indulging in AU’s.

#long post #the addams family #Character Design #au #design challenge #i am incapable of doing a design challenge like a normal person #oh god i forgot the cut lol

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sunsetcurvecuddles · 3 years

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Road trip to nowhere in particular. Bobby just likes to drive. Reggie just likes to point out cows and horses out the windows. Maybe he counts them. Maybe he names them. Either way Bobby has to pretend to be annoyed/mildly amused even as he is experiencing SO MUCH LOVE

hi this is both sadder and longer than i intended for it to be so it is now also available to read on ao3 here. warning for allusions to child abuse.

seems like i’d take a new road | boggie | 2.1k

It's still barely bright outside when Bobby pulls up and parks the car a few houses down from Reggie's, so he doesn't risk waking Reggie's parents. As he gets out of the car and goes to knock on Reggie's window, Bobby rubs his eyes, wondering what kind of insanity possessed him when he suggested they leave so early.

Reggie's already sitting on his bed when Bobby comes up to the window, hands folded in his lap, backpack at his feet. The light from the lamp on his bedside table casts shadows across his face, makes him look thoughtful, and quiet. He looks up almost as soon as Bobby comes into view, like he knew, somehow, that Bobby would be there.

Or he just heard you coming, idiot, Bobby chides himself, but when Reggie grins, eyes way too bright for the hour, Bobby feels a matching smile tugging across his face without his permission.

—

"Okay, okay," Reggie says, as soon as he's plonked himself into the passenger seat, rifling through his backpack immediately, "I've got snacks, and soda, and sandwiches for lunch later, and some mix CDs, but I don't know which one we should listen to first, since—"

"Reg," Bobby interrupts him flatly, even though it's absolutely killing him not to laugh. "Seatbelt first, thanks."

"Oh." Reggie sits back, abashed, and buckles in before returning to the contents of the bag. "It's just very important that we have the right mix for the drive. It has to fit the atmosphere. That can make or break the whole trip!" He's gesturing all over the place with his free hand, still half-buried in the oversized backpack on his lap.

"Right," says Bobby, as though he's totally on board.

"So," Reggie hums, "We've got a selection, so, I'll just read them all out to you—"

"Don't worry about it," Bobby tells him, turning the key and pumping the gas a few times as the engine rolls over before it properly coughs to life, "you just pick something."

Reggie stops, looks up at him wide-eyed. "Are you sure? I know that I like weird music. Alex would die before he let me choose a CD."

"Do I look like Alex?" Bobby retorts, and Reggie's face splits into a huge smile.

"I know the perfect one. It's gonna be so good, Bobby, promise."

—

This is how Bobby spends the next half an hour listening to a burned CD of all Reggie's favourite country songs, as the sun rises over the road and he takes them out of the city. Even this early, there's traffic, because LA is a nightmare city from hell and Bobby hates it, but leaving early has definitely given them an advantage. Reggie winds his window down and rests his arms on the window edge so he can sing Tim McGraw out to the city of angels to wake her up and ready for her the day, and Bobby settles in for the drive.

They'd both been going nuts, was the thing. Bobby’s just had too much work to do, and there’s always so much noise at home, his little siblings underfoot and on top of him and exhausting, as much as he loves them.

Bobby knows Reggie doesn't have such benign reasons for wanting to get away for the day. However, Bobby also knows better than to push him on it, especially when he's in such a good mood, belting the lyrics to Memory Lane (when Bobby swats him and tells him the song sucks, Reggie just smiles bigger, belts even louder). Reggie pretty much universally refuses to acknowledge that there's a problem until it becomes impossible to ignore.

Like last week, when he'd called Bobby from his home phone, whispering a request to pick him up — please, just for a few hours, Bobby, and then I'll get out of your hair, it's just — and Bobby had been able to hear the banging and yelling even on his end of the call. Or when he'd turned up at Bobby's place with a black eye last month, had ended up sleeping in Bobby’s studio, curled up to Bobby on the couch, shivering even under the blankets Bobby brought out for them.

It's difficult to reconcile that image, of Reggie teary and silent and meek as Bobby had given him a pack of frozen peas to press over his eye, who had only shaken his head when Bobby asked him what happened, with this image, of Reggie with his head half out the window, singing and beaming in the morning sun. Tim McGraw's voice fades out, only to be replaced by more guitar (which sounds exactly the same to Bobby's ear) and Reggie's face lights up as he whoops, says, "This song is SO good, can I turn it up?"

Forget the morning sun. Reggie's brighter than it is.

Bobby makes sure his resigned sigh is extra theatrical before he says, "I guess so."

—

The next hour or so continues mostly this way, as Los Angeles becomes a more scattered, widespread set of houses and then eventually not much except desert. They share a packet of Haribo bears, Reggie insisting on giving Bobby the 'best colours' even though Bobby is almost certain they all taste pretty much the same, but he rolls his eyes and gives in when Reggie insists there's a subtle difference. At one point, the CD comes to an end, so Reggie swaps it for the next one. Which is also full of country. "Alex never lets me play any of these," he says defensively, even though all Bobby had done was glance at him out of the corner of his eye.

Bobby just shrugs and says, "I can see why."

And Reggie delightedly retorts, "Hey!"

After winding through the open, rocky expanse for awhile, things turn a little greener. Suddenly, Reggie breaks off singing to lean so far out the window that Bobby instinctively grabs the back of his shirt in his fist.

"Jesus, Peters, ass in the seat!" he huffs, mostly because his heart is still pounding.

Reggie has the decency to look a little sheepish as he sits back down, but still more excited than anything. "Sorry, Bobby, just — there's cows! Look, a whole field of them!"

There is, in fact, a whole field of cows. "Well, don't traumatise them by falling out the window."

"There's so many," Reggie continues, like Bobby didn't even speak, and then continues at a muttered volume, "one, two, three, four—"

"Are you seriously going to count all of them?" Bobby asks. This needs to stop. If Reggie's going to be this distractingly cute — no, just distracting — the whole trip, Bobby's going to crash the car, he can feel it. "You know they're going to move around and stuff."

"Oh," says Reggie, humming, "you're right. Hang on, I should name them so I can tell them apart. What are some good cow names? I think the big one up on the hill looks like a Betsy. And the brown one is totally a Buttercup."

Bobby groans, his heart growing three sizes in his chest, like he’s the Grinch or something. "Franco," he suggests at last.

"Franco?!" Reggie bursts out laughing. "You think 'Franco' is a good cow's name?"

"Is it not?" Bobby retorts, and Reggie laughs harder, throwing his head back and wrapping his arms around his stomach. The sound of him cackling almost drowns out Dolly Parton's voice still crooning from Bobby's stereo.

This Reggie. Versus the one who lives in Bobby's memory, tiny and silent, frozen peas held to his face with one trembling hand.

"Francesca," Reggie is saying, through his wheezing laughter, "now, Francesca is a good cow's name."

"Would you shut up about naming the cows and pass me a soda?"

"The calf is called Henry!" Reggie insists, as he leans to dig through his backpack. When he pulls out a can of soda and holds it out to Bobby, still flushed pretty-pink from laughing, his hair sort of a mess in his eyes, nose scrunched up extra cute, and Bobby feels his stomach softly flip over.

Well. That's a feeling he should repress.

"Thanks," he says, careful not to brush Reggie's fingers as he takes the can from him. Reggie doesn’t seem to notice. Thank god.

"You're welcome," says Reggie quietly, snuggling back down into his seat, looking out the window again. He points and says, "That one's called Oscar."

Definitely repressing, Bobby decides. Immediately. Forever. He can't have a crush on Reggie. Like, the band, and the fact that the last thing Reggie needs is for one of his friends to have feelings for him, as if he doesn’t already have enough going on. There are so many reasons he shouldn't have a crush on Reggie. Down, he tells the feeling, pushing at it in his chest, go down, stay down. "Is he?"

Reggie is oblivious, cheerfully rambling on, with no idea that he is causing Bobby a serious internal crisis. "Yeah. And that one's called—"

Bobby hopes it stays that way. He turns Dolly Parton up a little bit, and keeps driving.

—

They park and have lunch at the top of a hill looking over the valley. Reggie regales Bobby with some needlessly complicated story of the relationship between all the cows, as if they’re living a little soap opera down in the field. If Bobby’s going to be honest, he can’t follow the plot, but that doesn’t stop him staring at Reggie’s profile, the way he looks perfect here, at home among the grass and in the bright sun, how he comes alive being out here.

Bobby’s never really known what to think of the future. Before the band, he didn’t have much in his head to imagine. All his thoughts of the future were of his little siblings, what their lives would be like, but it was Luke who had first interrupted him and asked, “Well, yeah, but what about you, man? What do you want your life to be like?”

Maybe Bobby will save up and buy a farm out here, when all the band and touring stuff is done. So Reggie can come visit. Hell, maybe he’ll just buy Reggie a farm, with their millions of dollars they’re going to make when they’re all famous rock stars like Luke says they’ll be.

If we all have that much money, Reggie will buy his own farm, the voice in his head that keeps him in line sharply reminds him. Push them down. Push the feelings down.

“Here,” he says to Reggie, shoving his sandwich over. “You wanna finish this? Then we can get going.”

—

On their return drive that afternoon, Reggie is quiet. When one of the CDs loops back to the beginning, Reggie ejects it and doesn’t put in another one. The quiet is okay, Bobby thinks. It gives him a chance to catch his breath, to focus on the road, to forget all about his revelation from earlier in the day.

Winding back through the city, the sun dips lower in the sky. The city lights start to come alive as the evening sets in. Reggie starts to fiddle with the edge of his flannel, shift in his seat, like he’s nervous. A few times he breathes in, like he’s going to talk, and then doesn’t.

Bobby waits him out. He knows Reggie hates being pushed, hates stammering and fumbling for words when he doesn’t have them yet.

Still, he’s surprised when Reggie actually does break the silence. “Can I—” he starts, swallows, and then stops.

“Can you?” Bobby prompts, when Reggie doesn’t continue. His instinct is to reach for Reggie’s hand, but he does what he’s been doing all day, and pushes the thought down. God, what if Reggie’s noticed? What if that’s what he’s about to say? For a moment, Bobby feels cold, and nauseous. He sets his jaw.

“CouldImaybestayatyourplacetonight?” Reggie blurts out, all in one go.

Bobby breathes what he hopes is an imperceptible sigh of relief. Sure, it means a night of knowing Reggie’s out in the studio, probably cold. It means Bobby will inevitably climb out of bed, and out his window, bringing his extra blankets, to curl up with Reggie on the couch, to make sure he stays warm. Because that’s what always happens when Reggie sleeps over. And that’s a whole lot more complicated now that Bobby knows that he—well.

But Bobby looks at the worry on Reggie’s face, his stupid puppy eyes, and he can’t say no. Could never say no to Reggie anyway, he thinks. He needs to be there for Reggie, and that’s why his feelings have no place in this mess. “Of course, Reg. No problem.”

No problem, he tells himself, and does his best to mean it.

jatp taglist (lmk if you want to be added or removed!!): @queenmolina @nickalicious @bi-reginald @jughead-is-canonically-aroace @multifandom-queer @cinnamonstickrayofsunlight @malecacidd

#chickwiththepurpleguitar #jatp #julie and the phantoms #boggie #bobby wilson #reggie peters #ask #my fic #boggie brain rot

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deltamusings · 3 years

Link

The Democrats’ draft spending bill still includes huge changes to the nation’s migration laws, even after the Senate’s parliamentarian removed several amnesties from the multi-trillion dollar spending bill.

The bill would dramatically push up housing prices by expanding the inflow of chain migrants, and also would slash white-collar salaries by creating a new and uncapped migration category of college-educated workers for a huge variety of Fortune 500 jobs from coast to coast.

Together, both migration rules will transfer wages and wealth from employees to coastal investors, and will also shift corporate investment, real estate wealth, government spending, and political power from heartland states — such as Ohio, Montana, West Virginia, and Arizona — to the major coastal states of California and New York.

But the parliamentarian’s decision to exclude the amnesties from the bill may prompt Democratic leaders to drop the uncapped white-collar giveaway for the Fortune 500 companies and their investors.

“If we’re talking about getting [white-collar] visas so we can take care of businesses’ problems, I’m not supportive — in the absence of getting anything else done,” Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) told Bloomberg Government.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) also suggested that he might oppose the white-collar giveaway to the Fortune 500 if Democrats do not get their amnesties and new voters. “Bob [Menendez] and I have the same goal, which is to get as many people as possible on a path to citizenship,” he told Bloomberg.

However, Democrat leaders still want to turbocharge the chain migration process, even without the amnesties, Menendez indicated. “If we’re talking about recapturing visas for family backlogs … I certainly would consider that,” even without the amnesties, Menendez said.

For many years, Democrats have blocked business efforts to import more white-collar workers unless business leaders help them win more voters from amnesties. In January, for example, Menendez said, “we need the high-tech community who will benefit from the reforms we are proposing, to be an advocate of the overall [amnesty] reform movement.”

But “the chain migration [expansion] is something that is supported by the same left-wing activist community as the [excluded] amnesty, and so, as long as they get the chain migration, then the activist left will consider it a fair deal if the business community getting uncapped foreign workers,” former White House advisor Steven Miller told Breitbart News.

The underlying bargain– more cheap workers and consumers for the Fortune 500 in exchange for more poor voters for the Democrats — is cementing the strategic alliance between the progressives who run the Democratic Party and the corporate investors who run the Fortune 500, said Miller:

There’s a progressive-corporate alliance that has been forged inside of the Democratic Party and nowhere can it be seen more clearly than on migration and the current reconciliation bill. The progressive left wants unlimited chain migration and the corporate donors and lobbyists want uncapped foreign workers. The reconciliation bill delivers both. And if they’re also able to get an amnesty from the parliamentarian, which I fear they will be able to do in some form, then that will just further cement the alliance between powerful progressive and powerful corporations.

The Fortune 500 giveaway will allow companies to recruit an unlimited number of foreign graduates with dangled promises of green cards and citizenship, said Rob Law, the director of regulatory affairs and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies. “It will be the equivalent of having unlimited legal immigration for [foreign] college graduates,” he said.

The plan rewards the investor-run corporations that already use the green card workforce of at least one million imported H-1B, J-1, L-1, and OPT workers to drop white-collar salaries. The cheap and compliant workforce also excludes many outspoken American graduates from rewarding careers in healthcare, business, technology, design, or science.

Law continued:

These are the companies that have intentionally discriminated against American workers, have subjected American workers to training their unqualified foreign replacements as a condition of getting severance packages, and, and now it is going to be a permanent loop where they will have as many cheap foreign workers — with at least a college degree — as they want, and that will just further suppress wages.

Both of the huge immigration changes have been ignored by the establishment press, partly because their immigration reporters prefer to cover the fears and hopes of Haitians as they try to move from home in South America to jobs throughout the United States.

The proposed changes have been ignored by journalists even though they will damage the income and status of journalists — and of their friends and peers. With lower income and status, fewer journalists will be able to buy good homes and get their children into high-status universities.

The journalists have also failed to quiz critical swing-vote Democrats about the migration changes that would divert investments and jobs away from their homes states. So far, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Krysten Sinema (D-AZ), Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) have said little or nothing about the chain migration change or the white-collar indentured worker rule.

GOP leaders have also not challenged these proposed changes as violations of the Senate’s debating rules, even though both changes will damage GOP electoral support, and redirect wealth and political power from GOP-run states to Democrat-run coastal states.

GOP leaders have persuaded the Senate’s debate referee, the parliamentarian, to dismiss the Democrats’ proposed amnesties as policy changes disguised as budget changes. “The policy changes of this proposal far outweigh the budgetary impact scored to it and it is not appropriate for inclusion in reconciliation,” the parliamentarian wrote.

The amnesties are a direct threat to the jobs of GOP Senators because they would create many new Democratic voters.

But the silence about the chan migration plan and the white-collar giveaway reflects the reluctance of GOP legislators to protect Americans’ popular pocketbook interests amid donor demands for more migrants.

For example, on Wednesday, 34 House Republicans and 14 GOP Senators stayed silent as GOP leader Mitch McConnell approved a massive, expensive, and open-ended inflow of Afghans into Americans’ homes and jobs. The Senators were:

Roy Blunt (R-MO)

Richard Burr (R-NC)

Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)

Bill Cassidy (R-LA)

Susan Collins (R-ME)

John Cornyn (R-TX)

Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

John Kennedy (R-LA)

Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)

Mitt Romney (R-UT)

Mike Rounds (R-SD)

Richard Shelby (R-AL)

Thom Tillis (R-NC)

Todd Young (R-IN)

In September, Breitbart News described the still;-hidden chain migration expansion in the spending bill:

The Democrats’ amnesty bill quietly invites three million chain migration arrivals into the U.S. workforce, likely forcing Americans to pay higher rents.

“It’s a huge deal,” said Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies.

About four million people are now waiting many years to get one of the roughly 240,000 cards annually available for the foreign siblings and adult children of legal immigrants. The new bill would allow them to “Early File’” for conditional residency and work permits if they have been waiting for more than two years and can also fly into the United States.

…

The amnesty’s offer of residency to the 3 million chain migration migrants likely could create an additional inflow of 1 million per year — and an extra shortfall of roughly 800,000 apartments or homes.

Many states’ residents are already suffering from high housing costs. For example, several low-income Americans and immigrants died in early September when a storm flooded their affordable basement apartments in New York.

Breitbart has also described the bill’s plan to flood the job market for U.S. graduates with a massive supply of foreign graduates who will work for low wages plus the promise of U.S. citizenship for themselves and their families:

Democrat leaders “are blowing away all the numerical limits” on employers offering green cards to [college graduate] employees, said Rosemary Jenks, policy director for NumbersUSA. “There’s no limit anywhere.”

The pending bill would allow U.S. investors and executives to import and pay an unlimited number of foreign workers with the dangled reward of citizenship. That citizenship-for-work law would minimize executives’ need to recruit Americans or even offer good salaries.

The bill was revealed Friday, and on Monday, was quickly rushed through the House judiciary committee without C-SPAN coverage. Mark Zuckerberg’s astroturf empire is marketing it as a relief bill for deserving illegal migrants — but it boosts investors by dramatically expanding the flow of cheap workers, government-funded consumers, and room-sharing renters into the U.S. economy. Democrat leaders hope to squeeze the bill through the Senate via the 50-vote reconciliation process.

The expanded foreign worker pipeline will remain open until at least September 2031, even though many millions of Americans will need jobs during the next ten years after they graduate with debts and degrees in health care, accounting, teaching, business, design, science, technology, or engineering. “If you’re in the pipeline by September 30, 2031, you’re in [the 2021 amnesty bill],” Jenks added.

The push for cheap workers and more chain migration is being led by Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us network of coastal investors. They stand to gain financially from more cheap labor, government-aided consumers, and urban renters.

Their network has funded many astroturf campaigns, urged Democrats to not talk about the economic impact of migration, and manipulated coverage by the TV networks and the print media.

Migration is deeply unpopular because it damages ordinary Americans’ career opportunities, cuts their wages, raises their rents, curbs their productivity, shrinks their political clout, widens regional wealth gaps, and wrecks their democratic, equality-promoting civic culture.

For many years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration and the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.

This pocketbook opposition is multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, bipartisan, rational, persistent, and recognizes the solidarity Americans owe to each other.

#visa worker

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punkpoemprose · 4 years

Text

December 4th- The Movie Date

Universe: 2000′s AU Rating: G (General Audiences) Length: 1720 Words

Note: This fic deals with Kristoff and Anna waiting in line to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in 2007 because for me the 2000′s were pretty much all Harry Potter all the time. I just want to say that while I’ve always been a fan of the Harry Potter series, I am not a fan of JK Rowling and her TERF ideology. If you like this fic please consider donating to The Trevor Project or another charity of your choice that supports trans folks. Trans rights are human rights.

Also on a less important note: I fucked with the timeline a bit because I wanted the last book to have come out before the fifth movie for the plot stuff I could do with it. Technically speaking the last book came out ten days later than the film, but semantics.

If someone had told him a year ago that he would be dressed up in a wizard costume, standing in line for over five hours just to get seats to see a movie, he would have called them crazy. Of course, he’d heard of Harry Potter, even then. It was a cultural phenomenon and really he’d been meaning to read the books at some point, it was just that he was busy with work or it was hockey season, or something came up and he never really found the time to sit down and read the books. That was, of course, all the excuses he’d made before Anna.

He’d met her mostly by mistake while at work. He’d been working on laying up brick for a new fountain in the city park, and she’d been walking a big fluffy white dog by one hand while texting someone on her Nokia with the other, and it hadn’t ended particularly well for anyone involved. The long story short was that she’d broken her arm, he’d needed stitches in his cheek, and the dog, Olaf, had needed to have chunks of fur cut away after cement dried into his fluffy tail.

It had also, coincidentally worked out very well for at least the human parts of the incident as, once they’d finished arguing over who was at fault, they’d also started talking civilly and despite their aches and pains, had actually went out for coffee after the incident. At the time, a Starbucks had just opened in town and it had been the excuse they’d both used, along with the promise of apology coffee, for their first date.

She’d been easy to fall in love with, and when she’d brought up the kids series and her love of it on their first date, he’d finally had the shove he needed to stop making excuses and read them. He didn’t end up loving them nearly so much as she did. He’d never been much of a fantasy guy, but still after hours reading the books and discussing them with her, they’d ordered the movies through Netflix and watched them together as they arrived in the mail.

That was six months before they moved in together. Now, while he still wasn’t as into the series as Anna, he could say that he knew as much as anyone who had finished the series in July when the final book came out. He’d needed to stand in line then too, but it had been worth it to bring it home and watch Anna, who had been sick, marathon the book between breaks for NyQuil and sustenance. The snot and tears he’d endured, laying on the couch with her, her head on his chest, had been all worth it in the end, as the hours in line and the silly costume were now.

The things I do for love.

“Okay, so as soon as they let us in, we’ll snag the best seats. You’re on guard duty while I get popcorn because you look tough.”

He snorted, both at the fact that she had a game plan, and because he really didn’t feel like he looked tough at all in his Gryffindor tie (though he’d been told by Anna, and a quiz she’d found on Quizilla.com, that he was much more of a Hufflepuff) and large black robe. In fact, he felt like he looked a little bit ridiculous, but Anna, in comparison, looked lovely.

She’d decided to dress like Fleur Delacour in her Beauxbaton’s uniform, and he knew that he, by association was meant to be Bill Weasley, something which he not only liked the idea of from a romantic sense, but also by characterization. He’d liked Bill in the books, and for what it was worth, he’d also liked Fleur despite the way other characters looked at her. While he wasn’t sure he was quite brave enough to be Bill, he did like his work ethic, the strong sense of right and wrong he seemed to display, and his love for his family. Anna made an excellent Fleur, particularly in the sense that he found her so lovely that she could certainly have some Veela heritage, even if they were fictional.

“I’ll endeavor to do my best,” he said, only half teasing.

“You’ll do fine I’m sure. I mean they’re only selling as many tickets as they have seats, and it’s been sold out for weeks, so once we get our seats it’s not like anyone can make us move or kick us out or something.”

He nodded, “Honestly Anna I think that everyone is just excited to see the movie, I doubt they’re going to fight us on seats too much.”

“But if they do, we’re going to win.”

He laughed at that. There was a glint in her eye that seemed more like they were about to go to battle than that they were going to walk into a movie theater. He loved her competitive nature, particularly when it wasn’t aimed toward him, in their Livingroom, playing Call of Duty. Her bloodlust was legendary when a win was on the line, and “all is fair in love and war” was the law of the land as soon as the PlayStation turned on.

“So I know you have a rule about soda because whenever you get it you have to pee halfway through the movie, but would you mind grabbing me a cherry coke when you get the popcorn? Because I haven’t had a drink in five hours and I understand the Order of the Phoenix is very important, and I was willing to sacrifice for it, but I’m going to need to drink something soon or I’m going to look like a dementor…”

He trailed off, noticing that Anna wasn’t paying any attention to a word he was saying, but instead was staring off past the pinball machines and crane games that dotted the lobby, straight over to the ticket counter, where a girl, appearing to be around ten, wearing a Quidditch uniform was crying into her extremely frazzled looking mother’s skirt.

“Oh geeze,” Anna said quietly, much lower than when they were explaining their battle plan, “That poor kid. I bet her Mom didn’t think to buy ahead… she probably didn’t realize how popular it was going to be.”

Kristoff frowned, he had a sister about her age, and there was nothing worse than watching her cry over anything. As much as he was wrapped around Anna’s finger, he’d been wrapped around hers first. There were many years, when she was even younger, that he’d bring himself to exhaustion carrying her around on his shoulders, reading her stories, and doing whatever it took to keep her happy. He could only imagine how much more he’d want to please a kid of his own.

“Anna… is she wearing a birthday girl pin on her robe?”

He probably shouldn’t have mentioned it, but he noticed the pink button and crown when she turned and wiped her little eyes.

“It is,” Anna agreed, frowning, “It is definitely a birthday girl pin. I bought Elsa the same one last month… but I don’t think she wore it as proudly as that kid is.”

An announcement was made over the lobby PA system informing the theatergoers that rope drop to enter theaters 1-4 for the release showing of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix would be in just five minutes. When Anna quickly ducked under the rope to the side of them that they’d been standing between for five hours, Kristoff smiled to himself, already knowing where she was going.

***

“’Well, I’m glad you listen to Hermione Granger at any rate’, she said, pointing him out of her office.”

Anna snorted, jostling the book, as Kristoff held it with one hand and played with her hair with the other. Her head was rested against his chest on their couch, and despite the late hour they were both still awake and quite comfortable.

“I love how you’re doing your best Maggie Smith impression when you read McGonagall’s parts. It’s almost like I can see it.”

He leaned forward and a bit awkwardly placed a kiss on her forehead as he flipped the book closed. They’d finished Chapter Twelve and while he would start Chapter Thirteen if she wanted him to, a moment to rest was required before they read any further.

“I’m sorry we didn’t actually go see it,” he replied, “But I’m glad that we found something else to do tonight. That little girl and her mom looked like they’d been given a million dollars when you handed them the tickets.”

Anna smiled at that, her eyes fluttering open. Her eyes were still a little sad and at odds with her grin, but he supposed that it only made sense that she was still happy and sad about her decision to give up a night she’d been planning for months to a child she didn’t even know.

“Well I mean… I would want someone to do it for our… I mean my kid. You know, if we… I had one.”

The slip wasn’t unnoticed by him, and setting the book down onto the floor, he pulled her in tighter to his chest, wrapping both arms around her tightly. She squirmed a bit in his embrace, laughing at how between him and the blanket she was all but cocooned.

“Someday,” he said, “Yeah, I would hope someone would do that for our kid. Or you know… kids.”

She stopped squirming and instead hummed appreciatively at his comment.

“Maybe,” she said, “A whole burrow’s worth.”

They’d only briefly talked before about marriage and a family, but he did like the idea of a big family. He had many siblings, and he loved being with them even though he often considered himself a bit of an introvert, but he knew that Anna loved people, and she loved noise. He could imagine her happy in a big house with plenty of smiling faces and loud joyful voices to fill it.

“Someday,” he said confidently, thinking of the end of the final book, her sobbing into his shirt over a happy ending with families and friends and young children who were products of love and loyalty, “Someday Anna we will.”

#kristannaadvent2020 #kristanna #2000's au #frozen fanfiction #harry potter references #tw harry potter #tw jk rowling

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purplesurveys · 3 years

Text

1250

Do you own any Funko Pop! figurines? No. I had a brief period where I wanted to start collecting them SO BAD and often went to toy stores to gawk at the figures I felt like I needed to have; but I grew out of that and I don’t even really give Funkos a second glance whenever I see them anymore haha.

How many cats and dogs have you had as pets in your lifetime? We’ve had one cat and two dogs.

Can your mom and/or dad play any instruments, or how about anyone else in your family? My dad can play the guitar; he just absolutely never shows it off, not even if you lay out ten guitars in front of him. I think my mom played the piano as a kid.

Have you ever colored in an adult coloring book as a stress reliever? Yeah, it was my coping mechanism from a few years ago. I don’t do it nearly as often anymore, but I still have my coloring books and pencils stored in my room just in case I randomly want to get back to the hobby.

Can you crack crab legs without a tool? No, I ask my parents or grandparents to do it haha.

How many light sources are in the room you’re in? There are two, but I only use one. I never switch on my main bedroom light as I hate how brightly white it is.

What’s your favorite thing to put on bagels? I never get bagels so I don’t really have a clue what I prefer on them.

Who’s your favorite director? Stanley Kubrick.

Bats: cute or gross? Neither side of the spectrum; I just don’t think about bats.

What was the last really intense pain you felt? I got a particularly vicious scratch from Cooper around a month ago that left a deep cut on my thigh. The scar is still visible and I think it’s going to remain that way for a while haha I don’t see it fading out anytime soon.

Would you rather vacation by a beach or a lake? Both sound extremely pleasant but I’ll take the lake trip because I’ve never seen one, or stayed near one.

How would you feel about traveling abroad alone? I honestly feel like it’s going to be that way for me moving forward. I’m okay with it, though. I feel like it would be very calming and empowering to be able to explore the world on my own.

What is your father's middle name? He doesn’t have a second name.

Where did your last kiss take place? Outside my house, by her car.

Which movie villain do you find the most terrifying? I haven’t encountered anyone yet that truly terrified me.

If you married your favorite celebrity what would your last name be? Kim, hahaha.

Do you stick your tongue out often in pictures? I wouldn’t say so. I pull up the peace sign most often.

Which one of your family members are you closest to? My sister and my eldest cousin on my mom’s side.

Would you rather have name brand shoes or name brand clothes? Shoes. They stand out more.

Are you a good liar? Yes. Doesn’t mean I enjoy lying and take advantage of that skill as much as possible.

Are you proud of your parents? Sure.

If you could get backstage tickets to ANY concert - which would you pick? Paramore. I think Hozier would be neat as fuck too.

Which is better: orange or grape soda? I don’t like soda, so neither.

Was the last thing you ate hot or cold? They are meant to be consumed while hot.

Who was the last person in your house who isn’t family? Angela and Hans.

What color was the last swimsuit you wore? Pink.

Can you remember the last song you listened to? I just tuned into a random lo-fi playlist, so I’m not familiar with the tracks and the artists who made them.

Have you ever been dumped really harshly? Yes.

Can you do a back flip, or anything else of that sort? Nope.

Do you have any exes you can’t stand anymore? To a considerable extent.

What happened to cause you to feel that way about them? She is extremely selfish and the biggest coward I’ve ever met.

Are you more of a phone or a computer person? Laptop.

Do you have a job, and if so, where do you work? Yeah, I work at a PR firm.

If not, do you want one?

Do any medical afflictions run in your family? I know hypertension is kind of a thing on my mom’s side, but I don’t know if there are any other conditions I should know about.

What’s your favorite Mexican dish? Burritos and enchiladas.

Have you ever been to a professional sports game? No, just collegiate-league ones.

Do you prefer pads, tampons or something else? I use pads. I’ve never used a tampon or any other product, so there’s no basis for me to make a comparison and establish preferences.

Have you ever ordered a specially made cake from a cake shop? Yeppp, I got a customized cake for my birthday.

What months were you and your siblings born in? My brother and I were born in April; my sister was born in September.

What did you have for dinner last night? Barbecue chicken.

Have you ever had sex in/on a vehicle? In, yes. Do people have sex ON cars??????

Do you do anything to groom your eyebrows? I will shave extremely occasionally. Otherwise no, I don’t touch them.

Has your town ever flooded? This time of the year, always.

Have you ever played at the McDonald’s play place? Yup. I preferred Burger King’s playplace, though; it was lesser-known so there were fewer kids I was forced to play with.

Have you ever taken a picture of snow? I’ve never even seen it.

Do you cry easily? I can.

Are you happy with where you live? It’s quiet and safe, which is nice; but I think at this point I would be a lot happier and would be able to grow a lot if I moved to a big city.

Do people ever mistake you for being a different race? Not really; but as a general thought, it is an extremly big pet peeve when people only take into account East Asians when the topic of Asia comes up.

Do you hate the last person you kissed? I don’t hate her. But I can’t stand her.

What genre is your favorite movie? Drama, romance, a hint of comedy.

Who was the last person you were in a car with? My mom and my siblings.

Do you like the picture on your license/I.D. card? Yeah haha. I was allowed to smile on my license, so at least my photo doesn’t look gloomy.

When was the last time somebody hit on you? Hasn’t happened in a while.

Was the last person you met a male or female? For the first time? She’s a girl.

What brand is your underwear? I don’t remember the name anymore.

What’s your favorite Thanksgiving food? I don’t celebrate that.

Do you have a TV in your room? Nah. I don’t really watch the TV anymore, and using the living room TV to watch YouTube videos is enough for me.

Are any of your electronics charging right now? My laptop is constantly plugged in. My speaker is also charging at the moment.

What was the last video game you played? I have no clue, it’s been forever.

What’s the biggest promise someone’s ever made to you? Did they keep it? That they’ll always stay. I didn’t make her keep it; I was the one who moved on.

Google, Bing, or Yahoo? Google.

What was the last song you had on repeat? It’s been a while since I set a song on repeat. Maybe Film Out? If not that, maybe UGH!

Who is your favorite person to watch on YouTube? Rhett and Link or the Try Guys.

How many college degrees do you want? I’m okay with the one I have.

Can you wink? Yeah, but I’m substantially better at winking with my right eye than my left.

Do you own any jerseys? I don’t think so.

Have you ever tried to snort Pixie Stix as a child, or even an adult? No. I don’t even think I’ve had it ever.

Do you like going to baby showers? Do you go only for the cake? I’ve never been to a baby shower. Not a thing here.

Has there ever been a time in your life, you felt sexually undecided? I still am. I’m not bothered about it, though. Sex and who I have it with aren’t things I spend much time thinking about.

Do you think tattoos and piercings are sexy on the opposite sex? Depends. It certainly suits some people better.

Do people ever ask you to do things they’re too short to accomplish? No...I am the short person asking for help :)))))))

What color are the headphones you have at this moment in time? I have black ones but I literally just took them off five minutes ago so I can transfer my music to the speaker I mentioned earlier.

Ever choked severely on something during lunch at your school? I don’t think so.

Do you eat more vegetables or fruits? What’s your favorite fruit/veggie? VEGETABLES. I love green beans, eggplants, and bell peppers the most. I can’t stand fruits, with the one exception of avocados.

What would you say is the color of your favorite bra? Black.

Is anyone in your family a firefighter? Who is it anyway? I don’t think so.

What do you usually buy when you go to the dollar store? We don’t have a dollar store, and that should be self-explanatory hah.

Ever peed in the pool? Be honest! God no. That’s gross.

When you’re older, what kind of house do you want to live in? Something modern and minimalist.

Where do you want to get married? Idk, I’m pretty traditional when it comes to this. Booking an events place would be ideal for me; the only thing on my wishlist would probably be the fact that I hope my wedding could be held somewhere cold, like Baguio.

Do you plan on having both your parents at your wedding? Uh yeah, sure.

What is your favorite childhood TV show? Spongebob.

Honestly, do you like school? I liked it when I was granted more freedom to do things my own way, which is to say I really enjoyed college. But I didn’t mind school for the most part, especially since it meant being able to see my friends everyday.

Last thing that made you cry? I was listening to a song that resonated a lot with me at that moment.

Honestly, are you keeping a big secret right now? Nothing too big or life-changing to someone if they ever found out.

Last person you took a walk with? Idk, that’s not an activity I tend to do with other people.

Have you ever liked someone who didn’t like you back? No.

Who was the last person to actually pick you up in the air? My ex, probably.

Does any part of your body hurt? My shoulders are constantly hurting these days. I really need to buy a new work chair :(

If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to change a regret what would you do? Million bucks. Easiest choice.

Can you keep a secret? Sure.

Your favorite romantic movie? The Proposal.

How do you feel about Valentine’s Day? I honestly like it, and I celebrated it when I was able to.

Who was the last person you took a picture with? My sister and I took a silly selfie earlier.

Do your jeans have rips, tears, and holes in them? Some of the pairs I have do, but they’re meant to be ripped jeans.

Do you celebrate 420? Nope.

Have you ever kicked a vending machine? I don’t think so. I barely use them.

How do you eat Oreos? I just bite into them. No patience do the whole twist-lick thing. Sometimes I’ll dip them in milk, if we happen to have some.

Do you wear your shoes in the house? That is a big no-no.

Would you survive in prison? I might not.

Ever been to Georgia? No for both state and country.

Do you get your hair cut every month? No, just once a year. Which reminds me, I finalllllllly had my hair trimmed yesterday hahaha I got sick of my long-ass hair, which was starting to feel like a bitch to maintain. It’s only up to my shoulders now.

Current relationship in detail. I am single...nothing much to share about it. I get to enjoy to spend my money on myself, which is my favorite part about it hahaha.

If you were kicked out of your house, who would you call/go to? My grandma.

List things you spend money on in an average week. Food delivery and nearly every week, merch. I’ve considerably calmed down on the latter, though.

Rate each of your sexual partners (if any) from 1-10. I’ve only had one...I guess I’d give her a 9. A bit TMI but the oral could’ve been a little better.

Post the last FB group/page that you joined. I was looking for FB groups for a work deliverable, but I had to join one of them to give it a better scan. I don’t remember which group it had been, though.

Would you parents be mad if you were in a relationship? No. If they did, I would be very surprised they would still be meddling with a 23 year old’s life.

Think of the last person you had sex with. Do you think they’ve slept with anyone else since they last slept with you? I’m sure.

Is there someone that you believe you will always be attached to? I’m not now, so no.

What board games are you good at? I’m quite terrible at all of them, tbh. It’s why I’ve always preferred to simply watch over my friends when they do play board or card games.

Is there a sport/hobby you keep thinking about taking up, but that you’ve never quite gotten around to starting? Wakeboarding. Do you think pranks like egging/toilet-papering someone's house are funny or immature? Immature.

Do you think “sleeve tattoos” are a good idea? I’m not totally obsessed with the idea, but they do look good on people.

Is there anything in particular that your parents argue about? What? I don’t know. 100% of the time they are caused by my grown-ass mother throwing a petty-ass tantrum, so I could not care less about the things they fight about.

Do you ever actually read the “Terms and Services” when you sign up for websites and such? Nah.

If you have a handheld games console (a DS or GameBoy, for example), how often do you use it? I haven’t used the Switch since last year.

Your phone is ringing. It’s the person you fell hardest for, what do you say? Pick it up and wait for them to talk.

If your best friend was kicked out, would your parents let him/her live with you? Probably not, knowing my mom – but I would do absolutely anything else to help.

Are you afraid of falling in love? I guess you can say that, yeah. I’m not headed towards that feeling again anytime soon, though.

Is there anybody you wish you could be with right now? I wish I was with my friends now.

Have you ever kissed someone & wished you didn’t? No.

Did you get kissed last night? Nope.

Do you enjoy going through a carwash? Idk, I’ve never taken my car to one. That’s something my parents take charge of.

How did you get most of your scars? Cooper.

Ever had to take an inkblot test? I haven’t.

Have you ever been in trouble for something you honestly didn’t do? Sure. Like back in high school when a group of friends had been caught cheating on our chemistry exam – and we were told that the entire batch would be given a formal warning. I was on the minority side that found the entire situation hilarious, because I know they wouldn’t dare mar the records of everyone else who took that stupid test honestly.

Have you ever seriously slapped someone in anger? My brother, only because he put his hands on me first.

What/who woke you up this morning? Just me.

Who was the last person to be in your bedroom besides you? My mom, who always goes in there without knocking/warning.

What’s one of your locked text messages? I don’t lock my texts and I’m not sure if that’s an available feature on my phone.

Have you ever finished a game of Monopoly? I don’t even know how that game works lol.

Is there anyone you know who’s in any way paralyzed? Yes.

The truth all comes out when someone is drunk, true? I mean for the most part, yeah. It’s easier to be honest with a few drinks in you.

When was the last time you felt disappointed in yourself? Continued from the other day. Last week when I forgot about a virtual meeting and attended it 15 minutes after it started.

How about feeling disappointed in someone else? Last Friday when I had to watch my dad treat a service crew member like shit.

For you, do you commonly feel more jealousy or envy? Envy, I think. I don’t really feel jealous.

Do you rely on the heads/tails flipping of a coin sometimes for decisions? Nope, but close. I’ll do eenie-meenie sometimes haha

Do you have any specific chores you do around the house? Nothing I’m required to do but sometimes I’ll offer to wash the dishes or fold laundry.

For you, does comfort or fashion come first in dressing? It’s like 70% fashion, 30% comfort. Looking nice makes me feel more comfortable lol.

Have you had two friends that absolutely hated each other? Not each other; the dislike was one-sided. Gabie hated Andi for whatever reason, which in hindsight already should’ve been a red flag.

Do you like Laffy Taffy? No, I’ve never had one.

Do you prefer electric or manual pencil sharpeners? Manual, only because I’ve never seen, much less use, an electric one.

Are your biceps at all noticeable? Nah.

Have you ever seen a walrus? It’s possible, but I don’t have very good memories of it if I have seen one.

Did you ever have one of those Easy Bake ovens as a kid? Not a popular toy here.

Does your bathroom have a theme to it? It doesn’t. I think that would be a little tacky tbh.

From inside of your house, how many doors lead outside? Three. We have doors in the kitchen, dining room, and our main door by the living room.

Are there a lot of trees in your yard? Not really.

Have you ever liked someone that treated you like crap? Yes.

Have a best friend? Yup.

Does it bother you when your best friend does stuff without you? No? That’s pretty petty. Both Angela and Andi have big circles of friends and that would be stressful on my end if I made a fuss every time they hung out with anyone that isn’t me lol.

Is there a secret you’ve never told your parents? A bunch. I don’t count them as confidantes.

Does anyone hate you? It’s possible but I don’t care enough to want to know.

What’s the one thing you regret more than anything? Not breaking up with Gabie earlier, even though all the red flags were there.

Do you remember important dates? For the most part, yeah.

What’s some lyrics from a song that means a lot to you? “Dream, may all of creation be with you til the end of your life Dream, wherever you are, will welcome you Dream, may your trials end in full bloom Dream, though your beginnings might be humble, may the end be prosperous.”

Who gives the best advice? Andi. They’re able to tell me advice I don’t want to hear but am supposed to be hearing, which I appreciate.

Who do you usually see in your dreams? :) It’s a random cast every time.

What type of cake did you last eat? It was carrot cake with a really good cream cheese frosting.

How many of your friends are gay or bisexual? Almost all of them are...it’s easier to count friends who are straight.

What’s your favorite type of sandwich? Anything with pulled pork in it tbh.

When was the last time someone asked you out? Did you accept or decline? I’ve never been asked out.

Do you like The Offspring? I know a couple of songs but I definitely can’t call myself a fan.

One pillow or two? Two.

Do you like Mad Libs? I’ve never tried playing it.

Are you suicidal? Not lately. I haven’t been for a while, actually. I’m really happy about that.

Where do your grandparents live? My paternal grandparents live in the south. My maternal grandma lives in the village right next to ours haha, so not far away at all.

Do you cut yourself? Yeesh. Can’t questions like this come with a trigger warning? Anyway, no I haven’t in a while as well.

What is your pet’s name? Kimi and Cooper.

Have you ever been to Canada? No, but I'd love to visit. < Same!

Aren’t babies overrated? I think they are overrated in a sense that everyone always seems to want one of their own, but the circle gets extremely smaller when it comes to those who actually have the capacity to take proper care of an infant.

Have a built-in pool in your backyard? No.

Ever won yourself a stuffed animal? Sure, in like claw games and whatnot.

Ever had someone else win you a stuffed animal? No. I don’t really like stuffed toys lol.

Ever been to a circus? Nope.

Ever shot animals? I have not.

Do you consider yourself intelligent? I guess I’m booksmart more than anything else. I had good grades and can handle myself in arguments and debates...but I have my weaknesses in other aspects too, like street smarts lol.

Have you ever run away from home? I had a period when I wanted to, but never pushed through with it.

Do you put family first, friends, relationships, school, or something else? Work > friends > family.

What’s something you’ve stood up for in the past? I always shoot my mom a glare as if to say “be careful of the line you’re crossing” whenever she makes a homophobic, sexist, or racist remark.

What’s something you worked extremely hard to get? The healthy and stable mental disposition I find myself in these days. I would never give it up for anything ever again.

Are you satisfied with your body image? I mean not fully, but I also don’t have any complaints.

Have you ever been labeled negatively or otherwise been called something extremely derogatory? I’ve been called a bitch by this girl that was just a terror to be classmates with back in middle school. She was known to a big war freak and had her fair share of behavioral/anger issues, so it didn’t really affect me once I knew I was her next target. I didn’t encounter her again until college when we ended up attending the same university, and she’s changed a lot for the better.

Have you ever seriously taken advantage of someone or been taken advantage of? The former, no. Yes to the latter.

Have you ever been seriously ill? My fever last year really felt like the end of me lmao, so I guess yeah.

Have you ever befriended a former enemy? She wasn’t an enemy per se, but I just found myself immensely irritated by Sofie during our first few meetings; but then she ended up being one of my best friends for a time

If you’re not religious, would you ever pray as a last resort? If you are religious, do you often pray for other people? I did in the past. I wouldn’t do so these days.

Have you ever dated someone, then after you dated they came out of the closet or switched (for lack of a better word) sexual orientation? That hasn’t happened to me.

Has a boy/girl ever walked a ridiculous distance just to see you? How about vice versa? I think once? My ex was brewing a surprise for me for Valentine’s Day last year and to cut the long story short, she essentially walked a crazy long distance in my school to make the surprise a success. My university is huge and even I prefer to take my car whenever I have to go from one building to another, so I definitely saw the effort she had put in.

When was the last time you felt really uncomfortable? Right now. It’s really humid and my electric fan isn’t really doing anything to curb the heat :/

Is there anything that your mom is really known for as to how she is as a person? She is very uptight.

Who have you been talking to the most today? My co-workers, albeit virtually.

Are you nosy? Nah. I won’t really press and will wait for people to open up.

What’s the meanest thing you have done to a friend? I don’t do mean things to my friends.

If your ex called you crying, what would it most likely be about? Fuck if I know. Her pride is way up in the sky for her to do something like this.

Who was the best kisser out of all the people you have kissed? I’ve only kissed one person.

Have you ever been told that you have an annoying laugh? I don’t think so. It would be etched in my head if I was ever told this.

#survey #surveys

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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

Text

Surveys #431-432

two biggins’ in one, beware the long post.

Do you own any Funko Pop! figurines? No. How many cats and dogs have you had as pets in your lifetime? I couldn't possibly count the cats. A lot. We've had I wanna say eight dogs through my entire life. Can your mom and/or dad play any instruments, or how about anyone else in your family? No. My older sister played the clarinet in school, though. Have you ever colored in an adult coloring book as a stress reliever? I have, but they don't really affect my stress level. Can you crack crab legs without a tool? UGH EW I hate crab legs. So mushy and just... ew. I don't think I've tried to without a tool. How many light sources are in the room you’re in? Excluding the natural light out my windows, three. What’s your favorite thing to put on bagels? Just your usual cream cheese. Who’s your favorite director? Tim Burton. I love his style. Bats: cute or gross? Bats are SO goddamn cute. What was the last really intense pain you felt? I had a sudden pain in my chest the other day that scared me quite a bit. Would you rather vacation by a beach or a lake? A lake, for sure. How would you feel about traveling abroad alone? I'd be way too lonely. What is your father's middle name? John. Where did your last kiss take place? The airport. Which movie villain do you find the most terrifying? Probably Jason. A masked guy just casually pursuing you with a knife is horrifying to me. If you married your favorite celebrity what would your last name be? Fischbach alskdfla;wer;lkwera;wle Do you stick your tongue out often in pictures? No. Which one of your family members are you closest to? My ma. Would you rather have name brand shoes or name brand clothes? Shoes. It's very important for them to be comfy for me. Are you a good liar? Yes. :x Are you proud of your parents? Yeah. If you could get backstage tickets to ANY concert - which would you pick? If Mom was with me, Metallica. She would actually fucking die if she met them. Like she cried and laughed with joy when she found out about the concert in Raleigh some years ago, and we thought we were going to go, but yeah, money. Which is better: orange or grape soda? Orange cream soda. Grape soda is so gross. Was the last thing you ate hot or cold? It was room temperature. Who was the last person in your house who isn’t family? Our landlord/family friend. I think. What color was the last swimsuit you wore? Black. Can you remember the last song you listened to? I'm listening to "Thoughts & Prayers" by Motionless In White right now. Have you ever been dumped really harshly? Ha, that is a colossal understatement... Can you do a back flip, or anything else of that sort? Definitely not. I couldn't even do stuff like that as a kid. Do you have any exes you can’t stand anymore? No. What happened to cause you to feel that way about them? ^ Are you more of a phone or a computer person? Computer, for sure. Do you have a job, and if so, where do you work? No. If not, do you want one? Not right now. I want to focus on the gym and getting in shape. Do any medical afflictions run in your family? A whole lot. What’s your favorite Mexican dish? Shrimp quesadillas. Or rice with cheese sauce. Have you ever been to a professional sports game? Yeah, hockey and baseball. Do you prefer pads, tampons or something else? I'm actually conflicted on this right now. I use tampons, but there are reasons I don't really like them and am considering something else. Have you ever ordered a specially made cake from a cake shop? Not me myself, but Mom has. What months were you and your siblings born in? My two immediate sisters were born in April and June. What did you have for dinner last night? Uhhhhh... I want to say I had a chicken pesto bowl? Have you ever had sex in/on a vehicle? No, that sounds so uncomfortable. Do you do anything to groom your eyebrows? No. I don't care about that anymore. Has your town ever flooded? Oh, for sure. Hurricane Floyd from when I was... I wanna say two or three WRECKED my area. Have you ever played at the McDonald’s play place? Yeah. That was a blast as a kiddo. Have you ever taken a picture of snow? Yeah. Do you cry easily? Very. Are you happy with where you live? No. The suburbs suck. I miss living in the country so much. Do people ever mistake you for being a different race? No. Do you hate the last person you kissed? No, she's my best friend in the whole world. What genre is your favorite movie? I actually don't know what it's considered? It's a kids movie, though. Who was the last person you were in a car with? My mom. Do you like the picture on your license/I.D. card? My permit picture is fucking hideous. When was the last time somebody hit on you? *shrug* Was the last person you met a male or female? A guy - my personal trainer. What brand is your underwear? I'm in my pjs, and only a madman would wear underwear to bed. What’s your favorite Thanksgiving food? Just the rolls, really, lol. I'm not a big fan of Thanksgiving foods at all. Do you have a TV in your room? No, because I don't watch TV. Are any of your electronics charging right now? My laptop always is, though I know you shouldn't do that. I need to charge my phone, too. What was the last video game you played? Video game, not computer, I want to say uh... The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon? What’s the biggest promise someone’s ever made to you? Did they keep it? To never leave me. He didn't. Google, Bing, or Yahoo? Google. What was the last song you had on repeat? The song I mentioned earlier. Who is your favorite person to watch on YouTube? Markiplier. :') How many college degrees do you want? It'd be nice to have a Bachelor's in SOMETHING, but I'm not returning to school. Three tries was enough money down the drain. Can you wink? Yeah. Do you own any jerseys? No. Have you ever tried to snort Pixie Stix as a child, or even an adult? Uh, no. Do you like going to baby showers? Do you go only for the cake? No. The last time Jason and I hung out in any capacity was his brother's wife's baby shower, and it's a bad memory. As well, it just reminds me of what I once wanted with him. I'll go to them and be okay, but definitely not thrilled. Has there ever been a time in your life, you felt sexually undecided? Yes, especially in the I want to say 8th grade. I had an inescapable crisis that literally lasted a whole week (or maybe more) forcing myself to believe I was straight, despite already showing but denying bisexual attractions. I was religious back then, so believed if I wasn't straight, I'd go to Hell. Then I came out as bisexual in uhhhh... 2018 I wanna say, and that was a long examination of my feelings. It felt like a massive weight off my shoulders when I accepted it. I felt legit happy. Do you think tattoos and piercings are sexy on the opposite sex? ugggghhhhh yes Do people ever ask you to do things they’re too short to accomplish? No. What color are the headphones you have at this moment in time? My earbuds are pink and white. Ever choked severely on something during lunch at your school? No. Do you eat more vegetables or fruits? What’s your favorite fruit/veggie? Fruits, for sure. My fave is strawberries. What would you say is the color of your favorite bra? I have a pink and black lacy one that is super cute, but it's too small for me right now. It just stays in my drawer. Is anyone in your family a firefighter? Who is it anyway? No. What do you usually buy when you go to the dollar store? If I'm stopping there for a snack (which is usually the only time we stop by one), I tend to get a honeybun. Ever peed in the pool? Be honest! No, that is so gross. When you’re older, what kind of house do you want to live in? I want a medium-sized house that's semi-isolated in the woods. I'd love a nice path to walk down and take photos, a catio for Roman or whatever cat I may have in the future... stuff like that. I need lots of nature. Where do you want to get married? In some sort of gothic building, though I'm sure that would be a WILDLY expensive venue, so I doubt that'll happen. Realistically, either in the woods or even a massive flower garden. Do you plan on having both your parents at your wedding? Yes. What is your favorite childhood TV show? Pokemon. Honestly, do you like school? No, I didn't. Last thing that made you cry? PTSD. Honestly, are you keeping a big secret right now? No big secrets, no. Last person you took a walk with? Sara, years ago. Have you ever liked someone who didn’t like you back? Oh, have I... Who was the last person to actually pick you up in the air? Probably Jason, honestly. Does any part of your body hurt? My non-existent abs are killing me from exercising yesterday. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to change a regret what would you do? While it's tempting, hand me the cash. Can you keep a secret? Absolutely. You tell me a secret, you can guarantee I'll be keeping it between you and me. Your favorite romantic movie? The Notebook. How do you feel about Valentine’s Day? I honestly like it. I love the aesthetic of it, and I know people say "well you should celebrate love every day," and while that's right, what's so wrong about nationally designating a specific day to appreciate it? I think it's a very cute holiday. Who was the last person you took a picture with? My sister Katie. Do your jeans have rips, tears, and holes in them? I haven't worn jeans in yeeeeaaaarrrrssss. When I did though, I loved jeans like that, especially for skinny jeans. Do you celebrate 420?No. Have you ever kicked a vending machine? No. How do you eat Oreos? I prefer to just dip them in milk. If that's unavailable, I separate the two parts, eat the cream, and then the two cookies. Do you wear your shoes in the house? No. Would you survive in prison? Absofuckinglutely not. It's dark, but just to be entirely honest, I'd probably find a way to kill myself. Ever been to Georgia? I've been through it. Do you get your hair cut every month? Not every month, no. It needs a trim right now badly, though.

Current relationship in detail. I'm single and should be. If you were kicked out of your house, who would you call/go to? My dad. List things you spend money on in an average week. Nothing. Rate each of your sexual partners (if any) from 1-10. He was honestly a 10 lmao like I don't have a lot of experience at all, but yeah. Post the last FB group/page that you joined. I actually don't remember because I've been on break from Facebook for around a month. Would you parents be mad if you were in a relationship? No... Think of the last person you had sex with. Do you think they’ve slept with anyone else since they last slept with you? I'm sure he has. He dated someone right after me for like... eight months or something? Is there someone that you believe you will always be attached to? I think that's very obvious by now. What board games are you good at? Idk, I don't really enjoy board games. Is there a sport/hobby you keep thinking about taking up, but that you’ve never quite gotten around to starting? Definitely no sports, but I've been wanting to get back into video editing. I just... haven't, even though I have the software. Do you think pranks like egging/toilet-papering someone's house are funny or immature? They're incredibly immature. I see zero humor in them. Do you think “sleeve tattoos” are a good idea? They're hot as fuck, man. Is there anything in particular that your parents argue about? What? I'll just say they're divorced for good reasons. Do you ever actually read the “Terms and Services” when you sign up for websites and such? No. If you have a handheld games console (a DS or GameBoy, for example), how often do you use it? Almost never. Your phone is ringing. It’s the person you fell hardest for, what do you say? Realistically, I wouldn't answer because I don't answer numbers I don't recognize. Hypothetically, if I knew it was him, I'd probably say something along the lines of, "Hey J, are you okay?", because something must be seriously wrong if he wants to talk to me of all people. If your best friend was kicked out, would your parents let him/her live with you? Mom absolutely would. Are you afraid of falling in love? I'm terrified of it. Is there anybody you wish you could be with right now? I wish I didn't. Have you ever kissed someone & wished you didn’t? Yes: Tyler. Did you get kissed last night? Haven't been kissed in years. Do you enjoy going through a carwash? Bring out the rainbow soap and it's hype lmao. How did you get most of your scars? My cat, ha ha. He sometimes plays way too rough, and I just scar very easily. Ever had to take an inkblot test? Yes, when I went to a psychologist. Have you ever been in trouble for something you honestly didn’t do? Maybe? Have you ever seriously slapped someone in anger? My sister as a kid on her arm. Safe to say I got in trouble for it. What/who woke you up this morning? Just my body. Who was the last person to be in your bedroom besides you? Mom. What’s one of your locked text messages? da;lsd;fakwer I have one locked from Sara that says something like, "You are so beautiful." I cried. Have you ever finished a game of Monopoly? I think? Jason and I used to play the digital one you could download on the PS3. Is there anyone you know who’s in any way paralyzed? No. I mean, I know of a girl who went to my school who was paralyzed from the waist down in an accident, but I didn't/don't know her personally. She was a MASSIVE deal in my education community. Like you would see "prayers for (name)" on school and church signs. The truth all comes out when someone is drunk, true? Usually true. I sometimes think back on the one time Jason was drunk, and he just told me in the most adoring voice, "I love you, Brittany." It's painful as fuck to remember. I really do wonder if he meant it, given this was in the later half of our relationship. When was the last time you felt disappointed in yourself? Constantly. How about feeling disappointed in someone else? I dunno. For you, do you commonly feel more jealousy or envy? I definitely experience envy more often. Do you rely on the heads/tails flipping of a coin sometimes for decisions? No. Do you have any specific chores you do around the house? I'm supposed to empty the dishwasher in particular. For you, does comfort or fashion come first in dressing? Comfort, 100%. Have you had two friends that absolutely hated each other? No. Do you like Laffy Taffy? I do. That sounds pretty good right about now. Do you prefer electric or manual pencil sharpeners? Electric. Are your biceps at all noticeable? Yeah, no. Have you ever seen a walrus? Yeah, at SeaWorld as a kid. Did you ever have one of those Easy Bake ovens as a kid? Yeah. My little sister in particular was obsessed. Does your bathroom have a theme to it? No. From inside of your house, how many doors lead outside? Two. Are there a lot of trees in your yard? No. :/ I miss that. Have you ever liked someone that treated you like crap? No. Have a best friend? Yeah. :') Does it bother you when your best friend does stuff without you? That is so childish. Everyone needs space sometimes. But to answer the question, considering she lives many states away from me, obviously not. Is there a secret you’ve never told your parents? Yes. Does anyone hate you? I wouldn't at all be surprised if Jason does. Colleen might, but I really don't give a shit if she does. What’s the one thing you regret more than anything? The way I spoke to Jason after the breakup. If only I could take those letters back. Do you remember important dates? I am VERY bad at dates, doesn't matter how important they are. What’s some lyrics from a song that means a lot to you? "For such a little thing, you sure are in your own way" from a Mother Mother song. Who gives the best advice? Sara. Who do you usually see in your dreams? :) Jason is nearly a permanent fixture. Jeez, I'm bringing him up a lot in this one. I'm surprised my PTSD isn't dragging me into a pit for it. What type of cake did you last eat? Uhhh I wanna say double chocolate? Mom got two slices from the store for me and herself a long time ago. How many of your friends are gay or bisexual? A large number. I don't feel like counting. What’s your favorite type of sandwich? Just your usual peanut butter and jelly. When was the last time someone asked you out? Did you accept or decline? Years ago by Girt. I accepted. Do you like The Offspring? Sure, I like a handful of their songs. One pillow or two? I sleep with two. Do you like Mad Libs? Sure, they can be funny. Are you suicidal? Well damn, just throw that in there. Anyway, no. I'll admit I've had very brief, passive thoughts very rarely as of the late, just wondering if there really is a point to me being here, but I'm not actively suicidal at all rn. Where do your grandparents live? They're dead. When alive though, they lived in Florida and Michigan. Do you cut yourself? And this one? No, I haven't in many years. What is your pet’s name? Roman and Venus. Have you ever been to Canada? No, but I'd love to visit. Aren’t babies overrated? "Overrated" is definitely the wrong word... I don't particularly find a lot of babies cute and I don't want my own, but they're not overrated. Have a built-in pool in your backyard? Never have. Ever won yourself a stuffed animal? Yeah. Ever had someone else win you a stuffed animal? Yes. Ever been to a circus? No. I wouldn't set foot into one. Ever shot animals? I never, ever could. Do you consider yourself intelligent? I USED to. I think I'm dumb as shit now. School knowledge did not latch onto me well, I guess. Have you ever run away from home? Yes. It was so overdramatic. I came back hours later because I had my phone and Mom texted me threatening to call the cops. Do you put family first, friends, relationships, school, or something else? I will never put my mental health behind anything/one again. What’s something you’ve stood up for in the past? When Colleen and I were friends in middle school, we both spoke before the class in absolute disgust at how our classmates were treating our poor substitute teacher. Colleen had AT them, while I was more tame about it but still wanted to bash into their heads that they were all being absolute trash to the poor man. What’s something you worked extremely hard to get? My mental wellbeing. Granted, I'm not exactly "well" now, but once upon a time I was living in the deepest ocean trench as far as depression goes. Are you satisfied with your body image? Hell no. I really, really, really hope loyally going to the gym will help me with that. Have you ever been labeled negatively or otherwise been called something extremely derogatory? Not that I know of. Have you ever seriously taken advantage of someone or been taken advantage of? No. Have you ever been seriously ill? Mentally, immensely. Physically, not really. I've had some nasty stomach bugs, but nothing truly severe. Have you ever befriended a former enemy? Ha, it's funny, I used to hate Jason's first ex/heartbreak for how badly she hurt him. Like she could've been falling off the face of the earth with only me to save her, and I'd let her keep falling. I hated her. Yet now we're Facebook friends and comment on each other's stuff like it's nothing, ha ha. She reached out to me a few years ago to apologize for high school stuff (she also hated me for Juan - her ex or something along those lines - being interested in me instead of her), we chatted a bit, and now I think she's great. If you’re not religious, would you ever pray as a last resort? If you are religious, do you often pray for other people? I don't pray anymore. That's all I'll say to keep this from becoming potentially very offensive. Have you ever dated someone, then after you dated they came out of the closet or switched (for lack of a better word) sexual orientation? I'm pretty sure my middle school boyfriend Aaron is gay, but I'm not certain. He vanished from Facebook a long time ago. Has a boy/girl ever walked a ridiculous distance just to see you? How about vice versa? I tried doing that the night of the breakup. By car, I know it was a seven-minute drive, but walking there, never mind at night, was ludicrous. I only didn't manage because after a few minutes, Mom came after me and kept cutting me off with the car. When was the last time you felt really uncomfortable? Right now. My abs REALLY hurt, and I'm also cramping like a motherfucker after not having a period for 3+ months because of TMS therapy. I'm still pissed about how it had a physical effect on me, but didn't mentally do what it was meant to. Is there anything that your mom is really known for as to how she is as a person? She is very, very loving and lives to help others. Who have you been talking to the most today? Nobody, really. I've spoken with Mom obviously, but for the most part, today's been quiet. Are you nosy? I can be pretty damn nosy, yes. What’s the meanest thing you have done to a friend? Consistently flirted with her boyfriend behind her back. I was 12, okay? If your ex called you crying, what would it most likely be about? THE ex, I have no idea. I don't know what's going on in his life, besides his mother dying quite a few months ago, but I don't see why he'd contact me about that. Who was the best kisser out of all the people you have kissed? Jason. Have you ever been told that you have an annoying laugh? No, but I think I do.

#survey #surveys #random questions

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