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karajaynetoday · 2 months

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nothing's going right, and everything's a mess, and no one likes to be alone | jack hughes

author's note: don't ask me how the university semester timeline in this works. i have simply given reader a three week break in march bc why not. this is fanfiction okay, anything can happen 😂 no one proofread this for me so soz for any typos!

word count: 3.4k words

warnings: none that i can think of? but lmk if i've missed anything. soz if the ending makes you mad LOL i do love a cliffhanger

read part one here

read part two here

(This is a fem reader insert)

More writing here (soz that the masterlist is not up to date lol) | send thoughts/feedback/suggestions here

Somehow, the ill feeling of waiting until summer to see Jack again began to fade with each passing day. The itch to text him every time something exciting or infuriating happened to you began to lessen. The thoughts of him when you saw a funny meme he’d like, or your shared favourite foods on special at the grocery store, quietly stopped happening as frequently.

But then there were the things that didn’t stop. The sharp pain in your chest whenever Jack’s smiling face popped up on your social media feed. The butterflies in your stomach whenever your parents brought him up in conversation, fuelled by whatever the latest updates were from their group message thread with Jim and Ellen. The joy that would wash over you when you heard about a Devils win or a Jack Hughes goal, followed almost always by a wave of sadness that you were hearing about it second or third hand, rather than from Jack himself.

You were the one who’d asked for space. You needed time, you’d said. Given the blow up of All-Star weekend, all Jack was doing was respecting your wishes; but a huge part of you not so secretly wished he’d be a bit more disrespectful and reach out. Your mind was a mess of conflicting thoughts, and your heart wasn’t sure which emotion to feel or where to go next.

Since kindergarten, you’d barely gone more than a few days without seeing or communicating with Jack in some way. Now you were nearly a month without a word, and even though you were still mad at how he’d treated you, you were craving a return to the friendship you’d become so accustomed to. Jack knew you better than anyone, could basically read your mind with a single look, and although you had plenty of friends at college and still around in Toronto from high school, none came close to the camaraderie you shared with Jack. He was someone you could talk to for hours, or sit next to in silence for the same amount of time, it didn’t matter. With Jack, you could be utterly and entirely yourself, no complications. Now it felt like you were always pretending. And it was exhausting.

It was about 9pm on a Thursday night when you found yourself pushing through that exhaustion to try and complete yet another university assignment. For motherfucking economics. You couldn’t wait until you’d completed all of your compulsory economics credits because it was the absolute opposite of your cup of tea, when it came to academic subjects. This assignment was your last one, and you weren’t sure whether to cheer or cry at the idea of hitting the submit button on the online portal. Maybe you should’ve bought a confetti cannon to celebrate. Or a box of wine. Or booked yourself a flight somewhere fun, given you had a break from classes soon.

As soon as the thought of a trip crossed your mind, your phone began to buzz with an incoming video call. A video call from… Luke. Luke Hughes.

Your face scrunched in confusion, as you swiped to answer the call, met with Luke’s smiling face and messy curls.

“Hey sunshine! Long time no see. How have you been?” Luke spoke cheerily. Almost too cheerily.

You were immediately suspicious and narrowed your eyes at the youngest Hughes.

Luke was 3 years old when you met for the first time; he could barely remember a life without you in it. Given how inseparable you and Jack were, Luke became your de facto little brother, always tagging along where he could and joining in your adventures. Later on, when he became a teenager, you were the one Luke would come to when he was having issues with his friends, or trying to build up the courage to ask out the cute girl in his math class, or missing his brothers when they moved away. You were his second call after Ellen when he felt homesick at Michigan, and you were his first call when he had fucked up something that he felt his brothers would never let him live down. Emotional support and damage control, with a healthy dose of teasing and laughs thrown in. That was the dynamic between you and Luke. It also meant you could read him to filth when he was lying to you, and your honesty radar was through the roof at this sudden video call.

“I’m fine, Moose. Just trying to wrap up my final assignment before the break without losing my entire mind.” You offered weakly, half-expecting Luke to make a joke about your mind having been lost years ago, but the joke never came.

Instead, you saw the concern flicker across Luke’s face, just for a moment, before he forced a smile.

“How long is your break for? Any plans?”

“Three weeks, and not really. I promised my mother I’d spend a few days helping her with planning for their anniversary party in June, but that probably won’t happen until right before I go back to school.” You chatted absently, hitting save on your essay and standing up from the couch, bringing your phone with you as you moved into the kitchen to make yourself a drink.

You propped the phone up against the vase on your kitchen bench, reaching up into the cabinet to retrieve a glass.

“Well, you should come visit. We’ve got like 5 home games in a row or something ridiculous coming up. It’d be fun!” Luke’s tone was cheerful, but cautious, like he wasn’t sure how you were going to react.

You hummed in response, moving slightly out of view of your phone to get some ice cubes from your freezer and a soda from the fridge.

“Besides, I heard a rumour that you’ve got an airline voucher to use. I’d hate for it to expire or something.”

You could feel your heart starting to beat faster. Luke knew about the voucher. Did that mean Jack had told him about your fight?

“The voucher won’t expire for three years. I’m sure I’ll manage to use it before then.” You deadpanned, stepping back into frame to see Luke rolling his eyes at you.

“Yeah, sure, but will I survive that long without seeing you? Absolutely not. Come on, sugar. Please? Even if it’s just a weekend?” Luke had moved into full begging mode, with puppy dog eyes and everything.

You sighed, fidgeting with the straw in your drink and avoiding his gaze.

“I don’t… we haven’t talked at all, Luke. I don’t know what he’ll do if I just show up there.” You half-whispered, feeling that all-too-familiar wave of sadness coursing through your veins.

“He talked about you tonight at dinner. Says he misses you. But he doesn’t want to push, or not give you the space you wanted. But right now, he’s on the couch watching Gossip Girl, so…” Luke stated matter-of-factly, staring you down with a knowing look on your face.

Gossip Girl was something you’d insisted Jack get into when you were teenagers, as long as he “wanted to be called your official best friend”. And The OC. And Gilmore Girls. And One Tree Hill. And basically any other teen drama series you could think of. Collectively, those shows had thousands of episodes, and you always found yourself settling down to watch them whenever you were missing Jack more than usual. You’d never realised before that he did the same.

“Should… should we tell him I’m coming? I don’t want him to get upset by a bad surprise.”

“Not at all, sugar. Book the flight and send me the details, I’ll sort out the rest.” Luke’s beaming smile made a smile of your own creep onto your face, as you nodded at him and went to retrieve your laptop from the couch to log onto the airline website.

“Now that that’s sorted, I was wondering, what does it mean when a girl asks me what my sun, moon and rising are? Should I be worried? Or is it a good thing?”

–

Two days later, you were done with your semester and on your way to the airport. Luke had suggested you book a one-way flight, “That way, you can go home whenever you like!”, but you were starting to feel like the whole thing was a mistake.

Nonetheless, you pushed through those feelings and boarded your flight. The whole ordeal took less than two hours, and soon enough you found yourself navigating the arrivals area at Newark airport. You spotted Luke’s lanky figure, clad in a Michigan sweatshirt, with his back to you. You couldn’t help but creep up on him and poke his side, cracking up with laughter as Luke jumped at least three feet into the air. He’d always been the easiest to scare, ever since you were kids.

Luke cussed you out, and then pulled you into a bone-crushing hug.

“Missed your face, sugarplum.” Luke murmured, as you pulled away from each other and he rested his hands on your shoulders, studying you.

“Aw, Lukey. I’d say I’d missed yours too, but we really gotta do something about that hair.” You poked your tongue out as the youngest Hughes brother’s jaw dropped in mock offense.

You retrieved your bag from the luggage carousel, and headed out to where Luke had parked. The two of you fell into easy conversation as Luke navigated through the New Jersey streets back to the apartment he shared with Jack.

You managed to bury most of the nerves, but they came bubbling back to the surface when Luke pulled into the parking garage at the bottom of his building.

“Is… um… Is Jack home? Alone?” You managed to squeak out, and Luke looked at you like you were crazy.

Ever since All-Star weekend, you’d been having a recurring nightmare about Jack and the girl from the messages you’d accidentally become privy to. In particular, it was a scenario where you would come home from wherever you’d been out, and opened the apartment door to find them… entangled, on every possible surface you could think of. You felt yourself starting to feel ill as the images from your nightmares started to flash back into your mind.

“He’s alone. Ever since… ever since he came home early from All-Star, he’s been alone. None of the… usual visitors have been over. And he hasn’t been going to theirs, either. Not even when we’re on a roadie.” Luke said carefully, and you could tell he was trying not to upset you.

You could also tell that he was being honest. Because you could always tell when he was lying. But your mind was running a million miles a minute. Jack hadn’t… for a month? Because of his fight with you? You loved Jack, but you also knew (despite wishing that you didn’t know at all) that it had been years since he’d gone that long without intimacy. In fact, it was probably the longest since losing his virginity that Jack hadn’t fulfilled his desires.

Your mind was starting to wander into the gutter, and you pressed your eyes closed to bring yourself back to Earth. All you could do was nod at Luke, before you both hopped out of the car and into the elevator. Luke insisted on carrying your luggage, so you found yourself fidgeting incessantly with your hands as the elevator climbed to the correct floor.

You trailed behind Luke as he strode towards the apartment door and unlocked it, stepping inside and putting your bag down. He looked back and waved you into the apartment, pressing a finger to his lips. You tiptoed across the doorway, and your heart softened at the scene before you.

You could see the back of Jack’s head leaned up against the couch, and an episode of Gilmore Girls playing on the TV mounted on the wall. In fact, it was one of your favourite episodes; where Jess comes back and shows Rory the book he wrote, and calls her out for dropping out of Yale. You smiled ruefully as you thought about the parallels between that episode and your current situation with Jack, as the argument between Jess and Rory played out on the screen.

What do you mean?

You know what I mean! I know you. I know you better than anyone! This isn't you!

…

This isn't you! This! You going out with this jerk, with the Porsche! We made fun of guys like this!

You caught him on a bad night.

This isn't about him! Okay? Screw him! What's going on with you? This isn't you, Rory. You know it isn't. What's going on?

I don't know. I don't know…

“Are we Team Jess or Team Rory this time, Jacky?” Luke called out, making you jump.

“Team Jess all the way, obviously. Where have you bee-” Jack stopped dead in his tracks as he turned to face his brother, and instead saw you in the middle of his living room.

Jack’s face was a revelation. Confusion, at first. Then the briefest flash of hurt and anguish. Then a smile. Then caution and uncertainty, as he slowly stepped towards you.

You let a breath you hadn’t realised you were holding, and quickly moved across the room, clumsily throwing your arms around your best friend. You felt Jack freeze momentarily, almost as if he was shocked at your touch, but that soon passed and you felt his hands slide around your waist and squeeze, bringing your bodies as close together as possible.

You nestled your head on Jack’s shoulder, breathing in his scent. His thumbs softly rubbed up and down your side, and you felt him press a soft kiss into your hair. You stayed like that for a minute, or maybe longer, relaxing into the embrace.

The sound of the apartment door slamming shut made you jolt, and you rolled your eyes as you realised that Luke had tried to sneak way unnoticed and failed miserably.

“Hi.” Jack whispered, pulling back from you slightly but keeping his hands locked around you.

“Hi.” You whispered back, reaching up to brush his hair out of his eyes.

“Is it still shit hair? Or better now it’s longer?” Jack teased, rolling his tongue between his teeth.

“Better. But only slightly.” You teased back, your hands slipping down to the back of his neck comfortably.

The warmth of the surprise arrival was starting to fade. The dread you’d felt over addressing your fight with Jack was starting to set in, fast. The guilt you felt for being the catalyst for over a month for not speaking to your best friend was washing over you. Your heart rate was through the roof, and your palms were beginning to sweat.

Jack sensed your change in mood, and pulled away from you to look you up and down.

“Are you hungry? Do you want to shower? Or take a nap?” He was nervous, too.

“I ate before my flight. And showered this morning. And it’s 11am, so I think I’m good on the nap front. But I do think we should… we should talk. About everything.” You were basically tripping over your words at this point, but Jack’s reassuring nod helped to calm your nerves.

Wordlessly, Jack took your hand and led you over to the couch, gesturing for you to sit. You sat down and faced him, crossing your legs and resting your hands on your knees, still fidgeting with your hoodie sleeves.

“I’m sorry - “ You both said unanimously, a gentle laughter filling the room.

“I’m sorry I needed so much time apart, J. It fucking sucked, and it was my fault, and I just didn’t -” You began to ramble, only stopping when Jack leaned over and squeezed your knee reassuringly.

“You only needed that time because I was an asshole, sugar. It’s on me, really. I had no right to treat you like an occasional friend, or something that I shouldn’t prioritise -” Jack paused as you cringed, remembering the text messages that referred to his time with you as “boring family bullshit”.

“I was thinking with my dick, not with my head, and that’s not fair on anyone.” You shot Jack a weird look, and he looked sheepish in return.

“Quinn… Quinn said that to me. After you told him to tell me about the messages. He’s right, thought. It wasn’t fair.” Jack continued, pausing to take a deep breath.

“This whole… thing, this life -” Jack gestured broadly at the apartment around you, and you glanced around properly for the first time. Framed jerseys of Luke and Jack’s adorned the walls.Various photos of the Hughes family scattered about the place. The fridge, with a gas bill stuck to it, along with a polaroid of you and Jack from last Christmas. And a photo from your senior prom. And a group photo of everyone from last summer at the lake house, Jack’s mouth open in laughter with his arm slung over your bikini-clad shoulders.

“It’s all I thought I ever wanted. And it’s amazing, and I’m so grateful. But it’s worth nothing to me, the money, the girls -” You felt yourself involuntarily cringe again. “The fame, the accolades, it’s worth nothing to me without the people that I love by my side. And if those people don’t know how much I love and appreciate them, because I treat them like shit, then that’s on me. No one else. Me.”

You sat quietly, taking in Jack’s emphatic statement. You weren’t quite sure what to say. So instead, you gently reached over and took Jack’s hand in yours, lacing your fingers through his and squeezing softly, for a moment while you gathered your thoughts.

“I know the life you live, Jack. You don’t have to be sorry for it. Playing hockey was all you ever dreamed of, and I honestly can’t blame you for… enjoying… all the perks it comes with.” You swallowed the wave of nausea that hit you, before continuing.

“I don’t… I don’t know what life looks like without you in it. The last month was such a bizarre experience, and not one that I ever want to repeat, but I also… I need to… Can I be honest?” You spoke softly, glancing up from your hands to meet Jack’s gaze, and he nodded encouragingly at you.

“I wasn’t just upset because you made me feel like I was inconveniencing you, or cock-blocking you -” It was Jack’s turn to cringe. “I think I was upset because I was jealous. Because that will never, ever be me. And I think… I think I want it to be? Maybe? Fuck, I don’t know!” You dropped Jack’s hand and stood up from the couch, and started to pace the room.

“Sugar, please sit down.” Jack pleaded, and you paused, looking back at him on the couch. One look was all you needed, and you narrowed your eyes at the smirk on his dumb face.

“Why are you smirking? I am experiencing emotional distress, you asshole.” You seethed, running your hands through your hair in frustration.

“Tell me more about this jealousy thing. I’m intrigued.” Jack’s tone was light and teasing, and washed over you like sour milk. Your head whipped in his direction and your face must’ve said a thousand words, because Jack’s smirk soon disappeared and he hurriedly stood up and walked over, reaching out to touch you.

“See, this -” You jabbed a finger into Jack’s chest. “This is why I have avoided this conversation for almost my entire life. Because you think it’s hilarious that we could ever go down that path. That we could ever be something more than what we are. Because I’m not good enough,or pretty enough, or just enough and I never will be, and I hate it. I hate it so much.” Your voice cracked on the last few words, and you felt the hot tears start to bubble out of your eyes and stream down your face.

Jack didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. He pulled you into a hug, bringing his hand up to your face and gently brushing away the tears with his thumbs.

“Breathe, sugar. You need to calm down.” Jack said quietly, willing you to calm. That just made you cry harder.

You were about to pull away, when you felt Jack cup your face with both hands, before leaning in to kiss you.

#jack hughes #jack hughes x reader #jack hughes imagine #jack hughes one shot #new jersey devils #luke hughes #luke hughes imagine #quinn hughes imagine #my writing #nhl fanfiction

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corrodedcoffins-blog · 17 days

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Second Chances

masterlist

note: this fic started cause i was listening to 'tattoos' by renee rapp and thought of trevor

warnings: angst with a bittersweet ending, smut, fingering, fem receiving!oral, p in v, unprotected sex (be safe!)

word count: 7.1 k

♡ summary: Reader giving Trevor another chance, after his already second chance and a complicated history. Right on the cusp of releasing her debut album

♡ Trevor Zegras x Hughes!reader

request ✗

yn_hughes

liked by elblue_06, jackhughes, and others

yn_hughes: thought it was about time to get this off my chest...

my album 'second chances' is out October 14!!! pre-order now, my loves <3

view all comments

jackhughes: so proud!!! (i hate casual and i wish i never heard it)

lhughes_06: and bad idea right...

quinnhughes: don't remind me

yn_hughes: be nice to me!!

jackhughes: god forbid we don't want to listen to songs about you hooking up with someone

lhughes_06: he was so close to typing a name there, i watched

quinnfebrey.nothughes: all this means to me is we're getting some horny bops!

lukeypookie: don't tell my mom?!?!! what?!?? 😭

quinnhughes: so proud of my little sister ❤️❤️

yn_hughes: thx q 😭😭😭

taybrina.stan: I Hate Boston being the only one with caps????

lhughes_06: ig i have to say im proud of you too or i'll look like a bad bro

yn_hughes: cause this doesn't make you look like a bad bro at all 🖕

iloveyn.besthughes: i love that y/n has some of the strongest hockey blood running through her veins yet she becomes a musical theatre nerd

yn_ismygirl: releasing the album on the duck's first official home game of the year... my girl's not subtle

iworkhardonusernamesgivemethisone: 'now that we don't talk' is gonna be pettyyyy

elblue_06: Love you honey!!! So proud of how for you've come!

yn_hughes: love you too mom ❤️

i.couldnt.be.more.wrong: stranger sounds SAD

edwards.73: this mean i have a chance now?

lhughes_06: when did you ever????

yn_hughes: 😉

lhughes_06: WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?????????

iloveknitting: i don't wanna listen to I Hate Boston i know im gonna hate trevor after...

lizhere.idoloveknitting: am i the only one excited for girl i've always been???!!!

markestapa: plot twist skinny dipping is about me

yn_hughes: shhhh 🤫

lhughes_06: im over the whole you flirting with my friends thing, move onto jacks

yn_hughes: been there, done that

cole22.unoriginal: "been there, done that" is crazyyyy

cheifs_87: i just know i'm gonna relate to i should hate you a little too much

ishouldhatethem: same...

2017

The chilly summer breeze brushed the girl’s legs, causing her to wrap her cardigan tighten around herself. Readjusting her footing on the roof, she sat down, looking over at the large group of boys around the fire, she could smell it from here; the fire not the boys.

She looked along the roofs of the neighbouring houses and wondered if they ever went on their roofs. Could they see her now from where she could see them sitting around their picnic table in their backyard? She went through the possibilities in her head, what would happen if they could, what she would do if she knew for sure they couldn’t see. But her thoughts were soon interrupted by the shuffling of another person getting on the roof, she turned her head to meet the eyes of Trevor.

Trevor was her twin brother’s best friend and teammate, and though Jack never explicitly said they couldn’t date and would act overly grossed out when Trevor flirted with the girl, she felt like she was in some way betraying him for the thoughts she had, quite often, about Trevor. He had some sort of power over her, like he just took the logic clean out of her head.

“Hey- um Cole asked where you were, so I came looking for you.”

It disappointed her more than it should that it was Cole who alerted him of her absence and not the boy simply missing her, or noticed she didn’t add her usual commentary.

“Oh well, you found me.”

That was embarrassing. Who even says that if they’re not in a book or movie? But obviously Trevor didn’t find her response that awkward since he sat down next to her. But the awkwardness quickly found her again at the situation of sitting next to the boy she really liked when she couldn’t think of anything to say. Her brain was completely blank. But Trevor, as he often did, cut the awkwardness that was in the air.

“So why are you up here?” He said, his hands rested on his bent knees as he looked up at the stars in the sky that night.

“I don’t know, just.. Didn’t feel like it tonight.”

It was silent again. Was he offended? Felt like what she said was a hint for him to leave? Because it definitely didn’t want him to leave, she would never forgive herself if she messed this up now.

What she didn’t know was that a completely different, yet very similar, anxiety was eating away at the boy’s thoughts. Come on. Do it! This is a perfect chance! You’re alone, and the stars are out, and her face is lit up beautifully by the campfire that was down in the yard. It was romantic. And he would never forgive himself if he missed this up now.

“Well, I’m happy that you didn’t.” And he messed it up.

He was happy she didn’t feel up to hanging out with them tonight? Did he hate her company that much that the prospect of seeing her even in a group setting was a nightmare?

“That- that came out so wrong! That’s not what I meant at all, really! I meant that I’m glad I found you up here. Where we’re alone, and that means I can do this.”

Looking into her eyes he began leaning forward, he gave her a look as if to ask if it was okay, she nodded and let him join their lips. His soft lips against hers, if she wasn’t on a roof and at a risk of falling she thinks she would have completely melted into him. Keeping her feet planted firmly, the girl brought her hands to Trevor’s neck after he wrapped his arms around her waist.

Now she’s had her fair share of kisses before, but nothing quite like this. She felt light, like she could float up to the sky at any second. But more importantly she felt safe. She couldn’t imagine a time she wouldn’t feel completely safe and warm and happy with Trevor.

They broke away from the kiss after a moment, though they didn’t go far, their foreheads rested against the others. His hands rubbed up and down her back under the cardigan, his hand stalling and the strip of skin between her jean shorts and crop top met, but only for a moment before it went back to the up and down motions. Her hands were busy with their own movements around his neck, down to his collarbone, and grasping his shoulders.

Trevor finally broke apart the moment of silence, “This mean we can do that more often?”

If it wasn’t for his winning smile, she would have had a better chance at the stoic face she was trying to put on. But Trevor did have a winning smile, one that always caused her to also smile.

“I want to take you on a date.” She may have kissed her fair share of guys, but she’d never been on a real date. One where she got asked, and got picked, and dropped off with a goodnight kiss at her front door. Where she would then tell her mom every second of it over ice cream on the back deck. She wanted that. She wanted it with Trevor. She couldn’t imagine her first real date with only one but Trevor.

“Okay, I’m sure I can clear my schedule.” “So glad you’ll clear your busy, busy schedule for me. It’s an honour.” “It should be! I don’t do that for just anyone!”

They ended up staying up there the remainder of the night, well at least until she heard Jack calling their names. Sharing soft kisses between their laughter. Trevor was definitely not just anyone to her. And she doesn’t think he ever will be.

2019

Driving in her car, she was coming from where she was living currently in New York to Boston. She liked Boston. It had a charm about it, and she was there to visit her boyfriend, Trevor, though these days ‘boyfriend’ seemed like a loose term. They don’t talk like they used to, it’s really both of their faults, they’re both busy. Trevor is university in Boston, focusing on Hockey and working hard to get to the NHL next year, and Y/n is working harder than ever after getting casted as Regina George in Mean Girls the musical on broadway.

But these days it felt as though she was the only one putting in effort, it was always her calling him, and her driving to him, never the other way around. It’s felt like forever since she’s gotten a call from him. Which is why she was going to Boston now, wanting to clear the air and get them back to how they used to be. She was so naive.

She knocks on the door to Trevor’s dorm, and before she can knock for the second time the door swings open, her boyfriend standing with a smile on his face and his arms open wide for a hug. His arms wrapped around her waist, back where they belong, and her's come to link behind his head at the nape of the boy’s neck. Their faces in each other’s neck, both taking in the soft scent of each other, ones they’ve missed deeply.

“Hi.” “Hi.” They whispered, if their lips were anywhere except brushing each other’s ears there would be no way they could hear each other. Trevor swayed them back and forth slightly before he gave her body one more big squeeze and let go.

It was perfect, it was heaven. So perfect Y/n almost forgot that they even had problems in the first place. That’s how it always was with Trevor though, he wasn’t good at long distance, he never put in the extra work long distance needed.

It wasn’t until a couple hours later, after Y/n and Trevor had caught up and gotten settled on his bed together. Y/n’s head rested on his chest, she couldn’t only hear but feel his heart beat. It was domestic and safe. That’s why it hurt her own heart to have to bring up what she had to bring up.

“Trev?” “Yeah?” “I wanted to talk about something, but I don’t want you to get mad.” “I won’t. I promise.” He promised.

So there they were. Why did they always end up like this? Screaming at each other. Neither wanted to be doing this, so why did they always do it?

“I never said it was your fault!” “Really?! ‘Cause that’s basically what you said!” “Don’t put words in my mouth!”

Trevor was pacing back and forth in front of his dorm door, while Y/n sat on the edge of the bed they were previously cuddled in. Her head in her hands, yelling at Trevor while her voice projected to the carpeted floor.

“You said I wasn’t putting effort in our relationship?! In case you haven’t noticed, I have my own life! I’m busy! With hockey! With classes! And wasn’t it me that asked you to come here this weekend?!”

She picked her head up, now getting heated, “Oh yeah, when I called you! Then I drove up here! To see you!” “What does it matter who called who?! And who drove where?!” “Because it’s always me!” “It’s not always you.” “Have you seen my apartment, Trevor? Not just on facetime?!... No! You haven’t!”

After a couple more back and forth points, both defending themselves and blaming each other without listening back. Y/n was now sitting criss cross on Trevor’s bed while the boy sat in his desk chair. The pizza they had ordered was sitting next to her on the bed, half eaten.

“Trevor, I haven’t even met your new friends-” “They’re not important.” “But shouldn’t you want me too? God forbid you’re not the centre of attention.. And you don’t- You used to tell me you loved me five times a day, sometimes more.. You don’t do that anymore.” “I’m busier now.” “Busier than when you were on team USA?!”

That shut him up. His head dropped to his hands, elbows rested on his knees. Licking his lips he picked up his head again to look at the girl, the sadness was written all over his face, they both knew what was coming. After a moment the words they’ve both been thinking for the past hour were spoken into existence.

“Maybe we should break up…”

After a minute she dared to look at the boy, his head was back in his hands, looking at the floor, his hair flopped over his face to hide the tears she knew were there. A small puddle from the splashes was her give away, that and the fact that no matter what she will always know Trevor better than anyone.

And she knew that walking out was what Trevor needed, they could talk another time. But Trevor, and herself, needed time to think.

Getting into her car, she stared at the car that was parked in front of her. Staring at herself in the reflection was the only reason she knew she was crying, the glimmer of the tears fell down her cheeks, they tickled slightly when they reached her neck. Her head fell against the wheel, it was like she lacked the strength to hold it up any longer.

Rifling through her purse she finally felt the soft case on her phone, opening it to her contacts she started scrolling till she saw her mom’s contact with a red heart next to it. Just as she was about to press down on the phone, she stopped herself.

She couldn’t call her mom, one because it was far too late, though that’s never stopped her before and her mother always picked up. But the real reason, reason two was that her mom was dealing with far too much right now, dealing with only having one baby at home, Luke, and the weight of knowing Jack was having a terrible rookie year. She couldn’t give the woman more to add to her plate.

It’s always been that her problems were her mom’s problems, her scars are her mom’s scars. But right now, she would rather her mom think that she’s fine while she was hurting more than ever, than make this another thing to keep her up at night. She didn’t need that, and after what she’s done for the girl, she didn’t deserve that.

So she drove. Where? She had no clue. She just drove, thinking about what she could have done differently, what Trevor should have done differently. There were so many things he should have said. But those were things he’d never get to say to her.

She finally stopped at an empty parking lot. The girl was meant to be sleeping at Trevor’s dorm tonight, so she supposed she had to set up camp. Thank god she had a couple blankets and pillows in the back. Getting out she set up a place to sleep in the back of her car. Now left with her phone and her thoughts.

Opening the notes app she got to writing. Writing songs was always something she did when she had to work through her emotions. Yet all she seemed to be able to write was, ‘I hate Boston’. It wasn’t Boston’s fault, but with how she was feeling now she would always remember this place as where she got her heart broken.

2021

“Mom, seriously I’m fine with this.”

Of course she wasn’t fine with this, Trevor is now living full time an hour away from her. And obviously she knew this was going to happen eventually, so she should have known better, but that’s besides the point.

“You know I worry about you.” “I know, but I’m fine, mom.”

Ellen was calling her everyday to check in, she knew her daughter was hurting, she could hear it in the girl’s tone, no matter how many ‘I’m fine’s and ‘don’t worry about me’s she knew. Y/n naively thought she was fooling the woman, she didn’t want to worry her mom over the pain she was feeling from a guy she broke up with two years ago.

“Okay. I love you, honey.” “I love you too, mom”

In her mind, what Ellen didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.

She was so fucked up. Out with her friends in LA, going into bar after bar, she needed to clear her thoughts, which worked as she couldn’t hear them anymore. Which is probably why she ended up texting Trevor whom she hasn’t talked to since the summer a couple months ago. After she put her phone on the table she quickly picked it up again at the sound of her ringtone.

“Hey Trevor!” “Hi. Did you mean to send that text to me?” “I don’t remember what did it say?” “From what I can make out it says, ‘hey can I come over?’ though most of it was spelt extremely wrong and that’s coming from me.”

It was like old times, no awkwardness, that was the nice thing about Trevor he always knew how to get the awkward tension from the air.

“Yeah, that was the one I meant to send to you.” She also texted Luke, saying how much she missed him, she would hate it if she accidently sent that one to him.

“You wanna see me?” “Yeah!” “For what?”

They both knew what she wanted to come over for, but better be safe than sorry.

“You know.” After a moment of silence, he responds, “Okay” and sends over his new address.

Not wanting to track down her friends, she left, texting them in the uber that she left and was going to sleep, it technically wasn’t a lie she was going to sleep, eventually, but she couldn’t tell them she was going to see Trevor because they would try to stop her. She was drinking water in the uber wanting to sober up by the time she got to Trevor’s, and as her head was clearing of the cloudiness the alcohol brought her, she knew it was a bad idea. Of course it was a bad idea. Hooking up with an ex is like rule 101 of breakup etiquette. And that she probably shouldn’t, but… Fuck it, it’s fine.

The man buzzed her into his apartment building, she made her way up to the second floor, and all the way to his door she couldn’t help but think this was a bad idea, it could only end badly. But what if it didn’t? What if it ended good, really good?

She only knocked on the door once before it opened to show the smiling boy. God, when she looked at him, all the thoughts of this ending badly left. He looked good, he looked hot, she’s sure she’s seen better but in that moment, who cared?

She pushed him in the door, shutting it behind her and let Trevor push her up against it. She couldn’t hear her thoughts again, no longer drunk of alcohol but drunk of him. His hands travelled south, starting at her waist then over her hips and then stopping at the hem of her skirt, now travelling back up this time under her clothes.

“You’re not still drunk, right?” “No, I had like five waters on the way here.” “Good.”

His hands went to the backs of her thighs, lifting her off the floor, her legs went around his waist and her hands were now more secure on his shoulders to aid him in carrying her. They made their way onto the couch, Trevor laying the girl down on her back before climbing on top, leaving kisses up her body until he met her lips. He paused slightly, was kissing too personal? Yes.

Instead he decided to kiss her neck as his hands made their way to push her skirt up farther and hooking his hands around the waist of her panties, between soft pecks on her neck and chest, he asked, “You’re sure.” “God, Trevor, would I have gotten in an hour long uber ride if I wasn’t sure?” “Just have to make sure.” Thinking that was enough, the girl waited to feel his lips back on her and his hands back to their movements, and when she felt no such thing, she opened her eyes to look at the boy that was already looking back. He had a teasing smirk on his face and a look on his face as if to say, ‘go on’. She knew what he wanted so she did it, if she wasn’t this eager she would have teased him back but alas, “Yes.” “Good girl.”

After getting her panties off and out of his way, the man brought his hand back up to her cunt, he left feather light touches around her hole, teasingly inserting the very tip on his middle finger only to leave her empty again after a second. He brought his finger to his mouth, wetting it with his spit before going back to her cunt and rubbing a tight circles on her clit. The weight of his fingers caused the sensation to run from the tips of her toes to a feeling deep in her stomach.

“Ohh, Trev, please.”

His unoccupied hand nudged the hem of her shirt off as a sign to take it off, which she did, he then slipped his hand under her back to the clasp of her bra, slipping it off and throwing it onto the coffee table next to them. Now playing not-so-gently with her nipples, rubbing the hardened buds between his index finger and thumb while tugging slightly. Without concern he inserts two fingers, now using his thumb on her clit sporadically. Which caused the girl to moan his name, even louder when his mouth attached to her nipple.

“Trevo-ohh, more- please more!”

Slipping his fingers out of her and bringing them to his mouth, he tasted the tanginess of the girl, something he missed. After cleaning his fingers off her precum he took off his own shirt, finally levelling out the clothes-to-bare skin ratio that till he started unbuckling his pants wasn’t fair.

After getting his pants and boxers out of the way, Trevor rubs the head of his cock up and down the girl’s wet folds, gathering her precum to help him slip in easier. Without warning the man thrusted into his girl’s cunt, “Ooh, baby, still feel so fucking good.” If she wasn’t completely thoughtless from his dick being inside her she would have definitely overthought the man’s use of the pet name, she’ll overthink later.

Getting himself into a perfect pace for them both Trevor brought his lips down to her neck again, suckling and leaving lingering kisses to her sweet spot, finding it effortlessly even after all these years. It was like nothing had changed. Later on the ride home she would realise that in fact everything had changed.

“Trev, I’m gonna-ahh” “Me too. Let go, baby.”

He hit a new spot deep inside her when he brought her knee up to the girl’s shoulder, he could feel the girl squeeze around him. And after a few more thrusts he felt the gush of her cum dripping out of her and around him. He tried his best to last longer to elongate her orgasm, but from the feeling of her cumming he quickly slipped out and came on the girl’s stomach.

Resting on his knees, head falling back as he caught his breath, he got up walking to the bathroom, he came back clean and wearing his boxers and a warm wet towel. Coming back to her, he kneeled between her legs once again, whipping the warm wet hand towel through her folds to clean the girl up.

“Ahh” “Sorry, baby, I’ll try to be gentle.”

He continued to clean her off, slipping her panties back on her when he’s done. He also helped her slip on her shirt, both forgot about her bra, but truthfully she didn’t even want to think about putting it back on in her tired state.

“We should do this again.” He joked to break the awkwardness of hooking up with your ex.

“You know we don’t work, Trev.” “No I mean.. Just this.”

So they did. And at first it was good for a while. They agreed it was casual, that there would be no attachments. They met in some random parking lot because Trevor’s roommate was home, Trevor’s head between her legs. Licking between her wet folds to clean off her cum. When he had gotten all that he could he sat up and crawled over to his seat, whipping his mouth with his sleeve when he sat back.

“You taste so good, baby.” He said while he leaned over the console to place a kiss on her lips that left an anger bubbling in her chest, how could he say they weren’t together when he would kiss her like that, “Let’s get in the back.”

They both got out of the car, Trevor faster than the girl who was still recovering from her orgasm. He opened the truck, getting in and helping the girl get in after him. Cuddled together like old times, she could almost pretend that there was love. Neither talked, that’s how she liked it at the moment then she could pretend it truly was like old times and they were in love again, and that they would talk about moving in together next season. But they couldn’t. Because they were just casual.

She really did like the idea of being casual and having no attachments at first, but it’s Trevor. She could never be just casual with Trevor. How could they be casual when her favourite clothes lived at his apartment? How could they be casual when Ava called her every time she needed advice from an ‘older sister’? How could they be casual when his mom invited to stay with her in Long Beach while she was there to see Trevor? How was that casual?

Trevor was good to her. He really was. Because in his man brain they were casual. But she couldn’t lie to him anymore. She hadn’t written a song in forever, too afraid of what would spue out of her mind when she picks up her guitar.

“Is this still just casual for you?”

His head turned towards her, like it was slow motion in a movie. He looked at her like he was hurt. Why was he hurt?

“Y/n, we shouldn’t talk about this now-” “If not now then when?!” “Y/n-” “No, really, Trevor. When? When?!”

He brought his knees up to his chest, his head resting in his hands between them. She could see the deep breaths he was taking by the rise and fall of his back, “We said no attachments, baby.”

“It’s us, Trevor! Did you seriously think we wouldn’t have attachments?! I can’t keep doing this-” “What?” “That fact that tomorrow I could wake up and you could decide we’re done! That scares me! The fact that I have no idea if you'll just let me go at any moment!” “You know I wouldn’t do that.” “Do I?! Because, honestly, Trevor, it feels like you’ve never loved me. That you just want sex. And I can’t do that anymore, I want more! And if you really can’t give me that.. Then I have to let you go.”

She couldn’t do it anymore. Acting like this was what she wanted. She didn’t want to pretend he loved her anymore. She honestly doesn’t even know why the silence from him still shocked her. But fuck did it anger her more.

“Talk, Trevor! Talk!” Shaking his head as he starts, “You knew I didn’t want a relationship when this started! So don’t go blaming me for this! I’m just getting my career started, and I can’t have a girl to distract me right now.” “...That’s what I am to you? Just a girl?” “Y/n, c’mon, you know I didn’t-” “No! Don’t back track now! I’m just some girl to you! I’m just some girl you bang on your couch sometimes!”

Getting out of this, she walks to her car in the next space over, reaching for the handle she hears, “I just don’t know you anymore.” The scoff that came from her lips was louder than intended, but at this point she didn’t care, “Bye, Trevor.”

She left that parking lot as fast as possible, blew through a red light to get onto the 405. She couldn’t help but think ‘what if she got in a car crash tonight’ nothing good came from thinking of stuff like that but she often did, and if she did crash tonight, she thinks that she would regret Trevor. It hurts her to think that after all they’ve been through, she regrets him and all the time she spent thinking of him. When he clearly didn’t think of her as much.

She thought about all the things he put in front of her time and time again; hockey, his team, sex, they all seemed to be more important to him. As time went on between them, she could feel her importance to him slip away. From that first night in his new apartment to now, she had fallen far down his list of priorities.

The houses along the road caught her eye, a couple was sitting out on their deck. It reminded her of the night her and Trevor first got together on the roof of the girl’s house, just outside her bedroom window. That felt lifetimes away, she almost forgot her and Trevor ever felt that strongly about each other at the same time. It felt like anything would remind her of Trevor. He was very well acquainted with the back of her head, he’s basically lived there since they were sixteen.

But she should hate him. He didn’t even try to fight for them, both times! She felt stupid, how could she still love a man who clearly didn’t feel love back, lust maybe, but not love. It wasn’t logical, nothing really was with her in regards to Trevor. It was as if he took the logical half of her brain, a power he's had over the girl since a young age. Around him she could only lead with her heart, never her head. And that was the half she desperately needed around him. The half that did hate him, and didn’t want to make excuses and forgive him, because that’s all she wanted to do at that moment.

So she did the only thing that always helped her. She called her mom.

The line only rang a couple times before Ellen picked up, and since she had no idea of the distress her daughter was in she thought this was just like any other of their phone calls, “Hi, honey, how are you?”

As soon as the words passed through the line, the tears in the young girl’s eyes started falling harder, “It’s over.”

Ellen and Y/n always had a special relationship, growing up Y/n didn’t have many friends that were girl’s, the fact that they moved around a lot for the boy’s hockey careers, and she has always had a hard time making friends. She mostly hung around with her brother’s and their friends, who soon became her friends. One good thing that came from that though is the strong relationship she has with her mother.

“Oh, baby, I’m sorry. Do you want to tell me what happened?” On the other line Ellen made her way outside, out of ear shot of anyone else in the house. “I’m alone, hun, get it all off your chest.”

“He never puts me first. I don’t know why I ever thought he could, why I ever thought he could be serious about us. And after all these years, he can’t say he loves me.”

“Maybe, and I know this may not be what you want to hear, but I think it’s what you need to hear. Maybe this is for the best. If a boy can’t put you first, he doesn’t deserve you.”

She thought about that all night, till she fell asleep, but when she woke she thought about it more. Those words repeated in her head for weeks. She kept telling herself that more she gave him, more love, more commitment, he just wanted her less. They didn’t want the same things. Maybe they never would.

And one morning she woke up, and she felt better. The girl still called Ellen everyday. And everyday her mother told her things would get better, and at first she thought this was just a comforting lie a mom has to tell her daughter. But today? Today was the day things started feeling better. It was a weight of her chest.

That day she picked up her guitar. She got it all out, something music always did for her. And it felt nice. So nice.

2023 (summer)

This was the first time Trevor would be at the lake house at the same time as her since the summer of 2021. She had expertly avoided him, spending summers with her friends until she got word from Quinn of Trevor’s schedule. But this year things were different, her best friend is on a trip with her boyfriend in Europe, and even asking very nicely the couple said ‘no’.

And don’t get her wrong, she looked for every other option, but none were there. And she couldn’t just stay home for the summer, she knew her brother’s wouldn’t say anything but it would upset them that she doesn’t come see them during their only time off.

So she was going to see Trevor after years. Well not like it’s been years, they saw each other from time to time at hockey events and whatnot, but it’s been a couple years since they’ve been in the same place for an extended amount of time.

Jack, Luke, and Quinn were outside now, he supposed this would be a good time since they were all there and alone. Most of the other guys were on the other side of the yard playing a casual game of football, but knowing the group it wasn’t casual. He sat down between Jack and Quinn, Luke across from him, he took a quick sip of beer not quite knowing what to say.

“Yes?” Quinn was the one who decided to bite. “Y/n’s coming tomorrow?” “Yeah.” The oldest brother said, harshly, he didn’t know exactly what happened. Y/n would usually go to her friends or their mom about things like that. But that doesn’t mean he hadn’t heard, and seen, his fair share of the lasting effects the break up had on the girl.

Realising where this was going Luke got up, his hands on his knees and he mumbled something only Jack, who was closest to the boy heard, “I’m not dealing with this shit.”

“What about it, Z?” Jack just wanted to get this over with, he knew it was coming, he knew his best friend would ask about the girl before she arrived, but he wished it happened when Quinn wasn’t around, it would save him a headache.

He tried to play it cool, acting like he was just stating a fact to start small talk with no ulterior motives, but they all knew that was a lie. “I just- I was wondering how she is. What she’s up to.” Jack half-expected Quinn to blow his head off at the words, he was always the most protective over their sister. Personally, Jack didn’t care about that, maybe it was because they were the same age, but if he could take care of himself he knew Y/n could. But instead the eldest calmly got up, patted Jack on the back and left without a word.

“Is she good?” “Yeah. She’s good.” “Good.”

Jack didn’t know if he was supposed to say what he was about, but it was already coming out of his mouth when he thought of the consequences, “She’s releasing an album actually.” The boy’s head shot to the side, to look at Jack fully, he only had one question he wanted to ask, Jack didn’t even let the boy get a word in, “Yeah.”

The air in Michigan felt different than in LA, and not just because of the air pollution, Michigan felt like summer. She could feel the change from their usual weather of late winter that slowly seeped to spring then into summer.

Ellen and Jim had picked her up from the airport, which was good because she didn’t have to get an uber but also because she could actually catch up with them without her brother’s interrupting.

“Trevor’s here y’know.” “I know, dad.” “Is that okay?” “I’m happy without him. And I want him to be happy. And I want us to be able to be friendly.” It meant a lot when her father checked in on her, not that he didn’t do it a lot, he did. But right now, she needs it.

The three pulled into the driveway of the lake house, and as soon as they did the girl got out of the car and ran through the house to find everyone. After checking the living room, kitchen, and the den she found the large group of boys outside.

She tackled Luke into a hug, he was closest to her, “Hey, Lukey!” Luke mumbled back since her hug was so tight that his face was shoved into her shoulder, “Hi, Y/n.”

After all the hello’s with her brothers, all very similar to the one she had with Luke, she said hello to her and Jack's friends, Quinn’s friends she’s known as long as she can remember, and Luke’s new College friends, she hadn’t met them yet since she hasn’t been at the lake house. Then of course, after she met someone named Dylan, Trevor caught her line of vision.

And all the work, all the crying, and screaming, and fighting with herself that she made the right decision, all the progress she made, gone. She felt the same as she had the night in the parking lot, and the time in his college dorm. Helpless, helplessly in love with him. Just as she’s always been.

“Hey.” “Hi.”

Both took a deep breath, and it was as if their eyes were glued to each other, they never left. Jack spoke, wanting to give the (ex) couple some privacy, though that didn’t exactly go to plan, “Okay. Um- food in the kitchen.” “Yeah, that sounds good.” The girl said, quickly pulling her sunburn gaze from the boy to make her way back into the house.

“Some history there?” Dylan asked, as he and Luke walked up the steps up to the house.

Y/n successfully avoided Trevor all day, which wasn’t her original plan but after him tearing down all her hard work of getting over him with just a little eye contact and one word, she was scared of what a conversation would do.

So after a long day of not talking about and trying not to think about him, she sat outside her window to think about him. The roof was her favourite place at the lake house, a place she could think.

It was a place that reminded her of Trevor.

How, even after everything, did she love him? After he repeatedly didn’t put her first, didn’t think of how his actions affect her, didn’t want to love her. How did she love him?

She wished they could just strip their history bare and start over. Now that they’re older, they both have careers of their own, maybe it could work this time?

The sound of the bedroom window being pushed further open and shuffling cuts the girl from her thoughts, looking over she sees the very boy that has occupied her thoughts since they were fifteen.

“Hi.” “Hi.”

The boy sat next to her, he left what he thought was an appropriate amount of space between them. Sitting next to her was more nerve racking than he thought, swiping his clammy hands on his knees, Trevor tries to break that awkward tension.

“I heard you’re writing an album.” “I am.” “I’m proud of you. I know that’s what you’ve always wanted.”

Turning her head from where her eyes were previously staring down the horizon in an act to distract her from making eye contact, she looked at him. Took in how he wasn’t looking at her, maybe he was as nervous as her, and his lips that were between his teeth as an anxious tick, his eyes that never stayed in one place for long, he really was beautiful. She’s always thought that.

“Thank you, Trev.”

After a couple too many moments of silence she decides to ask what she’s been waiting to ask, “Where’d you hear that?” “Oh, Jack mentioned it.”

She wishes it was from him asking her brother about her, but realistically Jack probably said something about it to the group and Trevor just remembered. But it didn’t take away from the fact that he remembered that being a singer was always her final goal, and the fact that he was proud of her. He may not know it but that meant the whole world to her.

“I- Y/n… I’m sorry.” Y/n opened her mouth to say she too was sorry, but was cut off by the boy, “No please, I need to talk.” Closing her mouth, she nods a ‘yes’ and lets him continue, “I never should have treated you the way I did, and I’m not just talking about Cali, I’m talking about Boston too. I- You mean so much to me, and I never told you that. And I should have. I should have told you every single day how much I love you and how much you mean to me, no matter if we were in the same bed or across the country, I should’ve told you that everyday.. But I do regret it everyday that I didn’t. That I just let the best, most talented, and smart, and funny, and gorgeous girl in the world go. I was a fucking idiot. I regret that every fucking day.” Trevor can’t help it as he lets small tears fall from his eyes and down his cheek.

“I really did love you. I guess I just- I was really bad at communication, and I was under a lot of pressure with hockey, and that’s no excuse I know! I just what to explain my fucked thought process. I was under pressure and I felt like I couldn’t manage a relationship, but I also felt like I couldn't not have you in my life. And I want you to know, that was never casual. It’s us! Nothing with us is casual.

“And when you broke things off, I’d never and don’t think it’s possible to feel worse than how I did then. I was so fucked that coach sent me to therapy! Which is why I can say all this stuff now.. I just need you to know that, I’ve changed. And even though I don’t deserve it, if you gave me a second chance.. I wouldn’t fuck it up this time.”

Maybe she was fucked, but she believed him. But could she give him a second chance? Or rather, a third chance. After everything he’s done? Could people change? Maybe they could. She never would have pegged Trevor for the therapy type, but he went. She’s gone to therapy, has for years, and it’s helped her. Made her into a better version of herself, maybe it did to Trevor too. But could she take that chance? Risk getting hurt by him again?

Of course she could. It’s Trevor.

“I want to give you another chance. But it’s gonna take a lot more.” “Like what? I’ll do anything.” “If we can be friends this summer, and go to couples therapy when we get to California, and we both try and work hard to make this work. I would.” “Done… I don’t know if this is in the clear for ‘friends’, but I want you to know that I love you.” “I love you too.”

Taylor Swift once said that they’re ‘relationships that are never really done’ that was them. No matter how many years it took, no matter how many chances, and wrong timings they had, their narrative will never truly be over.

#trevor zegras #trevor zegras x fem!reader #trevor zegras x reader #trevor zegras x hughes!reader #trevor zegras x famous singer!reader #trevor zegras x famous!reader #trevor zegras x hughes reader #trevor zegras x hughes!sister #hughes brothers fic #hughes brothers #trevor zegras x fem reader #trevor zegras x female reader #jack hughes #luke hughes #quinn hughes #hughes!reader #hughes sister #hughes!sister

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luvhughes43 · 10 months

Text

say yes to heaven (track one) | tz11 x reader

cruel world [masterlist]🕊

word count: 2.1k

Rolling Stone

Date: June 28th, 2023

Growing up, Yn Ln always dreamt that she would become a singer. Her inspirations were figures well beyond her years, taking inspiration from the likes of great artists from decades past. Her melancholic style became instantly notable when she first hit the scene a few short weeks ago with her debut single, video games. Of course, none of her earlier works can be found on streaming services anymore, but her style has remained consistent over the years as she now releases her debut album in 2023.

interviewer: Yn, your album “Cruel World” has become an instant cult classic for music reviewers and fans alike. But what everyone really wants to know is what, and who, inspired you?

Yn laughs lightly, rubbing her palms on her jeans before she starts talking.

Yn Ln: It was [pause].. it was a long process. I was inspired by my real life [another pause] and my friends' lives. A lot of things went into creating the album. I’ve spent years working on it.

interviewer: Are you aware of the rumours surrounding the album? That every song is about an ex of yours? Trevor I think his name is?

Yn tenses briefly at the mention of her ex and swipes her palms against her jeans once more.

Yn Ln: Like I said, the album was inspired by things I've gone through. I don’t feel the need to put names to songs.

She laughs lightly trying to ease the tension of the room.

Interviewer: Well, regardless, Cruel World is an amazing album.

Yn smiled politely, taking a sip of her coffee.

when yn hughes first laid her eyes on trevor zegras, she felt a spark. when she went to bed that night she didn’t dream about her favourite characters, or books, she didn’t even create perfect little scenarios. no, she fell asleep to thoughts of her brothers best friend. his soft hair, the way he glided the puck across the ice, his smile and enthusiasm when his team did well… yn hughes was doomed from the start.

‘cause ive got my mind on you

i’ve got my mind on you

you didn't actually meet trevor face to face till a week after first seeing him. your twin, Jack, had invited him and a few other friends over to the house for the day. you laid in bed, eyes closed listening to all the commotion below before you decided to go downstairs and greet everyone.

when you finally made your way to the group, you stood awkwardly at the bottom of the stairs. the wood chilly as you watched your brother and his friends play fight.

“I’m trevor!” one of the boys beamed as he stepped away from the group of rowdy boys.

you smiled softly in response as trevor ruffled his hair. “i’m yn-”

“jacks twin! right, i've heard so much about you! you know, i always wondered if it was true that twins had like, intuition? Is that a thing?” trevor rambled, his words fast and inquisitive, a habit which presented itself quite frequently.

you laughed, nodding in the small breaks of trevors words as he kept talking about twins and their behaviours he had apparently heard about.

when he finally stopped his speech, yn answered his first of many questions. “i mean i dont know about intuition but…”

“trev!” jack called, “get over here, stop talking to yn!”. he was shaking an xbox controller, gesturing for trevor to come join their group of friends who were lounging on the sofa ready to play.

“but he always seems to pick up on when i'm having a good time” you smiled cheekily.

trevors face burned red and he rubbed at his neck absentmindedly as he looked you up and down. you watched his eyes trail, and you had never felt so giddy in all of your life. butterflies fluttered in your stomach until trevor broke away from you.

“Ill uh- ill.. i’ll see you around,” trevor finished lamely, clearly feeling the same giddiness you felt as he sharply turned away from you and sat next to your brother. you stood in your spot for another second, watching as trevor tried to hide his smile from your brother.

the house was quiet as you made your way into your kitchen for a glass of water. you had fallen after working on some music and you woke up dazed and a little confused.

you open the fridge, the little light partially illuminating the kitchen. a figure moves out of the darkness causing you to jump and let out a little shriek.

your breathing speeds up, one of your hand coming to rest over your mouth as trevor steps into the light of the fridge.

“Its just me!” trevor says, voice hoarse with sleep. he lays a had on your shoulder, watching you with wide eyes as you try to calm yourself down.

“what are you doing here?” you asked breathlessly as your breathing started to slow. “uh your parents let me and a few other guys stay over tonight” trevor explained, hand still resting on your shoulder.

“what? when?” trevors hand falls from your shoulders and moves to brush through his hair.

“after dinner. you were up in your room playing… the guitar was it? It sounded really nice”

“thanks…” your face heated and you were so glad that you hadn't decided to turn the kitchen light on.

“what were you working on anyway?” trevor changed the subject as he opened the fridge and pulled out a jug of milk.

your nose crinkled as he grabbed his discarded cup and poured himself a glass. “oh you know,” you shrugged your shoulders. you didn’t know why you did it but you never wanted to talk about your music. with all your brother's talents and successes, you felt that you choosing music was an embarrassment to your family even though you knew at heart that it wasn’t true.

trevor must have picked up on your hesitancy so he shrugged, bringing his glass of milk to his lips as he took another swig.

“milk?” you questioned, and trevor held the glass out for you to take.

“want some?” he asked, tilting the glass towards you.

“definitely not”

“it makes your bones strong and stuff, you should try it”

“Trevor i've drank milk before,” you say sarcastically.

“well yeah but like, you know what i mean”

you rolled your eyes playfully, “okay fine give me the glass,” you reached your hand out and trevor passed his cup to you. you peered into the cup.

“its just milk it's not gonna hurt you” trevor laughed as he leaned back against the kitchen counter.

you tentatively took a sip and when you finished you passed the glass back to trevor.

“how was it?” “gross”

“yeah okay,” trevor rolled his eyes, leaning his head back as he finished the rest of the glass.

you reached past trevors shoulder, grabbing a glass to fill with water.

“well, im going to go to bed,” trevor nods to you as he sets his now empty glass in the sink.

“goodnight,” you respond as you fill your glass.

“yah night,” trevor walks out of the kitchen and you watch him leave.

what the hell was that? you whisper to yourself, downing the rest of your water before heading to bed yourself.

the next few weeks followed similarly. you and trevor would have these weird random moments, and you would both awkwardly smile at each other and move on with your days. that was until the boys decided to have a bonfire now that your parents were out of town to celebrate the start of the summer.

you felt the warm heat of the fire on your legs as you sat near the pit with your friend. you watched absentmindedly as trevor talked to his friends before you felt the weight of your friend's hand on your shoulder.

“you know yn, if you want him that badly then…” you whipped your head around at your friends words.

“what?” your eyes were wide in shock. you hadn’t told anybody about your growing feelings for trevor.

“I’m just saying you’re not being really secretive…”

“he's my brother's best friend” you shrugged, your eyes drifting from your friend and back to the boy in question. He was nursing a beer he had somehow managed to sneak past his own parents.

“okay… what does that have to do with anything? hes hot” your friend shrugs.

“hes also jacks teammate it just, it wouldn't work out the way i’d want it to” you expressed your reasons on why you couldn't date trevor and it sounded more ridiculous each time. you knew you wanted to be with him, and honestly, jack wasn't what you were worried about. you were more worried of the possible rejection. sure you and trevor had spent time together and talked. but majority of that time was when the two of you were alone. what if trevor doesn't want anything more than the private meetups?

“how do you want it to work out?”

you fiddled with your hands, ignoring your friends question.

“he clearly likes you though, if that's what you're worried about” you hummed in response, lazily turning your head to look at trevor again. He smiled at you when he caught you looking. you didn't have the energy to look away. you knew then that you'd rather be rejected then not with him at all.

let the fear you have fall way

i’ve got my eye on you

say yes to heaven

say yes to me

“trev!” you hear jack call from across the fire pit, “can you go get us more marshmallows?” the boy easily agrees as he stands up from his lawn chair and begins to make his way inside.

“Yn im thirsty!” your friend quickly says, pushing you up and off your seat. “can you get me a root beer?” she pleads, causing your brothers and his friends to shift their attention to the two of you. you quickly catch on to what she's doing, and you nod with enthusiasm.

“does anyone else want something?” you ask the group as you slowly back away. Jack asks for water, and you nod before following Trevor into your house.

the house was silent as the two of you worked your way around the kitchen. just as trevor was about to make his way back outside again, you stopped him. your hand tugged on his wrist and he was turning back to face you.

“trevor,” you breathed out, a little shocked at your sudden courage.

“yn,” he whispered back. you could hear the faint sound of the fire crackling and everyone's laughter out in the backyard.

it felt magnetic, the pull that brought your lips up to meet his. the kiss was soft and innocent. something that could easily be explained away as a spur of the moment thing. you refused to let it.

“yn,” trevor whispered again, this time painfully.

“trevor,” you were hopeful.

he kissed you again, one of his hands coming down to settle on your waist as your arm wrapped itself around his neck.

when you both pulled apart, trevor rested his forehead against yours, his breath slowing down as you both relaxed.

“we cant do this,” trevor said almost regretfully as his head turned at the sound of your brothers loud voice teasing cole.

“we can do whatever we want” you replied, ignoring all the background noise.

“jacks your twin. he's my teammate. my best friend. i can't just-”

“say yes to me” you blurted and your face heated up instantly.

“It's not that easy-”

“yes it is. trevor just say yes to me and we can figure out what to do with jack later,”

trevor seemed unsure of what to say for the first time.

“What's taking you so long! damn!” jacks voice pops the bubble you and trevor had built not even a minute earlier.

“sorry i couldn't find the marshmallows,” trevor mumbles, stepping away from you and towards your brother.

“why didn’t you help hin y/n? don't be rude” your brothers voice seemed to pierce the quiet of the kitchen.

“he didn’t want me to help,” you replied quietly, reaching behind you for the water bottle jack had asked for earlier.

“well that was stupid. she literally lives here z she knows where everything is,” jack responded cluelessly.

“Yeah, right, my bad” trevor nodded along with his words as he watched jack reach into a corner cabinet to retrieve a bag of marshmallows.

I’ll put my red dress on, get it on

and if you fight, i’ll fight

it doesn’t matter, now its all gone

i got my mind on you

ynhughes

liked by jackhughes, trevorzegras, yourbff, and others

ynhughes ❤️

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yourbff hottest bff ever🤤

ynhughes love u

jackhughes “❤️”

ynhughes if u dont leave me alone…

[insta dms]

trevorzegras: I’m sorry about that night

trevorzegras: I just don't want jack mad at me yk? I do really like you and I shouldn't have just left things like that

ynhughes: what are you trying to say?

trevorzegras: That i'm saying yes to you

trevorzegras: and that i’m sorry

present day

ynhughes

liked by lhughes_06, colecaufield, yourbff, and others

ynhughes say yes to heaven, mv out now❤️ i love u all so much

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yourbff im crying real tears i love you so so much

ynhughes i love u more forever

fan01 just listened to say yes to heaven for the first time and it's soo beautiful

fan02 love you so much yn

liked by ynhughes

lhughes_06 very cool

#cruel world au #trevor zegras x reader #trevor zegras fic #trevor zegras imagine #jack hughes x reader #nhl fanfiction #nhl imagine #nhl blurb #nhl fic #luke hughes x reader #quinn hughes x reader

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runwayrunway · 11 months

Text

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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ilyasorokinn · 2 years

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first time meeting at kindergarten and knowing that they will marry you one day with any of the hughes brothers please (:

A BOY KNOWS

i went with quinn :)

kindergarten

quinn scouted out his possible friends from his spot at the front of the classroom. there was a group of boys and he knew that was the group of people he wanted to associate with, but he saw you sitting by yourself at the coloring table.

he hesitated before making his way over to the group of boys discussing god knows what. later that day, he was talking with his new friends and spotted another group of boys from 1st grade standing in front of you, looking menacing.

it took him only a matter of moments to make his way over to you. he stepped in front of you, giving the bullies the meanest look he could. they simply laughed and pushed him aside, which sent him to the ground, scraping his arm.

the teacher nearby finally noticed what was happening and stepped in. he reprimanded the 1st graders and sent quinn to the nurse. you went with him.

you sat with him and waited as the nurse cleaned the wound on his arm and then placed a bandaid on it. she smiled at you and sent you on your way.

when you walked back out into the playground, quinn's friends were waving for him to come back over. he looked back over at you and hesitated.

"thank you," you spoke up.

"for what?"

"for helping me." you leaned over and kissed his cheek, then walked away.

the next day, you were back sitting at the drawing table, all by yourself and instead of playing with his news friends, quinn decided to sit with you.

"what are you coloring?"

"a rainbow," you answered, not looking up from the coloring sheet in front of you.

quinn nodded, reaching over for a coloring sheet of his own and starting his own picture. at that moment, even though he had no idea what it was, he knew he was gonna marry you.

present

quinn was standing at the alter, wringing his hands together nervously, "dude, chill out." jack laughed.

"i can't." jack rolled his eyes.

after years of waiting, you and quinn finally decided to get married. so the second day of off-season, you were booking an appointment at the courthouse.

his parents flew in, your parents flew in, and obviously jack and luke. a few close friends came but all-in-all, the wedding was small.

you walked down the aisle, arm laced with your dad's. when you reached the front of the judge's office, you hugged your dad and turned to quinn.

he shook your dad's hand and they exchanged looks. he turned around to you and gripped your hands, "i'm going to keep this short because i've never been one for long speeches." the judge joked.

you laughed, "so, do you quinn hughes take y/n y/l/n to be your lawfully wedded wife? in sickness, health, and everything in between?"

"i do." quinn nodded.

"and do you, y/n y/l/n take quinn hughes to be your lawfully wedded husband, in sickness, health, and everything in between?"

"i super do."

"then by the power vested in me, i now pronounce you husband and wife. you may now kiss your bride."

requests are closed :)

also, i know quinn's full name is quintin jerome hughes but i just didn't feel like putting it.

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 8 months

Text

youtube

'If activists are hiding books from you, the best thing you can do is seek them out and read them!'

One of the strangest developments of the culture war has been the rise of authoritarian librarians. It sounds ridiculous doesn't it? Surely librarians are there to support education and to enable the dissemination of literature and knowledge.

But this week it was reported that the library service in Calderdale Council has been hiding books by feminists such as Helen Joyce and Kathleen Stock. The Labor-run council confirmed that although these books would still be in the catalog and they could be requested, they were quote, "not visible on the library shelves." This is very odd.

Now, I've read the books in question by both Helen Joyce and Kathleen Stock, and they are rigorous, intelligent and important studies concerning one of the key issues of our time. And yet these librarians are treating them as though they are toxic, as if members of the public who happen upon them while browsing might somehow be instantly corrupted.

And yet we shouldn't really be surprised at all. The rise of Woke Librarians, however ludicrous that sounds, is a real thing. Now, I should say from the outset that I've nothing against librarians. Some of my best friends are librarians. But there is something about the profession that seems to attract the kind of paternalistic pharisee who believes that it's their job to protect others from wrongthink.

Let me give you some other examples. So a few years ago, it was reported that the former poet laureate Ted Hughes was included on a watch list created by the British Library because of a family connection with a slave owner. Turns out the connection was false and the Library issued an apology. But why was the foremost library in the UK creating this kind of watch list in the first place? Well, it was because in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, the library had commissioned what they called a "decolonizing working group" which decided that they should review the collections and draw up a list of any authors with problematic pasts. This same group also claimed that the library's main building was a monument to imperialism, because it looked a bit like a battleship. I'm not even joking.

And in 2021 the Waterloo Region District School Board in Canada identified and removed books that were considered quote, "harmful to staff and students."

At the same time, other school libraries in Canada were disposing of copies of Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale following complaints about quote, "racist, homophobic or misogynistic language and themes."

And then there was the Ottawa Carlton District School Board which removed copies of William Golding's Lord of the Flies on the grounds that the themes of the book were quote, "outdated and too focused on white male power structures." Had they even read the book? If Lord of the Flies really is a comment on white male power structures, it can hardly be said to be an advertisement.

And then of course there's the whole trigger warning phenomenon. When archivists at Homerton College in Cambridge were engaged in a project to upload their collection of children's literature to the internet, they decided to flag a number of books with trigger warnings. Books such as Little House on the Prairie, and The Water Babies, and various books by Dr Seuss. And the archivists said they wanted to make their digital collection quote, "less harmful in the context of a canonical literary heritage that is shaped by, and continues a history of, oppression."

But books by Dr Seuss aren't oppressive or harmful, even if they do contain outdated racial stereotypes. They were written a long time ago, and readers understand that. Of course, that hasn't stopped the estate of Dr Seuss from withdrawing a number of titles from sale altogether. You can't even buy them anymore.

But the most revealing aspect of this story from Cambridge is a statement that the archivists at Homerton College put out. They said it would be a quote, "dereliction of our duty as gatekeepers to allow such casual racism to go unchecked." Gatekeepers. Now I thought they were meant to be custodians not gatekeepers.

And this is what is known as saying the quiet part out loud. Because really all of this behavior is edging towards censorship. For librarians and archivists to apply warnings to books or to hide them from the public, it's for them to say, "we don't think these books are good for you, we don't trust you to read these books and not to pick up some bad ideas, we must protect you from their influence." In other words, they're treating the public like a parent treats a small child.

And we shouldn't stand for it. Even the application of trigger warnings is a problem in and of itself. True, the books aren't being censored, but a trigger warning buys into the false belief that words and violence are the same thing. It implies that these books are dangerous, and in the wrong hands could cause trouble.

And it's not just libraries. Increasingly we're seeing museum staff attempting to protect the public from artifacts that they're meant to display. So last November, the Wellcome Collection in London shut down its key exhibit, one which dated from the 17th century, because it perpetuated quote, "a version of medical history that is based on racist, sexist and ableist theories and language."

Now we all know that ethical standards change over time and that people from the past held different views from us. Often views that we would consider objectionable. So why don't museum curators understand this too? Why is a museum preventing us from seeing artifacts from the past, when they should be facilitating access? Why is it that so many art galleries now insist on adding little labels next to paintings by great masters to say how much they disapprove of their values, as though the writers of these little sermons would have thought any differently if they had been born hundreds of years ago?

I don't care whether you disapprove of Hogarth's attitudes towards minorities, I just want to appreciate his work without having these soft-witted puritans breathing down my neck.

What we're seeing here is ideological capture. it's the same reason why the Catholic Church created an index of forbidden books which it had kept updated for 400 years right up until 1948. it's the same reason why Mary Whitehouse wanted certain TV shows banned back in the 1960s. It's the same reason why the BBC has censored scenes of old comedy shows such as Faulty Towers on the BBC streaming service. It's the same reason why staff at publishing houses revolt when there's a new book coming out by Jordan Peterson or JK Rowling or some other problematic author. And when the authors aren't as well known as Peterson or Rowling, the staff often get their way.

And if you don't think any of this is authoritarian, what about the time when the body in charge of elementary and secondary schools in Southwestern Ontario authorized the ritualistic burning of books if they contained outdated stereotypes, in what they described as a "flame purification ceremony." Almost 5000 books, including copies of Tintin and Asterix, were removed from shelves and were destroyed or recycled because of course, only the most [rogressive people in history have ever burned books.

[ Source: The Times, via archive.today ]

It sounds preposterous, but the proliferation of activists in libraries, museums, schools, publishing houses, the arts and the media, makes complete sense when one considers that the devotees of this new woke religion have a vested interest in controlling the limits of acceptable thought. To use their own words, they are the gatekeepers.

But as adults in a civilized and liberal society, we don't need to be coddled, particularly by people whose capacity for critical thinking has been stunted by ideology. They say it's for our own good, but what tyrant in history hasn't made a similar claim?

So enough with the woke librarians. If activists are hiding books from you, the very best thing you can do is seek those books out and read them. These petty little authoritarians will do anything to control your speech and your thoughts. Don't let them get away with it.

We are reliably informed that it's only right-wing conservative Xians who want to ban or burn books. But it isn't true. There is a mirror image of the same Puritan authoritarianism on the woke left.

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rad-roche · 1 year

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do you have any noir book reps,. ive seen you read them and id like to get more into the genre

(being fucking normal) a couple!

i lied to you anon. i lied to you under the read more. i'm not normal about this at all

anything by dashiel hammet, dorothy b. hughes, lot of staples in there. if you come across a noir from the 40s/50s chances are it's based on a book and chances are that book is pretty fuckin good. i've got my friends into reading those books and the ones that've made them go 'oh i get it now' have been anything by raymond chandler, and i'm including myself in that group. the first two i read were for research, the other five i tore through because i had to see them. i'm on the last one, playback, and i can't bring myself to finish it because then it will be over. i will, i'll get there eventually, but i'll be very sad because it means my first time reading them will be done. i've read books where i've gone wow, what a turn of phrase, i've very rarely read books where every page has like, seven. me and the girls were posting excerpts in the gc going 'can you fucking believe this'. of his books, the big sleep, the little sister and the long goodbye are considered the best, but if you want my opinion i'd start off with lady in the lake. not that they're hard reads at all, i just think it's the easiest to vibe with if you're only just getting into them. it's a good barometer to see how you feel about the whole thing

“I don't like your manner," Kingsley said in a voice you could have crack a Brazil nut on. "That's all right," I said. "I'm not selling it.”

i mean jesus christ. fuck

if you're looking at something contemporary, i'll have to admit to a slight gap in my knowledge, i'm mostly into the stuff written from, say, mid 20s to 50s. don't take that as a mark of quality, 'it was only good back then!' or something, more of a taste thing on my part. neo-noir is a cool (if a little nebulous and hard to categorize sometimes) take on the questions noir raises, but there's something interesting to me about seeing the first stabs at it. saying that, akashic books has a collection arranged by location, city, country, so that might be something you're interested in

what's happening in your city? probably some terrible events that leave lives in shambles! that's like, the most interesting kind!!

#text post #the only other book that's made me go JESUS CHRIST every other line was my very very favourite: perfume #which is very different stylistically but jesus fuck. i reread it once a year #don't take me as like An Authority on noir at all i'm just some random. passionate yet deeply unqualified. cool for books! bad for surgeons #also if anybody reading this needs to source an old ass miserable movie or book or whatever and doesn't know how: I Will Do It For You

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chartreuseian · 9 days

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21, 24, 46, 47 for the weird ask:))

Thank youuuuu ❤️

21. something you’ve kept since childhood?

I still have my childhood teddy! His name is Pinky but he's no longer pink... I'm such a hoarder though that I'm sure there's more than that!

24. if we were together on a rooftop, what would we be doing?

Probably discussing our favourite little idiots in more detail than most people would consider normal (and I would be loving every second of it, just quietly) while I try desperately to not go full throttle and scare you off 😅

46. favorite holiday film?

Like a Christmas movie? I watch 'Love Actually' a fair bit for all it's v problematic. I have and always will be deeply in love with Hugh Grant (do I have a thing for assholes who are innappropriately older than me? yes. will I change? no.)

But I do watch all of the stupid Hallmark one when they come out each year. They're like fast food for your brain and I love to have them on while I'm doing vaguely Christmas-y things (because it is my favourite time of year, heat aside!)

47. what was the last message you sent?

Uhm. Well, Elysandra and I were messaging about old books and how pretty they are.

But real world me? There was a lot of ranting in my book club group chat about the entirely shit book we're reading this month. It's possibly the worst thing I've ever read, and I read that My Immortal nonsense back in the day...

#thank you :)#asks

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limetameta · 2 years

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polyglot kimblee going on another rant

Kimblee: Do you know what I hate about this country? Its insistence that Amestrian is the only language the population of Amestris needs to know in order to function. Amestrian is my third or fourth language and I hardly like speaking it, yet it insists upon itself.

Maes, current victim of Kimblee's monologue: Go on.

Kimblee: Gladly. Knowing only one language breeds easily manipulated sheep that can only read the news sources that Amestris approves of. Censorship is at an all time high. This country holds its own population hostage by forcing them to learn and speak only Amestrian. The road signs are all in Amestrian. The newspapers are all in Amestrian. Every document and legislature is in Amestrian. Yet Amestrian has very high populations of groups of people who have Amestrian as their second or third language - in fact, these groups outnumber people who only learn Amestrian. It's unfair and creates the illusion of uniformity. Which you cannot accomplish in an empire. And, let's be honest, Amestris is a growing empire that's stagnated at the moment with its border expansion. None of the cultures it's integrated are actually satisfied with having their individuality erased. Assimilation is imperative, sure, but this insistence that all languages be abolished in favour of Amestrian is incomprehensible to me. In the long run it will accomplish nothing and simply cause mass confusion.

Roy: I completely agree. I know one of the Xingese languages and it really changed my perspective on a lot of things.

Kimblee, suddenly envious: That's amazing, Mustang. Do you have any books? I've always wanted to learn a language from that group.

Roy: No, I, ah, learned it from my mother.

Kimblee: :( A shame.

Riza, morbid pest: Don't we all know a little Ishvalan?

Kimblee: Knowing curses doesn't count as knowing enough to get by.

Maes Hughes: Now, that's just not true. I can make it in Aerugo just by knowing Putain.

Kimblee: I don't have the time to unpack that. No, you can't.

#kimblee #maes hughes #riza hawkeye #roy mustang #kimblee monologue hours #metallic crimson

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annoyangle · 11 months

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Unsure if can ask things in the open among all those anons, but eh, what the damn...

Any opinions on fun books like Master and Margaret or Crime and Punishment or... Idk, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde? Also, what is your personal favorite book that you could recommend to every human and/or entity in existence?

HEY SOMEONE'S GOTTA START THE TREND - WHY WOULDN'T IT BE YOU? I DON'T READ A WHOLE LOT, FRANKLY, BECAUSE I HAVE WAY TOO MANY DISTRACTIONS GOING ON ALL THE TIME WITH MY OMNISCIENT SIGHT - MAKES IT KINDA HARD TO FOCUS ON A SINGLE POINT FOR MORE THAN ABOUT TWENTY MINUTES AT A TIME. KEEP IT MOVING! THINGS ARE HAPPENING! I'VE GOT TOO MUCH IN MY GAZE ALREADY! ONLY THREE-DIMENSIONAL NERDS HAVE TIME TO SIT AND TEDIOUSLY PARSE ONE SENTENCE, PARAGRAPH OR PAGE AT A TIME THROUGH THEIR BRAIN-STRAINER!

THAT SAID: MY GENERAL RULE IS: IF A BOOK (OR FILM!) IS CENSORED BY THE STATE, BURNED BY TEDIOUS NANNIES OR SUPPRESSED IN ANY OTHER WAY THEN THAT'S A GOOD SIGN YOU SHOULD MAKE EVERY EFFORT TO GET A COPY (OR MAKE COPIES FOR THE FOOLISHLY BRAVE) AND READ IT IMMEDIATELY! HOW CAN YOU LEARN TO DISTINGUISH TRUTH AND FRAUD WITHOUT EXPOSING YOURSELF TO BOTH?

I DON'T HAVE A SINGLE PERFECT BOOK - THERE'S NO SUCH THING - BUT I ALWAYS HAVE OPINIONS! SO HERE'S A COUPLE - I'VE EVEN MADE SURE THERE ARE LINKS TO PURCHASE! WHAT A NICE GUY I AM, HUH?

JEAN KILBOURNE - CAN'T BUY MY LOVE - SEE HOW ADVERTISING WARPS YOUR PERCEPTIONS AND GIVES YOU SICKNESSES FOR THE SAKE OF PROFIT!

ROBERT HUGHES - THE SHOCK OF THE NEW - SEE HOW THE MOVEMENTS OF MODERN ART SHAPED HISTORY! (COMPANION TO THE TELEVISION SERIES) BOTH THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO AND LES MISERABLES SHOULD GIVE YOU A GOOD GROUNDING IN THE IDEA OF THE ABUSES OF POWER BY THE STATE, THE RELIGIOUS, AND THE WEALTHY. IF YOU GET THEM IN THE UNABRIDGED PRINT EDITIONS, THEY ALSO MAKE GREAT BLUDGEONING WEAPONS! IDEAL FOR HOME DEFENSE AND LEGAL IN EVERY STATE! SUBLIMINAL AD-VENTURES IN EROTIC ART (OR REALLY, ANY BOOK YOU CAN FIND BY WILSON BRYAN KEY - THESE BOOKS ARE GETTING DIFFICULT TO FIND OUTSIDE OF THE SECRET BOOKSHELVES OF THE ENLIGHTENED, AND WITH GOOD REASON!) LEARN TO READ BETWEEN THE LINES OF ANY VISUAL MEDIUM AND ASK: WHAT DOES THIS IMAGE ACTUALLY MEAN? AND HECK, BECAUSE NOT EVERYTHING IS SERIOUS INSTRUCTIONAL BUSINESS, LET'S TOSS IN AN OLD FAVE: THE MONSTER AT THE END OF THIS BOOK. GET IT USED AND IN PRINT IF YOU CAN! RUB YOUR FINGERS ALL OVER THE PAPER TO CONNECT TO THE ART! STUDY THE ILLUSTRATIONS WITH A MAGNIFYING GLASS! CONSIDER DEEPLY THE POSITION OF YOU, THE READER, AND OF POOR LOVEABLE GROVER, THE DUMB MONSTER AND HIS FUTILE ATTEMPTS TO REDIRECT THE NARRATIVE HE'S TRAPPED IN! SURE, THESE BOOKS WON'T HELP YOU SURVIVE THE COMING APOCALYPSE, BUT AT LEAST YOU'LL BE ABLE TO SOUND SMART ENOUGH TO THE OTHER GOOBERS IN THE SHELTER FOR LONG ENOUGH THAT YOU MIGHT NOT END UP FIRST ON THE LIST WHEN THE GROUP DECIDES WHO TO EAT!

#ask bill cipher #inbox reply #the muse muses #on books #long post

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pageadaytale · 23 days

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BOOK REVIEW - Periodic Tales by Hugh Aldersey-Williams

In secondary school, being the nerd I am, I attempted to memorise the entire Periodic Table in my GCSE year. I managed to get most of the first row (Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, nitrogen, Oxygen... uhhhhh, Neon?) before I gave up and contented myself with learning all the lyrics to songs by The Divine Comedy, which was surely a much better use of my time.

I was never accomplished at Chemistry, and in GCSE year especially - when it became about titration and maths, and I didn't and still don't entirely understand what moles are (the chemical unit, not the animal) - I was struggling, so knowing the elements felt like some aspect of the class that I could control. It didn't help, and as noted I didn't get far, but elemental discovery is still an aspect of chemistry and chemical history which fascinates me.

Periodic Tales, then! Of the two books I read last month, it's the heavyweight - nearly 400 pages of chemical elements, science experiments, and wild anecdotes from Hugh Aldersey-Williams, whose love of science extends to his early childhood. And yet it's an easier read, being less an academic text and more a pop-sci book examining the untold stories of the elements. Aldersey-Williams does a great job keeping it entertaining, and keeping it light, although this does have the effect of feeling like he skips over some of the darker tones surrounding, say, Radium, or Phosphorous (we'll hear about Radium more later this year, as I get into The Radium Girls). To his credit, the Radium Girls do get the best part of a paragraph, and Chlorine gets points for having its main story be devoted to the use of Chlorine Gas in the First World War.

So dark stories, not always well told. But his style is affable and readerly, and his focus on the brighter periods makes the early passages more compelling. He takes us on a journey, through the days of alchemy and philosophy as we start with gold and silver, before dipping into Mercury's strange properties and history in the movies; then we voyage into early chemistry as a science with sulphur, phosphorus, and Radium; onto the modern age with Zinc, Copper, and Lead; we detour to the history of gems and the fashion-turned-excess of chrome and neon; before finally stopping in Sweden, where Aldersey-Williams gives us a historical tour of the Rare Earth Metals through one particular mine in Ytterby.

I've left out a lot, naturally, and what I've mentioned is so much more detailed. There's a rich history to each element, and Hugh Aldersey-Williams takes us through each one in entertaining, if rather brisk, style. His sections on the elements are short enough each to be an easy read, though you may feel your eyes glazing over as you realise you're spending the final chapter in one small Swedish town, and for the most part the stories he picks to tell - and the experiments he carries out to secure his own copies of each element - are engaging and edifying. If I have any gripes, it's the length combined with some jumping around in history, which can make tracking names and places confusing. I might have preferred a timeline of elements, rather than the mostly-sensible grouping we get.

But all this is not to discourage you. I found it an excellent commuting book, taking it on the train. There were a couple of areas which were too long by a couple of pages for the journey, but overall it's an engaging read which works well when you can take breaks between chunks to digest what you've learned.

#book review #chemistry #history #Hugh Alsersey-Williams #Periodic Tales #nonfiction #year of learning

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doodlebloo · 2 years

Note

📓!! I ACCIDENTLY UNFOLLOWED FOR A SEC DOING THIS LMAO

LMAOOO

Ok idk if I've talked abt this before but I love niche bullshit so! DSMP Miss Peregrines Home For Peculiar Children AU

Ok if you're unfamiliar with the book, basically it's about these kids who have "peculiarities" (essentially just superpowers) and they're from all different eras of history. They're taken by an ymbryne, essentially a group of women who can turn into different birds and control time, to a time loop to keep them all safe because there's these creatures hunting them. The main character Jacob's superpower is that he's the only one who can actually see the creatures. Also only ppl with the powers can enter the time loop in the first place !

Ok so c!Wilbur can see the monsters, right? That's his power. So he's in a time loop with the rest of the gang (and Phil is obviously their Ymbryne, he can already turn into a crow it's srsly so perfect) but c!Wilbur leaves the loop behind to go and have c!Fundy. BUT then c!Fundy is born peculiar (fox boy), so once he ages like a decade in like a week c!Wilbur decides it's not safe for him out in the open and he drops him off at the loop.

C!Wilbur promises that he'll return to the loop and be with all his friends there eventually, he just wants to travel the world first (at this point it's like the 1940s I think.)

So on c!Wilburs travels he meets Orphan Boy c!Tommy (not really Boy cTommy is like 14 at this point) and they become Brothers you know the drill. And cWilbur tells him all these stories about his friends with magic powers and cTommy is like yeah yeah you're full of shit.

But then cWilbur mysteriously disappears, and all he leaves behind is directions. And cTommy is never one to stray from an adventure so of course he follows the directions and finds the loop

And is able to GO THROUGH ! Because unbeknownst to literally everyone, c!Tommy can see the monsters just like cWilbur could, even though they're not blood related.

So at first when cTommy shows up everyone's super pissed because they assume cWilbur has ditched them all to go and be a hotshot around the world and has completely forgotten about them

But a few people like cTommy cNiki etc are convinced he wouldn't do something like that and they start to think something is wrong.

Well they're right and they have to go on an adventure through time to rescue cWilbur woo!

(cDream is the bad guy who wants to eat their eyes or whatever)

ANYway. All of L'Manberg + cPhil and cTechno are the main ppl on the adventure, cPhil is the ymbryne and cTechno has like super agility strength etc like tldr he fights good

cTubbo gets the peculiarity of Hugh from the books where he has a colony of bees living in his mouth/stomach. And like how Hugh's favorite bee is Henry well cTubbos is Benson. And yes cTubbo absolutely gets a scene where his bees swarm and murder people like the best scene in the whole series when Hugh did that shit (love him but anyway.)

cRanboo is found in cDream's lab on their way to save cWilbur, he's half peculiar human half monster (they're called wights), everyone wants to leave him behind but cTubbo insists they bring him with.

cRanboo is actually from the 90s whereas everyone else is from the 1950s or before so the first time cRanboo shows cTubbo (circa 1895) an arcade game he loses his entire fucking mind over it

Like cTubbo takes to technology SO well esp for someone who lived in a time before flight was achieved by man but

The reason I will never write this is because it's sooo niche only I would enjoy it </3 here it is written out tho :)

#asks

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chthonic-cassandra · 2 years

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Recent books, non fiction -

- Faith Jones, Sex Cult Nun - provocative title (with which the negative goodreads reviews are totally fixated) notwithstanding, this is an excellent trauma memoir about Jones' experience growing up in the Children of God cult, which was led by her paternal grandfather. I had previously read a different memoir by a survivor of this cult, which was much harder to follow, but Jones' account is lucid and unflinching. She manages the narrative trick of writing about events from her perspective at the time, which is intense and at times excruciating in a book whose narrative arc is about the very gradual process of Jones coming to see the harm that has been done to her. I know a lot about cults and about organized abuse, but the intense pervasiveness of the CSA in Jones' experience, the way that it was so fully woven into the fabric of the cult's belief on every level, was very painful to look at directly. Rushed towards the end, as trauma memoirs tend to be, but very much worth reading.

- Hugh Raffles, The Book of Uncomformities: Speculations on Lost Time - meandering essay collection on various geological anomalies and the history associated with them, with occasional digressions on Raffles' experiences of grief and loss. This was pleasant and interesting, though some of the essays were more interesting than others. A lot of them ended up ultimately being more about history (and specifically about colonialism) than about geology, and as someone who knows very little about geology this was somewhat disappointing.

- Alan Mikhail, God's Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World - biography of Selim I, who ruled the Ottoman Empire for the eventful period spanning the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of sixteenth. This was largely fine; the material is interesting, though Mikhail indulges in a little too much biographer speculative fantasy (you know the kind, "as he entered the gates of Constantinople, Selim must have felt a sense of awe and responsibility contemplating the legacy of his grandfather Mehmed II..." also I just made that example up, I returned the book to the library so I can't give you a real one). However, there's a good hundred pages in the middle of the book which turned out to be entirely about Christopher Columbus. Mikhail is making the interesting argument that western Europe's so-called "Age of exploration" was driven primarily by fear of the Ottoman Empire, which is an interesting argument, but also reading about Columbus and his genocides is unpleasant and I prefer to know what I am getting into when I choose to read about them. Reading this did make me realize that I've built up a pretty solid body of knowledge about the Ottoman Empire, though, so that was cool to realize.

- Benedetta Craveri, The Last Libertines (trans. Aaron Kerner) - group biography of several French noblemen in the years just before the revolution. I posted about this while I was reading it, and it was indeed fascinating, despite my anti-libertine sentiment flaring up dreadfully. The norms among the French aristocracy, what was accepted and what wasn't, are bizarre and sometimes hard to wrap my head around, but what was probably most interesting was reading about what happened to each of the subjects after the revolution, the range of fates that befell people in their position. The book itself is extremely well-researched and pretty tightly-written, though sometimes I had trouble keeping each of the aristocrats straight.

#books

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choiceskatie · 3 years

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Extra Credit (Smut-tember)

Books Featured: Red Carpet Diaries, The Nanny Affair, Queen B, The Royal Romance

Warnings: 18+. NSFW.

Word count: 1000 (you have no idea how difficult I found this lol)

Summary: Dirty Dalton goes to college when the children’s nanny doesn’t quite do it for him anymore.

Author's Note: Happy @smut-tember! I've missed most of the event bc I was awol, but to make up for it, I challenged myself to using every single word on the list for week 4 lol (hence why sticking to the word count was v hard). I also added in a couple of my own words lol, all of them will be highlighted in bold! It was honestly so fun writing cringy smut on purpose, but it feels illegal to even post this lmao. Thanks @lsvdw-blog for prereading this mess and howling with me all the way lol.

Tagging at the end but do NOT feel the need to read this shitshow 💀

“Class dismissed.”

The instant sound of loud chattering and chairs moving eclipses Thomas Hunt’s deep voice, once thought to be commanding now completely powerless before the group of racious college students.

“Don’t forget! Sam Dalton will be here on Friday so make sure your projects are up to scratch! This is your senior year and if you don’t-”

The door slams shut behind the final student as they file out of the room without a backward glance at their professor.

~~~~~~

“Hello, Mr Dalton.”

“Please, call me Sam.”

The man smiles as he nods his head graciously. “Dean Steinhelm wanted me to offer you a warm welcome to Belvoire, and we apologise that Thomas Hunt was unavailable today. Off for stress, between you and I.”

“Ah, so you’re not the man I was scheduled to meet with today?”

“Afraid not, sir. I’m Ian Kingsley, anthropology.”

“Not a problem. Shall we?”

He gestures towards the groups of students scattered around the lecture hall, all with bright eyes and naive smiles. Did they really believe that Dalton Enterprises would choose filmmaking for their first endeavour after breaking out of science?

Anyone with half a brain should be able to surmise that Sam Dalton is here looking for the tightest snatch he can find, and where better to look than a group of college students? If he gets to tear a hymen in the process, even better.

He feels his man meat strain painfully against his slacks as he comes across a group of particularly attractive girls, their outfits leaving little to the imagination as their globes nearly spill out of their dresses, the hem barely covering their meat curtains.

“And who do we have here?”

“This is Bea Hughes,” she smiles up at him, a twinkle in her eye as she fights for his attention. “And here we have Riley Brooks.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Mr Dalton.” Sam doesn’t miss the seductive rasp in her voice as she gazes through fluttering lashes, eyes hooded as she bites her lip.

Sam stifles a smirk as he speaks with them, practically smelling the girl’s moist honeypot as she tries to get as close to him as possible.

After making his rounds, he pulls Professor Kingsley to the side.

“I’d like to conduct some one-on-one interviews before I decide.”

Ian doesn’t miss the sly smile gracing their guest’s face as he speaks, as if the sight of his bulging phallus wasn’t enough to confirm he was a dirty freak.

“Who were you thinking of?”

“Either of those brunette sluts with the big blue eyes,” he inclines his head towards Bea and Riley, Ian’s jaw twitching.

“I don’t think Bea would be interested-”

“Trust me, she’s interested. They both are, just depends if you’re an ass or tit man, am I right?” He chuckles disturbingly as Ian’s fists ball in the pockets of his pants. “Hmm, I think we’ll go for tits today. Send her to your office for me, please.”

~~~~~~~~

Their hands are all over each other as soon as the lock is turned. He pushes her up against the door, grinding his rock hard member into the heat of Riley’s lady cave.

His hands trail down the sides of her body, cupping her thighs and hoisting her up as he strides to the large mahogany desk and lays her down.

“Strip for me. Let me see that juicy ham wallet.”

She’s quick to follow orders, her clothes laying in a heap on the ground only seconds later.

Sam’s eyes fixate on the wetness dripping from her secret place, his fingers gliding in with ease as his head drops to her fun bags, tongue and teeth teasing her udders.

“You’re soaked. Just how long have you been thinking about my trouser snake?” His lips move down her abdomen as he speaks, her body trembling. “Hmm? Have you been thinking about my baby gravy filling you up?”

Any chance of a reply is caught in her throat as his tongue dives into her love tunnel and her hands fall to his hair, pulling tightly as he groans and his phallus throbs.

He pulls her clit into his mouth and suckles on her coochie meow meow, a premature release of love juice coating his boxers as his excitement gets the best of him.

Despite that, he’s steel hard and ready to go again in seconds, standing back to quickly undress before he flips her over, her chest meeting the cool desk as he tilts her hips up towards him.

He plunges his veiny pecker into her in one sure stroke, her pussy cat clenching around him as she struggles to take his vigorous thrusting.

His hands smooth over the globes of her ass, slapping and palming both over and over until she’s whining uncontrollably.

He spreads her cheeks, slipping his thumb into his wet mouth before sliding it into her puckered hole and grinning as he feels her body shaking.

“What’s your boyfriend gonna say?”

Their position offers Riley the opportunity to look confused as she wonders what the hell he’s talking about.

He grabs a fistful of her hair and yanks her back, her back meeting his chest as his lips latch onto her neck. “Tell me. What’s your boyfriend going to do when you go home and you’ve been fucked into oblivion by me? When your meat pocket’s been ruined like the little whore you are.”

What the fuck? Is this doing it for him?

“Are you gonna come for me, Riley? Let me feel your jizzle.”

“Jizzle? Girls don’t-”

“They do when it’s my pork sword fucking them.”

His words are laboured as his thrusts take on a life of their own, his rod driving home and home again until he spurts his seed inside of her with a loud yell.

He pulls out of her, his love stick softening and baby batter dripping down her thighs as he catches his breath.

“Oh, you might want to get a razor on your way home. You missed some pubic hair on your ass.”

~~~~~

@charlotteg234 @queenrileyrose @forallthatitsworth @ao719 @burnsoslow @mia143 @stateofgracious @mainstreetreader @emkay512 @jerzwriter @lsvdw-blog @chemist-ana @kat-tia801 @txemrn @thefrenchiemama

#smut tember #thomas hunt #ian kingsley #sam dalton #bea hughes #riley brooks #ns*w #my writing #kt tries to write

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 5 months

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youtube

'Student SUPPORTS Hamas fully' | Peter Hughes: 'Kindness to one group can mean cruelty to another'

Andrew Doyle: Has kindness become cruel and divisive? Well, that's a theory being advanced by Dr Peter Hughes, a philosopher and author who has written this week about how acting with extreme kindness to one group can lead to acts of cruelty towards another. And I'm delighted to say that Dr Peter Hughes joins me now. Welcome to the show.

Peter Hughes: Thank you very much for inviting me.

Doyle: So, Peter, where does this theory of yours come from?

Hughes: Well, it comes originally from the work of a Polish psychiatrist called Andrzej Łobaczewski. He wrote a book when Poland was in a communist occupation called, "Political ponerology." And that means the theory of the origin of evil. And what really fascinated him was how, what he called a pathological minority, a minority of people who were narcissistic, grandiose, but mediocre and believed in themselves way beyond what their competence would dictate, took it upon themselves…

Doyle: I know few people like that.

Hughes: … but they took it upon themselves to decide what people could think, what people could do, what people could say, and he was fascinated by this. And he wrote this book in collaboration with other psychiatrists. It originally, they threw one copy of it on the fire when the secret police came around, just in time, they smuggled another one out to the Vatican which got lost, and then eventually he recovered it from memory and rewrote it from memory, missing a lot of the statistical data, but the basic points he made were true. And what I'm fascinated in is how a pathological minority can come to power, can hold power, when the majority of the people do not believe in what they're saying. In our case, what we pathologize in our society is kindness.

Doyle: So, there's something very interesting about this idea. I've seen kindness and being a victim weaponized so that effectively, the assertion of victimhood becomes a means to bully others, and to cudel others. Which sounds counterintuitive of course, but we see it all the time. So, we see it among activists, we've seen it on the streets of London. We've seen people chanting for, effectively, genocide and death of Jewish people. And saying that they are victims and that's why they're doing it. What's going on there?

Hughes: Well, because what you do is you have a strong allegiance to your ingroup and that means you have a strong aversion to your outgroup, and the more depth and virulence you support your ingroup, the more likely you are to be violent to your outgroups. Let me give you some examples. We had a a case recently, obviously in the wake of the Hamas atrocities in Israel, we've had people tearing down posters of children who've been who've been taken hostage. We've had universities making statements condemning Israel with no mention of Hamas whatsoever. We had yesterday a student in, I think, a Canadian college called Durham College saying that she supports herass fully and believes they should do it in her words again and again and again and again. And it's all done in the name of kindness for the oppressed.

Hughes: So, once you divide the world into oppressor and oppressed, the righteous and the unrighteous, the sinful and the blameless, then you can unleash unlimited cruelty.

Doyle: But is it just because these things have become abstractions to these people? You know, they're not there on the ground seeing the children being burnt alive, seeing people being raped and tortured and murdered, and so therefore they can see this as something that's happening far away and they can sort of, I suppose, romanticize it and change it into something that it isn't?

Hughes: But it's slightly different from that. Because the psychology, and what makes it such a a catastrophe really, is that the psychology of it is very robust, because they're really talking only to themselves. And what they're doing is that one person who believes in this type of pathological kindness will connect very well with somebody else who doesn't. Whereas, for the mass of ordinary people, they have a very different understanding of kindness. We understand kindness as being giving to someone who has a need, who might be in trouble, who might be struggling, regardless of what their belief is.

One of the foundational stories for our own civilization is the Good Samaritan. And of course, the Good Samaritan is someone who comes along and helps someone who's been robbed and attacked, even though they come from different social groups and the Samaritan is the exile, the other, if you want. And these acts of kindness which ordinary people engaged in are being demonized because they're not using the correct language.

Doyle: But it is baffling to me. You know, we saw that activist at the Trans Pride rally calling on, basically, the crowd to punch women who disagreed with them and getting a big cheer, right. Now what's going there, because these are a group of people who are saying they are demonized and victimized. But they are the bullies, quite clearly in that situation.

Hughes: Well, Łobaczewski estimated about 5 to 6% of a population - he called it the pathological underbelly - will drive these ideas. But what they do is, they pathologize, then they pathologize normal people and everybody else gets pulled into this catastrophic world.

Doyle: Okay that's interesting, so it's a minority.

Hughes: It's a minority that drive this, it's not a majority.

Doyle: Well, I was going to say because with all the the death threats and rape threats that go towards JK Rowling simply for having an opinion that most people hold, and for for a very compassionate opinion as it happens. Now, it would never occur to me, I can't think of any scenario where I would behave like that and yet you see these thousands and thousands of people doing that. I can't think of any scenario where I would attempt to defend terrorists like people are doing. So, is it just, it's not that we've suddenly got sociopathy on a widespread level. It's not that.

Hughes: No, it's not. I think it spreads and people can ally themselves to this pathological minority, but a minority that drives it. So, if you look at the situation with Hamas for example, Hamas went into the -- I, we don't need to go into all the details about what they did -- but, we know how horrific and horrendous it was. And that is the pathological minority.These are people who are jihadists, who will stop at nothing to erase Jews from the face or the Earth.

Doyle: I don't believe their supporters could do that.

Hughes: But not only could they not do it, they couldn't even watch it. But yet, they will cheer. They will say yes, let's do it again and again. Okay then here's a cudgel, here's an axe, here's a knife, do it. "Well, I couldn't do that." So, the way to counter these people, if there is a way to counter them because they've got so deep in our society, into the bureaucracies that govern our institutions and our corporations, but you have to isolate the pathocrats. Because most people just want to get on. Most people understand empathy. Most people are capable of looking at other people and seeing them as a fellow human being, as a fellow sufferer.

Doyle: It's about reclaiming humanity, right?

Hughes: About reclaiming one's humanity, and one's collective humanity from the pathological minority.

Doyle: So, finally, because we don't have much time, but there is nothing new about this in so far as if you go back to the Inquisition. The people who are strapping those individuals to the rack and torturing them -- they did think they were doing it for God. They did think they were on the side of the Angels. It's perfectly possible throughout human history for for good people to do the most horrendous things.

Hughes: Horrendous things. But what makes a tyranny of kindness so dangerous is that people can punish other people, the outgroup endlessly, take great pleasure in it, and still remain virtuous. And that is truly terrifying. And is where we're at. And we have to understand, the tyranny of kindness is also a tyranny of virtue which, interestingly enough we remember the Republic of Virtue at the end of the French Revolution which is what Robespierre and his fellow revolutionaries saw as the endpoint of the French Revolution. And where did that end? It ended in bloodshed and the guillotine. And that is where we're headed unless we isolate these pathocrats, reclaim normal kindness from its pathological underbelly, and reclaim words like love, hate and kindness for the mass of people, of normal people.

One final point, and Łobaczewski makes this really well, he said the only crime that normal people commit which makes them punished so much for their views, is that they're not psychopaths. And normal people aren't. Ordinary people are decent.

I believe in the decency of humanity, I absolutely do, but then I see these marches and I see most of them are not chanting anti-semitic chants or engaging in that kind of thing. But they are turning a blind eye when other people are. That's what disturbs me. That makes me think that it's become so normalized in that movement. How do you reach those people? I couldn't walk past someone calling for genocide and ignore it. I don't know how you reach that point, and once you've reached that point, isn't it a question of deradicalization rather than persuasion?

Hughes: It is, it is a process of deradicalization. But deradicalization is simply one form of psychological realignment, when what you're doing is you're enabling people to see that they've got this virus in their heads which is driving their behavior, which is against their interest and it's against the interest of all their fellow human beings, including those closest to them. Nobody wins in this game. Nobody at all wins, because where it ends is in chaos and bloodshed. And who's going to gain from that? No one.

Doyle: Well, I think it's absolutely chilling stuff. Dr Peter Hughes thank you so much for joining us.

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