#1.19 'move along home'

[mirekat]

Okay all right since you asked here’s why I think it is not inherently insane to enjoy “Move Along Home”: 

First off, it’s ridiculous. Let’s get that out of the way right now. I happen to like ridiculousness in my Star Trek, so an episode being fundamentally dumb as hell in no way puts me off.

What I DO care about, to an obnoxious degree, is an episode’s politics. Politics in the capacious sense: how is this episode situated within the world of the franchise and within our world, what social narratives is it challenging or reifying, deliberately or inadvertently? And on that front? “Move Along Home” interests me. 

See, a lot of the standard snark about it--even from the showrunners--boils down to “they weren’t in any danger, so what was the point?” And my take is, the fact that they weren’t in any danger is the point. Falow never claims that losing pieces in the game means losing players in real life. That’s entirely Quark’s and Odo’s assumption, based on the ridiculous violence they’ve been subjected to on a regular basis since Starfleet moved in and, I would imagine, the pattern of random, spectacular, gratuitous terror the Cardassians deployed as a display of sovereignty. And we as viewers assume that Quark’s and Odo’s perception is accurate because we, too, regard ridiculous violence as part of the Star Trek status quo. We’ve internalized that narrative, that expectation of tension and release-when-it-all-works-out. So if we’re disappointed when it doesn’t resolve the way we expect it to, that IS, in fact, a point.   

And I think the episode sets this up with the cold open of Sisko fussing over his “official” First Contact ceremony. He’s still early in his command here, and shouldering a level of responsibility Starfleet brass made perfectly clear they never wanted him to have, so the fussing makes sense. And the Wadi prove totally uninterested in what the command staff (and we viewers) of as momentous. We expect “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” and we get “where are the games?” 

Then, too, there’s one of my favorite early-season Kira lines: “I’m a Bajoran administrator. This is NOT what I signed up for!” In substance, it deeply informs the way I read Kira’s character. Even more than Odo and Quark, her life has been shaped by violence--grinding, everyday, inescapable violence--and there’s no thrill in it for her. She’s actually passionate about things like docking schedules, because that’s what Bajoran sovereignty looks like. And I love that. I love it when someone says something fetishistic about her martial prowess and she looks them in the eye and is just like, yes, but I chose to be a bureaucrat (see also: “Return to Grace.”) So I love the way she serves as Sisko’s foil this episode, first in the first-contact scenario, then, later, as they work to get Dax out of the cave.

Anyway, look, I will never suggest that “Move Along Home” is An Good Episode. Yes the premise is wild and yes the dialogue is leaden and yes the main cast chews their way through the incongruously expensive-looking sets like a bunch of beavers with an Adderall habit but. BUT. Season 1′s Good Episodes are good because they unpick assumptions about what the Federation is, and what Star Trek is. And “Move Along Home” is a meaningful contribution to that project, space mullets and all.  

[pixie88]

The Bribe

Chapter 10 - Together - Adam & Ellie.

A/N: Once again thanks for brainstorming ideas lovely @aussieez​ ​you are a star! I’m thinking of finishing this series soon, when I finally published it a few months ago after it being sat on my laptop for almost 10 months I didn’t think anyone would read it let alone actually enjoy it! So thank you for sticking with this A&E series I always love your lovely comments they make my day! This chapter is from both F!MC & M!MC POV. I’m so nervous about this chapter you’ll ever love it or hate it! ATM I am typing with only 8 fingers so I’m hoping I removed the mistakes!🤦‍♀️ I hope you like it! 😘

If you like it let me know or if you don’t still tell me why I won’t be offended!

I am only tagging those who have asked to be tagged in this series from now on as I don’t want to annoying people with tags. So Let me know if you would like to be tagged and if I missed anyone sorry just let me  know!  

Find previous chapters HERE under Together - Adam & Ellie.

Song: Alicia Keys - In Common The chorus in this reminds me of A&E’s blackmailing ways.

Word count: 2234

WARNINGS: ⚠️ Fluffy fluff, Angst & adult language.

Pairings: Adam x Ellie.

Enjoy!

F!MC POV

He hangs up the phone before putting the phone to his ear again, I jump down off the counter "Adam, what is it?"

He turns away from me "Nan, I just got your message"

"Adam?"

"One minute beautiful" he mouths to me.

"WHAT! You have got to be joking! I don't think so. I'll ask her hang on, Ellie have the police called you?"

I pull out my phone "I forgot to take it off silent, I have a missed call"

"Call them back and ask for an update on your case. Nan I've got to go. Will do bye"

I redial the number that called me "Hi, It's Ellie Barlow. I had a missed call from you. OK, thank you....Oh, so you've dropped the charges against her altogether?" Adam's face turns to stormy, I feel like my legs turn to jelly"Right, OK, well, thanks for letting me know" I hang up, my mind is trying to process what just happened, I don't hear Adam until he grasps my shoulders.

"Ellie? What do you mean dropped the charges?"

"Adam, they dropped the charges against her due to not enough evidence, some story she's given them about me being jealous because she's your ex, she....she even has an alibi saying she was nowhere near your office" my chest becomes tight "Adam, I can't breathe!"

"Hey Ellie let's sit down and take some deep breaths OK. Come on," He walks me over to the kitchen table "Now deep breaths in 1...2...3...4 and out 1...2...3...4" we repeat this until I've calmed down.

"What do I do now? They made me feel like I was lying!"

He lifts my chin to look up at him "Hey, we will sort this when we get home, I promise you. For now there isn't anything we can do so let's just enjoy our time away forget about it"

I smile softly "You're right, Do you think your parents will mind if we stay one more day I don't want to go back yet. I know you have work..."

He pulls me towards his chest "Hey! I'm call Rob explain he won't mind. If you need another day then that's what you will get. Plus I think mum will be over the moon we're staying an extra day" I hear him chuckle.

~*~*~*~

"Ellie, Wakey-wakey!"

I stir "Hmm?"

"There's my beautiful wife, come on we're going to bed late," I look at him confused "While you've been snoring me, Mum and Dad came up with something to do today. Something you said you've wanted to do in the past"

"What? Go back to sleep a little while longer?!" I put the duvet over my head blocking out the light.

I feel his knees sink into the mattress either side of me "Hey Come on, get up" he pulls the duvet away.

I look up at him hovering over me "Can't we just spend the day in bed?"

He leans in to kiss my cheek "As much as I would love that, no, not today. Now get up lazy bones before I make you?"

Before I can ask what he means he starts tickling me, "Ahhh!" I shriek "OK, OK I'll get up"

"Thought you might" he smirks.

~*~*~*~

"ARCHERY? We are doing archery? Is it safe to do?"

"Hey, do you really think I would let my pregnant wife do something that wasn't safe?"

"I suppose not" I roll my eyes.

"Its safe as long as you don't step in front the fired arrows"

I snort "Well, duh. But I say let's make this interesting"

He raises his brows "How?"

"The loser is at mercy to the winner?"

"OK, if I win I want you to wear nothing to bed tonight"

I chuckle "Shh! Your patents will hear!"

He looks over at them "Their busy talking to the instructor. Chosen your prize?"

I pretend to think for a minute "Yours is just obvious, but mine will be you have to say yes to anything I ask you to do today!"

His smile drops "What?!"

I wink "What? You wish you had thought of that? Or are you scared"

"Nope! Bring it on beautiful!"

We are on our second rounds Adam has 7 points I got 9 and just scored another 10 "I thought you said you haven't done this before Ellie?"

He takes his second go and scores an 8 "I haven't! I've only done it on the Wii sports!"

He laughs, "You're telling me that I am losing to someone who learned to play on a computer game?!"

"Well you can give up now"

"Not over until it's over baby"

I take my turn and score a 10 "There isn't any point of taking my last go. I've lost!"

"Aww, come on Adam you might win" I laugh. He takes his go and hits a 10 "Well done! Mister"

His arms wrap around me "Looks like I'm your Yes man for the day. What's your first request?"

"Hmm, let me think....kiss me?"

He doesn't answer instead his lips crash to mine "If your request are like this I'm going to have as much fun as you"

"Hey you two have you finished?" Al calls over.

Adam pulls his lips away from mine, his gaze still on mine giving me butterflies "Yes, Dad, we are done"

"Who won?" Nina calls over as they make their way over to us.

I turn in their direction "I did!"

"Yes, well done Ellie! I won too!" Nina hand slaps against mine as we high five.

"We have a cocktail making at home Ellie I found some alcohol free cocktail recipes for you," she pulls me along with her towards the car.

~*~*~*~

"Ellie, I am not drinking that!" he pushes the glass back towards me.

"Oh, come on I made it especially for you. and I'm asking you to. You have to say yes"

"But it looks like vomit! What is it?"

I push it back towards him "It raspberry mojito. The floaty bits in there are raspberries I crushed as we didn't have raspberry puree. Now drink"

He rolls his eyes "Fine" he takes a sip "It's not to bad actually"

"Told you! Now let me make you a blue lagoon!" 

"Be careful Adam it looks like she's trying to get you drunk to have her wicked way with you" Nina is very tipsy.

"Nina!!" Al laughs.

"Hate to tell you but she doesn't need to get me drunk for that!" he winks at me.

"Adam!!" I blush, I end up making a jug for the 3 of them then another.

Nina is giggling to herself "What's so funny mum?"

"In the toilet I noticed something stick your tongue out" Al and Adam pokes their tongues out she laughs harder.

I'm so confused "What's so funny Nina?"

"Our tongues are blue. We look like we've given a Smurf a blowjob!" She howls, I snort with laughter.

"OK Nina, I think it's time we got you to bed!" Al starts lifting her up from her seat.

"Ooo Al are you taking me to bed?" she says with a flirty tone.

"Mum!"

"Oh come on Adam like you two haven't been at it like rabbits since you got here" Nina giggles.

"Nina, lets get you to bed" Al leads her towards the stairs. "Night guys" Al calls over his shoulders as he's ushering Nina up the stairs.

"Your mum is hilarious when she's drunk" I wrap my arms around his neck as he's sat on the bar stool.

"It's funny when it isn't your parents! But she is right about being at it like rabbits" he picks me up and pulls me onto his lap wrapping my legs around him.

I feel his beard tickles my neck followed by his lip "Not here Adam"

"They won't be back down" 

"Take me to bed"

He sighs pulling away to look at me "Yes beautiful"

~*~*~*~

M!MC POV

"Rob I'm just going to grab some lunch I'll see you in an hour"

"OK, mate" He calls back from the office. As I walk pass Bridezillas I spot it (I wonder if you can see it from the office?) I walk back to the office and you can still see it but just about!

I make my way back over to Bridezillas "Adam, Ellie isn't here today she's meeting with a supplier"

"Yeah, I know. Jess that CCTV on the corner is that Bridezillas?"

"Oh, what the one at the front of the alley? Yeah Ellie had them putting a few weeks after she moved in there one covering the entrance and there is another down the alley"

"Can I take a look at the footage?"

"Yeah of course" she does something on the laptop then hands it to me.

I take it to Ellie's office, I look through the video clips until I find the day it happened.

12.50 PM

I watch Laura walk through the door of the office in the top left corner.

1.03 PM

I see Ellie do the same.

1.08 PM

Laura leaves in a rush.

1.10 PM

Rob walks into the office.

1.19 PM

I watch myself arrive.

1.22 PM

The ambulance arrive.

"GOTCHA!" I send the clip to my email and save a copy onto the USB I have on my keys before closing down the program and handling the laptop back to Jess. "Quick question, have the police been in touch to look at the CCTV?"

"Erm..no they haven't, but to be honest its for the flat entrance not the shop so we kinda forget it's there"

"OK, thanks" I leave the shop and send a text.

[Meet me at the cafe in 10 minutes!]

I sit out the front of the cafe waiting with a coffee, I don't know what I spot first her pixie cut or the smell of her cheap perfume. "Adam, I was surprised to hear from you, have you've realized what a liar your wife is!" My blood boils (Keep calm) "You didn't get me a coffee?"

"I'll warn you once do not talk about my wife like that! Why would I get you a coffee?"

"OK, I see she still has her crawls firmly in you. What is it you want?" she hiss hurt.

"You to leave Manchester for good"

She cackles "Why would I want to do that?"

"Because if you don't, not only will you go down and you'll drag your mum with you. How do you think a 65 year old woman will survive in prison?" she looks at me confused "Giving a false alibi is a criminal offence"

"Still trying to pin Ellie's fall on me? Guess what! I wasn't there when it happened"

"But you had an appointment at five to one?"

"I did, but I was late by the time I got there, there was an ambulance there"

"I have proof to prove otherwise" I load up the CCTV footage as it's playing her face goes pale.

"Where did you get that?"

"My pregnant wife forgot about the CCTV she had installed. I guess she didn't realize it covers my office door"

Her face turns to fury "Why haven't you taken it to the police?"

"Well, we tried to do it the right way, and they let you go. Plus, if I take it to the police you'll get anything from 3 to 7 years but I want you out of our lives for good"

"So I'm suppose to up and leave because you say so?"

"No, but if you don't this goes to the police. Both you and your mum will go down"

"Then I'll tell them about this conversation and how you tried to blackmail me to leave"

I laugh, "I have no idea what she's talking about officer, I simply brought her to the cafe to ask her to say away from me and my wife, I knew nothing about the CCTV footage until my wife sent it me via email asking if it were enough evidence to prove she had attacked her. You see the thing about the police once you lie they don't trust a word you say after that"

"How can I trust you won't go to the police even if I do leave?"

"You don't! You just have to believe the fact I want you out of our lives forever is motive enough not to"

"But what if I need to come back for a family emergency?"

"Not my problem, but if you do step foot back here for any reason this goes straight to the police"

"Fine, I'll be gone by the end of the week" she hisses.

"No! Tonight!"

"But I can't just up and leave. Not with just a few hours notice"

"I couldn't care less. Tonight or tomorrow you'll get taken away in cuffs" I stand to leave, I bend down and lean in close enough so only she can hear "Your choice!" I hear my phone as I leave.

*1 New Message from Beautiful*

[Hey can you meet me at the house? x]

[Hi, yep see you in a few. Hope everything is ok? xx]

I head home once inside I see Ellie on the sofa "Hey beautiful, What's up?"

She looks up at me with a blank stare "I saw you," she doesn't look at me, her words are almost a whisper.

"Saw me?"

She huffs "I saw you with her outside the cafe. Why were you with her?"

"It's not what it looks like I promise. I wanted to keep you out of this, but we promised no secrets. Ellie I've sorted it she won't be bothering us anymore"

"What? How?"

Continue reading this story here - Chapter 11

@lem-20​ @khoicesbyk​ @aussieez​ @txemrn​ @irisofpurple​ @shewillreadyou​

[bradthomasrealtor]

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[winchesterbrotherstan]

Supernatural- Provenance (1.19)

b.. a. by.

Pairing: Olive Winchester (OC)

Summary: While working a case, a girl catches Sam’s eye, Dean and Olive butt heads, and Olive goes into attack mode.

Warnings: cursing, screaming, creepy little ghost, slit throats, olive is a monster, the usual

Word Count: 8163

I yawned, dropping my head onto the table of the bar. Dean was flirting with a pretty girl while Sam and I were elbow-deep in research. Sam made a face at Dean before gesturing to him. Dean only held up a hand, laughing at something the girl whispered to him.

“Dean!” I called, annoyed.

He rolled his eyes before coming back to us, dropping a beer in front of Sam.

“Alright, I think we’ve got something.” Sam sighed.

Dean glanced back over his shoulder. “Yeah, me too. I think we need to take a little shore leave, just a little bit.” He grinned. “What do you think, huh? I’m so in the door with this one.”

I rolled my eyes, biting back a snarky comment. Sam sighed.

“So what are we today, Dean? I mean, are we rock stars, are we army rangers?”

Dean’s grin grew, and I rolled my eyes again.

“Reality TV scouts, looking for people with special skills. I mean, hey, it’s not that far off, right?” He leaned toward Sam. “By the way, she’s got a friend. Possibly hook you up. Whatcha think?”

Sam sighed. “No thanks, Dean. I can get my own dates.”

“Yeah, you can but you don’t.” Dean made a face.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Sam shot back.

“Hey! Dean’s just being a jackass. Don’t pay him any attention.”

Dean tried to protest, but Sam rolled his eyes. “Mark and Ann Telesca of New Paltz, New York were both found dead in their own home, a few days ago. Throats were slit. No prints, no murder weapons, all…”

Dean was distracted, staring back at the girl at the bar. I kicked him under the table and he turned back to me with lips curled, angry.

“Dean! Pay attention.”

“No prints, no murder weapons, all the doors and windows locked from the inside.”

Dean took a sip from his beer with a shrug. “Could just be a garden variety murder. You know, not our department.”

“Dad says different.” I spat, flicking through his journal.

“What do you mean?”

Sam pointed to the map on the page. “Dad noted three murders in the same area of upstate New York. First one here in 1912, second one here in 1945, third in 1970.”

“Same MO as the Telescas. Throats slit, doors locked from the inside. So much time happened between the two that nobody checked for a pattern.”

“Except Dad.” Sam sighed. “He kept his eyes peeled for another one.”

“And now we got one.” Dean pouted. “Alright, I’m with ya. It’s worth checking out. Can’t we pick this up first thing though?”

I sighed, and Sam shrugged.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Good.” Dean patted Sam’s arm and circled the table to me. “Love you, kid. Even when you’re being a brat.”

I scoffed back at him, and he pulled me into a hug. “I love you.”

“Fuck off.” I spat, pushing him away.

He rolled his eyes and flipped me off as he walked back to the bar. Sam bumped his elbow into my side.

“What’s the deal, bug?”

I sighed and leaned against him with a huff. “Just not in the mood for his shit.”

“The flirting? Aw, bug, are you jealous that you don’t have all of Dean’s attention?”

I rolled my eyes again. “No, you big idiot. I’m just sick of him being a horny fucker all the time. It’s really annoying.”

Sam only snickered.

                                                          ***

I snuggled further into Dean’s side, kicking my shoes off. He was asleep, slumped in the passenger seat with a pair of sunglasses on. He went out last night with two girls and came back to the motel beyond drunk. He had thrown up countless times. I stayed up with him, rubbing his back and wiping the sweat off his forehead. Taking care of a grown man was frustratingly difficult when you only had one arm.

Sam walked around the car, knocking on the hood. I looked at him through slitted eyes. He put a finger up to his mouth before leaning in through the window and slamming the horn. I let out a squeak, and Dean jumped up, spooked. Sam got into the driver’s seat, cackling. Jinx howled, and Sam turned around to pat her head.

“Man, that is so not cool.” Dean grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“God fuck, Sams.” I hissed.

“I just swept the Telescas with EMF. It’s clean. And last night, while you were… well, out…”

I pushed my head further into Dean’s chest. “We checked the history of the house. Nothing strange about the family.”

“Alright, so if it’s not the people and it’s not the house, then maybe it’s the contents. Cursed object or something.” Dean mumbled.

“What?” Sam asked, leaning in.

“No, bubba, house is clean.” I groaned, sitting up.

“Yeah I know, Sam said that.”

“No, I mean it’s empty. No furniture. Nothing.” Sam shook his head.

I blinked, suddenly awake. “What?”

“Where’s all their stuff?” Dean squinted.

                                                         ***

I wiggled my nose, trying to move my glasses back into place as I followed Sam around, hand in his. I squeezed, a signal to wait for Dean as he picked a piece of finger food off a tray. Sam squeezed my hand back. Jinx was asleep in the Impala, and I was hoping it would stay that way. The last thing we needed was somebody with a stick up their ass calling animal control on her. We were out of place. 

This fancy auction house, with women in fancy flowing dresses and men in tuxedos. I kept myself behind Sam. We were in our scratchy canvas jackets, dirty flannels, ripped jeans and scuffed boots. Dean grumbled as he caught up.

“Consignment auctions, estate sales. Looks like a garage sale for WASPs if you ask me.” He plucked more food off another tray.

A man in a tuxedo popped up behind us, and we spun around. Sam pulled me closer to him as we forced matching polite smiles.

“Can I help you gentlemen?”

Dean eyed him and cleared his throat. “I’d like some champagne please.” He spoke in a posh accent.

Sam’s jaw clenched, and I dug my arm into Dean’s side, ignoring the throb that radiated from my bones. “He’s not a waiter.”

Dean cocked an eyebrow, and Sam held his hand out. “I’m Sam Connors.”

The man blinked at him, not taking Sam’s hand. I popped out from behind him and squared my shoulders.

“I’m Olive Connors, and this is our brother Dean.” I nodded to Dean.

“We’re art dealers, with Connors Limited.”

“You are… art dealers.” The man repeated, eyeing us.

I sighed, and Sam squeezed my hand again.

It’s okay, just stay calm.

“That’s right.”

“I’m Daniel Blake, this is my auction house. Now, this is a private showing, and I don’t remember seeing you on the guest list.” The man cleared his throat, the look of disgust clear on his face.

“We’re there, Chuckles. You just need to take another look.” Dean snapped as he swiped a glass off a passing tray. “Oh, finally.” He sniffed the glass, raised his eyebrows, and walked off.

“Cheers.” Sam forced a smile as I yanked on his arm, trying to follow Dean.

“What is wrong with you?” Sam snarled at Dean.

“Hey.” I tugged his arm. “Relax. He’s just being a prick again.”

The three of us fell silent as we stared at an old painting of a family. Our heads tilted the same way, identical looks on our faces.

“A fine example of American Primitive, wouldn’t you say?”

The three of us turned up to see a very pretty girl about Sam’s age coming down the spiral stairs. Her dress was black and sleek, hugging her body. She gave off classy vibes, and I was immediately entranced. I blinked as her back turned to us. Dean slapped Sam on the back, and Sam ignored him.

“Well, I’d say it’s more Grant Wood than Grandma Moses. But you knew that, you just wanted to see if I did.” Sam smiled.

“Guilty.” She smiled back. “And clumsy. I apologize. I’m Sarah Blake.” She held her hand out to him.

He took it, and my heart softened at the twinkle in his eyes. “I’m Sam. This is my little sister Olive, and our…” He sighed as Dean continued to stuff his face with food.

“This is our brother, Dean.” I grinned.

Sarah chuckled. “Dean. Can we get you some more mini-quiche?”

Dean shook his head, in the middle of chewing. I giggled.

“He’s okay, thank you.”

Sarah smiled widely as she turned back to Sam. “So, can I help you with something?”

“Yeah, actually. What can you tell us about the Telesca estate?”

Sarah grimaced. “The whole thing’s pretty grisly if you ask me, selling your things so soon. But Dad’s right, sensationalism brings out the crowds. Even the rich ones.”

“Is it possible to see the provenances?” Sam asked.

Dean and I eyed each other, confused.

What the fuck does that word mean?

“I’m afraid there isn’t any chance of that.” Blake came back up behind us.

“Why not?” I asked, shuffling around to be in front of Dean.

“You’re not on the guest list. And I think it’s time to leave.”

“Well we don’t have to be told twice.” Dean spoke poshly again.

“Apparently you do.” Blake took a step toward us.

I backed up, running into Dean’s front. Sam reached for my hand.

“Okay. It’s all right. We don’t want any trouble. We’ll go.”

Dean rolled his eyes and walked off. Sam and Sarah stared at each other until I grabbed Sam’s hand and pulled him along to follow Dean. I glanced over my shoulder to see Sarah staring right at Sam’s ass. I shivered, uncomfortable.

                                                         ***

“Grant Wood?” Dean spoke to Sam as they walked behind me.

“Yeah, Sams.” I called over my shoulder. “The hell was all that?”

“Grandma Moses?”

“Art history course.” Sam smiled. “It’s good for meeting girls.”

Dean shook his head as I unlocked the motel door. Jinx ran in, wagging her tail.

“It’s like I don’t even know you.”

We shuffled into the room and blinked. Retro 70s disco fantasy room. The Do Not Disturb sign was a silver outline of John Travolta. Jinx watched us as we took the scene in, all heads tilted.

“Huh.”

I shrugged and tossed my bag at the feet of the bed furthest from the door. Sam and Dean did the same, still staring at the room.

“Sams, what was… providence?” I stumbled over the word.

“Provenance.” Sam sounded it out. “It’s a certificate of origin, like a biography. Ya know, we can use them to check the history of the pieces, see if any of them have a freaky past.”

I frowned. “Huh.”

“Well, we’re not getting anything out of Chuckles, but Sarah…” Dean made finger guns at Sam.

I giggled, and Sam smirked at Dean. “Yeah, maybe you can get her to write it all down on a cocktail napkin.”

Dean laughed, and I shook my head.

“No no no, pick-ups are Dean’s thing.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t Dean’s ass she was checking out.” I dropped onto the bed.

Sam narrowed his eyes at me, and Dean grinned. Jinx jumped onto the bed and barked in Sam’s direction.

“In other words, you two want me to use her to get information.” Sam sighed.

I shrugged. “Sometimes you gotta take one for the team.”

Dean grinned wider. “Call her, Sam.”

                                                         ***

I put my glasses on as I left the bathroom and turned the lights off. Dean was sitting on our bed, sharpening his knife. Sam was criss-cross on his own bed, rustling through papers.

“Hey, Sams!” I grinned. “How’d it go?”

He had gone out to drinks with Sarah while Dean and I stayed at the motel, showering and fixing weapons.

“She just handed the providences over to him.” Dean grinned.

“Provenances.” I corrected.

“Provenances?”

“Yeah.” I nodded, turning to Sam. “Okay, so?”

“We went back to her place, I got a copy of the papers-”

“And?” Dean wiggled his eyebrows.

“And nothing. That’s it. I left, told her I had to get home to my little sister.”

I giggled, and Dean made a face.

“You didn’t have to con her, or do any… special favors or anything like that?”

“Dean.” I chastised, trying to keep the smile off my face. “Get your mind out of the gutter!”

Dean laughed as Sam rolled his eyes. I dropped on the bed, next to Dean.

“You know, when this whole thing’s over, we could… stick around for a little bit.” He offered.

“Why?” Sam furrowed his eyebrows.

“So you can take her out again.” I shrugged. “Duh.”

“It’s obvious you’re into her, even I can see that.”

“I think I’ve got something here.” Sam ignored us, holding a paper up.

I switched over to sit next to Sam, taking the paper from his hand. “What am I looking at here?”

“Portrait of Isaiah Merchant’s family, painted in 1910.” Dean read off the paper.

“Wasn’t the first murder in 1912?” I tilted my head.

Sam nodded. “First purchased in 1912, Peter Simms. He was murdered in 1912. Same thing in 1945, oh, and 1970.”

“Then stored, until it was donated to a charity auction last month. Where the Telescas bought it.” Dean read from Dad’s journal.

“So, what do you think? Haunted? Cursed?”

Dean dropped the paper and grabbed his knife. “Either way, it’s toast.”

I grinned. “I’ll get the gloves.”

                                                         ***

Dean lept halfway up the metal gate, easily climbing the rest. He sprinted into the fog, then called back to us.

“Come on!”

Sam dropped onto a knee, helping me get a step up onto the gate. I climbed it faster than he did, anxious to be back on solid ground. I balanced on the top, knuckles white. Although I had gotten used to being down an arm, scaling fences became a lot more difficult. I had to rely mostly on the weight of my body against the fence and the soles of my boots. I took a breath before getting a grip and climbing down the other side. Dean helped me once I was halfway, and Sam jumped off, hitting the ground and rolling back to his feet.

“Stay with Dean.” Sam whispered as he went for the security alarm.

He fidgeted with the wires, and I watched with a smile on my face as he worked.

“Alright, go ahead.” He turned back to Dean.

Dean picked the lock with ease, pushing the door open. I led the way, flashlight low as we looked around. Dean tapped my arm and pointed up the stairs. I grabbed Sam and followed as he sprinted up the same spiral staircase from earlier. Dean went to put his flashlight in his mouth but I took it, handing him a switchblade.

He flicked it open and cut the painting from the frame. Sam helped him roll it up, and I pulled a hair tie off my wrist with my teeth and wrapped it around the painting. Dean tucked it under his arm and patted my shoulder.

Let’s go.

                                                         ***

“Ugly ass thing.” Dean spat as he struck a match. “If you ask me, we’re doing the art world a favor.”

Sam sighed, aiming the flashlight. “Dean, just hurry up.”

Dean dropped the match without a word, and the painting began to curl at the edges. We stood in a huddle, watching it burn.

“Alright. We can head back to the motel, take the night and then pack up and hit the road.” Dean wrapped his arms around himself.

I nodded, smacking at a mosquito. “Let’s go.”

                                                         ***

“Bug?” Sam’s voice was a whisper.

“What’s up, Sams?” I mumbled.

I was wrapped in Dean’s arms, buried under three different blankets.

“Can we share a bed tonight?”

I grunted as I shuffled out of Dean’s grip and rolled onto the floor. Sam sat up and pulled the blankets back.

“Thank you.” He whispered.

I nodded as I curled up in his bed, snuggling into his side. He threw the blankets back over us and sighed.

“You okay?”

He nodded, resting his chin on the top of my head. “I’m just not feeling great.”

“Upset?”

He nodded again, wrapping his arms tight around me. “Yeah.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry, Sams.”

“It’s okay. I’ve got you guys.”

I snorted and pushed my head into his neck. “We’ll find you a girl, Sams. Don’t worry.”

                                                         ***

“We’ve got a problem!” Dean rushed out from the bathroom.

“What happened?” I asked, clipping Jinx’s collar on.

“I can’t find my wallet.”

Sam didn’t look up from his duffel bag. “How is that our problem?”

“Cause I think I dropped it in the warehouse last night.”

Sam’s eyes went wide and his head snapped up. I stumbled backward, dropping onto the bed and struggling to breath.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No.” Dean shook his head.

“Dean! That’s got your prints all over it, your ID!” I ran a hand through my hair.

“Well, my fake ID, but yeah.” Dean nodded.

“We’ve gotta find it before somebody else does. Come on.”

                                                         ***

“How do you lose your wallet, Dean?” Sam hissed.

I rubbed the back of my neck as we rushed around the auction house, eyes scanning every possible surface. Dean threw his hands up and kept looking. I groaned, ready to duck and check under tables.

“Hey guys!”

We turned around to see Sarah with a huge smile on her face. We all smiled back, trying to act cool and collected.

“Sarah! Hey!” Sam’s smile came naturally.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, glancing at Dean and I, who were still looking around.

“Ah, we uh… we’re leaving town, and you know, thought we’d come to say goodbye.” Sam stumbled.

“What are you talking about, Sam? We’re sticking around for at least another day or two.” Dean grinned as he tugged me along.

Sam looked at us, confused. Dean fished his wallet out of his pocket and smiled at Sam. “Oh, Sam. By the way, I’m gonna go ahead and give you that twenty dollars I owe you.” He turned to Sarah with a smile. “I always forget, you know.”

Sam only blinked, and Dean held the cash out with a grin. “There you go.”

Sam snatched it, glaring at Dean.

“Well, I’ll leave you two crazy kids along, I gotta-”

“We should go check on the dog!” I grinned, patting Sam on the back. “See ya!”

I grabbed Dean by the hand and tugged him to follow as we scrambled away, toward the parking lot.

“Are you insane?” I asked, eyes wide.

“He likes her.”

“I know he does, De, but you almost gave us both heart attacks.” I hissed.

“Oh my God!” Sam shouted.

I whipped around, hearing my teeth crackle inside my head. Dean grabbed my wrist and yanked me back his way, shaking his head.

Relax.

“Yeah, and now you’re just going to sell it again?” I heard Sam again.

I blinked, swallowing the blood in my mouth. Dean let out a breath, and Sam hurried into view, grabbing us both by the wrists and tugged us along.

“We’ve gotta go, now.”

He dragged us to the Impala, dodging our questions. Dean slid into the driver’s seat, and Sam shoved me to sit in the middle of the front bench. Jinx yapped as Sam slammed the door shut.

“Sams, what happened?” I asked.

“The painting.” Sam hissed.

“What?” Dean made a face.

“The painting is back.”

I shook my head. “Sammy, that’s not funny.”

Sam glared. “I’m not playing. I saw it.”

Dean let out a breath. “What the hell?”

“I don’t understand, Dean. We burned the damn thing!”

“Yeah, I got that, Captain Obvious!” Dean spat.

“Hey! Both of you relax. We just need to figure out another way to get rid of the thing. Ideas?”

“Okay, alright.” Sam sighed. “Well, um, in almost all the lore about haunted painting, it’s always the painting’s subject that haunts ‘em.”

“Yeah.” Dean nodded. “So we just need to figure out everything there is to know about that creepy-ass family in the creepy-ass painting. What were their names again?”

                                                         ***

“You said the Isaiah Merchant family, right?” The proprietor asked.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

Dean circled the table, a huge smile on his face as he flipped through an old book full of pictures of guns.

The proprietor put down a large book of newspapers clipping down on the table. “I dug up every scrap of local history I could find. So you kids are crime buffs?”

“Kinda.” Dean shrugged. “Yeah. Why do you ask?”

“Well…” He held up a newspaper article, pointing to a side article.

Father Slaughters Family, Kills Himself.

“Yes.” Dean piped up. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“The whole family was killed?” I asked, eyebrows furrowed.

“It seems that Isaiah, he slits his kids’ throats, then his wife, and then himself. He was a barber by trade. Used a straight razor.”

I shivered. Dad was a bit crazy, that was true, but there was no way he’d ever kill us.

“Why’d he do it?” Sam asked as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

“Let’s look… uh,” He skimmed the page, “People who knew him describe Isaiah as having a stern and harsh temperament. Controlled his family with an iron fist. Wife, uh, two sons, adopted daughter… there were whispers that the wife was going to take the children and leave.” He made a face. “Which of course, you know, in that day and age… so, um, instead, the old man… well, he gave them all a shave.” The man dragged a finger across his throat and made gagging noises.

He kept his eyes on Dean as he laughed, and Dean laughed back, maintaining eye contact. He was flirting. I blinked, holding back a smile. Sam gave Dean a bitchface, and Dean immediately stopped, clearing his throat.

“Does it say what happened to the bodies?” I asked, rubbing Dean’s arm.

“I’m sorry?” The proprietor blinked, looking at me.

“What happened to the bodies?” Dean repeated.

“Just that they were all cremated.” The man shrugged.

I sighed, and Sam groaned. “Is that all?”

“Yeah.” He glanced at Dean, then back to Sam. “Actually, I found a picture of the family. It’s right here… somewhere.” He flicked through the book. “Right, here it is!” He pulled out a paper and showed us.

It was a picture of the painting. I sighed, and Sam asked him for a copy. The guy nodded before turning around and disappearing into the back room.

“Hey.” I smacked Sam’s arm. “Be nice.”

“What?” He squinted.

Dean was looking through the book of guns again, his demeanor sad. His shoulders were dropped and a sad look was on his face.

“Why’d you give him a bitch face?” I whispered.

“Because he was laughing at a dead family.”

I rolled my eyes. “You idiot. He was flirting.”

“With … a guy?”

I rolled my eyes again. “What, I can be bi, but Dean can’t be?”

Sam shook his head. “Olive, that’s not what I’m saying. I just… I’ve never seen him be forward about it.”

I snorted. “That’s cause you haven’t seen him without Dad in a while.”

Sam blinked. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

The guy came back with a copy of the picture and handed it to us with a small smile. “Here you go.”

I smiled back as Sam took it. Dean smiled at the guy as we left the store.

“Come on.” I held my hand out.

Dean took it with a soft smile and held the car door open for me.

                                                         ***

“What the hell?” I squinted, bringing the copy of the photo closer to my face.

“What?” Dean looked over his shoulder as he stood in front of the sink, washing the coffee mugs from earlier.

“The pictures are different.” I rolled from my stomach onto my back and sat up.

Dean snorted. Sam reached out across the beds and took the paper. Jinx whined, popping her head up as Sam stopped petting her.

“Holy shit. Olive’s right.”

Dean shook his head. “No way.”

“I’m telling you, De.”

“The painting at the auction house, the dad is looking down. This copy, the dad’s looking out. The painting changed, Dean.” Sam squinted at the picture.

“Alright, so you think that Daddy dearest is trapped in the painting and is handing out Columbian neckties like he did with his family?” Dean turned the tap off.

“Well, yeah, it seems like it.” Sam sighed.

“But if his bones are already dusted, how are we gonna stop him?” I asked.

“Well, if Isaiah’s position changed, then maybe some other things in the painting changed too. Ya know, it could give us some clues.”

“What, like a Da Vinci Code deal?” Sam began to pet Jinx again.

“Uh…” Dean stammered, staring at Sam with a blank look. “I don’t… know, uh…”

“He’s still waiting on the movie for that one.” I giggled.

“Anyway, we gotta get back in and see that painting.” Dean threw himself on the bed and crossed his arms behind his head.

I dropped onto my side and snuggled up to him, curling up and placing my cheek on his chest. He wrapped one arm around me and kissed the top of my head.

“This is a good thing.” I mumbled.

“Yeah, cause Sam gets more time to crush on his girlfriend.”

“Dude.” Sam rolled his eyes. “Enough, already.”

“What?” Dean asked.

“What do you mean, what? Ever since we’ve gotten here, you two have been trying to pimp me out to Sarah. Just back off, alright?” Sam snapped.

“What, you don’t like her?”

Sam rolled his eyes and dropped onto his back, annoyed.

“Alright. You like her, she obviously likes you. You’re both consenting adults…” Dean trailed off.

“What’s the point?” Sam raised his voice. “We’ll just leave. We always leave!”

“He’s not talking about marriage, Sams.”

“You know, I don’t get it.” Sam turned to us. “What do you two care if I hook up?”

Dean sighed, calm as he talked. “Cause then maybe you wouldn’t be so cranky all the time.”

Sam glared, let out a huff, and looked back up to the ceiling.

I bumped my head into Dean’s chin and sat up with a sigh. “Sammy, we’re serious. This isn’t just about hooking up, okay? I mean, we… we think that Sarah could be good for you.”

Sam scratched his head, staying silent. Jinx whined, sensing the tension. I shot Dean a look.

Say something.

“And…” Dean spoke as he sat up, voice soft. “I don’t mean any disrespect, but… I’m sure this about Jessica. Right? Now, we don’t know what it’s like to lose somebody like that, but…”

“Sams, I know you miss her.” I whispered. “But she would want you to be happy.”

Sam said nothing as he listened, tears in his eyes. Dean sighed.

“God forbid have fun once in a while. Wouldn’t she?”

Sam gave a soft laugh. “Yeah, I know she would.” He sighed. “Yeah, you two are right. Part of this is about Jessica. But not the main part.”

“What’s it about?” Dean asked.

Sam said nothing, and Dean huffed.

“Okay.” I laid back down, and Dean followed.

He wrapped his arm around me again and yawned. I closed my eyes as Sam flicked his phone open and cleared his throat.

“Sarah, hey.” Sam spoke, awkwardly. “It’s Sam.”

A pause, and I cracked my eyes open.

“Hey, hi.”

Another pause.

“Good. Good, yeah, um… what about you?”

I watched as he paced around the room.

“Yeah, good, good, really good.”

Dean huffed. “Smooth.”

I thumped my head against Dean’s chest. “Be nice.”

“So, uh, listen… my siblings and I were uh… thinking that maybe we’d like to come back in and look at the painting again, I…”

Dean shook his head again, then turned to me with a smile.

“I think maybe we are interested in buying it.”

My nose wrinkled up.

“Buy it and be haunted? No thanks.” I whispered.

“What!” Sam snapped, and I pushed myself up, eyebrows furrowed.

“Who’d you sell it to?”

I rolled over Dean and got to my feet, digging through the duffel bag. Jinx jumped off the bed and ran toward me, sniffing the bag.

“Hey, no.” I pushed her nose away. “Don’t do that.”

“Sarah, I need an address right now.”

                                                         ***

Dean slammed the brake and put the car in park. He moved slower than Sam, and I scrambled out past him.

“Sam, what’s happening?” Sarah asked as she jumped out of the car in the driveway.

“I told you, you shouldn’t have come.” He ran past her, bolting up the porch steps.

“Hello? Anyone home?” I asked as I pounded on the door.

Dean tried kicking at it, but it didn’t budge.

“You said Evelyn might be in danger. What sort of danger?”

“I can’t knock this sucker down. I’ve gotta pick it.” He groaned.

I sprinted back to the car and dug through the backseat. Jinx tried to lick my face, and I pushed her away again.

“Stop it.” I mumbled as I fished out the pick case.

“Here.” I shoved the case into Dean’s hands and joined Sam at the windows, which were covered in security bars.

“What are you guys, burglars?”

“I wish it was that simple.” I scoffed, hitting the window.

“Look, you really should wait in the car. It’s for your own good.” Sam tried to get her out of the way.

I rushed to Dean’s side as he got the door open.

“The hell I will. Evelyn’s a friend.” Sarah ran in after us.

“Evelyn?” Sam called.

“Evelyn.” I inched into the lounge.

She was sitting on a couch, half turned away from us. The painting moved, the dad’s position changing again. Sarah reached for Evelyn, and Sam tried to get her to stop. Evelyn’s head tipped back, and her slashed throat was exposed. Sarah let out a scream, jumping back into Sam’s arms. He led her out of the room.

                                                         ***

There was a knock on the door, and I shifted. Sam opened the door, and Sarah stormed in past him.

“Hey. You alright?”

“No, actually.” She crossed her arms over his chest. “I just lied to the cops and told them I went to Evelyn’s, alone, and that I found her like that.”

Sam let out a huff. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” She growled.

I sat up and yawned. Jinx was on her back next to me, kicking in her sleep.

“I’m about to call them back right now if you don’t tell me what the hell’s going on. Who’s killing these people?”

Sam glanced at Dean, who shrugged.

“What.”

“What?” Sarah looked at me.

“Not who. It’s a what. A what is killing these people.”

She looked at me like I was insane.

“Sarah, you saw that painting move.” Sam spoke softly.

She shook her head, becoming agitated. “No! No, I was… I was seeing things. It’s impossible.”

Dean snorted. “Well, welcome to our world.”

“Sarah. I know this sounds crazy, but…” Sam stumbled.

“We think the painting is haunted.”

She shook her head at me again. “No. You’re joking.”

The three of us sighed, faces dead-panned as she looked at each of us.

“You’re not joking.” She wiped fresh tears out of her eyes. “God, the guys I go out with.”

“Sarah, just think about it.” Sam tried to reason with her, and she took a step back.

“Look. Evelyn, the Telesca’s. They both had the painting, and there were others before that too. Wherever that butt-ugly painting goes, people die.” I shrugged.

“We’re just trying to stop it. And that’s the truth.” Sam sighed.

“Then I guess you’d better show me. I’m coming with you.” She pulled her purse over her shoulder.

“What? No! Sarah, no, you should just go home. This stuff can get dangerous, and I… I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Sarah snorted. “I’m sorry, how old’s your sister?”

I rolled my eyes as I moved to sit next to Dean at the table. “I’m fifteen.”

“Look, you guys are probably crazy. But if you’re right about this?” She sighed. “Me and my Dad sold that painting that might’ve got these people killed. Look, I’m not saying I’m not scared, because I am scared as hell, but… I’m not gonna run and hide either.” She took two long strides to the door and turned back to us, arms crossed over her chest. “So. Are we going or what?” She walked out.

“Sam?” Dean got his attention.

Sam looked up at us, eyes wide.

“Marry that girl.”

                                                         ***

“Uh, isn’t this a crime scene?” Sarah asked, looking around as Dean picked the lock.

“You’ve already lied to the cops once.” I shrugged. “What’s another infraction?”

Dean pushed the door open and stepped inside. I followed, and Sam and Sarah came in last, looking nervous.

“Aren’t you worried that it’s… gonna kill us?” She asked as Sam lifted it off the wall.

“Nah, it seems to do its thing at night. I think we’re okay in the daylight.”

I pulled the picture out of my back pocket and unfolded it, trying to flatten it out over my thigh. I compared it to the picture and my lips curled up.

“Yeesh. Sams, check it out. The razor. Closed in this, open in that.” I pointed to the razor blade in Isaiah’s hand.

“What are you guys looking for?” Sarah asked.

“If the spirit’s changing aspects of the painting then it’s doing so for a reason.” Dean explained.

“Hey, hey, hey. Look at this.” Sam pointed at something. “The painting in the painting.”

I huffed and looked around. Dean picked up a glass ashtray and held it up to the painting. I squinted.

“What is it?”

“Merchant.” He read.

                                                         ***

Jinx pulled hard on her leash, and Sam pulled back. She sniffed one headstone before jumping around to another.

“This is the third boneyard we’ve checked.” Dean groaned. “I think this ghost is jerking us around.”

“So this is what you guys do for a living?” Sarah asked.

“Not exactly.” Sam shrugged. “We don’t get paid.”

“Well, Mazel tov.” She sighed.

“Hey.” I hit Dean’s arm as I spotted the mausoleum. “Over there.”

I hurried over, leaving the others to catch up. I tugged on the lock, but it was solid. Dean moved me aside and slammed a knife handle into it, breaking it open. He stepped in first, and I followed. There was a bunch of name plates, and four urns in small glass boxes. I flinched as I noticed the dolls set up next to each urn.

“Okay. That right there? The creepiest thing I’ve ever seen.” Sarah shuffled.

“It was a… tradition at the time. Whenever a child died, sometimes they’d preserve the kid’s favorite toy in a glass case, put it next to the headstone or crypt.”

Jinx began to bark. A breeze blew in, and I shuddered as the cobwebs fluttered around us. Dean wrapped an arm around me.

“Notice anything strange here?”

Sarah giggled. “Uh, where do I start?”

Sam laughed, and I rolled my eyes at him.

“No, that’s not what he means. Look at the urns.”

“Yeah.” Sam noticed. “Only four.”

“Mom and three kids.”

“Father dearest isn’t here.” I sighed.

“So where is he?”

                                                         ***

I yawned, then giggled as Jinx did the same. Sarah and Sam were sitting on a short wall next to the office buildings. I was sitting on the ground next to them.

“So what exactly is your brother doing in there?”

“Searching county death certificates trying to find out what happened to Isaiah’s body.” Sam fiddled with his fingers.

“How’d he even get in the door?” She chuckled.

“Lying and subterfuge mostly.”

I snorted. “Dean’s really charming, actually. Especially when he wants to be. He can get himself wherever he needs to be.”

She nodded, turning back to Sam.

“You have a, uh… you have a right… no, uh, you know what…” Sam smiled at her. “Do you mind if I get it?”

“No.” She smiled.

He brushed it off and held it out on his finger. “Okay. Got it. Make a wish.”

Sarah laughed and then blew it away.

“Sam, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, sure.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “I’m gonna… take Jinx for a walk.” I rushed to my feet and pulled Jinx along.

We circled the block. Jinx wanted to sniff everything, but there was nobody around, and being alone freaked me out. I hadn’t been alone for more than a few hours, come to think of it. I grew up stuck to Sam and Dean. When Dean started going on hunts, Sam stayed with me. When Sam moved away, Dad and Dean would go on hunts, and I would stay with Bobby or Pastor Jim.

I circled back around to the front of the building, where Sam was in the middle of a heart-felt sentence, and Dean was standing with his hands in his pockets.

“Are we interrupting something?” Dean asked.

“No.”

“Not at all.”

Sam and Sarah spoke at the same time.

“Huh.”

“Oookay.” I let out a breath and shuffled back to Dean.

He bumped my arm as Sam asked what he had found out.

“Paydirt.”

“Oh, do share.” I grinned up at him.

“Apparently the surviving relatives of the Merchant family were so ashamed of Isaiah that they didn’t want him interred with the rest of the family. So, they handed him over to the county. County gave him a pauper’s funeral. Economy style.” Dean clicked his tongue. “He wasn’t created. He was buried in a pine box.”

“So there are bones to burn.”

“There are bones to burn.” Dean nodded.

“Please tell me you know where.”

                                                         ***

I flung dirt over my shoulder with a huff. It was hot, and I was sweaty and gross. I could’ve sat out on digging, Dean and Sam understood that doing that with a single arm was difficult, but I didn’t want to engage in small talk with Sarah. Dean took a second, and Sam crawled out of the grave, standing next to Sarah.

“You guys seem to be uncomfortably comfortable with this.” She noted.

“Well, uh, this isn’t exactly the first grave we’ve dug.” He chuckled. “Still think I’m a catch?”

She laughed, and Dean tapped his shovel against something hard.

“Think we’ve got something.”

“Wanna crack it open?” I asked Dean.

“Nah. Jump.” He tossed his shovel up to Sam.

I did the same, and Dean held his hands out to me, holding onto my forearm and elbow. I giggled as he smiled.

“Ready?”

“Are they… laughing?”

“She grew up in this life. We all did.” Sam sighed. “Olive tends to find joy in the very little things.

“Alright, come on.” Dean gave my arm a squeeze.

I anchored my feet down before hopping. The heels of my boots cracked through the wood. Dean gripped me by the middle and held me back up. Sam reached down and helped me out. I shook the dirt off my boots as Dean got himself back on solid ground.

I rustled through the bag and yanked out the rock salt. Sam poured the kerosene all over the coffin, and I dumped the container of salt in. Dean struck a match and watched it burn for a second.

“You’ve been a real pain in the ass, Isaiah.”

“Good riddance, bitch.” I grinned as Dean tossed the match down.

The coffin went up in flames.

                                                         ***

“Keep the motor running.” Sam instructed as we rolled up.

“I thought the painting was harmless now.” Sarah tilted her head as Sam got out of the car.

“Better safe than sorry. We’re gonna bury the sucker.” Sam shut the door.

“I’m going with you.”

“You sure?” Sam was taken aback.

“Hey! Hey, hey!” Dean called Sam. “Olive and I will stay here.”

“Go make your move!” I grinned, punching his arm.

Sam rolled his eyes.

“Sam! We’re serious!”

Sam flipped us off behind his back at he and Sarah jogged up the stairs. Dean flicked the station and turned the radio up. I giggled as a love song blared. Sam turned around and glared. Dean shrugged, and Sam pulled a finger across his throat. Dean sighed and turned the radio off. I threw my head back against the seat as Sam and Sarah disappeared inside the house. Dean sighed.

“He’s never gonna get laid.”

I rolled my eyes. “We can’t force him to go on a date if he doesn’t want to.”

Dean opened his mouth to respond, but a child’s loud laughter cut him off. We sat up straight to see the front door slam shut. We turned to each other for a second, and then busted out of the car, bolting up to the door. Dean pushed at the door, and I shoved it with my shoulder. Something on the other side, hopefully Sam, was trying to pull it open.

“Dean! Olive! Is that you?”

“Sams!”

“Sammy, you alright?”

Sam didn’t answer, but Dean’s phone rang. He flicked it open and put it on speaker.

“Tell me you slammed the front door.” He shoved the phone into my hand and began to work on the lock.

“No, it wasn’t me. I think it was the little girl.”

“Girl?” Dean echoed. “What girl?”

“Oh fuck, the girl in the painting!”

“Yeah! She’s not in it anymore. I think it might’ve been her all along.”

“Wasn’t the dad looking down at her?” Dean glanced at me. “Maybe he was trying to warn us.”

“Hey hey hey! Let’s recap later. Just get us out of here.” Sam pleaded.

“Well I’m trying to pick the lock, but the door won’t budge.”

“Well then knock it down.”

“Okay, Sams, let us just grab the battering ram.” I spat.

“Guys, the damn thing is coming.”

“You’re just gonna have to hold it off until we figure something out. Get salt and iron.” Dean instructed.

I slammed my shoulder against the door, and nothing happened. I shook my head as I took a breath. Dean paid no attention, again trying to take the door down. My teeth shifted inside my mouth, my jaw splintered, and blood came down in streams.

“Uh, guys, gimme a sec, don’t go anywhere.”

Dean walked around the porch, looking for a way in. There was a shout over the phone, and I clenched my fists, head spinning.

“Sammy, you okay?”

“Yeah, for now.”

“How are we gonna waste her?” I whispered.

“I don’t know. She was already cremated, there’s nothing left to burn.”

“Then how’s she still around?” Dean hit the door again.

“There must be something else.”

I opened my eyes and let out a breath. I could feel fangs in my mouth, digging into my bottom lip.

“Guys! Sarah said the doll might have the kid’s real hair. Human remains, same as bones.”

“The Mausoleum!”

“Dean, you’ve gotta go.” I shut the phone and shoved it into his hand.

He blinked, stumbling backward. I breathed heavily.

“What-”

“I’m in control right now. Go burn the doll.”

“What are you gonna do?”

I ran my tongue over my teeth and squared my shoulders. “Get in there and get Sammy safe.”

“Olive, you can’t-”

“I can take a ghost better than Sam can right now.” I huffed. “Dean. Go.”

He stared at me for a second before turning and dashing back to the car. The engine roared, and he peeled out of there in record time. I struggled with the sling before managing to fling it off onto the ground.

“Hang on, Sams. I’m coming.”

I sprinted down the porch and to the windows. I had to jump to get a good grip on the security bars. I slipped my legs in through them, anchoring my feet on the glass. I kicked as hard as I could, and the glass shattered. The alarm began to go off, and I flinched. It was worse than it would’ve been normally.

I tucked my legs back under my body and tugged at the bars with my full weight and strength. They broke at the connections, and I slammed my shoulder into them. They fell into the house, and I scrambled as I hit the floor, skimming across a layer of broken glass.

“Sammy!” I called.

“Sam!” Sarah shrieked from another room.

I followed the noise. A wardrobe was pinning Sam to the ground, and the little bitch of a ghost was staring Sarah down, razor in hand. Sam strained under the wood, trying to get it off. The girl raised her hand, and Sarah was thrown up into the air like a rag doll.

“Hey, kid!” I spat.

The ghost’s head turned to me unnaturally fast, and a rage filled her dead eyes. Sarah took the opportunity to scramble to Sam, helping him push the wardrobe off. The girl ran at me, blade up high.

“Olive!”

I took a swing at her, feeling metal slice against my forearm. Sam knocked me to the ground, away from the ghost. She stumbled backwards, burning up. Her figure reappeared in the painting. I hissed as Sam’s hand clamped down on my skin. His phone rang, and Sarah fished it out of his pocket for him.

“Sam, you good? Did Olive-”

“Right here, De.” I snarled, teeth bared as I tried to squirm away.

Sam grabbed me and held me down in his lap and yanked his flannel off, tying the sleeve around my arm. I blinked, coughing on my blood as my teeth began to go back to normal, bones cracking.

Sarah stared, and Sam sighed as he leaned his head back against the wall. I pushed off of the ground and onto my feet, heading right for the painting.

“Olive?”

I took it down and flicked out a switchblade. I spat the rest of the blood in my mouth onto the little girl’s face, then drove the blade right into her face.

“Rot in hell.”

                                                         ***

“This was archived in the county records.” Dean smacked my head with a paper.

“What is it?” I asked, snatching the papers away as he stood next to me.

Sarah and Sam turned their attention from the painting, which was being crated up, to us.

“The Merchant’s adopted daughter, Melanie. Know why she was up for adoption?”

I flicked the papers open and read off the paper with a snort. “Her real family was murdered in their sleep.”

“Think she killed them?” Sarah asked.

I shrugged, and Dean nodded.

“Who would suspect a sweet little girl? She kills Isaiah and his family. Old man takes the blame.”

“You’re right, his spirit must’ve been trying to warn people ever since.”

“Where’s this one go?” A worker asked as he patted the crate.

“Take it out back and burn it.” Sarah didn’t skip a beat.

We blinked at her, taken aback.

“I’m serious, guys. Thanks.” She nodded at them and they shrugged at each other before lifting the crate and stumbling away.

“So why’d the girl do it?” Sarah turned back to us and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Killing others? Killing herself?” Sam tilted his head and shrugged. “Some people are just born tortured. So when they die, their spirits are just as dark.”

“Maybe.” Dean huffed. “I don’t really care. It’s over, our time to move on.”

“Oh…” Sarah’s shoulders fell. “I guess this means you’re leaving.”

Dean and I glanced between Sarah and Sam. Sam blinked at us, then cleared his throat. Realization dawned on me as I grabbed Dean by the hand and smiled.

“See you around, Sarah!”

“Oh. Yeah, we’ll go wait in the car. Bye, Sarah.” Dean grinned, wrapping an arm over my shoulder and leading us out of the door.

She said nothing, and Dean rolled his eyes. I snorted.

“Not like I got sliced and almost dislocated my shoulder, but it’s fine.”

“And I’m the one that burned the doll, destroyed the spirit, but don’t thank me or anything.” Dean grumbled under his breath.

I shook my head. “Some guys just get all the glory, don’t they?”

Dean laughed as we leaned against the car. I stifled a yawn as Sarah let Sam out of the house, closing the door behind him. I sighed as Sam stood on the porch, hands in his pockets.

“Alright, come on.” Dean pushed me into the car. “Guess he didn’t wanna make his move.”

“Wait, wait.” I smacked his hand away and watched.

Sam knocked on Sarah’s door. She opened it, and he stepped in and kissed her. I smiled and slid into the car. Dean grinned.

“That’s my boy.”

“Go Sams.” I giggled as they continued to kiss in the doorway. “Think he’ll ask to stay?” I leaned against Dean’s shoulder.

He shook his head. “No. He won’t.”

Previous Ep: Something Wicked (1.18)

Next Ep: Dead Man’s Blood (1.20)

[et-lesailes]

001. a hollywood love story // young!chris evans x reader. --> COMING TONIGHT!

When you last saw him, he was on the couch with a girl on either side of him, taking turns making out with each. You’ve heard he’s quite the party boy, dabbling in drugs and alcohol, and practically drowning in female companionship. You thought he was dating Jessica Biel, but seeing his tongue shoved down this blonde’s throat as his hand snakes up the thigh of the brunette, you figure they’re not as committed or exclusive as they let on.

Quite honestly, you’re not interested in him in terms of networking. He isn’t going to do you any favors, he’s probably in a phase where he needs to look out for himself before anyone else. And you completely understand. It’s what Hollywood does to you-- makes you selfish, desperate, twisted. You know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, but damn, is it a long tunnel.

You’ve barely even realized the male in front of you is still talking. You’re about to shut him down when you see Chris enter the kitchen, without his little playthings, surprisingly enough. The two of you make eye contact. You don’t even have to try; you can already tell he’s intrigued. You aren’t sure whether that’s flattering or concerning. He seems like he’d be intrigued by a hobo, as long as said hobo were to have a vagina. He walks over to you with a gait of confidence, corner of his lips already tugging upwards. He steps in right next to the man, his presence shutting him up.

“Hey there. Haven’t seen you around here before. What’s your name, beautiful?”

002. lady & the tramp // colin shea x rich!reader. --> COMING 1.19!

There was one man who stood out to you in particular. Why, you had no idea. He was wearing a ratty t-shirt and jeans, probably on his fourth beer and talking louder than anyone else at the bar. He currently had a girl on each arm, and he was clearly loving the attention. 

He seemed like a douche. And therefore, you wanted him. Fuck all the rich, lazy men you were accustomed to. This boy looked… fun. He was the life of the party, he was a funny drunk, and he had everyone around him lively and excited. When a song he apparently enjoyed started playing, he even sang along to it. You had never seen someone so carefree and down-to-earth. 

Your phone buzzed, and you glanced down at the lit up screen. Your mother. “Y/N, where are you?? This is ridiculous. Come back home right now, Alexander is waiting to meet you.” 

You scoffed and slipped the phone into your bag, downing the rest of your drink and standing up. You had never had an issue approaching a boy in your life; rejection simply did not happen for you. You were confident, rich, pretty, and full of spirited and flirtatious personality, and so you strode right up to the handsome stranger, flashing a smile of feigned innocence towards his female companions. “Excuse me, ladies. I’d like to talk to your little boy toy here.”

003. all grown up // stalker!ransom drysdale x reader. --> TBD

You had just arrived at the house, and your eyes couldn’t help but drift towards Ransom’s. Fond memories came rushing back; you were not the type to feel overly sentimental, but you found yourself feeling a pang of nostalgia. As you gazed over at his freshly cut lawn, you remembered all the times he and your brother would actually entertain you with a game of tag or hide-and-seek despite the fact that they were so much older. You remembered falling on the driveway and scraping your knee so badly, you still had a scar to this day-- but with Bryce washing it up and Ransom trying to make you laugh to distract you, the pain seemed to only last for a few seconds. Even the not so great memories still made you smile to yourself, such as Bryce and Ransom riding around the neighborhood on their brand new bikes while you were desperately wailing for them to wait for you as you lagged along on your tiny tricycle. As nice to you as they were, they were young boys who were far too excited about their fast rides, and so they weren’t exactly about to wait for the little four-year-old moving at a snail's pace. In a cranky fit, you had simply gotten off your bike to sit in the yard and cry while they raced down the street-- the memory made you laugh now, shaking your head fondly to yourself. 

You had asked Bryce if the Thrombeys still lived there. Linda and Richard did, but he explained to you that Ransom had moved out. He was still in Massachusetts, but he had his own place now about an hour away. You had to admit you were a bit disappointed, but at least he wasn’t too far. You really did hope to see him again now that you were back home. According to Bryce, he was pretty much the same Ransom; blunt and straightforward, snarky yet amusing, and of course, privileged and entitled. Growing up quite wealthy yourself, this actually didn’t bother you. You were used to this behavior from the family friends you were surrounded with, and you knew there was more depth to Ransom than what people had always seen him as. He acted snobby and superior even as a child, always the cocky know-it-all, but you knew if that was all there was to him, he would have never been so considerate with you when you were little.

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[lilytcyip]

December 31st, 2019

1.3 tera v w/ rjin & ggao

1.4 cactus & la foret w/ jng

1.8 talked it out with jng ; tried to understand that if i were happy, what more could you ask for

1.11 cyns bday dinner

1.11 craft beer w/ aleung & lwong

1.13 arisu & standing egg with efeng & aleung ; drove on highway for the first time

1.18 west dineout w/ annie pkp

1.19 glass w/ fifi

2.10 first snow of the year

2.3 cny lunch at home with the fam - tong yuen & poon choi

2.4 mooseknuckles - grateful

2.5 lunar new year

2.16 hangiout with mamayip & sis: beta 5, fixing the parka, meetfresh, miku sushi dindin

2.17 mom leaving for 2 months, wandering earth with the yips

2.19 happy hour cactus w/ fifi

2.20 kokoro lunch & shopping w/ rjin

2.20 so hyang w/ veda & nwu

2.21 black been noodles & tonkatsu lunch & usagi matcha sweets w/ ewong

2.22 green leaf sushi & grounds for coffee w/ vtan

2.25 sushi mura w/ acao ; larry berg planes and kisses for the first time

3.13 mental health talk w/ nwu & tchiu + jamjar

3.15 virtuous pie & nanas green tea w/ rjin

3.16 wine night w/ claw, aleung & fsyal

3.17 tabom & stanely park w/ jerpilla

3.23 pool & rc shopping with jyang

4.3 studying with jyang on campus & langara bye

4.9 studying with jyang at my house

4.18 ramen danbo & official date 

4.20 so hyang & off the grid waffles w/ ayip

4.26 sci ning off w/ aleung, claw, fsyal, lwong & mcheung

4.27 clay llama terra pot class

4.29 so hyang budae jjigae & yifang w/ ewong

4.30 rc shopping & sushi lover with the yips 

5.1 maenam, kits beach & rain or shiine ice cream w/ rjin

5.2 our first little tiff & being called chubby by mlo

5.3 shopping w/ vchan, aleung & fsyal

5.7-5.11 LA trip

5.8 LACMA & melrose & century city field

5.9 warner bros tour

5.10 malibu

5.28-6.1 hokkaido, japan

5.29 a 2-floor hotel with own onsen

5.31 otaru food adventures

6.1 doraemon painting & royce airport

6.2 macau: got scammed by taxi & lost luggage

6.7-6.15 inner mongolia & beijing

6.18 first co op offer 

6.21 fire port party at fifis house

6.29 pottery painting w lwong, aleung, vchan, fsyal

7.5 brunch w/ rjin at jethro’s fine grub, baker & table

7.6 nwu’s birthday dindin at coast, hangout with aleung & nwu at nightingale

7.14 leavenworth cherries

7.17 brunch w/ rjin at OEB

7.19 nightmarket w/ jyang, mlaw, rjin

7.21 beach day w/ aleung, fsyal & lwong; hy’s with fam

7.24 chau veggies w/ acao

7.27 shiok & icy bar w/ ewong

8.3 first day of work at doctors office

8.4 escape room w/ vchan, fsyal & jyang; bowling & anh and chi

8.17 dindin w/ fsyal, aleung & tlim; double date walks at olympic village with ancas

8.18 - 8.19 kelowna

8.18 polar grove & penticton lazy river, mission hill

8.19 kayaking, quail’s gate

8.24 lit night at fifis house with the girls and boys

8.25 aleung’s bday harrison trip

8.27 work shopping & nuba w/ fsyal

8.28 sleepover w/ rjin

8.29 brunch w/ aleung, moii cafe chill with fsyal too

9.3 first day of co op work

9.7 grave of the fireflies & wildtale cuddles

9.14 eric chou meet & greet

9.19 amandarachlee neg comment and posted my encouragement on her story

10.5 maiko parfait & shopping w/ jyang, earls with the amigos

10.18 gmen & oncecake: melody, rillakuma, card & collage

10.24 dark table w/ rjin

11.7 moii after work 

12.15 baking custard souffle pancakes w/ ewong

12.18 office christmas party & bbt w/ slim

12.19 glow

12.21 fifi’s christmas party

12.22 christmas market w/ rjin: churros & chimney cake

12.23 psyc team secret santa & mahjong

12.25 christmas dindin at market by jean-georges

12.26 birthday dindin at zeferelli

12.27 ring & birthday dinner at brix and mortar w/ jyang

12.28 skated alone, worked out, baked & dindin at botanist

looking back at it now, i definitely went out a lot more compared to previous years LOL i had some struggles in january, and at multiple points in my life i blamed myself for being ungrateful, for seeking more when i already had so much in life compared to other people. my friends were there for me and i wouldnt have been able to live through it without them. then again, during reading break in february, i got myself into the same hot mess and i was sad about it for a week and i blamed myself for getting so attached so quickly. because of these experiences, my expectations were v low and i didnt really expect anything when i talked to jyang, what they say really is true, you get it the moment you stop seeking for it. it comes and find you (: the 3 most important that happened this year is burbur, co op job & me getting more comfortable around doggs; this is a big deal !! i actually like cuddling dogs and i feel less scared of them as long as i have some time to get used to them!! im proud of myself for making progress with my phobia! after i started my co op job, bc i didnt have a lot to do, i felt like i wasnt actively contributing to my workplace and that i was very useless. i still feel the same way now, but i think i am slowly getting used to it. thankfully, my coworkers are VERY nice and i enjoy working around them. while i did not get a different position for january, im still grateful that i got an extended placement. nonetheless, meeting with the different PIs and sumeet pointed me in the right direction of looking for nserc / volunteering opportunities when i do go back to school. AND ofc burbur! im grateful that we were able to be there for each other for the past 8 months, both the ups and downs and i am so so thankful that we’re understanding and patient with each other, as we help each other learn along the way and help each other become a better version of ourselves. this companionship is better than i have asked for and i always remind myself to focus on the important things rather than the minor inconveniences. this year, in terms of fitness goals, ive been doing really well before asia. but ever since i came back, it all went downhill and i gained back all the weight that i lost this year year LOL so in 2020, one of my biggest goal is to eat healthy again, and workout more consistently. getting a job in sept kinda interfered with my progress too, bc i was so tired after work, even when i wasnt doing anything and i stressed eat bc i felt terrible. a lot of diff factors made me feel super stressed, and the fact that i wasnt eating clean / exercising reguarly made me feel worse about the whole situation ): so in 2020, maintaining a healthy lifestyle will be one of my top priorities and gifting myself a healthy body is one of greatest things i can do for myself. this also contributed to the lack of journalling near the end of the year, it felt like bc i wasnt doing the things i was “supposed to do”, i just felt so bad whenever i couldnt tick off that particular habit whenever i fill in my trackers. but tonight, i watched this video and it talked about habits should be for awareness, not for self-hate or self-loathing. this is something that i need to keep in mind. ever since april really, the issue of leaving my house and meeting up with my friends have always stressed me in fear of dealing with passive aggressiveness with my mom lool everytime i get inviited to plans, i just get anxiety about having to tell her about it LOL and even when im out, having a msg/ call for her freaks me out in fear that she will get mad at me for being home late and etc and fifi really woke me up with her words, i should just care less LOL i need to stop caring so much about what she thinks, bc at the end of the day, this IS my life and if i never make any changes, i will never be able to grow and be independent. i think this pree much sums up all my events and emotions in 2019, the last year of the 2010s. in the next decade, a lot of things will happen as i will be in my 20s - 30s, where new opportunities will arise, and graduate uni, do my masters, find a job, maybe even marry and move out LOL the 2020s will definitely be an impt decade, but just for next year i want to:

1. understand that i am old enough to make choices, and in general, care less about what she thinks

2. at the same time, i want to appreciate and be grateful for what my mom, dad and annie have done for me; a lot of the times, i feel like i take them for granted just bc i know they will always be there for me and this is not how you should treat your biggest supporters

3. trust that everything will workout in the end, while you may not be able to envision what you career / life would be like when youre 30, you can definitely take small steps and move towards your goal

4. be mindful of what i eat and exercise regularly (4x hiit & cardio a week) ; treats & sweets in moderation; use those habit trackers for awareness, not for self-loathing / self-hate

5. create art regularly, read more and at least do 5 duolingos every week! 

every year, time just seems to go by faster and faster and i feel scared at times. as i type this, theres only 8 minutes left of this decade LOL so in 2020, continue to live in the moment, be present, cherish those that are around you, and have faith that everything will come together, one piece at a time. at the same time, always rmb that you can make small changes to be a better version of yourself, whenever & however you want and this is the 1 thing that other people can’t stop you from doing! 

[abzilp]

The modern German novel begins with The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus (Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus Teutsch, 1668) by Hans Grimmelshausen (1622?–76). One of the greatest novels of the 17th century, this 5-part, 400-page book is a boisterous Oktoberfest of genres bumping bellies: bildungsroman, picaresque, allegory, (anti)war novel, hagiography, fantastic voyage, romance, ghost story, sermon, and utopian novel. Referring to the frontispiece depicting a leering satyr/phoenix/bird/fish creature pointing at a book, one German critic admitted “the history of literary forms stands helpless before such a Tragelaph.”64 Initially, it resembles a picaresque novel, especially Alemán’s Guzman of Alfarache, which had been adapted into German by Aegidius Albertinus in 1615. Beginning about halfway through the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), the narrator explains how he was raised nameless and uneducated among peasants until the marauding Imperial army looted his village when he was 12 or 13; he escapes into the nearby forest and is taken under the wing of a religious hermit who names him Simplicius because of his ignorance—he’s never seen a horse, and assumes soldiers riding them are a centaurlike hybrid of man and wolf—and brainwashes him with Christianity before allowing him to read more books borrowed from the local pastor. After the hermit dies, Simplicius returns to the world at war and yo-yos from one camp to another; treated like a fool, he becomes a professional jester until he can work his way up the ranks. He becomes a marauding prankster known as the Hunter of Soest, and on one occasion discovers an abandoned treasure in a haunted house, which seems to ensure his fortune. Knowing he’s betraying his Christian upbringing but powerless to resist, Simplicius then accompanies a young nobleman to Paris, where he becomes an actor and a gigolo, the beginning of a downward moral spiral that takes him back penniless to Germany, where he scrapes by as a traveling quack until he’s forced back into the army. Determined to settle down, he marries a country lass (who turns into a drunk), reunites with his “father” (who tells Simplicius he is actually the son of the hermit who raised him, a Scottish nobleman who abandoned the world in disgust), travels some more (Russia and Asia) before returning home disillusioned with everything, and becomes a hermit—choosing the life that had been forced upon him as a frightened boy. So it seems the entire novel has been a sermon against unchristian behavior, and a religious call for renunciation of the sinful world. 

But Grimmelshausen complicates this picaresque pilgrim’s progress in many intriguing ways. On the one hand, the novel is graphically realistic, much more so than spiritually oriented works are. The attack on young Simplicius’s village is described in sickening detail: the soldiers ransack and torch everything, torture the peasants, and rape the women. Later, peasants capture a soldier, cut off his nose, and force him to lick their assholes before they bury him alive in a barrel; when other soldiers capture the cleansed peasants, “They bound their hands and feet together round a fallen tree in such a way that their backsides (if you will forgive me again) were sticking up nicely in the air. Then they pulled down their trousers, took several yards of fuse, tied knots in it and ran it up and down in their arses to such effect that the blood came pouring out. The peasants screamed pitifully, but the soldiers were enjoying it and did not stop their sawing until they were through the skin and flesh and down to the bone.”65 Young Grimmelshausen was an eyewitness to such atrocities—the first third of the novel is somewhat autobiographical; his handling of a child’s POV is superb—and his willingness to report what he saw so unflinchingly makes Simplicissimus a primary source for historians of the Thirty Years’ War. (You’ll recall the Spanish Estebanillo González is also set during that conflict and captures some of the chaos of war, but Grimmelshausen focuses on the civilian population.) 

Such language also makes the novel a primary document in the rise of realism in fiction; not since Thomas Nashe had any novelist dared to describe the aftermath of battle in such gruesome terms as he uses: “there were heads that had lost the bodies they belonged to and bodies lacking heads; some had their entrails hanging out in sickening fashion, others their skull smashed and the brain spattered over the ground; . . . there were shot-off arms with the fingers still moving, as if they wanted to get back into the fighting, . . .” (2.27). The dialogue is equally realistic: “Pox on you, brother, are you still alive?” one soldier greets another. “By the holy fuckrament, the Devil looks after his own!” (1.26). As a licensed fool, Simplicius doesn’t mince words when asked to describe a fashionable visitor: “This lady has hair as yellow as baby shit and the parting is as white and as straight as if she had been hit on the scalp with a curry-comb. And her hair is in such neat rolls it looks like hollow pipes, or as if she had a pound of candles or a dozen sausages hanging down each side. And oh, look at her lovely smooth forehead, is it not more beautifully curved than a fat buttock and whiter than a dead man’s skull which has been hanging out in the wind and rain for years?” (2.9). Simplicius often embarrasses himself by farting noisily; people vomit, shit, swear, scratch at lice and fleas. There’s sex and some nudity: sailing on the Danube for Vienna, Simplicius “had eyes for nothing but the women who answered the calls from the boats with literal rather than verbal bare-arsed cheek” (5.3).66 The point is religious writers don’t write like this—nowhere in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress does a farmboy tell a dairymaid “that she could kiss his arse and go fuck her mammy in the bargain” (3.23)—which calls into question the ostensibly religious orientation of the novel. Something else is afoot. 

Though highly realistic, more so than most pre-20th-century novels, Simplicissimus is, on the other hand, highly unrealistic and brazenly supernatural. Grimmelshausen’s novel often reads like a Grimms’ fairy tale, for Simplicius lives in a demon-haunted world where people still cast spells, foretell the future, and consort with devils. When he leaves the forest for the town, some citizens “thought I was a spectre, a ghost or some such phenomenon” (1.19)—phenomena as real to them as the butcher or the baker. In book 2, Simplicius is foraging at night and sneaks into a farmhouse, where he spies a few people who “had a sulphurous blue lamp on the bench by the light of which they were greasing sticks, brooms, pitchforks, stools and benches. Then, one after the other, they flew out of the window on them.” Puzzled, he sits on one of the benches and instantly shoots out the window and lands about 150 miles northeast to witness a witches’ dance, described with Boschean extravagance. Invited to join the dance, “I cried out loud to God, at which the whole crew vanished” (2.17). Simplicius insists this actually happened, and wasn’t a dream; citing similar stories from reputable scholars, including the story of Faust, he dares the reader to disbelieve him: “if you don’t believe it, you will have to think up some other way in which I went in such short time from Hersfeld or Fulda (I still don’t know where I was, wandering round in the forest) to the vicinity of Magdeburg” (2.18). There he is taken into a regiment that includes a prevost-sergeant who “was a true sorcerer and black magician who knew a spell for finding out thieves and another to make not only himself as bullet-proof as steel, but others too.” To find a thief, “the sorcerer muttered a few words and puppies started to jump out of people’s pockets, sleeves, boots, flies and any other openings in their dress, one, two, three or more at a time” (2.22). A little later, Simplicius invents a pocket-sized instrument that enables him to hear things taking place miles away, and again taunts the reader: “However, I am not surprised if people do not believe what I have just written” (3.1). The treasure he discovers is guarded by a “ghost or wraith” (3.12), which is not a product of his imagination, nor is the demon who speaks to him from inside a man undergoing exorcism (5.2). Near the end is the greatest test of the reader’s incredulity: tossing some stones into the “enchanted” Mummelsee, “a supposedly bottomless lake” (5.10)—a real lake in the Black Forest, but now known to be only 55 feet deep—some sylphs come to the surface, give him a magic jewel that enables him to breathe underwater, then take him to the center of the earth for a 16-page tour of their subterranean world and discuss their place in the Christian scheme of things.67 

All this takes place on the “factual” plane of the novel, and doesn’t include numerous instances where people are mistaken for devils, or Simplicius’s allegorical dream of the military establishment as a tree (which allows Grimmelshausen to criticize further the suffering inflicting upon civilians) “with Mars, the God of War, on the top, and covering the whole of Europe with its branches” (1.18). One chapter is entitled “How Simplicius Was Dragged Down into Hell by Four Devils and Treated to Spanish Wine” (2.5), followed by “How Simplicius Went to Heaven and Was Turned into a Calf” (2.6), but these are merely pranks soldiers play on the naïve lad. Later he meets a madman who calls himself Jupiter, whom Simplicius plays along with by referring himself to Ganymede or Mercury, and layered on top of other references to classical mythology and German folklore is an elaborate set of references to Chaldean astrology. It’s tempting to call this magic realism were it not closer to the aesthetics of the medieval morality play, where figures representing devils or the sun shared the same stage as mortals. Christianity is part and parcel of this magical/medieval world: throughout the novel, saints and angels are evoked in the same breath as figures from myth and folklore, supernatural events are defended with citations of similar events in the Bible, and Christian theology is indistinguishable from the world of myth and magic. If you believe in the miracles in the Bible, the novel implies, then you’re no different from those who believe witches ride broomsticks and sorcerers cause puppies to magically crawl out of your pocket. As in Don Quixote, there is a clash between old-world and new-world weltanschauungs, and by the end of the novel, Christianity has been so thoroughly contaminated by its association with outdated mythology that Simplicius’s quixotic decision to renounce the world at age 33 and become a Christian hermit can only be regarded as the act of a simpleton. The novel encourages figurative detachment from the world, not literal. 

Grimmelshausen certainly didn’t drop out to play the holy fool: he managed estates, ran several inns, was the mayor of a small town, had 10 kids, and wrote more than 20 books. He converted from Protestantism to Catholicism when younger (to help his careers, it’s been suggested), but he knew the only real magic is the act of artistic creation. There’s a lovely passage near the end of book 1 in which an officer’s secretary praises writing as a way to make a living; Simplicius thinks he’s talking about magic (and is reminded of “Fortunatus’s inexhaustible purse”), but Grimmelshausen is also praising the novelist’s art of creating something from nothing: 

I once criticised him for his dirty inkwell but he replied that it was the best thing in his whole room for he could draw up out of it anything he wanted: fine gold ducats, fine clothes, in short all his possessions had been fished out of his inkwell one by one. I refused to believe that such magnificent things could be obtained from such a paltry container. He replied that it was the spiritus paperi, as he called the ink, that did it, and that an inkwell was called a well because you could draw up all sorts of things out of it. (1.27) 

Out of Grimmelshausen’s dirty inkwell came this devilishly clever satire on 17th-century society, a world “so full of foolishness that no one takes any notice or laughs at it anymore,” as Simplicius notes (3.17), encouraging him to “castigate all follies and censure all vanities” (2.10). Simplicissimus begins like a picaresque bildungsroman but opens up into a Menippean satire, a blitzkrieg against pretension, hypocrisy, superstition, and especially the alleged nobility of war. There’s no bullshit here about dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, a con kings and politicians have been using to recruit cannon-fodder ever since Horace penned that piece of propaganda. The Thirty Years’ War was essentially a family squabble between the Hapsburgs and the Bourbons for territorial control over Europe (with some Protestant vs. Catholic window-dressing), about as noble as a mob turf war, and though Grimmelshausen sarcastically notes war is good for business (5.5), he rubs his reader’s face in its barbaric nature with a force that wouldn’t be felt again until the antiwar novels of the 20th century. As Simplicius fools his way through war-torn, phantasmagoric Germany, I was remind of Slothrop in Gravity’s Rainbow; Grimmelshausen even indulges in some Pynchonesque personification: on one of his foraging expeditions, Simplicius sees “a sight for sore eyes or, rather, empty bellies: hanging up in the chimney were hams, sausages and sides of bacon. They seemed to be smiling at me, so I gave them a come-hither look, wishing they would come and join my comrades in the woods, but in vain; the hard-hearted things ignored me and stayed hanging there” (2.31). Simplicissimus belongs to the same insubordinate platoon as The Good Soldier Švejk, The Tin Drum, and Catch-22. 

Though Grimmelshausen drew upon personal experiences for the early parts of the novel, he drew mostly upon his extensive reading. Scholars have shown that more than 150 books went into the making of this erudite novel, ranging from classical authors and the medieval Parzival to the 6-page passage from Antonio de Guevara’s 16th-century theological tract that concludes book 5. A German translation of Charles Sorel’s iconoclastic antinovel Francion (see pp. 182–86 below) was a major inspiration, but Grimmelshausen also drew upon Italian novellas and German jestbooks (like Till Eulenspiegel), encyclopedias and almanacs, and manuals on witchcraft like Johann Wier’s De Præstigiis dæmonium (2.8). A battle scene that sounds like an eyewitness report actually comes from a German translation of Sidney’s Arcadia (which should give military historians pause). On one occasion, Simplicius visits a pastor and finds him “reading my Chaste Joseph” (3.19)—a biblical novel Grimmelshausen published in 1666, though it’s only 1639 at this point! That’s so obviously an anachronism that it has to be deliberate, another taunting call for the suspension of disbelief like Simplicius’s magical bench ride and his sylph-escorted journey to the center of the earth. It’s all one to “the old inkslinger” (2.4). 

Cervantes waited 10 years to publish a sequel to Don Quixote, but Grimmelshausen jumped on the unexpected success of Simplicissimus. When the 5-book novel was reprinted in 1669, he added a 6th book simply entitled Continuation (Continuatio), though scholars are divided on whether this forms an organic whole with the previous part, or is the first of several sequels Grimmelshausen published over the next few years. 

Like most hastily written sequels, the Continuation isn’t very good. Picking up where book 5 left off, Simplicius’s solitary life as a hermit seems to be driving him crazy, for first he recounts a long, allegorical dream that starts in hell with Lucifer gnashing his teeth at the declaration of peace that ended the Thirty Years’ War, which morphs into a didactic tale of a rich young Englishman who ruins himself through conspicuous consumption. Our hairy hermit then encounters a statue that comes to life, and—after Simplicius decides to hit the road as a pilgrim—he gets into an argument with some toilet paper, who delivers a long economic history of its many metamorphoses from seed to paper (a remarkable set-piece that again brings Pynchon to mind). Mistaken for the Wandering Jew, spooked by ghosts, Simplicius has further bizarre adventures as he travels to Egypt, then is shipwrecked on a deserted island off the coast of Australia, where he leads a Robinson Crusoe-type existence—this section was based on the popular English novelette by Henry Neville, The Isle of Pines (1668)—and there he writes the entire Simplicissimus novel on palm leaves. Refusing rescue by a Dutch sea captain, Simplicius intends to live out the rest of his pious life on his island hideaway, “an example of change and a mirror of the inconstancy of human life.”68 Although the book offers further displays of the author’s outlandish erudition, it’s too didactic, too medieval. 

Grimmelshausen returns to form in The Life of Courage (Die Landstörtzerin Courasche, 1670).69 Near the end of Simplicissimus, our protagonist had boasted of seducing and dumping a beatiful lady, a “man-trap” whose “easy virtue soon disgusted him” (5.6); nine months later, she leaves a baby on his doorstep, who Simplicius reluctantly makes his son and heir. Audaciously blurring the distinction between fiction and reality, Grimmelshausen states in a headnote that this unnamed woman read Simplicissimus and was so insulted at her portrayal therein that she decided to avenge herself by telling the story of her life, revealing that the woman he took for an aristocrat was actually a promiscuous adventuress infected with syphilis—which raises an intriguing possibility: Did Simplicius contract the disease from her? Untreated, it can cause insanity, which would explain the underwater sylphic adventure later in book 5 and the talking toilet paper. Indeed, the entire bizarre Continuation can be read as a neurosyphilitic hallucination. If nothing else, it stinks up the odor of sanctity with which Simplicissimus ends. 

Just as the Continuation anticipates Robinson Crusoe, this short novel anticipates Defoe’s Moll Flanders, but with no apology at the end for the life she’s led. (Grimmelshausen, however, tacks on a homiletic warning against following her example.) Inspired by a German translation of Lopez de Úbeda’s Justina, Grimmelshausen backtracks to the very beginning of the Thirty Years’ War. Born in Bohemia, 13-year-old Libuschka disguises herself as a boy to avoid rape from invading soldiers and joins the army: “I made a great effort to get rid of all my woman’s habits and acquire man’s. I took great pains to learn to swear like a trooper and drink like a fish . . . so that no one should suspect there was something I had not been endowed with at birth” (2). When it’s revealed during a fight she lacks that certain something, she defiantly calls her vulva Courage, which becomes her girl-power nom de guerre in her fight against male prejudice as well as opposing armies.70 Over the next dozen years, she is repeatedly married to soldiers, repeatedly raped by other other soldiers, then becomes a prostitute, then a black marketeer, doing whatever it takes to survive the war, and marrying whoever promises shelter from the storm. (Through no fault of her own, her husbands usually perish before their first anniversary.) She’s smart, as courageous as her name implies, and fiercely independent; she doesn’t really descend into criminal behavior until later in life, when she joins a band of Gypsies. And that child she left on Simplicius’s doorstep? Not hers, but her slutty maid’s. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and Courage takes self-incriminating delight in telling Simplex (as she calls him) how wrong he was about everything. 

Like Simplicissimus, Courage is graphically realistic but includes a few magical elements. The Spanish Justina tried to dodge sexual encounters, but Courage welcomes them: she’s a novelty in novels of this period, a sexually active woman who doesn’t feel guilty about scratching her itch (as puts it). While we have to remember that a man is writing this, Grimmelshausen was a worldly one and knew that women have sexual desires too, which you wouldn’t guess from most novels published before the 20th century. Like Simplicius, Courage occasionally reads courtly romance novels, but only to pick up “pretty turns of phrase from” for the purposes of seduction (5; cf. Simplicissimus 3.18: “these books taught me how to lure the female sex”). Rebelling against the polite romance tradition, Grimmelshausen opposes his hard-core realism to their unrealistic fantasies; like his model Charles Sorel, he was out to destroy the mainstream novel, and Courage is an earthy and bracing alternative to most 17th-century fiction. 

One of Courage’s longer-term relationships was with a lackey/paramour she nicknamed Tearaway, from the time she told him, “Tear yourself away from that cart and go and fetch the dappled grey from the grazing” (16). After she dumped him for drunkenness and domestic violence, this rascal became one of Simplicius’s gang during his Hunter of Soest period. He tells his story in Tearaway (Der seltzame Springinsfeld, 1670), which begins when the young scribe Courage had hired to write down her memoir runs into Simplicius, lately returned from Australia, and his old servant Tearaway at an inn.71 The scribe tells them what Courage dictated to him—Simplicius interrupts to admit he was also banging Courage’s maid, so that baby is his son after all—and also of her life with the Gypsies. (Grimmelshausen may be the first to write about them in fiction.) We learn that Simplicius, as pious as ever, is annoyed that readers are treating his Simplicissimus merely as a jestbook like Till Eulenspiegel instead of the Christian allegory he intended. Incongruously, he is now making a living as a traveling salesman peddling an elixir that improves wine, using a magic book as part of his spiel—another occasion Grimmelshausen uses, like the dirty inkwell, for a tribute to the power of imaginative writing—and after nine chapters of metafictional scene-setting, Tearaway tells how he spent the war. Like much of Simplicissimus, Tearaway is a grim, grunt’s-eye view of war, where greed for booty trumps patriotic duty, and which brings out the worst in everyone. Tearaway admits “Soldiers are there to persecute the peasants and any that leave them in peace aren’t doing their job properly,” but also notes “some peasants were worse than the good soldiers themselves. They not only murder soldiers, innocent and guilty, whenever they managed to get hold of them, when they had the chance, they stole from their neighbours, even from their own friends and relations” (13). This section is sketchy, obviously worked up not from firsthand experience but from the same war chronicle Grimmelshausen used for Courage, Eberhard von Wassenberg’s Erneuerter Teutscher Florus (1647). After the war is over, Tearaway marries a widow and becomes a crooked innkeeper, abandons both, then marries a hurdy-gurdy player and scrapes out a living accompanying her on the fiddle as wandering musicians. This colorful, realistic account of tramping morphs into a fairy tale in which his wife discovers a magical bird’s nest that confers invisibility on its owner; Tearaway’s too cowardly to use it for gain—she isn’t, and winds up being burned as a witch as a result—and the tatterdemalion is still playing for pfennigs when he runs in to his old master. Simplicius tries to recall him to Christian principles, which Tearaway initially dismisses as “a load of monkish tripe” (27), though he repents just before he dies. 

“The Miraculous Bird’s Nest” (Das wunderbarliche Vogelnest, 1672 [part 1] and 1675 [part 2]) is the title of the last two sections of what Grimmelshausen eventually called the Simplician Cycle. In part 1, a do-gooder named Michael uses the cloaking device to obstruct various misdeeds while searching for an honorable way to make money; in part 2, an unnamed merchant, less scrupulous than Michael (and more like Tearaway’s wife), takes advantage of invisibility to commit various acts of greed, lust, and sorcery. The miraculous bird’s nest functions as a “lens through which the bearer perceives reality” (Negus, 124), another analog for one of fiction’s purposes. Simplicius’s son appears in one episode in part 1, but otherwise the 2-part novel is only thematically related to the preceding novels, emphasizing once again the inconstancy of fortune, the prevalence of evil, and the consequent necessity of adhering to Christian principles. Books 1 through 8 of the Simplician Cycle depicted a world at war, but in these final two books Grimmelshausen argues that the world at peace is just as dangerous. They sound mildly entertaining, but as they’ve not been translated, I can only direct the interested reader elsewhere for more on the conclusion to Grimmelshausen’s 10-part, 800-page meganovel.72 

Unlike part 2 of Don Quixote, the second half of the Simplician Cycle isn’t as impressive as the first half (i.e., Simplicissimus), but that doesn’t prevent Grimmelshausen from occupying the same lofty position in early German literature, and his influence on later German writers is profound. He impressed Ludwig Tieck and other German Romantics, the Grimm brothers and Goethe, and his work played a patriotic part in the unification of Germany in the 19th century. Most major German novelists of the 20th century have paid tribute to him: Thomas Mann borrowed from his work for his Felix Krull and Doctor Faust, and in his introduction to a Swedish translation of Simplicissimus, he wrote: “It is the rarest kind of monument to life and literature, for it has survived almost three centuries and will survive many more. It is a story of the most basic kind of grandeur—gaudy, wild, raw, amusing, rollicking and ragged, boiling with life, on intimate terms with death and the devil—but in the end, contrite and fully tired of a world wasting itself in blood, pillage and lust, but immortal in the miserable splendor of its sins.”73 Hesse greatly admired Grimmelshausen, and from him Bertolt Brecht conceived the idea for his play Mother Courage and Her Children (1949). Grimmelshausen’s earthy, erudite, punning language was an inspirational starting point for Arno Schmidt’s even more outlandish diction. I implied earlier that the young Simplicius has something in common with Oskar Matzerath in Günter Grass’s Tin Drum (1959), and Grimmelshausen steals the show in Grass’s erudite critifiction The Meeting at Telgte (1979), an imaginary conference of several German authors in 1647, in which Grass affectionately roasts the old inkslinger: 

In his green doublet and plumed hat he looked like something out of a storybook. . . . [After he] had offered his services in a long-winded speech well larded with tropes, Harsdörffer took Dach aside. True, he said, the fellow prates like an itinerant astrologer—he had introduced himself to the assemblage as Jupiter’s favorite, whom, as they could see, Venus had punished in France—but he had wit, and was better read than his clowning might lead one to suspect. . . . His lies, said Harsdörffer, are as inspired as any romances; his eloquence reduces the very Jesuits to silence; not just the church fathers, but all the gods and their planets are at his fingertips; he is familiar with the seamy side of life, and wherever he goes, in Cologne, in Recklinghausen, in Soest, he knows his way about. . . . Hofmannswaldau stood dumbfounded; hadn’t the fellow just quoted a passage from Opitz’s translation of the Arcadia? . . . His words seemed as trustworthy as the sheen of the double row of buttons on his green doublet. (6–7) 

In this novel Grimmelshausen is still in his mid-twenties, but someday, the narrator predicts, “he would let every foul smell out of the bag; a chronicler, he would bring back the long war as a word-butchery, let loose gruesome laughter, and give the [German] language license to be what it is: crude and soft-spoken, whole and stricken, here Frenchified, there melancolicky, but always drawn from the casks of life. Yes, he would write! By Jupiter, Mercury, and Apollo, he would!” (112–13). 

[bbcbreakingnews]

Habito launches new mortgage with a 40 year term

A mortgage being touted as Britain’s ‘longest-ever’ fixed rate home loan will be launched next week.

The new product, Habito One, will allow home buyers to stay on the same mortgage rate for up to 40 years.

This is common in countries such as the US and Netherlands, but the longest mortgage term buyers could get before this in the UK was 15 years.

However, one broker has warned that those who are tempted by this long-term fix face much higher rates than more standard fixed deals currently available along with a chunky fee.

Habito One’s new long-term mortgages could see buyers lock in their rate for 40 years 

Funding such long-term fixed rate mortgages is also an issue for banks and more risky, as rates could move against them over the period. The new deal being offered by Habito is backed by an investment group. 

Mark Harris, chief executive of mortgage broker SPF Private Clients, said: ‘The big sell is no early repayment charges, which have always been the big deterrent to fixing for lengthy periods of time.

‘However, these mortgages are substantially more expensive than current five-year fixes.’

On the 40-year fix a buyer putting down a 40 per cent deposit would lock into a rate of 4.2 per cent, whereas rival five-year fixed rate deals are on offer at about 1.2 per cent from banks and building societies.

A longer-term loan means borrowers are protected from interest rate rises, but it could be some time before they reach the levels on the 40-year fix – and if rates then come down again homeowners will also not benefit from drops unless they exit the loan. 

Habito One has been launched by the online mortgage broker Habito, with the backing of fund manager CarVal Investors. 

The mortgage does not have any early repayment charges or exit fees. 

Because the mortgage term only ends when the property is paid off, borrowers cannot be put on a higher standard variable rate of interest at the end of their term as they would be on a standard mortgage – although, the majority are likely to simple remortgage when the time comes. 

Any home buyer in England or Wales can apply for a Habito One mortgage, as long as they are going to live in the property themselves rather than rent it out.

They will be able to borrow a maximum of 90 per cent of the value of their property and a minimum of 60 per cent. Habito said it also planned to roll out 95 per cent mortgages in future.

Habito has said it currently has enough funding to originate £1billion worth of mortgages. 

Speaking to This is Money, Daniel Hegarty, founder and chief executive of Habito, said: ‘Again and again we hear the same thing from consumers, that they feel like they are forced in to these unfair trade-offs. 

‘They want certainty over their repayments, but if they want certainty then they get zero flexibility and they get all of these punitive early repayment charges and exit fees. 

‘We thought a lot about what the perfect mortgage would look like and we decided it would be a mortgage where you knew exactly what your repayments would look like for the life of the mortgage – but if the market changed or there were events in your life that made you want something different you would be free to leave that mortgage at any point.’

The interest rates are substantially higher than on a standard two or five-year fixed term mortgage.

If a buyer had a 40 per cent deposit and wanted a mortgage term of 10-15 years, the interest rate would be 2.99 per cent. 

At the other end of the scale, a buyer with just a 10 per cent deposit who would need 40 years to pay off the loan would have an interest rate of 5.35 per cent.

All of the Habito One products also incur a £1,995 fee.

The rates that borrowers can expect to pay on one of Habito’s long-term fixed mortgages 

Currently, buyers with 40 per cent deposits can access rates as low as 1.14 per cent on a two-year fixed deal and 1.19 per cent on a five-year fixed deal, all with lower fees. 

Those with 10 per cent deposits can get a rate of 3.14 per cent on a two-year fixed deal and 3.39 per cent on a five-year fixed deal, again with a smaller fee. 

Hegarty added: ‘Nobody has any sense of what future interest rates are going to look like, whether they will be negative or sky-high. 

‘I think we are at peak uncertainty in our financial lives, as an economy and as a planet in many ways.  

‘Our view on it was that if we create certainty and protection for consumers around their most important financial asset then that can only be a good thing.’

A 40-year fixed mortgage could see borrowers staying on the same rate until their old age 

As it is not a lender, Habito cannot fund the mortgages itself which is why it has partnered with CarVal. Habito will be the legal title holder, servicer and originator of Habito One mortgages. 

Hegarty described the model as: ‘Essentially some quite sophisticated capital markets activity which allows us to buy swaps at different rates over different periods and blend that interest rate over the life of the mortgage.’

There is increasing interest in longer-term mortgages among lenders. Another lender, Perenna, is set to launch a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage this summer.

Outside of that, Virgin Money, Accord Mortgages and Yorkshire Building Society all currently offer 15-year fixed rates of interest.

Habito is primarily known as an online broker

10-year fixed rate deals are more common, but as with 15-year fixes most come with a penalty if you decide to switch or pay off the mortgage before the fixed rate period ends.

However, they do have lower interest rates. For example, Barclays is currently offering a 10-year fix with a rate of 1.99 per cent and a £1,048 fee for those with a 40 per cent deposit, while Lloyds is offering a 10-year fix with a rate of 2.19 per cent and a £999 fee for those with a 25 per cent deposit.

Speaking about the new Habito mortgages, Colin Bell, co-founder and chief operating officer at Perenna, said: ‘We believe that long-term fixed rate mortgages are the future of Britain’s housing market. 

5% interest was once the norm 

Fixed-rate mortgages were first introduced in 1989, and only made up a small share of mortgage lending until the mid-1990s. 

Until the 1980s, building societies were the predominant provider of mortgages and operated a rate ‘cartel’ whereby recommended rates were set centrally by an organisation called the BSA council. These could be as high as 16 per cent.

Since the introduction of fixed rates, they have generally been on a downward trend.

Average interest rate on a 75% LTV mortgage  Date  Two-year fixed rate  Five-year fixed rate  January 1995 8.13% 9.44%  January 2000  6.78%  7.09%  January 2005  4.99%  5.2%  January 2010  3.97%  5.56%  January 2015  2.01%  3.09%  January 2020  1.41%  1.68% 

‘These products will ultimately give more people the opportunity to step on to and up the property ladder. 

‘The traditional two or five-year approach to lending is not working for many borrowers. 

‘Long-term fixed rate products, without the risk of reverting to standard variable rates, offer a viable alternative.’

Will brokers be recommending 40-year mortgages?

Broker Mark Harris says British people tend to view five or 10 years as a long time to fix their mortgage rate for 

Mark Harris, chief executive of mortgage broker SPF Private Clients, gave his view on long-term fixed mortgages such as Habito’s. 

He said: ‘This is a novel idea and we welcome innovation in the market. 

‘The big sell is no early repayment charges, which have always been the big deterrent to fixing for lengthy periods of time.

‘However, these mortgages are substantially more expensive than current five-year fixes. 

‘It’s not just the rate; the product fee is also pretty chunky – on a £50,000 mortgage, for example, you are looking at a 4 per cent fee. 

‘Admittedly, we are nearer the bottom of the interest rate cycle than the top, and the longer-term direction of base rate is upwards. But as to when that happens and how quickly, is anyone’s guess.

‘These mortgages are portable so borrowers can take them with them when they move. 

‘However, borrowers will still need to meet the lender’s criteria at that point in time – if your situation changes and you aren’t earning what you were, then you may be paying for flexibility that isn’t actually there because your circumstances have shifted.

‘The British mentality is to view five or 10 years as a long time to fix for, so it will be interesting to see the take-up of these products. 

‘Lenders offering 10 or 15-year fixes in the past have had little interest. If Habito’s capacity to lend is limited to a couple of hundred million pounds, then this is not going to upset the market.

‘The other issue is how Habito will advise on these products. Advising clients to pay more now for protection in the future is not something many borrowers will be prepared to do – people tend to think more short-term. 

‘You may expect to earn more money in the future, or the children will have left home so your outgoings will fall, so you may be prepared to opt for a shorter fix now at a cheaper rate rather than locking in for the long term.

‘Advice also needs to be ongoing – as a broker, you can’t say ‘Here’s your mortgage, I’ll see you in 20 years’.

‘Ultimately, if the product is priced right then a broker will recommend it. But these deals look expensive compared with what else is currently on the market.’

The post Habito launches new mortgage with a 40 year term appeared first on My Blog.

source https://bbcbreakingnews.com/habito-launches-new-mortgage-with-a-40-year-term/

[jayfingers]

As most of you already know, I recently left the cold, wet, dour grayness of New York City to bask in the bright, warm, sunshiny glory of Los Angeles. Oh my, I had a fucking wonderful time.

And so, in this and in upcoming blog posts, I will share with you my adventures in El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula, aka the City of Angels, aka La La Land.

Day 1

After arriving at the hotel and dropping off my bags, the first thing I did was hit In-N-Out Burger. As I was staying in the heart of Hollywood (like I always do), I visited the In-N-Out on Sunset Boulevard, right across from Hollywood High.

Lemme tell y’all. I love In-N-Out. It is, by far, the best fast-food burger in existence. Better than the far overrated Shake Shack, that’s for goddamn sure.

Another thing I like about In-N-Out: Despite always being busy whenever I visit, things move quickly. The menu is very simple, so there’s no excuse for customers to dawdle while in line, and the staff is always on-point and friendly.

My only regret is that I forgot to pick up an In-N-Out T-shirt while I was there. But that’s OK — I can always order one online!

After chowing down on my Double-Double (no “animal style” for me, sorry!), I walked around Hollywood, taking random pictures, before hitting up my “regular” bar, Big Wangs.

BIG WANGS

Look at this big-ass goblet of ice-cold beer!

Big Wangs Hollywood

Big Wangs Hollywood

Big Wangs Hollywood

Enjoying a chalice of beer at Big Wangs

The Wangs is your typical sports bar, but there’s something about its staff (and its prices) that makes it very appealing. I mean, you can double the size of your drink for an extra $2.

Afterward, I hit up Jack in the Box for an order of their supercheap yet tasty tacos (two for, like, a $1.19, yo!) before heading to the hotel to get a bit of rest.

Might not look like much, but Jack in the Box tacos are cheap and fuckin’ tasty!

But the night was not over! No, no, no!

Once I was fully refreshed, I made the trek to the Hollywood & Highland entertainment complex, where I found myself at the bar in Dave & Buster’s. I know, I know, but it was a Saturday night, sports were on the televisions, good music was pumpin’, and I was able to indulge in an inexpensive spread of sliders and beer.

Sliders and fries at Dave and Busters

Beer at Dave and Busters

You see, I was pregaming —

FOR THOR: RAGNAROK!

I’d purchased tickets for the Marvel masterpiece way in advance, and I was excited as I’d never seen a movie at the iconic Grauman’s TCL Chinese Theatre before. Lemme tell y’all, that place is gorgeous.

The ceiling inside the Chinese Theatre

Its facade is framed around a 90-foot tall pagoda, complete with masks and authentic Chinese artifacts such as stone figures and temple bells. And of course the world-famous courtyard boasts movie stars’ handprints and footprints preserved in cement. The interior is very ornate and detailed, and, thanks to a renovation a few years back, the theater is has been converted to IMAX.

Oh, and the movie?

FANTASTIC. I loved it — hey, I didn’t refer to it as a masterpiece for nothing. Thor: Ragnarok is a wry love letter to the comic-book film genre. It’s hilarious, it’s smart, and it’s a load of fun.

Afterward, I took my ass home and went to sleep. It had been a long day, son.

Day 2

The next day I got up to make the journey out to Santa Monica. But first — brunch!

I decided to swing by Mel’s Drive-In in Hollywood.

Mel’s Drive-In Hollywood

Mel’s Drive-In Hollywood

Beautiful yellow roses at my table

Mel’s Drive-In menu

Mel’s Drive-In brunch menu

Mimosa!

The New Orleans scramble

The Hollywood location is one of my favorite dining destinations, yet I was surprised to find that they have an actual brunch menu! As you can see above, I ordered the New Orleans scramble — eggs with andouille sausage and red & green bell peppers served with red beans and rice, and all topped with scallions 😋 — along with brunch staples such as coffee and a mimosa.

Afterward, I stopped by the Chinese Theatre again, just to take in the crowd and vibe.

Then I was off to Santa Monica! Along the way, I passed a few notable places such as the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel, the Directors Guild of America, the Laugh Factory, Carney’s, Whisky a Go Go, the Comedy Store, and the West Hollywood outpost of Mel’s Drive-In, which is housed in a dope-looking Googie-style edifice.

Hollywood Roosevelt hotel

Directors Guild of America

The Laugh Factory

Carney’s

Whisky a Go Go

Mel’s Drive-In West Hollywood

The Comedy Store

Route 66 in West Hollywood

I also went through Beverly Hills, making good use of the public Wi-Fi while I was there.

The famous Beverly Hills sign

Using dat Beverly Hills Wi-Fi!

I am such a tourist

Trees in the Hills

Finally, I arrived to the city of Santa Monica, where I spent most of the day walking the world-famous pier, listening to some awesome music, eating good food, taking photos, walking the Third Street Promenade (where there’s a friggin’ Tesla dealership), and looking out onto the ocean. I dunno, y’all. There’s something I like more about the Pacific than the Atlantic. Just sayin’.

The world-famous Santa Monica pier sign

A smaller sign, atop the piers map

Santa Monica pier

Selfie on the pier!

The Pacific Park Ferris wheel

Arlington West memorial on the beach

Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, Calif.

This clown was blasting Frankie Beverly and Maze

SMFD

Popeye sign, outside the Albright

Route 66: End of the trail

Another pier selfie

The rest of the day was pretty chill. I came back to Hollywood, where I hunkered down with my iPad at Starbucks and began editing Side Chick, the second of my Zero Draft Thirty scripts.

But hey, the trip ain’t over yet! Stay tuned — there are more pics and fabulous L.A. adventures to come! 😁

Oh yeah, so on each of these posts I’m going to link a music video for a song I first heard during this trip. Some of these songs are new, others are simply new to me, but they will always remind me of this Los Angeles trip — aka The Charm!

Here’s the first video, “La La La” by Naughty Boy x Sam Smith.

📸 | My Trip to Los Angeles, Days 1 & 2 As most of you already know, I recently left the cold, wet, dour grayness of New York City…

[7consultancyblog]

Recruitment process in Gems & Jewellery

The Gems and Jewellery sector plays a significant role in the Indian economy, contributing around 7 per cent of the country’s GDP and 15 per cent to India’s total merchandise exports. It also employs over 4.64 million workers and is expected to employ 8.23 million by 2022. One of the fastest growing sectors, it is extremely export oriented and labour intensive.

Based on its potential for growth and value addition, the Government of India has declared the Gems and Jewellery sector as a focus area for export promotion. The Government has recently undertaken various measures to promote investments and to upgrade technology and skills to promote ‘Brand India’ in the international market.

India is deemed to be the hub of the global jewellery market because of its low costs and availability of high-skilled labour. India is the world’s largest cutting and polishing centre for diamonds, with the cutting and polishing industry being well supported by government policies. Moreover, India exports 75 per cent of the world’s polished diamonds, as per statistics from the Gems and Jewellery Export promotion Council (GJEPC). India’s Gems and Jewellery sector has been contributing in a big way to the country’s foreign exchange earnings (FEEs). The Government of India has viewed the sector as a thrust area for export promotion. The Indian government presently allows 100 per cent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the sector through the automatic route.

Gold demand in India rose to 338.70 tonnes between January to June 2018. India’s gems and jewellery exports stood at US$ 13.18 billion between April — August 2018*. During the same period, exports of cut and polished diamonds stood at US$ 10.31 billion, thereby contributing about 78.22 per cent of the total gems and jewellery exports in value terms. Exports of gold coins and medallions stood at US$ 201.75 million and silver jewellery export stood at US$ 239.04 million between April — August 2018.

The gems and jewellery market in India is home to more than 300,000 players, with the majority being small players. Its market size is about US$ 75 billion as of 2017 and is expected to reach US$ 100 billion by 2025. It contributes 29 per cent to the global jewellery consumption.

India is one of the largest exporters of gems and jewellery and the industry is considered to play a vigorous role in the Indian economy as it contributes a major chunk to the total foreign reserves of the country. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) and monsoon will steer India’s gold demand going forward.

The Gems and Jewellery sector is witnessing changes in consumer preferences due to adoption of western lifestyle. Consumers are demanding new designs and varieties in jewellery, and branded jewellers are able to fulfil their changing demands better than the local unorganized players. Moreover, increase in per capita income has led to an increase in sales of jewellery, as jewellery is a status symbol in India.

The cumulative Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows in diamond and gold ornaments in the period April 2000 — June 2018 were US$ 1.15 billion, according to Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).

Some of the key investments in this industry are listed below.

Deals worth Rs 8,000 crore (US$ 1.19 billion) were made at the Indian International Jewellery Show held in August 2018.

Companies such as PC Jewellers, PNG Jewellers, Popley and Sons, are planning to introduce a virtual-reality (VR) experience for their customers. The customer will have to wear a VR headset, through which they can select any jewellery, see the jewellery from different angles and zoom on it to view intricate designs.

The Government of India would notify a new limit for reporting about transactions in gold and other precious metals and stones to authorities, to avoid the parking of black money in bullion.

The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has revised the standard on gold hallmarking in India from January 2018. The gold jewellery hallmark will now carry a BIS mark, purity in carat and fitness as well as the unit’s identification and the jeweller’s identification mark. The move is aimed at ensuring a quality check on gold jewellery.

The Government of India has planned to set up a Common Facility Center (CFC) at Thrissur, Kerala.

The Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) to build India’s largest jewellery park in at Ghansoli in Navi-Mumbai on a 25 acres land with about more than 5000 jewellery units of various sizes ranging from 500–10,000 square feet. The overall investment of Rs 13,500 crore (US$ 2.09 billion).

In the coming years, growth in Gems and Jewellery sector would be largely contributed by the development of large retailers/brands. Established brands are guiding the organized market and are opening opportunities to grow. Increasing penetration of organized players provides variety in terms of products and designs. Online sales are expected to account for 1–2 per cent of the fine jewellery segment by 2021–22. Also, the relaxation of restrictions of gold import is likely to provide a fillip to the industry. The improvement in availability along with the reintroduction of low cost gold metal loans and likely stabilisation of gold prices at lower levels is expected to drive volume growth for jewellers over short to medium term. The demand for jewellery is expected to be significantly supported by the recent positive developments in the industry.

Recruitment process is the first step in creating a powerful resource base. The process undergoes a systematic procedure starting from sourcing the resources to arranging and conducting interviews and finally selecting the right candidates. Recruitment process in gems & jewellery Industry are as follows:

Recruitment Planning

Recruitment planning is the first step of the recruitment process, where the vacant positions are analyzed and described. It includes job specifications and its nature, experience, qualifications and skills required for the job, etc.

A structured recruitment plan is mandatory to attract potential candidates from a pool of candidates. The potential candidates should be qualified, experienced with a capability to take the responsibilities required to achieve the objectives of the organization.

Identifying Vacancy

The first and foremost process of recruitment plan is identifying the vacancy. This process begins with receiving the requisition for recruitments from different department of the organization to the HR Department, which contains −

Number of posts to be filled

Number of positions

Duties and responsibilities to be performed

Qualification and experience required

When a job vacancy is identified, it the responsibility of the sourcing manager to ascertain whether the position is required or not, permanent or temporary, full-time or part-time, etc. These parameters should be evaluated before commencing recruitment. Proper identifying, planning and evaluating leads to hiring of the right resource for the team and the organization.

Job Analysis

Job analysis is a process of identifying, analyzing, and determining the duties, responsibilities, skills, abilities, and work environment of a specific job. These factors help in identifying what a job demands and what an employee must possess in performing a job productively.

Job analysis helps in understanding what tasks are important and how to perform them. Its purpose is to establish and document the job relatedness of employment procedures such as selection, compensation, and performance appraisal.

The following steps are important in analyzing a job −

Recording and collecting job information

Accuracy in checking the job information

Generating job description based on the information

Determining the skills, knowledge and skills, which are required for the job

The immediate products of job analysis are job descriptions and job specifications.

Job Description

Job description is an important document, which is descriptive in nature and contains the final statement of the job analysis. This description is very important for a successful recruitment process.

Job description provides information about the scope of job roles, responsibilities and the positioning of the job in the organization. And this data gives the employer and the organization a clear idea of what an employee must do to meet the requirement of his job responsibilities.

Job description is generated for fulfilling the following processes −

Classification and ranking of jobs

Placing and orientation of new resources

Promotions and transfers

Describing the career path

Future development of work standards

A job description provides information on the following elements −

Job Title / Job Identification / Organization Position

Job Location

Summary of Job

Job Duties

Machines, Materials and Equipment

Process of Supervision

Working Conditions

Health Hazards

Job Specification

Job specification focuses on the specifications of the candidate, whom the HR team is going to hire. The first step in job specification is preparing the list of all jobs in the organization and its locations. The second step is to generate the information of each job.

This information about each job in an organization is as follows −

Physical specifications

Mental specifications

Physical features

Emotional specifications

Behavioral specifications

A job specification document provides information on the following elements

Qualification

Experiences

Training and development

Skills requirements

Work responsibilities

Emotional characteristics

Planning of career

Job Evaluation

Job evaluation is a comparative process of analyzing, assessing, and determining the relative value/worth of a job in relation to the other jobs in an organization.

The main objective of job evaluation is to analyze and determine which job commands how much pay. There are several methods such as job grading, job classifications, job ranking, etc., which are involved in job evaluation. Job evaluation forms the basis for salary and wage negotiations.

Recruitment Strategy

Recruitment strategy is the second step of the recruitment process, where a strategy is prepared for hiring the resources. After completing the preparation of job descriptions and job specifications, the next step is to decide which strategy to adopt for recruiting the potential candidates for the organization.

While preparing a recruitment strategy, the HR team considers the following points −

Make or buy employees

Types of recruitment

Geographical area

Recruitment sources

The development of a recruitment strategy is a long process, but having a right strategy is mandatory to attract the right candidates. The steps involved in developing a recruitment strategy include −

Setting up a board team

Analyzing HR strategy

Collection of available data

Analyzing the collected data

Setting the recruitment strategy

Searching the Right Candidates

Searching is the process of recruitment where the resources are sourced depending upon the requirement of the job. After the recruitment strategy is done, the searching of candidates will be initialized. In some cases companies take proper guidance from top manpower agency.

Searching involves attracting the job seekers to the vacancies. The sources are broadly divided into two categories: Internal Sources and External Sources.

Internal Sources

Internal sources of recruitment refer to hiring employees within the organization through −

Promotions

Transfers

Former Employees

Internal Advertisements (Job Posting)

Employee Referrals

Previous Applicants

External Sources

External sources of recruitment refer to hiring employees outside the organization through −

Direct Recruitment

Employment Exchanges

Placement Agencies

Advertisements

Professional Associations

Campus Recruitment

Word of Mouth

Screening / Shortlisting

Screening starts after completion of the process of sourcing the candidates. Screening is the process of filtering the applications of the candidates for further selection process.

Screening is an integral part of recruitment process that helps in removing unqualified or irrelevant candidates, which were received through sourcing. The screening process of recruitment consists of three steps −

Reviewing of Resumes and Cover Letters

Reviewing is the first step of screening candidates. In this process, the resumes of the candidates are reviewed and checked for the candidates’ education , work experience, and overall background matching the requirement of the job.

While reviewing the resumes, an HR executive must keep the following points in mind, to ensure better screening of the potential candidates −

Reason for change of job

Longevity with each organization

Long gaps in employment

Job-hopping

Lack of career progression

Conducting Telephonic or Video Interview

Conducting telephonic or video interviews is the second step of screening candidates. In this process, after the resumes are screened, the candidates are contacted through phone or video by the hiring manager. This screening process has two outcomes −

· It helps in verifying the candidates, whether they are active and available.

· It also helps in giving a quick insight about the candidate’s attitude, ability to answer interview questions, and communication skills.

Identifying the top candidates

Identifying the top candidates is the final step of screening the resumes/candidates. In this process, the cream/top layer of resumes are shortlisted, which makes it easy for the hiring manager to take a decision. This process has the following three outcomes −

Shortlisting 5 to 10 resumes for review by the hiring managers

Providing insights and recommendations to the hiring manager

Helps the hiring managers to take a decision in hiring the right candidate

Evaluation and Control

Evaluation and control is the last stage in the process of recruitment. In this process, the effectiveness and the validity of the process and methods are assessed. Recruitment is a costly process, hence it is important that the performance of the recruitment process is thoroughly evaluated.

The costs incurred in the recruitment process are to be evaluated and controlled effectively. These include the following −

· Salaries to the Recruiters

· Advertisements cost and other costs incurred in recruitment methods, i.e., agency fees.

· Administrative expenses and Recruitment overheads

· Overtime and Outstanding costs, while the vacancies remain unfilled

· Cost incurred in recruiting suitable candidates for the final selection process

· Time spent by the Management and the Professionals in preparing job description, job specifications, and conducting interviews.

[droneseco]

AKASO WT50 Review: Cheap and Cheerful Mini Projector

Our verdict of the AKASO WT50 Mini Projector: If you're looking for an ultra-affordable, ultra-portable pico projector, the AKASO WT50 will get the job done, but don't expect to use it in anything but the darkest surroundings.610

Sure, television screens are getting larger all the time, but if you want a truly large screen without spending tens of thousands of dollars, you need a projector. Of course, a 4K projector capable of display sizes upwards of 100 inches isn’t cheap either. Not everybody needs one of those.

That is why the mini-projector market has sprung up in the last decade or so. They aren’t the most capable, but they’re portable, affordable, and easy to set up and use. Unlike some other manufacturers, AKASO doesn’t lie about what its tiny WT50 Mini Projector is capable of, which is exactly why we think it’s worth a look.

AKASO WT50 Pico Projector AKASO WT50 Pico Projector Buy Now On Amazon $249.99

Specifications

The raw specs of the AKASO WT50 mini projector aren’t going to blow anyone away. Of course, at this price point, it’s a tough call as to who would be expecting incredible hardware specs in the first place. Still, it’s good to know what you’re dealing with.

Brightness: 50 ANSI Lumens

Resolution: 854×480

Dimensions: 5.71×3.15×0.79 inches

Weight: 0.64lbs

Projection Ratio: 1.19:1

Connectivity: Dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HDMI, 2x USB, SD Card slot

Battery: 3.7V, 5000mAh

Android Version: 7.1

As with any piece of technology, there’s a lot more to the performance than numbers on paper and name recognition of the components. First, let’s take a look at the whole package.

What’s in the Box?

Taking the top off the box, the first thing you’ll spy is the projector itself, neatly nestled in form-fitting foam. The bundled accessories are tucked into three separate cardboard boxes underneath, creating a platform for the projector to rest on top of.

In one box you’ll find a tripod with a pivoting head, letting you align the projector at often unnecessarily odd angles, but we’ll get to that later. In the other boxes, you’ll find the AC adapter, HDMI cable for use with external playback devices, remote control (batteries not included), the manual, and a warranty card.

Setting Up the AKASO WT50

Before you can start watching movies or TV shows, the projector requires a bit of setup. Fortunately, this is a relatively simple process and doesn’t take all that long.

AKASO recommends that you fully charge the WT50 before first use. The battery was already mostly charged so this didn’t take long. Still, I plugged in the power adapter before I powered the projector on, just in case. Powering on is a two-step process: First, set the slide switch to “On”, then press the power button right next to it.

Once the power is on, make sure you’ve got the projector pointed at a suitable surface (a white wall will do) and you can set up the rest. In my case, this meant connecting to Wi-Fi, but you can also set up using a wireless hotspot or no networking at all, assuming you’re plugging in external players.

Before you do that, you’ll need to adjust the focus wheel to get the picture looking sharp and in focus. This is also when you’ll want to try using the included tripod if you need it. The design of the tripod leaves quite a bit to be desired. It’s nice that it’s included, but the pivoting head means it’s far too easy to tilt the projector, making getting a level image from the projector a little tricky.

Connectivity

When it comes to wireless connectivity, the AKASO WT50 has both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, as mentioned earlier. I was actually surprised that the WT50 supported 802.11ac wireless networks, which isn’t always the case on these lower-cost devices.

The WT50 also has a few ports to make connecting other hardware easier. The full-size HDMI port makes plugging in Blu-ray players, streaming boxes, and game consoles easy. You also get a pair of USB ports, an SD card slot, and a 3.5mm headphone / auxiliary audio jack.

If you want to play media from your phone, the AKASO WT50 supports a few different methods. You can use Wi-Fi Display (aka. Miracast), AirPlay, or a third-party app solution that requires you to download an app on your phone. Unfortunately in my testing, I was unable to connect to the AirPlay server on the projector despite trying with multiple devices.

Features & Interface

You’ve got two different ways to operate the AKASO WT50: the included remote and the touch interface on top of the projector. It’s handy that these are both included, as it means you’re not out of luck if you lose the remote.

The AKASO WT50 is powered by Android 7.1, meaning it’s a lot more capable out of the box than older, not-so-smart projectors. The Google Play Store is included, as well as a utility for sideloading apps in APK form. This means that you can install any streaming app you want and it should have a decent chance of working.

But don’t expect everything to work perfectly, especially with the included remote. Netflix, which is installed on the WT50 out of the box, worked with the remote long enough to sign in. After that, I thought the remote had quit working. Instead, it turned out that Netflix—at least this version—wasn’t working fully with the remote. Using the touch interface on top of the projector, navigating the menus worked fine, but this was less than ideal. Hopefully, a future firmware update may improve remote compatibility.

The location of the remote sensor is also a slight issue. It’s located on the back of the projector, but the remote is of the IR variety, meaning you need line of sight. Even if you’re a little off to the right or left, getting the remote to work can take some aiming.

Finally, the interface can be a little laggy at times. It’s not worse than a Fire TV Stick or similar device, and it’s not a big problem, but you’ll definitely need to be a little patient at times.

Picture: How Many P?

Mini or pico projectors aren’t often known for their high pixel counts, and this makes sense. It currently isn’t possible to make something that is capable of 4K resolution that is also small and affordable. Considering those last two points, it’s even tough to hit the 1080p mark without trouble. That said, you’ll see some that support 720p, even in this small size, like the Nebra Anybeam.

The WT50 accepts sources up to 1080p, but it’s not actually showing them at this resolution. Instead, the WT50 uses a native resolution of 854×480, while puts it at 480p. This means that as you push the size of the picture higher by moving the projector farther away from your screen, it’s getting blurrier all the time.

If you keep the screen size around 80 inches or less, it’s nowhere near as blurry as you might imagine. You’ll notice it more with text, especially navigating menus, but once you’re caught up in what you’re watching, you probably won’t notice it looking especially low resolution, unless you’ve just watched a 4K movie on a similarly sized screen.

The bigger problem with the WT50 is one that AKASO doesn’t shy away from: the limited brightness. At a peak brightness of just 50 ANSI lumens, this isn’t a bright projector. If you’re watching in a very dark room, the brightness isn’t a problem.

If you’ve got anything above minimal ambient light, the projector will struggle. Try watching something with sunlight streaming in the windows and you might as well just turn it off.

Sound Advice

It’s a very good thing that the AKASO WT50 offers both Bluetooth connectivity and a built-in 3.5mm audio jack. Why? Because the built-in sound, while functional, isn’t something you’ll ever really want to use if you have a choice.

This can’t really be helped, in AKASO’s defense. The WT50 is so tiny that there’s no way anyone could fit a speaker capable of creating movie-ready or even TV-ready sound inside. If you’re using this to quietly project a movie on to a close wall in the middle of the night—something I can’t imagine is all that common—the sound will be adequate, but only barely.

In my testing, I happened to have a Bluetooth-equipped soundbar nearby. Connecting the WT50 to this made a world of difference in making the movie feel more cinematic. Of course, if you’re using the WT50 for an outdoor movie night with the kids, you probably won’t be able to lug along a soundbar, but even a standard portable Bluetooth speaker will be a worthwhile upgrade.

Should You Buy the AKASO WT50?

As we mentioned at the very top of this article, AKASO doesn’t over-promise when it comes to the capabilities of the WT50. Fortunately, it doesn’t under-deliver either. This means that you’re getting exactly what you expect, which is strangely refreshing in this day and age.

That said, the WT50 isn’t for everybody. If you need higher resolutions or a projector you can use in anything resembling daylight, take a look at our favorite projectors for your home theater. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a portable projector to use outside for occasional outdoor movie nights and you don’t live in a brightly lit neighborhood, the WT50 may be just enough for what you need.

AKASO WT50 Mini Projector, 1080P HD Video DLP Portable Projector with Android 7.1, WIFi, Wireless and Wired Screen Sharing, Trackpad Design, Pocket Sized Home Theater Pico Projector for iPhone Android AKASO WT50 Mini Projector, 1080P HD Video DLP Portable Projector with Android 7.1, WIFi, Wireless and Wired Screen Sharing, Trackpad Design, Pocket Sized Home Theater Pico Projector for iPhone Android Buy Now On Amazon $249.99

Read the full article: AKASO WT50 Review: Cheap and Cheerful Mini Projector

AKASO WT50 Review: Cheap and Cheerful Mini Projector published first on http://droneseco.tumblr.com/

[grassroutes]

AKASO WT50 Review: Cheap and Cheerful Mini Projector

Our verdict of the AKASO WT50 Mini Projector: If you're looking for an ultra-affordable, ultra-portable pico projector, the AKASO WT50 will get the job done, but don't expect to use it in anything but the darkest surroundings.610

Sure, television screens are getting larger all the time, but if you want a truly large screen without spending tens of thousands of dollars, you need a projector. Of course, a 4K projector capable of display sizes upwards of 100 inches isn’t cheap either. Not everybody needs one of those.

That is why the mini-projector market has sprung up in the last decade or so. They aren’t the most capable, but they’re portable, affordable, and easy to set up and use. Unlike some other manufacturers, AKASO doesn’t lie about what its tiny WT50 Mini Projector is capable of, which is exactly why we think it’s worth a look.

AKASO WT50 Pico Projector AKASO WT50 Pico Projector Buy Now On Amazon $249.99

Specifications

The raw specs of the AKASO WT50 mini projector aren’t going to blow anyone away. Of course, at this price point, it’s a tough call as to who would be expecting incredible hardware specs in the first place. Still, it’s good to know what you’re dealing with.

Brightness: 50 ANSI Lumens

Resolution: 854×480

Dimensions: 5.71×3.15×0.79 inches

Weight: 0.64lbs

Projection Ratio: 1.19:1

Connectivity: Dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HDMI, 2x USB, SD Card slot

Battery: 3.7V, 5000mAh

Android Version: 7.1

As with any piece of technology, there’s a lot more to the performance than numbers on paper and name recognition of the components. First, let’s take a look at the whole package.

What’s in the Box?

Taking the top off the box, the first thing you’ll spy is the projector itself, neatly nestled in form-fitting foam. The bundled accessories are tucked into three separate cardboard boxes underneath, creating a platform for the projector to rest on top of.

In one box you’ll find a tripod with a pivoting head, letting you align the projector at often unnecessarily odd angles, but we’ll get to that later. In the other boxes, you’ll find the AC adapter, HDMI cable for use with external playback devices, remote control (batteries not included), the manual, and a warranty card.

Setting Up the AKASO WT50

Before you can start watching movies or TV shows, the projector requires a bit of setup. Fortunately, this is a relatively simple process and doesn’t take all that long.

AKASO recommends that you fully charge the WT50 before first use. The battery was already mostly charged so this didn’t take long. Still, I plugged in the power adapter before I powered the projector on, just in case. Powering on is a two-step process: First, set the slide switch to “On”, then press the power button right next to it.

Once the power is on, make sure you’ve got the projector pointed at a suitable surface (a white wall will do) and you can set up the rest. In my case, this meant connecting to Wi-Fi, but you can also set up using a wireless hotspot or no networking at all, assuming you’re plugging in external players.

Before you do that, you’ll need to adjust the focus wheel to get the picture looking sharp and in focus. This is also when you’ll want to try using the included tripod if you need it. The design of the tripod leaves quite a bit to be desired. It’s nice that it’s included, but the pivoting head means it’s far too easy to tilt the projector, making getting a level image from the projector a little tricky.

Connectivity

When it comes to wireless connectivity, the AKASO WT50 has both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, as mentioned earlier. I was actually surprised that the WT50 supported 802.11ac wireless networks, which isn’t always the case on these lower-cost devices.

The WT50 also has a few ports to make connecting other hardware easier. The full-size HDMI port makes plugging in Blu-ray players, streaming boxes, and game consoles easy. You also get a pair of USB ports, an SD card slot, and a 3.5mm headphone / auxiliary audio jack.

If you want to play media from your phone, the AKASO WT50 supports a few different methods. You can use Wi-Fi Display (aka. Miracast), AirPlay, or a third-party app solution that requires you to download an app on your phone. Unfortunately in my testing, I was unable to connect to the AirPlay server on the projector despite trying with multiple devices.

Features & Interface

You’ve got two different ways to operate the AKASO WT50: the included remote and the touch interface on top of the projector. It’s handy that these are both included, as it means you’re not out of luck if you lose the remote.

The AKASO WT50 is powered by Android 7.1, meaning it’s a lot more capable out of the box than older, not-so-smart projectors. The Google Play Store is included, as well as a utility for sideloading apps in APK form. This means that you can install any streaming app you want and it should have a decent chance of working.

But don’t expect everything to work perfectly, especially with the included remote. Netflix, which is installed on the WT50 out of the box, worked with the remote long enough to sign in. After that, I thought the remote had quit working. Instead, it turned out that Netflix—at least this version—wasn’t working fully with the remote. Using the touch interface on top of the projector, navigating the menus worked fine, but this was less than ideal. Hopefully, a future firmware update may improve remote compatibility.

The location of the remote sensor is also a slight issue. It’s located on the back of the projector, but the remote is of the IR variety, meaning you need line of sight. Even if you’re a little off to the right or left, getting the remote to work can take some aiming.

Finally, the interface can be a little laggy at times. It’s not worse than a Fire TV Stick or similar device, and it’s not a big problem, but you’ll definitely need to be a little patient at times.

Picture: How Many P?

Mini or pico projectors aren’t often known for their high pixel counts, and this makes sense. It currently isn’t possible to make something that is capable of 4K resolution that is also small and affordable. Considering those last two points, it’s even tough to hit the 1080p mark without trouble. That said, you’ll see some that support 720p, even in this small size, like the Nebra Anybeam.

The WT50 accepts sources up to 1080p, but it’s not actually showing them at this resolution. Instead, the WT50 uses a native resolution of 854×480, while puts it at 480p. This means that as you push the size of the picture higher by moving the projector farther away from your screen, it’s getting blurrier all the time.

If you keep the screen size around 80 inches or less, it’s nowhere near as blurry as you might imagine. You’ll notice it more with text, especially navigating menus, but once you’re caught up in what you’re watching, you probably won’t notice it looking especially low resolution, unless you’ve just watched a 4K movie on a similarly sized screen.

The bigger problem with the WT50 is one that AKASO doesn’t shy away from: the limited brightness. At a peak brightness of just 50 ANSI lumens, this isn’t a bright projector. If you’re watching in a very dark room, the brightness isn’t a problem.

If you’ve got anything above minimal ambient light, the projector will struggle. Try watching something with sunlight streaming in the windows and you might as well just turn it off.

Sound Advice

It’s a very good thing that the AKASO WT50 offers both Bluetooth connectivity and a built-in 3.5mm audio jack. Why? Because the built-in sound, while functional, isn’t something you’ll ever really want to use if you have a choice.

This can’t really be helped, in AKASO’s defense. The WT50 is so tiny that there’s no way anyone could fit a speaker capable of creating movie-ready or even TV-ready sound inside. If you’re using this to quietly project a movie on to a close wall in the middle of the night—something I can’t imagine is all that common—the sound will be adequate, but only barely.

In my testing, I happened to have a Bluetooth-equipped soundbar nearby. Connecting the WT50 to this made a world of difference in making the movie feel more cinematic. Of course, if you’re using the WT50 for an outdoor movie night with the kids, you probably won’t be able to lug along a soundbar, but even a standard portable Bluetooth speaker will be a worthwhile upgrade.

Should You Buy the AKASO WT50?

As we mentioned at the very top of this article, AKASO doesn’t over-promise when it comes to the capabilities of the WT50. Fortunately, it doesn’t under-deliver either. This means that you’re getting exactly what you expect, which is strangely refreshing in this day and age.

That said, the WT50 isn’t for everybody. If you need higher resolutions or a projector you can use in anything resembling daylight, take a look at our favorite projectors for your home theater. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a portable projector to use outside for occasional outdoor movie nights and you don’t live in a brightly lit neighborhood, the WT50 may be just enough for what you need.

AKASO WT50 Mini Projector, 1080P HD Video DLP Portable Projector with Android 7.1, WIFi, Wireless and Wired Screen Sharing, Trackpad Design, Pocket Sized Home Theater Pico Projector for iPhone Android AKASO WT50 Mini Projector, 1080P HD Video DLP Portable Projector with Android 7.1, WIFi, Wireless and Wired Screen Sharing, Trackpad Design, Pocket Sized Home Theater Pico Projector for iPhone Android Buy Now On Amazon $249.99

Read the full article: AKASO WT50 Review: Cheap and Cheerful Mini Projector

AKASO WT50 Review: Cheap and Cheerful Mini Projector posted first on grassroutespage.blogspot.com

[itsworn]

7-Second 1998 SVT Cobra World-Record Rocket

Yandro Ulloa’s Twin-Turbo ’98 Cobra is the quickest manually shifted street-legal American car on planet Earth

As Yandro Ulloa eases his Chrome Yellow 1998 SVT Cobra to the line there’s a wicked cackle of burnt gasses spitting from the fender-routed pipes. With the transmission in Second, he cracks the throttle, drops the clutch, and warms the tires with a quick, but purposeful burnout. Wasting little time, Ulloa moves up, drops his snake in the beams, floors the gas, and with a flash of the tree he’s off like a missile.

“The Minion” tears from the line with its turbochargers force-feeding the 281-cube V8 that’s producing 1,500 horsepower worth of rear-wheel thrust and generating more than 2g of acceleration. With the 4.6 screaming like a 747 on take-off, Ulloa kicks the clutch and rips the Tremec Magnum into Second gear.

Yandro Ulloa is all smiles. He has build one of the baddest hot rods and gets down with a Tremec six-speed to the tune of 7-second elapsed times at 186 mph.

The 60-foot clocks whip past in just 1.19 seconds, and somehow the Mickey Thompson 275 Radial Pro tires fight for grip and win. With Second gear used up, Ulloa taps the clutch and rams the H-pattern shifter across the pattern into Third. The clutch slips just enough to keep the Mickey’s glued, yet amazingly, that same clutch is able to harness the obscene rampage of horsepower and torque. Forth comes in a hurry takes Ulloa across the quarter-mile stripe in a ridiculous 7.67 seconds at 184 miles per hour!

That’s impressive from the small 281-cube V8, but what makes the performance so remarkable is that on this day Ulloa drove his Mustang 50 miles to Bradenton Motorsports Park, he ran 7s and drove it 50 miles home after a weekend of racing in four classes at the NMRA Spring Break Shootout. Amazingly, he won two of them.

The 1998 Cobra makes 1,500 rear-wheel horsepower but maintains suitable streetability thanks to careful planning and an AEM EFI unit.

A real king of the street, Ulloa’s Cobra earned a heavy rep in the ever-growing world of small-tire, street-legal racing. We’ve seen our share of 7-second street cars roaming about, but few do it with three pedals and an overdrive transmission. In fact, Ulloa’s Minion is currently regarded as quickest true H-pattern-equipped car in the free world. After watching this thing run, it’s safe to say Yandro Ulloa had our attention.

We set up a shoot, and just to prove the streetability, Ulloa drove the ‘Stang to our location, no trailer, no spare parts, no tools. We got busy and popped off some beauty shots, rolling shots, and with the photos in the bag, it was time for a ride.

The Minion has suitable drivability. It’s loud, hot, and not the kind of car you’ll leave at the mall. It is, however, fast, fun, and it commands attention and respect. It’s also one of the nastiest cars we’ve ever been strapped to. After a couple of bursts of acceleration, your humble scribe was the one howling like a 747. And according to Ulloa, we never got past 50-percent throttle. Sigh. After the ride, Ulloa, looked over with a grin of satisfaction on his face, you know, like he had a Royal Flush. He knew I was immensely impressed.

Levin Motorsports built the twin-turbo 4.6L using stock block and heads. The Minion is a real attention-getter thanks to the massive Hogan’s intake that incorporates an air-to-water intercooler.

While proud of his creation, the 33-year-old HVAC tech is remarkably humble. “I bought the Mustang in July of 2015 and have only been racing for a few years, but the love for drag racing accelerated my rate of learning,” Ulloa told us. “Going from buying a car with 305 flywheel horsepower to what it is today takes getting used to. We’ve managed to go from 305 hp at the crank to 500, 600, 800, 1,200, and now 1,500 rear-wheel horsepower.

“I really built it to have fun and we’ve continued to make more power and go quicker. I mainly race stick-shift classes, street classes, and small-tire classes, but I’ve competed in NMRA Terminator vs. GT500 and even roll racing,” he said. “We’ve won a few events, but I’ve spent a lot of time the last two years finishing in the Runner-up position.”

Ulloa’s scorecard shows wins from the Mod Nationals Stick-Shift class, TRC Street Kings, NMRA Terminator vs. GT500, the popular TREMEC Stock Shift Shootout, and most recently, True Street at NMCA in Bradenton, Florida and TX2K19 in Texas. His quickest pass to date is 7.67 at 184 mph.

The interior is all business with Kirkey seats and a full cage. As you can imagine, it will be getting upgraded to match the 7-second capabilities.

Winning is never easy, nor is running 7’s, for that matter. Making this Cobra go like a scalded cat and maintain durability is the brainchild of Josh Levin at Levin Motorsports in St. Petersburg, Florida.

The engine starts with a 4.6L Ford aluminum Teksid block that was bored 0.020-inch over. It was then filled with a Kellogg crank, Manley rods, and custom JE pistons. Levin selected a Triangle Speed oil pump to supply the lifeblood along with a tricked-out Moroso oil pan to seal things up.

Induction is handled by a duo of Precision Turbo 68s that feed the 105mm Accufab throttle body, then the crazy one-off Hogan’s intake with a built-in air-to-water intercooler. “I’m not going to lie,” Ulloa told us, “I love the attention the intake gets. At first I though it was a mistake getting something so huge, but it makes a statement and says, ‘I came to party!’”

Nothing to see here- just your basic 7-second street-legal Mustang.

Levin went with Ford “C” heads that were massaged by MPR and feature a quartet of Comp camshafts that operate each of the 32 valves. At wide-open throttle, the intake is jammed with 42 psi of boost pressure. The compressed air is mixed with a supply of E90 fuel delivered from the stock tank with a trio of Walbro 465 fuel pumps that feed Fore Innovations rails and eight ID 2000 injectors. For EFI, he relies on an AEM system to control injector pulse and ignition timing.

With so much power on tap, Ulloa could have stuffed an automatic behind the modular mill, but fun factor was increased with a Tremec six-speed Magnum. The gearbox was modified by RPM Transmissions for quicker shifting and it retains the H pattern and overdrive.

“With the clutch we’re running, it drives great on the street. I have to be really careful on the street, though, because things happen quickly. I prefer to be on the track, where time slows down, and I can focus on driving the car hard. I’ll take you through a typical run,” he told us.

Here’s another look at the custom Hogan’s intake. From this angle you can see the short, but effective runners.

“I normally do a short Second-gear burnout with only little smoke, then I roll out and get back in First gear. As I pre-stage, I wait for my competitor to lock in his Stage bulb, then I hold my Line-Lock button to prevent the car from rolling. I bump the car in and smash the throttle to 100-percent. When the tree drops I let go of the clutch pedal and wait for that sweet sound of 9,000 rpm. It comes fast, and I kick the clutch and catch Second gear. The steering wheel usually feels light since it sometimes stands up in Second, but the traction control helps with the power management. At 9,000 rpm, I grab Third gear, then I do it again for Forth Gear. The car usually feels amazing, and I hit the parachute lever about 150 feet before the finish line to make sure we’re slowing down. Depending on the track we run mid-7s to low 8s,” he added. “It’s a blast every time.”

Ulloa has spent years fine-tuning in the clutch and the UPR suspension, and he’s always on the hunt for quicker elapsed times and higher trap speeds. “What’s in the bellhousing is a top-secret unit that allows for street driving, yet it has mad grip to get the power from the flywheel to the transmission with controlled slipping and locking,” he told us. “I still use the Ford 8.8-inch rear instead of a 9-inch. “The rear is pretty tough, especially with Strange internals, and it has a stock-type suspension with UPR parts. We have it hooking so well that it’s hard to control the wheelies at times. I use Viking shocks and struts, Aerospace brakes, and everything seems to work well together.”

Ulloa uses a stock Tremec shifter with a Liberty handle to ram the gears.

Ulloa is quick to point out that his team of supporters are the ones who deserve the credit. “UPR has believed in me for a long time and Trueline Collision sprayed the fresh Chrome Yellow. I use Optic Armor for windows, they are safe and save a lot of weight. I get asked what it weighs often, and it’s 3,100 in Outlaw trim and 3,300 on the street with me in the car.” Yandro also praised Josh Levin at Levin Motorsports, Hard Target Images, Juggernaut Power, Certified Transmission, and of course his family and close friends.

Wheels are from Weld, and stopping power comes from Aerospace Components.

Traction comes from a combination of Mickey Thompson tires, UPR suspension and Viking dampers.

Ulloa monitors the vitals with an AEM digital dash.

The post 7-Second 1998 SVT Cobra World-Record Rocket appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network https://www.hotrod.com/articles/7-second-1998-svt-cobra-world-record-rocket/ via IFTTT

[yahoo-roto-arcade-blog]

Closing Time: Mike Soroka latest Atlanta kid to make good

Mike Soroka didn’t look like a 20-year-old in his MLB debut (AP)

It warms your heart to see Mike Soroka make it to the Braves. That’s just what this franchise needs, a talented, impactful young player.

It’s not common for 20-year-old pitchers to rise to The Show this quickly, but Soroka has been fast-tracked since his 2015 drafting. He ranked in the 27-to-33 range on the major prospect clipboards this spring, despite his age and modest experience. After four strong turns at Triple-A (1.99 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, 24 K against 5 BB), Atlanta summoned him for a Tuesday start against the Mets.

[Yahoo Fantasy Football leagues are open: Sign up now for free]

The book on Soroka said he had three good pitches, excellent control, a solid strikeout profile if not a dominant one. He stuck mostly to his late-dropping fastball and slider Tuesday, and didn’t seem at all fazed by the big stage. Soroka finished with six crisp innings (6 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 5 K), the only damage a Yoenis Cespedes home run. Atlanta’s bullpen maintained the lead, and just like that, Soroka had a win over Noah Syndergaard.

Soroka steps into a cushy spot for potential immediate success. The National League is once again the safer place to pitch, for whatever a month means to you (the OPS drops 24 points, the slugging drops 23 points). Miami’s a soft target in-division, the lowest-scoring team in the majors. SunTrust Park has been a fun place to hit in its short existence, but it’s too early to declare it an extreme yard or one for pitchers to avoid.

Soroka has been added proactively by fantasy owners, climbing to 32 percent in Yahoo leagues. But there are still good seats remaining on the bandwagon. Soroka draws the Giants and Marlins, two favorable opponents, for his next two starts. Just like that, the young Braves are becoming must-see TV.

• When the Cardinals made a late-spring singing of Greg Holland, it was with the intention of giving him the ninth inning. But things have been so rocky for Holland (7.36 ERA, 8 BB, 7 K), the club made the inevitable move Tuesday — anointing Bud Norris the Cardinals closer until further notice.

Norris has earned the trust, stringing together 14 outstanding appearances (14.1 IP, 12 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 20 K). That zesty K/BB ratio speaks for itself. He picked up a surprise win Tuesday when the Cardinals tripped up the White Sox (and Joakim Soria) in the bottom of the ninth. Norris is also 5-for-5 on save opportunities.

Matt Carpenter had a homer in Tuesday’s win, a sight for sore eyes. Carpenter is off to a dreadful start (.170/.320/.330), making us wonder how healthy his shoulder is. His strikeouts have risen by 5.6 percent, but he’s still walking at a terrific clip (17.4 percent). His line-drive rate is 27.9 percent, and a drop in hard-hit rate is partially mitigated by a drop in soft contact. We’re all guessing on how healthy Carpenter is, but obviously that .203 BABIP doesn’t jibe with his other stats.

I can’t jump ship or do anything rash just yet. I’ve always loved Carpenter’s approach at the plate and position flexibility. Someday, I might be the last apologist.

Save speculating? Mike Scioscia is not your friend (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

• Just when we thought the Angels closing situation was tidy and squared away, we have to reopen the Mike Scioscia files. We do this with much trepidation, given Scioscia’s curious whims through the years.

Keynan Middleton was off and running as the April stopper, saving 6-of-7 games with a solid strikeout rate and a 2.40 ERA. The walks were problematic — seven in 15 innings — but he was working around them. Alas, Middleton blew his last save opportunity, and then fell on the disabled list Tuesday, elbow injury.

Middleton is hoping to be back in the minimum 10 days, which is nice to hear — but most players speak like that. We have to be skeptical on any elbow injury until the player proves he’s truly fine, and in the meantime, we audit the Angels bullpen.

Cam Bedrosian hasn’t been great this year (4.30 ERA, 1.43 WHIP), and he blew Tuesday’s save chance — though he recouped a win when the Angels scored in the bottom of the ninth. Jim Johnson has the veteran closer card and he’s been solid enough to this point (3.38/1.19, 14 K in 16 IP). Justin Anderson has impressed since his recall, five scoreless innings (3 H, 3 BB, 7 K). He pitched in the seventh inning Tuesday, while lefty Jose Alvarez (untouchable through 13.2 innings; 0.95/0.66) and Johnson (one pitch) handled the eighth.

So there’s a lot to unpack here. Maybe Middleton will come back quickly. Perhaps Scioscia will lean on a veteran like Johnson, or a legacy closer like Bedrosian (his dad was a Cy Young winner in 1987). Alvarez has to deal with the anti-lefty bias for closing. Anderson has five MLB appearances to his name.

Heck, we didn’t even mention Blake Parker yet. So grab a bunch of darts, you’ll need them. And I wouldn’t blame anyone who decided this current bullpen was too volatile to chase, even if there are some appealing ratios on display.

• The Nationals had a 12-4 laugher over the Pirates, with Matt Adams conking two of Washington’s four homers. Adams got the call in left field — clearly not his ideal position or a long-term spot for him — but you wonder if he could push 1B Ryan Zimmerman down the road. Adams has a robust .296/.397/.630 slash line along with five homers, while Zimmerman is off to a dreadful .186/.245/.373 start.

Obviously Zimmerman’s 2017 season buys some goodwill and leash, but Washington can’t mess around forever. Even with Tuesday’s win, they’re merely 14-16 — and behind three other clubs in the NL East. The Mets might be good, the Braves have all those buzzy kids, the Phillies have an interesting club. Washington was considered a prohibitive favorite in March and there’s plenty of time to get back to the top of the division, but Adams is part of the solution, not part of the problem.

I’ve added Adams in some deeper leagues. He’s only three percent owned in Yahoo. The next six games bring a right-handed opponent, so Adams figures to be liberally used while he’s swinging a hot bat. Maybe he can run with this a bit.

Follow the Yahoo fantasy baseball crew on Twitter: Andy Behrens, Dalton Del Don, and Scott Pianowski

[thrashermaxey]

The Journey – Prospects on the Rise

                                                            Lukas Jasek signs an entry-level contract with the Canucks

  It’s that time of the month again! Dobber’s top 200 prospect list is out so let’s take a look at those that are climbing the charts.

  Valentin Zykov, CAR – Up to 68 from 150

  The thick Russian made quite the first impression during his debut season in North America in 2012-13. Coming over from the motherland to play for the QMJHL's Baie-Comeau Drakkar in his draft year to get acclimatized to the North American style of games, Zykov was a house on fire from the moment the puck dropped on the season. In 67 games for the Drakkar, he scored 40 goals and added 35 assists which is a pretty impressive feat for a draft eligible player in the first year in a new league. More importantly he didn't fade away when the pressure was on as Zykov produced another 10 goals and 19 points in 19 playoff games. He collected a long list of accolades at season’s end; QMJHL All-Rookie Team, QMJHL Offensive Rookie of the Year, QMJHL Rookie of the Year, QMJHL rookie leader in both goals and points, and CHL Rookie of the Year. When someone puts together a season like that in their draft year, you'd think he'd be a lock for being a first round pick. But that was not the case as Zykov slid to the second round where he was snatched up by the L.A. Kings with the 37th overall pick. Zykov played for two more years in the ‘Q’ and put together seasons of 63 and 46 points averaging 1.19 and 1.10 points per game respectively.

  Beginning his professional career with the Ontario Reign, Zykov had an unremarkable seven goals and seven assists in 43 contests before a deadline deal sent him to Carolina in exchange for Kris Versteeg and a fifth rounder. Fast forward a couple of years and that’s shaping up to be a very shrewd move. During his first full year with the Carolina organization, Zykov finished third on the Charlotte Checkers with 16 goals and fourth in scoring with 34 points. He put together a hell of a third professional season and has really put himself on the map. The 33 goals he scored led the entire AHL, earning him the Willie Marshall award and he finished 20th in AHL scoring with 54 points in 63 games.

  Even though his calling card is his goal scoring, he could still stand to shoot the puck a whole lot more with his 33 AHL goals coming on just 112 shots, translating into an unsustainable shooting percentage of 29%. Towards the end of March he was called up to the big club and had a heck of run to end the Hurricanes season. Playing primarily on a line with the top guns in Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen, Zykov produced three goals and four assists in 10 games while averaging just less than 14 minutes per game. That’s a plum assignment for the rookie. It remains to be seen whether or not he will see the same kind of deployment next season with Bill Peters heading to Calgary and a new, yet to be determined, coach at the helm for the Hurricanes.

    Lukas Jasek, VAN – Up to 141 from 456

Rocketing up this month’s list is Vancouver Canucks prospect, Lukas Jasek – mainly due to his play over the past three weeks . You’re probably not alone in asking yourself exactly who this is, so let’s investigate.  Drafted in the sixth round in 2015 by the Canucks, Jasek is a product of his hometown HC Trinec program. During his draft year he split time between the U20 program and the big club in the Czech men’s league. With the junior squad he produced 10 goals and 27 points but was limited to just 24 games with them as he was summoned to the men’s team for 27 games. As the youngest member of the team, ice time was hard to come by and his stats reflected that, registering just two assists in the regular season and being held off the score sheet in one playoff game. But at that age playing at that level the most important thing is the experience gained.

  In his draft plus-one year he proved that he was playing at a level far above his peers as he was a dominant force for HC Trinec U20. Jasek rattled off the points at a pace of two per game with 15 goals and 13 helpers in just 14 games. Once again he was called up to the men’s team and found a bit more success than the previous go round as he scored his first two professional goals and had one assists in the 25 games in which he played. Back with the U20 team for the playoffs, Jasek led the league in scoring with an astounding 25 points in just 10 games. Too good for the junior league but not quite ready for prime time, Jasek was loaned by HC Ocelari Trinec to HC Frydek-Mistek of the Czech second league which turned out to be a happy medium. Jasek proceeded to lead the team in points per game with 28 in 30 contests and finished second in the league in the category among U24 players. That year Jasek was also selected as part of the Czech contingent for the WJC but it was an underwhelming showing as he failed to register a point in five games.

  2017-18 represented Jasek’s fourth attempt at Extraliga play and it finally came together for the 20 year old. He spent a full season with Bili Tygri Liberec and more than held his own to the tune of eight goals and 10 helpers in 48 contests, finishing tied for sixth among U24 scored in the league, and added another assist in 10 playoff games. But where Jasek has really excelled has been his play with the AHL’s Utica Comets. Brought over on an amateur tryout he’s managed to put up seven points in just six games thus far and was signed to his entry-level deal yesterday. It’s a small sample size but the early returns are encouraging and he may have played himself into an NHL deal. Considered a long term project when drafted he’s clearly got some skills and could advance quickly if he keeps up this level of play.

    Andrew Oglevie, BUF – Up to 199 from NR

The newest Buffalo Sabres, Oglevie just concluded his third and final season at the University of Notre Dame where he had a very strong college career, especially the past two years. Prior to playing at South Bend, Oglevie was a four year member of the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders playing along some NHL prospects in the way of Erik Foley and Adam Gaudette, culminating in a 53 point campaign in which he led the RoughRiders in assists with 32. All tolled in his USHL career, Oglevie racked up 114 points in 211 contests. As a freshman with the Fighting Irish, Oglevie failed to make too much of an impact with a mere nine points in 31 games. But he exploded as a sophomore, enjoying a breakout campaign to the tune of 21 goals and 20 helpers. He tied Anders Bjork for the team lead in goal scoring and finished tied for sixth in the conference, 16th in the nation. In his junior year he managed to not only much, but surpass his producing on a per game basis with Oglevie once again leading the Fighting Irish in goal scoring, lighting the lamp 15 times and adding 24 assists to finish second the team in scoring, second in the conference in powerplay points with 19, and fourth in the B1G in shots per game with 3.50. He helped guide his team to a conference title and an NCAA tournament berth that saw them manage to advance all the way to the title game before falling to University of Minnesota-Duluth.

  Oglevie is a versatile player, capable of playing either wing or centre. He’s not the biggest guy but has has enough speed and puck skills to be a difference maker on the ice. At 23 years of age he’s a more advanced prospect but the Sabres rolled the dice on another recent college RA with a similar profile in Evan Rodrigues who just put together 25 points in 48 NHL games. If Oglevie follows a similar path the Sabres would be happy.

  **

As always, thanks for checking out this week’s edition of The Journey. Give me a follow on Twitter @BradHPhillips. Enjoy your weekend!

  More from The Journey: CHL Playoff Performers

    from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/the-journey/the-journey-prospects-on-the-rise/

[touristguidebuzz]

Skyscanner Is Propelling Ctrip’s International Growth

Ctrip.com is China's largest online travel agency. Ctrip

Skift Take: Ctrip, along with its partially owned sister brand Qunar, dominates Chinese online travel sales, but it has begun to lean heavily on its recently acquired flight search company, Skyscanner, to boost overseas sales.

— Sean O'Neill

China’s largest online travel agency, Ctrip, reported financial results for the third quarter, but some investment analysts listening to the earnings call were most interested in a different Chinese e-commerce platform, Meituan-Dianping.

Two weeks ago, the Priceline Group invested $450 million in Meituan-Dianping, a marketplace that aims to grow its hotel bookings,  ride-hailing, and restaurant reservations.

The move surprised some observers. Priceline already had an investment in Ctrip, which it didn’t double down on. Priceline holds 9 percent in equity and convertible debt in the Chinese giant, to quote Skift Research’s A Deep Dive Into Ctrip and the China Online Travel Market 2017 report, published this summer.

A few analysts asking questions on an earnings call Thursday in Shanghai with executives asked about the investment. Their questions were met with generic answers about how Ctrip had confidence in its own product.

One analyst asked if executives have had conversations with the Priceline Group about the investment and where the relationship is in good shape, but a Ctrip executive replied that the company has reiled heavily on organic growth over the years. In a follow-up question, the analyst asked if Priceline might feel worried that Ctrip’s acquisition of flight-search company Skyscanner makes it a strategic threat to Priceline’s metasearch brand Kayak. Again, there was no answer.

Jane Sun, Ctrip CEO, ducked two questions about Ctrip’s strength relative to Meituan-Dianping. She talked instead about the company’s own growth story in a generic way.

It’s a good story. In the third quarter of 2017, Ctrip’s net revenue increased 42 percent, year-on-year, to $1.19 billion. The gains in the period were driven by a 36 percent jump in accommodation bookings to $424 million.

Ctrip’s operating margin for the third quarter of 2017 was 17 percent, which is comparable to Expedia, Inc.’s 18 percent, but well below Priceline’s operating margin, which is close to 36 percent.

Skyscanner Driving Gains

Adding Skyscanner revenue to Ctrip’s totals was the primary reason Ctrip saw its transportation-ticketing revenue jump 41 percent in the third quarter to $515 million.

“The total number of transactions made by direct booking increased almost three-fold since May, the month we launched the engine on Skyscanner, through September,” said CFO Cindy Wang on a call with investors.

Ctrip uses the word “direct” booking to refer to what some in the West call “instant” booking, where the transaction is completed on Ctrip or Skyscanner instead of being handed off to the supplier or the online travel company fulfilling the deal.

Previously, Skyscanner was labeling this “Book on Skyscanner.” But now, while users literally still book on Skyscanner, the advertising displayed on screen calls it “Book on Ctrip.”

An anecdotal search of some flights on Skyscanner’s UK website showed Ctrip deals often featured in search results.

Executives said that the vast majority of bookings Ctrip receives from Skyscanner are done by users remaining within Skyscanner’s interface via this instant, or direct, method. This has uplifted conversions, or the percentage of people who start a search who eventually complete a transaction, by almost 50 percent for Ctrip.

The total volume of air tickets Ctrip sold via Skyscanner in the third quarter grew more than 250 percent, year-over-year, while Skyscanner has helped Ctrip drive “triple digits volume growth” in its international ticket sales, officials said.

James Liang, Ctrip co-founder and executive chairman, said Skyscanner will send more traffic to Ctrip’s platform as time passes.

Trip.com Deal

On Wednesday U.S. time, Ctrip announced it had acquired Trip.com, the travel recommendation service. But executives chose not to discuss Trip.com on the call.

Investment analysts were instead more interested in the potential impact of an August ruling by Chinese regulators that e-commerce companies like Ctrip can no longer require customers to opt-out of ancillary services such as trip insurance but must nstead adopt an opt-in standard. Executives said only about 5 percent of Ctrip group bookings involved such practices and that the company is complying with the watchdog ruling.

Ctrip.com did not reveal any investments that may have been made through the $400 million fund it created a year ago in partnership with private equity firm General Atlantic. Earlier this year, China restricted companies from sending money overseas.

But, domestically last month Ctrip co-led (along with All-Stars Investment) a $300 million investment round in home-rental booking platform Tujia.com.