Rachal steele mom

Hey Sportsfans — it's time for Week 7 of baseball Power Rankings: These baseball numbers have been forwarded directly from Manfred's office. They are accurate and caanot be questioned.
Every voter has their own style / system and the only voting instructions are these:

"To an extent determined individually, you must take into account how strong a team is right now and likely to be going forward. You must, to some degree, give weight to the events and games of the previous week."

TRANSPARENCY: This link will show you who voted each team where and has added neat statistics!
Check out the Auxilliary Post for added statistics and fun!
If something is a little messed up, feel free to pester me let me know.
Total Votes: 30 of 30. Another Perfect Vote!.

#		Team	Δ	Comment	Record
1		Dodgers	0	The Dodgers started off a mediocre road trip by sweeping the Marlins in dominant fashion, followed by a sleepy series against the padres. My early season prediction of the Dodgers's infield defense being the biggest issue was completely wrong. Mookie looks natural at short, and Muncy has been playing pretty darn well at 3rd. We will be using our prayers this week to pray that Shohei is going to be okay	27-15
2		Phillies	+1	It's tough to end the week on a walkoff loss to the Marlins and feel good, but it's hard to complain about a 4-2 stretch. Nick Castellanos might finally not be the worst hitter in baseball after he says he started treating hitting like glorified batting practice again. Ranger Suarez has arguably been the best pitcher in baseball, pitching to a 1.5 ERA and an astounding 0.72 WHIP with team wins in each of his starts. Somehow this performance isn't even all that surprising for a guy with a 4.18 ERA last year. He was this dominant in a half season between the bullpen and rotation in 2021 and has a career 1.62 ERA in 7 postseason starts and 2 relief appearances. This week: another weird scheduling quirk as they play a 4 game set against the Mets with the first two at Citi Field and the next two in Philly before the Nats come to town for a 3 game series.	28-13
3		Orioles	-1	I was hoping the Orioles would go 5-1 this week but they went 4-2. Still nothing to be super upset about. I think the main concerns right now are Mullins is hitting under .200 and Santander still not hitting the way he can. Yesterdays game was just not great so hopefully it was just a one-off and can be flushed and they move on. Blue Jays and Mariners are in town this week so it doesn't get any easier.	26-13
4		Yankees	0	Our pitching is so good right now. Anyone in the rotation could pull a Glasnow and write their number on a ball for a cute girl, and she’d call. Doesn’t even have to have their name. She doesn’t care if its’s Nestor Cortes or Clarke Schmidt. Yankees starter? She’s calling, and she’s shaving her legs beforehand. If we signed Pete Davidson for some spot starts there'd be a second baby boom. By the way, my nickname for Clarke Schmidt used to be Farte Schidt. He has very much made me eat my aforementioned schidt this year, and officially has the second-best starter ERA behind Luis Gil, as we all predicted. In other news, Judge and Stanton both have their pop at once, Soto is doing what Soto does, and Verdugo is playing sneaky good right now. We also officially took the season series against Houston 6-1, which feels GREAT. If only they were a playoff team so we could finally bounce them this year. Oh well. A Yankees-A’s ALCS it is.	27-15
5		Braves	0	The walk off loss hurts, but can't be too upset with a 4-1 bounce back week! Big time perfromance from our SP. Giving up only 4 ERs in 23.2 IP (1.52 ERA) in these 5 games. Our bats are not what we have come to expect, but that can't last much longer. Signs of life from Acuña and Olson and continued performance by Ozuna. If by the end of May we don't see massive improvement to our offensive numbers, I will be surprised. Until then, buckle up because the offense is coming.	24-13
6		Twins	+3	Another great week, Sausage be praised! We took series from the Blue Jays and Mariners with both blowouts and well-pitched close games. I think it's safe to say that the team has found its groove, and this is how the Twins can be expected to perform moving forward. The only blip has been that the bullpen is having a slight slump, but that will even out shortly.	24-16
7		Brewers	0	Paul Who? The only starting pitcher debut I care about is BOBBY GAS who threw 6 innings of 2 hit, 0 run ball in a win against the Cardinals. He fills a much needed spot in the Brewers rotation, and likely would have been up sooner if not for an injury of his own. Rhys Hoskins also had a monster week, racking up 3 HR and 9 RBI in hist last 5 games. I had my doubts this young lineup and shaky rotation actually could be a contending ballclub over 162 games, but I'm not going to argue with the results.	24-16
8		Guardians	-2	Another bad week. The Guardians had rough series against the Tigers and the mighty World Champion favorite White Sox. This coming week, we play the reigning World Series champs and the hottest team in our division. I'm not worried. Not at all.	25-16
9		Cubs	-1	The Cubs went 3-3 this week in what felt like a complete microcosm of their season. While they did get Justin Steele, Cody Bellinger, and Seiya Suzuki back from injury, they lost Dansby Swanson and Yency Almonte, who had been a rare reliable bullpen arm. Christopher Morel also had a scare after tweaking his knee sliding into sexond, but fortunately is alright. Otherwise, the offense remained inconsistent, the starting pitching was outstanding, and the bullpen was abysmal at worst and heart-stopping at best. While he didn't continue his usual dominance against them, Ian Happ extended his streak of 62 consecutive games reaching base vs the Pirates. This week, the Cubs travel to Atlanta to take on the Braves before hosting the Pirates for 4 games.	24-17
10		Royals	+2	The Royals have a chance to be in first place by themselves this late in the season for the first time since 2016. It feels like a lifetime ago. Yes, it is just seven weeks into the season but hopes are usually gone by this point. Maybe this year can be different.	25-17
11		Mariners	0	Apologies for any typos, doing this from mobile is miserable. Not the best week, but given the pitching hiccups I can't complain too much. Woo is back (and hopefully staying back, him getting pulled was a bit of a scare.) The next few series are another gauntlet, and if the M's can make it through playing relatively well they'll be in a good positon to take advantage of their schedule for the end of the month and early June. Up next: 3 vs. Roy L's, 3 @ Oreo L's	22-19
12		Padres	+2	The San Diego Madres beat LA on both día de las Madres (friday) as well as Mother’s Day, wherein both we got great pitching performances from King and Darvish respectively. Arraez capped off the walk-off win on friday, and it was nice to see Bogaerts get one deep on Sunday. So far in ‘24 the Padres haven’t lost a series to the Dodgers, whether in LA, San Diego, or South Korea. It’s a bit cathartic, though I do wish there was less blue in the stands this weekend though. Really interested to see how they come out against the rocks, as SD was only able to split the 4-game series earlier in the season. This one lines up between the series’s vs LA and ATL, it could be a bit of a trap, hoping the Pads continue their series winning streak (which is now at 4) and just take care of business.	22-21
13		Rangers	-3	The baseball gods are unforgiving. Sacrfices have to be made and will continue to be made to the baseball gods. Oh dear baseball gods please forgive our hubris for thinking the baseball suffering was over. It was not but also, flags fly forever.	22-20
14		Red Sox	-1	The Sox have not been having a good May. Losing Casas has been brutal, and the expected bump in performance from Vaughn Grissom at 2nd hasn't happened (well, at least not yet). As a team we have a decent looking triple slash, but situationally they've been horrible. In high leverage PAs, the Sox are hitting .195/.264/.272 in 247 PAs. We have loads of talent, but there's always some issue whether it be defense or clutch hitting that holds us back from being truly competitive.	21-19
15		Tigers	0	The City Connects... phew phew phew. Looks like we got tire tracks laid on us after a truck ran us over. No thanks. I hate it... and that's not even mentioning the dumb hat. In terms of actual baseball, though, Tarik Skubal is still Skuballing. This week: 3 vs. MIA, 3 at ARI.	20-20
16		Rays	0	It was a .500 week for the Rays, and the good news is things are looking better, but only like maybe? Randy and Yandy seem to be coming back a bit; glancing at the lineup's batting avg in the game threads isn't painful anymore. Ben Rortvedt is over .300 in the catcher position which is unheard of for this team. The bad news is pitching is only bouncing back from abysmal to below average. A week against division opponents on the road will test if that improvement is here to stay or if it was just a new uniform bounce.	20-21
17		D-Backs	+3	The Diamondbacks have been winning more games of late but are still underperforming their Pythagorean record and are 3 games below .500 despite a +17 run differential. Reinforcements should be coming back from injury soon which should help.	19-22
18		Mets	-1	I prewrote a big and extremely negative blurb about the Mets getting swept by the Braves. That did not happen, Brandon Nimmo hit a walk off homer on Sunday Night Baseball immediately as I was about to close my computer. Never been so glad to be wrong. Bring on the Phillies and Marlins.	19-20
19		Nationals	0	Two large accomplishments for the Nats in the last week - 1) For the first time since 2021, the Nats climbed over .500 with an opening win over the Orioles in a 2-game series. 2) Patrick Corbin recorded a win this week vs the Red Sox (his first since 9/11/23 vs the Pirates). The Nationals quickly slid back under .500 losing the 2nd game vs the Orioles and then 2 of 3 against the Red Sox. James Wood is hitting everything in AAA (over 1.000 OPS) so there are lots of calls for HRCHU.	19-20
20		Blue Jays	+1	Very up and down week for the Cyrulean Winged Creatures of Ontario. A 1-1 split with Philly and a 1-2 tilt vs Minnesota extended a too-long stretch of not winning series. Turns out, the combination of bad offense and a bad bullpen is bad. But there have been some glimpses of hope, at least. Alek Manoah threw a gem on Sunday, giving up 0 ER and 1 BB over 7 IP with 6 Ks. Also, Vladdy is hot as shit right now; since the last week of March, he's been hitting over .400 with a nearly 1.000 OPS. Still, the Jays in general continue to underperform and hover just below .500. Mid-May is not the time to freak out and this team is in too deep to consider a full tear-down even in a lost year, but things will be getting worrisome if they can't pull out of this middling stretch that has defined the first quarter of the season.	18-22
21		Giants	+4	Believe it or not, the Giants had a winning week. They continue their flirtation with being a decent team. However, we would like the world to know about several issues	19-23
22		Athletics	0	Happy Mother's Day, say hi or I'll drop by. Rough week, our bullpen had some awful games esp w/ Kotsay's choices. Will possibly fall below the Astros this week as we play them along with the Royals, and unlike last year I don't think we're a better team than KC. Toro and Harris have been playing well with Soderstrom getting some reps in (A+ defense from them), but Gelof will likely return and change something there.	19-23
23		Reds	-5	What is the meaning of suffering? This question has stumped philosophers throughout the ages, but nobody has come up with an answer. On the opposite side of this, we have also been in search of evidence of the divine, and we’ve searched for it in things like the miracle of our world. But again, we haven’t found anything. What if we’re looking in the wrong place? What if suffering is the greatest proof of a divine presence? Suffering is an art. Perhaps the greatest art ever devised. Devised by who or what though? Some greater power looming over us all? Some great cosmic being who looks upon us the same way as we do ants? Some primordial consciousness created trillions of years ago in the Big Bang that’s been merely existing all this time and only gets enjoyment out of the suffering of others? How do we figure this out? Who do we ask? I have a suggestion, we can ask baseball fans. We are connoisseurs of suffering. Ask an A’s fan about the meaning of suffering and you’ll get your answer just by looking into their eyes. Ask a Rockies fan, or a White Sox fan, or even a long dead Expos fan. It’s weeks like this that make me ask why do people even like baseball. Why do I even like baseball? Well, I remember my grandfather, since I live in the midwest we always called him Papaw, and he was the biggest baseball nut I know. He got me into baseball at a young age, and I remember one day asking why he loved it so much. When I say he was a baseball nut, I mean he was a season ticket holder, bought all the merchandise, had books about baseball and biographies written by baseball players, he had all of it. He could tell you everything about the sport with ease. So I asked him why did he love baseball so much because at that time I found it boring, and you know I still to this day remember his response. He told me baseball is 3 hours of nothing happening, but when something did happen, it was the most beautiful sport god ever created. I loved that man. Anyway this is all a long way to say the Reds suck ass right now.	17-23
24		Astros	0	Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there, especially yours. I'll visit her later, don't worry. The Astros continue to take 1 step forward and 3 steps back. Kyle Tucker is the man and we should extend him immediately. Our pitching is still mostly trash and no one deserves an extension.	15-25
25		Pirates	-2	Paul Skenes made his highly-anticipated debut on Saturday, and it was one of two games the Pirates won last week. And they only won that game after first blowing a 6-1 lead thanks to 6 (SIX!) walks with the bases loaded. At one point. Kyle Nicolas threw 12 straight balls with the bases loaded. The bullpen was so depleted that Nicolas had to pitch the next day after Aroldis Chapman gave up 2 runs and 2 walks in the 10th inning, only for Nicolas to give up another run on a wild pitch. The Pirates then hit a 2-run homer in the bottom of the inning and lost 5-4. So yeah, that's how things are going in Pittsburgh right now.	18-23
26		Cardinals	0	Bro, I'm straight up not having a good time.	16-24
27		Angels	0	Hot and then cold and then hot again, Jo Adell hit three homers this past week. With a wRC+ on the season now standing at 134 and a wOBA of .363, the next step for him is now maintaining a level of consistency. With a bottom-ranking farm system, his future may not ultimately be in Anaheim. The looming rebuild is going to be a long and slow process and at the age of 25, it is hard to see much point in keeping him if someone else starts looking his way.	15-26
28		Rockies	+2	We have the longest winning streak in baseball. We just swept the defending champs. I'm pretty sure that means Rocktober is coming. In all seriousness, the Rockies finally gelled for the first time this season. The Rangers didn't play poorly, the Rockies just played well. The concern now is what kind of "Coors Hangover" we'll see.	12-28
29		White Sox	0	The White Sox had a shockingly good week while clinching the season series against the Rays and winning 3 of 4 from the Guardians over the weekend. They have been playing objectively better baseball lately (which means that their 72 wRC+ season stat was at 84 last week, and their pitching has been middle of the league since the start of May). It's not much, but it's something. Myself, I'm excited to attend my first ball game of the year tonight. Of course, I'll be going to the Schaumburg Boomers home opener.	12-29
30		Marlins	-2	So the fish still cant produce runs but at least we got burger back. Luzardo looks much better in his return to the bigs but oof braxton garrett. Somehow miami managed to squeeze out a win this week against two top teams but well see how they do against the tigers and mets this upcoming season.	11-31

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This is more of a rant.
Ive noticed my moms business (dog breeding) does quite well. Mine ( steel fab) not so much.
She doesn't know anything about advertising except for FB ads, which she runs blindly. Has a shit website, does zero business related reading/studying, has no network/no events or promotional and makes about 200k a year.
I run targeted ads, am everywhere and anywhere telling people about us, have a newsletter, killer social media, but I am struggling.
I ask my mom all the time for advice and she's like " i don't know". It's more funny that the amount of effort we put into varies so much and she is smoking me financially.
I guess some people chose the right business...
**Edit** I didn't think this would get many replies, so if it helps here is my Instagram. We're a little more than just steel fab, we do small landscape design/builds, maintenance, and unique steel ornamentals for the outdoors/gardens)
We are TerrainAndTerrace

Hey everyone. I really love this sub and was hoping to get some input or personal experiences.
I broke my ankle and leg 13 days ago and had surgery yesterday to repair the breaks. My primary care doctor (who helped deliver my now 4 month old via c section and is her doctor as well) said I was ok to take opiates and breastfeed and that managing my pain was really important for me and baby.
I trust my doctor, I really do. This is just so antithetical to my normal approach. I only took tylenol/ibuprofen after my c section and stopped as soon as possible. So today I got home from the hospital and took a half dose of my hydrocodone (5mg) instead of the full 10. And it is not working ya'll. I can tell exactly where the steel plate is screwed into my leg and the screw in my ankle. And the incisions. And my whole foot area just feels like it was hit by a truck. We have used almost everything I pumped and saved for her while I was away in the hospital.
So I guess I'm just hoping anyone else had a situation like this and can re assure me that it's OK. That I'm not alone. And that I'm not a terrible mom for passing trace amounts of meds to my very healthy four month old baby. Mom guilt is such a trip.

I read the book as a kid/teen. It was something my mom had laying around. It involved women named Jane and I think Laurel, and I believe they both had affairs with the same grizzled newspaper reporter, possibly named Hank. I believe Laurel was also married to a Peter? Jane wrote a feminist manifesto called "The F Word." The reporter was in Dallas when JFK was shot and wrote all about the First Lady and the blood on her dress. Jane was described as "voluptuous" and the reporter had his face pocked with acne scars but was aggressive and sexy. It was a romance or "women's fiction" and probably of the caliber of books sold at the grocery store - maybe Danielle Steele, Nora Roberts or similar.

Well At 20th we would have the Chop-Chop Fruit Now if you do not agree with me suggest your idea of the 20 best fruits in your list but the reason the chop chop fruit has 20th Is because It Makes the user immune to every form of cutting and piercing attack Including chopping of your skin it is the 20th best fruit it is the chop chop fruit now anyway here me out this includes Some of the strongest swordsmen in One Piece include: Roger, Mihawk, Shanks, Oden, Ryuma, Rayleigh, Fujitora, Big Mom, and Law. and on top of that the chop chop fruit is good at combat doing what the name says very good at combat. 19. Dice-Dice Fruit For example this fruit Allows Daz Bonez to turn his body parts into blades or saws, and protects him with a body as hard as steel 18. The Gunyo Gunyo no Mi: Allows Prince Grus to manipulate clay at will 17. The The Magnet-Magnet Fruit as it Can Create Magnetic Fields 16. The Dog-Dog Fruit, Model: Okuchi No Makami Transforms The User Into A Wolf 15.The Dragon-Dragon Fruit, Model: Pteranodon Makes The User Prehistoric instantly allowing the user to fly and sooner or later breathe fire 14. The Venom-Venom Fruit Can Kill Its Target With Noxious Poisons The user is also immune to poision who ever touches the user of this fruit dies to poision 13. The Press-Press Fruit Gives The User Telepathic Like Powers 12. The Paw-Paw Fruit Has Several Abilities The Paw-Paw Fruit allows its user to deflect anything at light speed, including punches, air, lasers, people, ghosts, and even the intangible concept of pain. The current user, Bartholomew Kuma, has used the Paw-Paw Fruit to defend himself, weaponize air-like bullets, and even transport himself and others at light speeds. 11. The Wood-Woods Fruit Changes The Landscape Of Any Battlefield The Woods-Woods Fruit has only been used in a single One Piece battle so far, but in this appearance, it easily held its own against the King, Queen, Yamato, Momonosuke, and the samurai of Wano. Given the power of the other Marine Admirals, it's safe to say that the Woods-Woods Fruit could hold its own against the Grand Line's strongest Devil Fruits. 10. The Flame-Flame Fruit Has Been Held By Both Of Luffy's Brothers Logia-type Devil Fruits almost always guarantee their user power and fame, as their nature instantly elevates the defensive and offensive capabilities of whoever possesses them. However, even among Logia Devil Fruit, the Flame-Flame Fruit stands out for its devastating power. 9. The Glint-Glint Fruit Is Fast & Indestructible Admiral Kizaru may be one of the least-shown Marine Admirals, but that doesn't mean people should underestimate him. Kizaru has the fastest attacks out of the original three Admirals, thanks in large part to the powers of the Glint-Glint Fruit. The Glint-Glint Fruit is a Logia-type Devil Fruit that lets the user take on the qualities of light, meaning that Kizaru is both indestructible and fast as a flash. 8. The Chilly-Chilly Fruit Can Change The Seas During the events of the Marineford Arc, Kuzan froze the entire bay that the military base is formed around, halting the onslaught of Whitebeard and his allies. Besides this, his effect on the island of Punk Hazard (which was partially frozen during his battle against Akainu) speaks to the raw power generated by the Ice-Ice Fruit. It takes a truly powerful Devil Fruit to even stand up to Akainu's Mag-Mag Fruit, after all. 7. The Soul-Soul Fruit Can Create A Million Man Army Charlotte Linlin possesses an entire army of talking animals, furniture, mountains, and even her own pirate ship. She even uses pieces of her own soul to create the living embodiment of fire and the weather. However, there appear to be a few limitations to the Devil Fruit. The army only remains in Big Mom's control if she stays focused. Additionally, her victims must fear her to have their souls taken. As shown during her battle against Eustass Kid and Trafalgar Law, Charlotte Linlin can hold her own against multiple Emperor-level threats at once. 6.The Fish-Fish Fruit, Model: Azure Dragon Gives The User God-like Strength Besides sheer size, Kaido can also blow down entire sections of Wano Country with his dragon breath. Using its powers, Kaido single-handedly held off the Ninja-Pirate-Mink-Samurai Alliance on multiple occasions. Were it not for the efforts of the next King of the Pirates, he would have almost certainly squashed the rebellion on Wano. 5. Kitsune fruit users can transform into a kitsune and it is said to grant users wishes according to rumor 4. Dark Dark fruit it allows the user to take devil fruit powers as shown when whitebeard was killed by blackbeard making blackbeard the only user in one piece history to have more than 1 devil fruit power 3. Luffy's fruit allowing him to become a sungod with crazy ammounts of power 2. Magu Magu No mi Akainu uses this fruit and he is more powerful than luffy with the magu The Magu No Mi is a Logia-type Devil Fruit 1. The cone fruit it has only 1 version in one piece history and is probably one of the most unkown fruits in one piece history as it also is rumored to give the user unlimited ammounts of wishes

I walked weird ever since I was younger. I recently learned my mom noticed this and offered to take me to a doctor, but opted not to because I refused. I was seven or eight years old at this time.
The past few months I've been dealing with foot pain, especially after wearing my steel toe shoes at work. I didn't want to spend more money on new shoes, so I decided to deal with it for a little while until about a week ago where it became very severe.
I began experiencing pain in my feet constantly when I was walking sitting, even if I wasn't using my feet. After some quick research and observing my feet, I realized that I was suffering from overpronation looking at my shoes only further confirm this as my right shoe was significantly bent inwords.
In the past three days, my foot pain has gotten debilitating to the point where I can no longer walk. I bought orthopaedic shoes yesterday and I am in the process of getting a referral to get custom made insoles and to see orthopaedic doctor so we can figure out if there's something else wrong going on with my skeleton. I don't know what to do. In the meantime I have school. I have work. I live with my partner and have responsibilities. How am I supposed to do them if I can't even walk?
I am also growing increasingly worried that this is not only overpronation, but that it could be something more severe. I'm experiencing pain in my Achilles tendon, my calves, the back of my knee, my thighs, my hips I have always been very flexible but now I find myself experiencing pain when bending down or pulling my knees towards my chest, just sitting normally causes me pain in my upper back even laying down. I still experience foot pain. This doesn't seem normal to me. That overpronation could lead to such severe symptoms in such a quick time span. I am a 19-year-old woman if that helps at all. Please I need advice I need suggestions. I need other peoples experiences. I don't know what to do. I don't know what's happening to me and I'm scared.

I walked weird ever since I was younger. I recently learned my mom noticed this and offered to take me to a doctor, but opted not to because I refused. I was seven or eight years old at this time.
The past few months I've been dealing with foot pain, especially after wearing my steel toe shoes at work. I didn't want to spend more money on new shoes, so I decided to deal with it for a little while until about a week ago where it became very severe.
I began experiencing pain in my feet constantly when I was walking sitting, even if I wasn't using my feet. After some quick research and observing my feet, I realized that I was suffering from overpronation looking at my shoes only further confirm this as my right shoe was significantly bent inwords.
In the past three days, my foot pain has gotten debilitating to the point where I can no longer walk. I bought orthopaedic shoes yesterday and I am in the process of getting a referral to get custom made insoles and to see orthopaedic doctor so we can figure out if there's something else wrong going on with my skeleton. I don't know what to do. In the meantime I have school. I have work. I live with my partner and have responsibilities. How am I supposed to do them if I can't even walk?
I am also growing increasingly worried that this is not only overpronation, but that it could be something more severe. I'm experiencing pain in my Achilles tendon, my calves, the back of my knee, my thighs, my hips I have always been very flexible but now I find myself experiencing pain when bending down or pulling my knees towards my chest, just sitting normally causes me pain in my upper back even laying down. I still experience foot pain. This doesn't seem normal to me. That overpronation could lead to such severe symptoms in such a quick time span. I am a 19-year-old woman if that helps at all. Please I need advice I need suggestions. I need other peoples experiences. I don't know what to do. I don't know what's happening to me and I'm scared.

If they go with Nate as the MC then I think that The Brotherhood of Steel ending will be canon and the Minute Men would still be relevant since they're not enemies. It wouldn't make sense for Nate to be accepting or sympathetic of synths given his military background and his firsthand knowledge about the dangers of technology. He's a soldier, not a bleeding heart.
If Nora is the MC then I think they'll go with The Institute or Minute Men. The institute winning is highly unlikely to be the canon ending but Nora is a mom and there's a decent chance she would support her son regardless of her son's obvious shortcomings like being an evil scientist maniac. We see it all the time irl... I think Minute Men would be a lot more likely because Nora is basically stated as a good person who cares about helping people. She's got the charisma and knowledge of law that enables her to be a good leader that sets new standards of civilization in the commonwealth with her old world knowledge mixed with her experience in the wastes.
Edit: I'm not generalizing women by any means. We all know the type of mom who thinks their kid can do no wrong. I never said ALL MOMS. I really shouldn't have to make that distinction, but apparently I do. I'm sure there are dads like that, too, but I think it's more common for dads to recognize their kid is an asshole. Dads are also more likely to be phsyicslly abusive. Not ALL DADS. Of course, anybody can be anything. Can we focus on the actual question now and stop being miserable?

Like the title says I (16m) now was abused from the age of 11 to 15 by my mom's ex husband physically, mentally and emotionally. I don't know if I'm over reacting and I wanted to post this here in hopes I can get some help with this ok so I should start from the beginning. So me my mom and my brother (I won't be putting details about them here sorry) we're living in a motel and my mom's now ex husband was in the room next to us one day I was watching cartoons as 10 year olds do, and our neighbor (21 m) my mom's ex husband knocked on the door and my mom she was in the bathroom so I opened it and he asked if we had a broom he could borrow,and I asked my mom and gave him the broom, after that he started coming around more and one thing led to another and there started dating, me and my brother started calling him dad after a few weeks cause he was a good person let us hang out and play his Xbox 360 cod ghosts and about 6 months into the relationship he proposed and she said yes,they had a small wedding only a few people not very fancy everything was good for about a year we moved around and ended up moving Into an apartment a couple years later and this is where the problems began he started off with simple playful slaps and then that escalated into slaps against my head multiple times and steel toe boots to my shins and his reasoning was I was a moron and a "r word" and I needed to stop talking back but I never was I simply had an opinion this continued for the entirety of their relationship. Next was the emotional abuse he always made fun of me for crying and having emotions he'd call me a cry baby a woose a bitch and many more so I stopped showing my emotions so I've struggled with this for a while next up being the mental abuse he always made fun of my weight my strength the way I look so I hate myself my ex was also abusive but that's a story for another day my mom ended up divorcing him but my mental health is getting worse I've been getting more depressed the thoughts of taking my life getting more frequent out bursts of rage and not being able to cry note I haven't cried genuinely in Almost a year and it sucks I guess I'll mention my ex here too so if you read this far sorry there's more.......ok my ex and I started dating when I was 12 and she was 13 she was a grade above be and this was just before covid started everything was mostly online for the first year and a half and the next year we started hanging out in person all that well I have longer hair and when she would get mad she'd pull my hair as hard as possible always hurt but I said it didn't she would slap me across the face as hard as she could now I'm decently tall being 5'7 compared to her in 9th grade it all got worse she'd slap me more any time we argued she'd guilt tripped me and got her siblings on me too but I stayed for 3 1/2 years until I figured out she cheated on me multiple times she pretended to be some one named "Jaiden" and did this multiple times so we broke up and I fell farther into depression I haven't been to school in months because I don't want to see her but now I have a very beautiful,nice, caring girlfriend and I couldn't be any happier with her than I am but I still have trauma and get jealous easy and I'll go silent instead of talking to her but she's still with me somehow after I told her all this a few months ago when we started dating but I'm rambling now if anyone has advice please don't be afraid to comment and have a good day reddit.

PROLOGUE - PART I
Sergei: Phone rings - Takes a bite of his club sandwich and checks the screen, and rolls his eyes.
Andrei: Looks at him with a grin "It's her isn't it?"
Sergei: Finishes chewing and takes a sip of Mountain Dew, then answering the call "I thought you were in Boston today.
Natalia: "What, to get a Samuel Adams and a fucking potato? Get real! This is serious. I'm on a layover in Baltimore until 2, and then it's over to JFK. Did you get those pics I sent you, baby?"
Sergei: Furrows his brows to Andrei who saw the pics
Andrei: Smiles
Sergei: "Yeah, I got them alright. And I've got to say, that was fucking nice. How much were those? That shit was fucking golden!"
Natalia: "Well, you know, baby. It doesn't come cheap but Haji was able to pull some strings with Customs and talked to his uncle at the consulate. One thing led to another, and he got your dad exactly what he wanted for Christmas. Even got you and Dre an extra box for the party.
Sergei: Grinning now "It was fucking perfect. You're a doll for that one, sweetie. Dre loves them to, Right Dre?"
Andrei: "They're God damned tits compared to that cheap Honduran crap." Lighting a Cuban cigar with a wooden match
Natalia: "Well, enjoy. Look, I've got to get moving. I gotta pick up something to eat before I catch my next flight."
Ralphie: Walks into the kitchen with his Xbox headset on "Fuck you! Yeah? So's your mom! What? I'm straighter than the pole your mom dances on, you fairy!"
Sergei: "Damn it, Ralphie! Manners." Whispers "Your stepmom is on the phone."
Ralphie: "Shit." Yells "Hi, Nat!"
Natalia: On speakerphone "Hiiiii Ralphie! Did you get the thing I sent you?"
Ralphie: "Yes, Nat. It's fucking rad!"
Sergei: "Ralphie! Language!"
Andrei: Takes a puff and chuckles "He's going to be a rockstar in no time. That's an original Fender Stratocaster!"
Sergei: "Yeah, my Jimi Hendrix over here…." Picks up a magazine and fans the smoke away as he walks into the living room for a more private conversation and tosses the January copy of Fortune 500 onto the couch "Natalia, look. I know we haven't got a chance to see each other, but I miss you, so God-Damned-Much…" slides open the patio door and steps out onto the balcony "It got me to thinking, you know. It's been what two weeks since we," Pauses and smiles, beaming "went to that crab restaurant and you were wearing that dress, and we went back to your place and-"
Natalia: "Yes, Serj, I remember…" She said with a giggle "and that cute waitress with the rack was hitting on you in front of me the whole time. She's lucky she was so hot, or I wouldn't have tipped her so well…"
Sergei: "Well, you know. If you were that into her we could have had her over to your place too, for a little minage et toi"
Natalia: "Slow your roll there, cowboy! I don't like pussy that much. Speaking of which, that bitch Shiniqua at the office did her nails again."
Sergei: *Frowns* "Doesn't she spend like $300 on her God damned nails every fucking week?"
Natalia: "Well she can afford it." Sighs "Bitch is fine as fuck and she knows it too. That's why she's so stuck up."
Sergei: "Doesn't she have that hot sister, what's her name?"
Natalia: "Oh! Right. The one you fucked before we got together. How in the Hell do you not remember her name?"
Sergei: "Oh, come on Nat, it was just a one night stand, and I was drunk, and she was persuasive…"
Natalia: "Serj, and hoe with titties is persuasive enough to get you in the God damned sack. Seriously, stop thinking with your fucking dick for once."
Sergei: "Look, I'm sorry babe. It's about business. Her uncle works the State Department, right?"
Natalia: sighs annoyed "Yeah, he's like a secretary or liason to the adjuctant or something like that. Why?"
Sergei: "I need you to see if her sister, what's her name with the nails?"
Natalia: "Shiniqua…"
Sergei: "See if Shiniqua can get me the goods on his boss. I hear the guy is really connected with mineral extraction firms, and I need to find out about that oil rig off of the coast of Juneau, Alaska."
Natalia: "Seriously, what the Hell is so important about some nosebleed rig off the coast of Juneau for crying out loud?" Loudspeaker blares in the distance "Look honey, I've got to catch my next flight. Can we do this later?"
Sergei: "Okay, but the next trime you speak to her, I need you to ask her if she can schedule a meet and greet with her uncle at the next banquet at the yacht club. I'll buy him and his wife a damned table. Seriously, though. We need to get him on board before the Governor's ball."
Natalia: "OKay, okay. I'll do it. You'll be lucky if that stuck up assed hoe goes for it though. She'll want something in return, and it'll be about more than just her expensive ass nails."
Sergei: "Okay, whatever she needs, we'll pull the strings to get it done. I love you babe. Have fun in New York…"
Natalia: "Yeah. And don't go getting shithoused at the bar with Andrei and end up plowing some floozie while I'm gone either. I'll cut your fuckin' balls off, you know…"
Sergei: Sighs while pinching his nose "I know. Love you."
Natalia: "Love you too sweetie. I'll call you when I get to my hotel room."
Sergei: "Okay baby. I can't wait for you to come home next week…"
Natalia: "More like your dong can't wait for this ass next week!"
Sergei: Laughs
Natalia: "Yeah. That's what I thought. Byeeeee!" Hangs up
Sergei: Leans against the railing on the balcony and takes a deep breath of the cold and crisp night air, before heading back in.
Andrei: "Good talk?" Putting out the cigar by cutting the end off with a cigar cutter and putting the cherry into an ashtray
Sergei: "She said she'll talk to her coworker about getting Brett to sit down for a meet and greet."
Andrei: "It's important, Sergei. His boss works for the Foundation. You won't find a record of his involvement anywhere in State Department files."
Sergei: "Seriously?"
Andrei: Chuckles "They don't friggin exist! Remember?"
Sergei: "Right…"
Andrei: "If we can get a sit down with him, he can get us connected to what's under Juneau. Once we've got access to that, we can step up the next phase of our operations."
Sergei: "And What the Hell is so important about fucking Juneau of all places anyways? I thought it was just a stupid oil rig."
Andrei: "That's not all it is Sergei… It's what's under the sea floor. The "Thingy" they uncovered when they were drilling."
Sergei: knits his brow "What in the Hell is the "Thingy"?"
Andrei: Tucks the stogie into a glass cigar case "That depends." whispers "Do you believe in aliens?"
Sergei: "I think you've had too much to drink, Uncle."
Andrei: "I kid you not."
Sergei: "Get out of here. No way!"
Andrei: "It's just rumor for now, but if it's a match for what the Old Gaurd found in Enurmino back in '25…"
Sergei: "You mean…"
Andrei: "Da."
Sergei: "So the legends are true then?"
Andrei: "No fucking joke."
Sergei: "Like," looks around then lowers his voice to a whisper "like Lizard people?"
Andrei: Looking around, puts his finger to his lips and nods
Sergei: mouths the words "Holy shit!"
Andrei: "Yeah that's what I'm saying. God Damned dinosaurs! Very rare. One of a kind."
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Chapter I - Todd is a brave man... Baltimore, Maryland - February, 2nd 2008
Lance Corporal Todd and Professor Chaos milled about in front of the kielbasa stand munching down some dogs with kraut, and washing it back with lemonade.
LCpl Todd: "Maaaan. A Milkor only holds 6 grenades at a time, that's like over 300+ cultists armed with HK MP5s, M4s, AK-47s, .50 Cal damn nests in the lobby, and fucking Scar heavys for the buildings security forces, not counting RPG-7s with thermobaric to take out vehicles and personnel and shit, and God damned stingers on the rooftops to take out fucking choppers in my immediate fucking AO. How in the fuck am I supposed cum dumpster that many shitheads by myself when the shit goes down? This isn't even a standard M32A1 for fucks sake! What South African shithole did they get this piece of junk from? Literally, Bill's Discount Firearms Emporium? Do I clusterfuck their shit into a quadruple cross and let them know they're ripping each other off now? Could cause a Mexican standoff and resultant shootout. That would be convenient, or do they fuck and fill my holes with bukkake and sacrifice me first? This is fucking clown shoes man. Fucking clown shoes... Fucking cults, man."
That plaza was relatively clear of cult operative activity which was focused on the front lobby of the building across the street and a block away.
Lieutentant Dan "Gator" watched the cams feed from the van.
Lt. Gator: "Look shitbreath, you gotta keep your balls on the prize. The SCIP is the prize. Nuts to butt and keep that fucker in front of you and use him like a God damned meat shield. If he gets popped we're fucked, so don't let that shit happen or Skippy Peanut Butter Company hits us with a O5 containment clusterfuck of crunchy dildos, and the last thing we need is Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto's cyborg service from fucking Styx singing "Come Sail Away" and Shanghai our asses on the Highway to the the God Damned Danger Zone. You know what they do to cornholes there for the fuckups? "
LCpl Todd, muttering under his breath, swiveled back toward the dogs cart, as a suspicious group of college aged/military aged males strolled by, being very chalant and looking around. Professor Chaos took point and fiddle fucked his blackberry absentmindedly while looking out of his perhipherals.
Lt. Gator: "Are you listening Top Gun? Fucking Use peanut boy Downtown Charlie Brown as a God damned salami sandwich and keep those fucking cookie monsters the fuck away from the Winnebago. Also, do NOT let anything happen to him and keep him in proximity. Got it? Also, where the fuck is Gunny? He should've been back with the Dominos to throw pepperoni at this motherfucker 5 minutes ago..."
LCpl Todd: "Just gotta ask, Maverick...err. Gator. Why in the living fuck do we keep using Sesame Street lingo?"
Lt. Gator: "Because the sick motherfuckers plow kids and post it to the deep web on a God damned website called motherfucking Sesame Street. Weren't you at the brief?"
LCpl Todd: "I Was, but I had to take a shit for like 5 minutes, so I guess I missed that part..."
Lt. Gator: "God damn it, Lance. Eat some motherfucking peanut butter crackers from the vending machine next time. It'll make you fucking constipated so you don't have to blow ass during God damned brief."
Gunny Wilson: "Boy, the fuck is wrong with yo' ass? Keep that Cookie Monster Lord summoning muthafucka the fuck away from my camper! The last thing I need is for Charlie Brown's cock holster to barf up a God damned queef spell with some Wizard shit on it during my mothafucking engagement, and end up pissing off Skippy and Jif management enough to pop us with God damned orbital bombardment. Ask that piece of cultist pedophile bait if this is where he saw himself being at the age of twenty six."
Professor Chaos: "Just another day, living the fucking dream, Sir. Seriously though, This is fucked up."
Gunny Wilson: "I swear, if Otis Spunkmeyer goes kamikaze with the Sesame Street Brigade, the God Damned Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch murder hobo legion lurking in the shadows of every storefront will start to go apeshit-. Mothafucka, are you listening, Gator? Tell Terminal Lance to get his ass in gear and keep those motherfuckers away from my ride! Put salami sandwich at the front on his exfil and this shit better go fucking swimmingly. If that motherfucker cum guzzles some motherfucking lead monster sperm on my watch, Corpsman will not be able to patch his bitch ass up in time, and it will be Hell on Earth when the shit stain bukkake brigade gets their way. Here's your motherfucking pizza, you fairy asswipe. Don't touch my Dr. Pepper..." He said taking a fat slice and gobbling down most of it in one breath.
Corpsman Bill: "Damn, Gunny. That was sexy! Here's your fucking bones for the pie, that's two Dubs and some coins, aaaand what in the flying fuck is Yui Hirasawa doing crossing my God Damned Street again? That's the third time in the past twenty minutes. Seriously, what the fuck is that shit? That better be a motherfucking Gibson Les Paul Sunburst in that God Damned Guitar case on her back and not a fucking cache of P-90s. Scoping that fucking loli, and she's got Azunyan-Chan with the God damned violin case, wait, correction, that's a fucking cello case, and they're lugging that shit to what I can only assume isn't Mugi's grandma's house. Looks like they've been pulling music and concert cases out of that minivan in front of the plaza, and parked it directly across the street from Shitbag Central. "
Corpsman Bill: "I swear to fucking Jesus, if Mugi shows up next with a motherfucking canvas wrapped tube slung over her shoulder, I'm going to assume it's a stinger launcher and not a fucking digeridoo. They didn't use a digeridoo in motherfucking Fua Fua Time, and if that's not a trio on their way to motherfucking Juliaird, and they're going all renegade Natalie Portman in Leon the Professional, I'm going to have a bad fucking time."
*Pulls the Multispec scope up to 10x*
"Checking that shit out, and it looks like Hokago Tea Time over there is up to no good. What the fuck Gator? Look at the backscatter X-ray on this shit. They're kitted out and ready to do the fucking dirty. What lolicon motherfucker called Pizza Hut to hire the three 20-30 somethings for a Lolita hit squad on our dry run?! This is bullshit. Are those bitches Triple Canopy or what? Hoes better not be motherfucking Speznas either. What in the fuck, Mugi's mean muggin the Bago. She's looking right at me. Did we get made? God Damn it. Who the fuck are they? Are they Langley?
*'Mugi' discretely flips him off where only he can see it*
Corpsman Bill: "Motherfucker... That fucking does it!"
Gunny Wilson: "Oh yeah. They're here to party, Bill."
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Chapter II - Light Music Club Isn't fucking Around Baltimore, Maryland - February, 2nd 2008
After flipping off Corpsman Bill, Eight flung her hair back, she ties it in a ponytail, and turns to walk back across the street.
Number 8: "Can you hear me fuck boy? That's cute with the K-on bit, you fucking lolicon scumbag motherfucker. Yo Six, you hear this fuckwad?"
Number 6: "Yep, dumb motherfucker forgot about the CrossCom uplink with Cent. You're on a hot mic with local AO dickbreath, the rest of your team is solid."
Corpsman Bill: "Awe fuck me running", Bill muttered.
Number 8: "You ready to do this shit, or are you just going to be oogling us through your pervert scope with your dick in your hand, cough, Fag."
Lt. Gator: "Now, now, ladies. Please contain your orgasms and homicidal ideations. We're all on the same team here."
Number 6: "Eat a dick, Lieutenant"
Number 5: "Six, knock it off. Let's play nice with fuckboy brigade and get this fucking show on the road. Culty asswipes are crawling all over the fucking place here. Read?"
Number 6: "Copy that, 5."
Number 5: "Good. And for the record, Corpsman, your knowledge of K-On is fucking uncanny. Do you wear school girl dresses in your mom's basement?"
Corpsman Bill: "God damn it, I don't have to take this shit…."
Number 5: "Whatever weeb. Anyways, here's a SITREP. Something pissed off that cult leader dickhead Otis Spunkmeyer aka Russel, and all of those Oscar the Grouch motherfuckers are looking out for someone big to show up. Looks like they're expecting VIPs. You know what that means?"
Lt. Gator: "What's that, Five?"
Number 5: "It means, Lieutenant, that the fucking cookie monster fuckwad brigade is going to be distracted for the next 13 minutes, and those child sacrificing cultist dickbreaths will be looking to brown nose to make that fucker Russel happy. Seven, you see anything pretty from your nest?"
Number 7/Overwatch: "Negative, Five. Looks like the Sesame Street convention is waiting around with their dicks in their hands for the moment."
Number 5: "Copy that. Look, Gator. You see that corner office on the 17th floor? That's where shit weasel extraordinaire is supposed to have the meet with whoever is showing up. We can't get a good read on audio because the motherfucker has white noise on the windows. Some culty garbage metal band we never fucking heard of. Laser mics aren't going to do shit for now. We need to find a way to get ears inside that room, and three quote unquote 'high school girls' aren't about to get fucking railed by fucking nasty walking into that fucking heathen's nest. Got any bright ideas?"
Lt. Gator: "Can you have someone from cent do a brush pass with a listening device?"
Number 5: "Got motherfuckers from cookie monster brigade already looking out for that shit. We had an informant within their perimeter security already, but he got popped in the fucking tart two hours ago. Apparently he wasn't properly indoctrinated in Serpent protocol, and got interrogated by a proselytizer. That's when he slipped up. Now that fucker Russel is keeping an eye out for interlopers and apostates. This shit is going to get a lot more difficult to get someone on the inside."
Lt. Gator: "Please tell me you've got a solution, Five…"
Number 6: "We could cause a power surge and overload that floors breakers, and kill the noise, but that would just piss that fucker off and they would hold the meet in a different room. We need that fucking window so we can pop a visual from the spider drones we have set up on the surrounding buildings."
Gunny Wilson: "What I wouldn't do for some noise cancel right now."
Number 7/Overwatch: "Yeah, no shit. We didn't deploy until about 45 minutes ago and we're late to the punch bowl. We've got 12 mins until mystery VIPs drop by, so we've got to get this shit figured out fast."
Lt. Gator: "Copy that five, we'll work on a solution, give us a minute"
LCpl Todd: "How about we send Charlie Brown aka Professor Chaos in there, Gator?"
Lt. Gator: "Negative, Lance. If those fuckers ID him it's fucking curtains. Gunny, got any bright ideas?"
Gunny Wilson: "Wait for the VIPs to show and tag one of their entourage with a listening device from across the street."
Number 5: "Can you pull that off, Gunny?"
Gunny Wilson: "No can do, Five. Will have to get danger close, and those Oscars and Cookie monsters will be swarming the VIPs on the lookout the minute they roll up."
LCpl Todd: "Well, why not tag one of the VIPs with a sticky? Overwatch, you got darts or what?"
Number 7/Overwatch: "If I don't get him on something thick, he'll feel it tag him as soon as it hits him. If they become wise, this shit cavity becomes a hornet's nest."
Lt. Gator: "What do you think, Five?"
Number 5: "It's the best option I've heard so far, so fuck it. Yeah."
Lt. Gator: "Okay, so tag one of the VIPs the minute they step out of the motorcade. If we're lucky, the greaseball fuckwad is wearing a fur coat."
Number 7/Overwatch: "Copy that. And speaking of greaseballs, there they come now. ETA 25 seconds. Looks like they're hauling ass."
Number 5: "Yeah, guessing Otis Spunkmeyer's got these motherfuckers on a tight schedule. Time it right, we only got one shot at this..."
Number 7/Overwatch: "Yeah, on it. Looks like it's the towncar... Ready for joy"
*The three vehicle motorcade pulled to a stop in front of the steps to dirtbag haven. Four armed guards hopped out of the lead and rear vehicle each, and the driver hopped out of the VIP middle vehicle and opened the door.*
Number 7/Overwatch: "Aaaaand holy motherfucking shit. Look who the fuck is popping out..."
Lt. Gator: "Oh fuck. That's Senator Calvin McCoulough. Standby..."
Gunny Wilson: "He's the Executive Director of the Weyland-Yutani fuckwad brigade, right?"
Number 7/Overwatch: "Take the fucking shot or not?"
Number 5: "Fuck that. Tag his ass!"
*There was a muffled click as the dart tagged the senator on his shoulder pad, just as his driver closed his passenger side door behind him. The dart was no bigger than a tailor's pin*
Number 7/Overwatch: "Bug's on his jacket"
Lt. Gator: "Audio confirmed. Let's see what this fucker does..."
*The senator's cell phone trilled and he pulled it out of his pocket. He stared at the screen momentarily and answered*
Senator McCoulough: "Yeah? No. Not a good time Brett, I'm about to be in a meeting with someone very important. Yes. I know, they usually do. Yeah, I know. I'll have to call you back. Yeah. Bye." He then hung up the phone and slid it back into his pocket.
Number 5: "Overwatch, you get audio too?"
Number 7/Overwatch: "Confirmed, Five. Looks like dickbreath was talking to 'Brett' so and so. We'll have Cent dig in and find out who the fuck that is..."
Gunny Wilson: "And there they go."
*Four of the armed guards followed Senator McCoulough from behind, while four led the way.*
Number 6: "You know who his goons might be working for, Lieutenant?"
Lt. Gator: "They don't look like secret service or PMC, let alone your typical Guidos. Look what they're wearing. Those are wool overcoats and tweed jackets. You see that fuckwad in the front, doesn't he look familiar?"
Number 5: "I saw that same motherfucker inside of Royal's Bank in the executive lounge... What the fuck is going on?"
Command: "Five Actual. This is command."
Number 5: "Go ahead command."
Command: "Stand down."
Number 5: "What the fuck do you mean, stand down?"
Command: "Do it. That's a fucking order."
*Five mouthed the words "Fuck" without uttering a sound*
Gunny Wilson: "What the fuck, command?"
Command: "That's above your fucking paygrade, Gunnery Sergeant. Scrub the God damned OP. NOW!"
Gunny Wilson: "What the-"
*Gator held his hand up to Gunny and they exchanged glances*
Command: "What the fuck is the hold up. Scrub the fucking mission and abort, or I'll put all of your asses in Leavenworth."
Lt. Gator: "Copy that, command. Standing down. You all heard him. Party's over."
Gator and gunny exchanged glances, and Lance stared at 5. The fire in her eyes could melt steel. The audio recording was still live from Senator McCoulough's bug as they made their way to the elevators. Shortly after the doors closed, the signal cut off. Using hand signals, 5 threw up two fingers to 7 in her nest. 7 Nodded. Gator and Gunny saw this on cams and said nothing. When the elevator doors to the 17th floor opens, the audio signal from the bug cut back on...
Command: "I don't think I've made myself abundantly clear. Abort the fucking mission. Lieutenant. 5. That means kill the coms too."
Everyone shook their heads and muttered strings of epithets. Lance yanked out his ear bud and 5 crossed her arms, looking across the street at 6. 6 threw her hands up. Gator then threw his headset on the counter in the van. "FUCK!". 7 Spit out the Grizzly wintergreen tucked in her lip, and muttered, "Shit on a fucking biscuit..."
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Book report guy back, with the Bryan Danielson book from 2014 and it has some fun backstage stories from his time in WWE!
Solid wrestling book, though not super memorable in my opinion. Some solid detail and dirt like you expect, but honestly it felt like he was holding back.
As always, it's in chronological order as best as I could do that. Hope y'all enjoy!
Bryan is a weird dude, while describing his adolescence, he casually says that he has a lot of weird hypothesis on various subjects, and we should ask Nigel McGuinness about Bryan's theory on how a penis grows. He doesn't expand on this more. He just says that and moves back to talking about his childhood.
Bryan rants a bit about how modern medicine has stunted human evolution because kids who would have died off got to live and reproduce and pass their "defects" onto the next generation. He says that he is one of those defects, sick all his childhood and sick a lot as an adult. He says that his wife Brie is also a "defect" but says she can share the details in her own book if she ever writes one.
When Bryan was 16 years old, he contacted Dean Melanko's wrestling school and was told it would cost him $2,500, but he needed a $500 deposit to secure his spot. Bryan was scared that there were hundreds of people on the waiting list and worked extra shifts at McDonald's in order to get the cash together asap. He put $500 deposit down for a wrestling school he couldn't go to for 2 more years.
Three months before Bryan graduated high school, the Melanko Wrestling School contacted to inform Bryan that the school was shutting down permanently. When Bryan asked for his $500 back, he was told that they no longer had it and that he was SOL.
While watching Monday Night RAW, an ad flashed advertising a 900 number (an old pay-per-minute phone concept that was always a money drain on the caller), and it advertised Shawn Michaels opening up a wrestling school. After an expensive phone call, Bryan was told to pay $20 more for a package to be mailed to him with more info. He did, and when he got the package, it detailed how Michaels wrestling school would cost $3,900 dollars, and it had another 900 number to call if you're interested. Bryan was demoralized and almost didn't call. When he did, though, he was speaking to Shawm Michaels mom, who was helping Shawn run it. Bryan's mom ended up doing all the talking, and the two mothers helped Bryan get set up with a place in San Antonio where the school was. They agreed to let Bryan pay monthly to help him with the finances.
Bryan's first day of wrestling school went exactly like everyone else's first day of wrestling school, with 90% of the students gassed and vomiting. Bryan said out of the 10 guys there, only he and Lance Cade didn't end up vomiting.
Bryan remembers how much Shawn Michaels prioritized his training to Lance Cade. One of the first days, Lance did a basic jump and got so much air that Michaels loudly proclaimed, "I smell money!"
Even though it was Shawn's school, the primary instructor was Rudy Boy Gonzales, a pretty insignificant wrestler from the 80s and 90s. Bryan puts over Rudy as a passionate trainer who motivated him to try harder. Bryan said Rudy would show Bryan anything Bryan saw on a tape and wanted to try.
Bryan says that he and "The" Brian Kendrick became friends immediately as they were both around the same size in the training and had the same level of passion for wrestling.
I always heard that Shawn Michaels wasn't very present for this school, but Bryan tells a different tale, putting Shawn over as someone who was always around and always showing them how to be better.
Bryan does remember some days that Shawn would come in with his sunglasses on, sit at the back of the class, and then dip out early. Bryan didn't realize then that Shawn was in deep with a bad painkiller addiction, and so some days he wasn't as present. Since Bryan grew up with his dad's addiction issues, Bryan says seeing Shawn actually kick the addiction fully put Shawn on a pedestal in Bryan's eyes.
After a couple of months, Shawn was telling the students to start thinking of ring names, and when Bryan couldn't come up with one, he asked Shawn about using his real name. Shawn thought about it for a second before adding "The American Dragon" to it. When Bryan asked why that name, Shawn said it's because Bryan wrestled like a Japanese guy. Bryan took that as a massive compliment.
Bryan didn't tell Shawn, but Bryan initially hated "The American Dragon" name.
Bryan had trouble being expressive and emoting in the ring, so Shawn had him wrestle under a mask.
On October 4th, 1999, Bryan wrestled his first ever match for Shawn Michaels' small promotion, Texas Wrestling Alliance. His opponent was Brian Kendrick (then known as Spanky), and Bryan says as rotton as it was, everyone in the back was super excited for their performance, including Shawn.
Bryan confirms that Kendrick called himself "Spanky" as a masturbation reference.
Shawn arranged for Bryan and Lance Cade to head over to Japan and wrestle for Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling, a bit of a "mudshow" wrestling promotion. Shawn got Bryan and Lance a spot on their card by agreeing to referee a match for the company.
Bryan remembers seeing one guy shove a bottle rocket up his opponents butt and light it off at that FMW show. So yeah, some pretty outlaw stuff.
Bryan describes attempting a moonsalt to the outside of the ring during this Japan tour, but he slipped and cracked his head on the cement. Bryan says, "When I came to, I didn't even know where I was" before describing how he stumbled his way through the match. He notes how concussions have always been a problem for him.
Lance Cade was invited back to FMW later for a 2nd tour, but they didn't ask for Bryan back. That's when Bryan realized that at his size, he needs to get much, much better.
In February 2000, HBK got Bryan, Lance Cade, Brian Kendrick, and another student named Shooter Shultz, a dark match on an episode of Smackdown. He says they planned for a 15-minute tag match before being told last minute that it's been cut down to 6 minutes. Bryan says HBK went and yelled at some people about "his guys" until he got it bumped up to 10 minutes.
Bryan says he got his first documented concussion that match, because they weren't used to a literal ramp, and Bryan cracked his skull on it, doing a pointless dive. He says the WWE doctor backstage told him to just make sure he doesn't fall asleep.
Bryan says when they got backstage after their match, HBK was excited and pumping them up, telling everyone backstage that they should sign all 4 guys immediately. This was on Tuesday, and by Thursday, when WWE still hadn't contacted them, Shawn called them up and threatened to take the 4 to WCW where Kevin Nash would make sure they were signed. Bryan says WWE quickly offered all 4 guys developmental contracts for $500 per week. Bryan says HBK was a great guy to have in your corner.
Shortly after getting the developmental contract, Bryan and Kendrick wrestled a main event ladder match for Shawn's TWA promotion. At the time, Bryan believed that in order to stand out, he would need to wrestle a more daredevil style, so he did some dumb stuff in this match. He did some ridiculous spot that ended with Bryan separating his shoulder. After the match, he took a table bump that legitimately knocked him unconscious for a full minute.
A week or 2 later, the teams had a rematch in a steel cage where all 4 agreed to blade for the first time. Why is he doing this dumb shit right after being offered a WWE contract?
Bryan says those ladder and cage matches made him realize he needed to change his style up and become more mat based. He wouldn't have had a long career if he kept getting hurt. At this point, Bryan has only been wrestling for 6 or 8 months and already suffered maybe 3 concussions. At least 2 for sure.
Bryan Danielson, Lance Cade, Brian Kendrick, and Shooter Shultz all moved to Memphis, where WWE's development primarily opperated out of at the time. William Regal was also a developmental system at the time, trying to show he had kicked his addiction issues.
Memphis Championship Wrestling was the territory they wrestled for, and Bryan remembers wrestling in all sorts of crazy locations like a WalMart parking lot once.
Although Shawn eventually took the mask off Bryan in TWA, the guys at MCW immediately put the mask back on Bryan.
The only time Bryan thought he might get called up to the main roster was in January 2001, when he heard rumors that WWE wanted to start up a cruiserweight division and use Danielson and Kendrick That didn't happen, though, and Bryan never heard another rumor or wiff of him being called up.
In June 2001, someone from WWE talent relations came down to evaluate talent. Brian was let go and told that despite his talent, they just had no plans for him.
In October 2001, Bryan was offered a spot in California based All Pro Wrestling's annual King Of The Indies tournament. Danielson would beat Kendrick in the first round, and after the show, Nick Bockwinkle, who was there watching, loudly told promoter Roland Alexander, "If you don't put that guy over." Bockwinkle said while pointing directly at Bryan, "You're crazy!"
APW head trainer Donovan Morgan was scheduled to beat Bryan in the second round and go on to win the tournament, but promoter Roland made the call to have Bryan win instead.
Bryan says this that while this really pissed Donovan off, what really upset the guy was when Roland offered Danielson and Kendrick trainer positions alongside Donovan.
Kendrick turned the offer down, but Bryan took it and moved to California in January 2002, where he became the head trainer. Though Bryan says he was a lousy trainer and no good at motivating anyone.
On February 2002, Bryan sat down with Gabe Sapolsky, who, after being inspired by the Super 8 tournament Bryan won, wanted Bryan part of his new promotion, Ring of Honor.
Bryan remembers both William Regal and John Laurinaitis said they would try to get Bryan an in to Japan, but both came up short, and both eventually stopped returning Bryan's calls.
In March 2002, Bryan Danielson, Christopher Daniels, and Brian Kendrick got a tryout with New Japan in Santa Monica. Antonio Inoki was actually there to oversee, but he literally had his back turned to the ring while Danielson and Kendrick wrestled. Inoki never bothered to turn around and watch them, instead watching someone stretch, Bryan says. Bryan later heard that New Japan never intended to hire anyone. They just wanted their dojo to look full for press.
After the "tryout," Bryan says that Inoki fell and had to be helped up by a bunch of people. Only the three of them didn't get up to help, with Kendrick saying loudly, "serves the motherfucker right."
Bryan kept making trips to the Santa Monica dojo every couple of weeks until Shinya "Togi" Makabe told him that if Bryan really wanted to be taken seriously, he had to be at the dojo every single day. Bryan took the advice seriously, quit his training job and moved to Santa Monica.
Bryan says he was offered to come tour with New Japan after only training at the dojo full time a few weeks. It was on this tour where Bryan first wrestled in the Tokyo Dome.
In May 2003, Bryan wrestled another Tokyo Dome show, where Bryan, Rocky Romero and TJ Perkins were all pulled aside in the hotel after the show, by Justin Cully. Cully literally slapped each man across the face, saying the slaps are from Inoki, who was disappointed in their proformances that night. Apparently Inoki expected them to wrestle more of a shoot style fight and was very upset.
In March 2004, Bryan won his first title with New Japan, the IWGP Junior Tag titles with Christopher Daniels, and Bryan would spend the majority of the year with New Japan where he wrestled 8 different tours.
Bryan pitched a 3 hour long match to Gabe Sapolsky for a ROH show and is disappointed they didn't go the full 3 hours.
Going into 2005, Bryan expected to wrestle his whole career in New Japan, but was startled when New Japan didn't get his visa renewed for the January tour like they always do. He was told it was a mistake and he would be back for March tour, but again he was told last minute they didn't have a visa for him. In May they contacted him last minute inviting him for a tour, but at a ridiculous pay cut down to $500 per week. Bryan turned the offer down and never went back to that Santa Monica dojo or work for New Japan again. He later heard that he was used as a pawn in a power struggle with the Dojo and New Japan.
In mid-2005 Bryan got an email from CM-Punk about a rumor suggesting that both WWE and TNA were interested in Bryan, Punk and Samoa Joe. Joe would quickly sign with TNA after this and Punk took a developmental deal with WWE. Bryan never heard from either company, and a few months later Gabe Sapolsky told Bryan he wanted to build ROH around Bryan but wanted a promise that Bryan wouldn't just leave to WWE or TNA. Great timing Gabe, because Bryan immediately said yes.
After winning the ROH World title in September 2005, Bryan says his title reign was falling flat until he started being cocky and cutting those "best in the world" promos. Bryan even shades Jericho and Punk a little by saying at the time no one else was saying it and that's why it worked so well for him.
Bryan puts over his matches with Nigel McGuinness in summer of 2006, but points out one in particular he regrets. Nigel had the idea for Bryan to pull Nigel's face into the steel ring post 3 times to get real blood. After 3 attempts and no blood, Nigel yelled, "One more time!" They got blood on the 4th time, and gave Nigel a severe concussion.
Five minutes into an hour long match with Colt Cabana in August 2006, Bryan landed bad on the outside of the ring, where he separated that same right shoulder as before and tore two tendons.
Three weeks later, Bryan defended his ROH title against KENTA of all people, who legitimately targeted his hurt shoulder all match. Then Bryan went to tour Japan with Pro Wrestling Noah where he and KENTA had a rematch.
Bryan would finally drop the ROH title in December 2006 and then take nearly 4 months off. This is the first time he took off since he started wrestling in 1999.
After doing a tour of Japan with Pro Wrestling Noah in April 2007, Bryan was excited to come back to ROH and signed a 2 year contract.
In June 2007, Bryan and Nigel wrestled an extremely physical match that featured a spot where the two traded headbutts. The match didn't air until September that year and in the mean time, the Chris Benoit double murdesuicide happened and the talk of concussions and safety concerns changed completely. The match was not recieved well and Gabe later told Bryan that they shouldn't have aired it at all.
ROH struggled after the Benoit incident and most everyone had to adapt and tone down their styles. Bryan wasn't one of those people, and actually refused to tone down his style. Later in 2007 he would rupture his ear drum exchanging open palm strikes with KENTA and he would suffer a detached retina in a match with Takeshi Morishima. To this day, he has trouble hearing from his left ear and has trouble with vision.
Bryan remembers being super late for a show and not even being able to meet his opponent beforehand. To Bryan's suprise, his opponent, who despite being green, was great to work with and the two had good chemistry. That was a young Jon Moxley.
In Summer of 2008, Shawn Michaels was fueding with Chris Jericho and they incorporated Lamce Cade on Jericho's side, since Shawn trained Lance. Shawn actually reached out to Bryan about also joining the WWE and being involved in the story.
Bryan met with Vince McMahon and remembers how taken back Vince seemed when they first met, and thinks it was because of Bryan's size and how plain he looked. Bryan also didn't sell himself well in the meeting, saying he is "just okay." Head of talent relations John Laurinaitis told Bryan that they would call him, but he never did.
When Bryan returned from a Japan tour in October 2008, he was shocked to find Gabe Sapolsky had been fired by ROH and replaced by Adam Pearce. Bryan details that while Gabe liked to book long shows with everyone on the card trying their hardest to steal the show, Pearce booked shorter shows and had the lower card guys preform well, but not to try everything under the sun to outshine the main event. You can see why Jim Cornette and Adam Pearce get along so well.
Bryan notes how he was fueding with Claudio Castignoli when Gabe was fired, but Pearce immediately ended that program to which Bryan says he and Claudio were disappointed.
After another failed attempt to get into WWE I'm early 2009, Bryan refocused his energies by moving to Las Vegas where he started training in kick boxing and other forms of mixed martial arts.
Bryan trained religiously for months under a former MMA fighter Neil Melanson. Neil is the one who taught Bryan the LaBell Lock.
When Bryan's ROH contract expired in May 2009, he called John Laurinaitis and left a message, but never heard back.
Bryan says in mid-2009, he was talking to Gabe Sapolsky about starting up a new promotion that would become Evolve. Bryan says that Paul Heyman was even involved with these talks.
Brian Kendrick called Danielson up to pitch Danielson coming to WWE as Kendrick's tag partner. Danielson even went and filmed a bunch of promos with Kendrick and fel optimistic. Unfortunately, Kendrick was fired just a few weeks later before any of those vignets aired and that opportunity was gone as well.
Bryan had given up ever going to WWE when John Laurinaitis called him in September 2009 offering him a main roster contract. Bryan was so excited he didn't have to go to developmental, that he would be right on the main roster immediately. Or so he thought, I guess they didn't bother telling Brilyan about NXT at that time, even though it sounds like he was signed with that in mind.
Nigel was also signed at the same time (probably also meant for NXT) but before either man could start, they had to pass WWE medical tests. They asked them both about past injuries, and Bryan just lied, saying he never had anything wrong and was fine. Didn't mention his shoulder being separated twice, or the detached retina, or any concussion. Nigel on the other hand, was very honest about his injuries, including a torn bicep that he didn't get worked on, he just rehabbed it. Nigel figured he was a lock and didn't see the need to lie.
WWE was concerned about Bryan's elevated liver enzymes, and wanted Nigel to get surgery on his bicep before they would sign him. Both guys were wrestling a farewell tour with ROH and both genuinely concerned they wouldn't actually be leaving. In their last match for ROH, Bryan accidentally gave Nigel a concussion, because apparently these guys only know how to wrestle at one speed!
Nigel couldn't afford the bicep surgery and his own doctor was telling him he is fine, so Nigel went to TNA instead. Nigel would only wrestle for another year before his body would break down too far on him and he would retire.
Bryan signed his WWE contract on October 2nd, 2009, nearly 10 years to the day of his debut match. William Regal actually told Bryan, "Your wrestling career came before this and is over now. Anything else that happens now is a bonus."
William Regal came up with the name "Daniel Bryan" for Bryan to use in WWE. Brian tried arguing to Laurinaitis to use his real name and citing John Cena as an example, Laurinaitis simply told Bryan, "We don't do that anymore."
In early 2010, Bryan and seven other guys were told one day about the NXT concept and how they would be used. Bryan found out who his NXT "pro" would be just like everyone else, when WWE posted it on their website. Bryan initially legit wanted Regal as his "pro" but soon realized being paired with Miz gives him a story immediately.
Bryan describes his time in NXT as the most unusual of his career. The "rookies" all legitimately didn't know what was going to happen on any show and everything they did was 100% unscripted and improvised.
The first night in NXT, all the "rookies" were told 15 minutes before the show, that their "pro" would cut a promo on them and they needed to react accordingly. Bryan had no idea that his pro, the Miz was going to tell him to head to the ring and cut a promo on himself, literally telling him on live TV to make the fans care about him. Bryan had no idea what to say, no real direction he was given to go in, and no tome to plan or rehearse. Miz also told him to come up with a catchphrase, and Bryan said he always hated catch phrases.
In the ring, Bryan cut a generic promo where he said he lost his train of thought and was super greatful when The Miz came out to finish the promo off. Bryan didn't know that would happen and Bryan definitely didn't know Miz was going to slap him at the end. Bryan says that later, The Miz confided to Bryan that he was worried Bryan would try to fight him over the slap.
Bryan credits Chris Jericho for getting him over in his first WWE match, and says that neither he, nor Miz knew that Miz was to beat up Brian after the match. Apparently, Miz was informed during the Jericho/Bryan match that he was to attack Bryan after the finish. Wild how much "flying by the seat of their pants" that WWE did with early NXT.
After the show, Jericho told Bryan that Vince was impressed, though he noted how Vince said, "Ugh, but he doesn't even eat meat!"
Bryan describes promo class with Vince as kinda insane to be honest. One time Bryan accidentally spilled a water bottle, and Vince asked everyone how that made them feel about Bryan. Stuff like that.
Bryan says the NXT rookies weren't allowed to use the regular dressing room and had to use some tarped off part of the backstage area.
Bryan notes how most of the NXT season, the NXT rookies never really knew what was going to happen. The 2nd week Bryan lost to Wade Barret and wasn't told that Chris Jericho would be attacking him after the match.
Bryan says his initial storyline with The Miz wasn't a losing streak idea, but something where each loss had meaning and was being built with purpose. Miz was very hands on with each show and helped to put over Bryan and the storyline, but when Miz missed 2 weeks in a row, the producers left in charge basically just turned it into a losing streak storyline, which Bryan says, "never works."
One time on a plane, Ezekiel Jackson asked "which rookie has an isle seat?" Bryan raised his had and Ezekiel said, "Not anymore." Bryan stood his ground and refused, offering his seat to anyone but Ezekiel. Ezekiel got pissed but William Regal came over and chastised Jackson, saying Bryan is like a son to him and how Bryan has more talent in his pinky ginger than Jackson has in his whole body.
Bryan says the NXT "Pros Polls" were legitimate voting done by the pros. That's why Bryan ended up in first place, despite losing every match.
A week after Wrestlemania in 2010, NXT's direction and purpose shifted away from being serious to silly, and Bryan says they were suddenly doing dumb game show competitions and putting over how demoralizing it was.
Bryan says Skip Shepfield (Ryback) was the only rookie taking the competitions seriously and trying to win each game. Sounds on brand for the big guy.
Bryan says he was trying to be humble when asked who should be eliminated and he said himself. He figured since he lost to everyone he didn't have a right to say any of them. Backstage Miz told him he made a mistake and shouldn't have put that perception out there.
A week later they liked the rookies up on TV (an hour before it goes live) and informed Bryan and fellow rookie Michael Tarver that they are both eliminated, without telling them beforehand. Bryan felt this validated all the warnings guys like Colt Cabana and other gave him about WWE.
Right after Matt Striker interviewed him backstage and when asked an insulting question, Bryan snapped and started talking down about "Daniel Bryan" and started to put over "Bryan Danielson!" Bryan says he could hear Vince screaming into Striker's ear piece and apparently Vince threw his headset when Bryan said his real name.
They made Bryan retape the interview without saying that, but still aired his original interview.
Bryan was surprisingly called back to NXT the following week to start a rivalry with Micheal Cole, who had been verbally obliterating Bryan on commentary since Bryan debuted. Bryan seems to be greatful for that program since it kept him on tv and made him confident that he would keep his job.
The RAW after NXT season 1 ended, all the rookies were pulled into Vince's office and told about Nexus and the attack in the main event. They were told not to tell anyone or else they will be fired. Bryan says he even lied to William Regal, when asked why he was dressed to wrestle.
They were supposed to attack John Cena and Rey Mysterio in the main event, because WWE let the fans vote on Cena's opponent and they assumed Rey would get it. Surprisingly it was CM Punk, and Bryan isn't sure how much Punk was told about the angle.
Bryan legit choked Justin Roberts during the melee, leaving red marks on his skin with his tie. Bryan said he doesn't trust non-wrestlers to sell good so he did it for real, with Justin going purple on Tv. Later during the brawl, Bryan was grabbing a cable to choke someone else when a cameraman told him "no choking!" Bryan does note that he thinks Justin Roberts found it pretty cool to be involved. And later Heath Slater grabbed the dismantled ring ropes to choke Cena, but Cena told him as well, "No choking."
Cena told Bryan before the angle, "It's not the hit you do that's important, it's what you do before the hit that matters." This is why Bryan spit in Cena's face before kicking him in the head.
Backstage, Bryan was reprimanded twice, for choking and spitting. Two days later Vince McMahon personally called Bryan to tell him he was let go and apologized to Bryan for it. Bryan, arrogant as all hell, responded with, "Don't apologize, I'll make more money this year on the independents than I would have working for you."
Bryan called John Laurinaitis to clear up details and Laurinaitis was shocked to hear Bryan was fired. Apparently Vince didn't tell anyone, just called Laurinaitis up and asked for Bryan's number. The comment Bryan made about money seemed to get to Vince since Laurinaitis called Bryan back and asked about it. Laurinaitis actually told Bryan that he can start working independent dates immediately if he wasn't on TV.
After working several shows and making good money off merchandise for several weeks, Bryan was shocked when John Laurinaitis called him in August and asked him to come back for a big angle leading into SummerSlam. Bryan sheepishly asked for a raise and made sure he could make all his already planned independent bookings.
Bryan says Nexas should have won at SummerSlam, noting how they went from dangerous to jobbers in one night.
Bryan remembers a taped RAW after SummerSlam where he did an angle with The Miz. When he got backstage Vince was so mad at how it came off that he made Bryan and others go back out there and do it again. It was the first time Bryan ever had to redo something like that and he said he felt humiliated.
Bryan didnt seem to see much value in being US Champion outside of how it would keep him on tv and maybe monthly ppv matches.
At Hell in a Cell 2010 ppv, Bryan had a good match with Miz and John Morrison, but was scolded after that match for a spot where Bryan threw Miz's stoog Alex Riley off the stage where he landed on cameraman. They showed the two guys the footage and accused them of doing it on purpose to get themselves over. Bryan started regretting coming back and really hating his time in WWE.
Bryan was paired with the Bella Twins in a storyline he hated, that was based on the Twins confusing the word "vegan" for "virgin" and competing to sleep with Bryan. Despite how bad that storyline was, Bryan and Brie would develop a relationship and would start dating in February 2011.
Sheamus was given a choice of Wrestlemania opponents that year between Rey Mysterio and Daniel Bryan, and Sheamus chose Bryan. Bryan was greatful but concerned Sheamus chose wrong and their match would be cut but Sheamus wasn't worried at all. A week before Mania they were informed their match was on the pre-show at a meeting with literally every other wrestler. Bryan says Sheamus buried his face in his hands and remembers how Rey Mysterio got on the card in a match with Cody Rhodes. Bryan says Sheamus picked the wrong guy.
Bryan got some details in his book messed up where he talks about Miz winning the WWE title off Cena at Wrestlemania 27 and he talks about how Miz was WWE Champion going into Over The Limit ppv 2011, but Miz lost the title by then. It's notable because he says he pitched hard for a "Rocky style" storyline where he would challenge Miz for the WWE title at the Over The Limit ppv.
Bryan says the 2011 Smackdown Money in the Bank winner wasn't decided until the day of the show but it was always between Wade Barret, Cody Rhodes and Bryan. He says despite winning the briefcase, his tv time tricked down and eventually he was spending weeks off tv, until he was randomly inserted into the World title program between Mark Henry and Big Show in late 2011.
Bryan was being left at home and off shows, even watching Survivor Series 2011 from home and was suprised when WWE had him come to the December TLC ppv show, last minute. The day of the show he was told he was cashing in and winning the title and the only direction Vince McMahon gave him was to act like he won the superbowl, so that's where Bryan's over the top celebration came from. He didn't even tell his girlfriend Brie Bella about the plan and says she was shocked when he came backstage afterwards.
The only direction Vince gave Bryan as champion is to celebrate every appearance like he won the lottery, saying, "there is no too over the top here."
Bryan said he adapted his "Yes" chants from MMA fighter Diego Sanchez who was celebrating in a similar way at the time.
Bryan's favorite moment from that first world title run was the closing sequence in the 2012 Elimination Chamber match with him and Santino Marella.
Bryan originally expected he and Sheamus to get 15 minutes or so at Wrestlemania for their match, but was shocked when Chris Jericho told him he heard it would be 8 minutes, including the pre & post match stuff. A week later Arn Anderson confirmed to Bryan that he would lose a 1-move match, dropping the world title to Sheamus at Wrestlemania that year. Bryan and Sheamus were both pissed, to say the least.
Sheamus expressed concern that the short match would turn fans against him as a new champion. Smart man.
Bryan says a bunch of guys came up to him after his Mania loss and were pissed at what they did to Bryan out there. Great Khali even came up and told Bryan that it was bullshit in his broken English.
Originally Sheamus was planned to move into a fued with Alberto Del-rio right after Mania, but the crazy crowd support for Bryan forced them to extend they story another month. Bryan says his Extreme Rules ppv match with Sheamus in 2012 is one of his favorites. Mine too!
Bryan acknowledged the weird booking of Punk as champion in 2012, noting how heels would face John Cena, lose, then be sent to face Punk with no momentum. Interesting take on the situation.
Bryan mentions how when he and Punk fueded in 2012, they never got main event spots outside of non-televised events. One time at a house show, Bryan and Punk veered too far into comedy and after the match John Cena chastised Bryan by pointing out that they didn't wrestle a "main event style" match. Apparently the next house show, Cena was moved into the main event spot with Punk/Bryan being before the intermission. An enraged Punk went and yelled at people until he got his main event spot back. This time, no comedy spots were done and they stayed the main event for the circuit.
Bryan had brand new, edgier gear made up prior to Money in the Bank 2012 and didn't tell anyone backstage. He wore shorts over his trunk and hid the jacket until he had to go out. When he got to the ring, the ref told him to lose the jacket, because I guess Vince was in gorilla position freaking out over how Bryan looked. Dean Melanko was the producer for the match, and Bryan felt bad when Vince blamed him for allowing Bryan to wear it.
Bryan was originally planned to wrestle Charlie Sheen at SummerSlam 2012 in a celebrity match, but Charlie "bailed" as Bryan put it.
Bryan was trying to be "Mr Small Package" by winning matches with Small Package and then boasting about how he has an "inescapable small package!" It didn't get over.
Bryan thought his anger management vignets with Kane and Dr Shelby were going to be terrible.
The only reason they stopped using Dr Shelby is because he had limited days off from his regular teaching job.
Bryan and Kane really wanted their team name to be "Team Friendship" and they even had shirt ideas but Vince let the fans vote and he always kept those votes legit, so their team name was "Team Hell No" which Bryan brings up a good point about. He said as a team primarily appealing to kids, a name with "Hell" in it would be hard to sell merchandise to those kids.
The plan was to break up their team so they could have a good heated fued together, but they were so popular that they kept teaming for 9 months.
Bryan says his first good Wrestlemania experience was in 2013 when he teamed with Kane.
One night after Mania in 2013, when Bryan tagged with Kane and Undertaker to face The Shield, Vince McMahon told Bryan that he would pay him several thousand dollars if he could get Undertaker to hug Bryan in the ring. After the show Bryan got on the mic and tried his hardest to get the hug but couldn't quite do it.
Bryan says that both he and Kane agree that teaming together was some of the most fun in either man's career.
Bryan was scheduled to win the biggest match of his career up to that point, he would be beating Randy Orton clean on RAW. Bryan would botch a dive that left both arms nunb and him unable to stand. He got feeling back in one arm but eventually the doctor called the match off. Backstage Bryan started screaming at Triple H for calling the match and called him a hypocrite for doing so, citing his own injuries in matches. At one point Orton tried to calm Bryan down, but Bryan snapped at him and Orton started yelling too. Brie got Bryan away to calm down, but when Vince came to talk to Bryan, the shouting started again. Much later, William Regal advised Bryan to apologize to both Vince and Triple H, to which Bryan took his advice. The next week, Bryan would get his win over Orton and he says that that drama over everything made that win matter more.
An MRI showed that one of Bryan's disks was pushing into his nerves and eventually he would need surgery. With his momentum starting to rise, Bryan opted to put surgery off.
John Cena pitched facing Daniel Bryan at Money in the Bank 2013 ppv. When Vince asked why, Cena said because it's the biggest match they could do at that time. Vince ended up agreeing, but deciding that it belongs at SummerSlam that year instead!
As proud as Bryan is of the build to and match with Cena at SummerSlam, he acknowledges that the ppv didn't do good numbers, nor did the house show business the following 2 months when Bryan was the main protagonist. He thinks a lot the the Authority promos on him stemmed from some truth.
Bryan isn't satisfied with the quality of matches he was putting out in the latter half of 2013 amd he specifically calls out the series of bad finishes he had with Randy Orton in ppv main events. From the fast counting crooked ref, to that terrible one with Big Show knocking everyone out, and then to Shawn Michaels betraying Bryan at Hell in a Cell ppv.
Bryan initially thought he was getting a Wrestlemania match with Shawn Michaels after that Hell in a Cell finish, but after talking with HBK, it was clear that was never in the cards.
Bryan feels he failed as a main eventer in the 2nd half of 2013, regardless of match quality. He didn't move business and that's all that matters.
The Slammy's were fan votes and Vince didn't think Bryan would win and almost laughed when Bryan asked him what he should say if he does win. Vince said, "whatever you want." I wish I could have seen Vince's face when Bryan won later that night.
When Bryan started fueding with Wyatt Family in late-2013, Bryan was pitching for him to be "brainwashed" and join the group. He suspects that his rising popularity in early 2014 is what convinced WWE to have Bryan turn on Bray and leave the group. At the time, Bryan was hoping to stay with the group and be involved in the planned Cena/Wyatt Wrestlemania program since Bryan had no plans for Mania at that time.
Bryan says he was disappointed when Vince told him he would be facing Sheamus again at Wrestlemania 2014. No disrespect to Sheamus, but Bryan felt he belonged in a higher spot.
Bryan felt bad for the way Rey Mysterio was boo'd at the 2014 Royal Rumble.
When Punk quit WWE after Rumble that year, Bryan remembers how plans didn't change too much for a few weeks, and he assumes Vince expected Punk to come back and for Batista to win the crowds over, and neither happened.
Triple H was being vocal about wanting to face Bryan at Mania that year, but Bryan was trying to not get his hopes up since he had seen Triple H try and fail to get his ideas on screen.
Bryan and Brie only agreed to let Total Divas shoot their wedding, because Total Divas agreed to pay for the whole wedding! Hard to say no to that!
Bryan is very satisfied with his matches at Wrestlemania 30 and says he was so focused between matches that he missed Undertaker losing to Lesnar. He heard the ring bell and looked up at the monitor in shock. He says they cameras should have filmed the guys and girls in the back because their reactions were wild, apparently.
Five days after Wrestlemania 30, Bryan and Brie got married, but 2 days after their honeymoon ended, Bryan's dad unexpectedly passed away at the age of 57. Bryan was devastated and described how he was crying still as he was writing about it.
The book ends on a complete downer, very unlike most other wrestling books. Bryan says that as long as he wrestled when asked if everything he was missing or sacrificing was worth it, Bryan always said yes. He assumed he would have more time when he was done and could catch up on what he missed, but his dad is gone and Bryan openly admits that it wasn't worth it. If he could, Bryan would change a lot of his decisions if it meant more time with his dad.
He says he is still wrestling though because he literally doesn't know what else to do or what comes after. This is especially depressing 10 years later, when Bryan is still wrestling despite having started a family of his own. I hope he doesn't regret any time missed with his daughter.
He ends the book by describing the last time he saw his dad, on Christmas in 2013, where his dad dressed up as Santa. Fuck. I'm sad now.

Solid wrestling book, though not super memorable in my opinion. Some solid detail and dirt like you expect, but honestly it felt like he was holding back.
As always, it's in chronological order as best as I could do that. Hope y'all enjoy!
Bryan is a weird dude, while describing his adolescence, he casually says that he has a lot of weird hypothesis on various subjects, and we should ask Nigel McGuinness about Bryan's theory on how a penis grows. He doesn't expand on this more. He just says that and moves back to talking about his childhood.
Bryan rants a bit about how modern medicine has stunted human evolution because kids who would have died off got to live and reproduce and pass their "defects" onto the next generation. He says that he is one of those defects, sick all his childhood and sick a lot as an adult. He says that his wife Brie is also a "defect" but says she can share the details in her own book if she ever writes one.
When Bryan was 16 years old, he contacted Dean Melanko's wrestling school and was told it would cost him $2,500, but he needed a $500 deposit to secure his spot. Bryan was scared that there were hundreds of people on the waiting list and worked extra shifts at McDonald's in order to get the cash together asap. He put $500 deposit down for a wrestling school he couldn't go to for 2 more years.
Three months before Bryan graduated high school, the Melanko Wrestling School contacted to inform Bryan that the school was shutting down permanently. When Bryan asked for his $500 back, he was told that they no longer had it and that he was SOL.
While watching Monday Night RAW, an ad flashed advertising a 900 number (an old pay-per-minute phone concept that was always a money drain on the caller), and it advertised Shawn Michaels opening up a wrestling school. After an expensive phone call, Bryan was told to pay $20 more for a package to be mailed to him with more info. He did, and when he got the package, it detailed how Michaels wrestling school would cost $3,900 dollars, and it had another 900 number to call if you're interested. Bryan was demoralized and almost didn't call. When he did, though, he was speaking to Shawm Michaels mom, who was helping Shawn run it. Bryan's mom ended up doing all the talking, and the two mothers helped Bryan get set up with a place in San Antonio where the school was. They agreed to let Bryan pay monthly to help him with the finances.
Bryan's first day of wrestling school went exactly like everyone else's first day of wrestling school, with 90% of the students gassed and vomiting. Bryan said out of the 10 guys there, only he and Lance Cade didn't end up vomiting.
Bryan remembers how much Shawn Michaels prioritized his training to Lance Cade. One of the first days, Lance did a basic jump and got so much air that Michaels loudly proclaimed, "I smell money!"
Even though it was Shawn's school, the primary instructor was Rudy Boy Gonzales, a pretty insignificant wrestler from the 80s and 90s. Bryan puts over Rudy as a passionate trainer who motivated him to try harder. Bryan said Rudy would show Bryan anything Bryan saw on a tape and wanted to try.
Bryan says that he and "The" Brian Kendrick became friends immediately as they were both around the same size in the training and had the same level of passion for wrestling.
I always heard that Shawn Michaels wasn't very present for this school, but Bryan tells a different tale, putting Shawn over as someone who was always around and always showing them how to be better.
Bryan does remember some days that Shawn would come in with his sunglasses on, sit at the back of the class, and then dip out early. Bryan didn't realize then that Shawn was in deep with a bad painkiller addiction, and so some days he wasn't as present. Since Bryan grew up with his dad's addiction issues, Bryan says seeing Shawn actually kick the addiction fully put Shawn on a pedestal in Bryan's eyes.
After a couple of months, Shawn was telling the students to start thinking of ring names, and when Bryan couldn't come up with one, he asked Shawn about using his real name. Shawn thought about it for a second before adding "The American Dragon" to it. When Bryan asked why that name, Shawn said it's because Bryan wrestled like a Japanese guy. Bryan took that as a massive compliment.
Bryan didn't tell Shawn, but Bryan initially hated "The American Dragon" name.
Bryan had trouble being expressive and emoting in the ring, so Shawn had him wrestle under a mask.
On October 4th, 1999, Bryan wrestled his first ever match for Shawn Michaels' small promotion, Texas Wrestling Alliance. His opponent was Brian Kendrick (then known as Spanky), and Bryan says as rotton as it was, everyone in the back was super excited for their performance, including Shawn.
Bryan confirms that Kendrick called himself "Spanky" as a masturbation reference.
Shawn arranged for Bryan and Lance Cade to head over to Japan and wrestle for Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling, a bit of a "mudshow" wrestling promotion. Shawn got Bryan and Lance a spot on their card by agreeing to referee a match for the company.
Bryan remembers seeing one guy shove a bottle rocket up his opponents butt and light it off at that FMW show. So yeah, some pretty outlaw stuff.
Bryan describes attempting a moonsalt to the outside of the ring during this Japan tour, but he slipped and cracked his head on the cement. Bryan says, "When I came to, I didn't even know where I was" before describing how he stumbled his way through the match. He notes how concussions have always been a problem for him.
Lance Cade was invited back to FMW later for a 2nd tour, but they didn't ask for Bryan back. That's when Bryan realized that at his size, he needs to get much, much better.
In February 2000, HBK got Bryan, Lance Cade, Brian Kendrick, and another student named Shooter Shultz, a dark match on an episode of Smackdown. He says they planned for a 15-minute tag match before being told last minute that it's been cut down to 6 minutes. Bryan says HBK went and yelled at some people about "his guys" until he got it bumped up to 10 minutes.
Bryan says he got his first documented concussion that match, because they weren't used to a literal ramp, and Bryan cracked his skull on it, doing a pointless dive. He says the WWE doctor backstage told him to just make sure he doesn't fall asleep.
Bryan says when they got backstage after their match, HBK was excited and pumping them up, telling everyone backstage that they should sign all 4 guys immediately. This was on Tuesday, and by Thursday, when WWE still hadn't contacted them, Shawn called them up and threatened to take the 4 to WCW where Kevin Nash would make sure they were signed. Bryan says WWE quickly offered all 4 guys developmental contracts for $500 per week. Bryan says HBK was a great guy to have in your corner.
Shortly after getting the developmental contract, Bryan and Kendrick wrestled a main event ladder match for Shawn's TWA promotion. At the time, Bryan believed that in order to stand out, he would need to wrestle a more daredevil style, so he did some dumb stuff in this match. He did some ridiculous spot that ended with Bryan separating his shoulder. After the match, he took a table bump that legitimately knocked him unconscious for a full minute.
A week or 2 later, the teams had a rematch in a steel cage where all 4 agreed to blade for the first time. Why is he doing this dumb shit right after being offered a WWE contract?
Bryan says those ladder and cage matches made him realize he needed to change his style up and become more mat based. He wouldn't have had a long career if he kept getting hurt. At this point, Bryan has only been wrestling for 6 or 8 months and already suffered maybe 3 concussions. At least 2 for sure.
Bryan Danielson, Lance Cade, Brian Kendrick, and Shooter Shultz all moved to Memphis, where WWE's development primarily opperated out of at the time. William Regal was also a developmental system at the time, trying to show he had kicked his addiction issues.
Memphis Championship Wrestling was the territory they wrestled for, and Bryan remembers wrestling in all sorts of crazy locations like a WalMart parking lot once.
Although Shawn eventually took the mask off Bryan in TWA, the guys at MCW immediately put the mask back on Bryan.
The only time Bryan thought he might get called up to the main roster was in January 2001, when he heard rumors that WWE wanted to start up a cruiserweight division and use Danielson and Kendrick That didn't happen, though, and Bryan never heard another rumor or wiff of him being called up.
In June 2001, someone from WWE talent relations came down to evaluate talent. Brian was let go and told that despite his talent, they just had no plans for him.
In October 2001, Bryan was offered a spot in California based All Pro Wrestling's annual King Of The Indies tournament. Danielson would beat Kendrick in the first round, and after the show, Nick Bockwinkle, who was there watching, loudly told promoter Roland Alexander, "If you don't put that guy over." Bockwinkle said while pointing directly at Bryan, "You're crazy!"
APW head trainer Donovan Morgan was scheduled to beat Bryan in the second round and go on to win the tournament, but promoter Roland made the call to have Bryan win instead.
Bryan says this that while this really pissed Donovan off, what really upset the guy was when Roland offered Danielson and Kendrick trainer positions alongside Donovan.
Kendrick turned the offer down, but Bryan took it and moved to California in January 2002, where he became the head trainer. Though Bryan says he was a lousy trainer and no good at motivating anyone.
On February 2002, Bryan sat down with Gabe Sapolsky, who, after being inspired by the Super 8 tournament Bryan won, wanted Bryan part of his new promotion, Ring of Honor.
Bryan remembers both William Regal and John Laurinaitis said they would try to get Bryan an in to Japan, but both came up short, and both eventually stopped returning Bryan's calls.
In March 2002, Bryan Danielson, Christopher Daniels, and Brian Kendrick got a tryout with New Japan in Santa Monica. Antonio Inoki was actually there to oversee, but he literally had his back turned to the ring while Danielson and Kendrick wrestled. Inoki never bothered to turn around and watch them, instead watching someone stretch, Bryan says. Bryan later heard that New Japan never intended to hire anyone. They just wanted their dojo to look full for press.
After the "tryout," Bryan says that Inoki fell and had to be helped up by a bunch of people. Only the three of them didn't get up to help, with Kendrick saying loudly, "serves the motherfucker right."
Bryan kept making trips to the Santa Monica dojo every couple of weeks until Shinya "Togi" Makabe told him that if Bryan really wanted to be taken seriously, he had to be at the dojo every single day. Bryan took the advice seriously, quit his training job and moved to Santa Monica.
Bryan says he was offered to come tour with New Japan after only training at the dojo full time a few weeks. It was on this tour where Bryan first wrestled in the Tokyo Dome.
In May 2003, Bryan wrestled another Tokyo Dome show, where Bryan, Rocky Romero and TJ Perkins were all pulled aside in the hotel after the show, by Justin Cully. Cully literally slapped each man across the face, saying the slaps are from Inoki, who was disappointed in their proformances that night. Apparently Inoki expected them to wrestle more of a shoot style fight and was very upset.
In March 2004, Bryan won his first title with New Japan, the IWGP Junior Tag titles with Christopher Daniels, and Bryan would spend the majority of the year with New Japan where he wrestled 8 different tours.
Bryan pitched a 3 hour long match to Gabe Sapolsky for a ROH show and is disappointed they didn't go the full 3 hours.
Going into 2005, Bryan expected to wrestle his whole career in New Japan, but was startled when New Japan didn't get his visa renewed for the January tour like they always do. He was told it was a mistake and he would be back for March tour, but again he was told last minute they didn't have a visa for him. In May they contacted him last minute inviting him for a tour, but at a ridiculous pay cut down to $500 per week. Bryan turned the offer down and never went back to that Santa Monica dojo or work for New Japan again. He later heard that he was used as a pawn in a power struggle with the Dojo and New Japan.
In mid-2005 Bryan got an email from CM-Punk about a rumor suggesting that both WWE and TNA were interested in Bryan, Punk and Samoa Joe. Joe would quickly sign with TNA after this and Punk took a developmental deal with WWE. Bryan never heard from either company, and a few months later Gabe Sapolsky told Bryan he wanted to build ROH around Bryan but wanted a promise that Bryan wouldn't just leave to WWE or TNA. Great timing Gabe, because Bryan immediately said yes.
After winning the ROH World title in September 2005, Bryan says his title reign was falling flat until he started being cocky and cutting those "best in the world" promos. Bryan even shades Jericho and Punk a little by saying at the time no one else was saying it and that's why it worked so well for him.
Bryan puts over his matches with Nigel McGuinness in summer of 2006, but points out one in particular he regrets. Nigel had the idea for Bryan to pull Nigel's face into the steel ring post 3 times to get real blood. After 3 attempts and no blood, Nigel yelled, "One more time!" They got blood on the 4th time, and gave Nigel a severe concussion.
Five minutes into an hour long match with Colt Cabana in August 2006, Bryan landed bad on the outside of the ring, where he separated that same right shoulder as before and tore two tendons.
Three weeks later, Bryan defended his ROH title against KENTA of all people, who legitimately targeted his hurt shoulder all match. Then Bryan went to tour Japan with Pro Wrestling Noah where he and KENTA had a rematch.
Bryan would finally drop the ROH title in December 2006 and then take nearly 4 months off. This is the first time he took off since he started wrestling in 1999.
After doing a tour of Japan with Pro Wrestling Noah in April 2007, Bryan was excited to come back to ROH and signed a 2 year contract.
In June 2007, Bryan and Nigel wrestled an extremely physical match that featured a spot where the two traded headbutts. The match didn't air until September that year and in the mean time, the Chris Benoit double murdesuicide happened and the talk of concussions and safety concerns changed completely. The match was not recieved well and Gabe later told Bryan that they shouldn't have aired it at all.
ROH struggled after the Benoit incident and most everyone had to adapt and tone down their styles. Bryan wasn't one of those people, and actually refused to tone down his style. Later in 2007 he would rupture his ear drum exchanging open palm strikes with KENTA and he would suffer a detached retina in a match with Takeshi Morishima. To this day, he has trouble hearing from his left ear and has trouble with vision.
Bryan remembers being super late for a show and not even being able to meet his opponent beforehand. To Bryan's suprise, his opponent, who despite being green, was great to work with and the two had good chemistry. That was a young Jon Moxley.
In Summer of 2008, Shawn Michaels was fueding with Chris Jericho and they incorporated Lamce Cade on Jericho's side, since Shawn trained Lance. Shawn actually reached out to Bryan about also joining the WWE and being involved in the story.
Bryan met with Vince McMahon and remembers how taken back Vince seemed when they first met, and thinks it was because of Bryan's size and how plain he looked. Bryan also didn't sell himself well in the meeting, saying he is "just okay." Head of talent relations John Laurinaitis told Bryan that they would call him, but he never did.
When Bryan returned from a Japan tour in October 2008, he was shocked to find Gabe Sapolsky had been fired by ROH and replaced by Adam Pearce. Bryan details that while Gabe liked to book long shows with everyone on the card trying their hardest to steal the show, Pearce booked shorter shows and had the lower card guys preform well, but not to try everything under the sun to outshine the main event. You can see why Jim Cornette and Adam Pearce get along so well.
Bryan notes how he was fueding with Claudio Castignoli when Gabe was fired, but Pearce immediately ended that program to which Bryan says he and Claudio were disappointed.
After another failed attempt to get into WWE I'm early 2009, Bryan refocused his energies by moving to Las Vegas where he started training in kick boxing and other forms of mixed martial arts.
Bryan trained religiously for months under a former MMA fighter Neil Melanson. Neil is the one who taught Bryan the LaBell Lock.
When Bryan's ROH contract expired in May 2009, he called John Laurinaitis and left a message, but never heard back.
Bryan says in mid-2009, he was talking to Gabe Sapolsky about starting up a new promotion that would become Evolve. Bryan says that Paul Heyman was even involved with these talks.
Brian Kendrick called Danielson up to pitch Danielson coming to WWE as Kendrick's tag partner. Danielson even went and filmed a bunch of promos with Kendrick and fel optimistic. Unfortunately, Kendrick was fired just a few weeks later before any of those vignets aired and that opportunity was gone as well.
Bryan had given up ever going to WWE when John Laurinaitis called him in September 2009 offering him a main roster contract. Bryan was so excited he didn't have to go to developmental, that he would be right on the main roster immediately. Or so he thought, I guess they didn't bother telling Brilyan about NXT at that time, even though it sounds like he was signed with that in mind.
Nigel was also signed at the same time (probably also meant for NXT) but before either man could start, they had to pass WWE medical tests. They asked them both about past injuries, and Bryan just lied, saying he never had anything wrong and was fine. Didn't mention his shoulder being separated twice, or the detached retina, or any concussion. Nigel on the other hand, was very honest about his injuries, including a torn bicep that he didn't get worked on, he just rehabbed it. Nigel figured he was a lock and didn't see the need to lie.
WWE was concerned about Bryan's elevated liver enzymes, and wanted Nigel to get surgery on his bicep before they would sign him. Both guys were wrestling a farewell tour with ROH and both genuinely concerned they wouldn't actually be leaving. In their last match for ROH, Bryan accidentally gave Nigel a concussion, because apparently these guys only know how to wrestle at one speed!
Nigel couldn't afford the bicep surgery and his own doctor was telling him he is fine, so Nigel went to TNA instead. Nigel would only wrestle for another year before his body would break down too far on him and he would retire.
Bryan signed his WWE contract on October 2nd, 2009, nearly 10 years to the day of his debut match. William Regal actually told Bryan, "Your wrestling career came before this and is over now. Anything else that happens now is a bonus."
William Regal came up with the name "Daniel Bryan" for Bryan to use in WWE. Brian tried arguing to Laurinaitis to use his real name and citing John Cena as an example, Laurinaitis simply told Bryan, "We don't do that anymore."
In early 2010, Bryan and seven other guys were told one day about the NXT concept and how they would be used. Bryan found out who his NXT "pro" would be just like everyone else, when WWE posted it on their website. Bryan initially legit wanted Regal as his "pro" but soon realized being paired with Miz gives him a story immediately.
Bryan describes his time in NXT as the most unusual of his career. The "rookies" all legitimately didn't know what was going to happen on any show and everything they did was 100% unscripted and improvised.
The first night in NXT, all the "rookies" were told 15 minutes before the show, that their "pro" would cut a promo on them and they needed to react accordingly. Bryan had no idea that his pro, the Miz was going to tell him to head to the ring and cut a promo on himself, literally telling him on live TV to make the fans care about him. Bryan had no idea what to say, no real direction he was given to go in, and no tome to plan or rehearse. Miz also told him to come up with a catchphrase, and Bryan said he always hated catch phrases.
In the ring, Bryan cut a generic promo where he said he lost his train of thought and was super greatful when The Miz came out to finish the promo off. Bryan didn't know that would happen and Bryan definitely didn't know Miz was going to slap him at the end. Bryan says that later, The Miz confided to Bryan that he was worried Bryan would try to fight him over the slap.
Bryan credits Chris Jericho for getting him over in his first WWE match, and says that neither he, nor Miz knew that Miz was to beat up Brian after the match. Apparently, Miz was informed during the Jericho/Bryan match that he was to attack Bryan after the finish. Wild how much "flying by the seat of their pants" that WWE did with early NXT.
After the show, Jericho told Bryan that Vince was impressed, though he noted how Vince said, "Ugh, but he doesn't even eat meat!"
Bryan describes promo class with Vince as kinda insane to be honest. One time Bryan accidentally spilled a water bottle, and Vince asked everyone how that made them feel about Bryan. Stuff like that.
Bryan says the NXT rookies weren't allowed to use the regular dressing room and had to use some tarped off part of the backstage area.
Bryan notes how most of the NXT season, the NXT rookies never really knew what was going to happen. The 2nd week Bryan lost to Wade Barret and wasn't told that Chris Jericho would be attacking him after the match.
Bryan says his initial storyline with The Miz wasn't a losing streak idea, but something where each loss had meaning and was being built with purpose. Miz was very hands on with each show and helped to put over Bryan and the storyline, but when Miz missed 2 weeks in a row, the producers left in charge basically just turned it into a losing streak storyline, which Bryan says, "never works."
One time on a plane, Ezekiel Jackson asked "which rookie has an isle seat?" Bryan raised his had and Ezekiel said, "Not anymore." Bryan stood his ground and refused, offering his seat to anyone but Ezekiel. Ezekiel got pissed but William Regal came over and chastised Jackson, saying Bryan is like a son to him and how Bryan has more talent in his pinky ginger than Jackson has in his whole body.
Bryan says the NXT "Pros Polls" were legitimate voting done by the pros. That's why Bryan ended up in first place, despite losing every match.
A week after Wrestlemania in 2010, NXT's direction and purpose shifted away from being serious to silly, and Bryan says they were suddenly doing dumb game show competitions and putting over how demoralizing it was.
Bryan says Skip Shepfield (Ryback) was the only rookie taking the competitions seriously and trying to win each game. Sounds on brand for the big guy.
Bryan says he was trying to be humble when asked who should be eliminated and he said himself. He figured since he lost to everyone he didn't have a right to say any of them. Backstage Miz told him he made a mistake and shouldn't have put that perception out there.
A week later they liked the rookies up on TV (an hour before it goes live) and informed Bryan and fellow rookie Michael Tarver that they are both eliminated, without telling them beforehand. Bryan felt this validated all the warnings guys like Colt Cabana and other gave him about WWE.
Right after Matt Striker interviewed him backstage and when asked an insulting question, Bryan snapped and started talking down about "Daniel Bryan" and started to put over "Bryan Danielson!" Bryan says he could hear Vince screaming into Striker's ear piece and apparently Vince threw his headset when Bryan said his real name.
They made Bryan retape the interview without saying that, but still aired his original interview.
Bryan was surprisingly called back to NXT the following week to start a rivalry with Micheal Cole, who had been verbally obliterating Bryan on commentary since Bryan debuted. Bryan seems to be greatful for that program since it kept him on tv and made him confident that he would keep his job.
The RAW after NXT season 1 ended, all the rookies were pulled into Vince's office and told about Nexus and the attack in the main event. They were told not to tell anyone or else they will be fired. Bryan says he even lied to William Regal, when asked why he was dressed to wrestle.
They were supposed to attack John Cena and Rey Mysterio in the main event, because WWE let the fans vote on Cena's opponent and they assumed Rey would get it. Surprisingly it was CM Punk, and Bryan isn't sure how much Punk was told about the angle.
Bryan legit choked Justin Roberts during the melee, leaving red marks on his skin with his tie. Bryan said he doesn't trust non-wrestlers to sell good so he did it for real, with Justin going purple on Tv. Later during the brawl, Bryan was grabbing a cable to choke someone else when a cameraman told him "no choking!" Bryan does note that he thinks Justin Roberts found it pretty cool to be involved. And later Heath Slater grabbed the dismantled ring ropes to choke Cena, but Cena told him as well, "No choking."
Cena told Bryan before the angle, "It's not the hit you do that's important, it's what you do before the hit that matters." This is why Bryan spit in Cena's face before kicking him in the head.
Backstage, Bryan was reprimanded twice, for choking and spitting. Two days later Vince McMahon personally called Bryan to tell him he was let go and apologized to Bryan for it. Bryan, arrogant as all hell, responded with, "Don't apologize, I'll make more money this year on the independents than I would have working for you."
Bryan called John Laurinaitis to clear up details and Laurinaitis was shocked to hear Bryan was fired. Apparently Vince didn't tell anyone, just called Laurinaitis up and asked for Bryan's number. The comment Bryan made about money seemed to get to Vince since Laurinaitis called Bryan back and asked about it. Laurinaitis actually told Bryan that he can start working independent dates immediately if he wasn't on TV.
After working several shows and making good money off merchandise for several weeks, Bryan was shocked when John Laurinaitis called him in August and asked him to come back for a big angle leading into SummerSlam. Bryan sheepishly asked for a raise and made sure he could make all his already planned independent bookings.
Bryan says Nexas should have won at SummerSlam, noting how they went from dangerous to jobbers in one night.
Bryan remembers a taped RAW after SummerSlam where he did an angle with The Miz. When he got backstage Vince was so mad at how it came off that he made Bryan and others go back out there and do it again. It was the first time Bryan ever had to redo something like that and he said he felt humiliated.
Bryan didnt seem to see much value in being US Champion outside of how it would keep him on tv and maybe monthly ppv matches.
At Hell in a Cell 2010 ppv, Bryan had a good match with Miz and John Morrison, but was scolded after that match for a spot where Bryan threw Miz's stoog Alex Riley off the stage where he landed on cameraman. They showed the two guys the footage and accused them of doing it on purpose to get themselves over. Bryan started regretting coming back and really hating his time in WWE.
Bryan was paired with the Bella Twins in a storyline he hated, that was based on the Twins confusing the word "vegan" for "virgin" and competing to sleep with Bryan. Despite how bad that storyline was, Bryan and Brie would develop a relationship and would start dating in February 2011.
Sheamus was given a choice of Wrestlemania opponents that year between Rey Mysterio and Daniel Bryan, and Sheamus chose Bryan. Bryan was greatful but concerned Sheamus chose wrong and their match would be cut but Sheamus wasn't worried at all. A week before Mania they were informed their match was on the pre-show at a meeting with literally every other wrestler. Bryan says Sheamus buried his face in his hands and remembers how Rey Mysterio got on the card in a match with Cody Rhodes. Bryan says Sheamus picked the wrong guy.
Bryan got some details in his book messed up where he talks about Miz winning the WWE title off Cena at Wrestlemania 27 and he talks about how Miz was WWE Champion going into Over The Limit ppv 2011, but Miz lost the title by then. It's notable because he says he pitched hard for a "Rocky style" storyline where he would challenge Miz for the WWE title at the Over The Limit ppv.
Bryan says the 2011 Smackdown Money in the Bank winner wasn't decided until the day of the show but it was always between Wade Barret, Cody Rhodes and Bryan. He says despite winning the briefcase, his tv time tricked down and eventually he was spending weeks off tv, until he was randomly inserted into the World title program between Mark Henry and Big Show in late 2011.
Bryan was being left at home and off shows, even watching Survivor Series 2011 from home and was suprised when WWE had him come to the December TLC ppv show, last minute. The day of the show he was told he was cashing in and winning the title and the only direction Vince McMahon gave him was to act like he won the superbowl, so that's where Bryan's over the top celebration came from. He didn't even tell his girlfriend Brie Bella about the plan and says she was shocked when he came backstage afterwards.
The only direction Vince gave Bryan as champion is to celebrate every appearance like he won the lottery, saying, "there is no too over the top here."
Bryan said he adapted his "Yes" chants from MMA fighter Diego Sanchez who was celebrating in a similar way at the time.
Bryan's favorite moment from that first world title run was the closing sequence in the 2012 Elimination Chamber match with him and Santino Marella.
Bryan originally expected he and Sheamus to get 15 minutes or so at Wrestlemania for their match, but was shocked when Chris Jericho told him he heard it would be 8 minutes, including the pre & post match stuff. A week later Arn Anderson confirmed to Bryan that he would lose a 1-move match, dropping the world title to Sheamus at Wrestlemania that year. Bryan and Sheamus were both pissed, to say the least.
Sheamus expressed concern that the short match would turn fans against him as a new champion. Smart man.
Bryan says a bunch of guys came up to him after his Mania loss and were pissed at what they did to Bryan out there. Great Khali even came up and told Bryan that it was bullshit in his broken English.
Originally Sheamus was planned to move into a fued with Alberto Del-rio right after Mania, but the crazy crowd support for Bryan forced them to extend they story another month. Bryan says his Extreme Rules ppv match with Sheamus in 2012 is one of his favorites. Mine too!
Bryan acknowledged the weird booking of Punk as champion in 2012, noting how heels would face John Cena, lose, then be sent to face Punk with no momentum. Interesting take on the situation.
Bryan mentions how when he and Punk fueded in 2012, they never got main event spots outside of non-televised events. One time at a house show, Bryan and Punk veered too far into comedy and after the match John Cena chastised Bryan by pointing out that they didn't wrestle a "main event style" match. Apparently the next house show, Cena was moved into the main event spot with Punk/Bryan being before the intermission. An enraged Punk went and yelled at people until he got his main event spot back. This time, no comedy spots were done and they stayed the main event for the circuit.
Bryan had brand new, edgier gear made up prior to Money in the Bank 2012 and didn't tell anyone backstage. He wore shorts over his trunk and hid the jacket until he had to go out. When he got to the ring, the ref told him to lose the jacket, because I guess Vince was in gorilla position freaking out over how Bryan looked. Dean Melanko was the producer for the match, and Bryan felt bad when Vince blamed him for allowing Bryan to wear it.
Bryan was originally planned to wrestle Charlie Sheen at SummerSlam 2012 in a celebrity match, but Charlie "bailed" as Bryan put it.
Bryan was trying to be "Mr Small Package" by winning matches with Small Package and then boasting about how he has an "inescapable small package!" It didn't get over.
Bryan thought his anger management vignets with Kane and Dr Shelby were going to be terrible.
The only reason they stopped using Dr Shelby is because he had limited days off from his regular teaching job.
Bryan and Kane really wanted their team name to be "Team Friendship" and they even had shirt ideas but Vince let the fans vote and he always kept those votes legit, so their team name was "Team Hell No" which Bryan brings up a good point about. He said as a team primarily appealing to kids, a name with "Hell" in it would be hard to sell merchandise to those kids.
The plan was to break up their team so they could have a good heated fued together, but they were so popular that they kept teaming for 9 months.
Bryan says his first good Wrestlemania experience was in 2013 when he teamed with Kane.
One night after Mania in 2013, when Bryan tagged with Kane and Undertaker to face The Shield, Vince McMahon told Bryan that he would pay him several thousand dollars if he could get Undertaker to hug Bryan in the ring. After the show Bryan got on the mic and tried his hardest to get the hug but couldn't quite do it.
Bryan says that both he and Kane agree that teaming together was some of the most fun in either man's career.
Bryan was scheduled to win the biggest match of his career up to that point, he would be beating Randy Orton clean on RAW. Bryan would botch a dive that left both arms nunb and him unable to stand. He got feeling back in one arm but eventually the doctor called the match off. Backstage Bryan started screaming at Triple H for calling the match and called him a hypocrite for doing so, citing his own injuries in matches. At one point Orton tried to calm Bryan down, but Bryan snapped at him and Orton started yelling too. Brie got Bryan away to calm down, but when Vince came to talk to Bryan, the shouting started again. Much later, William Regal advised Bryan to apologize to both Vince and Triple H, to which Bryan took his advice. The next week, Bryan would get his win over Orton and he says that that drama over everything made that win matter more.
An MRI showed that one of Bryan's disks was pushing into his nerves and eventually he would need surgery. With his momentum starting to rise, Bryan opted to put surgery off.
John Cena pitched facing Daniel Bryan at Money in the Bank 2013 ppv. When Vince asked why, Cena said because it's the biggest match they could do at that time. Vince ended up agreeing, but deciding that it belongs at SummerSlam that year instead!
As proud as Bryan is of the build to and match with Cena at SummerSlam, he acknowledges that the ppv didn't do good numbers, nor did the house show business the following 2 months when Bryan was the main protagonist. He thinks a lot the the Authority promos on him stemmed from some truth.
Bryan isn't satisfied with the quality of matches he was putting out in the latter half of 2013 amd he specifically calls out the series of bad finishes he had with Randy Orton in ppv main events. From the fast counting crooked ref, to that terrible one with Big Show knocking everyone out, and then to Shawn Michaels betraying Bryan at Hell in a Cell ppv.
Bryan initially thought he was getting a Wrestlemania match with Shawn Michaels after that Hell in a Cell finish, but after talking with HBK, it was clear that was never in the cards.
Bryan feels he failed as a main eventer in the 2nd half of 2013, regardless of match quality. He didn't move business and that's all that matters.
The Slammy's were fan votes and Vince didn't think Bryan would win and almost laughed when Bryan asked him what he should say if he does win. Vince said, "whatever you want." I wish I could have seen Vince's face when Bryan won later that night.
When Bryan started fueding with Wyatt Family in late-2013, Bryan was pitching for him to be "brainwashed" and join the group. He suspects that his rising popularity in early 2014 is what convinced WWE to have Bryan turn on Bray and leave the group. At the time, Bryan was hoping to stay with the group and be involved in the planned Cena/Wyatt Wrestlemania program since Bryan had no plans for Mania at that time.
Bryan says he was disappointed when Vince told him he would be facing Sheamus again at Wrestlemania 2014. No disrespect to Sheamus, but Bryan felt he belonged in a higher spot.
Bryan felt bad for the way Rey Mysterio was boo'd at the 2014 Royal Rumble.
When Punk quit WWE after Rumble that year, Bryan remembers how plans didn't change too much for a few weeks, and he assumes Vince expected Punk to come back and for Batista to win the crowds over, and neither happened.
Triple H was being vocal about wanting to face Bryan at Mania that year, but Bryan was trying to not get his hopes up since he had seen Triple H try and fail to get his ideas on screen.
Bryan and Brie only agreed to let Total Divas shoot their wedding, because Total Divas agreed to pay for the whole wedding! Hard to say no to that!
Bryan is very satisfied with his matches at Wrestlemania 30 and says he was so focused between matches that he missed Undertaker losing to Lesnar. He heard the ring bell and looked up at the monitor in shock. He says they cameras should have filmed the guys and girls in the back because their reactions were wild, apparently.
Five days after Wrestlemania 30, Bryan and Brie got married, but 2 days after their honeymoon ended, Bryan's dad unexpectedly passed away at the age of 57. Bryan was devastated and described how he was crying still as he was writing about it.
The book ends on a complete downer, very unlike most other wrestling books. Bryan says that as long as he wrestled when asked if everything he was missing or sacrificing was worth it, Bryan always said yes. He assumed he would have more time when he was done and could catch up on what he missed, but his dad is gone and Bryan openly admits that it wasn't worth it. If he could, Bryan would change a lot of his decisions if it meant more time with his dad.
He says he is still wrestling though because he literally doesn't know what else to do or what comes after. This is especially depressing 10 years later, when Bryan is still wrestling despite having started a family of his own. I hope he doesn't regret any time missed with his daughter.
He ends the book by describing the last time he saw his dad, on Christmas in 2013, where his dad dressed up as Santa. Fuck. I'm sad now.

Updated: 05/11/2024
All Codes Traded for personal use only, rewards used & Codes are split
COMBO Films

• 2: My Girl 1 & 2 SD MA
• 2: John Wick 1 & chapter 2 HD (FN or GP)
• 2: Elysium / District 9 HD MA
• 3: Expendables Trilogy HD FN
• 3: Mall Cop / Zookeeper / Boom SD MA
• 3: Night at the Museum: Trilogy SD MA
• 3: Predator Trilogy HD MA
• 3: The Other Guys, Step Brothers, Talladega Nights SD MA
• 4: The Magnificent Seven Collection HD FN
• 4: Me Myself and Irene, Super Troopers, the Sitter, Lets Be Cops HD MA
• 6: Joe Dirt, Benchwarmers, House Bunny, The Animal, Deuce Bigalow, Master Of Disguise SD MA
• 9: Saw 9 film Collection HD FN

MOVIES FN or MA

• 10 Clover Field Lane HD FN only
• 101 Dalmatians HD MA
• 101 Dalmatians (GP) HD MA
• 101 Dalmatians 2: Patch's London adventure* HD MA
• 12 Rounds 2 Reload HD MA
• 12 Years A Slave HD MA
• 127 Hours (iTune) SD MA
• 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi HD FN or 4k iTune (split)
• 1917 HD MA
• 2 Guns HD MA
• 2 Guns 4K MA (iTune Portion)
• 21st Jump Street SDHD MA
• 22nd Jump Street SD MA
• 3 From Hell 4K (FN Or iTune)
• 3:10 to Yuma SD FN
• the 300 Spartans HD MA
• 47 Ronin HD MA (MA Redeem, FN Kills Code)
• 47 Ronin MA 4K (iTune Portion)
• the 5th Wave SDHD MA
• A.C.O.D. HD FN or iTune (split)
• the A-Team (iTune) SD MA
• About Last Night HD MA
• Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter HD MA
• Ad Astro HD MA
• Addicted SD FN
• Admission (iTune redeem) HD MA
• the Adventures Of Tintin SD (FN Or iTune)
• After Earth SD MA
• the Age Of Adaline HD FN
• Aladdin [live action] HD MA
• Aladdin (diamond) [animated] HD MA
• Aladdin (diamond) [animated] (GP) HD MA
• Aladdin (signature) [animated] (GP) HD MA
• Aladdin and the King of Thieves HD MA
• Aladdin: the return of Jafar HD MA
• Aladdin: the return of Jafar (GP) HD MA
• Alex Cross HD FN
• Alice Through The Looking Glass HD MA
• Alien Covenant HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Aliens In The Attic (iTune) SD MA
• All Is Lost HD FN
• Aloha SD MA
• Alpha SD MA
• Alpha and Omega HD FN
• Alpha and Omega 3: Great Wolf Games HD FN
• Alvin And The Chipmunks: the Road Chip HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• the Amazing Spiderman SDHD MA
• the Amazing Spiderman 2 SDHD MA
• Amelia (iTune) SD MA
• America: Imagine a World Without Her HD FN
• American Assassin HD FN/GP/iTune
• American Made HD MA
• American Girl: Mckenna Shoots For The Stars HD MA
• American Girl: Mckenna Shoots For The Stars (iTune redeem) HD MA
• American Hustle SDHD MA
• American Reunion [Unrated] HD MA
• American Reunion [Unrated] (iTune redeem) HD MA
• Anchorman 2 HD (FN Or iTune)
• And So It Goes HD MA
• the Angry Birds Movie HD MA
• Annie (2014) SDHD MA
• Annihilation HD (FN Or iTune) Split
• Anyone But You SD MA
• Apollo 13 4K MA
• the Aristocats HD MA
• the Arrival HD (FN Or 4k iTune) Split
• the Art of Self Defense HD MA
• Arthur (iTune) SD MA
• Arthur Christmas SD MA
• the Artist SD MA
• Assassin's Creed HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Atlantis: Milo's Return HD MA
• Atomic Blonde HD MA
• Atomic Blonde (iTune Portion) 4K MA
• August Osage County HD FN
• the Avengers HD MA
• the Avengers HD (GP) MA
• Avengers: Age of Ultron HD MA
• Avengers: Age of Ultron HD (GP) MA
• Avengers: End Game HD (GP) MA
• Avengers: Infinity War 4KHD MA
• Avengers: Infinity War (GP) HD MA
• Babylon A.D. (iTune) SD MA
• Bad Boys For Life SD MA
• Bad Grandpa HD FN Or iTune (split)
• Bad Moms (iTune) HD MA
• Bad Moms HD MA
• Bad Words HD MA
• Bad Words (iTune) HD MA
• the Bank Job HD FN
• Barbie & Her Sisters In A Puppy Chase HD MA
• Barbie Mariposa & the Fairy Princes (iTune) HD MA
• Barbie Star Light Adventure (iTune) HD MA
• Batman: Year One (iTune) SD MA
• Battle Of The Year HD MA
• Battleship 4K (iTune Portion) MA
• Battleship HD MA
• Baywatch (FN-HD Or iTune-4K)
• Beauty And The Beast (signature) [Animated] HD MA
• Beauty And The Beast [Animated] (GP) HD MA
• Beethoven Treasure Tail (iTune Portion) HD MA
• Beethoven Treasure Tail HD MA
• Before I Fall HD MA
• Before I Fall (iTune Portion) HD MA
• Begin Again HD FN
• Beirut HD MA
• Ben-Hur [2016] FN HD or 4k iTune (split)
• Big Hero HD (GP) MA
• the Best Man Holiday HD MA
• the Best Man Holiday (iTune) HD MA
• Big Miracle (iTune) HD MA
• Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son (iTune) SD MA
• the Big Short HD FN Or iTune (split)
• the Big Sick FN/Gp Or iTune (split)
• the Big Wedding HD FN Or iTune
• the Big Wedding SD FN
• Billy Elliot [the movie] HD MA
• Black Nativity [Extended] HD MA
• Black Panther (GP) HD MA
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever HD MA
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (GP) HD MA
• Black Swan (iTune) SD MA
• Blackhat HD MA (iTune Portion)
• Blood Father SD FN
• Bloodshot SD MA
• Blue Jasmine HD MA
• Body Cam HD FN or iTune 4k
• Bohemian Rhapsody HD MA
• Boo! A Madea Halloween HD V/I/GP
• Book Club HD FN (iTune split)
• the Book Of Life HD MA
• the Boss (from theatrical) [iTune redeem] HD MA
• Boss Baby HD MA
• the Bourne: Identity HD MA
• the Bourne: Identity (iTune) 4K MA
• the Bourne: Legacy HD MA
• the Bourne: Legacy (iTune) 4K MA
• the Bourne: Supremacy HD MA
• the Bourne: Supremacy (iTune) 4K MA
• the Boy [unrated] HD MA
• the Boy [unrated] HD MA (iTune portion)
• the Boy Next Door HD FN Or iTune (split)
• Boyhood HD FN Or iTune (split)
• Brave [Disney] (iTune) SD MA
• the Breakfast Club HD MA
• the Breakfast Club (iTune) HD MA
• Breakthrough HD MA
• Brian Banks HD MA
• Bride Wars (iTune) SD MA
• Brides Maids (iTune) HD MA
• Bring It On: Cheersmack HD MA
• Broken City HD FN
• Brother Bear HD MA
• Brother Bear 2 HD MA
• BumbleBee HD FN or 4k iTune
• the Butler HD FN
• the Bye Bye Man HD MA (iTune Portion)
• the Cabin In The Woods SD FN Or iTune (split)
• the Cabin In The Woods HD FN Or GP
• the Call SD MA
• the Call Of The Wild (GP) HD MA
• the Call Of The Wild HD MA
• Captain America: Civil War HD (GP) MA
• Captain America: the First Avenger HD MA
• Captain America: the First Avenger HD (GP) MA
• Captain America: Winter Soldier HD (GP) MA
• Captain Marvel HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Captain Marvel HD (GP) MA
• Captain Phillips SDHD MA
• Captain Under Pants: The First Epic Movie HD MA
• the Captive HD FN
• Carrie [2013] (FN or GP) HD
• Cars HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Cars 2 [from 3D] (iTune) SD MA
• Cars 3 (GP) HD MA
• the Case For Christ (iTune) HD MA
• the Case For Christ HD MA
• Cedar Rapids (iTune) SD MA
• the Change Up (iTune) HD MA
• the Change Up Unrated (iTune) HD MA
• Chappie SD MA
• Charlies Angels [2019] SD MA
• Chasing Mavericks [2012] HD MA
• Chef (iTune) HD MA
• the Choice HD (FN Only)
• Chronicle (iTune) SD MA
• the Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader (iTune) SD MA
• Clash of the Titans (iTune) SD MA
• Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 SDHD MA
• Coal Miner's Daughter HD MA
• Coal Miner's Daughter HD MA (iTune portion)
• Cold Pursuit HD FN Or GP (Or iTune 4K)
• Colombiana (unrated) HD MA
• the Commuter HD V/i/GP
• Concussion (Smitch) SD MA
• the Condemned 2 HD FN
• Contraband (iTune) HD MA
• the Corrupted HD FN or iTune (split)
• the Counselor HD MA
• Cowboys And Aliens (iTune) HD MA
• Criminal SD FN
• the Croods HD MA
• the Croods (iTune) SD MA
• Cruella HD MA
• Cruella (GP) HD MA
• Cult Of Chucky [unrated] HD MA
• Cult Of Chucky [unrated] HD MA (iTune)
• Curse Chucky (iTune) HD MA
• Curse Of Chucky HD MA
• Daddy's Home HD FN (Or 4K iTune) Split
• Dallas Buyers Club HD (iTune) MA
• Dark Crimes HD FN Or GP (Or iTune 4K)
• the Dark Tower HD MA
• Date Night (iTune) SD MA
• Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• the Day The Earth Stood Still (iTune) SD MA
• Dead In Tombstone [unrated] HD MA
• Dead Man Down SD MA
• Deadpool HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Deadpool 2 [super dooper cut] HD MA
• Death On The Nile HD MA
• Death Race 3 [unrated] HD MA
• Death Race 3 [unrated] (iTune portion) HD MA
• Death Wish (2018) HD FN or GP
• the Descendants (iTune) SD MA
• Deliver Us From Evil SD MA
• Despicable Me (iTune) SD MA
• Despicable Me 2 (4K iTune) MA
• Despicable Me 2 HD MA
• the Devil Inside SD FN
• Diary Of A Wimpy Kid (iTune) SD MA
• the Dictator SD FN
• Die Hard: A Good Day To Die (iTune) SD MA
• the Dilemma HD MA
• Dirty Dancing SD FN/iTune/GP
• Dirty Grandpa SD FN
• Disney Nature: Bears HD MA
• Disney Nature: Born in China HD MA
• Disney Nature: Monkey Kingdom HD MA
• Divergent HD FN
• Divergent Series: Allegiant SDHD FN
• Divergent Series: Insurgent HD FN/GP (iTune Split)
• Divergent Series: Insurgent SD FN
• Django Unchained HD FN
• Doctor Strange [Marvel] (GP) HD MA
• Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness HD MA
• Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness (GP) HD MA
• A Dogs Way Home HD MA
• Dolittle HD MA
• Don't Breathe SD MA
• Downsizing HD FN & iTune 4K
• Downton Abbey The Movie HD MA
• Dracula Untold (iTune) 4K MA
• Dracula Untold HD MA
• Draft Day SD FN
• Dragon Heart 3 (iTune) HD MA
• Dragon Heart 3 HD MA
• Dreamhouse (iTune redeem) HD MA
• Dredd HD FN Or iTune (split)
• Dredd 4K FN Or iTune (Or GP HD)
• Due Date (iTune) SD MA
• the Duel SD FN
• the Duff HD FN
• Dumb and Dumber To (iTune) HD MA
• Dumbo [animated] HD MA
• Dying Of The Light HD FN
• Eddie The Eagle HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Edward Scissorshands HD MA
• Elysium SD MA
• the Emoji Movie HD MA
• Empire State HD FN
• End Of Watch (iTune) HD MA
• Ender's Game 4K FN/iTune Split
• Ender's Game HD FN/iTune/GP
• Enemies Closer HD FN
• Enough Said HD MA
• Epic (iTune) SD MA
• Epic HD MA
• Escape Plan HD FN*
• ET (iTune) SD MA (from bluray)
• ET SDHD MA
• the Equalizer SDHD MA
• the Equalizer 2 SD MA
• Ex Machina HD FN
• Exodus: Gods And Kings HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• the Expendables 2 HD FN/iTune/GP
• the Expendables 3 4K FN
• the Expendables 3 [unrated] HD
• the Expendables 3 HD FN Or iTune (split)
• Extraction HD FN
• Fantastic Four [2015] HD (4k iTune Redeem) MA
• Fast & Furious 1 (iTune) HD MA
• Fast & Furious 1 HD MA
• Fast & Furious 2 (4K iTune) MA
• Fast & Furious 3 HD MA
• Fast & Furious 4 HD MA
• Fast & Furious 4 (iTune) SD MA
• Fast & Furious 5 Extended (iTune) HD MA
• Fast & Furious 5 Extended HD MA
• Fast & Furious 6 Extended (4K iTune) MA
• Fast & Furious 6 Extended HD MA
• Fast & Furious 7 Extended HD MA
• Fast & Furious 7 Extended (4K iTune) MA
• Fast Furious 8 Extended 4K MA
• Fast Furious 8 Extended HD MA
• Fast Furious 8 Theatrical 4K MA
• Fast Furious 8 Theatrical HD MA
• Father And Daughters SD FN
• the Fault In Our Stars HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• the Fault In Our Stars HD MA (no Upgrade)
• Fences HD FN or iTune 4K (split)
• Ferdinand HD MA
• Ferris Bueller's Day Off (FN Only) HD
• Fifty Shades Darker [unrated] (iTune) HD MA
• Fifty Shades Darker [unrated] HD MA
• Fifty Shades Of Grey [unrated] HD MA
• Fifty Shades Of Grey [standard] 4K (iTune) MA
• the Fighter HD (FN / iTune) Split
• Finding Dory (GP) HD MA
• Finding Dory HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Finding Nemo (GP) HD MA
• Five Feet Apart HD (FN / GP / iTune)
• the Five Year Engagement (iTune) HD MA
• Flight HD (FN / iTune ) Split
• Footloose (2011) SD (FN Or iTune)
• Forest Gump HD FN only
• Fox and the Hound HD MA
• Fox and the Hound 2 HD MA
• Free Guy HD MA
• Free Guy (GP) HD MA
• Fright Night 2 UR HD MA
• the Front Runner SD +MA
• Frozen HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Frozen (GP) HD MA
• Frozen -Sing Along Edition HD MA
• Frozen -Sing-Along Edition (GP) HD MA
• Frozen Ground HD FN
• Fury SDHD MA
• G.I. Joe Retaliation HD FN Or iTune 4K (split)
• the Gambler HD (FN / iTune Split)
• Gemini Man HD FN or iTune
• Get The Gringo (iTune) SD MA
• Ghost In The Shell [2017] HD FN Only
• Ghost Rider Spirit Of Vengeance SD MA
• Ghost Team One HD FN or iTune (split)
• Ghostbusters: Afterlife SD MA
• Ghostbusters: Answer The Call & Extended SD MA
• the Gift HD MA (iTune)
• Gifted HD MA
• the Girl In The Spidersweb SD MA
• the Girl On The Train MA 4K (iTune)
• the Girl On The Train MA HD
• the Giver HD FN
• Glass HD MA
• Glee The Concert (iTune) SD MA
• God's Not Dead 3: A Light In Darkness HD MA
• the Godfather HD FN or 4k iTune
• Gods Of Egypt HD FN (and iTune 4K split)
• Gods Of Egypt SD FN
• A Good Day To Die Hard HD MA
• A Good Day To Die Hard (iTune) SD MA
• the Good Dinosaur HD [4K iTune Redeemed] MA
• the Good Dinosaur (GP) HD MA
• A Good Man SD FN
• Goosebumps 2 SD MA
• Grace Unplugged HD FN
• Gran Turismo SD MA
• the Great Wall (iTune Portion) 4K MA
• the Great Wall HD MA
• the Greatest Showman HD MA
• Green Room HD FN
• the Grey (iTune) HD MA
• Grown Ups 2 SD MA
• Guardians Of The Galaxy HD MA (4k if redeemed in iTune)
• Guardians Of The Galaxy HD MA (no 4K Upgrade)
• Guardians Of The Galaxy (GP) HD MA
• Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2.0 HD MA
• Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2.0 (GP) HD MA
• the Gunman HD MA
• the Gunman (iTune) HD MA
• Guns Akimbo HD (FN/iTune/GP)
• Gutshot SD FN
• Hacksaw Ridge 4K FN/GP
• Hacksaw Ridge HD FN Or GP (Or iTune 4K)
• Hail, Caesar! HD MA
• Hail, Caesar! (iTune) HD MA
• Hammer Of The Gods SDHD FN
• Hansel & Gretel [unrated] HD FN / HD iTune (split)
• Hands of Stone HD FN
• the Hangover (iTune) SD MA
• Hardcore Henry HD MA (iTune)
• the Hateful Eight HD FN Or GP
• Haunted House 2 (iTune) HD MA
• the Haunting In Connecticut 2 Ghosts Of Georgia HD FN
• the Haves and the Have Nots SD FN
• the Heat HD MA
• the Heat (iTune) SD MA (will Send First)
• Heaven Is For Real SDHD MA
• Hell Or High Water SD FN
• Hercules HD FN / 4k iTune (split)
• Here Comes The Boom SD MA
• the Hero of Big City (FN Promo) SD
• Hidden Figures HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Hillsong: Let Hope Rise HD MA
• Hitman [unrated] SD MA
• fast & furious: Hobbs & Shaw HD MA
• Hocus Pocus HD MA
• Hocus Pocus (GP) HD MA
• Hologram For A King SD FN
• Home HD MA
• Home Again HD MA
• Home Alone 4KHD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Home Alone 2: Lost In New York HD MA
• Homefront (iTune) HD MA
• Homefront HD MA
• the Homesman HD FN
• Honey 2 (iTune redeem) HD MA
• Honey 2 HD MA
• Honey: Rise Up and Dance HD MA
• Hop (iTune redeem) HD MA
• Hop HD MA
• Hope Springs SDHD MA
• Horton Hears A Who (iTune) SD MA
• the Host (iTune) HD MA
• Hostiles 4K FN/iTune/(GP HD)
• Hotel Transylvania SD MA
• Hotel Transylvania 2 SD MA
• Hotel Transylvania 3 SD MA
• Hottub Time Machine 2 HD FN or iTune (split)
• Hours SD FN
• House With A Clock In Its Walls HD MA
• Dr. Suess: How the Ginch Stole Christmas HD MA
• How To Train A Dragon 2 HD MA
• Hugo SD (FN Or iTune)
• the Hunger Games HD FN
• the Hunger Games: Catching Fire HD FN
• the Hunger Games: Mocking Jay Part 1 HD FN
• the Hunger Games: Mocking Jay Part 2 HD FN
• the Hunt (2020) HD MA
• I Can Only Imagine HD FN/iTune/GP
• I See You HD FN (no iTune)
• I, Frankenstein HD FN/iTune/GP
• Ice Age HD MA
• Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas HD MA
• Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas (iTune) SD MA
• Ice Age: Collision Course HD [4K if iTune Redeemed] MA
• Ice Age: Dawn Of Dinosaurs (iTune) SD MA
• Ice Age: the Great Egg-Scapade HD MA
• the Ides Of March HD MA
• if There Be Thorns SD FN
• the Imitation Game HD FN
• In Time (iTune) SD MA
• Incarnate (iTune redeem) HD MA
• Independence Day Resurgence HD MA (no Upgrade)
• Independence Day Resurgence HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Inferno HD MA
• Inglorious Bastards (iTune) SD MA
• Inside Man HD MA
• Inside Out HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Inside Out (google Redeem) HD MA
• Insidious Chapter 2 SD MA
• Insidious Chapter 3 SD MA
• Insidious: the last key SDHD MA
• Instructions Not Included HD FN
• Internship HD MA
• Internship (iTune) SD MA
• Interstellar HD (FN Or 4K iTune) Split
• the Interview SDHD MA
• Into The Spider-verse SD MA
• Iron Man 3 (GP) HD MA
• Iron Man 3 HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Jack & Jill HD MA
• Jack Reacher SD FN
• Jack Reacher HD FN /4K iTune (split)
• Jack Reacher: Never Go Back HD FN /4K iTune (split)
• Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit HD FN Or iTune
• Jackass 3 HD FN
• Jarhead 2 [unrated] HD MA
• Jarhead 2 [unrated] HD MA (iTune portion)
• Jarhead Law Of Return HD MA
• Jason Bourne HD MA
• Jason Bourne 4K MA (iTune portion)
• Jaws HD MA
• Jobs HD MA
• Joe SD FN
• John Wick SD4K (FN, iTune Or SDHD-GP)
• John Wick 2 (Chapter 2) HD (FN, iTune Or HD-GP)
• John Wick 3 4K (FN, iTune Or HD-GP)
• John Wick 4 4K (FN Or iTune)
• Joy HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Joy HD MA
• Jumanji: the Next Level SD MA
• Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle SD MA
• Jumper (iTune) SD MA
• the Jungle Book [2016] (preorder) HD MA
• Jungle Book [animated] HD MA
• Jungle Cruise (GP) HD MA
• Juno (iTune) SD MA
• Jurassic Park (4K iTune) MA
• Jurassic Park HD MA
• Jurassic Park 2: Lost World (4K iTune) MA
• Jurassic Park 2: Lost World HD MA
• Jurassic Park 3 (4K iTune) MA
• Jurassic World (4K iTune) MA
• Jurassic World HD MA
• Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom HD MA
• Just Wright (iTune) SD MA
• Justin Bieber: Never Say Never HD FN / iTune (split)
• Katy Perry: Part of Me SDHD FN / SDHD iTune (Split)
• Keeping Up with the Jones (4K iTune Redeem) +MA
• Kevin Heart: Let Me Explain HD
• Kickass HD FN
• Kickass 2 HD MA
• Kidnap HD MA
• Kidnap (iTune) HD MA
• Killer Elite (iTune) HD MA
• Killing Them Softly HD FN
• Kin HD FN/iTune/GP
• the Kingsman: The Golden Circle HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• the Kingsman: The Secret Service HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• the Kingsman: The Secret Service SD (FN) MA
• Knight And Day (iTune) SD MA
• Knives Out 4K (FN, iTune or GP)
• Kung Fu Panda 3 HD MA
• La La Land HD FN or GP or 4k iTune
• Labor Day HD FN Only
• the Last Exorcism Past2 (unrated) SD MA
• Last Knights HD FN
• the Last Stand HD
• Last Vegas SD MA
• the Last Witch Hunter SD FN
• the Legend Of Hercules HD FN
• Legends of OZ: Dorothy's Return HD MA
• Les Miserables [2012] (iTune redeem) 4K MA
• Les Miserables [2012] HD MA
• Let's Be Cops HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Life HD MA
• Life As We Know It (iTune) SD MA
• Life Of Pi HD (4K iTune Through Foxredeem) MA
• the Lion King [animated] HD MA
• the Lion King [animated] (GP) HD MA
• the Lion King 1 1/2 HD MA
• the Lion King 1 1/2 (GP) HD MA
• the Lion King 2 Simba's Pride HD MA
• the Little Mermaid HD MA
• the Little Mermaid (GP) HD MA
• Little Women (2019) SDHD MA
• Lockout (unrated) SD MA
• Logan HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Logan Lucky 4K (iTune) MA
• the Lone Ranger (GP) HD MA
• the Lone Ranger HD MA
• Lone Survivor HD MA
• Lone Survivor 4K (iTune) MA
• the Longest Ride HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• the Longest Week HD FN
• Looper SD MA
• the Lorax (iTune) HD MA
• the Lorax HD MA
• the Lords Of Salem HD FN
• Love Actually (iTune) SD MA
• Love Actually SD MA
• Love & Mercy HD FN
• Love & Other Drugs (iTune) SD MA
• Love the Coopers HD FN
• Lucy HD MA
• Lucy 4k MA (iTune redeem)
• Machete (iTune) SD MA
• Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted HD MA
• A Madea Christmas HD FN
• A Madea Family Funeral HD (FN / iTune OR GP)
• Madea's Neighbors From Hell The Play SD FN
• Madea's Witness Protection HD FN Or iTune
• Madea's Witness Protection SD FN
• the Magnificent Seven [2016] SDHD FN
• Maggie HD FN Only
• Maleficent (GP) HD MA
• Maleficent HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Maleficent: mistress of evil (GP) HD MA
• Mall Cop 2 SD MA
• Mallrats HD MA
• Mamma Mia! (iTune) SD MA
• Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again HD MA
• the Man With The Iron Fists (iTune) HD MA
• Mandela Long Walk To Freedom HD FN
• Marauders HD FN
• the Marine 4 HD FN
• the Marine 6: close quarters SD MA
• Marley & Me (iTune) SD MA
• the Martian SD MA
• the Martian HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Marry Me HD MA
• Mary Poppins HD MA
• Mary Poppins (GP) HD MA
• Mary Poppins: Returns HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Mary Poppins: Returns (GP) HD MA
• Max Payne SD (iTune) MA
• Max Steel (iTune) HD MA
• the Maze Runner HD (no Upgrade)
• McFarland USA HD MA
• the Mechanic: Resurrection HD (FN or GP, iTune)
• the Mechanic: Resurrection SD FN
• Megan Leavey (iTune) HD MA
• Megan Leavey HD MA
• Men In Black 3 SDHD MA
• Men In Black: International HD MA
• Midway 4K FN/iTune or GP
• Mike & Dave Need A Wedding Date HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Minions (4K iTune) MA
• Minions HD MA
• Miss Bala SD MA
• Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children HD (4K iTune redeem) MA
• Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children HD MA (FN Redeem)
• Mission Impossible: Fallout HD (FN or iTune)
• Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocal HD FN / 4K iTune (Split)
• Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocal Dvd (FN)
• Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (HD FN Or iTune 4K)
• Moana HD (GP) MA
• Mom's Night Out SD MA
• Moneyball HD MA
• Monster High: Electrified HD MA
• Monster Hunter HD MA
• Monte Carlo (iTune) SD MA
• the Monuments Men SDHD MA
• Moonlight HD FN
• Monster High: Freaky Fusion HD MA
• Monster High: Freaky Fusion [iTune redeem] HD MA
• Monster Trucks HD FN or 4k iTune (split)
• A Monster's Call HD MA
• A Monster's Call (iTune) HD MA
• Mortal Instruments SD MA
• A Most Wanted Man HD FN
• the Mountain Between Us HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Mr. Holmes HD FN
• Mr. Popper's Penguins (iTune) SD MA
• Mud HD FN
• the Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor (iTune) SD MA
• Mummy [2017] HD MA
• Mummy [2017] (iTune portion) 4K MA
• Murder on the Oriental Express HD MA
• My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (iTune redeem) HD MA
• My Life As A Zucchini (iTune redeem) HD MA
• Nebraska HD FN
• Neighbors (iTune redeem) HD MA
• Neighbors 2 (iTune redeem) HD MA
• Nerve SD FN
• News of the World HD MA
• Night At The Museum HD MA
• Night At The Museum 2: Battle Of The Smithsonian HD MA
• Night At The Museum 2: Battle Of The Smithsonian (iTune) SD MA
• Night At The Museum 3: Secret Of The Tomb HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Nightmare Before Christmas (GP) HD MA
• No Country For Old Men HD FN Or GP
• No Escape HD FN
• No Good Deed SDHD MA
• No Hard Feelings SDHD MA
• No Strings Attached HD FN Or iTune (split)
• Noah HD FN Or iTune (split)
• Non-stop (iTune) HD MA
• Non-stop HD MA
• Norm Of The North HD FN Only
• Now You See Me 4K FN/iTune/GP
• Now You See Me HD FN
• Now You See Me HD FN/iTune/GP
• Now You See Me 2 SD FN
• the Nut Job 2 HD MA
• the Nut Job 2 (iTune) HD MA
• Oblivion (iTune portion) 4K MA
• Oblivion HD MA
• Office Party HD FN or iTune (split)
• Olaf's Frozen Adventure HD MA
• Olaf's Frozen Adventure (GP) HD MA
• Olympus Has Fallen SD MA
• the Oranges (iTune) SD MA
• the Other Woman HD MA
• Our Family Wedding (iTune) SD MA
• Overcomer SD MA
• Overlord HD (FN or 4K iTune) Split
• Oz The Great And Powerful (GP) HD MA
• Oz The Great And Powerful HD MA
• Pacific Rim: Uprising 4KHD MA
• Paddington HD FN
• Pain & Gain HD FN Only
• Paranormal Activity 2 HD (FN Or iTune)
• Paranormal Activity 3 SD FN (try iTune at your own risk)
• Paranormal Activity 4 HD (FN Or iTune)
• Paranormal Activity Ghost Dimension HD (FN or iTune)
• Parental Guidance HD MA
• Parental Guidance (iTune) SD MA
• Parker SD MA
• Passengers HD MA
• Patriots Day HD FN (or 4K iTune)
• Paul [unrated] HD (iTune) MA
• Paul: Apostle of Christ SD +MA
• Peanuts Movies HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• we the 'Peeples' SDHD FN
• Penguins Of Madagascar HD MA
• Percy Jackson: Lightning Thief (iTune) SD MA
• Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters HD MA
• the Perfect Guy HD MA
• Perks Of Being A Wallflower HD FN Or iTune SD (split)
• Pete's Dragon [2016] HD MA
• Pete's Dragon [2016] (GP) HD MA
• Peter Rabbit SDHD MA
• Philomena HD FN
• Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (GP) HD MA
• Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales HD MA (iTune kills code)
• Pirates! Band Of Misfits SD MA
• Pitch Black [unrated] (iTune redeem) HD MA
• Pitch Perfect HD MA
• Pitch Perfect [iTune redeem 4K] MA
• Pitch Perfect 2 HD MA
• Pitch Perfect 2 HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Pixels SD MA
• the Place Beyond the Pines (iTune) HD MA
• Planes (GP) HD MA
• Planes HD MA
• Planes Fire And Rescue HD MA
• Planes, Trains & Automobiles HD (FN or iTune)
• Playing For Keeps SD MA
• Pocahontas HD MA
• Pocahontas 2: Journey to the New World HD MA
• Pocahontas 2: Journey to the New World (GP) HD MA
• Pompeii SDHD MA
• Possession HD FN (SD iTune)
• the Possession of Hannah Grace SD MA
• Precious Cargo SD FN
• Predators (iTune) SD MA
• Premium Rush SD MA
• the Prince HD FN
• Prometheus HD MA
• Prometheus [iTune redeem] [?] MA
• the Protector 2 SD FN
• Public Enemies (iTune) SD MA
• the Purge (2013) 4K (iTune portion) MA
• the Purge (2013) HD MA
• the Purge: Election Year (2016) HD MA
• the purge: the Forever Purge (2021) HD MA
• Queen Of Katwe (GP) HD MA
• Queen Of Katwe HD MA
• a Quiet Place HD FN (Or iTune 4K)
• R.I.P.D. (iTune redeem) 4K MA
• R.I.P.D. HD MA
• Ralph Breaks The Internet (GP) HD MA
• Rambo HD FN Or GP (Or iTune 4K)
• Rambo: Last Blood 4K (FN,iTune Or HD-GP)
• Ramona And Beezus (iTune) SD MA
• Rango HD FN Or 4K iTune (split)
• Ray HD MA
• Rear Window HD MA
• Reasonable Doubt HD MA
• Red 2 HD FN
• Red Sparrow HD MA
• Redemption HD FN
• Reprisal HD FN
• Return To Never Land HD MA
• Return To Never Land (GP) HD MA
• Resident Evil: Final Chapter SD MA
• Resident Evil: Retribution SDHD MA
• the Revenant HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• the Rhythm Section HD FN or 4K iTune
• Ricki And The Flash SD MA
• Riddick [unrated] HD MA
• Riddick [unrated] (iTune redeem) HD MA
• Ride Along (iTune) HD MA
• Ride Along HD MA
• Ride Along 2 (iTune) HD MA
• Rio HD MA
• Rio (iTune) SD MA
• Rio 2 HD MA
• Rise Of The Guardians HD MA
• Rise Of The Planet Of Apes HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Rise Of The Planet Of Apes (iTune) SD MA
• Risen SDHD MA
• Robin Hood (1973) [Disney] (GP) HD MA
• Robin Hood (2010) [unrated] (iTune) SD MA
• Robin Hood (2018) FN/GP HD or iTune 4K
• Robocop 2014 HD FN Or GP
• the Rocker (iTune) SD MA
• the Rocky Horror Picture Show HD MA
• Rogue Warefare: the hunt HD FN or iTune
• Room HD FN
• Runner Runner HD MA
• Rush (iTune redeem) HD MA
• Russell Madness HD MA
• Saban's: Power Rangers HD FN Or iTune (split)
• Safe HD FN Only
• Safe House (iTune) HD MA
• Safe House HD MA
• Samson HD MA
• the Santa Clause HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• the Santa Clause HD (GP) MA
• Santa's Little Helper HD MA
• Sausage Party SD MA
• Savages (iTune) HD MA (theatrical)
• Saving Mr. Banks HD MA
• Saving Mr. Banks (GP) HD MA
• Scarface 4K (iTune) MA
• Scarface HD MA
• Scary Stories To Tell In the Dark 4K (FN/iTune or GP)
• Schindler's List SD MA
• Schindler's List [iTune redeem] [?] MA
• the Scorpion King 3: Battle For Redemption (iTune) HD MA
• the Scorpion King 3: Battle For Redemption HD MA
• the Scorpion King 4: Quest For Power (iTune) HD MA
• the Scorpion King 4: Quest For Power HD MA
• Seal Team 8: Behind Enemy Lines HD (FN Or GP)
• the Secret Life Of Pets HD MA
• the Secret Life Of Pets (4K iTune) MA
• the Secret Life Of Walter Mitty HD MA
• See No Evil 2 HD FN
• Seeds of Yesterday SD FN
• Selma HD (iTune redeem) HD MA
• Serena SD FN
• Seventh Son (iTune) HD MA
• Seventh Son HD MA (iTune Portion)
• Sex Tape SD MA
• the Shack HD FN/GP Or iTune (split)
• Shang-Chi: and the Legend of the Ten Rings HD MA
• Shang-Chi: and the Legend of the Ten Rings (GP) HD MA
• Shrek the Third HD MA
• Shutter Island 4K FN or Itune
• Sicario 4K FN or iTune
• Silver Linings Playbook HD (FN Or GP)
• A Simple Favor HD FN/iTune/GP
• Single Mom's Club HD
• Sin City: a Dame to Kill For HD FN
• Sinister HD FN or (SD iTune)
• Sinister 2 (iTune) HD MA
• Sisters [unrated] (iTune) HD MA
• Sisters [unrated] HD MA
• the Skeleton Twins HD FN
• Skin Trade HD FN Redeem
• Skiptrace SD FN
• Skyfall HD (FN Or GP)
• Skyscraper HD MA
• Sleepless (iTune) HD MA
• Slumdog Millionaire (iTune) SD MA
• the Smurfs 2 SDHD MA
• **Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins HD FN or 4k iTune (split)
• Snatched HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Snitch HD FN only
• Snow White & The Huntsman (4K iTune) MA
• Snow White & The Huntsman HD MA
• Snowden HD MA
• Snowden (iTune) HD MA
• Solo: A Star Wars Story HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Son Of God HD MA
• Sonic The Hedge hog 2 4K (FN or iTune)
• Southpaw HD FN
• Sparkle SD MA
• the Spectacular Now SD FN
• Spectre 007 HD FN/GP/iTune
• Spider-man: Far From Home SDHD MA
• Spider-man: Homecoming HD MA
• Spider-man: No-way Home SDHD MA
• Split HD MA
• Split [iTune redeem] 4K MA
• the Sponge Bob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water HD FN / iTune (split)
• Spring Breakers HD FN
• Spy [unrated] HD MA
• the Spy Who Dumped Me HD V/I/GP
• Stand Up Guys HD FN
• the Star SD MA
• Starship Troopers: Invasion SD MA
• Star Trek [1] HD FN (Or 4K iTune) Split
• Star Trek [2] Into Darkness HD FN (Or 4K iTune) Split
• Star Trek [3] Beyond HD FN (Or 4K iTune) Split
• Star Trek: the motion picture HD FN or 4K iTune
• Star Trek: the Wrath of Khan HD FN or 4K iTune
• Star Trek: First Contact HD FN or iTune
• Star Trek: Insurrection HD FN or iTune
• Star Trek: Nemesis HD FN or iTune
• Star Wars: Force Awakens HD MA (No Upgrade)
• Star Wars: Force Awakens HD MA (4K iTune Redeem)
• Star Wars: Force Awakens (GP) HD MA
• Star Wars: the Last Jedi HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Star Wars: the Last Jedi (GP) HD MA
• Star Wars: Rise Of Skywalker 4K MA
• Star Wars: Rise Of Skywalker (GP) HD MA
• Step Up: All In HD FN
• Step Up: Revolution HD FN Or (iTune Quality Unknown)
• Still Alice SD MA
• Straight Out Of Compton (iTune) 4K MA
• Straight Out Of Compton [unrated] HD MA
• Street Kings (iTune) SD MA
• Sucker Punch (iTune) SD MA
• Sundown: the Vampire in Retreat HD FN or GP
• Super 8 HD FN only
• Super Buddies HD MA
• Super Buddies (GP) HD MA
• Super Troopers (iTune) SD MA
• Super Troopers HD MA
• Super Troopers 2 HD MA
• Tad: the Lost Explorer - and the secret of king midas HD FN / iTune (split)
• Taken (theatrical) SD MA
• Taken (Extended) SD MA
• Taken 2 HD MA
• Taken 3 (extended) HD MA
• Tarzan HD FN
• Ted (iTune) HD MA
• Ted [unrated] HD MA
• Ted [unrated] (iTune) HD MA
• Ted 2 (iTune) HD MA
• Ted 2 [unrated] HD MA
• Ted 2 [unrated] (iTune) HD MA
• Teen Spirit HD MA
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles HD FN/iTune split
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows HD FN/iTune split
• Temptation HD FN
• Texas Chainsaw HD (FN/iTune/GP) iTune Split
• Thanks For Sharing HD FN
• That Awkward Moment SD MA
• That's My Boy SDHD MA
• the Theory Of Everything (iTune) HD MA
• Think Like A Man SD MA
• Think Like A Man Too SDHD MA
• This Is 40 (iTune Portion) HD MA
• This Is 40 HD MA
• This Is The End SDHD MA
• Thor Love And Thunder 4K\HD MA
• Thor Love And Thunder (GP) HD MA
• Thor Ragnarok (GP) HD MA
• Thor Ragnarok HD MA
• A Thousand Words SD FN
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri HD MA
• the Three Stooges [the movie] (iTune) SD MA
• tinker tailor soldier (iTune) hd ma
• Tinkerbell And The Legend Of The NeverBeast HD MA
• Titanic HD FN (SD4K iTune)
• Tooth Fairy (itune) SD MA
• Top Gun HD FN & iTune (split)
• Top Gun Maverick 4K FN or iTune
• Total Recall (1990) HD FN
• Total Recall (2012) [theater & Extended] HD MA
• Total Recall (2012) SD MA
• Tower Heist (iTune) HD MA
• Toy Story 4 (GP) HD MA
• Trainwreck (iTune) HD MA
• Transformers: Age Of Extinction SDHD FN
• Transformers: Dark Of The Moon SDHD FN
• Transformers: The Last Knight (digital Cut) HD FN Or iTune 4K Split
• the Transporter HD MA
• the Transporter (iTune) SD MA
• Tremors 5: Bloodlines HD MA
• Tremors 5: Bloodlines (iTune) HD MA
• Tremors 6: A Cold Day In Hell HD MA
• Trolls HD MA
• True Grit HD FN (iTune Split)
• the Trust SD FN
• Turbo (iTune) SD MA
• Turbo HD MA
• Twilight: Breaking Dawn Pt 1 HD FN (SD iTune) split
• Twilight: Breaking Dawn Pt 2 HD FN (SD iTune) split
• Unbroken (iTune) HD MA
• Unbroken HD MA
• Under The Skin HD FN
• Underworld: Awakening SDHD MA
• Underworld: Bloodwars HD MA
• Unknown (iTune) SD MA
• Unstoppable (iTune) SD MA
• Vampires Suck (iTune) SD MA
• Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets HD FN
• the Vatican Tapes HD FN
• Vendetta (wwe) SD FN
• Venom SDHD MA
• Vertigo HD MA
• Vice (lionsgate) HD FN
• the Vow SDHD MA
• A Walk Among Tombstones (iTune) HD MA
• Walking With Dinosaurs HD MA
• Wall-E HD MA
• Wallstreet 2: Never Sleeps (iTune) SD MA
• Wanted (iTune) SD MA
• War Of The Planet Of The Apes HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• War Room SDHD MA
• Warcraft (4K iTune) MA
• Warcraft HD MA
• Warm Bodies HD FN
• Warm Bodies HD FN/GP/ iTune (4K iTune Split)
• the Watch HD MA
• Water For Elephants (iTune) SD MA
• We Bought A Zoo (iTune) SD MA
• the Wedding Ringer SD MA
• Werewolf: the Beast Among Us UR HD MA
• Werewolf: the Beast Among Us UR (iTune Portion) HD MA
• What Happens In Vegas (iTune) SD MA
• What To Expect When You're Expecting HD FN
• What's Your Number (iTune) SD MA
• When the Bough Breaks SD MA
• When The Game Stands Tall SDHD MA
• Where Hope Grows HD FN
• Whiplash HD MA
• White House Down SD MA
• Wild Card HD FN
• Winchester HD FN/GP/iTune
• the Witch SD FN
• the Wolf Of Wall Street HD FN (and 4K iTune Split)
• the Wolfman (iTune) SD MA
• the Wolverine (iTune) [SD?] MA
• the Wolverine [unrated] HD MA (must redeem on MA)
• the Wolverine [theatrical] (GP) HD MA
• the Woman In Black SD MA
• Woman In Gold HD FN
• Won't Back Down HD MA
• Wonder HD (iTune, FN Or GP)
• Wonder Park (FN HD or iTune 4k)
• Woodlawn HD MA
• Woodlawn (iTune) HD MA
• the Words (+ extended) hd ma
• Words and Pictures HD FN
• World War Z HD (FN Or iTune)
• the X-files: I Want To Believe (iTune) SD MA
• X2: X Men United SD (iTune) SD MA
• X Men Apocalypse HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• X Men Days Of Future Past HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• X Men Days Of Future Past HD MA
• X Men First Class (iTune) SD MA
• X Men Last Stand (iTune) SD MA
• X Men Origins Wolverine (iTune) SD MA
• XXX: Return Of Xander Cage HD FN (or iTune Split)
• Yesterday HD MA
• You're Next HD FN
• the Young Messiah (iTune) HD MA
• Zero Dark Thirty SDHD MA
• Zootopia HD (4K iTune Redeem) MA
• Zootopia (GP) HD MA

iTune Only MOVIES - No Port - Marked

• Abduction SD (iTune)
• the Act Of Valor SD (iTune)
• the Adventures of Tin Tin HD (iTune)
• Alex Cross SD (iTune)
• All Eyez On Me HD (iTune)
• Allied HD (iTune)
• Annihilation 4KHD (iTune)
• Arrival 4K (iTune)
• Bankok Dangerous SD (iTune)
• the Bank Job SD (iTune)
• the Big Wedding HD (iTune)
• Book Club 4K (iTune)
• Brooklyn's Finest SD (iTune)
• Star Wars: Clone Wars SD (iTune)
• Crank 2 SD (iTune)
• Criminal 4K (iTune)
• Danger Close HD (iTune)
• Daybreakers SD (iTune)
• the Dictator HD (iTune)
• Divergent 4K (iTune)
• Divergent Series: Allegiant 4K (iTune)
• Divergent Series: Insurgent 4K (iTune)
• Don Jon SD (iTune)
• Draft Day HD (iTune)
• the Expendables [first movie] SD (iTune)
• the Expendables 3 [unrated] HD (iTune)
• the Eye SD (iTune)
• the Family SD (iTune)
• Family Guy Its A Trap (iTune)
• Forbidden Kingdom (iTune)
• G.I. Joe the Rise of the Cobra SD (iTune)
• Gamer iTune SD (iTune)
• Gemini Man 4k (iTune)
• Ghost In The Shell 4K (iTune)
• Gods Of Egypt 4K (iTune)
• Hansel & Gretel [unrated] HD (iTune)
• the Happytime Murders (apple Tv)
• the Haunting In Connecticut (iTune)
• House At The End Of The Street SD (iTune)
• Hercules 4K (iTune)
• Hugo (4k iTune)
• the Hunger Games [4k iTune] or [GP-HD]
• the Hunger Games: Catching Fire [4k iTune] or [HD GP]
• the Hunger Games: Mocking Jay Part 1 [4k iTune] or [HD GP]
• Hustler's (apple Tv)
• I Feel Pretty (apple Tv)
• Immortals (iTune)
• Instant Family 4K (iTune)
• Jack Reacher 4K (iTune)
• Jack Reacher: Never Go Back 4K (iTune)
• Jackass 3 [from unrated] (iTune)
• Jake and the Neverland Pirates: Jake saves Bucky SD (iTune)
• John Wick 4K (iTune)
• Katy Perry: Part of Me HD (iTune)
• Immortals (iTune)
• Interstellar 4K (iTune)
• La La Land 4K (iTune)
• Labor Day HD (iTune)
• the Last Witch Hunter 4K (iTune)
• Limitless SD (iTune)
• the Lincoln Lawyer (iTune)
• Machine Gun Preacher SD (iTune)
• Middle School: the Worse Years of My Life HD (iTune)
• Mirror Mirror SD (iTune)
• Mission Impossible: Fallout HD (iTune)
• Monster Trucks HD (iTune)
• Noah HD (iTune)
• Office Christmas Party 4K (iTune)
• One For The Money [Bluray] (iTune)
• Pain & Gain HD (iTune)
• Paranoia SD (iTune)
• Paranormal Activity 2 HD (iTune)
• Paranormal Activity 3 HD (iTune)
• Paranormal Activity 4 HD (iTune)
• Paranormal Activity 5: The Marked Ones HD (iTune)
• Pet Sematary 2019 4K (iTune)
• Pink Panther 2 SD (iTune)
• the Raven SD (iTune)
• Red Dawn SD (iTune)
• Rock Dog HD (iTune)
• Rogue Warfare HD (iTune)
• Safehaven (iTune)
• Same Kind Of Different As Me HD (iTune)
• the Shack HD (iTune)
• Skyfall SD (iTune)
• the Spirit SD (iTune)
• SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water HD (iTune)
• Star Trek SD (iTune)
• Step Up Revolution (iTune)
• Take Me Home Tonight XML (iTune)
• Tad: the Lost Explorer - and the secret of king midas HD (iTune)
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (tmnt1) 4K (iTune)
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Out Of The Shadows 4K (iTune)
• Terminator: Dark Fate 4K (iTune)
• Texas Chainsaw [2013] (iTune)
• Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie SD (iTune)
• Titanic (iTune)
• Transformers: Age Of Extinction 4K (iTune)
• Transformers: Dark Of The Moon 4K (iTune)
• Transformers: the Last Knight 4K (iTune)
• Transporter 3 SD (iTune)
• the Vanishing on 7th Street SD (iTune)
• Warm Bodies SD (iTune)
• Warrior (iTune)
• What to Expect While Expecting SD (iTune)
• Wonder 4K (iTune)
• Xxx Return Of Xander Cage 4K (iTune)

GooglePlay Rare portions - NOT MA - Mention you want the slip with GP

• the Choice - iTune HD (or) GP HD
• Divergent - iTune[4K] (or) GP HD
• the Duff - iTune HD (or) GP HD
• Mud - iTune HD (or) GP HD
• Norm Of The North - iTune HD (or) GP HD
• Now You See Me - iTune HD (or) GP HD
• Sicario 4K w/ GP portion
• Snitch - iTune[4K] (or) GP HD
• Temptation - (GP) HD
• What To Expect When You're Expecting - (GP) HD

TV Series Marked
FN Only

• Grace & Frankie SD FN
• Little House on the Prairie: A Merry Ingalls Christmas SD FN
• Nurse Jackie Season 6 HD FN
• Orange Is The New Black Season 1 SD FN
• Texas Rising SD FN

iTune Only

• Game Of Thrones Season 2 HD iTune
• Game Of Thrones Season 3 HD iTune
• the Young Pope HD iTune

In Search Of LIST

Chapter 24 - The Race
Previous Chapter
The Seventh competitor took her place before the assembled crowd on the ground, raising a fist into the air as she did so. The crowd roared at the display as the car’s turbines kicked in and began to raise her up into the sky. Her car had been modified as well, the control surfaces on it were noticeably shorter and the turbine was actually jutting several inches out from the back.
“Those previous cars didn’t appear to be modified much. Is that uncommon?” Alex pointed at the clearly modified car. The control surfaces didn’t even match the rest of the frame in color, let alone style.
“Not uncommon, really. It’s just a bit difficult to often sink any serious amount of time and money into them. Winning the challenges is a goal that brings with it fame, respect, and glory but otherwise it isn’t exactly lucrative. It is up to each competitor to decide how much of their own resources to put into each vehicle, with the knowledge that they may not recoup the costs.” Borala glanced down at a paper in front of her. “That particular car is from a rather well-known Teff called the Veshika. They manage a particularly rich mining operation in the M’rit lands.”
At first the competitor seemed much more skilled than the others. Alex watched as she poured on the speed, her car tilting and curving around the track, narrowly dodging each projectile while maintaining a fairly high speed. Still her handling of the car seemed somewhat spotty. She was rocketing ahead of the shots, sure, but whenever she DID have to change direction she did so almost awkwardly.
Despite her lack of skill, her car was still quite capable. She made it past the first two Flame sections into the third far quicker than the others, but it was quickly apparent that it wouldn’t be enough here. She’d finally started dodging but it was clear she was having troubles controlling the vehicle at the speeds she was going. Her turns were all over the place, both over and under correcting as she tried to make up for the fact that speed alone wasn’t going to be enough to get her through unscathed.
She was fast approaching the triple cannon area that had taken out the first challenger when a cannon shot tracked her perfectly, landing its soft projectile directly into one of the four stabilizing thrusters that kept the vehicle aloft.
Immediately the thruster cut out, spewing sparks and smoke as the car began to tilt wildly, losing altitude rapidly as the pilot fought the controls. For a moment it looked like they were about to witness a disaster on the track before the other 3 thrusters compensated, and the car slowly regained control. The spotter car was already roaring up to her aid, but it appeared to be mostly unnecessary after all. Alex could hear the audience breathing a sigh of relief as they saw her land safely.
“My, that was a close one.” Borala tapped a finger on the armrest of her chair. “The thrusters can normally take a hit without failing like that. It must have come in at just the right angle to damage it.”
“I’m glad she made it OK. When I saw the car tumble, I was certain we were about to witness a tragedy.” Alex took a deep breath. “I’m still a bit surprised by how dangerous this seems.”
Borala sighed at this, and nodded her head. “It is dangerous. But it’s popular. We used to drive ground cars across a large course with ramps, obstacles, debris, and so on. But over time the people grew bored of watching it. One of my predecessors attempted to spice up the events shortly after the Bunters arrived and sold us the first group of aircars. We’ve been trying to make it safer, to scale it back, but every time we do interest wanes. People want to watch the thrills and the danger.”
“That sounds remarkably like our people.” Josh gazed out at the scene of the Spotter attaching cables to the damaged aircar, prepping it to return back to the starting point. “Throughout our history there’s endless examples of things that were small spectacles or events that grew more and more complex over time. Even when the cars were so fast they would virtually disintegrate on the track if someone made a wrong turn or another car caused them to lose control and crash. Plenty of people won’t admit it but they watch those races hoping for something to happen, because it’s just that much more exciting.”
Borala shuddered as she imagined the carnage of a ground car crashing and breaking apart. “In the thirty-eight years I have been managing this event as the head of the Nof, there have been three fatal accidents. I still often find myself wishing we could keep the excitement and entertainment of the challenges without as much danger, yet whenever we try there’s an outcry. I can’t deny that a part of the thrill comes from the challengers being exposed as they fly.”
Alex immediately saw the opportunity and jumped in. “That’s actually fairly doable. I’m no engineer like Ji and Min, but I know for a fact there’s a number of safeguards we could help you implement to prevent a worst-case scenario. Granted, it would take time and resources we don’t have in abundance - yet.”
Borala smiled, and patted Alex on the shoulder. “Save the effort for the Presh. I already fully support our two species working together. Kyshe wishes to trust in you, I believe. Yet it was her mother who signed the agreements with the Bunters. Kyshe was present as heir and witness to it all. All five of the major Teffs agreed to the deal, yet because it was signed by the Presh they bore the weight of the blame when it was revealed what the Bunters had done. We try to tell our people that the Presh did not act on their own, but…” She sighed and shook her head.
“Well, once we get things turned around, if we can emphasize Kyshe’s role in it all that should help a great deal.”
“You’re speaking as though it can’t fail.” Borala smiled widely at this. “You’re that certain that your plans will succeed?”
Alex nodded emphatically. “I’m an optimist. I always hope for the best.” He glanced up at the display. “And now it looks like our girl’s ready to show her stuff.”
—--
Trix had the thrusters on low as she walked the car out to the starting area. Unlike the others she didn’t have it wheeled out unpowered, but already had the car started as she guided it out, floating only a few feet off the ground. Many competitors didn’t do this,opting instead to sit astride the car before engaging the thrusters, but Ji suggested it as a way to present both herself and the car together, and she didn’t really have any reason to say no. Ji himself was walking out with her, on the opposite side of the car.
Initially he hadn’t wanted to. He wanted her to be the one in the spotlight and he knew that his presence would be immediately distracting, but she had insisted. “You helped me prepare for this, you get to show it off with me!” she’d stated.
What she HADN’T stated was her nervousness at this. She’d been a fan of the races since she was young, and now she was finally going to compete herself. Winning the competition didn’t result in any significant change to anyone’s life. There was no massive prize pool, no source of regular income afterwards. It wasn’t going to lead to new opportunities in her life. It was just a source of fun, a point of pride, and a way to show off one’s skills - and that alone made it a worthwhile goal to many. Worthwhile to Trix, and to the friends she often spoke with over the multivids.
Buying the Soranet Ten was a major undertaking for her that had required long extra hours of working over two years to save up for. Most of her Teff had thought it was a waste of time and effort but it was her time, and her effort so none had done much more than making an off hand remark. And look where she was now! She was competing in front of over a thousand people here, and she knew that the remote broadcasts of this were viewed by at least ten times that amount, if not more. And once people realized the Humans’ involvement in this challenge, that number would grow by leaps and bounds. That was more than enough to get in her head, both for the better and for the worse.
Still, she was too far in now. Backing out now would be an embarrassment in front of god only knows how many, and she could live with failure better than she could with the humiliation of cowardice. So she steeled herself as she moved in unison with Ji out to the center of the staging area. Mounting an already-engaged aircar could often be tricky without the friction of the ground to stabilize it against, but Ji was there and held it for her as she swung her leg over the body, gripping the frame between her thighs tightly. The two of them attached each of the safety restraint cables around the frame to her, and she let her wings relax and droop a bit in anticipation.
As they finished, Ji slapped her arm lightly and walked away. She took a huge breath, then slid her helmet on and started to circle upward to reach the starting height.
—--
“That doesn’t look anything LIKE a Soranet Ten!” Borala protested, and Min made a dismissive noise.
“It started as a ten, we just modified it. There were some redundant systems in there that served no reasonable purpose that we removed. If you’re flying at a reasonable speed there’s no use in having THREE separate cooling systems. Just one radiator and one cooling line to each thruster is more than enough. And if you’re not trying to strafe left or right then there’s no need for all those ridiculous control surfaces. The Turbine only faces one way after all. So we removed most of those, which lowered the weight a substantial amount. That gave the thrusters extra power compared to before, so we added a small gimbal that lets them angle slightly backwards, to use that extra power to thrust forward faster. Everything was done on planet with local resources. The only thing we fully manufactured was the frame, and that was for style and not for performance.”
Borala took all this in as she stared at the modified aircar. “She’s also not wearing armored sheathes over her wings.”
This time all of the humans did a double take towards the screen. “Huh. That’s true. I didn’t hear anything about that from her.” Min thought back to their previous conversations. “Maybe she’s trying to cut the weight even more? The less weight the more power the thrusters can use…”
“Perhaps. But if a shot hits the wings, it will punch through those feathers with ease. And if it strikes a bone, it WILL shatter.” Borala motioned out towards the turrets. “The wing sheathes can blunt the worst of the impact, though wings do still get broken when hit with them on. It’s still a great deal better than going out unprotected.”
Ji ran up into the pavilion as Trix moved into starting position. The first of the four hammer strikes rang out. “Looks like it’s time. Min, how’s Telemetry looking?”
“A-OK here. Battery’s at max, Turbine’s clean, thrusters are all reading nominal.”
Ji ran over to the chair he’d vacated earlier. “Par, remotes in position?”
“Yes, Ji. Both the transmitter remotes and the recorder remotes are positioned along the track.”
Alex glanced over at Ji. “Transmitters?”
“Yeah, man. You think you’re the only one who can put on a show?” Ji grinned and lifted up the quickboard. The second the fourth gong of the bell rang out, Ji pressed the button on the quickboard and a thumping noise filled the area as Trix’ aircar shot forward.
—--
“Not even five seconds in and it’s already hitting problems.” Trix cursed under her breath. The car had performed perfectly on every single test flight in the last week, and every diagnostic had shown it was in perfect shape for this race. Yet right after she started, she could feel a harsh rhythmic buzz and thump against her thighs.
Her heart had leapt up into her throat at first, when she felt the unfamiliar sensations on the vehicle. She’d spent hours in the air on the back of the machine, and thought she’d known every single one of its quirks and sensations, but this one was new and new was almost always bad.
Almost. After a few seconds of the odd sensations, it intensified into something much more familiar. She continued to curse, now at Ji, for the surprise. The music they’d listened to so often while working on the car grew in intensity until it was all she could hear, and she goosed the throttle to pour on extra speed as the music filled her ears and her panic was replaced with the excitement the beat filled her with. Her heartbeat throbbed in her chest in time with the music as she leaned into the intense wind rushing past.
The car shot forward with a speed that none of the others could match, right as the music kicked in - electrifying the entire crowd who shot up from their seats. They’d known from the start this wouldn’t be like the other races just from the strange look that the Aircar brought in had (Not to mention the fact that a Human was walking it in alongside its rider) but this easily went beyond expectations.
The first flame was absolutely nothing. None of the turrets were calibrated to track the vehicle as it rocketed forward and it reached the second flame section without even needing to dodge. Even there the turrets struggled to keep up, with almost every single shot falling behind the vehicle. Trix had barely had to do more than go into a curve to avoid most of the shots on the second flame, as it too had been calibrated for a much slower car.
Entering the third flame was where the action started. The turrets in this section not only could track her far more effectively, but were leading their shots. Where the other competitors attempting the challenge focused more on acrobatics and using nimble and quick changes in velocity and vector to throw off the tracking, Trix opted to continue to pour on the speed. In lieu of strafing, she began to weave side to side while arcing up or down, moving in an almost erratic corkscrew pattern. Unlike the previous attempt, she had perfect control in the air - her arcs were smooth, she didn’t oversteer and every rapid change of vector was done without excessive movement to conserve as much speed as possible. In the blink of an eye she reached the same triple-volley that had taken out the first challenger, and as the three turrets fired as one, Trix’ car went into a steep dive, gaining speed as it used gravity along with the turbine to boost it past the tricky section. As the crowd roared out, nearly drowning out the thumping rhythmic music, she flew past the third flame into the last section of the course.
The last section was by far the trickiest. The turrets here would not simply fire at a competitor, not simply lead their shots, but occasionally fired off shots designed to miss by close margins, to frighten competitors into dodging and lead them into other turrets line of fire. And it was for this section that Trix had been practicing frantically for the past week.
The moment she’d crossed into the fourth flame, she immediately made a hard bank left, as two turrets that had been waiting for this fired as one, narrowly missing the back of the car. The two swept around, thumping out their shots as they swiveled to chase her but she completed a tight hairpin turn, returning to her original position before rocketing forward. As she did she completed a rapid ascent followed by another dive, before air braking hard. Her velocity dropped from 250 kilometers per hour to a mere hundred in a move that left Ji wincing. He knew that it couldn’t have felt good taking that slap of deceleration. It was effective, as a round that would have easily impacted her sailed several feet ahead, the computer clearly thinking she was going to use speed to dodge.
Another pair of turrets fired, with one shot sizzling so close to her helmet she had to fight the urge to drop the car down another dozen feet. Instead she ripped open the throttle to full, feeling the straps straining against the sudden intense surge of acceleration. She began to dodge and weave back and forth in a slalom motion as she gained speed, returning back up to 250 kph and above - all the way to 290 as she saw the silver streaks of shots bracketing the vehicle.
The fourth flame was the shortest but it was also the most intense, and she could see the final braziers lit to signal the end of the course ahead - and directly in front of it, another trio of turrets waiting to unload a triple volley to smash down any challengers that made it to the end. The intensity of the barrage around her was growing, however, and as her heart hammered away in her chest she realized there was only one way she could possibly get over that finish line without being tagged.
Shoving all of her fear and nervousness aside, she swept her wings out widely on either side of the car, and threw into the hardest right turn she could. Her vision immediately began to swim and her back ached with the strain as the g-forces as she fought to use every ounce of thrust the car could produce along with the aerodynamics nature had given her all into creating the tightest possible turn she could. She fought against the overwhelming G-forces as she completely the tight turn at a frankly ridiculous speed, before finally straightening out to make a mad dash for the finish.
Miraculously, it seemed to work. The turrets’ software had seen how tight she could turn from earlier in the track, and were adjusting based on the larger turning radius the car could make on its own. Adding in her own wings to the mix tightened it by just enough that the final few shots on her went wide, and she threw caution to the wind as she used the tiniest opening that maneuver had given her to soar forward across the final flame. Just as she thought she was in the clear, she felt a sudden impact against the side of the frame, as a shot finally landed and smashed into the underside of the car.
—--
Borala was absolutely awestruck by what she’d seen. The capabilities of the car were one thing; spreading wings in the race was just risky but not unheard of, nor was using wings as an extra control surface. But she’d never seen a turn THAT tight at THAT ridiculous speed before. It had nearly worked, and she was staring at the screen as the vehicle passed over the flame.
Alex was on his feet cheering at the last section, and his cheers turned to groans as they saw the final impact of the shot successfully connect, the bright silver splotch against the vibrant green of the aircar’s frame. “Did she make it? Does that count?”
Borala turned to the race organizer, who shook her head. “We’re reviewing right now, both the video and the rules. I can’t recall ever hearing about anyone being shot AS they crossed the final flame, so we’re checking history now.”
Alex turned over to Par. “You were recording. Did she make it past?”
“The replay shows that the car was almost exactly centered over the braziers when the final shot landed. I have done a local data search for what constitutes ‘finishing’ the challenge but there is a lack of sufficient detail for me to be able to say for sure whether or not that counts as a victory or an elimination.” One of Par’s remotes moved over to the large display. “If you’ll allow me to elaborate…”
The huge display screen blanked out as a technician on the other side of the pavilion cried out. Immediately it lit back up, this time showing the scene from the remote Par had placed out in the track. The remote hovered right near the exit, and all assembled watched as it slowed down to a couple hundred frames per second. The car crawled forward on the screen, and the audience gasped as the shot suddenly appeared from below, racing upwards several times faster than the car itself. Just as the car reached the center point of the braziers, the shot made impact and the frame could be seen bouncing oh so slowly to the side as it did.
Ji whistled at the shot. “Damn, right at the end. Does that stuff come off?”
“It is not a permanent application, no. It is designed to make hits quite obvious, as some contestants have used badly battered cars in the past and claimed that dents were present before the races.” Borala sat back in her chair and watched as the organizers ran around trying to determine whether or not the run was considered complete or not. “It is safe to say that she has won today’s challenges, whether or not the final flame was completed.”
“Well, sure. Still would be nice to know if she did manage to complete it. Has any challenger before done a full complete on their first try?” Ji wandered over to Min to look over her shoulder as he spoke.
“Not on their first try, no. I am quite certain that for a first time racer this is easily a record.”
“Well then it’s important to know if it counts or not, since it looks like she just made history.” Ji looked down at the telemetry that the aircar’s sensors was sending to Min’s quickboard. It looked like nothing had been damaged when the impact happened, and all four thrusters and the turbine were showing zero abnormalities.
Trix was much more leisurely as she returned to the staging area, coming down to land back in the center as the crowd cheered her on. Whether or not she’d completed the course they didn’t particularly care, they simply saw a phenomenal racer on a unique vehicle blast through some of the most intense barrages of the day while thumping music had heightened the entire experience. As they roared out their approval, Trix raised a fist in their direction before walking the car back towards the shuttle she’d arrived from.
—--
Trix threw the multivid screen down on her bed with exasperation. In the week since her attempt at the firelands challenge, things had all seemed to go entirely wrong for her.
The Nof organizers could not find any clarification about what exactly constituted a victory, since the rules were rather vague. The section on victory states “When a challenger passes the final flame before being struck” which would indicate that she’d succeeded. But the section on elimination stated that “Challengers would be eliminated if they or their vehicle is struck before reaching the final flame”. She had REACHED the final flame but not PASSED it, and thus far nobody had been able to reach a valid conclusion on what that meant.
Or rather, nobody actually in charge had reached one. In reality there were throngs of people who thought that her performance had been valid and she deserved to be recorded as the first instance of a full completion on their very first attempt. Of course, there were just as many who believed that she had been eliminated before completion. She herself didn’t particularly care about either of those groups, as completion or not she drove her best and was proud of how well she did. What got under her skin was the third group, the one that claimed she was a mediocre driver who was simply gifted an exceptional aircar by the humans that did all of the work.
At first she ignored those people. Yes, the car itself was phenomenal but at its core it was still the same Soranet Ten she’d purchased a month ago. They’d modified it absolutely. They had removed components, adjusted others, and the frame itself was swapped out mainly for aesthetics. But there was no reason at all that the changes couldn’t have been made by anyone else out there. In fact, a conversation between Min and the Nof matriarch detailing the changes made was public for those interested in trying it themselves.
That hadn’t silenced the detractors. Nor had offering to let other racers use her car to attempt the challenge - the arguments they made were exhaustive. From custom programming allowing only her to use it effectively, to claims that the car was controlled remotely, to claims that the Humans had hacked the turrets to improve her chances of winning. Even despite all of that, she could perhaps have still ignored it and been happy after her run if not for the fact that her friends, the ones she’d hoped the most would side with her, had joined in on accusing her of cheating. No matter how she protested they refused to listen, up until the point when she’d given up and just disconnected from the chat.
Her own Teff was also firmly on her side (Fohn in particular seemed to always be staring at her with huge adoring eyes of late) that was simply natural. They were Teff and that meant they were always on her side. But truly the bright spot in all of this was the Humans themselves, who had supported her from the beginning. More than just Ji and Min who were friendly with her from the start, all of the others had been sympathetic and supportive. The entire crew had their say on the cameras and screens on multiple occasions supporting her. Lately she spent as much time in Min’s room as her own. It helped not feeling quite as alone.
Today, however, the brief knock on Min’s door went unanswered. As did Ji’s. After a brief bit of searching, and being pointed out the door by a few members of the Teff who’d seen the Humans earlier, she found them assembled just outside their shuttle. The day was bright and warm and apparently they’d decided to lounge around outside on the grass.
Ji smiled and raised a hand as she walked over to join them. “Yo. Any word from the Nof?”
“None.” Trix walked over and collapsed down on the grass, laying down next to where Min was sitting. “The last I heard, they want to hold a vote with every still-living challenger participating to clarify the two conflicting sections. Honestly though I don’t even care anymore.”
“What’s the matter, feathers? You sound down.” Ma’et had been leaning on a tree nearby, but came over to lay down next to the larger avian.
“Just… sick of it. I wanted to challenge the Firelands since I was ten. And when I did it was the most incredible thing ever. But it seems like nobody out there cares. All my friends are pissed off at me and think I cheated, thousands of strangers keep trying to get in touch with me to tell me how awful or wonderful I am.”
Alex took a sip out of the can he was holding. “What’d you expect to happen? I’m not criticizing. Just don’t know what would have been a normal reaction for your people.”
“I dunno. I get out there and race, I come in comfortably in the middle of the pack, I practice a lot more, I race again and again and eventually complete the challenge. Then I find some cute guy and we spend a couple years exploring before we become accepted.” Trix pulled at the grass as she spoke, letting the breeze blow away the thin, soft blades. “Kinda lame when I say it out loud.”
“Not at all.” Josh gazed up at the sky wistfully, watching the clouds passing by slowly. “There’s nothing in the world wrong with dreaming about finding happiness in what you do and who you’re with. So long as you’re happy and healthy then the details don’t really matter much, do they?”
“Agreed. I’m curious though.” Alex tilted his head as he looked over at Trix. “What did you want to explore? Space?”
“Huh? No, no. Exploring a relationship. When couples get together we explore each other and the bond between us. It’s important to explore because once we’re accepted we can’t go back.” Trix crushed a blade of grass between her fingers, idly rolling them back and forth. “I’m not sure if Humans have the same thing or not.”
“Sort of. Al, it’s sort of like dating and Marriage.” Min piped up. “We talked about it while working on the car a bit. Exploration is like dating. You learn about each other, all of a person’s strengths and flaws. Their likes and dislikes. And if both sides are willing they marry. For life. Accepted isn’t quite as formal as marriage but it’s very, very permanent.”
“It’s not permanent for Humans?” Trix looked up and over at Min. “You said that people who got ‘Married’ stayed together.”
“They do, often. But sometimes people make a mistake. They rush into a relationship without exploring as well as you guys do. Or over time, they change and find that instead of being pulled closer together, they get pushed apart.” Min gestured at her brother. “Our folks were inseparable for decades, but Dad started to focus too much on work and not enough on Mom. They grew distant and unhappy and split up.”
“That’s horrible.” Trix shuddered at the thought. “Acceptance is… I mean, to think that two people who come together could be split apart? Just that easily?”
“Dunno what to say to that. Some humans join together for life, sure, but others just can’t make that same choice. They get together for the wrong reasons, they get enamored with one another and miss or ignore the warning signs that things might not go well.” Min glanced around. “These guys might explain it better.”
Ma’et cleared her throat. “There’s a saying I saw way the hell back when. I don’t remember where. It was something like, “Sometimes we need to fall in love with the wrong person so we know how it feels when we meet the right one”? I guess it’s sorta like, it’s easy to think something’s good because you don’t know what bad is. But if you get in a bad relationship it shows you what you need in a good one.”
Josh looked thoughtful about that. “I think that might be a little accurate. But I also think there’s a lot more to it than that. Ultimately I think it’s mostly just about being willing to put in the work. If one or both sides of the relationship aren’t willing to actually work at it, then it’s gonna fail. You gotta be able to give as well as take, so to speak.”
Alex took another sip from the can. “I also think communication’s the big thing. Gotta actually be willing to say when you’re unhappy and why, so that problems can be addressed. Too many people let things that bother them sit and fester and that just makes the problems worse over time.”
“Yeah but you get all your romantic advice from movies and vids.” Ma’et snickered. “And those have to have shitty communication in order for the plots to make any sense. Can you imagine how boring they’d be if they were realistic? ‘Honey all the time you spend away from me makes me feel unwanted and like you’re cheating on me.’ ‘Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry. I’m spending all my time away from you because I’m a spy infiltrating a pirate group that’s been harassing merchants out near Verdine. The redheaded lady I spend my time with is actually going to be arrested and hung once I’m done, there’s no romance there!’ ”
“Hey, that ain’t true. Entirely.” Alex took another long sip from the can, and tossed the empty container at Ma’et. “I mean, yeah, you’re right about how shitty communication makes movies more interesting. Just not right about that being where I get all my romance ideas from.”
Ma’et grabbed the can out of the air and crushed it in her hand. “Sure, sure. Remind me how long it’s been since you were in a relationship?”
“Bad example. I’ve spent most of the last few decades doing these scouting and survey missions. The asteroid dating scene isn’t exactly overflowing with prospective partners.”
“Well, you cozied up to the big bird on the station quickly enough.” Min grinned over at the Captain. “Maybe the reasons your love life is crap is because you never decided to date far enough outside of your species?”
Trix couldn’t help but snicker at that one. “Ew, come on. No offense but you guys don’t really hold a candle to a properly cute guy. How can you hope to compete with some gorgeous Rectrices?”
“Uhhh… Rectrices?”
Trix pointed at the back of her legs. “Big feathers back here. Very attractive on males.”
“Gotcha. Well, you’re right that I don’t have those. I do have a sparkling personality though. Surely that counts for SOMETHING?”
Trix just shrugged, and shook her head. “Sorry, Captain. Humans just aren’t attractive. Not to me, or my friends…” The sudden reminder brought back all the negative emotions from earlier.
Min saw her friend’s face fall, and reached out and put her hand on Trix’s arm. “What happened?”
“Nothing. They’re just being obnoxious.” She shook her head again, and grabbed a handful of the grass. “They think you guys conspired to make me win. Or almost win.”
“Betcha they’re just jealous.” Min stood up and stretched her arms out. “You said they were in disbelief after you told them you were our guide, right? Same thing. They’re mad that they couldn’t be the one here instead of you.”
“Yeah, but they’re my friends! Shouldn’t they be happy for me?” She angrily threw the fistful of grass away from her.
“Yeah, they should.” Alex stood up himself, walking over to take the crushed can from Ma’et. “And I dunno whether that just means they’re bad friends or if it’s just really bothering them. Either way, maybe some time doing something else would help. Want to go flying?”
“Not particularly. I don’t even want to SEE an aircar right now.”
Alex grinned, and jerked his thumb behind him at the shuttle. “Oh, I wasn’t talking about the aircar. Three hundred KPH is impressive. Want to try going a bit faster? Like, I dunno, how’s Mach 5 sound?”
“Uh, Al, flying a shuttle isn’t even REMOTELY like flying an Aircar.” Josh pointed out.
“Nope, it’s not. But god knows if I can learn how to fly one, she can. There’s at least three experts assembled here that can teach her, and on a planet with over 80% water coverage there’s no shortage of places we can go to learn without causing a disruption.”
He walked over to the shuttle and slapped the access panel, and the boarding door slid open immediately. “What do you say, Trix? Care to fly the friendly skies?”
—--

I wrote this memoir over 3 years ago, after weeks of insomnia and nightmares. I wrote in english, my second language, so my wife won't read it, as she doesn't speak or read english at all. I apologize for any grammar or spelling mishaps.
The Molehill
The death of the Kid affected us all. I don’t even remember his name, none of us did. The same happened to the Firestarter and to the Forgotten Girl. I think we chose to forget their names, hoping it will keep us somewhat isolated from the whole thing. It didn’t. We all changed. It split our time at the Molehill into two periods: Before the Kids’ Death and After the Kids’ Death. And some of those who came AKD were affected, changed too. But it did much worse things to us, to me and my classmates. It took me17 years to write it all down, hoping I could put the past to rest.
It all began in late February or early March, 1999, some weeks BKD. We were in sixth grade at the Molehill. The Kid and the Firestarter were in fifth. This was the year of the reform, and the last year I talked to the Forgotten Girl.
The Molehill is our own name for the school. Formally it was “Special School and Educational Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired”. In other words it was a boarding school for any handicapped kid that had any eyesight problem, at least back in 1990s. We’ve got bullies, problem kids, kids that needed more specialized help due to their mental problems and deficiencies, as long as they had any sight problem, so other schools would not have to deal with them. The Molehill had preschool, primary school, high school, and middle school too, after the reform, and AKD. Most of us started at preschool. Me, three of the four Kamils, Raphael Noodle. Not the Kid, nor the Firestarter. And not the Forgotten Girl. She joined us, if one can call it “joining” at the first grade. Lucas the White, Kamil Chive and Susan came at the beginning of the 3^rdgrade. And me? I’m the fatso, the nerd, the weakling. And I can’t recall any of their faces. Especially the Kid. We all did our best to forget him.
I still remember the day it all began, even though I don’t remember the exact date. It was cold as hell, and we all, the three classes and the teachers, were on the road trip to the Majdanek Concentration Camp, which is situated on the outskirts of Lublin, where I was born and raised, and where Molehill is. The Nazis built it back when they had their big tour around the Europe. They used it to imprison and murder mostlyJewish peoplefrom the region, but there were also some Ukrainians, Roma, Belarusians and Russians. Those prisoners worked the camp fields to grow beats, if I remember the tour lecture correctly, and when they couldn’t work anymore, they were murdered in gas chambers or shot, and their bodies burned in crematorium. The ashes were used as fertilizer for the fields.
My grandfather, when he was barely more than teenager, and bakers’ apprentice, often passed by the camp on his round delivering bread, buns and other pastries riding a horse cart. Few times he had thrown loafs of bread to the prisoners over the fence, but one day Nazi guards spotted him doing that and wanted to shoot him dead on the spot. My grandfather pissed himself, when they pointed their guns at him. They didn’t do it only because they had no idea, what to do with a horse and a cart full of bread. After that he never did anything like that again, and changed his route to be as far from the fence, as possible. He told this story to my father, who told me.
It’s hard to comprehend the monstrosity of it all when you’re reading it in history book or watching a show on Discovery Channel. But when you visit such a place, when you see it with your own eyes, it affects you sometimes. And sometimes it doesn’t. For some people it’s still a joke or a fiction. Or a boring road trip to a boring place.
As I mentioned, it was cold as hell, there were three classes, the 5^th, the 6^th, and the 7^th. And few teachers. Classes in Molehill are small, usually less than 10 kids. It takes much more effort to teach kids with poor eyesight, or no sight at all, or those that are also mentally deficient. What a nice term, “mentally deficient”, it can cover so many things, and yet not explain any to outsiders. There was Mathew in our class for a time, he was mentally deficient, he had an IQ of rotten turnip, was very aggressive, and our class teacher, an old bitch who panicked and left the class one time in 2^ndgrade when Duckman sneezed his glass eye out, didn’t know how to handle such “mentally deficient” student, so she taped him to the chair one day. After that he left Molehill for some place better suited for him. There was Michael, he was slow too, but not that slow. He became a gardener for the city. There was also Adrian, who had some neurological problems that caused surgeons to cut into his brain. Our math teacher once had shown us that because of this Adrian can’t walk and count aloud at the same time.
I’m wandering off the topic. I’m sorry. AKD we never talked about it, and even writing this down after so many years is hard. But it needs to be written down, just for the record, if nothing else. And there are so many related memories that I’m uncovering like some archaeologist of my own mind. Long forgotten fossils of some good times, and some bad times. Mostly bad times. You don’t know, how much even tiniest things affected you, until you examine them. For example after Duckman sneezed his glass eye out and our teacher ran out of the class, I decided to never replace my dead eye with glass one.
The Duckman was one of the four Kamils, he was our blind classmate. The other one, KB, was almost as nerdy as I, but he had better looks and better personality. And better sight. KW was in the 7^thgrade, he was dormitory roommate of Chive, Lucas the White, The Kid and The Firestarter. He also was blind. Raphael Noodle was the kid who bullied me, but after the reform, when instead of 7^thgrade we all went to the middle school, he moved to different one, where he snapped and beat up some kid so bad, he ended up in juvie. Lucas did whatever Raphael did, so until Raphael left us, we didn’t talked much. Chive was friends with Lucas, but he did nothing. No one talked to me, except for Duckman. No one wanted to hang out with a blind kid, nor with the almost blind one, so we became friends. And I was always his guide on trips. Susan didn’t like me, but she didn’t dislike me either, as the only girl in the class she was by herself for the most time. I don’t count The Forgotten Girl, because she wasn’t really part of our class, but she and I shared a connection from the summer of 1993, where we both were on the same camp for two weeks. As for Michael and Adrian, everyone avoided them due to their unpredictable natures.
So, again, it was a cold day. Overcast, and it was gently snowing. We drove to the Majdanek area on the bus, then had to walk few hundred meters to reach the concentration camp. Anyone could enter the site, but the guided tour with visits to the barracks, museum and crematorium were paid. Because back then both the school and most of kids’ parents didn’t have much money, we were going to look around only, check the monument, the mausoleum and see the buildings from the outside. Fortunately for us there was a tour in progress, so we joined them and pretended to be the part of the group. This way we were able to visit the crematorium building. First was the room where prisoners under supervision of guards stripped the bodies. The guide explained that if a prisoner was killed after arrival, one of the Nazis removed all jewelry that person had, carefully checking the clothing. Then he checked the mouth for golden teeth or crowns, which he subsequently removed with a pair of pliers. Clothes were washed and packed. After this short lecture we entered the furnace room.
The room was dark and gloomy. I don’t remember much, but the atmosphere of that place. It gave me the creeps, like no other place ever before. Back then I didn’t know, why, but now I’m glad we didn’t go to the other buildings. There was a row of brick ovens, reinforced with iron or steel bars between each one and on the corners. The doors were open, and they still held both ashes and metal stretchers that were used to put bodies inside. There was another furnace, a black metal drum, that was fueled with Diesel fuel. Late addition, if I remember correctly. We spent there only few minutes. I felt relieved once we left the building. That’s when the guide discovered we weren’t part of his tour.
We went to look at the mausoleum. It’s a big bowl under a bigger roof. It holds the ashes and remains of the inmates, these were recovered after the camp was liberated and taken over by the Soviets. While walking toward it, we ate our lunches. I’ve got spam between two pieces of bread, with not enough butter. Each of those, who were staying in dormitories, got a tangerine, pack of biscuits and a carton of juice. I ate my dry spam sandwiches before we reached the mausoleum. Our whole group spread around it, some looked inside at the mound of ashes and bones. I did my best to describe it to the Duckman, but didn’t want to linger there. The place was almost as bad as crematorium.
And that’s when The Dead Kid did, what he did, and Firestarter played his part too. But we didn’t know that, not yet.
Raphael Noodle saw it, and he told the teachers. Completely out of character for him, but I think the atmosphere of the place got to him as bad as to me. Me and Lucas the White were nearest, so we both looked into the bowl. There, on the side of the mound were laying a tangerine peel and foil biscuit wrapper. Raphael pointed at The Dead Kid, and said:
“He threw them in, I saw.”.
One of the teachers looked into the bowl, and simply asked TDK:
“Did you?”
“Yes”, he said. “And so what?”
“We’ll talk back in the school, you and me, and the principal.” She looked around. “We can’t let anyone see this.”
“We can get it out” said Lucas. Quickly we organized into three groups. Lucas, Raphael and Chive were at the bowl. Me, Duckman and KW formed a shield for them. Rest of the kids clustered around us. Lucas was skinny and tall for his age, so he went over the bowl edge, Chive and Raphael held his legs, while he grabbed the peel and the wrapper. He told me later that he had to wipe the ashes against the side of the bowl, because he didn’t want to touch them at all, and he held his breath the whole time. I was expecting Raphael to make a prank by loosening his grip, but he didn’t. Again, out of character. After that we moved away quickly. Someone laughed. Much later Lucas told me, who and why. Chive told him, and he learned it the day he became a hero.
We returned to the school without any further incident, I went home, and we all forgot about this incident. Until March 24^th, 1999. The day The Dead Kid died. Or was it 25^th? It was at night after all, night of the first quarter moon. I learned about the events of that night much later. But there were other things that happened AKD, and I’ll tell this story the way I experienced it.
From that day until Easter school was closed. Chive, KW and Lucas the White were under investigation by the police. The Firestarter was not at school for that week because he got sick when he visited his parents for the weekend. The police provided the school with a counselor to help us deal with the death of the Kid, but I think her purpose was to learn more about the Kid, and to find out if anyone of us knows, who might’ve killed him. But they found nothing. No forensic evidences, no traces on KW, Chive, nor Lucas, not counting the blood and ash, of course. Eventually they wrote it down as suicide. Yeah, suicide with particular cruelty. But that I found out later.
By the end of April we all were acting as if nothing happened. Some of us got psychological help, new counselor replaced the police spy, a PTSD specialist. For few years Lucas and Chive couldn’t sleep. KW fared much better, as he saw nothing, a perk of being blind. But he heard it. He heard it all. No one noticed however that the Firestarter was slowly and quietly going nuts.
That April, May and June we barely did any learning, but the teachers didn’t push us. The teachers who were on call that night at the dormitory wing, went on a leave, some until September, some for over a year, and one forever, she retired from teaching. So there were some substitutes just after Easter in the dorm wing. In early June Firestarter started his first fire, outside the cafeteria. He collected some dry branches and leaves from the school grounds, and made quite a bonfire. Fire department had to put it out, because there were no rains for two weeks, and everything was dry. They even had to spray water on the roof of the cafeteria and on nearby trees. Quite a show for us, kids. No one knew, who started the fire, and why. Even Firestarter didn’t know.
June 25^thwas the end of the school year, it was also the last time I talked to the Forgotten Girl. She had cerebral palsy, and because of that she had limited motor function from her waist down. In short she was on wheelchair. Fortunately for her and her mom she wasn’t mentally deficient. Far from it. I’ll always remember her as that shy, timid girl, who spoke with soft, quiet voice. I remember her long, brown hair, slightly rounded cheeks and narrow, pointy chin. I don’t remember much more, with my sight faces are hard to remember. I recognize people by their voices, body shape, clothing and hair. Things that others can see from far. Forgotten Girl was skinny, despite being confined to the wheelchair. None of my classmates remembers her, because none of them really knew her. We spent a summer camp for blind and visually impaired, in the resort hotel named “Blackbird”. It was a three-sided pyramid of concrete in the mountains. There I learned how to move about with white cane, not my idea. There I spent time talking with the Forgotten Girl. We were too young to have really deep or meaningful conversations, but we shared something. Even at that age we both understood, at some level, that we will never be normal, and will never have normal lives. And we could either do our best, or just stop trying and die of despair. That’s why I learned the art of white cane, even though I never used it since. And that’s why she kept herself in shape later and decided to quit our school after sixth grade. She didn’t return for the middle school, nor for the high school. She was home-schooled anyway, but after that year she asked her mom to find a school where she could be in class, even on a wheelchair.
The graduation of 6^thgrade took place at gym, because it was the year of the reform, and we were going to be the first year that would go to the middle school. For most of us it meant staying right where we were. After the ceremony I sat on the bench in the corridor that joined the school wing with the dormitory wing (where also were the preschool, cafeteria and administration). She rolled up to me on her hand-powered wheelchair. She had a white blouse, dark blue skirt, white tights and black shoes. She also put on her finger-less gloves. She had painted nails. She stopped in front of me and just asked:
“Are you holding on, Paul?”
I knew she didn’t ask about the graduation.
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I? I didn’t know him much. You should ask Chives or Lucas.”
“I don’t care about them. I care about you.”
That was a surprise. I didn’t know she even remembered me. I felt guilty, because I didn’t.
“I’m fine. Really. I just have this absurd thought that he died because of tangerine peel.”
“Tell me” she said, so I told her. Then she told me she was not returning to our school because there was no entrance ramp and no elevator between first and second floor, and she really wanted to be in the class, to have real friends, or at least other people her age around.
“So this is the goodbye” I said.
“Paul, we can keep in touch, you know?”
“Like we did since that summer. It won’t happen, not with my parents. And I’m not very good at keeping in touch. Besides you will be moving to another city. And no one can read my handwriting, even I.”
That’s true. I developed good memory because I was unable to read my own notes. So I memorized them instead. She grabbed my hand in between hers.
“Promise me you won’t forget me.”
“I won’t”, but I did anyway, at least for some time. She released my hand and turned toward the school wing. Her mom was coming, with my dad and Duckmans’ dad too, to help with the wheelchair.
“And Paul?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re right about the tangerine peel. And you should trust your hunches more.” Parents reached us. She rolled down to the exit, turned towards the door, and looked at me.
“Good bye, Paul.”
“Good bye” I said. And that was that. I forgot her almost completely. I even forgot her name. I might ask Duckman, he has good memory for names, but I think I like to remember her as the Forgotten Girl. So those few memories of her that I have be like a dream from long time ago.
Next school year started almost normally. New school books, few new classes, few new classmates. But it was AKD. Some of us were regular visitors at counselors’ office. My mother got into her head that soon I will be blind, so she forced me to take course in Braille reading and writing. Look, Ma’, 22 years later and I’m still going without Braille! I learned it in six months, even reading with my fingertips, and six months later I forgot almost everything. Nothing really happened until November, when Chive became a school hero.
The reform caused Molehill to get more money to buy some specialized equipment, like electric Braille typewriters, book magnifiers (a CRT monitor on a stand with movable table underneath, there were some lights and camera in the monitor base, it could magnify anything on the table twenty or more times), some exercise equipment for kids that needed their motor skills and balance improved, and even a giant wooden table with hidden speakers inside for acoustic stimulation of whole body. That one I tried once, with some low frequency sounds. It was quite pleasant and relaxing experience. Anyway they needed place for that equipment, so they moved some administrative functions around, knocked a wall down and made a room for it in the dorm wing. The walls were covered with white plastic panels with wood grain texture. And my Braille teacher, who also did all the rehab work with the kids, hung some dry mistletoe and other plants on the walls. She got them from her house, just to add some more color and texture to the white walls.
One afternoon in late November, it was after classes, Chive and Firestarter were there, doing their homework, or something. Usually the kids that stayed for the week in dorms did their homework either in their rooms or in classrooms after classes. But that day Chive and Firestarter were in the most expensive room in the entire building. Next day Chive told us, what happened and how he became a hero.
“So he finished his homework first. He pulled out a lighter and started playing with it. I asked him “What the hell are you doing?!”, and he just went to that dry mistletoe and flowers thing that hung on the far wall by the window, and said “Check this out.”, and he just flicked his lighter. Just like that. And it went in flames in a second. Just “whoosh” and half of the wall was in flames. I ran toward it, yelling for help. I pushed him aside, grabbed the whole thing with my left hand and went to the nearest window. Opened it and threw it out. I wasn’t thinking, I just did it. Then Mrs. Aldona burst into the room and asked why I was yelling for help. I just told her that he ignited the mistletoe, and I pointed it with my left hand. I was still holding the window with the right one, you know. And then I saw my hand was burned.” He showed us his burned hand, wrapped in gauze and bandage.
Chive was embarrassed by the whole “hero” thing. He said he did what anyone would do. The room was saved, part of the wall had paneling to be replaced and ceiling painted over, but that\s that. The equipment inside was worth a hundred thousand zlotys, or more. Back then it was a serious amount of money.
That night Chive asked Firestarter about that fire. He was asked by teachers and principal too, but he told them he didn’t know why he did what he did. But he told Chive. He told him that ever since The Kid died he can’t stop thinking about fire and ashes. He told him that he started that fire by the cafeteria, and that he started a fire near his home, burning down someones’ meadow. Lighter helped him, a tiny flame to hold in a hand, but that day he just couldn’t control himself, he wanted that mistletoe burning. He told Chive about the road trip, that when we were moving away form mausoleum, after Lucas got that tangerine peel and wrapper out of the ash mound, The Dead Kid spat into the bowl, and that’s why Firestarter laughed. He also told Chive that he was finished in Molehill, the principal told him so, and called his parents. By the end of the week Firestarter was expelled from school.
Three months later he got into his fathers’ car, with a five-liter canister of gasoline. He locked himself in, poured the gasoline all around and over himself and played with his lighter. Suicide with particular cruelty.
Nothing important happened for some time. Then, in March 2001 Evelyn, the girl who joined us at the beginning of middle school, died from undiagnosed diabetes. One day she just collapsed in cafeteria. She was taken to the Children's’ Hospital in Lublin, but she died there after 3 days. She was buried on Majdanek cemetery. We all went to her funeral. Her death really hit me because I had a crush on her.
The middle school time ended with The Test. In theory better scores on it would open doors to better schools, including elite high schools. In practice the test was too easy, at least from my perspective. And we cheated as soon as the observer from Board of Education left the gym to check on Duckman, who took his tests separate from us, so his mechanical Braille typewriter won’t distract us. Nowadays I think the cheating was stupid, but there was pressure on us to perform, as someone heard from somewhere that the budget for schools in the following years will be based on test results. That turned out to be a lie. So the observer left the gym, one of the teachers stood at the door listening for her return, the other two went between our desks and gave us hints. From time to time someone would ask someone else for an answer. I was asked twice by one of the classmates that joined us at the beginning of middle school, I don’t remember his name. Twice I gave him the right answer. I didn’t need to cheat, but I didn’t mind helping others. Besides, the whole scoring system was pointless, pardon the pun, as elite high schools ignored the test results, and checked the grades instead, some even did their own testing.
Most of us stayed at Molehill anyway. Lucas the White had a chance to go to the high school with “arts” profile. That guy had a talent to paint and draw. Unfortunately he decided to stay with what he knew. Chive stayed too, as did KB and Duckman. Duckman had his troubles by then. He could get to elite high school, but that would probably kill him. I stayed in Molehill too, I was sure I couldn’t do normal high school, and elite one would be even harder. I was lazy too, so sue me. Some of us went to trade school for the blind and visually impaired, on Racing street. We got few new students, Eve the Bitch, Vicky, Marlene of thousand wet dreams, and Stan.
Me and Stan didn’t get along very much, at first. It changed when I snapped. I was the fat one, the nerd, the weakling. But one day, when we watched some movie with substitute teacher, Stan provoked me to a fight I knew I’d loose. Which, of course, I did.
I was sitting at desk in front row, Stan was sitting on top of his behind me. And he was kicking back of my chair with his feet. After few minutes of this I turned my head and said:
“Stop it!”
He did, for five seconds. I turned my head again and just glared as hard as one can, when being near-sighted, and with one eye dead and shrunken in the socket. He just kicked my chair again, this time harder. And I snapped. I just had enough of him, of the school, of my parents, of everything and everyone that pissed me off for the past few years. I just stood up, my chair crashing to the floor, and I attacked him. 5 seconds later I was bent over, Stan holding my right hand, arm bent at my back and substitute yelling at us both. I lost the fight, but for the first time in my life I won respect of the class. Or at least of those who cared about such things.
Few weeks later Stan asked me if I’ll be coming to the school dance. These were organized almost every week on Fridays. I didn’t attend them because I can’t really dance, and no girl would even ask me to one. Especially after Eve the Bitch started telling things about me, that’s what I thought at first. I told that to Stan, but he convinced me that I should come anyway.
I did, and boy, what an evening it was. Turned out there was at least one girl, who didn’t mind my bulk, beige shirt, even my awkwardness in social situations. Her name was Carolyn, she was from the third grade of high school, but her grade was under old system, from before reform, so she was a bit over a year older than me. She was my height, with triangular face, long, dark hair, small breasts and nice butt. After few dances some fast, one or two slow and almost intimate, she asked me to go to her dorm room, while her roommates were dancing with their boyfriends. So we sneaked out from the gym that was the dance hall, past the teacher that was keeping an eye on us, into the dorm wing, two flights of stairs up to the Girls’ Floor and into her room, at the far end of the corridor, by the second staircase that was added, when they did the rehab room. We kept lights off, so no one from the gym would see them. I was nervous, my heart pounding, my hands and forehead sweating like crazy. This was it, my first sexual experience with a female, whose name didn’t end with .jpg. I was ready, I was expecting something special. What I got was 10 seconds of awkward silence. And then Lucas the White started laughing and taunting us from the corridor. I don’t remember, what he said, but it made me really, really angry. I unlocked the door, opened it, saw Lucas and Chive. Chive was at least embarrassed, tugging White’s sleeve and saying:
“Let’s go, Lucas. Don’t be an asshole. Let’s go back.”
I grabbed my left wrist with right hand, and used my forearm like a ram. I hit Lucas\s throat, he shielded it with his hands, but I pushed him back towards the opposite wall. I kept one step away and just let most of my considerable mass push at his hands and throat. For him it was like bench pressing 80 kilograms of angry, horny and fat teenager. Lucas saw something in my eye, and he didn’t like it. He wheezed:
“I’m sorry, Paul. I’m sorry. I can’t breathe. I’m sorry.”
Chive tugged at my sleeve this time.
“Let him go, Paul. I’ll take him away. He’s sorry. Let him go.”
After few more seconds I let him go. I just stepped back, dropping my hands. They left us in a hurry. I went back to the room. I couldn’t see her face, but I heard it in her voice.
“I think you should leave too, Paul.”
“I understand.” And I did, she was afraid of me. “Thank you, Eve, you bitch” I thought.
“I’m sorry” Carolyn said.
I just nodded and left the room. I heard voices from the main staircase. A teacher caught Chive and Lucas, and she was coming up with them. I went to the second staircase. I went down to the Boys’ Floor. I exited there and went towards the main staircase, knowing the teacher won’t be there. I went by the room where the Kid died, and I felt it. Felt it bad. My spine turned into icicle, heart pounded, not with desire or adrenaline, but in pure fear. I reached the staircase, and it subsided. But I knew it won’t leave me. I went down, replaced my school sneakers with boots, got my jacket and I left for home.
That night I barely slept, haunted by nightmares full of blood and gore. It was first of many sleepless nights. As for Carolyn, we never talked about that evening, we never again got together or anything. Neither she, nor Chive or Lucas talked about that evening to anyone. And I avoided school dances and parties until the Half-Way Party, that was in the middle of second high school grade. Because high school was shortened to three grades from four, the half-way point was at the end of first term of second grade, instead of summer between second and third grade. Our class teacher asked us one day, if we want to have a party to celebrate it, and we said “yes”. That night we had The Talk.
I got a bottle of vodka for the party. Not for me, I don’t drink strong alcohols. I wanted to talk to Lucas and Chive, because ever since the Carolyn incident things were awkward between us, and it nagged at me. After two or three hours of the party, after the meal that was prepared for us and anyone we invited from other classes, I grabbed Lucas and Chive, and got them to the corridor that connected school wing with dorm wing. There were the big closets where we kept jackets and boots when in school. I also grabbed a bottle of Fanta from the conference room that was converted to a dinning room for us. I pulled the bottle of “Bitter Gastric” (that’s its name, really) and showed it to them.
“Let’s go somewhere and talk” I said.
“Our room” said Lucas.
“No!” I said sharply. “Anywhere but there.”
They stared at me and then Chive suggested:
“Maybe Mrs. Cobs’ classroom?”
We went to the school wing, onto second floor and toward far end. That classroom was next to the Chemistry/physics classroom, which was always locked. Mrs. Cob taught “Religion”. It might seem weird but here religion is in schools. It’s of course catholic religion and no one bothers to ask students their opinion on the matter. We kept lights off, there was plenty of light from the streetlamps and reflected from the snow. We pulled two chairs to the teachers’ desk and sat around it, I took the teachers’ chair. I placed both bottles on the desk, turned towards Lucas and said:
“I’m sorry for choking you, back then.”
“I deserved it, Paul” he said. “I was an asshole.”
“That you were” I nodded.
Lucas opened the vodka, took a swig and passed it to me. I took one too and passed it to Chive. Lucas opened the soda and drank a bit, then I drank a bit more. Last was Chive, again. He asked:
“Did you and Carolyn… Did you do it?”
“Nope” I sighed, “She was scared of me. Eve the Bitch probably talked with her. She is avoiding me.” I took another swig. Alcohol was starting to get to me.
“So what’s with Eve and you?” asked Chive.
“It was at the end of September, first grade. Duckman was in hospital, after his breakdown, and you were sick too. I was passing between Eve and a desk, and I accidentally rubbed against her. She yelled that I was harassing her sexually, again.”
“Were you?”
“No, Lucas! And I told her that I’d rather harass KB than her. And ever since Eve is pissed at me and tells every girl in school that I’m a perv. That’s why all the girls, even those that never talked with me, are avoiding me.”
We all took a swig of “Bitter Gastric”, and then few swigs of Fanta.
“Well” Lucas said, “Vicky doesn’t think you’re a perv. And on one occasion she told Eve to shut the fuck up. Marlene thinks you are, but that’s because you are staring at her whenever she runs.”
“I can’t not stare at her when she runs. It’s like trying to hold a sneeze. One could get blind trying.”
We all laughed at that. Marlene was tall, athletic girl, a blonde with almost white skin, and the most perfect pair of boobies any of us have ever seen. And she loved to run, which had almost hypnotic effect on every male who could see it. And on few females too.
I had another hunch. This was the moment to ask the big question. They would tell me. I also knew that this was my only chance. I took another swig, for the courage, and asked:
“What happened that night, when the Kid died?”
Lucas looked at me.
“You really wanna know?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“When I left Carolyn, I went to your floor by the second staircase. When I was passing by the door to your room, I suddenly felt so scared, so terrified, I still have nightmares. That’s why. I just need to know.”
Lucas took a big swig. Half of glass worth of vodka. Chive said:
“I saw nothing. I hid my head under the pillow and tried not to hear it either. So it’s Lucas’ tale. He saw it all.”
“You won’t believe me, Paul, but this is the honest truth.”
Chive got up, went toward the back of the classroom, he knelt by the bookcase with cabinets, where Mrs. Cob kept all the heavy, Braille books, maps and other stuff. He pushed his hand between it and the wall. There was small space hidden by the radiator and window sill. He pulled a small backpack from there. And from the backpack he pulled another bottle, this one unmarked.
“Holy water, from home” he said and laughed nervously. “We will need it.”
We all took a swig, emptying my bottle and then Lucas began.
“I don’t know, what woke us. I think it was his wheezing. The room was so cold that for a moment I thought the windows were open. But no. The Kid was just hanging in the air above his bed. Levitating, you know. He was belly down, and something was falling from his mouth. That’s when Kamil dived under the pillow, and KW asked, what’s going on and why it’s so cold. Then I saw a small mound of the stuff on the bed. It was ash. Like those ashes at the camp. Then something threw him against the ceiling. He was stuck there for a few seconds, then flew across the room, and hit the wall above KWs’ bed, legs first. They broke, like twigs. Then we started screaming, and he flew again, this time hitting wall above his bed, face first. Then he hit his bed, still puking ash, but his face was all bloody and messed up. Then he flew toward the closet, but his neck caught on one of the arms of the ceiling lamp, and he fell to the ground with the lamp. Then it all stopped and teachers came in. And we were still screaming.”
We opened the second bottle, turned out that Holy Water means a nice moonshine. Lucas continued.
“Teachers had flashlights, you know, to check on us at night. They saw the Kid on the floor, covered in blood and ash, one of them just fainted, the other looked at us and told us to stop screaming. Someone called for the ambulance and they came in, checked him out, and then the police came and they arrested us.”
“At first they thought that we killed him, but there was no evidence on us. And we told them what happened. KW and Chive only heard it, and that’s what they said. They didn’t believe us. After that they thought it was some kind of disorder that forces you to eat stuff that’s inedible.”
“Pica” I said.
“Yes, that. But we told them he never did anything line that and he hadn’t left the school ever since that road trip to Majdanek. And none of us would give him ash. Why would we? Finally they closed the case.”
“My parents have a friend in police” added Chive. “They asked him about this, when we were released. Few days later he told them that some ash disappeared from the mound at the mausoleum that night. They thought some occult or neonazi nuts did it. But the ash from our room matched the mound. And the Kid was full of it. Stomach, guts, lungs.”
“Your parents told you that?”
“No, Paul. I was eavesdropping on their conversation. That scared me more than that night.”
We drank some more. I felt seriously drunk. And I had another hunch. I told them, and we did it. We took another bottle of Chibes’ family moonshine from the stash, we went to their room, and we burned it down to the bare concrete. I still don’t know how the entire building didn’t caught on fire.Someone noticed the fire and used extinguisher on the door, containing it inside, until fire brigade came and put it out from the outside.No one discovered it was us. We just poured the alcohol all over the floor and furniture, dropped a burning match, locked the door and went back to the party, where we promptly fell asleep by the wall, completely wasted. They had to carry us out, when fire alarm was tripped.
When I visited that room after it was renovated, I felt nothing, absolutely nothing. Even the most epic hangover ever and the wrath of my mother were worth it.I don’t know, why I felt what I felt near that room and at the Majdanek concentration camp. I think, however, that when the Kid died, something of him stayed behind. His pain and suffering was imprinted on the room. And why he died? I believe he was too disrespectful to the dead at the camp. We didn’t want to visit that place, and for most of us it was a boring field trip. And when he did what he did, we were more concerned with not getting caught, than with the respect for the dead. Especially considering how many of them were murdered at that place.
I still have those hunches and really bad dreams. I think I’m just sensitive to this stuff.And there were few more times when I felt something, and sometimes I tried to act. Neither Lucas, Chive, KW, nor any of their roommates felt anything particular in that room. It was just me. And maybe the Forgotten Girlwould have felt something there, too.I think she also had hunches.

I talk about my mom frequently with my therapist but I decided to share here also . My mom has been through a lot in her childhood/life , she’s told me about it . But anyways . She criticizes me on almost everything , I remember when I was cutting pizza into slices , they were obviously different from how she does it . But apparently I made the slices too small for her and started criticizing me on “how to actually do it” so I responded , well would you like to do it since u don’t like how I do it? - she said no - then what’s the point of saying something about it ? I just left her to it because her doing that already set me off. When I talk about how I’m stressed out and mentally not well from school she instantly makes it about her. How she wakes up early in the morning for work , wears uncomfortable steel toed shoes , and how I “shouldn’t” really feel that way . That’s why I never come to her about my problems . I love my mom , but I also hate her .

As If It Was Kismet Ch 4, https://www.reddit.com/yandere/comments/1cf4wyn/as_if_it_was_kismet_ch_3/
The next two days passed without incident. Nothing of any real substance or challenge to note.
Matthew got settled somewhat and started working out almost immediately. Exploring around the woods but Dave told him not to go far. Especially without a hunting rifle. Dave had left a simple semi-auto Winchester out for him. His bear gun as Dave referred to it with its four round magazine. But Matt figured till he got some practice with the rifle to leave it alone. He made a hiking stick like his grandpa taught him and treated it over a low fire. He would take some electrical tape for the end his hand would grip around. Plenty enough to ward off anything smaller than a bear he figured.
The ride to school was a pain in the neck but simple enough. Dave would let him use a clunker pickup truck he had laying around. It wasn’t pretty but it would get him to and from. Even if it was from the eighties and still backfired on occasion. But for now Dave and his mom took him on their way to the sheriff’s department.
It wasn’t much of a school. It wanted to be modern but its fifties original construction was very obvious. It serviced the pipeline families and familys’ of fisherman who worked the seasons in between their time at the pipeline.
Matt was to report to the principal for some reason Dave and his mom wouldn’t share. Which annoyed him but he figured it was to read him the law of land. Small towns with their big views of the outside world and like.
Dressed in jeans, a grey sweatshirt under a light jacket with steel toed boots set him more apart then he expected. His buzzed head didn’t help matters. Already he was feeling like a stranger in a strange land but he was quite strange after all. And he liked it that way. Normal people were so pathetically disappointing to him.
A secretary or assistant or some such led him to the principal’s office. Where it reeked of real wood that was old and fabric and upholstery that needed to be updated for the last twenty years, Matt figured.
“This is Matthew Berkshire, Principal Andrews.” The man was turned with his back to the door and he was quick to wave her off as he turned her around.
He was an older man. Fat and large. Tall with a body built like he had once been fit and a demeanour of annoyed and irate already as he fixed Matt with a scowl and look of disgust. Another worthless government whore. Matt thought to himself. His father and his grandfather had bestowed unto him a natural disrespect for government workers and the figures that wore unjustified authority as a shield but pretended the weight of the state was not at their back ready to crush all who resisted. Little figures of valor pretending to be mighty and alone but acting with the tyranny of the state and all the backing.
“Mr. Berkshire, please sit down.” His tone wasn’t unusually hostile, just gruff. As if he had better things to do.
Matt complied and took a seat in the chair while maintaining a friendly facade. Not everyone was an enemy. And not everyone needed to be an enemy. Even if anybody could be any enemy. There was no reason to make enemies you didn’t have to. Another of his grandfather’s bastardised wisdoms.
“Well I looked over you file and you have quite the history Mr. Berkshire.” Matt resisted qiuping back a joke. Instead he waited for Principal Andrews to continue as he remained nonplussed and looking as if he felt no need to respond. A simple head tilt with dead eyes looking back at the principle as if he was not even there would suffice.
Matt’s reaction or lack of a reaction rather made Principal Andrews only narrow his eyes with examination. He was not used to a kid not responding to him. Especially with his gruff and hard act going on.
“Well by all accounts you moved here after some problems at your last school. A fight broke out and you did some real harm to your fellow students it appears.” Of course, he would take the side of the perpetrators. School administrators always did. Especially when they weren’t white. Just a fact of the times. Cowardice and pathetic mediocrity was the way they leaned, like good government workers sucking the dick of Big Daddy government. Worthless whores.
Matt chose to reply. “Oh you mean the criminals that stabbed me. Got arrested at the hospital and then pled to felonies. Yeah Florida, with the American counties are good like that.” Principal Andrews went real still. No shame. No fear. No penitence. He didn’t like that.
“Well be it as it may Mr. Berkshire we don’t tolerate that kind of behaviour here…” Matt cut him off responding with a deadpan tone. “You mean self-defense meant to save one’s own life while the cowardly and pathetic school workers look on with zero interest but to keep their money rolling in and will allow known gang members with records of violent acts and crimes that should have them expelled many times over, where in certain Democrat counties such cowardice and idiocy empowered a couple school shooters?”
Principal Andrews looked at the Matt with a note of disgust. “Look here Mr. Berkshire, your beliefs matter not one bit here. This isn’t Florida. We don’t like our way of life being disrupted by outside agitators who have problems with authority.”
Matt did his best not to roll his eyes and let the older fat man drone own as he dead-stared him. Lifeless and without emotion.
The man came to a finish and Matt spoke up without having listened to him or paid him any attention. “Great now that’s taken care of. Can I please get to class and finish my sentence of two years at your wonderful school?”
Principal Andrews huffed and snorted before calling in Vicky. Vicky stood in the corner after entering with a quiet and seamless presence. Matt felt disturbed and tried not betray his feelings as the young Vicky was perceived and not perceived to be moving.
Principal Andrews made the introductions and Matt nodded back. She was to be his chaperone for the day. They had the same classes and she was to show him the ropes so to speak. The ins and outs of the school. The locations of their classes.
He recognized her. It was hard not to. The way her appearance seemed to shift fluidly almost. The petite and skinny brunette ever so lightly had a big bust and blonde hair with curves added when she seemed to shift before his eyes. Like watching a film but each frame had a different person.
Matt didn’t say anything about it. Even if he did he would only be acknowledging his crazed state, if he had one. If.
Unlike an obedient puppy dog he got up in a slow and awkward fashion and followed behind her as his oddly disproportionate frame allowed. Causing her a note of concern for some reason. As if she was seeing something she shouldn’t have been….Or he was just weird. And Matt could admit to himself he was just weird. Part of his charm, he would jest about it at times. Not that he had many people to jest to now.