#it's eat the rich coming from someone who is already relatively wealthy and how that translates to not actually helping anyone | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

snackhobi · 4 years

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pairing: min yoonji x reader / word count: 9.7k / genre: f x f smut, assassin!au

summary: a fic inspired by this post and that’s pretty much it-

warnings: sexually explicit content (NSFW), talk about death/assassination (nothing graphic dw! but they are assassins, so), mild violence, unnecessarily sexually charged lipstick application, face riding, fingering, multiple orgasms, oral (f giving/receiving), use of restraints, overstimulation, squirting, kind of dom!yoonji?

a/n: this is an entirely self-indulgent fic I wrote as a gift to myself for my bday, it’s a lil rushed bc I wanted it done for today! women are so very beautiful and I am so very weak, thank you ladies for all being so amazing ily. this was meant to be a short pwp and now it’s almost 10k but I have no regrets bye

la petite mort French literal meaning: ‘the little death’; also an expression used to refer to the brief loss or weakening of consciousness, specifically the sensation of orgasm as likened to death; an orgasm.

“It’s just unacceptable.”

The woman in front of you is clearly wealthy. Her dark hair is perfectly styled and her pale nails are perfectly shaped and her subtle makeup is perfectly flattering; she’s starting to get older but rather than shy away from it, she’s leaning into it, and she looks almost imperious in her beauty, eyes sharp and set of her lips severe. Park Dahye was born into wealth and has clearly thrived in the life that she’s been afforded.

“Mmhm.” You try not to yawn.

“He’s flitting around with some young, silly thing on his arm, with no consideration for the family’s reputation— my reputation,” she continues. Her posture is perfect, from the set of her spine to her crossed legs to her folded hands that rest on her knee, somehow demure and yet highlighting all of her beauty and riches; the jewellery on her wrists and fingers, the expensive heels on her feet, the slit of her haute-couture dress, no doubt tailored for her and her alone. “I’ve already spoken to him about his behaviour, but he’s just ignored my warnings. We may have agreed on the divorce but we’re currently still husband and wife— has he no shame?”

“Awful.” You don’t even try to hide how bored you are, but Dahye is so quietly incensed that she doesn’t even notice as she launches into the next part of her queenly diatribe, and you muffle a sigh.

That’s the problem with rich clients. Sure, they’re willing to fork over stupid amounts of money to you, but they also think that their issues are of paramount significance— like they’re the centre of the universe and their problems are the only important ones in the world. Like you’re interested in what they have to say. Like this is the only job you’ll ever do that holds real weight or meaning.

For them, it’s a life-changing (life-ending) decision.

For you? It’s another Tuesday.

“Yes, yes, that’s just so terrible, gosh, I don’t know how you manage it,” you say once she pauses to take a breath, using the opportunity to cut her off before she launches into another part of her articulate rant. “Anyway. Would you prefer if his death was embarrassing or quiet?”

For the first time since you’ve met, she seems unsettled. “Pardon?”

Namjoon is much better with people than you, smooth and charming with his boyish dimples. Normally any discussions would go through your handler, but this woman had demanded to meet you personally and had been willing to pay for the privilege: so here you are, with your relative bluntness instead of Joon’s winsome smile.

“You know,” you say, gesturing with your hands. “When they find the body. Do you want him to be caught with his trousers around his ankles—literally or figuratively, that’s up to you— or would you rather it seemed like something natural and unpredictable? Like a sudden heart attack in his sleep, for example.”

When it comes to rich clients, a lot of it is about reputation. When someone’s shuffled off this mortal coil, it’s not just that they’re removed from the equation, it’s also about the ripples that their death leaves in the high society that they’ve lived in. Does she want her (soon-to-be) ex-husband made a mockery of, or does she just want him out of the picture?

She can’t see your face, behind your mask as it is, but you can see hers in perfect clarity. For all that Dahye seems put together and almost impassive, you see the tiny flicker in her eyes. Ah. She’s not just mad because he’s ruining their reputation. She’s hurt.

Man, that sucks. Honestly you bet it’s easier being an assassin than a rich housewife. At least when it comes to backstabbing you can literally involve a knife to sort your problems out. (Well, knives are messy, but you get the picture.)

“I’d prefer something quiet,” she decides. “I’d worry that it could lead back to me, otherwise.”

You’d be offended at the idea that you’d leave any trace that could implicate anyone or that this man’s sudden death was in any way suspicious, but she’s paying you enough that you find that you don’t care. You take pride in your work, but for the amount of zeroes involved in the fee you’re being paid, you think you can take an unintentional insult or two. Or three. Or ten.

You like money, what can you say.

“Sure thing,” you say, giving her a lazy, two fingered salute. You’ve been reclining against the desk of the hotel suite, flicking the complimentary, heavy metal pen between your fingers, twirling it like the world’s most underwhelming baton. You straighten up and let the pen drop back into the pen pot—wait, no, of course it’s a handmade porcelain jar, an alarmingly well-made Joseon porcelain replica. Everything in here stinks of money. “RM will confirm where the money is to be deposited. Half of it now as collateral, and half upon completion of the job,” you say. “If you change your mind between now and then, we’ll be keeping the original 50%, but if for some reason something goes awry, you’ll receive that money back. Sound good?”

She seems surprised at your directness. “I—”

“Fabulous!” You clap your hands together, although the sound is muffled by your gloves. You’re not about to leave your fingerprints everywhere, geez. “Alright, time for me to skidaddle I suppose! I’ve got work to be doing, people to be watching, men to be killing!”

Dahye flinches imperceptibly, but by this point you’ve already slipped out onto the balcony and into the night.

Being an assassin is hard work.

Technically, everyone has the capacity to kill another human being. But killing as a job involves a lot more than just caving someone’s head in with a rock—that’s why Cain isn’t referred to as an assassin, what with how he’d just bashed his brother Abel with a convenient stone that happened to be lying nearby. He was just a straight up dick.

No, when you kill professionally you need to be familiar with an array of different techniques, each one far more sophisticated than the last. You need to know how to be stealthy, how to blend in as you watch your target, how to set up the scenes of their death in a way that doesn't arouse suspicion. Or, instead, how to set the scene up in a way that lets any onlookers know that this person had been offed by someone who knew what they were doing, and knew it well. There's a difference between being a killer and being an assassin and you are firmly in the latter category.

So, if your client wants her husband to be shuffled off quietly, then that’s what she’ll get.

They really have pulled out all the stops for this charity gala. Everything is shining, glittering and bright: the surroundings, the food, the people. Especially the people. The rich elite have come together for an extravagant and exquisite night of ostentation and luxury, all in the name of raising money for some needy cause. (You try not to think of the irony and/or hypocrisy behind that.)

It’s almost laughable how easy it is to blend in here. Namjoon had secured (forged) invitations for you both, and so you hang off his arm as you make a slow sweep of the room, trailing unnoticed after your target. You’re not planning to make a move right now but you want to feel out exactly what he’s like: the more information you have about the person you’ve been contracted to assassinate, the better.

Plus it’s an excuse to dress up nice and eat free food— though that last part is mainly Namjoon.

“God, these canapés are so good,” Namjoon moans quietly to you, hoovering up the flaky pastry crumbs from his fingers with single-minded intent. You dig your fingers subtly into his arm.

“I thought we agreed on not eating tonight, Joon,” you mutter to him, although you say it with a beatific smile in case anyone is watching; the place is heaving with people but you’re always on guard. (Even if Namjoon is right. The hors d’oeuvres that are on offer do look incredibly tempting.)

“You have a glass of champagne,” he points out.

“And you may have noticed that I haven’t drunk any of it.” You titter, as if he’s just told a funny joke, and lightly slap his arm. Again, you’re fairly certain no one is watching, but you can never be too careful. “It’s all about creating a facade, Joonie. It’s what we in the business call a ruse.”

Even throughout your back and forth, you’ve kept your eyes on your man of the night: Park Minjae, a middle-aged businessman who’s been greeting people and getting swept up in conversation, all while a slip of a blonde clings to his arm, stuck to his side like a pretty limpet. She’s cute, sure, but she lacks the poise that Dahye has, so you frankly don’t get it. Then again, not everyone finds strong women as attractive as you do. Weirdos.

You’ve been focused on Minjae but your eyes have also been flitting around the room, drinking in your surroundings, drawing up a detailed map of your environment (of course you’d scoped out the building before tonight, but with all the banquet tables and chairs around the layout is a little different). The people, too, have been subject to your scrutiny, although so far they all seem summarily unimportant and uninteresting, just as you’d suspected. You lift your glass to your lips and pretend to take a tiny, demure sip, glancing up through your eyelashes to scan the room again, and you freeze.

Holy shit.

You take back what you just said about everyone being unimportant and uninteresting.

The woman who’s just walked in is fucking stunning. Her sleek dark bob is unstyled, but perfectly frames her beautiful face: sharp eyes, soft nose, flushed lips. Her cocktail dress lets you see almost every inch of those perfect legs, the line of her thighs to her calves and— oh, you swear you could shed a tear of joy. She’s already tall and she’s made even taller by the heels she wears, towering above most of the men here, a fucking Amazonian goddess who looks powerful and undeniably elegant at the same time.

(Thank you for your service, tall women.)

You don’t know who she is, but goddamn, do you want to. She’s scanning the room, and for a brief moment, your eyes touch. A tiny thrill shudders up your spine at the darkness of her keen eyes, that quick and astute gaze.

It’s only the tiniest of moments that’s over as soon as it’s started. The dark-haired beauty looks away and is already disappearing into the crowd before you realise, and it’s only then you notice that you’re staring, utterly drawn in by her cool poise and presence. You’ve been frozen in place with the rim of your champagne glass resting against your mouth, and your eyelashes flutter as you blink and glance down.

The imprint of your lower lip has been left on the glass, stark red visible against its edge, and you squeeze Namjoon’s bicep.

“How does my lipstick look?”

He takes one look at you as he swallows down another tiny vol-au-vent. “Like half of it is missing,” he says, and you frown.

“Ugh. I’ll go touch it up in the bathroom. Keep an eye on our guy, I’ll be right back.”

It’s not until you’ve made it to the toilets that you realise that you do not, in fact, have any lipstick in your ridiculously small clutch bag. When it comes to your actual work, you’re meticulous and thorough and well-planned, but for some bizarre reason, a tube of lipstick is never the top of the list when it comes to equipment. Unbelievable. (You knew you should have worn the 24/7 stuff, but it was always such a nightmare to get off.)

You’ve been so busy rummaging through your bag that you’re completely caught off-guard at the sound of a quiet voice from behind you.

“Lost something?”

Oh, fuck. It’s her, your dark haired and dark eyed beauty, meeting your gaze through the mirror when you glance up from where you’re resting your bag against the marble counter (marble, marble, marble, it’s all marble: the floors, the counters, the sinks; why do rich people always love marble?). She looks altogether too amused at your plight and at how your eyes have widened perceptibly upon seeing her again. But can she blame you? Her presence is so graceful and commanding and she’s so dizzyingly attractive it’s insane. Surely she must get this all the time.

You stare for a little longer than is probably polite, and even behind her fringe you can see how one of her eyebrows rises.

“Sorry for staring,” you say once you notice. “You’re just so beautiful.”

She pauses as she takes in the compliment. You see how her eyes flicker over your face and settle on your mouth; your upper lip, tinted burgundy red, while the lower is faint and smudged.

“Lipstick problems?” She cocks her head at you, still staring at your lips in the mirror. God, she’s so hot.

“Can you tell?” You sound rueful as you glance down at the reflection of your mouth, touching your bottom lip lightly with a fingertip. “I forgot to bring any with me so now I’m stuck.”

She finally looks away from you. You hear a small, metallic click as she unclasps her evening bag— marginally larger than your own— and lifts out a small tube of liquid lipstick. “Would you like to use mine?”

Fuck yes you would.

“Oh, would that be alright?” You finally turn around, and you have to tilt your head back to look at her, taller than you in her heels. Jesus Christ. She’s going to be the death of you. Why are women so gorgeous? Who gave them the right? “I’m not sure the shade will match, though?”

You watch her beautiful mouth curve up into a small smirk as she pulls out a tiny pack of makeup remover wipes from her bag, and you swear could propose to her there and then. Beautiful and tall and organised? Holy shit. What a woman.

She’s got her bag in one hand, while the lipstick and wipes are clasped in the other; her hand is held up in such a way that you think she means for you to take them from her, but when you reach out she shakes her head.

“I’ll do it for you,” she says. The quiet note of authority in her tone makes you go weak at the knees.

Thank god the toilets you chose aren’t the main ones, because it means there’s no one around to see how she tilts her head at the marble counter in the universal gesture of get on there. It’s entirely unnecessary, but you, of course, immediately comply. You brace your hands against the cold stone before hitching yourself up, careful with the draping folds of your dress; the cold touch of the stone is noticeable through the material of your dress, but it’s instantly forgotten when your enchantress steps closer.

You spread your knees so she can stand between them. Holy shit, she’s even better up close. Her lashes are wispy but they’re the perfect frame for her gorgeous eyes, which are dark and intent. You suppress a shiver. You hold yourself still as she leans forward and around you so she can put her clutch and lipstick down, trying to ignore how close she is, but there’s no way she can’t realise what she’s doing. Your heart is pounding. You wish you didn’t have a job to do tonight because you would so much rather be getting, ah, acquainted with this woman rather than following some old businessman around.

The only noise in the bathroom is the sound of peeling plastic as she opens the tiny packet of wet wipes before she curls one around her finger, glancing at you through her lashes.

“Open,” she instructs.

Your mouth drops open immediately. She sweeps the wipe over your lips, bottom, then top, touch firm but careful, drawing away the red from your skin; you stare at her as she works, how her eyes are cast down as she stares at your mouth. She’s using her free hand to grip your chin and you feel deliciously powerless in her grasp.

You purse your lips a little to try and help her, watching the way her eyes flicker as she pulls the wipe back over them— somewhat firmer, this time, with more intent. Lingering. The only barrier between her finger and your mouth is soft and flimsy, the texture of the wipe against your lips like cotton as it drags across them, and it would be so easy to pull it out of her hands.

She flicks the dirtied wipe aside, heedless of how it lands on the unsullied marble, before reaching for her lipstick. She twists the tube in her fingers, motions of her hands precise and deft, and you’ve never been so attracted to how someone’s uncapped something before.

You watch her hands. (She watches you.)

Your eyes trail over the wand as she pulls it out, dragging the doe foot against the rim to catch the excess before turning it towards you, putting the tube by your thigh, near where your hand is bracing against the marble. She takes hold of your chin once again. You stay quiet as she starts to sweep the lipstick over your lips, painting them the same flushed pink as her own. Once again she’s staring at her work so you’re free to drink her in, almost drunk from her beauty, eyes catching on the tiny moles on her pale skin, the smallest freckles that are only noticeable because you’re this close.

The squelch of the applicator sliding into the tube is almost lewd in the silence of the bathroom, and this time you can’t suppress a shiver when she pulls your chin down to open your mouth so she can go back in again on your lips, drawing a sharp, crisp line. Tracing the edges of your lips, the flushed swell of them, the peak of your cupid’s bow.

She glances up. For a moment you’re both still, staring at each other, tension in the air palpable, but then she smacks her lips and you copy the motion, evening the application of the makeup on your mouth.

“Perfect,” she murmurs. “One more step.”

A small, confused frown flits over your face. She’s put the lipstick aside but then she lifts a finger and points towards your still parted lips. You take in a small, shuddering breath when she speaks again and you realise what she means.

“You don’t want to get lipstick on your teeth, do you?”

Both of her eyebrows have risen and she’s looking at you like you’re being silly if you disagree with her.

“No,” you say. You’re not about to deny her. “No, I don’t.”

Your eyes remain locked. You lean forwards, taking that perfect, long finger into your mouth, dragging your lips upwards so that any excess lipstick is caught against her pale skin, a ring of deep rose circling her bottom knuckle; you curl your tongue around her, hot and wet, feeling the crease of her knuckles and pad of her fingertip against your taste buds as you slowly, slowly pull away.

It’s undoubtedly indecent and risqué and you can feel the flush of arousal settling in your lower belly, an almost embarrassing flush of wetness leaking out of you at the taste of her skin. She, however, remains unmoved, although she lets her finger linger just for a moment on your bottom lip, almost rough against their softness— but before you can swallow those fingers back down and ruin her meticulous work, she pulls away, lifting the discarded wipe to sweep it around her finger, catching the lipstick you’d left on her skin.

“Done.”

She steps back and you feel like you can finally breathe, a breath so deep you can feel how your lungs fill, oxygen rushing to your brain so fast you feel lightheaded. You watch as she sweeps everything back into her bag, clicking it shut with a note of finality; the sullied wipe is cast carelessly into a tiny, chrome bin with a flick of a wrist, her every motion regal.

You slide off the counter. You still can’t take your eyes off her and you don’t want to. It feels like whatever heaviness was in the air has dissipated, gone in an instant with a turn of her head— normally you’d let it slide, even if you feel disappointed, but she’s just so magnetic.

“Thank you,” you say. You can see yourself in the mirror now and to your complete lack of surprise, your lipstick is perfect. The shade is lighter than one you’d have chosen for yourself but it’s beautiful on her, of course.

“You’re welcome.” She’s in the middle of washing her hands, but she glances over her shoulder at you, and the firm set to her face lightens a little as she smiles. It’s a small, sly thing, and you realise with a start that she knows exactly what effect she has on you.

I’m coming back for you, you think to yourself. You have work to do tonight, but—

“What’s your name?”

She pauses. She shuts off the tap with a quick motion, reaching forward for a rolled hand-towel, a neat stack on a metal tray nearby. You wonder if she’s not going to answer but then she speaks, looking at you instead of the soft cotton she’s rubbing over her skin. “Yoonji,” she says. “I’m Min Yoonji.”

Min Yoonji is the most gorgeous fucking woman you’ve ever seen.

“I love your dress, Yoonji,” you say, and it’s true, you really do— but you’d prefer it if it was off. Not that you’re about to say that, of course.

She lets out a breath of laughter. “I know.” Oh, god, you love confident women. “What’s your name, darling?”

You have that same split second of hesitation, similar to Yoonji’s only moments prior. You use a codename when you work, of course, and you have a plethora of fake identities that you use and are intimately familiar with— but the idea of your real name falling off Yoonji’s flushed, petal lips? Woof.

“Y/n L/n,” you say.

Oh, Joon would be so unimpressed right now, giving some mysterious woman your full, real name just because you think she’s the sexiest thing since sex, but whatever. What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him.

“Well, Y/n,” Yoonji says. You were right, your name sounds so good falling from her mouth, the mouth that’s turned into a small, almost smug smile. “I certainly hope to see you at the charity ball in a few weeks?”

“Of course.” Your schedule has been magically cleared and you’ll definitely be in attendance for whatever ball Yoonji is referring to, even if you have no idea what it is. You only come to these things if you have to for work but for Yoonji you’ll make an exception. You’ll make a hundred thousand exceptions. A hundred thousand quinquagintaquadringentillion exceptions. “I’ll make sure to remember my lipstick next time.”

And there it is, the thing that seals the deal, the final nail in the coffin: Yoonji glancing at you out of the corner of her eyes, a sharp, dark touch that shoots through you as her smile edges into hunger.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’m sure it won’t stay on your lips long enough to matter.”

The thing you’ve discovered about Minjae is that, with his divorce due to be finalised soon, he’s apparently lost any sense of routine and is revelling in his new found freedom, which is kind of irritating when you’re trying to tail the guy. Sure, you’re still going to take him out, but you prefer it when targets have some sort of schedule that they adhere to— makes it easier to set up a kill.

“You’re certain that he’s going to be here tonight?” You’d been sceptical considering how the guy’s apparently thrown his schedule out of the window, but Namjoon had been certain.

“Positive.” He’d said. “He’s there every Tuesday night. You’ll have plenty of time.”

The house appears to be deserted. The driveway is empty and all the windows and doors are locked tight. It’s just one of the properties that the Parks own in the city, and for all its size and lushness it appears as though this one is rarely frequented; you imagine that the cleaners and gardeners spend more time here than the owners themselves.

It doesn’t take you long to evade the watchful eyes of security cameras to pick a lock and slip inside. You're grateful for the dying evening light that helps cover your tracks from any onlookers from the street, although you imagine the high walls do good work at preventing people from seeing into the grounds anyway.

There’s still enough light to navigate through the house, the golden tinged sunset casting warm shadows across the spotless furniture and fixtures; you take a moment to let your eyes slide across a huge canvas hanging on a wall that spans two storeys, some impressionist piece that’s surprisingly ugly for all the talent that’s obvious in its brushstrokes. Maybe that’s why the Parks are never here? You’d certainly try to avoid seeing this thing if you could. Eurgh.

Even though the building is empty, you’re careful as you start to make your way forwards. You always place your toes down first whenever you take a step, soundless as you start to map the house out in your mind; there are so many rooms you can hide in, but you’d prefer to be close to wherever Minjae ends up. Saves faffing around later.

You’ll overpower him, inject the toxin into his blood and wait for him to die before setting him up on the toilet— it’s surprisingly common for people to die while on the shitter, the strain leading to an untimely heart attack, especially in older people. The poison you’re using tonight will mimic the symptoms of a heart attack in the case the coroner decides a post-mortem needs to be undertaken.

(Being found on the bog might not be a particularly graceful way to die but when you’re dead it’s kind of hard to be embarrassed.)

You’ve eased the door open into a large bedroom, and you’re just inspecting if it looks like this room sees more use than the others when you pause. It’s deathly silent in this building, the air still minus where you glide through it as you move, but there’s a feeling in your gut, some instinct that makes all the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. You freeze, ears straining to catch any noise to let you know if there’s someone else here, when—

There. In the reflection of a burnished pot, the tiniest shifting movement.

You react almost faster than the eye can see. You spin to parry a hit that was aimed for your head, and the strength behind it shudders through your arms. You only have a second to take in the details of your assailant— dressed in dark clothing, masquerade style mask in place, a professional just like you— before you’re deflecting another flurry of blows, flipping backwards out of reach before spinning into a kick, hooking that burnished pot with your foot and sending it flying towards the other assassin.

They dodge it. You both ignore the sound of clattering metal as you lunge forwards, trying to catch them off guard after their sidestep— your fist makes contact with their palm instead of their face, your hand engulfed in theirs, and you startle at their speed. You might not be the strongest but you’re damn fast.

There’s a pause, and you can only see a slither of their eyes through the sockets of their mask, but you can tell that they’re impressed. And honestly? So are you.

The moment shatters when they use the hand they're holding to twist you, locking an arm around your neck and putting you into a chokehold; they’re strong, stronger than you, cutting off your airflow. You need to get out of this before you fall unconscious, but if they’re trained as well as you then they’ll know how to combat the usual ways you’d use to get out of this.

So, in a demonstration of your flexibility you kick a leg up, using the strength of your thighs and calves to slam it into the arm that’s around your neck. Your assailant lets out a noise of surprise and pain as you slip out of their hold and cartwheel across the room before spinning to face them.

There’s a beat. The air is tense. You get another chance to take in the details of whoever’s just tried to choke you out; you stare at her as she stares at you, the two of you poised and ready to strike, watching and waiting.

Knives might be messy but of course you’re not unarmed. You have multiple sheathed weapons in your clothes, though you don’t make a move to draw any of them. Yet. “I suppose you wouldn’t tell me who your employer is, would you?”

Your opponent tilts her head. “You don’t know?” She sounds amused, even through her mask. “Minjae took out a contract on the assassin who has a contract on him.”

Your lip curls back from your teeth. The only way Minjae would have heard about your contract is if Dahye had told him. Presumably to try and shock him out of his behaviour, or something, who knows. “This is the last time I’m accepting a job from these rich old farts,” you mutter.

“That’s for certain,” she says.

She starts to move and you catch her arm just as she goes to unsheathe a wicked looking blade, knocking it aside before she overpowers you and you start to wrestle. It’s messy and graceless but sometimes you just have to fight dirty.

Whoever this woman is, she still has the upper hand because she was expecting you and you weren’t expecting her; she knocks you onto the bed and pins you down, swooping the knife up from where it had been thrown onto the mattress. You go utterly still as she holds it against your throat, towering over your from where she’s straddling your waist and kneeling on your arms. Any sudden movement from you now could lead to your untimely demise— and, unsurprisingly, you absolutely want to avoid that at all costs.

Namjoon would never let you live it down if you were killed on the job.

You hum. “It seems like we’ve reached an impasse.”

She doesn’t respond. The knife doesn’t dip any lower, though; you’re undoubtedly at her mercy but you notice she’s careful to keep the knife still, hovering above the skin of your neck, but not making contact.

“Well,” you continue. “At least I’m going out the way I’d always hoped to.”

Even in the dying light and with how her face is covered, you notice her face shifting behind her mask— a silent, questioning raise of an eyebrow. You give her a cheeky smile that crinkles your eyes.

“In bed with a beautiful woman, of course.”

At this she huffs out a laugh. “Do you flirt with every person who tries to kill you?”

You’re trying to look as non-threatening as possible to keep that knife away from your jugular. The longer you talk, the longer you live, even if you can’t see a way to get out of this situation right now. “Only the pretty ones.”

The small laugh she lets out this time seems more like a scoff. “You don’t even know what I look like.”

“Please.” You roll your eyes. “Any woman who can fight like you and knows how to handle a knife? Automatically hot. I don’t need to see your face to know that.”

The knife still hasn’t moved. She continues to stare you down and you go tense when her free hand moves. She tugs the cloth of your mask down to reveal your face, the air of the room almost cold against the suddenly bared skin, your breaths free to curl out unhindered.

“Usually I like to be taken out to dinner at least once before we get this intimate, but for you I suppose I’ll make an exception.” You’re still grinning cheekily at her, but your mind continues to race as you try to think of a way to get out of this, especially now that she’s seen what you look like—but you suddenly notice that she’s gone very, very still.

“Y/n?”

The grin freezes on your face. Oh, you’re so boned. You’re so very boned. Like, yeah, you’ve been seconds away from death for the past, hmm, five minutes, but this is somehow worse. How the fuck does she know your name?

You’re given the answer almost immediately. She withdraws the hand from your chin and reaches for her own mask. Your eyes widen and your breath stutters in your throat once you see who it is.

“Holy shit,” you breathe.

Yoonji is staring down at you. She’s every inch as imperious and stunning as the last time you’d seen her— hell, even moreso now that you’ve seen what she’s capable of. No wonder you hadn’t been able to find out anything about her after you’d met at that garish charity gala. Because she’s untraceable, just like you.

“Well.” You stare back at her, not even attempting to keep the surprise off your face. “If anyone has to kill me at least I can die satisfied in the knowledge that it was you. Can I make a request? I’d be eternally grateful if you smothered me to death with your thighs. Just a suggestion, feel free to ignore it if you want.”

Yoonji cocks her head. Her bob is tied back, but there’s a loose lock of hair curled by the side of her face that shifts at the motion. Your fingers twitch. If she wasn’t kneeling on your arms you know you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from tucking it behind her ear. Any excuse to touch her. “Do you always talk so much?”

“Hey, if it means I get to feel your legs around my face before I die, I’ll give a full fledged TED talk,” you say. “I have to admit, though. When I pictured us in bed together I didn’t think it would be like this.”

The knife still hasn’t moved from your throat. She continues to stare, as if considering what to do next, though her face remains impassive. “What did you think it would be like?”

“Well, you know. Less knives and clothes involved and a lot more making out,” you answer. “You, telling me what to do. Me, entirely at your command. Anything the lady wants, she gets.”

The human body is a fickle and strange beast. Ever since you discovered who’s straddling you, you’ve been growing wetter and wetter, even if you’re trying not to let on that you’re steadily growing more aroused— you’re still distinctly aware of the knife that’s only centimetres away from your skin, but somehow your body is more focused of the fact that the woman you’ve been daydreaming about is finally in front of you again.

(Well, less in front of you and more on top of you, which is an admittedly preferable option, sans the knife involvement.)

You see how Yoonji’s eyes are darting over your face. No doubt taking in how your pupils are dilated, how your breaths are a little shallower, quicker— signs of fear and signs of arousal are surprisingly similar. You wonder if she can identify which it is. Probably. You’re not exactly very subtle in your attraction to her.

“I forgot my lipstick again,” you add, and Yoonji’s passive mask finally breaks when she rolls her eyes.

“Didn’t I say you wouldn’t need it?”

Even the way she throws the knife aside is gorgeous. The sharp undulation of her wrist as she sends the blade skittering across the polished wood floor is careless and fluid. Her hands cup your face as she bends down, and you send up a mental thanks to any god or higher being who might be listening before Yoonji presses her lips to your and your brain goes blank.

Apparently Yoonji likes it messy. One of her hands is grasping your chin in a mockery of the last time you’d met and she’d painted your lips— your mouth is open and she licks past your lips as you shudder beneath her. She’s still got her knees pressed into your arms, pinning you down, but you desperately crane your head towards her, chasing that kiss; you tilt your head to deepen it, and the whine that leaves you when she pulls away is almost embarrassing.

The sun has finally dipped below the horizon and the room is dark, painted in shades of grey and deep blue. You wish you could see Yoonji properly and you can’t help but wriggle a little underneath her, but then you watch her raise her hands and clap three times in rapid succession before the room floods with dim light. Sound activated lights? Damn.

Yoonji’s mouth shines, covered in a sheen of your mixed saliva, her pretty lips flushed rose pink; even without makeup they’re beautiful and their colour is deep, the blooming petals of a flower. Your eyes trail over her face, down her neck, over the fall of her chest and stomach— you’re both far too covered up in these stupid ensembles of yours and you want to strip the clothes off her. You want to see every inch of her beautiful, majestic body, bared for your lips and hands.

Fuck, she’s so gorgeous.

“Not to, um, ruin the moment, but my hands are going numb.” The weight of Yoonji’s body being pressed into your arms has pretty much cut off the blood flow to your fingers and you can feel the telltale sensation of pins and needles spreading through your skin. “Can I have those back, please?”

Yoonji lifts her knees just enough for you to slide your arms out from underneath them. You immediately shed your gloves and go to grab her ass but she gives you a sharp look and you freeze, slowly settling them on her thighs instead, which she allows with only the slightest raise of her eyebrows.

“Watch,” she commands, and who are you to disobey?

She reaches for the tie in her hair, tugging it out and letting her dark locks fall to frame her lovely, beautiful face. You hungrily swallow down each sight that she feeds to you, the skin that’s revealed as she shrugs off her layers of clothing. She unbuckles the weapons hidden underneath her clothes as she sheds them; she’s a veritable arsenal of firearms and knives, all cast carelessly aside until her upper body is finally, blessedly naked. You’ve been staring at her the whole time, the graceful column of her throat, the delicate lines of her collarbones, and your gaze falls to her breasts, small and perfect, nipples dusty pink and hard. You want to put your mouth on them.

“Holy shit, you’re perfect,” you say.

She smirks. You watch as she rolls her body, lifting up from her knees and standing up, towering above you on the bed—your hands fall to the mattress as she pulls her trousers down, tight material dragging against her skin as she slides it over the curve of her hips and down her long legs. There’s a dagger strapped to her thigh, which she unbuckles and lets fall to one side, but god, if she used it to kill you right now, you would die a happy woman. The image of Min Yoonji towering above you in nothing more than some flimsy underwear is one you want to take to the grave.

You can see how the material around her entrance is darkened with her arousal, and you feel your own body react to the sight, pussy throbbing, your own lower lips slick underneath all your layers of clothing. Yoonji hooks her thumbs into her panties and pushes them down, and you’re enraptured as you watch how the wetness clings to them, before that last bit of clothing is cast aside too.

You moan, unable to stop the sound bubbling up in your throat. From how she’s standing above you, legs spread from how her feet are either side of your hips, you can see everything—how her cunt is flushed, how wet she is, her folds shining. You bet she tastes so fucking good.

You let your mouth fall open, tongue lolling out in a way that’s obscene. You see Yoonji’s eyes flicker as she traces the motion, the way she takes in your expression: wide, hungry eyes, parted lips, wet tongue. Your hands skim up the back of her calves as she shifts forwards and returns to her knees, her naked core so, so close to your mouth, and you dig your fingers into her skin.

“Bon appé-fucking-tit,” you murmur, and then you pull her onto your face.

Yoonji gasps.

(You were right. She tastes so, so fucking good.)

You’re utterly shameless as you slurp up her juices, the wetness that continues to leak out of her as you bury your face into her cunt, tongue lapping over her entrance as your nose brushes her clit. Your hands have moved to the flesh of her ass and you encourage her to grind against you, rolling her hips towards your greedy mouth; you’re staring up at her, drinking down her reactions, the way her face twists with pleasure and the shuddering breaths she takes in, perfect little breasts jumping at the motion. There’s a flush spreading down her neck and chest, pale skin blushing pink, and it’s the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen.

You purse your lips against her clit, circling it with your tongue before dipping back down between her folds. Each time you breathe in all you can smell is her scent, heavy and dark, all your senses filled with Yoonji, Yoonji, Yoonji. When you hum against her, Yoonji arches her spine and throws her head back, so when you press your tongue into her you hum again, letting the vibrations shiver through her.

“Yes,” she gasps, rutting against your face. “Yes, yes—”

Her thighs tighten around your head. You redouble your efforts, watching her face as you continue to swipe your tongue up her slit and through her folds; you wish you could swallow each of the noises that are falling from her lips as she reaches the crest of her pleasure, the little gasps and moans each time you move your tongue in a particularly wicked way.

“There,” she says. “There, there, just like that—”

Your jaw aches but you don’t even register it, too intent on keeping your mouth open and hot and wet against her. It only takes a few more swipes and flicks of your tongue before she shudders violently, canting her hips towards your mouth as her legs go tense and she cums. She continues to straddle your face as she rides out the waves of pleasure, and you swallow down the wetness that flushes out of her rippling cunt, ignoring the throbbing between your own legs.

You can’t talk, muffled by her as you are, but your mind is singing. Look at you, you think. Look at how gorgeous you are. God, I could eat you out all day. (What a blessed life that would be.)

You can tell when Yoonji’s edged into oversensitivity, jolting when your tongue sweeps over her swollen clit; she settles back, knees spread as she rests against your heaving chest, legs tensing each time an aftershock shivers through her. Your mouth is open as you pant in air, but she watches as you swipe your tongue over your lips, catching the lingering taste of her on you, your chin opalescent with her arousal.

“Okay,” you say, breathless. “I’ve done everything that’s worth doing. I’ve peaked. Everything is downhill from here. You can kill me now.”

You’re only half joking, but your thighs instinctively go tight to rub against each other when you see how Yoonji’s eyes darken.

“I’m not done with you yet,” she purrs.

Yoonji might be naked while you’re still clothed, and so still armed, but she’s undoubtedly the one who’s in control right now. You are so, so okay with that. You watch with wide eyes as she shifts back, her hands grabbing the material of your jacket to tug you upwards, but before she can strip off your clothes you capture her lips with your own.

The taste of her is still heady and deep in your mouth and you nip at her bottom lip before pressing your tongue forwards. The kiss is already slick from Yoonji’s wetness and when you pull away, there’s a thin string of saliva that connects you for a moment before it breaks, which Yoonji wipes away from your chin with the pad of her thumb.

“Dirty girl,” she says, and you bite back a moan at the unabashed lust in her voice. Her grip on your chin is firm. “Did I say you could kiss me?”

“No,” you answer. “I couldn’t help myself.”

She tuts, as if disappointed, and every one of your nerve endings feels electrified, ready and anticipating whatever Yoonji is going to do next. “Such a shame,” she says. “You just can’t keep your hands or mouth to yourself, can you?”

“Can you blame me?”

Yoonji huffs out a laugh through her nose. She strips your jacket off in one sharp motion and then your shirt is similarly pulled off with single-minded intent, along with every other piece of equipment cinched to your arms and body. When you reach for her, though, she captures your wrists, her face stern.

“If you keep moving without permission, I’m going to take that privilege away from you.”

You don’t have to see your own eyes to know how your pupils will have dilated from that statement, blood thrumming through your veins, and you can tell Yoonji has noticed when her expression shifts.

“Oh.” A small, triumphant smirk appears on her face. “I see.”

You lift your arms up so she can pull your sports bra off (of course if you had known you’d been running into Yoonji again you would have worn something nicer). Rather than touch your heaving chest, however, she pushes you down onto the mattress, a hand around your wrists so they’re held above your head.

“Keep still,” she says.

She reaches for the holster that you’d had around your upper arm, lazily casting the knife aside before looping it around your wrists and pulling it secure.

Yoonji’s fingers ease under the nylon as she checks the fit. It’s tight, but not so much so that it’s painful or dangerous, and there’s a hushed moment when the realisation hits you— Yoonji and yourself are both skilled enough to know that you could easily free yourself if you wanted to. It would only take a little motion of your wrists and hands and you could slip them out of the makeshift cuffs in an instant.

You melt into the mattress. Yoonji’s eyes shift away from your wrists as she takes in the way you’ve gone utterly relaxed and limp below her, staring back at her. You see an expression flit across her face faster than you can see, before she slides down your body so she can push your legs apart.

You lift your hips to help her strip your trousers off. Her hand lingers on the concealed holster around your thigh, eyeing the small pistol nestled inside it, before that too is stripped off and cast aside. Her hands trail over the soft skin of your hips and stomach, eyes skimming over the bared length of your body before settling between your legs, the slickness of your inner thighs.

“You got this wet just from eating me out?” Her pretty mouth is curled into an expression that’s almost mocking, and your legs jolt as she runs her fingers lightly over your lower lips before rubbing her fingertips together to feel the wetness she’s gathered. “I haven’t even touched you yet.”

Your nails dig into your palms as your hands twist against each other and you shift your legs further apart. “Please, Yoonji,” you plead, shameless from desperation and arousal.

She laughs at your obvious hunger. “I suppose I should return the favour, shouldn’t I?”

You watch breathlessly as she lifts her fingers to her lips, swallowing them into her mouth to get them slick and wet. The motions of her tongue are languid as she licks across her fingers. You’re like a livewire, thrumming with electricity, and the sensation of her finally sinking one of those fingers into you sends sparks throughout your body.

Yoonji’s maddeningly slow. Your body takes her readily, her long finger gliding easily in and out of you, but she makes no move to speed up; you let out a small noise and she moves upwards to kiss you, as if indulging you, and you’ve just relaxed against her mouth when she plunges a second finger in.

She swallows your gasp as her fingers speed up, before she starts to kiss across your jaw, your neck, between the valley of your breasts and then closing her mouth over one of your nipples— she times the flick of her tongue with the thrust of her fingers, and then you feel how she takes her thumb to press your clit at the same time and you’re gone, falling over the edge faster than you’d expected. Your orgasm is fast but deep, your walls clenching tight around the fingers that continue to curl in and out of you, but she doesn’t stop.

“Yoonji,” you gasp. “It’s too— oh—”

Those two fingers continue to rub your sweet spot as you edge into oversensitivity but Yoonji doesn’t let up. She continues to lick and bite at the skin of your chest, putting her mouth to your other breast and circling the hardened bud of your nipple with her tongue before kissing down your stomach, your pubic bone, and then pressing her lips to your swollen clit.

You whimper. Her pace of her fingers has quickened, and she curls them each time she almost pulls them out, the squelch of their motions obscene as they slide through the cum of your first orgasm. She stares up at you, lapping at your clit with her tongue, and you can feel the saliva that’s dripping from her mouth and over your flushed core, every inch of you oversensitive but screaming with pleasure.

It’s almost painful, but you can feel an orgasm creeping through that ache; you wring your hands together and sob as Yoonji continues to finger fuck you without mercy, her pace almost bruising, the thrust of her knuckles against you each time she bottoms out just one more layer on top of that overwhelming pleasure.

“Yoonji,” you gasp. “I’m g-gonna cum again.”

She hums against you, and you make an incoherent noise at the feeling of that sound against your clit, almost too much— and then she presses one more finger into you, and that’s it, that slight burn and stretch sending you hurtling over that edge again. When you cum, your hips buck and you gasp, air rushing into your lungs before it escapes you in a moan of ecstasy; the only sensations registering in your mind right now are the ripples of pleasure spreading through your cunt as Yoonji pulls her fingers out of you, pressing down on your clit in a way that’s almost cruel, and you sob as your legs instinctively try to tighten but are prevented from doing so by Yoonji’s unyielding presence.

She’s staring down at you as you start to go lax, and you think she’s finished with you, but you watch with widening eyes as she takes her ring and middle finger to run them through your sodden folds. You sob again when those fingers plunge back into you, palm pressing against your clit each time she curls her fingers, and you squirm underneath her.

“Yoonji, it’s too much,” you cry.

“One more.” Yoonji’s leaning back and staring at you, taking in the sweat that’s beading across your skin, the tears that are gathering in your eyes and threatening to spill down your face and into your hair. “You’re doing so well, darling, you can give me one more, can’t you?”

Your reply is incoherent, a small noise that shudders out of the back of your throat. You’ve never been thrown so thoroughly into pleasure like this, overstimulated and aching, but there’s that flicker of pleasure still between your legs, growing each time Yoonji beckons with her fingers, curling over your abused sweet spot again and again and again.

“Just say the word and I’ll stop,” Yoonji says, the wet plunge of her fingers into your abused pussy so messy and loud but not enough to drown her out. “One word and I’ll stop.”

You don’t say anything. You just let your eyes roll back into your head as you cant your hips towards her, trying to latch onto that thread of pleasure that’s thrumming through you below all your screaming nerves, and the noise Yoonji makes is pleased.

“There we go,” she praises. “Look at you, so good for me. Pretty darling.”

You can feel how your pussy clenches around Yoonji’s fingers, how the coil in you is squeezing tighter and tighter, how another orgasm is somehow creeping up on you— you tilt your hips towards that feeling, towards Yoonji’s hand, and then she’s pulling her fingers out of you in an almost rough motion and you’re cumming harder than you ever have before.

“Oh, fuck!” You sob.

It’s indescribable. The sensation rips through you as your back arches off the bed and you’re cumming and squirting and gasping and you can feel the wetness that slicks out of you, your toes curling as your brain goes blank from the staggering pleasure and static consumes every one of your senses. Your entire body feels like nothing more than a vessel for the ecstasy that’s shooting through your veins, spreading out from your core and to every corner of your insides and limbs.

It takes you a while to come back around, aftershocks wracking through your body. You feel sluggish and slow as your mind slowly clears, focusing on the sensation of warm hands stroking over the skin of your stomach and hips and thighs; your eyes flutter open and when you glance down you can see the shine to Yoonji’s skin, evidence of your pleasure painting her in a thin sheen of liquid.

“Oh my god,” you moan. “Holy shit.”

She smiles. “You were so, so good for me,” she says. She leans down to press a light kiss to collarbones and you shiver. “So beautiful. How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve died and gone to heaven before coming back again,” you reply. “Oh, that was so good, Yoonji. I’ve never squirted before. I didn’t realise I could. God.”

Yoonji laughs lightly. You can’t help but watch the way it transforms her face, the way her chest jumps at the motion, every inch of her gorgeous and majestic and cute and pretty. “You did so, so well,” she praises, before she kisses you, her mouth so soft; you barely notice the sudden easing of pressure around your wrists as she releases you, more intent on the sensation of her soft petal lips against your own.

You stare up at her as she pulls away. Powerful, amazing Min Yoonji, kneeling between your legs, naked but not helpless. Definitely less vulnerable than you right now. And yet she’s still making no moves to grab one of the many weapons littered around the bed so she can finally finish her contract by completing the kill. It would be so easy for her.

The silence of the room is suddenly broken by a tiny buzzing noise. You both glance over at the sound, one that Yoonji doesn’t recognise but you do— the communicator in one of your wristbands, the one you use to keep in contact with Namjoon.

You watch the twisting of Yoonji’s body as she leans over the bed to hook the band with a finger before proffering it to you. You pause, but then grasp her wrist and lightly pull so she ends up pressed against you, softness of her breasts against your own, and you hold the communicator between your faces as you accept the call.

“Thank god you answered.” Namjoon’s voice is obviously frantic even through the tinniness of the small speaker. “Dahye cancelled the contract because Minjae wants to reconcile with her, but apparently he’s already put a hit out on you— tonight was a ruse, Minjae isn’t going to be there, you have to get out of there—”

“Bit too late for that,” you interrupt. Yoonji’s hair is tickling your cheek. “Don’t worry. I have it in hand. Send some flowers to Minjae for me, will you?”

“Flowers?” Namjoon sounds understandably confused. “Why?”

“As a thank you for taking out a contract on me,” you say. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m a little busy.”

“With what?”

“With me,” Yoonji says, and you hear Namjoon’s surprised intake of breath before you cut the line.

You end up laughing to yourself. “Oh, he’s going to hate me for that,” you giggle. Yoonji’s hand trails up your stomach and you continue to giggle at the ticklish sensation. Her skin is still slick against yours, and you suddenly realise how cold it is in the room, the air touching the cooling liquid that’s rubbed off against your skin, and you shiver. “Mm. I think it’s time to clean up. Want me to scrub your back in the shower? I give very good massages.”

Yoonji’s eyes are dark and warm before she presses her nose to your neck, lips soft as they touch the delicate skin of your throat. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

#yoonji x reader #min yoonji #yoonji smut #cypherwritersnet #bts smut #bts oneshot #one day I'll learn how to efficiently use tags... one day #joy.masterlist

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qqueenofhades · 4 years

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Question: were medieval peasants always on the edge of starving, as in couldn't waste food? Or did that vary with time and place? Thanks in adavance!

Well, I have to say that it must be fairly obvious that when we’re talking about a span of roughly one thousand years in an entire continent, in multiple countries/kingdoms/geopolitical situations, and over the course of large-scale, macro-level geographical, climate, crisis, and cultural incidents, it would indeed vary, sometimes wildly, and this is the case for almost any factor that you could possibly think of. It will not surprise you to learn that “medieval peasants were always on the brink of starving” is yet another tired old cliche from the Bad Old Middle Ages grab bag, and while it reflects a different system from modernity, it is not necessarily the case that it was always worse (especially considering the prevalence of hunger in the modern world and the parallel universes in food access between rich and poor, which were simply never that extreme in the medieval era). Today, there’s no relationship whatsoever between how rich people eat and how poor people eat; they exist in completely separate realms. Rich people simply have no worry about disruption to food supply, reliance on local economy or agriculture, the impact of natural disasters, or anything else; globalization and worldwide supply chains means that they can be assured of whatever they want, whenever they want it. Even wealthy people in the Middle Ages did not exist in their own ecosystem the way modern rich people do. Their food was grown on the same land, was subject to the same possible impacts of famine or crop failure, was reliant on having farm labor to cultivate it, and otherwise came from the same place as the food of poor people. Obviously class, status, and money affected what goods a medieval citizen had access to, whether in food or anything else, but food inequality and disparity is WAY more of a thing in modernity than it was in the Middle Ages.

Next, when we say “medieval peasants,” do we mean literal peasants, i.e. manual laborers tied to a single plot of land who worked it, harvested its crop yields, owed rent to a local landlord, and were often rural and on the subsistence level? Because obviously, there are social differences among peasants too, and some of them could be quite wealthy. In his usefully titled “Did the Peasants Really Starve in Medieval England?”, Christopher Dyer points out that the upper class of peasants, who had about thirty acres of arable land and access to common pastures, would easily be able to provide themselves with bread, potage (soup) and ale on a daily basis, have consistent access to dairy and meat, and even enough money to buy extra fish, meat, and prepared foods like pudding and pie from the village or market town. It would be easy for them to eat the usual 2000 calories a day, and their diet would be relatively flavorful and nutritious even by modern standards. Poorer peasants would be more reliant on just bread, potage, and ale, and have less access to meat and dairy, but they still weren’t outright starving. Manual labor doesn’t go well if the laborers are constantly underfed and/or weak from malnutrition, and while the poorest peasants’ diet would have been fairly monotonous and carb-heavy, it still would provide raw calories for energy.

Nor were food economies exclusively local, as that equally tired cliche that people never traveled more than ten miles from home would have you believe (honestly, where did that even come from?) As Food in Medieval Times puts it, “A remarkably wide variety of foodstuffs was available to consumers in the Middle Ages. Besides homegrown and raised products, exotic fruits and spices were brought by Arab merchants into the Mediterranean markets and sold across Europe at premium prices. Although bad harvests resulting in famine and disease occurred periodically, the staple foods -- bread, dairy products, cheap cuts of meat, and preserved fish -- were usually available to the general population. In richer households the foodstuffs were more exclusive and the dishes more sophisticated and varied.” Regional differences would obviously thus play a part. Common people in Iberia, Italy, and southern Europe would be more easily able to access certain delicacies not available in relatively barren England and northern Europe, and would be geographically closer to the Mediterranean markets. They still would not be able to afford expensive delicacies like saffron or other fine spice, but that doesn’t mean they never had it at all. There were many feast days and festivals in the religious and liturgical calendar, and communities would come together with food just as they do now.

There were also social welfare systems and safety nets, wherein, for example, ageing peasants could retire and be provided with a food pension by their landlord (there are numerous legal contracts of this nature, which had to be written down since what a surprise, the landlords didn’t always keep their word or honor their obligations). Even serfs didn’t have to work until they keeled over; they could take retirement and be provided with a portion of the food yield of the estate from their working-age peers, indeed rather like Social Security. There were also almoners at churches, monasteries, and other religious houses, who relied on donations from rich patrons with guilty consciences in order to feed the destitute poor, like a modern-day soup kitchen. These arrangements would obviously not have covered everybody (once again, we note, food banks and food stamps and other arrangements don’t do that for modern people either), but it doesn’t mean there was no recourse.

Of course, the food economy was more perilous than it is now, and more prone to natural disasters and agricultural disruptions. There are certainly famines recorded throughout the medieval period (such as the Great Famine of 1315-18), and several years of bad harvests could have a devastating impact on rich and poor alike. (Since again, the rich didn’t have their own entirely separate ecosystem; their food had to come from the same place as their poorer counterparts.) Climate change, too little rain, too much rain, drought, fire, pestilence, or anything else, in the absence of industrialization, mass farming techniques, factories, or anything of the sort, meant that food supplies were vulnerable to the natural environment, and people did die of hunger in the bad years. While standards did also change and improve over time, the earlier (pre-11th century) medieval period was not necessarily always worse. After the Black Death, when there were simply much fewer people than before, and increasingly so in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, peasants usually had fairly reliable access both to raw food and cash to purchase prepared food. By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the threat of widespread food catastrophe had largely subsided; there aren’t any major famines recorded in Europe at this time, though we daresay they had plenty of other problems (not least the wars of religion). Of course, that little thing in 1492 had also happened, opening up the Columbian Exchange and new routes of supply to the New World, including large-scale transportation and trade of food.

As I’ve mentioned in at least one other ask, people also knew how to cook food properly; someone studied the latrines at Warkworth Castle in northern England (don’t ask me who thought that this is a fun research project, but it takes all kinds) and discovered a remarkable lack of food-borne pathogens. In other words, even without modern safety standards or exact temperature guidelines, people were well aware how to cook food so it tasted good and wouldn’t kill you. They also took pride in doing so. In “The Evolution of Culinary Techniques in the Medieval Era,” Barbara Santich explores the evolution of written recipes from a few notes intended to remind the chef of something they already knew, to a more detailed programmatic for someone who might not have actually made the dish before. Skilled cooks were highly prized members of middle-class and upper-class households, and people who had money to spend on food enjoyed banquets, diverse dishes, and whatever delicacies they could get from their local merchants and markets. The extensive system of medieval trade networks, as mentioned above, meant that consumer goods could travel a very long way indeed, and while you couldn’t walk into a supermarket and get whatever you wanted whenever you wanted it, there would be at least some opportunity for you to acquire something new.

Anyway, yes. Medieval peasants: usually not starving. There you have it.

#history #medieval history #history of food #anonymous #ask

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radiorenjun · 4 years

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I just rewatched crazy rich asians and a sudden scenario popped up in my head lol. Can you do a nct dream reaction to you coming from an insanely rich fam but you did not tell them after years of being together (like they thought you were poor) I really like your fics uwuu💗luv youuu🥺

God now this is making me want to watch Crazy Rich Asians. Anyways.

Mark Lee

You both have been dating since your first year in college. The day you told him you were the daughter of one of the most successful people in the country, his jaw dropped. I mean, considering how you live in a small apartment back when you two were in your early years of dating.

He remembers the day your mother decided to visit the two of you to meet Mark for the first time. Your mother was a very famous and inspiring talk show host and your father was the owner of a very well known hospital. You could barely hold back your laughter when you saw him practically try to scoop his jaw back up when he watched your mother walk out of a Tesla X car.

"You're (Y/M/N)'s daughter? One of the richest people in the industry?!" Mark exclaimed exasperatedly a few minutes after your mother left. Your mother had brought over fancy seafood with some rare caviar and 24k gold pieces sprinkled on top for dinner. 'I wanted to make a good first impression' she said with a casual shrug as you all sat at your dining table.

"Uh... I wouldn't consider myself rich, persay" you laughed. "Oh my god, you're the daughter of one of the most famous talk shows in the industry." Mark dramatically collapsed on the couch, his hand came up to cup his mouth dramatically as if he just found out you were secretly an alien disguised as Michael Jackson.

"Oh come on, it's not that of a big deal, Mark." you whined, sitting beside him and shaking his arm. "Chenle is probably richer than me," you added as you placed a peck on his cheek as he sighed. "I guess you're right."

"Can I ask you something, though?" he muttered, leaning his head against yours as you leaned against his shoulder. You hummed in response, moving your hand to play with his fingers. "Why didn't you tell me?" he asked in a small voice, a pout evident on his lips.

You pondered for a moment before shrugging, "I don't know, I wanted to tell you at first when we started dating but then I forgot bout it. I rarely call my parents since they're so busy," you smiled sheepishly at him.

"That explains the Rolex watch you gave me for Christmas," he uttered. "Okay, for the record, those were from my own savings!" you shot back defensively with a laugh, smacking his arm gently. "Oh so now you're bragging bout being rich," he teased.

Huang Renjun

You were both planned on going to a an art gallery date Renjun found on the internet for your two year anniversary. What you didn't know was that the gallery he was talking bout was actually one of your grandfather's art gallery. It was safe to say that the poor boy was practically trying to scoop his jaw back up when he saw the owner of the gallery he saw online giving you a big hug.

You were surprised his jaw was still intact with his face when you told him that the owner was your grandfather. He then remembered the time when you told him your grandfather really like to paint alot, hence your magnificent talent that landed you in a scholarship with one of the biggest art colleges in the country.

“So, your grandfather owns like, what, ten galleries all over the country?” Renjun gaped as you walked side by side down the halls filled with paintings after you introduced him to your grandfather. You shrugged sheepishly, staring up at one of the paintings, swinging your intertwined hands as you walked.”Does this mean you’re like rich? Crazy rich?” Renjun added.

“You’re blowing this out of proportion.” You chuckled, watching Renjun give you a blank stare. “I’m not! I’m just in shock that my girlfriend’s family are aristocrats and could end my life in a heartbeat!” he exclaimed, causing you to let out a soft laugh.

“I’m not necessarily rich like that. But I will inherit all this when my grandfather retires.” You shrugged. “Damn, I never thought I’d be dating a billionaire. This seems like an unexpected climax of a really weird movie” he muttered, running his thumb over your knuckles as you giggled.

“We’re not billionaires, you drama queen. Why does it matter to you anyways if my family’s kinda wealthy?” you raised your brow with a teasing grin, making your boyfriend let out a scoff. “It makes me seem like a peasant standing next to you, your highness,” he rolled his eyes in a sardonic tone. You laughed, smacking him lightly on his arm as you gave him a soft peck on his cheek.

“At least you’ll be my peasant.”

“That sounds like you bought me off of an auction for slavery. I didn’t know you were this kinky, Y/N.”

“Don’t make me dump you on our second anniversary in front of my grandfather, Huang.”

Lee Jeno

He really didn’t see this coming. One year and seven months ago, you seem like the average college student joining sororities to not spend as much money, like he did. You seemed like the average broke college student, spending your days eating cheap ramen from the supermarket, making chocolate truffles with a coffee maker and trying out those Buzzfeed videos where they make three full course meals using house hold items.

Hell, even your friends didn’t know bout this. Well, maybe they did. But nothing would prepare Lee Jeno the absolute shock he was bout to feel when he found out that you and your older sibling owned a really fancy five star hotel that seems only celebrities went to. Hell, you even had your own personal presidential suite and an infinity pool!

“How did you even get money to pay for all this?” Jeno gaped as he entered the room, putting his bag on the chair beside the door that looks as if it costed more than his own life. It probably did, though.”Uh...” you bit your lip as you heard a loud booming voice yell out your name.

“Baby sis!”

Jeno’s eyes were wide and filled with surprise as he saw someone who could’ve been mistaken as the president’s child come up and give you a big hug and a pinch on the cheeks. “Is this the Jeno you’ve been talking bout to mom and dad? Quite the charmer, I’d say,” your sibling grinned, as Jeno stretched his hand out and introduced himself, masking his confusion with a light smile.

Jeno politely asked who this person who had their arm slung over your shoulder and pinching your cheeks red, causing your sibling to laugh. “You really went all out with the broke college act to the point you just don’t mention your own family anymore, huh?” they laughed. Jeno was beyond astonished to find out that your parents were extremely loaded that they bought a really expensive hotel for vacation purposes just for you and your relatives to use.

Turns out you had a whole broke college student act to discover a new lifestyle out of the rich and easy one. Plus, you really liked interacting with people, hence why you joined a sorority. Jeno would eventually get over it after you explained everything, still baffled that his girlfriend had the money to pay child support for his great great grandchildren.

“Am I in heaven?” Jeno jokes as he ran his hand over his wet hair, watching you get into the tub with him, holding a fancy cup filled with wine. “Don’t get used to it, Lee. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Tomorrow it’ll be back to making poached salmon in a coffee maker.” You laughed, taking a sip of your wine as you snuggled closer to his chest.

“Good to know, nothing has changed. Despite having a girlfriend that could cover my future descendants expenses.”

“You’re really not letting this go, are you?”

“You can’t blame a man for overthinking. Oh god, the day I’ll be meeting your parents would probably be equivalent to meeting the King and Queen of England.”

Lee Donghyuck

Precious boy would be shocked but not that shocked. You get me?

He’s gonna act all dramatic at first, putting a hand on his chest how you just told him this big thing bout yourself after a year of dating. He found out through a really unexpected meetup with your parents, jaw gaping once he found out that both of your parents are rich ceo’s of really big insurance companies.

Apparently, your parents decided to pick you up for a small vacation to Paris. Being the extras that they are, they made an extravagant dramatic entrance in your multimillion limo, offering Hyuck a ride home in the process. Lowkey the whole car ride was him just being so speechless that you, yourself was surprised to see your usually goofy and loud boyfriend so silent and speechless.

Low key he felt kinda insecure now that he’s met your parents. What if they don’t like him because they thought he wasn’t good enough to be a part of their family? Or rich enough to even be your boyfriend. Though the light conversation your mother had sparked up eased him, feeling relieved that at least your mom liked him, despite your dad being to busy with work to even spare him a glance instead of looking up from his laptop.

The next time you meet up was on a cafe date three days afterward. “I can’t believe I just met your richass parents.” was the first thing he said to you that day. You cackled at his horrified expression as he stares at you as if he had committed arson, chewing his muffin softly as he spoke.

“Relax you big baby, they like you already. They thought you were nice and polite, and quiet.” that last part sounds so wrong you instantly gulped down your milkshake. “If only they knew how much sorcery you have to make me still date you despite how you act like a worm on a heatstroke.” you shuddered.

He let out a sarcastic laugh in response, shoving what’s left in his pistachio muffin into your mouth to shut you up. You giggled, humming at the taste as your boyfriend chuckled.There was a brief moment of silence as you chewed the rest of his muffin before Donghyuck spoke up.

“I never thought my life would come to the day where I have a girlfriend who has a possible chance of being my Sugar Mommy.”

“LEE DONGHYUCK!”

Na Jaemin

He wouldn't be that surprised, really. Finding out that you’re the daughter of a famous k-drama director was quite unexpected considering he was the casted as the main character of this k-drama meaning he had to work harder to make your dad like him. He was beyond astonished to find you visiting the studio with your mother to celebrate your parent’s anniversary in a really expensive Korean Barbeque restaurant that seems even Lee Sooman couldn’t afford to get in.

After finding out Jaemin was THE Na Jaemin you were dating, your parents invited him to join you and your family for dinner. He was a nervous wreck in front of your parents. Not only they were successful and could get him kicked out of the role in a heartbeat if he didn’t make a good first impression, they were rich too. If he plans to marry you, he’s gonna have to be praying to God that this dinner goes smoothly.

Lowkey the thought of you being rich didn’t faze him that much but he was worried your parents might not approve of him considering he wasn’t as successful as they were. Of course, with the constant habit of bringing him up during family dinners that you had developed, they were quite happy to see such a sweet caring boy had the possibility of being their son-in-law.

Believe me, it was their words, not mine.

“MOM! You can’t say things like that!” you whined, burying your head in your hands as he giggled, his hold on your other hand tightening under the table. “What? You two are already in a committed relationship for fourteen months already, and you’re still in that honeymoon phase, unlike your father here who acts as if I was the bane of his existence.” your mother jokes.

“That’s because you are.” you father teased. “Jaemin is a nice boy, having him as a son in law would be great addition to the family.” he added as your face flushed red even more when you felt Jaemin squeeze your hand. Jaemin had a wide smile displayed on his face, his own cheeks flushed red at your parent’s words.

“Maybe one day,” he smiled to himself as he stared at your whole embarrassed being sitting in front of your millionaire parents.

Zhong Chenle

I need more Chenle gifs. Anyways

Most definitely will plan to buy the whole SM Entertainment with you to prevent mistreatment for his foreign hyungs and dongsaengs. Honestly it’s just gonna be so funny for him to find out that you were from a wealthy family as well. No wonder you could afford the latest Dior bag the moment it got released, and bought him the limited edition of the latest Kingdom Hearts game.

At some point of his life, he thought you were secretly stealing money from the bank or something. He found out when he visited your hometown for the first time for a Summer Tour. He didn’t think he’d be staying at a private mansion-like villa. Of course, you invited the other Dream members to stay over so their manager wouldn’t have to struggle with finding a super expensive hotel with high level security.

From then on, every special event is like a gift-giving competition to see either who bought the most items or the most expensive one to make the other feel guilty.

“No. You didn’t.” you gasped, glaring at your boyfriend who just grinned mischievously, despite the fact that he had bought so much stuff that he doesn’t even remember which gift that was. “I did,” he grinned proudly as he watched you pull out those aesthetic acrylic photos with a spotify link on the top from tiktok. “Dammit, you beat me to it.” you pouted, pulling a shopping bag from your side of gifts to pull out an acrylic stand of the two of you on your first date with your shared playlist link on spotify on it.

“That’s so sweet, y/n. I love it, even thought you practically lost this one.” he grinned cheekily. “Lost?” you raised your brows, questioningly. "Honestly, this feels more of a competition than an endearing moment to remember," you mused.

"Not my fault you spoiled me, it's only fair if I spoil you back." Chenle laughed. "What kind of girlfriend I would be if I didn't spoil my hard working boyfriend?" you grinned, letting out a small giggle afterwards as you pulled out another shopping bag from your side to give to your loving boyfriend.

"A rich one," Haechan muttered as he entered the room.

Park Jisung

The day he found out you were loaded was the day he finally got to sleepover at your house when he got a clear schedule. In your 8 months of dating, you two never got to hang out in your house as you both were too busy with your own things to even have a decent date without instant ramen and 6 other males involved.

He expected you to live in a normal minimalistic house. You've sent him hilarious pictures of yourself posing dramatically in your living room with the caption, 'paint me like one of your French girls' at the bottom. He knew you had some kind of minimalistic house with the beige couch and potted plants in the background.

But the picture on his phone was nothing compared to the reality of what your house actually looked like. He swore the entrance to your house was almost four times larger than his own size, and that's saying something. Poor boy was practically trying to scoop his jaw back up when he saw the gigantic chandelier hovering over the two of you in the living room.

"How are you not scared of being crushed by glorious diamonds every day?" was what he said when you dragged him to your room with his eyes lingering on the gigantic chandelier and your fingers wrapped around his wrist. You laughed, shrugging as you pulled him through the long hallway filled with gigantic frames of you and your family.

When he entered you bedroom, he practically dropped his dufflebag to the floor. "I brought my pillow for nothing then," Jisung gaped as he saw your king-sized bed that could fit three or possibly four people. "Are you sure you're not some aristocrat? You're basically living off of the We Boom era," Jisung chuckled incredulously as he watch you collapse on your bed.

"Excuse me, Mr. Idol At Thirteen. You're way more richer than I am," you giggled as Jisung walked over and slumped on the bed beside you, humming at the fluffiness of your freshly washed sheets. "That's clearly inaccurate, y/n. I feel offended you never told me that you're basically a billionaire," Jisung pouted jokingly.

You rolled your eyes, "shut up, Park. I live off of instant noodles and homemade omelettes, I'm no different from you." you booped Jisung's nose, causing him to scrunch up his face in an adorable manner. He looked up to see the paintings of baby angels on your ceiling, it was like some kind of museum.

"I bet you secretly have 60 credit cards in your wallet." he mumbled to himself, eyes still staring at you in disbelief as you gave him an incredulous expression. "Jisung. I'm not that rich, really." you deadpanned, "you saved me from going broke by refusing my offer to pay on dates." you joked.

Jisung laughed, "watch what you're saying, y/n. I don't think I'm ever paying for our dates ever again after this sleepover," he pointed a finger at you. You rolled your eyes, pushing his finger away from your face as you continued to bask in each others presence.

"Does this mean you're finally gonna let me pay though? I'm ordering pizza."

"Not happening, L/N."

A/n: IM SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG I PROCRASTINATE ALOT IM SORRY THIS WAS SO BAD I-

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phoenixyfriend · 4 years

Text

I’m thinking over common arguments I see on the internet again. I already addressed why I think profit isn’t inherently evil (short version: a reasonable amount of profit is effectively a rainy day fund or future reinvestment, and serves a purpose that is not based in an unequal distribution of wealth), but right now my mind is repeatedly hitting on “the existence of millionaires is inherently immoral.”

Which.

Okay, billionaires are inherently immoral. Here and there you can eke out an argument for a creator based on royalties but in most of those cases, there’s probably someone being underpaid to make merch of a book character or serve popcorn in a concert hall.

Millionaires, though? With the rate of inflation being what it is? I can see arguments for some of them genuinely earning their wealth.

A doctor that invents a new medical procedure that manages to save a couple thousand lives a year? Sure! I can entirely understand someone with that situation being a multimillionaire and deserving it.

The earlier commentary about creators? Honestly, the chances of making it that big as a content creator of any sort, whether fiction or music or art, is slim to none, but on the off chance that you’re a JKR or a Stephen King or a GRRM, then hey. Multimillionaire might be valid. Multidecamillionaire, even. The above three are all way, way past that, but lbr a lot of their money comes from merch sales (and merch is usually done by underpaid overseas labor, so I’m not going to count it as plausibly ethical earnings).

Someone that puts in eighty hour weeks for years to develop a new, cleaner energy system for public transportation? Hell, they probably just saved a couple hundred thousand dollars in taxes per month! Sure! They can be a multimillionaire!

Mostly it comes down to the fact that like... there’s a massive difference in scale between “someone who spent twenty years in an industry, lived relatively frugally, and made large advances or affected millions of lives in a positive manner, and can now afford a nice condo in a large city and a well-furnished cabin in a ski town or beach community” and “abuses tens of thousands, even millions, of people in entry-level or manufacturing positions to generate billions of dollars in wealth that are now just sitting in an off-shore bank.”

Because... okay, depending on what city you’re in, being a multimillionaire might net you like... a four-bedroom house. In NYC, there are buildings where $3.5 million is... a three-bedroom apartment.

(Power Purchasing Parity - a lesson that was drilled the hell in during uni.)

So yeah, I don’t think being a multimillionaire is inherently a sign of Evil. Should they donate to charity and pay more taxes? Absolutely! But depending on how they got the money, I might be able to look at what they do and say “you know what, sure.”

Because ultimately, someone who has a net worth of like... $5mil USD? They’re small potatoes compared to someone worth $50mil.

Or $500mil.

Or $5bil.

Or ‘about to become a trillionaire.’

There are 630 billionaires in the US right now.

Now that is a number that you cannot achieve without either widespread abuse of other humans or inheritance.

The only reason millionaires seem unreasonably wealthy right now is because so much wealth is concentrated in the top that half the country can barely make ends meet. The millionaires won’t matter once we have the billionaires cut off from their wealth.

You redistribute the money in the system enough so that everyone’s making minimum 60k a year (125k in cities like SF, NYC, LA, and Seattle, because living wages there are HELL), then millionaires are... not actually that ridiculous. Annoying, maybe! But a millionaire in a city like NYC is someone who had a living wage (again, a living wage in a city like NYC should be six figures), and just... got a condo or a house, and spent twenty or thirty years putting half their wages into a mortgage that eventually got paid off and turned into a non-liquid element of their net worth. 35k a year for 30 years hits at a million before we start factoring in things like interest. It’s a lot for a minimum wage person to afford, but it’s... doable. It’s 3k a month, which is expensive, but if you manage to get a decent job (again: NOT AT ALL GUARANTEED, because the world is hell), it’s feasible.

The only reason it seems like it’s not is, of course, that the minimum wage is hellishly low, which is again the fault of billionaires that are several factors of ten above what I’m talking about.

And I don’t know about you, but “I spent a few decades putting over half of my money into a large mortgage” isn’t evil, it’s just lucky.

(All this to say: eat the billionaires. Tax the millionaires. Not all rich people are equal.)

#millionaires #capitalism #luck #billionaires

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bechobbi · 3 years

Text

Fortune favours the bold - SamDrake x Reader - (Chapter 6)

Tags: @missdictatorme - @unchartedterritoria - @jodiereedus22 - @aliceriddell-aka-zephyr - @sicparvismagnaforsam - @mooraakath- @uncharted-trash-shar - @tennantmademedoit - @samdrakeftw - @sparrowspt9851 - @reachagalaxy - @irresistiblemonster @original-drake@sw33t-but-psycho @dragonjedihobbit @ellie-drake @fhujami@birdgirl69@mafiahobbit @spaskaalekha @avast-you-dirty-dog @shambhalala@fandoms-pizza-wifi-ym13 @missymysa

Wanna be tagged in/out? Just tell me!

For once, you took a day off "work" and enjoyed the sun and nature that surrounded the motel.

You needed to reflect. You would have liked to accept Sam's proposal immediately, but at the same time you didn't want to endanger anyone else except yourself.

You walked slowly on a dirt path in the small wood in front of the motel. It was a pretty remote place if it weren't for the 24-hour supermarket.

You would have liked to have a plan, you thought, but it wasn't like that at all and you didn't even know where to start. However, you had some information about your evil relatives, they had the money to do everything even make you disappear into thin air.

Part of you was hoping they had forgotten about you after all these years.

Was it really better to leave it to someone else like Sam said?

Small parrots caught your attention. Their feathers were bright green and their noises resounded in the air. They hopped pecking at the ground looking for food a few meters from you. They reminded you of your old house where, in the middle of the large flower garden, there was a fountain where in summer the birds went to cool off.

That memory convinced you even more to want to take everything back even at the cost of risking your life. Then you resumed your march and the parrots soared into the sky as you passed by.

Meanwhile at the motel Sam was making some phone calls:

“Hey old man, how are you doing? ... Yes, yes, I guess so ... Listen, I have a job that might interest you ... It is an inheritance ... Yes ... But the client has yet to give me a certain answer ... As soon as I know something I'll let you know ... OK, ok ... See you soon. "

He threw the phone on the bed and left the room to get a breath of fresh air. It was not easy to find someone, his bad friendships became fewer with the story of the marriage, he had had to cut many bridges because he wanted to start over.

The man had not remained idle while you were out clearing your train of thoughts, he had investigated you and your family.

Your parents were two patrons, two wealthy people who helped less fortunate kids to study and emerge. They were philanthropists, but also the black sheep of their respective families.

Your relatives, on the other hand, were rich stingy bourgeois and bad-hearted, and certainly did not look favorably on the choices of your mother and father.

Sam had even found a couple of newspaper articles reporting the discovery of two corpses, your parents’, but no mention of you.

The bodies had been found following an anonymous phone call received by the police. Together with them documents attesting to debts and tax fraud were found, which for the lazy and corrupt policemen they represented the motive for the death of the two people.

For them, your father would have killed your mother, after which he would have hang himself. A cliché.

“A big mansion, two rich people found dead in a suspicious circumstance, money, different opinions, corrupt police, a 'daughter' ... Interesting” thought Sam.

The man discovered that your mother had had a daughter, but she disappeared into thin air years later. No other births. The date of birth and your age did not match, so he deduced that you probably must have been adopted. Except that there was no sheet to prove it.

Sam needed to know more about you. So he waited patiently for your return plunging back into the search for more.

You came back from your walk, you were calmly walking to the room where you had spent the night. The sun was setting. You knocked on the door, but no one answered. You knocked again. Nothing. You decided to forget about manners and try to open the door. It was open.

"Who the hell is it that doesn't lock the door in such remote place like this ?!" you murmured to yourself.

Upon entering you noticed that the room had been rearranged, the bed had clean sheets and your dirty clothes, which you had left on the floor that morning, had been folded and placed on the desk under the window.

There was a scent of cleanliness and everything made you feel a sensation of warmth in your chest.

You entered on tiptoe almost for fear of ruining that order, you crouched on the ground to take off your boots. Once barefoot, you went to bed and sat down waiting for some sign of life, a noise, anything that would tell you where your roommate was.

Then suddenly the door of the bathroom opened making you jump, you saw clothes fly and land on the floor in front of the bed. You thought it best to emit a rattle to signal your presence and if it wasn't for that you would have found the naked figure of Sam in front of you.

The man promptly tied a towel around his waist and when he crossed the threshold of the bathroom he said:

" You're back!"

You were a bit stunned to see him shirtless and from the towel you could get an idea of the man's virility. A shiver ran down your spine. He was a captivating type, there was no doubt.

“Y-yes, I'm back. I-I tried to knock ... "

"Oh yes? I didn't hear" he said, running his hands through his still damp hair "I was taking a shower”. At the base of his neck, his hair rolled up into more accentuated curls than usual.

"Where have you been?" he asked you taking another towel and passing it over his chest.

It felt like the beginning of a porn movie.

"Ah-um, I took a walk in the woods in front ..." you looked away from him who was now smiling slyly.

"Do you like what you see?" he said.

You blushed and laughed "Idiot, stop it, you make me uncomfortable ..."

He laughed hard as he took clean clothes from a bag in the closet.

"I thought you weren't coming back."

Suddenly a detail struck you, the man's left side showed round scars.

"What are those?" you asked to distract yourself from your obscene thoughts.

"A little memory of Panama, you know I liked it so much that ... well ... I always carry it with me" he chuckled.

You felt the urge to touch those wounds, to understand if they were true or not. Your body moved by itself, you crawled over to Sam and reached out. Your index finger now was brushing those circles of brown and jagged skin. He didn't move, he stayed there giving you his side. You could perceive the diversity of the skin, however soft, and under it the muscles that characterized the figure of the man.

"Did it hurt?" you asked.

"Like hell" he answered in a low voice.

"How did you do?"

At your touch Sam let out a small muffled moan and said "...They shot me."

"... oh ..." you were captured by those jagged circles.

Then suddenly he moved away and said "Now you do understand why you shouldn’t play with weapons?"

"Sorry ..." you said realizing what you just did. You had just touched his weakest points. And he had let you do it.

He smiled putting on a clean white T-shirt, then with jeans and a pair of boxers in his right hand he went to the bathroom to get dressed.

He came out dressed, clean and fragrant.

"I thought we could go get something to eat" he proposed.

Your stomach felt more empty than ever, so you accepted.

You were walking towards the supermarket, you with your hands in your coat pockets and him smoking.

"You are the first person who decides to help me" you said.

Puffs of white smoke left Sam's lips "Well, if you had told someone what happened to you, maybe they would have helped you."

You weren't convinced then he added "Surely, if I hadn't found your backpack you wouldn't have told me anything, and you would have just run away like you always have."

He read your mind, so you bit your lip and smirking you said "How do you know this?

Sam looked at you from his height "I put and two together. It didn't take a genius to figure it out. I did these things too. "

"Then don't lecture me" you teased him.

"You're better than me, that's why I'm warning you" he concluded.

Finally you arrived at the supermarket, crossing the threshold the bell placed at the top of the door rang, signaling the entrance of customers.

"What do you want to eat?" Sam asked.

You just had to put anything under your teeth, so you ordered the attendant behind the bread counter to prepare you some sandwiches to eat on the fly.

During the preparation of what would be your dinner, you took a tour of the supermarket shelves.

Earlier, at the motel, you noticed the now empty bottle of Scotch, so you thought about getting one of the same brand. You grabbed the bottle and went back to Sam.

“I saw that you finished it" you said.

The man gave you a quick glance, then looked into his pockets and counted the money he had left.

"I think we would need a trick to get it" he winked at you and added "See how it’s done!"

With the sandwiches ready and the bottle of liquor you went to the cash desk where the usual swooning and provocative blonde whom Sam already knew was waiting.

"Hi handsome" she said.

"Hi honey, how are you?" Sam answered placing the items on the counter.

She leaned forward as usual to show her breasts "Now that I see you I'm fine"

"I guessed so" the man said letting his eyes wander over her.

"Who is she?" said the blonde pointing at you with her head.

“She is my little sister! We haven't seen each other for a long time, so tonight we wanted to celebrate "

The blonde was loudly chewing a chewing-gum and she was winking at Sam so constantly that she was almost annoying.

"You know..." Sam continued using his mellowest voice "I don't have enough cash with me ... So I thought we could make a trade, honey ..."

She melted like chocolate in the sun.

"What time do you finish, beauty?" Sam said moving closer to her face.

"At 11 pm I finish my shift ..." she said out of breath.

“I'll wait for you outside, what do you think? Me and you... ?" he continued.

She nodded biting her lower lip.

And that was how Sam got the free bottle of Scotch.

On the way to the motel you suddenly turned to the man "Are you really going?"

"Who knows" he replied.

You scrutinized it carefully and after a few minutes of silence you continued "I don't think you will go there"

"And how do you know?" he retorted.

"it's a feeling. You just wanted the bottle of Scotch, you don't give a damn about her "

"Atta girl, I see that we understand each other on the fly. You are impressive ... Furthermore she had floppy tits" he added.

It made you both laugh.

The evening passed quietly between Sam’s stories, time flew. It was a long time since you had such a good time, not to mention the fact that his stories were exciting.

Both of you were bit high from the alcohol and he seemed happier than when you first saw him.

"So?" you said interrupting the speech.

"So what?"

"...Will you help me?" you told him.

"I was waiting for you to ask me... I think so" he replied, lighting a cigarette.

You got up from the bed where you were sitting, you staggered towards him and, while Sam controlled your movements without understanding what you wanted to do, you approached his face. You gave him an intense look that left him breathless, whispered a "Thank you" and stole the cigarette from his hands.

He didn't resist nor react. He stood there motionless contemplating you. After a moment he recovered and laughed out loud "Hey that was mine!" he yelled.

Night fell, Sam slept on the floor to let you sleep in the bed.

The next day you found breakfast again and Sam was waiting for you to wake up sitting next to you on the bed, his back against the wall.

"Hey ..." he said "it's time to get up ..." he moved the locks of hair in front of your closed eyes.

Slowly you became aware "G-Good morning ..."

"Come on sleepyhead, there's coffee ... and... we have an appointment ..."

You sat down too, while Sam handed you the cup of hot coffee.

"Thank you..."

He smiled at you soflty.

Sipping the drink you asked him for more information about the appointment he had just mentioned.

"What do we have to do?"

"We have to meet a person the will help us."

You were surprised. Now you had two people to rooting for you.

"Oh..."

“Don't worry, you will thank us when done. Come on, go wash your face, he will be here soon. "

Taken by anxiety, you gulped the coffee in a single sip and catapulted to the bathroom to wash and dress.

After the shower you changed your clothes and decided to wear a dress that your mother had given you years ago.

Once out of the bathroom Sam couldn't help but notice a new side of you, a more feminine side that you apparently tended to hide.

He whistled at you and said "How cute we are"

You blush saying "My mother gave it to me years ago, I think it's the right time to wear it"

He looked at you from head to toe, made a grimace of approval and added "It fits you divinely."

You blushed again.

The magic moment was interrupted by someone knocking on the door.

"Here he is!" Sam nimbly jumped out of bed to open the door.

A middle-aged man with white hair and a bright look was out there.

“Hey Victor! Long time no see!"

"Hi Sam!"

The two hugged and patted each other on the back while you waited for introductions.

"So, Samuel Drake, will you let me in?" said the older man.

"You're welcome" replied the younger one and clearing his throat added "Ahem, this is the disinherited princess", he put both hands on your shoulders "She is Y / N Y / L / N"

"Hello ..." you held out your hand.

"My pleasre Miss, I'm Victor" he shook your hand. His grip was as strong and firm as Sam's, and from that detail you felt you could trust him too.

Sully took a seat in the chair in the room and you and Sam took place on the edge of the bed.

"So, where do we start?" Victor asked.

Sam waved at you to invite you to speak.

You were so uncomfortable having to tell about your misadventure that you were torturing your fingernails.

Sam noticed your discomfort, so he took one of your hands in his and squeezed them tightly to give you courage. With a smile he gave you another nod and pointing to Sully he said “You can rest assured. Victor and I have known each other for a lifetime, he is a person you can trust, just like me. "

The older man then spoke up and began "I did a lot of research on your family. And you ... you don't appear anywhere. To help you, we need as much details as possible. You can trust me, I give you my word" he concluded putting a hand on his heart.

You held your breath for a couple of seconds, then let yourself go.

“Ok ... I can do it ... I was taken into the house by Mrs. and Mr. Y / L / N when I was about 4 years old. I was part of one of the groups that they followed and to which they gave financial aid to study. Like me, many of my companions had no parents, however, among many, they decided to keep me by their side as if I were their daughter. Only later I understood why: I resembled their missing daughter. Similar eyes, similar attitudes. I heard rumors about this missing daughter of theirs, she wasn't dead, just one day she vanished into thin air. Not being able to have other children, the Lady taught me to call them mom and dad. I grew up with them, studied with them every day of my life. I lacked nothing and I was happy. "

The two men were attentive to every single word that came from your lips. Serious and silent. Occasionally Sam stroked your hands with his thumb and that comforting feeling made you feel good.

“Then one day… I was playing hide and seek with a partner of mine and… I happened to witness an argument between my parents and one of my father's brothers. He brought misfortune, I felt it ... I had never seen my father so agitated ... but at the same time he was determined to continue on his path. "

A tear ran down your face. You stopped your story for a moment as Sam's grip tightened. That gesture moved you and spurred you to go on.

“My father's brother used to say that my parents were doing something wrong and that they should think before doing such a stupid thing. I didn't understand what they were talking about ... I remained hidden listening all the time. Until at a certain point everything was clear: my parents had decided to adopt me and make me the only heir to their inheritance. My relatives, on the other hand, wanted the inheritance for themselves. But my father and my mother had already begun the procedures to adopt me. "

At the word inheritance Sam and Victor threw a knowing look at each other while you continued to unravel the facts.

"My parents ... wanted to remove all their family members from the inheritance because they were people who used the money only for their own purposes, while mom and dad invested in the less fortunate generations ... So to get the inheritance they would have to eliminate me. "

You grasoed Sam's hand and continued in a low voice "... Until one day I’ve found my father hanged and my mother motionless on the ground ..."

Sam interrupted "...Did you do the anonymous phone call?"

You nodded in tears "Yes ... Yes ... It was me who found them ... I felt the world collapse, so I did the wisest thing to do at that moment: run away. It wasn't easy, they tried to track me down, I had a fight with my father's brother, I shot him in the leg as a result of his assault, luckily I didn't end up in prison ... then I finally ran away and they didn't come looking for me anymore. .. "

Sully pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, took one and lit it. He had to ease the tension of the moment. He took a puff of smoke and asked "How long have you been on the run?"

You looked up at him "About 10 years ..."

"Man..." Sam commented.

You dried another tear.

"Could you give us some information about your relatives or about this uncle of yours?" Victor asked.

"He is the most dangerous, the others are simply inepts, but him ... he is a true son of a bitch."

"I learned that he is a drug dealer" added the elderly man.

"Among the many things ..." you commented.

"... and it seems that he has some kind of bodyguard" concluded Victor turning to Sam.

Sam gave him a questioning look.

You looked at them with horror in the eyes and tearing your hand from those of the younger man you burst into a desperate cry "I'll never make it ..."

Sam wrapped you in his arms and you let yourself go to a convulsive cry.

The two men were now looking into each other's eyes. Then Victor said "The bodyguard is only one"

Upon hearing those words Sam felt relieved, but his attitude soon changed when the other man added:

"... she's a woman".

Sam shivered, his guts twitched, his sixth sense was telling him that if Victor had specified such a trifle it meant that in reality it was not at all, but it was a fundamental detail.

"... Do you believe that ...?"

Sully nodded.

"Fuck ..." Sam murmured bringing a hand to his face while he squeezed you with the other.

#sam drake fanfiction #sam drake x reader #sam drake #Samuel Drake #samuel drake fanfiction #samuel drake x reader #Uncharted 4 #uncharted 4 fanfiction #fanfiction #uncharted fanfiction #fanfic

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atths--twice · 3 years

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Chapter Nine 9/9

The Kosher Deli December 25, 2017 One week later

Mulder looked up from an email from Cera, as the bells on the door jingled, announcing an arrival. It was not Scully, but an older man and a little girl wearing hot pink furry earmuffs and a matching coat. They walked past him and he watched them approach the counter, smiling as the girl looked at all the cookies, as she decided on which one she wanted to buy.

He looked back down at his phone, at the photos she had sent over and he shook his head. The night she had been attacked in the amusement park, she had captured pictures of Elinor, unbeknownst to her until a couple of days later.

Elinor had not appeared as a ghost, but as a slightly out of focus person, getting clearer the closer she came to Cera. Not an angel in a graveyard, but a vengeful woman in her wedding dress. Mulder shook his head at the physical proof of an apparition that he held in his hand and all he could think was that it had nearly cost Scully her life. Not worth it.

Nothing was worth that.

“Hey,” Scully said, suddenly beside him and he jumped as he turned to look at her, locking his phone and putting it into his pocket. “Scare you?” She smiled as she sat down carefully, taking a chip from the bag in front of him.

“What have I been telling you for the past few days? I don’t get scared, remember?” he lied, his heart racing in his chest.

“Hmm,” she hummed, eating the chip and taking another. “Couldn’t wait for me?”

“You said twenty minutes and it’s been... at least thirty. So, I needed something to tide me over.”

“I believe the new established understanding is, if it’s longer than twenty minutes, bacon is involved. All the bacon.”

“Jewish deli, Scully,” he quipped, looking around and she laughed softly.

“Touché,” she said as she stood up just as carefully as she had sat down, brushing off her hands, and sliding off her coat and leaving it on her chair. “I’ll go order for us, you wait here and keep the table.” She stared at him and he raised an eyebrow. “Pastrami on rye, extra mustard, pickle on the side.” He kept staring and she smiled. “Coleslaw, unless the potato salad looks homemade.”

“Ahhh, Scully…” he said, more than a little aroused.

“Twenty five years, Mulder,” she said, shrugging and walking away.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Twenty five years.”

He sighed as he watched her waiting in line, seeing her unconsciously rubbing gently at her chest. Knowing it was the ache of the bruises that covered the skin beneath the black sweater she wore, he shook his head, rubbing at his mouth.

They had only arrived home yesterday afternoon, after Scully had spent a couple of days in the hospital, making sure she was all right after nearly dying at the Boudreaux house. The ambulance had arrived not long after she had passed out and taken her to a hospital nearby, him following behind in the car.

He had not been allowed back until she was in a room, no matter how he had raged or flashed his badge. When he had finally been allowed back, he had walked into her room, believing she was asleep and causing him to pause in the doorway. But then she had opened her eyes and reached her hand out to him. He had walked over to her, grasping her hand and kissing her forehead, before resting his against hers.

“Thank you,” she had whispered, her thumb rubbing over the top of his hand.

“Scully,” he had whispered, pulling back to look at her.

“Stay with me. Don’t leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” She had tugged at his hand, trying to move over, groaning as she did. “Hey… careful. Let me help you.”

He had helped her shift over a bit, took off his shoes and suit jacket, and slid beneath the blankets beside her. Lying on their sides, she had nestled into him, his arms wrapped around her, and her hand grasping at his shirt.

“Mulder…” she had sighed, her breath warm against his neck, falling asleep almost instantly.

In the next few days, she had quite a few visitors for someone who knew no one in the area. Sheriff Lavonne had come to take their statement and her eyes had flicked to Mulder’s as he stood in the corner of the room, listening to her doctored version of events.

She had already told him what had happened, or what she thought had happened, shaking her head as she had said she did not know what was real or imagined.

“You think you imagined it, Scully?” he had asked, and she shook her head with a sigh.

“I don’t know, Mulder.” She had looked at him with a shrug, looking down as she rubbed the blanket between her fingers. “How can I explain to others that I believe I was trapped inside of a mirror with a woman who died over 150 years ago? I can barely comprehend it. How can I explain that without ending up in the psych ward?”

To that question, he had no answer.

Arielle, Davis, Cera, and Adam had come to see them, eager to tell their story of what had happened.

The four of them had met up, sharing the stories each had heard over the years concerning Elinor and Mary. When they had hit a dead end, they had done the same as Mulder, scouring past records for any information. They had called family members, friends, and friends of friends, asking if anyone they knew had ever mentioned or knew of stories related to Mary and Elinor.

They had found a person related to James Cormier, a man who had heard his mother tell stories that she had heard about lost loves and being sure to choose the right person as your life partner. To never settle for the most beautiful or wealthy because both will fade. But love, it lasts and remains forever, no matter a person's social standing.

“Better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable,” Arielle had said and the others had agreed, but then debated that being happy and a bit rich would not be so bad. They had all laughed and then they continued the story.

After they had spoken to Reese, James’s distant relative, they knew what they needed to do.

“Truth be told,” Davis had said, shaking his head. “The minute Arielle showed me the pictures Cera had taken a few years ago, I knew what we had to do, but I was terrified to actually do it.”

“I was too,” Arielle had said, taking his hand and looking at him with a nod. “I felt nauseous at the thought of even being there. But then, we went and saw Farrah and Tyler in the hospital, something I had been unable to do until then, and I wasn’t scared anymore. I was fucking pissed.” Davis had nodded in agreement, clenching his jaw.

They had driven out, stopping at a hardware store for sledgehammers and protective eye goggles, gaining curious looks, but no comments from the gum chewing young girl who had rung up four people buying such items in the middle of a storm.

When they had pulled up to the church, Arielle and Davis both had a moment of hesitation, breathing hard and shaking in the pouring rain.

“But then Cera…” Arielle had said, tears in her eyes as she reached for her friend’s hand. “She grabbed my hand and that was all I needed. She nodded and we walked together in the rain, determined to end it.”

Knowing exactly where it was, Cera leading them, still holding Arielle’s hand, they had each taken a sledgehammer and put on their goggles, lightning flashing and the rain making it harder to see, but not impossible to get their task finished.

Simultaneously, they had hit Elinor’s headstone and the large statue of Mary that had been ordered to be erected there by Mary’s mother Elizabeth, years after Mary’s death.

“Hany, the slave girl who had been befriended by Mary, had also been entrusted with letters Mary had written when she was the most ill regarding her concerns about Elinor, that were to be given to her mother after Mary’s father had died,” Adam had explained. “Mary did not like her father and he did not seem to care for her either. After his death, Hany came back to that house she had lived in as a slave, and told the truth she had kept secret for years. Mary’s mother had the statue made as a sense of revenge: that Mary would always be there no matter where Elinor was. So… that bitch had to come down.” The other three had nodded vigorously and Mulder had looked at Scully, impressed by the little group of badasses.

Not stopping until both were piles of rubble, they had fallen to the ground, everyone but Adam crying, feeling free, the rain washing them clean.

“I didn’t even feel cold,” Arielle had said, crying and wiping her eyes. “For the first time in nearly two months, in the pouring rain, I didn’t feel cold.” She had looked at Mulder and he had nodded with a smile before glancing at Scully. She had wiped at her own eyes and looked at him, understanding that their actions had not only saved them, but had been what saved her as well.

When Scully had been released from the hospital, they had gone to see Farrah and Tyler, who were now awake and making a slow recovery, much to Doctor Audrey’s relief.

“It’s going to take a long time for them to heal,” Scully had said, taking a deep breath as they walked down the hallway, slowing her steps for a second. Taking another deep breath, she had placed her hand on her chest, giving him a nod. “I’m okay. Just some bruising.” He had stared at her, knowing he had been the one to put the bruises there, in his desperate attempt to keep her heart beating, and she had shaken her head.

“I’ll take the bruises over the alternative any day,” she had said softly and he had nodded, placing his hand on the small of her back as they had continued out of the hospital.

“Food should be up soon,” she said, sitting beside him, pulling him from his thoughts.

“Great, I’m starving.”

“Maybe this will help tide you over until then?” she asked with a smile, placing a black and white cookie in front of him on a napkin. He nodded as he looked at it, breaking it in half horizontally, two pieces of equal amount of both colors.

“Look to the cookie, Elaine. Look to the cookie,” he said, quoting Seinfeld and he handed her half. She laughed and nodded as she took a bite and he did the same.

“Order for Fox? Fox, your order is ready!”

“Really?” he asked, staring at her and shaking his head. She shrugged, not meeting his eyes until he started to get up and she looked at him, her eyes shining. “I’ll remember this, Miss Scully, mark my words.”

“I’m sure you will… Fox,” she giggled and he shook his head with a smile as he walked up to the counter.

“Fox?” the girl at the counter asked.

“Yeah, that’s me,” he muttered, and she nodded, sliding their tray of food toward him.

“Thank you for coming in today, Fox. And Merry Christmas!” He looked at her and nodded.

“Happy Holidays to you,” he said, picking up the tray and turning around. He shook his head as he saw Scully grinning at him as he walked back to their table.

“Did you get the food okay then, Fox?”

“You best watch it,” he said, setting the tray down as she took their plates off of it, and he moved the tray to the side.

They ate in silence, sharing food back and forth as they always had, and he found comfort in the comfortable. Glancing at her as she stopped eating to take a deep breath, he shook his head needing to tell her something that had been on his mind.

“I know I’ve joked that I don’t get scared anymore,” he said quietly, setting his sandwich down, and wiping his hands clean. “But… I was more scared than I have ever been when I couldn’t bring you around. You were so cold-”

“Mulder-”

“I thought I’d lost you, Scully. I really did.”

“Your panic face was showing?” she teased and he looked at her, his expression serious.

“I’m not joking. I’m not-”

“Mulder,” she said quietly, covering his hand with her own and squeezing his fingers. “I know. I… I was scared too. Very scared.” He nodded as he looked into her eyes and they spoke the best way they knew how; silently. He squeezed her hand with a deep sigh and a nod and she squeezed back.

Not saying anything further, words unnecessary, they sat quietly holding hands, in a busy Jewish deli on Christmas afternoon, her head resting on his shoulder, as life bustled on around them.

#XFCase2020 #The X-Files #XF Fanfic #New Case #Coming Home #Christmas together #Sitting together as the world carries on

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weekendwarriorblog · 3 years

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The Weekend Warrior 12/4/20 – HALF BROTHERS, THE PROM, I’M YOUR WOMAN, BLACK BEAR, LUXOR, ANOTHER ROUND, ALL MY LIFE, NOMADLAND, MANK and Much More!

I hope everyone had an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine was relatively uneventful, and I only spent most of my time watching movies. And holy shit, there are a LOT of movies out this week, but at least a few of them I’ve already seen and reviewed, and there are others that are actually pretty good, so I might as well get to it, hm?

First up is this week’s Focus Features theatrical release, HALF BROTHERS, a buddy road comedy directed by Luke Greenfield (Blue Streak, Let’s Be Cops) that’s fairly high concept but also with quite a bit more depth than the director’s previous movies. It stars Luis Gerardo Méndez as Renato Murguia, a wealthy Mexican businessman whose father left him to come to America when Renato was just a child. Just as Renato is about to get married while having issues connecting to his future stepson Emilio, he gets a call that his own father is dying, so he begrudgingly goes to see him. Once there, Renato’s dying father sends him on a scavenger hunt to find someone named “Eloise” with his annoying slacker half-brother Asher (Connor del Rio), because that will provide all the answers Renato is looking for on why his father never returned from America, remarried and had another son. What could possibly go wrong?

If you’ve seen any of the ads for Half Brothers, you may already presume that this is a fairly high-concept buddy road comedy that is constantly going for the zaniest and craziest of laughs. That probably would only be maybe 25% of the movie. Instead, this fairly mainstream comedy finds a way to take a very common comedy trope and throw in enough heartfelt moments that you can forgive the few times when it does go for low-hanging fruit. We’ve seen so many movies like this where two guys (or sometimes ladies, but not as often) are paired with one having zero patience or tolerance for the other, who is beyond aggravating to them. (Planes, Trains and Automobiles is one of the better ones.) Obviously, Renato fits snugly into the first category, and Asher could not be more annoying, very early on stealing a goat for no particular reason.

The Mexican angle and the fact that a lot of the film is in Spanish – Focus getting into Pantelion territory here? – does add to make Half Brothers feel like more of a personal story than we might normally see in this kind of movie, touching upon the immigrant experience, from the viewpoint of a low-paid worker as well as a well-to-do industrialist. It also deals with things like fatherhood and brotherhood and what it means to be one or both, so everything ultimately connects far better in the end than some might expect. I also want to give the filmmakers credit for putting together a cast of mostly unknown or little-known actors and getting such great results out of them.

On the surface, Half Brothers seems like just another buddy comedy, but underneath, it’s a heartfelt and emotional journey that touches in so many ways and ends up being quite enjoyable.

Another movie opening nationwide this Friday is ALL MY LIFE (Universal), starring Jessica (Happy Death Day) Rothe as Jennifer Carter and Harry (Crazy Rich Asians) Shum Jr. as Solomon Chau, whose wedding plans are thrown off when he is diagnosed with liver cancer. They realize they have to get married sooner since he might not live to make their planned date, so their friends launch a fundraiser so that they can get married in two weeks. The movie is directed by Marc Meyers (My Friend Dahmer), who is a more than capable filmmaker with this being his third movie in the last two years.

Now that I’ve actually seen the movie… I’ll freely admit that this is not the kind of movie I usually have very high expectations for, and maybe that’s because I’ve already been burnt twice this year with real-life romantic dramas, first with the faith-based I Still Believe in March and then more recently with Two Hearts. In both cases, I could count the issues and why they failed to tug at the heart strings as they were meant to do. Even though I’ve generally enjoyed Meyers’ past movies, I wasn’t even sure he could pull off this type of studio romance movie without having to cowtow to the corny clichés that always seem to slip in – or at least find a way to make them more palatable. (And let’s be realistic. This is the kind of movie that snobby film critics just LOVE to trash.)

First of all, Meyers already has two truly fantastic leads working in his movie’s favor. I’ve been a true Jessica Rothe stan ever since seeing her kill it in Happy Death Day and its sequel. Shum is perfectly paired with her, and the two of them are so good from the moment they first meet and we meet them. In every scene, you feel like you’re watching some of that rare on-screen romantic chemistry that’s so hard to fake. Their relationship is romantic and goofy, and you’re just rooting for them all the way through even if you do know what’s to come.

Eventually, Sol does fall ill, and it does lead to some more dramatic and tougher moments between the couple, but all of it is handled so tastefully, including their need to raise money so they can have their wedding rather than waiting. I am living proof that people really do come together to step up when they see someone in real need, so I couldn’t even tut tut at something like their fundraiser getting so many people to chip in. On top of his two leads, Meyers has assembled such a great cast around the duo, the most recognizable being Jay Pharaoh from Saturday Night Live, everyone around Jess and Sol handles the requisite emotions with nary a weak link.

There’s just so much other stuff that adds to the enjoyment of watching All My Life from the use of Oasis and Pat Benatar in the soundtrack just to the quality storytelling that makes it all feel quite believable. These sorts of movies tend to be rather corny and the diehard cynic who doesn’t have an ounce of romance or love in their body will find things to hate.

All My Life finds its way into your heart by being one of those rare studio romance movies that understands how human emotions truly work, and there’s nothing corny about that. It’s a beautiful movie that entertains but also elicits more than a few tears. Watch it with someone you love.

This week’s “Featured Flick” is Chloe Zhao’s amazing film NOMADLAND (Searchlight), which I reviewed out of its Toronto International Film Festival premiere, but it’s (sort of) being released in theaters this week. It stars Frances McDormand as Fern, a woman living in her van as she moves from place to place taking odd jobs within a community of nomads. It’s another amazing film from the filmmaker behind The Rider, who will make her foray into the Marvel Cinematic Universe next year with The Eternals, which I’m just as psyched about. There’s no denying that McDormand gives a performance that’s a knock-out, even better than the one in 3 Billboards if you ask me, and there’s also a great supporting role for David Strathairn, who I’ve been hoping would have another role as good as this one. Zhao is just a fantastic filmmaker, and I’m glad to see that The Rider was no fluke.

Unfortunately, Nomadland is only getting a one-week Oscar qualifying run, and I’m not even sure where it’s getting that run since theaters in New York and L.A. aren’t even open yet. Maybe Searchlight will do some drive-in screenings like they did for the New York Film Festival and Telluride? It will get a stronger theatrical release (hopefully) on February 21, just to make doubly sure it qualifies for Oscars.

Opening in theaters this week before streaming on Netflix December 11 is Ryan Murphy’s adaptation of the Broadway musical THE PROM, the first feature film he’s directed in ten years. The multiple Tony-nominated musical is about a high school girl named Emma (newcomer Jo Ellan Pellman) who wants to take her girlfriend (Ariana DeBose) to their senior prom, but the head of the PTA (Kerry Washington) cancels the prom instead. The national outrage the situation creates gets the attention of a quintet of self-absorbed Broadway actors who decide to improve their PR by taking up Emma’s cause. Oh, yeah, and those actors are played by Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, and actual Broadway stars Andrew Rannells and Kevin Chamberlin. What could possibly go wrong?

I’ve never had any sort of positive or negative gut reaction to Murphy’s work on television over the past few years, but I’ve definitely been mixed on the three movies he’s directed to date. I wasn’t a huge fan of his Eat Pray Love, though I vaguely remember enjoying his debut, Running with Scissors. Either way, he certainly has found his niche with musicals from Glee (a show I’ve never watched) and finding a musical like The Promseems to be a perfect fit between filmmaker and material.

Having not seen The Prom on Broadway – surprise, surprise -- I was a little worried that it was going to go down the path of nudge-nudge wink-wink inside Broadway path that helped Mel Brooks’ The Producers become a Broadway hit. That I saw, and I didn’t hate the movie based on it, although I’m by no means a total movie-musical stan. There’s some obvious older ones I love, some newer ones that others love but I hated – Rob Marshall is about 50/50 for me -- and you might be surprised by which of them I liked best.

What I thoroughly enjoyed about The Prom is that Murphy manages to truly surprise everyone watching it, whether it’s in Kerry Washington’s single song – who knew she had such an amazing singing voice? – or how enjoyable Keegan-Michael Key is as the school’s Principal Hawkins, who not only loves musicals but actually admires Streep’s two-time Tony-award winning Dee Dee Allen. Considering my frequent disdain for Streep’s over-confidence, knowing full well that she’s one of the best living actors working today, she’s actually pretty amazing in the role of what many must assume Streep is like in real life, which makes her character more than a little META. In some ways, I can say the same for Corden, who is pretty fantastic as Dee Dee’s frequent stage co-star Barry Glickman, who has his own connections to Emma’s plight having been disowned by his mother (Tracey Ullman, who only shows up for one brief scene late in the movie) when he came out to her. Corden has one dramatic moment so powerful I was taken quite aback.

Even with those two actors and Kidman likely to get much of the attention, there’s no denying that the romance between Hellman and Debose, and the three or four numbers they have together, makes up the true heart and soul of The Prom. So here you have this amazing cast, and it’s a musical made-up of very fun and quite catchy songs, and that’s long before you get to Andrew Rannells as out-of-work actor Trent Oliver, who practically steals the whole movie with his showstopper of a number, “Love Thy Neighbor.” And then watching Key holding his own with Streep, both musically and dramatically, you might start wondering, “What is going on here?”

Like I said before, it’s pretty obvious that Murphy has fully poured his passion of movie-musicals into every second of The Prom, and it shows on the face of everyone joining him on this adventure. As much as the subject at the film’s core is fairly serious and a hurdle that many gay kids across the world every day, it’s also quite funny. Kudos must be given to Murphy for being able to emphasize those moments as well as the more dramatic ones. Besides that, Murphy really takes advantage of being able to go to different locations, including a sequence on Broadway that could have been done during the pandemic (it actually was built on a soundstage), another number at an actual mall and even at a monster truck rally. It also doesn’t hurt that Murphy hired Matthew Libatique, a god-like cinematographer in my book, to film the movie either.

Like most musicals, The Prom might lose a little as it goes along, since it gets to be too much that goes on for too long, but then there are more than enough great moments to pull you back. It’s by far one of the stronger movie musicals I’ve seen in a very long time, and just the right feel-good experience we all need right now.

I’ve already reviewed David Fincher’s MANK – a few times, in fact – but if you’re in one of the places where it opened theatrically in November, you can finally see it on Netflix starting this Friday. This is the general problem with the way things are these days because even though this only opened a few weeks ago, I already feel that it’s been discussed and forgotten before most people will have a chance to see it. Anyway, if for some reason, you’ve managed to avoid things about the movie, it essentially stars Gary Oldman as Herman Mankiewicz, the Hollywood screenwriter who ended up co-writing Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane in 1940. The film follows Mankiewicz as he mingles with the Hollywood elite in the 30s, including billionaire William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance) and his young ingenue girlfriend Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried) who would be the influence for his Oscar-winning screenplay. I expect to be writing a lot about this movie as we get closer to Oscar season sometime next year.

Also on Netflix this week is Selena: The Series, starring Christian Serratos. It’s the kind of thing that I probably would never watch unless I have an excess of time, and as you’re about to learn from the rest of the column, that doesn’t happen frequently.

The third chapter of Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe Anthology,” RED WHITE AND BLUE, will debut on Prime Video this Sunday, starring John Boyega as Leroy Logan, a young black man who joins the Metropolitan Police after seeing his father assaulted by police and wanting to make a difference in the racist attitudes from within. You might remember that I reviewed this out of the New York Film Festival a couple months back, so not much more to say there.

A week from Sunday, on December 13, McQueen’s fourth film, ALEX WHEATLE, will hit Amazon, and guess what? I’ve already seen it, so I will review it now. How about that? Alex Wheatle is also a true story, this one starring Sheyi Cole as the award-winning young adult writer when he was a younger and just learning the ropes as a drugdealer/DJ in Brixton before his involvement in the 1981 Brixton riots gets him thrown in jail.

As with the other three movies in the “Small Axe Anthology” there are recurring elements and themes in Alex Wheatle, mostly about the way the immigrants to England from Jamaica and other islands are treated by “The Beast” aka what they call the Metropolitan Police. It does take a little time to get to that, as McQueen, working from a screenplay co-written by Mangrove’s Alaistar Siddons, takes a far more non-linear approach than the other three films. We first see Wheatle being taken into prison where he’s thrown into a cell with a constantly-shitting Rastafarian, but we then cut back to his schooling for a short sequence that reminded me of Alan Clarke’s Scum. Both in prison and in school, we see Alex being abused by classmates and head matron alike, and this portion of the film includes another one of arty moments of actor Cole laying on the ground eyes wide open staring for what seems to go on forever. In some ways, this sequence reminds me of McQueen’s fantastic early film Hunger, since it seems to be cut from similar cloth.

Eventually, Alex gets to Brixton and that’s where this chapter in “Small Axe” really takes off as we see how naïve and green he is while dealing with quite a tough crowd and trying to adjust to city life among the Rastafarian community.

As with the other “Small Axe” chapters, I love how McQueen and his team used reggae music to help set the tone and vibe for the episode, because like Baz Lurhman’s Netflix series The Get Down, the music is frequently a key to this biopic working so well. Of course, it’s also due to the performance by Cole and the actors around him that helps make you feel as if you’re seeing a real part of history.

As with Mangrove, this chapter culminates with an amazing recreation of the 1981 Brixton Riots, done in protest after a house party fire in New Cross that the police don’t bother investigating. The actual riots were a much bigger and scarier event going by Wikipedia which says that 279 police were injured and 56 police vehicles set fire, which makes it sound more like the ’92 L.A. Riots.

I’m not sure Alex Wheatle does as good a job explaining how the young man goes into prison as a DJ and comes out as an author, but like Red, White and Blue it’s still an important and inspirational story that adds quite a bit to the previous three “Small Axe” films.

And once again, here is my interview with McQueen from over at Below the Line.

Also, I should mention that Darius Marder’s excellent Sound of Metal movie, starring Riz Ahmed, hits Amazon Prime Video this Friday, too. Check out my review!

The magnificent Andrea Riseborough stars in Zeina Durra’s LUXOR (Samuel Goldwyn), playing British aid worker Hana who while spending time in the ancient city of Luxor, runs into her former lover Sultan (Karim Saleh), as she reflects on past decisions and her current uncertain situation.

I was quite interested in this one sight unseen, not only because it’s another great starring role for Riseborough. (Honestly, she is one of the best actors working today, and I strongly believe she is just one role away from being the next Olivia Colman, who had been amazing for years before everyone in America “discovered” her in The Favourite and then The Crown… which I still haven’t watched! ARGH!). I was a little anxious about the movie, having seen Rubba Nadda’s Cairo Time, starring Patricia Clarkson and Alexander Siddig, which seemingly had the exact same plot.

Durra is a much more capable and confident filmmaker and there’s a lot more overall value in watching Riseborough exploring Egypt as Durra quietly allows Hana’s story to unfold through her interactions with others, as well as her time alone, often languishing in one luxurious hotel room or another. Then there are the quiet and sometime awkward scenes between her and Saleh, the two of them having been lovers when they were both much younger. We also see Hana in far more vulnerable moments, so we know that she’s by no means actor, and it takes a great actor to really pull off such a dichotomy and bring such dimension to a character with so few words.

There’s something that’s almost comforting watching her dealing with emotions like loneliness in such a tranquil way. I’d even go so far to say that Luxor works in many ways similar to Nomadland, which obviously is getting the far more high-profile release with lots of festival love long before its actual release. Like that movie, Durra’s film benefits from having masterful cinematography by Zelmira Gainza and an equally gorgeous score by Nascuy Linares, to boot.

Luxor is a quiet, beautifully-made film that really took me by surprise. It acts as much like a travelogue of the title city as it does a tourist’s map to what it must feel like being a woman very much on her own in a foreign land.

I also spoke with Luxor filmmaker Zeina Durra, an interview that will be up at Below the Line hopefully sometime later this week.

With all the talk about Aubrey Plaza in Happiest Season (now on Hulu!), this would be a great time to release another one of her indies that played at the Sundance Film Festival this year, right? What can possibly go wrong?

In Lawrence Michael Levine’s BLACK BEAR (Momentum Pictures), Plaza plays Allison, an actor/filmmaker who arrives at the remote lake house of Christopher Abbott’s Gabe and his pregnant partner Blair (Sarah Gadon), to relax and work on a screenplay, only for the night to turn into philosophical discussions that transform into angry and even violent squabbles. In the second part of the movie, Gabe is the director, and Allison his actor wife, who thinks he’s sleeping with Blair, who is also acting in Gabe’s film.

That plot might seem a little vague, and I can’t exactly tell you whether there is much connection between the two parts of the movie other than it features the same three characters. The first half turns from a drama into a thriller before ending abruptly, while the second part is equal parts comedy and drama as we see a larger part of the world around the trio. In fact, the second part of Black Bear reminded me somewhat of Olivier Assayas’Irma Vep, one of my favorite movies, and that might be one of the highest compliments I can pay a movie.

But first, you have to get through the more quizzical and dramatic first part, which easily could have been done as a three-handed stageplay as we see the changing dynamics between the three people as things get crazier and crazier with one “Holy shit!” moment after the next. (It reminded me a little of Mamet or the play “Gods of Carnage,” although I only saw that as the movie version Carnage, directed by Roman Polanski.)

The fact the connection between the two parts is never explained might confound some people who were otherwise enjoying what is a pretty decent three-hander, but the common theme involves jealousy between the two women. Plaza is a fine dramatic actor when she wants to be, and Gadon is absolutely fantastic, which makes Abbot almost literally the odd man out, but the three of them just have great scenes together.

Black Bear is certainly an enigma of a movie, as much a mystery about what must be going on inside Plaza’s head during some of her softer and crazier scenes, but if you want to talk about range, this gives her so much material for her demo reel that no one could possibly doubt her as an actor again.

Thomas Vinterberg’s new movie ANOTHER ROUND (Samuel Goldwyn) reteams him with his The Hunt star Mads Mikkelsen for a comedy…. Ish… about a group of four middle aged Danish teachers who decide to hold an experiment to prove a theory that people only reach their maximum effectiveness and creativity when they’re .05% drunk. It starts out innocently enough but soon, the men are drinking heavily at school, leading to horrible and unfortunate side effects. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Even knowing Vinterberg’s knack for strange and twisted “comedies,” Another Round is definitely on another level, opening with a scene of drunken kids playing a drinking game that gets them so out-of-control drunk and rowdy. We then meet Mikkelsen’s Martin, a history teacher, whose rowdy seniors are so bored by his classroom technique that Martin is put in front of an inquisition of parents who think he’s going to make their kids fail their final exams. Martin’s home life isn’t much better with his wife Anika (Maria Bonnevie) or his own teen sons. Although Martin says he won’t drink when he has to drive, his friend Nikolaj (Magnus Millang) convinces him by announcing his theory about how everyone needs to always maintain a certain percentage of alcohol in their system. Over the course of the rest of the movie, we’re shown the alcohol level of our “heroes,” although most will see their behavior as some kind of synced-up middle life crisis. For Martin, it’s a breakthrough, as he starts feeling more confident and assertive towards his students, even trying to connect with them via their drinking activities, as seen in the opening montage.

Another Round is quite a different beast from The Hunt, because there’s a more humorous tone to the point where I could totally see an American studio trying to remake this with the likes of Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler, which would probably lose a lot of the poignancy of what Vinberberg was trying to achieve here. At one point, he throws in a montage of seemingly drunk world leaders, which is kind of amusing even if it’s not quite so apparent why it’s there. There’s a lot of really bad white guy dancing, too, for anyone who is into that sort of thing.

There is definitely a good amount of grief and sadness to the way this story resolves, although Vinterberg still finds a way to leave Martin in a place of joy with a closing scene that may surprise a lot of people. Another Round is another tremendous feather in the cap of the Vinterberg/Mikkelsen collaboration, and it will be in select theaters this Friday before going to digital on December 18.

Another Round will be in select theaters this Friday and then on digital December 18.

Fast Color director Julia Hart returns with I’M YOUR WOMAN (Amazon), once again co-written with husband Jordan Horowitz. It stars Rachel Brosnahan from The Amazing Mrs. Maisel (which I haven’t seen) as Jean, a woman unable to have a baby with her small-time crook husband Eddie. One night, Eddie brings home a baby for Jean, but then he quickly vanishes and Jean finds herself on the run with a stolen baby and one of Eddie’s accomplices, Cal (Arinzé Kene), and there are bad men wanting to question Jean about her missing husband’s whereabouts.

This is another movie where I really didn’t know what to expect, and having not watched Brosnahan on her award-winning show, I was watching this movie trying to figure out what all the fuss was about. It’s evident from the start that Hart/Horowitz were trying to make a ‘70s-set movie with all the trappings of ‘70s fashion and music, but when you throw in the crime element, it comes across a little too much like last year’s The Kitchen, which wasn’t very good but also wasn’t based on very good source material.

One would presume that the genre elements and a few scattered set pieces, like a shootout at a club, would be the main draw, but it’s almost 30 minutes before we even get any sort of plot, and that’s a big problem. An even bigger problem is that I’m Your Woman just drags for so much of the movie, and it’s pretty obvious that Hart-Horowitz were trying to create a ‘70s movie like some of the films by Scorsese and the movies John Cassavetes made with wife Gena Rowlands. By comparison, I’m Your Woman is stylized almost to a pretentious degree. Brosnahan does show a few glimpses of there being a good actor in there, but the material just really isn’t quite up to snuff. It also doesn’t help the movie to have the baby crying almost non-stop throughout.

Jean eventually pairs up with Cal’s woman Teri (Martha Stephanie Blake), her son Paul and Cal’s father (played by Frankie Faison), and this is when she learns more about Eddie’s life that she doesn’t know about. Eventually, things start to pick up in the last act, but the multiple problems Hart has with maintaining a steady pace or tone only mildly is made up for by her terrific DP and whoever put together the musical score. Essentially, the last 30 minutes of I’m Your Woman does make up for the previous 85 minutes, but it’s going to be very hard for many people to even get through how dull the movie is up until that point.

This is a week with some very fine docs, the first one being Weixi Chen and Hao Wu*’s cinema verité film 76 DAYS (MTV Documentary Films), which goes behind the doors of the Wuhan ICU Red Cross hospital over the first 76 days of the COVID pandemic after it hit the rural area of China. (*One of the film’s co-directors/cinematographers shot the film anonymously.)

Here I thought that Alex Gibney’s Totally Under Control would be the best or maybe even only movie about the pandemic released this year, but here we have a fantastic documentary that captures what it was really like in one Wuhan hospital as it was nearly overrun months before COVID started to rear its ugly head in the States. The film begins in January 23, 2020 and follows a number of cases as we watch the personnel, all decked out in head-to-toe PPE, trying to save lives and keep people calm while trying to struggle with all the stresses that come their way. There’s actually a little bit of humor in a cranky elderly man (clearly with some form of dementia) who keeps wandering around the hospital, frustrating his tenders, but there’s also a very moving story of a young pregnant woman who has contracted COVID, who ends up being separated from her baby after a Cesarian section.

There are moments early in the movie where you can see panic starting to set in as we see how out of control things begin, but the anonymous health care workers soon get things underhand and manage to find a way to deal with the panic that’s setting in. There’s no question that these doctors and nurses – many whose faces we never even see -- are the definition of frontline workers, trying to deal with this unknown virus without all the answers and solutions that have been discovered over the past ten months.

76 Days will open via the Film Forum Virtual Cinema as well as other places presumably.

I’m glad I had Dana Nachman’s DEAR SANTA (IFC Films) to watch after 76 Days, because I don’t think I could have handled another dark or deep movie after that one. This doc is all about “Operation Santa,” the amazing group of volunteers and adopters who receive the letters young kids write to the North Pole and go out of their way to fulfill the kids’ wishes.

I was a big fan of Nachman’s Pick of the Litter, so I’m thrilled to say that Dear Santa is just as wonderful and joyous, starting with a bunch of kids explaining Santa Clause enthusiastically, because they really believe in Jolly Saint Nick. Over the course of the film, Nachman profiles a number of Adopter Elves, who look through the letters written to Santa by unfortunate kids and pick a few to fulfill their wishes. A lot of them are in New York and Chicago where the program has led to a number of non-profits, but Nachman also goes to Chico, California where many of the families from Paradise, the town destroyed by fires in 2018, ended up relocation. One story of an Adopter Elf named Damion is particularly wonderful, since he, like many of those who get involved in the program, are trying to give back and pay it forward.

Operation Santa is such a great program and Dear Santa is such a wonderful movie, I challenge anyone to watch it and not tear up from how big their heart will grow while watching it.

Julien Temple’s doc CROCK OF GOLD: A NIGHT WITH SHANE MACGOWAN (Magnolia Pictures) is pretty self-explanatory from its title, but as someone who was never really a Pogues fan, I was almost as entertained by Temple’s film as I was by Alex Winter’s Zappa about a musician who I actually was a fan of. Temple uses MacGowan’s own narration to tell his story from growing up in Ireland, the early days of punk that led to the Pogues and eventually, mainstream success.

My absolute adoration of well-made music docs is fairly well-known at this point, and you can’t really get much better in terms of music doc makers than Julien Temple, who had his cameras rolling in the early days of punk, captured one of David Bowie’s more interesting mainstream phases and also made a very cool movie about The Clash frontman, Joe Strummer.

Although I never really cared for The Pogues, that’s probably because I didn’t know them from their rowdier days and more from their mainstream success from “Fairytale of New York” but Temple’s movie rectifies that with some amazing footage from the band’s earlier days. Even more impressive is the footage and pictures of MacGowan during the late ‘70s dancing in the audience at Sex Pistols and other punk shows. (Temple even interviewed MacGowan during this period in the ‘70s, then put the footage in the movie.) As MacGowan tells his own story about growing up in Ireland, Temple frequently uses varied animation to recreate the stories being told, and that does a lot to embellish the cartoon nature of MacGowan’s storytelling.

I still think MacGowan is a bit of an asshole -- I’m sure he’d agree with that assessment -- but Temple has found a way into this very difficult musician, sometimes using close friends like Johnny Depp (a producer on the film) and Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream to try to get MacGowan to open up about as much as he ever might. Crock of Gold is certainly an eye-opening portrait of the Pogues frontman that surprisingly offers something to enjoy even for those who never got into his music, but it also shows another dimension to his many fans. If nothing else, it’s a fine testament to why Temple is one of the best music doc filmmakers.

Magnolia held a bunch of one-night only theatrical screenings on Tuesday and will have more on Thursday, but if you miss those, you can catch it On Demand/digital this Friday. (I also have a really enjoyable interview with Julien Temple over at Below the Line that you should check out.)

A.J. and Jenny Tesler’s doc MAGNOLIA’S HOPE follows four years in the life of their young daughter Magnolia (aka Maggie), who has Rett Syndrome. Maggie’s filmmaking parents talk about noticing her strange behavior and finding out that she had a genetic disorder that makes it harder for children to retain what they’ve learned in terms of movement but also might led to far worse disorders. It makes it almost impossible for her to communicate with her parents, which makes it heartbreaking but also quite inspirational that the parents would allow us into their very own difficult journey to try to get their daughter to use and develop all of the skills she learns by making her practice them every single day. The movie will be available to watch for the month of December on the streaming platform Show and Tell, but it’s such a personal movie and another one where I think it will be hard for many to watch without getting a little teary but more out of joy than sadness.

Also out this week is David Osit’s MAYOR (Film Movement), which follows Musa Hadid, the Christian mayor of Ramallah during his second term of office and determined to make his city a beautiful and dignified place to lived despite being surrounded on all sides by soldiers and Israeli settlements. It will open today at the Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema in New York after winning the Grand Jury Prize at the 2020 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.

What there’s more? How about Braden R. Duemmler’s WHAT LIES BELOW (Vertical Entertainment), a thriller starring Ema Hovarth from Quibi’s Don’t Look Deeper as Liberty (aka Libby), a teen girl returning from camp only to learn her mother (Mena Suvari) has a hot younger boyfriend named John (Trey Tucker), who Libby soon begins to question whether he’s human. What could possibly go wrong?

I knew I was in trouble when Suvari is picking her daughter up from archeology camp (that’s a thing?) and I misheard her asking her daughter “Any nice digs?” (think about it), especially since Suvari is playing a stereotypically over-sexed cougar, something that becomes far more obvious once we meet her boyfriend that she’s been sexing up at her lake house. There’s certainly a danger of What Lies Below turning into a prequel to a Pornhub video, but thankfully, Duemmler gets away from the inappropriate sexuality inherent in John’s presence and into the weird behavior that gets Libby suspicious.

Sure, maybe calling the movie “My Stepfather is an Alien” would have been more apropos, and there’s elements of the movie that reminded me of the Tom Hanks’ movie The ‘burbs, and not in a good way. Even so, Hovarth, who really looks like Suvari’s daughter, does a fine job holding this together and keeping you invested in how things might pan out, as things get weirder and weirder and the movie eventually transforms itself into a halfway decent and creepy “body horror” flick.

Weird but well-done, What Lies Below is not even close to the worst thriller I’ve seen this year. That might seem like damning praise, but it’s the best I can do for this one.

Debuting on Shudder this Thursday is Justin G. Dyck’s ANYTHING FOR JACKSON (Shudder), a “reverse exorcism” movie in which a seemingly kindly couple, played by Sheila McCarthy and Julian Richings, kidnap a pregnant woman (Konstantina Mantelos) in hopes of getting the spirit of their grandson Jackson, who died in a car crash, and put him into her baby… with the help of demons. What could possibly go wrong? (If you hadn’t guessed, this is the theme of this week’s Weekend Warrior.)

I’ve been thoroughly impressed with the horror delivered by streamer Shudder this year, and Anything for Jackson is no exception. In fact, going over Dyck’s filmography, it’s kind of surprising how decent a horror filmmaker he is, because most of his other movies seem like Hallmark-style Christmas movies? Crazy. There are aspects of Anything for Jackson, written by Keith Cooper, who wrote some of those holiday movies for Dyck. I honestly can imagine the two of them making this movie just to be able to do something different, so they come into the horror realm with tons of fim making experience and easily transition into horror.

At the heart of this movie are McCarthy, Richings and Mantelos, who are all fine actors who do a great job selling the horrors but do just as well during the quieter dramatic moments. Not that there are that many of them, as Dyck/Cooper throw so many absolutely horrific moments at the viewer so that diehard horror fans will not be disappointed. Things shift into another gear when Josh Cruddas joins in as a Satanic cult leader they bring in to help them when they realize they’re out of their league. The results are something akin to Insidiousin terms of the types of demons and ghosts thrown at the viewer.

At times, Anything for Jackson was a little hard to follow, maybe due to its non-linear storytelling, but at least it has a substantial amount of decent replay value, since the demons and kills are so gloriously gory.

Eric Schultz’s dark and trippy sci-fi thriller MINOR PREMISE (Utopia) stars Sathya Sridharan as neuroscientist Ethan, who gets caught up in his own risky experiment involving memory loss when he becomes trapped in his home with his ex-girlfriend Allie (Paton Ashbrook), and he doesn’t remember how they both got there.

For his directorial debut, Schultz has taken the cerebral indie sci-fi film route that we’ve seen in other filmmaking debuts like Shane Carruth’s Primer, Darren Aronofsky’s Pi or Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko, and if you’re a fan of those movies, you’ll already know if this would be for you or not. This is also the kind of movie that really requires the closest attention and fullest focus, which is not something I’m great at right now. Because of that, I don’t have a ton to say about a film that does a good job pulling the viewer in with its intriguing premise.

Schultz is a pretty decent filmmaker and discovering Sridharan, who has done a lot of single-episode TV appearances but nothing major, is quite a coup since this is quite a solid showcase for the young actor. I wasn’t as crazy about Ashbrook, which makes it for a rather uneven two-hander.

Minor Premise is just fine, and I think some people will definitely like it more than I did. I definitely will have to watch it again when I’m not so distracted by ALL THOSE OTHER MOVIES ABOVE THAT I JUST FUCKING REVIEWED!

It will be in theaters, in virtual cinema, and digital/On Demand this Friday, so check it out for yourself.

And finally…

Director Dennis Dugan of Big Daddy and Happy Gilmore directs LOVE, WEDDINGS AND OTHER DISASTERS (Saban Films), a “Love American Style” rom-com anthology with a cast that includes Maggie Grace, Jeremy Irons, Diane Keaton and more. Grace plays Jessie, a fairly inexperienced wedding plan hired to orchestrate the high-profile wedding of Boston mayoral candidate (Dennis Staroselsky), and then… oh, you know what? I’ll leave the rest of the description to the review portion of our review.

We meet Grace’s character as she and her soon-to-be-ex boyfriend are skydiving, which goes horribly wrong as they end up fighting all the way down and crashing through an outdoor wedding, caught on a viral video that gets her dubbed the “Wedding Thrasher.” Imagine what a PR disaster that would be for mayoral candidate Rob Barton to have her planning his wedding, but Jessie quickly bonds with his fiancé Liz (Caroline Portu) and begins preparations. Meanwhile, Barton’s problematic brother Jimmy (Andy Goldenberg) has gone on a game show called “Crash Couples” (that’s hosted by no less than Dugan himself) and he allows himself to be chained to a Russian “lawyer” named Svetlana (Melinda Hill) who is actually a stripper. They’re willing to stick it out since the winner gets a million dollars.

Surely, that’s more than enough stories, right? Nope. Turns out that Jessie’s main competition to plan the wedding is a legendary caterer named Lawrence Phillips (Irons) who is set-up on a blind date with Diane Keaton, who is blind. Oy vey. Also, there’s Andrew Bachelor as Captain Ritchie, who gives humorous sightseeing tours of Boston via the Charles River in an odd land/water vehicle, but one day, he encounters a young woman with a glass slipper tattoo, and he becomes quite smitten. We’ll get back to him. Maybe. In fact, Duggan spends so much time setting up different stories and relationships without much connection that you wonder whether he can tie things up in the oh-so-predictable way these things normally go.

Although the movie starts out fine, and it’s actually not a bad role for Grace, as soon as Duggan introduces the game show, then we learn that Svetlana (real name Olga) is a tripper connected to the mob and they get involved, things just start going downhill very fast. Also, the idea that Keaton -- who I haven’t seen in a good movie in almost two decades -- would not think twice about playing a klutzy blind person. As soon as she shows up and immediately knocks over one of Phillips’ signature champagne glass fountains, I knew we were in for a very long haul. I didn’t even mention the other storyline involving a musician named Mack (Diego Boneta) whose band Jessie is trying to get to play the wedding – one of the multiple meet-cutes in the movie -- although Mack is squabbling with his bandmate Lenny (Jesse McCartney) who has a new Asian girlfriend who is intruding in their friendship. (I’m sure the fact her name is “Yoni” is meant as as Yoko Ono reference.)

Then on top of that, Dugan steals the gimmick from There’s Something About Mary, by constantly cutting back to Elle King and Keaton Simmons as they’re playing folksy songs in the park. Okay, the fact that Dugan wrote many of those pretty decent songs they perform is pretty impressive.

But the movie is very predictable, especially how it all comes together for the finale, which obviously has to take place at the wedding to which everything has been building up to.

Otherwise, Dugan’s film is maybe 20% an okay movie but the other 80%? Yeesh!! It’s about as romantic as a date with the Marquis de Sade, and it somehow manages to be an equal opportunity offender... in terms of offending blind people, Asians, Jews, Arabs, gay people and even strippers and Russian mafia. It took Dugan 14 years to get this passion project made, and it’s pretty obvious why.

As usual, there were a couple movies I didn’t have time to watch, but not quite as many as the ones I did make time to watch:

King of Knives (Gravitas Ventures) End of Sentence (Gravitas Venture) Billie (Greenwich) Godmothered (Disney+) Wander (Saban Films) Music Got Me Here (First Run Features) Stand! (Fathom Events, Imagination Worldwide) HAM: A Musical Memoir (Global Digital Releasing) In the Mood for Love (4k Restoration)

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

#TheWeekendWarrior #Movies #Reviews #ImYourWoman #Mank #Nomadland #CrockOfGold #TheProm #BlackBear #Luxor #AnotherRound #HalfBrothers #AllMyLife

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justwritesome · 4 years

Text

Courtship Recette

Summary: by Chef Uchiha Madara.

Or a series of outsiders' perspective in the courtship between two talented chefs in a Michelin-starred hotel restaurant in Tokyo, Konoha. [madasaku!crackfic – modern tokyo restaurant au]

———

Chapter 1: Uzumaki Naruto

Uzumaki Naruto simply loves Ramen. For him, Ramen is Life. It's the ultimate food of the Gods.

He's so obsessed with ramen – his dad theorized that this probably started since he was conceived in his mom's womb – that he worked as a part-timer in Ichiraku, a ramen stall near his school when he was still a High School student. Naruto tried to learn everything he could about ramen: from creating noodles from scratch to making different kinds of soup bases and side-toppings.

In short, his obsession with Ramen is the main reason he went and studied in the prestigious Culinary School in Japan. He wanted to introduce and share his first love to the world, and let the people taste the wonder of food of the Gods.

Of course, his beautiful and best mom in the world is Naruto's biggest supporter being a ramen enthusiast like himself. His dad is proudly cheering for him in the side, but not as loud like his mom does.

Naruto was freshman in college when he met his best friends, Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura.

Sasuke-teme is from a wealthy family in Osaka. In fact, he's from that Uchiha Dining Group, so the rich duckling bastard knew chefs from his family all his life and already had a background understanding in the culinary arts.

Meanwhile, Sakura-chan, like him, loves anything sweet. Her favorite foods are dango and anmitsu, but because her parents are Dentists, growing up, she didn't eat sweets that much. But once in a while, she had drunkenly told him and Sasuke, after attending cram school, Sakura would secretly go to tea shops, cafés and dessert buffets with her friends.

He and Sasuke knew that she developed a strained relationship with her mother because of her choice to study the culinary arts instead of being a doctor like her parents.

When they became second years, Naruto chose to attend a class in Traditional Japanese Cuisine under his godfather, Chef and famous Author, Jiraiya.

Sasuke and Sakura were shock at first as they didn't expect that from him (how rude!), but they still supported his decision after the astonishment passed.

Sasuke, on the hand, found an interest in Molecular Gastronomy. He was urged by a senpai to study under the tutelage of Chef Orochimaru. As for Sakura, she went and demanded to the Queen of Pastry, Chef Senju Tsunade, that she wanted to be her apprentice. She was accepted because of her conviction.

And on their last year in Culinary School, before the three of them graduated, they had surpassed their mentors. However, before they could get their degrees, one of the requirements was to intern in the affiliated establishments of their school for six months.

Sasuke didn't hesitate and chose the hotel restaurant near the financial district in Chiyoda ward where his older brother works. It's co-owned by his relative, but Sasuke just wanted to be with his brother and show him how much he improved. Naruto joined his rival and went there too for his internship.

Initially, Sakura wanted to go with them, but instead, she decided to go to Paris and chose a shop owned by a chocolatier, Chef Shizune Shiranui, who also shared the same mentor as Sakura.

Naruto would call her often when he could and when she had the time, Sakura-chan would call him and Sasuke via video-chat while she's interning in France.

Sasuke, the in-denial bastard, always told him that he didn't miss Sakura-chan and her annoying self, but whenever she called, he'll be nearby, hiding in the shadows like a ninja, to hear their conversations.

He pointed it out, but bastard had the gall to lie in his face:

"I just happened to be there," Sasuke lied with a straight-face while they were meticulously prepping the ingredients for the chef's special that day: it was scallops from Hokkaido. "And it's not that I want to hear the both of you talking rubbish about me behind my back."

Naruto just gaped at him in disbelief when he heard that blatant bullshit, he only heard from Kakashi-nii. So, the next time Sakura called, it just happened that it's during the lunch break of the restaurant staffs, and when he "accidentally" connected his smartphone to the Bluetooth speaker was a coincidence. The two of them reminisced their early college days with Sasuke and talked trash about the bastard like the spoiled duckling had wanted… and within everyone's hearing range too. The devil-incarnate of Uchiha harshly scolded him, but Naruto thought it was worth it!

Before the six months of interning was up, the kind owner of Konoha, First Boss as Naruto called Senju Hashirama, offered that Naruto and Sasuke could work there after they graduated. Sasuke swiftly took the offer, elated at the prospect of working close to his older brother– the bro-con didn't care the slightest that the Yōkai he called his relative breathed behind their necks and found faults in every little thing since they stepped foot in the restaurant. Naruto, of course, had enjoyed working in the hotel restaurant's grand kitchen despite the Uchiha no Oni's tyrant ruling there with his cruelty and iron club, so he too, had taken the invitation.

After the three of them graduated and got their diplomas, Sakura-chan happily informed him and Sasuke that she was personally scouted by the owner of a 3-star Michelin restaurant in Tokyo. She's so secretive about the place she'll be working at, but he's just glad that they will be working in the same city.

When Naruto showed up at work as an official paid employee of Konoha after six months of interning there with Sasuke, his jaw dropped at the sight of his female best friend being introduced to the kitchen crew and restaurant staffs as the Fairy of Sweets by the Kitchen Devil himself.

Apparently, Sakura-chan made a name for herself while she was in France and was scouted by First Boss.

He and Sasuke shared a concerned look after Sakura was introduced to everyone. It's a cause of worry for the two of them since they met their sister in all but blood that the pink-haired woman is denser than coffee jelly in the matter of her own heart. For someone who indulges in romantic books and films and a self-proclaimed hopeless romantic at that, Sakura-chan is certainly hopeless and oblivious when it comes to her romance: she wouldn't know that someone is not being overly friendly, but flirting at her.

Two months. It took two months before she unknowingly charmed some staffs in the hotel restaurant. And four months for the Last Demon Boss to be accidentally caught.

The staffs? Sure. It was totally expected. They've seen how Sakura-chan's endearing qualities worked during their college days. But the last one? That, they did not see coming. Ever.

Not the slightest!

He and Sasuke almost lost their freaking minds because Uchiha "Are you an idiot sandwich?" Madara has a heart after all. It's probably black and shriveled, but it's still beating and it beats for their Sakura-chan. WHAT. THE. FU––dge.

For a week, Sasuke looked like he forcefully ate natto and had an on-going constipation whenever he saw his relative approaching Sakura. Naruto didn't know whether to laugh at Sasuke or just curl in ball and cry from war flashbacks.

One time, Naruto had to stop the dramatic Uchiha from dipping his face in the deep-fryer of tempura and kakiage when they saw (from front row seat– Naruto wanted a refund, please) the attempted flirting of the tyrant to their Haruno "oUR heAd CheF iS trULy kiNd AnD frIEndLy" Sakura.

He swore that bastard is soooo extra!

Naruto saw that too, but did he stick his head in the pot of simmering dashi? Nooo! He did not. He's just pulling away the Drama Queen: Sasuke-hime from the hot oil while shouting and calling the Last Demon Boss rude names for trying to romance their Sakura-chan. Not that the Oni knew Naruto was cursing him.

His only solace and soothed his tired heart in this hell of a grand kitchen was the ramen he could eat all he wanted during lunch break. It's truly the ultimate food of the gods! Naruto thought, until he could save enough money to start his business: his very own ramen specialty shop, he will not give up!

Despite all these troubles and hardships, he knew that it will be worth it in the end.

"Uzumaki, what in the earth's name are you doing there? Your shift break is over."

Said the Oni to the mortal enjoying his cup of instant miso chashu ramen. Naruto had to scramble from the stacks of empty boxes and crates near the storage room, slurping clean the soup and noodles as he did so.

"Uzumaki! The chicken won't marinate itself, so come here this instant!"

———

Also in FFnet

#madasaku #haruno sakura #uchiha madara #courtship recette #modern au #sorta hell's kitchen au #littlemisslazy writes

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jchb32273 · 5 years

Text

Fictober 2019 - Day 1

A little late in posting today, but here is Day 1 - Trust me, it will be fun!

Fanfiction - Dragon Age

AO3 Link

~~~~~

“Kylara?” I heard knocking on our bathroom door. “You can’t hide in there forever! I can pick the lock, you know!”

I groaned, knowing my roommate, Leliana was all too serious. The last time she’d been caught, she got fined for breaking school property. It still didn’t stop her though… “All right! I’m coming out now!” I looked at my reflection and thought, I look ridiculous!

I opened the door, just as Leli was pulling out her picks. She gasped in surprise. “Oh, you look so pretty!!” She grabbed my hand and pulled me into the bedroom of our dorm. “Now go on and put on the rest of your costume! You’ve already made us a half-hour late!”

“I still don’t know why you are making me go to this Halloween party. I don’t know anyone there!”

“Which is why you need to go, Kylara! You need to get out more! Socialize!” Leli stood there in her sparkling black cat costume and frowned a bit. “I will not let you sequester yourself in the library or the dorm room for the entire year! College is about having fun!”

“College is about working hard, getting good grades, and hopefully a meaningful career,” I countered. “Especially when you are on a scholarship like I am.”

“That doesn’t mean you need to stay cooped up all the time! Come on now, it will be fun, trust me!”

I sighed as I pulled on the silly mouse costume she had bought me. I am going to look so stupid in this… “The Theirin’s are the ones hosting! I bet there will be nothing but a bunch of rich kids with bank accounts bursting at the seams. I won’t know anyone there!”

Leliana came over and put her hand on my arm. “This isn’t some high-end social gathering by Maric or Cailan. Alistair is hosting this party. Also, you know me, and that guy you know from your science class… Cullen? He’ll be there. Morrigan is also going.”

“The goth girl from your poetry club?” I asked, curious. “Why would she even consider going to such a soiree?”

Leli giggled. “She said she was curious about how the other half lived.”

“I’m sure that isn’t her real reason.”

“Probably not, but it’s what she told me. Actually, I think she knows someone who might be there and she was hoping to meet him.”

“Who?”

“The bass player in Alistair’s band.” she replied.

“With all the money his family has – and their precious reputation – you’d think they wouldn’t let him have such a hobby… or host wild parties.”

Leli shrugged. “He’s always been the black sheep of the family and was only recently ‘brought back into the fold’, from what I’ve heard. So I guess as long as he doesn’t do anything to embarrass them…”

I tried to think back on what little I knew of the Theirins. Maric was the CEO of a huge business here in Denerim. His wife had died some years ago and his legitimate son, Cailan, was already vice-president of the firm. The scandal of the family was that shortly before his wife had died, Maric had had an affair. That was where the second son, Alistair, fit in. Initially, Alistair had been sent off to live with some distant relatives, but now that he was in his third year here at Denerim University (and doing really well), Maric had apparently decided to claim Alistair as his actual son. There was probably more to the story, but I didn’t thrive on social gossip like so many others in my classes.

All I knew was that just about every female (and some males) around the campus gushed about how handsome Alistair was and how they were going to do everything in their power to get him to notice them… now that Cailan was engaged to some high-end socialite. Stupid of them, really. Last I heard, Alistair was heavily involved with another wealthy girl, Ellie Cousland, I think? Who cares… I am here at this school to focus on my education… not play games to win the affections of some spoiled rich brat.

I sighed again. “Just promise me you won’t leave me alone… and we won’t stay for long, all right, Leli?” I looked at myself in the floor-length mirror in the room. The mouse costume was tight and hugged every curve on my somewhat voluptuous body. The glittery, grey makeup on my face brought out the blue in my eyes (so Leli said), but it also forced me to wear my contacts rather than my glasses. I hated the contacts… they made my eyes feel dry.

“Don’t forget your cheese, little mouse!” Leliana laughed and handed me the stuffed cheese plush.

I rolled my eyes. “You know, mice don’t really eat cheese.”

“Tell that to anyone who has ever watched classic cat and mouse cartoons. Now come on! We are already so late! Let’s go!”

We arrived at a really large gated community on the outskirts of the city. Cars were parked all up and down the streets. Leliana found a spot on a side street about three blocks from the house where the party was being held.

The party was already in full swing by the time we got there. Despite my telling her to not leave me by myself, Leliana was greeted by several members of her poetry club, including Morrigan (who looked just as thrilled as I was to be here). They pulled her away from “the bookish nerd” (I heard one girl call me) and over to the stage where Alistair’s band was playing.

The music was obnoxiously loud, though I had to admit it did have a nice beat to it. Though I tended to prefer classical music, I still tried to keep up with what was popular on campus. I knew Alistair’s band, The Griffons, were quite the rage. I even knew who was who on stage. Fenris was the bassist. He was a broody elf with odd glowing tattoos on his brown skin. So that is who Morrigan likes, hmm? Interesting. The drummer was a huge qunari who went by the moniker of “The Iron Bull” on campus. With the pair of massive horns on his head, I could see why. The keyboardist was a guy I had only heard about from others. I only knew his name was Dorian and that he was originally from Tevinter. The second guitarist was named Anders and while he was quite the looker, he paled in comparison to the frontman.

I had seen pictures of Alistair in the school newspaper and in social gossip magazines at the store, but seeing him in person for the first time was quite a different experience.

I can see why women fall for him… I thought. He is very handsome. Under the lights of the stage, it was difficult to tell the true shade of his hair, but it seemed to be a rich auburn. His dark brown eyes radiated warmth and compassion. His voice was deep and melodious… it gave me chills as I heard him sing.

“Hey Kylara! Good to see you!” I heard a man shout next to me. I turned to see Cullen, who was dressed as a lion. He handed me a beer and I thanked him.

I nodded. “I have never heard him live… Leliana has some of his CDs, but it isn’t the same.”

“He is pretty amazing. I’ve known him for quite a while,” Cullen spoke loud so I could hear him.

“Really?”

“Sure! I can introduce you if you want to meet him.”

“Why would I? He’s handsome and popular… not exactly the kind of guy who’d be interested in someone like me.”

Cullen seemed surprised. “You never struck me as someone who judges others at first appearance, ‘Lara.”

I blushed (though it probably didn’t show through the makeup on my face). “I-I’m not… I mean… I’m sorry. You’re right, Cullen. But still, why should I meet him? Isn’t he already dating someone?”

“He broke up with her last night.” Cullen said. “Turns out she was cheating on him.”

“Oh, that’s terrible.” I could hear the song was nearing its end. “But again, Cullen. Why should I meet him? What do you think he’d see in someone like me?”

“Al is a real friendly guy… and he loves having people around him. However, it is always the same kind of people. I know he’s been getting really bored of it all. You, Kylara, are a sweet, quiet girl. You are smart and not at all like the women who throw themselves at his feet. I think Al might find that a bit refreshing.” The song finished just then and Alistair told the crowd he was going to take a ten-minute break. “Come on,” Cullen said and took my free hand. I put the beer down and grabbed my cheese plush. “Let’s go.”

Cullen pulled me through the crowd towards the stage so quickly that I didn’t see the large clown shoes in front of me until it was too late. I fell to the floor with a crash. People all around me started laughing… hard. Mortified, I got up and before Cullen could say anything, I quickly ran out a side door and out into the back yard.

I don’t know how long I was out there, but the cool autumn air was beginning to give me goosebumps. I had contemplated just going back to Leliana’s car, but I couldn’t remember where she had parked. So in the end, I sat out in the yard on an old swing someone had left tied to a huge tree.

Just then I heard footsteps behind me. A soft, but deep voice asked with concern, “Are you all right?”

I turned in the swing, twisting the rope, to see who had spoken. To my utter shock, it was Alistair! I quickly turned the swing back around as my face heated up. Cullen must have told him what happened! I suppose he needs to know if I am okay… so there are no lawsuits to sully the Theirin name. “I’m fine,” I mumbled. “I… just want to be alo- ” The old rope holding the swing chose that very moment to snap and for the second time that night, I fell to the ground. I wanted to cry, I was so humiliated.

Alistair knelt down and offered me his hand. “Please, let me help you up.”

At first, I just wanted to shout that I was fine and for him to leave me alone, but then I noticed his eyes were not haughty, but genuinely concerned. I gingerly gave him my hand and with a strong pull, he helped me to my feet.

“Are you hurt?” he then asked.

I sighed. “Only my dignity.”

Alistair smiled. “Well, I suppose that is good to hear. I hear dignity is easy to fix… if you know the right people.” He then leaned close and whispered, “I heard they even sell it in the back alleys of Orzammar sometimes…”

I couldn’t help it, I snickered.

“See now, that’s much better. A pretty smile from a pretty woman.” Alistair smiled and then asked, “So, what is your name?”

“Kylara.”

“Well, Kylara, it is very nice to meet you. I really like your costume, by the way.”

“Really? Why?”

He held out the cheese plush I had dropped earlier. “Well, for one, I do have a certain minor obsession with cheese…”

#fictober19 #no trigger warnings this chapter #Dragon Age #halloween party #friends #introductions #alternate universe #modern thedas

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snarkybluechristian · 5 years

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Hazbin Hotel: Satan’s Plan Part 8 (Collab with Dinobot King)

Version:1.0 StartHTML:000000203 EndHTML:002012161 StartFragment:001971031 EndFragment:002012129 StartSelection:001971031 EndSelection:002012125 SourceURL:https://www.fanfiction.net/docs/docs.php

The room’s walls were colored pink with glitter almost everywhere. There were chairs arranged in a circle with a red rug covering the floor.

From what Sir Pentious could see, the crowd was diverse.

There was a small, chubby dark-skinned female demon with black eyes with hot pink pupils wearing a short purple dress and a purple necklace who was eating from a box of donuts.

There was a gray-blue-skinned demon with dark blue fins on the side of his face and running along his spine until it reached the angler fish lure on the top of his head wearing a blue lab coat, black gloves, and black boots who was sitting shyly alone in his chair.

Then finally, there was a white dog demon covered in black spots with a black leg, ears pierced multiple times, yellow and red eyes, and blond and pink hair wearing a spiked dog collar, a pink dress with a skull on it, black fingerless gloves, and a black short-sleeved jacket who was curled up sleeping on the floor in the center of the circle.

“Crymini, wake up!” Vaggie yelled.

“Dammit, woman,” Crymini groaned groggily as she woke up. “What’s your deal?”

“Hey, kid, you do not give me back sass!” Vaggie retorted.

“For the last time, I died when I was 19,” Crymini growled getting in her face. “I am not a kid.”

“Ladies, please, let’s calm down,” Charlie said as she pulled a reluctant Sir Pentious into the room behind her.

“It’s not my fault this bitch was being rude,” Vaggie replied irritably before she noticed the tall snake demon being pulled into the room behind Charlie.

“What is he doing here?” Vaggie asked defensively.

“Well, you’re not particularly welcoming,” Sir Pentious said as Charlie let go of his hands and he crossed his arms defensively. “I thought this was supposed to be a rehab center.”

“Hey!” Vaggie retorted. “I don’t tell you how to do your job!”

“Alright, Vaggie,” Charlie said in a calm tone in an effort to calm everyone down before she started speaking up to begin the meeting. “How about we get this meeting started? Hello, everyone! This is the Happy Hotel’s newest patient, Sir Pentious! Woo!”

Sir Pentious glanced at the group and rolled his eyes at them.

“Hello, Pentious,” Angel said swinging the door open and shutting it behind him.

“What are you doing here, Dust?” Sir Pentious hissed.

“Sir Pentious, he’s part of the group, too,” Charlie said calmly.

“So, what did I miss?” Angel asked as he slid into his chair. “Did Sir Pentious bear his soul yet?”

“You were almost late,” Vaggie chided quietly sitting herself in a chair beside him. “What the hell were you doing?”

“Relax, doll,” Angel said. “I merely had some personal business to attend to. So, what’s on the agenda today?”

“Our new member was just introducing himself, but it seems that you two already know each other,” Mimzy said sliding her box under her chair.

“Everyone knows who he is,” Baxter chimed in as he sipped from a cup of water. “Aren’t you the snake demon who’s always trying to take over hell? What are you doing here?”

“Yeah, did the incident with Cherri Bomb finally make you quit or somethin’?” Crymini asked sitting back in her chair and scratching her ear.

Sir Pentious crossed his arms defensively and said sarcastically, “Hello, fellow scum of the earth. I look forward to avoiding all of you as much as possible.”

“Well, bud, looks like someone didn’t get the memo,” Angel quipped. “This is a no bullying zone, so if you have a problem with us, I suggest you pack your bags and scram.”

Vaggie smirked while Charlie facepalmed in frustration.

“Ok, Angel, that’s enough,” Charlie said bringing the group back to focus and sliding into her chair. “Alright, Sir Pentious, would you like to tell us the story of your life?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Sir Pentious retorted. “It’s none of your business.”

“Why?” Charlie asked. “Does it have anything to do with why you’re constantly trying to take over hell?”

“God, how long is this session?” Sir Pentious responded with annoyance.

“As long as you make it,” Vaggie retorted.

“Okay, fine,” Sir Pentious said sarcastically. “I lived in London. I wanted to be king, but the royals said no and I drank myself to death. There, happy now? I’m going back to my room. I need to talk to my Egg Bois…”

Sir Pentious tried to get up from his chair, but Charlie grabbed his tail and forced him to sit back down.

“Sir Pentious, you have to be honest with yourself and everyone else to achieve redemption,” Charlie said getting back into her chair. “You have to get in touch with what it is that is making you depressed, sad, or angry.”

“I don’t want to and you can’t make me,” Sir Pentious said rising from his chair again. “I’ll achieve redemption on my own…”

“No, you don’t, mister,” Charlie said pushing Sir Pentious back onto the chair and handcuffing his left hand to the chair he was sitting on.

“Hey!” Angel complained. “I told ya to stay out of my stash, Charlie!”

“Bloody hell, woman!” Sir Pentious shouted. “What in the hell is wrong with you? Uncuff me this instant!”

“No way!” Charlie said getting close enough for him to see her clipboard. “Not until you start talking about your life!”

“I don’t have to say anything,” Sir Pentious said turning away.

Vaggie twitched her eyes, growled, got in his face, and yelled, “Come on! You came here because you wanted to be rehabilitated. So, what is it? Why do you want to be the Devil?”

“Vaggie, get out of his face!” Charlie pleaded.

Sir Pentious glared and Vaggie reluctantly backed down as Angel said, “It really ain’t that hard, snake. What is eating you? Mommy issues? Daddy issues? Were you lonely? Were you poor? Were you a user? Or, was it something else entirely?”

“Angel…” Charlie pleaded as Angel lit a cigarette.

Sir Pentious’ glare intensified as Angel kept goading, “You know what I think? I think you had it easy in your life. I think you always got everything you wanted in life and when you died you had to work like the rest of us and couldn’t stand it. And now that you can’t get what you want here, you want to make amends with God so you can move on to Paradise and have it easy again. Typical. I could never stand rich bastards like you who had it easy. No offense to you, Charlie. You’re different. You’re trying to do something. People like Pentious here don’t give a shit. Try to tell me I’m wrong.”

Sir Pentious scoffed and hissed, “What are you talking about?! I know what your family was! We’re cut from the same cloth, ya bloody hypocrite!”

“I left those bastards long ago,” Angel argued back before taking a drag from his cigarette. “What’s your excuse?”

“THEY NEVER GAVE ME WHAT I DESERVED!” Sir Pentious finally screamed. “I WAS TORMENTED AND REJECTED BY EVERYONE! I WORKED HARDER THAN THEY DID AND WAS BARELY TOLERATED! WHEN YOU WERE ALIVE, YOU HAD ACCEPTANCE AND SOCIAL STANDING! I WAS REJECTED BY OWN BLOOD RELATIVES AND MY OWN SOCIETY ALL BECAUSE I WAS A ‘HALF-BREED!’”

Everyone went silent except Angel who asked, “What the hell does that mean?”

“That means that unlike you I’m not white,” Sir Pentious hissed more quietly. “I’m only half-English. The other half comes from India, from my mother’s people.”

Sir Pentious noticed the clipboard that Charlie had placed on the ground. He used his hat to signal to his Egg Bois to pick it up while a flood of restored memories started flowing his way.

“Uh, Sir Pentious, do you care to expand on that?” Charlie asked.

Sir Pentious looked at her and felt the kindness behind her voice. It touched him.

So, Sir Pentious began his tale, “My father was the child of a wealthy English inventor who along with his wife was radically Christian and progressive for his time. My mother was the daughter of Indian merchants who were like-minded. When my father moved with his parents to India, he fell in love with that daughter. My grandparents were close friends and approved of their union without hesitation. Soon after that, I was born. My skin was lighter because of my father, but I looked very much like my mother. I had brown skin, black hair, and steely brown-gray eyes just like hers, just like a cobra’s. That’s what they would all say. I grew up in India knowing the values of the West and the East. I had grandparents and parents who loved me and my many cousins on my mother’s side to play with. I was never considered different from any of them. I was loved, and I was happy. They all shielded me from the world’s prejudice. My grandparents both died happy. My father was happy too until my mother died. She fell ill during her pregnancy with my younger sibling. I was only nine, and from then on, everything went straight to hell…”

Sir Pentious was surprised to see tears falling down his face. Charlie walked away from her chair and wrapped an arm around Sir Pentious. The Egg Bois continued sneaking towards the chair, but Sir Pentious was too lost in his memories to notice.

“My grandfather’s business partners forced my father to return to the homeland. He didn’t want to, but his kind and gentle heart was heartbroken and he didn’t have the strength to keep resisting. So, we both returned to London.

“Upon our arrival to London, his biological family refused to acknowledge me. They couldn’t bear the fact that my father had married an Indian woman, so he rejected them. My father was a true Christian man whose progressive values made him an outcast, but we were not alone. My father had a spiritual family in the church he grew up in. They were all radicals who were as progressive as my father if not more and were also considered outcasts in their own families. They were the righteous people who campaigned for justice locally and abroad. They ran organizations to help the poor. They sponsored abolitionists. They even campaigned for women’s suffrage. They loved their neighbors as themselves, and they accepted us without a second thought.

“My father and his friends protected me as much as they could. They raised me as much as he did. They all taught me many things, including how to play the organ, and gave me a loving environment, but even so, I knew I was an outcast. I could see it in the glances of passersby when we were out in public. I could hear it in the comments others made. I could feel it in our small insular world. My holy family always stood up for me. My father encouraged me and taught me how to stand strong. He even kept up correspondence with my family in India for me. We went to visit them whenever we were on holiday to escape, but it all wasn’t enough. I could still feel the hatred of the world I grew up in…”

Every single misfit was focused on Sir Pentious’ story. Not even Vaggie noticed when one Egg Boi picked up the documents while the other Egg Boi took pictures on his smart phone.

“Then when I was old enough to go to boarding school, I felt that hatred in its full force,” Sir Pentious continued. “Without guardians to protect me, the school tore me apart. They housed me in a room by myself as if I were some sort of animal. The other students bullied me mercilessly. They stole my possessions. They mocked me relentlessly. They called me a ‘half-breed’ and tormented me daily. None of the adults did anything to make it stop. They punished me whenever I spoke up against it. They joined in the bullying. I constantly received harsh punishments for minor infractions and rules I didn’t break. They accused me of cheating because they could never believe that a ‘half-breed’ could be more intelligent than any other white student. They marked my grades as low as they could get away with for the slightest error. The only one who was kind to me there was the colored groundskeeper who defended me whenever he could. I tried to stay strong and keep my torment a secret from my father and his friends. I excelled in my studies despite their best efforts, but the bullying only grew worse until one day the aggression got physical.

“The strongest players from my school’s rugby team were plastered. I was walking back to my dormitory room after studying in the library all evening. They found me and beat me within an inch of my life. They left me beaten and bruised and almost too hurt to move. The groundskeeper found me, got me help, and stayed with me at the hospital while my father was called for. If I was found any later, I would have died due to the severity of my injuries.

“When my father arrived, I told him everything. He was furious. He brought multiple lawsuits against the school and brought criminal charges against the people who beat me and left me for dead. His lawyer friends helped him as much as they could, but ultimately, the school had friends in higher places. They forced my father to agree to a settlement and those bastards who almost killed me never faced a single disciplinary action…”

Sir Pentious’ frill spread out and he started shaking in fury at the restored memories.

“I left that school and started attending classes in another college while living at home and apprenticing under my father. My father and his godly friends counseled me as much as they could, but I couldn’t let go of my anger or my hate. Their cruelty had poisoned me, but it had destroyed my father more than I ever knew. He slipped into a depression that neither I or his friends could counsel him out of. When I graduated, we worked together making inventions and bonded more closely than ever. I thought he was getting better, but one morning, I found him dead. He had drunk himself to death. It turned out that he had been drinking for a long time. The world had broken his heart.

“In his will, my father left everything to me. During his funeral, all his friends of the church, much of my mother’s family, and even the groundskeeper came to bid him farewell, to mourn with me, and to comfort me in my time of sorrow. Many of them even accompanied me to take his ashes to India. But no one in my father’s family came. Not a single person would even approach me or acknowledge my existence or pay tribute to my father. And for what? All because he had fallen in love with an Indian woman…”

Sir Pentious started shedding angry tears and his voice raised in his fury as he continued, “That was the straw that broke the camels back. I realized then that the world was a horrid place where the good and the righteous like my father and his friends couldn’t triumph because of the corrupt, racist, unjust, and white-washed vermin who crushed anyone who dared to defy their corruption! That world had broken my kind and gentle-hearted father because he refused to abandon me, so I decided that I would break it back! I could no longer turn the other cheek! I had to destroy the world that destroyed my poor father and me so that good men could triumph!

“So, instead of returning to India to live with my mother’s family away from the prejudice of England, I stayed behind and became a villain. I created inventions that I sold for profit to fund underground terrorists the world over. Anarchists. The Irish Republican Army. The freedom fighters among my mother’s people. Extreme abolitionists. All of them came to me and relied on my funding and eventually my inventions to help their causes, and I was glad to give it. I saved my assistant Toulouse from a workhouse and got his help going even further. I began carrying out terroristic missions myself. I let my black hair grow long enough to flow down my back like a hood. The survivors started calling me ‘the serpent’ in all the newspapers, so that’s who I became. ‘The serpent,’ the karmic snake in the grass that would carry out God’s wrath and rebalance the world!”

Tears flooded Sir Pentious’ eyes as he stared at the floor and relived his restored memories once again. The Egg Bois took the last of their pictures, slid the clipboard back under the chair, and gave a thumbs up to their boss. The hat saw it, but Sir Pentious didn’t respond.

“I didn’t get what I wanted,” Sir Pentious sobbed. “I got vengeance, but I didn’t see my work completed. I contracted tuberculosis at the age of 48. I died in my sick bed with Toulouse right beside me. It was so unfair…”

Charlie walked over to Sir Pentious, gave him a big hug, and said, “It’s okay, Sir Pentious. Just let it out.”

And for a few minutes, that’s just what he did.

All the misfits sat in silence except for Angel who finally broke the silence and said, “That explains why you’re obsessed with takin’ over hell…”

“Angel!” Vaggie snapped.

“What?” Angel replied. “It does. He wants to take over hell so he can finish his work of bringing down those who make the world a shitty place. It makes sense.”

“He’s not wrong,” Crymini chimed in scratching her ear with her back leg.

The two Egg Bois scampered onto their boss’ lap and gave him the biggest hugs they could.

“You’re going to be just fine, boss,” Austen said.

“Yeah,” Thrys agreed.

Sir Pentious smiled as conflicting emotions rose inside him and rested in his chest. On one hand, he felt relief at sharing his story. On the other hand, Sir Pentious felt the same odd emotion that he had felt when he saw Delilah that morning. Guilt. He had just distracted them so his Egg Bois could steal their information…

“That was a wonderful share, Sir Pentious,” Charlie said finally letting go of him.

“Thanks,” Sir Pentious replied genuinely. “Could you take the handcuffs off now?”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Charlie said digging the key out of her pocket and unlocking the handcuff around Sir Pentious’ wrist.

“I’ll be taking that back,” Angel said in annoyance as he unlocked the handcuffs off the chair and stuffed them in his pocket. “Say, Sir Pentious, where did those eggs come from?”

“Huh?” Thrys asked. “What do you mean?”

“I think he’s asking where you guys came from and how you know Sir Pentious,” Charlie said.

“Oh,” Austen replied. “Well, the only one of us who knows that story completely is Toulouse. All we have our bits and pieces of his memories. Only the original has every memory, so you’d have to ask our boss.”

“Well?” Angel asked curiously.

“If you must know, I found Toulouse when I was searching my local workhouse for an assistant,” Sir Pentious replied. “Ordinarily, anyone else would have just taken out an ad in the newspaper, but I knew that very few employees would be willing to take orders from a ‘half-breed,’ especially in London. So, I searched the workhouse instead for someone I knew would be grateful to serve me. That is when I met Toulouse.

“Toulouse was the only child of two French farmers. Their farm failed when his father died of illness, and his naïve mother thought they’d have a better chance of starting over in London. But they ended up in the workhouse instead.

“Those workhouse bastards were beyond cruel to him. Toulouse was a French immigrant who only came there to save the life of his sick mother and had no idea what he was getting into. He was only 15. He couldn't have. He didn't speak a word of English.

“The moment his mother died, he was taken back to be forcefully bathed, had his clothes taken from him, was placed in a uniform, locked away, and given a number. Number 22. He had to hide his few possessions so they wouldn't be taken from him and sold. They put him in the mentally ill ward of the workhouse with other maniacs because he was slow, depressed, and too frightened to speak.

“Modern medical literature would describe Toulouse's mental condition as a mix of high-functioning autism and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, but back then, the doctors simply described him as a mentally deficient imbecile. It was horrible. I can't imagine how scared he must have been or how horribly those calloused monsters must have treated him.

“He slept on straw beds and ate rationed food. Toulouse was starved and isolated fairly often because he taught himself how to pick locks and frequently tried to escape that prison. Can you blame him? They put him through hell. Those monsters didn't do anything to comfort him or help him. They embezzled much of the money used to help the inmates and cut corners whenever they could!

“The day I came, Toulouse was trying to run away in a straitjacket. They were sending him to an institution so that their colleagues would receive more government money and they wouldn't have to deal with him anymore. It made me sick. I had to do something.

“So, I gave them a bigger bribe to let me take Toulouse in myself. He was in such bad shape. He was starved, scared almost to the point of mania, and unbelievably lacking in social graces. I was the only one who could speak to him or calm him down since I learned French in school and practiced it regularly in business. I had to teach him how to read, write, and speak in English. I had to teach him how to behave in formal company. I had to practically raise him. But Toulouse surprised me. He learned pretty readily. He was not stupid or mentally deficient after all. He only needed guidance, a steady hand, and a structured yet nurturing environment and he prospered. Wish I could say the same of his clones...”

“So, you’re a kinder person than you seem,” Angel said with a smile.

“No,” Sir Pentious said defensively. “I knew he’d be the perfect assistant…”

“Your Eggheads don’t look like perfect assistants to me,” Angel retorted. “Admit it. You did it out of the kindness of your heart. You became the kid’s family and he devoted his life to you, like a son.”

“Awwwww!” the Egg Bois said hugging their boss more closely.

“So, what if I did?” Sir Pentious retorted. “They were going to send a mentally disordered but perfectly capable young man to prison! It would have been a waste!”

“Whatever you say,” Angel said. “Ya big softie!”

Sir Pentious only glared at Angel for a moment before he returned to his own thoughts.

“Alright, guys! The meeting is over, and now…” Charlie said cheerfully grabbing her tuxedo and ripping it off to reveal a black and white bikini under it. “It’s time to go swimming!”

Sir Pentious’ mouth dropped open in shock as all the other misfits pushed the doors open and rushed into the pool area. Meanwhile, Austen got a call on his smartphone.

“Hey, Sir Pentious!” Charlie said cheerfully. “Aren’t you coming?”

“Yeah, Pent-y!” Angel yelled from outside wearing nothing but his booty shorts. “Come play with us!”

“I…uh…” Sir Pentious said searching for the right words in his embarrassment.

“Boss,” Austen interrupted. “It’s Toulouse.”

Sir Pentious took the phone and said, “Toulouse, what is…? Oh, God! I’m coming.”

“Sorry, princess,” Sir Pentious said quickly slithering backwards and trying to hide his relief. “I have something urgent I need to take care of at home! Cheerio!”

“Uh, okay…” Charlie said hesitantly walking outside. “See you later. Don’t forget curfew.”

Sir Pentious turned around and slithered quickly out of the room with the Egg Bois riding on his tail.

“Boss, what is it?” Thrys asked.

“Delilah’s gone,” Sir Pentious replied. “Remind me to thank her later.”

#hazbinhotel #sir pentious #eggbois

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Who Is Correct Democrats Or Republicans

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/who-is-correct-democrats-or-republicans/

Who Is Correct Democrats Or Republicans

The Democrats Try To Create Victims By Using Ingratitude As An Agenda Towards Their Adversaries Pragerus The Key To Unhappiness Describes This Theory Perfectly Its A Short Five Minute Must Watch

You see the Republicans defending themselves in court all the time, but they aren’t the ones filing the lawsuits. And just because a lawsuit is filed against you doesn’t mean you’re the guilty one. The courts are constantly tied up with bogus lawsuits created by people who just want to make someone’s life miserable or try to prove a point they’ve already lost. People who file the lawsuits like that are people who have more of a negative attitude than positive. Read our article on Attitude and Politics, it can really help you live a happier life.

I might be guilty of overload of the media which interprets everything incorrectly. As a Democrat I don’t think I’m unhappy but maybe I should be?

So, get to know your Republican or Democratic neighbor. Let’s quit hating each other for what our political views are. After all, we all know that Washington D.C. doesn’t represent the general public. They are far more caught up in their own bubble screaming and yelling at each other through the media .

This all being said I hope I’m wrong about who’s happy or not. I think the media and the politicians don’t represent the true American thoughts but rather just their own agendas that we are all caught up in.

Stop talking and do something to change this.

“People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.” ?Abraham Lincoln

A hopeful Conservative Democrat

Democrats Tend To Have A Lot More Anger And Negativity In Their Rhetoric According To Them If You Support President Trump Well Then You Are A Racist And A Nazi

They generally seem to be out to get someone making things more personal. Why are they so afraid to use the facts to reinforce what they want to do? It’s agenda first then find or make up facts to support the rhetoric.

If they can’t beat you at the polling booth, they try and beat you in court and that’s just a great example of something that’s not a pleasant experience. And not quite working in the long run. They keep getting overturned.

But When You Watch The Republican In The Media Being Attacked The Majority Tend To Handle It With More Grace Then The Majority Of The Democrats

I don’t think it’s because the Republicans have more money because the Democrats tend to be the wealthier group. The majority of the richest people in the world are Democrats or Liberals. Yet, they sure don’t look like a happy group of folks . I think a lot of people who are rich were their happiest when they were working hard coming up through the ranks and earning their money. I also think sometimes the social issues they get caught up in when they become wealthy can be frustrating causing many people to lose their tolerance over time.

A Record Number Of Americans Say Democrats And Republicans Are Doing Such A Poor Job That A Third Party Is Needed Polling Shows

Dissatisfaction with two-party politics is at an all-time high, new Gallup polling shows, with 62 percent of Americans saying Democrats and Republicans are doing such a poor job of representing their constituents that a third party is needed.

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But the zero-sum, winner-take-all dynamics of U.S. elections make it nearly impossible for third parties to gain electoral traction, despite survey data that shows fully half of Americans do not identify with any party and label themselves independents. This was underscored this past weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference, when former president Donald Trump ruled out creating a third political party to promote his brand of nationalist conservatism.

To hear those calling for change — including many scholars and some lawmakers — the inherent problem with our current system is that it shoehorns the into just two parties. Warnings that the nation has backslid toward autocracy — driven in large part by the Republican Party’s shift away from democratic norms — bring added urgency, they say, and reversing that Trump-era trend will require something radical: breaking up the Democratic and Republican parties.

Why Are Democrats Left And Republicans Right The Surprising History Of Political Affiliations

The terms right and left refer to political affiliations that originated late in the eighteenth century in relation to the seating arrangements in the various legislative bodies of France. During the French Revolution of 1789, the members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king and supporters of the revolution.

The aristocracy sat on the right side of the Speaker, which was traditionally the seat of honor, and the commoners sat on the left. This gave birth to the terms “right-wing” and “left-wing” politics. The Left had been called “the party of movement” and the Right “the party of order.”

During the French Revolution, the National Assembly was divided into supporters of the king and supporters of the revolution. ‘Lamartine in front of the Town Hall of Paris rejects the red flag on 25 February 1848’

However, it was during the establishment of the Third Republic in 1871 that the political parties formally adopted the terms “left” and “right” to define their political beliefs.

The Representatives of Foreign Powers Coming to Greet the Republic as a Sign of Peace

According to the simplest Left and Right distinction, communism and socialism are usually regarded internationally as being on the left, opposite fascism and conservatism on the right.

In British politics the terms “right” and “left” came into common use for the first time in the late 1930s in debates over the Spanish Civil War.

Growing Share Of Americans Say There Are Major Differences In What The Parties Stand For

A majority of Americans say there is a “great deal” of difference in what the Republican and Democratic parties stand for, while 37% see a “fair amount” of difference and 7% say there is “hardly any” difference between the two parties.

These opinions have changed dramatically over the past three decades. From the late 1980s through the mid-2000s, no more than about a third of Americans said there were major differences between the two parties. But the share expressing this view has increased, especially over the past decade.1

In the current survey, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say there are major differences in what the parties stand for .

In both parties, people who are attentive to politics on a regular basis are more likely than those who are less attentive to see wide, growing divides in the country.

Most Republicans who say they follow what is happening in government and public affairs most of the time perceive a great deal of difference in what the Democratic and Republican parties stand for . Among Republicans who follow government and public affairs less often, a smaller majority says there are major differences between the parties. Among Democrats, there is a similar gap in views by engagement; 70% of politically attentive Democrats see a wide gulf between the parties, while just 49% of less-attentive Democrats say the same.

Republicans Vs Democrats: Where Do The Two Main Us Political Parties Stand On Key Issues

After an impeachment, a positive coronavirus test and an unforgettable first presidential debate rounded out the final months of Donald Trump’s first term, it seems fair to say the past few years have been a roller-coaster ride for US politics.

On November 3, Americans will decide which candidate will win the 2020 presidential election, sparking either the beginning, or end, for each nominee.

But how does it all work?

Well, the US political system is dominated by two main parties — the Democrats and the Republicans — and the next president will belong to one of those two.

Just how different are their policies?

Here’s what you need to know, starting with the candidates.

Republicans And Democrats Have Different Views About Compromising With The Other Party

Overall, Republicans are divided over whether Donald Trump should focus on finding common ground with Democrats, even if that means giving up some things Republicans want, or pushing hard for GOP policies, even if it means less gets done. While 53% of Republicans say Trump should “push hard” for the party’s policies, 45% say it’s more important for the president to find common ground with Democrats.

However, politically attentive Republicans broadly oppose Trump seeking compromise with Democrats even if it means giving up some things Republicans want. Just 39% of Republicans who follow government and public affairs most of the time say it is more important for Trump to find common ground with Democrats; 61% say he should push hard for GOP policies. Opinion is more evenly divided among less politically attentive Republicans.

Democrats, who were asked a hypothetical version of the question about the party’s 2020 presidential candidates, are more open to potential compromise with Republicans. About six-in-ten Democrats say it is more important for a candidate, if elected, to find common ground with Republicans even if it means giving up things Democrats want.

There are no differences in these views among Democrats based on political attentiveness. But liberal Democrats are less likely than conservative and moderate Democrats to say it is more important for a candidate to seek compromises with Republicans.

How Americas Political System Creates Space For Republicans To Undermine Democracy

9) Republicans havean unpopular policy agenda

Let Them Eat Tweets

The Republican policy agenda is extremely unpopular. The chart here, taken from Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson’s recent book , compares the relative popularity of the two major legislative efforts of Trump’s first term — tax cuts and Obamacare repeal — to similar high-priority bills in years past. The contrast is striking: The GOP’s modern economic agenda is widely disliked even compared to unpopular bills of the past, a finding consistent with a lot of recent polling data.

Hacker and Pierson argue that this drives Republicans’ emphasis on culture war and anti-Democratic identity politics. This strategy, which they term “plutocratic populism,” allows the party’s super-wealthy backers to get their tax cuts while the base gets the partisan street fight they crave.

The GOP can do this because America’s political system is profoundly unrepresentative. The coalition it can assemble — overwhelmingly white Christian, heavily rural, and increasingly less educated — is a shrinking minority that has lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential contests. But its voters are ideally positioned to give Republicans advantages in the Electoral College and the Senate, allowing the party to remain viable despite representing significantly fewer voters than the Democrats do.

10) Some of the most consequential Republican attacks on democracy happen at the state level

11) The national GOP has broken government

Most Americans Say Partisan Disagreements Extend Beyond Policies To Basic Facts

Fully 73% of the public says that most Republican and Democratic voters not only disagree over plans and policies, but also disagree on “basic facts.” Just 26% say that while partisan voters often differ over plans and policies, they can agree on basic facts. These opinions have changed only modestly since last year.

Comparable majorities of Republicans and Democrats say that Republican and Democratic voters cannot agree on basic facts.

Think Republicans Are Disconnected From Reality It’s Even Worse Among Liberals

Arlie Hochschild

A new survey found Democrats live with less political diversity despite being more tolerant of it – with startling results

Last modified on Tue 8 Sep 2020 16.13 BST

In a surprising new national survey, members of each major American political party were asked what they imagined to be the beliefs held by members of the other. The survey asked Democrats: “How many Republicans believe that racism is still a problem in America today?” Democrats guessed 50%. It’s actually 79%. The survey asked Republicans how many Democrats believe “most police are bad people”. Republicans estimated half; it’s really 15%.

The survey, published by the thinktank More in Common as part of its Hidden Tribes of America project, was based on a sample of more than 2,000 people. One of the study’s findings: the wilder a person’s guess as to what the other party is thinking, the more likely they are to also personally disparage members of the opposite party as mean, selfish or bad. Not only do the two parties diverge on a great many issues, they also disagree on what they disagree on.

“This effect,” the report says, “is so strong that Democrats without a high school diploma are three times more accurate than those with a postgraduate degree.” And the more politically engaged a person is, the greater the distortion.

A coalition of college Republican clubs recently endorsed a tax on carbon pollution.

Republicans Dont Understand Democratsand Democrats Dont Understand Republicans

A new study shows Americans have little understanding of their political adversaries—and education doesn’t help.

About the author: Yascha Mounk is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the founder of Persuasion.

Americans often lament the rise of “extreme partisanship,” but this is a poor description of political reality: Far from increasing, Americans’ attachment to their political parties has considerably weakened over the past years. Liberals no longer strongly identify with the Democratic Party and conservatives no longer strongly identify with the Republican Party.

What is corroding American politics is, specifically, negative partisanship: Although most liberals feel conflicted about the Democratic Party, they really hate the Republican Party. And even though most conservatives feel conflicted about the Republican Party, they really hate the Democratic Party.

America’s political divisions are driven by hatred of an out-group rather than love of the in-group. The question is: Why?

David Pozen, Eric Talley, and Julian Nyarko: Republicans and Democrats are describing two different Constitutions

Democrats also estimated that four in 10 Republicans believe that “many Muslims are good Americans,” and that only half recognize that “racism still exists in America.” In reality, those figures were two-thirds and four in five.

Who Is Richer Democrats Or Republicans The Answer Probably Wont Surprise You

Which of the two political parties has more money, Democrats or Republicans? Most would rush to say Republicans due to the party’s ideas towards tax and money. In fact, polls have shown about 60 percent of the American people believe Republicans favor the rich. But how true is that? can help you write about the issue but read our post first.

Refuse To Be Party To Bad Grammar Whether Youre A Democrat Or Republican

January 30, 2020Stephanie Dolan

Apparently, this is a big year for politics. While you read that last sentence on your screen or on the newsprint in front of you, roughly 70 trillion people tweeted something negative about whichever political party they don’t like. It’s hard to avoid politics, especially in a presidential election year. This article is no different.

Many people have asked me about terminology when it comes to our two predominant parties in American politics. Specifically, people have asked about the terms “Democrat” vs. “Democratic” Party. Republicans belong to the “Republican Party,” so why don’t democrats belong to the “Democratic Party?”

As a side note, you should capitalize the name of a political movement only when it’s followed by the term “party.” For instance, “Bill is a democrat.” “Bob is a member of the Republican Party.” “My boss Karen is a total fascist.” If the political movement is named after a person , capitalize it: Gene is a total Marxist. Are you with me so far?

There’s a simple answer to the question regarding “Democrat” or “Democratic” Party: grammatically speaking, a noun can’t modify another noun. “Democrat” is a noun, while “democratic” is an adjective. In order to modify “Party,” we need the adjective “Democratic” to be grammatically correct. “Republican” serves as both a noun and an adjective, depending on the context.

Democrats Or Republicans Who Do You Think The Happier Group Is Overall

Based on my unofficial research and that of some of our readers, the Republicans and Conservative Democrats appear to be the winners. Why do I say that? Well, just by their demeanor. During interviews they generally seem to be the calmer, more respectable of the two. Republicans certainly aren’t perfect, and they certainly don’t always have the right idea or say or do the right thing. And, they tend to exaggerate a bit .

Gop Admins Had 38 Times More Criminal Convictions Than Democrats 1961

Democrats top row: President Obama, Clinton, Carter, Johnson, Kennedy. Republicans bottom row: President W. Bush, Bush, Reagan, Ford, Nixon.

This is the first in a five-part series on government corruption and how that corruption is investigated.

Republican administrations have vastly more corruption than Democratic administrations. We provide new research on the numbers to make the case.

We compared 28 years each of Democratic and Republican administrations, 1961-2016, five Presidents from each party. During that period Republicans scored eighteen times more individuals and entities indicted, thirty-eight times more convictions, and thirty-nine times more individuals who had prison time.

Given the at least 17 active investigations plaguing President Trump, he is on a path to exceed previous administrations, though the effects of White House obstruction, potential pardons, and the as-yet unknown impact of the GOP’s selection of judges may limit investigations, subpoenas, prosecutions, etc. Of course, as we are comparing equal numbers of Presidents and years in office from the Democratic and Republican parties, the current President is not included.

We’re aware some of our numbers differ from other totals, but we explain our criteria below.

Figure 1. Presidential administrations corruption comparison

The Daily Show Proves Democrats Are Just As Corrupt As Republicans

When House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi went on The Daily Show back in January, she implied to Jon Stewart that if there is a money corruption problem in Congress, it’s more of a problem for Republicans than Democrats. Except it’s not.

This article is from the archive of our partner .

When House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi went on The Daily Show back in January, she implied to Jon Stewart that if there is a money corruption problem in Congress , it’s more of a problem for Republicans than Democrats. So Stewart did some digging, and found out that, well, Democrats seem to have a habit of trading favors for money, too.

Just take a look at President Barack Obama’s latest appointees for ambassadorships. In a segment titled “Diplomats Buyers Club” Stewart runs through recent confirmation hearings for Obama’s nominees. If Pelosi is correct in that Democrats don’t have a corruption problem, then “surely chose them on their merits.” Right?

Take George Tsunis, the nominee for ambassador to Norway, for example. He’s at least been to Norway before, right? Nope. Stewart’s reaction: “OK, a little weird he’s never visited the country he’s going to be the ambassador to … but who really needs to go to Norway to understand it anyway?”

Obama’s nominee to Iceland, Robert Barber, hasn’t “had the privilege yet” to go to the country, either. Of course.

Oh for Pete’s sake.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

How Is The Democratic Party Different From The Republican Party

Democrats are generally considered liberal, while Republicans are seen as conservative. The Democratic Party typically supports a larger government role in economic issues, backing regulations and social welfare programs. The Republicans, however, typically want a smaller government that is less involved in the economy. This contrary view on the size of government is reflected in their positions on taxes—Democrats favour a progressive tax to finance government’s expanded role, while Republicans support lower taxes for all. However, Republicans do support a large budget for the military, and they often aggressively pursue U.S. national security interests, even if that means acting unilaterally. Democrats, however, prefer multilateralism. On social issues, Democrats seek greater freedoms, while Republicans follow more traditional values, supporting government intervention in such matters. For example, Democrats generally back abortion rights, while Republicans don’t. In terms of geography, Democrats typically dominate in large cities, while Republicans are especially popular in rural areas.