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h8ani · 6 months

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In which a silly thought of teasing Rindou for a month would be fun, but after a simple week he would surely snap and make you remember why you should never play games with him

Word Count: 2.4k

Warnings: fem!reader, dacryphilia, edging/orgasm control, rough sex, reader is alluded to squirting, mean!rindou, potential dubcon, choking, established relationship, masturbation (male)

Here is my submission for @wakashawty NNN collab! This is my first collab ever and was so so so fun to do!

Something about Rindou is, don’t test him. He isn’t one for jokes and there will be consequences even if it’s meant as a joke.

You thought it would be funny, a comical lil thing to do. If you were smart and had even an ounce of self-preservation, this thought wouldn’t have crossed your mind, the thought being discarded as you went on with your day. But yet here you were. Wanting to participate in No Nut November was supposed to be a little joke, you must’ve taken it too far because now you found yourself bent over the back of the couch, hands pinned behind your back, and being edged for what seems to have been hours. You never meant for it to go this far yet here you are.

Rindou’s thrusts are rough and unrelenting as he fucks up into you, his grip on both of your wrists keeping you in place draped over the couch. The sound of skin slapping skin is all you can hear, constantly ringing in your ears as your pussy continues to take the abuse. You felt the wetness drip down your thighs followed by the sickly squelching sound your pussy started to make, you wince once you felt Rindou’s cock still from within you. Embarrassment wasn’t the word you felt while you were powerless over the couch, you were mortified. Rindou pulls his cock out of you and you feel a quick ‘slap’ against your pussy. His fingers gather up your slick before pushing two of his digits in knuckle deep eliciting a choked out moan from you. Rindou kneels down so he’s eye level with your dripping core now, a proud smirk appearing on his face. “Oh? What’s this? Are you enjoying yourself?” He curls his fingers hitting your gspot perfectly, your legs tremble as he starts finger fucking you. “You’re not meant to enjoy this.” He tsk’s from behind you, fingers slamming against your pussy allowing the wetness to drip down your legs.

You try to twist your wrists free, the feeling of being defenseless was something you weren’t particularly fond of, you hated it really, preferring to hold him close to you and have your hands roam across his body— he knew that of course. He knew everything about you, from the way you loved having your hair played with when you had a long day and were sleepy down to what you loathe, but you weren’t meant to like this; this was a punishment for a stupid idea that was brought to fruition.

You hear him groan suddenly, thrusts slowing down and a sigh slips past your lips as you think it’s all over now.

Oh, you stupid, stupid girl.

“I’m not done with you yet.” He says, voice ever so present in your ears.

Rindou sees you tense up, your body stiffening once you hear him. He has to fight back another groan once you involuntarily clench around him.

Rindou doesn’t particularly care to be like this with you, never a fan of “punishing” you if that’s what this even is. He fucking hates being teased, but you knew this, so why did you even try?

“Babe!” Rindou hears you call, your footsteps heard climbing up the stairs. “Babe! Babe! Babe!” You rush into his room with a smile coming across your face. He raises an eyebrow, curious as to what you were so excited about.

“What?”

“Guess what we’re going to do together this month?” Your smile only gets bigger as you speak to him.

“Thanksgiving?”

“Wha? No! Well yes, but not the answer!” Tired of guessing already, he gives you a bored look and waits for you to continue, hands motioning you to finish what you wanted to tell him. “We’re gonna do No Nut November!”

“Absolutely not,” Rindou says quickly which only leads to the most devious smile you could muster.

“Too bad! If I’m playing then you have to play!” You exclaimed before slipping out of his bedroom before he could interject again. You were serious about playing the game too, he knew you were. What he didn’t know was just how dirty you would play it. He could deal with you purposefully grinding your ass into him at night, that was nothing new to him. What he didn’t expect was the tease of a century of you sending lewd photos of yourself while he was at work.

Once his phone vibrates against his desk he thinks nothing of it when he sees your name pop up with a notification of a text, you always send texts while he’s at work. Clicking in his password he clicks the notification only to slam his phone hard against his desk. The photos sent were of you, in a short mini skirt bent over with no panties on, he could see only from the waist down but he noticed your fingers gathering your own slick, slim fingers prodding your entrance like you were teasing yourself. Rindou picks his phone back up to see multiple photos sent that he couldn’t look away from, another text comes in from you ‘ Wish you were the one touching me:( ’ His face now the shade of a tomato and cock pressing hard against his slacks he stands up abruptly and marches down to the single stall men’s restroom. Fingers lock the door quickly and tug his pants down even faster until he finally fists his cock. A low guttural groan leaving him while he thinks of fucking you in that mini skirt, how he wouldn’t even let you touch yourself one bit and allow him and only him to touch you. He strokes himself faster while his thoughts run rampant, precum leaking past his tip until he spills the rest of his seed all over his hand. Rindou curses internally once he looks down to see the mess, head falling back against the stalls door. Once he got home, your little game was going to be over.

To his surprise, he had more restraint than that. In your eyes that was a green light to keep going, you continued, and continued, and continued to tease him. Until one day, you wore that dress, that one fucking dress. The one that you wore on your birthday that brought back so many memories to his mind, specifically memories of him stripping the dress off of you. The dress you were wearing drove him up the wall. You couldn’t plan to wear that and expect him to keep his composure like he did the past week, you just couldn’t.

He knew that you knew what that dress did to him, how the satin snug around your curves in the most perfect way that he went crazy for. So you coming downstairs acting as if you were going out, that didn’t fly with him.

“Y/n” the tone in his voice was enough to send shivers down your spine, you dared to glance over your shoulder to see him standing up. “Come here.” He says simply. You may like to tease and play games but you knew better than to argue, especially with the way Rindou was looking at you.

You made your way over to him, the only sound that could be heard was of your heels against the floor. Once you made it in front of him, his presence seemed more threatening than it was when you were a few feet away. Slowly looking up at him you’re met with his cool lavender eyes, staring so emotionless back down at you.

“I’m only going to say this once. Bend over, before I bend you over myself.”

You were tired yet you needed more, you needed to cum. Constantly being brought to the edge only to be pulled back was a pain you never knew before.

A gasp escapes from your lips once you feel his arm slip in front of you and press two cold silver ringed fingers to your clit. The pressure is enough to bring you back to a high so quickly and make your legs shake. “Please…” you whimper while pushing your plush hips back into his own. Instantly his fingers still against you, hot wet tears beginning to well up in your eyes. The frustration and growing pain in between your legs reaching a new all time high.

“Please what?” His head tilts to the side although you couldn’t see it.

“Wanna cum, ‘m sorry.” You try to grind down into his fingers to alleviate yourself, you expected this not to work in your favor, what you didn’t expect was for Rindou to let your wrists go that he held, the dead weight of your arms falling forward ached from how long they were pinned behind your back, you rubbed your wrists, moving them around in the process.

You’re pulled up by his strong and steady hands, spun around to face him, suddenly making eye contact with him brought a suffocating tension in the air you didn’t feel when your back was the only thing that faced him. The air around you is so weak and brittle, feeling as if it would snap at any moment if given the chance. Your eyes met his with an alertness as he stared through you, the stress from the situation you put yourself in was evident even to him. His stare was uncomfortable, it was meant to be, making you squirm just from a single look from him. Your breath felt constricted as you finally spoke. “Baby…” you say, eyes stinging and rimmed red. You blink and let the stray tears fall, hand quickly wiping them away as you utter, “Please.”

His face softens, arms dipping and hooking around your legs so you can sit on top of the couch, instinctively you wrap your legs around him. “Tell me, love,” he positions himself at your entrance while he speaks. “What month is it again?”

“November?” You say confused, legs spreading to allow him in further. “Why are you asking? What are you getting at?”

“What was that little thing you wanted to do called again? No Nut what?”

“November…” you glare at him, irritation running high now. You begin to close your legs but his hand that was holding onto your waist stops you, causing you to hold yourself up on the couch now. His grip on your thigh is rough as he pushes your legs open further.

“You wanted this, didn’t you? It’s the name of the game sweetheart.” He smiles, a deep chuckle erupting from him. “You’re not cumming, end of story.” With that he pushes in, burying himself to the hilt. A sob rips out of you once he starts fucking you at a brutal pace, the way he still has any energy to continue, his pace unwavering was unbeknownst to you because you were tired, drained even. He was so deep and it was sending your mind into a frenzy making you dizzy with each thrust, your own body wanting to give out and let Rin take you as he pleases.

Tears rolled down your cheeks with every slam of his hips against yours, Rindou just laughs, grabbing your cheeks with one hand simultaneously squishing them, you muster enough strength to glare with the tears blurring your vision. “Don’t you look cute crying, you mad at me now? ‘s that it?” He angles his hips in a way that has you crying his name out, thrusting upward he hits the spongey spot within you that sends your legs into a spasm. You feel your stomach tightening up for the nth time tonight. Your hands reach up to grip his shoulder as you feel yourself so, so close to your orgasm.

Please, please, please.

You were ruined. Silent sobs were let out as you hooked your ankles together, a desperate move for him to stay inside of you. Rindou watches the way you blink more tears away, the hopeless look you had as you stare up at him, silently begging him to allow you to cum. “You gonna quit it with these games?” He brings his hand to your cheek, thumb wiping away whatever tears that continue to fall. You nod almost before he can finish, a slight peek of hope appearing on your face. “You pro-”

“I promise! P-Please, please I wanna cum, I need to cum Rin.” You shakily blurt, pulling him in even closer, feeling him even deeper than before.

“You pull this shit on me again and I won’t be so nice next time.” He says before slipping a hand in between you two, you feel his fingers press against your clit, moving in quick circular motions.

It should embarrass you how quickly the knot in your stomach tightened up, you should be even more embarrassed with the sounds you were making, how pathetic you sounded, but you didn’t care, all you cared about was your impending orgasm and how it will be the best damn orgasm of your life.

Rindou thrusted up into you roughly, now pulling away his hand which elicited a desperate whine from you which he quickly shut down. He wraps his hand around your throat squeezing ever so slightly, your attention now centered on him. “You cum from my cock, understood?” Nodding as well as you could, his grip tightens around your throat, fingers pressing in just the right spot that makes your head tingle. His pace quickens, thrusts still rough and hitting you just right. You were breathless, eyes glazed over and head spinning from the lack of oxygen, but who needed to breathe when all you wanted to do was cum.

Unperceived to you, you clenched tighter the longer you were without any air in your lungs. Rindou groans while watching you with lidded eyes as he feels himself nearing his nth orgasm of the night, thrusts becoming rougher, more erratic. A strangled gasp leaves you as you suddenly feel the coil inside snap, your body overcome by the pleasure consuming you and the mess you were making. Your body shook against his and Rindou releases his grip on your throat. His hands now hold your waist as he finishes inside of you with a grunt, his hot cum pumping inside you, painting your insides white as he rides out his high.

Your mind was spinning, unsure if it was from the sudden oxygen rushing to your head or from the intense orgasm. You slump against him with an exhausted huff, Rindou runs his hand through your hair as you both calm down, the heavy breaths from you both are the only sound that can be heard.

“Learn anything today?” His voice suddenly heard, barely having any energy you lazily nod, head tilting up from against his chest.

“Yeah, November is for Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving alone.”

@bitchcraftinc @enchantedforest-network

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paperback-rascal · 3 months

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Howdy!!! I love your art!

I have a quick question: When the bad batch kept a bear for a pet, where did it go to the bathroom??? Did they train it to use the toilet? It's a pretty small ship, and I can imagine the poop smelling horrid. (Especially for Hunter)

Unrelated, but I can see the bad batch having a pet raccoon after having a pet bear. After seeing your fanart and headcanon about the bear, in my mind I've decided that they have a pet raccoon. That seems like something they would do.

Sorry for the random thought about the raccoon. Thanks for your time!!!

I never really thought about logistics of having a bear on a small vessel like Havoc Marauder. Also, let's face it - the ship's layout is not... consistent throughout TCW & TBB... so there could always be a cargo hold we're not aware of.

As for the second part of the ask - I think Clone Force 99 had many pets, big and small, thought out their career and space!racoon as well as a space!goose could be one of them. They always end up releasing the animals into the wild or finding them proper homes.

I think the main "can we keep it?" instigator is definitely Wrecker.

In Hyperspace stories #10 comics it was noted the big guy collects plushies (or at least tries to) - it could be a substitute of owning a real pet for him.

Sorry for such a late reply, @mishakoon!

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The OP is referencing those posts of mine: ->[LINK]<- ->[LINK]<-

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STAR WARS: The Clone Wars/The Bad Batch © George Lucas/ Dave Filoni/ LucasFilm/ Disney

#star wars #the clone wars #clone wars #TCW #the bad batch #bad batch #TBB #Wrecker #Clone Force 99 #CF99 #cadet batch #fanart #paperback-rascal replies to stuff

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the-s1lly-corner · 5 months

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OMHOMGOMG I KNOW U SAID U’R GETTING A LOT OF TADC REQUESTS BUT THIS IDEAAAA JUST CAME TO ME

How would the TADC gang react if they were on Kiss Cam? I know it wouldn’t make much sense since they’re in a game, but let’s use our ✨imagination✨ for now. Or digital hallucinations.

Would they refuse bc they want their privacy? Or would they have no problem with it? I feel like Jax would say you two are siblings or related in some way for sh!ts and giggles (even tho my fav isn’t Jax I’m just assuming lmao)

TADC cast x reader but theyre on a kiss cam!

WOOOOOOOO unrelated to the ask/post but yesterday i made decorated christmas cookies. and iced them for the first time and!! they may not be the prettiest, but theyre so yummy and you know what! im still proud RAAAAAAAH!! not giving any reason as to why theres a kiss cam so the readers can have their own takes and ideas for the scenario (and also admin was stumped SOBS)

CAINE:

honestly hes probably the one doing the kiss cam and the one angling it, if not its bubble... regardless, i think he would have a hand in it landing on the two of you... perhaps even rushing to your side just a second before the cam turns your way. this was all a ploy! raaah! probably presents his cheek to you in the most comical way, like hes leaning towards you and folding his hands together and turning his head off to the side... is absolutely ecstatic when you humor him and give him a quick peck. probably releases a bunch of confetti and sparkles even though this whole thing was likely orchestrated by him. fuckin loser/j

POMNI:

probably freezes when she sees that the cam landed on the two of you. gives you the fattest side eye as if to silently ask if you want to go through with kissing in front of everyone, being broadcasted and all.... either shes stuck frozen and youre going to have to initiate; or shes going to give you the quickest cheek kiss known the man before either of you can even fully process whats going on... though pomni does strike me as the type to want to respect her privacy....

RAGATHA:

also the type to want to respect their privacy, probably gives a quick reprimand to anyone who tries to pressure her into committing to the bit (cough cough jax, who is likely joking but feeding into it nonetheless)... she probably looks at the cam and gently shakes her head; perhaps even putting her hands up in a funky surrender and with a small nervous smile on her head. like if it werent being broadcasted on a huge screen they would be fine with giving you a kiss on the cheek or forehead in front of a few people, buuuut... thats not exactly whats going on here...

JAX:

honestly i think jax's first instinct would be to do something inappropriate the second he sees thats hes on the cam, just to mess with caine. doesnt even cross his mind at first to say or do anything with you... and perhaps he even wastes his opportunity to lightly embarrass you since caine probably rips the camera off of him due to his actions.... but on the chance he decides to do something with you before doing something else, he probably loudly exclaims that he doesnt know you or something similar to what you said in the ask!

KINGER:

freezes for a split moment before sheepishly turning towards you and asking for permission. while i do think kinger would enjoy privacy, he doesnt really see anything controversial in kissing his partner; since its not exactly wild or inappropriate plus how can he turn up a chance to get some affection? probably the only one whos willing to kiss you on the mouth.. or rather kiss as best as he can.. still quick, but you can tell theres love in there. sappy old man. pukes/j

ZOOBLE:

down right refuses to do anything on the cam, probably flips it off. does not like the attention it brings or being put on the spot; plus they generally dont like showing affection publicly outside of handholding and endearing names. definitely values their privacy... please dont kiss them on their cheek while the cam is on you guys, they will whip their head around and will probably smack you with it on accident... oh but also i think thats an overstep so thats a possible new issue, i think. not that theyre ashamed to be seen giving/receiving affection from you or that theyre ashamed to be your partner. quite the opposite. zooble just likes keeping their life private

GANGLE:

her mask pops off out of surprise and reveals her tragedy mask/j except i do think that she can do that... so maybe /hj... hmm... way too shy to do anything and youre too nice to put her in any situation that can make her uncomfortable or stress out, so youre the one rejecting the cam for gangles sake... she feels so bad for making you have to choose, though, especially if shes under the impression that you wanted to kiss her on cam. please reassure her shes fine and didnt do anything wrong

#tadc x reader #the amazing digital circus x reader #digital circus x reader #caine x reader #pomni x reader #ragatha x reader #jax x reader #kinger x reader #zooble x reader #gangle x reader

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bingo6776 · 1 year

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Heyo, here is a Wednesday x autistic!reader. its more so from wednesday’s POV ig? not strictly but yeah. i used alot of my own experiences/feelings, but from readers POV it was slightly harder to have it flow in a way?? idk

not the best, but i havent written in ages and figured i would put something mid out over nothing :)))

requests are welcome n shit

1.9k

Wednesday ground her teeth together as she looked at the watch on her wrist.

1:15 pm.

You were only 15 minutes late, but for you, that was as good as being hours late.

Ever since Wednesday had known you, you were always early. No matter what the event was, you’d be there waiting for everyone else to arrive.

Once, on you weekly coffee dates at the weathervane, she had attempted to get there first. To be the one waiting for you this time.

But, of course, no matter how early she had gotten there, you’d always be waiting at your usual table, with an amused look on your face as you saw her deflate at being beaten, of course, you’d only be more amused at the fake glare she sent you, paired with her worryingly inventive threats of bodily harm and psychological torture.

So, yes. 15 minutes may not be monumental to the rest of this incompetent school, but for you, it was.

Wednesday felt her foot tapping lightly, to others it would have looked comical. An impatient Wednesday Addams tapping her foot as the seconds ticked by as if she was in some kind of cartoon.

Wednesday’s mind was slowly overcome with a never-ending stream of violent occurrences that could have happened to you preventing you from meeting her at the agreed upon time and place.

If she were anyone else, she would have let them cloud her mind, dull her sharp senses. Yet, luckily for her, she was not.

Which is why when Enid passed by the shrouded area Wednesday darted an arm out, aggressively tugging the blonde werewolf into the shadows with her.

“You have a class with Y/N,” Wednesday decided to ignore the shocked yelp Enid let out, along with the way Enid was barely able to prevent herself from clawing Wednesday away from her. “She’s late meeting with me.”

Enid shot Wednesday a sympathetic look, she knew the morbid girl would never say such a thing to anyone but you, but you were a vital part of her schedule, you kept her clam. Levelled. Balanced. She cherished any time you spent together. Even though Enid had been witness to numerous die hard romances amongst outcast and normie alike, she had never seen such a pure and unrelenting love that the two of you shared.

“Oh, uh, yeah. Yoko said she saw some nurse taking her to her dorm earlier, apparently, she got caught in the middle of the change over rush,” Enid grimaced at the thought of being stuck in the throng of teenagers who hadn’t grasped onto the concept of personal space or volume control yet.

Wednesday hardly waited a second after the werewolf finished her sentence before she turned away, storming towards your dorm.

‘And Yoko says I’m a lovesick puppy,’ Enid thought as she rolled her eyes at the brisk departure and returned to her friends.

To Wednesday, it wasn’t too hard to string together the rest of the events that had occurred.

She knew you weren’t embarrassed to have autism, no. But, as she herself was autistic, she could understand the struggles of avoiding overstimulation and the prying stares you’d receive in the aftermath.

Once she reached the dorm, people in the hallway parting to let her through, not wanting to meet the wrath of an obviously determined Addams, she softly tapped at the door.

One second

Two

Three

Four

With no reply, she slowly pushed the door open walking into the small gap she created.

Your room wasn’t dark, yet it wasn’t light either. There was just a soft silver glow coming from the small lamp on your bedside table.

It illuminated your figure that was curled in on yourself on top of your bed, hands clamped over your ears, eyes screwed shut in a way that Wednesday knew should have been uncomfortable. You were making a consistent, yet urgent sounding hum, more so for the feeling of it vibrating in your chest over having the actual noise.

And Wednesday felt her heart break. No, no. it was more as if it crumbled. Slowly, but surely, it withered away. She hated seeing you so distressed, so in pain due to the ignorance and downright bone-headed students at Nevermore. She swore that she would kill each and every person who put you in this position, shed ensure that before she pushed them into the black abyss of death that they would experience every torture method known to man and spirit alike.

No.

No, she could focus on that later. Now you were more important, much more important.

Trying not too make too much noise, she walked over to your bed, noticing how your figure rocked back and forth slowly. Once she had come close enough, she simply sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for you to take notice of the slight dipping of the mattress and how she emerged in your line of sight.

As your eyes sprang open and focused onto hers, Wednesday truly did try not to flinch at the tears that were held there, the panic that still filled every brim of your body at being pushed and pulled in the crowd, the overlapping conversations feeling as if they had been cutting into your brain, your skin suddenly too hot, too tight.

Slowly, she raised a hand, moving it at a pace that if at this moment you didn’t want to be touched, you could give her a sign that space was what you needed, but when you didn’t make any such sign she gently laid on top of your arm. The second her cool skin made contact with your own overheating one, you practically launched yourself into her arms.

Your arms wound your way around her shoulders, burrowing your face into her neck, revelling in the calming scent that filled your space, the darkness that engulfed you as you pushed your face into the crook of her neck.

“Cara Mia,” Wednesday murmured as her arms tightly wound around your waist, knowing you preferred pressure over light, barely there touches. “What is it you need from me right now, how can I help?”

You would have given her an in-depth description of the how’s, and the why’s, if it hadn’t felt like your fucking throat had sewn itself shut. The feeling of not being able to talk, not be able to force the words out of your throat without being overcome with discomfort only made more tears spring to your eyes, made you push your face deeper into her neck, trying to get lost in anything over than the fact you felt like your body and mind were becoming so overfilled that you were about to break at the seams.

Yet, Wednesday was fluent in many languages, luckily she had recently become more than acquainted with your body language.

She could practically feel the desperation and distress radiating off of your body.

Not knowing what else she could have done in the moment, she placed a hand o your hair and started slowly running her fingers through it in the way she knows you liked, gently scratching your scalp every now and then.

“Would you prefer if we were to stay in silence?” she was glad no one was around to hear how sappy and soft she sounded.

You shook your head, never lifting your head from the safety of Wednesday’s body, enjoying the way her skin was soft, yet had clearly refined muscles lurking beneath the surface. How she smelled of something so indescribable, yet so unbelievably her.

Laying her head on your own, one hand still working its way through your hair, the other keeping its place at your waist, Wednesday pushed away thoughts about her reputation, or what people may think of the presumed dangerous, murderous Addams being reduced to a pile of mush all for you, and started humming a soft tune instead.

So what if shed picked up a few of Enid’s softer songs, knowing you and the werewolf had similar tastes. She knew that one day they could come in handy, either from her own mouth or her cello, they’d be useful. Not because she wanted to impress you, no way.

For an unknown amount of time, Wednesday held you against your body, rocking you both back and forth, never once halting in her movements or her humming.

To you, it felt like she was a shield against the outside world, protecting you from it. She was your safe space, the one person you knew you could rely on to be there, no matter the circumstance. You hoped you were that for her too.

Eventually, you felt somewhat better, your body still feeling slightly tense, your muscles aching slightly from not being strained for so long. But still. Better.

You pulled back from Wednesday slightly, still keeping your arms loosely tied around her shoulders, ignoring the flushed, sticky feeling that coated your cheeks from your tears.

“I-“ even from the simple letter, your throat closed up, feeling rough from the shallow breathing, not being able to pull much more air into you lungs despite having wanted nothing more than that one big breath that felt like your body was reset. Clearing your throat, you carried on. “I’m sorry. For, you know… this. And being late.”

Despite your short sentences and the quiet way you uttered the words, Wednesday felt her heart crack again, she was reminded of the way she practically itched to get her hands on the people who mad you feel like this.

“My love, don’t you dare apologise,” she trailed a finger from your brow, down to your jaw. “You have done nothing wrong. We both know more than most that this is not something you can control. The least those insufferable cretins could have done was be more aware of what they were doing. It’s amusing how they think I’m the intolerant one.”

You huffed out a soft laughing, your eyes tracing over Wednesday’s face, not settling on one space for too long. You were still astounded to this day that you had been able to win Wednesday’s affections, to have her hold you in such a caring manner without holding a knife against your throat in the next second.

“Wends, no murder, no maiming. We have a deal, remember? You leave at least half of the school alive, and you get to carry that ancient mace around with you.”

“It’s not much of a deal, Y/N. You wouldn’t be able to pry the mace from my dead hands, I can do as I please and murder who I please. Regardless of whether you think it’s polite, or not.”

At that you only quirked a brow at her, all you would have to do was say please and shed give you the world, shed burn it to the ground to watch you smile, or nurture it with a gentleness she had buried long ago. Until you. Still, whichever you pleased. She’d prefer the burning, but that’s irrelevant, watching as she rolled her eyes and grumbled some half-hearted excuse.

“Irrelevant, my love. We are focusing on you, and what you need. Would you like to watch one of those inane movies you like? The ones that are a disgrace to every cinematic piece ever made?”

Not having the energy to delve into how ‘Shrek’ was a masterpiece in its own right, you only nod gently.

Tugging the gothic girl to lay down beside you, with your head resting on her shoulder as she pulled your laptop from your bedside table, already knowing how to load the movie due to the “innumerable amount of times” you had forced Wednesday “to watch such a pathetic excuse for entertainment.”

You knew she’d say she hated it, but you didn’t miss the way her lips tugged up slightly when Donkey was petrified for whatever reason throughout the movie.

#wednesday addams #wednesday addams x reader #wednesday x reader #wednesday #wednesday netflix #jenna ortega #autistic!reader #reader

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runwayrunway · 7 months

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No. 54 - Ryanair

You are watching a video on a popular video sharing service. It is a full episode of a popular and long-running show, generously uploaded for free. It is narrated by a calm man with a BBC accent of the sort which belongs exclusively in documentaries.

The narrator names a date between 1903 and the current year. It is accompanied by a location - an airport. An airplane is on approach. It has a certain number of people on board, and it flies for some airline. There are pilots, most likely two of them. They make some sort of mistake, and maybe there's an issue with the weather, or the ILS is down, or the instruments are giving misleading information, or some other thing has gone tailcone over teakettle in an alarmingly short timespan and now their approach is tremendously unstable. They aren't on the glideslope. They're too fast or too slow. They really need to declare a missed approach, but for whatever reason they don't.

The plane lands, or 'lands' - finds itself on the ground, regardless - either on or short of the runway. It bounces, or flips over, or just pancakes into the ground. The fuselage cracks, or splits, or peels open, or horribly catches fire. There is an evacuation. It's all very stressful at minimum, and an unmitigated tragedy at worst.

You scroll down to the comments for some reason. "Average Ryanair landing," says one near the top.

Ryanair (not to be confused with Ryan Air, a real but unrelated airline) is Europe's largest air carrier. It has over 550 airplanes and serves over 200 destinations. It is difficult to imagine an airline with a worse reputation - their CEO is a literal troll, their customer service is legendarily poor, and their ultra-low-cost model is one in which you inevitably get what you pay for. They are memetically despised, and their rough landings are the stuff of legend.

And yet their livery is understated, with a certain head-held-high gravitas. It is difficult to describe the legitimate cognitive dissonance which arises from Ryanair's aerosartorial choices, an effect that seems to touch more people than just me. On another airline, I wouldn't find this livery particularly thought-provoking. Enough substance to write a post about, but not something which lurks in my mind and draws my attention. But on Ryanair, it's downright fascinating.

I've said what I've said, but I'm actually a defender of Ryanair. Look, it's like getting a ticket on a bus or the metro. It's cheap (at least in theory - they seem to be getting pricier lately) and it gets you where you need to go and it's probably not going to be that long of a flight anyway so, I mean, whatever. I've flown some pretty long flights before in-flight entertainment was standard, Ryanair is fine. I never even noticed the hard landings until I saw people talking about them, and to be perfectly honest I didn't notice them afterward either. Maybe I'm just not bothered by hard landings, the same way I'm not bothered by turbulence. Who really knows? My point is that I'm something of a Ryanair apologist. I live in the US, where you just don't get dirt cheap flights like that and getting anywhere outside of your home metropolitan area by train (and even sometimes bus) costs even more than flying. Ryanair could make me board the plane by abseiling up it myself to save money on airstairs and I'd be fine with it if the price was right. I'm not a millionaire. I haven't got the money to go jetsetting around Europe on a real airline. So I mean this when I say it: thank goodness for Ryanair.

I mean, I'm not saying this because Ryanair is good, don't get me wrong. They are the Big Bill Hell's of airlines. They are the closest thing we have to John Mulaney's version of Delta. Ryanair is not just no-frills, it's hot-glued fabric scraps in the vague shape of a garment. They are legitimately comical in their commitment to service so Kafkaesquely bad that you almost wish you'd travelled by trebuchet instead! And all this for the low, low price of...well, I mean, they do get pretty low.

When I released my first questionnaire I added a question about Ryanair specifically because of its reputation and my own feelings about the airline. Multiple people did agree with me - well, it's definitely not comfortable at all, you won't enjoy yourself, but it's so obscenely cheap that this isn't really objectionable. You are getting exactly what you pay for. And, well, if you do want some semblance of the full-service experience you can pay an extra fee. Or a lot of extra fees. That's how they get you. The ULCC model relies on stripping out everything possible and then charging you extra for it. That does mean that if you need things like printed boarding passes or the ability to pay by credit card that come standard with literally any other airline you could end up paying a decent amount for your miserable cramped flight, but if you truly want the bare minimum they will charge you appropriately, and that is so important to me, because I have too little money to insist on being comfortable.

I do feel...particularly sorry for one respondent.

It isn't bad press they are legitimately a nightmare. A attendant once lied to me and told me that type of plane just didn't have toilets (it did. There was a working toilet on board) then proceeded to lecture me about 'not planning ahead and going in the airport'

This is kind of hilarious in a sad way and I'm very sorry that this happened to you. Ryanair is infamous for its bad customer service but it's rare you'll hear about cabin crew behaving this poorly at any airline. While this particular incident was a one-off, you probably will have a pretty miserable time if you need to call the airline about literally anything.

One person just answered 'bitches'.

Well, that answers the question "what is Ryanair", but why is Ryanair?

The world is full of low-cost carriers. Wizz Air, EasyJet, airasia, Allegiant, Jetstar, FlySafair, Volaris, T'Way, Azul, Nok Air, Frontier, Lion Air, jetBlue, and SpiceJet are just some of the dozens which fill the skies. They are often colourful, frequently grumbled about, and essential.

Low-cost carriers, and especially ULCCs, are a relatively recent phenomenon. They only sprung into being after aviation stopped being by necessity a luxury product. It's generally agreed that PSA (Pacific Southwest Airlines), an intrastate carrier from California colloquially known as the Poor Sailor's Airline, was the first low-cost carrier. While the large interstate carriers of the time had a sort of detached gravitas to both their services and their prices, and were often prevented from lowering said prices anyway due to federal taxes that didn't apply to intrastate carriers like PSA, a ticket on "The World's Friendliest Airline" was cheap and the service was casual and personable. The low-cost model is built on being an option for a normal person. If you don't have the money to fly TWA, you can fly on an airline which is made for normal people and charges you accordingly.

The model didn't really catch on immediately, though. I couldn't exactly say why - it might have to do with the lack of demand for air travel that wasn't either commuter flights or long-haul. There was some activity in the market, with Loftleiðir (a precursor to Icelandair) offering cheap-as-dirt transatlantic flights in the 60s and Laker Airways having a three-year tenure in the late 70s serving a similar market from a Western European base. Even today the long-haul low-cost market they served is notoriously difficult to make anything work in.

What is generally thought to be the next major player in low-cost airlines, Southwest, emerged in 1971. David Neeleman further refined the model, first with innovations in cost-cutting at Morris Air and later by raising the bar for customer experience at jetBlue. David Neeleman, though, was active right at the turn of the millennium. Low-cost carriers only really began to emerge in real numbers in the 80s and 90s, with examples that are long-gone, like the infamous ValuJet, existing alongside ones US residents have probably seen at their local airport, like Spirit.

Spirit is different from jetBlue and Southwest. Spirit Airlines is not just a low-cost carrier but an ultra low-cost carrier. As the name suggests, the difference is one of scale. A low-cost carrier provides less comprehensive and less ritzy service than a full-service airline, but they do so in the tradition of PSA, trying to provide a comfortable experience that makes people want to choose their airline. The ULCC model, on the other hand, guts out literally every possible feature and then dangles it in front of you on a string, telling you to pay extra if you want it. These airlines do not provide a good experience. There will be no baggage allowances, no extra legroom, and no priority boarding. The base fare, however, is almost absurdly low relative to even low-cost carriers, and as air travel becomes a fact of life more and more the humble ULCC becomes a necessary part of the ecosystem as the only way many people can afford to travel.

Ryanair is technically 38 years old, but it's only been a low-cost carrier since 1990. This pivot is the brainchild of then-CFO, now CEO (and ouster of the eponymous Ryan) Michael O'Leary, one of the wealthiest and most unpleasant men in Ireland.

image: Associated Press Yes, this is actually a real image of the CEO of Ryanair. I imagine this may clear up a thing or two.

Why is Ryanair? Because Michael O'Leary, is the simple answer. Michael O'Leary is - and there is genuinely no better way to describe the man - a troll. If you take David Neeleman's image during his tenure at jetBlue, a sweet everyman trying to improve the experience by sitting in on flights and giving up his salary to employee medical funds, Michael O'Leary is the literal exact opposite of him on every point. A self-described "gobshite" and "obnoxious little bollocks" who has admitted to "not liking" aeroplanes, Michael O'Leary is a cruel, selfish, belligerent, publicity-seeking freakazoid on a mission to piss off everyone in Europe which has so far been largely successful.

I don't want anything I say about the man to come off as positive. Michael O'Leary is a wealthy ghoul (and, yes, he was born wealthy, no rags in his tale) who publicly berates, mistreats, and underpays his staff. He has expressed prejudice against racial and religious minorities, fat and disabled passengers, women, and just about anyone who expects to be treated with some measure of dignity. He has committed legitimate crimes, like impersonating journalists. He denies climate change and has accumulated his massive wealth by abusing the pilots and cabin crew who keep Ryanair adequate. In 2010 Ryanair was named one of the least ethical companies in the world. The fact that he is so absurd as to be hilarious isn't an endorsement or a defense of him.

That said, here is a short, curated list of Michael O'Leary's, and Ryanair's broadly (as their public image is really an extension of his and vice versa) most Ryanair shenanigans:

O'Leary installed a taxicab license plate on his luxury car and driving it in the bus lane to avoid traffic.

Advertisements have taken open and somewhat sneering shots at other major European airlines, like Lufthansa ('bye by Late-hansa'), British Airways ('expensive BAstards'), and the now-defunct Sabena (using a reference to the famous Manneken Pis statue). These have not been simple comparisons but outright name-calling.

One time they advertised sales to 'sunny' vacation destinations, like Norway.

Generally, their advertisements push so many boundaries that they were once found to have committed seven violations of advertising law in just two years, and I'm shocked they didn't begin an ad campaign centring around this dubious achievement.

They frequently misbrand airports way outside of major cities as being in that major city, with the most insane example being "Vienna Bratislava" - yes, Bratislava, the one in Slovakia.

Pilots are forced to pay for simulator checks while cabin crew are forced to pay for uniforms and training. Employees are even forbidden from charging their phones from office sockets, apparently.

Sometimes passengers are forced to carry their own luggage to the planes! Not carryons, luggage.

O'Leary, in a bold move, outright denied that the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull had created a massive cloud of volcanic ash hazardous to airplanes (it very obviously had).

He also said he would like for there to be a recession, since it would let Ryanair keep costs low. He said this in 2008.

One time he said travel agents ("fuckers") should be shot .

O'Leary claimed that Ryanair would begin offering business class, featuring "beds and blowjobs". I'm personally not sure I would want a Ryanair blowjob. That sounds really horrible.

Also, bold coming from an airline with no seatback pockets.

Apparently they tried to get planes delivered with no window shades (though they weren't able to because of regulations).

They've floated the idea of standing seats. I don't believe this will or indeed could ever happen but it definitely is truly dystopian.

Ryanair keeps trying to buy Aer Lingus. They keep failing, and they keep trying. Obviously, everyone in Ireland has a vested interest in making sure this does not happen.

Fundamentally, Ryanair doesn't care. They can and will essentially throw tantrums to get airports to charge them lower operating fees and if they can't get an airport to do this they just won't operate there. It's like negotiating with a seven-year-old. Except that seven-year-old is Europe's largest airline.

They wanted to buy the C919. This isn't, like, a bad thing, it's just really strange for a hardcore Boeing loyalist airline and I can't imagine how it would save them money.

image: Robot8A This is the interior of a Ryanair plane. Note the safety cards attached to the seatbacks due to the lack of pockets, plus additional adverts on the seatbacks and overhead bins like this is a sports match in a massive stadium. It's also just quite ugly.

Fundamentally, Ryanair is just perpetually doing Ryanair things. Why is Ryanair? Because Ryanair is one giant publicity stunt. A couple of people answered my question by referencing the CEO saying he'd like to charge people to use the toilet, and that's sort of true in the sense that he's said he'd like to do this, but he's always been pretty clear that it's a publicity stunt:

Short of committing murder, negative publicity sells more seats than positive publicity.

Like, it's a bit. He's doing a bit. He's 100% in on the joke. For every one of the more particularly insane claims, like charging to use the toilets, he's outright denied it. Even some claims that are pretty borderline are ones he's contradicted at other points. He's a legitimate bigot who's created one of the most nightmarish work environments out there and just wants to suck money out of people by any means necessary, and he's indefensible, but that's not really what people talk about when they talk about Ryanair. They talk about charging for toilets.

Charging for toilets continues to be the number one story that resurfaces in the press and it’s the gift that keeps on giving. We’ve never done it, but it keeps coming up on social networks every three or four months, the media picks up on it and then someone writes a story on it.

Which I think is misplaced effort when he's also, for instance, a climate change denier who forces disabled passengers to pay for wheelchairs. And I don't believe for a second his climate change denial is based on legitimate convictions - he just doesn't want to have to spend more money. He would absolutely knowingly feed the world into an incinerator if it lowered costs.

Anyway, here is a picture of him having his face violently introduced to a pie.

image: Olivier Hoslet

All of this said, there's no such thing as an ethical airline - he's just playing it up to the extreme for essentially business clickbait.

I feel like the best example of Ryanair's general...Ryanairness is their Twitter account, which I have a sneaking suspicion Michael O'Leary runs himself to save money. It's mostly composed of firing back at complaining customers, Formula 1 opinions, and jabs at everyone from Boris Johnson to the British Museum. (Heartbreaking: the worst person you know just made a great point.) Their description, 'we sell seats, not windows', references the frequent complaints about seat 11A, which does not have a window. (To be fair, their website does warn you about this.) Their weird window situation actually generated my all-time favourite Ryanair tweet.

Here are some other winners.

No, seriously, I think Michael O'Leary might be writing these. I also really don't know how to feel about the fact that it appears someone at the airline - potentially O'Leary himself - has made an edit of a yassified Ryanair plane.

But at the end of the day, it's Ryanair. O'Leary himself has described aeroplanes as "a bus with wings on". As one individual tweeted,

THANK YOU to [Ryanair], for letting me see Europe for Feck All

and that's why I do think I genuinely have primarily positive feelings about Ryanair as a product rather than a company - you truly do see Europe for Feck All. (O'Leary has claimed both that he would introduce $10 transatlantic tickets to the US, and that he would make tickets literally free and make all profits from ancillary fees - while neither has yet happened, it takes one hell of an airline to claim that it's on the table.)

Ryanair isn't affordable, it's dime store. It's an airline you bought from Wish.com. It's the free pen you stole from a cup of identical pens at the bank which stops working within days. You're not just in steerage, you're on a tramp steamer. You get exactly the misery you pay for, and you go from one place to a different place.

And it's worth noting that Ryanair has at least one positive feature - safety.

When I ran my first questionnaire I asked respondents what type of airline they thought was most dangerous. Other than what's shown there was also an option for mainline full service carriers; unsurprisingly, nobody chose this. There were 50 respondents but 5 declined to answer this particular question, so the sample size isn't really significant enough to draw any conclusions from, but it's what I have. (I kind of wish I could stop to re-run this with my current follower count, but this post is actually a request. No, not for my wonderful beloved followers - for my dentist. Not joking. Thank you for making my teeth not have holes in them.)

20% of respondents indicated that low-cost or ultra-low-cost airlines probably had the worst safety records and practices. It's completely understandable why someone would think this, but without going into the actual statistics of plane crashes this simply isn't true, and in fact they're the safest category on here. While it obviously depends on the specific airline, low-cost carriers as a category are no less safe than mainline carriers. This is despite the fact that they tend to fly shorter flights and thus they operate more takeoffs and landings, which are the points in a flight where the majority of crashes occur.

How does that make sense? Well, part of it is that the airline industry has gotten very close to eliminating accidental crashes via innovations in technology and an incredible safety culture built on years of hard lessons. The world has paid in blood for crew resource management and GPWS, but it has paid, and now the sorts of crashes that would have been unremarkable just 20 years ago are completely unthinkable. Actually, in the 2010s it's quite possible more people were killed by planes brought down deliberately than accidents. But beyond that, the costs low-cost airlines cut tend to be ones that aren't safety-critical. They tend to operate shiny new fleets (better fuel efficiency, purchased in bulk) with large maintenance teams (shorter turnaround and less planes grounded for long periods of time) at less congested airports (lower operating fees) and indeed when I think about famous accidents that involve massive cutting of corners it's nearly always full-service airlines, save for egregious examples of low-cost industry pariahs out of business within a few years. Focusing on eliminating operating costs by making the passenger experience cramped and miserable allows for pouring all your budget into running a smooth and well-oiled operation.

The axiom "if you think safety is expensive, try a crash" is often attributed to EasyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou. And it's true. Beyond the cost of writing off a plane, of financial compensation to survivors and families, of lawyers and PR, of having to update your operation to make sure it never happens again...as O'Leary himself said, all press is good press...short of murder. A heinous, clearly negligent crash, on the other hand, can kill an airline as easily as it can kill people. It has done in the past and that threat will never stop being there. Airlines go out of business all the time for any number of mundane financial reasons. In many cases margins simply do not allow for something like a crash. Crashes have even ended the lives of deeply historic, beloved, well-established nationalized flag carriers, so this particular sword of Damocles could cut Ryanair's control cables just as easily. And they've managed to avoid this fate, with zero passenger fatalities and only one written-off airplane - the 2008 crash of flight 4102, caused by a birdstrike during landing.

And I'll be honest, "miserable and safe but a tenth the price of a train ticket from Boston to New York" (I am unfortunately not exaggerating) is a pretty appealing package to my non-millionaire self.

...so why do their planes look like this? I'm dead serious, it vexes me. I don't know what to make of this. Hey, did you remember I'm an airline livery review blog? Look, I can't help myself. Low-cost carriers as a topic, and how they're viewed, is probably the most interesting facet of the aviation industry to me. I feel like if I had infinite time and resources I might genuinely sit down, hit the databases and archives, run a few studies, and write a book about it - it's fascinating, and low-cost carriers are something that only economists and businesspeople seem to want to talk about. I think it's about time someone approached them through a lens of history and social psychology. There's not really academic value to what I do here, on Runway Runway, my tumblr blog where I call Lufthansa planes ugly, but if something doesn't exist I will create it even if my sample size is 50.

So how about how they're literally viewed - like, what their planes look like? Well, here are some low cost carriers I've reviewed. Notice something? They're bright and eye-catching. They don't take themselves too seriously. They're fun. The original low-cost carrier literally painted big smiles on their bright pink and orange planes.

Okay, yes, they don't all look like this. WestJet and IndiGo, for example, are fairly normal-looking. And there are full-service carriers like TAP Air Portugal (and condor. Absolutely condor.) that I would say have a pretty low-costy look to them. There is nothing wrong with that. Low-cost liveries are frequently colourful and exciting, with much more thought put into distinctiveness and charm instead of a passionless appeal to dignity. Indeed a lot of my most highly esteemed liveries, including all the ones pictured above, are low-cost airlines. GOL, for example, is a snappy, eye-catchy design in bright colours that's clearly not meant to look expensive. The same goes for Breeze Airways. There's even more examples out there I've yet to touch on, like EasyJet; ValuJet; Scoot; Spirit Airlines; Frontier Airlines; PLAY (and the late WOW air); Volotea; airasia, so on - to be dignified or clean is not the goal here. Even the names of low-cost carriers frequently are very hastily stapled together and generic, like EasyJet or Super Air Jet or Wings Air; JetSmart; SkyUp; Smartwings; FastJet; Sky Airline (just one!); MYAirlines; the classic ValuJet; flyadeal; and the legendary jet2.com, making no attempt at all to seem as if they have a legacy to fall back on. And there's even more out-there specimens, like Mango or even Nok Air. Many of them have specific themes, like Batik Air, Tigerair, or Buzz, which isn't something you see on full-service carriers, which brand themselves on national identity and the promise of luxury and good service - which is boring. Low-cost airlines, if they want to succeed, have to do something to make people remember they exist.

This is the fundamental shape taken by the low-cost product, which operates with few laurels to rest on and a mission of getting people to remember their website at any cost. Much like a can of Arizona iced "tea" guaranteed to cost ninety-nine cents, literally cheaper than a bottle of water, the package it comes in makes no attempt to look classy. And I am a heavy tea drinker who considers myself fairly discerning, whose favourite type of tea is gyokuro yamashiro (which is absurdly expensive), but you literally can't beat Arizona! It's potable and it's ninety-nine cents and it sort of resembles tea if you don't think too much about it and Massachusetts summers are surprisingly hot and the can is pretty and colourful. Sure, I'd rather have Ito En, but that costs normal money and Arizona costs 99 cents, and sometimes that's all I really have, and it gets the job done even if my teeth aren't enjoying the experience. A Wizz Air plane is a can of Arizona iced tea. It is ninety-nine cents and potable.

This isn't Arizona, this is a box of Darjeeling from Harrods. Ryanair outfits their fleet in handsome navy blue and gold. Their logo, an outline of a woman with harp-like wings taking flight, is simple yet elegant, and that feels so very wrong. I actually asked in my questionnaire what the colours of the Ryanair livery were, because I had seen people expressing casually that they weren't sure they could recognize so much as a Ryanair logo, and the results aren't worth showing in a chart because they're basically as good as random. I do want to specifically appreciate the person who answered "I don't remember but it must be whatever the cheapest colour of airplane paint is", though.

But the truth is that they have such a rich palette, and I do mean that in the sense of 'wealthy'. A deep royal blue paired with a saturated gold used as a sparing trim, these are the colours of an overstuffed plush armchair, not a budget airline. Aside from the name on the winglets and the giant billboard wordmark there is nothing, and I mean nothing, that is typical for a low-cost airline. This is not garish advertising, this is stately.

The layout itself is what I call "Deltalike". Delta certainly did not invent this style of livery but they are the carrier I associate most with it, likely due to the fact that I live right by one of their hubs. The Deltalike is a white plane with a painted tail unconnected to the main fuselage body, painted winglets, painted engines, and a painted underbelly large enough still be visible when viewed directly from the side. While a 'true' Deltalike uses a consistent palette for the engines, tail, and underbelly, there is significant variation. The detached tail is, in my opinion, the harbinger of the Deltalike, and I call liveries with an incomplete presentation of Deltalike features Deltalites.

This scheme is not as common as the Lufthansa Line variants but it is still very common, with its popularity probably peaking in the 2010s. Some examples of the true Deltalike include Air Canada, 2006 Icelandair, Azul, the old GOL livery, and jetBlue. Some colour-varied Deltalikes are the old Flair livery, the SAS red engine livery, and British Airways. An example Deltalite is the old Croatia Airlines scheme, which has a painted tail and belly and engines that are sort of painted. Sure, the engines are just grey and a bit of the tail extends onto the body, but it's got the colour concentrated in the right place and it has the painted belly, it's a Deltalite. A lot of liveries have painted engines and detached tails but no painted bellies, and I do consider these to be on the far end of the Deltalike spectrum, but they aren't what I mean when I refer to a Deltalike. They're what brown dwarves are to actual stars - related but not really the same.

Ryanair is a true Deltalike, but I would even call it an elevated Deltalike. The gold trim, like the cord adorning the hems a of a thick brocade smoking jacket, has an effortlessly shallow curve as it trims the rich blue underbelly, larger than that of a typical Deltalike and with a very deliberate shape to it which at the rearmost point covers half the fuselage by height but fades away to a sort of goatee at the front. This is not a plane which sat in a puddle of blue but an intentional cloak impeccably positioned, visible not just from the side but from the front. The engines, instead of being plain or just one colour with a website printed on, large and garish, are the same white and blue with yellow trim, the last traces of the setting sun melting into a glassy deep blue ocean below a stark white sky with which it inexplicably coexists. Sure, the detached tail still looks bad, it always does, but you can ignore it at most angles.

From below the dark blue creates that distinct cetacean effect, a certain brightness-inverted countershading effect, similar to what you see on airlines like KLM and other blue-side-up liveries. The underside doesn't have a huge, legible logo, visible even from the ground on final approach. One of the defining features of the low-cost livery, in my mind, is a large, prominent website. It's tacky and a little pointless (I mean, surely they can Google your airline's name if your wordmark is large enough) but it is downright ubiquitous. Even full-service carriers frequently heavily feature their website, but it's nowhere on a Ryanair plane. That's so, so incredibly weird.

Just...think about it. Their entire identity is outrage marketing. They are the xQc of airlines - bigoted, constantly in the news, and obnoxious. And nobody remembers what their livery looks like because it doesn't look obnoxious. This is like if MrBeast's thumbnails were lovingly curated aesthetically pleasing shots of scenery that could pass for screenshots from an actual film. It's not tacky and cheap and it's not generic and cheap, it's elegant and cheap. And of all airlines to look like this...Ryanair? Seriously? Ryanair?

image: Associated Press

The CEO.

The airplanes.

Do you see what I mean? Do you see why I find this deeply strange? This is not a clickbait plane. This plane is downright unclickable. It has never been clicked. I bet if I covered the name up and showed it to people (again, I wish I'd had the time to do this) I could fool people into thinking this is like United. Hell, I've learned from my other survey that the average person clearly knows less about liveries than I, the Joker of liveries, do, and can't identify basically any from memory. I could probably fool at least one or two people into thinking this is Singapore Airlines. I may try this on a few co-workers and then get back to you.

How did we get here? I have no clue. While Ryanair did start out as a charter carrier rather than a low-cost airline, and they always had blue and yellow as their colours, their very early liveries were just white planes with wordmarks.

This livery seems to have appeared very early in the history of low-cost Ryanair. Unfortunately, I can't date it precisely - the only thing I can say is that the earliest photograph I could find in this livery was from 1994. Based on the fact that their planes were photographed in different liveries right up to then, including this very brief TAM-like BAC 1-11 livery, I think 1994 is most likely the point they committed to it.

Oh, Adam Rowden, what a different world you lived in.

Even for 1994 this is a pretty conservative livery. Sure, this was before the real boom of bright and venomous flying billboards, but it's still strange. And Ryanair is no stranger to literal flying billboards in the form of logojets for such companies as Vodafone and Hertz, often sort of hideous ones, though I imagine these days nobody would ever want to associate with them like that.

And they never changed it, except that they did - to the modern, softer curve. This I can pinpoint with much more accuracy. It was changed in mid-2003 as new aircraft were delivered, while the older livery was phased out together with the secondhand airframes which wore it. I do not understand this at all. If any airline were to just make the decision to go full circus tent and be as garish as possible it should be Ryanair, right? Ryanair is a brand incapable of cowardly behavior. But they look far more sober than even the average modern flag carrier livery. I guess they don't think they need an eye-catching livery, but I just don't buy that as a full explanation. Imagine the news they'd make for introducing something truly heinous. I think their genuine best move would just be to put a huge picture of Michael O'Leary's face, blown up massively and poorly aligned with visible JPEG artefacts, all over their fuselages. All of Europe would be furious. So why? Why is this the situation?

So what's the verdict? This may be the hardest decision I've made so far. The options here range widely. I'll lay them out.

If I were rating this based on pure visual appeal, I would give it a B-. I am dead serious - this is a visually pleasing, well-balanced livery, simple yet elegant. The detached tail is my only major complaint. But I think Saudia's planes are quite pretty and I graded them low because I think they fail at representing their airline or having a distinct identity, so this cannot be my sole criterion.

I almost want to give them an F because of just how un-Ryanair they are, like how Copa's livery is literally not the Copa livery, but that feels wrong because that's still the Ryanair livery, it's not just a refusal to design a livery at all.

Do I marry these two into a tepid union destined for either divorce or a dramatic act of arson after a seeming eternity of languishing in mutual dysfunction in Tallahassee? I really don't want to do that, because attempting to balance these factors betrays the fact of their contradiction, the mental strain I've been afflicted with over this simple, pointless choice with zero consequences except maybe one of my followers disagreeing with me, which is fine. Unlike certain individuals I will not call you swear words and say you're an idiot.

The final option is maybe my least favourite of them all, because it's capitulation. It's admitting Ryanair is special, just the most annoying golf-ball-sized hailstone in the blizzard of absurd and comical frustrations which is the airline industry. But I just don't know what to make of this miserable little pest, this plague on the patience and knees of the traveling public.

Z. FUCK YOU IT'S RYANAIR.

It defies categories by being good, but being Ryanair. I hate that. I hate it, I hate their beastly little CEO, and I dislike that their planes are sleek, elegant, and could easily pass for an airline that doesn't instruct stewardesses to kick their passengers' shins as they walk down the aisles. If I am buying a ten-euro plane ticket I do not think the plane should look like this, teleologically speaking. At the end of the day I just have no better way to quantify my feelings.

Prick.

#tarmac fashion week #grade: z #era: 1990s #era: 2000s #era: 2010s #era: 2020s #region: europe #ryanair #low cost carriers #ulccs #deltalike #cabin fever #long haul #questionnaire 1 #questionnaires #double sunrise #yeah I guess. it goes in that tag sure

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