Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2017-01-10 02:22 pm
azurelunatic) wrote2017-01-10 02:22 pm
omgcp! thoughts: Jack's shoes
Jack's shoes are entirely decent running shoes and perfect.
... as long as you're not looking at it from an aesthetic standpoint. (Which Bitty is. Which Bitty *totally* is.)
Jack's Canadian. Now, he's not as far north as I was (Alaska) but folks? It's DARK out there. A guy's going running anywhere near where there might be cars, he's going to want to stand out. Reflective tape on the coat. Reflective tape on the warmup pants. Reflective zipper pull (the safety bear ones). And if you can't make it reflective, make it light.
So as long as Jack's been running, Jack's had the safety yellow shoes. Neon is best; picks up what little light there is in the long Canadian dusk. But bright will do. He could have gone white, but it's so hard to keep that looking neat; yellow won't show a little dust.
It's not a matter of "these are the shoes I'm used to and that's that", or a sensory thing, it's a safety thing.
But, those *are* the shoes he's used to. It's good to have a pair on reserve, so the moment he notices that the current pair is actually too worn out to be any good anymore, he can toss them and pull out the spare. Then he orders another pair or two. Bad Bob's son never had to worry about the cost of a new pair of running shoes, but Jack never saw the point in athletic shoes as luxury goods. He pays for solid, well-designed shoes that he knows will fit his feet and be visible until it's actually dead dark. (There are probably other brands that would work just as well, but Bad Bob had that endorsement deal, and even when it's no longer a matter of cornering his dad's PA to say that his shoes are dead and can he get some new ones, yellow please, 12W, that's the brand he defaults to on the shopping site. Because why mess with what works?)
(For Bitty, it's sensory. After the first "but the captain hates me" wore off, Bitty thinks of Jack as a restful person. Safe. You don't need to be braced for some sort of sensory assault from him. Shitty's loud in every possible way: volume, clothing that makes no rational sense or large expanses of un-self-conscious skin, using some truly choice colorful metaphors, and usually reeking to high heaven of weed. Occasionally sweat if he hasn't showered after running, sometimes way too much Axe or floral perfume. Shitty doesn't let the gender binary constrain his choice of scents. (Nor does he let them be constrained by good taste. DEAR SWEET MOTHER OF MERCY.) Ransom and Holster mean well, but they are also super loud, and will infodump on a dime. Bless their hearts. Chowder ... Chowder is basically Pikachu crossed with a labrador. Super adorable, super enthusiastic, easily confused, will knock you over and shock you out of pure love. But Jack is quiet, and it *messes with Bitty's sense of the universe* that someone so quiet and restrained has such UNRESTFUL shoes.)
... as long as you're not looking at it from an aesthetic standpoint. (Which Bitty is. Which Bitty *totally* is.)
Jack's Canadian. Now, he's not as far north as I was (Alaska) but folks? It's DARK out there. A guy's going running anywhere near where there might be cars, he's going to want to stand out. Reflective tape on the coat. Reflective tape on the warmup pants. Reflective zipper pull (the safety bear ones). And if you can't make it reflective, make it light.
So as long as Jack's been running, Jack's had the safety yellow shoes. Neon is best; picks up what little light there is in the long Canadian dusk. But bright will do. He could have gone white, but it's so hard to keep that looking neat; yellow won't show a little dust.
It's not a matter of "these are the shoes I'm used to and that's that", or a sensory thing, it's a safety thing.
But, those *are* the shoes he's used to. It's good to have a pair on reserve, so the moment he notices that the current pair is actually too worn out to be any good anymore, he can toss them and pull out the spare. Then he orders another pair or two. Bad Bob's son never had to worry about the cost of a new pair of running shoes, but Jack never saw the point in athletic shoes as luxury goods. He pays for solid, well-designed shoes that he knows will fit his feet and be visible until it's actually dead dark. (There are probably other brands that would work just as well, but Bad Bob had that endorsement deal, and even when it's no longer a matter of cornering his dad's PA to say that his shoes are dead and can he get some new ones, yellow please, 12W, that's the brand he defaults to on the shopping site. Because why mess with what works?)
(For Bitty, it's sensory. After the first "but the captain hates me" wore off, Bitty thinks of Jack as a restful person. Safe. You don't need to be braced for some sort of sensory assault from him. Shitty's loud in every possible way: volume, clothing that makes no rational sense or large expanses of un-self-conscious skin, using some truly choice colorful metaphors, and usually reeking to high heaven of weed. Occasionally sweat if he hasn't showered after running, sometimes way too much Axe or floral perfume. Shitty doesn't let the gender binary constrain his choice of scents. (Nor does he let them be constrained by good taste. DEAR SWEET MOTHER OF MERCY.) Ransom and Holster mean well, but they are also super loud, and will infodump on a dime. Bless their hearts. Chowder ... Chowder is basically Pikachu crossed with a labrador. Super adorable, super enthusiastic, easily confused, will knock you over and shock you out of pure love. But Jack is quiet, and it *messes with Bitty's sense of the universe* that someone so quiet and restrained has such UNRESTFUL shoes.)
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ALLOW ME TO PRESENT MY CASE AGAINST MUSTARD-YELLOW.
(And I've at least one friend who has ordered their own office supplies because the combination of certain default colors -- dark green hanging files, light tan folders, light yellow post-its -- were the visual equivalent of a cheese grater.)
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[and as a concept something I'm going to shamelessly steal, because I'm always looking for ways to improve my own writing. So thanks for posting this.]
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It's a hockey webcomic, "Check Please!" and Jack is depicted with yellow shoes in some bits. There's been some fandom discussion about why he as a character would make that choice. I had a very different idea from many of the thoughts I'd seen wander past on Tumblr.
On Jan 11, 2017 6:18 AM, "siliconshaman - DW Comment" < dw_null@dreamwidth.org> wrote:
siliconshaman replied to your Dreamwidth entry "omgcp! thoughts: Jack's shoes" ( http://azurelunatic.dreamwidth.org/7718044.html ) in which you said:
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