Newborn little red riding hood costume
AKAZUKIN - LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD (赤ずきん)
2022.03.27 08:14 ArmStoragePlus AKAZUKIN - LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD (赤ずきん)
Welcome to Akazukin, a subreddit dedicated to anime style arts of Little Red Riding Hood, be it fantasy themed, urban themed, sci-fi themed, military themed, and such.
2015.10.26 16:32 wykedcomputergirl The 10th Kingdom
A woman and her father get caught in a parallel world where warring trolls, giants and goblins have fragmented the kingdoms of Snow White, Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood.
2018.11.10 08:39 triface1 Night of the Full Moon
Night of the Full Moon is a roguelike deck-building game available on both iOS and Android. You play as Little Red Riding Hood with multiple classes available that determine the types of cards and playstyle you will have.
2023.06.07 04:43 autobuzzfeedbot 17 "Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse" Details That Are So Good Because Of How They Foreshadow "Across The Spider-Verse"
- First, right before Miles is bitten, the spider swinging down glitches several times, which is now an obvious sign that this spider is not from Miles' Earth.
- And you can clearly see a "42" written on the back of the spider that bites Miles. Of course, in Across the Spider-Verse, we learn that the spider that bit Miles was from Earth-42.
- When Miles swings and falls from a building in Into the Spider-Verse, you'll see he lands between the numbers 4 and 2. A reference to Miles being bit by a spider from Earth-42.
- In Into the Spider-Verse, the number 42 also pops up on the price tag for the Spider-Man costume Miles buys from Stan. Again, another nod to Earth-42, which is explored more in Across the Spider-Verse.
- Also, the lottery ball number that is seen in the beginning of Into the Spider-Verse reads "42," another nod to Earth-42 and its connection to our Miles Morales.
- When Miles captures Peter B., he ties him to a punching bag, which is exactly how Earth-42 Miles, aka Prowler-Miles, and Uncle Aaron capture our Miles at the end of Across the Spider-Verse.
- Also, Peter B. escapes Miles' little trap and gives him his first lesson: "Don't watch the mouth, watch the hands." I'm only assuming Miles will use this trick to escape, as we see him using his shock powers on the chains he's tied up with, but Prowler-Miles is too distracted talking to Miles to notice in Across the Spider-Verse.
- In Across the Spider-Verse, when The Spot is telling Miles about how he became The Spot, he mentions how Miles hit him with a bagel. You can see this exact moment in Into the Spider-Verse when Miles and Peter B. are trying to escape Dr. Olivia Octavius.
- At one point in Into the Spider-Verse, we see Miles' spidey-senses tingle when he meets his Earth's Peter Parker, but they are purple and green before they shift to blue and red. The Prowler's signature colors are purple and green, so this foreshadows the twist of Prowler-Miles from Earth-42.
- When Peter Parker is introducing himself in the beginning of Into the Spider-Verse, he says how he has a "so-so popsicle." In Across the Spider-Verse, when Miles is being chased by all of the Spider-People, the popsicle is one of the Spider-Man variants chasing him.
- When Miles visits Uncle Aaron, you can see Community Season 2, Episode 1 is playing on the TV. In the episode, Donald Glover can be seen dressed as Spider-Man, and it started a fan campaign of people wanting Donald to play Spider-Man. In Across the Spider-Verse, Donald makes a cameo as an alternate version of Aaron/Prowler.
- When Gwen tells her story in Into the Spider-Verse, she mentions how her best friend, Peter Parker, died. Of course, in Across the Spider-Verse, we watch this whole moment play out as the opening of the movie.
- You can also see Peter shift from Lizard to Peter in Into the Spider-Verse, which again, is explained in more detail when we follow Gwen's life and what led to her joining Miguel and Jessica in Across the Spider-Verse.
- In Into the Spider-Verse, when we meet Peter B., he mentions how he and MJ broke up because she wanted kids and he wasn't ready. Then, in Across the Spider-Verse, he has a daughter and tells Miles he finally felt ready because of him.
- When Fisk's super-collider goes off in the beginning of the movie, the black spots are much more obvious now that we know about The Spot and his connection to everything. Even when the other Spider-People come to Miles' Earth, the spots on the portals are so obvious now.
- While I'm not sure this is on purpose, when Miles paints his mural with Uncle Aaron in Into the Spider-Verse, his silhouette looks a lot like The Spot, with black and white being the main colors. Again, might be reaching here, but it's something I paused at while rewatching.
- And finally, in the Into the Spider-Verse post-credits scene, we see Miguel make his first multiverse jump to Earth-67, where he clearly is trying to recruit that Earth's Spider-Man to join his Spider-Society. Of course, they instead get into an argument about pointing.
2023.06.07 04:41 thejdam3256 I have severe driving anxiety and it's ruining my life
I (22M) live in a photogenic, good ol' western American suburb, still rocking my childhood bedroom in my parents' house (thanks rent prices). Growing up, I never needed to worry much about transport (or even thought about it at all, really), my elementary school is literally next to my subdivision, and any other place I visited regularly was either a 10 minute walk or 5 minute ride in my parents' cars; there was no inbetween. But, I'm not a kid anymore. I'm in my twenties. I have my own life (even if it doesn't feel like it), responsibilities and expectations. Problem is, I'm severely stunted by my stubborn, infuriating inability to operate a car. I started feeling it a little bit before I got my permit, but I chalked it up to just me being nervous. When I actually started driving, though, I never shook it, never "got used to it," never felt the godawful stress symptoms or negative opinions on it fade in any way. They only got worse and worse and now they're crippling, despite my effort and hours upon hours of forcing myself to do it.
I got my license out of pure spite and luck, and sometimes I seriously consider giving it up and just having a state issued ID so there's no expectation of me to drive. But I shut those thoughts down because I wouldn't be able to completely escape the horrible feelings anyway. In the years since, my intrusive thoughts and nauseating anxiety has bled into simply riding in a car in general, so having the ability to legally drive in an emergency situation would be nice, I guess.
It's difficult to describe how I feel when driving in a way that makes perfect sense to other people because my anxiety (fear? phobia?) is inherently irrational, and that makes it all the worse because the non caveman part of my brain recognizes that. So I guess I'll just ramble and push enter a couple of times when I'm done and maybe it'll make sense. I need to try and justify myself in a medium where I can think about what I'm saying so I don't sound absolutely insane and completely embarrass myself like I've done before.
Cars feel too big. I could be driving the smallest little Beetle or Mini, and the thing would still feel as big as a fucking continent. Even imagining driving one of those huge fuck off death machines called a pickup truck sends me into a spiral. The wheel being off center makes me feel like there's this, like, mass that's stuck to my side and I'm afraid I'm gonna smash into something whenever I turn right. You know that vertigo effect they do in movies? Where they move the camera backwards and zoom in at the same time when looking down a long hallway? That's similar to what it feels like looking across the hood of a car from the driver's seat to me. Like, the hood is so fucking long and it could be hiding anything behind it even though I know it isn't. I guess it makes me look at the road at least. Not to mention backing up, Jesus Christ backing up is a nightmare. Thank god for back up cameras.
Going at any decent speed makes me feel sick. Thinking about how fast I'm going on the highway, especially since I've been outside of a car on it and have seen and felt just how fucking fast a car going 60-80 mph is is insane to me. It feels so wrong. My gut feeling is that I should not have the ability to move something this stupidly big weighing literal tons this fast. I cannot fathom the idea of purposefully going over 100 mph in a car. That feels unreal to me. I genuinely don't think I could make myself do that. I get intrusive thoughts of unwittingly slamming into a median or someone materializing in front of me all the time. Imagining the aftermath of those scenarios make me want to puke. Obviously I try not to do that, but sometimes your mind wanders towards it anyway.
There's also just the general symptoms of anxiety and panic I feel when shit gets really stressful (i.e. the highway or traffic jams). My heart beats a million miles an hour, I sweat like a pig and hyperventilate, the works. I've gotten very good at grounding myself and focusing when it gets bad but fuck me it is always an awful experience.
I guess my brain chemistry is just not built for driving. At least I have a robust, efficient and affordable public transportation network in my city, right? No. This is America, baby! Of course, there's no other transport options near my home. The nearest bus stop is a convenient two hour walk away and the bus routes are shit! :) There is a train station somewhat nearby, but guess what? The route is shit and goes nowhere near where I need or want to go and in other cities no less! :) Biking around the stroads here is a fucking deathwish! There's also no bike lane or even a fucking sidewalk on 90% of the roads here! :) So essentially, I'm fucking landlocked. We bulldozed our cities for these dangerous, obnoxious, expensive machines and that is existentially infuriating.
My life has been completely fucked by this stupid, stupid thing I have. I can't get a job that's even a decent distance away, so I'm stuck doing gig work online and odd jobs around the neighborhood for money (and seasonal work for events that set up near my home). Shocker, it isn't much. I save what I can, but I am very poor because I insist on paying my own way for the things I use. I cannot afford a car and I don't even want one in the first place, but I kinda need one. Hey, at least I'm known as the neighborhood handy man? My parents both work jobs where they can be potentially called in at any time, so I need to schedule car use with them and I need to complete trips fast. My parents are very sweet and understanding and I love them to death, but I hate myself every time I need to go somewhere with one of their cars. Not only does it feel like I'm potentially jeopardizing their livelihoods if I get held up for any reason, but with my rambling you read above, it also feels like I'm signing up to get shot in the gut.
My dating life has been nonexistent since high school. I'm sure it makes a great first impression on someone when you can't go out to see them or if you ask them for a ride to the coffeeshop! :)
My group of close friends, god bless their souls, are also 100% understanding of my situation and have been so sweet by offering me rides to their apartment they share to hang out on the weekends. They're like siblings to me (we've all known each other since elementary school) but, again, it feels so wrong to have to rely on them to go places.
It is viscerally embarrassing when I ask them to go somewhere or to slow down on a back road because I feel gross, so I rarely do.
Honestly, I don't know what to do. I have no clue how to approach or start getting over this outside of just driving. But I think it's fairly obvious that I shouldn't be doing it just to do it. I feel like an insufferable leech and I wish I could just make myself go places. I'm not spending $50 on an Uber to the fucking grocery store. Any advice is very welcome because I'm getting really tired of feeling like a child in an adult man's body. I genuinely want to get better and start my life way after I should've. I want to stop telling my friends, "I'm okay," when I'm clearly not. But I'm very happy to have finally said this out loud to someone in a way I wanted. Thank you. God bless the suburbs.
submitted by thejdam3256 to offmychest [link] [comments]
I got my license out of pure spite and luck, and sometimes I seriously consider giving it up and just having a state issued ID so there's no expectation of me to drive. But I shut those thoughts down because I wouldn't be able to completely escape the horrible feelings anyway. In the years since, my intrusive thoughts and nauseating anxiety has bled into simply riding in a car in general, so having the ability to legally drive in an emergency situation would be nice, I guess.
It's difficult to describe how I feel when driving in a way that makes perfect sense to other people because my anxiety (fear? phobia?) is inherently irrational, and that makes it all the worse because the non caveman part of my brain recognizes that. So I guess I'll just ramble and push enter a couple of times when I'm done and maybe it'll make sense. I need to try and justify myself in a medium where I can think about what I'm saying so I don't sound absolutely insane and completely embarrass myself like I've done before.
Cars feel too big. I could be driving the smallest little Beetle or Mini, and the thing would still feel as big as a fucking continent. Even imagining driving one of those huge fuck off death machines called a pickup truck sends me into a spiral. The wheel being off center makes me feel like there's this, like, mass that's stuck to my side and I'm afraid I'm gonna smash into something whenever I turn right. You know that vertigo effect they do in movies? Where they move the camera backwards and zoom in at the same time when looking down a long hallway? That's similar to what it feels like looking across the hood of a car from the driver's seat to me. Like, the hood is so fucking long and it could be hiding anything behind it even though I know it isn't. I guess it makes me look at the road at least. Not to mention backing up, Jesus Christ backing up is a nightmare. Thank god for back up cameras.
Going at any decent speed makes me feel sick. Thinking about how fast I'm going on the highway, especially since I've been outside of a car on it and have seen and felt just how fucking fast a car going 60-80 mph is is insane to me. It feels so wrong. My gut feeling is that I should not have the ability to move something this stupidly big weighing literal tons this fast. I cannot fathom the idea of purposefully going over 100 mph in a car. That feels unreal to me. I genuinely don't think I could make myself do that. I get intrusive thoughts of unwittingly slamming into a median or someone materializing in front of me all the time. Imagining the aftermath of those scenarios make me want to puke. Obviously I try not to do that, but sometimes your mind wanders towards it anyway.
There's also just the general symptoms of anxiety and panic I feel when shit gets really stressful (i.e. the highway or traffic jams). My heart beats a million miles an hour, I sweat like a pig and hyperventilate, the works. I've gotten very good at grounding myself and focusing when it gets bad but fuck me it is always an awful experience.
I guess my brain chemistry is just not built for driving. At least I have a robust, efficient and affordable public transportation network in my city, right? No. This is America, baby! Of course, there's no other transport options near my home. The nearest bus stop is a convenient two hour walk away and the bus routes are shit! :) There is a train station somewhat nearby, but guess what? The route is shit and goes nowhere near where I need or want to go and in other cities no less! :) Biking around the stroads here is a fucking deathwish! There's also no bike lane or even a fucking sidewalk on 90% of the roads here! :) So essentially, I'm fucking landlocked. We bulldozed our cities for these dangerous, obnoxious, expensive machines and that is existentially infuriating.
My life has been completely fucked by this stupid, stupid thing I have. I can't get a job that's even a decent distance away, so I'm stuck doing gig work online and odd jobs around the neighborhood for money (and seasonal work for events that set up near my home). Shocker, it isn't much. I save what I can, but I am very poor because I insist on paying my own way for the things I use. I cannot afford a car and I don't even want one in the first place, but I kinda need one. Hey, at least I'm known as the neighborhood handy man? My parents both work jobs where they can be potentially called in at any time, so I need to schedule car use with them and I need to complete trips fast. My parents are very sweet and understanding and I love them to death, but I hate myself every time I need to go somewhere with one of their cars. Not only does it feel like I'm potentially jeopardizing their livelihoods if I get held up for any reason, but with my rambling you read above, it also feels like I'm signing up to get shot in the gut.
My dating life has been nonexistent since high school. I'm sure it makes a great first impression on someone when you can't go out to see them or if you ask them for a ride to the coffeeshop! :)
My group of close friends, god bless their souls, are also 100% understanding of my situation and have been so sweet by offering me rides to their apartment they share to hang out on the weekends. They're like siblings to me (we've all known each other since elementary school) but, again, it feels so wrong to have to rely on them to go places.
It is viscerally embarrassing when I ask them to go somewhere or to slow down on a back road because I feel gross, so I rarely do.
Honestly, I don't know what to do. I have no clue how to approach or start getting over this outside of just driving. But I think it's fairly obvious that I shouldn't be doing it just to do it. I feel like an insufferable leech and I wish I could just make myself go places. I'm not spending $50 on an Uber to the fucking grocery store. Any advice is very welcome because I'm getting really tired of feeling like a child in an adult man's body. I genuinely want to get better and start my life way after I should've. I want to stop telling my friends, "I'm okay," when I'm clearly not. But I'm very happy to have finally said this out loud to someone in a way I wanted. Thank you. God bless the suburbs.
2023.06.07 04:29 ddaveyy [USA-CA] [H] Various games for the following consoles: Gamecube, Gameboy, GBA, SNES, Nintendo 64, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, PS1, PS2, PS3, PSP, Sega Genesis, Wii, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC. As well as various consoles, Amiibos, accessories and game manuals. [W] Paypal, Venmo, Cashapp, Etc.
Hey everyone!! Back with a new and updated post. These prices are WITHOUT shipping. I will provide a quote for you, but it usually isn't more than $6 unless the items won't fit in a regular bubble mailer.
Everything has been personally tested by me and is confirmed to be fully functional. I can provide pictures upon request. I tried to stay below pricecharting, if I'm off on any of my prices, I'm more than open to offers!
PLEASE NOTE: I am open to ALL offers. The worst I can say is no!
Here's everything I'm currently selling:
SNES Samurai Shodown $9 Loose, in roughish condition.
Nintendo 64 Turok 2 Seeds of Evil (Gray cart) $10 Loose.
Nintendo 64 WWF Wrestlemania 2000 $14 Loose.
Gamecube All-Star Baseball 2002 $3 Loose.
Gamecube ATV Quad Power Racing 2 $8 Loose.
Gamecube Bionicle $5 Loose.
Gamecube Chronicles of Narnia $5 Loose.
Gamecube City Racer $41 CIB.
Gamecube Disney Sports Skateboarding $20 Game, case, and original artwork only.
Gamecube Hunter The Reckoning $12 Loose.
Gamecube King Kong $9 Loose.
Gamecube Namco Museum 50th Anniversary $12 Loose.
Gamecube Sonic Adventure DX $30 Original case, cover art, and game.
Gamecube Super Mario Strikers $62 CIB.
Gamecube Spongebob Creature From Krusty Krab $17 CIB.
Gamecube Viewtiful Joe Red Hot Rumble $90 Sealed. Some damage on the backside label. Please inquire for pics.
Gamecube Whirl Tour $8 Missing manual.
Wii Bass Pro Shops: The Hunt $2 Disc and box, no accessories.
Wii Bass Pro Shops: The Strike $2 Disc and box, no accessories.
Wii Big Buck Hunter Pro $10 CIB game and gun accessory, no big box. Shipping will be around $10.
Wii Black Eyed Peas Experience $2 CIB.
Wii Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2011 $2 CIB.
Wii DJ Hero 2 $2 Disc and box.
Wii EA Sports Active 2 $2 Disc in box, no other accessories.
Wii EA Sports NFL Training Camp $2 Disc in box, no other accessories.
Wii Epic Mickey 2 $15 Sealed.
Wii Link's Crossbow Training $5 Included pouch that would come with Wii console.
Wii MLB Superstars $4 Disc and box.
Wii Naruto Shippuden: Clash of Ninja Revolution 3 $12 CIB.
Wii NASCAR The Game 2011 $5 Disc and box.
Wii Need for Speed Prostreet $4 Disc and box.
Wii New Super Mario Bros. Wii $18 Loose.
Wii Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 $3 Disc in box.
Wii Red Steel $3 Disc in box.
Wii Tony Hawk Ride $2 Disc in box, no skateboard.
Wii We Love Golf! $7 CIB.Wii Wii Play $4 Loose.
Gameboy Batman The Video Game $18 Loose.
Gameboy Advance 007 Everything or Nothing $10 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Activision Anthology $21 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Avatar The Burning Earth $13 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Batman Begins $9 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Bratz $1 Loose, has no label.
Gameboy Advance Crash of the Titans $10 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Elf Bowling 1 & 2 $16 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Family Feud $5 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Fantastic 4 $6 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Finding Nemo $6 Loose.
Gameboy Advance GT3 Advance Pro Concept Racing $12 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Klonoa Empire of Dreams $41 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Madden 2003 $3 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Monster Force $7 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Mouse Trap/Operation/Simon $5 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Namco Museum $3 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Namco Museum 50th Anniversary $10 Loose.
Gameboy Advance NFL Blitz 2003 $8 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Nicktoons Freeze Frame Frenzy $5 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Nicktoons Freeze Frame Frenzy and Spongebob Squarepants Battle for Bikini Bottom Dual Cart $4 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Pirates of the Caribbean The Curse of the Black Pearl $7 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Scooby Doo $7 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Snood $7 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Spongebob's Atlantis Squarepantis $7 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Spongebob Squarepants Movie $10 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Sudoku Fever $4 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Texas Hold Em Poker $3 Loose.
Gameboy Advance That's So Raven $6 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Treasure Planet $9 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Ultimate Card Games $6 Loose.
Nintendo DS Band Hero $12 CIB.
Nintendo DS Big Brain Academy $4 Loose.
Nintendo DS Bleach The Blade of Fate $12 Loose.
Nintendo DS Brain Age $4 CIB.
Nintendo DS Charlotte's Web $4 Loose.
Nintendo DS Coraline (Have two copies) $70 Both CIB.
Nintendo DS Contact $28 Loose.
Nintendo DS Dragon Ball Z Supersonic Warriors 2 $20 Loose.
Nintendo DS Dynasty Warriors DS Fighters Battle $10 Loose.
Nintendo DS Guitar Hero On Tour (Have two copies) $3 Both loose.
Nintendo DS Hannah Montana $4 Loose.
Nintendo DS Harvest Moon DS $20 Missing manual, otherwise cib.
Nintendo DS Imagine Babyz $3 Loose.
Nintendo DS Inuyasha Secret of the Divine Jewel $55 Loose.
Nintendo DS Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues $7 CIB.
Nintendo DS Madden 06 $4 Loose.
Nintendo DS Mario&Luigi Partners in Time $61 CIB.
Nintendo DS Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (Have two copies) $8/$11 One copy loose, one cib.
Nintendo DS Metroid Prime Hunters First Hunt $8 Loose.
Nintendo DS Nicktoons Unite $9 Loose.
Nintendo DS Petz Catz 2 $3 Loose.
Nintendo DS Ratatouille $8 Loose.
Nintendo DS Scrabble $7 CIB.
Nintendo DS The Simpsons Game $14 Loose.
Nintendo DS Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor $50 CIB.
Nintendo DS Skate It $9 CIB.
Nintendo DS Sonic Colors $8 Loose.
Nintendo DS Sonic Rush $13 Loose.
Nintendo DS Suite Life of Zack & Cody Tipton Trouble $6 Loose.
Nintendo DS Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll $9 CIB.
Nintendo DS Tetris Party Deluxe (Have two copies) $9/$4 Both copies loose, one missing it's sticker.
Nintendo DS The Amazing Spider-Man $10 CIB.
Nintendo DS The Sims 2 Pets $5 Loose.
Nintendo DS Tom and Jerry Tales $8 Loose.
Nintendo DS Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam $6 Loose.
Nintendo DS Wipeout The Game $4 CIB.
NINTENDO DS BOX ONLY
Nintendo DS Cooking Mama $1
Nintendo DS Jump Super Stars $1 Japanese version box and manual.
Nintendo DS Scribblenauts $1
Nintendo 3DS Fire Emblem Awakening $36 CIB.
Nintendo 3DS Fire Emblem Shadows of Valentia $33 CIB.
Nintendo 3DS Luigi's Mansion $40 Loose.
Nintendo 3DS Madden NFL Football $15 CIB.
Nintendo 3DS Pokemon Ultra Moon $35 CIB.
Nintendo 3DS Pokemon X $35 CIB.
Nintendo 3DS Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers $41 Loose.
Nintendo 3DS Super Smash Bros for Nintendo 3DS $11 CIB.
Nintendo Switch Bioshock The Collection $21 CIB.
Nintendo Switch Diofield Chronicle $35 CIB.
Nintendo Switch Diablo III Eternal Collection $22 CIB.
Nintendo Switch Dragon Ball: The Breakers $13 CIB.
Nintendo Switch Fire Emblem: Three Houses $32 CIB.
Nintendo Switch Moonlighter $15 Loose in gamestop box.
Nintendo Switch My Friend Pedro $20 Loose in gamestop box.
Nintendo Switch Supermarket Shriek $18 Sealed.
Nintendo Switch Tandem A Tale Of Shadows $28 Sealed.
Nintendo Switch Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes $25 Loose in gamestop box.
Sega Genesis Frogger $10 Loose in original case (no artwork.)
Sega Genesis Monopoly $7 Original case, artwork, and cartridge.
Sega Genesis Vectorman $10 Loose in original case (no artwork.)
PS1 Army Men Air Attack (Collector's Edition) $8 CIB, jewel case is broken.
PS1 Big Game Hunter Ultimate Challenge $5 Missing front page/manual.
PS1 Billiards $4 CIB. Jewel case is broken and cracked.
PS1 Bravo Air Race $12 CIB.
PS1 Cool Boarders 2 $3 Loose.
PS1 Command and Conquer Red Alert Retaliation $15 Missing manual.
PS1 Crossroad Crisis $7 CIB.
PS1 CyberTiger $7 CIB.
PS1 Dukes of Hazzard Racing For Home $9 CIB.
PS1 Final Fantasy Chronicles $18 Missing manual. Greatest hits.
PS1 Harvest Moon Back to Nature $50 CIB.
PS1 Jade Cocoon Demo Disc $10 Loose in sleeve.
PS1 Interactive CD Sampler Disc Volume 9 $10 CIB in it's sleeve.
PS1 Knockout Kings 2001 $7 CIB. Jewel case is broken.
PS1 Madden 98 $5 Loose.
PS1 Nascar Rumble $13 CIB.
PS1 NBA Shoot Out $5 Loose.
PS1 NCAA Football 2001 $10 CIB.
PS1 NBA Live 98 $4 Loose.
PS1 NHL 99 $4 CIB, jewel case is broken.
PS1 NHL Face Off 99 $5 CIB, jewel case is cracked.
PS1 NHL Face Off $4 Loose.
PS1 NHL 2000 $4 CIB, jewel case is broken.
PS1 Rally Cross 2 $6 CIB, jewel case is cracked and broken.
PS1 Raystorm $35 Loose.
PS1 Sesame Street Sports $8 CIB.
PS1 Sim Theme Park $6 Missing manual/front page.
PS1 Spongebob Squarepants Super Sponge $8 CIB, greatest hits.
PS1 Tetris Plus $6 CIB, jewel case is cracked.
PS1 Tiger Woods '99 $7 CIB.
PS1 Triple Play 99 $2 Loose.
PS1 Vigilante 8 $10 Loose.
PS1 WWF Smackdown $10 Missing manual/cover page.
PS1 WWF Warzone (Have two copies) $6/$4 One copy loose, one copy CIB.
PS2 Def Jam Vendetta $22 Loose.
PS2 Enter the Matrix $10 CIB.
PS2 Ever Grace $20 CIB.
PS2 Grand Theft Auto III $5 Loose.
PS2 Hunter The Reckoning Wayward $6 Loose.
PS2 IHRA Professional Drag Racing 2005 $4 Loose.
PS2 Justice League Heroes $11 CIB.
PS2 Medal of Honor Frontline $4 CIB.
PS2 Naruto Ultimate Collection $110 Sealed! Please inquire for pics. Really cool collector's game.
PS2 Nightshade $28 Loose.
PS2 Onimusha Blade Warriors $9 Loose.
PS2 Playstation Underground Jampack $4 Loose.
PS2 R-Type Final $17 Loose.
PS2 Rygar $7 Loose.
PS2 Shinobi $11 Loose.
PS2 Spiderman $9 CIB.
PS2 Spongebob Squarepants Battle for Bikini Bottom $12 CIB.
PS2 Tetris Worlds $6 CIB.
PS2 The Thing $42 CIB.
PS2 Thunder Strike: Operation Phoenix $6 CIB.
PS2 CASE & MANUAL Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 2 $10 Case and manual only.
PS3 The Last Of Us $20 CIB.
PS3 NBA 2k18 $10 Loose.
PSP Dissidia Final Fantasy $9 Loose.
PSP Final Fantasy Tactics: THe War of the Lions $17 Loose.
PSP G-Force $3 Missing manual.
PSP Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 $8 CIB.
PSP Ghostbusters The Video Game $11 Loose in gamestop box.
PSP Ghost Rider $12 Loose in gamestop box.
PSP God of War Chains of Olympus $16 Loose.
PSP Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom $15 UMD, case and original artwork only.
PSP Killzone Liberations $6 Loose.
PSP Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars $12 CIB.
PSP LocoRoco $4 Loose.
PSP Madden NFL 12 $20 CIB.
PSP Madden 2007 $5 CIB.
PSP Madden 2008 $5 CIB.
PSP Medal of Honor Heroes 2 $10 CIB.
PSP Monster Hunter Freedom $18 Missing manual.
PSP MX vs ATV: Reflex $5 Loose in gamestop box.
PSP NBA 10 The Inside $6 CIB.
PSP NBA Live 2007 $5 CIB.
PSP Neopets Petpet Adventures The Wand of Wishing $7 Loose.
PSP SNK Arcade Classics Volume 1 $14 Loose.
PSP Socom U.S. Navy Seals Fireteam Bravo $4 CIB.
PSP Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas $7 CIB.
PSP Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's Tag Force 5 $30 Box, UMD, and original artwork only.
Xbox Doom 3 $10 CIB.
Xbox Evil Dead Fistful of Boomstick $20 Box, disc, and original artwork only.
Xbox Metal Slug 3 $20 CIB.
Xbox Soul Calibur II $10 CIB
Xbox 360 Call of Duty Black Ops $12 CIB.
Xbox 360 Dragon's Dogma $5 CIB.
Xbox 360 Forza Horizon $17 CIB.
Xbox 360 Killer is Dead $20 Missing manual, otherwise CIB. Special Edition.
Xbox 360 NCAA Football 12 $16 CIB.
Xbox 360 NCAA Football 13 $25 CIB.
Xbox One Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited $3 CIB.
Xbox One Rock Band 4 (Have two copies) $15 ea Both CIB.
Xbox One Titanfall $3 CIB.
Xbox One Rainbow Six Siege $3 Loose.
PC Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight $8 Comes with manual in original case.
GAME MANUALS:
Gameboy Batman Forever $10 Good.
Gameboy Boxxle II $20 Good.
Gameboy Tetris $4 Good.
Gameboy Advance Activision Anthology $10 Good.
Nintendo 64 007 GoldenEye $6 Good.
Nintendo 64 Mission Impossible $5 Good.
Nintendo 64 Mortal Kombat 4 $10 Good.
Nintendo 64 NBA Hang Time $6 Good.
Nintendo 64 Super Mario 64 $10 Good.
Nintendo 64 Super Smash Bros $12 Good.
Nintendo 64 Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey $5 Good.
AMIIBOS:
Blue Yarn Yoshi Good $15 Loose.
Chibi-Robo Good $10 Loose.
Green Yarn Yoshi Good $15 Loose.
Link Good $25 Loose, smash bros.
Waddle Dee Good $13 Loose.
GAME ACCESORIES:
Poke Ball Plus $55 Loose, in good condition. No Mew.
OEM Nintendo Gameboy Mini Backpack $20 Cool little OEM nintendo collectible. Blue color, in good condition.
Club Nintendo Luigi Hat DS Carry Case Bag Pouch $20 Good condition, cool Luigi collectible.
Gameshark Pro 3.3 for Nintendo 64 $30 Loose.
3rd party Gamecube memory cards $5 3rd party memory cards.
OEM Gamecube Controllers $35 each. Have four available, one black, two indigo, and one indigo/clear, all have nice and tight sticks.
OEM Gameboy Four Player Adapter $15 Loose in good condition.
OEM Nintendo 64 Controller $20 Green controller, nice and tight stick.
OEM Nintendo 64 Controller Pak $30 CIB, box in okay condition.
OEM PS1 Controller $15 One PS One controller available.
submitted by ddaveyy to GameSale [link] [comments]
Everything has been personally tested by me and is confirmed to be fully functional. I can provide pictures upon request. I tried to stay below pricecharting, if I'm off on any of my prices, I'm more than open to offers!
PLEASE NOTE: I am open to ALL offers. The worst I can say is no!
Here's everything I'm currently selling:
SNES Samurai Shodown $9 Loose, in roughish condition.
Nintendo 64 Turok 2 Seeds of Evil (Gray cart) $10 Loose.
Nintendo 64 WWF Wrestlemania 2000 $14 Loose.
Gamecube All-Star Baseball 2002 $3 Loose.
Gamecube ATV Quad Power Racing 2 $8 Loose.
Gamecube Bionicle $5 Loose.
Gamecube Chronicles of Narnia $5 Loose.
Gamecube City Racer $41 CIB.
Gamecube Disney Sports Skateboarding $20 Game, case, and original artwork only.
Gamecube Hunter The Reckoning $12 Loose.
Gamecube King Kong $9 Loose.
Gamecube Namco Museum 50th Anniversary $12 Loose.
Gamecube Sonic Adventure DX $30 Original case, cover art, and game.
Gamecube Super Mario Strikers $62 CIB.
Gamecube Spongebob Creature From Krusty Krab $17 CIB.
Gamecube Viewtiful Joe Red Hot Rumble $90 Sealed. Some damage on the backside label. Please inquire for pics.
Gamecube Whirl Tour $8 Missing manual.
Wii Bass Pro Shops: The Hunt $2 Disc and box, no accessories.
Wii Bass Pro Shops: The Strike $2 Disc and box, no accessories.
Wii Big Buck Hunter Pro $10 CIB game and gun accessory, no big box. Shipping will be around $10.
Wii Black Eyed Peas Experience $2 CIB.
Wii Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2011 $2 CIB.
Wii DJ Hero 2 $2 Disc and box.
Wii EA Sports Active 2 $2 Disc in box, no other accessories.
Wii EA Sports NFL Training Camp $2 Disc in box, no other accessories.
Wii Epic Mickey 2 $15 Sealed.
Wii Link's Crossbow Training $5 Included pouch that would come with Wii console.
Wii MLB Superstars $4 Disc and box.
Wii Naruto Shippuden: Clash of Ninja Revolution 3 $12 CIB.
Wii NASCAR The Game 2011 $5 Disc and box.
Wii Need for Speed Prostreet $4 Disc and box.
Wii New Super Mario Bros. Wii $18 Loose.
Wii Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 $3 Disc in box.
Wii Red Steel $3 Disc in box.
Wii Tony Hawk Ride $2 Disc in box, no skateboard.
Wii We Love Golf! $7 CIB.Wii Wii Play $4 Loose.
Gameboy Batman The Video Game $18 Loose.
Gameboy Advance 007 Everything or Nothing $10 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Activision Anthology $21 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Avatar The Burning Earth $13 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Batman Begins $9 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Bratz $1 Loose, has no label.
Gameboy Advance Crash of the Titans $10 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Elf Bowling 1 & 2 $16 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Family Feud $5 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Fantastic 4 $6 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Finding Nemo $6 Loose.
Gameboy Advance GT3 Advance Pro Concept Racing $12 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Klonoa Empire of Dreams $41 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Madden 2003 $3 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Monster Force $7 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Mouse Trap/Operation/Simon $5 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Namco Museum $3 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Namco Museum 50th Anniversary $10 Loose.
Gameboy Advance NFL Blitz 2003 $8 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Nicktoons Freeze Frame Frenzy $5 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Nicktoons Freeze Frame Frenzy and Spongebob Squarepants Battle for Bikini Bottom Dual Cart $4 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Pirates of the Caribbean The Curse of the Black Pearl $7 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Scooby Doo $7 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Snood $7 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Spongebob's Atlantis Squarepantis $7 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Spongebob Squarepants Movie $10 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Sudoku Fever $4 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Texas Hold Em Poker $3 Loose.
Gameboy Advance That's So Raven $6 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Treasure Planet $9 Loose.
Gameboy Advance Ultimate Card Games $6 Loose.
Nintendo DS Band Hero $12 CIB.
Nintendo DS Big Brain Academy $4 Loose.
Nintendo DS Bleach The Blade of Fate $12 Loose.
Nintendo DS Brain Age $4 CIB.
Nintendo DS Charlotte's Web $4 Loose.
Nintendo DS Coraline (Have two copies) $70 Both CIB.
Nintendo DS Contact $28 Loose.
Nintendo DS Dragon Ball Z Supersonic Warriors 2 $20 Loose.
Nintendo DS Dynasty Warriors DS Fighters Battle $10 Loose.
Nintendo DS Guitar Hero On Tour (Have two copies) $3 Both loose.
Nintendo DS Hannah Montana $4 Loose.
Nintendo DS Harvest Moon DS $20 Missing manual, otherwise cib.
Nintendo DS Imagine Babyz $3 Loose.
Nintendo DS Inuyasha Secret of the Divine Jewel $55 Loose.
Nintendo DS Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues $7 CIB.
Nintendo DS Madden 06 $4 Loose.
Nintendo DS Mario&Luigi Partners in Time $61 CIB.
Nintendo DS Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (Have two copies) $8/$11 One copy loose, one cib.
Nintendo DS Metroid Prime Hunters First Hunt $8 Loose.
Nintendo DS Nicktoons Unite $9 Loose.
Nintendo DS Petz Catz 2 $3 Loose.
Nintendo DS Ratatouille $8 Loose.
Nintendo DS Scrabble $7 CIB.
Nintendo DS The Simpsons Game $14 Loose.
Nintendo DS Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor $50 CIB.
Nintendo DS Skate It $9 CIB.
Nintendo DS Sonic Colors $8 Loose.
Nintendo DS Sonic Rush $13 Loose.
Nintendo DS Suite Life of Zack & Cody Tipton Trouble $6 Loose.
Nintendo DS Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll $9 CIB.
Nintendo DS Tetris Party Deluxe (Have two copies) $9/$4 Both copies loose, one missing it's sticker.
Nintendo DS The Amazing Spider-Man $10 CIB.
Nintendo DS The Sims 2 Pets $5 Loose.
Nintendo DS Tom and Jerry Tales $8 Loose.
Nintendo DS Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam $6 Loose.
Nintendo DS Wipeout The Game $4 CIB.
NINTENDO DS BOX ONLY
Nintendo DS Cooking Mama $1
Nintendo DS Jump Super Stars $1 Japanese version box and manual.
Nintendo DS Scribblenauts $1
Nintendo 3DS Fire Emblem Awakening $36 CIB.
Nintendo 3DS Fire Emblem Shadows of Valentia $33 CIB.
Nintendo 3DS Luigi's Mansion $40 Loose.
Nintendo 3DS Madden NFL Football $15 CIB.
Nintendo 3DS Pokemon Ultra Moon $35 CIB.
Nintendo 3DS Pokemon X $35 CIB.
Nintendo 3DS Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers $41 Loose.
Nintendo 3DS Super Smash Bros for Nintendo 3DS $11 CIB.
Nintendo Switch Bioshock The Collection $21 CIB.
Nintendo Switch Diofield Chronicle $35 CIB.
Nintendo Switch Diablo III Eternal Collection $22 CIB.
Nintendo Switch Dragon Ball: The Breakers $13 CIB.
Nintendo Switch Fire Emblem: Three Houses $32 CIB.
Nintendo Switch Moonlighter $15 Loose in gamestop box.
Nintendo Switch My Friend Pedro $20 Loose in gamestop box.
Nintendo Switch Supermarket Shriek $18 Sealed.
Nintendo Switch Tandem A Tale Of Shadows $28 Sealed.
Nintendo Switch Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes $25 Loose in gamestop box.
Sega Genesis Frogger $10 Loose in original case (no artwork.)
Sega Genesis Monopoly $7 Original case, artwork, and cartridge.
Sega Genesis Vectorman $10 Loose in original case (no artwork.)
PS1 Army Men Air Attack (Collector's Edition) $8 CIB, jewel case is broken.
PS1 Big Game Hunter Ultimate Challenge $5 Missing front page/manual.
PS1 Billiards $4 CIB. Jewel case is broken and cracked.
PS1 Bravo Air Race $12 CIB.
PS1 Cool Boarders 2 $3 Loose.
PS1 Command and Conquer Red Alert Retaliation $15 Missing manual.
PS1 Crossroad Crisis $7 CIB.
PS1 CyberTiger $7 CIB.
PS1 Dukes of Hazzard Racing For Home $9 CIB.
PS1 Final Fantasy Chronicles $18 Missing manual. Greatest hits.
PS1 Harvest Moon Back to Nature $50 CIB.
PS1 Jade Cocoon Demo Disc $10 Loose in sleeve.
PS1 Interactive CD Sampler Disc Volume 9 $10 CIB in it's sleeve.
PS1 Knockout Kings 2001 $7 CIB. Jewel case is broken.
PS1 Madden 98 $5 Loose.
PS1 Nascar Rumble $13 CIB.
PS1 NBA Shoot Out $5 Loose.
PS1 NCAA Football 2001 $10 CIB.
PS1 NBA Live 98 $4 Loose.
PS1 NHL 99 $4 CIB, jewel case is broken.
PS1 NHL Face Off 99 $5 CIB, jewel case is cracked.
PS1 NHL Face Off $4 Loose.
PS1 NHL 2000 $4 CIB, jewel case is broken.
PS1 Rally Cross 2 $6 CIB, jewel case is cracked and broken.
PS1 Raystorm $35 Loose.
PS1 Sesame Street Sports $8 CIB.
PS1 Sim Theme Park $6 Missing manual/front page.
PS1 Spongebob Squarepants Super Sponge $8 CIB, greatest hits.
PS1 Tetris Plus $6 CIB, jewel case is cracked.
PS1 Tiger Woods '99 $7 CIB.
PS1 Triple Play 99 $2 Loose.
PS1 Vigilante 8 $10 Loose.
PS1 WWF Smackdown $10 Missing manual/cover page.
PS1 WWF Warzone (Have two copies) $6/$4 One copy loose, one copy CIB.
PS2 Def Jam Vendetta $22 Loose.
PS2 Enter the Matrix $10 CIB.
PS2 Ever Grace $20 CIB.
PS2 Grand Theft Auto III $5 Loose.
PS2 Hunter The Reckoning Wayward $6 Loose.
PS2 IHRA Professional Drag Racing 2005 $4 Loose.
PS2 Justice League Heroes $11 CIB.
PS2 Medal of Honor Frontline $4 CIB.
PS2 Naruto Ultimate Collection $110 Sealed! Please inquire for pics. Really cool collector's game.
PS2 Nightshade $28 Loose.
PS2 Onimusha Blade Warriors $9 Loose.
PS2 Playstation Underground Jampack $4 Loose.
PS2 R-Type Final $17 Loose.
PS2 Rygar $7 Loose.
PS2 Shinobi $11 Loose.
PS2 Spiderman $9 CIB.
PS2 Spongebob Squarepants Battle for Bikini Bottom $12 CIB.
PS2 Tetris Worlds $6 CIB.
PS2 The Thing $42 CIB.
PS2 Thunder Strike: Operation Phoenix $6 CIB.
PS2 CASE & MANUAL Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 2 $10 Case and manual only.
PS3 The Last Of Us $20 CIB.
PS3 NBA 2k18 $10 Loose.
PSP Dissidia Final Fantasy $9 Loose.
PSP Final Fantasy Tactics: THe War of the Lions $17 Loose.
PSP G-Force $3 Missing manual.
PSP Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 $8 CIB.
PSP Ghostbusters The Video Game $11 Loose in gamestop box.
PSP Ghost Rider $12 Loose in gamestop box.
PSP God of War Chains of Olympus $16 Loose.
PSP Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom $15 UMD, case and original artwork only.
PSP Killzone Liberations $6 Loose.
PSP Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars $12 CIB.
PSP LocoRoco $4 Loose.
PSP Madden NFL 12 $20 CIB.
PSP Madden 2007 $5 CIB.
PSP Madden 2008 $5 CIB.
PSP Medal of Honor Heroes 2 $10 CIB.
PSP Monster Hunter Freedom $18 Missing manual.
PSP MX vs ATV: Reflex $5 Loose in gamestop box.
PSP NBA 10 The Inside $6 CIB.
PSP NBA Live 2007 $5 CIB.
PSP Neopets Petpet Adventures The Wand of Wishing $7 Loose.
PSP SNK Arcade Classics Volume 1 $14 Loose.
PSP Socom U.S. Navy Seals Fireteam Bravo $4 CIB.
PSP Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas $7 CIB.
PSP Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's Tag Force 5 $30 Box, UMD, and original artwork only.
Xbox Doom 3 $10 CIB.
Xbox Evil Dead Fistful of Boomstick $20 Box, disc, and original artwork only.
Xbox Metal Slug 3 $20 CIB.
Xbox Soul Calibur II $10 CIB
Xbox 360 Call of Duty Black Ops $12 CIB.
Xbox 360 Dragon's Dogma $5 CIB.
Xbox 360 Forza Horizon $17 CIB.
Xbox 360 Killer is Dead $20 Missing manual, otherwise CIB. Special Edition.
Xbox 360 NCAA Football 12 $16 CIB.
Xbox 360 NCAA Football 13 $25 CIB.
Xbox One Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited $3 CIB.
Xbox One Rock Band 4 (Have two copies) $15 ea Both CIB.
Xbox One Titanfall $3 CIB.
Xbox One Rainbow Six Siege $3 Loose.
PC Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight $8 Comes with manual in original case.
GAME MANUALS:
Gameboy Batman Forever $10 Good.
Gameboy Boxxle II $20 Good.
Gameboy Tetris $4 Good.
Gameboy Advance Activision Anthology $10 Good.
Nintendo 64 007 GoldenEye $6 Good.
Nintendo 64 Mission Impossible $5 Good.
Nintendo 64 Mortal Kombat 4 $10 Good.
Nintendo 64 NBA Hang Time $6 Good.
Nintendo 64 Super Mario 64 $10 Good.
Nintendo 64 Super Smash Bros $12 Good.
Nintendo 64 Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey $5 Good.
AMIIBOS:
Blue Yarn Yoshi Good $15 Loose.
Chibi-Robo Good $10 Loose.
Green Yarn Yoshi Good $15 Loose.
Link Good $25 Loose, smash bros.
Waddle Dee Good $13 Loose.
GAME ACCESORIES:
Poke Ball Plus $55 Loose, in good condition. No Mew.
OEM Nintendo Gameboy Mini Backpack $20 Cool little OEM nintendo collectible. Blue color, in good condition.
Club Nintendo Luigi Hat DS Carry Case Bag Pouch $20 Good condition, cool Luigi collectible.
Gameshark Pro 3.3 for Nintendo 64 $30 Loose.
3rd party Gamecube memory cards $5 3rd party memory cards.
OEM Gamecube Controllers $35 each. Have four available, one black, two indigo, and one indigo/clear, all have nice and tight sticks.
OEM Gameboy Four Player Adapter $15 Loose in good condition.
OEM Nintendo 64 Controller $20 Green controller, nice and tight stick.
OEM Nintendo 64 Controller Pak $30 CIB, box in okay condition.
OEM PS1 Controller $15 One PS One controller available.
2023.06.07 04:25 dollcollective I Was a Last-Minute Replacement in an Off-Broadway Play. Something Else Was Backstage With Us.
When I was getting started, an actor I knew gave me some really good advice. While deciding whether or not to take a certain role, consider three factors: the money, the show, and the people. If at least two of those things are good, accept the job. If they’re paying you well and you love the play, you won’t mind putting up with shitty people. If it’s a great show with a cast full of friends, but you’re not getting paid so well, that’s still alright, it’ll be artistically fulfilling. If it’s a bad show but you love the cast and you’re making money, you’ll probably have the time of your life making fun of the playwright backstage and laughing all the way to the bank.
What my friend failed to mention is that as an aspiring actor, you don’t usually get to be that picky. When I got the call from my agent that a production of The Bacchae was urgently seeking a new chorus member, all I could see were dollar signs. My survival job had just fallen through (the family I nannied for was moving upstate, insisting that Manhattan had just gotten “too dangerous” for their toddler), and my savings were only going to cover my rent for another month.
It was raining the day of my audition, and my train got delayed. I showed up panting (I had to run from the subway station) and my hair a disaster. Luckily, in The Bacchae, the chorus is full of… well… Bacchae. Fervent followers of Dionysus, wild women, drunk and running through the countryside. In the climax of the play, they crowd the protagonist in a frenzy, literally ripping him limb from limb.
I’ll never know if it was my frenetic energy from barely making it to the theater on time, or my actual acting, but I got the part. My costume fitting was the next day– they weren’t kidding about urgently needing a replacement. Which thrilled me, because I wasn’t kidding about urgently needing the money. At the fitting, I discovered something my agent failed to mention about the production: this wasn’t just any version of The Bacchae, it was a recreation– an attempt to perform the play in the traditional Greek style. In other words, everyone was wearing masks.
I’ve never been fond of masks. We had to do a few assignments with them in my college acting courses; covering your face can enhance the physicality of your body, something like that. But I never liked wearing them, or seeing other people wearing them. It wouldn’t be fair to call it a full-on fear, but the stiffness, the lack of expression, gives me a weird feeling in my stomach. And wearing one, your field of vision limited, your mouth covered, making it harder to breathe, harder to project your voice– I don’t like it. It’s as simple as that.
But I needed the money. My costume wasn’t ugly, per se, just strange: a long white dress, or maybe toga is a better word, the fabric about the thickness of a burlap sack. My mask, stark white, paper mache, covering my entire face except my eyes, the mouth carved to imitate a grin. No shoes. My hair tucked into a wild black wig– we wore wigs, they explained to me, so the chorus could be identical, indistinguishable. We moved as one, spoke as one, and were meant to look like one. They even made sure to cast women of the same height. In our costumes, it was impossible to tell which of us was which.
It didn’t help that I was an outsider to the rest of the cast, joining the show weeks into rehearsals. Everyone seemed annoyed that they had to teach me the blocking, the inflection of the lines (so my voice didn’t stick out from the other chorus girls), and where to go backstage during scenes with no chorus. A few people tried to be nice to me, but quickly gave up when they realized I knew nothing about Greek theater, or masked theater, or the avant garde. My last show had been a regional production of Cats, for God’s sake. I was totally out of my element.
Things got especially sour when I tried to ask what had happened to the girl I was replacing. Nobody wanted to talk about it. People gasped when I brought it up. The clearest answer I got was a whispered, hesitant, “she fell,” but the person wouldn’t elaborate any further. The cast seemed superstitious, uncomfortable, like talking about her would cause them to suffer her fate: removal from the show. And it was clear that, aside from me, everyone else loved this show. The actor playing Dionysus, the couple of times he deigned to talk to me, just kept gushing about how honored he was to play this role, how electrifying it felt to put his history minor to use, to show people a piece of the world’s theatrical beginnings.
I thought the show was fine. Kinda boring, kinda scary. I don’t think I “get” The Bacchae. In brief, the story is about Dionysus, son of Zeus, disguised as a human. He and his followers (the chorus) show up in a town, but the leader of the town, Pentheus, is upset about it. He doesn’t understand why all these women are acting crazy, and he arrests Dionysus, not believing him to be an actual God. As punishment, Dionysus possesses Pentheus’s own mother with the same madness as his followers, and together, with their bare hands, they rip Pentheus apart. His mom walks back into town holding her son’s head, thinking it to be, in her madness, the head of a lion. When she realizes what she’s done, she is overwhelmed by grief, and futilely attempts to put Pentheus’s mutilated corpse back together. Dionysus returns, basically saying, “well, he said I wasn’t a God, and that’s blasphemous, so he got what was coming to him.” Pentheus’s mother is exiled.
It’s incredibly dark. In the reviews, critics called it daring, challenging, a bloody spectacle, a feminist masterpiece. I don’t really get what part of “a man who’s a God possesses women’s minds, driving them to murder” screams “feminism,” but hey, I’m the girl who commuted to New Jersey every day for four months to do Cats, what do I know?
Here’s something I do know: the other chorus girls did not like me. And they took their jobs seriously. As we waited to enter for each scene, there was dead quiet in the wings. Usually, there’s some light joking, maybe quickly running lines, maybe physical warmups, shaking out your nerves– I tried to do this once. Before our entrance at the top of the show, we all gathered in the stage right wing, all twelve of us, a perfect and identical dozen. It was a dress rehearsal. No audience. I did a few jumping jacks, trying to hype myself up. Another masked girl grabbed my bicep, hard. When I turned, she just shook her head “no.” Just a simple, silent, “no.” We don’t do that here. We stand silently in the wings, focusing on our craft, breathing, waiting for our entrance. I never tried it again.
When you can’t talk to your coworkers, acting becomes a lot less fun. The collaboration element is totally gone. And honestly, the “acting” element was gone for me, too. How am I supposed to find my character or sense of identity in a role when my role is “don’t let your voice stick out, don’t take a wrong step, blend in perfectly with eleven women who dislike you?”
So before the shows, instead of chatting, or doing jumping jacks, I wandered the theater. I’ve always loved theaters; the dramatic architecture, the ornate prosceniums, the stark contrast of backstage, so dark, so dusty. The theater was no Broadway house, but it had a fly system (which we didn’t use, because the Greeks wouldn’t have been able to fly anything in), just over three hundred seats (including a mezzanine– fancy!), and lots of backstage space. I could say more about it, because I spent hours during the run of the show wandering, but it wouldn’t be terribly interesting to anyone who’s not me. Just know, it was a beautiful old theater– and I mean OLD. Built in the 1910s, just before the Great Depression. I used to love imagining how many generations of people had performed on that stage, imagining what they’d think of this show, or what they’d think of me.
About a week into my wandering, on some fifteen-minute break, I was looking at the ladder that led up to the catwalk– a long, thin metal walkway stretching across the stage from above, usually used for hanging lights. I wondered how long it had been since it was used during a show. I wondered if it was even safe. What would the view be like from up there, seeing the entire stage from thirty feet in the air?
I slowly looked up the ladder. I wouldn’t actually climb it. That would be crazy, right? I’m not particularly good with heights. As my eyes lifted, I made eye contact– or rather, mask contact– with someone. A fellow chorus girl, up on the catwalk.
I stopped breathing for a second. What was she doing up there? I started to say something stupid, like, “Why are you up there?” when just as quickly as the face appeared, it vanished. I saw her white robed form retreat down the catwalk, heading for a different ladder, probably. It was weird. Why did she run? Embarrassed to be caught somewhere she shouldn’t be?
I allowed myself to entertain a little fantasy: maybe she was just like me. Maybe she also hated the other chorus girls, and didn’t “get” The Bacchae. Maybe she was exploring the theater for fun on our break, enjoying the old architecture, like I did. I had no idea who she was under the mask, and she had no idea who I was. She probably thought I was one of the normal judgemental girls, and ran off before I could tell on her to the stage manager.
I was filled with unfounded hope. Could I make a friend here? Was it possible? After two and a half weeks of silence from the other girls, it was hard to imagine. How would I find her? How would I let her know it was me– that I had seen her on the catwalk, and we were the same?
After that day, I got much more observant. When the director called for a break, instead of immediately retreating into the depths of backstage, I watched my eleven doppelgangers carefully, tracking who went for water, who went back to the dressing rooms, who ran off towards the vending machines. It was hard to tell everyone apart, but people had to take their masks off to drink water eventually. I memorized faces and tried to keep track of them. I started to get a handle on everyone’s patterns, narrowing down potential adventurers.
It was impossible. Eleven people is too many to observe. But I’m an actor. Memorizing shit is literally my job. By week four, just days from opening, I had three potential girls. I tried to stick close to them during rehearsals, picking one to follow each day, but nobody ever wandered towards the catwalk. Maybe the girl, whoever she was, had been scared away from adventuring when I caught her. I started to lose hope. We were opening soon– I should focus on making my entrances, not making friends.
But then I saw her again.
This time, it was half an hour before the curtain went up for our invited dress rehearsal. The press was there. I was nervous. I knew I had my part down, but when you’re doing a show, no matter how prepared you are, there’s always the lingering fear that you’ll freeze up, forget everything, and ruin everyone’s hard work. It just means that you care. I was surprised that I cared so much. I still didn’t even get the play. I couldn’t let the other girls see me weak. I barely show my real feelings to people I care about, much less mean actresses who look down on me. To get away from it all, I wandered down to another unused part of the stage: the orchestra pit. We did have music in the show, but the Greeks didn’t have orchestra pits. So it was closed off, being used as storage.
I loved it down there. I loved looking through the storage bins, finding props from long-forgotten productions– sometimes I would find something incredible, something I swore was from the day the theater opened, something old and valuable– and usually, I could never find it again. Those bins were a treasure trove. Of all the weird little spaces I found backstage, the pit was my favorite. I felt like a real explorer down there, illuminating my path with my phone flashlight, getting spooked when a mouse ran over my foot (of course the theater had mice, it was more than a hundred years old! And besides, every building has mice in New York City).
That day, I wasn’t there to look around. Just to sit. Just to catch my breath. I tiptoed down the creaky steps, and plopped myself on the ground, surrounded by bins. I inhaled and exhaled, smelling the mildew-y scent of old props on every side of me. And that’s when I heard a noise. Not a mouse noise– I was used to those. Something bigger. I turned my phone flashlight on immediately, calling, “hello?”
And the light landed on a mask, just like mine. Mine which was currently off, because I was doing my breathing exercises. I felt exposed– she could see my face, but I couldn’t see hers. I stood up. “You scared me!”
She didn’t respond. She looked at me for a second, and started to retreat the other way, towards the stairs at the other side of the pit.
“Wait!” I called. “I won’t tell anyone I saw you!”
She stopped for a second. But then she kept walking. I stood and followed. “Please stop. Can I at least know who you are? I don’t fit in with most of the chorus girls–”
I reached for her long white toga. I swear, I had it in my hand, but somehow, she slipped away. I staggered a bit, almost tripped, confused that I hadn’t made contact with her costume. And when I looked back up, I only saw a glimpse of her disappearing up the stairs. I tried to follow, again, but I found that side of the pit’s stairs reached a dead end. I didn’t understand how she’d gotten out. And when I looked back down at my phone, it was time for places. Disappointed and defeated, I rushed away to the other stairs, making my way to the stage right wing to wait for my entrance.
I counted heads immediately when I arrived. Maybe she hadn’t made it back yet. But, alas: twelve. All accounted for. I nudged a girl next to me, subtly. “Who was the last one here besides me?”
She just stared at me for a moment, which came off as very creepy through the blank dead stare of her mask. “How the fuck am I supposed to know? We all look exactly the same.”
I sighed. “Okay. Thanks.” For nothing, I thought bitterly.
The invited dress went well. The press liked it, as I’ve already said. I was distracted the entire time. After that day, I made it a habit to count all the girls when the stage manager called for “places.” If I was right about this girl, she, like me, would be one of the last, if not the last one there. She would be wandering, exploring, getting away from the bullies.
I wish I hadn’t done this. I wish I’d given up when she disappeared on a dead-end staircase. I wish I’d never seen her on the catwalk. Because when I started counting heads, I noticed something impossible. Sometimes, before we went on, I counted thirteen identical masked faces.
It was a chorus of twelve. It was supposed to be twelve. I’d recount. Recount again. Thirteen. A chill went down my spine. We all looked the same. Same masks, same togas, same wigs. Who was the imposter? How could anyone be an imposter? It didn’t make sense. How would they get into the theater? How would they get a costume?
I started counting more often. Between scenes, in the dressing rooms, even on stage during dull moments. It fluctuated. Sometimes I’d count twelve for a whole day, an entire show, and sigh in relief, feeling like some curse was broken. But the next day, at least once, I’d count thirteen.
And it seemed as if one masked pair of eyes was always trained on me. I don’t know how she knew it was me. We looked the same. But she’d stare. It felt scary, but also ridiculous– I couldn’t be sure it was the same person looking every time. I couldn’t be sure it was unlucky number thirteen. But I felt like it was.
I felt a lot of things. I felt like I couldn’t tell anyone. The other girls already didn’t like me– I couldn’t have them thinking I was crazy. And admitting the presence of the thirteenth would mean admitting to my adventures into forbidden backstage areas. I couldn’t lose this job. I was living paycheck to paycheck. I wasn’t eating well, or sleeping well– maybe this was all a hallucination. And somehow, my biggest feeling was that if I told someone about the thirteenth, I’d never see her again.
And I needed to see her again. The obsession had only gotten stronger. I knew, somehow, deep inside, that she was the one I had seen on the catwalk and in the orchestra pit. I no longer wanted to be her friend– I wanted to corner her. To ask who she was, and why she was sneaking in as if she was one of us. I wanted to ask what she wanted from me.
Because she must want something from me, right? Why else would she stare? Why would she appear only to me?
The timing never lined up. The show had opened at this point, and I had a job to do: delighting the audience. I couldn’t skip my entrance to catch number thirteen. The chorus formations would look ridiculous with a missing person. And as much as the other girls hated me, I owed it to them as my costars to make them look good.
Logically, I knew there was only one person the thirteenth could be: Catalina, the actress I’d replaced. She must be jealous of me. Bitter. Maybe she wanted to take my role, like I’d taken hers. It would be insane, but it was all that made sense. She was the only other person who had the costume, who knew the keypad code to get into the theater. She must have recovered from her fall and come to find me.
It was almost like a game. It definitely made the show more interesting for me. Before I realized what was happening, I dreaded performances. I felt stupid, taking on this role in a show I didn’t even understand. But now I had so much to do. I had to plan.
I started showing up early, an hour before my call time. I walked my old spots, thinking I may see her. The other chorus girls were impressed that I was showing up early, thinking it showed some sort of dedication to the show. I think they even started to hate me less. They still detested any attempts at conversation in the wings, but in the dressing room, I started to have a few breakthroughs. In particular, I started a semi-friendship with Erin. Ironically, she had been one of the three women I thought may be the thirteenth, until I realized the thirteenth wasn’t really one of us at all.
She was the only person who I could actually ask about Catalina. “Did she ever say anything about the theater? The building, I mean? Did she have a favorite part of it?”
Erin would laugh at my seemingly random specificity. “We weren’t close, Michelle. I have no idea what she thought about the theater.”
“What did she do on her breaks?”
Erin thought for a second. “I don’t know. I never saw her at the vending machines, or the dressing room. I guess she found some quiet place to run lines.”
That confirmed it, for me. A quiet place like the catwalk. Or the orchestra pit. We were three weeks into our five week run when I came up with a plan to catch Catalina. It wasn’t a great plan, and I had no idea if it would work, but showing up an hour early every day was making me tired and producing zero results. I needed a new strategy. I realized that after seeing her in the pit, I only ever saw the thirteenth when all twelve of us were together.
So I told a white lie. One night after the show, when everyone was changing in the dressing room, I appealed to my fellow chorus girls. “Are you guys busy before the show tomorrow?” I innocently asked. “I’m feeling a little shaky on some of the entrances. If we could all get here just twenty minutes before our call time tomorrow, I’d love to run some stuff with you guys. I’ve been running it on my own, but without the entire team, I don’t always remember where I fit.”
To my surprise and intense joy, everyone agreed. They really did seem to respect me more when I looked like I was taking my role seriously. I could barely sleep that night, I was so excited to see if my plan worked. And hey, if it didn’t, I had two more weeks of shows to think up something else.
It was a Sunday night, our last show of the week. Mondays are often “dark days” in professional theater, meaning there are no shows that day to give the team a rest. I had planned this on purpose– if I failed, I had a dark day to reflect on that failure and try again.
At 5:40, twenty minutes before our call time, all the girls were assembled and in costume. We started running entrances. After ten minutes, I thought my plan had failed. We had run our first three entrances, and I never counted more than twelve heads in the wings. But around 5:55, as we got to our entrances in act two, offstage, I locked eyes with a mask. A thirteenth mask.
I quickly told everyone “I think I got it, you guys, thank you so much for coming early!” Everyone mumbled that it was no problem, that they were happy to help.
The thirteenth mask broke eye contact with me, looking around in confusion– perhaps distress. The girls started to trickle back towards the dressing room. The thirteenth turned and power-walked away. I shoved through the crowd to catch her, not calling out like I had in the past. I knew she didn’t respond to that. I knew I had to catch her now or never. Once we were out of the crowd’s eyeline, I began to run. She ran, too. “You’re not getting away this time!” I yelled, like some kind of cartoon superhero. My adrenaline was pumping, and blood rushed to my ears.
After I yelled, I suddenly became aware of another set of running feet behind me. “Michelle? Where are you going?” It was Erin’s voice.
“Don’t follow me!” I hastily called back, picking up speed. The thirteenth also picked up speed. Though she was running just as fast as I was, she showed no signs of exertion. I couldn’t hear heavy breathing, or heavy feet on the floor. It was like she was gliding. It infuriated me.
Erin didn’t let up. “Michelle, the stage manager is gonna wonder where we are!”
I ignored her. The thirteenth rounded a corner, and I realized where she was going: the catwalk. The ladder.
She ascended the rungs rapidly, like a spider. I clamored up much less gracefully. Erin’s voice had a heavy tinge of concern. “Michelle, what are you doing?! It’s not safe up there!”
“Then don’t follow me!” I yelled back, exasperated. “This is between me and her!” Despite my vocal warning, I heard Erin climbing behind me.
Once on the metal rail, I looked both ways, terrified she’d escaped me again. But her white toga was just a few feet away, retreating into darkness. I lunged at her. The entire catwalk shook. The thirteenth and I both grabbed the railing to steady ourselves. We met eyes. Or rather, we met masks.
“You have nowhere to go.” I stated.
I heard Erin reaching the top of the ladder behind me. “Michelle, come down, please. You’re scaring me.”
“I can’t. I finally have her.” I took a step towards the thirteenth. She took an equal and opposite step back. “Take the mask off.” I beckoned her. “I know it’s you, Catalina.”
I felt the rail shake slightly as Erin got on it. “What are you talking about, Michelle?!”
“She’s been sneaking in, Erin! She’s been standing in the wings with us before we enter! For weeks!” I took another step towards the thirteenth. In my peripheral vision, I could see how high we were above the stage. Thirty feet. You could die, falling from that height.
“It’s not Catalina. It can’t be. Stop this.” Erin called. Finally, frustrated, I turned towards her.
“Who else could it be?!”
Erin had taken her mask off. Her face was streaked with terror. “Catalina died, Michelle. She fell off this catwalk, directly onto her face, and she died. Please come down with me. I don’t know who you’re talking to, and I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but it isn’t worth it.”
“What are you talking about? I’m talking to–”
I turned back, and she was gone. Vanished like a bad dream. “I swear to God, Erin.” I started to say. “She was right in front of me. I chased her here–”
I turned back to Erin. The thirteenth was behind her.
It made no sense. Nobody can move that fast. Nobody can be in front of me one second and behind me the next. It was inhuman. I stopped speaking. I stopped breathing. It sucks to learn that in a fight-or-flight situation, my answer is to freeze.
Erin must’ve seen how my face changed. “Michelle?” She asked quietly. “What’s wrong?”
Behind her, the thirteenth raised a hand to her mask. Her hands were impossibly pale. How had I never noticed that before? She gripped the mask in her hand. Time stretched. It must’ve only been a second, because Erin didn’t move. But it felt like years of my life passed me by as the thirteenth, inch by inch, raised her mask from her face. Or– raised her mask.
Because there was no face.
Under the mask, pale and gruesome, was a bloody flat edge. Broken, disgusting, it was impossible to make out eyes, or a nose, or a mouth. Inside a somewhat face-shaped frame of stark-white skin, all I could see was flesh, red and raw, squished in on itself. Like someone had fallen from a very high height. And landed on their face.
By the time I finally began to react, it was too late. The thirteenth– or, Catalina– or, the ghost, or– whatever the fuck that thing was. It moved its hands from the mask to Erin’s shoulders. And it pushed. And she screamed, agonizingly loud, as she flew over the side of the railing. And she screamed for the second or so she was in the air. I was screaming, too. And after the crunch of her body hitting the wooden floor of the stage, everyone else screamed, cast and crew alike.
I stared down at her limp form from thirty feet up. Her legs were twisted the wrong way. A pool of blood began to seep out of her. When I looked up again, I expected the thirteenth to be gone, but it wasn’t. With no eyes, it was also looking down at Erin. At what it had done.
And then, slowly, it turned towards me. On all fours, backwards, I scrambled away from it on the catwalk, terrified, not wanting to be next. The thirteenth’s shoulders shook rapidly, like a person laughing. But it made no sound. It never made a sound. Not going up the stairs of the orchestra pit. Not when it pushed Erin. And not as it climbed back down the ladder, rung by rung. I found myself alone on the catwalk.
Erin survived, somehow, paralyzed from the waist down. Apparently she fell on her legs, which, when you’re falling from thirty feet up, is a good thing. If she’d gone down head first, there was no chance. The show had to close, of course. When they lost Catalina a few weeks into rehearsal, she was replaceable. But with me refusing to go on, and Erin in the hospital, there was nothing to be done. I haven’t seen Erin since that day. I feel too guilty. But I was never arrested, so I guess she told the authorities that I didn’t push her. I don’t know what she told them. I don’t know what I would’ve told them, had they asked me.
I don’t do stage plays anymore. The family I used to nanny for gave me a star-studded recommendation, and now I make my living taking care of a five-year-old and a two-year-old for another filthy-rich family. I still act, but I only audition for film work.
I don’t even see plays these days. I won’t set foot in a theater. If the thirteenth had vanished off that catwalk, maybe things would be different. Maybe I could chalk it up to an extreme hallucination, some terrifying creature my mind brewed up to cope with the stress of the show and paying rent. Maybe I could even forget its bloody mess of viscera in the vague shape of a face.
But I saw it go down that ladder. Rung by fucking rung. And I know it’s still out there.
Erin was unlucky. Erin was a victim of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. And if I step inside a theater again, some way, somehow, I know the thirteenth will get me on another catwalk.
This time, I’ll be the one going over the railing.
And I’ve never once landed on my feet.
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What my friend failed to mention is that as an aspiring actor, you don’t usually get to be that picky. When I got the call from my agent that a production of The Bacchae was urgently seeking a new chorus member, all I could see were dollar signs. My survival job had just fallen through (the family I nannied for was moving upstate, insisting that Manhattan had just gotten “too dangerous” for their toddler), and my savings were only going to cover my rent for another month.
It was raining the day of my audition, and my train got delayed. I showed up panting (I had to run from the subway station) and my hair a disaster. Luckily, in The Bacchae, the chorus is full of… well… Bacchae. Fervent followers of Dionysus, wild women, drunk and running through the countryside. In the climax of the play, they crowd the protagonist in a frenzy, literally ripping him limb from limb.
I’ll never know if it was my frenetic energy from barely making it to the theater on time, or my actual acting, but I got the part. My costume fitting was the next day– they weren’t kidding about urgently needing a replacement. Which thrilled me, because I wasn’t kidding about urgently needing the money. At the fitting, I discovered something my agent failed to mention about the production: this wasn’t just any version of The Bacchae, it was a recreation– an attempt to perform the play in the traditional Greek style. In other words, everyone was wearing masks.
I’ve never been fond of masks. We had to do a few assignments with them in my college acting courses; covering your face can enhance the physicality of your body, something like that. But I never liked wearing them, or seeing other people wearing them. It wouldn’t be fair to call it a full-on fear, but the stiffness, the lack of expression, gives me a weird feeling in my stomach. And wearing one, your field of vision limited, your mouth covered, making it harder to breathe, harder to project your voice– I don’t like it. It’s as simple as that.
But I needed the money. My costume wasn’t ugly, per se, just strange: a long white dress, or maybe toga is a better word, the fabric about the thickness of a burlap sack. My mask, stark white, paper mache, covering my entire face except my eyes, the mouth carved to imitate a grin. No shoes. My hair tucked into a wild black wig– we wore wigs, they explained to me, so the chorus could be identical, indistinguishable. We moved as one, spoke as one, and were meant to look like one. They even made sure to cast women of the same height. In our costumes, it was impossible to tell which of us was which.
It didn’t help that I was an outsider to the rest of the cast, joining the show weeks into rehearsals. Everyone seemed annoyed that they had to teach me the blocking, the inflection of the lines (so my voice didn’t stick out from the other chorus girls), and where to go backstage during scenes with no chorus. A few people tried to be nice to me, but quickly gave up when they realized I knew nothing about Greek theater, or masked theater, or the avant garde. My last show had been a regional production of Cats, for God’s sake. I was totally out of my element.
Things got especially sour when I tried to ask what had happened to the girl I was replacing. Nobody wanted to talk about it. People gasped when I brought it up. The clearest answer I got was a whispered, hesitant, “she fell,” but the person wouldn’t elaborate any further. The cast seemed superstitious, uncomfortable, like talking about her would cause them to suffer her fate: removal from the show. And it was clear that, aside from me, everyone else loved this show. The actor playing Dionysus, the couple of times he deigned to talk to me, just kept gushing about how honored he was to play this role, how electrifying it felt to put his history minor to use, to show people a piece of the world’s theatrical beginnings.
I thought the show was fine. Kinda boring, kinda scary. I don’t think I “get” The Bacchae. In brief, the story is about Dionysus, son of Zeus, disguised as a human. He and his followers (the chorus) show up in a town, but the leader of the town, Pentheus, is upset about it. He doesn’t understand why all these women are acting crazy, and he arrests Dionysus, not believing him to be an actual God. As punishment, Dionysus possesses Pentheus’s own mother with the same madness as his followers, and together, with their bare hands, they rip Pentheus apart. His mom walks back into town holding her son’s head, thinking it to be, in her madness, the head of a lion. When she realizes what she’s done, she is overwhelmed by grief, and futilely attempts to put Pentheus’s mutilated corpse back together. Dionysus returns, basically saying, “well, he said I wasn’t a God, and that’s blasphemous, so he got what was coming to him.” Pentheus’s mother is exiled.
It’s incredibly dark. In the reviews, critics called it daring, challenging, a bloody spectacle, a feminist masterpiece. I don’t really get what part of “a man who’s a God possesses women’s minds, driving them to murder” screams “feminism,” but hey, I’m the girl who commuted to New Jersey every day for four months to do Cats, what do I know?
Here’s something I do know: the other chorus girls did not like me. And they took their jobs seriously. As we waited to enter for each scene, there was dead quiet in the wings. Usually, there’s some light joking, maybe quickly running lines, maybe physical warmups, shaking out your nerves– I tried to do this once. Before our entrance at the top of the show, we all gathered in the stage right wing, all twelve of us, a perfect and identical dozen. It was a dress rehearsal. No audience. I did a few jumping jacks, trying to hype myself up. Another masked girl grabbed my bicep, hard. When I turned, she just shook her head “no.” Just a simple, silent, “no.” We don’t do that here. We stand silently in the wings, focusing on our craft, breathing, waiting for our entrance. I never tried it again.
When you can’t talk to your coworkers, acting becomes a lot less fun. The collaboration element is totally gone. And honestly, the “acting” element was gone for me, too. How am I supposed to find my character or sense of identity in a role when my role is “don’t let your voice stick out, don’t take a wrong step, blend in perfectly with eleven women who dislike you?”
So before the shows, instead of chatting, or doing jumping jacks, I wandered the theater. I’ve always loved theaters; the dramatic architecture, the ornate prosceniums, the stark contrast of backstage, so dark, so dusty. The theater was no Broadway house, but it had a fly system (which we didn’t use, because the Greeks wouldn’t have been able to fly anything in), just over three hundred seats (including a mezzanine– fancy!), and lots of backstage space. I could say more about it, because I spent hours during the run of the show wandering, but it wouldn’t be terribly interesting to anyone who’s not me. Just know, it was a beautiful old theater– and I mean OLD. Built in the 1910s, just before the Great Depression. I used to love imagining how many generations of people had performed on that stage, imagining what they’d think of this show, or what they’d think of me.
About a week into my wandering, on some fifteen-minute break, I was looking at the ladder that led up to the catwalk– a long, thin metal walkway stretching across the stage from above, usually used for hanging lights. I wondered how long it had been since it was used during a show. I wondered if it was even safe. What would the view be like from up there, seeing the entire stage from thirty feet in the air?
I slowly looked up the ladder. I wouldn’t actually climb it. That would be crazy, right? I’m not particularly good with heights. As my eyes lifted, I made eye contact– or rather, mask contact– with someone. A fellow chorus girl, up on the catwalk.
I stopped breathing for a second. What was she doing up there? I started to say something stupid, like, “Why are you up there?” when just as quickly as the face appeared, it vanished. I saw her white robed form retreat down the catwalk, heading for a different ladder, probably. It was weird. Why did she run? Embarrassed to be caught somewhere she shouldn’t be?
I allowed myself to entertain a little fantasy: maybe she was just like me. Maybe she also hated the other chorus girls, and didn’t “get” The Bacchae. Maybe she was exploring the theater for fun on our break, enjoying the old architecture, like I did. I had no idea who she was under the mask, and she had no idea who I was. She probably thought I was one of the normal judgemental girls, and ran off before I could tell on her to the stage manager.
I was filled with unfounded hope. Could I make a friend here? Was it possible? After two and a half weeks of silence from the other girls, it was hard to imagine. How would I find her? How would I let her know it was me– that I had seen her on the catwalk, and we were the same?
After that day, I got much more observant. When the director called for a break, instead of immediately retreating into the depths of backstage, I watched my eleven doppelgangers carefully, tracking who went for water, who went back to the dressing rooms, who ran off towards the vending machines. It was hard to tell everyone apart, but people had to take their masks off to drink water eventually. I memorized faces and tried to keep track of them. I started to get a handle on everyone’s patterns, narrowing down potential adventurers.
It was impossible. Eleven people is too many to observe. But I’m an actor. Memorizing shit is literally my job. By week four, just days from opening, I had three potential girls. I tried to stick close to them during rehearsals, picking one to follow each day, but nobody ever wandered towards the catwalk. Maybe the girl, whoever she was, had been scared away from adventuring when I caught her. I started to lose hope. We were opening soon– I should focus on making my entrances, not making friends.
But then I saw her again.
This time, it was half an hour before the curtain went up for our invited dress rehearsal. The press was there. I was nervous. I knew I had my part down, but when you’re doing a show, no matter how prepared you are, there’s always the lingering fear that you’ll freeze up, forget everything, and ruin everyone’s hard work. It just means that you care. I was surprised that I cared so much. I still didn’t even get the play. I couldn’t let the other girls see me weak. I barely show my real feelings to people I care about, much less mean actresses who look down on me. To get away from it all, I wandered down to another unused part of the stage: the orchestra pit. We did have music in the show, but the Greeks didn’t have orchestra pits. So it was closed off, being used as storage.
I loved it down there. I loved looking through the storage bins, finding props from long-forgotten productions– sometimes I would find something incredible, something I swore was from the day the theater opened, something old and valuable– and usually, I could never find it again. Those bins were a treasure trove. Of all the weird little spaces I found backstage, the pit was my favorite. I felt like a real explorer down there, illuminating my path with my phone flashlight, getting spooked when a mouse ran over my foot (of course the theater had mice, it was more than a hundred years old! And besides, every building has mice in New York City).
That day, I wasn’t there to look around. Just to sit. Just to catch my breath. I tiptoed down the creaky steps, and plopped myself on the ground, surrounded by bins. I inhaled and exhaled, smelling the mildew-y scent of old props on every side of me. And that’s when I heard a noise. Not a mouse noise– I was used to those. Something bigger. I turned my phone flashlight on immediately, calling, “hello?”
And the light landed on a mask, just like mine. Mine which was currently off, because I was doing my breathing exercises. I felt exposed– she could see my face, but I couldn’t see hers. I stood up. “You scared me!”
She didn’t respond. She looked at me for a second, and started to retreat the other way, towards the stairs at the other side of the pit.
“Wait!” I called. “I won’t tell anyone I saw you!”
She stopped for a second. But then she kept walking. I stood and followed. “Please stop. Can I at least know who you are? I don’t fit in with most of the chorus girls–”
I reached for her long white toga. I swear, I had it in my hand, but somehow, she slipped away. I staggered a bit, almost tripped, confused that I hadn’t made contact with her costume. And when I looked back up, I only saw a glimpse of her disappearing up the stairs. I tried to follow, again, but I found that side of the pit’s stairs reached a dead end. I didn’t understand how she’d gotten out. And when I looked back down at my phone, it was time for places. Disappointed and defeated, I rushed away to the other stairs, making my way to the stage right wing to wait for my entrance.
I counted heads immediately when I arrived. Maybe she hadn’t made it back yet. But, alas: twelve. All accounted for. I nudged a girl next to me, subtly. “Who was the last one here besides me?”
She just stared at me for a moment, which came off as very creepy through the blank dead stare of her mask. “How the fuck am I supposed to know? We all look exactly the same.”
I sighed. “Okay. Thanks.” For nothing, I thought bitterly.
The invited dress went well. The press liked it, as I’ve already said. I was distracted the entire time. After that day, I made it a habit to count all the girls when the stage manager called for “places.” If I was right about this girl, she, like me, would be one of the last, if not the last one there. She would be wandering, exploring, getting away from the bullies.
I wish I hadn’t done this. I wish I’d given up when she disappeared on a dead-end staircase. I wish I’d never seen her on the catwalk. Because when I started counting heads, I noticed something impossible. Sometimes, before we went on, I counted thirteen identical masked faces.
It was a chorus of twelve. It was supposed to be twelve. I’d recount. Recount again. Thirteen. A chill went down my spine. We all looked the same. Same masks, same togas, same wigs. Who was the imposter? How could anyone be an imposter? It didn’t make sense. How would they get into the theater? How would they get a costume?
I started counting more often. Between scenes, in the dressing rooms, even on stage during dull moments. It fluctuated. Sometimes I’d count twelve for a whole day, an entire show, and sigh in relief, feeling like some curse was broken. But the next day, at least once, I’d count thirteen.
And it seemed as if one masked pair of eyes was always trained on me. I don’t know how she knew it was me. We looked the same. But she’d stare. It felt scary, but also ridiculous– I couldn’t be sure it was the same person looking every time. I couldn’t be sure it was unlucky number thirteen. But I felt like it was.
I felt a lot of things. I felt like I couldn’t tell anyone. The other girls already didn’t like me– I couldn’t have them thinking I was crazy. And admitting the presence of the thirteenth would mean admitting to my adventures into forbidden backstage areas. I couldn’t lose this job. I was living paycheck to paycheck. I wasn’t eating well, or sleeping well– maybe this was all a hallucination. And somehow, my biggest feeling was that if I told someone about the thirteenth, I’d never see her again.
And I needed to see her again. The obsession had only gotten stronger. I knew, somehow, deep inside, that she was the one I had seen on the catwalk and in the orchestra pit. I no longer wanted to be her friend– I wanted to corner her. To ask who she was, and why she was sneaking in as if she was one of us. I wanted to ask what she wanted from me.
Because she must want something from me, right? Why else would she stare? Why would she appear only to me?
The timing never lined up. The show had opened at this point, and I had a job to do: delighting the audience. I couldn’t skip my entrance to catch number thirteen. The chorus formations would look ridiculous with a missing person. And as much as the other girls hated me, I owed it to them as my costars to make them look good.
Logically, I knew there was only one person the thirteenth could be: Catalina, the actress I’d replaced. She must be jealous of me. Bitter. Maybe she wanted to take my role, like I’d taken hers. It would be insane, but it was all that made sense. She was the only other person who had the costume, who knew the keypad code to get into the theater. She must have recovered from her fall and come to find me.
It was almost like a game. It definitely made the show more interesting for me. Before I realized what was happening, I dreaded performances. I felt stupid, taking on this role in a show I didn’t even understand. But now I had so much to do. I had to plan.
I started showing up early, an hour before my call time. I walked my old spots, thinking I may see her. The other chorus girls were impressed that I was showing up early, thinking it showed some sort of dedication to the show. I think they even started to hate me less. They still detested any attempts at conversation in the wings, but in the dressing room, I started to have a few breakthroughs. In particular, I started a semi-friendship with Erin. Ironically, she had been one of the three women I thought may be the thirteenth, until I realized the thirteenth wasn’t really one of us at all.
She was the only person who I could actually ask about Catalina. “Did she ever say anything about the theater? The building, I mean? Did she have a favorite part of it?”
Erin would laugh at my seemingly random specificity. “We weren’t close, Michelle. I have no idea what she thought about the theater.”
“What did she do on her breaks?”
Erin thought for a second. “I don’t know. I never saw her at the vending machines, or the dressing room. I guess she found some quiet place to run lines.”
That confirmed it, for me. A quiet place like the catwalk. Or the orchestra pit. We were three weeks into our five week run when I came up with a plan to catch Catalina. It wasn’t a great plan, and I had no idea if it would work, but showing up an hour early every day was making me tired and producing zero results. I needed a new strategy. I realized that after seeing her in the pit, I only ever saw the thirteenth when all twelve of us were together.
So I told a white lie. One night after the show, when everyone was changing in the dressing room, I appealed to my fellow chorus girls. “Are you guys busy before the show tomorrow?” I innocently asked. “I’m feeling a little shaky on some of the entrances. If we could all get here just twenty minutes before our call time tomorrow, I’d love to run some stuff with you guys. I’ve been running it on my own, but without the entire team, I don’t always remember where I fit.”
To my surprise and intense joy, everyone agreed. They really did seem to respect me more when I looked like I was taking my role seriously. I could barely sleep that night, I was so excited to see if my plan worked. And hey, if it didn’t, I had two more weeks of shows to think up something else.
It was a Sunday night, our last show of the week. Mondays are often “dark days” in professional theater, meaning there are no shows that day to give the team a rest. I had planned this on purpose– if I failed, I had a dark day to reflect on that failure and try again.
At 5:40, twenty minutes before our call time, all the girls were assembled and in costume. We started running entrances. After ten minutes, I thought my plan had failed. We had run our first three entrances, and I never counted more than twelve heads in the wings. But around 5:55, as we got to our entrances in act two, offstage, I locked eyes with a mask. A thirteenth mask.
I quickly told everyone “I think I got it, you guys, thank you so much for coming early!” Everyone mumbled that it was no problem, that they were happy to help.
The thirteenth mask broke eye contact with me, looking around in confusion– perhaps distress. The girls started to trickle back towards the dressing room. The thirteenth turned and power-walked away. I shoved through the crowd to catch her, not calling out like I had in the past. I knew she didn’t respond to that. I knew I had to catch her now or never. Once we were out of the crowd’s eyeline, I began to run. She ran, too. “You’re not getting away this time!” I yelled, like some kind of cartoon superhero. My adrenaline was pumping, and blood rushed to my ears.
After I yelled, I suddenly became aware of another set of running feet behind me. “Michelle? Where are you going?” It was Erin’s voice.
“Don’t follow me!” I hastily called back, picking up speed. The thirteenth also picked up speed. Though she was running just as fast as I was, she showed no signs of exertion. I couldn’t hear heavy breathing, or heavy feet on the floor. It was like she was gliding. It infuriated me.
Erin didn’t let up. “Michelle, the stage manager is gonna wonder where we are!”
I ignored her. The thirteenth rounded a corner, and I realized where she was going: the catwalk. The ladder.
She ascended the rungs rapidly, like a spider. I clamored up much less gracefully. Erin’s voice had a heavy tinge of concern. “Michelle, what are you doing?! It’s not safe up there!”
“Then don’t follow me!” I yelled back, exasperated. “This is between me and her!” Despite my vocal warning, I heard Erin climbing behind me.
Once on the metal rail, I looked both ways, terrified she’d escaped me again. But her white toga was just a few feet away, retreating into darkness. I lunged at her. The entire catwalk shook. The thirteenth and I both grabbed the railing to steady ourselves. We met eyes. Or rather, we met masks.
“You have nowhere to go.” I stated.
I heard Erin reaching the top of the ladder behind me. “Michelle, come down, please. You’re scaring me.”
“I can’t. I finally have her.” I took a step towards the thirteenth. She took an equal and opposite step back. “Take the mask off.” I beckoned her. “I know it’s you, Catalina.”
I felt the rail shake slightly as Erin got on it. “What are you talking about, Michelle?!”
“She’s been sneaking in, Erin! She’s been standing in the wings with us before we enter! For weeks!” I took another step towards the thirteenth. In my peripheral vision, I could see how high we were above the stage. Thirty feet. You could die, falling from that height.
“It’s not Catalina. It can’t be. Stop this.” Erin called. Finally, frustrated, I turned towards her.
“Who else could it be?!”
Erin had taken her mask off. Her face was streaked with terror. “Catalina died, Michelle. She fell off this catwalk, directly onto her face, and she died. Please come down with me. I don’t know who you’re talking to, and I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but it isn’t worth it.”
“What are you talking about? I’m talking to–”
I turned back, and she was gone. Vanished like a bad dream. “I swear to God, Erin.” I started to say. “She was right in front of me. I chased her here–”
I turned back to Erin. The thirteenth was behind her.
It made no sense. Nobody can move that fast. Nobody can be in front of me one second and behind me the next. It was inhuman. I stopped speaking. I stopped breathing. It sucks to learn that in a fight-or-flight situation, my answer is to freeze.
Erin must’ve seen how my face changed. “Michelle?” She asked quietly. “What’s wrong?”
Behind her, the thirteenth raised a hand to her mask. Her hands were impossibly pale. How had I never noticed that before? She gripped the mask in her hand. Time stretched. It must’ve only been a second, because Erin didn’t move. But it felt like years of my life passed me by as the thirteenth, inch by inch, raised her mask from her face. Or– raised her mask.
Because there was no face.
Under the mask, pale and gruesome, was a bloody flat edge. Broken, disgusting, it was impossible to make out eyes, or a nose, or a mouth. Inside a somewhat face-shaped frame of stark-white skin, all I could see was flesh, red and raw, squished in on itself. Like someone had fallen from a very high height. And landed on their face.
By the time I finally began to react, it was too late. The thirteenth– or, Catalina– or, the ghost, or– whatever the fuck that thing was. It moved its hands from the mask to Erin’s shoulders. And it pushed. And she screamed, agonizingly loud, as she flew over the side of the railing. And she screamed for the second or so she was in the air. I was screaming, too. And after the crunch of her body hitting the wooden floor of the stage, everyone else screamed, cast and crew alike.
I stared down at her limp form from thirty feet up. Her legs were twisted the wrong way. A pool of blood began to seep out of her. When I looked up again, I expected the thirteenth to be gone, but it wasn’t. With no eyes, it was also looking down at Erin. At what it had done.
And then, slowly, it turned towards me. On all fours, backwards, I scrambled away from it on the catwalk, terrified, not wanting to be next. The thirteenth’s shoulders shook rapidly, like a person laughing. But it made no sound. It never made a sound. Not going up the stairs of the orchestra pit. Not when it pushed Erin. And not as it climbed back down the ladder, rung by rung. I found myself alone on the catwalk.
Erin survived, somehow, paralyzed from the waist down. Apparently she fell on her legs, which, when you’re falling from thirty feet up, is a good thing. If she’d gone down head first, there was no chance. The show had to close, of course. When they lost Catalina a few weeks into rehearsal, she was replaceable. But with me refusing to go on, and Erin in the hospital, there was nothing to be done. I haven’t seen Erin since that day. I feel too guilty. But I was never arrested, so I guess she told the authorities that I didn’t push her. I don’t know what she told them. I don’t know what I would’ve told them, had they asked me.
I don’t do stage plays anymore. The family I used to nanny for gave me a star-studded recommendation, and now I make my living taking care of a five-year-old and a two-year-old for another filthy-rich family. I still act, but I only audition for film work.
I don’t even see plays these days. I won’t set foot in a theater. If the thirteenth had vanished off that catwalk, maybe things would be different. Maybe I could chalk it up to an extreme hallucination, some terrifying creature my mind brewed up to cope with the stress of the show and paying rent. Maybe I could even forget its bloody mess of viscera in the vague shape of a face.
But I saw it go down that ladder. Rung by fucking rung. And I know it’s still out there.
Erin was unlucky. Erin was a victim of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. And if I step inside a theater again, some way, somehow, I know the thirteenth will get me on another catwalk.
This time, I’ll be the one going over the railing.
And I’ve never once landed on my feet.
2023.06.07 04:15 midget_tossing Let's play a game: crowd source new lyrics for Billy Joel's Boomer anthem: We Didn't Start The Fire
Goal: reclaim it as a GenX anthem
Rules: I'll post a verse as a thread and others can rewrite in reply, and riff the verse down thread. (This will take a minute!)
Winner: Nobody wins but you get a trophy for participation. This is our way.
Reference (because I know we all need it):
"We Didn't Start The Fire"
(Verse 1) Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe Rosenbergs, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye
(Chorus) We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it But we tried to fight it
(Verse 2) Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez
(Chorus)
(Verse 3) Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge On The River Kwai Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball Starkweather Homicide, Children of Thalidomide Buddy Holly, Ben-Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo
(Chorus)
(Verse 4) Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician Sex J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say?
(Chorus)
(Verse 5) Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law Rock and Roller Cola wars, I can't take it anymore
(Chorus)
(Chorus)
(Chorus)
(Chorus)
submitted by midget_tossing to GenX [link] [comments]
Rules: I'll post a verse as a thread and others can rewrite in reply, and riff the verse down thread. (This will take a minute!)
Winner: Nobody wins but you get a trophy for participation. This is our way.
Reference (because I know we all need it):
"We Didn't Start The Fire"
(Verse 1) Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe Rosenbergs, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye
(Chorus) We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it But we tried to fight it
(Verse 2) Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez
(Chorus)
(Verse 3) Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge On The River Kwai Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball Starkweather Homicide, Children of Thalidomide Buddy Holly, Ben-Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo
(Chorus)
(Verse 4) Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician Sex J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say?
(Chorus)
(Verse 5) Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law Rock and Roller Cola wars, I can't take it anymore
(Chorus)
(Chorus)
(Chorus)
(Chorus)
2023.06.07 04:11 Darmanarya The Yotul Models chapter 4
((This train wreck is a fanfic of "Nature of Predators" by u/spacepaladin15. Edit: Reddit please stop eating things like the who and when.))
FIRST//PREVIOUS//NEXT
Memory transcription subject: Yotul exchange subject Ouon.
Date [Human standard time]: August 22, 2136
I blinked at the human. “What do you mean history? Its just a train? I mean, I miss being on them a ton and think it's kinda speh how they took them all away, but they were old.” I pointed out as I watched the steam train run into a tunnel.
“Well. One thing you learn when building models of historical things is that each country- uhm- that is groups on Earth, have different styles and things they want their trains to do. America used to prefer the most elegant, rugged, and mass-producible of all back in the day while Japan in the 20’th century valued speed, reliability, and as smooth a ride as possible. Each time period also had their own trains.” He pointed to one of the big ones. “This is a 20th century American train called the EMD SD70ACe.” He rattled off a bunch of letters and more that meant almost nothing to me. “It was made to be far more durable than most others while focusing far more on efficiency.”
He then motioned to the train finally coming out of the huge tunnel. “This is an American classic. The 4-4-0. It's based on the Roy O. Disney No. 4. Its not set up the same as its real counterpart, but after a… discussion.” He Glanced at Sally who shrugged. “It was decided we would make it a luxury liner to still be able to showcase it.”
I blinked and rubbed my head a bit. “Wait… is that a human name? Was it named after someone famous?” I asked, watching its beautiful red and green snake through the mountains. “Well. It is actually running at a park on Earth right now to take people around.” Jack explained as he watched it move about. “And in fact it's a great example! It was named after one of the founders of the American mega-corp disney. It was bought and made to look beautiful to transport people around a big park. Really though it was there to look beautiful and be a big tourist attraction. It was very outdated for the time, but that was the point.”
What? “Wait, if it was outdated then why use it?” I asked, finally looking up to my human partner. “Simple: People liked how it looked and it reminded them of a very important time in America when we were growing into the superpower we are today. For some people, like me, America would not have existed without the 4-4-0, so we honor it whenever we can. For others, many MANY cool stories happen on or around 4-4-0 trains, so they keep coming up in movies. And some pay a TON of money to ride on them through mountains and stuff. Sure the cars are mostly more modern for safety and comfort, but people want to experience what it was like to live in those old days so they pay to ride in the outdated cars.”
He then pulled up photos on his pad of an American tour company operating in the mountains. I snatched the tablet the moment I saw the first few photos and started looking at them one by one. It…. it was my trains! I could see that ornate red carpet, the sleeper cars, the tiny bathrooms, the small chair I sat on for HOURS reading whatever speh I could get my paws on. It was all there! The price was… high, but you could ride it NOW! And the humans were FTL level!
I handed his tablet back to him and watched the train chug along. “Then… why did we have to get rid of ours? I mean. I never thought of what I worked on being important. Sure it was one of the heights of our tech pre-uplift, but I never thought about it being important to history.”
“The fact it was the last thing you all made should make it even more important. I don’t know why the feds did it-” Jack’s strong hand patted my shoulder. “-but maybe we could do something?” He looked over to Sally.
“I know what you are going to propose, and I am ALLLL for it!” She said as she held a thumb up. “But we gotta ask Leon too. I mean, I love kitbashing and all but you and Leon are the ones that are best at it. I just get the interior sparky shit to work.” She laughed a little before the door opened up again.
“Hey everybo-” A human with shoulder length blond hair walked in with a female Dossur head poking up out of his lab coat. The moment the Dossur saw Sally she hopped out and skittered up to her. What I had to guess was leon froze seeing the tilfish who stared back. He took a deep breath and I covered my ears expecting another scream. It seems humans were sca-
“YES!”
I jumped and looked at the human with my fur standing up. One: That was a very happy yell. Two: That was a very happy word. I looked at the other two humans and they looked at each other for a moment before moving their heads side to side.
“Yesyesyes an insectoid species! I was worried that all the aliens would be soft, cute mammalians! Nothingwrongwiththat but this is farrrrr more cool inmyhonestopinion!” His words were coming out fast and blending together in the translator as he walked up to poor, poor Xelo. She was rubbing her antenna before Sally passed her back the coins with a sigh before getting in Leon’s way.
“Alright alright. I knew you liked freaky things but this is a bit of a surprise.” She said trying not to step on the Dossur. “Give the girl her space and let her warm up to you. You know the drill by now. Poor thing was shocked when Freddie squealed at it.” My human let out a deep breath of air and crossed his arms. It was clear he didn’t like being reminded of what he had done.
“FIIINE!” Leon said lifting up his arms. “I will talk to her later.” He then looked over at me, waved, then stepped back from poor Xelo who was looking between us all.
“Hey! Tall lady! I’m Fige! Fee-d-je~!” The dossier called out from her feet. “Mind picking me up? Bit small!” Sally nodded and picked her up, lifting her up to her chest height in one hand. While Sally was looking down at Fige, the dossur was looking right ahead. What was she-ohhhh. Really?
“Heya Fige! I am sally! I read your kind were small but didn’t expect THIS small!” She said with a laugh. “Man. I just want to put you in my po-”
“If you are offering your chest pocket PLEASE!” The small female called up to the huge human. “I mean, it-” She rubbed one of her ears then shook her head. “Ah brahk it. I wanna ride against that comfy looking chest. I have never SEEN mammaries that big before!” She squeaked out motioning to the human’s chest. “I have dated lotsa females from lotsa species, but good grief! My fear left the moment I saw those things!”I thought I was a bit open. What the speh!?We all looked to Sally who laughed long and hard. “Oi! Freddie! Seems like we BOTH lucked out!” She said before moving the dossier towards her coat pocket, only to put her right on top of the “pair!” The dossur squeaked in surprise before squeaking in pure joy. “Ohhh yeah! Humans are just fine in my book!” She called out while Sally was laughing hard.
“Oh damn, this feels…. Weird. Still. Not gunna pass up a chance to connect with an alien species lesbian! Hell I like my women short but this is a new level for me!”Both Freddie and Leon shook their heads side to side while looking down. “And she fussed at me!” I heard Leon mutter while poor Xelo just looked around practically tugging her antennae off in confusion at the chaos in front of her.“Wait. what is this?” Fige asked before hopping down onto the table. While Xelo let out a clatter in protest fearing the stuff was fragile. It held up though thankfully.
She skittered about looking at the trains, poking at the wires that were carefully hidden, then tapping the tracks. “Fascinating! The trains must be powered through the tracks and controlled through it leaving enough room within for all this decoration! I didn’t expect predators like yourself to be able to work on such small and fragile electronics like this!” She then watched the cargo train roll by before hopping onto one of the flatbeds to ride around.
The humans didn’t protest. At all. In fact they took out their datapads and took as many pictures as they could! Fige, to her credit, ate up the attention and even posed some as she laughed enjoying the ride. Lucky little squeaker.
Still, after a while we all just sat together at a table they cleared off. Drinks and snacks scattered over what had been a workstation. “Alright. So now you all know what scale models are.” Freddie said with a smile. “And nobody had a… too big of a reaction to us so far! So far so good!” he laughed a bit as he sipped his soda.
“Now. Wanna help us make more?”
FIRST//PREVIOUS//NEXT
submitted by Darmanarya to NatureofPredators [link] [comments]
FIRST//PREVIOUS//NEXT
Memory transcription subject: Yotul exchange subject Ouon.
Date [Human standard time]: August 22, 2136
I blinked at the human. “What do you mean history? Its just a train? I mean, I miss being on them a ton and think it's kinda speh how they took them all away, but they were old.” I pointed out as I watched the steam train run into a tunnel.
“Well. One thing you learn when building models of historical things is that each country- uhm- that is groups on Earth, have different styles and things they want their trains to do. America used to prefer the most elegant, rugged, and mass-producible of all back in the day while Japan in the 20’th century valued speed, reliability, and as smooth a ride as possible. Each time period also had their own trains.” He pointed to one of the big ones. “This is a 20th century American train called the EMD SD70ACe.” He rattled off a bunch of letters and more that meant almost nothing to me. “It was made to be far more durable than most others while focusing far more on efficiency.”
He then motioned to the train finally coming out of the huge tunnel. “This is an American classic. The 4-4-0. It's based on the Roy O. Disney No. 4. Its not set up the same as its real counterpart, but after a… discussion.” He Glanced at Sally who shrugged. “It was decided we would make it a luxury liner to still be able to showcase it.”
I blinked and rubbed my head a bit. “Wait… is that a human name? Was it named after someone famous?” I asked, watching its beautiful red and green snake through the mountains. “Well. It is actually running at a park on Earth right now to take people around.” Jack explained as he watched it move about. “And in fact it's a great example! It was named after one of the founders of the American mega-corp disney. It was bought and made to look beautiful to transport people around a big park. Really though it was there to look beautiful and be a big tourist attraction. It was very outdated for the time, but that was the point.”
What? “Wait, if it was outdated then why use it?” I asked, finally looking up to my human partner. “Simple: People liked how it looked and it reminded them of a very important time in America when we were growing into the superpower we are today. For some people, like me, America would not have existed without the 4-4-0, so we honor it whenever we can. For others, many MANY cool stories happen on or around 4-4-0 trains, so they keep coming up in movies. And some pay a TON of money to ride on them through mountains and stuff. Sure the cars are mostly more modern for safety and comfort, but people want to experience what it was like to live in those old days so they pay to ride in the outdated cars.”
He then pulled up photos on his pad of an American tour company operating in the mountains. I snatched the tablet the moment I saw the first few photos and started looking at them one by one. It…. it was my trains! I could see that ornate red carpet, the sleeper cars, the tiny bathrooms, the small chair I sat on for HOURS reading whatever speh I could get my paws on. It was all there! The price was… high, but you could ride it NOW! And the humans were FTL level!
I handed his tablet back to him and watched the train chug along. “Then… why did we have to get rid of ours? I mean. I never thought of what I worked on being important. Sure it was one of the heights of our tech pre-uplift, but I never thought about it being important to history.”
“The fact it was the last thing you all made should make it even more important. I don’t know why the feds did it-” Jack’s strong hand patted my shoulder. “-but maybe we could do something?” He looked over to Sally.
“I know what you are going to propose, and I am ALLLL for it!” She said as she held a thumb up. “But we gotta ask Leon too. I mean, I love kitbashing and all but you and Leon are the ones that are best at it. I just get the interior sparky shit to work.” She laughed a little before the door opened up again.
“Hey everybo-” A human with shoulder length blond hair walked in with a female Dossur head poking up out of his lab coat. The moment the Dossur saw Sally she hopped out and skittered up to her. What I had to guess was leon froze seeing the tilfish who stared back. He took a deep breath and I covered my ears expecting another scream. It seems humans were sca-
“YES!”
I jumped and looked at the human with my fur standing up. One: That was a very happy yell. Two: That was a very happy word. I looked at the other two humans and they looked at each other for a moment before moving their heads side to side.
“Yesyesyes an insectoid species! I was worried that all the aliens would be soft, cute mammalians! Nothingwrongwiththat but this is farrrrr more cool inmyhonestopinion!” His words were coming out fast and blending together in the translator as he walked up to poor, poor Xelo. She was rubbing her antenna before Sally passed her back the coins with a sigh before getting in Leon’s way.
“Alright alright. I knew you liked freaky things but this is a bit of a surprise.” She said trying not to step on the Dossur. “Give the girl her space and let her warm up to you. You know the drill by now. Poor thing was shocked when Freddie squealed at it.” My human let out a deep breath of air and crossed his arms. It was clear he didn’t like being reminded of what he had done.
“FIIINE!” Leon said lifting up his arms. “I will talk to her later.” He then looked over at me, waved, then stepped back from poor Xelo who was looking between us all.
“Hey! Tall lady! I’m Fige! Fee-d-je~!” The dossier called out from her feet. “Mind picking me up? Bit small!” Sally nodded and picked her up, lifting her up to her chest height in one hand. While Sally was looking down at Fige, the dossur was looking right ahead. What was she-ohhhh. Really?
“Heya Fige! I am sally! I read your kind were small but didn’t expect THIS small!” She said with a laugh. “Man. I just want to put you in my po-”
“If you are offering your chest pocket PLEASE!” The small female called up to the huge human. “I mean, it-” She rubbed one of her ears then shook her head. “Ah brahk it. I wanna ride against that comfy looking chest. I have never SEEN mammaries that big before!” She squeaked out motioning to the human’s chest. “I have dated lotsa females from lotsa species, but good grief! My fear left the moment I saw those things!”I thought I was a bit open. What the speh!?We all looked to Sally who laughed long and hard. “Oi! Freddie! Seems like we BOTH lucked out!” She said before moving the dossier towards her coat pocket, only to put her right on top of the “pair!” The dossur squeaked in surprise before squeaking in pure joy. “Ohhh yeah! Humans are just fine in my book!” She called out while Sally was laughing hard.
“Oh damn, this feels…. Weird. Still. Not gunna pass up a chance to connect with an alien species lesbian! Hell I like my women short but this is a new level for me!”Both Freddie and Leon shook their heads side to side while looking down. “And she fussed at me!” I heard Leon mutter while poor Xelo just looked around practically tugging her antennae off in confusion at the chaos in front of her.“Wait. what is this?” Fige asked before hopping down onto the table. While Xelo let out a clatter in protest fearing the stuff was fragile. It held up though thankfully.
She skittered about looking at the trains, poking at the wires that were carefully hidden, then tapping the tracks. “Fascinating! The trains must be powered through the tracks and controlled through it leaving enough room within for all this decoration! I didn’t expect predators like yourself to be able to work on such small and fragile electronics like this!” She then watched the cargo train roll by before hopping onto one of the flatbeds to ride around.
The humans didn’t protest. At all. In fact they took out their datapads and took as many pictures as they could! Fige, to her credit, ate up the attention and even posed some as she laughed enjoying the ride. Lucky little squeaker.
Still, after a while we all just sat together at a table they cleared off. Drinks and snacks scattered over what had been a workstation. “Alright. So now you all know what scale models are.” Freddie said with a smile. “And nobody had a… too big of a reaction to us so far! So far so good!” he laughed a bit as he sipped his soda.
“Now. Wanna help us make more?”
FIRST//PREVIOUS//NEXT
2023.06.07 04:05 sedition- Just found a full grown cherry in my trimmings tank.
I had a 5 gallon kit tank sitting around so about 8 months ago I set it up on a dresser near my window, just tossed random plant clippings into it and filled it with water, I pay zero attention to the tank, never tested the water or added food, I never turn the light on, no filter no heater, and the only care it gets is topping the water off every couple months when I notice it's getting kinda low.
Lo and behold today as I was over in that corner of my room I looked into the tank and found a full grown super deep red cherry shrimp.
It's probably not a surprise to people who keep shrimp when they manage to hitch rides between tanks, but I'm just amazed by the survivability of this little guy, the tank is directly next to a window and my insulation kinda sucks, so the water was definitely super cold during the winter months, and yet this dude not only managed to survive but he/she's huge.
With this revelation, I've just added an internal filter into the tank with old media, and some drift wood for him/her to graze on, I'll probably add some shrimp from my main tank in with them in the near future, but I'm a tad concerned about the temp difference, it's a full 10 degrees colder than my other tanks.
Apologies for the rant, but this is probably the most exciting thing shrimp/fish related that's happened to me in months and I had to share.
submitted by sedition- to shrimptank [link] [comments]
Lo and behold today as I was over in that corner of my room I looked into the tank and found a full grown super deep red cherry shrimp.
It's probably not a surprise to people who keep shrimp when they manage to hitch rides between tanks, but I'm just amazed by the survivability of this little guy, the tank is directly next to a window and my insulation kinda sucks, so the water was definitely super cold during the winter months, and yet this dude not only managed to survive but he/she's huge.
With this revelation, I've just added an internal filter into the tank with old media, and some drift wood for him/her to graze on, I'll probably add some shrimp from my main tank in with them in the near future, but I'm a tad concerned about the temp difference, it's a full 10 degrees colder than my other tanks.
Apologies for the rant, but this is probably the most exciting thing shrimp/fish related that's happened to me in months and I had to share.
2023.06.07 03:48 wtfwafflezor (Selling) 800 Titles Creed III (2023) (Vudu/4K) $9 Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023) (MA/4K) $9
Prices FIRM - CashApp/Venmo/PayPal Friends & Family
Disney/Marvel titles are split codes. Only redeem what you pay for. Thank you.
12 Monkeys (1995) (MA/4K) $3.50
12 Years a Slave (2013) (MA/HD) $3.50
13 Hours: Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016) (Vudu/4K) $5.50 (Vudu/HD) $2 (iTunes/4K) $3
1917 (2019) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $3.50
2 Guns (2013) (MA/HD) $4.75 (iTunes/HD) $3.50
2012 (2009) (MA/4K) $6.50
21 Jump Street (2012) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $2.75
22 Jump Street (2014) (MA/HD) $4.50
355, The (2022) (MA/HD) $5.75
47 Meters Down (2017) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.50
47 Ronin (2013) (MA/4K) $5.75 (iTunes/4K) $4 (MA/HD) $3.50
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) (MA/HD) $5.75
A Clockwork Orange (1972) (MA/4K) $6.50
A Man Called Otto (2022) (MA/HD) $7.25
A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $4.25
A Monster Calls (2016) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3.75
A Vigilante (2018) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5.50
A Wrinkle in Time (2018) (MA/HD) $3
Abominable (2019) (MA/4K) $7.50 (MA/HD) $6.25
Action Point (2018) (Vudu/HD) $2.25 (iTunes/4K) $1.50
Ad Astra (2019) (MA/HD) $4.75
Adventures of Tintin (2011) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.50
After Earth (2013) (MA/HD) $2.50
Aladdin (1992) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $3.25 (GP/HD) $2.25
Aladdin (2019) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.25 (GP/HD) $1.50
Alice in Wonderland (1951) (GP/HD) $5.50
Alien (1979) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $5
Alien 3 (1992) (MA/HD) $5.50
Alien Collection 1-6 (MA/HD) $19.50 1-4 (MA/SD) $9
Alien Resurrection (1997) (MA/HD) $5.50
Aliens (1986) (MA/HD) $5.50
Alita: Battle Angel (2019) (MA/4K) $5.50 (MA/HD) $4
All The Money In The World (2017) (MA/HD) $4.25
All the Way (2016) (GP/HD) $3.50 No Port
Aloha (2015) (MA/HD) $2.50
Amazing Spider-Man (2012) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $4.50
Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $5.50
Ambulance (2022) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $4
American Beauty (1999) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $6
American Gangster (Extended Edition) (2007) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $6.25
American Made (2017) (MA/4K) $7.25 (MA/HD) $4.25
American Sniper (2014) (MA/4K) $6.50
American Underdog (2021) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $4.75
Amsterdam (2022) (MA/HD) $5 (GP/HD) $3.75
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013) (iTunes/HD) $2
Angry Birds Movie (2016) (MA/HD) $3.75
Antlers (2021) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $4
Ant-Man (2015) (MA/4K) $6.25 (iTunes/4K) $5 (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $2.25
Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) (MA/4K) $8 (iTunes/4K) $6.25 (GP/HD) $3.25
Apollo 11 (2019) (MA/HD) $6.25
Apollo 13 (1995) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $4.75
Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm (2022) (MA/HD) $4.75
Artist, The (2011) (MA/HD) $6
Atomic Blonde (2017) (MA/4K) $5 (iTunes/4K) $3.25 (MA/HD) $2.25
Avengers 1-4 (MA/4K) $25 (iTunes/4K) $20 (GP/HD) $7.75
Babylon (2022) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/4K) $6.25
Back to the Future (1985) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.25
Back to the Future Collection 1-3 (MA/4K) $15 (MA/HD) $7.50
Bad Boys Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $12
Bad Boys for Life (2020) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $3.50
Bad Guys, The (2022) (MA/4K) $8 (MA/HD) $4.25
Bad Moms (2016) (MA/HD) $3.50 (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Bad Times at The El Royale (2018) (MA/4K) $7.75 (MA/HD) $5.75
Bambi (1942) (MA/HD) $6.25 (GP/HD) $4.50
Bambi II (2006) (MA/HD) $6.25 (GP/HD) $4.50
Band of Brothers (2001) (GP/HD) $3.75 No Port
Bank Job, The (2008) (Vudu/HD) $3.25
Banshees of Inisherin (2022) (GP/HD) $4.50
Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons (2022) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $4.50
Batman Year One (2011) (MA/4K) $5
Batman, The (2022) (MA/4K) $5.25 (MA/HD) $3
Batman: Soul of the Dragon (2021) (MA/4K) $6
Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham (2022) (MA/4K) $7.50
Batman: The Long Halloween Deluxe Edition (2022) (MA/HD) $6
Battle: Los Angeles (2011) (MA/4K) $6.50
Battleship (2012) (MA/4K) $4.50 (MA/HD) $1.75 (iTunes/4K) $3
Beast (2022) (MA/HD) $5.75
Beauty and the Beast (1991) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $4.75 (GP/HD) $2
Beauty and the Beast (2017) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $3.25 (GP/HD) $2
Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) (MA/HD) $5 (GP/HD) $3.50
Beguiled, The (2017) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4
Being John Malkovich (1999) (MA/HD) $3.50
Beirut (2018) (MA/HD) $4.75
Ben-Hur (2016) (Vudu/HD) $2.50
BFG, The (2016) (MA/HD) $5.25 (GP/HD) $3.50
Big (1988) (MA/HD) $5.75
Big Wedding (2013) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3.75
Billy Elliot (2000) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.25
Black Adam (2022) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $4.25
Black Panther (2018) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) $4.25 (GP/HD) $1.75
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3.75 (GP/HD) $2.50
Black Phone, The (2021) (MA/HD) $5
Black Swan (2010) (MA/HD) $4.50
Black Widow (2021) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $4.75 (GP/HD) $3.25
Blacklight (2022) (MA/HD) $4.25
Bleed for This (2016) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4
Blockers (2018) (MA/HD) $3
Blood Father (2016) (Vudu/HD) $4
Bloodshot (2020) (MA/HD) $4
Blues Brothers + Unrated (1980) (MA/4K) $7
Bob's Burgers Movie (2022) (MA/HD) $3.25 (GP/HD) $2.25
Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) (Vudu/4K) $6.75
Bodyguard, The (1992) (MA/HD) $5
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) (MA/4K) $5 (MA/HD) $3.25
Bolt (2008) (MA/HD) $8 (GP/HD) $5.50
Bond: Goldfinger (1964) (Vudu/HD) $7
Bond: Skyfall (2012) (Vudu/HD) $1
Bond: Spectre (2015) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
Book of Henry (2017) (iTunes/HD) Ports $5
Book of Life (2014) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.50
Booksmart (2019) (MA/HD) $5.25
Boss Baby (2017) & Family Business (2021) (MA/HD) $5.75
Boss Baby: Family Business (2021) (MA/HD) $4.50
Bourne Collection 1-5 (MA/4K) $25 (iTunes/HD) $19 (MA/HD) $15
Boy Next Door, The (2015) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $5.25
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) (MA/4K) $7
Braven (2018) (Vudu/HD) $3.75
Breakdown (1997) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5.75
Breakfast Club (1985), Weird Science (2008), Sixteen Candles (1984) (MA/HD) $11.50
Breakthrough (2019) (MA/4K) $6.50
Brian Banks (2019) (MA/HD) $4.25
Bridge of Spies (2015) (MA/HD) $5.25 (GP/HD) $3.75
Bring It On: Worldwide #Cheersmack (2017) (MA/HD) $3.25 (iTunes/HD) $1.25
Broken City (2013) (MA/HD) $3.50 (iTunes/SD) $1.25
Broken Hearts Gallery (2020) (MA/HD) $3.75
Brothers (2009) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
Buffy, the Vampire Slayer (1992) (MA/HD) $5.75
Bullet Train (2022) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $4.25
Cake (2014) (MA/HD) $5.25
Call Me by Your Name (2017) (MA/HD) $5.75
Call of the Wild (2020) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $1.50 (GP/HD) $1.25
Call, The (2013) (MA/HD) $4.50
Captain America: Civil War (2016) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) $5 (GP/HD) $2.25
Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014) (MA/4K) $7.50 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $6 (GP/HD) $2.25
Captain Marvel (2019) (MA/4K) $5 (iTunes/4K) $4 (GP/HD) $1.75
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017) (MA/HD) $3.25
Carrie (2013) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
Cars 1-3 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $15.50 (GP/HD) $9
Casablanca (1943) (MA/4K) $6.25
Casper (1995) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $3.75
Catch the Bullet (2021) (Vudu/HD) $4.75
Change-Up, The (2011) (Unrated) (2011) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $5.50
Chappie (2015) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3.75
Charlie's Angels (2000) (MA/4K) $7.75
Charlie's Angels (2019) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $5.50
Chronicles of Riddick (Unrated Director's Cut) (2004) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5
Cinderella (1950) (MA/HD) $5.75 (GP/HD) $3.75
Cinderella (2015) (MA/4K) $7.50 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $2.50
Cinderella 'Camila Cabello' (2021) (MA/HD) $4.50
Cinderella II: Dreams Come True (2002) (MA/HD) $6.50
Citizenfour (2014) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
Clerks III (2022) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $5.50
Clifford the Big Red Dog (2021) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $3.50
Clueless (1995) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.25
Coal Miner's Daughter (1980) (MA/HD) $6.25
Coco (2017) (MA/4K) $6.50 (iTunes/4K) $5.25 (GP/HD) $2.25
Colombiana (Unrated) (2011) (MA/HD) $4.25
Concussion (2015) (MA/HD) $3
Constantine: The House of Mystery (2022) (MA/HD) $3.50
Contraband (2012) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $2
Contractor (2022) (Vudu/4K) $7 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $4.50
Counselor, The (2013) (MA/HD) $3
Creed Collection 1-3 (Vudu/HD) $12
Creed III (2023) (Vudu/4K) $9
Croods (2013) & A New Age (2020) (MA/HD) $6.75
Croods (2013) (MA/HD) $3.50
Croods: A New Age (2020) (MA/HD) $5
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2001) (MA/4K) $7.75
Cruella (2021) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $3.50 (GP/HD) $2.50
Cult of Chucky (Unrated) (2017) (MA/HD) $3.75 (iTunes/HD) $2.50
Daddy's Home 1-2 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $5.25
Daddy's Home 2 (2017) (Vudu/4K) $4.50 (iTunes/4K) $2 (Vudu/HD) $2.25
Daniel Craig Collection 5-Movie (Vudu/4K) $20
Darkest Minds, The (2018) (MA/HD) $4.75
DC League of Super-Pets (2022) (MA/4K) $8 (MA/HD) $5
Dead Man Down (2013) (MA/HD) $4.75
Deadpool (2016) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2
Deadpool 2 (2018) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $3.25
Dear Evan Hansen (2021) (MA/HD) $4.25
Death on the Nile (2022) (MA/4K) $7.50 (MA/HD) $5 (GP/HD) $3.50
Death Wish (2018) (Vudu/HD) $2.25
Dentist Collection 1-2 (1996-1998) (Vudu/HD) $5.25
Descent, The (2005) (Vudu/HD) $5.25
Detective Knight Collection 1-3 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $15 $5.75 Each
Detroit (2017) (iTunes/4K) Ports to MA $4.75
Devil Wears Prada (2006) (MA/HD) $5.75
Devil's Due (2014) (MA/HD) $2.75
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul (2017) (MA/HD) $2
Die Hard (1988) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $4
Die Hard 1-5 (MA/HD) $16 $4.75 Each
Disaster Artist, The (2017) (Vudu/HD) $6.25
Disneynature Born in China (2017) (MA/HD) $5.25
DisneyNature: Bears (2014) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $3.50
District 9 (2009) (MA/4K) $6.50
Do the Right Thing (1989) (MA/4K) $6
Doctor Strange (2016) (MA/4K) $6.50 (iTunes/4K) $4 (MA/HD) $3.50 (GP/HD) $1.75
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $2.75 (GP/HD) $2
Dog (2022) (Vudu/HD) $3
Dolittle (2020) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $3.50
Don't Breathe 2 (2021) (MA/HD) $7.50
Don't Let Go (2019) (MA/HD) $4
Don't Worry Darling (2022) (MA/HD) $5.50
Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022) (MA/HD) $3.75
Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who (2008) (MA/HD) $6.50
Dr. Seuss' The Lorax (2012) (MA/HD) $3.25 (iTunes/HD) $2.25
Dracula Untold (2014) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $2.75 (iTunes/4K) $4
Dragonheart 5-Movie (MA/HD) $15
Dredd (2012) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $3.50
Drive (2011) (MA/HD) $4.50
Duff, The (2015) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Dumbo (2019) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) $5.25 (GP/HD) $2.50
Dune (2021) (MA/4K) $5.50
Dunkirk (2017) (MA/4K) $6.50
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) $5 (MA/HD) $3
Early Man (2018) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5.25
Echo Boomers (2020) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4
Eddie the Eagle (2016) (MA/HD) (iTunes/4K) $6
Elvis (2022) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $4
Elysium (2013) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3.25
Empire State (2013) (Vudu/HD) $4.75
Encanto (2021) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) (GP/4K) $3.50
Equalizer (2014) (MA/HD) $3.75
Equalizer 2 (2018) (MA/4K) $7.25 (MA/HD) $2.75
Escape Plan: The Extractors (2019) (Vudu/HD) $3.75
Eternals (2021) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $3
Everest (2015) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3 (iTunes/4K) $4
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) (Vudu/4K) $7.50
Expendables 1-3 (Vudu/HD) $4.50
Extreme Prejudice (1987) (Vudu/HD) $5.25
F9: The Fast Saga + Director's Cut (2021) (MA/4K) $5.25 (MA/HD) $3.25
Fabelmans (2022) (MA/HD) $6.50
Faculty, The (1998) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $6.50
Fantastic Beasts Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $7.75
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) (MA/4K) $5.25 (MA/HD) $3
Fantasy Island (2020) (MA/HD) $7
Fast & Furious Collection 1-9 (MA/HD) $10
Father Stu (2022) (MA/HD) $5.50
Ferdinand (2017) (MA/HD) $3.50
Field of Dreams (1989) (MA/4K) $7.50 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $6
Fifth Element (1997) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $6
Fifty Shades of Black (2016) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $3.50
Fifty Shades of Grey 3-Movie + Unrated (MA/HD) $9.75
Finding Dory (2016) (MA/4K) $5.75 (iTunes/4K) $3.50 (GP/HD) $1.25
Finding Nemo (2003) (MA/4K) $6.75 (iTunes/4K) $5.25 (GP/HD) $3
First Man (2018) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $4.25
First Purge (2018) (MA/HD) $4.50
Five Feet Apart (2019) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $3
Forbidden Kingdom (2008) (Vudu/HD) $5
Ford v Ferrari (2019) (MA/4K) $7.75 (MA/HD) $4.75
Founder, The (2017) (Vudu/HD) $5 (iTunes/HD) $5.50
Fox and the Hound 2, The (2006) (MA/HD) $4 (GP/HD) $3
Foxcatcher (2014) (MA/HD) $4.50
Frank & Lola (2016) (MA/HD) $4.75
Frankenstein (1931) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.50
Free Guy (2021) (MA/4K) $7.50 (MA/HD) $4.75 (GP/HD) $3.25
Frozen (2013) (MA/4K) $5.50 (MA/HD) $3.50 (GP/HD) $1.50
Frozen 2 (2019) (MA/4K) $4.50 (MA/HD) $4 (GP/HD) $1.75
Frozen Sing-Along Edition (2014) (MA/HD) $3.75 (GP/HD) $1.75
Full Metal Jacket (1987) (MA/4K) $6.50
Fury (2014) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $4.50
Future World (2018) (Vudu/HD) $4
Galaxy Quest (1999) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $6
Gambler (2014) (Vudu/HD) $3.50 (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Gangs of New York (2002) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5.50
Gate, The (1987) (Vudu/SD) $4.25
Get on Up (2014) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $4.50
Get Out (2017) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $3.75
Ghost In The Shell (2017) (Vudu/HD) $2.25 (iTunes/4K) $2.75
Ghostbusters (1984) (MA/HD) $3.50
Ghostbusters + Extended (2016) (MA/HD) $3
Ghostbusters II (1989) (MA/HD) $3.50
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) (MA/4K) $7.50 (MA/HD) $3.50
Gifted (2017) (MA/HD) $5
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) (MA/HD) $6
Girls Trip (2017) (MA/HD) $1.50 (iTunes/HD) $1
Glass (2019) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $4.50
Glory (1989) (MA/4K) $7.75
Godfather (1972) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/4K) $4.75
Godfather Trilogy (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $14
Godzilla (1998) (MA/4K) $6.50
Gone Baby Gone (2007) (Vudu/HD) $5.25
Good Boys (2019) (MA/HD) $3.75
Good Dinosaur (2015) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $3
Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017) (MA/HD) $6.50
Goosebumps (2015) (MA/HD) $5
Goosebumps 2 (2018) (MA/4K) $7.50 (MA/HD) $6.50
Grease (1978), 2 (1982), Live! (2016) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $14
Great Wall (2016) (MA/HD) $2.50
Green Book (2018) (MA/4K) $7.25 (MA/HD) $5
Green Hornet (2011) (MA/HD) $6.50
Green Lantern: Beware My Power (2022) (MA/HD) $3
Green Mile, The (1999) (MA/4K) $6
Groundhog Day (1993) (MA/4K) $8
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) $4.75 (MA/HD) $4 (GP/HD) $1.75
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) (MA/4K) $6.75 (iTunes/4K) $4.25 (GP/HD) $1.25
Half Brothers (2020) (MA/HD) $5.75
Halloween (2018) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $4.25
Halloween Ends (2022) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $4.50
Halloween Kills (2021) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $4.25
Hancock (2008) (MA/4K) $6.50
Happy Death Day (2017) (MA/HD) $6
Happy Death Day 2U (2019) (MA/HD) $6
Hate U Give (2018) (MA/4K) $7.75 (MA/HD) $4.50
Hateful Eight (2015) (Vudu/HD) $2
Heat: Director's Definitive Edition (1995) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $5.25
Heavy Metal (1981) (MA/4K) $6.50
Hellboy (Director's Cut) (2004) (MA/4K) $6.50
Hercules (1997) (MA/HD) $6.50 (GP/HD) $5.50
Hidden Figures (2016) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2
Hitman: Agent 47 (2015) (MA/HD) $4.50
Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard (2021) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $5
Hobbs & Shaw (2019) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $3.75
Hocus Pocus (1993) (MA/4K) $6.75 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.75 (GP/HD) $2.25
Holiday Inn (1942) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $3
Home Alone (1990) (MA/HD) $4
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) (MA/HD) $3.50
Hotel Transylvania (2012) (MA/HD) $6
Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015) (MA/HD) $6.75
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $4.50
House of 1,000 Corpses (2003), Devil's Rejects (2005), 3 From Hell (2019) (Vudu/HD) $6
House of Gucci (2021) (iTunes/4K) $5
House of the Dragon: Season 1 (2022) (Vudu/4K) $9 (Vudu/HD) $5.50
House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $3.75
How to Train Your Dragon (2010) (MA/4K) $6.50
How to Train Your Dragon Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $7.50 $4.75 Each
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $4.25
Howard the Duck (1986) (MA/4K) $7
Hugo (2011) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3.75
Hulk, The (2003) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $6.25
Hunger Games Collection 1-4 (Vudu/HD) $6 (iTunes/4K) $12
Hunt, The (2019) (MA/HD) $5.75
Huntsman: Winter's War - Extended Edition (2016) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $3
I Can Only Imagine (2018) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.75
I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (2007) (MA/HD) $3.50
Ice Age (2002) (MA/HD) $5
Ice Age: Collision Course (2016) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.25
Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012) (MA/HD) $4.50
Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006) (MA/HD) $6
Identity Thief (2013) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $3.75
Ides of March (2011) (MA/HD) $5.25
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) (MA/HD) $5.75
Impossible, The (2013) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.75
In the Heights (2021) (MA/4K) $5
Incredible Hulk (2008) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $5.25
Incredibles (2004) (MA/4K) $7.75 (iTunes/4K) $6.25 (GP/HD) $4.75
Incredibles 2 (2018) (MA/4K) $6.25 (iTunes/4K) $4.50 (GP/HD) $2
Independence Day (1996) (MA/4K) $7.75 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $5.50
Independence Day: Resurgence (2014) (iTunes/4K) $2 (MA/HD) $1.50
Indiana Jones 1-4 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $20
Inferno (2016) (MA/HD) $3.25
Inglorious Bastards (2009) (MA/4K) $7
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) (MA/HD) $6
Inside Out (2015) (MA/4K) $5.75 (iTunes/4K) $4.25 (GP/HD) $1.50
Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013) (MA/HD) $5.25
Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015) (MA/HD) $6.50
Instructions Not Included (2013) (Vudu/HD) $3.75
Internship (2013) (MA/HD) $3.25
Interview, The (2014) (MA/HD) $3.50
Into the Woods (2014) (MA/HD) $4 (GP/HD) $2.25
Invisible Man (2020) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3.75
Iron Man (2008) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) $7 (GP/HD) $3
Iron Man 1-3 (MA/4K) $21 (iTunes/4K) $16 (GP/HD) $7.50
Iron Man 2 (2010) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) $6.50 (GP/HD) $3
Iron Man 3 (2013) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) $3 (MA/HD) $2.25 (GP/HD) $1.50
Isle of Dogs (2018) (MA/HD) $4.75
It Comes at Night (2017) (Vudu/HD) $6.25
It Follows (2015) (Vudu/HD) $4.25
Jack Reacher Collection 1-2 (iTunes/4K) $7
Jackass Forever (2022) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $4
Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (2013) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3
Jackie (2016) (MA/HD) $4.25
Jacob's Ladder (1990) (Vudu/HD) $3.50
Jane Got a Gun (2016) (Vudu/HD) $5.75
Jason Statham 6-Movie (Wild Card, War, Bank Job, Transporter 3, Crank, Crank 2) (Vudu/HD) $11.50
Jaws (1975) (MA/4K) $6.25 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.75
Jaws (1975) Jaws 2 (1978) Jaws 3 (1983) Jaws: The Revenge (1987) (MA/HD) $15.50
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5.50
Jingle All the Way (1996) (MA/HD) $5.25
John Wick Collection 1-3 (Vudu/4K) $16 (iTunes/4K) $14 (Vudu/HD) $8
John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $15
Jojo Rabbit (2019) (MA/HD) $6.75
Joy (2015) (MA/HD) (iTunes/4K) $4
Jumanji (1995) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $6
Jumanji: Next Level (2019) & Welcome to the Jungle (2017) (MA/HD) $7.50
Jumanji: The Next Level (2019) (MA/4K) $7.75 (MA/HD) $5.50
Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle (2017) (MA/4K) $5.50 (MA/HD) $2 (MA/SD) $1
Jungle Cruise (2021) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $3.75 (GP/HD) $3
Jurassic Park (1993) (MA/4K) $5.25 (iTunes/4K) $3.75 (MA/HD) $3
Jurassic Park III (2001) (MA/4K) $6.50 (iTunes/4K) $3.75 (MA/HD) $3.50
Jurassic Park: The Lost World (1997) (MA/4K) $6.50 (iTunes/4K) $3.75 (MA/HD) $3
Jurassic World (2015) (MA/4K) $5.25 (iTunes/4K) $3.75 (MA/HD) $2.75
Jurassic World Collection 1-5 (MA/4K) $20 (iTunes/4K) $17.50 (MA/HD) $10
Jurassic World Collection 1-6 (MA/4K) $23.50 (MA/HD) $11.50
Jurassic World: Dominion + Extended Cut (2022) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $4.25
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $1.75
Justice League x RWBY Super Heroes and Huntsmen Part One (2023) (MA/HD) $4
Justice Society: World War II (2021) (MA/4K) $5.50
Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3.75
Kick-Ass 2 (2013) (MA/HD) $5.25 (iTunes/HD) $5
Kicks (2016) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $5
Kid Who Would Be King (2019) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $4.75
Kidnap (2017) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3.25
Kill the Messenger (2014) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $5
Killer Elite (2011) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $3.25
Killerman (2019) (Vudu/HD) $2.25 (iTunes/HD) $1.75
Killing Lincoln (2013) (MA/HD) $5.25
King Kong (2005) (MA/4K) $5.75 (iTunes/4K) $3.75 (MA/HD) $3.50
King of Staten Island (2020) (MA/HD) $4.75
King's Man (2021) (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $3.50
Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016) (MA/HD) $2.50
Kung Fu Panda Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $12.50
L.A. Confidential (1997) (MA/HD) $5.75
Last Christmas (2019) (MA/HD) $6.50
Last Full Measure (2020) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5.50
Last Night in Soho (2021) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $5.75
Last Vegas (2013) (MA/HD) $3
Lawless (2012) (Vudu/HD) $3.75
Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013) (Vudu/HD) $2.25
Legion of Super Heroes (2023) (MA/HD) $5.50
Les Miserables (2012) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Let Him Go (2020) (MA/HD) $3.75
Let's Be Cops (2014) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2.50
Life (2017) (MA/HD) $2.50
Light of My Life (2019) (Vudu/HD) $2.50 (iTunes/HD) $2
Lightyear (2022) (MA/4K) $5 (MA/HD) $2.75 (GP/HD) $2
Like a Boss (2020) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $2.25
Lion (2016) (Vudu/HD) $4.50
Lion King (1994) (MA/4K) $7 (iTunes/4K) $4.50 (GP/HD) $2.75
Lion King (2019) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) $4 (GP/HD) $1.25
Lion King 1 1/2 (2004) (MA/HD) $6.50
Lion King 2: Simba's Pride (1998) (MA/HD) $6.75 (GP/HD) $5.25
Little Mermaid (1989) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $5.75 (GP/HD) $3.75
Little Monsters (1989) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
Live Die Repeat: Edge Of Tomorrow (2014) (MA/4K) $6.50
Lodge, The (2019) (MA/HD) $5.75
Logan Lucky (2017) (MA/HD) $1.50 (iTunes/4K) $2.25
London Has Fallen (2016) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $3.75
Lone Survivor (2013) (MA/4K) $6.75 (iTunes/4K) $2 (MA/HD) $1.50
Long Shot (2019) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $4
Longest Ride (2015) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $1.50
Looper (2012) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $3
Lords of Salem, The (2012) (Vudu/HD) $4.75
Lost City, The (2022) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $6
Love Actually (2003) (MA/HD) $5.50
Love, Simon (2018) (MA/HD) $3
Luca (2021) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3.75 (GP/HD) $3.25
Lucy (2014) (MA/HD) $2
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (2022) (MA/HD) $5.50
Ma (2019) (MA/HD) $5.25
Mad Max Collection 1-4 (Vudu/4K) $20
Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2
Madagascar Collection 1-4 (MA/HD) $14
Maleficent (2014) (MA/4K) $5.75 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $3 (GP/HD) $1.25
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) $3.75 (GP/HD) $1.75
Mama (2013) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $3.50
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $1.75
Mamma Mia! The Movie (2008) & Here We Go Again (2018) (MA/HD) $6.50 $4.50 Each
Martian - Extended Cut (2015) (MA/4K) $7.75 (MA/HD) $5.25
Martian (Theatrical) (2015) (MA/4K) $7.25 (MA/HD) $3.25
Mary Poppins (1964) (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $3
Mary Poppins Returns (2018) (MA/4K) $6.50 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $2
Matrix Collection 1-4 (MA/4K) $18.50
Matrix: Resurrections (2021) (MA/4K) $5
Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018) (MA/HD) $5.75
McFarland, USA (2015) (MA/HD) $6.25 (GP/HD) $4.50
Memory (2022) (MA/HD) $3.50
Men (2022) (Vudu/HD) $3.75
Men in Black Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $15.50
Menu (2022) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $4
MIB: International (2019) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $4.75
Mickey & Minnie 10 Classic Shorts - Volume 1 (2023) (MA/HD) $5.75 (GP/HD) $4
Midsommar (2019) (Vudu/HD) $5.75
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016) (MA/HD) (iTunes/4K) $4.50
Million Dollar Arm (2014) (MA/HD) $4
Minions (2015) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2.75
Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) & Minions (2015) (MA/HD) $8
Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $5.25
Miracles From Heaven (2016) (MA/HD) $4.50
Mission: Impossible Collection 1-6 (Vudu/4K) $25 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $20
Mitchells Vs. The Machines (2021) (MA/HD) $4.50
Moana (2016) (MA/4K) $7 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.75 (GP/HD) $2
Money Monster (2016) (MA/HD) $3.25
Monster Hunter (2020) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $4.25
Monster Trucks (2016) (Vudu/HD) $2.25
Monster's Ball (2001) (Vudu/HD) $6.25
Monsters University (2013) (MA/4K) $6.75 (iTunes/4K) $5.75 (GP/HD) $3.50
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983) (MA/4K) $7.25
Monuments Men (2014) (MA/HD) $2
Moonfall (2022) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $5
Morbius (2022) (MA/4K) $5.25 (MA/HD) $3.25 (MA/SD) $2.25
Mortal Engines (2018) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $3.25
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind (2022) (MA/HD) $5.50
Mother! (2017) (Vudu/HD) $3.50
Mountain Between Us (2017) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $1.50
Mr Popper's Penguins (2011) (MA/HD) $6
Much Ado About Nothing (2013) (Vudu/HD) $4.25
Mulan (1998) (MA/4K) $6.75 (iTunes/4K) $5.75 (GP/HD) $3
Mulan (2020) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $4 (GP/HD) $2.25
Muppet Movie (1979) (MA/HD) $7.50 (GP/HD) $6
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (2016) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $4
My Dinner with Herve (2018) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $3
National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $5.25
Natural, The (1984) (MA/4K) $5
Nebraska (2013) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.25
Neighbors (2014) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $2
New Mutants (2020) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $5.25 (GP/HD) $2.75
News of the World (2020) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $3.75
Night at the Museum 3-Movie (MA/HD) $13.50 $6 Each (MA/SD) $9
Night Before (2015) (MA/HD) $4.75
Night House, The (2021) (MA/HD) $5 (GP/HD) $3
Night School (Extended) (2018) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $3.75
Ninth Gate, The (1999) (Vudu/HD) $4.50
No Country For Old Men (2007) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
No Time to Die (2021) (iTunes/4K) $3.50
Nobody (2021) (MA/HD) $5.25
Non-Stop (2014) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Nope (2022) (MA/HD) $5.75
Nope (2022), Get Out (2017) & Us (2019) (MA/HD) $10
Norm of the North (2016) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Northman (2022) (MA/4K) $7.25 (MA/HD) $4.50
Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $3 (GP/HD) $2.50
Oblivion (2013) (MA/4K) $7 (iTunes/4K) $3.50 (MA/HD) $2.25
Olaf's Frozen Adventure Plus 6 Disney Tales (2017) (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $3
Olympus Has Fallen (2013) (MA/HD) $5
On the Basis of Sex (2019) (MA/HD) $4.50
Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood (2019) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $5
Onward (2020) (MA/4K) $5.50 (MA/HD) $4 (GP/HD) $2.25
Oranges, The (2011) (MA/HD) $4.50
Other Woman (2014) (MA/HD) $2.25
Ouija (2014) & Origin of Evil (2016) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $9
Overboard (2016) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5.75
Pacific Rim Uprising (2018) (MA/4K) $7.75 (MA/HD) $4.50
Pain & Gain (2013) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3.25
Paper Towns (2011) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.50
ParaNorman (2012) (iTunes/HD) $5
Passengers (2016) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $2.75
Passion of the Christ (2004) (MA/HD) $10
Paul (2011) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $4.50
Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (2015) (MA/HD) $4.25
Paw Patrol: The Movie (2021) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $5
Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank (2022) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $6
Pearl (2022) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
Peppermint (2018) (iTunes/HD) $1.75
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013) (MA/HD) $2.25
Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $1.75
Peter Rabbit (2018) & 2 (2021) (MA/HD) $8.50 $4.75 Each
Peter Rabbit (2018) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $4.75
Phantom Thread (2017) (MA/HD) $3.75
Philadelphia (1993) (MA/4K) $7.75
Philomena (2013) (Vudu/HD) $2
Pinocchio (1940) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $3.75
Pirate Fairy (2014) (MA/HD) $3.25
Pitch Perfect (2012) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $2.75 (iTunes/4K) $3.75
Pitch Perfect Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $11.50
Pixels (2015) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $5.50
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) (iTunes/HD) $3.75
Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014) (MA/HD) $4 (GP/HD) $2
Planet of the Apes 1-3 (Newer) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $12
Playing with Fire (2019) (iTunes/4K) $1.50 (Vudu/HD) $2
Pocahontas (1995) (MA/HD) $6.50 (GP/HD) $5
Pompeii (2014) (MA/HD) $3.50
Poms (2019) (iTunes/HD) $2.50
Post, The (2017) (MA/HD) $2.75
Predator (1987), 2 (1990), Predators (2009), Predator (2018) (MA/HD) $11
Predator (2018) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $3.50
Premium Rush (2012) (MA/HD) $3.25
Prey for the Devil (2022) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $6
Princess and the Frog (2009) (iTunes/4K) $5.50 (GP/HD) $3.25
Prometheus (2012) (MA/HD) $1.75
Prophecy Collection 1-5 (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $14.50
Psycho (1960) (MA/HD) (iTunes/4K) $5
Psycho (1960), Rear Window (1954), The Birds (1963), Vertigo (1958) (MA/4K) $17
Public Enemies (2009) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $6.25
Purge, The (2013) (MA/4K) $6.50 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $3
Purge: Anarchy (2014) (MA/4K) $5.75 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.75
Purge: Election Year (2016) (MA/4K $5.50 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $3
Puss in Boots (2011) (MA/4K) $6.75
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) (MA/HD) $7.50
Queen & Slim (2019) (MA/HD) $4.50
R.I.P.D. (2013) (MA/HD) $3.25 (iTunes/HD) $3
Race (2016) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $2.75
Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) (MA/4K) $5.25 (iTunes/4K) $4.50 (GP/HD) $1.50
Rambo Collection 1-5 (Vudu/HD) $14
Rambo: First Blood (1982) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $6
Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) (Vudu/4K) $6.75 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $2.50
Rescuers Down Under (1990) (MA/HD) $6.50 (GP/HD) $4
Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) (MA/HD) $2.25
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2017) (MA/4K) $7.25 (MA/HD) $3.25
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $4.50
Respect (2021) (iTunes/4K) $4.75
Revenant, The (2015) (MA/4K) $5.25 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $3.25
Ricki And The Flash (2015) (MA/HD) $4.50
Riddick - Unrated Director's Cut (2013) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4
Riddick Collection 1-3 (Unrated) (MA/HD) $14
Ride Along 1-2 (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5 $2.75 Each
Rio 2 (2014) (MA/HD) $2.25
Risen (2016) (MA/HD) $4.50
Road to El Dorado (2000) (MA/HD) $5.50
Robin Hood (2010) (MA/4K) $6.25
Robin Hood (Animated) (1973) (MA/HD) $3.75 (GP/HD) $2.75
RoboCop (1987) (Vudu/HD) $7.25
Robots (2005) (MA/HD) $6.75
Rock Dog (2016) (Vudu/HD) $4.25
Ron's Gone Wrong (2021) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $5.25 (GP/HD) $3.50
Rumble (2022) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $5.75
Run Lola Run (1998) (MA/HD) $6.50
Rush (2013) (MA/HD) $2.75 (iTunes/HD) $3.25
Russell Madness (2015) (MA/HD) $4
Safe (2012) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $1.75
Saint Maud (2020) (Vudu/HD) $6
Santa Clause (1994), 2 (2002), 3 (2006) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $10.50 (GP/HD) $6.50
Saving Mr. Banks (2013) (MA/HD) $4.75 (GP/HD) $2.75
Saw Collection 1-7 (Vudu/HD) $10
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010) (MA/4K) (iTunes/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $5.25
Scream 5 (2022) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
Scream Collection 1-3 (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $13.50
Second Act (2018) (iTunes/HD) $1.50
Secret Garden, The (2020) (iTunes/4K) $4.25
Secret Headquarters (2022) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/4K) $6
Secret Life of Pets 1-2 (MA/HD) $7.50
Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $5
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $4.50
Seriously Red (2022) (Vudu/HD) $6.75
Sessions, The (2012) (MA/HD) $4.50
Sex Tape (2014) (MA/HD) $3
Shallows, The (2016) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD $4
Shang-Chi (2021) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $4.75 (GP/HD) $3
Shaun of the Dead (2004) (MA/4K) $4
Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), World's End (2013) (MA/HD) $10
Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015) (Vudu/HD) $4
Shawshank Redemption (1994) (MA/4K) $6
Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023) & Shazam! (2019) (MA/HD) $10.50
Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023) (MA/4K) $9 (MA/HD) $8
She's Having a Baby (1988) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.50
Shooter (2007) (Vudu/HD) $5.75
Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018) (MA/4K) $7.75 (MA/HD) $3.75
Sideways (2004) (MA/HD) $5.25
Silent Night, Deadly Night: 3-Film Collection (1989-1991) (Vudu/HD) $6
Silver Linings Playbook (2012) (Vudu/HD) $2
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014) (Vudu/HD) $6.25
Sing 2 (2021) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3.50
Sing Collection 1-2 (MA/HD) $6
Singin' in the Rain (1952) (MA/4K) $6.50
Sinister (2012) (Vudu/HD) $3 (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Sisters (Unrated) (2015) (MA/HD) $4 (iTunes/HD) $3.25
Sixteen Candles (1984) (MA/HD) $5.25 (iTunes/HD) $4.25
Skeleton Twins (2014) (Vudu/HD) $4.50
Skyscraper (2018) (MA/4K) $5.25 (MA/HD) $1.75
Sleepless (2017) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $1
Smile (2022) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/4K) $6.75
Smokey and the Bandit (1977) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3.75
Smurfs 2 (2013) (MA/HD) $3.25
Smurfs: The Lost Village (2017) (MA/HD) $3.25
Snake Eyes (2021) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $4.25
Snatched (2017) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $1
Snitch (2013) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $1.75
Snow White and the Huntsman (Extended) (2012) (iTunes/4K) $3.50 (MA/HD) $2.50
Son of God (2014) (MA/HD) $1.25
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) (Vudu/4K) $6.50 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $4.50
Soul (2020) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $3.75 (GP/HD) $2.25
Southpaw (2015) (Vudu/HD) $4.50
Southside With You (2016) (Vudu/HD) $3.50
Space Between Us, The (2017) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $5
Space Jam (1996) (MA/4K) $5
Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021) (MA/4K) $5
Speed (1994) (MA/4K) $5.25
Spider-Man (2002) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $5.50
Spider-Man 2 (2004) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $5.50
Spider-Man 3 (2007) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $5.50
Spider-Man Collection 1-8 (MA/HD) $26
Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) (MA/4K) $8 (MA/HD) $4
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) (MA/4K) $8 (MA/HD) $1.75
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $3.75
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2003) (MA/HD) $5
Split (2017) (MA/4K) $6.75 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2.75
Spy (Unrated) (2015) (MA/HD) $2
Spy Game (2001) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $5.75
Stand Up Guys (2012) (Vudu/HD) $2.75
Star Trek 1-3 (Vudu/4K) $18 (Vudu/HD) $9.50 (iTunes/4K) $13.50
Star Trek Beyond (2016) (Vudu/HD) $1.75 (iTunes/4K) $3.25
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) (Vudu/HD) $1.75 (iTunes/4K) $3.25
Starship Troopers (1997) (MA/4K) $6.50
Still Alice (2015) (MA/HD) $3
Stillwater (2021) (MA/HD) $5
Straight Outta Compton (Unrated Director’s Cut) (2015) (MA/4K) $7.50 (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.50
Strange World (2022) (GP/HD) Ports to MA $4.25
Strangers: Prey at Night (2018) (MA/HD) $3.50
Stronger (2017) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.50
Stuber (2019) (MA/HD) $4.75
Studio 666 (2022) (MA/HD) $6.75
Suicide Squad, The (2021) (MA/4K) $5
Super Troopers (2002) (MA/HD) $5.75
SW: A New Hope (1977) (MA/4K) $7 (iTunes/4K) $6.25 (GP/HD) $3.50
SW: Empire Strikes Back (1980) (MA/4K) $7 (iTunes/4K) $6.50 (GP/HD) $3.50
SW: Force Awakens (2015) (MA/4K) $5.25 (iTunes/4K) $3.50 (GP/HD) $1
SW: Last Jedi (2017) (MA/4K) $5.75 (iTunes/4K) $3.75 (GP/HD) $1
SW: Phantom Menace (1999) (MA/4K) $7.50 (iTunes/4K) $6.50 (GP/HD) $3.50
SW: Return of the Jedi (1983) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) $6.50 (GP/HD) $3.50
SW: Revenge of the Sith (2005) (MA/4K) $7.50 (GP/HD) $3.50
SW: Rise of Skywalker (2019) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) $4.75 (GP/HD) $2.25
SW: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) (MA/4K) $6.50 (iTunes/4K) $3.75 (GP/HD) $1.25
SW: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) (MA/4K) $7 (iTunes/4K) $5 (GP/HD) $3.50
Sword in the Stone (1963) (MA/HD) $6.25 (GP/HD) $3.75
Taken Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $9
Tangled (2010) (MA/4K) $8 (MA/HD) $5 (GP/HD) $3.75
Tarzan (1999) (MA/HD) $6.50 (GP/HD) $5
Teen Titans Go! & DC Super Hero Girls: Mayhem in the Multiverse (2022) (MA/HD) $4.75
Terminator (1984) (Vudu/HD) $7
Terminator: Genisys (2015) (Vudu/HD) $1.75 (iTunes/4K) $3
Theory Of Everything (2014) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $4
Think Like a Man (2012) & Two (2014) (MA/HD) $9
This Is 40 (2012) (MA/HD) $3.75 (iTunes/HD) $2.50
Thor (2011) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $7 (GP/HD) $3.50
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $3.25 (GP/HD) $2
Thor: The Dark World (2013) (MA/4K) $7 (iTunes/4K) $4.50 (GP/HD) $2.25
Till (2022) (iTunes/4K) $6.50
Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast (2014) (MA/HD) $6 (GP/HD) $4
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $4.50
Titanic (1997) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.75
TMNT Out of the Shadows (2016) (iTunes/4K) $4
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) (MA/4K) $6.25 (iTunes/HD) $4.50
Tomorrowland (2015) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $3.50
Top Gun: Maverick (2022) (Vudu/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $5.75
Total Recall + Extended (2012) (MA/HD) $5 (Theatrical) $4
Toy Story 1-4 (MA/4K) $23 (iTunes/4K) $21 (GP/HD) $11.50
Toy Story of Terror! (2013) (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $3
Trading Places (1983) (Vudu/HD) $4.50
Training Day (2001) (MA/4K) $6.50
Trainwreck (2015) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $1.50
Transformers 1-5 (Vudu/4K) $30 (Vudu/HD) $23
Trauma Center (2019) (iTunes/4K) $3.25
Triple 9 (2016) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $2.50
Trolls (2016) (MA/HD) $1.25
Trolls Collection 1-2 (MA/HD) $6
Tully (2018) (MA/HD) $5.75
Turning Red (2022) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $4 (GP/HD) $2.75
Umma (2022) (MA/HD) $4.75
Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $6.75
Unbreakable (2000) (MA/4K) $6 (GP/HD) $3.75
Unbroken (2014) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3
Uncharted (2022) (MA/4K) $5.50 (MA/HD) $3.25
Under the Skin (2014) (Vudu/HD) $5.25
Underworld: Blood Wars (2016) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $2.25
Unforgiven (1992) (MA/4K) $6.50
Unhinged (2020) (Vudu/HD) $4.75
Up (2009) (iTunes/4K) $7.50 (MA/HD) $6.75
Up in Smoke ‘Cheech and Chong’ (1978) (Vudu/HD) $3.50 (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Upside, The (2017) (iTunes/HD) $2
Us (2019) (MA/HD) $5.25
Van Helsing (2004) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.75
Venom (2018) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $3.25
Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $3.50
Vice (2015) 'Bruce Willis' (Vudu/HD) $2.50
WALL-E (2008) (iTunes/4K) $8 (GP/HD) $5.50
Walt Disney Animation Studios Shorts Collection (2015) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $4
Warcraft (2016) (MA/4K) $5 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2.25
Watch, The (2012) (MA/HD) $4.25
Waterworld (1995) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $6
Way, Way Back, The (2013) (MA/HD) $5.25
Weird Science (2008) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $6
Welcome to Marwen (2018) (MA/4K) $3.50
West Side Story (2021) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) (GP/HD) $2.50
What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.25
When the Game Stands Tall (2014) (MA/HD) $4.50 (MA/SD) $1.75
Where the Crawdads Sing (2022) (MA/HD) $4.50
Whiplash (2014) (MA/HD) $5.75
White House Down (2013) (MA/HD) $3.50
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody (2022) (MA/HD) $5.75
Widows (2018) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $1.75
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) (MA/4K) $5
Wind River (2017) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5
Wings (1927) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4
Witch, The (2016) (Vudu/HD) $3.50
Wolf Man (1941) (MA/4K) $6.50
Wolverine (Unrated) (2013) (MA/HD) $3.75
Woman King (2022) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $5.50
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) (MA/4K) $5
Won't Back Down (2012) (MA/HD) $4
Wreck-It Ralph (2012) (MA/4K) $8 (GP/HD) $4.25
X (2022) (Vudu/HD) $6.75
X2: X-Men United (2003) (MA/HD) $6.25
X-Men (2000), X2 (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) (MA/HD) $15
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2.50
X-Men: First Class (2010), Days of Future Past (2004), Apocalypse (2014) (MA/HD) $11
Yesterday (2019) (MA/HD) $4.50
Zathura (2005) (MA/HD) $7
Zero Dark Thirty (2012) (MA/HD) $3
Zootopia (2016) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) $5 (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $3.25
submitted by wtfwafflezor to DigitalCodeSELL [link] [comments]
Disney/Marvel titles are split codes. Only redeem what you pay for. Thank you.
12 Monkeys (1995) (MA/4K) $3.50
12 Years a Slave (2013) (MA/HD) $3.50
13 Hours: Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016) (Vudu/4K) $5.50 (Vudu/HD) $2 (iTunes/4K) $3
1917 (2019) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $3.50
2 Guns (2013) (MA/HD) $4.75 (iTunes/HD) $3.50
2012 (2009) (MA/4K) $6.50
21 Jump Street (2012) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $2.75
22 Jump Street (2014) (MA/HD) $4.50
355, The (2022) (MA/HD) $5.75
47 Meters Down (2017) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.50
47 Ronin (2013) (MA/4K) $5.75 (iTunes/4K) $4 (MA/HD) $3.50
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) (MA/HD) $5.75
A Clockwork Orange (1972) (MA/4K) $6.50
A Man Called Otto (2022) (MA/HD) $7.25
A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $4.25
A Monster Calls (2016) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3.75
A Vigilante (2018) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5.50
A Wrinkle in Time (2018) (MA/HD) $3
Abominable (2019) (MA/4K) $7.50 (MA/HD) $6.25
Action Point (2018) (Vudu/HD) $2.25 (iTunes/4K) $1.50
Ad Astra (2019) (MA/HD) $4.75
Adventures of Tintin (2011) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.50
After Earth (2013) (MA/HD) $2.50
Aladdin (1992) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $3.25 (GP/HD) $2.25
Aladdin (2019) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.25 (GP/HD) $1.50
Alice in Wonderland (1951) (GP/HD) $5.50
Alien (1979) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $5
Alien 3 (1992) (MA/HD) $5.50
Alien Collection 1-6 (MA/HD) $19.50 1-4 (MA/SD) $9
Alien Resurrection (1997) (MA/HD) $5.50
Aliens (1986) (MA/HD) $5.50
Alita: Battle Angel (2019) (MA/4K) $5.50 (MA/HD) $4
All The Money In The World (2017) (MA/HD) $4.25
All the Way (2016) (GP/HD) $3.50 No Port
Aloha (2015) (MA/HD) $2.50
Amazing Spider-Man (2012) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $4.50
Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $5.50
Ambulance (2022) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $4
American Beauty (1999) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $6
American Gangster (Extended Edition) (2007) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $6.25
American Made (2017) (MA/4K) $7.25 (MA/HD) $4.25
American Sniper (2014) (MA/4K) $6.50
American Underdog (2021) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $4.75
Amsterdam (2022) (MA/HD) $5 (GP/HD) $3.75
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013) (iTunes/HD) $2
Angry Birds Movie (2016) (MA/HD) $3.75
Antlers (2021) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $4
Ant-Man (2015) (MA/4K) $6.25 (iTunes/4K) $5 (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $2.25
Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) (MA/4K) $8 (iTunes/4K) $6.25 (GP/HD) $3.25
Apollo 11 (2019) (MA/HD) $6.25
Apollo 13 (1995) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $4.75
Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm (2022) (MA/HD) $4.75
Artist, The (2011) (MA/HD) $6
Atomic Blonde (2017) (MA/4K) $5 (iTunes/4K) $3.25 (MA/HD) $2.25
Avengers 1-4 (MA/4K) $25 (iTunes/4K) $20 (GP/HD) $7.75
Babylon (2022) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/4K) $6.25
Back to the Future (1985) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.25
Back to the Future Collection 1-3 (MA/4K) $15 (MA/HD) $7.50
Bad Boys Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $12
Bad Boys for Life (2020) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $3.50
Bad Guys, The (2022) (MA/4K) $8 (MA/HD) $4.25
Bad Moms (2016) (MA/HD) $3.50 (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Bad Times at The El Royale (2018) (MA/4K) $7.75 (MA/HD) $5.75
Bambi (1942) (MA/HD) $6.25 (GP/HD) $4.50
Bambi II (2006) (MA/HD) $6.25 (GP/HD) $4.50
Band of Brothers (2001) (GP/HD) $3.75 No Port
Bank Job, The (2008) (Vudu/HD) $3.25
Banshees of Inisherin (2022) (GP/HD) $4.50
Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons (2022) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $4.50
Batman Year One (2011) (MA/4K) $5
Batman, The (2022) (MA/4K) $5.25 (MA/HD) $3
Batman: Soul of the Dragon (2021) (MA/4K) $6
Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham (2022) (MA/4K) $7.50
Batman: The Long Halloween Deluxe Edition (2022) (MA/HD) $6
Battle: Los Angeles (2011) (MA/4K) $6.50
Battleship (2012) (MA/4K) $4.50 (MA/HD) $1.75 (iTunes/4K) $3
Beast (2022) (MA/HD) $5.75
Beauty and the Beast (1991) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $4.75 (GP/HD) $2
Beauty and the Beast (2017) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $3.25 (GP/HD) $2
Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) (MA/HD) $5 (GP/HD) $3.50
Beguiled, The (2017) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4
Being John Malkovich (1999) (MA/HD) $3.50
Beirut (2018) (MA/HD) $4.75
Ben-Hur (2016) (Vudu/HD) $2.50
BFG, The (2016) (MA/HD) $5.25 (GP/HD) $3.50
Big (1988) (MA/HD) $5.75
Big Wedding (2013) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3.75
Billy Elliot (2000) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.25
Black Adam (2022) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $4.25
Black Panther (2018) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) $4.25 (GP/HD) $1.75
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3.75 (GP/HD) $2.50
Black Phone, The (2021) (MA/HD) $5
Black Swan (2010) (MA/HD) $4.50
Black Widow (2021) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $4.75 (GP/HD) $3.25
Blacklight (2022) (MA/HD) $4.25
Bleed for This (2016) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4
Blockers (2018) (MA/HD) $3
Blood Father (2016) (Vudu/HD) $4
Bloodshot (2020) (MA/HD) $4
Blues Brothers + Unrated (1980) (MA/4K) $7
Bob's Burgers Movie (2022) (MA/HD) $3.25 (GP/HD) $2.25
Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) (Vudu/4K) $6.75
Bodyguard, The (1992) (MA/HD) $5
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) (MA/4K) $5 (MA/HD) $3.25
Bolt (2008) (MA/HD) $8 (GP/HD) $5.50
Bond: Goldfinger (1964) (Vudu/HD) $7
Bond: Skyfall (2012) (Vudu/HD) $1
Bond: Spectre (2015) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
Book of Henry (2017) (iTunes/HD) Ports $5
Book of Life (2014) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.50
Booksmart (2019) (MA/HD) $5.25
Boss Baby (2017) & Family Business (2021) (MA/HD) $5.75
Boss Baby: Family Business (2021) (MA/HD) $4.50
Bourne Collection 1-5 (MA/4K) $25 (iTunes/HD) $19 (MA/HD) $15
Boy Next Door, The (2015) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $5.25
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) (MA/4K) $7
Braven (2018) (Vudu/HD) $3.75
Breakdown (1997) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5.75
Breakfast Club (1985), Weird Science (2008), Sixteen Candles (1984) (MA/HD) $11.50
Breakthrough (2019) (MA/4K) $6.50
Brian Banks (2019) (MA/HD) $4.25
Bridge of Spies (2015) (MA/HD) $5.25 (GP/HD) $3.75
Bring It On: Worldwide #Cheersmack (2017) (MA/HD) $3.25 (iTunes/HD) $1.25
Broken City (2013) (MA/HD) $3.50 (iTunes/SD) $1.25
Broken Hearts Gallery (2020) (MA/HD) $3.75
Brothers (2009) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
Buffy, the Vampire Slayer (1992) (MA/HD) $5.75
Bullet Train (2022) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $4.25
Cake (2014) (MA/HD) $5.25
Call Me by Your Name (2017) (MA/HD) $5.75
Call of the Wild (2020) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $1.50 (GP/HD) $1.25
Call, The (2013) (MA/HD) $4.50
Captain America: Civil War (2016) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) $5 (GP/HD) $2.25
Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014) (MA/4K) $7.50 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $6 (GP/HD) $2.25
Captain Marvel (2019) (MA/4K) $5 (iTunes/4K) $4 (GP/HD) $1.75
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017) (MA/HD) $3.25
Carrie (2013) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
Cars 1-3 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $15.50 (GP/HD) $9
Casablanca (1943) (MA/4K) $6.25
Casper (1995) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $3.75
Catch the Bullet (2021) (Vudu/HD) $4.75
Change-Up, The (2011) (Unrated) (2011) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $5.50
Chappie (2015) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3.75
Charlie's Angels (2000) (MA/4K) $7.75
Charlie's Angels (2019) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $5.50
Chronicles of Riddick (Unrated Director's Cut) (2004) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5
Cinderella (1950) (MA/HD) $5.75 (GP/HD) $3.75
Cinderella (2015) (MA/4K) $7.50 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $2.50
Cinderella 'Camila Cabello' (2021) (MA/HD) $4.50
Cinderella II: Dreams Come True (2002) (MA/HD) $6.50
Citizenfour (2014) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
Clerks III (2022) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $5.50
Clifford the Big Red Dog (2021) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $3.50
Clueless (1995) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.25
Coal Miner's Daughter (1980) (MA/HD) $6.25
Coco (2017) (MA/4K) $6.50 (iTunes/4K) $5.25 (GP/HD) $2.25
Colombiana (Unrated) (2011) (MA/HD) $4.25
Concussion (2015) (MA/HD) $3
Constantine: The House of Mystery (2022) (MA/HD) $3.50
Contraband (2012) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $2
Contractor (2022) (Vudu/4K) $7 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $4.50
Counselor, The (2013) (MA/HD) $3
Creed Collection 1-3 (Vudu/HD) $12
Creed III (2023) (Vudu/4K) $9
Croods (2013) & A New Age (2020) (MA/HD) $6.75
Croods (2013) (MA/HD) $3.50
Croods: A New Age (2020) (MA/HD) $5
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2001) (MA/4K) $7.75
Cruella (2021) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $3.50 (GP/HD) $2.50
Cult of Chucky (Unrated) (2017) (MA/HD) $3.75 (iTunes/HD) $2.50
Daddy's Home 1-2 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $5.25
Daddy's Home 2 (2017) (Vudu/4K) $4.50 (iTunes/4K) $2 (Vudu/HD) $2.25
Daniel Craig Collection 5-Movie (Vudu/4K) $20
Darkest Minds, The (2018) (MA/HD) $4.75
DC League of Super-Pets (2022) (MA/4K) $8 (MA/HD) $5
Dead Man Down (2013) (MA/HD) $4.75
Deadpool (2016) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2
Deadpool 2 (2018) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $3.25
Dear Evan Hansen (2021) (MA/HD) $4.25
Death on the Nile (2022) (MA/4K) $7.50 (MA/HD) $5 (GP/HD) $3.50
Death Wish (2018) (Vudu/HD) $2.25
Dentist Collection 1-2 (1996-1998) (Vudu/HD) $5.25
Descent, The (2005) (Vudu/HD) $5.25
Detective Knight Collection 1-3 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $15 $5.75 Each
Detroit (2017) (iTunes/4K) Ports to MA $4.75
Devil Wears Prada (2006) (MA/HD) $5.75
Devil's Due (2014) (MA/HD) $2.75
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul (2017) (MA/HD) $2
Die Hard (1988) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $4
Die Hard 1-5 (MA/HD) $16 $4.75 Each
Disaster Artist, The (2017) (Vudu/HD) $6.25
Disneynature Born in China (2017) (MA/HD) $5.25
DisneyNature: Bears (2014) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $3.50
District 9 (2009) (MA/4K) $6.50
Do the Right Thing (1989) (MA/4K) $6
Doctor Strange (2016) (MA/4K) $6.50 (iTunes/4K) $4 (MA/HD) $3.50 (GP/HD) $1.75
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $2.75 (GP/HD) $2
Dog (2022) (Vudu/HD) $3
Dolittle (2020) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $3.50
Don't Breathe 2 (2021) (MA/HD) $7.50
Don't Let Go (2019) (MA/HD) $4
Don't Worry Darling (2022) (MA/HD) $5.50
Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022) (MA/HD) $3.75
Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who (2008) (MA/HD) $6.50
Dr. Seuss' The Lorax (2012) (MA/HD) $3.25 (iTunes/HD) $2.25
Dracula Untold (2014) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $2.75 (iTunes/4K) $4
Dragonheart 5-Movie (MA/HD) $15
Dredd (2012) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $3.50
Drive (2011) (MA/HD) $4.50
Duff, The (2015) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Dumbo (2019) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) $5.25 (GP/HD) $2.50
Dune (2021) (MA/4K) $5.50
Dunkirk (2017) (MA/4K) $6.50
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) $5 (MA/HD) $3
Early Man (2018) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5.25
Echo Boomers (2020) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4
Eddie the Eagle (2016) (MA/HD) (iTunes/4K) $6
Elvis (2022) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $4
Elysium (2013) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3.25
Empire State (2013) (Vudu/HD) $4.75
Encanto (2021) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) (GP/4K) $3.50
Equalizer (2014) (MA/HD) $3.75
Equalizer 2 (2018) (MA/4K) $7.25 (MA/HD) $2.75
Escape Plan: The Extractors (2019) (Vudu/HD) $3.75
Eternals (2021) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $3
Everest (2015) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3 (iTunes/4K) $4
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) (Vudu/4K) $7.50
Expendables 1-3 (Vudu/HD) $4.50
Extreme Prejudice (1987) (Vudu/HD) $5.25
F9: The Fast Saga + Director's Cut (2021) (MA/4K) $5.25 (MA/HD) $3.25
Fabelmans (2022) (MA/HD) $6.50
Faculty, The (1998) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $6.50
Fantastic Beasts Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $7.75
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) (MA/4K) $5.25 (MA/HD) $3
Fantasy Island (2020) (MA/HD) $7
Fast & Furious Collection 1-9 (MA/HD) $10
Father Stu (2022) (MA/HD) $5.50
Ferdinand (2017) (MA/HD) $3.50
Field of Dreams (1989) (MA/4K) $7.50 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $6
Fifth Element (1997) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $6
Fifty Shades of Black (2016) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $3.50
Fifty Shades of Grey 3-Movie + Unrated (MA/HD) $9.75
Finding Dory (2016) (MA/4K) $5.75 (iTunes/4K) $3.50 (GP/HD) $1.25
Finding Nemo (2003) (MA/4K) $6.75 (iTunes/4K) $5.25 (GP/HD) $3
First Man (2018) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $4.25
First Purge (2018) (MA/HD) $4.50
Five Feet Apart (2019) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $3
Forbidden Kingdom (2008) (Vudu/HD) $5
Ford v Ferrari (2019) (MA/4K) $7.75 (MA/HD) $4.75
Founder, The (2017) (Vudu/HD) $5 (iTunes/HD) $5.50
Fox and the Hound 2, The (2006) (MA/HD) $4 (GP/HD) $3
Foxcatcher (2014) (MA/HD) $4.50
Frank & Lola (2016) (MA/HD) $4.75
Frankenstein (1931) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.50
Free Guy (2021) (MA/4K) $7.50 (MA/HD) $4.75 (GP/HD) $3.25
Frozen (2013) (MA/4K) $5.50 (MA/HD) $3.50 (GP/HD) $1.50
Frozen 2 (2019) (MA/4K) $4.50 (MA/HD) $4 (GP/HD) $1.75
Frozen Sing-Along Edition (2014) (MA/HD) $3.75 (GP/HD) $1.75
Full Metal Jacket (1987) (MA/4K) $6.50
Fury (2014) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $4.50
Future World (2018) (Vudu/HD) $4
Galaxy Quest (1999) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $6
Gambler (2014) (Vudu/HD) $3.50 (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Gangs of New York (2002) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5.50
Gate, The (1987) (Vudu/SD) $4.25
Get on Up (2014) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $4.50
Get Out (2017) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $3.75
Ghost In The Shell (2017) (Vudu/HD) $2.25 (iTunes/4K) $2.75
Ghostbusters (1984) (MA/HD) $3.50
Ghostbusters + Extended (2016) (MA/HD) $3
Ghostbusters II (1989) (MA/HD) $3.50
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) (MA/4K) $7.50 (MA/HD) $3.50
Gifted (2017) (MA/HD) $5
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) (MA/HD) $6
Girls Trip (2017) (MA/HD) $1.50 (iTunes/HD) $1
Glass (2019) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $4.50
Glory (1989) (MA/4K) $7.75
Godfather (1972) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/4K) $4.75
Godfather Trilogy (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $14
Godzilla (1998) (MA/4K) $6.50
Gone Baby Gone (2007) (Vudu/HD) $5.25
Good Boys (2019) (MA/HD) $3.75
Good Dinosaur (2015) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $3
Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017) (MA/HD) $6.50
Goosebumps (2015) (MA/HD) $5
Goosebumps 2 (2018) (MA/4K) $7.50 (MA/HD) $6.50
Grease (1978), 2 (1982), Live! (2016) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $14
Great Wall (2016) (MA/HD) $2.50
Green Book (2018) (MA/4K) $7.25 (MA/HD) $5
Green Hornet (2011) (MA/HD) $6.50
Green Lantern: Beware My Power (2022) (MA/HD) $3
Green Mile, The (1999) (MA/4K) $6
Groundhog Day (1993) (MA/4K) $8
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) $4.75 (MA/HD) $4 (GP/HD) $1.75
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) (MA/4K) $6.75 (iTunes/4K) $4.25 (GP/HD) $1.25
Half Brothers (2020) (MA/HD) $5.75
Halloween (2018) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $4.25
Halloween Ends (2022) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $4.50
Halloween Kills (2021) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $4.25
Hancock (2008) (MA/4K) $6.50
Happy Death Day (2017) (MA/HD) $6
Happy Death Day 2U (2019) (MA/HD) $6
Hate U Give (2018) (MA/4K) $7.75 (MA/HD) $4.50
Hateful Eight (2015) (Vudu/HD) $2
Heat: Director's Definitive Edition (1995) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $5.25
Heavy Metal (1981) (MA/4K) $6.50
Hellboy (Director's Cut) (2004) (MA/4K) $6.50
Hercules (1997) (MA/HD) $6.50 (GP/HD) $5.50
Hidden Figures (2016) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2
Hitman: Agent 47 (2015) (MA/HD) $4.50
Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard (2021) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $5
Hobbs & Shaw (2019) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $3.75
Hocus Pocus (1993) (MA/4K) $6.75 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.75 (GP/HD) $2.25
Holiday Inn (1942) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $3
Home Alone (1990) (MA/HD) $4
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) (MA/HD) $3.50
Hotel Transylvania (2012) (MA/HD) $6
Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015) (MA/HD) $6.75
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $4.50
House of 1,000 Corpses (2003), Devil's Rejects (2005), 3 From Hell (2019) (Vudu/HD) $6
House of Gucci (2021) (iTunes/4K) $5
House of the Dragon: Season 1 (2022) (Vudu/4K) $9 (Vudu/HD) $5.50
House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $3.75
How to Train Your Dragon (2010) (MA/4K) $6.50
How to Train Your Dragon Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $7.50 $4.75 Each
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $4.25
Howard the Duck (1986) (MA/4K) $7
Hugo (2011) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3.75
Hulk, The (2003) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $6.25
Hunger Games Collection 1-4 (Vudu/HD) $6 (iTunes/4K) $12
Hunt, The (2019) (MA/HD) $5.75
Huntsman: Winter's War - Extended Edition (2016) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $3
I Can Only Imagine (2018) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.75
I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (2007) (MA/HD) $3.50
Ice Age (2002) (MA/HD) $5
Ice Age: Collision Course (2016) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.25
Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012) (MA/HD) $4.50
Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006) (MA/HD) $6
Identity Thief (2013) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $3.75
Ides of March (2011) (MA/HD) $5.25
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) (MA/HD) $5.75
Impossible, The (2013) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.75
In the Heights (2021) (MA/4K) $5
Incredible Hulk (2008) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $5.25
Incredibles (2004) (MA/4K) $7.75 (iTunes/4K) $6.25 (GP/HD) $4.75
Incredibles 2 (2018) (MA/4K) $6.25 (iTunes/4K) $4.50 (GP/HD) $2
Independence Day (1996) (MA/4K) $7.75 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $5.50
Independence Day: Resurgence (2014) (iTunes/4K) $2 (MA/HD) $1.50
Indiana Jones 1-4 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $20
Inferno (2016) (MA/HD) $3.25
Inglorious Bastards (2009) (MA/4K) $7
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) (MA/HD) $6
Inside Out (2015) (MA/4K) $5.75 (iTunes/4K) $4.25 (GP/HD) $1.50
Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013) (MA/HD) $5.25
Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015) (MA/HD) $6.50
Instructions Not Included (2013) (Vudu/HD) $3.75
Internship (2013) (MA/HD) $3.25
Interview, The (2014) (MA/HD) $3.50
Into the Woods (2014) (MA/HD) $4 (GP/HD) $2.25
Invisible Man (2020) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3.75
Iron Man (2008) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) $7 (GP/HD) $3
Iron Man 1-3 (MA/4K) $21 (iTunes/4K) $16 (GP/HD) $7.50
Iron Man 2 (2010) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) $6.50 (GP/HD) $3
Iron Man 3 (2013) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) $3 (MA/HD) $2.25 (GP/HD) $1.50
Isle of Dogs (2018) (MA/HD) $4.75
It Comes at Night (2017) (Vudu/HD) $6.25
It Follows (2015) (Vudu/HD) $4.25
Jack Reacher Collection 1-2 (iTunes/4K) $7
Jackass Forever (2022) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $4
Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (2013) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3
Jackie (2016) (MA/HD) $4.25
Jacob's Ladder (1990) (Vudu/HD) $3.50
Jane Got a Gun (2016) (Vudu/HD) $5.75
Jason Statham 6-Movie (Wild Card, War, Bank Job, Transporter 3, Crank, Crank 2) (Vudu/HD) $11.50
Jaws (1975) (MA/4K) $6.25 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.75
Jaws (1975) Jaws 2 (1978) Jaws 3 (1983) Jaws: The Revenge (1987) (MA/HD) $15.50
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5.50
Jingle All the Way (1996) (MA/HD) $5.25
John Wick Collection 1-3 (Vudu/4K) $16 (iTunes/4K) $14 (Vudu/HD) $8
John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $15
Jojo Rabbit (2019) (MA/HD) $6.75
Joy (2015) (MA/HD) (iTunes/4K) $4
Jumanji (1995) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $6
Jumanji: Next Level (2019) & Welcome to the Jungle (2017) (MA/HD) $7.50
Jumanji: The Next Level (2019) (MA/4K) $7.75 (MA/HD) $5.50
Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle (2017) (MA/4K) $5.50 (MA/HD) $2 (MA/SD) $1
Jungle Cruise (2021) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $3.75 (GP/HD) $3
Jurassic Park (1993) (MA/4K) $5.25 (iTunes/4K) $3.75 (MA/HD) $3
Jurassic Park III (2001) (MA/4K) $6.50 (iTunes/4K) $3.75 (MA/HD) $3.50
Jurassic Park: The Lost World (1997) (MA/4K) $6.50 (iTunes/4K) $3.75 (MA/HD) $3
Jurassic World (2015) (MA/4K) $5.25 (iTunes/4K) $3.75 (MA/HD) $2.75
Jurassic World Collection 1-5 (MA/4K) $20 (iTunes/4K) $17.50 (MA/HD) $10
Jurassic World Collection 1-6 (MA/4K) $23.50 (MA/HD) $11.50
Jurassic World: Dominion + Extended Cut (2022) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $4.25
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $1.75
Justice League x RWBY Super Heroes and Huntsmen Part One (2023) (MA/HD) $4
Justice Society: World War II (2021) (MA/4K) $5.50
Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3.75
Kick-Ass 2 (2013) (MA/HD) $5.25 (iTunes/HD) $5
Kicks (2016) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $5
Kid Who Would Be King (2019) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $4.75
Kidnap (2017) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3.25
Kill the Messenger (2014) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $5
Killer Elite (2011) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $3.25
Killerman (2019) (Vudu/HD) $2.25 (iTunes/HD) $1.75
Killing Lincoln (2013) (MA/HD) $5.25
King Kong (2005) (MA/4K) $5.75 (iTunes/4K) $3.75 (MA/HD) $3.50
King of Staten Island (2020) (MA/HD) $4.75
King's Man (2021) (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $3.50
Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016) (MA/HD) $2.50
Kung Fu Panda Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $12.50
L.A. Confidential (1997) (MA/HD) $5.75
Last Christmas (2019) (MA/HD) $6.50
Last Full Measure (2020) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5.50
Last Night in Soho (2021) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $5.75
Last Vegas (2013) (MA/HD) $3
Lawless (2012) (Vudu/HD) $3.75
Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013) (Vudu/HD) $2.25
Legion of Super Heroes (2023) (MA/HD) $5.50
Les Miserables (2012) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Let Him Go (2020) (MA/HD) $3.75
Let's Be Cops (2014) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2.50
Life (2017) (MA/HD) $2.50
Light of My Life (2019) (Vudu/HD) $2.50 (iTunes/HD) $2
Lightyear (2022) (MA/4K) $5 (MA/HD) $2.75 (GP/HD) $2
Like a Boss (2020) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $2.25
Lion (2016) (Vudu/HD) $4.50
Lion King (1994) (MA/4K) $7 (iTunes/4K) $4.50 (GP/HD) $2.75
Lion King (2019) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) $4 (GP/HD) $1.25
Lion King 1 1/2 (2004) (MA/HD) $6.50
Lion King 2: Simba's Pride (1998) (MA/HD) $6.75 (GP/HD) $5.25
Little Mermaid (1989) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $5.75 (GP/HD) $3.75
Little Monsters (1989) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
Live Die Repeat: Edge Of Tomorrow (2014) (MA/4K) $6.50
Lodge, The (2019) (MA/HD) $5.75
Logan Lucky (2017) (MA/HD) $1.50 (iTunes/4K) $2.25
London Has Fallen (2016) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $3.75
Lone Survivor (2013) (MA/4K) $6.75 (iTunes/4K) $2 (MA/HD) $1.50
Long Shot (2019) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $4
Longest Ride (2015) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $1.50
Looper (2012) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $3
Lords of Salem, The (2012) (Vudu/HD) $4.75
Lost City, The (2022) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $6
Love Actually (2003) (MA/HD) $5.50
Love, Simon (2018) (MA/HD) $3
Luca (2021) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3.75 (GP/HD) $3.25
Lucy (2014) (MA/HD) $2
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (2022) (MA/HD) $5.50
Ma (2019) (MA/HD) $5.25
Mad Max Collection 1-4 (Vudu/4K) $20
Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2
Madagascar Collection 1-4 (MA/HD) $14
Maleficent (2014) (MA/4K) $5.75 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $3 (GP/HD) $1.25
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) $3.75 (GP/HD) $1.75
Mama (2013) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $3.50
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $1.75
Mamma Mia! The Movie (2008) & Here We Go Again (2018) (MA/HD) $6.50 $4.50 Each
Martian - Extended Cut (2015) (MA/4K) $7.75 (MA/HD) $5.25
Martian (Theatrical) (2015) (MA/4K) $7.25 (MA/HD) $3.25
Mary Poppins (1964) (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $3
Mary Poppins Returns (2018) (MA/4K) $6.50 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $2
Matrix Collection 1-4 (MA/4K) $18.50
Matrix: Resurrections (2021) (MA/4K) $5
Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018) (MA/HD) $5.75
McFarland, USA (2015) (MA/HD) $6.25 (GP/HD) $4.50
Memory (2022) (MA/HD) $3.50
Men (2022) (Vudu/HD) $3.75
Men in Black Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $15.50
Menu (2022) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $4
MIB: International (2019) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $4.75
Mickey & Minnie 10 Classic Shorts - Volume 1 (2023) (MA/HD) $5.75 (GP/HD) $4
Midsommar (2019) (Vudu/HD) $5.75
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016) (MA/HD) (iTunes/4K) $4.50
Million Dollar Arm (2014) (MA/HD) $4
Minions (2015) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2.75
Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) & Minions (2015) (MA/HD) $8
Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $5.25
Miracles From Heaven (2016) (MA/HD) $4.50
Mission: Impossible Collection 1-6 (Vudu/4K) $25 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $20
Mitchells Vs. The Machines (2021) (MA/HD) $4.50
Moana (2016) (MA/4K) $7 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.75 (GP/HD) $2
Money Monster (2016) (MA/HD) $3.25
Monster Hunter (2020) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $4.25
Monster Trucks (2016) (Vudu/HD) $2.25
Monster's Ball (2001) (Vudu/HD) $6.25
Monsters University (2013) (MA/4K) $6.75 (iTunes/4K) $5.75 (GP/HD) $3.50
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983) (MA/4K) $7.25
Monuments Men (2014) (MA/HD) $2
Moonfall (2022) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $5
Morbius (2022) (MA/4K) $5.25 (MA/HD) $3.25 (MA/SD) $2.25
Mortal Engines (2018) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $3.25
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind (2022) (MA/HD) $5.50
Mother! (2017) (Vudu/HD) $3.50
Mountain Between Us (2017) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $1.50
Mr Popper's Penguins (2011) (MA/HD) $6
Much Ado About Nothing (2013) (Vudu/HD) $4.25
Mulan (1998) (MA/4K) $6.75 (iTunes/4K) $5.75 (GP/HD) $3
Mulan (2020) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $4 (GP/HD) $2.25
Muppet Movie (1979) (MA/HD) $7.50 (GP/HD) $6
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (2016) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $4
My Dinner with Herve (2018) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $3
National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $5.25
Natural, The (1984) (MA/4K) $5
Nebraska (2013) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.25
Neighbors (2014) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $2
New Mutants (2020) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $5.25 (GP/HD) $2.75
News of the World (2020) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $3.75
Night at the Museum 3-Movie (MA/HD) $13.50 $6 Each (MA/SD) $9
Night Before (2015) (MA/HD) $4.75
Night House, The (2021) (MA/HD) $5 (GP/HD) $3
Night School (Extended) (2018) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $3.75
Ninth Gate, The (1999) (Vudu/HD) $4.50
No Country For Old Men (2007) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
No Time to Die (2021) (iTunes/4K) $3.50
Nobody (2021) (MA/HD) $5.25
Non-Stop (2014) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Nope (2022) (MA/HD) $5.75
Nope (2022), Get Out (2017) & Us (2019) (MA/HD) $10
Norm of the North (2016) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Northman (2022) (MA/4K) $7.25 (MA/HD) $4.50
Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $3 (GP/HD) $2.50
Oblivion (2013) (MA/4K) $7 (iTunes/4K) $3.50 (MA/HD) $2.25
Olaf's Frozen Adventure Plus 6 Disney Tales (2017) (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $3
Olympus Has Fallen (2013) (MA/HD) $5
On the Basis of Sex (2019) (MA/HD) $4.50
Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood (2019) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $5
Onward (2020) (MA/4K) $5.50 (MA/HD) $4 (GP/HD) $2.25
Oranges, The (2011) (MA/HD) $4.50
Other Woman (2014) (MA/HD) $2.25
Ouija (2014) & Origin of Evil (2016) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $9
Overboard (2016) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5.75
Pacific Rim Uprising (2018) (MA/4K) $7.75 (MA/HD) $4.50
Pain & Gain (2013) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3.25
Paper Towns (2011) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.50
ParaNorman (2012) (iTunes/HD) $5
Passengers (2016) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $2.75
Passion of the Christ (2004) (MA/HD) $10
Paul (2011) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $4.50
Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (2015) (MA/HD) $4.25
Paw Patrol: The Movie (2021) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $5
Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank (2022) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $6
Pearl (2022) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
Peppermint (2018) (iTunes/HD) $1.75
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013) (MA/HD) $2.25
Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $1.75
Peter Rabbit (2018) & 2 (2021) (MA/HD) $8.50 $4.75 Each
Peter Rabbit (2018) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $4.75
Phantom Thread (2017) (MA/HD) $3.75
Philadelphia (1993) (MA/4K) $7.75
Philomena (2013) (Vudu/HD) $2
Pinocchio (1940) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $3.75
Pirate Fairy (2014) (MA/HD) $3.25
Pitch Perfect (2012) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $2.75 (iTunes/4K) $3.75
Pitch Perfect Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $11.50
Pixels (2015) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $5.50
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) (iTunes/HD) $3.75
Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014) (MA/HD) $4 (GP/HD) $2
Planet of the Apes 1-3 (Newer) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $12
Playing with Fire (2019) (iTunes/4K) $1.50 (Vudu/HD) $2
Pocahontas (1995) (MA/HD) $6.50 (GP/HD) $5
Pompeii (2014) (MA/HD) $3.50
Poms (2019) (iTunes/HD) $2.50
Post, The (2017) (MA/HD) $2.75
Predator (1987), 2 (1990), Predators (2009), Predator (2018) (MA/HD) $11
Predator (2018) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $3.50
Premium Rush (2012) (MA/HD) $3.25
Prey for the Devil (2022) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $6
Princess and the Frog (2009) (iTunes/4K) $5.50 (GP/HD) $3.25
Prometheus (2012) (MA/HD) $1.75
Prophecy Collection 1-5 (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $14.50
Psycho (1960) (MA/HD) (iTunes/4K) $5
Psycho (1960), Rear Window (1954), The Birds (1963), Vertigo (1958) (MA/4K) $17
Public Enemies (2009) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $6.25
Purge, The (2013) (MA/4K) $6.50 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $3
Purge: Anarchy (2014) (MA/4K) $5.75 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.75
Purge: Election Year (2016) (MA/4K $5.50 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $3
Puss in Boots (2011) (MA/4K) $6.75
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) (MA/HD) $7.50
Queen & Slim (2019) (MA/HD) $4.50
R.I.P.D. (2013) (MA/HD) $3.25 (iTunes/HD) $3
Race (2016) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $2.75
Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) (MA/4K) $5.25 (iTunes/4K) $4.50 (GP/HD) $1.50
Rambo Collection 1-5 (Vudu/HD) $14
Rambo: First Blood (1982) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $6
Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) (Vudu/4K) $6.75 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $2.50
Rescuers Down Under (1990) (MA/HD) $6.50 (GP/HD) $4
Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) (MA/HD) $2.25
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2017) (MA/4K) $7.25 (MA/HD) $3.25
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $4.50
Respect (2021) (iTunes/4K) $4.75
Revenant, The (2015) (MA/4K) $5.25 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $3.25
Ricki And The Flash (2015) (MA/HD) $4.50
Riddick - Unrated Director's Cut (2013) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4
Riddick Collection 1-3 (Unrated) (MA/HD) $14
Ride Along 1-2 (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5 $2.75 Each
Rio 2 (2014) (MA/HD) $2.25
Risen (2016) (MA/HD) $4.50
Road to El Dorado (2000) (MA/HD) $5.50
Robin Hood (2010) (MA/4K) $6.25
Robin Hood (Animated) (1973) (MA/HD) $3.75 (GP/HD) $2.75
RoboCop (1987) (Vudu/HD) $7.25
Robots (2005) (MA/HD) $6.75
Rock Dog (2016) (Vudu/HD) $4.25
Ron's Gone Wrong (2021) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $5.25 (GP/HD) $3.50
Rumble (2022) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $5.75
Run Lola Run (1998) (MA/HD) $6.50
Rush (2013) (MA/HD) $2.75 (iTunes/HD) $3.25
Russell Madness (2015) (MA/HD) $4
Safe (2012) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $1.75
Saint Maud (2020) (Vudu/HD) $6
Santa Clause (1994), 2 (2002), 3 (2006) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $10.50 (GP/HD) $6.50
Saving Mr. Banks (2013) (MA/HD) $4.75 (GP/HD) $2.75
Saw Collection 1-7 (Vudu/HD) $10
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010) (MA/4K) (iTunes/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $5.25
Scream 5 (2022) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
Scream Collection 1-3 (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $13.50
Second Act (2018) (iTunes/HD) $1.50
Secret Garden, The (2020) (iTunes/4K) $4.25
Secret Headquarters (2022) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/4K) $6
Secret Life of Pets 1-2 (MA/HD) $7.50
Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $5
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $4.50
Seriously Red (2022) (Vudu/HD) $6.75
Sessions, The (2012) (MA/HD) $4.50
Sex Tape (2014) (MA/HD) $3
Shallows, The (2016) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD $4
Shang-Chi (2021) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $4.75 (GP/HD) $3
Shaun of the Dead (2004) (MA/4K) $4
Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), World's End (2013) (MA/HD) $10
Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015) (Vudu/HD) $4
Shawshank Redemption (1994) (MA/4K) $6
Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023) & Shazam! (2019) (MA/HD) $10.50
Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023) (MA/4K) $9 (MA/HD) $8
She's Having a Baby (1988) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.50
Shooter (2007) (Vudu/HD) $5.75
Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018) (MA/4K) $7.75 (MA/HD) $3.75
Sideways (2004) (MA/HD) $5.25
Silent Night, Deadly Night: 3-Film Collection (1989-1991) (Vudu/HD) $6
Silver Linings Playbook (2012) (Vudu/HD) $2
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014) (Vudu/HD) $6.25
Sing 2 (2021) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3.50
Sing Collection 1-2 (MA/HD) $6
Singin' in the Rain (1952) (MA/4K) $6.50
Sinister (2012) (Vudu/HD) $3 (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Sisters (Unrated) (2015) (MA/HD) $4 (iTunes/HD) $3.25
Sixteen Candles (1984) (MA/HD) $5.25 (iTunes/HD) $4.25
Skeleton Twins (2014) (Vudu/HD) $4.50
Skyscraper (2018) (MA/4K) $5.25 (MA/HD) $1.75
Sleepless (2017) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $1
Smile (2022) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/4K) $6.75
Smokey and the Bandit (1977) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3.75
Smurfs 2 (2013) (MA/HD) $3.25
Smurfs: The Lost Village (2017) (MA/HD) $3.25
Snake Eyes (2021) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $4.25
Snatched (2017) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $1
Snitch (2013) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $1.75
Snow White and the Huntsman (Extended) (2012) (iTunes/4K) $3.50 (MA/HD) $2.50
Son of God (2014) (MA/HD) $1.25
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) (Vudu/4K) $6.50 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $4.50
Soul (2020) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $3.75 (GP/HD) $2.25
Southpaw (2015) (Vudu/HD) $4.50
Southside With You (2016) (Vudu/HD) $3.50
Space Between Us, The (2017) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $5
Space Jam (1996) (MA/4K) $5
Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021) (MA/4K) $5
Speed (1994) (MA/4K) $5.25
Spider-Man (2002) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $5.50
Spider-Man 2 (2004) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $5.50
Spider-Man 3 (2007) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $5.50
Spider-Man Collection 1-8 (MA/HD) $26
Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) (MA/4K) $8 (MA/HD) $4
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) (MA/4K) $8 (MA/HD) $1.75
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $3.75
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2003) (MA/HD) $5
Split (2017) (MA/4K) $6.75 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2.75
Spy (Unrated) (2015) (MA/HD) $2
Spy Game (2001) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $5.75
Stand Up Guys (2012) (Vudu/HD) $2.75
Star Trek 1-3 (Vudu/4K) $18 (Vudu/HD) $9.50 (iTunes/4K) $13.50
Star Trek Beyond (2016) (Vudu/HD) $1.75 (iTunes/4K) $3.25
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) (Vudu/HD) $1.75 (iTunes/4K) $3.25
Starship Troopers (1997) (MA/4K) $6.50
Still Alice (2015) (MA/HD) $3
Stillwater (2021) (MA/HD) $5
Straight Outta Compton (Unrated Director’s Cut) (2015) (MA/4K) $7.50 (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.50
Strange World (2022) (GP/HD) Ports to MA $4.25
Strangers: Prey at Night (2018) (MA/HD) $3.50
Stronger (2017) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.50
Stuber (2019) (MA/HD) $4.75
Studio 666 (2022) (MA/HD) $6.75
Suicide Squad, The (2021) (MA/4K) $5
Super Troopers (2002) (MA/HD) $5.75
SW: A New Hope (1977) (MA/4K) $7 (iTunes/4K) $6.25 (GP/HD) $3.50
SW: Empire Strikes Back (1980) (MA/4K) $7 (iTunes/4K) $6.50 (GP/HD) $3.50
SW: Force Awakens (2015) (MA/4K) $5.25 (iTunes/4K) $3.50 (GP/HD) $1
SW: Last Jedi (2017) (MA/4K) $5.75 (iTunes/4K) $3.75 (GP/HD) $1
SW: Phantom Menace (1999) (MA/4K) $7.50 (iTunes/4K) $6.50 (GP/HD) $3.50
SW: Return of the Jedi (1983) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) $6.50 (GP/HD) $3.50
SW: Revenge of the Sith (2005) (MA/4K) $7.50 (GP/HD) $3.50
SW: Rise of Skywalker (2019) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) $4.75 (GP/HD) $2.25
SW: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) (MA/4K) $6.50 (iTunes/4K) $3.75 (GP/HD) $1.25
SW: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) (MA/4K) $7 (iTunes/4K) $5 (GP/HD) $3.50
Sword in the Stone (1963) (MA/HD) $6.25 (GP/HD) $3.75
Taken Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $9
Tangled (2010) (MA/4K) $8 (MA/HD) $5 (GP/HD) $3.75
Tarzan (1999) (MA/HD) $6.50 (GP/HD) $5
Teen Titans Go! & DC Super Hero Girls: Mayhem in the Multiverse (2022) (MA/HD) $4.75
Terminator (1984) (Vudu/HD) $7
Terminator: Genisys (2015) (Vudu/HD) $1.75 (iTunes/4K) $3
Theory Of Everything (2014) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $4
Think Like a Man (2012) & Two (2014) (MA/HD) $9
This Is 40 (2012) (MA/HD) $3.75 (iTunes/HD) $2.50
Thor (2011) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $7 (GP/HD) $3.50
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $3.25 (GP/HD) $2
Thor: The Dark World (2013) (MA/4K) $7 (iTunes/4K) $4.50 (GP/HD) $2.25
Till (2022) (iTunes/4K) $6.50
Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast (2014) (MA/HD) $6 (GP/HD) $4
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $4.50
Titanic (1997) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.75
TMNT Out of the Shadows (2016) (iTunes/4K) $4
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) (MA/4K) $6.25 (iTunes/HD) $4.50
Tomorrowland (2015) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $3.50
Top Gun: Maverick (2022) (Vudu/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $5.75
Total Recall + Extended (2012) (MA/HD) $5 (Theatrical) $4
Toy Story 1-4 (MA/4K) $23 (iTunes/4K) $21 (GP/HD) $11.50
Toy Story of Terror! (2013) (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $3
Trading Places (1983) (Vudu/HD) $4.50
Training Day (2001) (MA/4K) $6.50
Trainwreck (2015) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $1.50
Transformers 1-5 (Vudu/4K) $30 (Vudu/HD) $23
Trauma Center (2019) (iTunes/4K) $3.25
Triple 9 (2016) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $2.50
Trolls (2016) (MA/HD) $1.25
Trolls Collection 1-2 (MA/HD) $6
Tully (2018) (MA/HD) $5.75
Turning Red (2022) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $4 (GP/HD) $2.75
Umma (2022) (MA/HD) $4.75
Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $6.75
Unbreakable (2000) (MA/4K) $6 (GP/HD) $3.75
Unbroken (2014) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3
Uncharted (2022) (MA/4K) $5.50 (MA/HD) $3.25
Under the Skin (2014) (Vudu/HD) $5.25
Underworld: Blood Wars (2016) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $2.25
Unforgiven (1992) (MA/4K) $6.50
Unhinged (2020) (Vudu/HD) $4.75
Up (2009) (iTunes/4K) $7.50 (MA/HD) $6.75
Up in Smoke ‘Cheech and Chong’ (1978) (Vudu/HD) $3.50 (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Upside, The (2017) (iTunes/HD) $2
Us (2019) (MA/HD) $5.25
Van Helsing (2004) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.75
Venom (2018) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $3.25
Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $3.50
Vice (2015) 'Bruce Willis' (Vudu/HD) $2.50
WALL-E (2008) (iTunes/4K) $8 (GP/HD) $5.50
Walt Disney Animation Studios Shorts Collection (2015) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $4
Warcraft (2016) (MA/4K) $5 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2.25
Watch, The (2012) (MA/HD) $4.25
Waterworld (1995) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $6
Way, Way Back, The (2013) (MA/HD) $5.25
Weird Science (2008) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $6
Welcome to Marwen (2018) (MA/4K) $3.50
West Side Story (2021) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) (GP/HD) $2.50
What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.25
When the Game Stands Tall (2014) (MA/HD) $4.50 (MA/SD) $1.75
Where the Crawdads Sing (2022) (MA/HD) $4.50
Whiplash (2014) (MA/HD) $5.75
White House Down (2013) (MA/HD) $3.50
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody (2022) (MA/HD) $5.75
Widows (2018) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $1.75
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) (MA/4K) $5
Wind River (2017) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5
Wings (1927) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4
Witch, The (2016) (Vudu/HD) $3.50
Wolf Man (1941) (MA/4K) $6.50
Wolverine (Unrated) (2013) (MA/HD) $3.75
Woman King (2022) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $5.50
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) (MA/4K) $5
Won't Back Down (2012) (MA/HD) $4
Wreck-It Ralph (2012) (MA/4K) $8 (GP/HD) $4.25
X (2022) (Vudu/HD) $6.75
X2: X-Men United (2003) (MA/HD) $6.25
X-Men (2000), X2 (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) (MA/HD) $15
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2.50
X-Men: First Class (2010), Days of Future Past (2004), Apocalypse (2014) (MA/HD) $11
Yesterday (2019) (MA/HD) $4.50
Zathura (2005) (MA/HD) $7
Zero Dark Thirty (2012) (MA/HD) $3
Zootopia (2016) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) $5 (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $3.25
2023.06.07 03:45 dollsdontsleep This old dude in my town disappeared for 3 weeks, we think he was in the water
The waters have been in our town since the beginning of the Second Shift. Before it all, we were hardly considered a coastal city, but when the great glaciers began to thaw, waters rose across the globe. Thousands were displaced, communities had to rebuild and find ways to not only move on, but also cope with the loss of life, the change of times.
Our small town was drenched, with newcomers and bodies of water. A large coast formed to our west and north, (and weirdly enough, the water flowed out to more of the west, rather than inwards to our new coasts. The water always moved from west to west) creating a massive sprawl of beachland and inner rivers and lakes. Once a collection of high mesas, red rocks and dirt roads - streams and ponds of deep blue water filled into the cracks of Acoma.
Many turned to religion again, looking for signs in all these unnatural occurrences and phenomena that became our new truths. Priests and Imam came from across the highlands to see the massive lakes, to touch the water and bless it. Our mesas hadn’t seen any consistent water in centuries, and for a long time the droughts got worse year after year. It was unexplainable; some considered magic or prophecy. Though as time went on, the bad far outweighed the good. Especially when our neighbors began to disappear in the waters.
Well first there was old Zeeck Ferrell. This slim, big glasses type wise and somewhat cooky guy who would walk around the neighborhoods early in the mornings and would go on long geology explorations and camping trips. Somewhat an off-the-grid type, but all around just a loner at heart - no one bothered him and he didn’t like being around people much after his beloved wife passed some off 17 years prior.
Loved his dog Chewy - I mean, that’s actually how people found out he was missing. Place smelled like shit even from the outside, could hear the dude howling all night long from the end of the block and I guess some neighbors finally did some exploring. The dog ended up being fine, they released him into the wild or something after a few days of the big town search for old man Zeeck Ferrell, figured if the dog found him there would be lots of barks and howls.
Those same some neighbors headed the FIND OLD MAN ZEECK search parties, gathering anyone they could and creating 10, 20, 30 mile radiuses of searchin’. Called the local news and ran stories in the Acoma Daily and the next two towns over.
That went on for about 9 days before everyone finally gave up and packed those little orange reflective bags and flashlights deep in their closets in sorrow for a failed mission done bad. Donated all the snacks and “Welcome home!” decorations to a children’s foster place.
Nine more days passed, and little Eon who played outside on his bike just on the edge of the city on his parent’s long driveway and liked to ride his bike just a little outside of the lines but not so far but not so close to the strict boundaries his parents had set for him but was fast enough to go far without his parents noticing and still be back in time, saw something. It was approaching sunset, and from anywhere in the city during sunset you could see glistening water sparkling on the horizon line if you just looked west.
Little Eon saw a man, covered only with a waist length jacket tied around his upper hips walking slowly, softly, begrudgingly into town from the horizon.The water behind him, our sun creating a dark silhouette that blocked out any noticeable features a seven year old would need to confidently identify someone. Or at least that’s how Eon explained it the next day at school in so few words. Eon stood there, paralyzed in fear and awe for almost a whole minute before calling out in screams. His mother and father came running, hell, half the town came running. Eon crying, pointing his finger directly at the man’s head, the sun glistening behind that head, the crowd in front of that head’s eyes trying to distinguish from afar if it was really the man who they thought it couldn’t be.
There were gasps, screams, suddenly “It’s Zeeck! It’s Zeeck! It’s old man Zeeck! He’s alive!” began to bellow and holler from within the belly of the crowd. Bodies went flying down the road, and before anyone got to him, you could see Old man Zeeck’s figure drop to the ground. On his knees, he swirled in slow motion before hitting the concrete, the sunset catching him with little effort, his body paralleling the horizon line.
We got to him in what amounted to seconds but felt like hours. Zeeck lying there motionless, a corona of heads above his attending to his new wounds and exhausted body. I didn’t see much, but I did see his eyes. They rolled back and forth from the top of his head to the bottom of his tear duct, everything pink but the red veins and a black, distant eyeball. I was pushed to the back of the crowd, and Zeeck was lifted above all of our heads, scurried to the town emergency room. The rest of us stood there for a few moments, many dispersed after some more moments, but not me. I would’ve stood there all night, I never took my eyes off the horizon.
To be continued...
submitted by dollsdontsleep to nosleep [link] [comments]
The waters have been in our town since the beginning of the Second Shift. Before it all, we were hardly considered a coastal city, but when the great glaciers began to thaw, waters rose across the globe. Thousands were displaced, communities had to rebuild and find ways to not only move on, but also cope with the loss of life, the change of times.
Our small town was drenched, with newcomers and bodies of water. A large coast formed to our west and north, (and weirdly enough, the water flowed out to more of the west, rather than inwards to our new coasts. The water always moved from west to west) creating a massive sprawl of beachland and inner rivers and lakes. Once a collection of high mesas, red rocks and dirt roads - streams and ponds of deep blue water filled into the cracks of Acoma.
Many turned to religion again, looking for signs in all these unnatural occurrences and phenomena that became our new truths. Priests and Imam came from across the highlands to see the massive lakes, to touch the water and bless it. Our mesas hadn’t seen any consistent water in centuries, and for a long time the droughts got worse year after year. It was unexplainable; some considered magic or prophecy. Though as time went on, the bad far outweighed the good. Especially when our neighbors began to disappear in the waters.
Well first there was old Zeeck Ferrell. This slim, big glasses type wise and somewhat cooky guy who would walk around the neighborhoods early in the mornings and would go on long geology explorations and camping trips. Somewhat an off-the-grid type, but all around just a loner at heart - no one bothered him and he didn’t like being around people much after his beloved wife passed some off 17 years prior.
Loved his dog Chewy - I mean, that’s actually how people found out he was missing. Place smelled like shit even from the outside, could hear the dude howling all night long from the end of the block and I guess some neighbors finally did some exploring. The dog ended up being fine, they released him into the wild or something after a few days of the big town search for old man Zeeck Ferrell, figured if the dog found him there would be lots of barks and howls.
Those same some neighbors headed the FIND OLD MAN ZEECK search parties, gathering anyone they could and creating 10, 20, 30 mile radiuses of searchin’. Called the local news and ran stories in the Acoma Daily and the next two towns over.
That went on for about 9 days before everyone finally gave up and packed those little orange reflective bags and flashlights deep in their closets in sorrow for a failed mission done bad. Donated all the snacks and “Welcome home!” decorations to a children’s foster place.
Nine more days passed, and little Eon who played outside on his bike just on the edge of the city on his parent’s long driveway and liked to ride his bike just a little outside of the lines but not so far but not so close to the strict boundaries his parents had set for him but was fast enough to go far without his parents noticing and still be back in time, saw something. It was approaching sunset, and from anywhere in the city during sunset you could see glistening water sparkling on the horizon line if you just looked west.
Little Eon saw a man, covered only with a waist length jacket tied around his upper hips walking slowly, softly, begrudgingly into town from the horizon.The water behind him, our sun creating a dark silhouette that blocked out any noticeable features a seven year old would need to confidently identify someone. Or at least that’s how Eon explained it the next day at school in so few words. Eon stood there, paralyzed in fear and awe for almost a whole minute before calling out in screams. His mother and father came running, hell, half the town came running. Eon crying, pointing his finger directly at the man’s head, the sun glistening behind that head, the crowd in front of that head’s eyes trying to distinguish from afar if it was really the man who they thought it couldn’t be.
There were gasps, screams, suddenly “It’s Zeeck! It’s Zeeck! It’s old man Zeeck! He’s alive!” began to bellow and holler from within the belly of the crowd. Bodies went flying down the road, and before anyone got to him, you could see Old man Zeeck’s figure drop to the ground. On his knees, he swirled in slow motion before hitting the concrete, the sunset catching him with little effort, his body paralleling the horizon line.
We got to him in what amounted to seconds but felt like hours. Zeeck lying there motionless, a corona of heads above his attending to his new wounds and exhausted body. I didn’t see much, but I did see his eyes. They rolled back and forth from the top of his head to the bottom of his tear duct, everything pink but the red veins and a black, distant eyeball. I was pushed to the back of the crowd, and Zeeck was lifted above all of our heads, scurried to the town emergency room. The rest of us stood there for a few moments, many dispersed after some more moments, but not me. I would’ve stood there all night, I never took my eyes off the horizon.
To be continued...
2023.06.07 03:20 Personal_Hippo1277 Clio Token Size As Text Size By Tier Comparison [Mega Text Wall For Enjoyers of Scrolling]
When I was brand new to NovelAi I had no idea how 2048 tokens really looked as text. So for anyone looking at the tiers, trying to decide how many tokens they want for Clio with the new update, I've tokenized Part of The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald (public domain since 2021).
That way new users can more easily visualize what the AI's maximum context is for each tier. According to the UI Clio uses the NerdStash Tokenizer, as different tokenizers will convert text to tokens their own way.
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In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
He didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgements, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.
And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the “creative temperament”—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.
My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather’s brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on today.
I never saw this great-uncle, but I’m supposed to look like him—with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in father’s office. I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm centre of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go East and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business, so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep school for me, and finally said, “Why—ye-es,” with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year, and after various delays I came East, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two.
The practical thing was to find rooms in the city, but it was a warm season, and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town, it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weather-beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington, and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog—at least I had him for a few days until he ran away—and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman, who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.
It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.
“How do you get to West Egg village?” he asked helplessly.
I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighbourhood.
And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
There was so much to read, for one thing, and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the Yale News—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the “well-rounded man.” This isn’t just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.
It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York—and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals—like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact end—but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual wonder to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more interesting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.
I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion. Or, rather, as I didn’t know Mr. Gatsby, it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbour’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.
Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I’d known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.
Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven—a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savours of anticlimax. His family were enormously wealthy—even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach—but now he’d left Chicago and come East in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for instance, he’d brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that.
Why they came East I don’t know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn’t believe it—I had no sight into Daisy’s heart, but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.
And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran towards the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sundials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.
He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty, with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body.
His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.
“Now, don’t think my opinion on these matters is final,” he seemed to say, “just because I’m stronger and more of a man than you are.” We were in the same senior society, and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.
We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.
“I’ve got a nice place here,” he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly.
Turning me around by one arm, he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep, pungent roses, and a snub-nosed motorboat that bumped the tide offshore.
“It belonged to Demaine, the oil man.” He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. “We’ll go inside.”
We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-coloured space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-coloured rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.
The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.
The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it—indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.
The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise—she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression—then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.
“I’m p-paralysed with happiness.”
She
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laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)
At any rate, Miss Baker’s lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly, and then quickly tipped her head back again—the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self-sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.
I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.
I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way East, and how a dozen people had sent their love through me.
“Do they miss me?” she cried ecstatically.
“The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath, and there’s a persistent wail all night along the north shore.”
“How gorgeous! Let’s go back, Tom. Tomorrow!” Then she added irrelevantly: “You ought to see the baby.”
“I’d like to.”
“She’s asleep. She’s three years old. Haven’t you ever seen her?”
“Never.”
“Well, you ought to see her. She’s—”
Tom Buchanan, who had been hovering restlessly about the room, stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder.
“What you doing, Nick?”
“I’m a bond man.”
“Who with?”
I told him.
“Never heard of them,” he remarked decisively.
This annoyed me.
“You will,” I answered shortly. “You will if you stay in the East.”
“Oh, I’ll stay in the East, don’t you worry,” he said, glancing at Daisy and then back at me, as if he were alert for something more. “I’d be a God damned fool to live anywhere else.”
At this point Miss Baker said: “Absolutely!” with such suddenness that I started—it was the first word she had uttered since I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room.
“I’m stiff,” she complained, “I’ve been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember.”
“Don’t look at me,” Daisy retorted, “I’ve been trying to get you to New York all afternoon.”
“No, thanks,” said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the pantry. “I’m absolutely in training.”
Her host looked at her incredulously.
“You are!” He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. “How you ever get anything done is beyond me.”
I looked at Miss Baker, wondering what it was she “got done.” I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage, which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming, discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before.
“You live in West Egg,” she remarked contemptuously. “I know somebody there.”
“I don’t know a single—”
“You must know Gatsby.”
“Gatsby?” demanded Daisy. “What Gatsby?”
Before I could reply that he was my neighbour dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine, Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.
Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips, the two young women preceded us out on to a rosy-coloured porch, open toward the sunset, where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.
“Why candles?” objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. “In two weeks it’ll be the longest day in the year.” She looked at us all radiantly. “Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.”
“We ought to plan something,” yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed.
“All right,” said Daisy. “What’ll we plan?” She turned to me helplessly: “What do people plan?”
Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.
“Look!” she complained; “I hurt it.”
We all looked—the knuckle was black and blue.
“You did it, Tom,” she said accusingly. “I know you didn’t mean to, but you did do it. That’s what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a—”
“I hate that word ‘hulking,’ ” objected Tom crossly, “even in kidding.”
“Hulking,” insisted Daisy.
Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here, and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West, where an evening was hurried from phase to phase towards its close, in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.
“You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy,” I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. “Can’t you talk about crops or something?”
I meant nothing in particular by this remark, but it was taken up in an unexpected way.
“Civilization’s going to pieces,” broke out Tom violently. “I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read The Rise of the Coloured Empires by this man Goddard?”
“Why, no,” I answered, rather surprised by his tone.
“Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.”
“Tom’s getting very profound,” said Daisy, with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. “He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we—”
“Well, these books are all scientific,” insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. “This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things.”
“We’ve got to beat them down,” whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.
“You ought to live in California—” began Miss Baker, but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.
“This idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are, and you are, and—” After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod, and she winked at me again. “—And we’ve produced all the things that go to make civilization—oh, science and art, and all that. Do you see?”
There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned towards me.
“I’ll tell you a family secret,” she whispered enthusiastically. “It’s about the butler’s nose. Do you want to hear about the butler’s nose?”
“That’s why I came over tonight.”
“Well, he wasn’t always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night, until finally it began to affect his nose—”
“Things went from bad to worse,” suggested Miss Baker.
“Yes. Things went from bad to worse, until finally he had to give up his position.”
For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened—then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.
The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom’s ear, whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair, and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her, Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing.
“I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a—of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn’t he?” She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation: “An absolute rose?”
This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house.
Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said “Sh!” in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond, and Miss Baker leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether.
“This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbour—” I began.
“Don’t talk. I want to hear what happens.”
“Is something happening?” I inquired innocently.
“You mean to say you don’t know?” said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. “I thought everybody knew.”
“I don’t.”
“Why—” she said hesitantly. “Tom’s got some woman in New York.”
“Got some woman?” I repeated blankly.
Miss Baker nodded.
“She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Don’t you think?”
Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.
“It couldn’t be helped!” cried Daisy with tense gaiety.
She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me, and continued: “I looked outdoors for a minute, and it’s very romantic outdoors. There’s a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He’s singing away—” Her voice sang: “It’s romantic, isn’t it, Tom?”
“Very romantic,” he said, and then miserably to me: “If it’s light enough after dinner, I want to take you down to the stables.”
The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at everyone, and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn’t guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking, but I doubt if even Miss Baker, who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy scepticism, was able utterly to put this fifth guest’s shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police.
The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between them, strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while, trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf, I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.
Daisy took her face in her hands as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl.
“We don’t know each other very well, Nick,” she said suddenly. “Even if we are cousins. You didn’t come to my wedding.”
“I wasn’t back from the war.”
“That’s true.” She hesitated. “Well, I’ve had a very bad time, Nick, and I’m pretty cynical about everything.”
Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she
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didn’t say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter.
“I suppose she talks, and—eats, and everything.”
“Oh, yes.” She looked at me absently. “Listen, Nick; let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear?”
“Very much.”
“It’ll show you how I’ve gotten to feel about—things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.’
“You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow,” she went on in a convinced way. “Everybody thinks so—the most advanced people. And I know. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.” Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom’s, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. “Sophisticated—God, I’m sophisticated!”
The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.
Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light. Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from the Saturday Evening Post—the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune. The lamplight, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms.
When we came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand.
“To be continued,” she said, tossing the magazine on the table, “in our very next issue.”
Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up.
“Ten o’clock,” she remarked, apparently finding the time on the ceiling. “Time for this good girl to go to bed.”
“Jordan’s going to play in the tournament tomorrow,” explained Daisy, “over at Westchester.”
“Oh—you’re Jordan Baker.”
I knew now why her face was familiar—its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgotten long ago.
“Good night,” she said softly. “Wake me at eight, won’t you.”
“If you’ll get up.”
“I will. Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon.”
“Of course you will,” confirmed Daisy. “In fact I think I’ll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I’ll sort of—oh—fling you together. You know—lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing—”
“Good night,” called Miss Baker from the stairs. “I haven’t heard a word.”
“She’s a nice girl,” said Tom after a moment. “They oughtn’t to let her run around the country this way.”
“Who oughtn’t to?” inquired Daisy coldly.
“Her family.”
“Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nick’s going to look after her, aren’t you, Nick? She’s going to spend lots of weekends out here this summer. I think the home influence will be very good for her.”
Daisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence.
“Is she from New York?” I asked quickly.
“From Louisville. Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white—”
“Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk on the veranda?” demanded Tom suddenly.
“Did I?” She looked at me. “I can’t seem to remember, but I think we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I’m sure we did. It sort of crept up on us and first thing you know—”
“Don’t believe everything you hear, Nick,” he advised me.
I said lightly that I had heard nothing at all, and a few minutes later I got up to go home. They came to the door with me and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light. As I started my motor Daisy peremptorily called: “Wait!”
“I forgot to ask you something, and it’s important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out West.”
“That’s right,” corroborated Tom kindly. “We heard that you were engaged.”
“It’s a libel. I’m too poor.”
“But we heard it,” insisted Daisy, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way. “We heard it from three people, so it must be true.”
Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn’t even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come East. You can’t stop going with an old friend on account of rumours, and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumoured into marriage.
Their interest rather touched me and made them less remotely rich—nevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away. It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms—but apparently there were no such intentions in her head. As for Tom, the fact that he “had some woman in New York” was really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.
Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red petrol-pumps sat out in pools of light, and when I reached my estate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard. The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and, turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone—fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbour’s mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.
I decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction. But I didn’t call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone—he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.
II
About halfway between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight.
But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to
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submitted by Personal_Hippo1277 to NovelAi [link] [comments]
That way new users can more easily visualize what the AI's maximum context is for each tier. According to the UI Clio uses the NerdStash Tokenizer, as different tokenizers will convert text to tokens their own way.
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In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
He didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgements, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.
And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the “creative temperament”—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.
My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather’s brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on today.
I never saw this great-uncle, but I’m supposed to look like him—with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in father’s office. I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm centre of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go East and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business, so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep school for me, and finally said, “Why—ye-es,” with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year, and after various delays I came East, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two.
The practical thing was to find rooms in the city, but it was a warm season, and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town, it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weather-beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington, and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog—at least I had him for a few days until he ran away—and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman, who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.
It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.
“How do you get to West Egg village?” he asked helplessly.
I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighbourhood.
And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
There was so much to read, for one thing, and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the Yale News—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the “well-rounded man.” This isn’t just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.
It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York—and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals—like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact end—but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual wonder to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more interesting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.
I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion. Or, rather, as I didn’t know Mr. Gatsby, it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbour’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.
Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I’d known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.
Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven—a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savours of anticlimax. His family were enormously wealthy—even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach—but now he’d left Chicago and come East in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for instance, he’d brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that.
Why they came East I don’t know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn’t believe it—I had no sight into Daisy’s heart, but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.
And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran towards the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sundials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.
He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty, with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body.
His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.
“Now, don’t think my opinion on these matters is final,” he seemed to say, “just because I’m stronger and more of a man than you are.” We were in the same senior society, and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.
We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.
“I’ve got a nice place here,” he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly.
Turning me around by one arm, he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep, pungent roses, and a snub-nosed motorboat that bumped the tide offshore.
“It belonged to Demaine, the oil man.” He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. “We’ll go inside.”
We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-coloured space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-coloured rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.
The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.
The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it—indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.
The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise—she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression—then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.
“I’m p-paralysed with happiness.”
She
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laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)
At any rate, Miss Baker’s lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly, and then quickly tipped her head back again—the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self-sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.
I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.
I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way East, and how a dozen people had sent their love through me.
“Do they miss me?” she cried ecstatically.
“The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath, and there’s a persistent wail all night along the north shore.”
“How gorgeous! Let’s go back, Tom. Tomorrow!” Then she added irrelevantly: “You ought to see the baby.”
“I’d like to.”
“She’s asleep. She’s three years old. Haven’t you ever seen her?”
“Never.”
“Well, you ought to see her. She’s—”
Tom Buchanan, who had been hovering restlessly about the room, stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder.
“What you doing, Nick?”
“I’m a bond man.”
“Who with?”
I told him.
“Never heard of them,” he remarked decisively.
This annoyed me.
“You will,” I answered shortly. “You will if you stay in the East.”
“Oh, I’ll stay in the East, don’t you worry,” he said, glancing at Daisy and then back at me, as if he were alert for something more. “I’d be a God damned fool to live anywhere else.”
At this point Miss Baker said: “Absolutely!” with such suddenness that I started—it was the first word she had uttered since I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room.
“I’m stiff,” she complained, “I’ve been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember.”
“Don’t look at me,” Daisy retorted, “I’ve been trying to get you to New York all afternoon.”
“No, thanks,” said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the pantry. “I’m absolutely in training.”
Her host looked at her incredulously.
“You are!” He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. “How you ever get anything done is beyond me.”
I looked at Miss Baker, wondering what it was she “got done.” I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage, which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming, discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before.
“You live in West Egg,” she remarked contemptuously. “I know somebody there.”
“I don’t know a single—”
“You must know Gatsby.”
“Gatsby?” demanded Daisy. “What Gatsby?”
Before I could reply that he was my neighbour dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine, Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.
Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips, the two young women preceded us out on to a rosy-coloured porch, open toward the sunset, where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.
“Why candles?” objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. “In two weeks it’ll be the longest day in the year.” She looked at us all radiantly. “Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.”
“We ought to plan something,” yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed.
“All right,” said Daisy. “What’ll we plan?” She turned to me helplessly: “What do people plan?”
Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.
“Look!” she complained; “I hurt it.”
We all looked—the knuckle was black and blue.
“You did it, Tom,” she said accusingly. “I know you didn’t mean to, but you did do it. That’s what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a—”
“I hate that word ‘hulking,’ ” objected Tom crossly, “even in kidding.”
“Hulking,” insisted Daisy.
Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here, and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West, where an evening was hurried from phase to phase towards its close, in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.
“You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy,” I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. “Can’t you talk about crops or something?”
I meant nothing in particular by this remark, but it was taken up in an unexpected way.
“Civilization’s going to pieces,” broke out Tom violently. “I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read The Rise of the Coloured Empires by this man Goddard?”
“Why, no,” I answered, rather surprised by his tone.
“Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.”
“Tom’s getting very profound,” said Daisy, with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. “He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we—”
“Well, these books are all scientific,” insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. “This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things.”
“We’ve got to beat them down,” whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.
“You ought to live in California—” began Miss Baker, but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.
“This idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are, and you are, and—” After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod, and she winked at me again. “—And we’ve produced all the things that go to make civilization—oh, science and art, and all that. Do you see?”
There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned towards me.
“I’ll tell you a family secret,” she whispered enthusiastically. “It’s about the butler’s nose. Do you want to hear about the butler’s nose?”
“That’s why I came over tonight.”
“Well, he wasn’t always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night, until finally it began to affect his nose—”
“Things went from bad to worse,” suggested Miss Baker.
“Yes. Things went from bad to worse, until finally he had to give up his position.”
For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened—then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.
The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom’s ear, whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair, and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her, Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing.
“I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a—of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn’t he?” She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation: “An absolute rose?”
This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house.
Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said “Sh!” in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond, and Miss Baker leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether.
“This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbour—” I began.
“Don’t talk. I want to hear what happens.”
“Is something happening?” I inquired innocently.
“You mean to say you don’t know?” said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. “I thought everybody knew.”
“I don’t.”
“Why—” she said hesitantly. “Tom’s got some woman in New York.”
“Got some woman?” I repeated blankly.
Miss Baker nodded.
“She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Don’t you think?”
Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.
“It couldn’t be helped!” cried Daisy with tense gaiety.
She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me, and continued: “I looked outdoors for a minute, and it’s very romantic outdoors. There’s a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He’s singing away—” Her voice sang: “It’s romantic, isn’t it, Tom?”
“Very romantic,” he said, and then miserably to me: “If it’s light enough after dinner, I want to take you down to the stables.”
The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at everyone, and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn’t guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking, but I doubt if even Miss Baker, who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy scepticism, was able utterly to put this fifth guest’s shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police.
The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between them, strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while, trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf, I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.
Daisy took her face in her hands as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl.
“We don’t know each other very well, Nick,” she said suddenly. “Even if we are cousins. You didn’t come to my wedding.”
“I wasn’t back from the war.”
“That’s true.” She hesitated. “Well, I’ve had a very bad time, Nick, and I’m pretty cynical about everything.”
Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she
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didn’t say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter.
“I suppose she talks, and—eats, and everything.”
“Oh, yes.” She looked at me absently. “Listen, Nick; let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear?”
“Very much.”
“It’ll show you how I’ve gotten to feel about—things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.’
“You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow,” she went on in a convinced way. “Everybody thinks so—the most advanced people. And I know. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.” Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom’s, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. “Sophisticated—God, I’m sophisticated!”
The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.
Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light. Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from the Saturday Evening Post—the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune. The lamplight, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms.
When we came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand.
“To be continued,” she said, tossing the magazine on the table, “in our very next issue.”
Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up.
“Ten o’clock,” she remarked, apparently finding the time on the ceiling. “Time for this good girl to go to bed.”
“Jordan’s going to play in the tournament tomorrow,” explained Daisy, “over at Westchester.”
“Oh—you’re Jordan Baker.”
I knew now why her face was familiar—its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgotten long ago.
“Good night,” she said softly. “Wake me at eight, won’t you.”
“If you’ll get up.”
“I will. Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon.”
“Of course you will,” confirmed Daisy. “In fact I think I’ll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I’ll sort of—oh—fling you together. You know—lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing—”
“Good night,” called Miss Baker from the stairs. “I haven’t heard a word.”
“She’s a nice girl,” said Tom after a moment. “They oughtn’t to let her run around the country this way.”
“Who oughtn’t to?” inquired Daisy coldly.
“Her family.”
“Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nick’s going to look after her, aren’t you, Nick? She’s going to spend lots of weekends out here this summer. I think the home influence will be very good for her.”
Daisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence.
“Is she from New York?” I asked quickly.
“From Louisville. Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white—”
“Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk on the veranda?” demanded Tom suddenly.
“Did I?” She looked at me. “I can’t seem to remember, but I think we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I’m sure we did. It sort of crept up on us and first thing you know—”
“Don’t believe everything you hear, Nick,” he advised me.
I said lightly that I had heard nothing at all, and a few minutes later I got up to go home. They came to the door with me and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light. As I started my motor Daisy peremptorily called: “Wait!”
“I forgot to ask you something, and it’s important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out West.”
“That’s right,” corroborated Tom kindly. “We heard that you were engaged.”
“It’s a libel. I’m too poor.”
“But we heard it,” insisted Daisy, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way. “We heard it from three people, so it must be true.”
Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn’t even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come East. You can’t stop going with an old friend on account of rumours, and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumoured into marriage.
Their interest rather touched me and made them less remotely rich—nevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away. It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms—but apparently there were no such intentions in her head. As for Tom, the fact that he “had some woman in New York” was really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.
Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red petrol-pumps sat out in pools of light, and when I reached my estate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard. The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and, turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone—fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbour’s mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.
I decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction. But I didn’t call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone—he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.
II
About halfway between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight.
But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to
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2023.06.07 03:12 JPPT1974 Chapter 5:Lars Trying to Crash Normie's Commercial
It was now getting later afternoon and early evening, Max, Bea, and Felix done with their homework and eating some snacks and burgers for supper.
They hear that Norman is having a great shoot and is a natural. He may not say a lot, but he has a heart of gold and really someone you don't want to mess with.
Chase and Dustin motioned for the trio to come and finish the last few shoots over in Norman's commercial. Little did anybody know in the sneaking in over in a security guard was the former actor, Lars who sprinkled itching powder to make the bodyguard/guardian itch so he wouldn't make that commercial.
Lars was laughing and wanting to get back at Norman and only way to defeat Norman. Counting down to how Norman would be itching.
"You got this one Normie, last commercial. You are a natural!' Max yelled as Norman used the soap and talked his one line in before calling it a day.
Norman winked on back as the friends gave him a thumbs up.
While he used his last line and last take for the day before heading on home. Norman itched or was beginning to and had to call cut a few times. Norman didn't know what was going on as he used the same bar soap along with trying to stay calm as he is cool, calm, and collected under pressure.
But he was anything BUT after a few itches but then it was about to really get around his body. Now Norman was getting more and more red and itchy. Dustin had to get Max to really talk Norman into staying still. Max had to go in to try to talk Norman into staying.
"Look Normie, you have a few more tapings as if you keep on itching, you will cost the studio both money and time. Please, it will be over in a minute or two. Just please don't itch. Need to stay calm and we can call it a day. Just stay still and do your lines OK.?" Max then left and after those encouraging words as Norman itching really cost the studio money and time.
Norman was doing his best but it became much more and more unbearable and uncomfortable as he continued to itch. Poor Normie as this was not like him at all. All around he was about to breakout in hives.
Felix was asleep and Bea was yawning with Norman itching all around. Now profusely and sweating all around, Norman was looking for an exit as he was itching all over. Max was very shocked as he opened up his mouth. Just in disbelief as he tries to calm down Norman but the guy three or four sizes and beyond Max.
But when Norman headed out the door, he was running around the block, wakening up Felix and Bea about to go to sleep. Max hurried his friends to go after Norman as he apologized to Chase and Dustin for what was happening as Chase checked the soap to wonder what was going on.
Chase and Dustin both decided to give the kids a ride in the car instead of running with Norman going red and rashes all around his body. Max thanked the two as they took the car ride as Max thinks Norman is going to the new pool at his house.
"Better go to my house and if Norman is going anywhere to stop itching, it will be our new pool." Max figuring it out.
Chase was looking at the soap and noticed something wrong as Bea thought very clever over what was making Norman itch.
Chase gave the soap to Bea, whom she saw that over in itching powder. All around and how Dustin who was driving, was trying to speed up to the huge guy.
Lars on the other hand at the studio, walking out smiling into the early evening. He was laughing all around and was about to celebrate all together. The laughter stopped, but all of a sudden, he felt and saw something familiar. He had the itching powder in his hand and didn't close the baggy containing the powder.
Now he was itching and was running. He had karma on his own after what he did to Norman. What started as a great commercial to be now turned into an itching fest. First with Norman and now with Lars his nemesis.
submitted by JPPT1974 to MightyMax [link] [comments]
They hear that Norman is having a great shoot and is a natural. He may not say a lot, but he has a heart of gold and really someone you don't want to mess with.
Chase and Dustin motioned for the trio to come and finish the last few shoots over in Norman's commercial. Little did anybody know in the sneaking in over in a security guard was the former actor, Lars who sprinkled itching powder to make the bodyguard/guardian itch so he wouldn't make that commercial.
Lars was laughing and wanting to get back at Norman and only way to defeat Norman. Counting down to how Norman would be itching.
"You got this one Normie, last commercial. You are a natural!' Max yelled as Norman used the soap and talked his one line in before calling it a day.
Norman winked on back as the friends gave him a thumbs up.
While he used his last line and last take for the day before heading on home. Norman itched or was beginning to and had to call cut a few times. Norman didn't know what was going on as he used the same bar soap along with trying to stay calm as he is cool, calm, and collected under pressure.
But he was anything BUT after a few itches but then it was about to really get around his body. Now Norman was getting more and more red and itchy. Dustin had to get Max to really talk Norman into staying still. Max had to go in to try to talk Norman into staying.
"Look Normie, you have a few more tapings as if you keep on itching, you will cost the studio both money and time. Please, it will be over in a minute or two. Just please don't itch. Need to stay calm and we can call it a day. Just stay still and do your lines OK.?" Max then left and after those encouraging words as Norman itching really cost the studio money and time.
Norman was doing his best but it became much more and more unbearable and uncomfortable as he continued to itch. Poor Normie as this was not like him at all. All around he was about to breakout in hives.
Felix was asleep and Bea was yawning with Norman itching all around. Now profusely and sweating all around, Norman was looking for an exit as he was itching all over. Max was very shocked as he opened up his mouth. Just in disbelief as he tries to calm down Norman but the guy three or four sizes and beyond Max.
But when Norman headed out the door, he was running around the block, wakening up Felix and Bea about to go to sleep. Max hurried his friends to go after Norman as he apologized to Chase and Dustin for what was happening as Chase checked the soap to wonder what was going on.
Chase and Dustin both decided to give the kids a ride in the car instead of running with Norman going red and rashes all around his body. Max thanked the two as they took the car ride as Max thinks Norman is going to the new pool at his house.
"Better go to my house and if Norman is going anywhere to stop itching, it will be our new pool." Max figuring it out.
Chase was looking at the soap and noticed something wrong as Bea thought very clever over what was making Norman itch.
Chase gave the soap to Bea, whom she saw that over in itching powder. All around and how Dustin who was driving, was trying to speed up to the huge guy.
Lars on the other hand at the studio, walking out smiling into the early evening. He was laughing all around and was about to celebrate all together. The laughter stopped, but all of a sudden, he felt and saw something familiar. He had the itching powder in his hand and didn't close the baggy containing the powder.
Now he was itching and was running. He had karma on his own after what he did to Norman. What started as a great commercial to be now turned into an itching fest. First with Norman and now with Lars his nemesis.
2023.06.07 02:00 BurtStanky How do you visualize the party?
We've already started getting some amazing fan art of the new characters, but I always find myself picturing the versions of the characters my brain first came up with. Sometimes it doesn't even match with how the characters are described, but I can't help myself.
So for the new party...
Mathilde: Very much like the bird people from Breath of the Wild. I imagine Mathilde as a very tall, sort of toucan-looking brown bird-person with flowers monk robes.
Ellga: My first thought was Kirsten Dunst from Interview with a Vampire, but with a giant battle axe and a red hood.
Chip: I get blue vibes from Chip. I definitely picture a Midwestern dad, mustache and all, but with a blue hue. I totally forgot about the tail until it was mentioned in one of the last two episodes. Definitely a white polo shirt and cut-off denim shorts, with the white dad sneakers and white tube socks.
Barney: The most stereotypical decrepit old man, super wrinkly and stooped, with chainmail way too big for him. I also imagine the chain mail having a hood, making him look even goofier. Can't forget about the secret old man strength though, so I feel like his arms are super toned underneath.
I'm sure these aren't too crazy compared to their descriptions of their characters, but I imagine everyone pictures something a little different. How do you visualize the party?
submitted by BurtStanky to StinkyDragonPodcast [link] [comments]
So for the new party...
Mathilde: Very much like the bird people from Breath of the Wild. I imagine Mathilde as a very tall, sort of toucan-looking brown bird-person with flowers monk robes.
Ellga: My first thought was Kirsten Dunst from Interview with a Vampire, but with a giant battle axe and a red hood.
Chip: I get blue vibes from Chip. I definitely picture a Midwestern dad, mustache and all, but with a blue hue. I totally forgot about the tail until it was mentioned in one of the last two episodes. Definitely a white polo shirt and cut-off denim shorts, with the white dad sneakers and white tube socks.
Barney: The most stereotypical decrepit old man, super wrinkly and stooped, with chainmail way too big for him. I also imagine the chain mail having a hood, making him look even goofier. Can't forget about the secret old man strength though, so I feel like his arms are super toned underneath.
I'm sure these aren't too crazy compared to their descriptions of their characters, but I imagine everyone pictures something a little different. How do you visualize the party?
2023.06.07 01:42 Fabulous-Letter-5649 Engineer retires, and is replaced with a Human. (Pt 4)
Pt 1 If you haven't read it.
Pt 2 If you haven't read it.
Pt 3 If you haven't read it.
Hope you enjoy Pt 4 and happy reading!
*Flick* "Aligning descent profile for re-entry." I had made all the final preparations
*Flick* "Prepare for comms black out in 10" William began the countdown.
"9"
"8"
"7"
"6"
"5- when you get back I absolutely *have* to show you this really old movie, interstellar, its a classic" Will interjected.
"4-Oh my stars we're about to enter the atmosphere of Ix-5 at 7km/s and all you can think about is showing me some old movie when we get back?!"
"3- Fine."
"2"
The plasma had begun to lick around the edges of the heat shield and up onto the windows.
"1"
The comms began to make a static hissing sound.
"Just breathe." Will muttered to himself.
The whole shuttle began to shake violently.
"PASSING MAX-Q" Will had to shout to be heard over all the rattling.
Just like that, it began to quiet down, the fiery inferno of re-entry plasma died down and we began our coast down to find a suitable landing spot. Comms had also returned.
*Click* "I'd just like to let everyone know that we made it through re-entry just fine." Will had radioed back to the ship.
The sound of faint cheers from bridge could be heard.
"Engaging cloaking device" *Flick*
A loud hum could be heard as the cloaking device not only prevented us from being seen by eyes, but also seen by any radar, sonar, or other means of detection spun to life.
"So where should we land?"
"Oh just a few more kilometers to shore, then I'll just find a nice, secluded spot and we'll spend the next couple of days getting to know the locals!" I responded gleefully, as this was my first time with a civilization that didn't just learn how to farm.
After carefully gliding down we landed in a patch of grass-like vegetation. Will pointed out all the leaves were all black, to which I responded by telling him that the vegetation had to adapt to capture more of the light spectrum than the vegetation on Earth, because of the dimmer, red dwarf this planet orbited.
We had set up the basics, communications equipment, synthesizers, and a variety of other scientific tools.
"Hey, remember when you said you wanted to see an example of human food! Because I do!" Will exclaimed giddily.
After plugging in a drive and pressing a few buttons, the machine whirred to action, printing out a most unusual dish.
"So keep in mind this is just one dish out of... out of well I don't really know how many different kinds of dishes we have, all you need to know is that it's a very large number... But here's too hoping you enjoy it!"
What came out were this white, almost sphere like but more so a squat raindrop shaped... things. Will called them "Dumplings", and they smelled delicious, though he had dipped them in this brown liquid he called "Soy Sauce" that I really did not care for as far as smell goes.
I carefully picked one of these dumplings and bit into it.
"Oh my" I said, albeit muffled by the food.
"It's good isn't it! I told you!" Will grinned.
"That's quite the... texture. I don't really know how to process this. It's so soft and yet firm. Nutrient packs are so much easier, they don't make a mess and they're just so efficient, I mean, you could probably play around with the recipe, make them tastier. Right?"
"You just don't get it do you." Will said, shaking his head.
"Oh well, more for me." He grabbed at my half eaten dumpling.
"Hey! That's mine!"
"So you DO like it then!"
"No, just, ugh, leave me and my dumpling alone, I've already had my Nutrient Pack for the day I'm going to hibernate now."
Will rolled his eyes at my response.
"Fine." He said in that same begrudging manner as before.
I walked on over to the hibernation chamber, a circular area just big enough for me with a warm, gentle breeze flowing over. As I was going inside I heard Will behind me closing up the door after bringing everything inside.
"Wait... you were going to tell me about.... sleep..." I muttered out.
"Oh yes so hold one, could you just fully wake up for a little bit so I can explain, so your species, and for that matter every other alien species I've met, sleeps one hemisphere or one part of their brain at a time, but humans sleep the whole brain all at once."
"What's that like?" I replied, still in the grip of hibernation.
"So for starters we are like, FULLY unconscious the whole time, we can be woken up but we have a very, VERY limited understanding of what's going on around us. We also go limp so we don't move around accidentally, we still do. It's not perfect but it works enough to where I can say, "yeah we go limp"."
"But aren't you... what happens... if... someone ambushes you at night?"
"In all likelihood unless we happen to be right next to a weapon or something good enough, we die."
"Oh my. How... how did this not drive your species extinct?"
"I'm left wondering that same question too Tomō."
This might be the first time I've heard about a human ever being truly defenseless. Will had disappeared off into another room to change, returning in only a pair of shorts. Which left me examining his exposed torso. Human skin is wrapped quite tightly around the internal structure, and there seems to be very little, if any, loose skin, it also seemed to only be composed of one layer, most others I've meet without loose skin have special layers that can break off. Perhaps humans might be less sturdy than I had come to expect. No no that can't possibly be true I thought to myself, or as much as I could with half a brain working.
The morning was punctured by this infernal clattering from Will's bed, his arm swung up and smashed down on a small table next to him, causing the sound to stop.
"What was that?! Did someone find us?!"
"No... it was just my [Yawns] Alarm, we need to be startled to wake up and that [Will yawned again] was the startling noise."
Will climbed out of bed, shuffled over to another table (Those humans have a lot of tables) grabbed a fresh change of clothes and made his way over to the bathroom to change.
That's when I heard it, a loud SHHHHH sound from the bathroom, I made my way over to the locked door and shouted:
"EVERYTHING OKAY IN THERE WILL?"
"YEAH, JUST TAKING A SHOWER."
"A WHAT?"
"SHOWER"
"WHAT'S THAT?"
"I DON'T CARE FOR THIS CONVERSATION RIGHT NOW."
"OH OKAY."
I shuffled back over to my hibernation chamber, pulling the divider closed I took in a bath of UV sterilizing light and changed out of yesterday's uniform, and into todays, which on scout missions is always a set of cloths made to imitate the look of whatever cloths are common on whatever world we're scouting. In this case it was a brown turtleneck sweater, some black pants, 6 pairs of gloves as the basic orbital scan of their unencrypted communications revealed they obsess over cleanliness, often sporting multiple pairs of gloves for specific tasks, kept in separate pockets, land lastly, a sort of shawl like piece of fabric, apparently used to protect yourself from the midday dust and wind storms.
The disguise of our more... alien features was provided by some makeup, changing our skin to a sort of pale grey. We also made use of some printed prosthetic noses, wigs, and ears, which made our faces impossible to distinguish from the local inhabitants.
Once I had finished applying all my disguises, I exited my chamber and walked over to where Will was, standing by the synthesizer watching it print up a breakfast.
Will, who hadn't even donned the appropriate clothing at this point (he was wearing a simple outfit of black shorts and a grey t-shirt), was oddly enough, sopping wet. His hair had turned a jet black color due to its saturation of water, releasing its store down his face and his neck, resulting in the back of his shirt, and the front collar turning a visibly darker shade and sticking to his body, at this point I also noticed that his skin was covered in beads of moisture glinting in the sun.
"Why are you so wet?" I asked him.
"It has to do with a shower, I get myself under this sort of, simulated rainfall, only the temperature is nice and hot, and use soap, not the same kind you use to clean your hands, but the function is still the same, I then put some stuff in my hair which gets rid of oily build up, the water rinses everything off, but by the end I'm soaking wet, I will need to dry off properly though before I put on all the disguises."
As he grabbed his tray with his hands, still damp from the shower, and the skin around his fingers was all shriveled up.
"Your fingers look like mine now! See!" I asked, moving right up next to him to better show him my fingers.
"It just increases the surface area so I can grip things better underwater, only happens if they get wet."
"Why wouldn't they be like that all the time?"
"Once again I'm left wondering that question myself."
"So what's on the menu for "break-fast"?" I asked
"Well for starters, it's just one word, breakfast, and secondly, I'm having two slices of buttered toast, an egg, and a black tea. Standard human breakfast, though Coffee is more popular."
"Black tea...?" I had heard of Coffee before and its danger to other species, and was hoping that this tea drink lacked any of this substance known as Caffeine.
"Yeah just a little caffeine to wake me up."
"CAFFEINE?! That's... that's a.... that's a Class IV chemical weapon! They banned that centuries ago! How?! What?! Oh my... Oh my..." I began to hyperventilate.
"Relax! There's only what... 50 milligrams in a cup."
"FIFTY?! FIFTY!?! ONLY FIFTY?!? THAT'S TEN TIMES THE DEADLY DOSE! WHAT ARE YOUR THINKING!" I shrieked, though deep down I did take note of how that was less than that of Coffee.
"Shhh, you'll risk us getting caught, calm down, don't worry I'll have the cup disposed of properly, I've done this every day and so far, no one's gotten hurt." Will said in his standard, nonchalant attitude that has become so typical of him, a tone which did not seem anywhere near appropriate for the situation.
"SO FAR?!" I was not heeding his instructions to calm down, it's typically very hard to do so when faced with something that could lead to a violent death.
"Look, look, it's totally harmless for us humans, besides, the Federation strictly manages our recreational use of substances highly dangerous to other species, such as but not limited too: Caffeine, Capsaicin, and Cocoa. I make one wrong move and my ass is sent to jail."
I was shocked, frozen with shock, at least I wasn't screaming but I felt like I couldn't move a muscle. Capsaicin was last used by the Rx'lac to murder billions, Cocoa I hadn't heard of before so it must have been something unique to Earth, but it terrified me still. In my frozen state I waited for the cup he drank from to be destroyed, and at this moment I began to regain my motor functions.
After rigorously drying himself off with a towel and this awfully loud machine he pointed at his hair, Will began to
"Now, could you help me apply the makeup?"
Human hands, while much sturdier than what most of us use, in the case of Captain Reloxyn, she has 6 tentacles which can vary their diameter, and in the case of Zorxians like myself, we have the two hands attached to their respective arm much like a human, but the geometry of the fingers themselves are different, each finger is made up of 3 fluid filled sacs, attached one after another in segments, each sack is attached to the previous with a variety of muscles, which gives each joint the ability to make movements with a full 120 degree range of motion, in any direction. While this makes them far more fragile, due to the lack of skeletal structure, this makes us quite dextrous.
But yet, I noticed that Will's right hand, arm, and ankle were already painted, which puzzled me, if he could paint his right side, then why couldn't he paint his left?
"Do you really need my help? You did just fine painting the right side of your body."
"Tomō, do you really know so little about humans?"
"You know you're the first human I've met!"
"Humans tend to have what's called a dominant hand, what it means is that there's one hand I am really good at using, and another that I'm not so great at using, I *could* train myself to use both hands equally well, but I never really had a need, and even when it would've come in handy, there's always been someone else who can help me. Like you!"
"Aww, thanks!" I responded.
"In my case, my dominant hand is my left one, fairly uncommon. Only about 10% of people are like that, the rest are right handed, and a very small number are born with both hands being of equal capability."
"But you really should get on it with the whole training your right hand. There won't always be someone to help you."
"And yet there always has." Will responded jokingly.
"We ready?" I asked.
"Just have to get some things ready, hold on, if this society is so obsessed with cleanliness, how come they don't wear face masks? I doubt they've gotten to a point where they've already eradicated all diseases. That should take them at least another century."
"Oh, this is the really cool thing about this planet! So basically, airborne diseases never evolved! They just... don't exist here!"
"Absolutely fascinating." Will responded.
"Everything we need is now in the bag." He pointed to the black bag slung over his shoulder made from the local flora.
"And we should be ready to go!" Will enthusiastically marched over to the shuttle door, opening it at saying;
"After you!" With a look of pride on his face, odd, if anyone should be proud, it should be me, after all, this mission is already off to a good start considering he's a rookie.
The red light of Ix bathed the planet in this warm glow, Ix was rare for a red-dwarf system, as most habitable planets are tidally locked, but we marched through the woods, noting observations of the local ecosystem that we stopped periodically to jot down in our notepad.
About halfway through the forest Will stopped suddenly, turning back to face me.
"You forgot to tell me what bridge came up with for our secret identities? Oh stars, saying it like that makes me feel like some kind of super-spy!"
"Oh yes, I must have gotten distracted..." I reached for my communicator.
"Okay, so we're two hikers, you named Po'ol and I named Gra'aul, and we just finished up a nice long hike and so we're off back to Hl'Ix, population 12.8 million, and about a 2 hour train ride. Oh by the way, I have to share the language file hold on... yup that should do it! Congratulations you are now fluent in Ix!"
A requirement of working for any Federation job was the implantation of a language chip which allowed the user to become fluent in all 608 languages and, what they called "Significant Dialects" spoken in the Federation, though for people working on exploration vessels like me and Will, we had access to a file sharing system so we could download new languages for the planets we visited after the central computer processed them.
"Thanks!" Will responded from a meter or so ahead of me.
We continued our march down to the road, where we walked parallel to it as cars zipped by. Eventually the forest we had landed in cleared way for farmland, which after about 5 kilometers or so more walking, started to turn to houses with expansive yards, which gradually became smaller and smaller as we neared the center of town.
"You getting tired yet?" Will asked me, we had decided it was best for him to walk behind me, so we could make sure we stayed together.
"Yeah, but just a bit longer until we make it into... whatever the name of this town is."
"Alright."
We continued to make our way into the town, named Urup and with a population of about 3 thousand. When we got there it was almost devoid of any activity, and the wind had started to pick up, which carried in dust. Thankfully we anticipated this, having donned contact lenses to keep debris out of our eyes, and using the shawl to cover up our mouth and nose. At this point will stopped to pull out a small, and very thin, weather sheet, which he released into the wind. This device would record the weather conditions as it gets carried by the wind. Just after doing this, he turned to me and said,
"Weather at time of release: Temperature: 10 degrees Celsius. Wind speed: 56 Kph, rising. Feels like: 5.2 Degrees Celsius, falling. It wasn't able to get a good reading on dust concentration because it's rising too fast so that should tell you everything you need to know."
The wind nearly blew Will's shawl off, but he grabbed it just in time, and me, being too focused on Will, had let my own shawl blow away in the wind, and while Will had tried to reach for it, the wind carried it away far too quickly for him to get it in time, only missing his fingers by a handful of centimeters. I quickly covered my mouth with my sweater, though this did leave part of my midsection exposed to the elements, a suboptimal position to be in during a dust storm of this magnitude.
"Dammit! Almost had the blasted thing!" Will shouted, the rush of the wind was beginning to drown out our voices.
He put his hand in one of the many pockets on his pants, that's something everyone can appreciate about Ix fashion, anything below 10 pockets is simply unacceptable. Anyways, Will pulled out a small pair of scissors, and quickly removed his shawl.
"What are you doing you can't remove your shawl in these conditions!" I shouted back at him.
"I'll be quick, don't worry!" Will responded as he cut his cloth in two.
"Here!" He said handing me the now removed half of his shawl, and quickly covering his face with the remaining half.
We continued on, though this time much slower than before, as we didn't want to loose our balance and be toppled by the wind. Never before had I ever had to deal with wind this intense, no wonder they assigned the human.
"Squat down! Boundary layer winds should be slower!" He shouted to me while bending down to waddle his way across the street to the hotel.
Squatting down only provided minimal relief, as I suppose one would have to crawl to truly take advantage of this effect. Slowly but surely we made our way across the road, over to the hotel. Opening the first set of doors we were met with a powerful blast of air, which prevented any dust from getting in. Only until after the doors had closed, and our clothes were sufficiently purged of any particulates that had somehow lodged their way into the remarkably dense fabrics. Eventually though, the blast died down, and the second doors opened automatically.
The doors opened to reveal an interior with a largely brown, beige, and black color pattern. The whole lobby was lit with a quite warm color tone, with the lightbulbs occasionally flickering and all the windows had been sealed off behind steel plates. Eventually Will turned his head to face a desk spanning quite a large distance, located just in front of a large board with all the room numbers located next to a light.
We could vaguely hear someone talking to another person, emanating from behind a door marked "Employees Only", Will glanced at me, pulling my attention to his gloves, which he began to swap out for a new pair. I quickly followed suit. Eventually, just moments after I finished putting on a new pair of gloves, one of the people from behind the door exited.
"Why on Ix would there ever be customers walking in during the middle of the storm! We issued the alert 2 hours ago!" The woman said to the man who stayed in the room as the door closed behind her.
Turning around to face the two of us, and walking over to the main part of the check in desk, she began to speak to us.
"Hi my name us Za'ul!" She said, showing us her name tag.
"Now what can I do for the two of you! Must've been miserable trapped out there in the storm!"
Will began to approach the desk, seeing this I decided to sit down and catch my breath, the 10 kilometer walk had exhausted me, it was remarkable to see Will barley fazed by it.
"Hi my name is Po'ol and this is my hiking buddy Gra'aul, we just finished up the most beautiful of hikes through that nearby forest, so we're on our way back to Hl'ix! I was wondering if you could get us a room please and thank you ma'am." He said in a sort of folksy manner, not too dissimilar from the way Za'ul spoke.
"Alright you want one bed or two?" She responded.
"-Two please." He said, almost cutting Za'ul off.
"All right! You want first floor or second floor?"
"Oh second floor would be lovely."
"Well here's your key and have a lovely stay!"
Will walked over to me.
"Got us a key for room 203, here's your key" Will had switched from his folksy mannerisms to a soft whisper, but I just let the key hit me, I was far to tired to catch it.
"Well I see our hike took quite a bit out of you, so just come up when your ready, I got the bags don't worry."
I nodded my head in silent agreement, I was exhausted, but I knew I should probably go upstairs to the room with him.
"Hold on.." I said, slowly lifting myself up onto my feet and carefully making my way over to the elevator.
Standing in the cramped elevator I noticed Will suddenly had this terrible and persistent oder.
"You okay?" I asked him
"Yeah... why do you ask?"
"It's just... you smell kind of... bad."
"Oh!" He chuckled with that same old chuckle I had heard a million times before.
"Yeah, uh, I'm sure after I explained to you what a shower was you were probably perplexed as to why we don't do the standard UV bath, but basically humans smell bad after a long day, or after a long enough, or intense enough period of physical exertion. Showering gets rid of the smell. I did notice the Ix had only a single layer of skin, and hopefully this means they too have the scent issues that humans have, and thus also make use of showering."
"I see. Can you take another shower when we get to the hotel?"
"Tomō! That's... don't say that to other humans okay, you can be direct with me like that but... a lot of other humans will not take that kindly. Just letting you know that."
ding
The elevator had made its way up to the second floor.
"Let's see, 203... 203... here it is!"
Will unlocked the door and opened it.
"Oh thank the stars they have actual beds and it wasn't just a translational error!" He cried out in relief.
Will ran over to the bathroom.
"And they have showers too! Just Wonderful! Don't worry a shower should adequately clean you too."
"Oh I brought my own portable UV sterilizer, I'll be fine."
"You just relax down I'll take care of the report back to bridge."
I made my way over to the beds and just collapsed into it. Hibernating while laying down was not ideal, but at this point I'd do anything not to be on my feet anymore. Eventually I decided that I didn't care for lying face down, and instead rolled over to face Will, just to make sure he didn't botch the report.
Eventually once he finished his report, he walked over to the rooms corners and placed the sound barriers, which would cancel out our voices making sure nobody heard us. Which he, well, I was supposed to do first thing upon entering, though I was far to tired, and Will must've only just noticed. You know, when he first got here he really just annoyed me to no end, but now, he's really settled in and has gotten really into the hang of things, and sure, he's weird, but you know what, he's a human, he's not weird, just... different.
I think I'm going to leave it off here, I know I promised some action but this is just where the story lead me, and it was already getting long. Part 5 will be out tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed reading!
submitted by Fabulous-Letter-5649 to humansarespaceorcs [link] [comments]
Pt 2 If you haven't read it.
Pt 3 If you haven't read it.
Hope you enjoy Pt 4 and happy reading!
*Flick* "Aligning descent profile for re-entry." I had made all the final preparations
*Flick* "Prepare for comms black out in 10" William began the countdown.
"9"
"8"
"7"
"6"
"5- when you get back I absolutely *have* to show you this really old movie, interstellar, its a classic" Will interjected.
"4-Oh my stars we're about to enter the atmosphere of Ix-5 at 7km/s and all you can think about is showing me some old movie when we get back?!"
"3- Fine."
"2"
The plasma had begun to lick around the edges of the heat shield and up onto the windows.
"1"
The comms began to make a static hissing sound.
"Just breathe." Will muttered to himself.
The whole shuttle began to shake violently.
"PASSING MAX-Q" Will had to shout to be heard over all the rattling.
Just like that, it began to quiet down, the fiery inferno of re-entry plasma died down and we began our coast down to find a suitable landing spot. Comms had also returned.
*Click* "I'd just like to let everyone know that we made it through re-entry just fine." Will had radioed back to the ship.
The sound of faint cheers from bridge could be heard.
"Engaging cloaking device" *Flick*
A loud hum could be heard as the cloaking device not only prevented us from being seen by eyes, but also seen by any radar, sonar, or other means of detection spun to life.
"So where should we land?"
"Oh just a few more kilometers to shore, then I'll just find a nice, secluded spot and we'll spend the next couple of days getting to know the locals!" I responded gleefully, as this was my first time with a civilization that didn't just learn how to farm.
After carefully gliding down we landed in a patch of grass-like vegetation. Will pointed out all the leaves were all black, to which I responded by telling him that the vegetation had to adapt to capture more of the light spectrum than the vegetation on Earth, because of the dimmer, red dwarf this planet orbited.
We had set up the basics, communications equipment, synthesizers, and a variety of other scientific tools.
"Hey, remember when you said you wanted to see an example of human food! Because I do!" Will exclaimed giddily.
After plugging in a drive and pressing a few buttons, the machine whirred to action, printing out a most unusual dish.
"So keep in mind this is just one dish out of... out of well I don't really know how many different kinds of dishes we have, all you need to know is that it's a very large number... But here's too hoping you enjoy it!"
What came out were this white, almost sphere like but more so a squat raindrop shaped... things. Will called them "Dumplings", and they smelled delicious, though he had dipped them in this brown liquid he called "Soy Sauce" that I really did not care for as far as smell goes.
I carefully picked one of these dumplings and bit into it.
"Oh my" I said, albeit muffled by the food.
"It's good isn't it! I told you!" Will grinned.
"That's quite the... texture. I don't really know how to process this. It's so soft and yet firm. Nutrient packs are so much easier, they don't make a mess and they're just so efficient, I mean, you could probably play around with the recipe, make them tastier. Right?"
"You just don't get it do you." Will said, shaking his head.
"Oh well, more for me." He grabbed at my half eaten dumpling.
"Hey! That's mine!"
"So you DO like it then!"
"No, just, ugh, leave me and my dumpling alone, I've already had my Nutrient Pack for the day I'm going to hibernate now."
Will rolled his eyes at my response.
"Fine." He said in that same begrudging manner as before.
I walked on over to the hibernation chamber, a circular area just big enough for me with a warm, gentle breeze flowing over. As I was going inside I heard Will behind me closing up the door after bringing everything inside.
"Wait... you were going to tell me about.... sleep..." I muttered out.
"Oh yes so hold one, could you just fully wake up for a little bit so I can explain, so your species, and for that matter every other alien species I've met, sleeps one hemisphere or one part of their brain at a time, but humans sleep the whole brain all at once."
"What's that like?" I replied, still in the grip of hibernation.
"So for starters we are like, FULLY unconscious the whole time, we can be woken up but we have a very, VERY limited understanding of what's going on around us. We also go limp so we don't move around accidentally, we still do. It's not perfect but it works enough to where I can say, "yeah we go limp"."
"But aren't you... what happens... if... someone ambushes you at night?"
"In all likelihood unless we happen to be right next to a weapon or something good enough, we die."
"Oh my. How... how did this not drive your species extinct?"
"I'm left wondering that same question too Tomō."
This might be the first time I've heard about a human ever being truly defenseless. Will had disappeared off into another room to change, returning in only a pair of shorts. Which left me examining his exposed torso. Human skin is wrapped quite tightly around the internal structure, and there seems to be very little, if any, loose skin, it also seemed to only be composed of one layer, most others I've meet without loose skin have special layers that can break off. Perhaps humans might be less sturdy than I had come to expect. No no that can't possibly be true I thought to myself, or as much as I could with half a brain working.
The morning was punctured by this infernal clattering from Will's bed, his arm swung up and smashed down on a small table next to him, causing the sound to stop.
"What was that?! Did someone find us?!"
"No... it was just my [Yawns] Alarm, we need to be startled to wake up and that [Will yawned again] was the startling noise."
Will climbed out of bed, shuffled over to another table (Those humans have a lot of tables) grabbed a fresh change of clothes and made his way over to the bathroom to change.
That's when I heard it, a loud SHHHHH sound from the bathroom, I made my way over to the locked door and shouted:
"EVERYTHING OKAY IN THERE WILL?"
"YEAH, JUST TAKING A SHOWER."
"A WHAT?"
"SHOWER"
"WHAT'S THAT?"
"I DON'T CARE FOR THIS CONVERSATION RIGHT NOW."
"OH OKAY."
I shuffled back over to my hibernation chamber, pulling the divider closed I took in a bath of UV sterilizing light and changed out of yesterday's uniform, and into todays, which on scout missions is always a set of cloths made to imitate the look of whatever cloths are common on whatever world we're scouting. In this case it was a brown turtleneck sweater, some black pants, 6 pairs of gloves as the basic orbital scan of their unencrypted communications revealed they obsess over cleanliness, often sporting multiple pairs of gloves for specific tasks, kept in separate pockets, land lastly, a sort of shawl like piece of fabric, apparently used to protect yourself from the midday dust and wind storms.
The disguise of our more... alien features was provided by some makeup, changing our skin to a sort of pale grey. We also made use of some printed prosthetic noses, wigs, and ears, which made our faces impossible to distinguish from the local inhabitants.
Once I had finished applying all my disguises, I exited my chamber and walked over to where Will was, standing by the synthesizer watching it print up a breakfast.
Will, who hadn't even donned the appropriate clothing at this point (he was wearing a simple outfit of black shorts and a grey t-shirt), was oddly enough, sopping wet. His hair had turned a jet black color due to its saturation of water, releasing its store down his face and his neck, resulting in the back of his shirt, and the front collar turning a visibly darker shade and sticking to his body, at this point I also noticed that his skin was covered in beads of moisture glinting in the sun.
"Why are you so wet?" I asked him.
"It has to do with a shower, I get myself under this sort of, simulated rainfall, only the temperature is nice and hot, and use soap, not the same kind you use to clean your hands, but the function is still the same, I then put some stuff in my hair which gets rid of oily build up, the water rinses everything off, but by the end I'm soaking wet, I will need to dry off properly though before I put on all the disguises."
As he grabbed his tray with his hands, still damp from the shower, and the skin around his fingers was all shriveled up.
"Your fingers look like mine now! See!" I asked, moving right up next to him to better show him my fingers.
"It just increases the surface area so I can grip things better underwater, only happens if they get wet."
"Why wouldn't they be like that all the time?"
"Once again I'm left wondering that question myself."
"So what's on the menu for "break-fast"?" I asked
"Well for starters, it's just one word, breakfast, and secondly, I'm having two slices of buttered toast, an egg, and a black tea. Standard human breakfast, though Coffee is more popular."
"Black tea...?" I had heard of Coffee before and its danger to other species, and was hoping that this tea drink lacked any of this substance known as Caffeine.
"Yeah just a little caffeine to wake me up."
"CAFFEINE?! That's... that's a.... that's a Class IV chemical weapon! They banned that centuries ago! How?! What?! Oh my... Oh my..." I began to hyperventilate.
"Relax! There's only what... 50 milligrams in a cup."
"FIFTY?! FIFTY!?! ONLY FIFTY?!? THAT'S TEN TIMES THE DEADLY DOSE! WHAT ARE YOUR THINKING!" I shrieked, though deep down I did take note of how that was less than that of Coffee.
"Shhh, you'll risk us getting caught, calm down, don't worry I'll have the cup disposed of properly, I've done this every day and so far, no one's gotten hurt." Will said in his standard, nonchalant attitude that has become so typical of him, a tone which did not seem anywhere near appropriate for the situation.
"SO FAR?!" I was not heeding his instructions to calm down, it's typically very hard to do so when faced with something that could lead to a violent death.
"Look, look, it's totally harmless for us humans, besides, the Federation strictly manages our recreational use of substances highly dangerous to other species, such as but not limited too: Caffeine, Capsaicin, and Cocoa. I make one wrong move and my ass is sent to jail."
I was shocked, frozen with shock, at least I wasn't screaming but I felt like I couldn't move a muscle. Capsaicin was last used by the Rx'lac to murder billions, Cocoa I hadn't heard of before so it must have been something unique to Earth, but it terrified me still. In my frozen state I waited for the cup he drank from to be destroyed, and at this moment I began to regain my motor functions.
After rigorously drying himself off with a towel and this awfully loud machine he pointed at his hair, Will began to
"Now, could you help me apply the makeup?"
Human hands, while much sturdier than what most of us use, in the case of Captain Reloxyn, she has 6 tentacles which can vary their diameter, and in the case of Zorxians like myself, we have the two hands attached to their respective arm much like a human, but the geometry of the fingers themselves are different, each finger is made up of 3 fluid filled sacs, attached one after another in segments, each sack is attached to the previous with a variety of muscles, which gives each joint the ability to make movements with a full 120 degree range of motion, in any direction. While this makes them far more fragile, due to the lack of skeletal structure, this makes us quite dextrous.
But yet, I noticed that Will's right hand, arm, and ankle were already painted, which puzzled me, if he could paint his right side, then why couldn't he paint his left?
"Do you really need my help? You did just fine painting the right side of your body."
"Tomō, do you really know so little about humans?"
"You know you're the first human I've met!"
"Humans tend to have what's called a dominant hand, what it means is that there's one hand I am really good at using, and another that I'm not so great at using, I *could* train myself to use both hands equally well, but I never really had a need, and even when it would've come in handy, there's always been someone else who can help me. Like you!"
"Aww, thanks!" I responded.
"In my case, my dominant hand is my left one, fairly uncommon. Only about 10% of people are like that, the rest are right handed, and a very small number are born with both hands being of equal capability."
"But you really should get on it with the whole training your right hand. There won't always be someone to help you."
"And yet there always has." Will responded jokingly.
"We ready?" I asked.
"Just have to get some things ready, hold on, if this society is so obsessed with cleanliness, how come they don't wear face masks? I doubt they've gotten to a point where they've already eradicated all diseases. That should take them at least another century."
"Oh, this is the really cool thing about this planet! So basically, airborne diseases never evolved! They just... don't exist here!"
"Absolutely fascinating." Will responded.
"Everything we need is now in the bag." He pointed to the black bag slung over his shoulder made from the local flora.
"And we should be ready to go!" Will enthusiastically marched over to the shuttle door, opening it at saying;
"After you!" With a look of pride on his face, odd, if anyone should be proud, it should be me, after all, this mission is already off to a good start considering he's a rookie.
The red light of Ix bathed the planet in this warm glow, Ix was rare for a red-dwarf system, as most habitable planets are tidally locked, but we marched through the woods, noting observations of the local ecosystem that we stopped periodically to jot down in our notepad.
About halfway through the forest Will stopped suddenly, turning back to face me.
"You forgot to tell me what bridge came up with for our secret identities? Oh stars, saying it like that makes me feel like some kind of super-spy!"
"Oh yes, I must have gotten distracted..." I reached for my communicator.
"Okay, so we're two hikers, you named Po'ol and I named Gra'aul, and we just finished up a nice long hike and so we're off back to Hl'Ix, population 12.8 million, and about a 2 hour train ride. Oh by the way, I have to share the language file hold on... yup that should do it! Congratulations you are now fluent in Ix!"
A requirement of working for any Federation job was the implantation of a language chip which allowed the user to become fluent in all 608 languages and, what they called "Significant Dialects" spoken in the Federation, though for people working on exploration vessels like me and Will, we had access to a file sharing system so we could download new languages for the planets we visited after the central computer processed them.
"Thanks!" Will responded from a meter or so ahead of me.
We continued our march down to the road, where we walked parallel to it as cars zipped by. Eventually the forest we had landed in cleared way for farmland, which after about 5 kilometers or so more walking, started to turn to houses with expansive yards, which gradually became smaller and smaller as we neared the center of town.
"You getting tired yet?" Will asked me, we had decided it was best for him to walk behind me, so we could make sure we stayed together.
"Yeah, but just a bit longer until we make it into... whatever the name of this town is."
"Alright."
We continued to make our way into the town, named Urup and with a population of about 3 thousand. When we got there it was almost devoid of any activity, and the wind had started to pick up, which carried in dust. Thankfully we anticipated this, having donned contact lenses to keep debris out of our eyes, and using the shawl to cover up our mouth and nose. At this point will stopped to pull out a small, and very thin, weather sheet, which he released into the wind. This device would record the weather conditions as it gets carried by the wind. Just after doing this, he turned to me and said,
"Weather at time of release: Temperature: 10 degrees Celsius. Wind speed: 56 Kph, rising. Feels like: 5.2 Degrees Celsius, falling. It wasn't able to get a good reading on dust concentration because it's rising too fast so that should tell you everything you need to know."
The wind nearly blew Will's shawl off, but he grabbed it just in time, and me, being too focused on Will, had let my own shawl blow away in the wind, and while Will had tried to reach for it, the wind carried it away far too quickly for him to get it in time, only missing his fingers by a handful of centimeters. I quickly covered my mouth with my sweater, though this did leave part of my midsection exposed to the elements, a suboptimal position to be in during a dust storm of this magnitude.
"Dammit! Almost had the blasted thing!" Will shouted, the rush of the wind was beginning to drown out our voices.
He put his hand in one of the many pockets on his pants, that's something everyone can appreciate about Ix fashion, anything below 10 pockets is simply unacceptable. Anyways, Will pulled out a small pair of scissors, and quickly removed his shawl.
"What are you doing you can't remove your shawl in these conditions!" I shouted back at him.
"I'll be quick, don't worry!" Will responded as he cut his cloth in two.
"Here!" He said handing me the now removed half of his shawl, and quickly covering his face with the remaining half.
We continued on, though this time much slower than before, as we didn't want to loose our balance and be toppled by the wind. Never before had I ever had to deal with wind this intense, no wonder they assigned the human.
"Squat down! Boundary layer winds should be slower!" He shouted to me while bending down to waddle his way across the street to the hotel.
Squatting down only provided minimal relief, as I suppose one would have to crawl to truly take advantage of this effect. Slowly but surely we made our way across the road, over to the hotel. Opening the first set of doors we were met with a powerful blast of air, which prevented any dust from getting in. Only until after the doors had closed, and our clothes were sufficiently purged of any particulates that had somehow lodged their way into the remarkably dense fabrics. Eventually though, the blast died down, and the second doors opened automatically.
The doors opened to reveal an interior with a largely brown, beige, and black color pattern. The whole lobby was lit with a quite warm color tone, with the lightbulbs occasionally flickering and all the windows had been sealed off behind steel plates. Eventually Will turned his head to face a desk spanning quite a large distance, located just in front of a large board with all the room numbers located next to a light.
We could vaguely hear someone talking to another person, emanating from behind a door marked "Employees Only", Will glanced at me, pulling my attention to his gloves, which he began to swap out for a new pair. I quickly followed suit. Eventually, just moments after I finished putting on a new pair of gloves, one of the people from behind the door exited.
"Why on Ix would there ever be customers walking in during the middle of the storm! We issued the alert 2 hours ago!" The woman said to the man who stayed in the room as the door closed behind her.
Turning around to face the two of us, and walking over to the main part of the check in desk, she began to speak to us.
"Hi my name us Za'ul!" She said, showing us her name tag.
"Now what can I do for the two of you! Must've been miserable trapped out there in the storm!"
Will began to approach the desk, seeing this I decided to sit down and catch my breath, the 10 kilometer walk had exhausted me, it was remarkable to see Will barley fazed by it.
"Hi my name is Po'ol and this is my hiking buddy Gra'aul, we just finished up the most beautiful of hikes through that nearby forest, so we're on our way back to Hl'ix! I was wondering if you could get us a room please and thank you ma'am." He said in a sort of folksy manner, not too dissimilar from the way Za'ul spoke.
"Alright you want one bed or two?" She responded.
"-Two please." He said, almost cutting Za'ul off.
"All right! You want first floor or second floor?"
"Oh second floor would be lovely."
"Well here's your key and have a lovely stay!"
Will walked over to me.
"Got us a key for room 203, here's your key" Will had switched from his folksy mannerisms to a soft whisper, but I just let the key hit me, I was far to tired to catch it.
"Well I see our hike took quite a bit out of you, so just come up when your ready, I got the bags don't worry."
I nodded my head in silent agreement, I was exhausted, but I knew I should probably go upstairs to the room with him.
"Hold on.." I said, slowly lifting myself up onto my feet and carefully making my way over to the elevator.
Standing in the cramped elevator I noticed Will suddenly had this terrible and persistent oder.
"You okay?" I asked him
"Yeah... why do you ask?"
"It's just... you smell kind of... bad."
"Oh!" He chuckled with that same old chuckle I had heard a million times before.
"Yeah, uh, I'm sure after I explained to you what a shower was you were probably perplexed as to why we don't do the standard UV bath, but basically humans smell bad after a long day, or after a long enough, or intense enough period of physical exertion. Showering gets rid of the smell. I did notice the Ix had only a single layer of skin, and hopefully this means they too have the scent issues that humans have, and thus also make use of showering."
"I see. Can you take another shower when we get to the hotel?"
"Tomō! That's... don't say that to other humans okay, you can be direct with me like that but... a lot of other humans will not take that kindly. Just letting you know that."
ding
The elevator had made its way up to the second floor.
"Let's see, 203... 203... here it is!"
Will unlocked the door and opened it.
"Oh thank the stars they have actual beds and it wasn't just a translational error!" He cried out in relief.
Will ran over to the bathroom.
"And they have showers too! Just Wonderful! Don't worry a shower should adequately clean you too."
"Oh I brought my own portable UV sterilizer, I'll be fine."
"You just relax down I'll take care of the report back to bridge."
I made my way over to the beds and just collapsed into it. Hibernating while laying down was not ideal, but at this point I'd do anything not to be on my feet anymore. Eventually I decided that I didn't care for lying face down, and instead rolled over to face Will, just to make sure he didn't botch the report.
Eventually once he finished his report, he walked over to the rooms corners and placed the sound barriers, which would cancel out our voices making sure nobody heard us. Which he, well, I was supposed to do first thing upon entering, though I was far to tired, and Will must've only just noticed. You know, when he first got here he really just annoyed me to no end, but now, he's really settled in and has gotten really into the hang of things, and sure, he's weird, but you know what, he's a human, he's not weird, just... different.
I think I'm going to leave it off here, I know I promised some action but this is just where the story lead me, and it was already getting long. Part 5 will be out tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed reading!
2023.06.07 01:02 Smilefukr (Offer) Hereditary (A24) HD, The Bling Ring (A24) HD, Cut Bank (A24) HD, Mechanic Resurection HD, Super Troopers HD, Russell Madness HD, Love The Coopers HD, Knock Knock (2015) HD, Good Will Hunting HD, The Age Of Adaline HD, Heist HD, Philomena HD, Spy HD, Mortdecai HD + More (Request) Lists
Request/ISO Titles I'm Currently Looking For - The Super Mario Bros Movie, Renfield, Dungeons & Dragons, Batman: The Doom That Came To Gotham, Secret Headquarters & VUDU Credits.
Currently at 4,000+ titles so I do have a great amount of movies that are commonly available through redemption but I do encourage any & all offers. I apologize in advance to anyone I'm unable to make a trade with & as always thank you for taking time out to look at my list 🙂.
All iTunes titles marked with * will port to MA.
Also to those that may be new to uvtrade sub, All Google Play listed do port to Movies Anywhere/Vudu/iTunes if you connect your accounts accordingly. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
--All Codes Split Where Applicable--
2 Fast 2 FuriousHDMovies Anywhere
2Guns (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
2Guns* (Split)HDiTunes
The 5th WaveHDMovies Anywhere
12 Rounds 3: LockdownSDVUDU
21 Jump StreetHDMovies Anywhere
21 Jump StreetSDMovies Anywhere
22 Jump StreetHDMovies Anywhere
22 Jump StreetSDMovies Anywhere
47 Ronin (Split4KiTunes
47 Ronin (SplitHDMovies Anywhere
Act of ValorSDiTunes
Action PointHDiTunes
The Adjustment Bureau*HDiTunes
The Adventures of TinTin (Split)HDVUDU
The Adventures of TinTin (Split)HDiTunes
After EarthSDMovies Anywhere
After EarthHDMovies Anywhere
The Age of AdalineHDVUDU
Aladdin [1992 Disney Animation] (Split)HDGoogle Play
Aladdin [Live Action] (Split)HDGoogle Play
Alex CrossHDVUDU
Alexander & The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day* (Split)HDiTunes
Alexander & The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (Split)HDGoogle Play
Alien: CovenantHDMovies Anywhere
Alien Covenant*4KiTunes
All The Money In The WorldSDMovies Anywhere
Alice in Wonderland [1951, Animated] (Split)HDGoogle Play
AlohaHDMovies Anywhere
AlohaSDMovies Anywhere
Alvin and the Chipmunks: ChipwreckedSDiTunes
Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Road Chip*4KiTunes
The Amazing Spider-Man 2HDMovies Anywhere
America: Imagine The World Without HerHDVUDU
American AssassinHDVUDU
American HustleSDMovies Anywhere
American Reunion (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
American Reunion* (Split)HDiTunes
Amsterdam (Split)HDGoogle Play
Anchorman 2 (Split)HDVUDU
Anchorman 2 (Split)HDiTunes
The Angry Birds MovieHDMovies Anywhere
Annie [2014]SDMovies Anywhere
Another Cinderella StoryHDMovies Anywhere
Antlers (Split)HDGoogle Play
Ant-Man* (Split)4KiTunes
Arrival4KiTunes
The ArtistSDMovies Anywhere
Assassin's Creed*4KiTunes
Avengers: Age of Ultron* (Split)4KiTunes
Avengers: Age of Ultron (Split)HDGoogle Play
Avengers: Infinity War (Split)4KiTunes
Avengers: Infinity War (Split)HDGoogle Play
AVP: Requiem*SDiTunes
Bad GrandpaHDiTunes
Bad Grandpa.5HDiTunes
Bad Moms* (Split)HDiTunes
Bambi (Split)HDGoogle Play
Barbie and Her Sisters in a Puppy Chase* (Split)HDiTunes
Barbie and Her Sisters in a Puppy Chase (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Barbie Spy Squad (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Battleship*4KiTunes
Beauty & the Beast [Live Action] (Split)HDGoogle Play
Ben Hur (2016)4KiTunes
Big Hero 6* (Split)4KiTunes
Big Hero 6 (Split)HDGoogle Play
Big Miracle* (Split)HDiTunes
Big Mommas: Like Father, Like SonSDiTunes
The Big Wedding (Split)HDVUDU
The Big Wedding (Split)HDiTunes
Black Panther (Split)HDGoogle Play
Black Swan*SDiTunes
Black Widow (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Bling Ring (A24)HDVUDU
The Bob's Burgers Movie (Split)HDGoogle Play
Book Club (Split)HDVUDU
Book Club (Split)HDiTunes
The Boss* (Split)HDiTunes
The Boss (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
The Bourne Legacy (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
The Bourne Legacy* (Split)4KiTunes
The Bourne Supremacy (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Boyhood (Split)HDVUDU
Boyhood (Split)HDiTunes
BraveSDiTunes
BridesmaidsHDiTunes
Bridge of Spies* (Split)HDGoogle Play
Brooklyn's FinestSDiTunes
Bumblebee (Split)4KiTunes
The ButlerHDVUDU
The Bye Bye Man (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
The Bye Bye Man* (Split)HDiTunes
Call of the Wild (Split)HDGoogle Play
Captain America: Civil War* (Split)4KiTunes
Captain America: Civil War (Split)HDGoogle Play
Captain Marvel (Split)HDGoogle Play
Captain PhillipsHDMovies Anywhere
Captain Underpants: The First Epic MovieHDMovies Anywhere
The Case For Christ (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Cedar Rapids*SDiTunes
Celebrating Mickey (Split)HDGoogle Play
The ChoiceHDVUDU
Cinderella [Live Action]* (Split)4KiTunes
Cinderella [Live Action] (Split)HDGoogle Play
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2SDMovies Anywhere
Contraband*HDiTunes
Coco*4KiTunes
CocoHDGoogle Play
Cowboys & Aliens*HDiTunes
The Crazies (2010)SDiTunes
CriminalHDVUDU
The CroodsHDMovies Anywhere
Cruella (Split)HDGoogle Play
Cut Bank (A24)HDVUDU
Daddy's Home (Split)4KiTunes
Daddy's Home (Split)HDVUDU
Dallas Buyers Club* (Split)HDiTunes
Dallas Buyers Club (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes4KiTunes
Dead Man DownSDMovies Anywhere
Deadwood Complete SeriesHDGoogle Play
The DescendantsSDiTunes
Deepwater Horizon4KiTunes
Despicable Me 2 (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Despicable Me 2* (Split)4KiTunes
The Devil InsideSDVUDU
Diary of a Wimpy KidHDMovies Anywhere
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long HaulHDMovies Anywhere
The Dictator (Split)HDVUDU
The Dictator (Split)HDiTunes
Die Hard Collection 1-4SDMovies Anywhere
Divergent (Split)HDVUDU
Divergent (Split)4KiTunes
The Divergent Series: InsurgentHDVUDU
Django UnchainedHDVUDU
Doctor Strange (Split)HDGoogle Play
Dredd (Split)HDVUDU
Dredd (Split)4KVUDU
Due DateSDiTunes
The DuffHDVUDU
ElysiumSDMovies Anywhere
The Emoji MovieHDMovies Anywhere
Empire of Light (Split)HDGoogle Play
EpicHDMovies Anywhere
EpicSDiTunes
The EqualizerHDMovies Anywhere
Eternals (Split)HDGoogle Play
EverestHDMovies Anywhere
Ex Machina (A24)HDVUDU
The Expendables 2HDVUDU
The Expendables 34KVUDU
ExposedHDVUDU
ExtractionHDVUDU
The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Split)HDGoogle Play
Falling Skies: Season OneSDVUDU
Family Guy: Blue HarvestSDiTunes
Fast & Furious 6 Extended (Split)HDVUDU/Movies Anywhere
Fast & Furious 6 Extended* (Split)4KiTunes
The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift* (Split)4KiTunes
The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift (Split)HDVUDU/Movies Anywhere
Fatale4KVUDU
Fathers and DaughtersSDVUDU
The Fate Of The Furious [Extended Director's Cut]HDMovies Anywhere
The Fault in Our Stars*4KiTunes
Fifty Shades Of Grey [Unrated] (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Fifty Shades Of Grey [Unrated]* (Split)HDiTunes
The Fighter4KiTunes
Finding Dory* (Split)4KiTunes
Finding Dory (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Flash: Season OneHDVUDU
Florence Foster Jenkins (Split)HDVUDU
Florence Foster Jenkins (Split)HDiTunes
Footloose [2011] (Split)HDVUDU
Footloose [2011] (Split)HDiTunes
Frankenweenie [2012] (Split)HDGoogle Play
Frozen (Split)HDGoogle Play
Frozen* (Split)4KiTunes
Frozen "Sing Along Edition"* (Split)HDiTunes
Frozen "Sing Along Edition" (Split)HDGoogle Play
Frozen GroundHDVUDU
Furious 7 [Extended Version]* (Split)4KiTunes
Furious 7 [Extended Version] (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
FuryHDMovies Anywhere
Get Shorty: Season 1HDVUDU
Ghostbusters 'Theatrical + Extended' [2016]SDMovies Anywhere
The Girl On The TrainHDMovies Anywhere
Girls NightHDMovies Anywhere
The GiverHDVUDU
God's Not Dead 2 (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
God's Not Dead: A Light in DarknessHDMovies Anywhere
The Good Dinosaur (Split)HDGoogle Play
Good Will HuntingHDVUDU
GoosebumpsSDMovies Anywhere
GravityHDMovies Anywhere
The Great Gatsby [2013]HDMovies Anywhere
Green ZoneSDiTunes
The Grey (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
The Grey (Split)HDiTunes
Grown Ups 2SDMovies Anywhere
Guardians Of The Galaxy* (Split)4KiTunes
Guardians Of The Galaxy (Split)HDGoogle Play
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Guilt TripHDiTunes
Hacksaw Ridge (Split)HDVUDU
Hard Target 2HDMovies Anywhere
HaywireSDiTunes
The HeatHDMovies Anywhere
The HeatSDMovies Anywhere
Heaven is For RealSDMovies Anywhere
HeistHDVUDU
Hell or High Water (Split)HDVUDU
Hell or High Water (Split)4KiTunes
HellBoy II: The Golden Army* (Split)4KiTunes
Hell Fest4KVUDU
Hercules (2014)4KiTunes
Here Comes The BoomHDMovies Anywhere
Here Comes The BoomSDMovies Anywhere
Hereditary (A24)HDVUDU
Hidden Figures*4KiTunes
HitmanSDiTunes
Hitman Agent 47*4KiTunes
Hocus Pocus (Split)HDGoogle Play
A Hologram For a KingSDVUDU
Home (2015)HDMovies Anywhere
Home Alone*4KiTunes
Homefront (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Homefront* (Split)HDiTunes
Hop (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Hop* (Split)HDiTunes
Hope SpringsSDMovies Anywhere
The Host*HDiTunes
Hotel TransylvaniaHDMovies Anywhere
Hotel TranslyvaniaSDMovies Anywhere
Hotel Translyvania 2SDMovies Anywhere
HugoSDVUDU
The HulkSDiTunes
The Hunger GamesHDVUDU
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Split)HDVUDU
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Split)4KiTunes
The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay Part 1HDVUDU
The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay Part 2HDVUDU
Huntsman Winter's War "Extended Edition"*4KiTunes
I, FrankensteinHDVUDU
I Am WrathSDVUDU
Ice AgeHDMovies Anywhere
Ice Age: Dawn of the DinosaursSDiTunes
Ice Age: Mammoth Christmas SpecialSDiTunes
Identity Thief*HDiTunes
The Imitation GameHDVUDU
ImmortalsSDiTunes
I'm Not Ashamed* (Split)HDiTunes
The Incredibles 2 (Split)HDGoogle Play
Inglorious BasterdsSDiTunes
Inside Man *HDMovies Anywhere
Inside Out (Split)HDGoogle Play
Inside Out* (Split)4KiTunes
Iron Man 3*(Split)4KiTunes
Iron Man 3 (Split)HDGoogle Play
Jack Reacher (Split)HDVUDU
Jack Reacher (Split)4KiTunes
Jack Reacher: Never Back Down (Split)HDVUDU
Jack Reacher: Never Back Down (Split)4KiTunes
Jake and the Neverland Pirates: Jake Saves BuckySDiTunes
Jason Bourne (Split)HDVUDU
Jason Bourne* (Split)4KiTunes
JoeSDVUDU
John Wick (Split)HDVUDU
John Wick (Split)4KiTunes
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum4KVUDU
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum4KiTunes
JumperSDiTunes
The Jungle Book [Live Action] (Split)HDGoogle Play
Jungle Cruise (Split)HDGoogle Play
Jupiter AscendingHDMovies Anywhere
Jurassic Park* (Split)4KiTunes
Jurassic Park (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Justice*HDiTunes
Katy Perry: Part Of Me (Split)SDVUDU
Katy Perry: Part Of Me (Split)SDiTunes
Kevin Hart: Let Me ExplainHDVUDU
Kick-Ass 2*HDiTunes
The Kid Who Would Be KingHDMovies Anywhere
Killing Them SoftlyHDVUDU
The King's Man (Split)HDGoogle Play
Knight and DayHDMovies Anywhere
Knight and DaySDiTunes
Knock Knock (2015)HDVUDU
Knock Knock (2015)SDVUDU
La La Land4KiTunes
Lady & The Tramp (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Last Duel (Split)HDGoogle Play
Last KnightsHDVUDU
Last VegasSDMovies Anywhere
Last VegasHDMovies Anywhere
The Last Witch HunterHDVUDU
Lea To The Rescue*HDiTunes
The Legend Of HerculesHDVUDU
The LegionHDiTunes
Life of Pi4KiTunes
Lightyear (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Lion King [Live Action] (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Little Mermaid* (Split)4K (Will Port To MA in 4K but only HD in VUDU)iTunes
The Little Mermaid (Split)HDGoogle Play
Little Women [2019]SDMovies Anywhere
Logan*4KiTunes
Lone Survivor* (Split)4KiTunes
Lone Survivor (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
LooperHDMovies Anywhere
LooperSDMovies Anywhere
The Lorax* [2012] (Split)HDiTunes
The LosersSDMovies Anywhere
Love Actually (Spilt)HDiTunes
Love The CoopersHDVUDU
Luca (Split)HDGoogle Play
Lucy* (Split)4KiTunes
Lucy (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Madagascar 3: Europe's Most WantedHDMovies Anywhere
Madea's Witness ProtectionHDVUDU
MaggieHDVUDU
Maleficent* (Split)4KiTunes
Maleficent (Split)HDGoogle Play
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh (Split)HDGoogle Play
Mamma Mia! : The Movie*SDiTunes
Mamma Mia! : Here We Go Again [2018]HDMovies Anywhere
Marley & Me*SDiTunes
Mary Poppins [1964] (Split)HDGoogle Play
Max Payne*SDiTunes
The Maze Runner*4KiTunes
Mechanic ResurrectionHDVUDU
MegamindHDMovies Anywhere
Men In Black 3SDMovies Anywhere
MidwayHDVUDU
Midway4KiTunes
MindgamersHDMovies Anywhere
Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children*4KiTunes
Mission Impossible 2 (Split)4KiTunes
Mission Impossible 2 (Split)HDVUDU
Mission Impossible Fallout (Split)4KiTunes
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (Split)4KiTunes
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (Split)HDVUDU
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (Split)4KiTunes
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (Split)HDVUDU
Moana (Split)HDGoogle Play
Monster High: Electrified (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Monster High: Electrified* (Split)HDiTunes
Monster High: Welcome To Monster High (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Monster University (Split)HDGoogle Play
Monte Carlo*SDiTunes
MortdecaiHDVUDU
Moonrise Kingdom (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Moonrise Kingdom* (Split)HDiTunes
Mother!4KiTunes
The Monuments MenSDMovies Anywhere
The Mortal Instruments: City of BonesSDMovies Anywhere
Mr. Peabody & Sherman [2014]HDMovies Anywhere
MudHDVUDU
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor*SDiTunes
My Little Pony: The MovieHDVUDU or iTunes
NebraskaHDiTunes
Neighbors*HDiTunes
Neighbors 2*HDiTunes
Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb4KiTunes
Nightmare Alley (Split)HDGoogle Play
No EscapeHDVUDU
No Strings Attached (Split)HDiTunes
Noah (Split)HDVUDU
Noah (Split)HDiTunes
Nobody's Fool4KiTunes
Nonstop (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Now You See Me (Split)4KiTunes
Now You See Me (Split)HDVUDU
The Nutcracker & The Four RealmsHDGoogle Play
Oblivion (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Oblivion* (Split)4KiTunes
Olympus Has FallenHDMovies Anywhere
One Direction: This is UsSDMovies Anywhere
Ouija*HDiTunes
Overlord (Split)4KiTunes
Oz The Great And Powerful* (Split)HDiTunes
Oz The Great And Powerful (Split)HDGoogle Play
PaddingtonHDVUDU
Paper Towns*4KiTunes
Paranormal Activity (Split)HDVUDU
Paranormal Activity (Split)HDiTunes
ParaNormanHDiTunes
ParkerHDMovies Anywhere
ParkerSDMovies Anywhere
PassengersSDMovies Anywhere
Paul Blart Mall Cop 2SDMovies Anywhere
The Peanuts Movie*4KiTunes
Percy Jackson: Sea of MonstersHDMovies Anywhere
The Perks Of Being A WallflowerHDVUDU
Peter RabbitSDMovies Anywhere
PhilomenaHDVUDU
The Pirates! Band of MisfitsSDMovies Anywhere
Pitch Perfect*4KiTunes
Pitch Perfect 2HDMovies Anywhere
PixelsSDMovies Anywhere
Playing With Fire4KiTunes
The Possession (Split)HDiTunes
The Possession (Split)HDVUDU
The Princess & The Frog (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (Split)HDGoogle Play
PrometheusHDMovies Anywhere
The ProtectorSDVUDU
Public EnemiesSDiTunes
Pulp FictionHDVUDU
The Purge (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
The Purge: Anarchy* (Split)4KiTunes
The Purge: Anarchy (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
The Purge: Election Year* (Split)4KiTunes
The Purge: Election Year (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Queen of Katwe (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
RamboSDiTunes
Rambo: First Blood4KVUDU
Rambo: First Blood Part II4KVUDU
Ratatouille* (Split)4KiTunes
Ratatouille (Split)HDGoogle Play
Red 2 (Split)HDVUDU
Red 2 (Split)4KiTunes
Red Dawn [2012]HDVUDU
ReprisalHDVUDU
Resident Evil: RetributionSDMovies Anywhere
The Revenant*4KiTunes
Ride Along (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Ride Along* (Split)HDiTunes
Rio 2HDMovies Anywhere
Rise of the Planet of the Apes*4KiTunes
RisenHDMovies Anywhere
Robin Hood [2010]*SDiTunes
Robin Hood [1973 Disney Animation]* (Split)HDiTunes
Robin Hood [1973 Disney Animation] (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Rocker*SDiTunes
Roman J. Israel, ESQ.SDMovies Anywhere
Ron's Gone Wrong (Split)HDGoogle Play
Run All NightHDMovies Anywhere
Russell MadnessHDMovies Anywhere
SafeHDVudu
Safe House (Spilt)HDMovies Anywhere
Safe House* (Spilt)HDiTunes
Safety Not GuaranteedHDMovies Anywhere
The Santa Claus (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Santa Claus 3 (Split)HDGoogle Play
Sausage PartySDMovies Anywhere
Saving Mr. Banks* (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Scorpion King 3: Battle For Redemption (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Search Party* (Split)HDiTunes
Secret in Their Eyes (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Secret in Their Eyes* (Split)HDiTunes
The Secret Life of Pets*4KiTunes
SelmaHDiTunes
Sex TapeSDMovies Anywhere
Shrek The ThirdHDMovies Anywhere
Silence HDiTunes
Silver Linings PlaybookHDVUDU
Sing (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
The Single Moms ClubHDVUDU
SinisterHDVUDU
Skin TradeHDVUDU
SkiptraceSDVUDU
SkyfallHDVUDU
Sleeping Beauty (Split)HDGoogle Play
Sleeping Beauty* (Split)HDiTunes
Snatched4KiTunes
SnitchHDVUDU
Snow White and The Huntsman "Extended Edition" (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Snow White and The Huntsman "Extended Edition"* (Split)4KiTunes
Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs* (Split)HDiTunes
Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (Split)HDGoogle Play
Son of GodHDMovies Anywhere
Spare Parts (2015)SDVUDU
SparkleSDMovies Anywhere
The Spectacular NowSDVUDU
SpectreHDVUDU
Spider-Man 3 (2007)HDMovies Anywhere
The SpiritSDiTunes
The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water (Split)HDVUDU
The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water (Split)HDiTunes
Spy (Unrated)HDMovies Anywhere
Stand Up GuysHDVUDU
Star Trek [2009] (Split)4KiTunes
Star Trek: Into Darkness (Split)4KiTunes
Star Wars: The Clone WarsSDiTunes
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Split)HDGoogle Play
Star Wars: The Force Awakens* (Split)4KiTunes
Star Wars: The Last Jedi* (Split)4KiTunes
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Split)HDGoogle Play
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker* (Split)4KiTunes
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Split)HDGoogle Play
Star Wars: Rogue One (Split)HDGoogle Play
Star Wars: Solo (Split)HDGoogle Play
Star Wars: Solo* (Split)4KiTunes
Still AliceSDMovies Anywhere
Storks (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Storks* (Split)HDiTunes
Strawberry Shortcake: Dance Berry DanceHDMovies Anywhere
Strawberry Shortcake: Berry Hi-Tech FashionHDMovies Anywhere
Super 84KiTunes
Super Buddies (Split)HDGoogle Play
Supernatural: Season 14HDVUDU
Super TroopersHDMovies Anywhere
Taken*SDiTunes
Taken 2HDMovies Anywhere
Taken & Taken 2 Double FeatureSDMovies Anywhere
Ted (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Ted* (Split)HDiTunes
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)HDVUDU
"Tyler Perry's" TemptationHDVUDU
Terminator: Dark Fate (Split)4KiTunes
Terminator: Genisys (Split)HDVUDU
Terminator: Genisys (Split)4KiTunes
Terminator Salvation*SDiTunes
The Three Stooges Movie (2012)*SDiTunes
Thor*SDiTunes
Thor: Dark World (Split)HDGoogle Play
Thor: Love and Thunder (Split)HDGoogle Play
Thor: Ragnarok (Split)HDGoogle Play
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing,MissouriHDMovies Anywhere
Tinker Bell & The Legend of The Neverbeast* (Split)HDiTunes
Tinker Bell & The Legend of The Neverbeast (Split)HDGoogle Play
Titanic (1997)HDiTunes
Tower HeistHDiTunes
Toy Story (Split)HDGoogle Play
Toy Story 4 (Split)HDGoogle Play
Toy Story 4* (Split)4KiTunes
Transformers (Split)4KiTunes
Transformers: Age Of Extinction (Split)4KiTunes
Transformers: Age Of Extinction (Split)HDVUDU
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (Split)4KiTunes
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (Split)HDVUDU
Trolls [2016]HDMovies Anywhere
True Grit (2010)HDiTunes
TurboHDMovies Anywhere
Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2HDVUDU
Under The Skin (A24)HDVUDU
Underworld: AwakeningHDMovies Anywhere
Underworld: AwakeningSDMovies Anywhere
VenomHDMovies Anywhere
The VowSDMovies Anywhere
Wakanda Forever (Split)HDGoogle Play
Walking With DinosaursHDMovies Anywhere
Warm Bodies (Split)HDVUDU
Warm Bodies (Split)4KiTunes
WarriorSDiTunes
Water For Elephants*SDiTunes
We Bought a ZooHDMovies Anywhere
We're The MillersHDMovies Anywhere
What Men Want4KiTunes
What To Expect When You're ExpectingHDVUDU
White House DownSDMovies Anywhere
Why Him*4KiTunes
Willow (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Witch (A24)HDVUDU
The Wolf Of Wall Street (Split)HDVUDU
The Wolf Of Wall Street (Split)4KiTunes
The Wolverine (Unrated)HDMovies Anywhere
The Woman in BlackSDMovies Anywhere
Wonder Park (Split)4KiTunes
World War Z (Split)HDVUDU
World War Z (Split)HDiTunes
X-Men: First Class*SDiTunes
XXX: Return of Xander Cage (Split)4KiTunes
XXX: Return of Xander Cage (Split)HDVUDU
You, Me, & Dupree*HDiTunes
You're NextHDVUDU
Your Highness*HDiTunes
Zero Dark ThirtySDMovies Anywhere
Universal Rewards Pass (All Movies Below Available With Single Code, One Title Per Redeem)
9HDMovies Anywhere
About TimeHDMovies Anywhere
American PieHDMovies Anywhere
American Pie (Unrated)HDMovies Anywhere
The Boy Next DoorHDMovies Anywhere
Definitely,MaybeHDMovies Anywhere
Eastern PromisesHDMovies Anywhere
EmpireHDMovies Anywhere
Fifty Shades Darker4KMovies Anywhere
Fifty Shades Darker (Unrated)4KMovies Anywhere
The Great Wall4KMovies Anywhere
Jarhead 2: Field of FireHDMovies Anywhere
Jarhead 2: Field of Fire (Unrated)HDMovies Anywhere
Josie And The PussycatsHDMovies Anywhere
Reservation RoadHDMovies Anywhere
Sony Movie Buff Pass (All Movies Below Available With Single Code, One Title Per Redeem)
Annie (1982)HDMovies Anywhere
ArmoredHDMovies Anywhere
Boogeyman 2HDMovies Anywhere
Buck and the PreacherHDMovies Anywhere
Julie & JuliaHDMovies Anywhere
Little ManHDMovies Anywhere
Not Another Teen Movie4KMovies Anywhere
Starship Troopers4KMovies Anywhere
The SurburbansHDMovies Anywhere
To Sir, With Love4KMovies Anywhere
submitted by Smilefukr to uvtrade [link] [comments]
Currently at 4,000+ titles so I do have a great amount of movies that are commonly available through redemption but I do encourage any & all offers. I apologize in advance to anyone I'm unable to make a trade with & as always thank you for taking time out to look at my list 🙂.
All iTunes titles marked with * will port to MA.
Also to those that may be new to uvtrade sub, All Google Play listed do port to Movies Anywhere/Vudu/iTunes if you connect your accounts accordingly. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
--All Codes Split Where Applicable--
2 Fast 2 FuriousHDMovies Anywhere
2Guns (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
2Guns* (Split)HDiTunes
The 5th WaveHDMovies Anywhere
12 Rounds 3: LockdownSDVUDU
21 Jump StreetHDMovies Anywhere
21 Jump StreetSDMovies Anywhere
22 Jump StreetHDMovies Anywhere
22 Jump StreetSDMovies Anywhere
47 Ronin (Split4KiTunes
47 Ronin (SplitHDMovies Anywhere
Act of ValorSDiTunes
Action PointHDiTunes
The Adjustment Bureau*HDiTunes
The Adventures of TinTin (Split)HDVUDU
The Adventures of TinTin (Split)HDiTunes
After EarthSDMovies Anywhere
After EarthHDMovies Anywhere
The Age of AdalineHDVUDU
Aladdin [1992 Disney Animation] (Split)HDGoogle Play
Aladdin [Live Action] (Split)HDGoogle Play
Alex CrossHDVUDU
Alexander & The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day* (Split)HDiTunes
Alexander & The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (Split)HDGoogle Play
Alien: CovenantHDMovies Anywhere
Alien Covenant*4KiTunes
All The Money In The WorldSDMovies Anywhere
Alice in Wonderland [1951, Animated] (Split)HDGoogle Play
AlohaHDMovies Anywhere
AlohaSDMovies Anywhere
Alvin and the Chipmunks: ChipwreckedSDiTunes
Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Road Chip*4KiTunes
The Amazing Spider-Man 2HDMovies Anywhere
America: Imagine The World Without HerHDVUDU
American AssassinHDVUDU
American HustleSDMovies Anywhere
American Reunion (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
American Reunion* (Split)HDiTunes
Amsterdam (Split)HDGoogle Play
Anchorman 2 (Split)HDVUDU
Anchorman 2 (Split)HDiTunes
The Angry Birds MovieHDMovies Anywhere
Annie [2014]SDMovies Anywhere
Another Cinderella StoryHDMovies Anywhere
Antlers (Split)HDGoogle Play
Ant-Man* (Split)4KiTunes
Arrival4KiTunes
The ArtistSDMovies Anywhere
Assassin's Creed*4KiTunes
Avengers: Age of Ultron* (Split)4KiTunes
Avengers: Age of Ultron (Split)HDGoogle Play
Avengers: Infinity War (Split)4KiTunes
Avengers: Infinity War (Split)HDGoogle Play
AVP: Requiem*SDiTunes
Bad GrandpaHDiTunes
Bad Grandpa.5HDiTunes
Bad Moms* (Split)HDiTunes
Bambi (Split)HDGoogle Play
Barbie and Her Sisters in a Puppy Chase* (Split)HDiTunes
Barbie and Her Sisters in a Puppy Chase (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Barbie Spy Squad (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Battleship*4KiTunes
Beauty & the Beast [Live Action] (Split)HDGoogle Play
Ben Hur (2016)4KiTunes
Big Hero 6* (Split)4KiTunes
Big Hero 6 (Split)HDGoogle Play
Big Miracle* (Split)HDiTunes
Big Mommas: Like Father, Like SonSDiTunes
The Big Wedding (Split)HDVUDU
The Big Wedding (Split)HDiTunes
Black Panther (Split)HDGoogle Play
Black Swan*SDiTunes
Black Widow (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Bling Ring (A24)HDVUDU
The Bob's Burgers Movie (Split)HDGoogle Play
Book Club (Split)HDVUDU
Book Club (Split)HDiTunes
The Boss* (Split)HDiTunes
The Boss (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
The Bourne Legacy (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
The Bourne Legacy* (Split)4KiTunes
The Bourne Supremacy (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Boyhood (Split)HDVUDU
Boyhood (Split)HDiTunes
BraveSDiTunes
BridesmaidsHDiTunes
Bridge of Spies* (Split)HDGoogle Play
Brooklyn's FinestSDiTunes
Bumblebee (Split)4KiTunes
The ButlerHDVUDU
The Bye Bye Man (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
The Bye Bye Man* (Split)HDiTunes
Call of the Wild (Split)HDGoogle Play
Captain America: Civil War* (Split)4KiTunes
Captain America: Civil War (Split)HDGoogle Play
Captain Marvel (Split)HDGoogle Play
Captain PhillipsHDMovies Anywhere
Captain Underpants: The First Epic MovieHDMovies Anywhere
The Case For Christ (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Cedar Rapids*SDiTunes
Celebrating Mickey (Split)HDGoogle Play
The ChoiceHDVUDU
Cinderella [Live Action]* (Split)4KiTunes
Cinderella [Live Action] (Split)HDGoogle Play
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2SDMovies Anywhere
Contraband*HDiTunes
Coco*4KiTunes
CocoHDGoogle Play
Cowboys & Aliens*HDiTunes
The Crazies (2010)SDiTunes
CriminalHDVUDU
The CroodsHDMovies Anywhere
Cruella (Split)HDGoogle Play
Cut Bank (A24)HDVUDU
Daddy's Home (Split)4KiTunes
Daddy's Home (Split)HDVUDU
Dallas Buyers Club* (Split)HDiTunes
Dallas Buyers Club (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes4KiTunes
Dead Man DownSDMovies Anywhere
Deadwood Complete SeriesHDGoogle Play
The DescendantsSDiTunes
Deepwater Horizon4KiTunes
Despicable Me 2 (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Despicable Me 2* (Split)4KiTunes
The Devil InsideSDVUDU
Diary of a Wimpy KidHDMovies Anywhere
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long HaulHDMovies Anywhere
The Dictator (Split)HDVUDU
The Dictator (Split)HDiTunes
Die Hard Collection 1-4SDMovies Anywhere
Divergent (Split)HDVUDU
Divergent (Split)4KiTunes
The Divergent Series: InsurgentHDVUDU
Django UnchainedHDVUDU
Doctor Strange (Split)HDGoogle Play
Dredd (Split)HDVUDU
Dredd (Split)4KVUDU
Due DateSDiTunes
The DuffHDVUDU
ElysiumSDMovies Anywhere
The Emoji MovieHDMovies Anywhere
Empire of Light (Split)HDGoogle Play
EpicHDMovies Anywhere
EpicSDiTunes
The EqualizerHDMovies Anywhere
Eternals (Split)HDGoogle Play
EverestHDMovies Anywhere
Ex Machina (A24)HDVUDU
The Expendables 2HDVUDU
The Expendables 34KVUDU
ExposedHDVUDU
ExtractionHDVUDU
The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Split)HDGoogle Play
Falling Skies: Season OneSDVUDU
Family Guy: Blue HarvestSDiTunes
Fast & Furious 6 Extended (Split)HDVUDU/Movies Anywhere
Fast & Furious 6 Extended* (Split)4KiTunes
The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift* (Split)4KiTunes
The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift (Split)HDVUDU/Movies Anywhere
Fatale4KVUDU
Fathers and DaughtersSDVUDU
The Fate Of The Furious [Extended Director's Cut]HDMovies Anywhere
The Fault in Our Stars*4KiTunes
Fifty Shades Of Grey [Unrated] (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Fifty Shades Of Grey [Unrated]* (Split)HDiTunes
The Fighter4KiTunes
Finding Dory* (Split)4KiTunes
Finding Dory (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Flash: Season OneHDVUDU
Florence Foster Jenkins (Split)HDVUDU
Florence Foster Jenkins (Split)HDiTunes
Footloose [2011] (Split)HDVUDU
Footloose [2011] (Split)HDiTunes
Frankenweenie [2012] (Split)HDGoogle Play
Frozen (Split)HDGoogle Play
Frozen* (Split)4KiTunes
Frozen "Sing Along Edition"* (Split)HDiTunes
Frozen "Sing Along Edition" (Split)HDGoogle Play
Frozen GroundHDVUDU
Furious 7 [Extended Version]* (Split)4KiTunes
Furious 7 [Extended Version] (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
FuryHDMovies Anywhere
Get Shorty: Season 1HDVUDU
Ghostbusters 'Theatrical + Extended' [2016]SDMovies Anywhere
The Girl On The TrainHDMovies Anywhere
Girls NightHDMovies Anywhere
The GiverHDVUDU
God's Not Dead 2 (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
God's Not Dead: A Light in DarknessHDMovies Anywhere
The Good Dinosaur (Split)HDGoogle Play
Good Will HuntingHDVUDU
GoosebumpsSDMovies Anywhere
GravityHDMovies Anywhere
The Great Gatsby [2013]HDMovies Anywhere
Green ZoneSDiTunes
The Grey (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
The Grey (Split)HDiTunes
Grown Ups 2SDMovies Anywhere
Guardians Of The Galaxy* (Split)4KiTunes
Guardians Of The Galaxy (Split)HDGoogle Play
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Guilt TripHDiTunes
Hacksaw Ridge (Split)HDVUDU
Hard Target 2HDMovies Anywhere
HaywireSDiTunes
The HeatHDMovies Anywhere
The HeatSDMovies Anywhere
Heaven is For RealSDMovies Anywhere
HeistHDVUDU
Hell or High Water (Split)HDVUDU
Hell or High Water (Split)4KiTunes
HellBoy II: The Golden Army* (Split)4KiTunes
Hell Fest4KVUDU
Hercules (2014)4KiTunes
Here Comes The BoomHDMovies Anywhere
Here Comes The BoomSDMovies Anywhere
Hereditary (A24)HDVUDU
Hidden Figures*4KiTunes
HitmanSDiTunes
Hitman Agent 47*4KiTunes
Hocus Pocus (Split)HDGoogle Play
A Hologram For a KingSDVUDU
Home (2015)HDMovies Anywhere
Home Alone*4KiTunes
Homefront (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Homefront* (Split)HDiTunes
Hop (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Hop* (Split)HDiTunes
Hope SpringsSDMovies Anywhere
The Host*HDiTunes
Hotel TransylvaniaHDMovies Anywhere
Hotel TranslyvaniaSDMovies Anywhere
Hotel Translyvania 2SDMovies Anywhere
HugoSDVUDU
The HulkSDiTunes
The Hunger GamesHDVUDU
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Split)HDVUDU
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Split)4KiTunes
The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay Part 1HDVUDU
The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay Part 2HDVUDU
Huntsman Winter's War "Extended Edition"*4KiTunes
I, FrankensteinHDVUDU
I Am WrathSDVUDU
Ice AgeHDMovies Anywhere
Ice Age: Dawn of the DinosaursSDiTunes
Ice Age: Mammoth Christmas SpecialSDiTunes
Identity Thief*HDiTunes
The Imitation GameHDVUDU
ImmortalsSDiTunes
I'm Not Ashamed* (Split)HDiTunes
The Incredibles 2 (Split)HDGoogle Play
Inglorious BasterdsSDiTunes
Inside Man *HDMovies Anywhere
Inside Out (Split)HDGoogle Play
Inside Out* (Split)4KiTunes
Iron Man 3*(Split)4KiTunes
Iron Man 3 (Split)HDGoogle Play
Jack Reacher (Split)HDVUDU
Jack Reacher (Split)4KiTunes
Jack Reacher: Never Back Down (Split)HDVUDU
Jack Reacher: Never Back Down (Split)4KiTunes
Jake and the Neverland Pirates: Jake Saves BuckySDiTunes
Jason Bourne (Split)HDVUDU
Jason Bourne* (Split)4KiTunes
JoeSDVUDU
John Wick (Split)HDVUDU
John Wick (Split)4KiTunes
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum4KVUDU
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum4KiTunes
JumperSDiTunes
The Jungle Book [Live Action] (Split)HDGoogle Play
Jungle Cruise (Split)HDGoogle Play
Jupiter AscendingHDMovies Anywhere
Jurassic Park* (Split)4KiTunes
Jurassic Park (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Justice*HDiTunes
Katy Perry: Part Of Me (Split)SDVUDU
Katy Perry: Part Of Me (Split)SDiTunes
Kevin Hart: Let Me ExplainHDVUDU
Kick-Ass 2*HDiTunes
The Kid Who Would Be KingHDMovies Anywhere
Killing Them SoftlyHDVUDU
The King's Man (Split)HDGoogle Play
Knight and DayHDMovies Anywhere
Knight and DaySDiTunes
Knock Knock (2015)HDVUDU
Knock Knock (2015)SDVUDU
La La Land4KiTunes
Lady & The Tramp (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Last Duel (Split)HDGoogle Play
Last KnightsHDVUDU
Last VegasSDMovies Anywhere
Last VegasHDMovies Anywhere
The Last Witch HunterHDVUDU
Lea To The Rescue*HDiTunes
The Legend Of HerculesHDVUDU
The LegionHDiTunes
Life of Pi4KiTunes
Lightyear (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Lion King [Live Action] (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Little Mermaid* (Split)4K (Will Port To MA in 4K but only HD in VUDU)iTunes
The Little Mermaid (Split)HDGoogle Play
Little Women [2019]SDMovies Anywhere
Logan*4KiTunes
Lone Survivor* (Split)4KiTunes
Lone Survivor (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
LooperHDMovies Anywhere
LooperSDMovies Anywhere
The Lorax* [2012] (Split)HDiTunes
The LosersSDMovies Anywhere
Love Actually (Spilt)HDiTunes
Love The CoopersHDVUDU
Luca (Split)HDGoogle Play
Lucy* (Split)4KiTunes
Lucy (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Madagascar 3: Europe's Most WantedHDMovies Anywhere
Madea's Witness ProtectionHDVUDU
MaggieHDVUDU
Maleficent* (Split)4KiTunes
Maleficent (Split)HDGoogle Play
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh (Split)HDGoogle Play
Mamma Mia! : The Movie*SDiTunes
Mamma Mia! : Here We Go Again [2018]HDMovies Anywhere
Marley & Me*SDiTunes
Mary Poppins [1964] (Split)HDGoogle Play
Max Payne*SDiTunes
The Maze Runner*4KiTunes
Mechanic ResurrectionHDVUDU
MegamindHDMovies Anywhere
Men In Black 3SDMovies Anywhere
MidwayHDVUDU
Midway4KiTunes
MindgamersHDMovies Anywhere
Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children*4KiTunes
Mission Impossible 2 (Split)4KiTunes
Mission Impossible 2 (Split)HDVUDU
Mission Impossible Fallout (Split)4KiTunes
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (Split)4KiTunes
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (Split)HDVUDU
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (Split)4KiTunes
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (Split)HDVUDU
Moana (Split)HDGoogle Play
Monster High: Electrified (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Monster High: Electrified* (Split)HDiTunes
Monster High: Welcome To Monster High (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Monster University (Split)HDGoogle Play
Monte Carlo*SDiTunes
MortdecaiHDVUDU
Moonrise Kingdom (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Moonrise Kingdom* (Split)HDiTunes
Mother!4KiTunes
The Monuments MenSDMovies Anywhere
The Mortal Instruments: City of BonesSDMovies Anywhere
Mr. Peabody & Sherman [2014]HDMovies Anywhere
MudHDVUDU
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor*SDiTunes
My Little Pony: The MovieHDVUDU or iTunes
NebraskaHDiTunes
Neighbors*HDiTunes
Neighbors 2*HDiTunes
Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb4KiTunes
Nightmare Alley (Split)HDGoogle Play
No EscapeHDVUDU
No Strings Attached (Split)HDiTunes
Noah (Split)HDVUDU
Noah (Split)HDiTunes
Nobody's Fool4KiTunes
Nonstop (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Now You See Me (Split)4KiTunes
Now You See Me (Split)HDVUDU
The Nutcracker & The Four RealmsHDGoogle Play
Oblivion (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Oblivion* (Split)4KiTunes
Olympus Has FallenHDMovies Anywhere
One Direction: This is UsSDMovies Anywhere
Ouija*HDiTunes
Overlord (Split)4KiTunes
Oz The Great And Powerful* (Split)HDiTunes
Oz The Great And Powerful (Split)HDGoogle Play
PaddingtonHDVUDU
Paper Towns*4KiTunes
Paranormal Activity (Split)HDVUDU
Paranormal Activity (Split)HDiTunes
ParaNormanHDiTunes
ParkerHDMovies Anywhere
ParkerSDMovies Anywhere
PassengersSDMovies Anywhere
Paul Blart Mall Cop 2SDMovies Anywhere
The Peanuts Movie*4KiTunes
Percy Jackson: Sea of MonstersHDMovies Anywhere
The Perks Of Being A WallflowerHDVUDU
Peter RabbitSDMovies Anywhere
PhilomenaHDVUDU
The Pirates! Band of MisfitsSDMovies Anywhere
Pitch Perfect*4KiTunes
Pitch Perfect 2HDMovies Anywhere
PixelsSDMovies Anywhere
Playing With Fire4KiTunes
The Possession (Split)HDiTunes
The Possession (Split)HDVUDU
The Princess & The Frog (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (Split)HDGoogle Play
PrometheusHDMovies Anywhere
The ProtectorSDVUDU
Public EnemiesSDiTunes
Pulp FictionHDVUDU
The Purge (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
The Purge: Anarchy* (Split)4KiTunes
The Purge: Anarchy (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
The Purge: Election Year* (Split)4KiTunes
The Purge: Election Year (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Queen of Katwe (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
RamboSDiTunes
Rambo: First Blood4KVUDU
Rambo: First Blood Part II4KVUDU
Ratatouille* (Split)4KiTunes
Ratatouille (Split)HDGoogle Play
Red 2 (Split)HDVUDU
Red 2 (Split)4KiTunes
Red Dawn [2012]HDVUDU
ReprisalHDVUDU
Resident Evil: RetributionSDMovies Anywhere
The Revenant*4KiTunes
Ride Along (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Ride Along* (Split)HDiTunes
Rio 2HDMovies Anywhere
Rise of the Planet of the Apes*4KiTunes
RisenHDMovies Anywhere
Robin Hood [2010]*SDiTunes
Robin Hood [1973 Disney Animation]* (Split)HDiTunes
Robin Hood [1973 Disney Animation] (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Rocker*SDiTunes
Roman J. Israel, ESQ.SDMovies Anywhere
Ron's Gone Wrong (Split)HDGoogle Play
Run All NightHDMovies Anywhere
Russell MadnessHDMovies Anywhere
SafeHDVudu
Safe House (Spilt)HDMovies Anywhere
Safe House* (Spilt)HDiTunes
Safety Not GuaranteedHDMovies Anywhere
The Santa Claus (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Santa Claus 3 (Split)HDGoogle Play
Sausage PartySDMovies Anywhere
Saving Mr. Banks* (Split)HDGoogle Play
The Scorpion King 3: Battle For Redemption (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Search Party* (Split)HDiTunes
Secret in Their Eyes (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Secret in Their Eyes* (Split)HDiTunes
The Secret Life of Pets*4KiTunes
SelmaHDiTunes
Sex TapeSDMovies Anywhere
Shrek The ThirdHDMovies Anywhere
Silence HDiTunes
Silver Linings PlaybookHDVUDU
Sing (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
The Single Moms ClubHDVUDU
SinisterHDVUDU
Skin TradeHDVUDU
SkiptraceSDVUDU
SkyfallHDVUDU
Sleeping Beauty (Split)HDGoogle Play
Sleeping Beauty* (Split)HDiTunes
Snatched4KiTunes
SnitchHDVUDU
Snow White and The Huntsman "Extended Edition" (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Snow White and The Huntsman "Extended Edition"* (Split)4KiTunes
Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs* (Split)HDiTunes
Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (Split)HDGoogle Play
Son of GodHDMovies Anywhere
Spare Parts (2015)SDVUDU
SparkleSDMovies Anywhere
The Spectacular NowSDVUDU
SpectreHDVUDU
Spider-Man 3 (2007)HDMovies Anywhere
The SpiritSDiTunes
The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water (Split)HDVUDU
The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water (Split)HDiTunes
Spy (Unrated)HDMovies Anywhere
Stand Up GuysHDVUDU
Star Trek [2009] (Split)4KiTunes
Star Trek: Into Darkness (Split)4KiTunes
Star Wars: The Clone WarsSDiTunes
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Split)HDGoogle Play
Star Wars: The Force Awakens* (Split)4KiTunes
Star Wars: The Last Jedi* (Split)4KiTunes
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Split)HDGoogle Play
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker* (Split)4KiTunes
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Split)HDGoogle Play
Star Wars: Rogue One (Split)HDGoogle Play
Star Wars: Solo (Split)HDGoogle Play
Star Wars: Solo* (Split)4KiTunes
Still AliceSDMovies Anywhere
Storks (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Storks* (Split)HDiTunes
Strawberry Shortcake: Dance Berry DanceHDMovies Anywhere
Strawberry Shortcake: Berry Hi-Tech FashionHDMovies Anywhere
Super 84KiTunes
Super Buddies (Split)HDGoogle Play
Supernatural: Season 14HDVUDU
Super TroopersHDMovies Anywhere
Taken*SDiTunes
Taken 2HDMovies Anywhere
Taken & Taken 2 Double FeatureSDMovies Anywhere
Ted (Split)HDMovies Anywhere
Ted* (Split)HDiTunes
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)HDVUDU
"Tyler Perry's" TemptationHDVUDU
Terminator: Dark Fate (Split)4KiTunes
Terminator: Genisys (Split)HDVUDU
Terminator: Genisys (Split)4KiTunes
Terminator Salvation*SDiTunes
The Three Stooges Movie (2012)*SDiTunes
Thor*SDiTunes
Thor: Dark World (Split)HDGoogle Play
Thor: Love and Thunder (Split)HDGoogle Play
Thor: Ragnarok (Split)HDGoogle Play
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing,MissouriHDMovies Anywhere
Tinker Bell & The Legend of The Neverbeast* (Split)HDiTunes
Tinker Bell & The Legend of The Neverbeast (Split)HDGoogle Play
Titanic (1997)HDiTunes
Tower HeistHDiTunes
Toy Story (Split)HDGoogle Play
Toy Story 4 (Split)HDGoogle Play
Toy Story 4* (Split)4KiTunes
Transformers (Split)4KiTunes
Transformers: Age Of Extinction (Split)4KiTunes
Transformers: Age Of Extinction (Split)HDVUDU
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (Split)4KiTunes
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (Split)HDVUDU
Trolls [2016]HDMovies Anywhere
True Grit (2010)HDiTunes
TurboHDMovies Anywhere
Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2HDVUDU
Under The Skin (A24)HDVUDU
Underworld: AwakeningHDMovies Anywhere
Underworld: AwakeningSDMovies Anywhere
VenomHDMovies Anywhere
The VowSDMovies Anywhere
Wakanda Forever (Split)HDGoogle Play
Walking With DinosaursHDMovies Anywhere
Warm Bodies (Split)HDVUDU
Warm Bodies (Split)4KiTunes
WarriorSDiTunes
Water For Elephants*SDiTunes
We Bought a ZooHDMovies Anywhere
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2023.06.07 00:56 Ok-Ad9188 Short story i cooked up about a World Eater who gets isekai'd into our world and somehow doesn't start immediately killing everything on his way
Koron the Cleaver tried to make sense of where he was. The World Eater champion had been drifted apart from his warband during a warp-storm that somehow did not bring any of his brothers along. His equipment, however, was still intact: His power sword (or power machete, some would say) "Flesh-Splitter" still crackled with the murderous, ever-hungry power field which had a reddish hue due to the weapon's perpetually blood-stained blade. It was broad and heavy with a sharp edge, perfect for hacking heads and limbs apart, and the flat of the blade ended in a protruding spike that was perfect to maim even the most heavily-armored foes. His Storm Bolter, the "Hatred's Roar", possessed by the spirit of a daemon which made every bolt be fired and fly faster producing the characteristic "roar" for which it was named, still laid by his side awaiting slaughter. The Cleaver then checked his blood-red armor, blessed by the Blood God with runes of strength and war, for damage, but found none. This was not a place he was familiar with. Ever since the days of the Horus Heresy and the Great Crusade to the modern campaigns against the corpse-worshippers he had never been to somewhere so disgustingly peaceful. The setting sun gave the streets a dreamy, calm appearance, and a gentle breeze swept through and made the green leaves of the trees dance. The houses were all neatly arranged, painted in tones of white, yellow and pink and surrounded by well-maintained short wooden fences. But Koron grew impatient. The Butcher's Nails pounded against his thoughts, demanding carnage. If there was no combat to be found on this world, then he would make it. Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by a squeak, a sound he was barely able to register, but spoken with awe: "WOW DUDE, that's such a sick costume, did you make it yourself?" The Cleaver turned instinctively, but had to look around for some time until he detected the creature from which the words originated. A male mortal. Barely an adult too, by the looks of it. Black hair grew profusely from it's head, making the eyes only barely visible. It was frail in body, even for a mortal, but it seemed of average stature. It wore an unfamiliar garb, not from any of the planets of cultures Koron had know and slaughtered. It also carried a backpack, but the World Eater did not recognize it as being able to contain any sort of weaponry or ammunition. The Cleaver gripped his power sword and was ready to split the feeble mortal in two, but for some reason hesitated. This strange world, with strange people, intrigued him. He wished to know more of his prey. "What is your name, feeble creature?" The warrior spoke, startling the young man and almost making him fall to the ground upon hearing the snarl that came from the giant's throat. "What a pathetic display", Koron thought. "U-Uumm… M-M-My name's Kyle… dude." The mortal spoke in a frightened tone. Every word, every motion of this weakling insulted the World Eater, but he managed to restrain the screaming voices in his head which called for blood. Khorne cared not from where the blood flowed, but Koron felt that offering such a feeble creature as the first sacrifice to the Blood God on this new world would be shameful. There was no honor in staining his armor with the blood of such a wretch. "So uh… What's yours? Y-your name, i mean" The mortal once more spoke. Slightly impressed at the courage the creature managed to build to even dare speak to him, Koron answered: "You stand before Koron the Cleaver, mortal. Commander of the Gut Rippers Warband, slayer of a million foes, scourge of the corpse-worshippers, champion of the Blood God" "That's… so cool, man." the mortal spoke "I work at an electronics store-" Poor Kyle could not even finish his sentence before the hulking chaos marine grabbed him by the collar and raised him up to meet the eyes of his terrific helmet. "No. From this moment forward, you will work for me, mortal." The Cleaver spoke in a low growl that made Kyle shiver and made it clear to him that it was not by any means a request. "Jesus, okay, okay! My house isn't big but i guess you could stay there!" The young man said, averting his gaze. "That will do" The World Eater said, letting go of Kyle "Lead the way, mortal." After a short and very tense walk, they arrived at Kyle's house. The furniture was mortal-sized, unfit for an astartes, but the Cleaver judged it sufficient as a temporary base. "So uh, are you hungry?" Kyle asked his strange guest. "For battle. For carnage." The World Eater answered. "Yeah… i don't think there's any of that around, sorry" "Hrrr…" The Cleaver fumed "Hey hey, no problem, let's find you something to watch" the young man said, rushing for the TV Controller. Kyle switched between channels trying to find something that caught the attention of his companion, until he was interrupted with a resounding "WAIT". Kyle stopped. The channel was playing "Saving Private Ryan", specifically the starting D-Day scene. "This will do." The World Eater said with a hint of satisfaction as he observed the slaughter that unraveled before his eyes. Kyle was a bit disturbed at the childish glee with which his guest (or should it be said captor?) watched the scenes of horrifyingly graphic violence, but decided it was best to leave him to it. "So uh… Can i go to sleep?" He asked the hulking berserker. "Yes. I shall allow it." The Cleaver said in a direct manner. "...Really?" Kyle would soon regret these words as the World Eater's murderous gaze turned to him, freezing him with fear. "Do you take me for a liar, maggot? If i wanted you dead you would be so. Now go have your pathetic rest before i lose what little patience i have!" That was enough to make Kyle bolt toward his room. He didn't want to test what was going to happen if the pressed the monster further. As the youngster rolled around on his bed, praying that the strange warrior would find enough distraction in depictions of war and violence, one thought banged against his head as much as the Butcher's Nails did his companion: "Jesus Christ, what the hell have i gotten myself into?"
submitted by Ok-Ad9188 to Grimdank [link] [comments]
2023.06.07 00:41 dlschindler [Murder Of Crows] S1E4 My Crow Speaks To The Cursed
Darkness covered the funeral as those black clouds rained onto black umbrellas. Most of the policemen were gathered to put Sergeant Ventura into the ground. Detective Winters turned from the man's family, Police, and with a scowling cigarette, he headed back towards his car.
"Did it go well?" I asked him from where I had waited in the back seat.
"You know I told them exactly what happened?" He asked me, after a moment of silent conversation. The rain was making a soothing noise on the roof and windshield, repetitive, insistent and natural. I listened to that, instead of the rest of his monologue: about filling out a report, and then talking about the report to his superiors, and now telling me the whole story. I looked out the window as he went on and on, and watched the various policemen and their wives filing away. I noticed only half of them had wives and only one had a male partner. I wasn't sure if he was to be referred to as a 'wife'. Can't be a 'spouse' in this state. "And for all that they just made me write that I had accidentally shot the corpse-shaped booby trap that killed Sergeant Ventura."
"You finished?" I asked while he stopped to catch his breath.
"Yes. Thank you. I feel better." He claimed. He started his car and we drove back to the hotel.
"You just gonna stay here with me?" I asked him as I headed past the beds for the bathroom. I intended to have a shower, thinking: "I admit I don't get them very often, living outdoors."
"I wouldn't dream of leaving you. You are the love of my life. I can't sleep when you aren't in that bed over there, in the same room as me. Meals just don't taste as good without you." Detective Winters had an odd tone of voice as he said all of that. I decided to just leave it alone.
While I was showering, I realized I was afraid of him. I was harmless compared to him, and I could kill someone to protect something I couldn't even explain. What would he do if I tried to escape? I decided it was best to accept this path. I wanted to make recompense for taking a life. It meant something to me, even if I avoided Earthly justice.
I shaved off my beard and tied my hair back with my bandanna. I looked like a human-being. I finally put on the clothes Detective Winters had bought for me at the thrift store. I looked like a decent person. Cory tilted his head at me.
"Looks like you could find a mate." Cory complimented me.
"Think so?" I asked, blushing.
"Amen." Cory squawked supreme affirmation. I presented myself to Detective Winters.
"Thank you." He muttered, with a cigarette towering ash atop a filter on his mouth, as he lay on his back with a towel over his eyes. He was thanking me for cleaning up.
I too got some rest. It seemed like all we did was sit at the policestation and fill out paperwork. I had started pacing and found I was not allowed out of his sight. Being confined was strangely exhausting.
I laid there and started to fall asleep. It was strange, sleeping indoors again. It had taken me so many nights in that bed to get used to it. My dreams were of distant times and places. Sometimes I saw Khurl and primitive humans in my dreams. Those were strange nights. The hotel window was open, and the sounds of people softly shuffling by, or arguing in the distance, or watching an infomercial all night on full volume, drifted in with the cool breeze. The world was outside and I had learned to sleep in a new place. A strange kind of sleep.
The phone rang and I awoke and sat up. Cory was watching me in the darkness. He asked:
"What is that?"
"It's Detective Winters's phone." I told him.
After it stopped ringing he woke up and got it and called back. He was laying there half asleep.
"You called?" He sounded quiet and spoke slowly. "I was asleep. I saw that you just called. I want to talk to you. Are you okay? I miss you. Hello?"
Someone might be talking to him. He was listening, there in the darkness. Then he looked at the phone, acknowledging that the call was ended. He gently set the phone down and rolled back over. I could only presume he was trying to fall back asleep.
Then his phone rang again and he answered it and asked in a voice I only heard him use there, at night:
"Please tell me what it is. I want to hear it." And there was a pause as he waited for a response. But it was his boss instead, and after chuckling: he told Detective Winters that he was needed at the scene of a murder. I could hear it.
"Let's go." He looked over and saw I was awake. We dressed and went to the car. The cool night air greeted us and Cory outstretched his wings, loving the breeze.
We got out of the car, at those last moments of night, at a hiking trail that led up Grandfather Hill, after crossing Sunberry Creek. I've tasted the legendary sunberries. They aren't meant for human consumption. I wouldn't recommend them.
Forensics had a van near the head of the trail. The body was about to get removed. They had waited for Detective Winters.
"There is the trail they made to get to her." Detective Winters had his last cigarette and lit it with his 'little red riding hood and wolf eyes' lighter. He took a death-sucking drag from it and pointed with it while he exhaled unhealthy air. "I want us to go the long way. I want to know the rest of her story."
I stood quietly and shivered. Cory clicked that there was a path if I turned around. It was a click that meant it was only the first step. There were three or four to find the path. He'd not tell me there were a series of steps, because crows don't think of numbers in the same pattern as humans. Numbers are magical, in their symbolism, to crows. Crows can count to a degree, but they will often stop counting if the number matches the same meaning they identify with the bushels they are counting. Thus the number three, to a crow, is also essentially female, as a symbol. Therefore when counting a group of females, there would necessarily be three. Every number had such a meaning.
I found a stone and when I stepped upon it I knew the path across the roots. It appeared when we got to the top of the hill. It led down to where the creek was. I stopped to get Detective Winters and heard him behind me:
"I'm following." His voice sounded like he had his eyes on me and couldn't really see the path. Cory kept urging my steps and then told me:
"This is where it first found her." Cory hopped down and pointed with his beak. "I think it is like a man. See its funny footstep?"
"What happened?" I asked.
"How should I know, my Lord? You always task me so." Cory flitted up to my shoulder and trembled and whispered into my ear: "It killed her, I am guessing. What do you think?"
I listened then. I had heard the forest once before. I knew this place, it could whisper, in that same tone. For just a moment it was almost a glimmer of a feeling, a childish emotion, a very crude and simple feeling, like just one note of a song. I glanced up and smiled.
"Cory." I said softly, smiling. He drilled a long series of clicks that was his most hilarious laugh.
"My Lord?" Cory wanted to hear what I was thinking.
"It is like Beauty and the Beast. This footprint, that is like a man. It is a man that is like a beast. He wanted her, loved her, followed her."
"Killed her." Cory added.
"That wasn't the plan. See how carefully it hid." I pointed where the shafts of sunlight lit each footprint perfectly. Such a thing could not step out of the bounds that were set for it by nature. Each of its movements in the forest was perfectly synchronized. Until something on its trail changed. Its movement pattern changed. It was following her, although still very careful as it went.
"What godless beast saw this woman and looked so intently?" Cory sounded interested. I could not guess, while I studied its saddest footsteps.
"This is where it retreated." I pointed to the path of its egress from the kill site. The sunlight danced through the trees as though the light were floating through the forest. In those strange shadows I could imagine the rest:
Hunched and breathing in the moonlight it had watched her approach. She had seen its eyes and perhaps she had screamed, fled, panicked. On instinct the beast had forgotten its fascination and attacked. Her fragile body stood no chance and it left her there and fled this direction. I was walking its path.
"I am going to get dogs out here. Wait!" Detective Winters called after me. He sensed the terrible danger and wasn't driven to it as I was.
"Must go now." Cory was insisting. My crow was also afraid.
"I want to see for myself." I also insisted. I was afraid too, but the quality of my fear was merely a sail to the fears lurking upon my path. I could not turn back and face those darker gazes. They could see into my soul and ignore me, cosigning me to the void.
The full moon still stood overhead and shone down in the lighting sky. In the eerie green light of the forest I found a clearing. I had followed the trail, losing the policemen and the detective. They would eventually find me.
The clearing was ringed by mustard colored toadstools all around its edge. A man lay in the bloodied pelt of a wolf as it peeled from his body. His claws held the earth and were caked in gore. Now I only felt the terror of my action. I had ignored my fear, for fear of being ignored by my own lucky stars. Now I was terrified of the thing before me, the deadly and unnatural visage of it.
The beast was breathing a painful mist onto my hand. He was a little more man, than creature, as his stillness grew; from moment to moment. He looked up at me.
"Know we see you." Cory spoke in his most sincere and clearest English.
"Why have you come to see this?" The man-wolf asked in a voice, broken by remorse, tired by rage, shamed by murder and driven to isolation. Besides the inhuman growl that its voice was composed of. Its yellow eyes stared, bleeding tears across a face not yet human and no longer an animal.
"Did you love her?" I asked. "Before she saw you, nothing happened to her."
"Melody! Oh god no! She followed me!" He exclaimed. When he said 'me' he began to howl dismally. This broke into an unearthly and almost inhuman cry of agony, straight from his soul. Hearing it, and knowing the fruit of his lamentation, is what turned a streak of my beard and hair white, and the white feather on Cory drained of color at that same time.
We stood in the morning light and waited. The cursed creature in front of us sobbed miserably. He said:
"I should be dead, not her."
"Death will always happen." Cory told him.
"Not for me." He wept bitterly.
"He understood you." I noticed.
"Indeed. I think it shows he is not so bad. You listen well enough to understand an animal." Cory spoke to me and then to him. He just stared at my crow. Then he confessed:
"It is the beast that is evil."
"She loved you too." I was sure. "Twas the beast that killed her, for that love."
"She did love me." He told the truth and the hot tears washed some of the blood off of his face.
Dogs and policemen arrived. The moon was gone and the sunlight was warming the forest. They trampled the toadstools and put the decomposing wolf's skin into evidence bags. They put the cursed one in handcuffs. An irony that the cuffs could only hold him while he was relatively harmless, not when he was the beast, of course. I was sure of that too, as I looked at a tree he had struck in his bestial fury, cutting into it like the wood of oak were soft.
"What will happen?" I asked Detective Winters.
"You know as well as I do." He replied. "Crazy guy like that will get the best care of modern medicine."
"That's probably for the best." I surmised.
"Yeah?" Detective Winters complimented me, as he lit a smoke he had bummed off of someone. "I believe you. You know I do."
"Thanks."
submitted by dlschindler to redditserials [link] [comments]
"Did it go well?" I asked him from where I had waited in the back seat.
"You know I told them exactly what happened?" He asked me, after a moment of silent conversation. The rain was making a soothing noise on the roof and windshield, repetitive, insistent and natural. I listened to that, instead of the rest of his monologue: about filling out a report, and then talking about the report to his superiors, and now telling me the whole story. I looked out the window as he went on and on, and watched the various policemen and their wives filing away. I noticed only half of them had wives and only one had a male partner. I wasn't sure if he was to be referred to as a 'wife'. Can't be a 'spouse' in this state. "And for all that they just made me write that I had accidentally shot the corpse-shaped booby trap that killed Sergeant Ventura."
"You finished?" I asked while he stopped to catch his breath.
"Yes. Thank you. I feel better." He claimed. He started his car and we drove back to the hotel.
"You just gonna stay here with me?" I asked him as I headed past the beds for the bathroom. I intended to have a shower, thinking: "I admit I don't get them very often, living outdoors."
"I wouldn't dream of leaving you. You are the love of my life. I can't sleep when you aren't in that bed over there, in the same room as me. Meals just don't taste as good without you." Detective Winters had an odd tone of voice as he said all of that. I decided to just leave it alone.
While I was showering, I realized I was afraid of him. I was harmless compared to him, and I could kill someone to protect something I couldn't even explain. What would he do if I tried to escape? I decided it was best to accept this path. I wanted to make recompense for taking a life. It meant something to me, even if I avoided Earthly justice.
I shaved off my beard and tied my hair back with my bandanna. I looked like a human-being. I finally put on the clothes Detective Winters had bought for me at the thrift store. I looked like a decent person. Cory tilted his head at me.
"Looks like you could find a mate." Cory complimented me.
"Think so?" I asked, blushing.
"Amen." Cory squawked supreme affirmation. I presented myself to Detective Winters.
"Thank you." He muttered, with a cigarette towering ash atop a filter on his mouth, as he lay on his back with a towel over his eyes. He was thanking me for cleaning up.
I too got some rest. It seemed like all we did was sit at the policestation and fill out paperwork. I had started pacing and found I was not allowed out of his sight. Being confined was strangely exhausting.
I laid there and started to fall asleep. It was strange, sleeping indoors again. It had taken me so many nights in that bed to get used to it. My dreams were of distant times and places. Sometimes I saw Khurl and primitive humans in my dreams. Those were strange nights. The hotel window was open, and the sounds of people softly shuffling by, or arguing in the distance, or watching an infomercial all night on full volume, drifted in with the cool breeze. The world was outside and I had learned to sleep in a new place. A strange kind of sleep.
The phone rang and I awoke and sat up. Cory was watching me in the darkness. He asked:
"What is that?"
"It's Detective Winters's phone." I told him.
After it stopped ringing he woke up and got it and called back. He was laying there half asleep.
"You called?" He sounded quiet and spoke slowly. "I was asleep. I saw that you just called. I want to talk to you. Are you okay? I miss you. Hello?"
Someone might be talking to him. He was listening, there in the darkness. Then he looked at the phone, acknowledging that the call was ended. He gently set the phone down and rolled back over. I could only presume he was trying to fall back asleep.
Then his phone rang again and he answered it and asked in a voice I only heard him use there, at night:
"Please tell me what it is. I want to hear it." And there was a pause as he waited for a response. But it was his boss instead, and after chuckling: he told Detective Winters that he was needed at the scene of a murder. I could hear it.
"Let's go." He looked over and saw I was awake. We dressed and went to the car. The cool night air greeted us and Cory outstretched his wings, loving the breeze.
We got out of the car, at those last moments of night, at a hiking trail that led up Grandfather Hill, after crossing Sunberry Creek. I've tasted the legendary sunberries. They aren't meant for human consumption. I wouldn't recommend them.
Forensics had a van near the head of the trail. The body was about to get removed. They had waited for Detective Winters.
"There is the trail they made to get to her." Detective Winters had his last cigarette and lit it with his 'little red riding hood and wolf eyes' lighter. He took a death-sucking drag from it and pointed with it while he exhaled unhealthy air. "I want us to go the long way. I want to know the rest of her story."
I stood quietly and shivered. Cory clicked that there was a path if I turned around. It was a click that meant it was only the first step. There were three or four to find the path. He'd not tell me there were a series of steps, because crows don't think of numbers in the same pattern as humans. Numbers are magical, in their symbolism, to crows. Crows can count to a degree, but they will often stop counting if the number matches the same meaning they identify with the bushels they are counting. Thus the number three, to a crow, is also essentially female, as a symbol. Therefore when counting a group of females, there would necessarily be three. Every number had such a meaning.
I found a stone and when I stepped upon it I knew the path across the roots. It appeared when we got to the top of the hill. It led down to where the creek was. I stopped to get Detective Winters and heard him behind me:
"I'm following." His voice sounded like he had his eyes on me and couldn't really see the path. Cory kept urging my steps and then told me:
"This is where it first found her." Cory hopped down and pointed with his beak. "I think it is like a man. See its funny footstep?"
"What happened?" I asked.
"How should I know, my Lord? You always task me so." Cory flitted up to my shoulder and trembled and whispered into my ear: "It killed her, I am guessing. What do you think?"
I listened then. I had heard the forest once before. I knew this place, it could whisper, in that same tone. For just a moment it was almost a glimmer of a feeling, a childish emotion, a very crude and simple feeling, like just one note of a song. I glanced up and smiled.
"Cory." I said softly, smiling. He drilled a long series of clicks that was his most hilarious laugh.
"My Lord?" Cory wanted to hear what I was thinking.
"It is like Beauty and the Beast. This footprint, that is like a man. It is a man that is like a beast. He wanted her, loved her, followed her."
"Killed her." Cory added.
"That wasn't the plan. See how carefully it hid." I pointed where the shafts of sunlight lit each footprint perfectly. Such a thing could not step out of the bounds that were set for it by nature. Each of its movements in the forest was perfectly synchronized. Until something on its trail changed. Its movement pattern changed. It was following her, although still very careful as it went.
"What godless beast saw this woman and looked so intently?" Cory sounded interested. I could not guess, while I studied its saddest footsteps.
"This is where it retreated." I pointed to the path of its egress from the kill site. The sunlight danced through the trees as though the light were floating through the forest. In those strange shadows I could imagine the rest:
Hunched and breathing in the moonlight it had watched her approach. She had seen its eyes and perhaps she had screamed, fled, panicked. On instinct the beast had forgotten its fascination and attacked. Her fragile body stood no chance and it left her there and fled this direction. I was walking its path.
"I am going to get dogs out here. Wait!" Detective Winters called after me. He sensed the terrible danger and wasn't driven to it as I was.
"Must go now." Cory was insisting. My crow was also afraid.
"I want to see for myself." I also insisted. I was afraid too, but the quality of my fear was merely a sail to the fears lurking upon my path. I could not turn back and face those darker gazes. They could see into my soul and ignore me, cosigning me to the void.
The full moon still stood overhead and shone down in the lighting sky. In the eerie green light of the forest I found a clearing. I had followed the trail, losing the policemen and the detective. They would eventually find me.
The clearing was ringed by mustard colored toadstools all around its edge. A man lay in the bloodied pelt of a wolf as it peeled from his body. His claws held the earth and were caked in gore. Now I only felt the terror of my action. I had ignored my fear, for fear of being ignored by my own lucky stars. Now I was terrified of the thing before me, the deadly and unnatural visage of it.
The beast was breathing a painful mist onto my hand. He was a little more man, than creature, as his stillness grew; from moment to moment. He looked up at me.
"Know we see you." Cory spoke in his most sincere and clearest English.
"Why have you come to see this?" The man-wolf asked in a voice, broken by remorse, tired by rage, shamed by murder and driven to isolation. Besides the inhuman growl that its voice was composed of. Its yellow eyes stared, bleeding tears across a face not yet human and no longer an animal.
"Did you love her?" I asked. "Before she saw you, nothing happened to her."
"Melody! Oh god no! She followed me!" He exclaimed. When he said 'me' he began to howl dismally. This broke into an unearthly and almost inhuman cry of agony, straight from his soul. Hearing it, and knowing the fruit of his lamentation, is what turned a streak of my beard and hair white, and the white feather on Cory drained of color at that same time.
We stood in the morning light and waited. The cursed creature in front of us sobbed miserably. He said:
"I should be dead, not her."
"Death will always happen." Cory told him.
"Not for me." He wept bitterly.
"He understood you." I noticed.
"Indeed. I think it shows he is not so bad. You listen well enough to understand an animal." Cory spoke to me and then to him. He just stared at my crow. Then he confessed:
"It is the beast that is evil."
"She loved you too." I was sure. "Twas the beast that killed her, for that love."
"She did love me." He told the truth and the hot tears washed some of the blood off of his face.
Dogs and policemen arrived. The moon was gone and the sunlight was warming the forest. They trampled the toadstools and put the decomposing wolf's skin into evidence bags. They put the cursed one in handcuffs. An irony that the cuffs could only hold him while he was relatively harmless, not when he was the beast, of course. I was sure of that too, as I looked at a tree he had struck in his bestial fury, cutting into it like the wood of oak were soft.
"What will happen?" I asked Detective Winters.
"You know as well as I do." He replied. "Crazy guy like that will get the best care of modern medicine."
"That's probably for the best." I surmised.
"Yeah?" Detective Winters complimented me, as he lit a smoke he had bummed off of someone. "I believe you. You know I do."
"Thanks."
2023.06.07 00:39 dlschindler [Murder Of Crows] S1E3 My Crow Speaks To The Mad
I sat in the parking lot of McDonald's feeding french fries to my talking crow. We were in the back of Detective Winters's car. He was having the large coffee that cost only a dollar. He had told me he liked it better than Starbuck's, as he took it black.
"Sergeant Ventura was a good cop." Detective Winters was talking about the policeman that had gotten killed at the crimescene.
"Did he have family?" I asked.
"He was divorced." Detective Winters sounded like he could cry for the dead man. "We were his family."
I ate my cheeseburger in silence. Cory hopped onto the fries and scattered them to the floor. He looked up at me without an apology for his behavior before he went to go eat some of them.
We were taken to a hotel where we became roommates with Detective Winters. The maid knocked on the door as I was taking off my boots. He answered it with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth that he had lit with hotel matches.
"What is it?" He asked her. I listened, genuinely curious.
"No animals." She pushed past him slightly and spotted Cory. Presumably, she would go get the hotel manager.
"It's okay, he is with me. I am a detective. I am solving murders." He told her, and showed her his badge with a well-rehearsed gesture. She gave him a very admonishing look and left without saying more. I wondered if our sleep would be interrupted. I was very tired and went right to bed.
In the morning the same maid was back, prompting me to wonder if she had worked all night. She glared at us as we left and she went in to clean.
Detective Winters took me to the station and made me sit around with him all day while he did paperwork. He had interviews with people and more paperwork. His job suddenly seemed very boring to me. I already longed to go outside and discover the world out there. I was his hostage because he knew I knew that I was his suspect in a murder.
"I want you investigating this. Looks like it might be the hitchhiker killer. If you can get some cooperation from you-know-who, maybe we can call the FBI on this one." The boss of Detective Winters walked over to his desk and gave him a thin file on a crime scene secured earlier.
"Let's go." Detective Winters got up and I followed.
"Who was he talking about?" I asked.
"A possible serial killer. I know a guy who knows a lot more than he is telling us. First we need to go see the crime scene. Forensics is already there so you will have to wait outside." Detective Winters was talking fast. He was excited about this for some reason.
"You know this serial killer?"
"Yes. If it is the same one then we've had several killings already. I will need to go see our friend. Then we call the FBI." Detective Winters explained.
"Is that how it's done?" I asked.
"It is how we are gonna do this. You wouldn't understand." He started his car and we left.
"You like it when people say 'you wouldn't understand' to you?" I asked after awhile.
"Not really. Sorry. I just don't like feeling like I am explaining myself to someone." Detective Winters gave me some kind of crude apology for the way he had spoken to me.
"Well, I don't really like listening to you anyway." I offered. After that we just drove in silence. After we arrived at the crime scene, Cory went to the floor of the back seat to feed on the drying fries left there. Detective Winters asked someone he was passing for their cigarette, took it, and smoked it, as he walked away. We were left there alone in his car.
I was tempted to just get out and walk away. I felt that it would be dishonorable. Therefore I stayed, out of a sense that I was doing the right thing.
"What a mess." Detective Winters came back after awhile. He fished a half smoked butt out of his ashtray and lit it with the car's lighter. Then he rolled down the window to exhale smoke as we drove away.
We arrived at a small trailer where a column of smoke arose from out back. Detective Winters said: "Come with me."
The man was just throwing the last papers and files out of an empty banker's box and tossed it aside where several others sat empty.
"Daniel Barrow." Detective Winters spoke so he would turn around. The man gestured at the destructive act he had committed and shrugged and smiled.
"What can I say?" Daniel Barrow asked. "I don't work for you. I am a private eye. You know, an investigator-for-hire."
"I could arrest you for destruction of evidence." Detective Winters told the private eye.
"Then do so. I am merely destroying my own pictures and notes. Personal property." Daniel insisted.
Then we left him there, smoke trailing away with bits of white ash in his hair.
"What a dick..." Detective Winters used a bad pun.
I chuckled and replied: "He seemed crazy."
Something dawned and Detective Winters held his hand up at me for a second while he thought. Then he lowered it and brightly added:
"Dellfriar Asylum." Detective Winters decided.
"Where crazy people are?" I tried to follow his jump to a conclusion. I had no idea what he was talking about.
"Where Doctor Evans was killed. That is how I met our friend for the first time. He was caught snooping around that crime scene too." Detective Winters recalled.
I said nothing as we drove to Dellfriar and gained access to the ancient and fearsome looking seaside castle. It was still medieval compared to other mental hospitals. I had only seen it in pictures, but now the place creeped me out.
"What are we doing here?" I asked. "If Doctor Evans was killed by the same person Daniel Barrow would have told you about: then you already know who it is."
"You are right." He stared up at the terrifying structure. "Jesse Darling. She was a patient here. We have a copy of her file. You are right. There is something more I wanted to see again."
"I'd rather wait here." I told him. He nodded and left us in the parking lot.
When he came back he looked disappointed. We drove back to the hotel in silence. The next day he met with the FBI and told them what he knew, about a serial killer named Jesse Darling.
Then he found me and told me: "Her name is Scarlet. She was friends with Daniel Barrow. He visited her often."
"Now that you have completed that path, why not try another?" I asked him.
"Scarlet is who we should be looking for." Detective Winters agreed. "We will never find Jesse Darling."
"Then let's start at the beginning." I advised him. And so we drove back to the crime scene we were at before.
His decision was to drive along the highway from there, heading away from Dellfriar. Detective Winters said:
"I think she has killed six men and she tried to kill Daniel Barrow. He survived."
As it grew dark a light rain began to fall. The sound of the windshield wipers kept going. My hand began to ache. Up ahead stood someone in a red hoody, hitchhiking with their left thumb. We pulled over.
"Must go now." Cory cawed.
"Sounds anxious." Detective Winters noted.
"He is saying we must leave." I translated. "He gets jittery."
"He got a name?"
"Cory." I took my crow to my lap and gently held him while the back passenger door opened. I looked over at the dark shape in the red hoody. Lightning flashed behind her before she got in to sit with me in the back.
I could feel the damp cold air coming off of her hoody as she seated herself. She was young, although her face was kinda mean looking. As she spoke, she gestured with her left hand, her right never appearing. She said:
"I was walking and this rain started. I just need a lift into town." And she tried a fake little laugh and smile.
"We can give you a lift." Detective Winters offered. We started back onto the highway and she reached up with her left hand and got her seatbelt on.
"The hand is silver and it can cut like a knife. Maker of dead men, from living ones. She actually likes doing it, you could learn from her." Cory told me about our guest.
"Your bird talks." She smiled. This smile looked real, but still predatory.
"If you call that talking." Detective Winters chuckled with a masculine disregard.
"I don't know." I stammered. I was frozen in fear. This was surely our hook-hand hitchhiker. She was definitely Scarlet. I could imagine her weapon striking away half my neck in one instant swipe, out of nowhere. She'd kill the detective next. Only she was wearing a seatbelt: so our corpses would get ejected into the darkness. She'd stay belted to her seat.
"I can understand him." She smiled coyly.
"You can?" I was choking. Sweat beaded my forehead and terror gripped my heart.
"He says I am pretty and sweet and that you already like me." She sighed.
"He said that." I breathed mechanically.
We pulled into a gas station. Scarlet stayed seated, smiling endlessly at me, her eyes shiny like glass. I had to pee yet couldn't move. I was afraid that if I tried to get out: she would slaughter me.
Detective Winters took his time filling gas, making a long phone call, buying cigarettes and smoking about half the pack. I was in agony: it was either pee myself and probably trigger her killing me, or get out and die trying.
"I really have to pee. Is it okay if I go and go pee?" I squeaked.
"Sure. Come right back." She was still smiling like a golden devil at me. I crept away from her and shut the door. Cory was on my shoulder as we obtained the key, attached to a real goat's leg, hoof and all. I went into the bathroom and peed.
As we came out with the goat leg in one hand, zipping up with the other, the parking lot lit up. Police cars swarmed from all around, surrounding Detective Winters's car. I watched while armored SWAT had to drag Scarlet from the vehicle.
Scarlet managed to slash them anyway, drawing blood from three of them. Her hidden prosthetic arm was indeed like a sharp pair of hooks. She whipped out a knife and got one of them in the groin. Blood spurted from his wound and he staggered and fell over.
Finally, they had her restrained and arrested. I went into the gas station to return the goat's leg bathroom key. Detective Winters came into the gas station behind me and selected a lighter to buy. It was with a bunch of lighters with tattoo art on them. His had a little red riding hood, looking scared, and standing in front of a wolf's eyes.
"You're still alive." He told me and flicked his lighter's flame in front of me before he went back out to the car.
"Death will always happen." Cory agreed with him.
I just sighed and tossed the goat's leg onto the counter.
submitted by dlschindler to redditserials [link] [comments]
"Sergeant Ventura was a good cop." Detective Winters was talking about the policeman that had gotten killed at the crimescene.
"Did he have family?" I asked.
"He was divorced." Detective Winters sounded like he could cry for the dead man. "We were his family."
I ate my cheeseburger in silence. Cory hopped onto the fries and scattered them to the floor. He looked up at me without an apology for his behavior before he went to go eat some of them.
We were taken to a hotel where we became roommates with Detective Winters. The maid knocked on the door as I was taking off my boots. He answered it with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth that he had lit with hotel matches.
"What is it?" He asked her. I listened, genuinely curious.
"No animals." She pushed past him slightly and spotted Cory. Presumably, she would go get the hotel manager.
"It's okay, he is with me. I am a detective. I am solving murders." He told her, and showed her his badge with a well-rehearsed gesture. She gave him a very admonishing look and left without saying more. I wondered if our sleep would be interrupted. I was very tired and went right to bed.
In the morning the same maid was back, prompting me to wonder if she had worked all night. She glared at us as we left and she went in to clean.
Detective Winters took me to the station and made me sit around with him all day while he did paperwork. He had interviews with people and more paperwork. His job suddenly seemed very boring to me. I already longed to go outside and discover the world out there. I was his hostage because he knew I knew that I was his suspect in a murder.
"I want you investigating this. Looks like it might be the hitchhiker killer. If you can get some cooperation from you-know-who, maybe we can call the FBI on this one." The boss of Detective Winters walked over to his desk and gave him a thin file on a crime scene secured earlier.
"Let's go." Detective Winters got up and I followed.
"Who was he talking about?" I asked.
"A possible serial killer. I know a guy who knows a lot more than he is telling us. First we need to go see the crime scene. Forensics is already there so you will have to wait outside." Detective Winters was talking fast. He was excited about this for some reason.
"You know this serial killer?"
"Yes. If it is the same one then we've had several killings already. I will need to go see our friend. Then we call the FBI." Detective Winters explained.
"Is that how it's done?" I asked.
"It is how we are gonna do this. You wouldn't understand." He started his car and we left.
"You like it when people say 'you wouldn't understand' to you?" I asked after awhile.
"Not really. Sorry. I just don't like feeling like I am explaining myself to someone." Detective Winters gave me some kind of crude apology for the way he had spoken to me.
"Well, I don't really like listening to you anyway." I offered. After that we just drove in silence. After we arrived at the crime scene, Cory went to the floor of the back seat to feed on the drying fries left there. Detective Winters asked someone he was passing for their cigarette, took it, and smoked it, as he walked away. We were left there alone in his car.
I was tempted to just get out and walk away. I felt that it would be dishonorable. Therefore I stayed, out of a sense that I was doing the right thing.
"What a mess." Detective Winters came back after awhile. He fished a half smoked butt out of his ashtray and lit it with the car's lighter. Then he rolled down the window to exhale smoke as we drove away.
We arrived at a small trailer where a column of smoke arose from out back. Detective Winters said: "Come with me."
The man was just throwing the last papers and files out of an empty banker's box and tossed it aside where several others sat empty.
"Daniel Barrow." Detective Winters spoke so he would turn around. The man gestured at the destructive act he had committed and shrugged and smiled.
"What can I say?" Daniel Barrow asked. "I don't work for you. I am a private eye. You know, an investigator-for-hire."
"I could arrest you for destruction of evidence." Detective Winters told the private eye.
"Then do so. I am merely destroying my own pictures and notes. Personal property." Daniel insisted.
Then we left him there, smoke trailing away with bits of white ash in his hair.
"What a dick..." Detective Winters used a bad pun.
I chuckled and replied: "He seemed crazy."
Something dawned and Detective Winters held his hand up at me for a second while he thought. Then he lowered it and brightly added:
"Dellfriar Asylum." Detective Winters decided.
"Where crazy people are?" I tried to follow his jump to a conclusion. I had no idea what he was talking about.
"Where Doctor Evans was killed. That is how I met our friend for the first time. He was caught snooping around that crime scene too." Detective Winters recalled.
I said nothing as we drove to Dellfriar and gained access to the ancient and fearsome looking seaside castle. It was still medieval compared to other mental hospitals. I had only seen it in pictures, but now the place creeped me out.
"What are we doing here?" I asked. "If Doctor Evans was killed by the same person Daniel Barrow would have told you about: then you already know who it is."
"You are right." He stared up at the terrifying structure. "Jesse Darling. She was a patient here. We have a copy of her file. You are right. There is something more I wanted to see again."
"I'd rather wait here." I told him. He nodded and left us in the parking lot.
When he came back he looked disappointed. We drove back to the hotel in silence. The next day he met with the FBI and told them what he knew, about a serial killer named Jesse Darling.
Then he found me and told me: "Her name is Scarlet. She was friends with Daniel Barrow. He visited her often."
"Now that you have completed that path, why not try another?" I asked him.
"Scarlet is who we should be looking for." Detective Winters agreed. "We will never find Jesse Darling."
"Then let's start at the beginning." I advised him. And so we drove back to the crime scene we were at before.
His decision was to drive along the highway from there, heading away from Dellfriar. Detective Winters said:
"I think she has killed six men and she tried to kill Daniel Barrow. He survived."
As it grew dark a light rain began to fall. The sound of the windshield wipers kept going. My hand began to ache. Up ahead stood someone in a red hoody, hitchhiking with their left thumb. We pulled over.
"Must go now." Cory cawed.
"Sounds anxious." Detective Winters noted.
"He is saying we must leave." I translated. "He gets jittery."
"He got a name?"
"Cory." I took my crow to my lap and gently held him while the back passenger door opened. I looked over at the dark shape in the red hoody. Lightning flashed behind her before she got in to sit with me in the back.
I could feel the damp cold air coming off of her hoody as she seated herself. She was young, although her face was kinda mean looking. As she spoke, she gestured with her left hand, her right never appearing. She said:
"I was walking and this rain started. I just need a lift into town." And she tried a fake little laugh and smile.
"We can give you a lift." Detective Winters offered. We started back onto the highway and she reached up with her left hand and got her seatbelt on.
"The hand is silver and it can cut like a knife. Maker of dead men, from living ones. She actually likes doing it, you could learn from her." Cory told me about our guest.
"Your bird talks." She smiled. This smile looked real, but still predatory.
"If you call that talking." Detective Winters chuckled with a masculine disregard.
"I don't know." I stammered. I was frozen in fear. This was surely our hook-hand hitchhiker. She was definitely Scarlet. I could imagine her weapon striking away half my neck in one instant swipe, out of nowhere. She'd kill the detective next. Only she was wearing a seatbelt: so our corpses would get ejected into the darkness. She'd stay belted to her seat.
"I can understand him." She smiled coyly.
"You can?" I was choking. Sweat beaded my forehead and terror gripped my heart.
"He says I am pretty and sweet and that you already like me." She sighed.
"He said that." I breathed mechanically.
We pulled into a gas station. Scarlet stayed seated, smiling endlessly at me, her eyes shiny like glass. I had to pee yet couldn't move. I was afraid that if I tried to get out: she would slaughter me.
Detective Winters took his time filling gas, making a long phone call, buying cigarettes and smoking about half the pack. I was in agony: it was either pee myself and probably trigger her killing me, or get out and die trying.
"I really have to pee. Is it okay if I go and go pee?" I squeaked.
"Sure. Come right back." She was still smiling like a golden devil at me. I crept away from her and shut the door. Cory was on my shoulder as we obtained the key, attached to a real goat's leg, hoof and all. I went into the bathroom and peed.
As we came out with the goat leg in one hand, zipping up with the other, the parking lot lit up. Police cars swarmed from all around, surrounding Detective Winters's car. I watched while armored SWAT had to drag Scarlet from the vehicle.
Scarlet managed to slash them anyway, drawing blood from three of them. Her hidden prosthetic arm was indeed like a sharp pair of hooks. She whipped out a knife and got one of them in the groin. Blood spurted from his wound and he staggered and fell over.
Finally, they had her restrained and arrested. I went into the gas station to return the goat's leg bathroom key. Detective Winters came into the gas station behind me and selected a lighter to buy. It was with a bunch of lighters with tattoo art on them. His had a little red riding hood, looking scared, and standing in front of a wolf's eyes.
"You're still alive." He told me and flicked his lighter's flame in front of me before he went back out to the car.
"Death will always happen." Cory agreed with him.
I just sighed and tossed the goat's leg onto the counter.
2023.06.07 00:20 LagdouRuins Met the weirdest girl ever (rant)
A few weeks ago, this girl hit me up on this dating app. She was very good looking, awesome conversationalist with a nice bit of sass (dig it) & incredibly sweet. I haven't been on a date in over 2 years because life has been difficult & I've been focusing on my happiness & self-improvement; wasn't seriously looking because I barely get any matches & when I do...I usually just get ghosted or rejected.
So a week of just flirty messages goes by & she is very forward and asks to hang out. I'm taken by surprise because I have low expectations...so I let her know that I've put on a little bit of weight & haven't been super stable & whatnot, haven't seen anyone in over 2 years.. She gave me an incredibly sweet & thoughtful response --basically saying she doesn't mind a bit of fluff, she hasn't seen anyone in a year, etc.-- and still wanted to see me. At this point I'm like, I couldn't even get rid of this girl if I tried...so maybe this might be different? So she drives to see me & meets me at my apartment. Her vibe was so totally different. She had pigtails, super dolled up, & was very blunt and almost aggressive. She seemed kind of unsure about me & sized me up. She starts talking about how sketchy my apartment is, talks about how my car is junk ...& like...fair points & it's funny so whatever! I take her for a long ride & the conversation is really good. Then she starts talking about her ex-boyfriend from a year ago. She gets really into shit-talking him...saying he gained weight (which i thought she was cool with?) and she would pity fuck him and was disgusted by him. Said that she didn't approve of his finances & the house he bought was a small shack. She goes on to say that she broke up with him & the guy was so ridiculous that she thought he might hurt himself over it. I was just kind of shocked at that point but trying to play it cool; she asks about my ex & I gave her a little run down but said I dont really want to say much out of respect for them. She proceeds to talk about this guy she fucked on a cruise a few weeks ago, & then how she has been messing around with this 40 year old now because he has a big dick (all of which goes against what she said in messages?). I'm just there like....lol wtf is going on...this girl is fucking with me & clearly has no interest? The date goes on for like 6 hours & she makes even more red-flag comments...like how she hates men, she doesn't want a power imbalance in a relationship, she has to be the pretty one, etc... I'm here like having no idea what to think. I bring her back to her car, she initiates a hug (no way was i trying a kiss in a parking lot after all of that) and we say our goodbyes.
The next day, she hits me up with messages, saying that she really enjoyed herself & wants to go on another date. I'm like....uhhh...ok, thinking with the wrong part of my body & thinking "maybe she was just awkward or something". So we keep talking. I hint at getting a date going but she says that she's going alone to her cabin...so I dont want to bother her. She starts not responding as quickly so I begin to kind of distance myself & never text back unless she replies. This sort of weird game of cat and mouse continued until last night...where I basically just came out and asked what she wanted from me. She said that she isn't really interested in me anymore. I dig into it a bit & she said that she doesn't like how my teeth are yellow (I have a lack of enamel since birth) & she had all of these other guys asking her out on dates & I didnt. She then says that she wants to be friends for now...to which I reply...yea, there's no for now...if we are friends, we are friends and that is it. This seems to take her by surprise & she says that she said for now because that there's a lot of things that she likes about me but I'm a work in progress. Basically ended the conversation with a goodnight & made sure I was the last one to say it...because I dont plan on messaging this girl again.
Now I'm all kind of fucked up thinking about my teeth lol. I really have no idea what her intentions were with me....did she see "weakness" and decided that I would be fun to mess with but she didn't get the right reaction? She did talk a lot about having a psychology degree and messing with people. But yea...feels like a cruel joke given that my 1st date in over 2 years is to this...ummm...person?
submitted by LagdouRuins to dating [link] [comments]
So a week of just flirty messages goes by & she is very forward and asks to hang out. I'm taken by surprise because I have low expectations...so I let her know that I've put on a little bit of weight & haven't been super stable & whatnot, haven't seen anyone in over 2 years.. She gave me an incredibly sweet & thoughtful response --basically saying she doesn't mind a bit of fluff, she hasn't seen anyone in a year, etc.-- and still wanted to see me. At this point I'm like, I couldn't even get rid of this girl if I tried...so maybe this might be different? So she drives to see me & meets me at my apartment. Her vibe was so totally different. She had pigtails, super dolled up, & was very blunt and almost aggressive. She seemed kind of unsure about me & sized me up. She starts talking about how sketchy my apartment is, talks about how my car is junk ...& like...fair points & it's funny so whatever! I take her for a long ride & the conversation is really good. Then she starts talking about her ex-boyfriend from a year ago. She gets really into shit-talking him...saying he gained weight (which i thought she was cool with?) and she would pity fuck him and was disgusted by him. Said that she didn't approve of his finances & the house he bought was a small shack. She goes on to say that she broke up with him & the guy was so ridiculous that she thought he might hurt himself over it. I was just kind of shocked at that point but trying to play it cool; she asks about my ex & I gave her a little run down but said I dont really want to say much out of respect for them. She proceeds to talk about this guy she fucked on a cruise a few weeks ago, & then how she has been messing around with this 40 year old now because he has a big dick (all of which goes against what she said in messages?). I'm just there like....lol wtf is going on...this girl is fucking with me & clearly has no interest? The date goes on for like 6 hours & she makes even more red-flag comments...like how she hates men, she doesn't want a power imbalance in a relationship, she has to be the pretty one, etc... I'm here like having no idea what to think. I bring her back to her car, she initiates a hug (no way was i trying a kiss in a parking lot after all of that) and we say our goodbyes.
The next day, she hits me up with messages, saying that she really enjoyed herself & wants to go on another date. I'm like....uhhh...ok, thinking with the wrong part of my body & thinking "maybe she was just awkward or something". So we keep talking. I hint at getting a date going but she says that she's going alone to her cabin...so I dont want to bother her. She starts not responding as quickly so I begin to kind of distance myself & never text back unless she replies. This sort of weird game of cat and mouse continued until last night...where I basically just came out and asked what she wanted from me. She said that she isn't really interested in me anymore. I dig into it a bit & she said that she doesn't like how my teeth are yellow (I have a lack of enamel since birth) & she had all of these other guys asking her out on dates & I didnt. She then says that she wants to be friends for now...to which I reply...yea, there's no for now...if we are friends, we are friends and that is it. This seems to take her by surprise & she says that she said for now because that there's a lot of things that she likes about me but I'm a work in progress. Basically ended the conversation with a goodnight & made sure I was the last one to say it...because I dont plan on messaging this girl again.
Now I'm all kind of fucked up thinking about my teeth lol. I really have no idea what her intentions were with me....did she see "weakness" and decided that I would be fun to mess with but she didn't get the right reaction? She did talk a lot about having a psychology degree and messing with people. But yea...feels like a cruel joke given that my 1st date in over 2 years is to this...ummm...person?
2023.06.07 00:00 greywolfpub The Lone Hero: Cyber Initiative (An Isekai Fantasy/Scifi LitRPG) - Chapter Three: The Fall Of Senterra
I couldn’t help but feel a tingle of relief and excitement when seeing this screen. Clothes, armor, a guide. I wasn’t going to be walking around clueless for long.
I stroked my chin at these selections. While armor looked tempting, I couldn’t afford it. Same with the 24 hour guide. A thorough immersive guide right now would leave me broke and naked.
Well, this choice was already set in stone for me, wasn’t it?
“One temporary guide, please,” I said a bit nervously. Though nothing happened. I pivoted my head to and fro, but nothing. Where the heck was my guide?
“Whoah! Full moon! Hello!” I heard a strong Italian Brooklyn accent over my head, realizing that I wasn’t alone. He was a metal orb with hummingbird wings, covered in etched lines and cybernetic crevices all over his metal plates.
I should have picked the clothes first!
I crouched over to cover my unmentionables and cried, “Simple gear, simple gear!” Immediately, I was given a wardrobe. Even had the entire Sailor Moon glowing light as I was dressed up head to toe: A dark cloak with a hood lined with fur, pants, gauntlets, a padded leather top, high leather boots, and a bag over my belt.
“Heh, kid, you don’t have to call out your selections. Not that I mind. That high pitched squeal was unpredictably hilarious.”
I scratched the back of my head sheepishly. “Heh, sorry about that. This is all very new to me.”
He zip-lined right in front of me, the sound of his wings buzzing making my eyes grow wider. He zoomed in on my face as if he was analyzing me features, then suddenly, a red dot appeared on him, and I fell on my ass.
The first thought that crossed my mind was a laser sight, and that was exactly what it looked like before a red scanning beam traced me left to right.
He chuckled. “Heh, you’re pretty skittish for a guy with those level 1 stats. Well, allow me to introduce myself, hero. My name is Devicho. That’s D-E-V-I-C-H-O. And I am your temporary guide, here to answer all of your questions!”
I got up off my ass and nodded. “My name is Silas.”
“Yeah, I got that from your stats.”
“Oh, right. Well, crap, where do I start?”
“I got ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes!?”
“Yeah, I know. But them’s the rules. It’s all the boss is allowing me.”
“The boss?”
“The dungeon core. Alzera-Kar. We call this hidden gem mother, as she is the creator of all things in the country of Thalian.”
“Wait, a dungeon core created all of this?”
“Oh boy, you ain’t seen nothing yet! Thalian is made up of five nations: Marviel, land of the fae, Dradersi, land of the dragons, Guedmar, land of the orcs, Dokumbe, land of the goblins, and finally, Senterra, the fallen land of the humans.”
“Fallen?”
His voice dipped. “Hey, listen kid, I’m not gonna sugar coat anything for you here. Senterra is gone. A barren wasteland from what I could tell. If there are any humans left, they are most likely in hiding, so the other races can’t find them. A little history lesson for ya since we are tight on time: long long ago, these five nations lived in harmony as one. That harmony was doomed to fall, as the dungeon core, our great mother, created more and more resources. Now you see, the dragons were selfish bastards. They thrived off of money, greed, and pride. They started the racial divide, and these five species segregated themselves. Walls separate some regions, while big bodies of water separated others. Now, with the way things were rolling, the dragons were on the top of the food chain, and the humans were on the very bottom of it. As expected, all the races started to take advantage of the weaker race, bullying them to no end. Wars broke and Senterra crumbled. I’m talkin’ mass genocide, kid. The savagery, the bloodshed. Oh, it was horrible. Alzera-Kar saw this and was very upset. To help these deprived and enslaved humans, she created cyber sense.”
“You mean that purple evil Kirby that I killed? That was one of them?”
“No, well, yeah, but that was a defective cyber sense. And I’ll explain how. Originally, cyber sense was a mechanism solely for humans. They are particles in the air, nano feeds that respond to humans around its perimeter. They are everywhere, essentially dominating all of Thalian. Now what they do is shape themselves into cyber gear to improve the biological functions of human beings. This gave humans the edge that they needed, but after the humans broke the shackles of the other Thalian nations, they became the bullies. More war, more bloodshed. At this point mother Alzera-Kar was stressed. Her creations were dying. Her creations were killing themselves off. She didn’t know how to contain this ceaseless war and divide. Under this intense strain and tension, her crystal structure shattered, breaking off in three pieces. Without this protection, her core is vulnerable, and open for influence. These three pieces were scattered all over Thalian, but as of late, three nations have those pieces, and kid, they are protecting them with their lives! Dradersi has one, Guedmar has the other, and Marviel has one, too. These three nations are in constant strife! When one nation has all three parts, they can locate Alzera-Kar, and make her do anything they want.”
I was speechless…
“In this vulnerability, the cyber sense that was enhancing humans through cyber gear started to create evil fleshy beings. I’m talkin’ monsters. Of all sizes! They are only detectable by humans, which is why most nations made sense out of keeping humans as detectors. Remember what I said about them practically squattin’ everywhere? Well, that didn’t change. These hideous freaks lurk around, and materialize at any given moment. They became sentient. The upside though is when you kill the stronger ones, you get a full blown cyber gear. Some lesser creatures drop some precious loot too, parts to build a full-fledged cyber gear. It is good to note that cyber gear only operates for humans.”
“I think I’m getting some of the pieces to this puzzle together, here. Was I sent here to restore Senterra?”
“You bet!”
“And find the three shards to help Alzera-Ker?”
“Boy, you caught on quick, didn’cha?”
“But I don’t understand. Why not snatch the shards herself? She is all powerful, right? She’s pretty much the god in this country.”
“Not when she’s unprotected. If mother could become defective when vulnerable, imagine how much harder it’d be for her to get those shards?”
“I guess you’re right…”
“Not only that, but those kingdoms who have her shards are keeping it on lock down. Warded I imagine. It won’t be easy.”
“Why me?” I asked honestly. “I understand her humans here are suffering, and she went out somewhere else to find a hero. I don’t know why she wouldn’t pick someone locally. So I have to ask, why a foreigner? And why me?”
“I guess she saw something special in you that she couldn’t find in her natives. But don’t feel too overwhelmed. You’re not the only hero she went out of her way to find.”
“You mean there are others?”
“Of course! This is an entire nation we are talking about, after all.”
“How can you be so sure? A girl and her titan hound hunted me down back in my home town.”
He paused and then asked me sternly. “What did this girl look like?”
“White hair, real model type bod. A few inches shorter than me. And her titan, a big brawny dude in armor, had a skull for a face.”
“That ain’t sound good.”
“You know her? Her name is Lucyna.”
He sighed. “She’s from, Dradersi, daughter of King Orelus. Usually, dragon-kins have horns on their heads, sometimes along their jaws too. And some scales on their skin. They can materialize wings for flight at will, and are physically strong by nature. Lucyna probably used a spell to disguise herself as a human to remove those features on Earth. What’s more bothersome than that though was she found a way to open a gate to your world, and managed to track you down…”
“Not only track me down, she killed me.”
“I don’t understand. How the heck are you here if she killed you?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’d died and came back to life, isekai’d to this crazy fantasy RPG world.”
“You think this is wacky? You should hear what she thinks about people from Earth! Every race here was inspired by a planet from different galaxies. The plan was to make a cornucopia of races, but things started to get messy quick.”
“This mother seems to appreciate variety.”
“It has its goods and bads, as I’ve already mentioned. Which brings me back to Lucyna. This whole death business, it’s unsettling. And if she has access to Earth the same way mother does, you may very well be the only hero. Mother hadn’t started the recruiting process yet. She is still on the selection stage.”
“Then how did someone like Lucyna even know what she was planning?”
“Could be a precautionary step? Not sure. Lucyna is very smart. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was a few steps ahead of her maker.”
“She’s on my hit list,” I said seriously. “Her and her dog.”
“Hey kid, slow down. You’re nowhere near her league! That dragon-kin is an elite, a royal one at that.”
“Then I’ll level up! Whatever it takes!”
“Kid…”
I wouldn’t expect anyone to understand. It’s not just a vendetta. All of my life I was invisible. I love my mom, but things changed when she started focusing on her career. She was hardly ever there. Dad was never around, either. He taught me to never take shit from anyone, use my fists when I have to, and never give up. That’s it. I was alone, in my own mind, in my own world. I became detached from everything, losing myself in my hobbies, finding fulfillment in playing games. That’s where I belonged. That’s where I felt like I was achieving something, where I was somebody. Still, it would have been nice to feel that out in the real world.
I wanted my life to mean something. Then she came around and snuffed my chances out. But then the dungeon core brought me back and gave me my chance.
"This is an opportunity to start over, to start fresh. I will do right by Alzera-Kar, but not because she gave me this gift. I want to help these tormented humans of Thalian because it’s the right thing to do. A voice for the voiceless, and power for the powerless. She brought me here to become a hero, and I’ll do just that. As for my own personal agenda, that’s secondary. I want that psycho to know what having everything taken away from you feels like! My life wasn’t the best life, but it was my life!”
“You sound motivated! Thadda’ boy!”
“I’m going to raise Senterra up from the grave, and I need you to tell me everything there is to know about getting stronger to do it.”
Read up to 50k words on Royal Road for free! (Daily Chapter Drops): https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/68588/the-lone-hero-cyber-initiative-an-isekai-fantasy
submitted by greywolfpub to HFY [link] [comments]
I stroked my chin at these selections. While armor looked tempting, I couldn’t afford it. Same with the 24 hour guide. A thorough immersive guide right now would leave me broke and naked.
Well, this choice was already set in stone for me, wasn’t it?
“One temporary guide, please,” I said a bit nervously. Though nothing happened. I pivoted my head to and fro, but nothing. Where the heck was my guide?
“Whoah! Full moon! Hello!” I heard a strong Italian Brooklyn accent over my head, realizing that I wasn’t alone. He was a metal orb with hummingbird wings, covered in etched lines and cybernetic crevices all over his metal plates.
I should have picked the clothes first!
I crouched over to cover my unmentionables and cried, “Simple gear, simple gear!” Immediately, I was given a wardrobe. Even had the entire Sailor Moon glowing light as I was dressed up head to toe: A dark cloak with a hood lined with fur, pants, gauntlets, a padded leather top, high leather boots, and a bag over my belt.
“Heh, kid, you don’t have to call out your selections. Not that I mind. That high pitched squeal was unpredictably hilarious.”
I scratched the back of my head sheepishly. “Heh, sorry about that. This is all very new to me.”
He zip-lined right in front of me, the sound of his wings buzzing making my eyes grow wider. He zoomed in on my face as if he was analyzing me features, then suddenly, a red dot appeared on him, and I fell on my ass.
The first thought that crossed my mind was a laser sight, and that was exactly what it looked like before a red scanning beam traced me left to right.
He chuckled. “Heh, you’re pretty skittish for a guy with those level 1 stats. Well, allow me to introduce myself, hero. My name is Devicho. That’s D-E-V-I-C-H-O. And I am your temporary guide, here to answer all of your questions!”
I got up off my ass and nodded. “My name is Silas.”
“Yeah, I got that from your stats.”
“Oh, right. Well, crap, where do I start?”
“I got ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes!?”
“Yeah, I know. But them’s the rules. It’s all the boss is allowing me.”
“The boss?”
“The dungeon core. Alzera-Kar. We call this hidden gem mother, as she is the creator of all things in the country of Thalian.”
“Wait, a dungeon core created all of this?”
“Oh boy, you ain’t seen nothing yet! Thalian is made up of five nations: Marviel, land of the fae, Dradersi, land of the dragons, Guedmar, land of the orcs, Dokumbe, land of the goblins, and finally, Senterra, the fallen land of the humans.”
“Fallen?”
His voice dipped. “Hey, listen kid, I’m not gonna sugar coat anything for you here. Senterra is gone. A barren wasteland from what I could tell. If there are any humans left, they are most likely in hiding, so the other races can’t find them. A little history lesson for ya since we are tight on time: long long ago, these five nations lived in harmony as one. That harmony was doomed to fall, as the dungeon core, our great mother, created more and more resources. Now you see, the dragons were selfish bastards. They thrived off of money, greed, and pride. They started the racial divide, and these five species segregated themselves. Walls separate some regions, while big bodies of water separated others. Now, with the way things were rolling, the dragons were on the top of the food chain, and the humans were on the very bottom of it. As expected, all the races started to take advantage of the weaker race, bullying them to no end. Wars broke and Senterra crumbled. I’m talkin’ mass genocide, kid. The savagery, the bloodshed. Oh, it was horrible. Alzera-Kar saw this and was very upset. To help these deprived and enslaved humans, she created cyber sense.”
“You mean that purple evil Kirby that I killed? That was one of them?”
“No, well, yeah, but that was a defective cyber sense. And I’ll explain how. Originally, cyber sense was a mechanism solely for humans. They are particles in the air, nano feeds that respond to humans around its perimeter. They are everywhere, essentially dominating all of Thalian. Now what they do is shape themselves into cyber gear to improve the biological functions of human beings. This gave humans the edge that they needed, but after the humans broke the shackles of the other Thalian nations, they became the bullies. More war, more bloodshed. At this point mother Alzera-Kar was stressed. Her creations were dying. Her creations were killing themselves off. She didn’t know how to contain this ceaseless war and divide. Under this intense strain and tension, her crystal structure shattered, breaking off in three pieces. Without this protection, her core is vulnerable, and open for influence. These three pieces were scattered all over Thalian, but as of late, three nations have those pieces, and kid, they are protecting them with their lives! Dradersi has one, Guedmar has the other, and Marviel has one, too. These three nations are in constant strife! When one nation has all three parts, they can locate Alzera-Kar, and make her do anything they want.”
I was speechless…
“In this vulnerability, the cyber sense that was enhancing humans through cyber gear started to create evil fleshy beings. I’m talkin’ monsters. Of all sizes! They are only detectable by humans, which is why most nations made sense out of keeping humans as detectors. Remember what I said about them practically squattin’ everywhere? Well, that didn’t change. These hideous freaks lurk around, and materialize at any given moment. They became sentient. The upside though is when you kill the stronger ones, you get a full blown cyber gear. Some lesser creatures drop some precious loot too, parts to build a full-fledged cyber gear. It is good to note that cyber gear only operates for humans.”
“I think I’m getting some of the pieces to this puzzle together, here. Was I sent here to restore Senterra?”
“You bet!”
“And find the three shards to help Alzera-Ker?”
“Boy, you caught on quick, didn’cha?”
“But I don’t understand. Why not snatch the shards herself? She is all powerful, right? She’s pretty much the god in this country.”
“Not when she’s unprotected. If mother could become defective when vulnerable, imagine how much harder it’d be for her to get those shards?”
“I guess you’re right…”
“Not only that, but those kingdoms who have her shards are keeping it on lock down. Warded I imagine. It won’t be easy.”
“Why me?” I asked honestly. “I understand her humans here are suffering, and she went out somewhere else to find a hero. I don’t know why she wouldn’t pick someone locally. So I have to ask, why a foreigner? And why me?”
“I guess she saw something special in you that she couldn’t find in her natives. But don’t feel too overwhelmed. You’re not the only hero she went out of her way to find.”
“You mean there are others?”
“Of course! This is an entire nation we are talking about, after all.”
“How can you be so sure? A girl and her titan hound hunted me down back in my home town.”
He paused and then asked me sternly. “What did this girl look like?”
“White hair, real model type bod. A few inches shorter than me. And her titan, a big brawny dude in armor, had a skull for a face.”
“That ain’t sound good.”
“You know her? Her name is Lucyna.”
He sighed. “She’s from, Dradersi, daughter of King Orelus. Usually, dragon-kins have horns on their heads, sometimes along their jaws too. And some scales on their skin. They can materialize wings for flight at will, and are physically strong by nature. Lucyna probably used a spell to disguise herself as a human to remove those features on Earth. What’s more bothersome than that though was she found a way to open a gate to your world, and managed to track you down…”
“Not only track me down, she killed me.”
“I don’t understand. How the heck are you here if she killed you?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’d died and came back to life, isekai’d to this crazy fantasy RPG world.”
“You think this is wacky? You should hear what she thinks about people from Earth! Every race here was inspired by a planet from different galaxies. The plan was to make a cornucopia of races, but things started to get messy quick.”
“This mother seems to appreciate variety.”
“It has its goods and bads, as I’ve already mentioned. Which brings me back to Lucyna. This whole death business, it’s unsettling. And if she has access to Earth the same way mother does, you may very well be the only hero. Mother hadn’t started the recruiting process yet. She is still on the selection stage.”
“Then how did someone like Lucyna even know what she was planning?”
“Could be a precautionary step? Not sure. Lucyna is very smart. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was a few steps ahead of her maker.”
“She’s on my hit list,” I said seriously. “Her and her dog.”
“Hey kid, slow down. You’re nowhere near her league! That dragon-kin is an elite, a royal one at that.”
“Then I’ll level up! Whatever it takes!”
“Kid…”
I wouldn’t expect anyone to understand. It’s not just a vendetta. All of my life I was invisible. I love my mom, but things changed when she started focusing on her career. She was hardly ever there. Dad was never around, either. He taught me to never take shit from anyone, use my fists when I have to, and never give up. That’s it. I was alone, in my own mind, in my own world. I became detached from everything, losing myself in my hobbies, finding fulfillment in playing games. That’s where I belonged. That’s where I felt like I was achieving something, where I was somebody. Still, it would have been nice to feel that out in the real world.
I wanted my life to mean something. Then she came around and snuffed my chances out. But then the dungeon core brought me back and gave me my chance.
"This is an opportunity to start over, to start fresh. I will do right by Alzera-Kar, but not because she gave me this gift. I want to help these tormented humans of Thalian because it’s the right thing to do. A voice for the voiceless, and power for the powerless. She brought me here to become a hero, and I’ll do just that. As for my own personal agenda, that’s secondary. I want that psycho to know what having everything taken away from you feels like! My life wasn’t the best life, but it was my life!”
“You sound motivated! Thadda’ boy!”
“I’m going to raise Senterra up from the grave, and I need you to tell me everything there is to know about getting stronger to do it.”
Read up to 50k words on Royal Road for free! (Daily Chapter Drops): https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/68588/the-lone-hero-cyber-initiative-an-isekai-fantasy
2023.06.07 00:00 Mizzno [H] Games [W] Lost Ruins, Lone Fungus, Offers
For sale, for Steam gift cards (or gifted Steam Wallet balance):
For trade:
*tentatively up for trade, assuming I buy the bundle
WANT:
IGS Rep Page: https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/ti26nz/mizznos_igs_rep_page/
submitted by Mizzno to indiegameswap [link] [comments]
- Dark Souls™: Prepare To Die™ Edition (removed from Steam Store;
$350$400 or best offer) - Fall Guys (removed from Steam Store)
- Fall Guys - Dragon Hugger Pack (removed from Steam Store)
- Fall Guys - Icy Adventure Pack (removed from Steam Store)
- Humble Hunie Sakura Bundle (can also trade for a full "charity" bundle (Australia Fire Relief Bundle or similar))
- Humble Sekai Project Bundle (can also trade for a full "charity" bundle (Stand with Ukraine Bundle or similar))
For trade:
- Bionic Commando: Rearmed
- Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen
- Lost Planet 3 - Complete
- Mega Man Legacy Collection
- STRIDER™ / ストライダー飛竜®
- 112 Operator
- 911 Operator
- The Amazing American Circus
- Armello
- Backbone
- Calico
- Cris Tales
- Euro Truck Simulator 2
- Farming Simulator 17
- Ghostrunner
- Gotham Knights
- Guilty Gear X2 #Reload
- Lust from Beyond: M Edition
- Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine
- Orbital Racer
- Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition
- PAYDAY 2
- Pilgrims
- Soulblight
- Space Crew: Legendary Edition
- Starfinder Core Rulebook (Paizo key) and Starfinder Adventure: Junker's Delight (Paizo key)
- Strange Brigade
- Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
- System Shock 2
- System Shock: Enhanced Edition
- Ticket to Ride
- XCOM® 2
- X-Morph: Defense Complete Pack
- Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game
- Fallout 76
- Fobia - St. Dinfna Hotel
- Othercide
- Shady Part of Me
- Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York
- Vampire: The Masquerade - Shadows of New York
- Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Heart of the Forest
- Baldur's Gate: Faces of Good and Evil
- Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear
- Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition
- Day of the Tentacle Remastered
- Grim Fandango Remastered
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
- STAR WARS®: Knights of the Old Republic™ II
- Highway Blossoms
- HunieCam Studio
- KARAKARA
- Sunrider Academy
- Sunrider: Liberation Day - Captain's Edition
- The Elder Scrolls: Legends: 2 Card Packs (Skyrim) 1 Event Ticket 100 Gold 100 Souls
- ESO Vanity Pet: Bristlegut Piglet and 15 Days of ESO Plus
- Ame no Marginal -Rain Marginal-
- KARAKARA
- Memory's Dogma CODE:01
- Narcissu 10th Anniversary Anthology Project
- Narcissu 10th Anniversary Anthology Project - Season Pass
- A Kiss For the Petals - Remembering How We Met
- Sakura Angels
- Beach Bounce
- Beach Bounce - Soundtrack
- Blue Rose
- Lionessy Story
- My Personal Angel
- Natural - Beyond Nature -
- Postmen Of Horizon (removed from Steam Store)
- Koi-Koi Japan [Hanafuda playing cards]
- Mahjong Pretty Girls Battle
- Mahjong Pretty Girls Battle : School Girls Edition
- Poker Pretty Girls Battle: Texas Hold'em
- Pretty Girls Mahjong Solitaire
- Guns of Icarus Alliance
- Guns of Icarus Online
- Impossible Creatures Steam Edition
- Lethal League
- Tempest: Pirate Action RPG
- Tempest - Treasure Lands
- Tempest - Original Soundtrack
- Warhammer 40,000: Space Wolf
- Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide
- For The King
- Book of Demons
- PlateUp!
- Spiritfarer®: Farewell Edition
- Kingdom Two Crowns
- White Day: A Labyrinth Named School
- Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War
- Chivalry: Medieval Warfare
- Steel Rats™
- Hue
- Sifu Deluxe Edition Upgrade Bundle (Epic key)
- Gal*Gun: Double Peace
- The Invisible Hours
- Synergia
- ROCKETRON
- Project Nimbus: Complete Edition
- Dead Age
- Dusk Diver 酉閃町
- Spirit Hunter: NG
- Slain: Back from Hell(?)
- Cook, Serve, Delicious!
- Tower of Time
- Danger Scavenger
- Survive the Nights
- The Beast Inside
- Valfaris
- Nongunz: Doppelganger Edition
- This War of Mine
- My Time At Portia
- 112 Operator
- 911 Operator
- Book of Demons
- Broken Age
- Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons
- Crying Suns
- Crying Suns
- Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
- Driftland: The Magic Revival
- Liberated (GOG key)
- Moon Hunters
- Out of Reach: Treasure Royale
- Rustler (Grand Theft Horse)
- Wanderlust: Travel Stories (GOG key)
- WARSAW
- X-Morph: Defense + European Assault, Survival of the Fittest, and Last Bastion DLC (I believe this redeems as the linked Complete Pack, minus the soundtrack)
- ΔV: Rings of Saturn(?)
- Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game
- Fobia - St. Dinfna Hotel
- Phoenix Point: Year One Edition
- Deliver Us The Moon
- Morkredd
- Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos
- Space Crew: Legendary Edition
- Spirit Hunter: NG
- Survivalist: Invisible Strain
- Warhammer: Vermintide 2
- ENDLESS™ Space 2
- Surviving the Aftermath
- The Long Dark
- Blade Assault
- Founders' Fortune
- Hokko Life
- Monster Crown
- Fallout 76
- Othercide
- Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Enhanced Edition
- ScourgeBringer
- Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey
- HOT WHEELS UNLEASHED™
- Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition
- Sonic CD (removed from Steam Store)
- LEGO® Harry Potter: Years 1-4
- LEGO® Harry Potter: Years 5-7
- STRIDER™ / ストライダー飛竜®
- Bionic Commando
- Full Metal Furies
- Ultra Street Fighter® IV
- Starbound
- Mafia III: Sign of the Times
- Outlast 2
- BioShock 2
- Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition
- Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter
- The Mean Greens - Plastic Warfare
- Crusaders of the Lost Idols Legendary Starter Pack
- Project CARS (removed from Steam Store)
WANT:
- 5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel
- A Hat in Time
- Avernum: Escape from the Pit
- Bendy and the Ink Machine
- CrossCode
- Dead Rising 4
- Dungreed
- Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition
- NBA 2K Playgrounds 2
- NECROPOLIS: BRUTAL EDITION
- Omensight: Definitive Edition
- Submerged
- Tower Unite
- Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap
- Zombie Army 4: Dead War
IGS Rep Page: https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/ti26nz/mizznos_igs_rep_page/
2023.06.07 00:00 Clerk_Sam_Lowry Trip Report- 13 days Tokyo/Kyoto/Hakone/Nagoya (Ghibli Park) /Hiroshima with a 2 year-old toddler. (plus day-trips to Nara and Osaka)
Trip Report- 13 days Tokyo/Kyoto/Hakone/Nagoya (Ghibli Park) /Hiroshima with a 2 year-old toddler. (plus day-trips to Nara and Osaka)
I love reading other peoples' trip reports and thought it might be useful to share my experiences travelling with my wife and toddler in Japan. We used Shinkasens for most of our travel between cities but did rent a car in the middle so that we could drive to a rural Onsen and then to Shirakawa-Go from Nagoya. (We also briefly rented a car to visit 3 plaaces around Hakone, too).
First of all, traveling with a toddler in japan is great. Our kid loves trains and busses and got tons of attention and shouts of "KAWAI!!" from friendly people everywhere we went. She even got a lullaby sung to her by a Japanese grandmother as she dozed on a city bus in Kyoto. She never had to pay for any bus fares or train fares. (technically she was a "lap baby" on the Shinkansens).
We read a book of etiquette before we went and it was very useful to know. I am sure most of these tips are stickied elsewhere , but things like "don't point with one finger, always grasp cups with both hands, don't wipe your face/mouth with the hand-cloth, don't talk loudly in restaurants or on trains, keep yen bills neat and flat and use the trays provided when paying for things," etc, were good to know before we went. We brought and carried a "point-and-say" translation book but only used it once; generally Google Translate worked great for images of menus and signs. (and many restaurants have English versions of menus, or use digital menus on iPad that can switch to English. ) Google maps handled most of our navigation needs without issues too, both via train and car. We parked the stroller outside most restaurants or folded it and brought it just inside the door if the weather was bad.
Prep work --
The only major prep work we did before leaving was to buy our JR pass and alert our banks to the dates that we would be in Japan so that our credit and debit cards would work. We had no problems getting cash from the ATM machines at 7-11 or at the Airport. We reserved all hotels/AirBnB/Onsen/Car Rentals beforehand. Also bought SkyTree tickets before departing. We stayed up until 4am to get a ticket to Ghibli's Grand Warehouse -- fortunately only one ticket was needed since our child was under 4 and my wife wasn't interested. We rented a mobile hotspot device from Sakura Mobile before leaving America and it was waiting for us at our first hotel in Tokyo. We dropped the hotspot and charger in a mailbox in a pre-paid envelope before leaving Kyoto.
Major tips -- no need to pack lots of snacks or water each day , since vending machines and 7-11 stores and similar are ubiquitous. Do pack paper towels/ Napkins and extra plastic bags for carrying wet diapers and trash, as public trash cans are almost non-existant. (and when they do exist, they are often just for aluminum and PET plastic bottles) Throw away trash where you bought it, (for things like satay skewers) or bring it home to your hotel. The "pack-it-out" mindset takes a little getting used to, but the results -- a society seemingly without litter-- are superb. Having a lightweight , easily foldable stroller made this trip much easier. Our child often slept in the stroller, and being able to quickly collapse and carry it was key to getting up and down the many sets of stairs in the train stations. It also occasionally doubled as a luggage cart for us. Packing light is key; we picked hotels and AirBnBs that had laundry options to allow us to carry a minimum of stuff. (and no need to bring laundry soap; the washing machines dispense it automatically) My wife wished she had a Japanese-style suitcase with 4 roller-wheels, but I think we did fine with our backpacks , etc.
In general, we didn't have much trouble finding things for my daughter to eat; she loves noodles and dumplings, and even got really into red snapper sushi one night. (basically she loves anything she can dip in soy sauce). Chicken Karage was usually an easy thing to find and feed to her, as were the egg salad Sandos, fresh fruit, and various rice balls from 7-11. Oddly, she also really loved the "pickle-on-a-stick" things that were pretty common in outdoor markets. (I think we got them in both Kyoto and Osaka)
Flights - we flew JAL to from LAX to Narita outbound, and returned on JAL (operated by AA) from Hiroshima to Haneda to LAX. The outbound flight was great; the JAL service was impeccable and they gave my child a model airplane which kept her occupied for hours. We gate-checked our folding stroller on the outbound flight -- the gate clerk put into a plastic bag for us just before departure,
The return flight (operated by American Airlines ) was a step down, but still fine. Transferring planes at Haneda for the return was a little more of a hassle than we had expected becuase you have to exit one terminal, walk a while, exit the building and then get on a free bus, and then go back through security at another terminal. On the plus side, the Haneda international terminal has a padded play area that my daughter liked near the duty free shops. Becuase our return journey was two flights, gate-checking the stroller was not possible, but instead, after measuring its size, we were able to keep it as a carry-on for both legs. (had it been larger, JAL said they would have met us at Haneda with an airport loaner stroller, something we saw other parents using in Hiroshinma and Haneda)
Highlights from each city (focusing on things that my child loved)
Tokyo -- our first night in Japan was a little disorienting: the Tokyo metro station is like a gigantic multi-layer mall-labryinth, and since none of the maps seem to show the "big picture" finding our way to the correct exit lugging luggage was a bit of a challenge the first time . We went back down that night for our fist meal, and by the next day we were practically experts, and were even able to find our way to Ramen Street (on level B1) for lunch and --after waiting in line for about 20 minutes-- slurp some great noodles.
Our first morning we wanted to visit the imperial Palace Gardens, but discovered it is closed on Mondays. Stil, just seeing its moat and stone walls was impressive. We walked to the Children's Science and Technology Museum near Budokan, and our duaghter loved operating cranes and turning cranks of giant Rube-Goldberg machines. (some with bowling-ball sized steel balls moving around). Most of the exhibits were in Japanese, but the fact that this wasn't a common tourist destination made it interesting to visit. On the way home for naps we ate at a random underground food court under an office building and learned how to order a food ticket from a machine for eating at a restaraunt. (a key skill!)
We next headed up to the Owl Cafe in Akihabara, mostly as an excuse to have a visit to Akhiabara, and found it was closed, but seeing the electronics stores and nightlife of Akhihabara was fun. As you might expect, my daughter loved getting Gacha Balls from vending machines (both in Akihabara and everywhere else )
Our second day we spent the morning hunting for the legendary "Elephant Playground" (worth the hunt!) and then went to the nearby Tokyo Childrens' Toy Museum. This was a fantastic combo, and I would recommend anyone with young kids in Tokyo do both. From there we walked to Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, which was a wonderful oaisis, full of picknicking families and couples. We explored the tropical greenhouse and then had a well-needed rest under a tree near a tea-house in the traditial japanese garden section Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden also was conveniently close to the Shinjuku rail station, which was imporant because we had Sky-Tree tickets that evening, and we headed there directly. We didn't have time to do any shopping or visit the two museums recommended to us near the skytree (Tobacco and Salt and the Tobu rail museum) But we did have what I consider my favorite meal of the trip: beers and gyoza and molten-lava hot takoyaki at a tiny( 6- seat) izakaya a few minutes south of the Skytree. (i'd recommend it by name but it was completely in japanasese and I am not sure I can now accurately ID it)
Later that afternoon visited/saw Shibuya crossing, ate decent and very inexpensive sushi at a 3rd floor conveyor-belt restaurant, and went to Harjuku. (not in that order) Harajuku was chaotic fun, but equally fun was the long peaceful forest walk to visit the Meji Ginku shrine that starts just outside Harjuki station . By now we were experts at tossing coins, bowing, clapping, and praying in the appropriate cycle. (something the 2 year old seemed to quite enjoy). We also knew from our guidebook that we were supposed to walk only on the sides of the path at Meji Ginku -- the middle is reserved for the Gods.
NAGOYA/GHIBLI - We took a direct bus from Nagoya station (cash accepted, Pasmo Cards also accepted) out to the sprawling expo grounds that surround the Ghibli exhibits. Our 2.5 year old loved Studio Ghibli Parks Gand Warehouse, particularly the miniature town where she could run around and pretend to drive a train and serve beer at a drafthouse. There was a furry Catbus to sit on, (of course) as well as another padded Catbus to jump around on for a few minutes with shoes off. Totoro is the only Ghibli character she knows well, and she loved finding hidden Totoros and (and a giant bar-tending one) around the Warehouse.
Arguably, Ghibli park was a little disappointing for us two adults , becuase it was pouring rain when we visited making the long walks between areas less than fun. And despite having moved heaven and earth to get a timed ticket, there still were long lines (~40 min) for areas inside the "Grand Warehouse." It was interesting for me to see the sketches and reference photos a used to make each cell of Ghibli animation realisitic ... but it was annoying and crazy that most areas of the warehouse totally forbad taking photographs. Much of the rest of the Grand Warehouse was just lines for people to take selfies in front of recreated scenes from the movies for posting on social media.
We had watched or re-watched all the Ghibli movies prior to our trip, so we were well prepared, but overall I would say that if you can't get tickets to go to the Grand Warehouse, don't feel bad. (There are many many more magical and wonderful things everywhere else in Japan, and your 2 -year-old will love them just as much. )
HAKONE/SHIRAKAWA-GO/ HIDA (Onsen)
We took a Shinkasen south from Tokyo to Hakone, and spent a day there with a family friend who showed us an ancient tea-house along the old imperial road, a famous Shinto shrine, a deliicious meal, and of course, Mount Hakone with its black eggs, sulfurous fumes, and melty black ice cream. The toddler loved the eggs and the ice cream, of course! For me, sitting and eating tea and mochi in the deep forest along the royal road was like being transported back into a historical Kurosawa film.
If you visit Hakone, I would encourage you to get into the woods and do some hiking. It's a gorgeous area. Apparently the japanese love to drink and tour Lake Ashi on a pair of pirate ships. which added a comic aspect to our visit to the much-photographed Hakone Shrine's Tori gate.
We knew we wanted to visit the truly rural areas of Honshu, so we reserved a night at a remote Onsen near Shirakawa-Go. The drive from Nagoya was stunningly beautiful, traffic was light, and because we had rented a toll transponder along with the rental car, we could just breeze through the toll-booths (which are located at the off-ramps) . Seeing the untouched mountains coexisting with sleek new road tunnels and breathtaking shining bridges made me realize how decrepit American infrastructure has become.
IT was a bit stressful to drive on the left hand side of the road, but conversely, It was great to be able to pull over at will. For example, we could stop at at a small town outside of Nagoya for a delicious prix fixe breakfast at "cafe Pierrot" and again later to see and visit a beautiful riverside Shinto shrine along the road. The car gave us the freedom to and be able to just stop and explore and let our child play in the shallow water surrounded by green hills. Driving in the rural areas wasn't too bad, and doing so let us see a whole other world that we would have missed had we stuck to the trains. For example, we visited a delightful outdoor morning market in the village of Miyagawa and bought fresh produce and some delightful snacks (including fish-shaped custard-filled mini-donuts) from the vendors followed by an impromptu picnic along the riverbank.
On this portion of the trip we also got to experience the Japan's wonderful rest-stop cuisine -- you use a ticket machine to select some items, hand them to a chef behind the counter, and in a few minutes your number is called . We had some delicious Japanese pizza (shaped like a elongated, puffy taco ) fragrant beef curry, and a "Miso Katsu" dish too.
Later we would stop at another rest stop and discover that it had an absolutely epic set of slides and tunnels built into the hillside. You borrow a plastic sled and then slide about 150 feet down a green carpet. It was hearwarming to see how kind and welcoming the japanese children were to our daughter, helping her to slide and showing her how to play and explore the tunnels. Arguably this was my child's favorite part of the entire trip.
Shirakawa Go was great fun for the whole family -- it was definately touristy, but it was great to be able to stroll and relax and learn about Japan's past. (Parking closes at 5pm, though!) We had only a few hours there but I think we would have enjoyed an entire day of strolling and snacking and learning. Interestingly all the parking attendents there seem to be senior citizens.
Our Ondsen was in a small farming comunity outside Hida, surrounded by orchards, mountains, and rice paddies. We were the only non-japanese that we saw there, and it was a little challenging to keep our toddler ccorralled during the formal meals (served in a common area, not in our rooms). As expected, the indoor slippers provided were a bit small for my size-11 feet, but we had a great time in a beautiful, secluded place.
Staying overnight got us a ticket to also visit the large and well-maintained municipal baths just up the road. (each side of which had about 7 pools of various temperatures and medicinal properties) There was a wonderful hiking trail that looped through the deep forest around the town. One of my biggest regrets of the trip is that we did not have more time to hike and explore these lush, pristine mountain woods -- I think I enjoyed our hikes here as much as I did the onsen baths.
The driving portion of our trip ended on the western coast of Honshu, at Kanazawa, but we didn't see much of that city other than a gas station and the rental car return before taking the "thunderbird" train down to Kyoto. (not quite as fast as some shinkasen, but very comfortable).
KYOTO and day-trips:
We had three delightful days in Kyoto, along including day trips by rail to Osaka (to see the market, eat okinomiyaki, and climb Osaka Castle) and Nara (to walk aound and feed the deer in the park and then the koi at a a beautiful botanical garden, stroll through another temple, and to eat the best Udon noodles of the trip while siting outdoors in the forest. In Nara, we also stumbled upon a wonderful Beatles-only vintage record shop called "B-Sels" on an upper floor just across from Nara station, and listened to a street performance of Shamisen music at the station itself. Nara, like Shirakawa-Go, was full of busloads of tourists, but that didn't make it any less of a great experience for us.
Kyoto itself was wonderful to explore on foot -- I won't go into exhaustive detail, but our child loved walking and being pushed in the stroller to various Temples and loved the view from Kyoto tower. (and the Gatcha ball souvenir tower even more!) . She liked the path through the bamboo forest (crowded with tourists) and loved "hiking" through the beautiful and less crowded gardens of Tenryu-Ji temple -- part of which has remained unchanged since the 14th century. We skipped the monkey park.
In Kyoto proper, we walked through Chion-In Buddhist temple , took our shoes off and bagged them, and observed a ceremony -- it was interesting to see how similar it was to ceremonies in America, with the same incense, syllable recitation, and wood-block time-keeping interspersed with bowl-gong ringing .... but on a much grander scale. The size of the wooden buildings is epic, rivaling the stone cathedrals of Europe. Because of the large numbers of steps to get from the massive Sanmon gate to the main building of the shrine, my wife and I took turns exploring and let the toddler play along the paths of the temple's small tea-garden next door.
Hiroshima-
Finally, we spent the last two days of our trip in Hiroshima. It was shocking and surreal to get off the train underground and suddenly be hit with an overwhelming smell of burning -- there was construction work all around Hiroshima station and I don't know if it was from digging pylons down into subterranean ashes, or just from some other more modern aspect of the construction As someone whose worldview was shaped by reading Barefoot Gen as a child, visiting Hiroshima was an important and somber part of our trip.
It was interesting to see that the bulk of the visitors to the Peace Museum visitors seemed to be Japanese school groups. Of course, most of the photos and exhibits museum went "over the head" of our 2/yo child. (she wasn't frightened, just not interested). She did enjoy ringing the peace Bell outside and seeing the collections of paper cranes. We bought books to help share the experience with her again once she is older.
In any event, Hiroshima is a charming city showing no outward signs of being apocalyptically devastated (except at the Peace Memorial Dome) and there is an excellent restaurant district just around the corner from the main train station, with many small restaurants that are open late.
The people and proprietors of Hiroshima seemed particularly kind to us; it's more relaxed there than any of the other cities we viisted. Our chid loved was the "Children's 5-day Science Museum" about a quater mile away from Peace Park that has a lot of hands-on exhibits and two stories of climbing tunnels. We did not do the planetarium there, as it is in japanese-language only and we had limited time.
For us, the highlight of our time in Hiroshima was taking the long ferry to Miyajima directly from Peace Park and then wandering around the narrow streets of Miyajima in the afternoon and evening. It was great to see the oyster beds being worked from the ferry and then later dine on delicious grilled and fried Miyajima oysters.
Our child loved the ferry rides and wandering around Miyajima (there are deer there too) but she also slept for much of our time on the island. The return ferry was part of the JR rail network and so we could use our JR passes for that. (its a short, straighter route).
All in all, Japan was very kid friendly, as long as you can quickly and easily fold up your stroller, and we loved our time in every city we visited. (and could have easily spent much more time in any of them).
Other Thoughts: We bought the Japan Rail Pass, but probably didn't save much money by doing so; My wife estimates that we about broke even with the number of shinkansen, trains, and ferry-rides we used. It was a nice security blanket, though, to know that if we missed a train it wouldn't cost us anything. (but we never missed any trains) . For non JR-line trains, we used a pair of "PASMO" cards. Pasmo cards can also be used at other random retail places as a stored-cash card. When you go through the gates, you must look for ones that say "IC" if you are using a Pasmo card and tap against the NFC pad with it. Using Pasmo is nice because the card is durable (unlike the paper JR Pass) and you can load up enough money for multiple trips on the card.
We use T-mobile, and our plan included 5 GB of "high speed data" while in japan but we weren't sure we would have good service for our rural drive, so we gout a WiFi hotspot from Sakura Mobile. This worked fine -- and its speeds was always faster than T-Mobile's coverage when tested. The hotspot generally would last about 20 hours on one charge. But honestly T-Mobile's Japan coverage was probably good enough that the hotspot was an unnecessary expense; we often used it instead of the hotspot and only came close to the 5GB limit on our last day. If I were on a tighter budget, a shorter trip, or knew I wouldn't be in remote areas, I would skip the Hotspot and just use T-mobile.
TLDR: Tokyo Toy Museum is fantastic for little ones. Ghibli Park (Grand Warehouse) is fine, but our kid probably had just as much fun on many other Japanese playgrounds. If you do choose to drive, don't miss the Japanese rest stops which can be fantastic with fresh food and jungle gyms and slides. Our kid may remember little from the trip except the toys she took home from GATCHA balls, but we have a lifetime of memories gained. Don't miss the Udon in Nara at "Mizuya Chaya", just outside the beautiful Manyo Botanical Gardens.
links:
ELEPHANT PLAYGROUND:
https://www.thetokyochapter.com/tokyos-retro-playgrounds/
RAMEN STREET:
https://tokyocheapo.com/food-and-drink/ramen/tokyo-ramen-street/
Miyagawa Morning Market:
https://www.japan.travel/en/spot/1255/
Udon at Mizuya Chaya in Nara:
https://www.visitnara.jp/venues/D01057/
submitted by Clerk_Sam_Lowry to JapanTravel [link] [comments]
I love reading other peoples' trip reports and thought it might be useful to share my experiences travelling with my wife and toddler in Japan. We used Shinkasens for most of our travel between cities but did rent a car in the middle so that we could drive to a rural Onsen and then to Shirakawa-Go from Nagoya. (We also briefly rented a car to visit 3 plaaces around Hakone, too).
First of all, traveling with a toddler in japan is great. Our kid loves trains and busses and got tons of attention and shouts of "KAWAI!!" from friendly people everywhere we went. She even got a lullaby sung to her by a Japanese grandmother as she dozed on a city bus in Kyoto. She never had to pay for any bus fares or train fares. (technically she was a "lap baby" on the Shinkansens).
We read a book of etiquette before we went and it was very useful to know. I am sure most of these tips are stickied elsewhere , but things like "don't point with one finger, always grasp cups with both hands, don't wipe your face/mouth with the hand-cloth, don't talk loudly in restaurants or on trains, keep yen bills neat and flat and use the trays provided when paying for things," etc, were good to know before we went. We brought and carried a "point-and-say" translation book but only used it once; generally Google Translate worked great for images of menus and signs. (and many restaurants have English versions of menus, or use digital menus on iPad that can switch to English. ) Google maps handled most of our navigation needs without issues too, both via train and car. We parked the stroller outside most restaurants or folded it and brought it just inside the door if the weather was bad.
Prep work --
The only major prep work we did before leaving was to buy our JR pass and alert our banks to the dates that we would be in Japan so that our credit and debit cards would work. We had no problems getting cash from the ATM machines at 7-11 or at the Airport. We reserved all hotels/AirBnB/Onsen/Car Rentals beforehand. Also bought SkyTree tickets before departing. We stayed up until 4am to get a ticket to Ghibli's Grand Warehouse -- fortunately only one ticket was needed since our child was under 4 and my wife wasn't interested. We rented a mobile hotspot device from Sakura Mobile before leaving America and it was waiting for us at our first hotel in Tokyo. We dropped the hotspot and charger in a mailbox in a pre-paid envelope before leaving Kyoto.
Major tips -- no need to pack lots of snacks or water each day , since vending machines and 7-11 stores and similar are ubiquitous. Do pack paper towels/ Napkins and extra plastic bags for carrying wet diapers and trash, as public trash cans are almost non-existant. (and when they do exist, they are often just for aluminum and PET plastic bottles) Throw away trash where you bought it, (for things like satay skewers) or bring it home to your hotel. The "pack-it-out" mindset takes a little getting used to, but the results -- a society seemingly without litter-- are superb. Having a lightweight , easily foldable stroller made this trip much easier. Our child often slept in the stroller, and being able to quickly collapse and carry it was key to getting up and down the many sets of stairs in the train stations. It also occasionally doubled as a luggage cart for us. Packing light is key; we picked hotels and AirBnBs that had laundry options to allow us to carry a minimum of stuff. (and no need to bring laundry soap; the washing machines dispense it automatically) My wife wished she had a Japanese-style suitcase with 4 roller-wheels, but I think we did fine with our backpacks , etc.
In general, we didn't have much trouble finding things for my daughter to eat; she loves noodles and dumplings, and even got really into red snapper sushi one night. (basically she loves anything she can dip in soy sauce). Chicken Karage was usually an easy thing to find and feed to her, as were the egg salad Sandos, fresh fruit, and various rice balls from 7-11. Oddly, she also really loved the "pickle-on-a-stick" things that were pretty common in outdoor markets. (I think we got them in both Kyoto and Osaka)
Flights - we flew JAL to from LAX to Narita outbound, and returned on JAL (operated by AA) from Hiroshima to Haneda to LAX. The outbound flight was great; the JAL service was impeccable and they gave my child a model airplane which kept her occupied for hours. We gate-checked our folding stroller on the outbound flight -- the gate clerk put into a plastic bag for us just before departure,
The return flight (operated by American Airlines ) was a step down, but still fine. Transferring planes at Haneda for the return was a little more of a hassle than we had expected becuase you have to exit one terminal, walk a while, exit the building and then get on a free bus, and then go back through security at another terminal. On the plus side, the Haneda international terminal has a padded play area that my daughter liked near the duty free shops. Becuase our return journey was two flights, gate-checking the stroller was not possible, but instead, after measuring its size, we were able to keep it as a carry-on for both legs. (had it been larger, JAL said they would have met us at Haneda with an airport loaner stroller, something we saw other parents using in Hiroshinma and Haneda)
Highlights from each city (focusing on things that my child loved)
Tokyo -- our first night in Japan was a little disorienting: the Tokyo metro station is like a gigantic multi-layer mall-labryinth, and since none of the maps seem to show the "big picture" finding our way to the correct exit lugging luggage was a bit of a challenge the first time . We went back down that night for our fist meal, and by the next day we were practically experts, and were even able to find our way to Ramen Street (on level B1) for lunch and --after waiting in line for about 20 minutes-- slurp some great noodles.
Our first morning we wanted to visit the imperial Palace Gardens, but discovered it is closed on Mondays. Stil, just seeing its moat and stone walls was impressive. We walked to the Children's Science and Technology Museum near Budokan, and our duaghter loved operating cranes and turning cranks of giant Rube-Goldberg machines. (some with bowling-ball sized steel balls moving around). Most of the exhibits were in Japanese, but the fact that this wasn't a common tourist destination made it interesting to visit. On the way home for naps we ate at a random underground food court under an office building and learned how to order a food ticket from a machine for eating at a restaraunt. (a key skill!)
We next headed up to the Owl Cafe in Akihabara, mostly as an excuse to have a visit to Akhiabara, and found it was closed, but seeing the electronics stores and nightlife of Akhihabara was fun. As you might expect, my daughter loved getting Gacha Balls from vending machines (both in Akihabara and everywhere else )
Our second day we spent the morning hunting for the legendary "Elephant Playground" (worth the hunt!) and then went to the nearby Tokyo Childrens' Toy Museum. This was a fantastic combo, and I would recommend anyone with young kids in Tokyo do both. From there we walked to Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, which was a wonderful oaisis, full of picknicking families and couples. We explored the tropical greenhouse and then had a well-needed rest under a tree near a tea-house in the traditial japanese garden section Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden also was conveniently close to the Shinjuku rail station, which was imporant because we had Sky-Tree tickets that evening, and we headed there directly. We didn't have time to do any shopping or visit the two museums recommended to us near the skytree (Tobacco and Salt and the Tobu rail museum) But we did have what I consider my favorite meal of the trip: beers and gyoza and molten-lava hot takoyaki at a tiny( 6- seat) izakaya a few minutes south of the Skytree. (i'd recommend it by name but it was completely in japanasese and I am not sure I can now accurately ID it)
The third day we visted the Tusikiji outer fish market -- we got there early and and it was quickly full of tourists and good food. (many different kinds of grilled things on sticks, as well as raw oysters, etc) I was amazed that the public bathrooms there were sparkling clean -- as they were throughout almost the entire trip. My daughter loved getting an ice-cream drink at John Lennon's favorite coffiee shop (Yonemoto). On the way back thorugh Ginza we bought an enormous fig wrapped like the crown jewels from one of Japnan's famous fruit-gift stores. It cost about $9, but was absoulutely delicious. (it was crazy to see $200 watermelons and $170 muskmellons in the same store)We also took this time in Ginza to do one of the things on my bucket list -- buy an overpriced gift fruit from a fancy Japanese store. We bought the second cheapest thing in there - a single giant fig, and I think it cost about $9. (totally worth it!) . it was just fun to ogle $80 spherical watermelons, and other beautiful, but incredibly expensive fruit.
Later that afternoon visited/saw Shibuya crossing, ate decent and very inexpensive sushi at a 3rd floor conveyor-belt restaurant, and went to Harjuku. (not in that order) Harajuku was chaotic fun, but equally fun was the long peaceful forest walk to visit the Meji Ginku shrine that starts just outside Harjuki station . By now we were experts at tossing coins, bowing, clapping, and praying in the appropriate cycle. (something the 2 year old seemed to quite enjoy). We also knew from our guidebook that we were supposed to walk only on the sides of the path at Meji Ginku -- the middle is reserved for the Gods.
NAGOYA/GHIBLI - We took a direct bus from Nagoya station (cash accepted, Pasmo Cards also accepted) out to the sprawling expo grounds that surround the Ghibli exhibits. Our 2.5 year old loved Studio Ghibli Parks Gand Warehouse, particularly the miniature town where she could run around and pretend to drive a train and serve beer at a drafthouse. There was a furry Catbus to sit on, (of course) as well as another padded Catbus to jump around on for a few minutes with shoes off. Totoro is the only Ghibli character she knows well, and she loved finding hidden Totoros and (and a giant bar-tending one) around the Warehouse.
Arguably, Ghibli park was a little disappointing for us two adults , becuase it was pouring rain when we visited making the long walks between areas less than fun. And despite having moved heaven and earth to get a timed ticket, there still were long lines (~40 min) for areas inside the "Grand Warehouse." It was interesting for me to see the sketches and reference photos a used to make each cell of Ghibli animation realisitic ... but it was annoying and crazy that most areas of the warehouse totally forbad taking photographs. Much of the rest of the Grand Warehouse was just lines for people to take selfies in front of recreated scenes from the movies for posting on social media.
We had watched or re-watched all the Ghibli movies prior to our trip, so we were well prepared, but overall I would say that if you can't get tickets to go to the Grand Warehouse, don't feel bad. (There are many many more magical and wonderful things everywhere else in Japan, and your 2 -year-old will love them just as much. )
HAKONE/SHIRAKAWA-GO/ HIDA (Onsen)
We took a Shinkasen south from Tokyo to Hakone, and spent a day there with a family friend who showed us an ancient tea-house along the old imperial road, a famous Shinto shrine, a deliicious meal, and of course, Mount Hakone with its black eggs, sulfurous fumes, and melty black ice cream. The toddler loved the eggs and the ice cream, of course! For me, sitting and eating tea and mochi in the deep forest along the royal road was like being transported back into a historical Kurosawa film.
If you visit Hakone, I would encourage you to get into the woods and do some hiking. It's a gorgeous area. Apparently the japanese love to drink and tour Lake Ashi on a pair of pirate ships. which added a comic aspect to our visit to the much-photographed Hakone Shrine's Tori gate.
We knew we wanted to visit the truly rural areas of Honshu, so we reserved a night at a remote Onsen near Shirakawa-Go. The drive from Nagoya was stunningly beautiful, traffic was light, and because we had rented a toll transponder along with the rental car, we could just breeze through the toll-booths (which are located at the off-ramps) . Seeing the untouched mountains coexisting with sleek new road tunnels and breathtaking shining bridges made me realize how decrepit American infrastructure has become.
IT was a bit stressful to drive on the left hand side of the road, but conversely, It was great to be able to pull over at will. For example, we could stop at at a small town outside of Nagoya for a delicious prix fixe breakfast at "cafe Pierrot" and again later to see and visit a beautiful riverside Shinto shrine along the road. The car gave us the freedom to and be able to just stop and explore and let our child play in the shallow water surrounded by green hills. Driving in the rural areas wasn't too bad, and doing so let us see a whole other world that we would have missed had we stuck to the trains. For example, we visited a delightful outdoor morning market in the village of Miyagawa and bought fresh produce and some delightful snacks (including fish-shaped custard-filled mini-donuts) from the vendors followed by an impromptu picnic along the riverbank.
On this portion of the trip we also got to experience the Japan's wonderful rest-stop cuisine -- you use a ticket machine to select some items, hand them to a chef behind the counter, and in a few minutes your number is called . We had some delicious Japanese pizza (shaped like a elongated, puffy taco ) fragrant beef curry, and a "Miso Katsu" dish too.
Later we would stop at another rest stop and discover that it had an absolutely epic set of slides and tunnels built into the hillside. You borrow a plastic sled and then slide about 150 feet down a green carpet. It was hearwarming to see how kind and welcoming the japanese children were to our daughter, helping her to slide and showing her how to play and explore the tunnels. Arguably this was my child's favorite part of the entire trip.
Shirakawa Go was great fun for the whole family -- it was definately touristy, but it was great to be able to stroll and relax and learn about Japan's past. (Parking closes at 5pm, though!) We had only a few hours there but I think we would have enjoyed an entire day of strolling and snacking and learning. Interestingly all the parking attendents there seem to be senior citizens.
Our Ondsen was in a small farming comunity outside Hida, surrounded by orchards, mountains, and rice paddies. We were the only non-japanese that we saw there, and it was a little challenging to keep our toddler ccorralled during the formal meals (served in a common area, not in our rooms). As expected, the indoor slippers provided were a bit small for my size-11 feet, but we had a great time in a beautiful, secluded place.
Staying overnight got us a ticket to also visit the large and well-maintained municipal baths just up the road. (each side of which had about 7 pools of various temperatures and medicinal properties) There was a wonderful hiking trail that looped through the deep forest around the town. One of my biggest regrets of the trip is that we did not have more time to hike and explore these lush, pristine mountain woods -- I think I enjoyed our hikes here as much as I did the onsen baths.
The driving portion of our trip ended on the western coast of Honshu, at Kanazawa, but we didn't see much of that city other than a gas station and the rental car return before taking the "thunderbird" train down to Kyoto. (not quite as fast as some shinkasen, but very comfortable).
KYOTO and day-trips:
We had three delightful days in Kyoto, along including day trips by rail to Osaka (to see the market, eat okinomiyaki, and climb Osaka Castle) and Nara (to walk aound and feed the deer in the park and then the koi at a a beautiful botanical garden, stroll through another temple, and to eat the best Udon noodles of the trip while siting outdoors in the forest. In Nara, we also stumbled upon a wonderful Beatles-only vintage record shop called "B-Sels" on an upper floor just across from Nara station, and listened to a street performance of Shamisen music at the station itself. Nara, like Shirakawa-Go, was full of busloads of tourists, but that didn't make it any less of a great experience for us.
Kyoto itself was wonderful to explore on foot -- I won't go into exhaustive detail, but our child loved walking and being pushed in the stroller to various Temples and loved the view from Kyoto tower. (and the Gatcha ball souvenir tower even more!) . She liked the path through the bamboo forest (crowded with tourists) and loved "hiking" through the beautiful and less crowded gardens of Tenryu-Ji temple -- part of which has remained unchanged since the 14th century. We skipped the monkey park.
In Kyoto proper, we walked through Chion-In Buddhist temple , took our shoes off and bagged them, and observed a ceremony -- it was interesting to see how similar it was to ceremonies in America, with the same incense, syllable recitation, and wood-block time-keeping interspersed with bowl-gong ringing .... but on a much grander scale. The size of the wooden buildings is epic, rivaling the stone cathedrals of Europe. Because of the large numbers of steps to get from the massive Sanmon gate to the main building of the shrine, my wife and I took turns exploring and let the toddler play along the paths of the temple's small tea-garden next door.
Hiroshima-
Finally, we spent the last two days of our trip in Hiroshima. It was shocking and surreal to get off the train underground and suddenly be hit with an overwhelming smell of burning -- there was construction work all around Hiroshima station and I don't know if it was from digging pylons down into subterranean ashes, or just from some other more modern aspect of the construction As someone whose worldview was shaped by reading Barefoot Gen as a child, visiting Hiroshima was an important and somber part of our trip.
It was interesting to see that the bulk of the visitors to the Peace Museum visitors seemed to be Japanese school groups. Of course, most of the photos and exhibits museum went "over the head" of our 2/yo child. (she wasn't frightened, just not interested). She did enjoy ringing the peace Bell outside and seeing the collections of paper cranes. We bought books to help share the experience with her again once she is older.
In any event, Hiroshima is a charming city showing no outward signs of being apocalyptically devastated (except at the Peace Memorial Dome) and there is an excellent restaurant district just around the corner from the main train station, with many small restaurants that are open late.
The people and proprietors of Hiroshima seemed particularly kind to us; it's more relaxed there than any of the other cities we viisted. Our chid loved was the "Children's 5-day Science Museum" about a quater mile away from Peace Park that has a lot of hands-on exhibits and two stories of climbing tunnels. We did not do the planetarium there, as it is in japanese-language only and we had limited time.
For us, the highlight of our time in Hiroshima was taking the long ferry to Miyajima directly from Peace Park and then wandering around the narrow streets of Miyajima in the afternoon and evening. It was great to see the oyster beds being worked from the ferry and then later dine on delicious grilled and fried Miyajima oysters.
Our child loved the ferry rides and wandering around Miyajima (there are deer there too) but she also slept for much of our time on the island. The return ferry was part of the JR rail network and so we could use our JR passes for that. (its a short, straighter route).
All in all, Japan was very kid friendly, as long as you can quickly and easily fold up your stroller, and we loved our time in every city we visited. (and could have easily spent much more time in any of them).
Other Thoughts: We bought the Japan Rail Pass, but probably didn't save much money by doing so; My wife estimates that we about broke even with the number of shinkansen, trains, and ferry-rides we used. It was a nice security blanket, though, to know that if we missed a train it wouldn't cost us anything. (but we never missed any trains) . For non JR-line trains, we used a pair of "PASMO" cards. Pasmo cards can also be used at other random retail places as a stored-cash card. When you go through the gates, you must look for ones that say "IC" if you are using a Pasmo card and tap against the NFC pad with it. Using Pasmo is nice because the card is durable (unlike the paper JR Pass) and you can load up enough money for multiple trips on the card.
We use T-mobile, and our plan included 5 GB of "high speed data" while in japan but we weren't sure we would have good service for our rural drive, so we gout a WiFi hotspot from Sakura Mobile. This worked fine -- and its speeds was always faster than T-Mobile's coverage when tested. The hotspot generally would last about 20 hours on one charge. But honestly T-Mobile's Japan coverage was probably good enough that the hotspot was an unnecessary expense; we often used it instead of the hotspot and only came close to the 5GB limit on our last day. If I were on a tighter budget, a shorter trip, or knew I wouldn't be in remote areas, I would skip the Hotspot and just use T-mobile.
TLDR: Tokyo Toy Museum is fantastic for little ones. Ghibli Park (Grand Warehouse) is fine, but our kid probably had just as much fun on many other Japanese playgrounds. If you do choose to drive, don't miss the Japanese rest stops which can be fantastic with fresh food and jungle gyms and slides. Our kid may remember little from the trip except the toys she took home from GATCHA balls, but we have a lifetime of memories gained. Don't miss the Udon in Nara at "Mizuya Chaya", just outside the beautiful Manyo Botanical Gardens.
links:
ELEPHANT PLAYGROUND:
https://www.thetokyochapter.com/tokyos-retro-playgrounds/
RAMEN STREET:
https://tokyocheapo.com/food-and-drink/ramen/tokyo-ramen-street/
Miyagawa Morning Market:
https://www.japan.travel/en/spot/1255/
Udon at Mizuya Chaya in Nara:
https://www.visitnara.jp/venues/D01057/
2023.06.06 23:17 Jgrupe I'm the New Sheriff in Hollow's End. Monsters are Invading from Another Dimension
Part 1
Part 2
We were driving rapidly down Main Street as a horrible creature from another dimension followed behind us, its long strides keeping pace and making the car shake with each step it took. The engine roared as we sped away from the butcher shop. Randy was sitting in the seat next to me and it took me a minute to realize he was eating something.
It was a bucket of KFC.
"Seriously!? How can you be hungry at a time like this?? We're about to die, Randy!"
"We got bigger problems than that right now," he said, patting down his pockets with greasy fingers and leaving stains as he searched for something. "We're all out of booze! We need to make a pit stop as soon as you get a chance."
Normally this would be an absurd statement. But unfortunately the lack of alcohol was a bit of an issue, since there were plenty more monsters ready to come through into our world, and the only thing keeping them out was our ability to stay intoxicated so we didn’t see them. I had kept my percentage down below the legal driving limit, but I was starting to feel like that wasn't cutting it anymore.
"You need to start drinking more," Randy explained. "You're the one who saw it first, remember? If anything, this is kinda your fault."
I gripped the steering wheel with white knuckled rage and continued driving.
Regardless of what he said, I want to make sure it's on the record that this was all Randy's fault. He had admitted to making at least one wish using a cursed magic monkey paw - and we all know how that usually plays out.
I saw a convenience store and immediately slammed on the brakes. Reaching over Randy, I threw open his door and kicked him out. It was easy since he wasn't wearing a seatbelt and was already beginning to fall asleep.
"What the fuck, dude?" He yelled as I pulled away.
"Get us more booze! I'm gonna circle the block," I shouted at him out the window, picking up speed.
Then I took out my gun and aimed at the monster which was getting closer by the second. I took three shots at it over my shoulder and missed two of them. But the third caught it squarely in the neck and it began to howl a guttural cry, dripping black blood all over the street from its fresh wound. It slowed down momentarily, but then picked up its pace again, coming after me with renewed rage.
My goal had been accomplished, though. I’d been trying to keep it away from Randy, since he was on foot and more vulnerable. We would need to abandon the car, though, I realized. If I was going to start drinking more I wouldn’t be able to drive safely. As bad as things were getting, I wasn’t about to start breaking the law - especially that particular one. I’d seen enough death and destruction caused by drunk drivers over my years on the force. I wasn’t going to go down that road.
I looked back to see the creature still gaining on me.
My mind was racing trying to think of a way to evade it, to outwit it. I needed to do something to kill it. But what?
Suddenly my cell phone was ringing. I picked it up and looked at the caller ID. It was Jay, the delivery driver. He was in the car ahead of me and I had kind of forgotten he was there.
“Listen,” he said quickly. “I got a plan. We need to lure that thing to the swamp. Just follow me and keep up the pace.”
“It’s a cop car,” I said dryly. “I’m pretty sure I can keep up with your piece of shit-”
My words were cut short as the line went dead and the car ahead of me began to accelerate rapidly. I floored it but found the guy was still gaining distance between the two of us.
Whatever he had under the hood was making that little car go a lot faster than I would have thought possible.
My phone dinged and I looked down to see a text from Jay. It was an eggplant with a water spray emoji.
This fucking town…
*
We reached the edge of the city limits of Hollow’s End to find a parking lot which sloped at an unnatural angle downwards. At the bottom of this strange gravel lot was a murky-looking swamp full of brackish green water. A small copse of trees stood to one side near the shore.
No other cars were parked there which was good, since the creature was still close behind us.
I was following Jay as closely as I could and imitating his car’s movements, although my vehicle was sluggish and clumsy by comparison. He was still driving at top speed, and I figured it was important that I keep up with him for whatever he planned to do.
When we reached the edge of the water, near that little grouping of trees, he hit the brakes and swerved to the right. His tires stayed on the gravel, but just barely. The entire parking lot was sloped so severely towards the water that the force of gravity was insisting on taking us into the swamp.
Realizing that my bigger vehicle wouldn’t make the turn in time, I hit the brakes early and tried to slow down, knowing that otherwise I would crash right into a tree or go into the water trying to make the move.
As soon as I slowed down I could hear the creature’s breath and its movements just behind the car. I avoided the temptation to look back, since I knew it would be my death if I did. Instead, I yanked hard on the wheel and turned it to the right, skidding to a stop on the grass, my fender just inches away from a large pine tree.
The creature’s brakes were not quite as good as mine, since it was desperate to kill me and hadn’t really slowed down. Instead, it went skidding into the green water, coated with algae and looking much thicker than was normal. It was like a giant bowl of pea soup. The creature was thrashing around, looking as if it were in pain, and then I noticed the tendrils of swamp water moving on its skin, pulling it in deeper, like an enormous squid wrestling with a shark.
My phone rang again and I picked it up, my eyes still focused on the creature trying to get out of the swamp. It looked like it would not be able to escape from whatever was holding it there, and I breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn’t gone in with that wild last minute maneuver.
Then it was as if an enormous hand reached up from below and pulled the creature under. Despite the fact that there were only dark empty sockets where eyes should have been, I could have sworn I saw them widen as it was dragged under, and then was gone.
“Problem solved,” Jay said when I answered the phone. “You can thank me later. And we’ll definitely owe Swampy a favor. Now let’s get back into town and grab Randy. Maybe the three of us can figure out a solution to this whole mess.”
*
I managed to convince Jay to let me ride shotgun in his car, telling him that mine was having engine trouble. This was partly as a ploy to make him our designated driver, but also to cover for the fact that he was clearly the superior driver of a far better automobile than my cruiser. And who knew when we’d have to outrun one of those monsters again?
After applying copious amounts of duct tape to all of the mirrors on the vehicle, we were off, heading back towards the convenience store where I’d left Randy.
We found him out front with a large paper bag full of bottles in his arms, sleeping in the grassy ditch near the road. There were several children taking turns at poking him with a stick.
“Okay, beat it, kids!” I yelled at them as we approached.
The children ran off and out of the corner of my eye I noticed a few of them looked very odd. One had a furry face and ears like a dog, while another had red eyes, and yet another was running on all fours. They scattered in every direction, making it difficult to pinpoint any other discrepancies.
“What’s the deal with this town?” I muttered to nobody in particular.
“How much time do you have?” Jay asked, laughing. “This place is weirder than you could possibly imagine. There’s a lot of history here. Sorry to say, you didn’t really know what you were getting into when you moved to this place.”
“Can you give me a quick summary?” I asked, kicking Randy gently in the ribs. He snored and swatted the air like an annoyed cat, then rolled over on his other side. His right leg began to pump up and down as if he were chasing a rabbit in his dreams.
“I’m not really at liberty to discuss all of it. People in Hollow’s End prefer to keep their secrets to themselves. But if you get to know them, you’ll find most folks are nice enough. As long as you live here, anyways. Tourists do tend to occasionally go missing if they stay out past sunrise. And if you meet anyone wearing a hooded robe your best bet is to avoid them. Oh, and there’s this guy named Frank who-”
Randy sat bolt upright, screaming at the top of his lungs, clutching the bag of liquor bottles so tightly against his chest that I thought they would shatter.
“It’s okay, man,” I said, leaning down to pat his shoulder in what I hoped was a comforting gesture. “It was just a nightmare.”
He was breathing heavily for a few moments and didn’t respond. But then finally he unscrewed the cap of one of the liquor bottles and took a long gulp.
“Right. A nightmare. That’s all it was.”
He didn’t seem entirely convinced.
“Alright, what’s the plan, guys?” Jay asked. “I’m happy to help out if you need me to.”
I took one of the liquor bottles from Randy and took a long drink from it. After wiping my mouth, I screwed the cap back on and stuffed the bottle in my pocket. Thinking hard about the next lead to follow up on, I came up short. We didn’t really have anything.
“Do you know anyone who would be interested in buying a monkey paw?” I asked. “Is there anyone in town dumb enough or reckless enough to take ownership of it? Because I feel like that fucking thing is at the center of all of this. It’s like a murder investigation - if we can find the weapon used to commit the crime, we might be able to solve it.”
Jay looked at me and Randy looked at the ground between his legs.
“I know just the guy,” Jay answered. “You know how I was telling you to stay away from Frank? Well, we might need to disregard that advice, just temporarily.”
*
The three of us pulled up outside a house a short while later, now with Jay behind the wheel, chauffeuring us around town.
We went up to the front door and he continued explaining the protocol for how to deal with this Frank individual.
“Remember, whatever you do, don’t stare. And don’t go inside his house - whatever he wants to tell us he can tell us outside. People who go in there are usually tourists, and they’re never, ever seen again. That’s like guaranteed death just stepping into that place.”
I tried not to think about how many rules I was breaking, how many vows in my oath as a Sheriff were completely null and void now.
“You know I’m a police officer, right? Most people don’t speak so freely about the kidnapping and murder of tourists.”
Randy slapped my arm.
“Come on, man. Just when we’re starting to think you’re cool, you go and say something like that. Killing tourists is a proud tradition in Hollow’s End. If you don’t like it then you shouldn’t have moved here.”
I didn’t have time to debate the subject anymore, as Jay was now knocking on the front door of the house.
The door swung open on the first knock, as if it had been slightly ajar.
“Hello,” Jay called into the darkness. “Frank? Are you there? I need to talk to you about something.”
He stuck his head into the dark gap afforded by the open door. For a moment I had a horrible mental image of it slamming shut on his neck, squeezing and choking him as blood poured from wounds created by the pressure of sharp wood on his flesh.
But instead, something worse happened.
Jay let out a gasp and then disappeared through the gap. As if he had been picked up by his hair and was dragged inside by a hungry bear.
My heart was pounding fast as I realized I was going to have to ignore all of Jay's warnings if I was going to save him and the town. Despite the dangers, we were going to have to go inside after all.
YT
TCC
submitted by Jgrupe to nosleep [link] [comments]
Part 2
We were driving rapidly down Main Street as a horrible creature from another dimension followed behind us, its long strides keeping pace and making the car shake with each step it took. The engine roared as we sped away from the butcher shop. Randy was sitting in the seat next to me and it took me a minute to realize he was eating something.
It was a bucket of KFC.
"Seriously!? How can you be hungry at a time like this?? We're about to die, Randy!"
"We got bigger problems than that right now," he said, patting down his pockets with greasy fingers and leaving stains as he searched for something. "We're all out of booze! We need to make a pit stop as soon as you get a chance."
Normally this would be an absurd statement. But unfortunately the lack of alcohol was a bit of an issue, since there were plenty more monsters ready to come through into our world, and the only thing keeping them out was our ability to stay intoxicated so we didn’t see them. I had kept my percentage down below the legal driving limit, but I was starting to feel like that wasn't cutting it anymore.
"You need to start drinking more," Randy explained. "You're the one who saw it first, remember? If anything, this is kinda your fault."
I gripped the steering wheel with white knuckled rage and continued driving.
Regardless of what he said, I want to make sure it's on the record that this was all Randy's fault. He had admitted to making at least one wish using a cursed magic monkey paw - and we all know how that usually plays out.
I saw a convenience store and immediately slammed on the brakes. Reaching over Randy, I threw open his door and kicked him out. It was easy since he wasn't wearing a seatbelt and was already beginning to fall asleep.
"What the fuck, dude?" He yelled as I pulled away.
"Get us more booze! I'm gonna circle the block," I shouted at him out the window, picking up speed.
Then I took out my gun and aimed at the monster which was getting closer by the second. I took three shots at it over my shoulder and missed two of them. But the third caught it squarely in the neck and it began to howl a guttural cry, dripping black blood all over the street from its fresh wound. It slowed down momentarily, but then picked up its pace again, coming after me with renewed rage.
My goal had been accomplished, though. I’d been trying to keep it away from Randy, since he was on foot and more vulnerable. We would need to abandon the car, though, I realized. If I was going to start drinking more I wouldn’t be able to drive safely. As bad as things were getting, I wasn’t about to start breaking the law - especially that particular one. I’d seen enough death and destruction caused by drunk drivers over my years on the force. I wasn’t going to go down that road.
I looked back to see the creature still gaining on me.
My mind was racing trying to think of a way to evade it, to outwit it. I needed to do something to kill it. But what?
Suddenly my cell phone was ringing. I picked it up and looked at the caller ID. It was Jay, the delivery driver. He was in the car ahead of me and I had kind of forgotten he was there.
“Listen,” he said quickly. “I got a plan. We need to lure that thing to the swamp. Just follow me and keep up the pace.”
“It’s a cop car,” I said dryly. “I’m pretty sure I can keep up with your piece of shit-”
My words were cut short as the line went dead and the car ahead of me began to accelerate rapidly. I floored it but found the guy was still gaining distance between the two of us.
Whatever he had under the hood was making that little car go a lot faster than I would have thought possible.
My phone dinged and I looked down to see a text from Jay. It was an eggplant with a water spray emoji.
This fucking town…
*
We reached the edge of the city limits of Hollow’s End to find a parking lot which sloped at an unnatural angle downwards. At the bottom of this strange gravel lot was a murky-looking swamp full of brackish green water. A small copse of trees stood to one side near the shore.
No other cars were parked there which was good, since the creature was still close behind us.
I was following Jay as closely as I could and imitating his car’s movements, although my vehicle was sluggish and clumsy by comparison. He was still driving at top speed, and I figured it was important that I keep up with him for whatever he planned to do.
When we reached the edge of the water, near that little grouping of trees, he hit the brakes and swerved to the right. His tires stayed on the gravel, but just barely. The entire parking lot was sloped so severely towards the water that the force of gravity was insisting on taking us into the swamp.
Realizing that my bigger vehicle wouldn’t make the turn in time, I hit the brakes early and tried to slow down, knowing that otherwise I would crash right into a tree or go into the water trying to make the move.
As soon as I slowed down I could hear the creature’s breath and its movements just behind the car. I avoided the temptation to look back, since I knew it would be my death if I did. Instead, I yanked hard on the wheel and turned it to the right, skidding to a stop on the grass, my fender just inches away from a large pine tree.
The creature’s brakes were not quite as good as mine, since it was desperate to kill me and hadn’t really slowed down. Instead, it went skidding into the green water, coated with algae and looking much thicker than was normal. It was like a giant bowl of pea soup. The creature was thrashing around, looking as if it were in pain, and then I noticed the tendrils of swamp water moving on its skin, pulling it in deeper, like an enormous squid wrestling with a shark.
My phone rang again and I picked it up, my eyes still focused on the creature trying to get out of the swamp. It looked like it would not be able to escape from whatever was holding it there, and I breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn’t gone in with that wild last minute maneuver.
Then it was as if an enormous hand reached up from below and pulled the creature under. Despite the fact that there were only dark empty sockets where eyes should have been, I could have sworn I saw them widen as it was dragged under, and then was gone.
“Problem solved,” Jay said when I answered the phone. “You can thank me later. And we’ll definitely owe Swampy a favor. Now let’s get back into town and grab Randy. Maybe the three of us can figure out a solution to this whole mess.”
*
I managed to convince Jay to let me ride shotgun in his car, telling him that mine was having engine trouble. This was partly as a ploy to make him our designated driver, but also to cover for the fact that he was clearly the superior driver of a far better automobile than my cruiser. And who knew when we’d have to outrun one of those monsters again?
After applying copious amounts of duct tape to all of the mirrors on the vehicle, we were off, heading back towards the convenience store where I’d left Randy.
We found him out front with a large paper bag full of bottles in his arms, sleeping in the grassy ditch near the road. There were several children taking turns at poking him with a stick.
“Okay, beat it, kids!” I yelled at them as we approached.
The children ran off and out of the corner of my eye I noticed a few of them looked very odd. One had a furry face and ears like a dog, while another had red eyes, and yet another was running on all fours. They scattered in every direction, making it difficult to pinpoint any other discrepancies.
“What’s the deal with this town?” I muttered to nobody in particular.
“How much time do you have?” Jay asked, laughing. “This place is weirder than you could possibly imagine. There’s a lot of history here. Sorry to say, you didn’t really know what you were getting into when you moved to this place.”
“Can you give me a quick summary?” I asked, kicking Randy gently in the ribs. He snored and swatted the air like an annoyed cat, then rolled over on his other side. His right leg began to pump up and down as if he were chasing a rabbit in his dreams.
“I’m not really at liberty to discuss all of it. People in Hollow’s End prefer to keep their secrets to themselves. But if you get to know them, you’ll find most folks are nice enough. As long as you live here, anyways. Tourists do tend to occasionally go missing if they stay out past sunrise. And if you meet anyone wearing a hooded robe your best bet is to avoid them. Oh, and there’s this guy named Frank who-”
Randy sat bolt upright, screaming at the top of his lungs, clutching the bag of liquor bottles so tightly against his chest that I thought they would shatter.
“It’s okay, man,” I said, leaning down to pat his shoulder in what I hoped was a comforting gesture. “It was just a nightmare.”
He was breathing heavily for a few moments and didn’t respond. But then finally he unscrewed the cap of one of the liquor bottles and took a long gulp.
“Right. A nightmare. That’s all it was.”
He didn’t seem entirely convinced.
“Alright, what’s the plan, guys?” Jay asked. “I’m happy to help out if you need me to.”
I took one of the liquor bottles from Randy and took a long drink from it. After wiping my mouth, I screwed the cap back on and stuffed the bottle in my pocket. Thinking hard about the next lead to follow up on, I came up short. We didn’t really have anything.
“Do you know anyone who would be interested in buying a monkey paw?” I asked. “Is there anyone in town dumb enough or reckless enough to take ownership of it? Because I feel like that fucking thing is at the center of all of this. It’s like a murder investigation - if we can find the weapon used to commit the crime, we might be able to solve it.”
Jay looked at me and Randy looked at the ground between his legs.
“I know just the guy,” Jay answered. “You know how I was telling you to stay away from Frank? Well, we might need to disregard that advice, just temporarily.”
*
The three of us pulled up outside a house a short while later, now with Jay behind the wheel, chauffeuring us around town.
We went up to the front door and he continued explaining the protocol for how to deal with this Frank individual.
“Remember, whatever you do, don’t stare. And don’t go inside his house - whatever he wants to tell us he can tell us outside. People who go in there are usually tourists, and they’re never, ever seen again. That’s like guaranteed death just stepping into that place.”
I tried not to think about how many rules I was breaking, how many vows in my oath as a Sheriff were completely null and void now.
“You know I’m a police officer, right? Most people don’t speak so freely about the kidnapping and murder of tourists.”
Randy slapped my arm.
“Come on, man. Just when we’re starting to think you’re cool, you go and say something like that. Killing tourists is a proud tradition in Hollow’s End. If you don’t like it then you shouldn’t have moved here.”
I didn’t have time to debate the subject anymore, as Jay was now knocking on the front door of the house.
The door swung open on the first knock, as if it had been slightly ajar.
“Hello,” Jay called into the darkness. “Frank? Are you there? I need to talk to you about something.”
He stuck his head into the dark gap afforded by the open door. For a moment I had a horrible mental image of it slamming shut on his neck, squeezing and choking him as blood poured from wounds created by the pressure of sharp wood on his flesh.
But instead, something worse happened.
Jay let out a gasp and then disappeared through the gap. As if he had been picked up by his hair and was dragged inside by a hungry bear.
My heart was pounding fast as I realized I was going to have to ignore all of Jay's warnings if I was going to save him and the town. Despite the dangers, we were going to have to go inside after all.
YT
TCC