#Vanity Run At Disney Company

[msclaritea]

"Nelson Peltz is still trying to get seats on Disney’s board–but Bob Iger is no easy target for the activist investor’s 25th attempt to take control of the company

'Peltz has picked the wrong sport–and the wrong opponent,' write Yale's Sonnenfeld and Tian.

BY JEFFREY SONNENFELD AND STEVEN TIAN

February 06, 2024 1:46 PM EST

"Nelson Peltz, the founder and CEO of Trian Fund Management, speaks during the Future Investment Initiative (FII) Institute Priority Summit in Miami in March. Marco Bello - Bloomberg - Getty Images

Immediately after the Disney board returned Bob Iger as its savior in November 2022, before the freshly returned CEO even had time to lead an employee town hall, one of the first things Iger did as CEO was to answer a call from Nelson Peltz, who was complaining that Iger was already doing a lousy job.

What could have irked Peltz so quickly? The answer soon became clear. Recent SEC proxy filings make clear that within three days of Iger taking the job, Peltz was already demanding a board seat and threatening to run a proxy contest. Like a villain in a classic Disney film, Peltz’s motives seemed to be motivated by vanity rather than strategy...."

Another vain asshole. The damage done to Disney by egomaniacs like Norman Peltz and Elon Musk hurts the economy, the employees, children and yes, the fans. This is obvious ego, when the bastards could just go after Paramount. But Shari Redstone is probably a close friend. But we can't forget that most of the vitriol started with Warner Bros Discovery, Sony and Cult-infested Paramount Global.

[carrie-tate]

It's time to write a long post about Gerda.

If we start from the very beginning, then Gerda is the daughter of a theater manager in Ninjago (here we will do without specifics of the genre, but I was inspired by the Kabuki theater, so we’ll just leave the conditions for the story to happen). And in this theater the actors are only men, which did not stop young Gerda from dreaming from early childhood (well, given that she grew up in a theatrical atmosphere) from dreaming that she, too, could play in the theater. She borrowed makeup from the make-up artists and repeated the movements of the actors. And despite the fact that she was always gently pulled back, saying, “Nothing will work out,” the girl did not slow down her ardor until she came of age and continued to practice.

This was all before she met the ninja and until she realized that she was also a Master (most likely this was passed on to her through her mother, and according to the canons of all classic Disney fairy tales, her mother is dead)

And the meeting will happen during one of Garmadon’s next plans (when he was still running around with mega-weapons and doing all sorts of creative things to harm) there will be an attack on the theater of Gerda’s father. I haven't figured out the exact reason yet...

But no matter, Gerda, brought up among actors and with an insolent disposition “everything will be as I want,” does not run away from the battlefield when there is an attack and chaos all around. On the contrary, he grabs the first stick he comes across and goes to defend the family’s property.

There, most likely, there will be that scene where she stares at Zane, successfully receives a blow from some serpentine, flies into the guy... And here is your first acquaintance in vanity and misunderstanding, lol

Of course, in the end she will be put aside somewhere “Go away, miss, it’s dangerous here” against her will, along with a stick and bewilderment.

Of course, the ninjas will win in the end, but the theater is already noticeably shabby, the street around it is even more so, Gerda’s head is confused with thoughts: she’s offended by her father’s theater, and she wants to take revenge on that four-armed man, and that guy in white can’t get out of her head...

Having searched for information about these mountain saviors (after all, there is as much destruction from ninjas as there is salvation), Gerda comes to Dareth’s dojo, where Lloyd was trained at that time.

I haven’t thought of anything else yet, but logically, that’s where she’ll somehow get involved in their company, maybe ask to be Dareth’s apprentice, not knowing that he’s actually such a loser

Then she will see how Master Wu walks with a pole and, in principle, can easily use it as a weapon, so Gerda will also decide to drag that same stick from the props and repeat after him...

Although it is obvious that she will not succeed in many things the first time.

And some moment of stealth training occurs

She’s about to be figured out and she’s like BOOM, like a chameleon blends into her surroundings, she doesn’t even notice it. The person looking for her passes literally a centimeter without seeing her.

She is perplexed, opens her eyes, looks around...

And notices how she has changed

And there's just a SQUEALING throughout the dojo, "WHAT THE HELL?!"

I think for the first few minutes, until she calms down, she won’t even be able to become her own color...

[wundergeek]

There's been this promotion running at Loblaw-owned grocery stores (one of the 2 major chains in Canada) for several weeks where the cashiers have been asking if you want any "limited edition" Marvel trading cards. And I guess everyone's been saying no, because today...

So naturally I had to check in with my 12 y.o. when I got home.

Me: Okay, C. I need you to confirm something for me as a marketer. How long has it been since anyone in your class cared about the Avengers?

C: [stares at me blankly for several seconds]

Me: Do you not remember?

C: ...kindergarten...????

Which goes to confirm my theory that this whole promotion was some out-of-touch C-level executive going THE, UH, MARVEL... SOMETHING... UNIVERSE? WE'RE DOING THAT. KIDS LOVE THAT SHIT, and then MULTIPLE corporate departments of people being too afraid to tell this guy that he's an out-of-touch moron.

I'm now a marketer, but a long time ago, I used to work for a company that did this type of promotional printing, and I can guarantee that:

At least 3 different departments in Loblaw had to sign off on this

Disney's legal department made everyone who touched this project at any point hate the entire thing from top to bottom.

Somewhere between 20 and 30 people ended up wanting to psychically incinerate the exec who thought of this by the time the promotion launched.

Some middle-level marketing manager is crying about how they're going to create vanity metrics to measure that won't make this look like a complete and total waste of time and money.

So yeah. This whole thing is deeply hilarious to me, specifically, from top to bottom.

[panjakes]

Hello again! Can I please request another Ahn hyo-seop x female Ghanaian reader? Thank you.

(Fun fact(or not) when I was looking for pictures of Hyeoseop, when I scrolled down on the one on the left there were only pictures of black women under them✊🏽✨)

It was culture day at the office. You for an advertisement company. You enjoyed it, really you did, but it kind of operated like a high schools “spirt week”.

Every other month, a flyer was posted and there was something for everyday of the week.

Monday-Pattern day: wear plaid, strips, zigzag, etc

Tuesday-Disney day: wear something Disney inspired

Wednesday-Hat Day: Wear a hat of your choice

Thursday-Collage day: wear and support your favorite collage

Friday:Culture day: wear something from your collage

Today was Friday, and as the proud Ghanaian women you were, you got dressed in your best. Doing your hair and makeup. Just as you slid on your dress(example).

As you were applying your lipgloss Hyeoseop woke up walking into the walk in closet looking for you. He stops in his tracks seeing you at your vanity

He looks you up and down before walking over to you

“Goodmorning baby how’d you sleep?” You asks

“Fine. Where are you going?” He asks making you laugh

“Work” you say chuckling. You stand up from the vanity chair causing his jaw to drop

“Dressed like that!?” He asks making you frown

“What’s wrong with I have on?” He asks

“N-nothing your just…beautiful! How come you don’t dress like this when I take you out?” He asks making you chuckle

“Uh I don’t know” you say shrugging

He walks over to you pulling you in by the waist

“You get off work early today right?” He asks

“Yes, why?” You asks

“Cause we’re going out. You look to amazing to just go to work for four hours” he says making you laugh

“And where are we going?” You asks

“I don’t know yet, but I’m picking you up so you better get going before I make you late” he says smirking

“Oh really?” You say returning the smirk

“Yes really” he says bitting his lip at you

This wasn’t his first time seeing you in your cultural clothes but it had been a while since he had seen you like this

“Which shoes?” You ask holding up a pair of white and black heels

Hyeoseop looks at the two pair of shoes before pointing to the white ones. You look at them then him before nodding

“You dear husband have taste” you say expecting him to pick the black ones

“Thank you my darling wife” he says winking at you. You chuckle before hitting his arm

“I do not have time to play with you, messing around with you I’ll be late for work” Yn says walking past him to get her purse

“Don’t forget! I’m coming to get you!” He shouts

“I won’t!” You shout before walking out the door

“Ms.yn, your husband is in your office”

You look up at the clock. You didn’t clock out until 30 minutes he just couldn’t wait. You nod thanking the girl. You finish your copy’s and head back to your office

“You just couldn’t wait huh?” You ask opening the door

“I could. I just didn’t want to. I’m a very patient” he says making you scoff

“Patient my ass. Your a lot of things but patient isn’t in your pedigree” you say making his laugh

You peek over at his choice of clothing. A suit. He looked good enough to make you drool. But he’d never know that

“A suit? Where are we going?” You ask

“Somewhere fancy! You look to good to go to work and back home” he says getting up from your desk to walk over to you placing a kiss on your lips

“Is that so?” You ask

“Yup! Look so good I want to skip lunch and dinner. I want dessert” he says smirking

“Well very patient man, Dessert can wait” you say smirking

“Ah, but I don’t want to wait. We can get to dessert right now” he says running his hands down your curves

You smirking grabbing his hands putting them on your shoulders

“No touching” you say

“Why no touching?” He asks

“Because you don’t know how to just touch. You always want to do something else” you say raising a brow

“You can’t hold that against me…hold your body against me” he jokes. You chuckle pushing him away from you

“You are something else” you say shaking your head

You walk over to your file cabinet,putting the papers you just copied into them. When you turned around there stood Hyeoseop with a big ass bouquet of red and white roses

You smile from ear to ear at him

“Now how much did this cost?” You asks

“Doesn’t matter, my beautiful wife deserves beautiful roses” he says smiling

“Well aren’t you sweet” you say taking them from him

“Not as sweet as you” he says winking at you

You giggle for what had to be the 45th time today. Grabbing your purse,phone and flowers you head over to your door

“Ready for lunch husband?” You asks offering your arm

“Of course I am wife” he says linking his arm with yours.

With linked arms you two walked through the office and took the car where you tried to open the door.

Hyeoseop bumps you with his hip so he could open the door for you

“I just know you aren’t trying to open the door?” He says with a raised brow

“My bad.” You say shrugging

He opens the door still glaring at you

“My bad my ass…get your beautiful ass in the car” he says taking the bouquet of flowers from you. You chuckle sliding into the passenger seat.

He puts the flowers in the backseat before walking over to the drivers side and getting in

“Off to lunch we go!!” You say

“Yeah, just don’t put a hole in my pocket” he says

“Oh baby that’s exactly what I’m going to do! I’m ordering steak, salmon, shrimp!” You say making him sigh

“Ya know…I could go for some salmon too. Good choice baby” he says nodding

“Thank you” you say smiling

And with that you two were off to your fancy restaurant date.

[katymacsupernatural]

The Lies of Men Chapter 15

Dean Winchester x Reader 1940s AU

Story Summary: Y/N is married to a very wealthy bank owner. After his true colors show through, Y/N runs to her police officer brother for help. Instead, she finds his friend Dean, who offers his support. Set in the 1940′s.

Catch Up Here: Masterpost

Warnings: there is a spot where there is a dead____. I don’t want to give anything away, but I also wanted there to be a warning. It’s towards the end.

That night you had finally found yourself relaxing. It had been a nice and quiet dinner with Dean. The two of you enjoying each other’s company and the fine meal. You had pushed all the dark thoughts to the back, and just let yourself pretend that everything was alright.

Dean had walked you to your room, holding your hand. “This was nice,” he whispered as you passed Amelia’s room. “I wish…,”

“Me too,” you agreed. He didn’t have to say anything else. You knew exactly what he meant, and you wished for it as well. You wished that everything with Lawrence was over, and you and Dean could have a life like this for yourselves. It would be heavenly. 

A servant eyed you curiously before disappearing down the servant’s staircase. Dean backed you up against the wall, his hand brushing the hair back from your face. His green eyes stared longingly into yours before his lips ghosted over yours. And while you wanted to pull him into the room and spend the night wrapped in his arms, you knew it wasn’t right. Not in his brother’s room, with his sister in law sleeping down the hallway. Instead, you kissed him once more, letting him see the depth of emotion in your eyes. “Soon,” he promised before turning and disappearing down the hallway. 

Daydreaming about what the future could hold, you shut the heavy oak door behind you. Your nightdress was already laid out on the bed, along with your rose-colored robe and matching slippers. 

Sitting down on the plush velvet stool of the vanity, you undid your hair, picking up the brush and methodically brushing your hair. Your nerves were calm for once. Lawrence was out there, you knew that. But this house, with Dean by your side and Sam fighting for you felt safe and secure. It made it seem like a happy ending was possible after all.

Tossing your clothes over the dresser, you were just slipping the satin nightgown over your shoulders when you heard it. The sound of shattering glass had your breath catching in your throat, your entire body turning rigid with fear. “No,” you whispered, imagining the worst. 

Hastily you pulled on the robe and slippers, tying up the sash before you were out of your room. Dean had just stepped from his, still dressed in his regular clothes, a gun in his hands. “Y/N, go back to your room,” he ordered, but you shook your head. You needed to go with him, to see what had happened. “Damn it Y/N. Please,” he pleaded.

“No. This is my fight. I need to see,” You insisted.

Rather than wasting time, he nodded gruffly. “Stay behind me then.”

You followed behind him, silently taking the stairs. As you came to the bottom, Amelia came from the back of the house, her eyes frantic. “Did you hear..,”

“Yeah. Why don’t you head back up to your room,” he told her, and unlike you,she did not hesitate. Dean turned towards the front of the house. It was dark, and hard to navigate the unfamiliar hallway, but he easily made it to the front. The broken window was in the study. The large bay window had been completely shattered. The rain was splashing inside, but that was it. No one had entered that you could see.

“What’s this?” Dean asked, bending down and picking up something large and bulky on the floor. You could barely see him with only the street lights for light in the room, but you could see the look of disgust on his face. “Y/N, turn away,” he insisted, but you had to see what was in his hands. 

Your heart shattered as you realized what he held in his hands. Your little cocker spaniel, Sally, lay limp in his hands, covered in blood. Her neck had been broken, her once silky locks soaked with blood and rain. “No,” you whispered. “No, no no!”

Dean’s face was full of anguish, for you. “That bastard,” he grumbled. “Y/N, why don’t you go back upstairs, and I’ll clean this up.”

Hastily wiping away a tear, you shook your head. “Why would he do such a thing? She was just an innocent little dog.”

“He’s losing it,” Dean explained. “He was always on the verge, but he lost you, and it’s changed him. Turned him into a lunatic.”

You noticed something tied to your poor baby’s collar. Reaching up, you slipped the paper from the purple velvet collar, your heart aching. Dean placed her carefully down on the floor, covering her with a torn curtain. With barely enough light to read by, you skimmed the note. “My Y/N,” it read. “You think you’ve won. You’ve run away with that scumbag. But remember this. What is mine stays mine. Until I grow tired with it. Consider your dog an omen of things to come if you don’t give up now. Give up, and I won’t kill that cop of yours. Come back to me, and I’ll forget all about this.”

“What’s it say?” Dean asked as thunder shook the only remaining window pane. 

“The usual. Threats. Promises that I don’t believe. He says if I give up now, he won’t kill you,” you explained as tears streaked down your cheek, joining the raindrops that found their way through the shattered window. 

Dean pulled you into his arms just as the front door crashed open and a perplexed Sam walked inside. “What the hell happened in here?”

“Lawrence has decided to let us know he’s in town,” you whispered, holding tight to Dean.

With his arms wrapped tight around you, Dean glanced over at his brother. “The man’s completely lost it. We’re going to have to act fast or…

“He killed my dog,” you mumbled into Dean’s shirt. “Who knows what he’s going to do next.”

Sam took control of the situation. “Dean take Y/N upstairs and stay with her. I’ll call Bobby and Brady, see if they can come help clean this mess up. Then we’ll all talk.”

Read Chapter 16

Dean/Jensen Tags: @acortez82 @acreativelydifferentlove @adoptdontshoppets @a-girl-who-loves-disney @akshi8278   @bi-danvers0  @cap-just-said-language @colette2537   @deansgirl215  @flamencodiva @hamiltrash1411 @its-not-a-tulpa @jerkbitchidjitassbutt @justanotherwinchester @just-another-winchester @karouwinchester @keikoraventeller  @krys198478 @librarygeekery @magssteenkamp @misspygmypie @mlovesstories @mrsambroserollinsacklesmgk  @mrspeacem1nusone @nothinbuttrouble2 @ria132love @ruprecht0420  @screechingartisancashbailiff   @sortaathief @superseejay721517 @squirrelnotsam @team-free-will-you-idjiot @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @torn-and-frayed @tricksterdean @wonderfulworldofwinchester @woodworthti666

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Forever Tags: @aditimukul @alexwinchester23 @algud @amanda-teaches @andreaaalove   @artisticpoet @atc74 @be-amaziing @camelotandastronauts @caswinchester2000 @cpag7 @chelsea072498  @closetspngirl @deanwanddamons @docharleythegeekqueen @emoryhemsworth @ericaprice2008  @esoltis280   @foxyjwls007 @gh0stgurl @goldenolaf25 @growningupgeek  @heartislubbingdubbing @heyitscam99 @hobby27 @horsegirly99 @imsuperawkward @internationalmusicteacher @iwriteaboutdean  @jayankles @jensen-gal @justsomedreaming @just-another-busyfangirl @karlee-fay-my-wayward-son @linki-locks11 @littleblue5mcdork  @lowlyapprentice   @mersuperwholocked-lowlife @mogaruke @monkeymcpoopoo @musiclovinchic93  @nanie5   @percussiongirl2017 @plaid-lover-bay25   @roonyxx @ronja-uebrick @roxyspearing  @samanddeanmyheroes @sandlee44 @shamelesslydean @simonsbluee @sillesworldofwriting @sgarrett49 @spnbaby-67 @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @spnwoman   @superbadassnatural @thatcrazybookwormgeek   @thewinchesterchronicles @vvinch3st3r  @whimsicalrobots @winchester-writes @zombiewerewolfqueen

[jellyroom]

The boys as Disney songs~

I listerwlly spent all day listening to Disney just so I could pick the perfect ones.

Lucifer

Don’t fall in love- beauty and the beast, the enchanted Christmas

“As soon as your heart rules your head

Your life is not your own

It's hell when someone's always there

It's bliss to be alone”

The reason I picked this song is becasue I feel like it would be him talking to him self. He tends to hold himself back to protect himself he also does it because of his pride.

Mammon

One jump ahead- Aladdin

“Riff raff! Street rat!

Scoundrel! Take that!

Try a different tac', guys

Rip him open 'Round the back lines

I can take a hint, gotta face the facts

Could really use a friend or two (huh?)”

Well other than in this song Aladdin mentions stealing, it also mentions how people basically hate him. Mammon gets called many names and often gets chased because he steals things. Though just like Aladdin he can out run them easily.

Asmo

Perfect isnt easy - Oliver and company

“Girl, we've got work to do

Pass me the paint and glue

Perfect isn't easy but it's me

When one knows the world is watching

One does what one must

Some minor adjustments darling

Not for my vanity but for humanity

Each little step a pose”

Asmo very clearly loves himself a lot and takes care of himself. So I figured this song could fit him. Obviously that’s not all he is but it is a major part of his character.

Satan

Something there - beauty and the beast

“She glanced this way, I thought I saw

And when we touched she didn't shudder at my paw

No, it can't be, I'll just ignore

But then she's never looked at me that way before”

Satan give me Prince Adams vibes a lot of the time. I feel like he was a little shocked that Mc wasn’t really scared of him.

Leviathan

In a world of my own- Alice in wonderland

“All the flowers

Would have very extra special powers

They would sit and talk to me for hours

When I'm lonely in a world of my own”

I feel like Leviathan would love to have his own little world exactly how he would want it.

Beelzebub

Do you want to build a snowman - frozen

“Elsa, please I know you're in there

People are asking where you've been

They say, "have courage" and I'm trying to

I'm right out here for you

Just let me in

We only have each other

It's just you and me

What are we gonna do?”

I feel like this would be Beel talking to Belphie after Lilith died. Beel is definitely the nicest of the two and is more out there than Belphie, but they are always together.

Belphigor

Be prepared - lion king

“Of course, quid pro quo, you're expected

To take certain duties on board

The future is littered with prizes

And though I'm the main addressee

The point that I must emphasize is

You won't get a sniff without me!

So prepare for the coup of the century

Be prepared for the murkiest scam”

I feel like Belphie is always making you plans to get what he wants and to get things done, even if he himself doesn’t have to do anything.

Diavolo

Jacks lament - nightmare before Christmas

“But who here would ever understand

That the Pumpkin King with the skeleton grin

Would tire of his crown, if they only understood

He'd give it all up if he only could

Oh, there's an empty place in my bones

That calls out for something unknown

The fame and praise come year after year

Does nothing for these empty tears”

I feel like Diavolo hides how he feels most of the time. He acts like a whole man child sometimes and I really think he just wants to be the closest to normal as possible. He knows what’s expected of him but he wants to be treated like a person not just a prince.

Barbatos

Be our guest - beauty and the beast

“Beef ragout

Cheese soufflé

Pie and pudding, en flambé

We'll prepare and serve with flair

A culinary cabaret!

You're alone

And you're scared

But the banquet's all prepared”

Barb is known for cooking so I immediately thought of this song. He’s not as flashy as the song though.

Solomon

I got friends on the other side- princess and the frog

“Transformafication central, can you feel it?

You're changing, you're changing, you're changing alright

I hope you're satisfied, but if you ain't don't blame me

You can blame my friends on the other side”

Let’s me honest we all know this boy is a little shady. I feel that he would use his magic to get back at someone especially if they as him for help but arnt specific.

Simeon

God help the outcast - The hunchback of Notre dame

“God help the outcasts

Hungry from birth

Show them the mercy

They don't find on earth

God help my people

We look to You still

God help the outcasts

Where nobody will”

I feel like the song is self explanatory.

Luke

Tell everybody I’m on my - brother bear

“Tell everybody I'm on my way

New friends and new places to see

With blue skies ahead yes

I'm on my way”

I could just see Luke singing this song with Mc which is really adorbale to me.

[springday-aus]

Disney Prince!AU with Bambam

★ Bambam as Disney’s Prince Naveen ★

moodboard link

Group: GOT7

Member: Bambam / Kunpimook Bhuwakul

Other Characters: rich girl!Lisa (Blackpink)

Genre: romance

part of the Disney Prince series

Type: Bulletpoint AU 

Word Count: 2.8k

I don’t wanna say Bambam in the prince of Thailand in this au

but also hmm

anyways Bambam is a prince

of whatever country you believe him to be

so he kind of has a bad rep…….

like yeah, he’s handsome

(practically the one of the most handsome in the country bc have you SEEN him??)

but there are three main reasons why he’s got a bad rep around the country

the first one being that he has a really bad spending habit

just take a look at his wardrobe

he spends so much money on his appearances that his closest is the largest in the mansion

(the maids say it could be his second bedroom bc there’s a literal couch in it)

remember how London Tipton had that “wear a day, throw it away” phrase?

yeah

that’s basically Bambam, only he just…….hoards it in his closet

Bambam: “just in case I need that outfit another day, some day”

cue assistant!Jinyoung rolling his eyes behind Bambam

Jinyoung: this dumbass

Jinyoung: “yes sir, we will save it for another day” :)

the second reason being that he’s also known to throw lots of wild parties

so he spends a lot of money on catering, entertainment, clean-up and such

ironically enough, it’s not one of those like “royalty only” parties

bc that’s boring

so literally anyone and everyone is invited

and that means anything and everything can happen in the mansion

ofc he’s aware of robbers and stuff so there are guards at every door

this leads the last and final reason of his bad rep: how much of a flirt of he is

while there are guards at every door, basically anyone attractive is allowed in

like omg his boy literally can not be tied down

or as he would say

Bambam: “there are plenty of fireflies in the swamp”

Yugyeom: “isn’t it ‘there’s plenty of fish in the sea’?”

Jinyoung: “ignore him, let the stupidity rampage”

Yugyeom: “you are evil oh my god”

anyways, despite all of this

he really is a good guy

and even the mansion servants are aware of this

it’s just that…. he’s not the first in line for the throne

he’s got two older brothers and they’re fighting enough for the throne and getting involved with the mix is just………… a lot

so he doesn’t really have the whole responsibility of a royal

but he’s got a lot of press on his back and that’s kind of where the bad rep comes in view of the public

while he does have that image, there is another side of him others know

he’s very compassionate, so he donates a lot to charities

especially for children who are interested in the arts

because he’s got a huge passion for the arts himself 

honestly music is kind of one of the only things he really loves in life

but he doesn’t really have enough motivation for it bc of the whole royal thing

so he keeps it as a hobby

anyways, this is the most important bc this combination of music and flirtation is what leads to his doom

for two reasons: his parents cut him off and this is what leads the witch doctor to seek revenge

so after all this ridiculous spending on his clothes and parties and all his flirtations, but no commitment

his parents couldn’t take it any further and decided to cut him off to make him less dependent and learn the value of money

just because he lost the money aspect to him didn’t mean he lost his charm

so the flirtations were kicked up a notch

well not really

he was playing the ukulele on the street and caught the attention of many ladies

bc it’s the handsome prince playing in public duh

one of those ladies being the partner of a very powerful witch doctor

……… well, former partner…….

bc said partner left him after talking to Bambam…………

so what does the witch doctor do?

he does what he does best and sets out for revenge

he lures Bambam in, telling him his fortune and all that good stuff

Bambam is allured

but next thing he knows, there’s smoke and he’s surrounded by spirits

and everything has been enlarged

so where do you come in?

when Bambam had his parent’s’ money, there was one mall he loved to visit the most

that mall is so boujee that it’s the size of an airport

he didn’t even buy from some places, others gave them as gifts bc it would be advertised or something

(the whole press thing on him bc he’s not a “perfect” royal is seen as an advantage for these businesses)

anyways, you work as a server in a couple of the restaurants that’s in the mall

one for the days and one for the nights

so you work part time in a cafe for the mornings and mid afternoons

and a bar for the evenings

so you practically live in the mall

and that means seeing Bambam often

each time he comes and goes, there’s a wave of people who chase after him and you can’t do anything more than roll your eyes at him

while you haven’t met him in person, you’ve figured out what type of person he is

just another guy who thinks he can buy his way into anything

he’s clearly never worked a day in his life and he’ll never know the meaning behind hard work

you? you’ve been working since you were 15 to save enough money to open up your own bakery

tonight, you were at a childhood friend’s palace

that’s right, a palace—Lisa threw a party and asked for you to cater it, especially since there was a very special someone coming (a possible suitor)

(and she paid you too so)

you were in her room, as she was putting on her third outfit of the night and touching up her makeup

she suggested you dress up too, so you were left alone in her room and while she danced on the ballroom floor

you were upstairs, gazing up at the stars

remembering your childhood memories with Lisa

Lisa: “if you make a wish on the evening star, it’s sure to come true”

feeling rather nostalgic, you do it—with no actual hope anything’s going to happen

You: “I cannot believe I’m going this”

you close your eyes and wish and pray and hope that you are able to achieve your dreams

but when you open them……………

there’s a frog

You: “very. funny.”

you turn to the little frog on the rail, tilting your head

You: “I reckon you want a kiss?”

Bambam: “kissing would be nice”

**chaos ensues**

let’s just say, you’re glad Lisa has a maid—but you also feel sorry for the person who has to clean the mess you made

Bambam, on the other hand, is running for his life

and managed to avoid the following: rolled up magazines, verryyyy thick books, a straightening iron, a curling iron, and some thigh high boots of Lisa’s that you grabbed from the corner 

Bambam: “you have a really strong arm—aaAAH sTOP IT” 

You: “STAY BACK” 

there’s a couple of minutes at a standstill, where Bambam remains on the vanity and you were trying to understand what was happening 

You: “okay, okay, I’m fine, everything is fine and this is not happening” 

Bambam: “oh this is happening” 

You: “SHUT IT” 

and this led to another process and it wasn’t until five minutes later and an airbag for you to acknowledge the frog in the room

You: “who and what are you?” 

Bambam: “I am Prince Bambam” 

You: “I don’t believe it” 

Bambam: “how can I prove it?” 

You: “okay, okay—let’s just say for hypothetical reasons, you ARE Bambam”

You: “why are you a frog and why are you here of all places?” 

Bambam: “I may or may not have gotten involved with a witch doctor….” 

You: “you mean to tell me you got into this mess bc you were messing with the shadow man???” 

Bambam: “he was very charismatic” 

You: “this is what I get for wishing on stars; the only way you can get something is through hard work” 

Bambam: “why would you want to work harder? that’s just more—ANYWAYS, I’m getting off track” 

Bambam: “I need your help” 

You: “why should I help you?” 

Bambam: “I’ll be your genie in a bottle—do you have any wishes?”

You: this fool just quoted Christina Aguilera 

and that’s when you remember: your restaurant 

you just said that you should work hard for it 

and you’re almost there

you really can just turn this all down and let him suffer

but you look into his eyes and……… this poor guy is just suffering and deep down, you would feel really bad about turning away from him

so…. that’s when you agree to help him

You: “I think I know someone who might be able to help”

you call up a favor from a friend, who has a cousin, and that cousin knows a classmate who is interested in voodoo

turns out the only other witch doctor lives in the woods somewhere

“her name is Mama Odi”

you get some directions, but there’s also a hint of uncertainty from your source

You: “you’re telling me, I’m gambling my way through the woods”

Bambam: “it’ll be like an adventure—it’ll be fun”

You: “oh my god”

so you two venture together for a weekend? trip

he’s like a little pet

along the way, you both talk

and like really talk about things

one night, the stars were out and he was talking about his old life

You: “do you miss the money?”

Bambam: “of course I miss the money, but the money…. kept me company”

You: “you think you can just buy people to like you?”

Bambam: “when you’re royalty…….. everyone wants something from you”

Bambam: “isn’t that why you’re helping me”

You: “truth? half”

Bambam: “then what’s the other half?”

You: “empathy—while I don’t like you, I’m not evil”

You: “I don’t have ill wishes on anyone”

Bambam: “so, what is your wish?”

You: “my wish, my hope, my dreams is to own my own bakery or cafe—it was a wish of my grandma’s but…”

Bambam: “but what?”

You: “she died before she could make it happen and with my parents, I can’t burden them with my own dreams—they support me and encourage me, but they can’t help me”

Bambam: “that’s better than what I was raised with—I depended too much on mine”

Bambam: “there are servants to do everything for you: drive you, wash you, brush your teeth—while I admit it’s a charmed life…….. when they cut me off… I realized that I don’t know how to do anything”

You: “everyone has their own time to find strengths and maybe you just need more time to find yours”

the rest of the journey is kind of like this and you kind of just forget you got a lil frog prince on your shoulder

eventually, you get to the center of the large ass forest and there’s an old treehouse but it’s also completely huge

and there’s some old lady on the side and you and Bambam are like what the fuck

she takes you in and gives you some tea and gumbo from a tub that you are unsure whether you should trust or not

and then Bambam just bursts

Bambam: “hey, this is great and all, but I’M A FROG”

Mama Odi: “you need to dig a little deeper and you’ll find everything you need”

Bambam: “what we want and what we need are the same thing, no?”

Mama Odi: “the same thin—no!”

You: “so, what do we do?”

Mama Odi: “technically in the olden times, you would need a princess, but times have changed”

You: “what does that mean for the present?”

Mama Odi: “a kiss would have been fine”

You: “what?”

Mama Odi: “a kiss breaks the spell”

she kind of just let y’all go after that

so you two were on your way back and trying to figure out what should happen then

and you just kind of talk

Bambam: “if you’d just kissed me that night we met….”

You: oh my god

You: “I would really to like to help you but I… do NOT kiss frogs”

Bambam: “but, on the balcony, you asked me”

You: “I didn’t expect you to answer”

Bambam: “(Y/N), please”

Bambam: “it’s me—you’re my only hope”

You: “..... just one kiss”

Bambam: “unless you beg for more”

You: “don’t make me regret this before I even do anything”

Bambam: “sorry, sorry”

and so you do what you thought you would never do

and kiss a frog

he transforms back and you head your way back together…… as humans

the trip back was nearly the same as the trip there, but……. something’s different

(other than the fact that you kissed him)

you can see the emotions on his face, read how he’s feeling

you def caught feelings, but……. how does the living casanova feel about you?

Bambam hasn’t felt this vulnerable with anyone before

he feels…. different

but like a good different

the thing is, you don’t know this—so when you get back to the city, you expected to part in different ways…………

he asks his parents for a favor, begs them to help you out

and they’re shocked, at the least to how he’s acting

so they make a deal………

they’ll pay you for your troubles and he has to get a job

so he gets the money to you and you get your dream

for a bit, it feels right but………. something’s missing

and then you realize what it is

just when you’re about to move on from the whole endeavor, he gets a job…………….

at YOUR new bakery

the press got a whole field day when they saw him working there

so hey free publicity

so the friendship continued, with the both of you taking your breaks together and such

it’s cute

Jinyoung is just confused about the whole thing that it’s kind of just hilarious

Jinyoung: “what happened to you that weekend?”

Bambam: “you don’t need to know”

Jinyoung: “yes, I do—it’s my business”

fun fact: you get along with Jinyoung really well bc you have a realistic sense of things and your patience is amazing

(considering that you work with Bambam)

so what changes between y’all?

on day, you were on your lunch and you were both enjoying a meal together in one of the back rooms

and you ask the question you didn’t dare to ask before

You: “why are you working? I thought you were going to try to do music”

Bambam: “you’ve inspired me…. I want to help you with your dream”

You: “you don’t have to”

Bambam: “yes, I do”

Bambam: “I have to do something to impress you”

You: “why would you need to impress me?”

Bambam: “because you’re amazing and I really like you”

You: “what”

and thus begins a beautiful relationship

omg, I need to say this—his contact in your phone is My Frog Prince

no one else except you and Bambam understand it

(also Yugyeom bc he’s Bambam’s best friend, but you don’t have to know that)

moving on

you two complement each other—making one another better than you were before

Bambam learned what hard work actually does and its impact, along with the importance of chasing your passion

with your encouragements and support, he was able to pursue music

there’s also love

each time he looks at you, he wants to be a better man for you

for your future together

you’ve learned to relax every once in a while—you haven’t really been able to do anything else when you started working and studying

you were able to learn a lot about yourself with your days off

another thing was self-love

Bambam made you realize how important confidence is

and the more time you spent together, the more time you were able to realize how that lack of confidence impacted you

you both are amazing in your own ways and you have each other to help realize that

anyways

Bambam is a very touchy lover and does not care who is watching

even if it’s in front of his parents

(you had to stop him from kissing you like twenty times)

Bambam: “one kiss isn’t enough!!!!”

You: “stOPPP”

**also you: not stopping him

anyways, you actually got to meet his parents

when you did meet them, they were immediately in love with you and the changes they were able to see with Bambam

he stopped getting so much attention from the press

gained more sense of responsibility

and he was able to be more independent, learn things on his own and do things on his own

honestly, you didn’t see much of a difference in him

to you, he’s the same flirty guy you’d met on Lisa’s balcony—he’s just more thoughtful with his actions………… most of the time

Bambam: “you know, (Y/N), we’re going to be here for a while, so we might as well get…… comfortable”

You: “keep your slimy self away from me”

Bambam: “you love my slimy self”

You: “ugh, don’t remind me”

[ryanmeft]

Ryan’s Favorite Films of 2019

A stuttering detective,

A top hat-wearing vamp

A forced-perspective war,

A bit of Blaxploitation camp

Prisoners on a space ship

Having sex with bears

A writer goes remembering

Whenever his pain flares

  A prancing, dancing Hitler

A gambler high on strife

Here will go cavorting with

A mom who becomes a wife

A family plot with many threads

Three men against their own

A stuntman and his actor

A mobster now quite alone

Doubles under the earth

Two men in a tall house

Are here to watch a woman who

Is battling with her spouse

A family’s plans for their strong son

Go awry one night

A man rejects his country

Which is spoiling for a fight

 A house built by his grandpa

(Maybe; we’re not sure)

Looks out upon three prisoners

Whose passions are a lure

  All these are on my list this year

It’s longer than before

Because picking only ten this time

Was too great of a chore

  What are limits anyway?

They’re just things we invented

I don’t really find them useful

So, this year, I’ve dissented

  You may have noticed this time out

That numbers, I did grant

Promise they’ll stay in this order, though?

Now that, I just can’t

  I’m always changing my mind

Because, after all, you see

Good film is about the heart

And mine’s rather finicky

  There are a lot more I could name

(And I’ll change my mind at any time)

For now, though, consider these

The ones I found sublime

 20. Motherless Brooklyn

I’ve got a (hard-boiled) soft spot for 90’s neo-noirs like L.A. Confidential, Red Rock West and Seven, and Edward Norton’s ‘50’s take on Jonathan Lethem’s 90’s -set novel can stand firmly in that company.

19. Doctor Sleep

There’s something about Stephen King’s best writing that transcends mere popularity; his work may not be fine literature, but it is immune to the fads of the moment. So, too, are the best movies based on that work. This one, an engaging adventure-horror, deserved better than it got from audiences.

18. Jojo Rabbit

There was a time when the anything-goes satire of Mel Brooks could produce a major box office hit.  Disney’s prudish refusal to market the film coupled with the dominance of franchises means that’s no longer the case. If you bothered to give Jojo a shot, though, you got the strange-but-rewarding experience of guffawing one moment and being horrified the next.

17. By The Grace of God

I’d venture this is the least-seen film on my list; even among us brie-eating, wine-sniffing art house snobs, I rarely hear it mentioned. Focusing on the perspectives of three men dealing with a particularly heinous and unrepentant abusive priest and the hierarchy that protects him, it’s every bit as disquieting and infuriating as 2015’s Oscar-winning Spotlight.

16. Waves

You think Trey Edward Shultz’s Waves will be one thing---a domestic drama about an affluent African-American family (and that in and of itself is a rarity). Then it becomes something else entirely. It addresses something movies often avoid: that as life goes on, the person telling the story will always change.

15. Transit

You’re better off not questioning exactly where and when the film is set (it is based on a book about Nazi Germany but has been changed to be a more generalized Fascist state). The central theme here is identity, as three people change theirs back and forth based on need and desire.

14. American Woman

Movies about regular, working class, small-town American usually focus on men. This one is about a much-too-young mother and grandmother, played brilliantly by Sierra Miller, dealing with unexpected loss and the attendant responsibilities she isn’t ready for. 

13. Marriage Story

There is an argument between a married couple in here that is as true a human moment as ever was on screen---free of trumped-up screenplay drama and accurate to how angry people really argue. The entire movie strives to be about the kind of realistic divorce you don’t see on-screen. It is oddly refreshing.

12. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Quentin Tarantino’s love letter to 70’s Tinseltown is essentially a question: What if the murder that changed the industry forever had gone down differently? Along the way, it also manages to be a clever and insightful study of fame and fulfillment, or lack thereof.

11. High Life

Claire Denis is damned determined not to be boring. Your reaction to her latest film will probably depend on how receptive you are to that as the driving force of a film. Myself, I’m very receptive. I want to see the personal struggles of convicts unwittingly shipped into space, told without Action-Adventure tropes, in a movie that sometimes misfires but is never dull.

 10. Dolemite Is My Name

And fuckin’ up motherfuckers is my game! Look, if you don’t like naughty words, you probably shouldn’t be reading my columns---and you definitely shouldn’t be watching this movie. Eddie Murphy plays Rudy Ray Moore, the ambitious, irrepressible and endlessly optimistic creator of Blaxpoitation character Dolemite. Have you seen the 1975 film? It’s either terrible and wonderful, or wonderful and terrible, and the jury’s still out. Either way, Moore in the film is a self-made comic who establishes himself by talking in a unique rhyming style that speaks to black Americans at a time when black pop culture (and not just the white rendition of it) was finally beginning to pierce the American consciousness. What The Disaster Artist did for The Room, this movie does for Dolemite---with the difference being I felt like I learned something I didn’t know here.

 9. 1917

Breathless, nerve-wracking and somehow intensely personal even though it almost never takes time to slow down, it is fair to call Sam Mendes’s film a thrill ride---but it’s one that enlightens us on a fading historical time, rather than simply being empty calories. Filmed in such a way as to make it seem like one continuous, two-hour take, for which some critics dismissed it as a gimmick, the technique is used to lock us in with the soldiers whose mission it is to save an entire division from disaster. We are given no information or perspective that the two central soldiers---merely two, in a countless multitude---do not have, and so we are with them at every moment, deprived of the relief of omniscience. I freely admit I tend to give anything about World War I the benefit of the doubt, but there’s no doubt that the movie earns my trust.

8. Ash Is Purest White

Known by the much less cool-sounding name Sons and Daughters of Jianghu in China, here is a story that starts off ostensibly about crime---a young woman and her boyfriend are powerful in the small-potatoes mob scene of a dying industrial town---but after the surprising first act becomes a meditation on life, perseverance and exactly how much power is worth, anyway, when it is so fleeting and so easily lost. What do you do when everything that defined you is gone? You go on living. This is my first exposure to writer-director Jia Zhangke, an oversight I must strive hard to correct in future.

7. Knives Out

The whodunit is a lost art, a standard genre belonging to a time when mass audiences could appreciate a picture even if someone didn’t run, yell or explode while running and yelling every ten minutes. Rian Johnson and an all-star cast rescued it from the brink of cinematic extinction and gave it just enough of a modern injection to keep it relevant. Every second of the film is engaging; Johnson even manages to have a character whose central trait is throwing up when asked to lie, and he makes it seem sympathetic rather than juvenile. The fantastic cast of characters is backed up with all the qualities of “true” cinema: perfect camerawork, an effective score, mesmerizing production design. As someone who didn’t much care for Johnson’s Star Wars outing, I’m honestly put out this didn’t do better at the box office than it did.

6. A Hidden Life

After a few questionable efforts and completely losing the thread with the execrable vanity project Song to Song, Terence Malick returns to his bread and butter: meditative dramas on the nature of faith, family, and being on the outside looking in, which encompass a healthy dose of nature, philosophy and people talking without moving their lips. That last is a little dig, but it’s true: Malick does Malick, and if you don’t like his thing, this true story about a German dissenter in World War II will not change your mind. For me, what Malick has done is that rarest of things: he had made a movie about faith, and about a character who is faithful, without proselytizing. That the closeness and repressiveness of the Nazi regime is characterized against Malick’s typical soaring backdrops is a masterstroke, and the best-ever use of his visual style.

5. The Lighthouse

Robert Eggers is a different kind of horror filmmaker. After redefining what was possible with traditional horror monsters in The Witch, he returned with something that couldn’t be more different: an exploration of madness more in the vein of European film than American. Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe are two men stranded in a lighthouse together slowly losing their minds, or what is left of them. The haunting score and stark, black-and-white photography evoke a nightmare caught on tape, something we’re not supposed to be seeing. It’s not satisfying in a traditional way, but for those craving something more cerebral from horror, Eggers has it covered.

4. Us

I have become slightly notorious in my own little circle for not thinking Get Out was the greatest film ever made, and now I’ve become rather known for thinking Us just might be. Ok, so that’s definite hyperbole: “greatest” is a tall claim for almost any horror movie. Yet here Jordan Peele shows that he can command an audience’s attention even when not benefiting from a popular cultural zeitgeist in terms of subject matter. It’s a movie with no easy or clear message, one that specializes in simply unsettling us with the idea that the world is fundamentally Not Right. I firmly believe that if Peele becomes a force in the genre, 50 years from now when he and all of us are gone, his first film will be remembered as a competent start, while this will be remembered as the beginning of his greatness.

3. The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Ostensibly about urban gentrification, this story of a young black man trying to save his ancestral home from the grasping reach of white encroachment is a flower with many petals to reveal. Don’t let my political-sounding description turn you off: the movie is not a polemic in the slightest, but rather a wry, sensitive look at people, their personalities and how those personalities are intertwined with the places they call home. Though the movie is the directorial debut of Joe Talbot, it is based loosely on the memories and feelings of his friend Jimmie Falls, who also plays one of the two central characters. If you’ve ever watched a place you love fall to the ravages of time and change, this movie may strike quite a chord with you.

2. Uncut Gems

When asked why this movie is great, I usually say that it was unbelievably stressful and caused me great anxiety. This description is not usually successful in selling it. The Safdie Brothers have essentially filmed chaos: a man self-destructing in slow-motion, if you can call it slow. Howard Ratner has probably been gradually exploding all his life; he strikes you as someone who came out of the womb throwing punches. He’s an addictive gambler who loves the risk much more than the reward, and can’t gain anything good in life without risking it on a proverbial roll of the dice. His behavior is destructive. His attitude is toxic. Why do we root for him? Perhaps because, as played by Adam Sandler, he never has any doubt as to who he is---something few of us can say. He’s an asshole, but he’s a genuine asshole, and somehow that’s appealing even when you’re in his line of fire.

1. Pain and Glory

When I realized I would, for the first time, have the chance to see a Pedro Almodovar film on the screen, I was overjoyed. His movies aren’t always great, but that was of little concern: he’s one of the handful of directors on the planet who can fairly call back to the avant-garde traditions of Bergman or Truffaut, making the movies he wants to make about the things he want to make them about, and I’d never seen one of his films when it was new and fresh, only months or years later on DVD.

It seems I picked right, as his latest has been almost universally hailed as one of the best of his long career. An aging, aching filmmaker spends his days in his apartment, ignoring the fans of his original hit film and most of his own acquaintances, alive or dead---he tries hard to put his memories away. Throughout the course of the movie, he re-engages with most of them in one way or another, coming to terms with who he is and where he’s been, though not in a Hallmark-movie-of-the-week way. Antonio Banderas plays him in the role that was always denied him by his stud status in Hollywood. It isn’t simply him, though: every person we meet is engaging and, we sense, has their own story outside of how they intersect with his. Most engaging is that of his deceased mother, who in her youth was played vivaciously by a sun-toughened Penelope Cruz. Perhaps Almodovar will tell us some of their stories some day. Perhaps not. I would read an entire book of short fiction all about them. This is the year’s best film.

[whereisten]

Hero, Yuta, & Me

Summary: Your pet sitting job lands you at the doorstep of the magnetic Yuta Nakamoto, owner of the cutest Shiba Inu on the planet, Hero. 

Multi-part series: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Part 1

Word Count: 2,021 words

You were getting ready for the day, brushing your hair in front on your vanity. Your mom was visiting your grandparents down south while your dad and younger brothers were at Disney World. Those lucky bastards. You regretted not going with them but you were saving up for a Korean pop convention that was coming up in the summer. And you just landed a pretty sweet gig with your pet sitting job, Read It and Woof.

The owner, Yuta Nakamoto, lived in Miami Beach in a nice townhouse. He was the owner of a Shiba Inu named Hero. You were psyched because you had never seen a Shiba in the flesh. Mr. Nakamoto was going on a business trip so he needed someone to spend the weekend at his place, looking after Hero.

You parked in Mr. Nakamoto’s driveway, seeing his black Dodge Challenger’s trunk popped open. The front door was slightly ajar. You grabbed your bag out of the backseat and shut the door.

You heard a bark and whipped around to see a black and tan Shiba Inu sitting before you and you nearly crumble.

“Hi!” You greet the pup. “You must be Hero.”

Hero got up and started sniffing at your sneakers. All the while his tail was wagging. You laughed.

“Y/N.”

You looked back up to see the most beautiful boy you’d ever laid eyes on and nearly roll your eyes at the cliche that just popped into your head. He was a stunner. He was a legend. He was a god. Mr. Nakamoto was dressed in business professional attire of a finely tailored gray suit. His dark brown hair was slicked back and your breathing hitched. His brown eyes were sharp and captivating. And-

Cool it, Y/N. He may have a Shiba and he may be hot as fuck. But you gotta reel it in.

“Mr. Nakamoto?” You asked.

He smirked. “Call me Yuta. It’s really nice to meet you. Can I take your bag?”

“It’s nice to meet you, too.” You shook your head when you saw him reach his arm out to grab your Captain Marvel themed bag. Your bag wasn’t that heavy. “Oh, that’s okay. I got it.”

He nodded. “I’ll show you around. Thanks for coming so early.”

And suddenly you forgot that you were cursing yourself for taking the gig since you had to wake up at 5:30 AM to get ready so you can meet Yuta at 7:30 AM. Miami traffic was merciless even at 6:30 in the morning.

“It’s fine,” you said.

Yuta opened the front door and said, “After you.”

Hero ran in right after and you could hear the pitter pat of his feet and grinned. Dogs were effortless in making people laugh. That’s one of the things you loved most about them.

Dog toys were all over the wooden floor. Including a soccer ball. Three different pairs of shoes were placed beside the door. There was a lot of wooden furnishings and there were a couple of sliding doors. You noted that the interior of the house was very reminiscent of Japanese interior design.

“This is a really nice place you got here,” you said.

Yuta laughed. “You don’t have to lie. It’s a mess. I’m sorry about that. But Hero likes it that way.”

“Oh I don’t think it’s fair to pin it all on Hero.”

Hero was right on Yuta’s heels, staring up in adoration at his owner. You could feel their connection to each other and you knew that Yuta really loved him. Yuta looked down at Hero and rubbed his head.

“Maybe you’re right,” Yuta said as he looked back up at you. “Do you want something to drink? Eat? I made scrambled eggs.”

“Sounds good. I don’t want to keep you, though.” You remembered he had a flight to catch soon. Miami International Airport was very unforgiving.

Yuta’s eyes grew noticeably bigger. “Oh, yeah. Well, the tour’s quick. You got all of my instructions via email anyway. If you have any questions at any time, don’t hesitate to text. I can only take phone calls after 10 at night since my meetings are running late this weekend. I apologize.”

“It’s no problem.”

Yuta smiled. “If you’ll follow me.” He walked you down the hall and showed you the different rooms in the house. Hero was allowed to roam as he pleased. He usually liked to sleep in Yuta’s bed but he also had a bed in the living room. And a bed in the kitchen because Yuta sometimes liked to get a midnight snack and it was almost as if Hero knew that. Then, Hero would seize the opportunity to guilt trip Yuta into giving him something to munch on.

You were living for Yuta’s anecdotes.

“So the last door on the left is my room, which Hero can sleep in. But I’m pretty sure he’ll be with you. If you don’t mind keeping your room open. Which brings me to the guest room,” Yuta said.

He pushed the sliding door open and revealed a comfortable floor bed with a floor desk that had a cute little cactus and lamp on it.

“If you’d like extra blankets, the linen closet has a lot. Go nuts.” He laughed.

“Thanks, Yuta. I really appreciate it.” Most of your clients were nice people. Some were a little chaotic. But then, by the grace of God, you stumbled on a miracle.

You and Yuta walked back to the entrance.

“Well, I’m off,” Yuta said, “Thanks again for doing this, Y/N.” A strand of his hair fell into his eyes and he tucked it behind his ear. You imagined him doing that to your hair and you blushed, feeling guilty over fantasizing about a client you’d only see once more when he came back to make sure you didn’t kidnap Hero.

You nodded. “You’re welcome...Uh, safe travels...Yeah.” Lord, help you.

He gave you a knowing smile. He had to be aware of the effect he had on people. Whatever his line of work, he was probably the most magnetic person there.

“Bye,” he said in a playful tone. He knelt down and pet Hero. “You be good, alright?” Hero barked. The first time you heard him today.

10

You sat on the couch with Hero watching the news. Taking care of Hero consisted of taking him on a walk a couple of times a day. Taking him to the dog park this afternoon since Saturday afternoons were for dog park visits. Feeding him his meals. Giving him some treats as you said the commands Yuta suggested in his email. “Sit”, “play dead”, and “grab the remote”. You laughed at that last one.

You wondered how Yuta was doing. You thought it was funny that you were even thinking about him that way when you only talked to him for at most twenty minutes. There was no question you wanted to get to know him better.

Hero laid his head on your lap when you were texting your group chat that you shared with your three girlfriends: Joanna, Taissa, and Kaia.

HowRU Group Chat: We Clowned Clowns

Joanna: So how’s it going with the Shibs?

You: It’s good. His name’s Hero. Have contemplated kidnapping him. The owner’s really nice.

Kaia: Oh?

Taissa: That’s the first time you said an owner was nice so...you mean he’s NICE.

You: Yes.

Kaia: What aren’t you saying, Y/N?

Joanna: She likes him. He’s hot, isn’t he?

Taissa: Do you have pictures?

You: Sure in the 20 minutes we were together, I got 200 candids. Of course not!

Kaia: Can you tell us about him at least?

You: Dreamy. Slicked back brown hair. Brown eyes that basically hug you. Excellent cheekbones. A smile that will make you go blind if you look too long. About 5’9 if I had to compare his height to Kaia’s.

Joanna: So he’s short

Taissa: Not for Y/N and me. No.

Kaia: He’s short.

You: I’m gonna continue. His house is really nice. Japanese style. Wooden floor. I get to walk around in my bare feet. He keeps the place really tidy, even with all the dog toys.

Taissa: You need to snatch him up, Y/N.

You: I don’t think I can.

Joanna: Don’t go into a spiel about how you’re not good enough. I will not allow it. You are more than good enough for any man you want. Go for it.

Kaia: Yes, Y/N! Ask him out!

Taissa: Maybe he’ll even beat you to it! But think about it!

You: Read It and Woof doesn’t encourage fraternization between employee and client.

Taissa: Boo, those whores.

Even if Yuta was interested, the company was strict about dating. Maybe there was some leniency if you never worked for Yuta again. But that’s a huge maybe. And you liked your part-time job. You needed it to save up before you applied to get your Master’s. And you liked Hero and definitely wanted to see him again.

The same could be said about his owner.

You sighed and decided to order some pizza. Hero was eating his kibble for dinner when the doorbell rang. You checked the peephole and saw it was the pizza delivery girl. She looked very made-up with mascara and lipstick for someone who was delivering pizzas.

You opened the door and saw that the girl’s hopeful expression faded.

She said, deadpan, “Large pepperoni with stuffed cheesy bread?”

You nodded.

She handed you the merchant copy of the receipt to sign. You did. You handed her three bucks as her tip. She handed you the pizza and cheesy bread.

“So, are you his girlfriend?” She asked.

“What?” You frowned in confusion.

Then, you remembered you weren’t at your own house. You were at Yuta’s.

“Oh! No, I’m not. I’m pet sitting.”

The girl’s face became hopeful again and she looked less hostile. “Oh, okay! Well, have a good night!”

Well, that was fun.

You sat down at the kitchen table and enjoyed your meal. You decided to explore the house a little bit more.

You looked carefully at the walls and saw some photographs of Yuta and his family. He posed with two girls you guessed were his sisters. They were at Universal Studios Japan and hanging out with the minions. You smiled at Yuta’s very animated face. There was another formal picture of Yuta with his parents and who you now confirmed were his sisters. They all looked regal in their formal wear. You saw another picture of a younger Yuta playing soccer. That would explain the soccer ball in the living room, after all. You continued down the line and saw what you thought was a very recent picture of Yuta posing with his team:

The national Japanese soccer team.

And then you looked at the next picture and recognized David Beckham. Beckham was shaking hands with Yuta. The Inter Miami CF logo was at the bottom right corner of the photograph.

Whoa.

Yuta was an international soccer player. Your inner thirteen-year-old was screeching.

Hero’s pitter pats were getting closer and he stood by you.

You knelt down and pet him. “Hero, why didn’t you tell me Yuta was a soccer star?”

Hero nuzzled against your hand.

Your phone vibrated in your pocket. Yuta texted you.

Maybe I needed to change his contact name. It sounded...suggestive. Mr. Nakamoto will see you now.

HowRU Group Chat: With Mr. Nakamoto

Mr. Nakamoto: Hey. How’s it going? Did Hero trash the place yet?

You: Hi! It’s going well. Hero’s been a good doggo. How are things?

Mr. Nakamoto: That’s good to hear. It’s been stressful but it looks like things are going to work out.

You: How mysterious.

Mr. Nakamoto: It’s pretty boring, actually. But if all goes well, I get to stay in Miami for a long while.

You: I hope it does.

Mr. Nakamoto: Me, too :)

You debated bringing up what you discovered of Yuta but weren’t sure how to proceed with it. 

Hey Yuta, by the way, why didn’t you tell me you were a soccer sensation? 

Or...

Hey, Yuta, do you like Messi?

You decided to drop it. Maybe he’d mention it to you. Maybe he wouldn’t.

It would all depend on whether you guys would see each other again after the weekend was over.

Part 2 (Coming Soon)

[hecohansen31]

Duncan loves his two princesses, lovely wife and dear daughter, and that's why he is working very hard, a lot, so they can have everything they need and want. Problem : what they want is he being with them at home and not at his office, in a plane or in another country. His wife is a bit sad, even if she understands, but his baby girl is not happy at all when her dad leave them.

(A/N): Hello there, nonnie!

I really hope that you will like this!

Also BIG NOTE for all of you “Angel” fans, I don’t know if I just explained myself wrong but the next chapter of this miniseries will be about Michael, it won’t be a sequel to Duncan’s love story with sweet innocent reader, but since you have been so nice with me about this story, I just wanted to do something… so this drabble takes place in the same universe and I will gladly work on any prompt about this couple you might have, just send in everything and I will be at your service!

Love you, lovelies!

WARNINGS; Parent Fights (also a bit of violence from reader, nothing abusive, but… hey be warned…) and Language!

The fact that Duncan was a workaholic was something that had always been present in their relationship, since the start.

But during the first years that they had been an official couple, not only had also she been pretty busy, since Duncan had stepped away from his position at the Shepherd Foundation, putting her in his stead, but also he had started his own company, away from the Shepherd’s lies.

The start was rough and the fact that they lived in separate houses helped a bit, because they were independent, although with time they smashed together.

But Duncan’s mole of work didn’t lessen in the slightest, whereas she managed to reach a strange balance, being the one who handled the house’s resources and other things, outside their offices.

She chose the dates, she chose the gifts and she chose how to pass the time, on their vacation (or better when she made Duncan take one).

Sometimes it was almost as if she had never moved away from her secretary position.

But something changed, after Duncan asked her to marry it, a total surprise on the 4th of July, something which got quite a few laughs from her: he went down on his knees, meanwhile the fireworks went off and she was distracted, and when she turned around to call Duncan to join her, she found him on her knees, in an elegant suite and an expensive ring in a little box.

“(Y/N), angel of mine, will you do the honor of becoming my wife?”.

She had screeched and a month later, they had started looking both for dresses, cakes and churches, and six months later she was pronouncing her vows in front of a secluded circle or friends and family, on a little church next to the beach and a month later they had moved onto their honeymoon, a period of sweet nothings and soft vacation.

They had traveled the world, with Duncan not picking up a single call, which meant pure bliss, since all his attention was suddenly on her, and she was grateful for each small touch, soft kiss and sweet whisper in her ear.

And it was during that time that their first daughter, Angelique was conceived.

A month after their return, she had discovered she was pregnant, and for other nine months Duncan had ignored his work for a bit longer, still working a but he was always next to her during the long night and the nauseous morning.

She had felt the best thank to his support and had been beyond happy when she had been able to hold the little bundle of joy in her arms, looking at Duncan, who had already fallen in love with her, truly smitten, and had just mumbled:

“Angelique, it means “angelic”, I think it would be perfect since your mother is a true angel”.

A pure year of bliss had followed, which meant also suddenly waking up in the middle of the night to feed her, her breasts hurting her because the baby wouldn’t suck on them and bad mood since the nights were spent sleepless.

But it was extremely worth it, mostly when their child reassembled them in both their physical appearance and behaviors (you still couldn’t believe that she had picked up the Shepherd’s pout) or babbled out “mama” or “dada”, giggling victoriously at two full-grown adults doing the “airplane” with her food.

But slowly Duncan had started distancing himself from them: it had started slowly…

“The child is old enough” and “You can handle her” had been the words uttered by Duncan, who had had to “make up for the time he had missed” with his own company, and she allowed, knowing that after the prison, everything had been extremely roughly for the ex-convict.

But slowly, a year had become two and then three and she had had to step out from her position as a CEO over at Shepherd Foundation, and although she hated the stress of it, she somehow missed.

She loved being a mom but she missed the possibility to have more human contact, alongside the feeling of being productive.

The fact that Angelique had started going to a pre-school, when she was three year old had been helpful, but she still needed to be there for her, since Duncan couldn’t, mostly because of the constant trips he was on.

Those trips honestly made her extremely frustrated, since not only she was jealous of what might happen but also of the man itself who got to enjoy life, meanwhile she stayed home, watching the umpteenth Disney movie…

She loved being a mom, she kept repeating herself on the hardest days, but she felt more like a single mom than anything else…

But she tried not to blow up into Duncan’s face: her husband was extremely stressed, she saw it each time he came back from work, sleepless and definitely sad, barely able to hug his princesses, which he loved very much but…

… he just hadn’t the time to show it.

But he had the materials to do it: a new teddy bear would appear in Angelique’s room, after Duncan came back from a new trip, meanwhile a piece of jewelry found its way into her vanity, at the same time.

But she didn’t care about any jewel, she just wanted the old Duncan, the honeymoon phase and the pregnancy one, when and where she finally had some kind of peace with Duncan and her beloved daughter.

So, she tried to put her best façade, hiding the hurt of Duncan’s careless behavior, but whereas she could resist, Angelique was just a child and spoke up truth, at first with her:

“I am sure that daddy doesn’t love me anymore” they had been coming home from a parent’s day, Duncan was supposed to be with her, but he had bailed out at the last minute, which got her to take his place, cancelling an important work date, but she couldn’t leave her daughter alone.

“Oh sweetie, why would you say something like that?” she tried to coo the poor baby, who just looked at her shyly, meanwhile she strapped her in the car seat “… he is just very busy”.

“But he is ALWAYS busy!” she mumbled, protesting shyly meanwhile her hands became fists on her sides, and she could see the hurt in her eyes “… he never spends time with me, anymore”.

“He is busy, sweetie” it felt bitter even on her tongue, it was a straight up lie “… he works himself so so much for us”.

“Can’t he just have a day off for us?” pleaded Angelique, hugging herself, a trait she had taken from her, and she caressed her face gently, making her look in the eyes.

“I will try to do my best to convince, daddy” she promised, before cradling her daughter closer, soothing her for a bit, before kissing all her face, getting a disgusted expression from her “… and in the meanwhile, us, wonder women will get our ice creams, won’t we?”.

“Yay!”.

She had decided to bring up the proposal at dinner, after she had cooked him his favorite meal, thinking about suggesting a vacation, all together, maybe in an hot place since it was extremely cold in DC; they would have their fun, together and maybe Duncan would finally understand the importance of family.

But Angelique, who was as extremely chatty as her dad, immediately jumped into his lap, as soon as he sprawled himself on the sofa, which might seem a good moment to play with him, but she had already spotted anger in his eyes when he had walked in, so she came quickly to usher Angelique away, but the sweet girl kept on insisting and eventually she had to give up to check the pot on the stove.

“Daddy!” she tried to cheer him up, but Duncan just gave her a tired and disgruntled smile “… I am so happy you are back!”.

She had gained from Duncan the ability to twist people around her little fingers, and although her dad was extremely extremely taken by other things, he also fell in her words…

… usually.

Not that night, because he just grunted, which she couldn’t hear, because of the low hum of the oven, meanwhile the pot on the stove started making noises, so not only her ears were full but also her attention was all on not burning their dinner.

But she heard clearly the scream that followed, which got a cold chill to run down her back:

-How dare you ask for more time?! – clear anger shone in Duncan’s voice, and although she understood that it wasn’t directed towards Angelique, the poor child took a step back, scared -Each thing I do it’s for you and your mother! And you SHOULD BE GRATEFUL! -.

-I am sorry, daddy- mumbled the shy baby, trying to keep back the tears, exactly as Duncan did and she felt comforted immediately by her mother’s presence, but then Duncan went on…

-Sometimes I do believe that my life would have been easier without you! -.

This got Angelique to straight up run away from her arms, meanwhile she reached her breaking point.

She raised up from her cradled position, rage shone in Duncan’s eyes, but it was nothing to the one she owned, and the fear to disappoint him disappeared swiftly as she turned around.

He seemed to have realized the shit he had said, but she didn’t care and the slap resonated for the entire building.

-You say another thing like that to my daughter and you’ll regret it-she  didn’t need to raise her voice in the slightest, her calm tone was enough terrifying, meanwhile she held back the tears -You seriously think that we should be grateful to you, when all you do is go out on trips and work, and you never have the time for us… I HAD TO QUIT MY JOB, DUNCAN! I don’t regret it, I love being Angelique’s mom, but… I miss it… and I miss the kind man, who loved me and her over anything-.

She didn’t care if it hurt him, he needed to finally hear the truth.

-Angelique is fucking convinced that you don’t love her anymore! And you go and say some shit like that- she honestly knew that Angelique was listening, but she was far too gone -… and you know… sometimes I think it too, because you are NEVER HERE! I sometimes think that maybe you went back to your old way… because apparently work comes before family-.

And before he could say anything, she turned around, effectively shutting him up.

-… I don’t care what you have to say, I am taking Angelique and we are staying at my mother’s, I don’t care whether you approve it or not, but right now… I don’t want you around-.

She knew it was cruel and it honestly hurt her, much more than she let out, but she needed to comfort a bit Angelique and seeing Duncan would do no good to the poor baby.

She went in her room to talk with her, maybe hug her and prepare the thing, meanwhile she sent a quick message to her mother, about their arrival, thank God they didn’t live far away from her.

Her mother sent a concerned reply but she ignored because as soon as she walked into Angelique room… she found it empty.

She, at first, thought that the child had hidden, she loved playing “hide-and-seek” and maybe that had been her own idea to get over the trauma, but the girl didn’t seem to be anywhere in the room and she immediately moved out of it, almost jumping into Duncan, who had decided to follow her like a lost puppy.

But she didn’t care, in the slightest.

She moved, firstly, in their bathroom, thinking that since it was the farthest place in their apartment from the kitchen it might have helped with covering the noise, but no sign of Angelique neither there.

And neither in the sitting room, Duncan’s office, hers, and their shared bedroom.

Angelique was not at home, anymore.

She couldn’t breath, and when she turned around she was almost grateful that Duncan was there to catch her, after she slowly stumbled, meanwhile an hand went up to her mouth, shaken by sobs and tears.

Where was her sweet girl?

She turned to Duncan, knowing that it would be futile to hide this, although she wanted to egotistically tell him to “fuck off”; she knew that Angelique had probably run away because of the fight with Duncan.

-She is not here? – he asked, his gaze is both worried and confused, and he gently led her to the little armchair in the dining area, letting her sit down meanwhile he gently caressed her shaken back -… sweetie, you need to tell me-.

-She is not in her room and… I can’t find her…- she couldn’t help but breath slowly, trying to catch her missing breath -… she is probably scared and … I am, also, so scared of what might happen to her… she is…-.

-I know, sweetheart – he caressed her back, again, before moving away, his hands going to the phone, and she was halfway through screaming at him, when he uttered the following words -… I am Duncan Shepherd and I am reporting a missing child…-.

Duncan had not only alerted the police, but his own security was spread through the entire city and their neighborhood had also been woken up and everyone had been extremely happy to give the young couple a hand.

A few women had comforted her, suggesting that Angelique had just wandered a bit, meanwhile Duncan handled the men, who had already a gun, in each hand…

The police had realized that Angelique had actually escaped from the front door, and she couldn’t help but feel guilty, because she probably ran away, meanwhile they were fighting, which not only made her feel extremely neglectful but also she honestly didn’t want to think what her daughter might have thought of her screaming at Duncan, her father.

They had decided to move towards the park where Angelique and her went during their free afternoons, it held so many memories, mostly of all the lovely pic-nicks they had made before Duncan became such a workaholic; Angelique and her would be running around, her trying to catch the younger child, meanwhile Duncan shot pictures of the two.

Oh, how she loved those days…

Both her and Duncan started shouting their daughter’s name, just getting a few scream of old men, probably homeless, wanting just to be left alone, so they could sleep in peace and this got her heart to squeeze from fear: what if somebody had come before her, and taken her away?

She tried to keep her fears to herself but by the way she shook as a leaf, she immediately attracted Duncan’s attention, who, after the little scene in the dining room hadn’t dared to touch her, something for which she was grateful and she honestly regretted having slapped him, mostly if Angelique had been there.

She shouldn’t have let her anger take over…

-We are going to find her, don’t worry- he reassured her, his eyes shining with strength and a bit of regret -I actually have an idea… do you remember Angelique’s favorite place, here? The covered slide? -.

She did: her hyperactive daughter, loved sliding down the red slide, going up and down and sometimes getting also her mother to do it (Duncan was sure that he would have destroyed the slide, had he tried it).

There was something that made her fall in love with the toy and she couldn’t help but think that it would have been a perfect hiding place.

-… yeah, of course! – and after a few minutes they were running for it, and a clear and female sniffling sound was heard from it and Angelique’s tiny designer shoes, were shown at the end of the slide, meanwhile her entire body was covered, as if she was hiding.

-Oh, thank God! Angelique, you are here! – she mumbled, meanwhile moving t get closer, but the child retreated further into the slide -… sweetie… what…? -.

-You don’t want me anymore! – the child shouted, her tone whiny and shy, clearly hurt by both Duncan’s words but also their fight and it literally broke her heart -… you fought and hurt each other! -.

-Sweetie, mommy and daddy just lost their temper- she hoped that this, at least, would help a bit -… it won’t happen again, I swear… you have no idea of how worried we…-.

But she just heard a grunt of protest and she couldn’t help but damn Duncan’s stubbornness, passed down alongside his genes to his daughter.

Duncan came over, she immediately wanted to stop him, but he just grouched down next to the slide, putting an hand on it lightly, in order for him to be closer to her, tears finally shone in his eyes, they must have started when they found Angelique and part of her couldn’t help but feel like he had suffered enough.

-Sweetie…- his voice was teary and she could feel the sadness in it and immediately Angelique stilled her moves -… daddy’s extremely sorry… I know that I hurt you with all those words, both you and your beautiful mommy, and I have no excuse for it, but…please come back home, we can’t literally live without you-.

Duncan’s words were easy, but each meant something.

Each had an important meaning telling her that she loved her and was worried for her, and there she recognized the Duncan she had married and Angelique’s father.

Her child was still extremely careful, although she had stilled in her movements, didn’t seem to move in the slightest, not wanting to get out.

-YOU LIE! – insisted the child, and she knew that Duncan’s heart broke and although she hated him with an extreme burning passion right now, she still loved him with the same passion -… you hate me, you don’t want me anymore, you don’t spend time with me anymore and get angry when I ask some-.

-Daddy didn’t get angry with you- she tried to help Duncan, setting down on the other side of the slide, and gently caressing Angelique’s legs to comfort her -… his work is hard and sometimes he loses his temper, I lost it too, but I am extremely sorry for it, and I swear on your teddy bear that I won’t lose it anymore, not in front of you-.

Silence came from the slide and she almost thought about asking Duncan to forcefully take away Angelique, but then the man did something better.

-Angel of mine, I am… incredibly sorry of what I said to you… I am… crying and you know how much I hate crying in front of you and mommy- he spoke, breathing heavily -… and I regret each moment not spent with you and your beautiful mother, I regret the horrible words I spoke to you, and I will vow my life to make it up to you-.

Angelique came out slowly and she sprinted towards her, hugging her close and she immediately whispered shyly in her ear, comforting words, meanwhile the child cried in her arms, and Duncan stared at her; he clearly wanted to join them but he also didn’t want to break the newfound harmony and settled for messaging the security and the police to let them know that they had found Angelique.

-You got us so so so worried, lovely- she hugged the child closer to her, before pushing her back in order to look at her in the eyes -Never do that again, for the sake of my heart-.

The child nodded slowly and dove in for another hug, and she searched the playground for Duncan who was now up near the slide, cleaning his face from the tears, erasing each testimony of them.

It was a truly heartbreaking moment, and she couldn’t help but move her child closer to her, to whisper in her ear:

“Sweetie, go and hug your dad, he needs it, she suggested, gently kissing her forehead and pushing her gently towards him, and although the child was shy, she managed to hug him, immediately adverting his attention from the phone and hugging his daughter back, putting himself to her height and engulfing her in a bear hug, mumbling about how sorry he was.

In the end, Angelique ended up being so so tired with everything that happened that she fell in Duncan’s arms and stayed there for the entire time, meanwhile she drove them to her mother’s house, the woman took Angelique from Duncan with the justification of both privacy and to let Angelique sleep.

Duncan looked like he had aged ten years overnight, and she couldn’t help but caress his face, tenderly, something she did every time she needed to comfort him, with him catching her hand to hold it there before gently kissing it.

-I really messed up- he mumbled, more a question than anything else.

-… at least this time you didn’t end up in prison- she joked sarcastically, meanwhile he did something that resembled a smile with his lips.

-Well it is worse, I let down the women I love- he replied, charming her with a sad smile and those words: Gosh he really really meant them.

-… then all you have to do is get back in our good graces is…- she replied, gently letting his hand go -… less work, more communication and family time; I know that you are constantly busy, but you have employees for that, Duncan, believe me-.

He nodded, reaching again for her hand and bringing it to his lips, soft-spoken deal between them.

-I love you, angel of mine-.

-I love you, too, stupid workaholic of my heart-.

[introvertguide]

Disney Princesses Got A Lot Tougher Over 60 Years

When watching the original Disney princess movies, a couple of things stand out. I noticed it strongly with Snow White (1937) and not much changed with Cinderella (1950) and Sleeping Beauty (1959). There is somewhat of a white wash as far as the main characters, but that is not surprising as the stories came from German folk tales. This bothers me somewhat, but what concerned me even more was how weak the female characters are. I want to take a brief look at the three characters and their motivations:

Major Spoiler Alert!!! Do not read further if you have not kept up with the Disney princess movies or if you are a fanboy/fangirl and unable to deal with light criticism of your favorite Disney characters.

Snow White: A princess that is cast out by her evil step mother and taken to the forest to be killed. She is saved because the man charged with killing her can’t complete the act because he pities her. She wanders through the forest and is saved by a group of working men. She waits and dreams of a prince who will come and save her. She does not listen to the wishes of the men who saved her and falls prey to an evil trick. A prince comes along and falls in love with her for her appearance alone. He kisses her comatose body and accidently wakes her up. They immediately love each other and the prince kills the evil queen and Snow White and her prince live happily ever after. 

Sleeping Beauty: A princess is born and a witch curses her to fall into a deathly sleep on her 18th birthday. She is put away in hiding by her parents but still is poisoning by the witch and she fall into a deep sleep. Her prince comes and rescues her with true love’s kiss and then defeats the witch. The two live happily ever after. 

Cinderella: A girl is oppressed by her step-mother and step-sisters. She is not allowed to go to a dance, but a fairy god mother comes along and gives her a beautiful outfit and a ride. She goes to the dance and the local prince loves her appearance. One of the limitations of the fairy god mother powers is the that the outfit and ride reverts back at midnight so Cinderella run away without telling the prince who she is but leaves a shoe behind. The prince goes around and tries the shoe on all the women around the kingdom and finds Cinderella. She becomes a princess and they live happily every after.  

All of the stories start with a bad situation that befalls the princess through no fault of their own. The antagonist is always a woman/witch who is jealous of the princess, especially because of their beauty (vanity and jealousy are a major aspect of a Disney villainess). A prince sees the woman and falls in love due to her beauty alone. This prince rushes in to save the awaiting princess (she does nothing to better the situation but instead just waits/sleeps) and vanquishes the offending jealous witch/queen. Happily ever after. What were we trying to teach young girls? Look beautiful and wait around for a prince to find you and take you away from your terrible life? That doesn’t fly anymore. I grew up in the 80s and 90s. I was raised by a smart strong woman who never impressed upon me that girls were meant to wait around for a man. The princesses in the Disney movies of my youth were examples of the change in times:

The Little Mermaid (1988): A mermaid princess longs to go to the surface and discover new things. Her curiosity puts her in danger and her father forbids her from associating with the land dwellers. The princess is lured in by a handsome princess and makes a deal with a sea witch to be able to go to the surface and meet the princess. The princess tries to works with her sea friends to find the affections of the prince but cannot keep her deal with the witch. The witch has tricked the princess and uses her powers to overthrow the sea king, but the princess (with the help of the prince and her sea friends) defeat the witch and the mermaid princess is able to go to the surface and live with her prince. 

Aladdin (1992): A young thief lives on the streets of a middle eastern city and steals his living. The princess of the city is suppressed by her father and has to marry a local prince. She runs away into the city and is almost harmed, but is saved by the young thief. The thief discovers a magic genie that grants wishes and he gains riches to impress the princess. The grand vizier of the city attempts to steal the genie and use it to overthrow the king. The thief, the princess, and the genie work together to defeat the vizier and the thief is allowed to marry the princess and becomes a prince of the kingdom. 

Mulan (1998): A young woman is very stubborn and does not want to be married off as is tradition in her country of China. A war breaks out between the Huns and the people of China. She takes the place of her father when all families are asked for one male to battle the invading Huns. The woman dresses as a male warrior as no women are allowed in the military, risking her life and her families honor. She becomes strong and uses her wits to protect her company from a Hun raid. She saves the captain of her group, but is injured during the battle and is found out to be a woman by the doctor. The captain returns to the capital for a celebration the army’s success, but the festivities are interrupted by the remaining Hun invaders. The young woman and her company (including the captain) vanquish the remaining Huns. The woman returns to her father bringing great honor to the family. The captain of her company follows her home and stays for dinner.

 None of the princess from my generation sat around and waited for a prince. The restless and wanted to be independent. They fought their own battles and overcame the obstacles placed in front of them. These women are beautiful and attract men of power, but they are neither helpless nor do they wait around for a man. They are adventurous and intelligent and I like them better that way. I think that all of these movies are works of art. The beauty of the animation is undeniable in my eyes and I will never take away any credit to the artists and animators who create these characters, but I think I like my story princesses to be tough and independent instead of just a damsel in distress.

[the-zodiacs-written-in-the-stars]

Writer’s Month Day 19: Mythology

Set in about chapter 3ish or so, time-wise!

Mythology had always fascinated Angelique. For most her age, it came from TV, growing up around Disney's Hercules and shows like Xena. Angel however, she had gotten her passion for it from something else entirely. Her papa worked as a curator at the Louvre. It had always been Angelique's favorite place in all of Paris. The Louvre. She loved visiting her papa at work. And she still remembered, when she had been really little and the only child still, for just how long her papa would entertain her. He would give her private tours in his time off and even during his lunch-breaks when she was lucky. The paintings were pretty, but what had always fascinated her the most were the statues. The renaissance statues of ancient heroes. She would sit in front of them for hours, staring in awe at every detail and listening to her papa tell her the stories behind it.

Her parents had mistaken that interest for her wanting to become an artist. Her mamma had been incredibly excited about it – Adelheide had always been an artistic soul and she had thought she would get to share her passion with her daughter too. Especially considering the bond Angelique shared with her papa over the museum-visits so she too wanted something of her own. She tried a lot, tried teaching Angelique to draw and paint and sculpt, and then she moved on to photography – and that was where they figured it out. Angel hated being behind the camera. But in front of it? Twirling, posing, just like the amazing statues. She wanted to be immortalized posing in fun dynamic ways just like the statues. She loved modeling.

She was sixteen when she took her first modeling gig, after a lot of begging with her parents. Much to everyone's surprise, she blew up. Then again, she was a delicate, very fair white-skinned blonde with large, blue eyes. She was what sold. All too soon, France loved her. Then, Europe loved her – and then the US did. At nineteen, Angel moved to Los Angeles to work for Gold Standard.

“You've been even more chipper than usual, Liebling”, murmured her boyfriend. [German: darling]

He had rolled onto his side to wrap his arms around Angel's waist and keep her in place where she sat on the edge of their bed. She smiled softly as she turned to look down at him while he, in snail-pace, crawled up to rest his head in her lap. Gently, she started running her fingers through his wild ginger curls as Sebastian looked up at her with sleepy, bright eyes.

“Did I wake you, mon amour?”, asked Angel softly. “I'm sorry. You should sleep some more.”

“How can I when my girlfriend is looking radiant like a goddess?”, asked Sebastian.

“I look like always”, laughed Angel confused while tying her favorite bow into her hair.

“Yes. Like I said. A radiant goddess”, confirmed Sebastian.

He smiled and buried his face in Angel's stomach while she laughed even louder. “You're such a charmer. Come on, I have to go to work, you have to let go of me.”

“...Can't I just come with you?”, hummed Sebastian. “I love watching you pose. You look so happy and excited when you do. Pretty please?”

“Basty”, laughed Angel and shook her head. “You know you can't. Company secrets and all. No one is allowed to see it before it is all done. Besides... you have work to go to too?”

“I know”, sighed Sebastian. “But it's not nearly as exciting as spending a day with you, my love.”

“Truly, truly cheesy”, commented Angel and flipped his nose.

He grinned up at her. “Okay, fine. You're right. I'm meeting Mel for breakfast.”

“See?”, chimed Angel and reached for her pearl-earrings. “Have a good day, Sebastian.”

“You too. I'll see you tonight”, replied Sebastian and kissed Angel's cheek.

With a spring in her steps did Angel leave the apartment and head to work. She got six drinks from a café on her work there and left one coffee with the receptionist, who always had a smile for everyone. Upstairs, she first went to visit her best friend Joss. Every morning, after waking up, Angel quickly texted Joss to ask for the preferred pronouns of the day.

“Looking grumpy as ever, my dear”, chimed Angel and kissed Joss' cheek.

“Mh?”, grunted Joss, blinking a couple times. “Been here for two hours already. Got to settle a dispute between Lizzy and Aline about color-schemes. Had to navigate... three galas for Miss Gold. So yes, the day started off irritating enough to make me grumpy.”

“Good thing I brought you your favorite tea then”, smiled Angel, handing it to her. “Join me?”

Joss looked contemplative for a moment before he decided that he might as well check in on the biggest project they currently had. With the tea in one hand, Joss got up and followed Angel toward the shooting, where Noxia was already in the middle of barking orders and setting everything up for today's shoot. Angel stopped in front of Noxia and handed her a pitch-black coffee.

“Here. So there will be less yelling”, smiled Angel, kissing Noxia's cheeks.

“...Thank you”, grumbled Noxia. “Go get changed. And make-up. Shoo.”

Angelique smiled knowingly at her before making her way into make-up, handing the next cup off to her make-up artist. Now there were only two left, one for herself and the other – for her partner.

“Coffee”, groaned Tony relieved as he sank into the chair next to her. “Blessed coffee. Thank you.”

“You're a very bad Brit”, noted Angel teasingly. “You should drink tea.”

“Coffee is one of the few things Americans do right”, stated Tony seriously. “Few.”

“So snarky. Comes into our country, takes jobs away from hard-working hot American models and then complaining about the country”, noted Noxia very dryly. “Typical Brit. Get changed. Go.”

Tony offered her the most dazzling smile and very slowly took a sip of his coffee. Joss chuckled as he came to lean against the vanity and waiting while Tony and Angel hurried off to get into their costumes. Gorgeous, well-fit classic Greece style but made of fur. Angel looked at herself in the mirror, smiling at how powerful she felt like that, with the silver tiara.

“Artemis and Apollo were always my favorites, you know?”, commented Tony from the changing room next to her. “I don't know, the sun and the moon as siblings, actual siblings who also share something – the realm of celestial bodies and also both being archers. I always liked that. All the other gods were always so... so all over the place, with no real connection or sense to their realms.”

“I always liked the duality of Artemis and Apollo”, tagged Joss on when the two joined the others again. “The strength of the female moon, the softness of the male sun.”

Angel and Tony took their seats again to get their make-up and hair done. “I guess Artemis and Apollo are pretty cool. Though personally, I always loved Poseidon the most. I've always been a fan of The Little Mermaid and living under the sea.”

“Yeah, that checks out”, confirmed Tony when he side-eyed her.

Joss smiled at them with a thoughtful look. He had to admit, he had always found the Greek gods interesting too. Now even more than before. His fingers round his cuff-link, the one with the Gemini gem on it. Gemini, the former companion of Athena. The gods used to just be stories Joss found interesting because they mirrored a different culture than the one he had grown up in – and in a way, he had liked to dive into a different culture, put a new paint-job on his soul to distance himself from his family and those who had turned their backs on him. But now he looked at the gods with different eyes. They had just been human. Humans, who had bonded with aliens to gain their special powers and abilities, fighting evil and turning into the stuff of legends. Over the millennia, the Zodiacs had bonded with so many heroes throughout different countries.

He watched how Tony and Angel, in full make-up and costume, got ready for their shoot and he watched them. Artemis and Apollo. There was something so fierce and authentic to them that it felt more like a window into the past. Artemis and Apollo were not just myths, pieces of fiction, they had been real people. And Joss found himself wondering, had they looked anything like Tony and Angel, or entirely different? What had the been like, their personalities and life? There was so much to learn and so much to see, not just the present and the past, but also the future.

[sataniccapitalist]

FEBRUARY 18, 2019

31 Actual National Emergencies

 by PAUL STREET

A Wannabe Strongman’s Brown Menace Straw Man

Everyone with five functioning gray cells knows that the aspiring fascist strongman Donald Trump’s Declaration of a National Emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border is absurd.

There is no “national security crisis” of illegal immigration on the southern United States border.

Illegal crossings are not at “emergency” levels; they are at a fifty-year low.

Undocumented immigrants are not a crime and violence threat.  They are less likely to commit crimes, violent ones included, than naturalized U.S. citizens.

Drugs come into the U.S. not through gaps in border fencing but primarily through legal ports of entry.

There is no big call for a completed U.S.-Mexico wall on the part of U.S. citizens on the southern border.

The United States military has not been “breaking up” and blocking “monstrous caravans” of illegal immigrants trying to harm the U.S.

The only crisis at the border is the humanitarian one created by Trump’s war on asylum-seekers and legal as well as technically illegal immigrants. The wannabe strongman has set up a ridiculous brown menace strawman in an effort to take an unprecedented step. He wants to use the National Emergencies Act to fulfill a ridiculous campaign promises to his white-nationalist base.  He wants to make an end run around Congress to spend federal taxpayer on a project that lawmakers chose not to fund – a political vanity scheme that is opposed by 60 percent of the U.S. populace.

Actual National Emergencies

An irony here is that the United States today is in fact haunted by many actual and interrelated national emergencies.  Here below are the top thirty-one that came to the present writer’s mind this last weekend:

1. Class Inequality. America is mired in a New Gilded Age where economic disparity is so extreme now that the top thousandth (the 0.1 percent, not just the 1 Percent) possesses more wealth than the bottom U.S. 90 percent and three absurdly rich U.S.-Americans – Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett – possess more wealth between them than the bottom half of the country.

2. Poverty. The nation’s 540 billionaires (Trump is one of them) enjoy lives of unimaginable opulence (Trump flew off to one of his resorts to play golf after declaring his “national emergency” – an “emergency” he foolishly said he didn’t actually have to declare) while 15 million children – 21% of all U.S. children – live in families with incomes below the federal poverty threshold, a measurement that has been shown to be drastically below the minimally adequate family budgets families require to meet basic expenses.

3. Plutocracy. “We must make our choice,” onetime Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandies wrote in 1941. “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” Consistent with Brandeis’s warning, the leading mainstream political scientists Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens find through exhaustive research that “the best evidence indicates that the wishes of ordinary Americans actually have had little or no impact on the making of federal government policy.  Wealthy individuals and organized interest groups – especially business corporations – have had much more political clout.  When they are taken into account, it becomes apparent that the general public has been virtually powerless…Government policy,” Page and Gilens determined, “reflects the wishes of those with money, not the wishes of the millions of ordinary citizens who turn out every two years to choose among the preapproved, money-vetted candidates for federal office.” Economic power is so concentrated in the US today you can count on one hand and one finger the multi-trillion-dollar financial institutions that control the nation’s economic and political life: Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley. “You have no choice,” George Carlin used to tell his audiences earlier this century, “You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.”

4. Bad Jobs. Trump boasts of American job creation and low official unemployment rate (real joblessness is a different story) while deleting the fact that tens of millions of the nation’s workers struggle with jobs whose pay lags far behind employment growth thanks to declining unionization (down to 6.5% of the private-sector workforce due to decades of relentless employer hostility), inadequate minimum wages, globalization, automation, and outsourcing. A third of the nation’s workers make less than $12 an hour ($24,960 a year assuming full-time work) and 42% get less than $15 ($31,200 a year). Good luck meeting a family’s food, rent, childcare, medical, and car payment (car ownership is often required in a nation that lacks adequate public transportation) costs on those kinds of returns on labor power. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently reported that a record 7 million U.S.-Americans are three months or more behind on their par payments. As the Washington Post reports: “Economists warn this is a red flag. Despite the strong economy and low unemployment rate, many Americans are struggling to pay their bills. ‘The substantial and growing number of distressed borrowers suggests that not all Americans have benefited from the strong labor market,’ economists at the New York Fed wrote in a blog post. A car loan is typically the first payment people make because a vehicle is critical to getting to work, and someone can live in a car if all else fails. When car loan delinquencies rise, it is a sign of significant duress among low-income and working-class Americans.”

5. Corporate Media Consolidation is so extreme in the U.S. now that just six corporations – Comcast, FOX, Disney, Viacom, CBS, and AT&T – together own more than half of traditional U.S. media content print, film and electronic. The Internet giants Google, Facebook, and Amazon rule online communication and shopping. (It is isn’t just about “news and information” [Carlin], by the way. The corporate-owned mass media probably spreads capitalist, racist, sexist, authoritarian, and military-imperialist propaganda more effectively through its entertainment wing than it does through its new and public/political affairs wing. A movie like “American Sniper” beats CNN reporting bias when it comes to advancing the U.S. imperial project [see #s 28 and 29 below]. A film like Clint Eastwood’s “Gran Torino” beats the evening news when it comes to advancing racist mass incarceration and racial segregation [see #s 6 and 9 below]).

6. Racial Disparity and Apartheid. The U.S. Black-white wealth gap is stark: 8 Black median household cents on the white median household dollar. Equally glaring is the nation’s level of racial segregation.  In the Chicago, New York, Detroit, and Milwaukee metropolitan areas, for example more than three in every four Black people would have to (be allowed to) move from their nearly all-black Census tracts into whiter ones in order to live in a place whose racial composition matched that of the broader region in which they reside. These two statistical measures are intimately interrelated since housing markets distribute so much more than just housing.  They also distribute access to jobs, good schools, green spaces, full-service groceries, safety, medical services and more that matters for “equal opportunity” and advancement.

7. Gender Inequality. Among full-time U.S. workers, women make 81 cents for every dollar a man is paid. The gap is worse in part-time employment since women more commonly work reduced schedules to handle domestic labor. Women ‘s median retirement savings are roughly one third of those of men. Households headed by single women with children have a poverty rate of 35.6 percent, more than double the 17.3 percent rate for households headed by single men with children. Women comprise just 27 percent of the nation’s top 10 income percent, 17 percent of the upper 1 percent, and 11 percent of the top 0.1 percent. By contrast, women make up nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of U.S. workers paid the federal minimum wage.

8. Native American Poverty. Thanks to the savage white-“settler” ethnic-cleansing of most of North America from the 16th century through 1900, Indigenous people make up just 1 percent of the U.S. population. The Native American poverty rate (28%) is double that of the nation as a whole and is particularly high in most of the commonly isolated and high-unemployment reservations where just more than a fifth of the nation’s Indigenous population lives. Native American life expectancy is 6 years short of the national average. In some states, Native American life expectancy is 20 years less than the national average. In Montana, Native American men live on average just 56 years.

9. Racist Mass Arrest, Incarceration, and Criminal Marking. The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, fueled by the racially disparate waging of the so-called War on Drugs. The racial disparities are so extreme that 1 in very 10 U.S. Black men is in prison or jail on any given day. One in 3 Black adult males are saddled with the permanent crippling mark of a felony record ��� what law professor Michelle Alexander has famously called “the New Jim Crow.” Blacks make up 12% of the U.S. population but 38% of the nation’s state prison population.

10. Trumpism/Fascism. The U.S. mass media focuses so heavily on the seemingly interminable awfulness of the creeping fascist Donald Trump (whose hideous nature is a ratings bonanza at CNN and MSNBC) that it is easy to lose sight of the fascistic horror of his authoritarian and white-nationalist supporters – roughly a third of the nation. The best social and political science research on Trump’s base reveals a fascist-like movementseeking a “strong” authoritarian “leader” who will rollback civil liberties and the gains won by women and racial and ethnic minorities since the 1960s. Trumpism wants to Make America more fully white-supremacist, patriarchal, and authoritarian (“great”) Again. Herr Donald’s disproportionately armed throng of die-hard devotees backs their Dear Leader no matter how terribly he behaves. It is a grave, creeping fascist threat to democracy.

11. The War on Truth. The aspiring fascist leader Trump made on average 15 false statements per day in 2018. He had stated more than 7,600 untruths as president by the end of last year. Trump lies constantly about matters big and small. He is a practitioner of what Chris Hedges calls “the permanent lie.” It is no small matter. In his description of this as “the most ominous threat” posed by Trump, Hedges quotes the philosopher Hannah Arendt. “The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth,” Arendt wrote in her classic volume The Origins of Totalitarianism, “is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end—is being destroyed.” Trump is only the most extreme and egregious wave of fabrication in a vast sea of national deception. U.S.-Americans, once accurately described by Alex Carey as “the most propagandized people in the world,” are surrounded by duplicitous and misleading information and imagery. This constant barrage of falsehood – examples include the thoroughly untrue notion that the U.S. possessed  a “great democracy” for the Trump campaign and Russia to (supposedly) “undermine” in 2016 – threatens to exhaust our capacity to distinguish fact from fiction.

12. Gun Violence. Fully 40,000 people died from shootings in the American “armed madhouse” in 2017 (we are still waiting for the grisly statistic for 2018). The U.S. was home to 322 mass shootings that killed 387 people and injured 1,227 in 2018. Twenty-eight mass shootings, killing 36 and wounding 92, took place in January of this year. A mass shooting killed five workers in Aurora, Illinois, on the very day (last Friday) that Trump declared his fake national emergency.

13. Sexual Violence. One in 5 women and 1 in 71 men will be raped at some point in their lives in the U.S.

14. Illiteracy and Innumeracy. More than 30 million adults in the United States cannot read, write, or do basic math above a third-grade level.

15. Manufactured Mass Ignorance and Amnesia. Thanks to corporate control of the nation’s media and schools, U.S.-Americans are shockingly ignorant of basic facts relating to their own history and society. White U.S.-Americans are mired in extraordinary denial about the level of Black-white inequality and the depth and degree of discrimination faced by Black Americans today. U.S.-Americans in general know next to nothing about the criminal and mass-murderous havoc U.S. foreign policy wreaks around the world.  This renders them incapable of understanding world politics and woefully vulnerable to nationalistic propaganda and militarism. Eleven years historian Rick Shenkman wrote a book titled “Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter.” Shenkman found that a majority of Americans: didn’t know which party was in control of Congress; couldn’t name the chief justice of the Supreme Court; didn’t know the U.S. had three branches of government; believed George W. Bush’s argument the United States should invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein had attacked America on 9/11. Ask an average U.S.-American when the American War of Independence or the Civil War or WWII were fought and why, what the Bill of Rights was, what fascism is past and present, or what the Civil Rights Movement was about, and you will get blank stares and preposterously wrong answers. A people that doesn’t know its history wanders without a clue through the present and stumbles aimlessly into the future. Real historical knowledge is a great democratic people’s weapon and it is in perilously short supply in the U.S. today.

16. The Israel and Saudi Lobbies. Israel’s power in U.S. politics and political culture is so absurdly exaggerated that a freshman Muslim U.S. Congressional Representative (Ilhan Omar) was recently subjected to a massive and bipartisan political assault absurdly charging her with “anti-Semitism” for daring to Tweet seven words suggesting the elementarily true fact that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – a deep-powerful, deep-pockets public relations and lobbying organization committed to the advance of Israeli state interests – exercises money-lubricated influence on U.S. politics and policy. To visibly raise the question of Palestinian rights and Israel’s horrendous treatment of Arab peoples is to invite an onslaught from the Israel Lobby’s vicious and powerful attack-dogs. They’ve even been known to strip professors of tenure. Meanwhile, the despotic Saudi regime, possibly the most reactionary government on Earth, continues through money and other means to exercise huge influence on U.S. politics even as it senselessly crucifies the people of Yemen (with direct U.S. military assistance), cultivates terrorism across the Muslim world, and vivisects dissident journalists in its foreign embassies.

17. Neo-McCarthyism. The original Orwellian-American and Russia-mad McCarthyism of the late 1940s and 1950s has been resurrected in the post-Soviet era with a curious partisan twist. Anti-Russian hysteria has been picked up by the Democratic Party, which has been eager to blame its pathetic failure to defeat Trump on Russia’s supposedly powerful “interference in our [unmentionably non-existent] democracy” in 2016 – and to deny its politicos’ role in provoking any such relevant Russian interference as may have occurred. On the Republican side, Trump (who was mentored by Senator Joe McCarthy’s onetime chief counsel Roy Cohn!) and other GOP leaders now routinely follow in the footsteps of Joe McCarthy by calling even cringingly centrist corporate-neoliberal Democrats and everything they propose “socialist.” One of the most horrific moments in Herr Donald’s sickening State of the Union Address came when the Orange Mother of all Malignant Assholes (OMoAMA) told the assembled federal officials to “renew” the nation’s “pledge” that “America will never be a socialist country.”  Numerous Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy “We’re Capitalist and That’s Just the Way it is” Pelosi (net worth $71 million) and “progressive” U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren ($11 million) joined the GOPers in attendance in applauding that “pledge.”  McCarthyism was always and remains a richly bipartisan disease.

18. Health Care and Health. The United States’ corporate-owned/-managed for-profit health care system is the most expensive in the world but ranks just 12th in life expectancy among the 12 wealthiest industrialized countries. The U.S. spends almost three times more on healthcare as do other countries with comparable incomes. Reflecting poor, commercialized and corporate-imposed food systems and lethally sedentary life styles, 58 percent of the U.S. population is overweight, a major health risk factor.

19. Bad Schools. The nation’s expensive but very unequally funded schools deliver terrible outcomes. Among the world’s 34 ranking OECD nations, U.S. schools are the fifth most expensive, but the U.S. ranks scores far below average in math.  It ranks 17th among in reading and 21st in science.

20. Child Abuse. Childhelp reports that “Every year more than 3.6 million referrals are made to child protection agencies involving more than 6.6 million children. The United States has one of the worst records among industrialized nations – losing on average between four and seven children every day to child abuse and neglect…A report of child abuse is made very ten seconds.”

21. Depression and Substance Abuse. The United States, once described by onetime U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson as “the beacon to the world of the way life should be” (in a speech supporting the Congressional authorization of George W. Bush to invade Iraq) has the third highest rates of depression and anxiety and the second highest rate of drug use in the world. “One in five adults in the U.S. experiences some form of mental illness each year,” according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. That estimate is certainly absurdly low.

22. Immigrant Workers Without Rights. Undocumented immigrants make up 55% of hired labor on farms, 15% of laborers in construction, and 9% in both industry and the service sector. “These workers,” CBS reported earlier this year, “play vital roles in the U.S. economy, erecting American buildings, picking American apples and grapes, and taking care of American babies. Oh, and paying American taxes.”  Their technically illegal status makes them easily exploited by employers and undermines their ability to organize and fight for decent conditions both for themselves for other workers.

23. The Dreamer Nightmare. Eight hundred thousand people living in the U.S. were brought to the country as children by parents without U.S. citizenship.  These “Dreamers’” legal status is stuck in limbo.  They are not allowed to vote. They live in the shadow of possible future deportation, with their legal status treated as a partisan political football.

24. Vote Suppression. State-level racist voter suppression and de facto disenfranchisement is rife across the United States. Among other things, this has contributed significantly to the Republicans winning the presidency in 2000, 2004, and 2016. A “gentleman’s agreement” between the two reigning political parties pushes this critical problem to the margins of public discussion. (The Democrats have widely ignored the matter while they have obsessed for two years plus about Russia’s real or alleged role in the last election.  Moscow’s influence was likely small compared to American-as-Apple Pie racist voter suppression in electing Trump.) “The United States,” political scientist David Schutlz noted on Counterpunch last year, “is the only country in the world that still does not have in its Constitution an explicit clause  affirmatively granting a right to vote for all or some of its citizens.”

25. The Absurdly Archaic U.S. Constitution. Popular sovereignty, also known as democracy was the late 18thcentury U.S. Founders’ ultimate nightmare.  They crafted an aristo-republican national charter brilliantly crafted to keep it at bay – in the darkly ironic name of “We the People.”  Two and a third centuries later, their handiwork continues to do its explicitly un- and anti-democratic work through such openly authoritarian mechanisms as the Electoral College, the apportionment of two Senators to every U.S. state regardless of population, the distant time-staggering of elections, the lifetime presidential appointment and Senate approval of Supreme Court justices.  The preposterously venerated U.S. Constitution is an ongoing 232-year old authoritarian calamity in dire need of a radical and democratic overhaul. It is long past time for the populace to declare a national emergency and call for a Constituent Assembly to draft a new national governing structure dedicated to meaning popular self-rule.

26. Trump and the Imperial Presidency. The OMoAMA (Trump) is by all indications a demented and malignant narcissist, a pure sociopath, and a creeping fascist. But the fact that someone as twisted, venal, sexist, and racist as Trump can pose dire threats to humanity in the first place is in no small part a function of the extreme powers that have accrued to the United States constitutionally super-empowered executive branch over the many decades in which the U.S. has reigned as the world’s most powerful state.  The absurdly vast and authoritarian powers of the imperial presidency are an on ongoing national and global emergency.

27. Election Madness/Electoralism. In the early spring of 2008, the late radical American historian Howard Zinn wrote powerfully against the “Election Madness” he saw “engulfing the entire society including the left” in the year of Obama’s ascendancy. “An election frenzy seizes the country every four years,” Zinn worried, “because we have all been brought up to believe that voting is crucial in determining our destiny, that the most important act a citizen can engage in is to go to the polls. …” Zinn said he would support one major-party candidate over another but only “for two minutes—the amount of time it takes to pull the lever down in the voting booth.” Then he offered sage counsel, reminding us that time-staggered candidate-centered major party electoralism is a very weak surrogate for real popular sovereignty, which requires regular grassroots organization and militancy beneath and beyond what his good friend Noam Chomsky has called“the quadrennial electoral extravaganza”: “Before and after those two minutes, our time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice. … We should not expect that a victory at the ballot box in November will even begin to budge the nation from its twin fundamental illnesses: capitalist greed and militarism. … Before [elections] … and after … we should be taking direct action against the obstacles to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. … Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities, until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war. Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.” The reigning “mainstream” US media and politics culture is fiercely dedicated to advancing the hegemony of the major party candidate-centered election cycle, advancing the deadly totalitarian notion that those two minutes in a ballot box  once every four years – generally choosing among politics vetted in advance for us by the nation’s unelected and interrelated dictatorships of money and empire – is the sum total of “politics” – the only politics that really matters.  Since the hidden corporate control of the US electoral politics on behalf of the center-right ruling class rules out victory for candidates who accurately reflect majority left-progressive public opinion, these ritual exercises in fake democracy deeply reinforce the fatalistic and false belief that most Americans are centrist and right-wing. The 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Iowa-New Hampshire circus is already sucking up vast swaths of cable news coverage and commentary while numerous pressing matters (like most of what is listed in the present essay) is largely ignored. It’s pathetic.

28. Guns Over Butter. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. rightly preached that the U.S. could not end poverty or escape “spiritual death” as long as it diverted vast swaths of its tax revenue to a giant war machine that “draw [s] men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube.” Just over half a century after King said this, the United States gives 54 percent of its federal discretionary to the Pentagon System, a giant subsidy to high-tech “defense” (war and empire) corporations like Raytheon and Boeing. Six million U.S, children live in “deep poverty,” at less than half (!) the federal government’s obscenely inadequate poverty level, while the U.S, government maintains 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territoriesaround the world (Britain, France, and Russia together have a combined 30 foreign bases) and accounts for nearly 40 percent of all global military spending. It is deeply offensive that the progressive-populist (fake-“democratic socialist”) U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has repeatedly cited Scandinavian nations as his social-democratic policy role models without having the elementary Dr. Kingian decency to note that those countries dedicate relatively tiny portions of their national budgets to the military. It is disturbing but predictable that most Congressional Democrats voted for Trump’s record-setting $700 billion Pentagon budget last year. U.S. Americans must choose: we can have democracy, social justice, guaranteed free health care, well-funded public schools, and livable ecology or we can have a giant global war machine.  We can’t have both.

29. Doctrinal Denial of U.S. Imperialism. Across the U.S. “mainstream” political and media spectrum, it is beyond the pale of acceptable discussion to acknowledge that the United States is a deeply criminal and imperialist power. The examples are endless. It is normative for U.S. cable talking heads, pundits, and politicians to discuss Eastern Europe or East Asia as if the Washington has as much right to influence developments there as Moscow and Beijing, respectively. Terrible developments in the Middle East and North Africa are routinely discussed by “mainstream “U.S. politicos, talking heads, and pundits as if the United States had not wreaked nearly indescribable havoc on Iraq and Libya and the broader Muslim world. Migrants seeking asylum from Central America are regularly reported and discussed with zero reference to the fact that the United States has inflicted massive and bloody devastation on that region for decades – and without mentioning the Obama administration’s support of a vicious right-wing coup in Honduras in the spring of 2009.  Reporting on the current political crisis in Venezuela comes with complete Orwellian deletion of the United States’ role in crippling the nation’s democratically elected socialist government on the model of the Nixon administration’s campaign to undermine Chile’s democratically elected socialist government in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  No serious discussion is permitted of the historical context of Washington’s longstanding intervention and regime-change operations across Latin America. The reigning Empire-denial is absurd.

30. Amazon. Google (lol) up its mind-boggling and many-sided monopolistic reach and then thank the New York City Left for stopping this public-subsidy-sucking, zero tax-paying corporate monstrosity from setting up its headquarters in the nation’s largest city.

31. Last but not at all least, Ecocide. The climate catastrophe poses grave existential threats to livable ecology and all prospects for a decent human future. It is a national and global emergency of epic proportions. It is the single biggest issue of our or any time. If this environmental calamity is not averted soon, nothing else that progressives and decent citizens everywhere care about is going to matter all that much. The United Nations Panel on Climate Change has recently warned that we have a dozen years to keep global warming to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which true cataclysm will fall upon hundreds of millions of people. Under the command of capital, we are currently on a pace to melt Antarctica by 2100. The unfolding climate disaster’s leading political and economic headquarters is the United State, home to a super-powerful fossil fuel industry with a vast, deeply funded lobbying and public relations apparatus dedicated to turning the planet into a giant Greenhouse Gas Chamber.

Towards a Green New Deal

If a vicious and moronic creeping fascist like Donald Trump can declare a fake national emergency over a non-existent crisis in order to build a political vanity wall rejected by Congress and 60 percent of the population, perhaps a future decent and democratic government sincerely committed to the common good could declare a national emergency to address the all-too real climate crisis by moving the nation off fossil fuels and on to renewable energy sources while advancing environmentally sustainable practices and standards across economy and society.  A properly crafted Green New Deal would also and necessarily address other and related national emergencies including the crises of financial oligarchy, bad jobs, inequality, poverty, plutocracy, racial inequality, mass incarceration, untruth, inadequate health care, fascism, poor schooling, mental illness, substance abuse, gun violence, militarism-imperialism, gender disparity, spiritual death, and much more.  I plan in a future essay to elaborate on what it is meant by a “properly crafted Green New Deal.”

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PAUL STREET

Paul Street’s latest book is They Rule: The 1% v. Democracy (Paradigm, 2014)

[sleemo]

John Boyega: ‘It will never be just a job’

The Star Wars actor talks about swapping south London for a galaxy far, far away. 

— The Sunday Times Magazine (Dec 16, 2017)

John Boyega auditioned for seven months to land a role in the biggest film franchise of them all. Now he’s the most loved ex-stormtrooper in the galaxy. The Star Wars actor tells Ben Hoyle about growing up in south London, sofa surfing in Los Angeles to save money – and making it as a world-famous star and producer by the age of 25

You knew that John Boyega was different as soon as he dived over the back of his agent’s sofa. 

It was October 20, 2015, and the young south Londoner was catching his first glimpse of the full-length trailer for Star Wars: the Force Awakens. The film would be the first in the franchise since Disney paid George Lucas $4 billion for the company, Lucasfilm, that owned Star Wars. The trailer was a masterpiece of blockbuster marketing. Around the world Star Wars devotees swooned at a silver-haired Han Solo hugging a weeping Princess Leia, at Darth Vader’s crumpled mask, at R2-D2, Chewbacca and the Millennium Falcon all being back in action. Everything was meticulously planned and choreographed to provoke the biggest possible global emotional response.

Everything, except for Boyega’s reaction to the trailer. That was what made it so appealing. In the video, which the actor posted to Instagram and which has racked up more than one million views on YouTube, Boyega is tense at first, sitting on a sofa in someone’s living room with his arms folded and his eyes intently on the screen, breathing heavily. 

A minute in he shouts, “Come on!” and then starts nodding, increasingly vigorously, as glimpses of scenes unfold. Then he’s saying, “Yep, yep, yep,” repeatedly, until the trailer gets to the point where his character, Finn, takes guard with a lightsaber. At this point, Boyega bursts into a yell of triumph, pumps both fists and rolls over the back of the sofa in delight while the friend sitting next to him roars with joy and disbelief.

The shouting didn’t last long though, a grinning Boyega says on the eve of the release of the next film in the series, Star Wars: the Last Jedi. “I was in my agent’s apartment and his missus was like, ‘Keep the noise down,’” he says, doing a high-pitched, unimpressed voice. “It was a great moment, but after that you just ... watch it again. And again. And again.”

All those YouTube views were you, then? “Yeah, yeah!” He starts laughing. “Exactly!”

I meet the world’s most famous Anglo-Nigerian former stormtrooper in a hotel in Los Angeles. A whole floor of the hotel has been decked out in Star Wars memorabilia ranging from the obvious (action figures, cuddly toys) to Darth Vader pyjamas for dogs. You are left in no doubt that much more is at stake here than simply making a good or bad film: it’s a movie that is almost certain to be the most successful film of the year and quite likely to be one of the biggest of all time.

This year Boyega has been on the cover of Vanity Fair, Variety and GQ and been named one of Time magazine’s Next Generation Leaders. A few nights ago he was on The Tonight Show, showing off his Michael Jackson dance moves for Jimmy Fallon. At 25, Boyega is no longer the newcomer that he was the last time he took a spin around the Star Wars promotional circuit. 

He is famous enough to have caused a small scandal among more easily outraged Star Wars fans by grinding with a skimpily dressed performer at the Notting Hill Carnival this summer – and confident enough to have, quite rightly, shrugged it off. He tends to speak his mind, slapping down Samuel L Jackson on Twitter for suggesting that black British actors do not “really feel” the hardship of the African-American experience as “a stupid ass conflict that we don’t have time for”. In May, The Times hailed his “very fine and distressingly good performance” in the title role of Woyzeck at the Old Vic.

As well as acting, he has become a producer on Pacific Rim Uprising, out next year, in which he also stars. And he’s just appeared in The Hollywood Reporter with Tom Hanks and Gary Oldman in a discussion with likely Oscar contenders. (Boyega has been critically lauded for his performance in Detroit, set during the city’s 1967 riot.) In other words, he’s a fully fledged movie star these days.

The door opens and I’m ushered into Boyega’s presence. All I can see is a pair of box-fresh white trainers and some black trousers lurking under a huge dark rectangle. There is silence in the room. For a few moments it’s as if I have stumbled into a new performance art phase of his relentless career advance.

Then, with a briefly weary look, the actor puts down the mounted Star Wars promotional poster that he’d been examining from his white leather chair, offers me his hand and switches on his big interview grin.

Boyega is 5ft 9in, stockily built with a powerful physical presence, a Peckham accent and a boisterous personality that probably fills most rooms that he enters. It doesn’t take him long to warm up.

He looks lean and muscular today beneath his blue and white Valentino jacket. Handily, he has a body that bursts with muscles as soon as he starts working on it, he says. But he is quite happy to let himself go a bit for a role too, as he did with Detroit. He likes being “chubby”.

“I just like delicious carbs,” he says, beaming. “I like diversity in many ways. And one thing I’ve always been aware of is diversity in character and shape. There’s a view of perfection on the screen constantly being fed to us, and you look at the heroes in real life and you’re like, there should be more of a difference there.”

Before long he’s leaning forward, furrowing his brows and gripping an imaginary lightsaber, ready for battle. Laughing at himself, but also serious, he is explaining why that instant in The Force Awakens trailer meant so much to him.

“Watching myself with the lightsaber. When you’re on set it’s not as epic. That specific moment of it lighting up, yeah? You hold it and then the cameras roll, and then they go, ‘Action!’ and then the director shouts, ‘Er ... Ignite!’ and then they pause. They swap out the saber for the lit one and someone runs in [he acts out this part], puts it in your hand, and then you have to just go, ‘Grrrrrrr.’ [Here he snaps back into his fight pose and grimaces.] It’s still illuminated, ’cos Dan Mindel [director of photography on The Force Awakens] uses the sabers to make the face pop. So he remotely controls the levels of the sabers. When you crash them together, they turn white. It’s cool. They can change the colours of your saber. And I always ask him, ‘Do my rainbow one,’ in between takes.”

Boyega starts swiping the air with his imaginary lightsaber, chuckling and adding his own sound effects, as a six-year-old boy might: “Wooowoooohoooohoooo!”

The trailer was also special because Boyega is an unabashed fanboy himself. “I’d grown up wanting to be in major Hollywood films and I was the type of person to always check to see what new trailers were on YouTube and to watch B-rolls [extra, usually soundless footage shot to illustrate a story]. I buy DVDs so I can watch the special features. Marketing [of big films] is something that has always intrigued me. So it was like endless curiosity ... Then to be involved in it, for me, it was like: this is nuts!

“I don’t think it will ever feel like just a job. And that’s also me just kind of trying to draw some lessons from watching Mark, Harrison and Carrie [Hamill, Ford and Fisher].” Making Star Wars films becomes all-consuming, he says. “You go into isolation. You go into Pinewood [studios], and we make the movies. And then when the movies are cooking, there’s a quietness. And when the movies are coming out, there is always going to be that natural thing of, now we get the audience involved – you know, to see what we’ve got.”

What he really loves is making the films. “The collaborating of people is something special. That collaboration, where for six, seven months you’re part of one family, coming in every day, filming different scenes ... That to me is where I feel at home. It’s not interviews, it’s not red-carpet stuff. It’s the real deal where it’s acting, it’s technique, it’s craft. It’s great.”

Shooting can be hilarious, though. “Saying all this serious stuff, looking up and then pushing buttons that don’t exist,” he laughs. “I remember when we were filming the gunner sequence in The Force Awakens, I’m shooting, and JJ Abrams, the director, is like, ‘Uh, John, can you push more buttons? Please? It just makes you look more important.’”

Then there was the day Princes William and Harry visited the set of The Last Jedi and dressed up for cameos as stormtroopers. “It was definitely random to meet them. But, then I thought, ‘Well, we are filming it in the UK. Why wouldn’t we have royal approval?’”

Returning to the Star Wars circuit for a second time “feels different”. He knows what to expect this time round. “It just gets real loud.” He finds himself thinking, “Just release the film, man! We want people to go see it.”

When The Force Awakens came out Boyega went to New York to surprise fans at cinemas across the city and then flew home to London to make further unannounced appearances at screenings in Peckham, Greenwich and Brixton.

“I stayed in the city, in London, just to witness everything going crazy. Now I’m going on holiday – time for some separation. I’m going to Nigeria and the Caribbean.”

Surely you can’t get away from Star Wars – even there? “Oh, in Nigeria and the Caribbean you can ... to a certain extent. ’Cos they put a Nigerian in Star Wars, Nigerians are like, ‘We’re gonna go see it.’ But the role is secondary – it’s more about who you are, your family. And then it’s like, ‘Oh, he is also in that Star Wars film.’”

Boyega was born in Camberwell to first-generation immigrant Nigerian parents, nine years after Return of the Jedi came out. He grew up on a council estate in nearby Peckham. His father, Samson, was a Pentecostal preacher and also a “massive Bruce Willis fan”. His mother, Abigail, worked with disabled children. He has two older sisters: Blessing, a train driver and beauty blogger, and Grace, who works as his assistant. The family had “struggles”, which is why money matters “the most” to him now. “We’ve come a very long way,” he says, proudly.

At 17, the age that Boyega was when he started acting seriously, “my dad was on the streets in Africa, selling food to random drivers and farming part-time. My mum used to sell water and sausages on the street. So finances, financial stability, is something that’s important for my family.” 

He recently bought his parents a house. Do they still work? “Oh, I told them to stop all that.” Samson still preaches, “But the ministry has changed, in the sense that now I give him funds to be able to go and change other people’s lives. My mum and dad travel to Nigeria with their charity and they give water, toilet and educational facilities to neighbouring villages.”

Boyega has always bristled at media efforts to paint his life as the rags-to-riches fable of a boy who escaped the supposedly mean streets of Peckham to scale the heights of Hollywood.

“They went to town on that, and that was hilarious,” he says, not laughing. A while ago a newspaper ran a profile of him suggesting that he grew up surrounded by drugs, violence and gang life. He skewered it with a brusque tweet: “Inaccurate. Stereotypical. NOT my story.”

He does not want to clarify how well he knew Damilola Taylor, the ten-year-old Nigerian boy who went to his school and who was stabbed to death on the North Peckham estate in 2000. “That for me is personal,” he says with finality. But Damilola’s father, Richard Taylor, whom Boyega invited to the London premiere of The Force Awakens, has said, “Damilola and John and Grace were so close.” They were walking home with him on the day that he died, according to Taylor. Of all his friends, “They were the last to see him.”

Despite that tragedy, Boyega loved his youth and remembers it as full of culture and opportunity. “I had a fantastic childhood,” he has said. “I was exposed to a world of dance, tap, musical theatre. I performed at the Royal Albert Hall when I was 13.”

He joined Theatre Peckham, a programme for talented children, and studied performing arts at South Thames College. A small role in a prison drama at the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn led to a lead part in 2011’s Attack the Block, Joe Cornish’s cult British sci-fi comedy. From the moment that a menacing Boyega appeared on screen, mugging a young nurse on her way home from work one night and then, seconds later, fighting for his life with an alien that has burst out of a car glove compartment, it was clear that he had both a magnetic talent and a gift for making the most outlandish material seem convincing.

He dropped out of his BA in film studies at the University of Greenwich after seeing Johnny Depp shooting a Pirates of the Caribbean film on campus. He realised he wanted to do that, and wasn’t getting any closer to it in the classroom.

Finding good acting jobs in Britain hard to come by, he started going to America looking for a break. He was 19. He stayed in West Hollywood for a while but ran out of money and “ended up sleeping on a sofa in Inglewood [a predominantly black neighbourhood], with a family there. They’re still like my family. It gives you perspective on many, many things. And they were a black-conscious family. So there were DVDs we were watching, and obviously lectures, talking about the black community, black finance.” He still visits them “all the time” and appreciates having a reference point to keep him grounded. “But to be honest, because of my background, because of the way I am and how I grew up, it’s what I attract. It’s what my universe attracts. I attract the folk that grew up the way I did. I can relate.”

In 2012 Boyega was in Los Angeles working on a Spike Lee pilot for a TV boxing drama that never got made. He had a meeting with Bryan Burk, the co-founder with JJ Abrams of the production company Bad Robot. Burk thought that Boyega was “fantastic” in Attack the Block and in person found him to be “as friendly as he is talented”. While Boyega was at the office he bumped into Abrams, who was walking out of an editing suite with Tom Cruise. He recalled in an Instagram post last year how he “mentally slowed down their epic two-man walk” and set it to a Jay-Z song in his head. Abrams knew him, too, said he had also loved Attack the Block and promised to get him a part “in something”. The post contains Boyega’s response: “Thanks mate and sure (fully not believing a word this man said).”

But Burk and Abrams did keep him in their thoughts. Casting The Force Awakens, they brought his name up “early on”. In Boyega’s second audition “the magic was right there”, Burk says. But the process took seven months of auditions. Boyega, being Boyega, “felt like I was gonna get the part, because they kept on bringing me back too many times”. At the end of the 7 months, he spent his last £70 on a 45-minute taxi ride to meet Abrams in Mayfair and discover his fate. He was now a bit nervous but still filmed the whole journey so he would be able to remember what life felt like before his world possibly changed for ever.

His casting led to racist abuse. Boyega refused to be cowed. “I’m proud of my heritage, and no man can take that away from me. I wasn’t raised to fear people with a difference of opinion. They are merely victims of a disease in their mind,” he later told The New York Times. “I’m grounded in who I am, and I am a confident black man.”

On set it swiftly became apparent he was also a fan let loose in the Star Wars universe. “When we did the film,” says Burk, “most of us were fans stepping into that world.” But Boyega was much less embarrassed about it. “My fondest memory of him was on Harrison’s last day of shooting. He had an enormous Han Solo action figure, 2ft tall – Harrison in his stormtrooper outfit in the original film. He had Harrison sign it. I think all of us actually were thinking, ‘Why didn’t we bring our Han Solo action figures in for Harrison to sign?’” 

Even now Boyega looks wide-eyed remembering “the room would stop” when Ford, Fisher and Hamill were interacting with each other. 

Hamill was the one Boyega directed his “nerd questions” to, because, “He will give you detail. It’s cool to hear his experiences.” Boyega, who still plays Star Wars video games, admires Hamill so much that on days when he was not shooting on The Last Jedi he would often go in anyway just to watch Hamill act.

Fisher stunned him early on by inviting him to come and stay with her in Beverly Hills. “I remember saying, ‘Carrie, that’s very generous, but like, we just met each other. I’m not just gonna come and stay in your guest house.” He regrets saying no, because going to stay with the famously hard-living Fisher would have been “pretty darn fun”. She died in December last year when Boyega was on a boat in Nigeria celebrating his parents’ wedding anniversary. The whole family was distraught. “It was a shocker,” he says. 

Of all the original principals, though, it is Ford who seems to have made the biggest impression, and not just because Han Solo was Boyega’s favourite character growing up. 

“Everyone has a fear of Harrison that I quite like,” he says, laughing. “He’s actually really chill.” On the last promotional tour Ford asked Boyega to show him somewhere local to eat in London. Boyega took him to 805, a Nigerian restaurant next to a Ladbrokes on the Old Kent Road. They sat by the bar and had fruit cocktails, soup made with pounded yam and jollof rice with plantain.

“Loads of people came around him and he was chill ... We were waiting for our car to pull up, and there were Nigerian men outside drinking and going [he puts on a strong Nigerian accent], ‘Oh, Harrison, good to see you.’ At his level of stardom, it’s nice to see that example and know that it’s my choice to keep a level of normality, to be able to be brave enough to go to a restaurant and to have a great time regardless.”

Ford also proved more able than the other two to carve out a major acting career beyond Star Wars, something that Boyega is already doing. “If you wait for the trilogy to be over there’s more convincing to do. Whereas, if you do other roles around Star Wars, the audience gets used to seeing you in different things.”

In Detroit Boyega has one of the larger roles in an ensemble drama – a harrowing portrait of racial tension in Sixties America. Boyega says Detroit proved “the audience believed me in something serious, ’cos I was worried that they’re going to be like, ‘What’s Finn doin’ over here?’ Nobody had that reaction to me. That really brought my blood pressure down.” 

The film paints a portrait of black life in Detroit at the time, pushing beyond simple “ghetto” stereotypes in just the same way that Boyega wants people to understand that there is more to Peckham than urban blight. “Sometimes we like to simplify things in the world just to process them more easily, and sometimes we need to be careful with that.” 

He still lives in south London, where he shares a flat with a roommate. “One thing I like is to go back to my local off-licence. The owner of the store has the Star Wars posters up, so I see that every single time I go. I’m like, ‘Boss, man.’ He’s like, ‘Oh, you’re back!’” The shop is Khan’s Bargain on Rye Lane. “Go get some stuff there, guys!” Boyega says, leaning over my Dictaphone. “He’s got my favourite childhood sweets. They’re like 39p; you get 3 for £1. If it goes over £1, man, I’m gonna be like, ‘You gotta be taking the piss!’ When I’m back home and I’m hanging out with my friends, we hang out the way we always hang out. And I’m gonna need sweets.” 

Is there anything he can’t do any more? Not really. He has always been a “homebody” and had sought out privacy long before he was famous. “When I was 16, I was like, ‘I can’t be getting on public transport no more, man.’ I already wanted to be in my own car, play my music, having my AC on.” 

He has bigger ambitions now. Bryan Burk says that he’s “100 per cent” sure that Boyega can become a successful producer and be “a lot more than just a leading man. I see him really putting his imprint on all types of movies.” 

But first there are celebrations to plan. Four of them. Boyega is throwing “three massive parties” in Nigeria over Christmas and a friend is helping to organise a costume party for him, his family and friends in Britain. The theme will be “villains only”. Can people come as a stormtrooper then? “Yeah, definitely. Come as whoever you want to come as.” 

So does he own a stormtrooper outfit? John Boyega, the first actor ever to portray these armoured warriors with humanity, looks horrified at the very idea.

“I would never carry that home. It just reminds me of getting chipped in the armpit by the plastic.” He pauses for a beat. “But a helmet I am dying to have.”

[allisquish]

stargazer, chapter 1

chapter 2 chapter 3

hi hello yes don’t mind me as i just drop a yondu udonta x reader fic and run…. tbh, a big inspiration for this comes from this fic here that I recently stumbled across just browsing gotg fic… which apparently was A Thing I Didn’t Know I Wanted. But it’s super good, I loved it and now here we are. 

Reader is a terran trapped on Sakaar serving the Grandmaster, looking for a way out when a Ravager Captain is brought before the Grandmaster. Uh, there’s some spoilers for gotg vol. 2 and Thor: Ragnarok fyi. freshly newly titled and edited as of 11/30 bc i got too excited about posting it while it was still a draft whoops.

___

You awoke strapped down to a silver chair, your wrists and ankles bound to it. You pull at them, but there is no give. The... thing standing next to you makes a sound of distaste. It looks like a cross between a red shadow and a beetle. It raises the metal pole it clutches in one of its four hands at you, ready to strike. Its vicious voice comes out from behind a dark blood colored thing resembling a gas mask, making demands you can’t decipher. You flinch and stop struggling while your heart furiously beats in your chest. You try to remember what happened. How you got to this bizarre looking chamber.

The last thing you really remembered was being out at the park, playing with your baby cousin you were paid to nanny. Your aunt had gone to work, to speak to a colleague from Culver's science department... You remember sitting on a park bench, watching your cousin go down a slide… and that was it. You couldn’t remember anything else.

The room you’re in looks like something out of a comic book or a Disney movie; there are bright colors, shiny and metallic, with huge windows offering a view of what looks like a never ending scrap yard, something out of Wall-E or Tank Girl.

"Ah, if it isn't Scrapper 1125," A voice calls out, followed by a clapping of hands, "I didn't know you'd be coming today." Your gaze follows the sound of the voice to what looks like a lean, older man with graying hair and blue markings on his face. He’s grabbed in blues, golds, and reds, the shiny fabric swirling about him as he walks. Beside him is a shorter, rounder woman with severely pulled back black hair, dressed in orange armor.

The creature beside you greets the man, and motioned to you with the metal pole, "I bring gift for Grandmaster."

"A gift you say?" The Grandmaster, as your captor had called him, stepped closer, until his feet brush yours where they are strapped down. "She doesn't look like a fighter."

"If not fighter than slave," The creature replies, shrugging, "She is no good as food. Too clean." The thing seems to leer at you through its mask, making your skin crawl at the way it says "clean".

"Um, I'm not sure I need any more prisoners with jobs..." The Grandmaster turns to his companion, "Topaz?"

"Send her to your brother. Or just melt her. Less muss, less fuss."

You can’t help the gasp of breath at "melt". What was going on?

The Grandmaster rubs his chin with one hand, bending at his waist until he is all but nose to nose with you, "Well, let’s see. What, uh, what talents do you have?"

"T...Talents?" You gasp, pushing your head back, trying to create distance between you both.

"Yes, talents, what are you good at?" He follows your movements, his eyes taking in every inch of your frightened and bewildered face.

You say the first thing that comes to mind, something you do every day with your baby cousin, something you love to preform and create, "I... I can tell stories?” It comes out as a question; you don’t know what’s going on or what this odd-looking man wants, but you know he somehow holds both your life and future in his hands.

The woman in orange, Topaz, scoffs but a glint shines in the Grandmaster's eyes, "You're a Storyteller?" You nod slowly, your heart beating its way out of your rib cage, your palms sweating on the armrests.  "It's been such a long time since we last had a Storyteller..." The Grandmaster leans back, turning to Topaz, "I'll keep her."

Topaz nods, her lips pulled tight while she looks at you with very thinly veiled disgust. She switches places with the Grandmaster, "Welcome to Sakaar." The words are dry, with a buried malice. She pulls your hair back from your neck with one fist, and with the other jams something deep in the curve of your throat, sending waves after waves of shocks throughout your whole body. Once more in your recent memory, everything goes black.

__

 When you wake, you ware in a small room, barely bigger than a closet, and your clothes are gone. Instead of your jeans and hoodie you wore to the park, you are dressed in a long, pale silvery blue dress. Before you have time to even consider what has happened now, that woman Topaz, is already at the door, ordering you to follow her. She tells you your new duties as she pushes you through long, red, white and gold labyrinth hallways.

"Every night, if the Grandmaster doesn't have company, tell him a story. Whenever he asks, tell him a story. You're here to entertain the Grandmaster with light, nonsense tales, nothing more, and nothing less. Fail in your duties and well... we won't speak of what happened to the last Storyteller."

"Wh-what happened?" The words slip from your lips before you can wall them up.

"He died." She smiles, a thing full of menace as she pushes you through an opulent doorway.

The room is filled with whites and golds, reds and blues. There’s marble floor and metallic walls, three doors and a large balcony with windows displaying nothing but blue skies with strange swirling celestial bodies hung precariously throughout. Seated at a vanity near a plush bed covered with pristine white pillows and plush bedclothes is the Grandmaster. Two women are currently attending him, both dressed in silver gowns similar to your own. One woman holds a towel with various combs and brushes, and what looks like bars of something, while the other woman with brown hair and pink skin brushes his hair.

"Ah, wonderful! My new, um, Storyteller." The Grandmaster smiles, studying you through his mirror, "Don't just stand there, please, come closer."

You do so, your hands clutching tightly to each other. Your palms are still sweaty, and your heart is still trying to make good on its escape. You stop behind him, angling your body away from the mirror’s gaze.

"Whenever you're ready, my dear, please tell me the best story you know." His is docile and gentle, but you can’t see his eyes. You decide you don’t like his kindness, not when you know that new bump in your neck is a miniature taser. Ready to go off at any moment. Your life will still depend on whatever you say next.

… He had asked for the best story you know? Oh, this was such a bad idea, such a bad idea... But you remember Scheherazade and her king, a story you do love, and pray you could follow her lead and maybe survive to the next day.

"Ah, um, o-okay. Once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away..." You begin.

__

 You make it through that first night, to see morning light on this strange planet, spinning in space so many light years from anything and everything familiar to you. And you make it to the next, and the next, doing your best to drag each of your stories out, never quiet finishing a tale before the Grandmaster has fallen into a deep sleep. You then sneak off to your own room, barely getting any sleep before the Grandmaster calls you to join his court for the following morning. So it continues, until your second week on Sakaar, when the Grandmaster brings you out with him for the first time, to the Contest of Champions. There you see a very familiar and very green face.

"It's the Hulk!" You breathe out in surprise. It’s not the most comforting face, but you feel relief at seeing something you can recognize from home. Almost as if one of the knots in your back finally loosens just enough.  

"You know my Champion?" The Grandmaster asks, intrigue coloring his voice.

"Yes, he- he's from my planet..." The gears in your mind turn wildly, trying to find a way to work this to your advantage, to your survival, "I... I can… I can tell you some stories about him from Earth... if.. if you'd like?"

"Yes!" The Grandmaster laughs, clapping his hands together excitedly like a small child, "Oh, I'd love to hear tales of my Champion!"

And you tell, sharing what you can remember from your aunt who was at Culver during that first sighting, from videos you’ve seen of Manhattan and Sokovia; the destruction and aliens, of the woman with red hair. What you don’t know you embellish, doing your best to focus on fights and bloodshed- the Grandmaster seems to like those tales the best.

You find yourself more and more in the Grandmaster's company after that, and receiving a number of "favors”. A bigger room. More clothes. Attending to the Grandmaster during his shows. You found out more about this ghastly planet that way. How it was on the edge of the universe, with those things in the sky are vortexes bringing things to it from all over the known universe.

You look up at those swirling vortexes, certain in the knowledge that if you could just get through even one of them, it could take you home.

…But how? You don’t know who to fly a space ship, and there is no way you can get away from the Grandmaster or his watch dog Topaz so long as that control disk was in your neck. You have seen what it can do to others, and you have seen the seemingly docile, kind and flighty Grandmaster execute others for the smallest of slights against his rule.

There is no way for you to get off this godforsaken rock spinning in space on your own.

 ____

 The Grandmaster throws another one of his parties, celebrating the 50th win of his Champion in the Contests. The music is loud, pulsing and eerily similar to 80’s synthwave. Drinks are flowing and the Grandmaster’s guests are anything but docile with their persons; you can’t help but want to compare them to a college party. Some are egging each other on in drink, some are complacent on lounges and others are striving for creating connections in the ruling court.

You hang to the outer edges of the party, clutching a glass of liquor tightly in one hand, while your gaze keeps bouncing around the crowd of people. At these kinds of parties... things... tend to happen. You’ve managed to avoid any unwanted attention of any kind so far on Sakaar, and you are quiet determined to keep it that way. You’ve learned early on that too much bringing to much attention to yourself can be as good as a death sentence.

And so you stay by the windows, looking out at the night sky. While also using the window to keep an eye on the ongoing party. If you are very lucky tonight, the Grandmaster might take an individual or more to keep him company during the night, and not require your stories to lull him to sleep. If you’re even luckier, Topaz, too busy corralling her ruler and his possible nightly companions, might forget your existence as well.

The universe, it seems, has other plans.

The music cuts off suddenly, and the party drowns in silence.

"Hey now, who turned off my jams?"

"Grandmaster." You turn away from the window, watching between the huddled shoulders of the crowd, as Scrapper 142 follows a silver chair with yet another captured prisoner. You’ve seen Scrapper 142 before; she’s a fairly tall and muscular woman, with dark skin and darker hair and eyes, dressed in black leathers. She has great favor with the Grandmaster, having brought the Hulk to him. You wish you could have seen that; there’s videos from Culver, Manhattan and Sokovia, but the Hulk against one lone woman? No one on Earth would believe it.

Your gaze doesn’t lock on Scrapper 142, but rather on the blue skinned figure chained to the chair. Your view is partially blocked by the crowd, yet from what you can see… it is an older male alien. Not as old as the Grandmaster, probably middle age at least, but you are assuming and in space who knows. The Grandmaster is, apparently, millions of years old and time works strangely on Sakaar. The blue alien is knocked out cold, his dark red leather clothing looks frosted over, and you spy numerous scars littering his face and hands. It’s hard to miss the silvery bits of machinery exposed down the top of his head. He’s been modified, but you don’t know how or why. You’ve never seen anything like him on Sakaar before.

Still, you can tell by one look he was a fighter, and there wasn’t going to be much hope left for him. You’re about leave, hoping that Scrapper 142 would offer up enough of a distraction for you to shrink your duties for at least the night, when you hear Ruelyz speak.

"Is that a Ravager?" The Krylorian says in a whisper to the man standing beside her. Ruelyz is one of the Grandmaster's personal "prisoners with a job". You know her to be frequently assigned to pamper the Grandmaster before bed. You like her well enough, and trust her better than most.

"He's got the emblem..." The man next to her replies in a murmur.

"What's a Ravager?" Your curiosity is piqued despite yourself. You pause by Ruelyz, trying once more to get a better look at Scrapper 142’s offering.

"I'm surprised you haven't heard of them, Storyteller," The pink woman spares you a quick glance before turning her dark gaze back, "The Ravagers are whatever they need to be; scavengers, smugglers, thieves, bandits, pirates, bounty-hunters, assassins... whatever it is you need, so long as the pay is good."

"A space pirate?" You bite your lip, focusing on the Ravager. A pirate… has possibilities. Possibilities that could be very key to your future.

"He might even be a captain," The man, an unfamiliar Xandarian, adds, "I'm pretty sure I remember a Centaurian Ravager Captain..."

You slip away from the two, forcing your way closer and closer to the Grandmaster. Thoughts flutter through your mind, fueled by your deep desire to get off this world.

"Ooo, a Centaurian!" The Grandmaster exclaims, leaving behind a gaggle of possible bed mates to examine his offering, "It's been a very long time since I've seen one of them..."

From your new vantage point, you can see the chills that run through the Ravager’s body.

"Poor sod was probably left to die in space." You hear someone whisper.

"He doesn't look like much, but I can promise you'd get a good fight out of him," Scrapper 142 boasted, digging her fingers into the Ravager's collar and exposing the scars on his neck, "Not only does he wear the badge of a Ravager, but he has the scars of a Kree battle slave as well."

Your blood runs cold. You know exactly what will happen next. The Ravager will be forced into the Contest, condemned to die by either the Hulk or the Grandmaster himself…

And you would still be stuck on this thrice damned planet, light years from anything remotely resembling home.

"Uh, you know I don't like the word 'slaves'..."

"Give him to me."

Scrapper 142, Topaz and the Grandmaster look at you in surprise. You freeze in horrific shock, a deer in headlights. You’ve spoken out of turn, with only a half-baked, hare-brained scheme surely to fail.

You swallow, square your shoulders and repeat yourself.

"Grandmaster, give him to me."

"The insolence!" Topaz growls, reaching for her remote to the control disks. The Grandmaster stays her, placing a hand on her arm.

"Why should I?" He asks you, his head tilted in thought, "He's a Ravager and a Kree solider. He's perfect for the Contest."

"Which is why he's perfect for me," You continue, your mind speeding along with your runaway heart. You pray to whoever might be listening (God, Thor, Odin, even Loki) for this stupid plan to work. And if it didn't, than to... well. To not die. You lick your dry lips, your gaze flickering between the Ravager and the Grandmaster, "Can you image the places he's been? The things he's seen? ...The stories he might know?"

"I...Well now… I hadn't thought of it that way," The Grandmaster nods slowly, his hand flying to his chin, "Pay my favorite Scrapper, Topaz, and transfer the Centaurian to my Storyteller's care." The Grandmaster glides back to the party, stopping briefly to look at you, "I, uh, I expect you to be able to control him. And continue your duties. If not..." He shrugs, "I might just have two possible contenders instead of one." A smile returns to his face, "Ah, but my favorite Storyteller would never let me down!" He pats your cheek, takes your glass from your clenched fist and sips from it.

Your lips pressed tight, you smile and bow your head, edging back away from the crowd.

"Well? Take him." Topaz shoves your shoulder, pushing you towards the still bound Ravager.

Oh god. What’ve you done?

-

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