#so moxy has committed many crimes

[clyde49]

[cosmo-rider]

I burnt myself out and forgot to post more on Tumblr. I’d like to give this app another shot.

I made this character recently for an art challenge and ended up falling in love with him. The challenge was to shuffle your music playlist and the first four songs would determine a certain trait about the character. I somehow got a most of my favorite songs, which added to my love for Moxie.

✨GENDER: “Interlude IV” - Zach Callison, Grace Rolek

This song is a duet, so I decided to improvise. Moxie is male, but his mask has what’s known as an “imprint”, and the imprint is female. An imprint is a small bit of the previous wearer’s soul and personality trapped in a mask. The current wearer may exhibit similar quirks and habits to the imprint. I also thought it fit with the song’s lead male singer having a female echo through the song.

✨STYLE: “Soldier, Poet, King” - The Oh Hellos

This song always gave me serious DND vibes, so I definitely took the fantasy/DND route. I ended up designing a tiefling wizard or some magic user (I always wanted a tiefling OC). I haven’t decided if he’s going to take after the “poet” or “king”, but right now I gave him more a poet vibe.

✨PERSONALITY: “Villain” - Stella Jang

My favorite song came on for this and I was so psyched. Based on this song, I gave him a bit of a morally gray, anti hero/anti villain vibe. He has a twisted past and committed many crimes, but he also has a warped sense of justice. He’s aware of his own faults, and knows at some point the sword of justice will turn to strike him. However, there’s no telling where the imprint’s personality ends and where his begins.

✨COLOR PALETTE: “The Other Side” - Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron

Pretty self explanatory. I’m glad I got a more varying color palette this time, but it was a little hard to choose colors 🥲

I seriously love Moxie, so don’t be surprised if I share a lot about him! I made a few posts about him already that I’ll share later.

[cerulean8looded]

20

20.     All the wrong questions au

Alright, so since ATWQ is a bit more of an obscure series, I figure I should start this off with a brief overview so this au still makes some sense to those who haven’t read it. 

All the Wrong Questions is a prequel series to A Series of Unfortunate Events. It follows ASOUE’s narrator, Lemony Snicket, as a twelve-year-old who has chosen his chaperone for all the wrong reasons. As everything proceeds to go entirely wrong, he ends up being brought to the small town of Stain’d-by-the-Sea, far away from his sister who he was supposed to be committing a crime with. He goes on to make many friends and uncover the insidious secrets surrounding the town, while his chaperone, S. Theodora Markson, proves to be utterly useless the entire time.

Some characters won’t fit exactly into their roles, but the ATWQ cast are all very specific character types, and the Homestuck cast are also very specific character types, so that’s to be expected.

Our protagonist is most likely going to be Rose. The only other one who fits is Dirk, but I struggle to write him, so he’ll probably end up being Kit instead.

S. Theodora Markson, the ridiculous and ineffective chaperone, is gonna be Mom Lalonde. Who else?

Moxie Malhallan, the main sidekick and a journalist in training, will be approximated by either Terezi or Eridan. Possibly both. I can do what I want, I have so much power.

Ellington Feint, the mysterious green-eyed coffee lover, will most likely be Kanaya. I was considering Dave, but considering the romantic tension between Lemony and Ellington, that just feels like a bad idea (even though I’m not a big shipper of it, and I can just change the dynamic for my au. We’ll see how it goes when I start actually in-depth planning). Maybe I’ll split the role between them. Who knows, not me.

Dashiell Qwerty, the sub-sub-librarian of Stain’d-by-the-Sea, will have his role split between Cronus and Kankri because I want some background gays while there are serious plot things going on. It’s specifically those two because Kankri fits the role, while Cronus fits Dashiell’s style. Will I kill one of them off? Find out in six years when I finally write this.

Pip and Squeak Bellerophon, the twins who illegally drive a taxi for their sick father but no one gives a shit cause they’re basically the only people on the road except the police and they’re surprisingly good at it, are probably gonna be the Captors or something. While I adore the twins, I don’t have many good ideas for them. They were already perfect, I’m half tempted to just slam Pip n Squeak in there. I might just say fuck it and only have one character in this role. 

Jake Hix, the chef at Hungry’s, is called Jake already, which makes me very tempted to just use Jake. Additionally, I have no other ideas for who can take his place, and I do need to have a character working in the restaurant so the setting can be used, so… It’s either Jake or Jane really. Maybe both. 

Cleo Knight, a skilled chemist, is gonna be Roxy. That’s one of the few I’m sure about. Cleo is also dating Jake, so Roxy is either gonna be dating Jake or Jane. I like both of those ships, so not sure what I’ll go for. 

Stew Mitchum, the annoying child of the town’s police, is probably gonna be Meenah, mostly cause I want to include her and she’s the only one I can see in that role, except maybe Vriska. Once again, maybe both.

Honestly, I haven’t though about the rest of the characters much. This au was more of a passing thought that I haven’t fleshed out all that much. I need to reread the books before I do anything else with this.

[alexsmitposts]

A Threatening Monster President Trump used to attack President Obama as being weak with regard to Syria for not being more ruthless in the American led war of aggression against Syria, a prelude to war with Iran; that he had drawn red lines in the sand and dared the Russians to cross. That the Russians had called his bluff and nothing happened, he said, as if the death of hundreds of thousands and destruction of entire cities are nothing. Trump bragged that when he was in power and America “was great again” Russia would be forced to dance to the American tune because, of course President Putin would respect him more, making the mistake of thinking that Vladimir Putin respects brutality and arrogance rather than good intentions and intelligence. But now, in Venezuela, Trump is in the same position as Obama, having drawn red lines in the sand only for them to be ignored by the Venezuelan government and people and by the Russians and the Chinese. In a feeble fury the American government has issued one warning after another against “Russian intervention” forgetting that Venezuela can have any friends it wants, and forgetting that the United States is not the ruler of the planet. The warnings are issued the more sternly the less effective their plans and actions become. They hope every day for the Venezuelan army to change sides. They hope their selected hand puppet Juan Guaido will somehow catch on with all the people who hate him. They hope God is on their side. They have no hope. When 100 Russian military technicians arrived in Caracas with tons of equipment last week, Trump’s national security adviser, that is, war adviser, claimed that Russian support of a popular and legitimate government to guarantee its peaceful development was “a direct threat to international peace and security in the region,” an astounding claim from a man who had just conducted an attempted armed coup against the government of Venezuela and whose boss was threatening to bombard and invade it if their economic war and sabotage was not enough to destroy the country. When he made this absurd statement Bolton echoed the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which was just as much a statement of American arrogance then as Bolton’s statements are now. The more President Maduro proves his resilience, against rising economic warfare and sabotage of the electricity grid, and other infrastructure, and the more Russia and China increase their support of the government of Venezuela, the more frustrated the Americans become. There is no indication that a big military action is planned, nevertheless the “all options are on the table” card is still being played in statements and the media. “We may not do it, but let’s scare the hell out of them anyway” is the type of psychopathic thinking we are dealing with. But the main strategy is not a direct military one. Instead they are intending to conduct a long hybrid war on Venezuela to wear the people down. Elliott Abrams, a notorious American war criminal, the State Departments’ special representative for Venezuela, whose crimes span Latin America, stated, ‘I don’t imagine that Juan Guaido is deeply worried because the Maduro regime, while it may be around in 15 days, is not going to be around in 15 years.” He threatened to cut oil sales and threatened Russia by saying “It would be a mistake for the Russians to think they have a free hand here-they don’t.” But of course they do. Russia will conduct its affairs as suits its interests and that means support of Venezuela. It is instead the Americans who are making the mistake, because it is a fact that they no longer have a free hand in the region. Trump’s opponents in the Democratic Party and their allied media, still dazed and confused about the Mueller investigation’s inability to produce any evidence at all of Trump being a Russian agent, are still calling him weak on Russia because he is not doing enough to oppose Russia. But the truth is they have tried to oppose Russia in every way at every possible opportunity, from Germany to Ukraine, to Turkey, from Syria to Venezuela, and failed at every point. Trump is the scapegoat for the real decline in American power and prestige and all they can do is fall back on their nuclear threat, to demand more nuclear weapons and fight wars they cannot pay for and cannot win in the vain hope, that somehow, just by brute force, they can regain their former power ad prestige. But they can’t because brute force is not enough to win the ultimate political objectives of the war. Power means little if everyone thinks you’re a thug. In August 2011, Obama declared that “for the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside’ Yet Obama is now history while President Assad leads his people still. It was Obama who stated “the use of chemical weapons” is a changer, and then had his proxy and special forces stage several chemical attacks to be followed by big attacks on the Syrian forces. But he was stopped every time by the skills and resistance of the Syrian, Russian and Iranian forces resisting the American aggression. Obama was accused of stepping back from decisive action, the old “stabbed in the back” claims made by the Germans to explain their defeat in World War One and used by many American to explain their defeat in Vietnam, and Trump was one of those to make that claim. But the truth was not about having the moxy to confront the Russians. It was about what the Americans knew would happen to them if they did. The Americans have suffered defeat in Syria though they still cause trouble for example for the refugees they hold hostage at the Rukban refugee camp, located in the American occupation zone at Al Tanf near the Jordanian border, where they block food and medicine from relieving the suffering of the Syrians held hostage there, and where they refused access to senior dignitaries of the UN and Red Crescent to inspect conditions in the camp. They try to cause trouble among the tribes and other groups with the few remaining forces illegally in the country, The Russians report the French and Belgian special forces are plotting to stage yet another chemical attack provocation and British lawyers, with close links to British and NATO intelligence, are attempting to have the ICC label President Assad a war criminal. These actions are planned with the USA. So Trump and his men can still cause a lot of trouble in the pain of their Syrian defeat. They have suffered another defeat in Venezuela but their war goes on. They intend to cause a lot more trouble. The Americans are going to apply, besides all types of sabotage, political and economic pressure, as well as quasi-legal actions. They think they have a strength the Russians do not have, their proximity to the regions against Russia’s distance. But again, they misjudge the situation and Russia has demonstrated that it is in the region to stay not only being able to fly in aircraft from great distances, but has expanded military training and flight schools, S300 missile battery training, and other areas of cooperation. The coup attempt failed. Guaido has failed. Sabotage and sanctions have failed. Political pressure has also failed, despite the fact that Canada led the Lima Group in support of the US aggression against Venezuela. But they do not have Mexico on their side and it is making them furious. President Obrador has proven more independent than they expected. He refused to join the Lima Group, refused to condemn Maduro, and has demanded reparations on behalf of the Mexican people from Spain and The Vatican for all their crimes committed during the colonial period. There is already talk in Washington about what actions to take against him. The Americans seem to have lost the art of making friends and know only how to make enemies for now Trump has cut aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, as if he wants the entire region to be opposed to the USA and in support of the Venezuelan people. President Trump, on behalf of the United States of America, keeps drawing red lines in the sand. He has paralyzed the US government to build one along the Mexican border, a hostile act towards Mexico, he has drawn them in Ukraine, in Turkey, in Syria, in the Pacific, in Korea, and now Venezuela but the trouble with red lines is they’re never the right lines. Red lines issued by a nation that acts as a neo-colonial power are violations of international law. They are ultimatums. The peoples of the world rejected this type of aggression from militaristic, chauvinist powers at the end of World War Two when the militarism of Germany and Japan was destroyed, the United States claimed it’s role in the world was to “bring democracy,” the United Nations was formed. A Charter was adopted, to which they agreed, which makes everything the USA is doing a crime against peace. We don’t need more red lines, we need the leaders of the American state to read and understand and adhere to the lines written in the Charter of the United Nations, to join the society of nations that wants to live in peace and respect with each other, instead of standing outside the society of nations; a threatening monster everyone fears.

[the-bitch-files]

Spring Reading Wrap Up!

Hello! Instead of doing a monthly wrap up or individual reviews, I have decided to do a seasonal wrap of the books I have read. Here, I will list all the books I've read  I've watched during the Spring months - March, April & May - and include some select reviews. This is because I only have so many thoughts about these things and there are some books where I want to write a review and have plenty of thoughts about it. Hopefully that makes sense. So, without further ado, let's get to it!

What I Read

MARCH

Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu (2017) - 5 ★ Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo (2019) - 5 ★ Revenge of the Sluts by Natalie Walton (2021) - 5 ★ Good & Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger by Rebecca Traister - 4 ★ Men Explain Things to Me And Other Essays by Rebecca Solnit (2014) - 5 ★ The Girls I've Been by Tess Sharpe (2021) - 5 ★ All Eyes on Her by L.E. Flynn (2020) - 3 1/2 ★ The Book of Gutsy Women: Favourite Stories of Courage and Resistance by Chelsea and Hillary Rodham Clinton (2020) The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes by Elissa R. Sloan (2020) - 5 ★

APRIL

These Vengeful Hearts by Katherine Laurin (2020) - 2 ★ Vagina Problems: Endometriosis, Painful Sex and Other Taboo Topics by Lara Parker (2020, memoir, non-fiction) Girl A by Abigail Dean (2021) - 5 ★ The Obsession by Jesse Q. Sutanto (2021) - 4.5 ★ The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn (2021) - 5 ★ Hood Feminism: Notes From the Women White Feminists Forgot by Mikki Kendall (2020, feminist non-fiction) - 4 ★ Sisters by Daisy Johnson (2020) - 3 ★ Dear Ijeawele: A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2017, short feminist non-fiction)

MAY

Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney (2017) - 3.5 ★ Moranthology by Caitlin Moran (2012, collection of her newspaper columns) You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott (2016) - 4 ★ People Like Her by Ellery Lloyd (2021) - 1 ★ Pretty Bitches: On Being Called Crazy, Angry, Bossy, Frumpy, Feisty, and All the Other Words Used to Undermine Women ed. by Lizzie Skurnick (2020, anthology essay collection)

REVIEWS

These Vengeful Hearts by Katherine Laurin (2020) - 2 ★

This was my worst read of the season. This book was slow-paced, slightly predictable with a plot that felt like it had already been done and an ending that had little effect on the world in the book. 

   Following Ember Williams - which is short for September, named after her birth month - who sets out to take down the Red Court, a secret society within her high school which grants favours for others at a price, in revenge for an accident which left her elder sister April paralysed two years earlier. After joining the Red Court (RC) and playing a part in missions (including election rigging for Homecoming, breaking up couples and takedowns of other students), Ember faces a conflict of morality and struggles with the secrets she's keeping from her best friend, Gideon, and new love interest/crush, Chase - who happens to be one half of the couple she breaks up soon after joining the Red Court and the guy that she competes with academically. This leads to drama within her own life and Ember spirals into her obsession with the Red Court while trying to keep up with school and her relationships with friends, family and now Chase.

   I didn't connect to Ember as a character as she seemed to be hellbent on revenge and while I do enjoy a good revenge tale, this was not that. It seemed like she changed her mind sometimes on her opinion on the RC, even going so far as to think herself as a potential new Queen of Hearts (the leader), remaking the RC with her own vision. It did not seem like a good idea and just selfish thinking that she is superior to these other girls and the RC itself. Ember says that she is doing this for her sister - and at one point it gets all 'this is bigger than you and me and I must do it for the greater good', which seems cliche - but it seemed like April wasn't convinced and didn't want Ember to do it. 

   Also, the 'romance' between Ember and Chase was pretty boring and quite forced. They just kept bumping into each other and Ember was like 'I can't be seen with this guy because of my place in the Red Court. but I'm really starting to like him. What do I do?' Chase seemed like a good enough guy but not developed enough as a character. The romance itself was just added drama for Ember to deal with on top of the RC shit. 

   This turned into a rant and I usually don't like to complain about books this much - sorry. TLDR: I thought it was going to be a good revenge tale; it wasn't. Waste of Queen of Hearts/Alice in Wonderland motif. Too slow paced as well.

The Girls I've Been by Tess Sharpe (2021) - 5 ★

This book was sooo good! I loved it - it was so thrilling, action-packed, heartbreaking, and brilliant. A few things that I loved in this:

bisexual protagonist with great rep (she has a good relationship with her male ex as they are now friends, and is a good relationship with her current girlfriend)

the protagonist, Nora, is a con artist who is v skilled but is dealing with what she's experienced and how she grew up with her con artist mother

the girlfriend, Iris, is amazing and well-written as a character and love interest. she loves vintage clothes, is resourceful and wants to investigate arson for a living which gives some skills that helps them out

the action is set in a bank robbery and this takes place over a matter of hours so it is quite action-packed for a short time frame. the characters have to think quickly on their feet in order to survive and it really questions what would you do to survive when placed in a life-or-death situation

as someone who deals with bad period pain/constant abdominal pain (potential endometriosis), I really liked the inclusion of a character with endometriosis in Iris. During the bank robbery it's revealed that Iris is on her period, so dealing with a heavy, painful period along with the stress of a hostage situation must be overwhelming. Iris is such a badass for this and we see her do some heroics near the end. I love Iris

the characters of Nora, Iris and Wes (their best friend and Nora's ex) are bonded by their friendship and have past trauma and asshole dads (or stepdad in Nora's case) in common. their friendship is awesome and they will do anything for each other. a great example of found family trope

The plotline of the bank robbery is written alongside flashbacks to Nora's past through the different aliases she has had - the eponymous 'girls I've been' - and we really get to see what Nora's learnt, and how her mom has manipulated her into living these lives and running these cons when Nora didn't ask to be a part of it. She was born into it really, since it started so young. It's all she's known but she wants more from her life. The men that her mom - Abby - chose to be the marks were always bad guys and they got worse as Nora got older, culminating in crime boss and Abby's love Raymond Keane. Nora's past and present collide during the bank robbery with secrets being revealed.

   The whole novel was fantastic. Highly recommend.

Girl A by Abigail Dean (2021) - 5 ★

This was one of my most anticipated reads of the year and god, it was so good. 'Girl A' deserves all the praise it is getting - and some of it is included on the inside cover. As devastating as it is brilliant, this novel is a compelling read that looks at the lasting impact of trauma from the perspective of Lex Gracie, a survivor of child abuse and neglect that became a nation-wide headline-making case known as the 'House of Horrors'. She is Girl A, the girl who escaped, but there is so much more to it than that.

   The narrative switches between the present day with Lex at age 30 and dealing with the aftermath of her mother's death in prison as she is the executor of her will and now owns the House of Horrors, and the past taking us through Lex's childhood and the abuse she and her six siblings faced. Since the timeline shifts quickly by paragraph, sometimes it can be quite jarring and confusing as you realise that she is talking about the past but I understood this mostly. You could say it speaks to how hard it is to shake off that kind of past.

   Sometimes it can be hard to read simply because of how horrifying the abuse is and the conditions that the Gracie children had to live in. That just shows how strong Abigail Dean's writing is. This is a fantastic debut and one that I found absolutely excellent.

You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott (2016) - 3.5 ★

I continue to love Megan Abbott's writing style as she writes great prose about women, their bodies, the relationships between women and femininity. She writes about sports that considered typically feminine - cheerleading in 'Dare Me', gymnastics here and ballet in the upcoming 'The Turnout' - and it feels like a deep dive into the sport itself and the impact it has on the girls who take part and their bodies. Gymnastics was central to the plot as the protagonist's (Katie) daughter, Devon, is a star of the sport. Multiple times we are reminded how extraordinary Devon is due to her ability as a gymnast and commitment to the sport.

   There is a mystery here with the death of a young man within this community being the catalyst for the events of the book, but it takes a backseat to the gymnastics. I do wish there was more to this mystery but it seems that it was not the focus here.

   I did not like this as much as I did my other Megan Abbott reads - 'Dare Me' and 'Give Me Your Hand' - but it was still a great read.

The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn (2021) - 5 ★

This was *chef's kiss* amazing.  

   The writing was brilliant, the twists were stunning (particularly in the last 10%) and the dynamic between Amb (Ambrosia Wellington) and Sully (Sloan Sullivan) was intense, toxic, co-dependent, and destructive, both internally and externally - as in, destructive towards themselves and other people. The title is a reference to the optimism of Amb's roommate Flora, when in actuality, the niceness was mostly fake, particularly from the perspective of cynical Amb. there were a few quotes here that I liked, including: 

   "I don't know if it's disgusting or impressive that girls can do that for each other. that we can achieve that level of deceit in the name of sisterhood."

   "People thought girls' bodies were our deadlines weapons. they had no idea about the mountains our imaginations could move."

   "the world loves a pretty dead girl."

   "I discovered my own version of sisterhood. It doesn't have to be merciless, feeding on the chunks it tears from its own flesh. It can be softer, more forgiving. because there are girls like me, fighting to make the society we're fenced into a more hospitable place for all of us."

   "I turned into a monster, but the world knows exactly how to make monsters out of girls who want what they can't have."

   Definitely recommend! Especially if you're a fan of Megan Abbott (it's like 'Dare Me' and 'Give Me Your Hand'), toxic female friendships, and dark academia (I don't know if this could be considered dark academia, but ). 5 stars all the way.

So, what did you read in the spring months? have you read any of these books? if so, what did you think? let me know in the comments. thanks for reading! - Cat

[ecompaniesusa]

Southwest Airlines and JetBlue Both Fired Him. Then, This Entrepreneur Made an Eye-Opening Decision

I once quit a new job after one day. As crazy as that was, I’ve always thought: At least I can say I’ve never been fired.

Only it turns out, maybe getting fired isn’t so terrible.

I realized this recently after listening to an in-depth interview with an aviation entrepreneur who’s been fired from two of the most-loved airlines in America–including one that he founded himself.

Now, he’s plotting a course to come back, and the story behind it all is pretty darn inspiring.

‘It’s not going to work’

This is the story of David G. Neeleman. Born in Brazil and raised in Utah, he co-founded an airline called Morris Air in the late 1980s, and was president when it was acquired by Southwest Airlines in December 1993.

He was 34 then and he came away with about $22 million. But more than that, Neeleman was thrilled because he’d built Morris Air based on Southwest’s model, and he dreamed of one day succeeding its CEO, Herb Kelleher.

A Mormon, he’d viewed Southwest as such a paragon of corporate virtue that Kelleher joked that he owned three books: his Bible, his Book of Mormon, and the Southwest Airlines annual report.

But, just five months after the sale, Kelleher fired him.

As Neeleman tells it, with 25 years of context, he wasn’t a great fit at Southwest. He’d brought an “absolutely paranoid,” startup sensibility to Southwest — which was a stable company that with many years of consecutive profit behind it at that point.

But still, it hurt big-time to be fired, ​Neeleman recalled recently on a recent episode of NPR’s podcast, How I Built This With Guy Raz.

“Herb invited me to the Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in Dallas,” Neelman said. “And he said, this isn’t going to work. You’re driving everyone insane. … He reached across the table and held my hands. I was crying. … ‘Even the people that are your biggest supporters said I had to let you go.'”

‘Absolutely the wrong decision’

Neeleman was truly devastated. But he was also motivated.

A noncompete agreement prevented him from working for another domestic airline, but he consulted for Canada’s WestJet, and started to plan a new airline based largely on some of the things that had made Southwest successful.

That airline became JetBlue. For seven years, from 2000 to 2007, it was a giant success.

Then, in in February 2007, bad weather and operations failures led to disaster for the airline over five days, including 1,000 canceled flights and hundreds of passengers stranded on its airplanes.

Neelman went on a marathon apology tour, promising that JetBlue would do better. But, a few months later, he was fired .

“It was not only devastating, but it was just absolutely the wrong decision,” Needleman said. “My office was just off the boardroom and two of the board members came in and said, this is what we’re going to do. And then they all got up and left.”

‘I picked up the pieces’

Independently wealthy with a large family (10 kids), I think a lot of people in Neeleman’s position would have stepped back. But the inspiring part of the story comes next.

He headed to Brazil, where he’d served as a missionary when he was 19, and launched yet another airline: a low-cost carrier called Azul Brazilian Airlines (Azul is the Portugese word for “blue”), which grew into the nation’s third-largest airline.

“I picked up the pieces, went to Brazil, and took 10 people from JetBlue with me,” Neeleman told Business Insider earlier this year. “Sometimes one door closes and another one opens, and you can do a lot of good with that.”

Even as Azul was credited with doubling the number of Brazilian domestic air passengers, Neeleman kept had his eye on the U.S. market. When he flew into JFK, he said, “it’d be hard to even look over at JetBlue. It was hard to even see my airline.”

So, last year, Neeleman announced his plans to launch yet another U.S. airline, called at least for now, Moxy. He’s reportedly raised $100 million and signed a Memorandum of Understanding to buy 60 Airbus A220-300 aircraft before starting operations in 2021.

The next thing

At this point, Neeleman is three-for-three as an airline founder — an incredibly difficult business. That doesn’t count ​WestJet; include him as a founder there, and he’s four-for-four.

He’s also zero-for-two, however, in terms of having been fired twice from big, public airlines.

Neeleman makes a lot of having been diagnosed with Adult Attention Deficit Disorder, and I think he’d agree that might have something to do with it. But there’s also the fact that sometimes, bold, entrepreneurial leaders just aren’t suited for staid, established organizations.

Sometimes, that means being fired isn’t a black mark on your resume.

But sometimes, it’s a feather in your cap.

It hurts, and it can be financially difficult — for some people, it’s exactly what they need to inspire you to go forward–and to create something even better.

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[rubylocket]

006. papa, où t’es?

title: papa, où t’es? fandom: jojo’s bizarre adventure characters/pairings: jolyne kujo/jotaro kujo rating: r warnings: incest summary: you don’t even have to tell him; he knows what’s hurting you. a/n: obligatory disclaimer that if you’re triggered or repulsed by incest, i urge you not to read further. in writing this, i sought to neither condone nor fetishize the dynamic contained herein. proceed at your own discretion.

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“tell me where he came from then i’ll know where to go mama always says when we look hard we’ll find what we have lost”

It didn’t bother her much when she was young ( — in retrospect, it should have).

She would stare at her feet as parents came to pick up their children in the elementary school parking lot — mothers and fathers alike. She waited for her own mother; she knew she would come.

In the meantime, she was forced to hear their conversations. Fathers asking their daughters how their days went; girls laughing and laughing. If daughters were stars, then their fathers were the moon.

Together, always together.

※

Subconsciously, Jolyne’s mind clung to the few vague memories she had of him for dear life.

Through the thick fog of time, she could see them together. Her father, throwing her in the air, flashing a rare grin. Her hand gripping his thumb. Jumping in puddles, the familiar smell of ozone in the aftermath of a storm clinging to the air.

She could never identify with the girl in those visions. After her mother would kiss her forehead and tuck her in, she’d close her eyes and conjure the few recollections she did have in the hopes of reliving them. And yet, they seemed more like scenes from a movie — pages from a novel — than her own lived experiences.

She always wondered what happened between the highlight reel.

※

It was as though a switch had been flipped when she began middle school.

Anger circulated in her veins, latent yet potent, waiting for release. Even as a twelve-year-old, she could recognize the irrationality of it all. There was no reason to pick a fight with that girl in English class who had been giggling over Jolyne’s hair — at the same time, there was no reason not to.

There were rumors, of course. She initially told herself that anybody who was anybody in middle school had rumors go around about them. It became a matter of pride; she was different, and considering the caliber of classmates around her, she was fine with that.

She was fine with that until the instant she heard “daddy issues.”

It was the first time, but it wouldn’t be the last. She recalls it vividly now, even more vividly than any memories of her father himself.

“—Oh my god, tell me about it. Jolyne is such a guy. Do you think she’s gay?”

“Probably. Isn’t her dad a deadbeat or something? I bet she’s weird ‘cause she’s got daddy issues.”

Their words reverberated against the brick walls of the claustrophobic locker room, and all she can remember now is the color red.

Red, red, red — and a flash of blue.

※

And now, many months later, her first year of high school brings good tidings in the form of subpoenas and affidavits.

It’s bad enough that this is happening to begin with, but a vague hope had taken root in her mind as she waited for her mother to come to the police station. An unseen power would intervene — God, her father, both, she doesn’t know.

The hope dies before it even begins to grow as she listens to her mother’s words in the hallway, the hushed pleas and the acidic accusations.

She hangs up, defeated, and Jolyne grips the metal bench so tightly that her knuckles go white.

Her mother comes to collect her; the ride back to their house is silent.

When Jolyne gets home, she shields herself from her mother’s words of concern and takes the stairs two at a time up to her room.

She doesn’t make it to the bed before she collapses to the floor, sobs tearing through her body, a torrent of stowed feelings covered in dust making their way to the surface. She hadn’t been prepared to feel everything all at once — the disappointment, the volcanic rage, the love and years of hunger — not now, not ever.

‘Dad’ disappears from her vocabulary, comfortably replaced by ‘Jotaro.’

※

Years go by and she never gets over it. It eats at her. She thinks of it when she enters the gang, she blames him for every crime committed, every dollar stolen, every person deceived.

As far as she’s concerned, his rap sheet is far longer than hers.

She thinks of him too when she drifts away from that life. How would he react?

Jolyne sits in the grass behind the school, near the track field, and plays with her lighter. She promised her mom that she’d quit the habit as part of her new lifestyle. The sky is so blue — so blue, it hurts her eyes.

She looks at that sky. He’s out there somewhere, too.

(Her conclusion: he wouldn’t react at all.)

※

For all of her transgressions and offenses, she never thought she’d be in a position like this.

Fifteen years. Fifteen years. It ricochets off the walls of her skull and penetrates her dura mater, settling deep into the core of her.

“There’s got to be some mistake!” she shouts as the guards come to collect her. Eyes darting around like a cornered animal, she turns to her lawyer. “You bastard! You said one year!”

They escort her out and the lawyer’s eyes are cold and clinical.

She thinks of the locket. Cold sweat lines her palms.

She unravels.

※

Jolyne shuffles her priorities around given her new circumstances, and she doesn’t think of him as much anymore. It’s a blessing and a curse. She has largely accepted her life now, although she hasn’t given up on the idea of trying to get out.

When someone calls her name and declares that she has a visitor, she can’t mask her surprise. She didn’t think her mom would be ready to see her like this.

She comes out into the visitor area and her heart stops when she sees him again — a split-second reaction caused by the id hijacking the super-ego.

“You,” Jolyne says lowly, clenching and unclenching her fists.

His gaze doesn’t waver.

“I’m here to break you out.”

She scoffs and turns away, arms akimbo, before striding over to the security guard and launching her fist towards his face.

“If I’m lucky, they’ll put me in solitary confinement!” she yells as she continues beating the guard. The crunch of bone satisfies her in a way that it shouldn’t — at least, not anymore. “Then I’ll never have to see your fucking face again!”

He stands there, silent as he bears witness to her assault. Passive. Passive. Passive. As if he could be anything else.

Once she’s had her fill, she spits on the guard and turns to face Jotaro again.

“I don’t know what you were thinking, but are you really trying to redeem yourself now? Trying to play the part of the loving father?”

She manages to summon up the moxie to match his piercing stare. She sees nothing of herself in his face.

Silence. Stunning in how much it says with so little — it’s utilitarian and safe.

“I don’t think you understand,” he says quietly. The gravity of his voice gives her pause.

He tells her exactly what’s happened to her, and she doesn’t know what to do. There’s so much she could do.

So she does the only thing she knows how to do.

“Thanks for the tip, but I think I’ll figure this one out on my own. You know, just like with everything else?” She laughs and it is hollow and biting. “I don’t know what you expected, but there isn’t a single piece of you in my heart. You’ve got to know that much.”

He says nothing, and she can tell that it’s none of his concern right now.

Some things don’t change.

※

After the escalation of the visitor room incident and after Johngalli A. has been expelled as a threat, she grants him quiet clemency, both for the sake of a working relationship and for her own sanity. As it always goes, however, the mere act of forgiving him does not banish the smoldering embers of resentment that still linger in the back of her mind and heart.

There isn’t enough room in her heart for a new emotion when he falls utterly unconscious before her eyes.

The panic that electrifies every dendrite in her body is foreign to her, unexpected, and she isn’t prepared. This wasn’t an emotion she ever thought she’d experience in relation to the man in front of her.

Fueled by adrenaline, she manages to drag him outside and wait for the Speedwagon Foundation to collect him. Each second stretches into an eternity, and her breaths are too shallow and quick to be substantial.

“Where’s that fucking UUV?” she shouts into the sky, voice breaking as the words scatter into the ocean wind.

She looks back down at Jotaro as blood seeps out of him and drifts onto the surface of the water, swirling around like an oil spill. Her chest feels like it’s on fire and breathing doesn’t come easily.

Finally, just as her knees begin to buckle and she’s about ready to concede defeat, she sees the shadow of something beneath the water near the horizon.

Jolyne has to take a chance, but she clings to his jacket just a little too long before letting go.

※

Trying to do this on her own is harder than she thought.

She’s been self-sufficient her entire life, but after every battle, there’s a recurring singular thought in the back of her mind:

Please come back.

Please come back.

Please come back.

※

After Pucci has been exterminated as a threat, Jolyne finds that she can’t go back to her normal life even after her absolution and exoneration. That bastard lawyer proved useful for once.

She can’t go back to school. Her mother’s gentle suggestion that she do so made her go waxen. She can’t work. She never knows exactly what to put on those applications; her record, while wiped clean of the manslaughter charge, was never expunged of the crimes from more jejune times.

She felt more hopeful in prison than she does now.

Her father made the sudden decision to move back to Florida. Curiously, Jolyne and her mother had been having talks (mostly in euphemisms) about potentially moving away from Florida to escape — her past, her mother’s past, the present, the future — yet, these talks ended a mere two days after her father’s arrival.

(It was, perhaps, mutual, Jolyne thinks as the rain beats against the window of the bus.)

※

What weighs on her mind more than school or work is the navigation of this newfound relationship with her father.

There is no solidified dynamic between them. Outside of the context of battle, he’s as awkward and distant as he ever was. He’s kept busy by professorship duties, and she’s similarly occupied with trying to collect the fragments of her life and haphazardly piece them back together.

Nevertheless, she shows up on the doorstep of Jotaro’s apartment complex every Friday night clad in a light jacket and short shorts, night bag in hand.

Jolyne doesn’t gain much from these visits, but it provides some much needed routine and a semblance of normalcy in her life otherwise laden with trauma. She watches whatever movie that catches her eye on TV and he pores over lab results and codes data — his life can be measured in p-values and correlation coefficients, things that she decidedly has no interest in.

Yet, she finds herself captivated by him, from the way he moves to the way his hand tenses up when he’s encountered something that doesn’t add up in the data. She curls up in the corner of the living room loveseat and studies him as intently as he studies his fieldwork.

Jotaro occasionally peers over his shoulder to look at her, attempting to be as surreptitious as possible and failing. She pretends not to notice, instead observing this phenomenon out of the corner of her eye.

On one such occasion, she experimentally flashes a flirtatious smirk and he looks away in the blink of an eye.

She can't stop herself from tallying it as a victory.

※

“Are you feeling okay?”

The question, issued in signature matter-of-fact fashion, prompts her to look up from her phone.

“What? Yeah. Why?”

His back remains turned to her. “Your face has been flushed the past few times you’ve come here and it’s cold season.”

She scoffs. “I’m fine. Since when do you notice that kinda stuff anyway?”

Jolyne watches as he hooks a finger into the collar of his turtleneck and clears his throat.

She swallows. Hard.

※

Jolyne knows that whatever she’s feeling towards him is childish at best. She tries to forgive herself for that; she never had a real model for how to have a relationship with a father who was absent for the vast majority of her life.

She tries to love him. Despite her best efforts, there’s only one way she knows how.

※

She tosses and turns on the futon set up in the living room and checks the time on her phone for the fifth time that night.

3:08 AM. The numbers mock her.

Jolyne throws off the blanket and starts pacing. As is customary for Florida, it was warm enough for pajama shorts and a tank top when she first went under the sheets, but now it’s far too cold. She grips her arms.

It’s one of the nights where the nightmares have her weaving in and out of slumber. She meanders around the apartment — much too big for a single man with no social life, she ponders — and finds herself facing the door to his bedroom.

She bites her lip. Should she?

A part of her simply wants to know how far she can go. (Which, in reality, is likely not far at all.)

If he gets upset with her — well, that’s his fault.

She delicately turns the knob and eases the door open, walking on the tips of her toes toward the bed. Jolyne moves closer to his side of the bed (why does he need a queen bed when he’s practically on the edge of one side?) and observes him. She’s only seen him in such a vulnerable state on one occasion other than this, and she’d prefer not to think of that.

He looks tranquil to such an extent that it’s a bit jarring for someone like him.

She wants so badly to reach out and touch him, and she almost does before (temporarily) quelling the flames of desire in her mind and moving to the other side of the bed. She gingerly peels back the muted cerulean sheets and slips in, hoping that this will be the end of it and that she didn’t rouse him from his slumber.

As soon as she shuts her eyes, she realizes it’s too late for that as he makes a vague noise indicating consciousness.

“Jolyne,” he murmurs, “what are you doing?”

What is she doing? She doesn’t quite know, herself.

“Making...making up for lost time, I guess,” she answers, matching his sotto voce volume. She retreats into the pillow. This all, quite suddenly, seems excessively juvenile.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Jotaro stealing an inscrutable glance at her before closing his eyes and making some kind of masculine grunt of approval. She rolls her eyes practically on instinct before closing them as well.

Several minutes pass before Jolyne acknowledges that she won’t rest until she sees for herself how far she can go.

“Dad.”

Silence.

“Dad...please.”

An exasperated sigh. He doesn’t open his eyes. “What is it?”

Jolyne moves closer to him, hovering a few inches above his broad chest. She feels like she’s physically being pulled in two different directions. She swallows a scream.

It’s already too late for her.

“You know, just because you let me stay in your house doesn’t mean anything. Why are you still avoiding me after all this time?” she asks. “I thought you moved back here to make things right.”

He’s still silent, but he stiffens.

“I don’t get it. I really don’t.” She bites her lip, disappointment and desperation brewing in her chest. She slides a hand up his bare torso and presses firmly against him. “You weren’t there when I was little and you aren’t here now.”

Her face feels warm and wet, as do the fingers splayed across her father’s chest, and it takes her a moment to realize that she’s been crying.

“I was pissed at you that whole time, you know. You could’ve died and I wouldn’t have cared.”

He tenses up further. She can practically hear the unsaid “is now really the time for this?”.

“But I was pissed at myself most of all...for not being the kind of daughter you could love. And I’m never going to be that person, am I?”

Jolyne weeps, tears staining her face and the sheets and tainting her father’s skin. She grieves as the moonlight beams through the window -- she mourns the image of her father she once had and its innocence. She mourns the death of the last chance at normalcy they had.

Jotaro’s hand slowly curls around her own.

“You’ve always been that person,” he mutters, so quiet that it hardly breaks through the veil of silence at all.

“Don’t say shit like that if you don’t mean it.”

She knows he does and her façade has become a formality.

“If you love me, show me,” she continues, and her muscles stiffen because those words have spelled the point of no return. A half-second passes, and one of two things could happen — she’s not sure which one she’s more afraid of.

Through the dreamy haze of fear and desire, she can feel herself press her lips against her father’s. It’s an act far removed from reality -- it’s a vision, a product of the night.

Her hands on his neck, his hands on her hips — a potent fusion of lust and panic courses through her veins.

He speaks first for once after breaking away from her.

“Jolyne,” he says breathlessly. There’s a tremendous pool of emotion beneath that single word, inaccessible and indecipherable to her.

His eyes are wide, but not with condemnation.

Jolyne can’t bring herself to say anything to defend herself. Thankfully, he speaks up before she can even try to do so.

“If this is what you want.”

She can read between the lines.

If this is the only way I can prove it to you...

His answer disappoints her, and she can’t pinpoint a single reason as to why — there are simply too many.

She tries not to think about it as she tastes the salt of his skin and gives him the only thing she has left for him.

※

After the sin is said and done — well, the world keeps spinning, much to her surprise.

It’s never quite at the same speed it used to be, though. The sky is off-blue; the person she sees when she looks in the mirror is a mere facsimile of who is actually there.

(Who is actually there now?)

※

Jolyne goes home to her mother’s house later that day.

She walks through the front door, and the realization that she can’t remember the walk home crashes down on her like a gelid wave. She shivers.

“Jojo?” her mother calls out from the living room.

She can’t look, and she can’t answer, for try as she might, her mouth has been sewn shut. Her mother seems to interpret her silence as characteristic brooding, however, and sighs.

“I guess your father was being his usual self?”

“Yeah. I guess so,” she replies. “I’m kinda tired. I’m gonna nap.”

“Okay, honey.” Another pause — this time, she can feel her mother’s concerned gaze burning into her. “If your father did anything that upset you, you can tell me, you know. I don’t want you to keep it inside.”

She’d rather say nothing than feed her mother a lie.

※

Her guilt does nothing to ease the overwhelming tide of dopamine that floods her brain when he touches her. It’s a trained response despite her objective horror at her new reality.

Every time Jolyne goes out, she looks at others — girls her age, families of all kinds, little kids on the playground — and the dissonant sensation of abject anomie is enough to make her heart gallop and prompt her to retreat back inside to her house or her father’s place.

She knew what she would be forfeiting for this. She knew the Faustian deal she signed up for.

A father’s love in exchange for everything else.

(As he palms her breast and exhales in ecstasy, she thinks — is this better than nothing at all?)

※

Weekends at Jotaro’s house begin to turn into weekdays and soon stretch into whole weeks. Her mother assumes that their relationship has improved and her worries are consequentially eased.

She isn’t incorrect, in a manner of speaking.

Her father readily acquiesces to her demands now, both outside and inside of the bedroom, and she can’t tell if it’s out of true paternal love or if he’s simply too tired to fight it.

(As she is.)

※

It’s the same Friday night routine as always, with the only difference being that Jotaro has joined her on the loveseat as he grades papers.

(She wonders how he can show up to work every day and not feel like a fraud of a human.)

His hand grips her thigh absentmindedly. A fresh resentful thought comes to the forefront of her frontal lobe: Aren’t good parents supposed to say no when their kids ask for things that are bad for them?

Jolyne scrutinizes him in her peripheral vision.

He’s been by her side this entire time. He is there, flesh and bone, rippling muscle and stony expression; it’s indisputable. Unmistakable.

And yet, after all these years, she still can’t find him.