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via http://ift.tt/2wzb2l8:
You know I like the tentacles. ;)
Thank you, I’ll look it over!
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You know I like the tentacles. ;)
Thank you, I’ll look it over!
(Your picture was not posted)
Aug. 11th, 2017
Star Trek Sentinel AU 2/?
Aug. 11th, 2017 12:55 amvia http://ift.tt/2vodIDQ:
Still with no title
Part one
USS Brighton, star date 2245.04
“Happy fucken’ birthday to me,” Jim muttered. His breath fogged up the viewing port and he doodled a vector equation in the condensation. He had the navigation from Earth to Tarsus IV all plotted out on his PADD, and had re-plotted the course several times with imagined variables. An attack from a Klingon warbird sending them off course, navigating around a previously uncharted spatial anomaly, a failure in the ship’s computer sending them 20 light years off course, 200 light years, 200,000 light years. And that was just in the first week of their trip. Since then, Jim had first broken into his PADD’s code and rewritten it, and then he’d disassembled the thing and put it back together with a few upgrades he’d acquired from engineering so it could run his software.
He had a personal comm waiting on the terminal in the passenger lounge. He’d only looked at it long enough to see it was from Sam before logging out of his account. It wasn’t like he’d expected anything from his mom, and even if she had sent anything, she probably would have been drunk. Or crying. Or both. Jim’s birthday was never a happy occasion, and thanks to the whole Starfleet Hero coverage, Jim knew down to the second how long he’d been alive before his dad died. He could see his mom counting the seconds every year, looking at him and adding up in her head how many more seconds he’d been alive than George Kirk.
Birthdays sucked on the cosmic level of a singularity.
In 32 days, the USS Brighton would enter orbit over Tarsus IV and shove all her passengers out along with her cargo, pick up a bunch of the same, and head back to Earth. Jim had been trying to get the captain to make him a midshipman, but so far no dice. She was a tough nut to crack, and had about as much sense of humor as a Vulcan at a funeral. After the fourth time she’d told him that no, she was not going to take on a juvenile delinquent as a midshipman, she’d warned him that if he tried to stowaway on her ship, she’d send him back to Tarsus IV in a life pod. Jim believed her. Captain Hathaway was not a woman he wanted to go to toe-to-toe with, not least of all because she was 6’4” and looked like she could pick him up – life pod and all – and throw him a few light years.
Jim smudged his sleeve across the viewport and then breathed on the surface again. He tried to calculate the amount of energy that would theoretically be necessary to create a wormhole from Earth to Tarsus IV, but he couldn’t create enough space with his breath on the window, and the equation kept fading before he’d finished it.
“You could always use a PADD,” Captain Hathaway said from behind him.
Jim had seen her reflection in the glass just a heartbeat before she’d spoken, so he didn’t jump. He wiped his sleeve over the last of the fading equation and crossed his arms over his chest. She watched him for a moment, and then took a seat at the table behind him.
The observation lounge had been empty for hours, and it wasn’t used much anyways – the ship’s designers had obviously put it in as an afterthought, as the only way to get to it was to squeeze past the coolant tanks in Engineering and take the service corridor. It was a weirdly shaped room, like someone had taken a slice off of a tear drop. One wall was curved so severely that Jim could have used it for ricochet practice. The opposite side of the room narrowed down into a point so narrow that the best use of the space had been a rack of pool cues. A smaller-than-standard pool table had a folded board under it that could convert it into a holotable, and the deck of cards and case of plasisteel chips on a nearby shelf proved it was also used for poker as well. Otherwise, the lounge boasted one round table with three chairs, and a couch that looked like it was used for a lot of naps.
“We don’t often see passengers back here,” Hathaway said after a long moment of quiet where Jim just stared at the stars sliding slowly past the viewport.
“Probably don’t get captains back here a lot either,” Jim mumbled. Maybe it hadn’t been an afterthought – maybe it hadn’t even been designed in, but instead retrofitted by the engineering staff.
Hathaway didn’t respond. After a breath she said, “Pretty advanced math you’re doodling on my window.”
Jim shrugged again. He liked math. Might not be able tell from his transcript, but that was just because he never did his assigned homework – and why should he? He could plot out an astronavigation course to describe the dancing he could do around 7th Grade math homework.
(read more)
“No ship will take on a midshipman under the age of fifteen,” Hathaway announced. “It’s against regulation. When you’re fifteen, with your guardian’s consent, fill out the application paperwork and I’ll consider taking you on. Not a day before that,” she warned sternly, “and you better not forge anyone’s consent. I’ll know.”
“That doesn’t help me now,” Jim pointed out. He was twelve, and three years on a backwater dust bucket like Tarsus IV was a long damn time. At least in Iowa he always had the option of sneaking off to the spaceport and conning his way onto a freighter. Tarsus IV got one scheduled delivery of supplies and a Fed check up every five years. Even he was accepted as a midshipman, he won’t be able to leave the planet until a ship could be diverted to pick him up.
Hathaway snorted. “It’s the best I got, kid. Take it or leave it. Midshipman for a year and then you can apply to Starfleet Academy’s early entry program at sixteen. With a year’s experience already under your belt, and math like that –” She gestured to the viewport, even though the math like that had already been wiped away. “I guarantee they’ll take you.”
Jim snorted. “Sign up like the old man? Go die in space for a noble cause? No thanks.” He probably still wouldn’t measure up. He’d manage to get out there and die saving only 799 lives. On his memorial plaque, his mom would write ‘Still not as good as his father.’
She tilted her head. “You’re the one who’s been begging me to take you on.”
“I just don’t want to go Tarsus, Jesus. Do you know what there is to do on a brand new ag colony? You’d think the answer couldn’t possibly be ‘less than in bumfuck Iowa,’ but it is.”
Jim went back to staring at the window, trying to determine how big the stars were based on their luminosity, but being at warp made it hard to make even an educated guess. Hathaway sat for a moment longer, staring at the side of his face while he pretended not to notice. She had eyes like polished river stones, a sort of gray-blue that should have been dull, but against her olive skin and the deep midnight blue of her hair, they were almost unsettlingly bright.
She stood abruptly. “One of my engineer’s mates didn’t report for duty before we left space dock, and my chief engineer has been complaining incessantly about being understaffed. Report to engineering at 0530 if you’re bored enough and he’ll put you to work.”
Jim looked up at her sharply, not sure how to interpret her tone or the unexpected offer.
“You’re not a midshipman, you’re not in any way connected to Starfleet. You’re a civilian observer. Understood?”
Jim nodded quickly. “I understand.”
“If you don’t show up at 0530 tomorrow, don’t bother showing up any later. One time offer, Kirk.” She didn’t wait for his response, just turned on her heel and ducked down to get through the hatch.
“Happy fucken birthday to me after all,” Jim said into the silence after she’d left. He pulled his PADD out from under his legs and groaned after clicking the display on. It was already 0240, and now he had work in less than three hours. She thought he wasn’t going to show – she’d given him a crazy reporting time because she knew it was too late for him to get any real sleep, and she thought he’d sleep in.
“Just watch me,” Jim told the door, narrowing his eyes.
The next morning, he stood outside of engineering for fifteen minutes, so he could walk in at exactly 0530.
(Your picture was not posted)
Still with no title
Part one
USS Brighton, star date 2245.04
“Happy fucken’ birthday to me,” Jim muttered. His breath fogged up the viewing port and he doodled a vector equation in the condensation. He had the navigation from Earth to Tarsus IV all plotted out on his PADD, and had re-plotted the course several times with imagined variables. An attack from a Klingon warbird sending them off course, navigating around a previously uncharted spatial anomaly, a failure in the ship’s computer sending them 20 light years off course, 200 light years, 200,000 light years. And that was just in the first week of their trip. Since then, Jim had first broken into his PADD’s code and rewritten it, and then he’d disassembled the thing and put it back together with a few upgrades he’d acquired from engineering so it could run his software.
He had a personal comm waiting on the terminal in the passenger lounge. He’d only looked at it long enough to see it was from Sam before logging out of his account. It wasn’t like he’d expected anything from his mom, and even if she had sent anything, she probably would have been drunk. Or crying. Or both. Jim’s birthday was never a happy occasion, and thanks to the whole Starfleet Hero coverage, Jim knew down to the second how long he’d been alive before his dad died. He could see his mom counting the seconds every year, looking at him and adding up in her head how many more seconds he’d been alive than George Kirk.
Birthdays sucked on the cosmic level of a singularity.
In 32 days, the USS Brighton would enter orbit over Tarsus IV and shove all her passengers out along with her cargo, pick up a bunch of the same, and head back to Earth. Jim had been trying to get the captain to make him a midshipman, but so far no dice. She was a tough nut to crack, and had about as much sense of humor as a Vulcan at a funeral. After the fourth time she’d told him that no, she was not going to take on a juvenile delinquent as a midshipman, she’d warned him that if he tried to stowaway on her ship, she’d send him back to Tarsus IV in a life pod. Jim believed her. Captain Hathaway was not a woman he wanted to go to toe-to-toe with, not least of all because she was 6’4” and looked like she could pick him up – life pod and all – and throw him a few light years.
Jim smudged his sleeve across the viewport and then breathed on the surface again. He tried to calculate the amount of energy that would theoretically be necessary to create a wormhole from Earth to Tarsus IV, but he couldn’t create enough space with his breath on the window, and the equation kept fading before he’d finished it.
“You could always use a PADD,” Captain Hathaway said from behind him.
Jim had seen her reflection in the glass just a heartbeat before she’d spoken, so he didn’t jump. He wiped his sleeve over the last of the fading equation and crossed his arms over his chest. She watched him for a moment, and then took a seat at the table behind him.
The observation lounge had been empty for hours, and it wasn’t used much anyways – the ship’s designers had obviously put it in as an afterthought, as the only way to get to it was to squeeze past the coolant tanks in Engineering and take the service corridor. It was a weirdly shaped room, like someone had taken a slice off of a tear drop. One wall was curved so severely that Jim could have used it for ricochet practice. The opposite side of the room narrowed down into a point so narrow that the best use of the space had been a rack of pool cues. A smaller-than-standard pool table had a folded board under it that could convert it into a holotable, and the deck of cards and case of plasisteel chips on a nearby shelf proved it was also used for poker as well. Otherwise, the lounge boasted one round table with three chairs, and a couch that looked like it was used for a lot of naps.
“We don’t often see passengers back here,” Hathaway said after a long moment of quiet where Jim just stared at the stars sliding slowly past the viewport.
“Probably don’t get captains back here a lot either,” Jim mumbled. Maybe it hadn’t been an afterthought – maybe it hadn’t even been designed in, but instead retrofitted by the engineering staff.
Hathaway didn’t respond. After a breath she said, “Pretty advanced math you’re doodling on my window.”
Jim shrugged again. He liked math. Might not be able tell from his transcript, but that was just because he never did his assigned homework – and why should he? He could plot out an astronavigation course to describe the dancing he could do around 7th Grade math homework.
(read more)
“No ship will take on a midshipman under the age of fifteen,” Hathaway announced. “It’s against regulation. When you’re fifteen, with your guardian’s consent, fill out the application paperwork and I’ll consider taking you on. Not a day before that,” she warned sternly, “and you better not forge anyone’s consent. I’ll know.”
“That doesn’t help me now,” Jim pointed out. He was twelve, and three years on a backwater dust bucket like Tarsus IV was a long damn time. At least in Iowa he always had the option of sneaking off to the spaceport and conning his way onto a freighter. Tarsus IV got one scheduled delivery of supplies and a Fed check up every five years. Even he was accepted as a midshipman, he won’t be able to leave the planet until a ship could be diverted to pick him up.
Hathaway snorted. “It’s the best I got, kid. Take it or leave it. Midshipman for a year and then you can apply to Starfleet Academy’s early entry program at sixteen. With a year’s experience already under your belt, and math like that –” She gestured to the viewport, even though the math like that had already been wiped away. “I guarantee they’ll take you.”
Jim snorted. “Sign up like the old man? Go die in space for a noble cause? No thanks.” He probably still wouldn’t measure up. He’d manage to get out there and die saving only 799 lives. On his memorial plaque, his mom would write ‘Still not as good as his father.’
She tilted her head. “You’re the one who’s been begging me to take you on.”
“I just don’t want to go Tarsus, Jesus. Do you know what there is to do on a brand new ag colony? You’d think the answer couldn’t possibly be ‘less than in bumfuck Iowa,’ but it is.”
Jim went back to staring at the window, trying to determine how big the stars were based on their luminosity, but being at warp made it hard to make even an educated guess. Hathaway sat for a moment longer, staring at the side of his face while he pretended not to notice. She had eyes like polished river stones, a sort of gray-blue that should have been dull, but against her olive skin and the deep midnight blue of her hair, they were almost unsettlingly bright.
She stood abruptly. “One of my engineer’s mates didn’t report for duty before we left space dock, and my chief engineer has been complaining incessantly about being understaffed. Report to engineering at 0530 if you’re bored enough and he’ll put you to work.”
Jim looked up at her sharply, not sure how to interpret her tone or the unexpected offer.
“You’re not a midshipman, you’re not in any way connected to Starfleet. You’re a civilian observer. Understood?”
Jim nodded quickly. “I understand.”
“If you don’t show up at 0530 tomorrow, don’t bother showing up any later. One time offer, Kirk.” She didn’t wait for his response, just turned on her heel and ducked down to get through the hatch.
“Happy fucken birthday to me after all,” Jim said into the silence after she’d left. He pulled his PADD out from under his legs and groaned after clicking the display on. It was already 0240, and now he had work in less than three hours. She thought he wasn’t going to show – she’d given him a crazy reporting time because she knew it was too late for him to get any real sleep, and she thought he’d sleep in.
“Just watch me,” Jim told the door, narrowing his eyes.
The next morning, he stood outside of engineering for fifteen minutes, so he could walk in at exactly 0530.
(Your picture was not posted)
via http://ift.tt/2vUelGN:
After speaking to an especially nervous author on the phone today, I commented, “Lady’s as skittish as a long-tailed cat in a room of rocking chairs.”
Laughing, my coworker responded, “That’s the most Southern thing I think I’ve ever heard you say.”
“I don’t say a lot of Southern things, because I’m not Southern,” I said.
Seeming surprised, he said, “Well, it sounded very Tennessee.”
Why was it a particularly Tennessean thing to say? I’m not sure. We shared one of those “We’re virtual strangers and learning things about each other” polite laughs, but he continued to eye me sideways for a while.
It is possible that I have been flagged as a Southern Spy. I am now contemplating ways to pepper in Southern behavior to see how suspicious and/or confused I can make him.
(Your picture was not posted)
After speaking to an especially nervous author on the phone today, I commented, “Lady’s as skittish as a long-tailed cat in a room of rocking chairs.”
Laughing, my coworker responded, “That’s the most Southern thing I think I’ve ever heard you say.”
“I don’t say a lot of Southern things, because I’m not Southern,” I said.
Seeming surprised, he said, “Well, it sounded very Tennessee.”
Why was it a particularly Tennessean thing to say? I’m not sure. We shared one of those “We’re virtual strangers and learning things about each other” polite laughs, but he continued to eye me sideways for a while.
It is possible that I have been flagged as a Southern Spy. I am now contemplating ways to pepper in Southern behavior to see how suspicious and/or confused I can make him.
(Your picture was not posted)
via http://ift.tt/2wNFvvs:
ananbeth:
akumastrife:
xekstrin:
darklydreaminggirl:
no masters or kings, when the ritual begins.there is no sweeter innocence,than our gentle sin.
DRAGS HANDS DOWN FACE?!?!!?!
SHE DIDN’T CHANGE THE PRONOUNS
(Your picture was not posted)
ananbeth:
akumastrife:
xekstrin:
darklydreaminggirl:
no masters or kings, when the ritual begins.there is no sweeter innocence,than our gentle sin.
DRAGS HANDS DOWN FACE?!?!!?!
SHE DIDN’T CHANGE THE PRONOUNS
(Your picture was not posted)
via http://ift.tt/2wMVhGO:
I do like Clint/Phil, though I haven’t read much fic with that as the primary pairing. For no specific reason.
And thank you! I will look into them! :D
(Your picture was not posted)
I do like Clint/Phil, though I haven’t read much fic with that as the primary pairing. For no specific reason.
And thank you! I will look into them! :D
(Your picture was not posted)
via http://ift.tt/2vrI0UA:
lightshadowverisimilitude:
After speaking to an especially nervous author on the phone today, I commented, “Lady’s as skittish as a long-tailed cat in a room of rocking chairs.”
Laughing, my coworker responded, “That’s the most Southern thing I think I’ve ever heard you say.”
“I don’t say a lot of Southern things, because I’m not Southern,” I said.
Seeming surprised, he said, “Well, it sounded very Tennessee.”
Why was it a particularly Tennessean thing to say? I’m not sure. We shared one of those “We’re virtual strangers and learning things about each other” polite laughs, but he continued to eye me sideways for a while.
It is possible that I have been flagged as a Southern Spy. I am now contemplating ways to pepper in Southern behavior to see how suspicious and/or confused I can make him.
BFF just pointed out that I had the actual real life perfect opportunity to bless someone’s heart and I MISSED IT.
(Your picture was not posted)
lightshadowverisimilitude:
After speaking to an especially nervous author on the phone today, I commented, “Lady’s as skittish as a long-tailed cat in a room of rocking chairs.”
Laughing, my coworker responded, “That’s the most Southern thing I think I’ve ever heard you say.”
“I don’t say a lot of Southern things, because I’m not Southern,” I said.
Seeming surprised, he said, “Well, it sounded very Tennessee.”
Why was it a particularly Tennessean thing to say? I’m not sure. We shared one of those “We’re virtual strangers and learning things about each other” polite laughs, but he continued to eye me sideways for a while.
It is possible that I have been flagged as a Southern Spy. I am now contemplating ways to pepper in Southern behavior to see how suspicious and/or confused I can make him.
BFF just pointed out that I had the actual real life perfect opportunity to bless someone’s heart and I MISSED IT.
(Your picture was not posted)
via http://ift.tt/2wNAzGE:
fjuri-the-fury:
lightshadowverisimilitude:
lightshadowverisimilitude:
After speaking to an especially nervous author on the phone today, I commented, “Lady’s as skittish as a long-tailed cat in a room of rocking chairs.”
Laughing, my coworker responded, “That’s the most Southern thing I think I’ve ever heard you say.”
“I don’t say a lot of Southern things, because I’m not Southern,” I said.
Seeming surprised, he said, “Well, it sounded very Tennessee.”
Why was it a particularly Tennessean thing to say? I’m not sure. We shared one of those “We’re virtual strangers and learning things about each other” polite laughs, but he continued to eye me sideways for a while.
It is possible that I have been flagged as a Southern Spy. I am now contemplating ways to pepper in Southern behavior to see how suspicious and/or confused I can make him.
BFF just pointed out that I had the actual real life perfect opportunity to bless someone’s heart and I MISSED IT.
Work in some, “Darlin”
and some “just because a cat has kittens in the oven doesn’t make them biscuits,” (this is a thing that has actually been said to me because I am not a native of the south, I had the shocking audacity to be born out west)
and like a lot of talk about biscuits in general,
you need to be very pro some football team–I’m a Saints and LSU fan, CLEARLY, (it’s funny because I don’t actually give a shit about football) but you can be a hateful enemy of mankind and be all “Roll Tide!” or “How ‘bout them Falcons?”
ALSO, the more you talk about grits and how good they are with butter and cheese or as part of a the famous southern shrimp and grits dish, the better.
–it’s sweet tea not iced tea
–it’s crawfish not crawdads or cray fish
–it’s prah leens not pray leens
Meet my handler.
(Your picture was not posted)
fjuri-the-fury:
lightshadowverisimilitude:
lightshadowverisimilitude:
After speaking to an especially nervous author on the phone today, I commented, “Lady’s as skittish as a long-tailed cat in a room of rocking chairs.”
Laughing, my coworker responded, “That’s the most Southern thing I think I’ve ever heard you say.”
“I don’t say a lot of Southern things, because I’m not Southern,” I said.
Seeming surprised, he said, “Well, it sounded very Tennessee.”
Why was it a particularly Tennessean thing to say? I’m not sure. We shared one of those “We’re virtual strangers and learning things about each other” polite laughs, but he continued to eye me sideways for a while.
It is possible that I have been flagged as a Southern Spy. I am now contemplating ways to pepper in Southern behavior to see how suspicious and/or confused I can make him.
BFF just pointed out that I had the actual real life perfect opportunity to bless someone’s heart and I MISSED IT.
Work in some, “Darlin”
and some “just because a cat has kittens in the oven doesn’t make them biscuits,” (this is a thing that has actually been said to me because I am not a native of the south, I had the shocking audacity to be born out west)
and like a lot of talk about biscuits in general,
you need to be very pro some football team–I’m a Saints and LSU fan, CLEARLY, (it’s funny because I don’t actually give a shit about football) but you can be a hateful enemy of mankind and be all “Roll Tide!” or “How ‘bout them Falcons?”
ALSO, the more you talk about grits and how good they are with butter and cheese or as part of a the famous southern shrimp and grits dish, the better.
–it’s sweet tea not iced tea
–it’s crawfish not crawdads or cray fish
–it’s prah leens not pray leens
Meet my handler.
(Your picture was not posted)
residentgoodgirl: “So, I’m on a plane
Aug. 11th, 2017 05:50 amvia http://ift.tt/2wzGmjU:
residentgoodgirl:
“So, I’m on a plane today. Here’s what I did to prepare to fly as a very fat person. (Thread.)” by @yrfatfriend
(…)
I brought my own seatbelt extender, so I wouldn’t have to ask for one. Sometimes my extender is confiscated by the TSA. Today it wasn’t. I’m not worried about the embarrassment of asking for a seatbelt extender. I know I’m fat. I’m worried that hearing me ask for an extender will prompt others to complain. If they do, it starts a domino effect of trouble for me. Passengers complaining to flight attendants will get me reseated, charged double, or escorted off the plane, stranded without a way home.
Over the last 2 yrs, about 50% of passengers in my row complained about me. So, my body is regularly discussed in my presence w/o my input. Some policies don’t include a refund or rebooking policy. So I could be out $1300 & still stranded. That’s a risk I take every time I fly. And no matter what happens, if someone complains, my body will be discussed loudly, with open revulsion, without regard for who hears it. As a very fat person on a plane, I am treated like luggage–a cumbersome, exasperating inconvenience. Inanimate & unfeeling.
I also checked my bag so I wouldn’t give any other passengers another reason to be irritated with me. I bought a first class tickets bc they’re a bit wider, but mostly because there are partitions between seats. So complaints are less likely.
Although I bought a first class ticket, and despite being ~60 lbs smaller than I used to be, the tray table doesn’t fit around me. Without a tray table, I can’t work for the full six hours. I also won’t be able to eat the first class meal that comes with the ticket. I also won’t request anything so the flight attendant doesn’t have to reach over me, again prompting my seat mate to complain.
So I’ll sit silently, arms crossed, so I don’t encroach on my neighbor’s space.
Today, I was lucky–I boarded & the flight took off without incident. I hope I’m so lucky on my return flight. No one likes flying. It’s not comfortable for anyone. But for some of us, it’s a major physical, financial & emotional risk.
And this isn’t about emotional fragility. I’m vulnerable, but I’m tough. This is about airline policies, and about what happens when others decide to make an issue of my body.
I was complained about for the first time about six years ago. I will never forget it. I was on an oversold flight, moved to a middle seat. The man sitting next to me became increasingly agitated. I said hello, asked how he was. He didn’t respond. He got up several times to talk to a flight attendant, pointing angrily back at me. My stomach sunk as I realized what was happening. When he returned, he gathered his things and said sharply, “this is for your comfort. It’ll be better for both of us.” The FA looked at him blankly and said “no it’s not. Someone else will be sitting here.” He scowled at her, then me, then moved to his new seat–directly in front of me.
I spent the rest of the flight with my arms & legs crossed, humiliated and alone. No one spoke to me or made eye contact. The flight attendant didn’t speak to me, but gave free food and drinks to the others in my row–rewards for tolerating my presence. No one said anything. No one interrupted him or reached out to me. I was invisible.
At the end of the flight, as we filed into the aisle, the man who asked to be reseated spoke to me. “I wouldn’t do that to someone who was pregnant or in a wheelchair,” he said. “I know,” I said. “That’s what makes this so awful.”
I didn’t fly for a year and a half after that. Refused travel for work, didn’t see my family, only traveled where I could drive.
I fly now because I love my family, who live about a thousand miles away. I don’t know what my life would be without my niece & nephew. I fly because I value my job, & I’m good at it. & bc advancing my career means traveling. People bigger than me may not have that option. I fly because my life is my own, and others’ preconceptions of me & my body won’t control it. But they can make it much, much harder.
If you learned something from this thread/think others might, please RT. It would genuinely help if others knew where their complaints lead.
(Your picture was not posted)
residentgoodgirl:
“So, I’m on a plane today. Here’s what I did to prepare to fly as a very fat person. (Thread.)” by @yrfatfriend
(…)
I brought my own seatbelt extender, so I wouldn’t have to ask for one. Sometimes my extender is confiscated by the TSA. Today it wasn’t. I’m not worried about the embarrassment of asking for a seatbelt extender. I know I’m fat. I’m worried that hearing me ask for an extender will prompt others to complain. If they do, it starts a domino effect of trouble for me. Passengers complaining to flight attendants will get me reseated, charged double, or escorted off the plane, stranded without a way home.
Over the last 2 yrs, about 50% of passengers in my row complained about me. So, my body is regularly discussed in my presence w/o my input. Some policies don’t include a refund or rebooking policy. So I could be out $1300 & still stranded. That’s a risk I take every time I fly. And no matter what happens, if someone complains, my body will be discussed loudly, with open revulsion, without regard for who hears it. As a very fat person on a plane, I am treated like luggage–a cumbersome, exasperating inconvenience. Inanimate & unfeeling.
I also checked my bag so I wouldn’t give any other passengers another reason to be irritated with me. I bought a first class tickets bc they’re a bit wider, but mostly because there are partitions between seats. So complaints are less likely.
Although I bought a first class ticket, and despite being ~60 lbs smaller than I used to be, the tray table doesn’t fit around me. Without a tray table, I can’t work for the full six hours. I also won’t be able to eat the first class meal that comes with the ticket. I also won’t request anything so the flight attendant doesn’t have to reach over me, again prompting my seat mate to complain.
So I’ll sit silently, arms crossed, so I don’t encroach on my neighbor’s space.
Today, I was lucky–I boarded & the flight took off without incident. I hope I’m so lucky on my return flight. No one likes flying. It’s not comfortable for anyone. But for some of us, it’s a major physical, financial & emotional risk.
And this isn’t about emotional fragility. I’m vulnerable, but I’m tough. This is about airline policies, and about what happens when others decide to make an issue of my body.
I was complained about for the first time about six years ago. I will never forget it. I was on an oversold flight, moved to a middle seat. The man sitting next to me became increasingly agitated. I said hello, asked how he was. He didn’t respond. He got up several times to talk to a flight attendant, pointing angrily back at me. My stomach sunk as I realized what was happening. When he returned, he gathered his things and said sharply, “this is for your comfort. It’ll be better for both of us.” The FA looked at him blankly and said “no it’s not. Someone else will be sitting here.” He scowled at her, then me, then moved to his new seat–directly in front of me.
I spent the rest of the flight with my arms & legs crossed, humiliated and alone. No one spoke to me or made eye contact. The flight attendant didn’t speak to me, but gave free food and drinks to the others in my row–rewards for tolerating my presence. No one said anything. No one interrupted him or reached out to me. I was invisible.
At the end of the flight, as we filed into the aisle, the man who asked to be reseated spoke to me. “I wouldn’t do that to someone who was pregnant or in a wheelchair,” he said. “I know,” I said. “That’s what makes this so awful.”
I didn’t fly for a year and a half after that. Refused travel for work, didn’t see my family, only traveled where I could drive.
I fly now because I love my family, who live about a thousand miles away. I don’t know what my life would be without my niece & nephew. I fly because I value my job, & I’m good at it. & bc advancing my career means traveling. People bigger than me may not have that option. I fly because my life is my own, and others’ preconceptions of me & my body won’t control it. But they can make it much, much harder.
If you learned something from this thread/think others might, please RT. It would genuinely help if others knew where their complaints lead.
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lovesimplysly:
lightshadowverisimilitude:
fjuri-the-fury:
lightshadowverisimilitude:
lightshadowverisimilitude:
After speaking to an especially nervous author on the phone today, I commented, “Lady’s as skittish as a long-tailed cat in a room of rocking chairs.”
Laughing, my coworker responded, “That’s the most Southern thing I think I’ve ever heard you say.”
“I don’t say a lot of Southern things, because I’m not Southern,” I said.
Seeming surprised, he said, “Well, it sounded very Tennessee.”
Why was it a particularly Tennessean thing to say? I’m not sure. We shared one of those “We’re virtual strangers and learning things about each other” polite laughs, but he continued to eye me sideways for a while.
It is possible that I have been flagged as a Southern Spy. I am now contemplating ways to pepper in Southern behavior to see how suspicious and/or confused I can make him.
BFF just pointed out that I had the actual real life perfect opportunity to bless someone’s heart and I MISSED IT.
Work in some, “Darlin”
and some “just because a cat has kittens in the oven doesn’t make them biscuits,” (this is a thing that has actually been said to me because I am not a native of the south, I had the shocking audacity to be born out west)
and like a lot of talk about biscuits in general,
you need to be very pro some football team–I’m a Saints and LSU fan, CLEARLY, (it’s funny because I don’t actually give a shit about football) but you can be a hateful enemy of mankind and be all “Roll Tide!” or “How ‘bout them Falcons?”
ALSO, the more you talk about grits and how good they are with butter and cheese or as part of a the famous southern shrimp and grits dish, the better.
–it’s sweet tea not iced tea
–it’s crawfish not crawdads or cray fish
–it’s prah leens not pray leens
Meet my handler.
Another fun phrase: “Finer than frog hair.” My Granny used to say that, used in answer to “How are you?”
My Southern friends, feed me more of these weird phrases.
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lovesimplysly:
lightshadowverisimilitude:
fjuri-the-fury:
lightshadowverisimilitude:
lightshadowverisimilitude:
After speaking to an especially nervous author on the phone today, I commented, “Lady’s as skittish as a long-tailed cat in a room of rocking chairs.”
Laughing, my coworker responded, “That’s the most Southern thing I think I’ve ever heard you say.”
“I don’t say a lot of Southern things, because I’m not Southern,” I said.
Seeming surprised, he said, “Well, it sounded very Tennessee.”
Why was it a particularly Tennessean thing to say? I’m not sure. We shared one of those “We’re virtual strangers and learning things about each other” polite laughs, but he continued to eye me sideways for a while.
It is possible that I have been flagged as a Southern Spy. I am now contemplating ways to pepper in Southern behavior to see how suspicious and/or confused I can make him.
BFF just pointed out that I had the actual real life perfect opportunity to bless someone’s heart and I MISSED IT.
Work in some, “Darlin”
and some “just because a cat has kittens in the oven doesn’t make them biscuits,” (this is a thing that has actually been said to me because I am not a native of the south, I had the shocking audacity to be born out west)
and like a lot of talk about biscuits in general,
you need to be very pro some football team–I’m a Saints and LSU fan, CLEARLY, (it’s funny because I don’t actually give a shit about football) but you can be a hateful enemy of mankind and be all “Roll Tide!” or “How ‘bout them Falcons?”
ALSO, the more you talk about grits and how good they are with butter and cheese or as part of a the famous southern shrimp and grits dish, the better.
–it’s sweet tea not iced tea
–it’s crawfish not crawdads or cray fish
–it’s prah leens not pray leens
Meet my handler.
Another fun phrase: “Finer than frog hair.” My Granny used to say that, used in answer to “How are you?”
My Southern friends, feed me more of these weird phrases.
(Your picture was not posted)
via http://ift.tt/2fzKr3D:
wlopwangling:
Photoshop painting process - Pale
(Your picture was not posted)
wlopwangling:
Photoshop painting process - Pale
(Your picture was not posted)
Star Trek Sentinel AU 2/?
Aug. 11th, 2017 10:10 pmvia http://ift.tt/2vXh0Q7:
lightshadowverisimilitude:
Still with no title
Part one
USS Brighton, star date 2245.04
“Happy fucken’ birthday to me,” Jim muttered. His breath fogged up the viewing port and he doodled a vector equation in the condensation. He had the navigation from Earth to Tarsus IV all plotted out on his PADD, and had re-plotted the course several times with imagined variables. An attack from a Klingon warbird sending them off course, navigating around a previously uncharted spatial anomaly, a failure in the ship’s computer sending them 20 light years off course, 200 light years, 200,000 light years. And that was just in the first week of their trip. Since then, Jim had first broken into his PADD’s code and rewritten it, and then he’d disassembled the thing and put it back together with a few upgrades he’d acquired from engineering so it could run his software.
He had a personal comm waiting on the terminal in the passenger lounge. He’d only looked at it long enough to see it was from Sam before logging out of his account. It wasn’t like he’d expected anything from his mom, and even if she had sent anything, she probably would have been drunk. Or crying. Or both. Jim’s birthday was never a happy occasion, and thanks to the whole Starfleet Hero coverage, Jim knew down to the second how long he’d been alive before his dad died. He could see his mom counting the seconds every year, looking at him and adding up in her head how many more seconds he’d been alive than George Kirk.
Birthdays sucked on the cosmic level of a singularity.
In 32 days, the USS Brighton would enter orbit over Tarsus IV and shove all her passengers out along with her cargo, pick up a bunch of the same, and head back to Earth. Jim had been trying to get the captain to make him a midshipman, but so far no dice. She was a tough nut to crack, and had about as much sense of humor as a Vulcan at a funeral. After the fourth time she’d told him that no, she was not going to take on a juvenile delinquent as a midshipman, she’d warned him that if he tried to stowaway on her ship, she’d send him back to Tarsus IV in a life pod. Jim believed her. Captain Hathaway was not a woman he wanted to go to toe-to-toe with, not least of all because she was 6’4” and looked like she could pick him up – life pod and all – and throw him a few light years.
Jim smudged his sleeve across the viewport and then breathed on the surface again. He tried to calculate the amount of energy that would theoretically be necessary to create a wormhole from Earth to Tarsus IV, but he couldn’t create enough space with his breath on the window, and the equation kept fading before he’d finished it.
“You could always use a PADD,” Captain Hathaway said from behind him.
Jim had seen her reflection in the glass just a heartbeat before she’d spoken, so he didn’t jump. He wiped his sleeve over the last of the fading equation and crossed his arms over his chest. She watched him for a moment, and then took a seat at the table behind him.
The observation lounge had been empty for hours, and it wasn’t used much anyways – the ship’s designers had obviously put it in as an afterthought, as the only way to get to it was to squeeze past the coolant tanks in Engineering and take the service corridor. It was a weirdly shaped room, like someone had taken a slice off of a tear drop. One wall was curved so severely that Jim could have used it for ricochet practice. The opposite side of the room narrowed down into a point so narrow that the best use of the space had been a rack of pool cues. A smaller-than-standard pool table had a folded board under it that could convert it into a holotable, and the deck of cards and case of plasisteel chips on a nearby shelf proved it was also used for poker as well. Otherwise, the lounge boasted one round table with three chairs, and a couch that looked like it was used for a lot of naps.
“We don’t often see passengers back here,” Hathaway said after a long moment of quiet where Jim just stared at the stars sliding slowly past the viewport.
“Probably don’t get captains back here a lot either,” Jim mumbled. Maybe it hadn’t been an afterthought – maybe it hadn’t even been designed in, but instead retrofitted by the engineering staff.
Hathaway didn’t respond. After a breath she said, “Pretty advanced math you’re doodling on my window.”
Jim shrugged again. He liked math. Might not be able tell from his transcript, but that was just because he never did his assigned homework – and why should he? He could plot out an astronavigation course to describe the dancing he could do around 7th Grade math homework.
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lightshadowverisimilitude:
Still with no title
Part one
USS Brighton, star date 2245.04
“Happy fucken’ birthday to me,” Jim muttered. His breath fogged up the viewing port and he doodled a vector equation in the condensation. He had the navigation from Earth to Tarsus IV all plotted out on his PADD, and had re-plotted the course several times with imagined variables. An attack from a Klingon warbird sending them off course, navigating around a previously uncharted spatial anomaly, a failure in the ship’s computer sending them 20 light years off course, 200 light years, 200,000 light years. And that was just in the first week of their trip. Since then, Jim had first broken into his PADD’s code and rewritten it, and then he’d disassembled the thing and put it back together with a few upgrades he’d acquired from engineering so it could run his software.
He had a personal comm waiting on the terminal in the passenger lounge. He’d only looked at it long enough to see it was from Sam before logging out of his account. It wasn’t like he’d expected anything from his mom, and even if she had sent anything, she probably would have been drunk. Or crying. Or both. Jim’s birthday was never a happy occasion, and thanks to the whole Starfleet Hero coverage, Jim knew down to the second how long he’d been alive before his dad died. He could see his mom counting the seconds every year, looking at him and adding up in her head how many more seconds he’d been alive than George Kirk.
Birthdays sucked on the cosmic level of a singularity.
In 32 days, the USS Brighton would enter orbit over Tarsus IV and shove all her passengers out along with her cargo, pick up a bunch of the same, and head back to Earth. Jim had been trying to get the captain to make him a midshipman, but so far no dice. She was a tough nut to crack, and had about as much sense of humor as a Vulcan at a funeral. After the fourth time she’d told him that no, she was not going to take on a juvenile delinquent as a midshipman, she’d warned him that if he tried to stowaway on her ship, she’d send him back to Tarsus IV in a life pod. Jim believed her. Captain Hathaway was not a woman he wanted to go to toe-to-toe with, not least of all because she was 6’4” and looked like she could pick him up – life pod and all – and throw him a few light years.
Jim smudged his sleeve across the viewport and then breathed on the surface again. He tried to calculate the amount of energy that would theoretically be necessary to create a wormhole from Earth to Tarsus IV, but he couldn’t create enough space with his breath on the window, and the equation kept fading before he’d finished it.
“You could always use a PADD,” Captain Hathaway said from behind him.
Jim had seen her reflection in the glass just a heartbeat before she’d spoken, so he didn’t jump. He wiped his sleeve over the last of the fading equation and crossed his arms over his chest. She watched him for a moment, and then took a seat at the table behind him.
The observation lounge had been empty for hours, and it wasn’t used much anyways – the ship’s designers had obviously put it in as an afterthought, as the only way to get to it was to squeeze past the coolant tanks in Engineering and take the service corridor. It was a weirdly shaped room, like someone had taken a slice off of a tear drop. One wall was curved so severely that Jim could have used it for ricochet practice. The opposite side of the room narrowed down into a point so narrow that the best use of the space had been a rack of pool cues. A smaller-than-standard pool table had a folded board under it that could convert it into a holotable, and the deck of cards and case of plasisteel chips on a nearby shelf proved it was also used for poker as well. Otherwise, the lounge boasted one round table with three chairs, and a couch that looked like it was used for a lot of naps.
“We don’t often see passengers back here,” Hathaway said after a long moment of quiet where Jim just stared at the stars sliding slowly past the viewport.
“Probably don’t get captains back here a lot either,” Jim mumbled. Maybe it hadn’t been an afterthought – maybe it hadn’t even been designed in, but instead retrofitted by the engineering staff.
Hathaway didn’t respond. After a breath she said, “Pretty advanced math you’re doodling on my window.”
Jim shrugged again. He liked math. Might not be able tell from his transcript, but that was just because he never did his assigned homework – and why should he? He could plot out an astronavigation course to describe the dancing he could do around 7th Grade math homework.
(read more)
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