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alienisticxo · 3 years

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X Angel - Chapter 4

Elon Musk x Reader

{Authors Note} Sorry for taking so long! I’ll be updating more regularly now! You can also find this story on AO3 and Wattpad, the links are in my description. My asks are also always open for general Elon chat and requests. <3

Warnings: None yet!

“So what’s the verdict? We don’t got all day,” Jett pushed as he strode through the doors once more, irritated and impatient.

Elon backed away from me then as the other men walked in with a ferociousness in their stride, clearly champing at the bit to hear what their most valuable colleague had to say about the cash-robot.

“She truly has no recollection of anything, and not being aware of how her programming works can be dangerous, especially on Earth,” one man said to another, seemingly continuing a conversation from outside.

“However,” the other began even louder, loud enough for everyone to hear, to assure I could hear. “We’re willing to pay the price. Earth needs someone new for the public to idolize or they’ll waste away. Perhaps they’ll listen to the people who know what they’re talking about if someone like {Y/N} tells them what to do from their televisions. What did you find, Musk?” He finished, turning to Elon with interest.

But Elon only shook his head with conviction, confident in his findings.

“I’d like to investigate further before this purchase is made. Something isn’t adding up here, and I agree with the danger it could pose.”

“Nonsense,” the man replied brashly instead, suddenly not treating Elon as though he were their most valuable player in the room.

I wondered why they’d asked him for his opinion at all as the suited man took a holographic card from his own pocket then.

“Whatever the price, we’ll take her,” he demanded.

I could hear Elon breathe a disappointed laugh as he shook his head and turned away, sliding his hands into his suit jacket pockets, then. He very obviously deemed my purchase to be a terrible idea, though I know not for similar reasons I did. Still, the sentiment stung me more than I’d like to admit. He was my hero, after all.

But he was in no position to argue with them, as I wasn’t his pop star to claim. For another moment, I also wondered why they’d asked him to tag along altogether. If they weren’t going to hear him out, there was no reason for his presence. Even though I was sure he saw me more as a threat than beneficial, I was still glad I got to meet him, at least once in my lifetime.

Regardless of that, there was no denying it felt like the entire universe fell apart around me all at once, leaving me spiraling into the galaxy with no direction. I couldn’t go back to Earth— I wouldn’t go back to Earth. I would rather jump out of the window in front of me and disassemble my entire being, than go back there. But I had to stay quiet. I had to remain calm. My teeth ground together behind my lips as every inch of my body tensed up. They didn’t notice, but it was possible Elon had with each occasional glance he took back at me.

I kept my eyes right back on him this time, only averting them when he looked in my direction. When they gathered around the large table to sign the contract, which appeared in mid air at the press of a button on a phone by Jett, Elon stayed behind. He watched me intently as my {e/c} eyes burned holes into the man whose own eyes made steady and confident contact with the contract as it scanned his retinas. Within seconds, it disappeared, my life slipping from my own fingers as it was sent through cyberspace back to Astra. Crypto exchanged cards as Jett, and who I found out to be Mr. Bauer, held them against each other.

The purchase had been made.

It felt like an execution more than anything else.

I had a week to bid farewell to Planet X and all who inhabited it. Their label, something boring like Spinn Records, worked with Jett to plan a facade as to why I was leaving to feed to my adoring public. I was to follow it as per Astra’s orders. Once the official date on the contract arrived, I was to hop a flight with SpaceX and hurdle towards the one place I vowed I’d never return to, and take orders from Spinn instead. After that, I was no longer Astra’s responsibility. Silent rage and hurt and a plethora of other emotions came bubbling to the surface, but I kept them at bay, turning near catatonic as my eyes shifted focus to Elon once more.

Deep down, I was hoping he might be the fairytale hero I needed at the moment; might pick up on my silent distress and come up with a bulletproof excuse for me to stay on X, devoted to Astra. Mention anything from the danger I could pose to simply being uninteresting enough. But he didn’t say another word. He stared at me from time to time. And each time he did, I could see the cogs in his mind working away from my peripheral, as he valiantly attempted to unpiece the puzzle that was myself.

They didn’t even say goodbye to me when they left, and I didn’t dare look up at Elon, though I noticed his hesitation to depart. My emotions were on overdrive— I didn’t trust myself to make eye contact for fear I might break down on the spot.

The ride back to my penthouse was quiet on my end. It wasn’t unusual, as cybernetic stars were usually seen and not heard behind the scenes. I sat in the back of the Cybertruck as Jett prattled on to the head of Astra about the deal he’d just made for them from the passenger seat. I was drifting in and out, but caught something about how he wanted more than his usual ten percent. Who would be paying him now?

I smiled to myself for just a second as I looked around inside of the vehicle. They were rare on Earth, but one of the status cars on X. Everyone who was anyone had one despite Elon’s standing in the social world.

Self driving, stereo system like a major recording studio, and built like a tank. Despite the autopilot though, we preferred to drive the beast ourselves. I mean, who wouldn’t? But as I thought about the Cybertruck’s creator, and our brief encounter today, I couldn’t help but feel slighted. It wasn’t his responsibility to save me from such a disastrous deal, sure, but I could tell he wanted nothing to do with my appearance on Earth. They didn’t listen to him when he’d tried to speak up, but he didn’t try hard enough, either. Something told me he wanted them to realize their own mistake, but he didn’t know at what cost that was to me.

I shook myself out of the thought. How could he know, really? Why would he even care? Why did I care so much? His small act of slight compassion in the boardroom didn’t mean I was entitled to his entire arsenal of kind deeds. It was absolutely insane to think that. I questioned my own sentience before trying to push my thoughts away altogether. My emotions were jumbled, no one in particular feeling better or worse than another. It was to the point that the only thing I felt was nothing at all.

When I’d finally arrived home, there were no flashing cameras, no screaming fans or journalists and no security guards surrounding me from every direction I looked. I made my way through the lobby of the building and onto the teleportation pad, dying to finally have some privacy in my own space. The damn thing couldn’t work fast enough as I impatiently waited for it to read my code. Eventually, though it was really only mere seconds, I found myself in my penthouse.

Once I locked the door for no outsider entry, I immediately leaned back against it, the soft clang of metal ringing lightly through the space and tainting my view of my life, the sound bitter and empty as it fell on my ears. My line of sight was glued to an onyx black rug in front of me as I recounted the latter half of the day's events. It all replayed to me like a movie I was forced to watch, all of my hard work unraveling for a little currency that didn’t even mean anything just a few years ago. As invincible as I felt to Astra, after all I’d done for them to save their name countless times, to push their agendas when I didn’t necessarily agree with them, to keep them relevant, they felt as though I was disposable.

My label deemed me disposable and my hero considered me a threat.

Then it hit me.

All at once everything I’d been feeling hit me like a swirling hurricane, and I began to near hyperventilation as I let myself truly feel again. The wall I had to build up every day cracked and crumbled as a million different sensations escaped into the ethos from my small frame. A roaring war within my body swept me into a moment that felt tumultuous, everything suddenly chaotic, loud and heavy though it was just myself in an otherwise quiet room.

My chest rose and fell as it all came rushing back like a wave of water, tears forming in my eyes as sobs pushed their way through my throat. It was as though everything else I had ever been fell away, stripping me bare to nothing but my own resolve. My cold hands immediately reached for my head and I started to sink to the floor, the dramatism of the moment not at all underplayed or over exaggerated when compared to how I felt as I began to tear the beautifully detailed chrome pieces from my face— and then my chest— and then the rest of my body, tearing my clothing off along with them. I threw each piece across the large entryway, the sharp echo earsplitting as each one clattered and rolled through the space. The intricacy I’d hid behind for what felt like ages now, meaning nothing and everything all at once. My heart pounded in my chest, a familiar ache I’d not felt since I left earth reigniting my passion, my need to escape. Inside, I was dying to escape the hell I had to endure, pretending to be a body I wasn’t day in and day out just to stay alive.

The jet black mascara I still liked to put on despite no one seeing it dripped down my cheekbones in messy streaks. My soft, warm skin was exposed in the evening's hazy sunset that wasn’t quite like anywhere else in the two worlds I knew. The small tattoos, scars and beauty marks I’d acquired on Earth, a stark indication of my true humanity, revealed to no one but myself and my thoughts. I embraced the way I could feel the blood coursing through my veins, supplying my carbon based vessel beyond what the most complexly built form of artificial intelligence could comprehend. I tasted the salt of my tears on my flushed rose petal lips with slight relief that I still existed as I was, if only for the time being. I reminded myself of who I was— who the world didn’t know me to be, who I’d often forgotten or left behind for the sake of my safety; of my family’s safety.

And as I sat there, naked and distraught, I briefly wondered if I should reveal my secret to the world now that I found myself at an impasse; if I should risk it all to stay on Planet X and continue the life I’d worked so desperately hard for. To use exposing my humanity as a playing card that no one saw coming was a thought, absolutely. Astra would be in shambles if I decided to expose myself as nothing more than a mere mortal after boasting to X and Earth that they had the most realistic A.I. lifeform in the game. While it didn’t seem like such a big deal, it was in the eyes of the public and their competitors. It would tarnish their reputation forever. But the label didn’t exactly play fair, either. My lifeless body would be hurdling into the universe within the hour I told them, and they’d be after anyone else who might be affiliated with me or related to me. It was one thing to outcast an individual to the outskirts. It was a whole other to wipe out any trace of their existence at all. But they had no issues with it, so long as they saved face and crypto.

Earth hadn’t been kind to my family or me in its downfall. I didn’t come from wealth of any kind and we’d made due with humble living while we could. But we’d gotten caught in the grime the moment it all began to fall apart on a grand scale.

X was my escape.

Our escape.

I barely managed to make it out of Earth as a stowaway, let alone alive.

#elon musk #elon musk x reader #elon musk fanfiction #fanfiction #elon musk fanfic #spacex #cyberpunk #tesla #fanfic #x angel #futurism #darklydreaming #grimes #slow burn #writers #Fanfic writer #writer

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babygirlkiki1016 · 4 years

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The Hunt Begins

When we got to Stanford Dean told me just to wait outside by the Impala. About twenty minutes later I hear voices coming from the building. I see Dean take a glance at me to see if I was still there. Sam was saying something but Dean just rolls his eyes.

"The weapon training, and melting the silver into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors." I heard Sam say as they cross the parking lot to the Impala.

"So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?" Dean growls.

"No. Not normal. Safe."

"And that's why you ran away." Dean looks away.

"I was just going to college. It was Dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing."

"Yeah, well, Dad's in real trouble right now. If he's not dead already. I can feel it." Sam is silent.

"I can't do this alone."

"Yes you can." I joke, making both of the boys look at me.

"Yeah, well, as Y/n pointed out earlier which you weren't here for, I don't want to."

"Wait, that's Y/n? Y/D/N's kid?" Sam asked surprised. "You brought his kid here?! Do you know what he's going to do to us when he realizes she's missing!?"

"Uh I believe he already knows." I interrupt.

"Look, she wanted to come so I didn't stop her besides she's eighteen." Dean points out. Sam sighs and looks down, thinking, then up.

"What was he hunting?" Sam asked as Dean opens the trunk of the Impala, then the spare-tire compartment, it's an arsenal.

"Holy crap this is cool!" I exclaimed as Dean props the compartment open with a shotgun and digs through the clutter.

"I know right? All right, let's see, where the hell did I put that thing?"

"So when Dad left, why didn't you go with him?" Sam asks.

"I was working my own gig. This, uh, voodoo thing, down in New Orleans."

"Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourself?" Dean looks over at Sam.

"I'm twenty-six, dude."

"And then you went to Y/D/N for help?"

"That's about right, she offered to help cause her father wouldn't." Dean pulls some papers out of a folder. "All right, here we go. So Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago, this guy." Dean hands one of the papers to Sam, I look over his shoulder to see. "They found his car, but he vanished. Completely MIA. The paper is a printout of an article from the Jericho Herald, headlined Centennial Highway Disappearance and dated Sept. 19th 2005; it has a man's picture, captioned Andrew Carey MISSING." Sam reads it and glances up.

"So maybe he was kidnapped."

"Yeah. Well, here's another one in April." Dean hands me a Jericho Herald article for each date he mentions. "Another one in December 'oh-four, 'oh-three, 'ninety-eight, 'ninety-two, ten of them over the past twenty years." Dean takes the article's back from us and picks up the rest of the stack, putting them back in the folder. "All men, all the Same five-mile stretch of road." Dean pulls a bag out of another part of the arsenal. "It started happening more and more, so Dad went to go dig around. That was about three weeks ago. I hadn't heard from him since, which is bad enough." He grabs a handheld tape recorder. "Then I get this voicemail yesterday." He presses play, the recording is staticky and the signal was clearly breaking up.

"Dean...something big is starting to happen...I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may... Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger...and if you can...Y/D/N's kid." Dean presses stop.

"Wait...he mentioned me." I say silently.

"What does dad want with Y/n?" Sam asks.

"I don't know that's why I went to your dad. So whatever is going on, obviously your part of it."

"Well other than the creepy message involving me, you know there's EVP on that?" I said.

"Not bad, Y/n. Kinda like riding a bike, isn't it?" Sam shakes his head. "All right. I slowed the message down, I ran it through a gold wave, took out the hiss, and this is what I got." He presses play again.

"I can never go home..." Was the voice that was heard, Dean presses stop.

"Never go home." Sam comments, trying to think what it could mean. Dean drops the recorder, puts down the shotgun, stands straight, and shuts the trunk, then leans on it. "You know, in almost two years I've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing." Sam looks away and sighs, then looks back. "All right. I'll go. I'll help you find him." Sam submits, Dean nods. "But I have to get back first thing Monday. Just wait here." Sam turns to go back to the apartment but turns back when Dean speaks.

"What's first thing Monday?"

"I have this...I have an interview."

"What, a job interview? Skip it."

"It's a law school interview, and it's my whole future on a plate."

"Law school?" Dean smirks.

"So we got a deal or not?" Dean says nothing, Sam turns back around and heads back into the building.

"Your brother is certainly...not happy." I look over at Dean who shrugs.

"Eh he'll get over it." Dean smirks and gets back in the car, Dean maybe be smiling but I have a bad feeling about this.

Dean comes out of the convenience mart carrying junk food. Sam is sitting in the shotgun seat with the door open, rifling through a box of tapes as I was sitting in the back with the window down. I don't know what he's looking for but it must be important.

"Hey!" Dean says with a smile on his face. Sam leans out and looks at him. "You want breakfast?"

"No, thanks."

"Y/n? I got you coffee, along with some biscuits." He hands me the food.

"Thanks...." I say and take the food from him. "So how'd you pay for that stuff?" Sam asks. "You and Dad still running credit card scams?"

"Yeah, well, hunting ain't exactly a pro ball career." Dean puts the nozzle that he left running while he went inside back on the pump. "Besides, all we do is apply. It's not our fault they send us the cards."

"Yeah? And what names did you write on the application this time?" Sam swings his legs back inside the car and closes the door.

"Uh, Burt Aframian." Dean gets into the driver seat and puts his soda and chips down.

"And his son Hector. Scored two cards out of the deal."

"That's pretty smart, man I wish I thought of that. Then I wouldn't have had to get a job." I joke as Dean closes the door, Sam looks back at me then at Dean.

"Only a few days and your already a bad influence on her." Sam chuckles. "I swear, man, you've gotta update your cassette tape collection." From what I could see there are at least a dozen cassettes in the box on Sam's lap; some have album art, others are hand-labeled.

"Why?" Dean asked.

"Well, for one, they're cassette tapes. And two." Sam holds up a tape for every band he names. "Black Sabbath? Motorhead? Metallica?" Dean takes the box labeled Metallica from Sam. "It's the greatest hits of mullet rock."

"And that's probably why he has them." I interrupt while sipping my coffee.

"Well, house rules, Sammy." Dean pops the tape in the player. "Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole." Dean drops the Metallica box back in the box of tapes and starts the engine.

"Wait." Sammy looks back at me as Dean drives off. "Why does she get coffee?"

"Well I asked her what she wanted and she told me."

"You didn't ask me...."

"Suck it up Sammy." Sam made a pouty face, I look down at my coffee then back at him. I reach forward and politely offer him some which Dean notices.

"Aw look at that she's willing to share."

"Shut up." Sam said with a blush on his face as he slowly took my cup.

Sam is talking on his cell phone. "Thank you." He says then closes his phone. "All right. So, there's no one matching Dad at the hospital or morgue."

"Well at least we know he's ok." I said, making Sam nod in agreement.

"That's something, I guess." Dean glances over at us, then back at the road. At a bridge ahead of them, there are two police cars and several officers.

"Woah, I wonder what happened." I wondered as Sam leans forward for a closer look, Dean pulls over. We take a long look before Dean turns off the engine. Dean opens the glove compartment and pulls out a box full of ID cards with his and John's faces. Visible ones include FBI and DEA. He picks one out and grins at Sam, who stares.

"Let's go." Dean gets out of the car and me and Sam follow pursuit. On the bridge, the lead Deputy, leans over the railing to yell down to two men in wetsuits who were poking around the river.

"You guys find anything?" He yells.

"No! Nothing!" The other man who was below us replied. The deputy turns back to the car in the middle of the bridge. Another Deputy, is at the driver's side looking around inside the car. The three of us walk into the crime scene, I felt out of place but the brothers acted like they belong there.

"You fellas had another one like this just last month, didn't you?" Dean asks as the first Deputy looks up when he starts talking and straightens up to talk to him.

"And who are you?" Dean flashes his badge. "Federal marshals."

"You three are a little young for marshals, aren't you? Especially the girl." Dean laughs. "Thanks, that's awfully kind of you." Dean goes over to the car. "You did have another one just like this, correct?"

"Yeah, that's right. About a mile up the road. There've been others before that."

"So, this victim, you knew him?" Sam questioned, Jaffe, as it says on his name tag, nods.

"Town like this, everybody knows everybody." Dean circles the car, looking around.

"...And that is why I hate small towns." I state. "Any connection between the victims, besides that they're all men?"

"Uh N-No. Not so far as we can uh tell."

"So what's the theory? I'm thinking insane hitchhiker." Sam goes over to Dean as I keep the deputy busy.

"Honestly, we don't know. Serial murder? Kidnapping ring?"

"Well, that is exactly the kind of crack police work I'd expect out of you guys." Dean insults, Sam stomps on his foot.

"Thank you for your time." I say and the three of us head back to the Impala. Jaffe watches us go but I could the two talking.

"She's a pretty one ain't she?" Jaffe mentions, I ignored him, pervert I thought. Dean smacks Sam on the head, catching my attention.

"Ow! What was that for?" Sam grumbled.

"Why'd you have to step on my foot?"

"Why do you have to talk to the police like that?" Dean looks at Sam and moves in front of him, forcing Sam to stop walking.

"Come on. They don't really know what's going on. We're all alone on this. I mean, if we're going to find Dad we've got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves." Sam clears his throat and looks over Dean's shoulder. Dean turns to see a Sheriff and two FBI agents.

"Can I help you boys?" The sheriff asks.

"No, sir, we were just leaving." I smile at them, giving them some reassurance and walk past the three men. Dean and Sam head past the Sheriff, who turns to watch us go.

Later we decided to go talk to this young woman, the second deputy's daughter I believe. As we walk up the street the marquee on the Highland Movie Theater reads in big bold letters: EMERGENCY TOWN HALL MEETING SUNDAY 8 PM BE SAFE OUT THERE. Below that a young woman is tacking up posters with Troy, the missing boy's face and the caption "Missing Troy Squire". The three of us approach.

"I'll bet you that's her." Dean says

"Well no shit sherlock, if course it's her." I joke, the boys turn towards me.

"Listen sweetheart you may be helping us, but that doesn't give you the right to curse."

"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say shit, fuck, crap. Sorry!" I giggle, making Sam smirk. Dean ignores me and walks up to the young woman.

"You must be Amy." Dean points out.

"Yeah." She says as she looks towards us. "Yeah, Troy told us about you. We're his uncles. I'm Dean, this is Sammy and that's-" Dean was saying, trying to think on what I should be. "-my girlfriend Y/n." I give him a weird look and so does Sam, girlfriend? I thought. He couldn't have gone with sister or something?

"He never mentioned you to me." Amy walks away as the three of us tag along.

"Well, that's Troy, I guess. We're not around much, we're up in Modesto."

"We never really talk to Troy much, teenager's these days. Never wanna hang out with the adults." I chimes in as another young woman, comes up to Amy and puts a hand on her arm.

"Hey, are you okay?" She asks, while eyeing the three of us.

"Yeah." Amy replies.

"Do you mind if we ask you a couple questions?" I asked. "You probably know my nephew to be better then I do."

"Woah trying to get married already babe" Dean jokes as he puts an arm around my shoulder. "I thought the man asks the woman?"

"Well, 'darling' technically I am the one who is the man in this relationship." Sam and the two girls try not to giggle.

The five of us are sitting in a booth, Dean and Sam opposite Amy and Rachel while I'm sitting at the end of the table with a normal chair. The chair was turned away from the table as I was facing the four if them.

"So...Amy." I start. "What happened the night Troy disappeared?"

"I was on the phone with Troy. He was driving home. He said he would call me right back, and...he never did."

"He didn't say anything strange?" Sam asks, Amy shakes her head.

"No. Nothing I can remember."

"I like your necklace." I state, Amy holds the pendant she's wearing, a pentagram in a circle, and looks down at it.

"Troy gave it to me. Mostly to scare my parents-" Amy laughs. "-with all that devil stuff.

"Do you know where he got it?"

"Um...no actually."

Sam laughs a little and looks down, then up.

"Actually, it means just the opposite. A pentagram is protection against evil. Really powerful. I mean, if you believe in that kind of thing." Sam says.

"Okay. Thank you, Unsolved Mysteries."

Dean jokes, takes his arm off the back of Sam's seat and leans forward. "Here's the deal, ladies. The way Troy disappeared, something's not right. So if you've heard anything..." Amy and Rachel look at each other. "What is it?"

"Well, it's just... I mean, with all these guys going missing, people talk." Rachel, the other girl says. Dean and Sam speak in chorus. "What do they talk about?"

"It's kind of this local legend. This one girl? She got murdered out on Centennial, like decades ago." Dean looks at Sam, who watches Rachel attentively, nodding. "Well, supposedly she's still out there. She hitchhikes, and whoever picks her up? Well, they disappear forever."

"So let me guess you believe in this so called legend?" I ask.

"It's a possibility, you never know." Sam and Dean look at each other.

Considering that Rachel mentioned this legend, we made a trip to the library. Dean was in the computer with a web browser open to the archive search page for the Jericho Herald. The words "Female Murder Hitchhiking" are typed into the search box. Dean clicks go; the screen tells him there are "(0) Result". Dean replaces "Hitchhiking" with "Centennial Highway" with the same response.

"Your not gonna find anything in the internet. You gotta go old school." I point out.

Sam sighs, who is sitting next to him, watching.

"Let me try." He offered, Dean smacks Sam's hand.

"I got it." Sam shoves Dean's chair out of the way and takes over. "Dude!" Dean hits Sam in the shoulder. "You're such a control freak."

"You two are definitely brothers." I giggle, the boys just shake there heads. I push both of them out of the way "If you want to find a spirit, you gotta go dark. Angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?"

"Yeah." Dean agrees.

"Well, it's not murder." I replace "Murder" with "Suicide" and find an article entitled "Suicide on Centennial". Both if the boys seemed surprised. I open the article, dated April 25, 1981, I read what the article had to say. "A local woman's drowning death was ruled a suicide, the county Sheriff's Department said earlier today. Constance Welch, 24, of 4636 Breckenridge Road, leapt off Sylvania Bridge, at mile 33 of Centennial Highway, and subsequently drowned last night. Deputy J. Pierce told reporters that, hours before her death, Ms. Welch logged a call with 911 emergency services. In a panicked tone, Ms. Welch described how she found her two young children, 5 and 6, in the bathtub, after leaving them alone for several minutes. I continued to skim the article. " Here this is what the husband said, What happened to my children was a terrible accident. And it must have been too much for my wife. Our babies were gone, and Constance just couldn't bear it. Now I ask that you all please respect my privacy during this trying time."

"So she committed suicide." Sam says. "Good job Y/n."

"Quiet there's more. At the time of the children's death and Ms. Welch's subsequent suicide, Mr. Welch was at the Frontier auto salvage yard, where he works the graveyard shift as associate manager. Connie might have been quiet, but she was the sweetest, most caring girl I ever knew, said Deanna Kripke, a neighbor. She just doted on those children."

Dean raises his eyebrows.

"Hm. The bridge look familiar to you?" Dean asks.

The three of us walk along the bridge, then stop to lean on the railing and look down at the river.

"So this is where Constance took the swan dive." Dean states.

"So you think Dad would have been here?" Sam asks.

"If your dad was here then he would've stopped the spirit right?" I wondered.

"Well, he's chasing the same story and we're chasing him."

"Okay, so now what?"

"Now we keep digging until we find him. Might take a while." Sam stops and looks at Dean.

"Dean, I told you, I've gotta get back by Monday-" Dean turns around.

"Monday. Right. The interview."

"Yeah."

"Yeah, I forgot. You're really serious about this, aren't you? You think you're just going to become some Lawyer? Marry your girl?"

"Maybe. Why not?"

"Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you've done?" Sam steps closer, I could tell a fight was about to break out.

"No, and she's not ever going to know."

"Well, that's healthy. You can pretend all you want, Sammy. But sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are."

Dean turns around and keeps walking, Sam follows.

"Guys c'mon we got more important things to do." I state.

"Stay out of this Y/n!" Both of them say at the same time.

"Who am I really Dean?" Sam says.

"You're one of us." Sam hurries to get in front of Dean.

"No. I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life."

"You have a responsibility to-"

"To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. And what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back." Dean grabs Sam by the collar and shoves him up against the railing of the bridge. Instantly I push Dean back, he begins to protest.

"Y/n-"

"No enough out of both of you. Focus, look if San wants out if this life then so be it. You can't change that, I may not know much about what you guys do for a living but I know damn well I wouldn't want to be hunting monsters all the time."

"What do you mean don't know much about what we do?" Sam questioned, clearly aggravated. "You brought her into this!"

"She decided this not me! I gave her the offer to walk away!"

"That wasn't her decision to make! If Y/D/N kept her out if this then you shouldn't have brought her with you!"

"She's eighteen! She can do whatever the hell she wants!"

"No Dean she's not eighteen! She's seventeen! She doesn't turn eighteen till (your birthday)." Dean looks at me, clearly surprised that I lied. However I wasn't paying attention, the spirit of Constance was standing at the edge of the bridge.

"Uh guys." The boys forget there argument and stand infront of me, like I'm something to be protected. Consance looks over at them, then steps forward off the edge. We run to the railing and look over.

"Where'd she go?" I asked.

"I don't know." Sam said, then behind us, the Impala's engine starts and its headlights come on, catching our attention.

"What the-who the fuck is driving your car!?" Dean pulls the keys out of his pocket and jingles them. The car jerks into motion, heading straight for them.

"Run!" I yell. The car is moving faster than we are, when it gets too close, the boys dive over the railing but it was to late for me.

The New Hunter Masterlist

#dean supernatural #dean winchester #dean winchester imagines #sam winchester #sam winchester imagines #dean x y/n #dean x reader #sam x y/n #sam x you #sam x reader

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onlycags · 4 years

Text

Mutlu Noeller (Merry Christmas) | Çağlar Söyüncü

Christmas Day

It was Christmas Day and the whole team was coming over to James’s flat in thirty minutes. The coffee that you had brewed over an hour ago was already gone, and the second pot was brewing. You were glad you had convinced him to let you spend the night last night so you didn’t have to pace around your flat for two hours. You had been up since six, unable to sleep because of nerves and excitement.

You were mostly nervous to see him - Çağlar Söyüncü , your best mate James Maddison’s teammate and your current crush. He was your closest mate on the team, aside from James, and, while you didn’t want to ruin your friendship with your feelings, you also wanted to drag him under the mistletoe and kiss him senseless.

The oven dinged and you jumped, jolted from the fantasyland in your head. Finally! The oven had preheated and it was time to put the cinnamon rolls in. You popped both trays in and set the time for fifteen minutes. Grabbing powdered sugar and the peppermint schnapps, you started making the icing.

The sound of the door opening got your attention, and you looked up just in time to lock gazes with the man you couldn’t stop thinking about.

“Merhaba,” you greeted him in his native language. “Mutlu Noeller!”

You had taken up learning Turkish for fun - Czech and Hungarian were already in your language arsenal and you got bored - but seeing Çağlar’s face light up whenever you spoke to him in Turkish made you keep learning. It was almost like it was your own secret language, as very few people in the U.K. seemed to speak it.

Çağlar smiled back at you and the nerves returned. “Is anyone else here?” He asked in Turkish, and you shook your head. James had texted saying he was on his way, but you figured he would be late like he had always been to holiday gatherings when you were growing up.

You turned back to mixing the icing, trying desperately not to watch the six-foot-two footballer who was standing in your kitchen looking more delicious than the cinnamon rolls you were making. Coming around from behind the countertop, you stood face-to-face with him. Before you could say anything, he wrapped you up in a hug. Instinctively, you wound your arms around his neck, wishing you could thread your fingers through his soft hair. You were average height for a woman, but you secretly loved how Çağlar’s large frame made you feel safe and protected.

The hug ended, much to your disappointment, but when the two of you broke apart, he kept his hands on your waist. You knew you were blushing like crazy, but you didn’t care.

“Senin için,” he whispered, his use of Turkish sending shivers down your spine no matter how many times he spoke it. “Mutlu Noeller, [Y/N].” He handed you a small, wrapped gift and your fingers brushed.

“For me?” You whispered in English, your voice the same volume as his. He nodded, biting his lip. “Teşekkürler, Çağlar.” He ducked his head and looked away from you, seemingly shy.

You unwrapped his gift to you and gasped when you saw what it was. Inside was a jersey with his name and number on it.

As James Maddison’s best mate, you had both his Leicester and his England NT jerseys that you wore to matches for both, but you didn’t have anyone else’s. You had the biggest smile on your face as you picked the jersey up from the box, letting the packaging fall to the floor. You couldn’t quite put it into words, but the significance of it had your heart racing. “I love it!” You exclaimed in Turkish, pulling him in for another hug.

The hesitance in his voice was evident as he explained in Turkish, “You don’t have to wear it, but I wanted to give you something to show my appreciation for everything you’ve done for me this year.”

By that he meant the fact that you had somehow become his de facto translator over the past year. Sure, the team was giving him English lessons, and there was a translator on hand during matches, but if he ever wanted to speak Turkish, you were the first person he came to. “Of course I’ll wear it,” you replied, meeting his gaze. Chances were you would wear it to bed, pretending that the body pillow you spooned every night was him. “I have something for you, too, hold on.” You walked away from him into James’s bedroom, feeling a bit cold at the loss of contact. The piece of pottery you had made in your class felt much less significant now that Çağlar had given you his jersey. You held the aforementioned garment up to your face and inhaled. It smelled like him, and you couldn’t help but smile to yourself.

Realizing you were keeping Çağlar waiting, you grabbed the pottery and ran back out to meet him. Your face fell when you saw James chatting with Çağlar - you hadn’t heard your mate come in, and while you were glad to see him, you had missed the opportunity to give him his gift in private. “[Y/N]!” Madders greeted when he saw you, pulling you in for a hug.

“Hey, Madders, you’re back early! Merry Christmas!” You laughed as he spun you around. “Where did you go? You were gone when I woke up.” The puzzled look on Çağlar’s face made you pause, but you brushed it off since you couldn’t tell if it was jealousy or just English confusion.

“I went for an early jog. Is this for me?” He asked, spying the piece of pottery in your hand.

“Nope!” You responded, flicking your gaze over to Çağlar. “For you,” you said, switching to English since Madders had arrived.

The look on his face took away all your doubts about your gift. “You made this?” He asked in Turkish.

“Evet,” you confirmed, switching back to Turkish for this personal conversation that you didn’t want Mads to understand. “When it was finished, it made me think of you.”

He smiled at you and the butterflies returned. You turned your attention back to the kitchen to avoid giving away your feelings about the Centerback to your best mate. There was still ten minutes on the timer, and you wanted to get everything ready. After all, about twenty more footballers would be descending on James’s flat in the next twenty minutes.

You and James worked in tandem, him getting the plastic utensils and you grabbing the plastic plates - there was no way you were going to use anything that needed to be washed, other than the pans holding the cinnamon rolls. A couple times when you looked up, you caught Çağlar watching you with something in his eyes that you couldn’t quite place.

Twenty minutes later, the flat was filled with rowdy players, and you smiled as you looked around at the group of guys that had welcomed you as one of their own. Ben Chilwell and Kasper Schmeichel were horsing around while Evans and Vardy played an intense round of FIFA. You got up to get more coffee; when you realized it was empty, you started preparing another pot. As you were impatiently waiting, you felt a familiar pair of arms wrap around your waist. “Great party, Love,” James complimented, giving you a friendly kiss on the cheek.

“Thanks, Mads. Thanks for letting me work my magic.”

He released you, his focus shifting to the rapidly-filling coffee pot. “You always did throw great parties - why wouldn’t I let you crash my kitchen?”

The coffee finally made, you poured yourself and Madders cups. James gave you another kiss on the cheek as a thank you, and as you turned your attention back to the room, you didn’t miss Çağlar’s hard gaze before he turned and stalked out the side door that led to the balcony. You seemed to be the only one who thought that something was wrong, and you quickly followed the Turk outside.

It was colder than you had expected, around 8 or 9 Celsius, and you shivered involuntarily as you stepped out on to the balcony. “Çağlar!” You called out, both hands gripping your mug.

“[Y/N]?” He asked, turning around to face you, his features hard. “What do you want?”

His use of English surprised you, rendering you speechless for a moment before you regained your head. When you spoke, your voice shook and you hated how meek you sounded. “I just wanted to check on you. One minute, you seem to be enjoying the party, and the next, you’re storming out here, angry. What’s wrong?”

He muttered something in Turkish that you were too slow to catch and turned away from you again. In a brief moment of confidence, you set your mug on the outdoor table you had convinced Madders to get when he had first moved in, and enveloped Çağlar in a hug from behind. In a last-ditch effort, you switched to Turkish, muttering, “Konuş, lütfen.” Talk to me, please.

In a flash, your hands were ripped from his waist and he turned to face you. Hurt and anger etched across his face, and you wanted to do whatever you could to make it all go away. When his spoke, his Turkish was rapid-fire, and you struggled to keep up. “Talk to you?! Really? Why would I talk to you about this so you can go run back into your boyfriend when this is all over like nothing happened?!” The fire in his eyes burned you so badly you were no longer cold.

“Boyfriend? What the hell are you on about, Çağlar?” You shouted back, getting angry.

His jaw clenched and he looked off somewhere before muttering. “Maddison, obviously. I saw the two of you together just now. You don’t have to hide it, you know.”

“Madders and I have been friends since primary school, you idiot! We have never been interested in each other like that,” you huffed, out of breath as though you’d just run a marathon. “Besides, it isn’t him I’m interested in.” Your eyes widened as you realized what you had just said, but you decided not to back down. You took a step towards him, your hand reaching out to cup his cheek. You mentally catalogued the feel of his stubble underneath the pads of your fingertips, thinking for sure this was the only time you would ever get the chance. For a second, you contemplated telling him your feelings in English, but thought better of it. This was something you wanted to share with just him, and you were sure the rest of the team was probably glued to the window. “Seni istiyorum - sadece seni, Çağlar.” I want you - only you.

Before you could register what was happening, his lips were on yours; his hands on your waist holding you in place. You thread your fingers through his hair the way you had wanted to the past few months, swallowing his moans of approval at the contact. His calloused hands slipped under your jumper, goosebumps erupting over the flesh he touched. When you finally broke apart for air, he rested his forehead against yours and whispered, “Ben de seni istiyorum sadece sen, [Y/N].” I want you, only you, too.

The two of you stayed outside a bit longer, wrapped up in each other, speaking Turkish in between kisses. When you both walked back inside, you slipped your hand in his. You would both be answering plenty of questions over the next few hours, but you would savour the moments until it was time.

Çağlar pulled you into his lap as he sat down in a chair at the table. “Mutlu Noeller, [Y/N],” he whispered, pressing a kiss to your temple.

“Mutlu Noeller, Çağlar.”

#cags writing #cags originals

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100hearteyes · 5 years

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I actually think this comparison is unfair and I can explain why.

One thing is the comparison between the men’s and women’s USA national teams. The women win more, attract more sponsors and attention, and bring more revenue to US Soccer. So it’s stupid for the men to be paid more.

I also think that there shouldn’t be such an imbalance in salaries between the MLS and the NWSL, considering that the women are also very popular (but again, if you want to have a Beckham or an Ibra you have to pay them well - LA Galaxy show up constantly on the news now that Ibrahimovic plays for them).

Whereas Messi is one of the two most popular footballers in the world and his image alone earns Barcelona millions, not to mention how he contributes on the pitch. He’s one of the five best players of all time (imo). So this is a player who can give me loads of money, fan attention, and trophies. And everybody wants him. So - and this is what happened - if the player comes to me saying, “club X made me an offer and is willing to pay Y more than I make here,” the first thing I’ll say is: “How much do you want?” Because this is a player who will most certainly pay that value back simply by existing and playing football - shirt sales, sponsors for the team, image rights, of competition bonuses, etc.

Now, of course, we can say - what about the difference between men’s and women’s teams in a club? Like, say, Arsenal men’s and women’s? It comes down to the same criteria. Because equal pay is the end goal in this sport, not the means. Male players earn what they do nowadays because they (and their teams) earned it. The salaries payed in football nowadays aren’t the same as twenty years ago — and they increased because the money generated and circulating in men’s football also increased. If there wasn’t money to be made from men’s football for external players, you can be sure that male players wouldn’t earn what they do today. And that is the key for the women to earn more: show external players that there is a lot of money to be made from women’s football. Because it all boils down to that. And we’re doing that — this World Cup has been crucial to show everyone that yes, we can fill whole stadiums with fans of the game; yes, we can have as many people watching us on TV as the men; yes, millions of people will watch your ads and use drink your drinks and eat your food; yes, we are a great product to bet on.

Obviously, men and women’s football don’t have the same resources. But we are also winning that fight towards equality, because more and more big European clubs are creating women’s teams — and Europe will be key for the growth of the sport. Not due to some misplaced nationalism (or continentalism or whatever the word is) on my part. It’s simply because the best men’s clubs in the world are European, thus that’s where the best resources are — youth academies, youth coaches, training facilities, coaches in general, knowledge, etc. Those are the resources that women’s teams are beginning to use and the results show. But as I was saying, big European clubs are creating women’s teams because they see that it’s a gold mine still very much unexplored.

Of course things shouldn’t be as they are in the first place. In an ideal world, men and women’s football would’ve been born at the same time and developed hand in hand. But that isn’t what happened, unfortunately (what happened was that there were bans on women playing and some countries didn’t even allow women to enter stadiums until like a year ago). But I don’t think the end product — the consequence — is to blame. The problem isn’t that Messi makes so much money, it’s that women make so little. And most of all, not that it happens, but why it happens. We shouldn’t be pointing fingers at the fact that Messi alone makes twice as much as all the elite female footballers. We should be pointing fingers at the lack of investment in women’s football, at people’s ignorant comments about women’s football, etc. And then we should do everything we can change that (and we are) — because, unfortunately, we’ve been once again left to fend for ourselves in this male-dominated world.

Football, like any other business, is all about offer and demand. More specifically, sponsorship. More crudely, how much money can you make for them? We can’t just say we want female players to be paid as much as the men. We’ve got to bring something to the table — because, whether we like it or not (I don’t), they earned what they’re paid nowadays. So we’ve got to earn it as well. We’re decades behind them (again, that’s the men’s fault); no one cared about us thirty years ago. But we made them care. And we can make them care even more. We can make them care about us as much as they care about the men. Do we want borderline orgasmic salaries like the men’s? Hell yes. So let’s show the sponsors, the higher-ups, etc that we deserve them. Again, the World Cup is doing exactly that, but we can’t stop there. We need public, which brings sponsors, who in turn bring in more money, which brings even more sponsors, which gets us attention, ergo more public, then more sponsors — and the end goal? Better salaries. And if we keep fighting to show everyone that we, too, are worth and can earn external players a lot of money, I have no doubt that in ten years female players will be making five, ten, twenty times more than they do today (exactly how much I can’t say, the football market is unpredictable and things are moving much faster nowadays than they did ten years ago — for all I know, women could be earning millions in a decade). The Adidas, Coca Cola, Wanda, Hyundai/Kia Motors, Qatar Airways and Visa’s of this world will realize that unless they put more money on it someone else will. And this is a snowball.

The more people who want to invest in our product, the more valuable it is, so more people want it, and that means we can ask for more with minimized risk. If the product is valuable, then so are the players (the no 1 icons of football). If the players are valuable, that means higher prices and therefore higher salaries.

One day, much sooner than people think, we will close that gap.

#wwc19 #women's soccer #women's football #football #look a long ass post that no one will care about :D

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roonil-wazlib-at-221b · 5 years

Text

Four Years: Part 1

Looking

Pairing: Sam Winchester x reader

Dean jumps when Ash drops a thick folder on the counter next to him.

His hand knocks over the room-temperature beer bottle he’d been nursing from last night and it spills in his lap. The liquid, and smash of the bottle on the ground, make him open his eyes with shock. The light hurts his eyes and starts a throbbing headache that feels like his brain is just a bit too large for his skull. Dean throws up a hand to his face to shield his eyes but, having forgotten he was sitting on a stool when he passed out, tilts back just a bit too far.

“Whoa!”

He hits the ground and has to gasp for a second to get air into his empty lungs.

All this happens in a span of five seconds and Dean’s hungover brain makes that whirring noise old laptops make when they’re turning on before he can fully process that, yes, he is on the ground, his shoulder and tailbone ache now, and his headache was only worsened by his head hitting the hard floor.

A loud burst of laughter makes Dean groan.

Sam bends over at the waist, shoulders shuddering as he laughs.

“Shut up,” Dean grumbles. “Bitch.”

Sam hiccups, unable to wipe the shit-eating grin off his face. “You’re not very alert for a hunter, you jerk.”

“I’m allowed to celebrate saving a kid’s life,” Dean mumbles back, cracking open an eye with caution.

The smile slides right off Sam’s face at the reminder of the case they’d just finished. A lone werewolf had been hiding in the woods near a town and kidnapped a bunch of kids in order to turn them and create a new pack. They’d all been turned except one.

It makes Sam a little sick to think about walking into the bloodbath—one of the turned kids had gotten loose and killed the others.

“I guess,” the younger Winchester mutters.

“Why’d you wake me up?”

Jo nudges his form with the toe of her boot. “We’ve got a roadhouse to run. Plus, we have a case for you. And it was really funny.”

That piques Dean’s curiosity. “What is it? Vamps? Wendigo? Werewolf?”

“We’re not sure,” Ash answers, handing the folder to Sam to rifle through. “Hunters have been dropping off the grid. A lot.”

“We’ve got people that’ve been finding abandoned cars and phones, too,” Jo adds. “Then the missing hunters show up—sometimes—and they set up a normal life. These are people that have shown no inclination to leave before, mind you.”

“So hunters are leaving the life?” Dean asks, sitting up to frown at Jo. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Uh, the disappearance?” Jo snaps. “The abandoned cars and phones? They don’t go back for their shit, Dean. It’s just there, and police have been finding the arsenals in the trunk. There are more cops breathing down people’s necks at all times. Hunters leaving the life? Some of them, sure, but people like Bruce Chappell and Y/N Y/L/N—they like the life. Y/N said to me a bunch of times how much she’d hated school.”

“Hold on, did you say Y/N Y/L/N?” Dean interrupts. He and Sam share a worried look. Now there’s no way they won’t take the case.

“Yeah.” Jo bites her lip, eyes scanning over Dean’s face. “Why, you know her?”

Sam and Dean nod in unison.

“Her dad and our dad were friends—sort of. I mean, her dad used to drop her off with us whenever they went hunting together. She was a year younger than me and a terrible influence,” Sam reminisces. “Our dad always got so mad whenever they’d get back because she’d always get us in trouble but he couldn’t stay mad at her for long. She was really good at pretending to be innocent and sweet.”

“Yeah,” Dean grumbles, glaring at Sam as he hoists himself up into a chair, “and I almost always got in trouble, because Sammy always backed Y/N up. She’s like a fucking spider and Sam got caught up in her web, but goddamnit…” he sighs and leans across the table for the case folder Ash had compiled. “I got stuck in her web too. She was a little heathen.”

Jo blinks at them. “That’s… I’ve never heard you speak better about someone.”

“Well, she’s basically my little sister… in law.” Dean grunts when Sam kicks him under the table. “Hey! Sorry, ex -sister-in-law.”

Jo laughs, confused but knowing that what she’s watching is funny.

“Sammy here had a crush ,” Dean sings. Sam kicks him again. “Ow! You’re a menace, Sammy.”

“Y/N never mentioned you two,” Jo says, frowning. You’d only ever talked about hunting and made empty, half-drunk, and not-remembered promises to take Jo hunting after she finished high school. Then, about four years ago, you’d stopped dropping by so frequently and never brought up hunting together again.

“See,” Dean points at her, “that’s why I say ‘ex’. Sam left to go to college and Y/N didn’t like that. She hasn't contacted us since. Hell hath no fury, right?”

“It’s not like that,” Sam mutters, embarrassed and red. “She’s my annoying little sister and she felt like I was abandoning her. Dean’s always been annoying about his fantasy about me liking Y/N. He wants her to be really in the family. But anyway.” He grabs the case file out of Dean’s hands. “She’s missing?”

Jo nods. “I tried calling her a week ago and she hasn’t picked up since. I don’t know how long exactly she’s been missing, but Rufus and Bobby found her car and brought it back to Bobby’s.”

Sam swallows and Dean’s face goes somber.

“We should head over there, then,” Dean declares. “Maybe there’s a clue in her car about what happened to her.”

Sam nods but keeps his eyes glued to the picture Ash had used for your profile in the file. You’re older than he’d ever seen you in life. His chest aches when he thinks about how much of pure you he’s missed out on for years. It’s crazy to how he saw you constantly as a kid and he doesn’t even know what you look like now.

And it was all for nothing. He’s hunting again, but without you in the backseat. And you’re missing.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Sam says suddenly, his eyes watering because of all the dust in the roadhouse, and nobody mentions his choked voice.

“Little sister my ass,” is all Jo mutters as her eyes follow the boys out.

Sandwiched between two boys both six inches taller than you, fifteen-year-old you leans back on the couch and pouts as both fathers lecture the three of you.

“Dean, you’re twenty years old,” John scolds. “You should know better than to help Y/N and Sam sneak into an amusement park!”

“We just wanted to see if we could,” Sam protests. Your dad crosses his arms.

“Yeah, and if you all got caught? You would all get arrested.”

“We had a fake story all planned out!” you pipe up indignantly. “Dean had a fake I.D. and everything! Besides, we just would’ve broken out.”

“Put a finger to your lips, Y/N!” your father barks. “You are in deep, deep trouble.”

“Nothing even happened!” you snap back, clenching your jaw and narrowing your eyes slightly.

“John and I came home and we didn’t know where you were! There was no way for us to find you!”

“You never tell me where you’re hunting!”

“What if there had been a monster at Kings Dominion?” Your dad’s face is starting to turn red, as is yours.

“Y/N,” Sam mutters at your side and you very deliberately plant your hands on the couch and lift your butt so you move away from him. Sam falls silent as if struck dumb.

You like to run the show whenever you’re with the Winchester boys and do not like it when they back someone else over you. It may be a little childish and petty, but you’ll be petty when you can. Almost every other aspect of your life requires you to be generous and self-sacrificing.

“We had our weapons,” you reply to your dad, ignoring Sam. Your voice is suddenly cool and aloof. It’s your way to assert dominance—acting like you’re above everyone and you couldn’t care less about them. “We’re allowed to have fun sometimes.”

“Not dangerous fun,” your dad mutters, beginning to cool down as you freeze. He can’t stay mad at you for long. None of them can.

“All fun is dangerous,” Dean butts in but raises his hands in surrender when your dad glares at him. “Never mind.”

“Coward,” you mumble under your breath and Dean jabs you in the side with his ebow. You squeal and fall into Sam’s lap. Your dads roll their eyes and the past is behind you all, even though everyone knows you’ll come up with another crazy idea the boys will follow you into executing soon.

Sam sticks a finger into your side and you twist away from him, too, pink from laughter or embarrassment or something else you’ve decided to ignore so it’ll go away staining your cheeks and making your ears hot.

Your elbow hits Sam in the gut and he groans. Dean laughs and then grunts when Sam hits him lightly on the shoulder.

“Oh, it is on,” Dean growls and lunges at his younger brother. You scoot away from the fight you’d started and laugh as the brothers tussle.

Even while fighting, Sam’s ears recognize your laugh and he blushes at the thought of you watching him play fight with Dean.

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean whispers while Sam has him pinned, “your pathetic puppy-love crush is super obvious.”

“Hello?” Dean waves his hand in front of Sam’s nose. His little brother is staring out the window with no expression on his face and vacant eyes. “Earth to Sammy?” He snaps again and Sam blinks, disoriented, before shoving Dean’s hand away from his face. “Where’d you go?” Dean inquires, switching his gaze back to the flat expanse of pavement Baby’s cruising along.

Sam clears his throat and replies, “Just... lost in thought,” deliberately avoiding the question.

Dean can tell that immediately, obviously, but he doesn’t question his brother. “Okay.”

The silence between them lasts only ten seconds before Sam angles his body in Dean’s direction and says, “Dean?”

“Yeah?”

Sam furrows his eyebrows. “Why’d Y/N never contact you? Me, I get… sort of. But you’d think she’d still want to keep in touch with you.”

“It’s like I always said, Sammy,” Dean grins, “Y/N was only using me to get to you.” He chuckles.

Sam rolls his eyes. The idea of him having a crush on Y/N is laughable, but not even a love potion could get you to like him in any way other than as a brother. Which doesn’t make Sam’s stomach churn. It was the roadhouse food, for sure—Jo and Ellen are great, but the food they serve is just as good as any other roadhouse’s food—which is to say, terrible.

“Nah, I’m joking. We all know I was her favorite, at least until she started blushing at the mere mention of you.”

Sam shakes his head.

Dean shrugs. “Fine, believe what you want to believe, it’s your loss. We both know Y/N would never make the first move if she actually liked a guy. If you don’t accept your feelings she’s gonna move on eventually. If she hasn’t alrea—”

“Look, you’re not my relationship counselor or whatever,” Sam interrupts. “Please stop with all that crap.”

The elder brother sighs. “You know full well Y/N’s spotty with her comms. I guess she was so mad at you she got mad at me because we’re brothers or some weird excuse—so thanks for being such a humongous dick my baby sister hated me, by the way—and I didn’t call her and she didn’t call me. At first she was probably just mad but then she probably got anxious and then I got a new number because my phone got smashed, so I wouldn’t be able to answer any of her calls if she did call me and then she would probably think that I hated her for disconnecting my number so…” Dean heaves a sigh and shrugs again. “You left me with a heaping pile of shit, man. And you broke her heart. I don’t care if you think Y/N loved you romantically or platonically, she felt abandoned by you.”

Sam stares at his lap. “I know Y/N can hold grudges, but still. That’s pretty extreme.”

“You give her too much credit, man,” Dean replies. “Y/N isn’t good with emotions that aren’t anger or happiness, so she just changes all the other ones to those two. You know her mom was shit, plus she’s a hunter… I’m not surprised she reacted like that. Hell, we’re better adjusted than her and you know what Dad was like.”

Sam shifts in his seat. “She’s pretty good, Dean.”

“Yeah, she is.” Dean looks at his brother out of the corner of his eye. “We helped. You, especially, what with your desire to turn our life into a chick flick.”

Sam laughs, not because it was especially funny, but to break the tension, and after a pause Dean gives a chuckle too. “Nothing could turn our life into a chick flick.”

“Maybe an action-slash-romance after you save her,” Dean muses.

Sam shoves him.

Sam goes to search your car while Dean passes out in one of Bobby’s spare rooms. He’d wanted to come along too, but a full night of driving had him struggling to keep his eyes open.

“Her keys were in the ignition,” Bobby says while unlocking the car with said keys. “Rufus and I cleared out the trash in the back and washed the laundry, which I put into the trunk. I doubt you’ll be able to find anything we didn’t. I know all Y/N’s tricks. Good luck, though, boy.” He pats Sam on the shoulder and leaves him with your small Prius. Dean had always hated it because of its boringness, and you’d always responded by predicting his unusual car be the thing that helps cops track him down, if cops were ever on his ass.

“My car is normal and small,” you’d always said. “Nobody will ever notice it, and I don’t have a Bigfoot brother to lug around.”

“And you’re too small to see the road when you’re driving bigger cars,” Sam always teased, grinning, and you’d always gone a bit red and aimed a kick at his shin.

Sam has to crouch to start feeling around in your car, but one accidental brush against a hot seatbelt buckle makes him hiss and flinch away.

When Dean comes out, all four of the doors of your car are opened and Sam’s ass is sticking in the air as he feels around the car in the driver’s area. There’s got to be a hidden compartment somewhere, if Sam knows— knew you.

Maybe you changed.

Dean’s voice shakes that thought from Sam’s mind as he says, “Wow, this really brings back memories, doesn’t it?”

“Not really,” Sam’s about to say, because you’d only had the car for two months before he left for Stanford and whenever the three of you hunted together you always traveled in the Impala, but Dean continues to talk.

“Remember when I got stabbed by a vamp and had to lie in the backseat but there wasn’t enough room?”

“I do not remember that,” Sam replies. He can’t even imagine the three of you in that car together. He and Dean are just too big.

The humor slides right off Dean’s face. “Oh, yeah,” he says flatly and turns around.

“What’s the sudden attitude about?” Sam asks.

“You didn’t go with us on that hunt because you were too busy watching the mail and, more importantly, making sure Dad wouldn’t find your Stanford letter. Remember?” Dean leans against the car’s opposite side. “We got patched up, came through the door, Y/N said something about all hunting together, and you just blurted out, ‘I’m leaving you guys’.”

Sam sighs and gives up on the search momentarily, standing up to glare at his brother. “Dude, you gotta stop guilt-tripping me about leaving for college. I get that you were hurt by my decision, but it’s just that—my decision.”

“I’m not getting into this argument with you,” Dean mutters and crouches down to search through the car as well.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Dean—”

“Aha!” Dean holds up a box that he’d pulled from somewhere, but Sam had checked that side twice and found nothing. Where could you have hid a box about half the length of a pillow where Sam, Bobby, and Rufus wouldn’t have found it?

“Where’d you—”

“Me and Y/N hollowed out the passenger seat a bit and stuck this box inside for her to hide stuff. It’s where she keeps her journal, mostly, so maybe that’ll help us figure out when and where she went missing. We invited you to help, but you needed to study.”

“Dude.” Sam stands up and slams the driver’s door shut. “Stop, okay? I get it. I left. I’m back now, aren’t I?”

“Just wait until we find Y/N,” Dean says. “If you think I’m being bad or annoying about how you abandoned us and, if it was up to you, Yellow-Eyes would be running rampant and killing people’s moms.”

“I’m sure I’ll get it bad from Y/N!” Sam replies. “But you can’t hold that against me for the rest of my life, okay?”

“You’re right,” Dean concedes. Sam’s mouth barely has enough time to quirk up before he adds, “I’m sure you’ll do something else I can get pissed at you for doing sometime in the future.”

Sam rolls his eyes and turns back to the house.

“Well, you are my younger brother!” Dean yells at his retreating back. “I’m always gonna be on your case about something !”

“Idjits,” Bobby mutters and Dean takes the box from Sam, which is much lighter than it looks (and should be, Dean’s brain says, but you might have gotten a new, smaller journal after filling up your first one, and used the burner phone without getting a new one, and put the photo album somewhere else in the car) and sets it on the table.

He pats his pockets up and down until the zip-up one on his left leg yields results. A relatively new-looking silver key glints in the light as he puts it in the lock and turns.

There’s nothing in the box.

“Did you find anything apart from the trash, clothes, and weapons?” Dean asks.

Bobby shakes his head.

The boys scour your car for three straight hours but come up with nada again. Sam hit every square inch of the car’s interior to knock loose any secret compartments. Dean cuts open every seat for more hidden boxes, reminding himself to just buy you a better car. His little sister won’t be driving around in a Prius.

Bobby even looks at the interior and exterior of the car with a blacklight on the off chance you’d left a message in invisible ink.

There’s absolutely nothing.

“I wanna key this car so bad,” Dean finally grumbles when they all give up.

“Y/N’s already gonna be pissed about her seats,” Sam points out. He wouldn’t stop Dean if he did, though. He’s just as frustrated as his brother, and also exhausted. He has to run a hand through his hair to get it away from his forehead to cool down a bit. “Hey, Dean?”

“Hmm?”

“How come you had a key to Y/N’s box?”

“We got them driving home on the night you left,” Dean starts.

“Shit, did you and Y/N decide to do everything in the few days before I left? God damn it.” Sam has to stare up at the sky and count to three before gritting out, “Sorry. I’m just annoyed by your constant guilt trips and anxious about Y/N. By all means, continue and make me feel even worse, please.”

Dean leans against the car and closes his eyes. “You know perfectly well Y/N was always doing fifty million things at once. It was just convenient, what with how we had recently made the box but Y/N wanted a lock on it, and we saw a place for that at the Walmart we stopped at for snacks. She got three.”

Sam exhales sharply and closes his eyes as well. Both brothers lean against the car with no clues, the sun just starting to set. Without opening his eyes, “Sam asks, sounding like someone is twisting his arm, “Is it too forward of me to assume the third key was to be mine?”

“Nah, it was,” Dean replies. His eyes burn.

“Great,” is all Sam mutters. Dean hears him walk away but can’t bear to watch him do it. He doesn’t know where one of his siblings is, and the one that’s walking away from him now is the one that always walks away. The one that never walks away walked away from him too.

After a while Dean remembers to put the empty box back in your car. It seems like too much hassle to put it back inside the seat correctly, so Dean opens up the trunk to set it inside. The trunk doesn’t close fully when he tries to, even when dean slams it, so he shoves some knives away from the space he wants it to go in. One knife slips under the carpet bottom of the trunk, even though there shouldn’t be a slit in the fabric there. You’d probably torn it while tossing weapons in after a hunt.

Dean lifts up the flap to retrieve the knife and his mouth drops open.

“But if she didn’t want anyone to find them, Y/N would’ve put them in the hidden box that only she and you can open!” Sam argues.

“Maybe someone else knew about the box or had the key? There’s not a lot of other possible scenarios, Sam. A monster would’ve just dumped the whole book instead. Why take the trouble of taking every picture out of its page and putting them in the trunk of her car? Y/N obviously wanted to keep them safe.”

Bobby ignores the bickering brothers and sorts through each of the pictures separately. They’re the Polaroids that print immediately. Your dad gotten you one of those cameras because they were easier to use than trying to go through the whole printing process at, like, a Costco or whatever.

One picture is of Bobby cleaning out one of his guns, another a sopping-wet Sam next to a grinning Dean. There’s one of the dog you and Sam had had for a week when you’d run away as kids.

A few feature a man who looks almost sickly-thin next to a smiling version of you Bobby hardly recognizes: you, a full adult now, without Sam or Dean by your side to make you look small, new slashes on your body from hunting.

Bobby’s seen you maybe twice in the last four years. He’ll be sure to rip you a new one when the boys come home for being so immature about your feelings being hurt.

Bobby was your second father, just like hwas to Sam and Dean, but maybe, because of how little you saw your dad, Bobby was more your primary father.

And you called, sure, sometimes, but you could never be bothered to show up and visit for fear of Dean being there.

“How did I raise such a dumbass?” Bobby asks himself, his beard twitching as he smiles. If you’re dead, he’s going to kill you.

The Winchester brothers look away from each other angrily, unable to keep the conversation from going in circles. Dean storms off to get a beer and Sam sits down next to Bobby.

“There’s a lot of her and that one guy,” he notices, pointing to the pile Bobby had made.

“Yeah, she and Garth were hunting together before they both dropped off the comms,” Bobby answers his unasked question. “He’s a good guy. I don’t think he’s her type, though.”

Sam wants to ask Bobby what he thinks your type is, but he bites his tongue. He doesn’t get to be interested after leaving, and anyway, he’s not even interested. You’re his little sister.

“How about this,” Bobby says loudly so Dean, who’s sulking in the other room, hears him too, “we all go to bed. Tomorrow, we clear out Y/N’s trunk to see if there are any other pictures or clues hidden in it, all right?”

“Whatever,” Dean grumbles from the kitchen, not even bothering to pretend he wasn’t he listening. Sam hears him open and close the fridge, probably to put back his beer, and then the heavy sound of Dean stomping to the bedroom he always sleeps in.

Bobby stands up as well. “Sam? You coming?”

“In a sec,” Sam replies distractedly. They both know it’s a lie.

“Make sure you sleep soon,” is all Bobby says before he, too, turns away.

Then it’s just Sam and the pictures. Pictures of his maybe-dead little sister hanging out with people he doesn’t know.

The don’t capture you, at least not exactly. The photographer was too far away or the camera’s too shitty, but your eyes look like only one color instead of the thousand flecks Sam knows better than anyone else’s eyes. Your skin looks paler than he remembers and the wrinkles on your forehead aren’t captured either.

Or maybe Sam doesn’t recognize you because it’s been four years. Maybe the creases on your forehead have smoothed without Sam and Dean at your side. Maybe you’ve spent less time outdoors. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Sam rubs his hand together. If Stanford taught him anything, it taught him to never act solely on your emotions. Be analytical. Investigate every path you can find.

Well, Sam’s going to investigate this path. He doubts he’ll be able to find anything, looking through these pictures, other than an immense feeling of loneliness, but you’re gone. Sam’s going to find you.

He’s already wasted four years pretending you’re still around.

(Maybe he doesn’t recognize you because you’re not with him and Dean. Maybe he’s never met a Y/N that hasn’t been a Winchester.)

Bobby’s surprised when Sam’s not still up in the morning. Obviously it had taken him more than ‘a sec’ in getting to bed, though, because all of the small photographs have been lined up in a small block of orderly rows. Three empty beer bottles stand on top of three, completely covering them.

Bobby frowns and crouches down to move the bottles. The pictures Sam had deliberately covered up are a bit wrinkly from the bottle’s condensation soaking into them but they’re not ruined. Bobby can clearly see the subjects of the photos, and they’re all the same: you and a boy with tousled dark brown hair. In the first, the boy is kissing your cheek as he hugs you. In the second, you and the boy are sleeping in the same bed, lax bodies curved towards each other though you sleep on the far sides of the bed. The third picture is blurry. The boy’s form is easy to make out, only his arm blurry, and you’re a blur as you spin around. You’re dancing with him.

Bobby remembers, once, Sa had twirled you around and round in this room. You’d giggled and moved on to Dean, but Bobby had watched Sam’s face.

His emotions were written on it clear as day.

“Whoa,” Dean says as he enters the room, the beer from last night already in his hand. “Sam went OCD, huh?”

“They look to be in chronological order.” Bobby takes the beer from Dean, silencing his protests with a stern look, and stows it back in the fridge. “I’ve got eggs, bacon, and waffles. That sound good to you, boy?”

“Sounds great!” Dean smiles at Bobby. “I mean, you just put my regular breakfast in the fridge, so. That sounds awesome.”

Bobby frowns while pulling the frozen waffles out of his freezer. “Shouldn’t Sam be taking better care of you?”

“What, are you kidding?” Dean snorts. “Kid can barely handle himself. Half the time he would forget Y/N wasn’t in the backseat.”

“Huh.”

The two men share a look but decided against any further commentary. Sam might be awake and listening. Plus, breakfast needs to get eaten quickly so the case can resume. Dean doesn’t think he’d be able to forgive himself if they find you and all the other hunters, only you’re freshly dead, and him eating waffles for breakfast—having any breakfast at all, really—was what slowed him down just enough he couldn’t save you.

Dean leaves Bobby to his cooking and goes back to the living room. Considering how hectic and disorganized the rest of the room is, the pictures on the ground almost blend in.

Dean flips over a picture of you and a dog. The date it was taken is scrawled on the back, and your familiar handwriting knocks the air out of Dean’s lungs. He hasn’t had anything of yours for the last four years, save five pictures on his phone he knows by heart. If he had known how soon you were going to leave after they were taken, Dean would have taken a lot more.

Handwriting Dean both barely and clearly remembers is scrawled on the backs of most of the pictures.

“So Sammy hadn’t been doing it all on guesswork,” Dean muses. “Huh.”

Your alien face scares Dean. It’s one he used to know well, one he thought he would know forever. It’s in almost all of the pictures, whether you be hugging a dog, leaning against a car with a scared-looking little girl clutching at your leg, or the only person swimming in a dark lake.

“We’ll let Sam sleep,” Bobby says from the doorway. “Losing two people you love so quickly can be rough. Come and eat.”

“Y/N’s done well with herself,” Dean remarks with a mouth full of scrambled egg. “She’s got two hunting partners, one of which is her boyfriend. I guess she’s even got a dog.” Never mind that Dean had always thought your two partners would be him and Sam, and your boyfriend would be Sam instead of a shaggy stranger.

“Weird choice of pet for a hunter.”

“Weird for a hunter to have a pet at all,” Dean counters and frowns. “Bobby…” He sets down his fork and locks eyes with him. “What you said, about Sam losing two people he loves… you don’t think Y/N is dead, do you?”

Bobby shakes his head. “Y/N’s a fighter, and in her prime. I’m sure she’s fine. What I was talking about was losing Y/N to that boy she’s with now.”

Dean scowls. “Hey, Sam was the one that left us. He couldn’t seriously think we’d wait our whole lives for him, especially after he said he wasn’t coming back.”

“I’m not blaming anyone,” Bobby interrupts, glaring at Dean. “Personally, I think you all were in the wrong.”

The face Dean makes tells it all.

“Sam, for leaving the way he did,” Bobby explains. “Y/N, for leaving, too, and ignoring us for four years. And you, for not trying to broker peace between your brother and father. Sam goes to college and the rest of the family breaks up too, is that it? You’re going to lose people in this line of work and you can’t break up every time that happens, because shit like this will happen.”

Dean drops his fork and stands up. “I’m going to search Y/N’s trunk.

“Dean,” Bobby calls, exasperated, after his retreating back. “Boy!”

He doesn’t turn around.

Dean sweeps the mess of weapons out of your trunk carelessly, hardly registering the clatter as they hit the ground, and yanks the carpet out. Two little pictures come with it and drift to the ground while three polaroids wedged partly behind the far right corner stay. You’d obviously hidden them on purpose, maybe from whoever took you.

It’s hard to get them out without ripping them completely, and one of the corners of the first picture tears off, but Dean can be patient sometimes.

The top picture is one Dean remembers taking. It features you and Sam sleeping on a couch together, his arm thrown over your waist casually and your feet tangled together. You’d written the date on the back like the other pictures.

The second one doesn’t have a date, and it’s blurry. It looks to be a lit up sign of a store or something, which is useless.

The third picture you’d hidden is just as useless. It’s a picture of a hotel door labeled 20.

The two pictures that had fallen to the ground fit more in the theme of your other pictures: one of that dog, a German shepherd, with snow on his nose, and another of you with someone you’d saved: a little boy with rope burns on his wrists with a name dean assumes is his on the back.

“All right, so there’s nothing in the pictures,” Dean mutters aloud. He still pockets the three hidden pictures, though. “Let’s try the weapons.”

The only thing Dean discovers is that you like to label your knives by writing what they are on a piece of tape and sticking the tape on the weapon’s handle. You’ve got knives dipped in virgin’s blood (Dean makes a mental note to tease you by asking if it’s your blood), brass, silver, and bronze knives, and one labeled ‘Demon’ that looks to be made out of bone. Dean’s not sure what that’s supposed to mean because you can’t kill demons with knives; you can’t kill demons at all—maybe it’s one that exorcises it immediately?

He just keeps getting more impressed by your arsenal. You have darts filled with Dead Man’s Blood, bullets made out of every metal, and even bullets with Devil’s traps carved onto them.

With all these weapons at your disposal, how could you have been taken? What if they’re walking into something they’re not prepared for?

Sam wakes up at one in the afternoon.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Bobby says when he sees him conscious, albeit bleary-eyed and with hair that looks like he just walked through a tornado because of all his tossing and turning during the night.

Sam huffs out a half-laugh and rolls his eyes.

“Dean’s looking through Y/N’s trunk,” Bobby adds. “But if you’re hungry, there’s food.”

Sam shakes his head and hurries out to the car, mentally berating himself for sleeping in so long. You need help, damnit.

“What did you find?”

Dean spins around. Sam doesn’t miss the hand that automatically flies to his right jacket pocket. “Just three—two! Two pictures I’m pretty sure Y/N intentionally hid because of where they were in the trunk, and a Girl Scout-level of weapons.” When Sam doesn’t get it, Dean elaborates, “She’s prepared for everything. Some of these things I don’t even know what she could use them for.”

“Huh.” Sam kneels and picks up the knife you’d labeled ‘Demon’. “I don’t think Y/N’ll be too happy about the mess you made of her car.”

“She’s getting a new one anyway.” Dean hands Sam the pictures of the neon sign and hotel door labeled 20.

“Maybe they’re clues?” Sam suggests. “She doesn’t usually take pictures of stuff like this.”

Dean shrugs. “It’s either that or she took them on accident but then she would’ve just thrown them away, so I’m betting that’s what it is.”

“All right.” Sam shoves them into his pocket.

“Oh! I almost forgot.” Dean grins sheepishly at his younger brother, just now remembering the photos of the dog and you and the boy. The picture he’d wanted to hide from Sam—the one of you and him—comes out as well, and Dean tries to act nonchalant about putting it back in his pocket. “But these look normal.”

Sam flips over the one of you and the boy. “Dennis Walker, July 2006. And nothing on the picture of the dog, as usual. I wonder why she hasn’t said anything about the dog or…” he trails off, a shadow falling over his features, and Dean doesn’t know how to feel about the pain on his baby brother’s face. Maybe he deserves to be in pain for how he’d treated you, treated them all, but Dean also doesn’t want Sam to be in pain.

“Her partners?” Dean suggests as a less painful alternative to ‘boyfriend’. “I don’t know. It’s Y/N, man. You can’t understand her.”

“I used to,” Sam mutters. Dean pretends not to hear. It’s his fault.

“I’ll see if these mean anything,” Sam says, half-turning around before jerking to a stop. “What’s the third picture you don’t want to show me?”

“Huh?” Dean laughs nervously. “It’s really nothing. Just another picture of that dog—”

“Then show it to me.” Sam tilts his head and shifts his feet. “What, it’s not a picture of her having sex with that new boy, is it?” He means it as a joke but realizes as the words leave his mouth that he really wants to know the answer to that question.

“It’s nothing, Sammy.”

“Then why did Y/N hide it and why are you hiding it? If we’re going to—”

Dean starts to walk inside and Sam splutters, “Dean! I need all the information—”

Without turning around, Dean says, “ Drop it, Sammy.”

Sam grabs his shoulder and whirls him around. “Dammit, Dean, just show me it!”

“It’s not important!”

“If you and Y/N both felt the need to hide it, then—”

“Fine!” Dean fishes the pictures out of his pocket and rifles through them. He shoves it at Sam, who almost tears it with his mixed annoyance and curiosity when he grabs it.

Dean almost blinks and misses the grief Sam works too hard to mask at the reminder of how things used to be, of better times.

“She hid it?”

“Yeah.”

“She didn’t chuck it, though.”

“Sammy—”

Sam angrily drags his sleeve over his eyes. “Let’s just find her, Dean.”

“Hey, you wanted to see it.”

“Shut up. Is Bobby read to drive?”

“Yeah. We were waiting on you. The town she disappeared in is only five hours away, so get ready. I’ll pack our stuff.”

“I’ll get Y/N’s stuff.”

Dean pretends to look through his pockets until his brother’s gone inside, and then he hurries back to your car. He has a weird feeling about your odd knife.

After a moment of hesitation, he pockets it. As a hunter, you should always trust your gut, and his gut is telling him the knife fits into all of this… somehow.

“Could you stop with the pictures?” Dean finally snaps when Sam starts to rifle through the large stack for the third time. “None of them are going to change anytime soon.”

“A lot are missing,” Sam replies, frowning. “There’s at most six in here of us, but I specifically remember Y/N taking so many more of us.”

“They were probably in the photo album,” Dean suggests. “The one she either tossed or lost.”

“Just like her notebook,” Sam murmurs. “Doesn’t this feel weird to you, Dean?”

“Well, yeah, but what do you think is weird, Mr. College?”

Sam shoots his brother a side-eyed glare but decides not to rise to the bait. “Hunters dropping off the grid all over the place—like, maybe all in one town, sure, but Rufus’s been finding trucks all over. And there’s no sign of a struggle in here but Y/N’s gone and so are all her pictures of us, yet whoever took her didn’t take her weapons.” Sam sighs. “It’s just weird .”

“Sammy, we hunt monsters. There’s no such as weird for us.”

“This is,” Sam insists. “This feels big.”

“Sure.” Dean glances at his brother and sighs exaggeratedly. “Fine, Sam, if you think this is so ‘big’, what do you propose we do about it? What does your prophecy change, exactly? Let’s go with the facts instead of what this feels like.” He knows he’s being a total hypocrite, considering he stole one of your knives because he felt that it was important, but Sam’s emotions are more messed up because of this case than Dean’s.

“Don’t be such a jerk.”

“Then stop being a bitch,” Dean retorts, a small smile on his face, and he grins wider when he turns up his music and Sam rolls his eyes. There’s still too many things left unsaid between them that’ll probably never get said, but they’ll get through this like how they get through everything.

They’ll have you back soon, too, and then things will get even more back to normal.

Or maybe it won’t.

The grin slides off Dean’s face. Maybe you still won’t want anything to do with them. Maybe you’ll say that you’ve moved on. Maybe you won’t want to leave your new partners.

Dean’s cell phone rings and he answers it immediately, mindful of the way Sam’s eyelashes are fluttering and the hands he’s using to prop his chin up as he looks out the window.

“Yeah?”

Bobby’s voice growls, “Drive faster, ya idjit!” before he promptly hangs up.

Dean chuckles and presses harder on the gas pedal.

Dean and Bobby check in with each other just before entering the small town you’d disappeared in. Sam had fallen asleep minutes after Bobby had told him to hurry up and started snoring soon after. If Dean was more of a jackass he would’ve cranked his music up or woken him, but even though they’ve been fighting lately, he still cares about his little brother. Even if his brother is, has been, and always will be an idiot.

Bobby peers into the Impala to check on Sam before walking around to where Dean’s standing, one hand over the mysterious knife you’d labeled ‘Demon’ in his jacket pocket. Bobby eyes the odd placement of Dean’s hand but decides against commentary. He trusts Dean, except for when he’s being an idjit.

“He’s really taking this hard.”

Dean shoves his hands into his pockets and hunches his shoulders. “You weren’t there the night he left, Bobby. They both said some really nasty things, and now Y/N’s missing. Plus, he loves her. Loved her. You can’t really tell with Sam.”

“Yeah, you can, but enough sappy talk.” Bobby holds out a hand and Dean places the two mystery pictures of yours. “I’ll find the motel that labels their rooms like that and then figure out what place Y/N was trying to take a picture of. You and Sam—”

“We’re gonna ask around, see if anyone’s seen anything strange.” Dean nods and takes a step back to the Impala. “You call when you’ve located the room. Sam and I will check it out so you don’t have to.”

“Why, you think I’m too old for some recon?” Bobby growls.

“I wanna get both of these places identified, that’s all,” Dean almost yelps. “Thanks, Bobby!” He practically throws himself into his car and slams the door so hard behind him that Sam wakes up with a jump, looking around wildly before he gains his bearings.

“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty,” Dean teases, which is probably a joke he and Bobby use too much. “We’re here. Pretty much. We’ve got, like, thirty seconds more to drive.”

Sam rubs the sleep out of his eyes and sits up straight. “Why’d we stop?”

“Bobby had to go over our game plan and we didn’t want to interrupt your beauty sleep.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “So what’s the plan, then?”

“You and I,” Dean starts, tossing Sam a FBI badge so he knows the name on it, “are going to ask around for our friend. We’re from the FBI but here because we’re personally looking for Y/N, not officially.”

The Impala rolls past the town’s ‘Welcome’ sign. Underneath the ‘welcome’ is one of those corny phrases you hear in commercials: ‘Where your kids come home’. Sam huffs at that, wondering just how many kids hate their circumstances just like he’d hated growing up in a car and hunting the nightmares people hope are fake.

“Okay, hottest girl we see, let’s see who can get her number,” Dean challenges, his head on a swivel as he looks for anyone that looks suspicious.

Sam follows his lead. Everybody looks pretty normal and like they’re not paying attention to the hunters. By chance, his eyes meet someone’s in the passenger mirror, but they slide away before Sam fully realizes what had happened. He’s almost positive he just saw your boyfriend in the mirror, but when he turns around, there’s no one resembling him.

“What’s up?” Dean asks, also looking back like he’ll see something off.

“Nothing, I just—my eyes playing tricks on me, I guess,” Sam replies, settling back into his seat and slapping his brother’s shoulder. “Eyes on the road, Dean. I just think I’m still tired.”

“That, little brother, is why we don’t drink to forget the ones that get away,” Dean says wisely. “We always remember.”

“Shut up,” Sam replies, and pushes him. “I don’t know how many times I have to say this: I think of Y/N as a little sister. Nothing more.”

“Yeah, and I went to Stanford,” Dean says in such a serious voice that Sam stares at him. “I thought we were describing each other!”

“You’re a real jerk, you know that?”

“You’re just a bitch.”

“Hey, did you tell Bobby to go to the first motel in the phone book first?” Sam checks, only just having remembered the system you had used when you hunted with them.

“Yep, and if the labeling mathes we’re gonna ask the desk about Harriet Mills, presumably in room 20.” Dean gives a half-laugh as Bobby pulls into the parking lot of a motel in front of them. “Dude, I’m not the rusty one.”

Sam purses his lips and begins to drum his fingers on his seat. “So are you taking us to a grocery store or bar?”

“As much as I’d love to grab a beer right now,” Dean sighs, “Y/N was more likely to have visited a drugstore for Ibuprofen and chips than a bar for alcohol.”

“You always were disappointed she’d practically sworn off alcohol,” Sam says softly, smiling wistfully. “You always teased her about it, and she’d always tease you about the latest crazy stunt you’d pulled while drunk. You remember when you peed in a motel’s closet and made a bed out of your dirty laundry?” Sam chuckles. “Classic.”

“Look, all I’m saying is that she’s a little too uptight, you know? Nothing wrong with getting drunk every so often.”

“Except the utter humiliation and shame I’d make you feel,” Sam says.

“Sammy, you’re so considerate,” Dean says sarcastically while pulling into the parking lot of the first grocery store he sees. “And totally not part of the reason why Y/N doesn’t drink. All right, you ready to rock n’ roll?”

“Which picture are we using again?”

Dean holds out a picture of you smiling and leaning against your car with that dog next to you. “This one is good, right?”

Sam shrugs. “Yeah, that’s fine.” He doesn’t move when Dean opens his door.

“Huh. Well, I’m glad it pleases you, Mr. Stanford,” Dean snarks. “Now are we going or sulking in the car all day?”

“Jerk,” Sam says, opening up his door with more aggression than necessary.

“Bitch.”

They stride inside the girl behind the register obviously looks Dean up and down and he flashes a cocky grin at her. Sam rolls his eyes but trails after his brother.

“Hey,” Dean says, leaning against the counter.

“Hi,” she responds. “How can I help you?”

“Yes, um, Shelly?” Dean says, reading her nametag. “I was just wondering if you had seen this girl anywhere?” He hands her the small picture. “That’s our little sister. She was on a road trip and last we heard from her she was in this town.”

“Oh, no,” Shelly gasps. “That’s awful.”

Sam shrugs but no one notices him. As usual, he’s pushed into the limelight. One good thing about you was that you never really favored one brother over the other. Too bad you’re missing. Sam would love to be able to exchange looks with you behind Dean’s back.

“That’s so sweet that you drove all the way out here to find your sister,” Shelly gushes. Dean shrugs and smiles.

“So, um, have you seen her?” Sam butts in. Shelly and Dean both shoot him matching glares but he can’t be bothered to care. Dean’s apparently forgotten that you’re missing and could even be dead. Sam hasn’t.

“Um, yeah, maybe,” the cashier snaps. “I think I saw her at the Silver Diner with two other men. I thought it was weird because one of them was pretty old and the other was, like, way out of her league.”

Sam snorts and turns away. If Shelly had seen you with your boyfriend and other hunting partner, then she was dead wrong: you are so out of your boyfriend’s league it’s crazy. And even if it hadn’t been them, you still would have been out of anyone’s league. You’re, like, perfect.

Dean thanks the cashier, his voice significantly cooler.

“Come on, Sam,” he mutters and tugs him by the sleeve out the door. “There’s only trash in there anyways.”

“So, a Silver Diner with two other men,” Sam says, deciding not to say anything about the cashier’s comment because it’ll make him even angrier. “I bet it’s that Garth dude and that boy.”

Apparently too angry about the cashier too, Dean doesn’t even make a biting comment about how he’s actually boy friend and instead just grunts in what Sam takes to be agreement.”

Before they can get into the Impala, Dean’s phone rings. He flips it open. “Bobby? Yeah. Okay, we’re on our way.” He ends the call. “So the first motel was a hit. ‘Harriet Mills’ had actually checked in to room 32, so I’m assuming something else happened in room 20.”

“Or maybe she was in a hurry and just needed to leave any clue so she took a picture of the numbering,” Sam points out. “It led us to the motel either way.”

“Well, I suppose we’ll figure it out, then,” Dean says, and off they speed in the Impala.

“Here they are,” Bobby says when they walk through the door. “My associates,” he adds. The brothers take the hint and immediately reach for an FBI badge. They don’t even have them out before the receptionist starts to yell.

“I don’t care if you’re FBI or what! You’re going to pay for your damages or… or I’m calling the cops!”

They all would be amused by that ineffectual threat except for the fact that this receptionist that they’ve never seen in their lives apparently knows them and has a bone to pick with them.

“Calm down, buddy,” Dean says, stowing his badge. “Why don’t you tell us what you’re talking about, all right?”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t remember!” the weaselly little man yells, pointing a finger at him like he’s lecturing him. “You two scumbags come in here just a few weeks ago and check out room 20!”

Sam and Dean look at each other, but the receptionist isn’t done.

“All I know is that you two go out for dinner and come back with a girl, and the next morning the room is trashed and all three of you have vanished!”

All three hunters are stumped. As Dean hands the receptionist a credit card to settle the cost of the repairs, Sam looks at the picture he has of you. Going on a crazy hunch, he asks, interrupting the conversation between his brother and the therapist, “Is this the girl we had with us?”

The receptionist looks at him like he’s crazy. “Shouldn’t you know?”

“Just answer the question,” Sam replies.

The man glances at the photo and nods. “Yep, that’s her. Harriet Mills. She came in with her brothers a week before you two. She must’ve been the first visitor we’ve had in a year. What, did she lead you scumbags here or somethin’? Were you two following her? Did you kidnap her?” The excited receptionist hops up and down. “I should call the police on you!”

“Again, sir, we’re with the FBI,” Dean says, exchanging a dumbfounded look with Sam. The man visibly deflates. “We’re going to need to see room 20, as well as anything we might have left behind that you cleaned up.”

The receptionist glares sullenly at the three hunters, but, recognizing that he’s outnumbered in every way, hands over a key to the room.

“Do you have any security tapes of that night?” Bobby asks.

The man shakes his head. “They got wiped. I’m guessing,” he glares at Sam and Dean, “by you.”

Dean taps Sam’s shoulder. “That’s all you, bro. Bobby and I’re gonna go check out the room, ‘kay?”

It’s not terribly hard to retrieve the tapes. Somebody had deleted them and locked down a program that would allow them to be retrieved. It’s almost too easy to hack, and Sam keeps glancing over his shoulder like it’s a trap. It certainly feels like one.

Sam clicks on the tape for rooms 20 to 30 on the day he and Dean had apparently checked in at the motel. A few minutes after check-in time, he and Dean appear on the screen.

Sam’s heart starts to pound. Their eyes flash.

“Shifters,” he says out loud. “Why would shifters—”

“What did you say?” the receptionist asks eagerly.

Sam lifts his eyes from the computer’s screen. “Nothing.”

“What’s a shifter?” the receptionist presses.

“It’s code,” Sam says shortly. “And you don’t have enough clearance to know what it’s code for.” Maybe he’s still tired, or maybe he’s just worried about you, but this guy is really rubbing him the wrong way.

He speeds up the tape until he and Dean appear on the screen again. There’s someone with them, a girl with Y/H/H hair and Y/S/C skin. She turns around, probably to see if anyone’s watching, and reaches into the inside of her jacket. She doesn’t get the chance to take whatever it is out, because the shifter that looks like Dean sneaks up behind her and wraps his arms around her torso. The shifter that looks like Sam quickly ties her hands together.

The girl spits something at the fake Sam, who punches her in the face.

Sam stomach flips when the girl leans her head back and he can finally confirm that it’s you. You do know that that wasn’t Sam, right? Sam would never do that to you. Never.

He can only watch as his body reaches into the jacket pocket you’d been reaching for and pulls out a familiar notebook. It’s your hunting journal.

Sam rewinds the video, a faint hope making him blind to the situation. Maybe your eyes will shine on the recording too and Sam will stop feeling so queasy. He’d rather die than watch you get hurt by himself.

But he hadn’t died the last time you’d been hurt by him, had he? And that had actually been Sam, too. He’d savored every cutting word that came out of his mouth. He’d been so angry he’d relished the look on your face as he’d spit at you.

You’re making the same face in the tape as you had when Sam had left for Stanford.

So there’s not much difference, is there?

The fake Sam says one more thing to you. You spit in his face and he hits you so hard you’re knocked unconscious.

Sam can only watch as the shifters drag you away. Only minutes after you disappear, a man runs up to door 20 and takes a picture of it. Sam’s stomach drops. That’s… your boyfriend, isn’t it?

He’s barely left before the fake Sam and Dean come back. They both both look directly into the camera before going back into room 20.

Having seen all he needed to see, Sam deletes the video for real. When he stands up, the receptionist looks up quickly. “Did you find anything?”

“Uh, no,” Sam lies. “It was deleted completely.”

“Then why’d you say something about shifters?”

“They left their signature in the codings,” Sam quickly invents. “We’ve been tailing them for months.”

“What?”

“The people that trashed our mouth,” Sam explains, hoping his explanation is confusing the receptionist just enough that he won’t ask more questions. “They wiped the tape.”

The receptionist nods, looking a bit bewildered, and watches Sam as he leaves to go to his brother and Bobby.

@lemirabitur @annymcervantes

#sam winchester #sam winchester x reader #sam winchester fanfic #reader x sam winchester #supernatural #supernatural fanfic #supernatural fic #spn fic #spn fanfic #spn #reader insert

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superjumpintomyheart · 6 years

Text

Thunderbolts and Lightning (Marina x Pearl)

Marina was one of the best combat engineers in the octarian military, and when she went AWOL, Octavio had one less person working to make him more powerful. He had to reuse ideas from his previous machinery to try and upgrade his gear, but it could never be as good as what that combat engineer could create for him. After he kidnapped Callie and the New Squidbeak Splatoon put him back in a snow globe, he heard the Squid Sisters talking about a group called Off the Hook. He heard the name Marina and his interest was piqued, that was the name of his combat engineer that went missing so long ago... could it really be her?

As he continued to eavesdrop on their conversations, he learned more about Off the Hook and that Marina was indeed an octoling. It wasn’t until one afternoon when the duo showed up in the canyon to visit their friends that Octavio knew for sure Marina was his engineer. He’d recognize her unique tentacles anywhere, someone so talented could never leave his mind. No, not like that, he wasn’t that bad of a guy, he needed her for his weapons, his arsenal, for octarian society itself, not... reproduction. She avoided his gaze, doing her best to ignore him but he saw the nervous glances she shot his way. If he could lure her back in somehow he could have everything he had ever wanted in the past three years since she disappeared, and he knew just how to do it.

It took months of planning and secret contact with soldiers from his army, but eventually they would kidnap Pearl and turn her against Marina, forcing her to come back to where she began. Callie’s kidnapping was merely a test run compared to this new plan, it was well thought through and detailed, dare he say fool proof. Octavio was well aware that he’d need to go deeper with the brainwashing rather than just a pair of shades, how he would do that was undetermined yet, but he had teams of people working on a fully developed plan, he trusted his elites to come up with something good. And boy did they, electroshock therapy was the final conclusion after they learned of Pearl’s accident when she got electrocuted, they decided to use the weakness of her fear against her.

They had successfully captured Pearl and broke Octavio free in one swift mission, the team of octolings hardly making a sound in the night. An invisible kettle lead them to what Pearl thought resembled something that was a cross between a training ground and a prison. When they locked her up in a cell though, she was leaning more towards the prison definition.

It was a generic block cell, concrete floors and walls, iron bar doors to keep her inside, and tally marks on the walls from previous prisoners who were counting down the days until they were free. Maybe she should start her own tally mark calendar, if this was going to be her jail experience, why not do it all?

Her time in the cell was short, maybe a day at the most, until a pair of black-tentacled octolings arrived and moved her to a different room. It was far away from the other rooms, located on the lowest level of the facility. She had a very bad feeling about this, not only the fact that she was being held captive by Marina’s former boss and biggest threat to Inkopolis, but this room had to be so isolated for a reason. Was it a torture room? A secret place to keep her hidden from anyone who would come to save her? Both?

The door opened, reveling a small room with a separate control-like room, visible through thick panes of glass, and a single chair. There was another door that looked like it lead to the control room, but it was under strict security. Pearl examined the chair, hesitantly wondering if it did what she thought it would.

There was no more time to ponder, however, and she was being pushed into the uncomfortable metal furniture and locked in. Maybe it was just to keep her in place, that control panel was for something different, right? She felt her heartbeat quicken as she lost control of her body, unable to move from the chair or get away from the people surrounding her.

Octavio was smirking as his plan unfolded, seeing the fear in the girl’s eyes brought him a reassurance that this plan would go well. Soon he’d have his best engineer back, and maybe a little inkling soldier too.

The two octolings who had been Pearl’s escorts entered the control room where Octavio was, standing on either side of him. He nodded to them, “Good work girls, and welcome Pearl.”

“As if I want to be here with you psychopaths.”

The DJ shook his head, “Here’s how things are going to work around here, if you obey us, things are going to be a lot easier than if you choose to fight. Because you already have shown some resistance, we’re going to give you a little taste of what will happen if you continue to act this way.”

There were a few beeping noises, some movement, and then a sudden pulse of electricity. No, no, no, cod damnit not again. Flashbacks ran through her mind, the shock that had ruined her all those years ago was all she could feel, the intensity of that one shock was enough to destroy her body’s growth cycle and leave her permanently stuck in her current body. She couldn’t help the scream that escaped her throat, though it was short lived as the electricity suddenly vanished and she was left shaking from both fear and aftershock.

“Look, I’ll do what you want just don’t go near that panel again, fuck all of you-” Pearl tried to reason with her kidnappers, who didn’t seem to be taking any shit from her. Each of her snarky comments were followed by short controlled shocks, nothing that would damage her in the long run. They still did plan to use the hypnoshades, the electrocution was more of tool to help speed up the process and hopefully make it more effective.

Octavio exited the control room, leaving his two guards to take care of the shocking mechanism. He shot a devious look at Pearl, telling her before he exited the room, “You might as well make yourself comfortable in that chair, your little friends won’t be coming after you for a long time.”

“That’s what you think, they’ll find me before you can even step foot into your over glorified office, they’ll save me just you wait!”

Pearl did not, in fact, make herself comfortable. She would protest and scream and kick and fight, but all to no avail as each action they disapproved of was treated with more shocks and more locks to keep her still. There were bars around her torso and biceps, her thighs and calves, leaving her utterly helpless against the chair.

She lost track of time too quickly, only telling time by when there was a soldier by the control panel or not. They would come in once each day to give her food, and they worked in shifts to watch and (attempt to) train her. The training was useless, as long as she still had free will in her mind, they’d never break her. They obviously hadn’t heard of the MC Princess down here, she was too tough and stubborn to ever give in to their oppressive beliefs. Even if it meant getting continuously electrocuted, her fears weren’t enough to scare her into submission.

After what felt like an eternity of octolings trying to change her morals and beliefs, she was shaking, her veins prominent against her pale skin and eyes bloodshot from crying. She was weak and drained of all the energy she had, too tired to argue and deal with the pain of the shocks.

The sound of the heavy metal door opening made her ears ring, steel scraping against concrete and rusty hinges, revealing an elite octoling with a pair of sunglasses. The glasses looked mechanical, she couldn’t see what was so special about them though, that was until they were put on her. They forced her to see differently, quite literally, the octoling in front of her now registered as an ally as well as Octavio and the rest of the army. She thought she could now hear a dubstep beat playing in the distance too, it was entrancing, she’d do anything to hear more of that song.

“How do you feel?” The soldier asked, giving a sly smile to the inkling.

“Different,” Pearl replied.

“Good, that’s how you’re supposed to feel. Now, about your little friend...”

The octoling went on to try and successfully train Pearl, finally explaining their plan to lure Marina back to Octavio’s forces to work for them again and gain her trust. With the shades on, she thought the plan was perfect, and Marina was a trader for leaving them in the first place. Her mentor seemed to like that response. She continued to ask questions and run through what part the inkling would play in their glorious plan. Marina’s skills could give them the power to take over all of Inkopolis, the tech she made was revolutionary, once they had her, they would be unstoppable.

When they thought they had thoroughly trained Pearl, they allowed her out of the room to go practice some fighting techniques with a few soldiers (on the occasion that she would need to fend for herself). On her way down to the next room, an octoling rushing by bumped into her and knocked her glasses off, causing her to feel dazed and dizzy at first. As the affects of the glasses wore off, she realized she was out of the room, the chair, she was free from the restraints. The only thing that she could focus on was escaping, and that’s exactly what she tried to do.

She tried.

A group of octolings found her no more than ten minutes later and immediately took her back to the room with the electric chair. This time, Octavio was back by the control panel with an elite octoling, she knew she was in big trouble.

She was not going to give up without a fight, she tried to squirm away from the soldiers holding her, but it only made them more forceful with her. Her lack of strength was apparent, and they easily forced her into the chair once again. The metal locks clicked around her wrists and stomach, preventing her upper body from moving almost completely. She attempted to kick the octolings away from her, but was only met with a backhand straight to her face.

“You don’t get to touch us, doll. You aren’t the one in charge of yourself.”

Pearl glared at her, she wanted to wipe that smug look right off her face, oh the things she would do if she had just one hand free. Her moment of stillness allowed the locks by her ankles to click in place, holding her still. After learning what they planned to use her for, she promised herself she wouldn’t give up until the New Squidbeak Splatoon came to her rescue or until she escaped, whichever came first. She hoped it was the latter, the idea of Marina anywhere near this place made her shutter in disgust, Octavio didn’t deserve to even look at her.

“What should we do with this one?” Octavio asked his partner, leaning over the control panel. “So many fun options to choose from, what do you say about the auto setting? We could run it all day just for her, or what about the motion detecting setting? We wouldn’t even need a guard in here to watch her because she’d have to stay perfectly still if she didn’t want to get shocked. As always, we could do it the old fashioned way too... the highest setting on here would suffice.”

“That last one sounds like a fair punishment, sir.”

The DJ smiled devilishly, “Very well, max it out.”

Pearl’s eyes grew wide, “Max?! That’s gonna kill me you octo slob!”

“Oh we won’t kill you, what use is dead bait?”

The rapper’s breathing grew heavy watching the octoling set up the intensity level, maybe it would be better to die at this point. She couldn’t handle any more of this nightmare she was in, the electricity was starting to get to her head. After all if she was dreaming, the easiest way to wake up would be to die... no, she couldn’t think like that, what about Marina and Off the Hook? She couldn’t leave behind the two things she loved more than anything in the world just to stop suffering through her phobias.

Without any more time to think, electricity coursed through her veins and spread throughout her entire being. She hadn’t even gotten to curse Octavio out yet, but her punishment was inevitable now. Her screams were ear shattering and her sobs were heartbreaking, the electric current flowing in her body like the ocean. It felt as though she had been struck by lightning, though this bolt lasted far longer than a regular one would have lasted. Her mind was growing foggy, the corners of her vision started to cut out and she couldn’t hear herself screaming anymore, though she was sure she still was. She couldn’t feel the electricity or the cold metal of the chair she was in, the last thing she saw before she went under was sparks flying from the panel and octolings running from the room.

When Pearl woke up, there were hands shaking her, delicate yet firm and a voice rung inside her head. She blinked her droopy eyes open, lazily bringing her head up to look at whoever was shaking her awake. Instead of the bright red or pure black of a regular octoling’s tentacles, she saw plum brown and teal colored ones swaying nervously around a dark skinned girl.

“Mar...?” Was all Pearl could get out in her dazed state, still feeling the effects of the electrocution.

“Yeah, yeah! Pearlie it’s me, oh thank cod you’re alive,” Marina rushed her words as she held her girlfriend’s face in her hands. “We gotta get you out of here, give me one second while I go figure out the control panel.”

The inkling shook her head as violently as she could with the little energy she had, “No... don’t touch it please, no more, no more.”

She felt her eyes fill with panicked tears and fear, her mind simulating the feeling of the shocks they had given her. Marina quickly realized that Pearl was not awake enough to focus on anything besides whatever had happened in that room, she quickly assured her that she was only going over to release her from her restraints. Still, the octoling didn’t fail to notice the way she trembled as she watched her walk over to the panel. It wasn’t anything too complicated, but, boy, was it damaged. It looked like it had fried itself, busted knobs and broken glass scattered along it while the corners were charred and black. This thing had to have been in better condition before she showed up... had Pearl screamed so powerfully that the machine broke? She had an insane voice, evident from when she helped save Inkopolis from Commander TARTAR. Even if she had used that scream to protect her city, she had assistance from a killer wail, it wasn’t purely her voice. Had she perhaps used that same type of cry to break herself free here?

Marina had to tinker a bit with the parts to get the metal restraints to unlock, but it didn’t take her longer than a few minutes. The inkling slumped down as the locks around her wrists, ankles, and torso opened and failed to hold her up any longer, and Marina scooped her up in her arms to take her back home. Callie and Marie had taken care of capturing Octavio, it was just up to her to go get Pearl and bring her to a safe place. She wished she could’ve been the one to put Octavio back in that globe, when she found out her girlfriend was missing, she was ready to do whatever it took to get her back. When she found out it was the DJ that took her girlfriend, she was ready to splat him into oblivion and the rest of his army to get her back. She trusted the squid sisters gave him a good run for his money, though.

When they arrived back at home, Marina got Pearl settled down in bed and made some food and tea for her, knowing she probably hadn’t eaten in a long time. It had been a whole week that she was missing, an inkling could survive that long without eating, but she hoped they had given her at least one meal. While cooking, she felt overwhelmed at all the thoughts running through her mind, finding her girlfriend strapped to that chair was the worst sight she had ever seen. Imagining what had happened to her in that room was terrifying, and she couldn’t bare to think about how long they had been hurting her.

Marina shook her head to clear her mind and grabbed the plate of food she had prepared and the cup of tea, bringing it back to their room for Pearl to consume as she wished. The inkling was curled into a tight ball when she entered the room, shaking lightly under the blankets.

“Pearlie...” the octoling said softly, as to not scare her. “I brought you something to eat and drink, how are you feeling?”

Pearl looked up at her partner, watching her place the plate and cup on the bedside table. Her voice was barely a whisper, “I’m okay.”

She was not okay, her veins still stuck out prominently on her arms and up her neck and her already pale skin looked stark white. Her muscles were tense and ached, she didn’t have the strength to get up even if she wanted to. Her mind was a mess too, replaying everything that happened to her over and over again.

It must have been obvious how much it was bothering her, because the octoling sat next to her girlfriend on the edge of the bed. Her soft gradient eyes were full of concern and worry, a gentleness that the inkling almost forget existed.

“Will you tell me what happened?” Marina asked and brought her hand up to touch Pearl’s delicate skin, cupping her face gently and running her thumb over her cheek.

The inkling closed her eyes and leaned into the touch, nodding softly and reached out to grab hold of her girlfriend and bring her into the bed with her. They settled in, Pearl took the food she had been given and ate a small amount of it before she began, she felt like she’d need all the extra energy she could get to tell this story.

“Octavio took me, or rather, one of the soldiers did. They brought me to some secret place in the canyon where they kept me, I was in a regular cell type room at first but then they moved me to another room with... the chair. The electric chair,” she felt a wave of shivers run through her body at the mental image, trying to ignore the way her mind was reminding her what those shocks felt like. “They strapped me in and it was non stop from there, everything I said was wrong, every word that came out of my mouth that they didn’t like, they shocked me for. It was like reliving the accident all over again and again and again.

“I got too tired to fight back anymore, and that’s when they brought me the shades, like Callie’s. They were... they were going to use me to get you back, Marina. Octavio wanted me to be the bait, to comply and work with him to get you back.”

Marina looked down, reminded of her past working in the military. She had been proud of her achievements then, but now she looked upon the weapons she had built and commendations she had received and frowned. They were proof that she was an excellent engineer and smart cephalopod, but the meaning behind each of those titles made her sick. Working for Octavio again was her worst nightmare, and to think it was almost a reality.

“I tried to get out, but they caught me before I could. When they brought me back, they put it on the highest setting, I was...” she shook her head. “I was so scared. I don’t know what happened after that, all I remember seeing was sparks and those fuckers running away.”

“Oh Pearlie,” the octoling wrapped an arm around her girlfriend, pulling her close to her side to comfort her. “I won’t ever let anyone hurt you like that ever again.”

Pearl put her plate on the beside table and fully cuddled into Marina, both arms wrapped around her like a koala bear. Tears stung in her eyes from reliving the events that had taken place, and she wasn’t afraid to let them fall. She craved the safety of the embrace and gentleness of her partner’s touch, she needed to know for once in the week she had been gone that she wouldn’t be hurt by anyone. Here, in their mansion, nothing could touch them.

“If only I would’ve been there when they took you, I could’ve stopped this from happening—“

“Marina, it’s not your fault, I don’t want you thinking for one damn second that any of this is your fault. What matters is you saved me, you rescued me from that hell and I’m forever grateful for that, I love you, nothing could make me think otherwise.”

Marina nodded, giving Pearl a tight squeeze and replying, “I love you too, Octavio messed with the wrong cephalopods this time.”

“I’d personally like to strap him to an electric chair, see how he likes it.”

“For once, I think your violent problem solving sounds like a wonderful idea,” The two laughed at the bitter humor, settling under the covers together and chatting until they felt their eyes couldn’t stay open any longer.

That night, they slept with an undercover brella and a pair of dapple dualies by their bedsides, tangled in each other’s arms with a relaxed playlist playing quietly to aid them in falling asleep. The silence filled with their steady breathing and music made the large house feel not as empty, and the two of them knew they were safe and sound as long as they had each other.

#Splatoon 2 #spla2n #pearlina #pearl x marina #fanfiction #dj octavio #electrocution #electroshock therapy #brainwashing #abuse #?#im tagging for tw #kidnapping #hurt and comfort #a whole lot of hurt #pearl #marina #mentions of Callie and Marie #This took way too long

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sunevial · 6 years

Text

The Followers: The Young Priest

My sixth and final installment of my DMP fanfic for @internetremix (or is it?). The Murder God belongs to @miss-goggles and some scenery in the work is inspired by @missvulpix212‘s own DMP fanfic. Enjoy!

The brick walls rose high above the young man’s head, covered in interweaving vines and greenery whose name was just at the edges of his memory. He ran his fingertips over the low bushes and hedges, peering down the the rows of carefully cultivated daisies and roses separated by decorative hostas. While he shouldn’t have been able to see much of anything at all this time of night, the whole garden was lit up in the soft blue glow of moonflowers scattered throughout the otherwise picture perfect rows. One of those mysterious flowers, however, certainly would not be thriving in between the stone steps. Taking the shovel out of the small bag at his side, he carefully uprooted the small pale flower and carried it over to one of the hosta patches.

“You know, it’s never going to bloom as brightly as the others,” a strange female voice echoed, bouncing off the walls and ringing deep within his skull. “It’s already so much smaller and so sickly. Honestly, it would make better fertilizer than anything else at this point.” The young man shivered, nearly dropping the plant in his hands. He didn’t have to turn around to know there was someone standing right behind him. But he kept digging.

“Maybe, but it’s not the flower’s fault the seed decided to land where it did,” he replied, placing the roots into the damp soil and piling the excess around the base. “Better soil, more light and water, and a little helping hand can make all the difference.” He delicately touched the petals of the pale flower, watching as the stem and leaves perked up, reaching for the skies above until it towered over the resting hostas and shone with a brilliant blue light.

“Oh great, another one with needlessly flowery language, exactly what I needed at this exact moment in time and space,” the woman grumbled. He could feel her eyes on him, gazing over his sweater vest and collared shirt, or rather, maybe it was more accurate to say he could feel her gazing through him instead. She made a small click with her tongue; he didn’t need to see the smirk splitting her face. “Well well well, this is going to be a bit of a problem, now isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am is something wrong?” he slowly asked, carefully standing up and brushing the dirt off of his trousers. He caught a glimpse of a transparent red dress and delicate black heels, still trying to keep his eyes on anything else but the woman. Steady now. Don’t be rash. Play it safe.

“You know, I was going to reassure you and say ‘no, everything’s fine’, but you’re kind of missing a soul there, bud,” she replied, Her gaze moving towards his hair, colored not unlike the very bricks that he just passed by. “And that’s kind of important in the grand scheme of things, you know?”

“Is it though?” the young man asked with a chuckle.

“I mean, if we want this conversation to continue in a more…civil manner, I kind of need a soul,” she replied. A strange yellow light fell to his sides, light that was slowly fading into a deep orange. Before long, the stones were bathed in an eerie blood red. Well. This was…not exactly going how he’d imagined an encounter with the literal incarnation of death and murder would, but all things considered, it wasn’t as bad as he expected it to be. He was still alive; he honestly didn’t think he’d get that far.

“Does it have to be my soul?” he asked, slowly reaching into his bag and pulling out a tightly sealed glass jar. There was a small glowing ball inside, surrounded by ethereal ribbons of colored light and giving off a comforting amount of heat even through the thick glass. Taking in a sharp breath, he whipped around and held out the jar in front of his face. Standing there was a woman he had several inches on, her hair the color of early morning sunlight and her ears ending in dainty tips. A small black star rested on her collarbone, visible through the sheer mesh at the top of her dress. There was a curious smile on her face.

“So you’re a clever one then? You’ve got moxie. I’ll give you that,” she said with a raised eyebrow, reaching out one of her stained hands and pushing the jar down until he was forced to look her in the eyes. “So, what’s your name, kid?”

“Uh…call me…Cole Hector,” he slowly replied. He blinked a few times, wondering if what he was seeing was real. If anything he was seeing was real.

“Cute nickname, almost believable too,” she said with a cackle that made the hairs on his arms stand on end. “And you know about the name rules too, this is just getting better and better.” The smile turned into a wicked smirk. “Okay, smart guy…what’s your story?”

“You tell me. That’s kind what you do, after all,” he replied, returning with a weak smile of his own. He glanced down at the small wisp in his hands, holding the jar more tightly to his chest.

“You’re right, I could tell you about your missing parents. Or your fight to put food on the table. Or your poor sickly sister. Or that right now, you’re about as alone in this world as anyone could possibly be because that little soul in your hands probably could’ve saved her life, but no, she decided to be a martyr and give it to her dearest brother who she loved more than life itself. But that’s just the boring facts that no one really pays attention to anyways,” she said with a dismissive wave of the hand and a glint in her eyes, her words sharper than any dagger in her arsenal.

“They might be boring facts, but that’s the only life I’ve ever known,” the young man said, gripping the small jar hard enough to turn his fingers white. “And that was her choice. Not mine.”

“A little on the defensive side, are we? Did I hit a sore spot? I’m sorry, that was rude of me,” the woman remarked with what could’ve equally been a sarcastic smirk or a genuine smile. She yawned, clicking her heels and turning her back to him in one smooth movement. “Come, walk with me.”

Nearly tripping over the uneven stones, he followed her down a meandering stone path that took them out of the walled gardens and into the iron wrought fences of the cemetery. The marble tombstones had been eaten away by the acidity of the rain, blacked and barely legible after all of these years. Freshly cut flowers were draped over the granite monuments, some of them clearly cut from the rows they had just been walking while others looked to be brought in from outside. Just like the gardens, the whole plot was lit up by dozens upon dozens of moonflowers. He shifted in his shoes, waiting for her to make another of her witty remarks and just say something, anything. The silence pressed down on his shoulders as if the sky was collapsing.

“Why am I here?” he finally asked, though it came out as more of a distressed sputter.

“Because you bought Old Priestess a bus ticket and she liked you enough to dump you here and send me on what I was pretty sure was a wild goose chase up until about, oh, seven minutes ago,” the woman said, casually inspecting one of the grave markers and tracing the name carved into the worn stone.

“No, why am I here?” he asked, setting down the jar on one of the larger monuments and turning to face her. “The other woman, when I told her about the book and about, well, slight curiosity in finding you, she said that she was…looking for a replacement, someone who could be one of your elite…I think she used the word Followers? And if that’s referring who I’m thinking, then…why me? I’m not one of your cultists, I don’t have anything really special to offer except making flowers bloom, I’m not really one for bloodshed to begin with, I’m…nothing compared to them. Why would you, why would they, need me?”

The woman finished tracing the carved name, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. “Well, you’re right. They don’t need you at all. Their job is to go out into the world and, well, mostly do what they want up until I need them to rally the forces or do something really specific, but between the five of them, they’ve got everything they need to wreak havoc to their heart’s desires,” she said with a smirk. “No, see, honey…I’m the one that needs you.”

“You…what?”

“Tell me, what do you know about my games?”

“Uh…um... there’s usually ten people or more people in a game,” he stammered, ticking off his fingers and trying to keep his voice level. “You have two werewolves, a seer, a witch, a gunslinger, a gardener, and then four regular townsfolk. The werewolves pick a person to die each night, and everyone has to try and figure out who the werewolves are, who’s got the special roles, and who’s just a regular person. The seer can figure out people’s roles, the witch can both save a person and kill a person, and the gunslinger can kill someone if they get killed.”

“What about the gardener?” she asked, plucking one of the moonflowers out of the ground and twirling it between her fingertips.

The young man hesitated for a second. “Well…the gardener doesn’t really…do much of anything from a gameplay standpoint. They just…give people nice things.”

“Alright, now, I want you to to repeat what you just said, but this time, explain what all of those roles do from a storytelling standpoint,” the woman said, picking off the petals one by one and dropping them to the ground.

“Um…well…” he slowly said, tapping a finger against his chin and furrowing his brow. “Obviously the werewolves are the antagonists of the story. Without them, there’s no conflict and there’s really not much of a story to tell at all. They drive the story along by force, but they’re vulnerable because no matter what game they play, they’re always outnumbered. The seer fulfils the opposing role, given they’re the best chance the townsfolk have at surviving, at the risk of being highly exposed should they say anything. They add suspense because everyone knows they’re there; it’s just a matter of when they’re going to play their hand.”

He started pacing in front of the monument, one eye on the glass jar and the other on the woman. “The witch…well, the witch adds variability, excitement. They can save someone and kill someone, and no one knows how either will get used. Maybe they’ll save themselves, maybe they’ll kill someone innocent, maybe they’ll actually get the right person with a lucky guess. Who knows? As for the gunslinger, they’re…I guess they embody a strange sense of justice? While the other townsfolk are defenseless and can only use their words, they can take matters into their own hands if their life is in danger. There’s nothing they can do to save themselves, nothing they can do to right this wrong, but they sure can take someone with them.”

“And the gardener…the gardener.” The young man faltered, his paces slowing to a halt as the gears that had been whirring in his head skidded to an abrupt halt. “Well, the gardener is…well, I’m not really…sure…”

“Wow, you actually just took the time to say all of that. Cut out the overly descriptive narration and I might actually be impressed,” the woman said with a chuckle, letting the stripped moonflower stem fall to the earth. With a small huff, she jumped onto the tombstone and let her legs dangle off the side. “Sit down, won’t you? I want to tell you a story.”

“You still really haven’t answered my questio-”

“SIT.”

The young man immediately grabbed the jar, crossed his legs, and dropped to the grass.

“That’s better,” she said with a smug smile, lightly tapping her heels against the stone. “You know, I’ve been running the games for, let’s say, a really long time. And you know, I really enjoy it. Building up the worlds, crafting scenarios, watching it all unfold and seeing my insufferable meatsacks play around. The thing is, after a while, the games started getting boring, and that’s a problem because boring games don’t make for good stories. And there’s no easy fix to that either. More roles meant there wouldn’t be enough townsfolk, and more people mean the games get kinda messy and then I have to do more work. But a townsfolk who just helped build up the atmosphere and make the games feel a little more real? Now, that I could do.”

She tilted her head to the side and grinned, giving him a glimpse of her pointed fangs. “The problem was that I’m sometimes a little too...how should I say…removed from my players and games and, well, there are some details that a mortal eye is better at picking out,” she continued with a casual hand gesture. “So I went and started looking for another Follower and just so happened to meet a nice young man so full of life and so ready not to die. Was a pilot, good man, kind heart. His plane crashed during a battle and instead of pleading for his life, he only asked for me to end the fighting and save his family.”

She snickered, the sound grating on his ears and making him want to dig his eardrums out of his skull. “Well, naturally I thought his compassion could be useful to me and I made him into my Young Priest,” she said, mindlessly tapping the top of the tombstone. “And he was really good at his job. He could build up worlds and mold personalities like he was playing with clay, and he had this spark he put into the players. He made them remember what it was like to be alive, for the games to have stakes and for life and death to mean something. He gave them back their humanity. He gave them hope. And man did it bring the games back to life.”

“But he ended up being more…human than I thought,” the woman said with a sneer that slowly formed into a sly smile and holding out her hand. “But that’s not important. What is important is right now, my games are about to start back up, and if this is going to be as good of a run as I think it’s going to be, I’m going to need my gardener.”

The young man peered into the woman’s eyes, seeing the red and yellow chaos swirl through her irises. He studied at the delicate soul in his hands, feeling the warmth emitting from something that he had sacrificed everything to obtain. He stared at the moonflowers around the cemetery, following their light to the stars above and found five stars he was sure had not been there before.

He stood up and held out the jar.

With a wave of her hand, it flew out of his hands and settled just under her palms. In one motion, she twisted off the top and touched the soul. He watched as it faded into her skin, the stains on her arms seemingly growing darker, though that could have been a trick of the dimming light. She gazed into his eyes, a sadistic grin splitting her face.

“Your name.”

He told her. And felt himself fall.

“You’ve made the correct choice. Just relax. This won’t take long at all,” She said, drawing a strange symbol with Her finger into the air. His body felt like it was made of lead; he could barely even lift his eyes to watch Her movements. “You’re mine now.”

“C…Captain, may I ask a question?”

“Of course, my sweet.”

“My…job is to give the players their humanity…right? To give them…hope in that desolate place they can never escape. Isn’t that…really cruel?”

The Murder God smiled.

“You’ll make a wonderful Young Priest.”

Blood red light filled his vision. Then a soft blue glow. Then nothing at all.

#fanfiction #internet remix #discord murder party #the followers

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thesewomenrulemyworld · 3 years

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level 3 options trading Arkansas Skill puts you in the position for massive gains and luck allows those massive gains to materialize under your timeline.

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8% instead of 16. 4% (29,753 divided by 96k instead of 186k). But putting these accounting shenanigans aside, let�s see what the more conservative calculation of a 16. 4% return means. If I had invested my $186,000 into the S&P500 last July, I would have gained 5% ($9,300) as that�s the amount the index was up over that period. Just a month earlier, that number would have been in negative territory as the index was lower. In contrast, I locked in my revenue after each options trade was closed. I love that my profit is a real number added to the cash portion in my brokerage account rather than an abstraction based on the market trending higher. Another point to note regarding the capital at risk is that it doesn�t need to be sitting in your account in the form of cash. It will absolutely provide peace of mind if that�s the case, but you can invest it as you like to boost your returns. When I started this a year ago, my broker was paying me 1. 9% for idle USD in the account, so I was quite happy leaving it. However, that�s obviously not the case anymore, with interest rates at zero. But I could allocate that money into some safe dividend stocks and boost my returns that way. Which is somewhat the approach I�m taking. My Path ForwardTrading options may sound sexy, but it�s pretty tedious. I�ve entered over a thousand executions into my spreadsheet this past year, which is something I LOVE doing. I used to have to make manual trade confirmations at work. Now I do it to record my profits!I feel like a kid counting pennies added to his piggy bank. Except this one pays to feed my family!That said, the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know. And that�s how I feel right now. Rather than patting myself on the back for profiting this past year, I feel hesitant to be proud. I realize how little I know and that I�m merely scratching the surface of the knowledge I need to feel fully confident in trading options for a living. And also how much more I need to hit the books. In terms of specific actions I need to take, they mainly involve expanding my arsenal of trading strategies. Before the market crash, I was exploring a couple that I would love to have in my rotation. One is the very cool sounding reverse iron condor, which is used to profit from significant moves around earnings announcements. When you think there�ll be a move either up or down, but are unsure of which way, this is the strategy to use. Another is deep in the money covered calls around ex-dividend days. The reason for my interest in these two strategies is that they are generally closed within just a couple of days, thereby minimizing market exposure. It�s, therefore, possible to increase returns while also reducing my exposure to the market movements.

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I read success stories of people starting a side hustle that allowed them to quit their job. I even knew a couple. But I couldn�t figure out what my side hustle superpower could be until I stumbled upon options trading. Trading options was something I considered for people with insane levels of intelligence. And unfortunately, that isn�t me. When I took the GMAT exams to apply for grad school, I scored in the top ten percentile for verbal (Yaaaay English Lit Class!) but the bottom ten for math. People were shocked when they found I worked in finance. Not surprisingly, I didn�t end up applying for grad school�But I said f*ck it. I�m gonna see if I can learn this options trading thing. And a year after trying it out, I�ve made $29,753. Here�s how it all went down.

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The only catch is that you cap your short-term gains. While you can�t lose money with this strategy unless the value of the underlying stock decreases (same scenario as someone who buys and holds without selling covered calls), you do cap your upside. If you set a strike price of $20 and the stock goes up to $25, you have to sell your shares at $20 each rather than at $25 each. If you bought at $15, you still get some considerable upside, but you can miss out on additional gains. There isn�t a chance of losing all of your money with a covered call strategy if you use the strategy on good stocks. That�s why I recommend starting here. Covered calls give you a deeper perspective of what can happen to the value of options. In a single day, a call or put can go down over 80%. Similarly, they can quintuple in a single day depending on what happens to the company. An index fund will never go down by 80% in a single day, but it will also never quintuple in a single day. And an option�s value can swing wildly within a few minutes depending on the price movement of the underlying stock. Nibble With Your Options BuysThe first time I bought options, I was extremely conservative. I bought a single Nikola put contract which did well. My logic for buying the put was that more evidence around Nikola�s fraudulent practices were emerging. I followed this stock for weeks before finally deciding to get started. I still buy Nikola puts to this day and will likely continue buying puts until the stock gets delisted. Due to Nikola�s premiums being higher than the average stock, I buy puts set to expire in 5�8 days. For stocks with lower premiums, I�ll buy options with further out expiration dates. The further your expiration date, the more time you have for the stock to move in your direction. There are a variety of risky options trading strategies such as buying an option on its expiration date that can quickly deplete your money. If you want to give the stock additional time to move in your direction, buy a closer to the money option with a further out expiration date. You�ll pay more for it, but the extra time is worth it. For a guide on what to not do with options, check out the article below. The Riskiest Way To Invest In StocksThis strategy is entertaining to watch but extremely stressful to implementProtect Your Portfolio From Downside With PutsOne of the best ways to buy options is through hedging. If you own shares of a company and are nervous about the short-term outlook, you can buy a put to cap your losses. This strategy is great for a few key reasons:#1: You don�t panic sell or end up selling a stock you wish you held onto.

pairs trading with options Arkansas And an option�s value can swing wildly within a few minutes depending on the price movement of the underlying stock.

If you own shares of a company and are nervous about the short-term outlook, you can buy a put to cap your losses. This strategy is great for a few key reasons:#1: You don�t panic sell or end up selling a stock you wish you held onto. This has happened to me a few times before buying options. #2: If the stock goes down, you can hold onto the shares and eventually sell the put. The put will shield you from most of your losses. #3: If the stock goes up, your put will lose value and eventually expire worthless, but it took off a lot of stress from your shoulders. You could focus on other things instead of worrying about the stock price or panic selling your shares. If the stock price isn�t likely to hit the strike price of your put, you can sell the put early to protect yourself from some of those losses. The protective put that attributed to most of my gains thus far was a protective Fastly put. I bought this put right before Fastly lowered their revenue guidance and the stock tumbled in after hours. I talked more about Fastly�s after hours tumble and explained how I�ve been playing the stock moving forward.

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basics of options trading Arkansas After the two weeks, if the insurance policies all expire worthless because the Nike share price is still above $95, then I�ve made 80cents ($1 I received initially, minus the $0.

I can best illustrate this with a real trade I recently closed (obviously cherry-picked):On Feb 12th this year, a week before the market started it�s COVID-19 free fall, the SMH Vaneck Semiconductor ETF was trading at $150.

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Bull Call SpreadA bull call spread involves the purchase of call options at one strike price and the writing of the same number of call options with the same expiration date but a moderately higher strike price. The profit from a bull call spread is maximized when the price of the security reaches slightly under the strike price of the written options, so that the written options expire worthless while the purchased options can be exercised for the maximum value within the window of the written options expiring worthless. The downside in a bull call spread is protected when both options expire worthless, but the premium gained from the written options helps to reduce the loss from the premium paid for the purchased options. Bull call spreads are used when a trader has confidence in the direction of an upcoming price change, but not in its intensity. If a trader foresees only a small increase in the price of a security, then they can capitalize on that small increase by purchasing call options while also limiting any potential downside and reducing the cost of the premiums paid by writing options at a higher strike price that is unlikely to be reached. The downside to the bull call spread is, of course, that any potential upside beyond the projected price increase is limited due to the corresponding increase in the cost to cover the written call options. Bear Put SpreadA bear put spread is the exact opposite of a bull call spread, where the trader purchases put options and also sells the same number of put options with the same expiry date but a moderately lower strike price. The profit from a bear put spread is maximized when the price of the underlying security reaches slightly above the strike price of the written put options, which means that the written options expire worthless while the value of the purchased options is maximized within the window of the written options expiring without value. The downside to a bear put spread is limited to the premium paid for the purchased options less the premium gained from the written options, which occurs when both of the options expire worthless. Traders use the bear put spread when they want to bet on a moderate decline in the price of a security. The premiums gained from the written options help to offset any potential losses if the security fails to fall in price significantly, and they are added to the profits if the price falls within the window of the written options expiring without value.

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blessuswithblogs · 6 years

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Top Ten Videocons of Twenty Seventeen, More or Less

2017 has, by all accounts, been a fantastic year for Video Games. Unfortunately for me, it has been a not so fantastic year in Having Money. So while in a perfect world my now annual game of the year list would have been a terribly contested and dramatic affair of cutting games I thought were good but just didn't make it, in actuality, I had to scramble and cheat a little to just find 10 games to slot in and talk about. I did at least manage to find them. Mostly.

10. Destiny 2

Destiny is a franchise with a troubled history, which feels weird to say about something that came out in late 2014. Nevertheless, Destiny 2's shooty looty gameplay loop finds its way on to my list. The story is tepid and the characters, with a few exceptions, are scarcely worthy of memory, but the visuals are good and the core mechanics of shooting and using abilities are a solid foundation to build upon in the inevitable flurry of DLC packages and expacs. It's all quite reminiscent of Borderlands, except without the unmistakable caustic ooze of Randy Pitchford's involvement. That in and of itself is praiseworthy.

9. Gravity Rush 2/Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

Okay so I maybe didn't actually play this one myself. I usually try to exclude stuff that I watched and enjoyed but in this case I was sitting on the couch with other people playing it so that's basically the same thing as playing it myself right? I think I held the controller for a little bit. Anyway this game is super weird and charming and a little nauseating in parts because you sort of go flying off into the stratosphere randomly? But the aesthetic and Mood the game goes for is very unique and fun, it even has its own cute little made up language I mistook for French at first until I heard some Japanese and Spanish sounding words in there as well. The main characters Kat and Raven are dating I think? They're happy and alive girlfriends. Raven is a little broody I guess but they're definitely not the Sad, Dead Lesbians I have grown to detest. Raven is not Velvet. Just reminding myself. Tropical Freeze is just really good and while it maybe came out like years ago I only got to play it very recently on my friend's Wii U. The music is super good fuck you Jeff Gerstmann I will fucking fight you and your shitty opinions about video games you god damned grumpy old man.

8. The Surge

My Thoughts on the Surge are well documented on this very website. It's flawed and frustrating in a lot of ways, nonsensical in others, and the story never quite commits to its original conceit which is a real shame. All that said, I respect the game for what it was unabashedly trying to do: be Dark Souls but with cyborg powerloaders and robots. Like, you gotta live your bliss, right? Lords of the Fallen was utterly miserable and the improvements that The Surge demonstrates gives me cause for optimism in future games from the developer. Anything that gives me cause for optimism in 2017 has to be worth something. That said, the inevitable The Surge 2 is probably going to be kind of by the numbers and unnecessary but that's just how you make games in the 21st century.

7. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

To begin with, BotW would be much higher on this list if I had not only come into owning it and a Switch yesterday. It is by all counts extremely good, an open world game that's actually pleasant and charming and has meritorious mechanics outside of Todd Howard style "you can go fuck that mountain" nonsense. I mean don't get me wrong you can fuck plenty of mountains in this game. Link is fucking Spider-man in this game, the only surfaces he can't mysteriously latch on to are inside the puzzle shrines so you can't just cheese them. Weapon degradation is maybe a little excessive? I feel sort of like Bayonetta in the first cutscene where she keeps yelling "Guns!" when she runs out of ammo except I'm yelling "shitty wooden sticks!" when the one I'm using breaks into a million tiny pieces. I understand the reasoning behind it, I do. It establishes a certain rhythm to the game of exploring, fighting, stocking up on shitty wooden sticks, and repeating. When you find like, an actual sword or spear it feels like an occasion to celebrate, and the whole thing demands that you use a variety of different weapons and weapon-like objects. I'm not nearly far in enough to give an honest, comprehensive picture of the game. I just really like what I've played so far so I'm just compromising by putting BotW relatively low on the list.

6. Cuphead

It's Cuphead! Everybody knows Cuphead by now. It's gorgeous, the soundtrack is great if somewhat lacking in variety, King Dice is really cool but has extremely unfortunate racial undertones, the game is pretty hard (not that hard?) and Cala Maria is a babe. It's a singular game that is extremely worthwhile and hopefully paves the way for future games in a similar style of aping specific styles and eras of animation. I really want a game that goes hard on the 1950s Looney Tunes aesthetic where you just drop anvils on people forever. Cuphead isn't perfect, as a lot of the game's difficulty and length comes from bad checkpointing. It's a necessary evil, because if the game did not blatantly disrespect your time in a lot of the later fights, the game would be like, two hours long. I'm not a proponent of the "git gud" philosophy but I can't help but feel like I really want to say that to the various bad-at-games journos who got bent out of shape about Cuphead being hard. This is your damn job. You can suck it up for one game, especially when it's really very good and unique like Cuphead. Also my mom came in while I was playing it and thought I was watching a popeye cartoon so that was kind of cute I guess.

5. Civilization 6 (CHEATING AGAIN)

YEAH I KNOW THIS GAME CAME OUT LAST YEAR AND IM A HUGE IDIOT FUCKER but hear me out Civ6 is really fucking good because of the fact that Wonders take up physical space on the map and districting does the same thing. Like just this single mechanical change basically doubles the amount of thought and planning you need to put into playing the game even on low difficulties to optimize your output and production. Like it's a civilization game so there's not really anything too groundbreaking here but I fucking adore this game. Really looking forward to Rise and Fall, which will be early 2018. With the initial release being late 2016 I feel like this is like, an honorary 2017 game. Don't @ me.

4. Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight is another game I wrote about previously on the blog, but unlike The Surge I had basically nothing but good things to say about it. Hollow Knight has gorgeous hand drawn graphics and environments not entirely unlike Cuphead, but obviously goes for a much more reserved mood. Hollow Knight is a rock solid Metroidvania game with strong aesthetic and musical chops to back it up, as well as some Dark Souls-esque flourishes to give the game a bit of bite and a haunting narrative arc. A fantastic indie game and I can't wait to see what Team Cherry does next. I need to get around to doing the Halloween DLC, come to think of it. Did you know Zote actually has as many precepts as he says he does? I listened to them all. Some of them aren't too bad.

3. Nioh

Geralt the Witcher's moonlighting adventure as a samurai came out quite early in 2017, but remains one of the best games of the year due to its complex and rewarding combat system, beautiful Warring Kingdoms era Japanese architecture inspirations, fun mythological monster designs, and genuinely well done historical fiction backdrop. Coming into it, I fully expected "Dark Souls except the bosses are like Tengus and Nues and shit", but that description does the game a pretty big disservice. It's much more than that, both from a narrative standpoint, which is a fantastically tinged retelling of the Warring Kingdoms period, and from a gameplay one. The combat in Nioh is much more technical than in Dark Souls, with more pretensions of a combo based character action game than the deliberate, heavily customizable experience of the Souls games. Nioh is still quite hard and has the whole death-recovery mechanic, but it makes sense diegetically due to Guardian Spirit system and remains distinct. There are times when it tries to have the best of both worlds and just kind of ends up feeling like it doesn't do a good job at either, but for the most part, Nioh is tremendously fun, and at times infuriatingly difficult, especially in some of the post game optional battles that pit you against multiple bosses at once. Also, finding Kodamas is extremely rewarding because they are so damn cute. I love them. Find them at all costs.

2. Nier: Automata

Nier: Automata, Yoko Taro's latest brainchild, is, well, what it is. It's a hauntingly weird story about what it means to be human, and if that definition is really even adequate. It's a game with a lot to say, which is why I regard it so highly. The core gameplay is fun and serviceable, which is much more than I can say for its predecessor, the first Nier, which was memorable and affecting but played kind of like butts. 2B's android adventures are much more fluid and stylish, and you have a surprising amount of customization options available (though some arguably make the game a little too easy at points, like regenerating health) and there's enough variety in the little Machine Life form enemies (and the big ones, too) that fighting never felt like a chore to me. Of course, others have disagreed, but I think that the tedium really only sets in when you play as 9S, who has a much reduced arsenal of fighting moves in favor of his hacking skills. I liked the little shmup minigames that hacking entailed, so even 9S's story never felt too dull in the actual mechanical execution of it. People tend to have a misunderstanding of how the game works, that you need to complete it 4 times to get the whole experience, but that's not actually true. The 4 endings separate the game into acts more than anything. While 9S's story has a lot of overlap with 2B's story, endings C and D are just entirely new content where you play as A2, who has some tricks of her own distinct from 2B and 9S. It's not perfect, but it's not like you have to play the same game 4 times. It's a very story focused game, so much so that I would say experiencing the narrative is the main draw, but it has the decency to also be varied and fun to play. I love the parts where you get in the transforming flying robot and shoot the dudes. Especially the big dude. You know the one.

1. Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood

The latest Final Fantasy XIV expansion, Stormblood, is super good. I wrote a bit about it earlier, and how it has improved upon Heavensward in almost all respects. Stormblood is a superlative MMO expac, with well designed and amazingly presented raids, dungeons, and trials. It's full of "holy shit that's dope" moments, like when you get into a blade struggle against the primal Susano's gigantic Ame-no-Murakumo in an active time event or storm the fortress city of Ala Mhigo. Ultimately, though, what really makes me evaluate Stormblood as my game of the year is how surprisingly thoughtful it is. FFXIV has, since the relaunch of 2.0, been a game that has not shied away from complexity in its narrative conflicts. The juxtaposition of the mythically strong Warrior of Light and the surprisingly mundane issues even she cannot seem to fix has always been the game's most interesting element to me, and as you spearhead revolutions against the Garlean Empire in two different countries, you learn a lot about how imperial colonialism has made things too complicated to be fixed simply driving out the oppressors. You do, eventually, of course, but the story is quick to remind you that this is only the beginning, and a lot of key issues remain unsolved, both in the newly liberated provinces and back at home. Also the Dark Knight questline from 60-70 is basically the best the game has to offer. It feels to me like that Dark Knight is the unofficial Job of Stormblood, despite the promo material and opening movie having you believe it to be about Monks. Monks, as usual, are boring. The themes explored in the Dark Knight questline, about regret, about shades of gray, about self-destruction, all align perfectly with some of the subtler narrative arcs of the main story. It's just really good and I love it. I still really want to write a piece about it on its own. I probably will soon. But for now, I name Stormblood my game of the year, for reminding us that we are still heroes. That we are still good people.

#2017 #goty #breath of the wild #nier automata #the surge #hollow knight #ffxiv #nioh #cuphead

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iloveyoupittsburghpirates-blog · 7 years

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Where Is This Going, Pittsburgh Pirates?

My Dearest Pittsburgh Pirates,

This week was…better. It’s sad when I’m satisfied with 3-3 week at home against division rivals but these days I’ll take what I can get. The week started off predictably with you losing two out of three to the Milwaukee Brewers keeping their playoff hopes alive. Those hopes were dashed considerably this weekend when they lost three out of four to the Cubs. After a mercy day (a day off) on Thursday, the St. Louis Cardinals came to town with their playoff hopes still alive. After losing a tough game one, you easily won the last two games behind an offensive explosion on Saturday and stellar pitching on Sunday. There are few things more enjoyable than dashing the Cardinals playoff hopes. With only a week left, the division is almost surely going to the Cubs with a 5.5 game lead over the second place Brewers. The Cards and Brewers still have a shot at the Wildcard but this weekend hurt them bad. They are now 2.5 and 3 games out of the second spot respectively. Enough about them, let’s talk about us. The last month has been about as brutal of a month of baseball to watch since the 2011 and 2012 collapses. I don’t know what the game plan is moving forward but changes must be made.

If you would have asked me the percentage chance of you trading Cutch, JHay, and Cole this offseason six weeks ago and doing a mini-rebuild (or a full one), I would have said the chances are less than one percent. Since then, you have been getting players back from the DL and have started bringing up some younger players and have still failed miserably. The most likely scenario is that you go into next season with almost an identical roster as you have now. That’s a problem given that roster is getting it’s butt kicked on a daily basis. That’s why I feel like that less than one percent chance is on the rise. I still think it’s a low number like ten to fifteen percent that they deal those three but I think it’s more likely than ever. I don’t want them to do it because there’s no way you will get good value for Cutch or JHay. Cole is having his worst year but he’s still a 200 innings, 200 strikeouts pitcher this year. The market is so desperate for starting pitching you could still get a good return for him considering he’s under control for 2 more years. I imagine your front office is going insane looking at a team like the Brewers who have stayed in it the whole season and have a payroll of roughly 63 million, the lowest in baseball. Less money and more production? That’s your dream scenario. I think you will keep the roster intact believing that you could possibly compete next year but I’ve never been more skeptical about Cutch, JHay, and Cole being a part of it.

If you want to find a silver lining for this last month, you can look at the bullpen. Don’t look too hard because then you remember the Juan Nicasio situation and, like me, become furious again. There is hope thanks to the performance of three young pitchers. A.J. Schugel, who has performed well when he’s been up before, has continued that this season. I’m actually surprised he wasn’t up sooner. For the season, Schugel has a 1.71 ERA and a 1.33 WHIP. The WHIP is a little high and when you see his 3.50 FIP that seems more likely his potential for a full year but with an elite changeup in his arsenal this guy should be a mainstay in the bullpen. Edgar Santana, who was one of the most interesting Spring Training stories, had struggled anytime he was brought up earlier this season. Since he came back up at the beginning of the month, he hasn’t been scored upon. He’s only pitched 6 1/3 innings giving up three hits, striking out five, and the only red flag is his five walks.That explains his 1.26 WHIP this month. The Lithuanian, Dovydas Neverauskas, has also shown a lot of potential in the second half. His overall numbers are solid with a 2.74 ERA for the season, a 1.13 WHIP, but a concerning 4.59 FIP. His second half has been even better with a 2.00 ERA, a 0.94 WHIP, and an improved 4.15 FIP. I’m not saying that any of these guys should be candidates for eighth inning duty necessarily but given your options right now of Kontos and Hudson (woof), I wouldn’t rule anything out. At least there are some possibilities there so you won’t need to spend much money on it this offseason when you have other positional needs.

Can we discuss the front office’s recent comments about how fans need to show up more in order for you to increase your payroll? This again? You said this in the past before we broke the twenty year losing streak. Payroll would increase once attendance grew and it did to a certain extent. From the collapse years of 2011 and 2012 to the playoff year of 2013, the payroll increased by about 15 million. 2013 and 2014 were about the same before another increase in 2015 of about 10 million. In 2016, the payroll went down in the infamous Vogelsong, Locke, and Niese season. This year it was back up again by about 15 million. I’ve always thought there was more money to spend. Your payroll for this season was right around 100 million. I’m not saying that you need to have payrolls of 150 or 200 million. Obviously that’s not remotely realistic. I do think 110 to 115 million should be feasible. Attendance has decreased fairly significantly over the last two years but I feel like it’s almost a threat. Show up to our games or we won’t try our hardest to field a quality product. That’s a slight exaggeration of their intentions but it comes off that way. You know one way to increase attendance: Win. People love showing up for a winner and the last two years you haven’t been that. I don’t know what your books look like and how much money you have to spend but it seems irresponsible to put the fate of the payroll on the fans that have already paid money to watch losing seasons. Doesn’t seem fair to me at all.

This is the last week of the season and I’m honestly relieved. This has one of the more difficult seasons I can remember. Coming off a 98 win season and performing like you did last year was rough but you had your whole “bridge year’ declaration which gave me hope that this year would be different. Last year, no one stood a chance anyway with the way the Cubs played. They weren’t even the dominant force everyone expected them to be so it seemed even more plausible that if you got it together that you could make a run this year. It didn’t happen. You already have more losses than you did last season and this week you could certainly add more. You are off today before starting a two game interleague series against the Baltimore Orioles at PNC Park tomorrow. You finish up the season with a four-game series in Washington against the first place Nationals. The Nationals have already clinched their division and the possibility of them catching the Dodgers for the top spot in the NL is unlikely with them trailing by 4.5 games. Finish up these six games strong and, most importantly, healthy. I’ll have a sendoff letter for you next week before we spend the next seven months apart. Have a good final week and remember that I will always love you no matter what you put me through. Good luck! Your Brooding Boyfriend,

Brad

P.S. unfortunately this week stands for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Sunday was weird day in the NFL after President Trump’s comments this week saying anyone who doesn’t stand for the National Anthem should be fired. The NFL responded by more players kneeling during the anthem than any other week and teams, like the Steelers, not even taking the field until after the anthem ended. I liked that move by Tomlin and the team though I don’t like what happened in the actual game. The run defense got torn to shreds by an 0-2 Bears team that barely needed to throw the ball in order to beat you in OT. The offense still hasn’t found it’s rhythm but not having Bell in camp, not having Bryant for two years, and relying on a rookie like Smith-Schuster to play a large role means it might take time for them to all be on the same page. I’m not ready to panic yet but they play the Ravens next week so they better find it soon if they don’t want to fall out of their current first place tie.

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tessatechaitea · 5 years

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New Titans #110

DC has been "unleashing" characters for over twenty-five years!

Twitter might be a smoking rectum of a filth and despair but let me tell you what it's given to me. I signed up to Twitter nearly ten years ago, mostly to secure the name Grunion Guy. I think my first tweet was "Why are they called Sixlets when there are only five colors?" Fucking insightful stuff, that. Anyway, at some point, a junior high school girl from Missouri followed me on Twitter. I followed her back and she lost her fucking mind because Grunion Guy started following her. It turned out, her and two of her best friends loved A Really Scary Story and some of Grunion Guy's other stories that were online (I say "Grunion Guy's other stories" and not "my other stories" because some of them (some of the best of them and certainly the first of them!) were not written by me. I just sort of took over the persona). Apparently the stories had been something fun they shared and they were excited to be acknowledged by Grunion Guy. They were funny and clever and I enjoyed reading their tweets and following their lives. Since then, I've watched them grow into compassionate, hilarious college students. I'm proud of them like I would be proud of my actual nieces if they were the kind of people to make me proud (ha ha! Just kidding, actual nieces! Whatever your names are!). But there's a dark side to this other aspect of Twitter, this allowing instant access between writers and their audience. For the most part, it's what makes Twitter truly terrible. But long before Twitter, fans already felt entitled to the stories they expected. But if they didn't get them, they actually had to write a letter that would almost certainly only be read by some person whose job was to act as a firewall to the creator. Now when Tom King writes Batman stories where Batman actually has to deal with the existential ramifications of taking on the role as sole arbiter of justice to the universe, Batman fans can tweet directly at him saying, "You suck! Batman is about punching things, idiot!" I would like to believe that most creators ignore what the audience claims they want and just continue to express what they feel they need to express. Art isn't about feeding the masses what they want; obviously it's about stroking one's ego as if it were a massive cock that just needed orgasmic release. Mostly when people scream at me for writing shit they don't agree with, it doesn't bother me. On the other hand, there's a part of me that feels proud that when those three young kids from Missouri found something they enjoyed in my writing and subsequently followed me on Twitter, they were able to find that the person behind those stories was somebody they actually enjoyed interacting with, somebody whose beliefs they could respect and agree with. I can't imagine how disappointing it must be for, say, a Dilbert fan to get online and follow the douche that does that comic book only to be greeted by his terrible politics and inane philosophies. Actually, I can't even imagine somebody being a Dilbert fan so that was probably a poor analogy. Ultimately I know that who I am doesn't matter when somebody reads A Really Scary Story (a story which, might I add, was once read out loud (by Daniel Heath Justice, no less!) before an audience that contained Connie Willis. So I'm practically a Hugo Award winner myself!). But I'd rather be seen as a somewhat enlightened, mostly compassionate moron than a selfish asshole who thinks they're the smartest fucker in the room. While I'm rambling on about Twitter, here's a little free advice for debating online: only respond to the person angrily responding to something you've written if your response makes you laugh. And never respond more than twice (only once if at all possible. I just say twice for a little bit of latitude). I generally don't engage in "discussion" on the Internet. I "write" posts. If somebody responds angrily, I'll either ignore it, say something whimsically stupid in response, or will clarify once and leave it at that. Most people having debates on the Internet seem to think that they're arguing their side and that they really have to make sure their point is understood. But that's a huge mistake! Because nearly 100% of the time, the angry respondent has intentionally misunderstood what you've written, and will continue to believe that what they said you said is what you said. So even one clarification is probably too much but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. Very occasionally, the misunderstanding isn't intentional and we can part on good terms. Anyway, Dick is traveling through the rain forest looking for Kory this issue.

Dick seems shocked by the acrobatic oral sex customs of these indigenous peoples.

Dick finds Kory in the jungle telling stories of her homeworld to this Amazonian tribe. If Dick doesn't stop her, Starfire's stories will soon usurp the stories of the native tribe, being that they're far more exciting and filled with more aliens and space lasers. She's going to destroy this entire culture nearly as fast as a white Christian missionary! Before Starfire can supplant the basis of the village's cultural understanding of their place in the universe by telling space operas, the stars of one of her space operas attacks the village! And just as the story begins to get exciting, the scene changes to the bureaucracy of Checkmate running the Titans. Now that the Titans need the government's help to battle lawsuits brought against them for their familial disputes causing citywide destruction (which the Titans deny but, I mean, have they been reading their own comic book? Eighty percent of their battles are against family members and the other twenty percent are against villains who have a grudge against the Titans themselves), they're being given political missions by the government. On one hand, it's despicable that they're going to be used as pawns for political and corporate interests. On the other hand, there's at least a 50% chance they'll actually be helping to make the world a better place for once.

What a surprise. There first mission is against a guy who wants to make the world a better place by saving the environment! I wonder if the Titans uniforms will have Shell, Mobile, and Exxon patches added to them.

How do I not remember this guy? That was a rhetorical question that means "I love this guy! Why didn't I have a shirt with him on it?! Why did I spill so much semen over Lobo when this guy existed?!" What I really meant to say was "Terraist? No wonder nobody remembers this guy!" You know when something clever goes a bit too far into clever so that it becomes fucking idiotic instead? That's the name "Terraist." But he's cradling a cat and a rose and he's battling for the environment! How is this guy the bad guy?! Just because he lives in Zandia? Fucking racist, man. Oh wait. Maybe I should have listened to the rest of The Terraist's rant. He plans on destroying the world quickly unless government's stop all pollution immediately. That doesn't seem insane and unreasonable at all! But I don't think his cat is into it. The cat just wants a few nice chin scritches and a plate of fancy food. The lasers that hit the rain forest were part of The Terraist's attack to save the world by destroying it. Maybe I was wrong about judging the people of Zandia. Maybe they are all fucking assholes.

"We know you can't get into space but we need the Titans to stop Terraist and his death satellite!" "You know there are heroes that can fly into space?" "WE NEED YOU!"

Red Planet declares that they will help and Arsenal is all, "Are you fucking nuts?! I don't have a rocket arrow!" But Flash is all, "I used to hate you because you were a Communist and Russian, Leonid. I just wanted you to know!" Fucking Wally. Although in Wally's defense, I once said this same kind of bullshit. I once told Mistina La Fave of The Prids how I didn't really like their music the first time I heard them but that I loved the show I had just watched before saying that horrible thing to her. Now in my defense during Wally's defense, the first time I saw The Prids (way back in like 2000 or 2001, I think? Yeesh), I also saw The Faint for the first time (touring for Danse Macabre) and I can't be responsible for comparing everything else poorly in relation to that glorious spectacle. But I still suck for saying that thing. The Titans decide to accept help from Alexander Luthor since he's the only private citizen with a ship that can get them into space so they can stop an eco-terrorist from saving the environment in completely the wrong way. This was twenty five years ago. It's like nothing ever changes! Why does anything we do matter if we're just repeating the same shit over and over again?! Oh God, I'm so tired! New Titans #110 Rating: B-. If you were paying attention to the cover, you might be wondering when Baby unleashed his beest. It happened over one panel where he attacked Steve Dayton but Dayton instantly downed him with some neuro-laser. I'm not sure why Checkmate didn't hire Steve Dayton to take down The Terraist since, using the transitive property, if Dayton can defeat the Titans, he should also be able to defeat The Terraist. Also, he probably has a ship that he's not letting the Titans use because he's tired of being used by them. Also he might still be insane seeing as how he's working on another Mento Helmet. Maybe going insane is the cure for being insane? So a second Mento Helmet is the cure for a first Mento Helmet! Man, no wonder I'm not a genius. When I break my arm, I rarely ever think the cure is breaking it again! But then, I know I've heard doctors talking about rebreaking arms to help fix broken arms! So I really am stupider than I thought!

#New Titans #Teen Titans #DC Comics #DC #Comic Book Review

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torentialtribute · 5 years

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Peter Shilton at 70: England’s most capped player opens up on Clough, Clemence and being pro-Brexit

England & # 39; s most capped footballer sits in a quiet corner of an Essex hotel and asks Wonder why the experience gained during 125 gigs is no longer used.

Peter Shilton is week 70 on Wednesday, but does not look. That compact squat frame still looks in good condition, his black hair now only slightly flipped with gray.

He played his football in four different decades, won the first division and the European Cup and represented England in three World Cups. He was not exactly lost in our game, but he has not really been there – since he had retired on the other side of 1000 games.

Peter Shilton has thought about his life in it football as he prepares to turn 70 on Wednesday

Recently he made a video of goalkeeping techniques that were fundamental to a career that only ended when he was 47. He has the & # 39; Shilton & # 39; s Secrets & # 39; mentioned and not sure what to do with it. If there are no customers, he can simply put it on the internet.

& # 39; I'm older now, so I obviously don't want to throw balls on a training field every day & # 39 ;, Shilton said. "But I recently told my wife Steph that I do not want the techniques I have built up for more than 30 years to be lost.

" Many of the exercises that coaches now use are those I have developed . But I'm not sure if they understand current techniques.

& # 39; I made the film two years ago and I would not mind using some consultancy, using the film to explain some tips.

& # 39; Many people do not understand anything about keeping. I look at a keeper and know what he is doing or should have done. Don't you get anyone explained on your TV?

[194590011]

Shilton believes he could improve modern keepers with & # 39; 15 or 20 percent & # 39;

[194590012]

Shilton has compiled a video of keep techniques he wants modern keepers to use

& # 39; All modern keepers are very fit and make great saves, but it's the one they let in that I'm watching. I think they can improve with 15 or 20 percent with the right techniques. & # 39;

[194590014]

Shilton was not coached at all until he was coached at all was played by Bobby Robson in England in the early 1980s. The gloves he wore with Leicester and Stoke in his early days were of rope and were bought at a garden center. He had designed the black he wore when he made a famous rescue at Wembley from Kenny Dalglish from Scotland in 1973.

But Shilton was always talented and always worked desperately hard. His rival and friend Ray Clemence – with whom he came to England for ten years – called him & # 39; the perfectionist & # 39; and Shilton doesn't mind.

& # 39; It was funny, & # 39; Shilton told Sportsmail. & # 39; People said Ray was natural. He didn't train that much. He would get a shot and & # 39; wide & # 39; shout instead of diving.

& # 39; But then Clem got coaching coaching in England and I stood at the side of the field for Sky when he worked with Paul Robinson. He did all my exercises! I shouted at him and he admitted.

& # 39; But we were good friends. We are still laughing and giggling. We were in England for ten years and never talked about football.

& # 39; We were different keepers, but I like to think we can play. As Brian Clough once said: & # 39; You can train anything you want, but you need a little talent, son & # 39 ;. I think I had a few. & # 39;

Shilton remains great friends with keeper and former roommate Ray Clemence (left )

Shilton & # 39; s youth hero was Gordon Banks (left) and he was delegated to him in Leicester City

Shilton & # 39; s hero was Gordon Banks. As a child growing up in Leicester, he was invited to come and watch the wonderful man who trained on Filbert Street.

& # 39; Usually I was just fetching the balls, & # 39; he remembered. & # 39; Gordon thanked me. Little did he know that I would join the club. I joined at 15 and made my first team debut at the age of 16.

& # 39; Gordon was away with England. They did not then suspend the competition matches. I was still a student so I did odd jobs on the floor, explained the set, swept up and then went home for a sleep and a little tea.

& # 39; Then I played against Everton for the entire house that evening. We won 3-0 and I had a solid game. The next morning at 7.30 am I was behind cleaning boots. & # 39;

Shilton had a legendary career and will always be remembered for the league title and two European cups that he won with Clough & # 39; s Nottingham Forest.

But he is a Leicester boy and a Leicester fan. From the age of six he wanted to play for his hometown club and when Leicester finally had to choose between him and Banks, it was the star of England who had to be stunned to make way.

Shilton was part of Nottingham Forest & # 39; s first division winning side under Brian Clough

"Arsenal and Manchester United were enthusiastic about me and I think Stoke and West Ham saw that situation and Gordon came in," Shilton said.

"He was sold to Stoke and yes, he was a little surprised. But then he came to me and said: & # 39; I did pretty well & # 39; that was the only way on which you once received money by leaving. & # 39;

Coincidentally, after eight years in Leicester, Shilton Banks followed to Stoke, and the £ 325,000 compensation in 1974 was a world record for a goalkeeper. a challenge at the top of that season, but when a storm blew the roof of the main grandstand on Victoria Ground, players had to be sold to finance repairs, Shilton stayed on, but Stoke was relegated in 1977 and it wasn't long before he started a relationship was building with Clough that had its roots in a meeting between the two men a year earlier.

When I was in Stoke, I felt sad when I was out of the English team and we our best players had sold out, & # 39; revealed Shilton. & # 39; Brian Clough asked if I could come over to chat. I knew he had tried to sign me when he was in Derby and in Leeds.

I did not know him, but he invited me to a meal at a hotel behind Trent Bridge. We chatted away and had a lot in common. He made me feel better. He signed me a year later. & # 39;

When Forest won the first division in Shilton's first season, he gave only 18 goals in the 37 league games he played. That year he won the PFA Player of the Year Award, the most recent goalkeeper to do that. He was then part of the Clough team that surprised Europe.

Shilton says he does not like being associated with the notorious goal of Diego Maradona in 1986

& # 39; I actually thought I had a better season in the year that Stoke relegated, but what happened in Forest was a miracle, & # 39; he said. & # 39; I could have ended up in Man United from Stoke. Jimmy Greenhoff called me and said that Tommy Docherty had agreed to Stoke for me. Two days later, Tommy received the bag. So maybe it was my destiny that I went to Forest. & # 39;

Clough & # 39; s Forest team has been immortalized in books and in movies. Shilton says he finds it hard to say what the best performance was, Forest & # 39; s or Leicester & # 39; s winning the Premier League in 2016.

Both parties had an incredible team spirit and a never-say-that-die attitude , & # 39; he said.

He feels a bit like diplomacy and it's hard to blame him.

Regarding his relationship with Clough, he was as personal and contradictory as we are used to.

& # 39; I always strip at the door next to the shower, & # 39; Shilton smiled. & # 39; My gear and boots would be set up at 2 p.m. on Saturday and I would concentrate on the competition. That was me.

& # 39; But Brian would have played squash – top rugby, shorts and filthy trainers – and he would come in, pushing all my stuff out of the way and time for his shower.

& # 39; He would drag himself down and there would be a large pool of water where I had to stand.

& # 39; He had something like & # 39; Hold on, Pete, won't be a second & # 39 ;. and then I would sail past me as he walked away and say: & # 39; I hope you didn't mind. & # 39;

& # 39; All the boys would growl chuckling while I opened the water. They knew that I would be irritated. But I would just mumble a little.

& # 39; But it did me good. It kept me sharp. He wanted to make sure I didn't get over myself. It was called management and how can any of us look back and say it was wrong? & # 39;

Shilton says he would not shake Maradona's hand if he met the legend of Argentina today

The English team that traveled to Spain for the 1982 World Cup was the best Shilton feel he played in . If Kevin Keegan and Trevor Brooking were not injured, he believes they might have won him.

As it is, Ron Greenwood went out on what was then a second group stage. Inevitably, however, Shilton remains forever associated with one of the most notorious moments of the World Cup, Argentine striker Diego Maradona jumps with him to hit the ball at a quarter final in Mexico four years later. Argentina won the match 2-1 and then won the World Cup.

& # 39; I don't want to belong, & # 39; Shilton shrugged. & # 39; It was so blatant. He first started running, so I had to rush out. But I was always there first.

& # 39; I made a good decision to get out of my line, but couldn't get close enough to jump in like I normally would. He knew he was being hit.

& # 39; You are in a quarterfinal of the World Cup and you watch the officials. Everyone saw it separately from them.

& # 39; People say he scored a great second goal afterwards, but we still didn't focus well when he scored. & # 39;

The two men meet periodically, but Shilton has never been interested unless an apology is guaranteed.

& # 39; Some things he has said since then and the fact that he did not apologize is not good, & # 39; he added.

& # 39; His attitude is what some of the boys don't like. Gary Lineker says he's not bothered, but me and Peter Reid and Terry Butcher and others are and we wouldn't shake hands with him. In coincidence.

Shilton ended his career on 125 England caps and he also made more than 1000 club appearances

& # 39; Eventually I achieved that this has become a point of interest and I don't like it.

& # 39; If he had wanted to meet and apologize, I would have, but he refused. & # 39;

Next year it will be 50 years since Shilton made his debut in England against East Germany. His record of 10 clean sheets at the World Cup Final is only matched by Fabian Barthez from France.

& # 39; I would only have that record if I had not been for Diego, & # 39; he said.

England lost the 1990 semi-final on penalties against Germany – & # 39; they were brilliant penalties & # 39 ;, Shilton says – and he stopped the international match after the tournament.

His club career continued until the age of 47. He said he was & # 39; desperate & # 39; to reach 1,000 games and he eventually played for Leyton Orient against Brighton in November 1996.

An enchantment in management with Plymouth had actually preceded that milestone and it would not have been repeated.

He said: & # 39; I was interested in the job in Blackpool and they just asked me to send my resume. That was kind of, well, you know … & # 39;

Nowadays he settles near Colchester with his second wife Steph. He is noticeably pro-Brexit on Twitter.

& # 39; It's just an honest opinion & # 39 ;, he said. & # 39; I am British at heart. I loved the England Women at the World Cup and currently support the cricketers.

& # 39; I have always followed politics. You have a view and I am not ashamed of mine. You get idiots on Twitter, but I have thick skin.

& # 39; As a goalkeeper you are used to it. I always got worse behind the goal. & # 39;

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#Peter Shilton at 70: England’s most capped player opens up on Clough #Clemence and being pro-Brexit

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celticnoise · 5 years

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This week we saw a number of beautiful examples of our media in full flight.

In between trying to sell Kieran Tierney and bigging up our European opponents they were doing their usual spin for the Ibrox operation.

Of these things I think the Tierney coverage was the worst, but their lauding of the Romanians stuck in the throat in a big way.

Before I went on holiday last week, I marvelled at some of the coverage being handed out to Gerrard’s rag-bag mob.

I couldn’t handle reading such stomach churning guff about our club.

I’d wonder what the agenda was, and who was running who.

In a Gary Ralston article about how the Ibrox NewCo was gearing up for its “revenge match” against Progres – as though it would erase the previous time the two clubs met – he wrote the following, spectacular, lines of sycophantic guff.

“It was 50 years ago this weekend that Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. Many (Ibrox) fans consider the astronaut’s step off Apollo 11 a mere stroll in the park in comparison to the strides (they) have made under Steven Gerrard in the last 13 months.”

You read that with eyes which bulge in disbelief, and you try to process it.

The Ibrox club’s progress is being compared to man walking on the moon?

Really?

We secured a third domestic treble in a row, and I cannot understand – and nor can any other Celtic fan – this celebration of mediocrity and failure. The Ibrox side won nothing last season. They finished one place higher in the league but were out of the cup competitions even earlier than in the season before and they spent a huge sum of money to get there.

And their manager had a win ratio of just 50% … lower than Warburton.

Lower than Caixinha.

Lower than Graeme Murty.

So what the Hell was Ralston talking about?

His historical analogy is stupid, but The Record has written worse.

Back in 2010, Neil Cameron, now at The Herald, where part of his job is to make sure Chris Jack submits factually accurate copy, wrote this incredible piece on the then still playing Davie Weir.

“Maurice Edu watched in astonishment as a working-class black man with a Muslim sounding name became president of his country. But while the rise of Barack Obama stunned this exiled American it’s nothing compared to the miracle he sees every day he works beside David Weir.”

Cameron, of course, is just as notorious.

His reaction to the official unveiling of Steven Gerrard at Ibrox was a piece that dripped with … I don’t even want to think about it.

“Before Gerrard graced us with his presence, the small but beautiful Ibrox suite resembled a wedding party waiting for the bride. An odd silence descended, none of us really knew what to do and there was an awful lot of cameras.”

Just the other day, The Daily Record declared Gerrard “the King of Scottish football” because he has the largest individual social media following in the game here.

Which he had when he arrived in Scotland.

The same article admitted that Celtic has the biggest social media following of any of the clubs.

That wasn’t the headline on the piece though.

This is the media which comments on our national sport, one massively distrusted and severely disliked by the supporters of this club.

It is the media which is assisting Arsenal in the campaign to unsettle Kieran Tierney and the media which provided cover to Dave King’s Ibrox board on a truly dark day for them by running nonsense about Alfredo Morelos and China.

You read stuff like that and it’s easy to see why we have such contempt. None of it tells even half the story. Over the course of time, the media has written some sensationally bad stuff about Celtic. We never get the kind of slavish treatment the Ibrox club does.

But nor would we want it. That stuff is dangerous.

Instead we get the kind of treatment that has caused the club to stop co-operating with newspapers, as was the case when the Daily Record ran its notorious “most hated man at Ibrox” headline; or which makes managers like Martin O’Neill resort to the courts; or where our squad are branded as “thugs and thieves” and our CEO is compared to Saddam Hussein.

You can read a lengthy piece on all of those stories and some others here.

Along the way, we’ve had players being targeted in their private lives, we’ve had the newspapers pushing conspiracy theories about our directors and, in recent months, we’ve had to endure the gut wrenching spectacle of certain outlets and writers quite plainly taking their cue from websites and individuals who are, to put it mildly, not amongst our friends.

The week before I went away, Cameron himself wrote a puff piece about his pal Hugh Keevins and the level of disrespect for the press that there is on social media.

He was talking in part about this site and others like it, sites which have taken on the task of scrutinising the media as part of our role.

Not one of our sites claims to be the “voice” of the Celtic support, because this support speaks in many voices.

But almost all of them are scathing about the media on a semi-regular basis, and this is because of everything from how we view their intentions towards our club to the way they cover (or don’t cover) major issues. Trust is at an all-time low.

I have to be honest and say I’ve think we’ve passed a point of no return here.

I cannot see how the mainstream press changes the current thinking of our support. Even when they are not playing games, even when they are writing the kind of stuff that Celtic fans need to know about our club, they are accused of pursuing agendas … rightly or wrongly.

That is how far down the line this is, and there’s no coming back from it.

A fortnight ago, a couple of Celtic fans on a forum decided to start a transfer rumour and see if they could get it to spike in the press, and of course it did. The Rumour Guy did a quick article on it, and spent the rest of the night kicking his cat. (Not really, or I hope not.)

But neither he nor the Celtic sites was the intended mark here, that was the press itself.

And it isn’t the first time this has happened either; about ten years ago or so a Celtic forum created an Ibrox reserve player out of thin air and in very short order got the pundits on Radio Clyde to rave about him and the good reports they had heard … reports whose existence was obviously as fictional as the player himself.

Nobody trusts them.

Nobody can count on their due diligence or investigatory skills and it is hard to see how they can change people’s minds.

They don’t break major stories anymore; when Keevins was asked, some years back, for his career highlight he didn’t talk about a massive exclusive, he talked about the time a doorman called Finbar O’Brannigan kicked him out of the Celtic Club in London Road before one of Kenny Dalglish’s famous press conferences.

They complain bitterly to this day about those sessions, accusing Dalglish of putting their safety at risk, as though a few hours spent in the presence of Celtic fans was hazardous.

They’d rather not focus on the reason the then Celtic boss organised those sessions in the first place; he was furious over the way the media constantly twisted his words and he wanted the conferences to take place where the fans could see and hear the truth of them.

He didn’t trust them either, and those managers who don’t arrive at Celtic with that distrust develop it very swiftly after checking in.

Almost all have departed with a healthy loathing for the hacks.

O’Neill’s was legendry, Strachan’s even more so. Mowbray and Deila felt they were hounded from the word go. Lennon was, and remains, a frequent target and hates many of them. Rodgers handled them with care, but I don’t think he ever really respected them or liked them much.

I get that part of this is the morphing between the news business and the entertainment business; that’s what a lot of journalism has become and it’s pretty much what the blogs are. The difference is, this is what we’re meant to be.

They are supposed to be impartial, informative, they are supposed to offer intelligence and insight … and they don’t.

Many are nakedly partisan.

Many of the newsrooms are populated by people who are utterly ignorant of the game they are supposed to be covering.

The proliferation of ex-players as pundits – and especially in Scotland where they all seem to come from two clubs, and where few are ringing the IQ bell with aplomb – only makes matters worse, because apart from bringing a legendry level of stupidity to their titles they also bring their biases as well.

Barry Ferguson is one case in point.

So, too, is Kris Boyd.

If Derek Johnstone hadn’t found himself a career in the media on the strength of bad jokes he would be going door to door selling stuff out of a suitcase.

None of these guys belongs in a media job.

None of them is remotely qualified for it.

None of them seems to understand the game they made a living in.

And all three are nakedly pre-disposed towards Ibrox, which colours every single thing they write and makes them impossible to take seriously as mere observers.

There are those in the newsrooms who simply cut and paste stuff from elsewhere, like Joel Sked at The Scotsman, whose main output seems to consist of mashing together various stories from around the internet and publishing them as “latest news.”

Very little of it is his own original work, and the stuff which does meet that standard doesn’t meet any other.

Poor standards have been with us for years.

The occasional transfer story isn’t going to change the course of football.

There are a handful of sports writers in Scotland who have actually given the boat a bit of a rocking, and I’m going to surprise you by saying that one of them is actually Keith Jackson, who’s Ibrox biases aside has broken a few good stories over the years and is not afraid to poke Dave King with a stick when he thinks he needs to.

Others, like Graham Spiers, bury themselves behind paywalls and what intellect and heft they could bring to Scottish football debate disappears with them. That guy could have been a genuine friend to the reform agenda over the years and he chose not to be.

And that’s worse; it’s the way the media in this country has tried to frame all debate within football, deciding what the real issues are and aren’t, as well as pushing naked untruths like the Survival and Victim Lies which really push the Celtic Family to fury.

One of the worst culprits of all is the national broadcaster itself, with a number of employees who are simply loathed by our supporters for a variety of reasons.

One of the worst is Tom English, whose contempt for anyone in the blogosphere and those who read us is well known and undisguised, although his own pronouncements and articles are often as daft and in denial of reality as those you will read anywhere else.

His most talked about segment of recent years was the slavish interview he did with Kris Boyd, which some of his own colleagues found too much to bear.

The BBC is seen by many Celtic fans as a wholly gutless organisation, the one we had hoped would tell the truth in 2012 and beyond and the one we expected to support genuine changes at the SFA and which should have been right behind Celtic’s call for an inquiry into all the events of those years and the preceding ones which caused such ructions in our sport.

Instead the BBC sided with the governing body.

They have refused to back our club.

They are ardent promoters of both the Victim and Survival lies … the twin supports on which so much of the negative stuff in our game still sits. Yet it is the Ibrox club, not Celtic, which broke off contact with them and continues to be at war with them to this day.

How can we trust that? How are we supposed to believe that when the chips are down we can count on anything the press say or do? We can’t, and we know we can’t.

This is the nine in a row season, and we know that we’re going to see a lot of drama in the coming campaign.

We know that another Ibrox operation is rotting from the inside.

We know this in spite of the press, not because of them.

We can imagine how the SFA will act as this season rolls on and the pressure on them steps up.

Celtic fans have the blogs. The rest of Scottish football operates in the dark. It is not just our fans who don’t trust the people in the press boxes, it’s all of us. This season our club has to be on its game to make sure that the nine in a row is secured.

But we do too, we in the blogosphere.

Because this season is different, and we know that we cannot trust the mainstream press to keep an eye on things.

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