To anyone who is still struggling to update GT6, and none of the solution found online works, consider: (If anyone posted this solution already, then I credit this to you.) GT6 just outright refused to install any update for me, running into an error after downloading the 1250mb-ish update. Now, I do not possess any kind of knowledge on coding or game developing, however I do have a theory on what the game's problem is. GT6 has a sneaky little install feature that is constantly installing data to your HDD while you are playing to speed up loading times. This can be toggled within the in-game options menu, it is "on" by default. I believe the updates fail, because there is no GT6 "directory" on the HDD if you never booted up the game before updating, so the system has no idea where the update files should go. I know this isn't an issue on most games but there it is. What you should do is delete whatever GT6 Game Data there is already installed, turn off internet connection in the PS3 system menu (XMB), and start the game. It takes about 30 minutes to complete the initial tutorial which is the following: an introductory race that teaches you the basics. After that, the game returns you to the main menu and forces you to buy your first car, and do a novice race with said car. The game returns you to the main menu again and tells you that you are free to start the rest of the novice races. At this point the game installed about 200-300mb of data to the HDD (for me), you can check this in the options menu. Quit the game, re-enable internet connection in the XMB, and start updating. The system now should have no issue installing the first update. Also be sure to follow this handy little guide to the letter:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/707208-gran-turismo-6/70700848
So calm down, your HDD isn't ( necessarily) dying. This solution worked for me, I hope it works for you.
TL;DR: https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?si=_Gi_isJmigVSbfOW

I went to go see a silver RS3 2018 and a 2020 S5. Both drive really well. I was most surprised by how light the s5 felt. I’ve driven an a4 before and presumed it would feel just as heavy. But I guess they did something to the S5 suspension? I’ve had an s3 2017 before and I loved that car. Sold it because of covid market craze. Now I’m on the hunt for a new toy:D
I’ve always been fawned of RS3’s they felt so special being that I’ve been in an S3 prior. The RS3 always felt like the next step but after driving the 2020 S5 I’m conflicted.
Things to note I’m only buying technik. I know I’m gonna hate myself if I end up without the bang and olufsen sound system. However I’ve noticed on the s5 the progressiv/premium plus (depending what market you’re in) isn’t that far different than the technik/ prestige model of the s5
Things I was able to note for the b9.5 facelift between the models
For the year 2020 the s5 technik/prestige has the following that the progressiv/premium plus does not have:

• folding mirror
• Matrix led with laser (which is disabled in North America…) however I heard some ppl on the forum can code the laser on -bang and olufsen -headlight washers

Plz tell me if I’m missing smt! Ik 2021 s5 gets Lane keep assist as standard on technik but it wasn’t available for 2020 s5 techik because I think that was the chip shortage year.
That’s literally it… on the s3 I recall the technik being far more superior because you’d get the digital cockpit but the s5 has the digital cockpit as standard on all trims in Canada.
So my question is. What should I get ? The s5 feels more refined and feels newer ovbs where as the rs3 feels more raw and nostalgic to my s3 interior with the inclusion of a sexy steering wheel.
One thing to note the rs3 seat didn’t go as low as I expected it ? I remember my s3 seat would go much lower and the s5 I felt much more lower in my seat which I felt more comfortable in. Maybe I wasn’t cranking the RS3 seat hard enough but it felt like I lowered it to the lowest I could lower it to.
Many thanks in advance for everyone’s input !

Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road
Deep in the groaning halls of sinew and bone he awaited his audience with the god. At a wave of his hand the ribs which held up the ceiling contracted, tendons shifting within the pink walls of the chamber as the jagged, calcareous spurs that composed the doorway sank back into the spongy masses of tissue, revealing a passage curving down and out of sight.
Menash stood before the yawning portal and considered eternity. This was no an idle thought: here in the Dawning Chamber, the concept was very real. His father, Yulan, had stood in this exact spot times beyond count. When he was struck down in his prime by the Night Weaver and her Leaper offspring, torn limb from limb as he fought to defend Chthonis from a raiding party, Menash’s uncle, Aqavarr, had carried his broken remains over that grinning threshold to join the hosts of the dead, never to return.
A hot and heavy exhalation rattled up out of the depths, wafting in the acrid scent of the bonding pools and the wet slithering sound of the rebirthing canals. Menash felt a crackle of static in the corners of his mind before the signal sharpened and he heard It whisper distinctly:
“Enter…”
The familiar dread crept its way up the small of his back, and he gave a little shiver. No matter how many times he had communed with the Vitalus, he’d never been able to shake the feeling of his utter insignificance. But he persevered, walking bravely down the slurping passage, past the rows of broad antechambers lining either side of the hallway. Each one held a slumbering shape immersed in a cryogenic bath, towering hulks of muscle encased in ribbed and riveted plates of chitin. No two were alike in size or physiology, but all seemed to emanate the same primeval aura of dread that tickled Menash’s fight-or-flight-instinct, skewing it very much towards the latter response. These were the Hollowores, soulless avatars of the Vitalus, each one a tool capable of eradicating an entire species. As Menash approached, one of the living weapons stirred to life. A pronged, anvil-shaped head emerged from the bath, umbilical feeder tubes detaching from its armored flanks as the rest of its bulk followed, its mauve exoskeleton as sleek and shiny as amethyst. The Hollowore extended legs as thick as grown pine trees and lifted itself above him, its pairs of crushing pincers dripping amniotic fluids as it herded him towards the central room.
Bundles of white gossamer filaments spread all across the floor, encircling steaming pools of pus and acid. He saw arms and legs, sensory organs and entire exoskeletons being knitted before his very eyes, the amino acid chains being stitched on a layer at a time, the weeping pus evidence of microphages fighting off possible infections as the Vitalus did Its work.
These were the next generation of exomorphs, yet to be assigned to their hosts. It was here that Vitalus constantly improved the only thing that could ensure the continued survival of Menash’s subspecies. Exomorphs were bonded to Gallivants at birth, the organisms supplying their hosts with the means to breathe an atmosphere they was never meant to endure, and the strength to fight in a world that was red in tooth and claw. They were as swift as the summer wind and could multiply their host’s muscular power by up to twelve times their natural output.
But for all their God-given might, Gallivants were still mortal. They could and often did perish in the endless struggle for existence that the Vitalus called the Great Game. But even in death they could still commit their essence to posterity, passing down their defining traits through the malleable genetic code of the gilt helix. It was the Vitalus’ greatest boon; through the gilt helix a single individual could become a progenitor of an entire generation, becoming at one stroke the father of whole nations and peoples.
One day he too would prove worthy of the honor that Yulan had earned with his life. But he was not alone in that ambition. Menash was annoyed to find the crimson-clad Vezda and the cowardly Racek waiting for him inside, standing next to a large ball of filaments that hung from a tonsil-like growth hanging from the walls.
This node pulsed, emitting a small storm of bioelectric activity, networks of fungi conveying commands in the form of oscillating voltages to their communities of symbiotic bacteria, the latter containing greigite mineral crystals aligned in the shape of electromagnetic coils. Other networks hidden in the walls modulated and amplified the signals, and the three Gallivants steeled themselves for the onrushing flood of information as the Vitalus tapped into their minds.
He was a candle before the raging heart of the thunderstorm. For an instant Menash touched a fraction of Its intelligence, the divisions of time and space rolling back as they joined the ocean of shared consciousness, becoming one with the living systems of Arachnea. From the tiniest aeroplankton floating above the waves of the golden coastlines, to the herds of ultrapods munching their way through swathes of trees in the savannahs. Menash felt himself pushing up out of the soil, longing and lusting and reaching for the sunlight with a trillion green fingers uncurling, alive with the furious movement of life.
But what was that flicker of orange to the east? That searing heat, that prickling pain spreading like a cancer down his side?
The Vitalus scooped them up and hurled them headlong into hell itself. A roaring wildfire was sweeping into the heart of the eastern rainforests. Menash tasted ash and ruin, felt pieces of himself wither and burn, his branches tongues of fire, wood cracking from the intense blaze, sap boiling instantaneously upon contact and rupturing, splitting him right down the grain. He fled in terror, running, slithering, digging, swimming, flying away in crazed panic from the walls of red death closing in on him. As his skin flaked off in clumps of charcoal he looked back and saw it towering over the treetops, the epicenter of this howling vortex of destruction: the grey behemoth. Its burnished metal hide gleamed like copper, reflecting the fury of the conflagration burning well into the night.
Menash pulled his mind away before it was lost forever in the storm of electric potentials. He saw Racek and Vezda swaying on their feet, breathing hard and fast.
“Heart of the World,” he managed to gasp, “What is your bidding?”
The Hollowore maneuvered itself until it was facing him directly. Tiny beady eyes fixed him in their blank gaze. The node emitted a blue pulse and the creature shuddered as it received the signal. It opened a maw powerful enough to chew boulders into gravel and rumbled:
“This one is the alpha which survived first contact with anomalous variable. It will tell Us what occurred, and from whence this threat emerged.”
“It came from the karst mountain range, where the yellowjacket Amit live,” Menash replied, “It was destroying the largest mound in that area, massacring its inhabitants. It brought the mountain down on them—we’ve never seen anything like it. Zildiz was the first on the scene. She warned us not to approach, and that it was dangerous, but some of us,” here he cast an angry look at Vezda, “Some of us went ahead and tried to scavenge from the bodies of the dying. Then the behemoth ignited the air and burned scores of us to cinders.”
“Irrational. Why did you do this?”
“W-we thought that you had spawned the grey behemoth,” Menash stammered, embarrassed to say the least, “That it was the newest addition to the Great Game, another species of ultrafauna that would help perfect Arachnea.”
“Not so. It was made by an evil far older than the All-In-One,” replied the Vitalus, “It is called a Divine Engine. In cycles past, this evil sought to undo this world and all that inhabit it. In that, it almost succeeded.”
Menash felt his blood run cold at those words.
“Is it the only one of its kind?” Racek piped up. Menash and Vezda both bristled at his interruption; subordinates were only supposed to speak when spoken to.
“There were several deployed here in Our infancy. We had thought them all destroyed in the War of Creation.”
“Your Munificence,” Racek went on, heedless of the venomous looks he was getting from the other two, “Most of us survived because Zildiz persuaded us to dive into the river. She saved all our lives! But as I washed up on the riverbank, I saw the behemoth casting a seedpod into the skies. I did not see where it landed, but it was travelling in a high arc due east. Is this the behemoth’s method of reproducing? If so, then how many offspring can it generate from this one seed?”
The Vitalus met his questions with a minute of silence. Menash had never known It to take so long to respond to a query, and felt another stab of unease in his gut. Unless he was imagining things, the Vitalus seemed genuinely disturbed by the scenario that Racek has raised, enough to convince Menash that the danger was far from hypothetical.
“That is a distant possibility,” It said somewhat cryptically, “Regardless, We cannot allow the Engine’s continued existence.”
“Then it must be destroyed,” Vezda said, her barbed tail eagerly perking up.
“We are not certain that it can be,” the Vitalus said, and Menash heard Racek audibly gulp at the admission.
“But Your Omniscience, you alone are the arbiter of growth and decay,” Vezda said in disbelief, “Surely you can unmake this monster as well?”
“Perhaps. The Divine Engines were built to withstand the extremes of temperature, gravity, atmospheric pressure, acidity and irradiation found on semi-inhabitable exoplanets. Worlds of bareness and desolation, glassed by thermonuclear bombardment or infested with alien microorganisms. In the wars of Our youth, the Betrayers used tungsten-alloy warheads fired from space platforms to crack their bulkheads. Not even Our vessels, the Hollowores, could damage them in any significant way. We will need time to gather the raw materials and fabricate the weapons needed to end this threat.”
“What must we do?” Menash asked.
“If this variable is not dealt with, it could upset the delicate balance We have sacrificed so much to achieve. Already the wildfire it has caused will release close to 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and destroy 2.3 million acres of forest before Our countermeasures can stop it. Time is our limiting factor. If the Engine cannot be destroyed now, it must be restrained.”
“It hasn’t moved an inch since we last saw it,” Vezda said brightly, “Maybe it has already died?”
“Yes, and maybe your mother was a horka toad,” Racek said snidely. Vezda scowled and took a step towards him, then stopped as she remembered that she trod on hallowed ground.
“Not so. It has merely gone dormant. Having expended its fuel, it is now running on the bare minimum of its reserves. My children, you must ensure that it does not wake again. Establish a quarantine zone around the Engine and let none approach, on pain of death. The Leaper kindreds will secure the ground while the Gallivants patrol the skies.”
Vezda and Menash exchanged troubled looks. Nobody wanted Leapers establishing a foothold in what was essentially a buffer zone between their subspecies. Once allowed to settle in a habitat, it would not take long for them to adapt and become masters of their new territory. Ousting them would become a battle of attrition, and given the lower birthrates of Gallivants, it was not one they could long afford.
“Respectfully, we do not require assistance from our brother kindred,” Menash ventured, “We are more than capable of safeguarding the area ourselves.”
The node throbbed again, the bioelectric flashes taking on an angry purple hue. With a sound like the grinding of a millstone the Hollowore clashed its claws together impatiently. All three of the mortals took a hasty step back.
“The alpha will obey, or another will be found that can,” the Vitalus growled at them, “All subspecies will observe a general truce during this period. This is a temporary addition to the Great Game. Those that serve Us well shall be rewarded. We shall also enlist the aid of your terrestrial cousins, as well as the Cataphract clans to replenish the soil, and lone Saints who shall rove beyond the quarantine zone.”
Menash’s unease deepened. The Vitalus was bringing together four different kindreds, some of which killed each other on sight, in a move that reeked of desperation. The kindreds had worked together before, of course, on complex projects such as altering rainfall patterns and husbanding struggling species, but never so many at once. This was bound to end in bloodshed.
“Those that break the truce shall be chemically neutered, and their gilt helix purged from the existing gene pool,” the Vitalus continued, “You will maintain this quarantine until We have dealt with the Engine.”
“It is understood!” Menash and Vezda said at once.
“But what about Zildiz?” Racek blurted out, again risking his entire lineage by speaking out of turn, “She might still be alive out there!”
“He’s right,” Menash found himself agreeing despite his dislike for Racek, “She’s our alpha, after all. It would be a shame to lose her helix. Do we have your leave to send out a party to recover her?”
The Vitalus pondered the request for a moment, then crushed his hopes when it said:
“Regrettable, the loss of the female. Valuable stock for the breeding program. But it has not responded to Our signals—it is unlikely to have survived. The female Vezda shall take up its duties as alpha.”
“But Your Benevolence—” both men cried out in unison.
“It is decided. She has risked the Great Game, and must abide by its outcome. To speak more on this would risk Our displeasure,” the god warned.
“We can’t spare the manpower anyway,” Vezda pointed out, trying not to look too pleased at Its decision. She darted a quick look at Menash, long enough for him to see the selfish desire festering in her heart. He turned away from her in disgust, baring his blades by the slightest of margins to let her know what he thought of her, then asked the Vitalus:
“But what of the Engine’s seedpod? Should we search for it?”
“Negative!” the Vitalus boomed, its node reinforcing the word with a spike of activity that sent needles of pain spearing into their heads, “We shall complete this task. It is dangerous and can be entrusted to no other.”
The Hollowore angled its massive head towards the cavernous ceiling, armored flaps on its back sliding aside as it unfurled sets of rigid sixty-meter wings. A wide sphincter on the roof gaped open and Menash saw the evening sky awash with the stars in their milky multitudes. The Hollowore took a deep breath through the spiracles lining its thorax and abdomen, pumping air through a pair of hollow tube-like protuberances under either of its wings. Menash and the others quickly scampered to a safe distance. Seconds later there was a scream of chemical combustion and the Hollowore rose into the evening skies, leaving behind a long trail of superheated gases, the backwash almost knocking Menash off his feet. They watched as the Hollowore gained altitude, making straight for the columns of billowing smoke on the horizon, a sweeping shadow blotting out the light of the heavens.
The Vitalus’ mental presence receded with it. When it did not return, they took it to mean that they were dismissed and likewise took flight and headed for Chthonis. They were hardly out of the Dawning Chamber when Vezda seized the scrawny Racek by his wings and anchored her feet right up against his back.
“Funny little man, are you? Crack jokes at my expense again, and I’ll see to it that you’ll never fly again!” she snarled, yanking hard. Racek yelled as his wings threatened to pop out of their sockets.
“Stop!” Menash said, ramming his shoulder into her and knocking the smaller male out of her grip. Vezda rounded on him, blades out and her tail aquiver with rage.
“As for you! No one should speak to the Vitalus like that!” she shrieked, “Much less gainsay It! Are you trying to get us all killed? It is the source and continuance of life itself—”
“But the Vitalus doesn’t always consider the individual scale of things,” Menash reasoned, controlling his rising anger as he tried to defuse the situation, “Its scope of thought is beyond ours. Therefore it is up to us to look after each other. None of us can win the Great Game alone. We need people like Zildiz for the species to prosper.”
“Your logic is flawed,” Vezda spat, “Empathy is a sham devised by the selfish action of the gene, which seeks only to preserve itself. At least I am honest enough to look after my own interests. Your obsession with that whore is misplaced. Heed my words, Menash. What happened today marks a change in the Great Game. Only the ruthless will reap the rewards of this era. Think on that, and act accordingly.”
The female darted off in another direction, leaving the two behind.
“Thanks,” Racek said, rubbing at his sore shoulders, “My, my. She’s really taking her promotion very seriously, isn’t she?”
“This doesn’t make us friends,” Menash said shortly, “We share a common interest, that’s all.”
The two flew together in silence for a time, the dark canopy unrolling below their feet. Racek had always been a bitter rival for Zildiz’s affections. In the mating seasons he and Menash had flown the damsel-dance against each other countless times, racing and dogfighting at top speed through the dense bamboo thickets in an effort to impress her.
But each time she had always chosen Menash. Naturally. He was the stronger, the braver, the son of the Scourge who had slain hundreds on his lightning raids into Leaper territory. Their pairings had been brief and passionate, yet she had always laughed at the end and gone on her merry way, a rose petal borne on a scented breeze, the dalliance as meaningless to her as other concerns like eating or breathing.
But not to him. Right now, all that mattered was her. And Racek was the only one in the whole wide world who knew exactly how he felt. Did that mean he could be trusted? Menash considered the enormity of what he was about to do, and wavered. Then he saw her face in the darkness of his home, the face she wore when they were all alone together, and he took a deep breath before breaking the silence, saying:
“I’ll be in charge of the quarantine. I can arrange for you to disappear for a few days. I can have one of the younglings mimic your magnetosynaptic signal, make it seem like you’re with the rest of us.”
“You’d do that? For me?” Racek said in astonishment.
“Hah. Not for you,” Menash laughed softly. He looked Racek straight in the eyes and continued: “What’ll it be, then?”
If he so much as hesitates, I’ll have to kill him here and now, Menash told himself.
“Why, yes. Yes, of course!” the little brown male said vigorously.
“Good,” Menash sighed with relief, “She’ll be very grateful to whoever brings her home. I’d do it myself, but as an alpha I can’t risk being seen as disobedient.”
“Then why give me this chance? After all that’s passed between us?”
“I should have thought that was obvious,” Menash replied. Racek digested that for a bit, then out of nowhere said:
“If I find her—when I find her—I’ll tell her exactly who it was that sent me.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Bah! Just so we’re even, that’s all,” Racek grinned, his mouthparts slanting askew.
“Thanks, I guess. I’d…I’d appreciate that. You do understand what we’re risking here, right?”
“Sure. We’ll be total genetic write-offs if we’re caught. But it’s not like I wanted to see tiny ugly Raceks running around the house anyway. What about you, though? Why are you putting your neck on the chopping block?”
“You know why,” Menash said quietly, his thoughts still lingering on her face.
“Yes,” Racek agreed with a wistful air, “Yes, I suppose I do.”
And the pair spoke no more until they reached Chthonis.
Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road

I guess the neighbor couldn’t stop, once you start that gas gobbling machine and the fumes go to your brain you go numb and just can’t quit. I’m out there for hours ripping ugly weeds, tall weeds, invasive weeds, maintaining some kind of order amongst weeds and honestly? Looks great. Go me - but I have way more grass than they do! It’s “easy” so far (but FUCK black medic.) Your yard’s all fucking clover, guy!
What do I even do? They mowed their lawn but also 4 feet of mine until my splash guard! Don’t touch my shit! It’s within code! I work damn hard every day, my yard has hundreds of blooms - coreopsis and winecups and within a week butterfly milkweed and wild petunias. All for them to look at while they have NONE! What makes people think they have the damn RIGHT?! I literally have an endless arsenal of dandelion heads, I’m so peeved over this, if it happens again dandelion bombs are coming out. Honestly I won’t because they’re crazed and really would mow every 3 days instead of every week. Fuck that noise. What would you do?

Genocide looked to the sky. He thought of his mentor. The one who had saved him. He remembered his childhood. How powerless he was. He remembered the anger. He never wanted to hurt anybody. He thought of all the times he showed compassion. How much they hurt him for it. He saw the world before him, a graveyard. Humans. People that were supposed to be made in the image of some divine creator. They were but maggots feasting upon his remains. They ate away at his very being until nothing human remained. His thoughts were no longer his own. He had no joys in life that mattered. He hated humanity more than he could love anything about himself. He remember his first killing spree. Being gunned down by police. Left for dead. He remembered a hooded figure moving towards him. Getting closer the more he neared his death. He saw its pale face. Its impossibly black eyes. It was a man. This figure in question appeared to be of Japanese nationality with long, straight, loose hair. It emanated extreme malice. It offered him a choice. A purpose. Power. He thought the figure a reaper but it identified itself as Amakusa Masataka. Masataka guided him on how to kill and gave him specific locations to kill people in. In a sense, he became a hitman for quotas of people. He inquired what Masataka was. The presence of evil, his ability to appear and disappear at will, how he could control what people could see him and what people couldn't. While vague, years of killing for this being offered some insight. Amakusa Masataka belonged to a group of people not of this world. His people had been corrupted by a dark force long ago and had aligned themselves with the warlord who had subjugated their version of Japan. Their dark high priest assisted the warlord along with two others. These four rulers in turn served a larger order. The four were tasked with bringing about the end of the current world as an act of retribution for some fallen deity. Masataka's people acted as covert operatives for this empire. They were feared across the land and were collectively referred to as "Shinigami". An agent of the coming apocalypse, a servant of evil possessed by the will of those gods of death, Genocide would walk the earth.
Genocide stepped toward the station. A police cruiser rammed into him. He pulled out a knife and stabbed the hood of the car. The inhuman force of the knife created sparks which burst the engine into flames. The car crashed into a streetlight and exploded. A second cruiser neared the scene. No way a man could have done this. Yet still, out of the fires Genocide strode forth. It set upon the second vehicle, shooting out it's tires while jumping 9 feet into the air. The car tries to reverse but crashes into a wall. Genocide lands on the hood and kicks through the front window. Glass shatters under its boot, blinding the two officers inside. Genocide shoots one of the officers with a shotgun, killing him. The second officer in the passenger seat readies his pistol and takes aim. Only two shots fired, both directed at Genocide's head. It casually cocks its neck to avoid them. Then it grabs the officer's arm, breaking it. Genocide uses its free hand to grab the officer's head and bangs it into the dashboard no less than 5 times. The skull is shattered on the final impact. Genocide jumps off the car and continues on his mission.
Detective Evans speaks through a megaphone," This is your first and final warning. Stand down or we will use any and all means at our disposal to put you down." Genocide dropped its shotgun and raised its hands. A group of five SWAT team members rushed out the station, surrounding Genocide with riot shields. An officer accompanies them, edging behind the figure to apply handcuffs. Suddenly, Genocide springs to life , grabbing the officer behind him. He flips the officer over his head, slamming him into the pavement at his feet. Then Genocide stomps his head causing it to burst. Genocide drops a flash bomb from his coat sleeve, blinding the SWAT team as he draws his knife. He drives it into one SWAT member, the knife puncturing the shield and piercing his chest. Genocide kicks the corpse away withdrawing his knife. He goes to another, this time using the end of his boot toe in a rising kick to disarm their shield. He grabs them by the throat and drives the knife slowly into their eye socket. Another is tackled to the ground and beaten to death despite still being under the shield. Another is picked up and thrown into the fires still burning from the first auto incident. In no time, Genocide stood before an indistinguishable mass of gore, blood streaking across his black leather outfit. He laughed" So this is all you can give me. I'm not entertained." Officers took aim from the station windows, and snipers did so from other rooftops. Genocide laughed maniacally as he was rained down upon from all sides by a hailstorm of bullets. His body convulsed, but he did not fall. Moments more and he was on his knees. Still though, their efforts were futile. Gracia looked out and saw a black mist coalescing around the man in black. His blood. Blood erupted from his body only to transform into this dark mist that reentered his wounds. Genocide screamed. No. It was just an elevated pitch in his laughter. Optimism failed everyone yet again. Gracia saw Genocide holding something in his right hand. She could only make out a beeping red light. Genocide pushed the button triggering the carefully concealed explosives he laid in preparation for this event. C4 explosives went off in all the places he saw fit. The sniping posts he couldn't reach. The assault of lead lightened. Then Genocide drew an RPG from...somewhere. He collected himself and fired at the station's entrance. The explosion shook the station. From inside, the lights began to flicker. Communications were down on all fronts. Had he modified the rocket with some type of EMP? Not good. Amisdst the confusion Genocide entered using smoke bombs to mask his presence. Moving like a shadow, he killed everyone in the lobby silently with his knife. He made his way to the holding cells. Still they chanted. Still they praised. Still they raved for the arrival of genocide. Genocide shot the lock opening the cell. Jim Jimenez walked out and bowed before his master. Genocide smiled. He couldn't have imagined how proficient he had gotten with possession. Well, not quite possession. He had known of the Shinigami's ability to share their thoughts and emotions with humans. Shinigami like his mentor were ancient. They had so many years of memories, such strong a hatred for life that they overwhelmed the personality of the victim. The victim sees themselves as one of them. Shinigami can't force the will of the victim, so they find those who are already similar to them in some way. Genocide found the collective universal distrust of police to be a prime sentiment to capitalize on. He armed the inmates, infecting them with samples of his own dark essence.One particular inmate caught Genocide's eye. He knew the man's work. An arsonist. The one whom he recalls was responsible for blowing up his first car way back in high school. Rather than a standard firearm, Genocide gave the man a random assortment of grenades containing a special surprise. Genocide showed them visions of anarchy, of sending a message to a society that used and disregarded them. While this was also true of how he felt, years of living in darkness had changed him. He needed no purpose. No end goal. No justification. He just wanted to watch the world burn.
Genocide's small army broke off to engage several different wings of the station. Genocide went to the security room. He found Wayne, his informant, playing some FPS on one of the monitors. Wayne took of his headphones and asked," You kill everyone yet?" Genocide responded," No. You should get going before that happens. Your life becomes fair game if I run out of pigs to cook." Wayne clapped his hands, "Aight, GC my man, say less." He packed his things and left. Genocide drew a twin pair of handguns and laid waste to the station. He followed a group that took cover in the men's restroom. Kicking open multiple stalls he was surprised to find...nothing. Where had they gone? He turned around and saw his mentor, Masataka, smiling at him. It looked like him. Long, dark hair, black clothing, and soulless, empty eyes. But it wasn't. It was Genocide's own reflection in the mirror. Genocide smiled. He didn't notice the changes at first. They must have happened gradually. Subconsciously. From the final stall, an officer sprung into action, rushing Genocide, hitting him point blank with a shockgun round. Genocide felt the tingling sensation electrifying his body and grew numb. In spite of the pain, he took a single step. Then, another. He came within striking range of the officer and snatched the shockgun. Two more officers erupted from another stall, battering him with baton strikes. Genocide felt nothing. He clutched the shockgun in his hand like a bat and went to work pulverizing his attackers. An officer kicked in the bathroom door, a woman holding a pistol. She fired multiple times to no effect. Genocide stood covered in blood. He even let her reload. Twice. He wanted to see her despair. Her hopelessness. He walked towards her, shrugging off bullets as they pierced his body. His wounds healed nigh instantly due to the dark essence he had been imbued with. He held her face with both hands, lifting her body off the ground. As she screamed, he used her head to shatter the restroom mirror, running down the full length of it while smashing her into it at several points. He dropped the remains of what he held, washed his hands with soap, dried them, then exited the restroom.
The inmates that rallied for the cause of genocide attacked the station. Fortunately, they were nowhere near Genocide in terms of power and only carried one type of firearm each. They shared his healing ability but could be killed quite easily. Gracia encountered a sniper on the end or a west wing hallway. Other officers waited behind corners unable to get close. Gracia noticed the faulty lighting. In this hallway, the lights flickered in intervals of 3 seconds. Finding a pattern and timing her movements, she rushed the sniper at the exact moment the lights went out. Running the length of the hall, Gracia zigzagged, dodging the sniper inmate's bullets. She jumped on a wall, ran 3 feet on it, then kicked off it, pouncing on the assailant. She fired five shots into him, making sure to hit the brain and the heart. Two severe injuries that were impossible for Shinigami essence to heal simultaneously. Elsewhere, Evans took on another escaped inmate. A vehicular arsonist named Carson. Carson had a bag filled with an assortment of different grenades and was happily giving them out like candy on Halloween. "A flash bang here, a bit of tear gas there. Oh. Wait! Was that an ice grenade? Did the explosion freeze your leg to the floor? Whoops. Maybe a fire grenade will melt that for you. Hold on let me get one fore you," Carson rambled gleefully. Evans looked at the carnage before him. Officers burning. Officers partially frozen in blocks of ice. He took a breath and aimed his wristgun. He steadied his right forearm. Carson readied to throw a random grenade. Evans shot it the moment it left Carson's hand. The grenade exploded directly in front of Carson. Both Evans and Carson looked at each other in shock. Confetti. A party grenade? Carson quickly fumbled for another but was tackled and restrained by several officers. Meanwhile in the South wing, Lary had some colleagues set a trap for another shotgun toting inmate. He had them bait the inmate and flee. Giving chase he turned a corner and ran straight into Lary's fist. The inmate recovered and motioned to shoot Lary. "Let's tango. " Lary gave the code word. Nearby officers activated a device. A signal jammer of sorts. The inmate shoved the barrel of his gun into Lary's gut and pulled the trigger. Nothing. The special signal jammer in question was designed for firearms. It was a last resort as it left officers just as defenseless. Lary was having fun. He boxed the inmate in hand to hand combat. Despite the inmate's enhanced strength, Lary's technique pulled through. Lary ducked under one of the inmate's wide punches and did some type of rising uppercut where he jumped off the ground while spinning. One of the other officers whispered" The rising dragon." Lary smiled giving a thumbs up" Yeah, it was a rising dragon uppercut. Saw it in one O my kid's vidya games. Thought I'd try it out while I'm jacked on adrenaline".
Jim Jimenez looked long and hard at himself in the mirror. He was in the women's restroom. Some brainless woman had broken the men's restroom mirror with her face. For the first time in a long while Jim could think clearly. He was becoming sane. At the least he was no longer a raving lunatic. The life essence of the dark gods had healed the wounds to both his body and his mind. He saw his face, his scraggly dirty beard. He found a razor and shaved. He trimmed his beard somewhat. He liked it. He washed his hair. It fell down his face like silk, no longer greasy. His bloodshot eyes once burning with crazed intensity had cooled. He blinked. Just for a second, he saw the man known as Genocide. The man that attacked him. The one that killed him and gave him new life. The drug dealers. The police. They were all the same in his eyes now. They were all to blame for the world being what it is. Jim wanted to hate them. He wanted to take revenge, but he felt nothing. It didn't matter. He knew he was wronged, could logically justify acting against them, but he just didn't care anymore. About anything. He was finally free. Sensing his presence was no longer needed here, Jim vanished into the night. He needed to find someone who had had the answers he needed. Himself. Who had he been? Who was he now? Who could he become? Where was he going? So many questions to ponder indefinitely. So much time left in the rest of his life.
Genocide ran down the station's halls raining hailstorms of bullets upon its occupants. He had a handgun in each hand as well as a wristgun on each wrist. This effectively gave him 4 separate firearms that he could use simultaneously. Lary regrouped with Gracia, Evans, and a handful of others. They radioed all surviving officers near Genocide to flee to the roof. This plan had been set in motion days before the assault and had been kept hidden from most of the force. The plan involved scheduling flights for several helicopters to arrive at some point after Genocide arrived. There would be no way for him to prepare for them and pre-scheduling their arrival ensured they arrived regardless of if they were called or not. Lary and the others set about preparing the second jamming device. Genocide stood among a hallway of bodies. He saw one man clinging to life trying to crawl away. He decided on trying that other thing he saw his master do. He grabbed the dying man and pinned him to the wall. Slowly he drove a knife into his chest. As the man's life slipped away, something else entered his body. Genocide channeled a small amount of his essence into the vessel. He had steadily done this with other casualties around the station whose bodies were somewhat salvageable. He dropped the body he was holding and looked upon the others. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, his eyed were black, both sclera and iris. The scene before him changed. Genocide had a vision. He saw a dead gray wasteland littered with bodies. These people however weren't cops and wore traditional Japanese attire. In his hand wasn't a gun or knife but a short sickle akin to a farming tool. He heard a dark voice call out to him. Slowly, the corpses around him began to rise, now mere puppets bound eternally to their master's whim. The bodies sold to the reaper who had claimed their lives. Genocide's vision ended. His eyes had returned normal. Around him, dead cops began to rise. His dark essence had entered their bodies and reanimated them. He sent his dead army to attack the officers fleeing to the roof of the station. These zombies swarmed the stairwell giving chase to the few survivors. There were five of them. They had two flights of stairs to climb and a horde of their former colleagues close behind them. One officer tripped and was set upon by the horde. The zombies didn't bite them but held them firmly in place. The other four officers stared down wondering what to do. They could hear Genocide chuckling. They could hear humming. They could feel the temperature rising. Their colleague and the two zombies holding him were hit by an enormous green fireball. Genocide had fired a Magnum Opus and had charged the bullet to level 3. The Magnum Opus was simply a magnum that shot fireballs, with bullets that could be charged by holding down the trigger. It had three levels of charges. Level 1 was a small reddish ball of plasma. Level 2 was slightly larger and yellow. Level 3 was the maximum charge and resulted in a large slow moving green blast of energy. The officer was ignited and Genocide watched gleefully as the force of the blast sent him flying through a wall. The four officers continued up firing occasionally to slow down the zombies. Soon they made it to a door leading to the roof. Before one officer could reach it, he was sniped by Genocide, a bullet to the head killing him instantly. The remaining three made it out. They regrouped with the others already there, 12 in total, including Lary, Evans, and Gracia. This would be their final stand. They just had to hold out until Genocide made it up there. They just had to keep Genocide occupied until the helicopters arrived. Genocide slowly ascended the stairs behind his horde. On the roof, the remaining survivors faced off against waves of the undead. Evans recognized the attackers. These zombies were being controlled by nanomachines. He heard the stories of several weapons encountered by soldiers on the battlefield. These creatures were called Metaldeads as they were reanimated via machines. They had been officially banned by most of the worlds' governments for being unethical. However, this did not stop the technology from being spread still between shady organizations, terrorists, etc. Evans wondered how Genocide got this form of nanotechnology. Evans long speculated that the dark essence used by most of the killers they encountered was a a form of nanotech however it was different from anything else he had seen or heard about. The dark essence seemed to be an amalgamation of other types of nanotech. Evans had to save his inquiries for later. He reloaded his wristgun and took aim at the approaching group of Metaldeads. Gracia steadied her handgun and shot two Metaldeads in the head. From the single door countless arms seemed to spill forth from the darkness. The other officers took turns firing in intervals. this allowed them to create a steady stream of fire where no more that three guns needed to be reloaded at once. The horde seemed to thin out over time as if they were making progress. In actuality, the Metaldeads were just making room for Genocide to enter. Genocide exploded in a sprint from the door. Everyone fired upon the killer. Genocide had now chosen a wrist mounted mini flamethrower to use as his weapon. He stormed past the oncoming bullets taking some damage, but refused to slow down. He unleashed a stream of fire that caught five of the officers in one fell swoop. Gracia fired five rounds into Genocide's face. He stumbled back. Lary took the chance to fire several mine gun bullets at Genocide's feet. The mines quickly detected his movement and exploded. In seconds, Genocide was on his back.
Staring at the night sky Genocide saw the moon. He reached for it. He called for the darkness to give him more power. His wounds began healing. In the sky he could hear the whirl of propellers. There were six helicopters in total. The first two had evacuated the survivors while the others stayed to engage Genocide. Genocide got up and unstrapped the sniper rifle from his back. He stood before the searchlights as a black silhouette, cornered but unwilling to back down. Lary stared down at him smiling. "Okay!" He shouted, "Let's Tango!" Upon this declaration the second jamming device was activated. Now, isolated on the roof, Genocide's guns couldn't be fired and the helicopters were out of range of the device. Now Genocide stood like a sitting duck. A helicopter fired a rocket. Genocide side stepped and grabbed it. He turned his body redirecting the rocket to hit another helicopter. As it exploded Genocide drew his knife and threw it at another helicopter. Behind the knife was such force that it shattered the helicopter window's glass, embedding itself in the pilot. This helicopter too went down where it exploded. "Holy clucknuggets!Did you see that!?" Lary said dumbfounded. Evans looked out the helicopter door he was in jaw open in shock. "There's no way." He collected himself quickly and radioed the remaining two helicopters to keep moving and to use their machineguns as much as possible. The helicopters reigned down upon Genocide tearing apart his body. Shreds of leather and darkened blood sprayed across the pavement of the roof. Gracia watched as Genocide's body was destroyed repeatedly as it tried to heal. Surely he had to stop at some point. After 10 minutes the helicopters had exhausted their cache of ammunition and soldiers opted to fire their own rifles and occasionally throw grenades. After about six minutes, they too had run out of bullets. Genocide stood unfazed. He had long since healed himself and now appeared intangible with gunfire seeming to pass through his body. His coat once ripped , now appeared whole though on closer inspection seemed to writhe. Gracia looked in horror as she remembered the tales her adopted father had told her. Tales he had in turn heard from his predecessors. Every so often officers had reported encounters with ghost like beings cloaked in a cloud of living dark mist. The beings were rumored to be responsible for the deaths of multiple people ranging from scientists, veterans, mafia, politicians, etc. They were seen near such crime scenes and even more shockingly appeared around several sites where suicides were committed. These beings were reportedly impervious to bullets and filled anyone who got near with an impending sense of dread. If Genocide was connected to them or somehow turning into one , there was little chance they would be able to defeat him. Gracia's fears were confirmed when she saw that Genocide's leather coat had been destroyed and he had replaced it with the dark mist coalescing from his own spilled blood. The dark mist, swirling, grew larger and several tendrils sprouted out from it. Gracia could briefly make out a figure standing next to Genocide. A hooded figure cloaked in the same black substance. The figure stared up at her with soulless, blackened eyes which seemed to beckon her to jump from the aircraft she was standing in. Compelling her to give in to the death that plagued the earth. Genocide kneeled to his master. The Shinigami, Masataka stared down at his disciple. "You have done a great service to us. Even now the sealed god stirs in its slumber. Its...Awakening will soon be upon us. It calls out for war. It begs for famine. It longs to continue its conquest. We are the death it so desires. The death that is necessary for this civilization to grow. Use the power that I have bestowed upon you. Finish the mission as you see fit." The Shinigami vanished and Genocide stood.Genocide stared at his hands. He remembered the first killing spree. He was on a bus. It stopped. A woman got on the bus and walked to the back smiling as she passed him. Something about her eyes unnerved him. They were so bright but something dark reflected inside them. He ignored the thought and put in his headphones. In minutes he had dozed off. He jumped awake. He looked around and froze in panic. All around him, everyone had been hacked to pieces. He saw the driver, actively being stabbed by a masked assailant. The mask, painted white with black eyeholes, stared back at him. It raised a finger over where its lips would be. Even under the expressionless visage, he could feel that same smile. He ran home that morning. He went to his room to find it destroyed. His posters, his computer, his tv, everything, had been ruined. He turned around and saw a man at the end of the hallway holding a sledge hammer. "The hell you been, boy?", his stepdad sneered. The man dropped his hammer and walked closer, veins pulsing with rage. He tried to explain how his car had caught fire forcing him to walk 4 miles to the nearest bus stop, but the man's fist was faster than his words. "Boy!Answer me when I talk to you!!" the man says as he backhands the taste out of the would be Genocide's mouth. He took that beating for several minutes before being left to stare at his ransacked room. He hated how his stepdad went out of his way to destroy the things he loved. Soon, another set of footsteps could be heard. It was his mother standing behind his locked door. She didn't knock, or say anything. She just stood there, doing nothing as always. He never knew if she came to talk to him or apologize. All he knew was that she could never bring herself to speak to or even acknowledge him. Maybe out of guilt or perhaps shame. A year or two later after he had had enough he ran away from home. Living out on the streets alone, without friends, or family, he would embark on countless killing sprees. These killings weren't of his own volition however. He was coerced by some corrupt officers from The Unit. They made him kill on their behalf. Sometimes they were protesters, sometimes they were drug dealers, other times, petty criminals they couldn't be bothered to process. It was routine for him to be used to kill entire houses of drug riddled addicts. During one such venture he entered a drug den, killing the dealer as instructed. He took out several junkies before turning to leave. A woman who survived her injuries clung to his heel begging him to stop. Looking down he aimed the handgun he was carrying at her head of long disheveled brown hair and fired. Feeling nothing, he kicked her body aside like trash when it hit him. Her face. This woman had been his mother. What was she doing in a place like this? He felt a shock of emotion. He wondered if she had always been like this, or had she changed after he left. He never made amends, but decided to stop killing from then on. The unit did not like that. Once it became apparent that he was no longer of use to them they started a manhunt to apprehend him with lethal force. They found him. They killed him. But he survived.
He remembered the girl on the bus. He remembered her eyes. Those of a sadistic killer. Still there was something else inside them. Something faint but deeper. So. Much. Sadness. Just like him. He felt the hatred begin to spread. His purpose, he decided, was to make all humans rot in the hell they created for him.
These people, he thought to himself, these living diseases, all needed to die. Their struggles, their problems, they spread like cancer to others. The only cure for humanity's sin, its collective wrongdoings, was genocide.
Around him, dark tendrils continued to form and expand, spinning in a vortex. Genocide pulled out two pistols. He squeezed the triggers to no effect. "As I see fit, huh? Hehe." He squeezed both guns in his hands, breaking them into pieces. He concentrated. In his hands, two more guns materialized now completely black due to being forged from the dark essence. Forged by his will. Immune to the jamming device that shut down conventional firearms. He raised his arms at each remaining helicopter and opened fire. Countless tendrils whipped out and slashed at his targets joining the dark essence bullets. It was chaos. Dark tendrils and bullets tore through every direction as Genocide spun and swirled around in 360 degrees firing randomly with purpose. A tendril pierced Gracia's right arm, another, her abdomen. She was however, fortunate, as the other passengers of her helicopter were dismembered. She barely had time to jump from the vehicle before it crashed. She fell 2 yards onto solid concrete. She felt immense pain as her right shoulder shattered on impact. She looked up to see Genocide's blade like appendages ripping through the other escape helicopters. She rolled onto her back and tried to steady herself. Within seconds her body began to repair itself. The nanocells inside her had saved her life but were now depleted. She would need another supplement lest she receive another fatal injury. The standard nanocells she and the others had were much less potent than those of the killers they faced. In truth, they had only minimal strength boosts being able to lift 5-8 more pounds than before and healing being limited to one or two fatal injuries so long as death didn't occur instantly. Gracia blacked out. She awoke the next morning in a hospital. There the doctors refilled her nanocells. She learned that the station had been left in ruins. Genocide had detonated some type of minature nuke following his rampage. He always blew up the stations as if to send a message. Gracia looked out the window thinking about why she became a cop. Twice her family had been murdered by them. Her biological family had been killed in an on record drug raid committed by a group of corrupt officers called The Unit. She had been adopted by another officer that arrived at the scene who found her as a child hiding in a closed. Sadly, he too was killed for trying to expose the activities of The Unit. Gracia joined the force to avenge both losses and bring justice to the killers that disguised themselves as normal people. Law enforcement was neither good, nor bad. It depended upon the people that made it up. In the dying corrupt world Gracia lived in, she vowed to be a beacon of light. Evans laid in a bed adjacent to Lary. "That damn Genocide's somethin else in' he?Like the stories you told us were understatements. That man could legit not die at this point in the story. Like he has friggin plot armor or somthin.'' Evans cut him off" I get it. We all got our asses handed to us. But did you see that ..thing that appeared next to him. Right before he created that black vortex that wiped us out. That must have something to do with his power. Maybe there's a still a way to stop him."Lary chimed in," That fella looked like he was on the way to a black metal concert wit all the black facepaint he was wearin' Creeped me out to be honest." As the survivors mulled over their predicament, the cycle of evil continued to spread elsewhere.
Budley flips through the pages of a magazine. He checks his watch. He looks around the gas station and doesn't see any customers. Seizing the opportunity, he puts in his headphones and begins playing an imaginary guitar as he jams to a progressive deathcore album. Oblivious to the screams coming from outside, the store clerk moves on to thumping two candy bars on the counter to simulate drums. Budley sees that his shift has ended and begins locking up the store. He sweeps the aisles and jumps as a shadow appears behind him. He turns and sees a well groomed bearded man dressed in a black hoodie, black shirt, and black and gray camo pants. The man holds out his hand and smiles. Budley rings up the pack of nicotine substitute gum. "Tryin to kick the habit huh?" Budley asks. The man replies, "Somethin like that. Gotta get my priorities back in check. Focus on the things that really matter. That damn KonCreep's a hell of a band aren't they?" He nods to the playlist on Budley's phone. "Yeah, they're killer. just got into them a month back." Budley answers. "You know, I'm something of a musician myself. Maybe you'll hear of me on the news someday." Jim Jimenez says as he sees himself out. He walks to the back of the building and passes an ominous form of graffiti. A woman lays unmoving and above her, written on concrete in red is a message that simply says "Genocide Reigns".

Ss13, is dying, it has been for months. Yes I know this post gets made all the time but to be very honest with you it's made all the time for a f****** reason.
I've played this game for years now but I've stopped over the past year. I just don't feel like it's worth getting on.
Want to relearn an entire job? Because every server has a different method? What's that you're complaining about? The game that constantly gets changed by devs who keep trying to take ways for people to grief out, only to realize that griefing is the main way for antagonists to actually play the game?
Devs have been going on a balance craze, and it's been for the last couple years. It's only made it more and more difficult to do your job as a normal person. Also every single server I play rarely does anything besides traitor now. I have made this comment several times, but it is very obvious that admins owners, mods and other people on the servers are picking and choosing who gets to be the antagonist. It's not hard at all to set it up, in fact it's been to the point where someone will get an antagonist roll three times in a row in a server full of 50 to 70 people. I've seen entire groups of friends end up as death squad several times in a row. I've made this comment 2 years ago and I'm making it again now because it's just never gone anywhere. When's the last time you were an antagonist? When's the last time you played on a server and didn't have to wait 15 rounds in a row to actually do something other than the jobs. I don't want to be a Debbie Downer but it's just that this game has so many possible game modes, and it always ends up being an extended traitor round.
Admins are quick to ban anybody nowadays, and it's gotten to the extent where I'm looking at people on discord and Reddit be banned for simply asking why. I've said it for years and I will continue to say it and you can all sit here and lie to yourselves and think that you're happy. The admins are power tripping two levels unlike any other game ever.
This is a round-based game. Each round takes roughly 1 hour long. Every single time I've played the rounds have gone to 2 and 1/2 to 3 hours long because the admin wants to extend because there are no antagonists so that people can just do their jobs. I'm sorry but who wants to sit as the janitor for 3 hours and repeatedly go through the main hallway and wash the floors over and over and over. Who wants to be the chemist who sits there making useless medications that never get used during the round? Oh what's this you want to spice the Roundup because it's been going on for 3 and 1/2 hours and there hasn't been a single incident? What's this? It's a low RP server meaning that griefing really shouldn't be that big of a deal to the admins? Nope. Go f*** yourself.
You don't understand that investing an hour intp a round of ss13 is hoping that some crazy s*** will go down, and that you can either react to it, help it or destroy it. Now it's just people just playing around with r&d and coding and boring shit, while the game is running. It's not fun anymore. There's no challenge. There's no danger. There's no reason to actually do anything. There's no reason to grab anything to protect yourself. And if you do, God forbid security or the admins find you doing that. Labeled a power gamer immediately
Go ahead and check my bans. They're years old. I don't give a f*** anymore. I've been banned for stupid things that I deserve to be banned for and I've been banned for things that I don't deserve to be banned for. The question is how long are all of us going to sit here and be complacent. This game is s*** server count is going down, and best servers are being run into the ground.
I I genuinely am not attacking mods in admins who are trying to just progress the technology of the game and add new things to do, I'm more so angry with things like botany being switched around from an old system that worked very well to a new system that barely functions at all. Hell I'm able to grow like four plants around, just waiting for mutagen to work. I used to be able to fill the entire kitchen in a matter of 15 minutes, now. The end of the round comes before I can even get mutagen.

tl;dr: Reached Legend for the first time and wanted to share some statistics and knowledge gathered. In summary, play Snake Warlock if you hate Death Knight and play Fatigue Warlock if you absolutely despise Warriors.

Preface

Hey Hearthstone reddit community,
I'm a long term Hearthstone player who's been around since release. I played actively from release until before Descent of Dragons came around and then took a long break (5 years) from the game. I've never really engaged much with the community but last month I felt the urge to delve into Hearthstone again and I've been hooked ever since then. From my point of view the game is in an incredible state right now, compared to when I left off, especially for new and F2P players. I also started looking into the community a bit more, because I really wanted to catch up on what was happening in and around the game, which is also the reason for why I felt the agency to creat this reddit account and why I am writing this post right now.
Anyways, this month I reached Legend for the first time in my Hearthstone history and, because I've always been into statistics I thought I might share some of the tidbits I gathered during that journey. Who knows, some of you may find it interesting or helpful.

Decks and general statistics

So let's get to my decks of choice for reaching Legend. I will go into detail about deck matchups, detailed statistics and my general opinion on those decks later on in this post.

Bronze - Plat 5

I started out with a 7x star bonus from reaching Platinum 5 last month and played Snake Warlock until I reached Platinum 5 again. I played a total of 96 games (53W/43L) to reach Platinum 5, after which I played 10 more games (only to be back at Plat 5 again) before I swapped decks, bringing me to a total of 106 games, with 58 Wins and 48 Losses, leaving this deck at a 54,72% win rate.

Plat 5 - Legend

After deciding to try out something else I came across Fatigue Warlock, which I soon decided to make my deck of choice for reaching Legend. After getting the gist of it I reached Diamond 5 in no time. I don't have the detailed statistics here but I think it took me less than 40 games with Fatigue Warlock to get from Platinum 5 to Diamond 5. The deck felt incredibly strong, it has quite a lot of good match ups into other popular meta decks at the moment and it just is a lot of fun to play, making the climb feel even less like a grind. After reaching Diamond 5 my progress slowed down significantly. A lot of times, when I won a couple games in a row, I either faced multiple really bad match ups in a row, made more mistakes than my opponents (who've gotten considerably better at this rank), or lost to the hands of RNGesus, throwing me back and forth between Diamond 2 and Diamond 5. However I did not give up and after a total of 115 games, with 70 wins and 45 losses, putting me at a win rate of 60,87%, I reached Legend for the first time.

General Breakdown

So in general we are looking at a distribution of 128 wins to 103 losses after playing 231 games, leaving me at a 55,41% win rate total. After I reached Legend and looked at the numbers I was quite confused at first, because I thought it would take a much higher win rate than 55.41% but here we are. If someone here has numbers on his/her climb to legend I would be quite interested to see them!
Now let's get into a more detailed breakdown of the decks and their matchups.

Deck breakdown and detailed statistics

In general I can say that both decks are really good in the current meta. They both have match ups in which they dominate clearly but also matchups in which they are on the receiving end of domination. However, Fatigue Warlock clearly comes out on top regarding favorable matchups.
Now before we look at the detailed statistics I would like to say that this is all based on me playing the game and the decks and not any kind of external data, so my opinion is highly biased by my own experience and skill and might not reflect the data present on HSreplay and so on.

Snake Warlock

Here's a table showing my distribution of wins and losses against the deck archetypes I faced climbing to Platinum 5 with Snake Warlock. When I faced an archetype I was not able to categorize clearly I tried to describe it with a name of my choosing:

Archetype	Wins	Losses	Ratio
Legendary Druid	0	1	0%
Spell Damage Druid	0	3	0%
Hero Power Druid	1	0	100%
Small Beast Hunter	8	9	47,83%
Highlander Warrior	11	12	47,83%
No Minion Mage	3	1	75%
Elemental Mage	3	1	75%
Core Mage	1	0	100%
Shopper Demon Hunter	0	2	0%
Highlander Demon Hunter	1	0	100%
Quill Death Knight	1	0	100%
Plague Death Knight	7	0	100%
Highlander Death Knight	4	1	80%
Fatigue Warlock	0	2	0%
Core Warlock	1	0	100%
Snake Warlock	3	3	50%
Giant Warlock	2	1	66,67%
Handbuff Paladin	1	0	100%
Highlander Paladin	0	1	0%
Aggro Token Paladin	4	7	36,36%
Nature Shaman	1	0	100%
Highlander Shaman	1	1	50%
Cutlass Rogue	0	1	0%
Mining Rogue	3	0	100%
Steal Priest	0	1	0%
Highlander Priest	1	0	100%
Zarimi Priest	1	1	50%

I will focus mostly on the entries for hunter, warrior, death knight and paladin, which arguably have the most significant details, because I faced them the most.

Facing Hunter

Regarding Hunter, matches feel pretty even and depend largely on your luck of draw and how much of your board clear you have on hand. Most of the time you won't really be able to excavate much unless Hunter has a bad turn, allowing you to slam down some minions yourself. Cards like Defile are your best friend in this matchup, as it even allows you to clear a big saddle up board with high confidence. So whether you win or lose depends highly on your ability to clear the board until the Hunter runs out of steam.

Facing Warrior

At first I thought that Warrior is going to be an easy matchup. Snake Warlock completely ignores armor after all. However, after having to face Highlander Warrior for 23 games I can say that your win depends largely on three factors: Dirty Rat, Boomboss and how early you get your snake. Most games I played my Snake was robbed from my hand by a Dirty Rat at least once, which isn't that bad given that you can get up to three snakes if you really make use of all your excavates, but it really slows down your damage build up. This is also the reason why I feel this deck is only mediocre against Warrior. Your damage is simply to slow and your combo pieces are very prone to being ratted or blown up by Boomboss later on. The games I won came largely from me slamming down one excavate after the other, dropping my first snake at turn 6. Generally speaking you don't have to worry about your board clears against Warrior, so going all in on excavate and bounce back cards can really increase your chance of winning.

Facing Death Knight

This matchup surprised me the most. I totally did not expect to put Death Knight into the bin so hard, even more so if you look below at the horrible win rate I have against DK with Fatigue Warlock. Generally games against DK did not feel like a fair matchup at all. Most of the times I was able to clear their boards with ease while digging down deeper into the snake pit. Even if the DK was able to get a good target for its Titan, increasing their life by the destroyed minions health, my enemy was never able to dish out enough damage to out damage my health gain from playing snake over multiple turns, sometimes even twice a turn. Overall this matchup is heavily favoured towards Snake Warlock, especially so if you get good excavates and an early snake.

Facing Paladin

This matchup is just miserable for Snake Warlock. Even though this decks contains so much board clear Paladin seems to just fill the board over and over and over again until you run out of steam. Defile is your only good board clear in this matchup because it also gets rid of the divine shield and reborn minions, while Table Flip is more of a tech card against outlaws. Overall facing Aggro Token Paladin feels like a long, tedious grind, that more often than not results in a big fat L. Boards comprised of multiple small entities with divine shields, reborn effects and a big Sea Giant become basically impossible to clear with a single board clear, especially if Zilliax is involved. My only advice is to hold on to your defiles and mortal eradication during mulligan. Especially Mortal Eradication is a great early game tool to remove some of those pesky 1 Health minions with and without divine shield.

General Opinion

This deck is great for when you want to make your enemy bleed out consistenly over a longer game but falls off against high end game oriented decks like Highlander warrior or OTK decks like Spell Damage Druid and fatigue Warlock. Escpecially OTK decks are really hard to win against, because the current OTK decks have very high damage potential. So even if you got off one or two snakes you might just face death at the hand of a good owlonios combo next turn. I would recommend this deck to anyone who enjoys playing a hybrid control/combo deck but you really need some high stress resistance for those times your snake gets ratted out of your hand even though you have 8 other minions on hand. If you are someone that absolutely despises Death Knight players, you can't go wrong with this deck.

Fatigue Warlock

Here's a table showing my distribution of wins and losses against the deck archetypes I faced climbing to Legend with Fatigue Warlock. When I faced an archetype I was not able to categorize clearly I tried to describe it with a name of my choosing:

Archetype	Wins	Losses	Ratio
No Minion Druid	0	1	0%
Legendary Druid	3	1	75%
Spell Damage Druid	2	2	50%
Highlander Hunter	0	2	0%
Small Beast Hunter	11	8	57,89%
Highlander Warrior	23	8	74,19%
Elemental Mage	1	0	100%
Shopper Demon Hunter	3	1	75%
Plague Death Knight	2	6	25%
Highlander Death Knight	1	0	100%
Fatigue Warlock	8	4	66,67%
Snake Warlock	2	0	100%
Giant Warlock	1	0	100%
Earthen Paladin	1	0	100%
Handbuff Paladin	1	3	25%
Aggro Token Paladin	2	3	40%
Highlander Shaman	1	2	33,33%
Miracle Rogue	2	0	100%
Mining Rogue	2	1	66,67%
Steal Priest	2	1	66,67%
Highlander Priest	1	0	100%
Zarimi Priest	1	2	33,33%

Again I will mostly focus on entries with signifant data like Warrior, Hunter and Warlock.

Facing Warrior

Facing Warrior with Fatigue Warlock feels like the incarnation of the "Ew, I stepped in shit" Meme. This matchup is heavily favoured towards Fatigue Warlock and the only thing between you and your win is how well you are able to utilize your fatigue ramp up cards. In a perfect world you would always want to start the game like this:

1. Snakeoil Merchant
2. Baritone Imp
3. Trolley Problem OR Encroaching Insanity
4. Crazed Conductor

This by itself gives you so much board presence forcing the warrior to keep up with all the minions you can pump out. If he is not able to clear you minions every turn you can get him down to <15 Health before turn 8. If you then have encroaching insanity or Pop'Gar and a Crescendo on hand its game over before he can even play Zilliax or Reno. This is not a surprise given that this deck was largely designed around beating Warrior and damn, it definitely does not disappoint on that front. The biggest things you have to keep in mind are Aftershock, as it basically clears every minion you have in your deck besides Pop'gar and Zilliax, and not putting out too many minions after turn 8, or the Warrior will just heal back to full with Zilliax. Though even a full health Warrior dies easily in the endgame if you got a good Snapshot with fiddle.

Facing Hunter

Interestingly enough, while this deck has a lot less board clear than Snake Warlock it actually feels much better to play against hunter. The reason for that is that you can fill your board just as well as the hunter, while luring him into a false sense of security as you deal damage to yourself with your fatigue cards only to go back to 30 once you draw Pop'gar and a Crescendo. Especially cards like Thornveil Tentacle and Trogg Gemtosser are killer in this matchup because they allow you to kill some of Hunters key pieces and get some cheap lifesteal on the board.

Facing Warlock

The mirror matchup is heavily dependent on who delays his fatigue ramps the longest. Encroaching insanity deals more damage to you the more fatigue ramp ups you played before after all, so you really have to keep track of your fatigue count.

General Opinion

I think I fell in love with this deck. It is so dynamic and you can play out your combo pieces in so many ways that every game feels different. Also, the feeling of healing back to 30 from <10 HP is just way too satisfying in an aggro match up. However it is definitely not the easiest deck and you really really have to keep track of your fatigue counter or you might blow yourself up accidentally with an encroaching insanity. If you have a hard time remembering the damage you are going to deal to your enemy with your next play of encroaching insanity, just multiply the amount of times you casted it with 4 and subtract 1. For example, if you played 2 encroaching insanity your next cast will be the third. So you calculate (3 * 4) - 1 = 11 damage to the enemy with the next cast. However, this does not work for calculting the damage you'll get, so only use it to calculate the damage your opponent is going to take.

Final Words

Overall I am pretty with my first climb to Legend. I had quite a lot of fun with both decks and it didn't feel as hopeless as when I was playing Excavate Rogue last month. Warlock really seems to be in a good place overall right now, with multiple viable decks and I am really looking forward to the new cards coming with the Mini Deck tomorrow.
Anyways, if you mad it this far thank you for reading through this wall of text. If you have any suggestions on how I can improve my posts in the future feel free to tell me about it, I am always looking for ways to improve myself.
Have a nice day/week/month/year. :)
Last but not least, here are the deck codes of the deck variants I used:

Deck Codes

Fatigue Warlock: AAECAf0GBJqzBoCeBsekBqzRBQ30xgWEngbHwgXmxQXIwgX1+AWjoAaJmQb3owaioAamqAbdwgWFjgYAAA==
Snake Warlock: AAECAf0GBsekBpygBPr5BYCeBqb7BazRBQzZ0AWFjgbYmAacwQbKgwbvmwbxgAb4owbQgwaJtQbI6wWmqAYAAA==

If I see one more goddamn "But he can't stop himself once he starts" post I'm going to eat my nipple hairs. Why in the fuck is "Yeah Batman will completely freak and start doming jaywalkers" seen as a acceptable and good reason as to why Batman doesn't kill, you've somehow made him more of a fucking psycho than a good third of his goddamn rouges gallery, and the only reason as to why it's only half is because the rest is composed of straight up serial killers.
Right, yeah, forgot the fucking crucial aspect, the people that Batman is really protecting through his asinine """moral code""" are a pack of genuine degenerates that seem to need to murder some poor sod every 6 fucking seconds in order to keep on living.
Remember when Azreal was going """too far""" when he was temping for Bats? Yeah, he was going too hard on poor innocent Zsaz who is... A crazed serial killer covered in dozens of tally marks who gets off on killing people and had broken into a girls dorm. Yeah, real redeemable material there, surely won't simply just get lynched by the families of everyone he killed when Santa relocates to hell and he repairs his mental state.
EDIT: IT WAS BRUCE NOT BIG A MY BAD
FUCK, let's look at Bane- motherfucker had a few dreams in prison and then decided it was completely in his rights to unleash aformentioned psychos onto an entire city so he could kill the guy who defended it because he wanted to establish dominance or some goddamn shit.
"W-well, Batman doesn't have an obligation to take care of the criminals"
YES HE FUCKING DOES AT THIS POINT. If the goddamn "systems" keep letting the motherfucking Joker go, I think that's the point where you stage a goddamn revolution and kill the incompetents in charge of the damn system along with the green haired prick! This happens in real life!
YES I FUCKING KNOW IT'S ALL COMIC BOOK LOGIC, BUT I WOULDN'T FUCKING HATE IT IF THEY DIDN'T KEEP SPAMMING THE MORAL ISSUE AND KEPT GIVING US "DON'T KILL" AS THE ANSWER!!!!!!!!
Holy fucking shit, you'd think with people going "Batman should kill" every other week you'd think they'd lay this thing to rest but they can't for some reason! It's always this bullshit that always results in the same answer, Batman doesn't kill- and it's fucking boring. It's goddamn insane!
If the Dark Knight Returns and Killing Joke didn't exist, you'd think they were made-up arguments against the no-killing rule!
"Hey what if Joker faked being cured to slaughter an entire crowd of people and a guy who genuinely believed in him and then went on to murder a shitload of children and rampage through a fair for shits and giggles?"
"Don't matter, Batman doesn't kill"
"Hey what if Joker shot Barbra and tried to drive Jim insane by making him think the Joker raped her?"
"Don't matter, Batman doesn't kill"
It is my genuine unironic opinion that the best and most satisfying way Batman can win against Joker as a final victory is that he snaps his neck and moves on with his life completely unaffected.

I thought after posting corrupted timeline, I'd explain why you read about Lloyd's fear of the demon headmaster and why the Trollhunters are roped in it. This part is the headmaster story so far and the festive special bringing them through.
The demon headmaster is a book series by gillian Cross about students facing a headmaster who can hypnotise you. In 1996, a series was created with the late terrance hardiman playing the headmaster. First, the headmaster hypnotises a school called st champions and installs six prefects. Every child has uniform, and typical creepiness. Dinah glass is an adopted child and took in by the hunter family who notes everything and faces the headmaster. He wants dinah to win the eddy hare show to allow him to hypnotise Britain but a group of kids formed Splat to stop him. A green gunk dump and feather duster after and he's defeated, until super salamander comes around and he literally forces smart kids to hack into 10 downing Street and the code for a helicopter ride over there. The place burns down as dinar seems to know his real name and never speaks it. Next, he hypnotises an entire village to experiment with evolution and lizard genetics. A prefect helps him lure dinah to the lab and he nearly wins until the plants he tested on sentience cause a accelerator machine overload that he built and he devolves. Soon, the military find the place and the machine creates a clone who seeks knowledge and a new AI called hyperbrain is made. This clone procedes to hypnotise the government to a green hand in 1998 (getting the M.A involved) with youth camps and closing libraries. Dinah has to take knowledge from the AI to stop the headmaster and there are actual casualties now as a developer loses his IQ and the headmaster falls in a coma. Somepoint between here and 2019 events happen. A Hunky Parker craze, fall of the M.A as well as claire's birth. A cruise ship toppled by a strange escapee. In 2016, Lloyd encounters the headmaster in London and nearly dies if not for shadow magic. 2017 showed him a 1989 plot with coach laurence seeing it happen in a cursed campground. 2018 caused a terrible incident at Lloyd's school with a particular fatality and fear of mess developed from it. 2019 saw a younger headmaster hypnotise Hazelbrook academy with new meeting old and the original clone trying to explode the new one in his office before being arrested for once and escaping.
Now, in the area currently at, we see Lloyd involved in a new plot taking action against the headmaster and assisting new victims. He first appears in the cafe with the trollhunters team enjoying food and someone keeping an eye on Lloyd. The plan isn't really to takeover the world, but rather send a message that Lloyd recognises as a rogue headmaster has killed the original clone in Corrupted timeline episode 6. The trollhunters evac the school used and MI move in, forcing Lloyd to the bathroom and disappearing with his mark in shadow indigo magic and making one final meeting with the victims and introducing the trollhunters to them. Claire hangs back for a moment for a macaroon when older agent Dinah asks her what she knows of the indigo rings, used during the hunky Parker craze before her birth and in 2016 in London. She slids claire a USB named indigo.
Of course, worse things are coming. The craze is back and the rogue headmaster has a devilish plot...
And the time beings asked claire to keep eyes on Lloyd, as if something's going to happen only the trollhunters can stop.

Staring up at the skyscraper standing tall in a sea of eerie fog, lost souls wandered aimlessly back and forth into the revolving door. Wut and Croak shifted uncomfortably behind me, both of them shaking their heads. Massaging my forehead, this had to be the definition of despair.
“Nothing screams loss of hope like a never ending job.” I commented with a huff, both of them raising their weapons at the souls pausing for a minute. “Let’s take down this Jakal person.” Resuming their activity, a pair of violet eyes glittered on the top floor. Joining the souls pouring in, a cold stale lobby greeted me. Taking in the empty ivory desk, the souls poured into offices. Wondering where to go, the answer must lay in a code somewhere. Wut nudged my shoulders, his robes brushing against the top of my feet. Pointing to the flickering light in the elevator, a quiet fear had me stepping back. Elevators scared me, Wut flicking the back of my head.
“There aren’t any stairs.” He pointed out in a huff, Croak shooting daggers from her eyes. “Let’s go.” Dragging the two of us onto the elevator, a rusty door clicked shut. His expression softened at my obvious fear, an apologetic smile lingering on his lips. Nothing needed to be said, the elevator groaning up to the top floor. The door clicked open, a maze of cubicles had our brows cocking at the same with a scoffs of disappointment. Why couldn’t anything simply be one and done? Then again, getting lost in a maze of cubicles did sound depressing as shit. Moving around in front of us, the path changed.
“Have fun suffering in dark despair as I torture you with an endless test.” An icy female voice laughed maniacally, my muscles stiffening. “Only then you can fight me. See you never!” Stepping into the first cubicle, the smell of stale ketchup was on point. Covering up my nose with the hem of my onyx lace skirt, another musty breeze had my scarlet blouse fluttering with my leather jacket. Wut and Croak began to argue next to me, a couple of shadow snakes slithering down my arms. Kicking my dagger out of its case, my eager palm caught it. Keeping them by side, their glowing eyes were seeking out danger. Crashing through twists and turns, a couple of hisses had me skidding to stop. Glancing up, a tall slender goddess with violet eyes appeared over me. Her slicked back silver hair glistened in the flickering office lights, a silver flute hovered by her lips. Horror rounded my eyes, my blade expanding. Smashing my blade into her flute, the darn thing clattering to the cheap carpet. Noting the crack by feet, the maze was set to reset again. Kicking it into the crack, the cubicles shifted around once more. The metal groaned, a rotten scent twirled from the end of the flute. Seeking a way out from the bomb that was going to harm us, a weak point presented itself. Kicking her back into the air, a space big enough for us opened up. Motioning for them to follow, musty air lashed at our cheeks as we crashed through several floors. Hitting a desk, office supplies rolled onto the floor. Dust rained down with pieces of ceiling hitting my face, Wut and Croak crashing onto me. Pushing them off, time wasn’t in our deck of cards. Sitting up with a gruff groan, every muscle screamed in protest. Hopping off the desk, a cafeteria caught my eyes. Leaping over the cubicles, flute music had chills running up my spine. Venomous gas seeped through the cracks, the clear glass walls of the cafeteria would protect us. Jumping over the last one, our boots pounded towards the glass doors. Ripping them open, we skidded into the large sterile room. Locking the doors behind us, that damn fog claimed the rest of the floor. Stacking several tables against the doors, something had to give. Ignoring their protests, something had to cancel out the fog. Croak’s usual nightmares wouldn’t do, my palm pressing against the glass. Flitting between the many objects, a gust of fresh air was what we needed. Several shadow snakes slithered down my arms, their hissing guiding me to a loose tile. Plucking the tile from the floor, a golden flute glinted in the flickering lights. Tucking my blade into my belt, a rush of energy blew my loose strands about the moment I brought it to my lips. Blowing the one song I knew, purified wind flooded from the end. Spinning it in between my fingers, this was our ticket out. Croak bounced onto my back, her chin resting on my head. Feeling her soft gray suit against my skin had me feeling better, her blade grazing my cheek.
“Cool flute, love.” She sang gleefully, plucking it from my fingers. “How you managed across one of three golden flutes bemuses me. Shall I play it for you? The flute happens to be my favorite instrument.” Caving in with a long breath, she flipped off of my back. Landing with a spin, excitement buzzed in her eyes. Bringing the flute to her lips, complex notes flowed magically. My breath hitched at its beauty, the purified wind blasting the glass. Covering myself with my arms, another gust of wind had the shards shooting into the distance. A shrill fuck had us shrinking back, the venom dissolving upon contact with the purified air. Continuing to play, our enemy’s notes were harsh compared to Croak’s gentle notes. Playing louder, Wut and myself sought a way to get closer to this goddess. Assuming that water was her power, the moment they unleashed that side would mean the twins were here. Closing my eyes, two more energies were approaching. Opening my eyes to a concerned Wut, my lips pressed into a thin line. The twins were on their way and we were outnumbered, regret dimming my eyes.
“Scout out the twins’ locations and come back to me. I have a problem to deal with before they get here.” I whispered into his ear, his head nodding once. Sinking into his smoke, my boots pounded towards our target. Dodging a splash of water, my body smashed into the floor. Snatching her ankle, a disconcerting alarm rounded her eyes at me throwing her through several floors. Catching her flute, a strong squeeze had it crumbling to pieces. Whistling for Croak to follow, her hand grabbed mine the moment I jumped into the hole. Using the rebar to slow our descent, the goddesses body twitched on top of a desk, her broken bones beginning to heal. Angling my elbow for her spine, Croak did the same. Striking her spine at full strength, the vertebrates shattered to dust. Unable to move, a ribbon of violet blood poured from her lips. Flipping to our feet, we raised our blades over our heads. Swinging our blades towards her heart, a shrill shriek rattled the building the moment we pierced her heart. Twisting our blades in deeper, her body seized until it decayed to a cloud of dust. Plucking the heart off of the tips of our blades, the organ shriveled into a black ball of tissue. Tucking it into an evidence bag, clues rested in this organ. Croak raised her hand for a high five, my palm smacked hers with a matching crazed grin. One problem was solved, two more were coming our way. The building groaned underneath our boots, Wut swooping in to whisk us out of the crumbling structure. Running on smoke discs, his boots hit the ashy gray dirt. Hiding us behind the thickest tree, the twins came into view in their usual outfits of a pink dress and a white suit. Tapping their blades against their legs, lightning bounced off of their bodies. Wishing that Morte was here, a loud boom had concrete and dust raining down over us. Poking my head around the trunk, a pile of rubble hid their bodies. Something felt off, the twins appearing over our heads. Sparks fluttered in the air with the violent clash of our blades, lightning whipping over our heads. Kicking Salacia in the stomach, her body shot into the sky. Spinning my blade over my head, a swift swing sent her twin in the opposite direction. Wut staggered over to us, a gaping wound stealing my breath away. Turning towards Croak, no words needed to be said. Tossing him over her shoulder, she was gone in a second. Calculating when they would come back down, hollow footsteps echoed behind me. A female version of Wut approached me in black robes, ivory waves floating in the hot air in her neon smoke around her worn boots. Playing with a neon whip, her neon green eyes glowed with adventure. An annoyed sigh poured from my lips, today seeming to be run by Murphy's law.
“I sensed my beloved Wut. Where is he?” She mused with a sly grin, her eyes falling on the twins flying back towards us. “Give him up or die.” Cursing under my breath, time was not on my side. Cracking her whip in my direction, the rubble groaned in protest with my jump back. Gritting my teeth, a low growl rumbled in my throat.
“He works for me by choice. If he wanted to leave your creepy ass because of acts of pure insanity, that isn’t on me. All of that falls on you, sweetheart.” I pointed simply, a snarl twitching on her inky lips. “Not that I have time but let’s handle this.” Charging at her, twirls avoiding her whip with ease. Focusing a bit better, her whip cut my cheek. Narrowing my eyes in direction, her whip deflected my blade. The twins appeared behind her, their blades glinting in the air. Tackling my new enemy to the rubble, two blades sunk into my back. Neon tears slid down her cheeks, the corner of her lips quivering. Blood pooled in my throat, the bastards ripping their blades out of my back. Watching my blood paint their features, small electrical burns dotted my back. Feverish apologies flowed from her lips, my tears splashing onto her face while my blood began to stain her robe.
“Why?” She choked out through a waterfall of tears and sniffles, her trembling hands wiping the corner of my lips. “I was going to kill you.” Shrugging my shoulders, my patience was wearing thin. Struggling to my feet, my knees met the twins’ stomachs. Painting my face with their blood, the burst organs had me chuckling to myself. Kicking their blades away from them, my fingers curled around their throat. Pinning them to the closest trees, every breath felt like hard labor.
“Like hell you are getting away this time.” I threatened starkly between wheezes, their fingers clawing at hands. Another energy swallowed the space in a cloudy darkness, two claws piercing their hearts. Their heads bobbed a couple of times before dropping for the final time, panic twisting my features. Cursing under my breath, they needed help. Ripping them off the claws, a faint pulse had me sighing with relief. Tossing one of them to my new friend, the other one was tossed over my shoulder. Using my sword to find the exit, she took the other one. Whisking them away, an eerie silence came over the dimension. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, a lump forming in my throat at wicked feminine laughter behind me.
“Fine, you can have my puppets but I am going to take over the damn world.” She bragged with a fit of maniacal giggles, the rubble crunching as I spun to face my new nemesis. Inky straight hair floated down to her ankles, her golden dragon eyes watching me tremble in my spot. Golden horns twisted into the sky, golden scales lining her cheeks. Clicking her black claws together, fresh tears cascaded from my eyes. Unable to move, something about her powers had me frozen in my spot. Her fur robes swayed with every circle around me, her inky lips curling into a sneer. Words bounced around my mind, the color draining from my face at a spell keeping my mouth shut.
“I am giving you one chance to join my team. Be the new number one of Stormana’s league of forgotten gods.” She chuckled with a twisted grin, a fire rising in her throat. Gripping my blade desperately, the crunching stopped with her in front of me. Shaking my head, a defiant grin curled on my pale face. Feeling my heart rate pick up, any nerves I had left fled at golden flames undoing my bun. Wincing through the agony of burns on my cheek, her claw traced my body. Bringing her hand back, Croak appeared over her. Shaking my head, Croak refused to listen. Spinning her blade over her head, one of her claws cut off her head. Rolling to my feet, her limp body hit the toe of my boot. The raw agony of losing my friend broke the silence curse, tortured wails exploding from my lips. Unable to fight the depression, no rage could come to my assistance.
“That will keep happening until you join my side.” She warned venomously, pure hatred burning in her eyes as golden flames whisked her away. Sinking to my knees, Croak was already decaying to ash, violent sobs wracking my body. Scooping up her head, my muscles ached as I crawled over to her body. Hugging all of her close to my body, her hand clutched mine. Her eyes fluttered open, her tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Give my heart to Cal and tell him that I love him.” She wheezed with a broken smile, her hand gripping mine tighter as my tears splashed onto her face. “Don’t cry for me. I did it on my own accord, love. I love you, love.” Her hand hit my lap, the rest of her decaying into a pile of ash. A gust of wind blew her into the air, her heart glowed in my palm. Curling into a ball, claws extended from my fingertips. Clutching her heart close to my chest, the dimension glitched out to a busy park in the middle of the day. Shrinking my sword back down to a dagger, my trembling hand shoved it into its case. A crowd gathered around me, none of it mattering. The twins shoved everyone aside, both of them getting everyone to get on with their day. Bowing down to me, their foreheads were pressed to the lush grass.
“We vow to serve you with all the life we have left.” They vowed together, the previous mark shifting to inky snakes around their arms as they sat on their haunches. Saying nothing else, Wut’s face fell at the sight of Croak’s heart. Scooping me up, he tossed me over his shoulder. Too numb to protest, his words faded in and out on the way back to the hearse. Sitting me down in the back, his sharp eyes scanned me over for any more wounds than the obvious ones. Mixing potions while trying to get me to talk, the freak with a whip bowed at my feet. Vowing her allegiance to me, this had Wut written all over it. Hovering her face inches from mine, the burns on my cheek refused to heal into a smooth scar. Crying for a minute, her fingers caught a couple of tears. Rubbing them on my cheek, the angry scars faded to a smooth cheek. Mumbling a dejected thank you, Wut shoving a vial down my throat had it ending swiftly. Ignoring everyone checking me over, the sole thing I could focus on was the heart in my quivering palm. Getting up without a word, I climbed into the driver’s seat. The other’s jumped into the back, my appearance being the most normal one. Fishing around the glove box, an evidence bag fell onto the seat. Sliding her heart into the bag, I placed it onto my lap. Shoving the key in, the silence was deafening. Missing her endless chatter, discreet weeps shook my body the whole ride back. Pulling up to the front, Cal waited with a big smile with my girls and son. Hopping out, I placed my finger on my lips to quiet the others. Motioning for him to come with me, dread bubbled in my gut at what I had to do. The poor guy had lost one wife and now he was losing another love in his life. Walking with him in the garden, his face fell at my obvious tears. Presenting him with Croak’s heart, any composure he had died in seconds. Raising his fist for my face, it stopped inches from my face. Shit, I deserved every ounce of rage heading my way.
“You can hit me. I don’t mind.” I spoke with a dejected smile, bowing my head in shame. “Please hate me for the rest of your l-” Burying me into a bear hug, his tears soaked the top of my head. Hating myself for my failure, his hands cupped my tear drenched face. Smiling kindly in my direction, the sorrow wore on his face.
“If I knew Croak, she chose to try to save you. Thank you for her heart.” He sighed sorrowfully, his hand curling around her heart. “Do you want to see what she wanted me to do with it?” Taking a step back, his black dress shirt fluttered in a gust of cool wind. Holding it in his palms, the organ hardened to a ruby heart. Wonder softened the blow of my sorrow, his hand tucking it into the pocket of his dark jeans. Hugging me one last time, his footfalls echoed hollowly away from me. Morte called for me, the stress becoming too much. Sprinting out of the garden, the brick wall grazed the heel of my boots. Crunching into the woods, branches scratched my cheeks. Running until I couldn’t, a cave had me smiling brokenly to myself. Sliding down the slick gray wall, my hands rested on my knees. Alone, I needed to be alone.
“Hey.” A meek voice called out, Wut’s friend sitting down across from me. “I am Eris, Wut’s girl. Do you want to talk?” Staring dumbly at her glowing eyes, that was a rare question for me to be asked. Croak always asked me what was on my mind, another wave of tears rattling my body. Scooting over to me, her arms pulled me into an awkward embrace. Burying my head into her shoulder, her embrace becoming like the bear hugs Croak used to smother me in. Sobbing harder into her chest, my fingers grasping desperately at her robes. Letting me cry until the moon claimed the sky, her hands cupped my cheeks. Wiping away my tears with her thumbs, her crooked grin was her natural smile. Attempting to smile back, her palm slid to cover my mouth.
“You don’t need to smile when you can’t.” She assured me sweetly, lowering her hand to her lap. “Let the grief course through you. Then you can get revenge for her loss.” Laughing honestly to myself, Eris was amazing in the best way. Popping to her feet, my muscles refused to move. Placing me on her back, the warmth of her flames had exhaustion slapping me in the face. Draping my arms around her neck, the hood of her robe felt soft against my wet cheeks. Carrying me back, Morte thanked her for getting me. Choosing not to berate me, his arms placed me onto his back. Carrying me into the living room, her heart glistened in the center of a worn coffee table. A metal bowl with Celtic markings containing pieces of blessed parchment papers fluttered in the bottom, a piece of paper waiting for me. Smiling to myself, the funeral was rather touching. Sitting me down on the couch, my fingers curled around a raven feather quill. Dipping the tip into the inkwell, the tip couldn’t stop moving. Moving the favorite memories onto the back, tears of joy mixed the sad ones as I folded the paper. Placing my paper on the top, Hel and the others huddled close to me as Cal placed her heart in the center. Pouring his blood over the paper, ruby stained the sea of parchment and ink. Pressing his palms together, his words were dripping with tears.
“Dear Lord, grant her soul an entrance into Heaven. Help her reach the stars she dreamed of touching.” He wept brokenly, struggling to continue to speak. “Do this one for me. If you can’t let her in, give her a generous second chance. Amen.” Golden flames devoured everything, the crystal melting into a sea of sparkling ash. A warm breeze akin to Croak’s love had the ash fluttering out the open window. A pensive smile hung in the air, an alarm in the kitchen caused one of the brothers to rush out of the room. Not one word was spared, the energy in the room brightening at Miles and the girls hugging me from all sides. Kissing them feverishly, Morte plopped down next to me. Clapping his hands, all eyes fell on him.
“How about we tell funny stories with Croak?” He suggested with a gentle smile, the others raising their glasses of wine in honor of Croak. “I think we need to celebrate all that she was.” The twins hovered awkwardly in the doorway, the couch groaning as I leapt over the back. Approaching them with a comforting smile, neither one could look me in the eyes.
“I forgive you. Whatever was driving you guys before doesn’t matter.” I promised them while taking their hands, their tense expressions softening. “Look, the past is water under the bridge. Work bold and true by my side, and you can have true joy in your life. I am pointing out that your marks prevent you from killing anyone in our group. Trust will be found eventually. Please be patient with me.” Flinching as I reached out to embrace them, the years of abuse were apparent. Noticing the soft terror haunting their expressions, the floor announced that I was giving them space.
“If you need to talk about your shitty childhood, I am all ears. Don’t open up if you don’t want to.” I continued with my genuine smile, both twins brightening up a bit. “Your mother was a bitch and if you didn’t kill her I was going to eventually. Thank you for the help.” Ruffling their hair the way Mr. Bone used to do to me, something lit the fire of hope back up into me. If I could bring what was left of the Bone family back together, that damn dragon lady didn’t stand a damn chance. Guiding them to the table, the girls showed off their bunnies. Miles looked glum, my hand waved him over. Walking him up to my bedroom, I presented him with a silver wrapped box. Remember that Croak wrapped it with me, silent tears stained my cheeks. Wrapping paper flew everywhere, his face illuminating at the boy rabbit in blue overalls laying in the bottom of the box. Wiping away my tears before he noticed, his arms draped around my neck. Remembering what Croak spoke once, she always told me to cherish what I had. Kissing the top of his head, his tiny feet bounced down the stairs. The girls joined him in playing, Morte appearing at the bottom of the stairs. Climbing each step with a more broken expression, the wrapping paper crunched underneath him as he plopped down next to me. Pulling me onto his lap, his strong hands buried my face into his shoulder. Another wave of grief had me sobbing harder into his shoulder, the word sleep ringing in my ear. Sinking into a rough slumber, Morte’s humming was the last thing I heard.

From vaporwave aesthetics to the endless amount of action-movie reboots, we can see a building trend of remembering the 80s as the current form of nostalgia bait. Being about 40 years ago, the 80s are the catalyst for most, if not all, media we see now. The internet began back then, CGI was being tested, global reach started to take hold, electric keyboards became a music staple, and video games had their first crash due to so much home console production. The 80s were a time of massive change that we don’t notice as a difference from the 00s, especially when it comes to things like film and music. Trying to imagine the difference in the metamodernism of 1980-2020 is like trying to see a difference in the art nouveau of 1880-1920.
Previously, I talked about how hipsters change trends every 10 years because of the way public schools work, but the overall change of society goes from generation to generation. The halfway point of a human life is about 30 years, which is about how long it takes for a person in their childhood to enter a “production” age of media influence. Something like Stranger Things needed the Duffer Brothers to enter their late 30s in order for their pastiche and play to be worthy of directing, because they are not able to make these massive projects in their teens or even early 20s. Like any other trend, there was a trailing of its existence in video games of the 90s, as well as movie sequels like Terminator 2, that kept things alive after the decade. Our pop music continues to carry on the electronic sounds that sprouted from the 80s, with the tabloids focused on the singers and their sex lives more than the quality of their music. Most importantly, the inclusion of anime and adult cartoons from back then continues to spread into western fashion as production transitions into a digital form that is easier to maintain than pen & paper.
It's not that the 80s never ended, but rather we never leave the shadow of such a dramatic shift in culture. The sheer amount of consumerism, brought on by globalism and the end of the Vietnam War, caused propaganda to enter a more hippy form of anti-war rhetoric. Ironically, the vast amount of action movies from these times were done in order to say how bad war was, with movies like Rambo: First Blood and Platoon done as a way to make it look yucky. Due to the inability to critique the war during the war(or even shortly after), movies like Star Wars and Aliens would present the Vietnam War in a fictional sci-fi setting, allowing themselves to slip by censorship and inspire future projects. The big guns of the 80s, like the M202 Flash (a quadruple-tube rocket launcher) or the M60, were staples of movie posters and standees that lured us into seeing these action star achievements.
Big names like Arnold Schwarzenegger and John-Claude Van damme became global phenomena due to their action roots requiring zero dialogue. Their inability to speak well allowed their body language to do all the talking, with slasher movies rising up like Jason did from the dead in Friday the 13th, for the same reasons. And like the slasher villain, their franchises wouldn't die, allowing home media to turn box office failures into cult classics. Along with the exploitation of war, and the senseless murder of horny teens, came an abundance of gory practical effects, now that the censors were more lenient on sex and violence. The Hays Code prevented clear exploitation of sex, drugs, and violence up until the late 60s; quickly changed by the death of the head of the MPAA to then put the liberal Jack Valenti in his place.
After the Grindhouse era of the 70s, the 80s was all about showing drug use, naked women, and body organs flying all over the place. One of the main contributors of this exploitation, Roger Corman, was the main mentor for most of the big directors during this sudden spark of everything taboo. Deemed “The Pope of Pop Cinema” and “The Spiritual Godfather of New Hollywood”, his influence created a new form of movie production that would spit in the face of old Hollywood by resorting to everything the censors hated. Morals, culture, nationalism, conservatism, modesty, all of these were to be mocked and made into satire as the world became smaller and more global. Besides the advent of New Hollywood were the movies influenced by the Italian crime genre of Poliziotteschi and the Hong Kong action films of the 70s, further increasing the focus on casual urban violence.
Consumerism increased dramatically as fake industries rose to the top. Toylines and video games, as well as children's entertainment, exploded during this decade. The focus on the youth, by selling them the latest trend, was aided by easier access to commercials and even the infomercial that was freed from restrictions in 1984. Innovating technology meant there were new gadgets for people to buy, with nerds becoming more present through our fascination with these new inventions. Video games and movies were easier to gain an audience of collectors, thanks to the advent of the VHS and cartridge.
The ones who grew up during this generation are now the main contributors to what toy companies call “the kidult market”, the adults who still buy toys meant for kids.
Home movies became more popular because of the camcorder, with indie films growing in popularity from the ease of production. While the modernist slogan was “make it new”, the metamodernist slogan was “make it snappy”. It didn’t matter if things were dumb or absurd, because pastiche and play made sure we could simply recognize it and find it entertaining through intertextuality. Rather than focusing on quality or culture, the 80s was a time of focusing on simply making things exist, no matter how silly the premise was. The studios put the captain hats on the directors, with these directors of New Hollywood walking straight out of Woodstock, with plenty of acid still in their bloodstreams.
Music became a different beast once it shifted its platform from radio to TV. The introduction of visual music videos caused musicians to become performative artists, with their fashion sense mimicked by their fans at a wider scale. To attract the audience through a performance, crazy clothes and hairstyles became the latest craze, changing the clean hairstyle of prior into a mousse filled mullet. Punk, goth, heavy metal; all of these were mirrored by the new romantics, glam, and synthwave that shared the same spots on MTV. This was the time when being rebellious and “original” was no different from being any other person, because the fashion was just a difference between leather jackets with studs or jean jackets with rhinestones.
TV dramatically changed to what we know now as “daytime television for mom” and “primetime for dad”. In fact, the first talk show run by a woman was none-other than the Oprah Winfrey Show, started in the 80s. This was done because studios knew that moms were at home, available after the kids left for school, and they could watch a show made for them while they did their aerobics. For broken homes in this period, the latchkey kid generation was forced to stay home after school as a safety procedure by the increase of mothers in the workforce, with single motherhood increasing from the increased access of welfare. Staying home, with little parental supervision, had a strange result of Gen X being raised by the idiot tube, comic books, and home consoles.
In that regard, not much has changed other than the addition of streaming and other online-related activities.
Feminism changed in the 80s by sparking the dreadful sex wars: a debate between whether or not feminism is supposed to be pro-porn or anti-porn. Yes, this was the main issue for feminists during the 80s, until the transition to third wave feminism in the 90s. During this period, media depicted women as valiant prostitutes or brave business women, wearing shoulder pads either way. The demand for equality caused a confusion when feminists couldn’t decide on whether or not sucking dick for money was considered “feminist”. Freedom was questioned and the result became the third-wave feminism that began to question whether or not there was a difference between men and women at all.
Both debates are still going.
Video games were still primitive, barely entering a coherent bit quality, with violent games like Mortal Kombat making concerned parents worried about what their kids are getting into. The arcade was the new amusement hall, allowing kids to throw quarters into “entertainment vending machines” that occupied their time. The mall wasn’t started in this decade, but it began to flourish as the main hotspot for teenage activity, thanks to the arcades and food courts. During the 80s, paper cups of the food court had an orange flower design, which was replaced with the more iconic Jazz design in the 90s. Yes, I was shocked when I learned that as well.
When we view this newfound addiction to the 80s, we are viewing the catalyst of why we are the way we are today. The sex and violence in media started around the 80s, the performative art of musicians expanded thanks to music videos, and everything we see online was pioneered by Gen X nerds who were high on crystal Pepsi and cocaine. With how little has changed, it’s no wonder the 80s are much loved and seen as “a time we remember but didn’t grow up in”. I don’t want this to be seen as a nightmarish journey down memory lane, but rather a reminder that the 80s are when postmodernism first sprouted into metamodernism and started what we suffer through today. Like everything else in mainstream media, the nostalgia bait is fake and forced.
I am not surprised that Gen X will claim their time was better, because that’s all they know. But consider the bits and pieces that inspired the 80s itself, from what occurred 30 years before it. Shows like Happy Days tried to cling to the charm of the greasers during the 50s, or how quirky musicals like Grease and Little Shop of Horror used pastiche to remind us of how wonderful the 50s were. Creature features of the 80s were mostly inspired by the alien invasion movies of the 50s that were used to symbolically spread anti-communist propaganda, accidentally carrying this sentiment into the 80s as the Iron Curtain collapsed. Like any other era, the good seems to out weight the bad, because the good is a channeling of what came before and what lasts forever.
Next time someone demands the 80s, secretly give them the 50s. As good as people try to make the 80s out to be, it is hard to argue against the massive influence of the 50s that caused many of our much loved properties to exist. Sure, Woke Hollywood is now turning those classics into flaming piles of shit as a way to destroy the Four Olds, but we can always revive what was from before. But whatever we do, we must not treat the 80s as the be all, end all. We must treat it as what it is: the origin point of why our media today is totally bogus.

Note: This is mostly based on the tv show, as I have not reached that part yet in the comics, so forgive me if there is an aspect the comic does good with that I don't acknowledge. Also some spoilers for A Clockwork Orange.
Throughout seasons 7-8, we see Negan as a brutal Conqueror and force of nature, partaking in torture, brutal executions, sexual harassment and implied rape, and showing that he genuinely enjoys it with no remorse. There's nothing wrong with such brutal types of villains, but it's too confusing how he suddenly changes to be a good person, becoming someone of ethics, AND SUDDENLY showing remorse. As someone who's watched A Clockwork Orange and reading the book currently, my solution to fix this would've been to write him as a straight-up psychopath, or at least a sociopath.
In the film and book, Alex Delarge is a crazed monster who assaults and rapes without a single thought. However, when in prison, rather than going at it like an animal, he mellows out, acting more proper and civilized as not to face punishment. I've imagined that Negan could've been written in a similar way. As both are brutal and sadistic, they aren't stupid. When in prison and all, Negan decides to not partake in much sadism and taunting, knowing it won't get him that far. When saving Judith in the blizzard, he is only doing it so that he can get a better status and reputation (he would've gone nowhere just staying in line, and dying would've at least ended his miserable life). Same can be said when helping Maggie in battles. When he was with that fanatic kid who murdered the woman and her son, he could've been horrified, not (just) because the kid brutally killed them, but mainly because he fears his own wellbeing if he doesn't live up to expectations. When he is comfortable in a high, secure status (like ruling the Saviors), he may allow more of his inner monsters to unleash, as he feels it more appropriate to exercise and not be so repressed, at least until Rick and co. knocked him off his high-horse and, in a way, humbled him.
For with Lucille (the wife, not the bat), it could work with that as well, hence why I stated a sociopath if he has some love. The cheating and irresponsibility after being fired shows that dark side of him indulging in bad stuff, though I'm still thinking about the part where he cares for his wife even after society fell. My two theories:

• He may not have much caring, but it's part of his own mannerisms and "code of honor"
  
• His own weird way of caring, hence why I stated him at least being a sociopath
  

With this, it also supports with him being a complex character. He's a psychotic beast, but running an organized society proves he has some control over himself and isn't just an animal. At the same time, his willingness to change his behavior and way of thinking also demonstrates that "just doing what needs to be done to survive," and how he is a monster who has agency and just likes committing terrible acts. With him being imprisoned, and changing as a person, it could be comparable to Alex in A Clockwork Orange book getting tired of ultraviolence, and now wanting to grow up.

Operation Sea Lion is launched and is an immediate success.
Nazi Germany has won the Battle of Britain. England lies defenceless, the RAF is utterly defeated. The Nazi hordes swarm across the channel and although they are met with fierce resistance, British morale is low and without air support the British Army is overwhelmed and defeated in a shockingly quick time.
London is encircled and Churchill surrenders. He is sent to the Tower of London and held, awaiting trial as a war criminal.
The King and the Royal Family are smuggled out of the country on one of the last boats to leave a free Britain, bound for Canada.
Meanwhile, in Walmington-on-Sea, the Home Guard, a motley collection of old men; sickly mummies-boys; medical exemptions and conscientious objectors are the small seaside town’s last and only line of defence. The order comes down the line to surrender but the Platoon’s leader, a crazed patriot called Captain George Mainwaring, refuses to acknowledge this and orders his men to fight on, if need be, to the death, rather than laying down their arms.
Accepting that his men have little chance in facing down battle hardened SS troops and Panzers, Mainwaring orders his men to quickly forage for as many supplies and weapons as possible and to head for the countryside from where he intends to fight a guerrilla war, causing as much disruption to the enemy as possible.
Realising that this means certain death, private Joe Walker immediately surrenders to the civil authorities – the local police constable – and accepts the cease fire. The Nazi tanks roll into Walmington and the SS and Gestapo quickly establish order. Mainwaring convenes a court-martial in secret in Walker’s absence and imposes the death penalty. At the same meeting, a death list of local collaborators and Quislings is drawn up who must be executed at the earliest opportunity. Among those earmarked for death are The Vicar (Rev Timothy Farthing), The verger (Maurice Yeatman), The Air raid Warden (William Hodges) who have collaborated with the Nazis by supplying them with comforting religious services and fresh vegetables from Hodges’ greengrocer shop.
Mainwaring orders one of his crack troops – Lance Corporal Jack Jones - to sneak into Walmington and post a notice in the town square advising that collaborators will be shot on sight without trial. Jones risks capture by paying a visit to his lady companion, glamorous widow Mrs Fox. However, he is devastated to find her in the arms of a German officer. In a fit of rage he shoots them both dead and escapes by the skin of his teeth pursued by a German patrol. Jones unwittingly leads the Germans to Mainwaring’s hideout. However, Mainwaring has planned ahead and his redoubt is well defended. After a brief skirmish, five of the Nazis lie dead, one is seriously wounded and one taken alive. Mainwaring realises that they have no facility for taking prisoners and orders the prisoner to be taken outside and shot. Jones volunteers but Mainwaring, wary of the blood-lust in Jones’ eyes orders Private Fraser, a dour Scotsman to carry out his orders which he does without hesitation realising that the same fate would await him if the roles were reversed. Mainwaring administers the coup-de-grace to the wounded German with his pistol. With this act, the platoon realises that there is no going back now.
When the German patrol does not return, the Nazis unleash a terrible vengeance. Mr Godfrey’s cottage is burned to the ground and elderly Mr Bluett is tortured for days by the Gestapo. Bluett refuses to divulge any knowledge of the home guard and throws his torturers off the scent by going on for hours about his bunions.
Realising that they are unlikely to gain any intelligence from the old man, Klaus Von Macheim, the newly appointed Gaulieter of Walmington-on-Sea, orders the entire town out of their homes to the town square where they are forced to watch Bluett’s execution. A proclamation is read holding Mainwairing’s platoon responsible and Bluett is shot by firing squad. His last defiant words are ‘but what about my roses? I've just mulched them’ which causes Von Macheim to fly into a rage and to mutilate Bluett's corpse.
The townspeople are stunned into silence until a lone voice from the middle of the throng starts singing in a plaintive voice ‘who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler?’ A couple of voices join in until the whole town are singing the defiant statement of freedom at the top of their lungs. Von Macheim fires his luger indiscriminately into the crowd and several people are killed. The townspeople flee and Von Macheim orders a total lockdown of Walmington-on-Sea.
News of this horrific event spreads along a secret network of gossiping housewives, delivery boys and spivs. Meanwhile, the people of Scotland still hold out against the invader, who soon realises it's just not worth invading the land to the North as the natives are too insane and warlike to ever be subjugated.
Months pass and Mainwairing and his crack platoon of misfits are still in hiding, plotting a plan of attack. Meanwhile, the Americans hatch a plan to secretly reinforce and arm Scotland with a steady supply of weapons and ammunition from disguised fishing boats and submarines. When the time comes, American troops will flood Scotland and attack Nazi occupied England.
The resistance groups across England listen to US forces radio for coded messages in-between the incessant Glen Miller records.
Mainwairing appoints himself Prime Minister of Free England and forms a war cabinet. Jones is appointed minister for War, Sgt Wilson is Foreign Secretary, Pike is minister for Intelligence , Fraser is Chancellor of the Exchequer and Sponge is Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
The US enters the war after Pearl Harbour and the platoon’s assassination campaign is put on hold.
Pike attends a resistance summit and returns with the news that a US backed attack from Scotland is imminent. When the message ‘Oh Lady Melton-Mowbray, what a lovely pair of pomegranates’ is broadcast the invasion will begin. The platoon begin training in earnest. Jones suffers a bout of malaria and imagines he is in the Sudan.
The platoon’s morale suffers a serious blow when their beloved medic Mr Godfrey passes away in his sleep.
Mainwairing asks for volunteer for suicide mission and Jones in his demented state volunteers. He walks into the Walmington-on-Sea tearoom frequented by Nazi officers with several pounds of high explosives under his clothes. He detonates his device and twelve Nazi officers are killed. Somehow Jones survives and stumbled out with his clothes in rags his spectacles hanging from one ear and his face all covered in dust. He is quickly hidden by the townspeople.
Fraser is sent to Scotland to liaise with his countrymen and to secure military aid.
A Mass invasion is launched from Scotland supported by American air power after Fraser’s pleas for help are accepted. Those Scots not armed with American weapons charge behind with broken bottles, bricks and home made ‘chibs’, united in their desire to ‘malky’ the Germans and free the Sassenachs.
Mainwairing orders a massive campaign of destruction and sabotage. The Nazis retreat back to fortress Europe. News reaches Hitler who delares Mainwairing an enemy of the Nazi state and orders his arrest and murder. Mainwairing has recently had posters put up describing the Fuhrer as a ‘madman who looks like Charlie Chaplin’.
Von Macheim, attempting to flee dressed as a nun, is captured by Private Sponge. Mainwairing orders that Von Macheim be taken to the exact spot of Mr Bluett’s murder and reads a short proclamation that the Gaulieter will be summarily executed. The platoon form a firing squad and Von Macheim is shot despite pleading for his life in a last cowardly act. His corpse is dragged through the streets of Walmington-on-Sea and mutilated before being hung from a lamppost.
The remaining surrendered German troops are then murdered by the platoon despite Mainwairing’s orders to take them prisoner under the terms of the Geneva Convention.
Collaborators are rounded up. The Vicar and Mr Yeatman are tied to posts, blindfolded and shot. Various women who slept with the Germans, including Mrs Pike, have their heads shaved and are tied to lampposts and tarred and feathered. Private Walker escapes. The bodies are buried in a mass grave behind Timothy White’s.
Mainwairing’s terrible revenge on the town’s collaborators is hushed up by the authorities desperate to avoid bad publicity and driven by a need for heroic tales of British pluck. The tale of 'Mainwairing's Marauders' is deliberately constructed.
Pike is elected MP for Walmington-on-Sea and is given a cabinet position as minister for reconstruction.
Mainwairing is promoted to full colonel and Jones awarded the VC in ceremony at Buckingham palace. Sgt Wilson is admonished for trying to chat up the Duchess of Gloucestershire.
Fifteen years later, a man’s body is found hanging underneath the pier at Walmington-on-Sea. Pinned to his chest is a message - ‘no hiding place for traitors’. The body is later identified as that of Eastgate resident James Beck - the post war identity assumed by Private Joe Walker. The murder is never solved.

Operation Sea Lion is launched and is an immediate success.
Nazi Germany has won the Battle of Britain. England lies defenceless, the RAF is utterly defeated. The Nazi hordes swarm across the channel and although they are met with fierce resistance, British morale is low and without air support the British Army is overwhelmed and defeated in a shockingly quick time.
London is encircled and Churchill surrenders. He is sent to the Tower of London and held, awaiting trial as a war criminal.
The King and the Royal Family are smuggled out of the country on one of the last boats to leave a free Britain, bound for Canada.
Meanwhile, in Walmington-on-Sea, the Home Guard, a motley collection of old men; sickly mummies-boys; medical exemptions and conscientious objectors are the small seaside town’s last and only line of defence. The order comes down the line to surrender but the Platoon’s leader, a crazed patriot called Captain George Mainwaring, refuses to acknowledge this and orders his men to fight on, if need be, to the death, rather than laying down their arms.
Accepting that his men have little chance in facing down battle hardened SS troops and Panzers, Mainwaring orders his men to quickly forage for as many supplies and weapons as possible and to head for the countryside from where he intends to fight a guerrilla war, causing as much disruption to the enemy as possible.
Realising that this means certain death, private Joe Walker immediately surrenders to the civil authorities – the local police constable – and accepts the cease fire. The Nazi tanks roll into Walmington and the SS and Gestapo quickly establish order. Mainwaring convenes a court-martial in secret in Walker’s absence and imposes the death penalty. At the same meeting, a death list of local collaborators and Quislings is drawn up who must be executed at the earliest opportunity. Among those earmarked for death are The Vicar (Rev Timothy Farthing), The verger (Maurice Yeatman), The Air raid Warden (William Hodges) who have collaborated with the Nazis by supplying them with comforting religious services and fresh vegetables from Hodges’ greengrocer shop.
Mainwaring orders one of his crack troops – Lance Corporal Jack Jones - to sneak into Walmington and post a notice in the town square advising that collaborators will be shot on sight without trial. Jones risks capture by paying a visit to his lady companion, glamorous widow Mrs Fox. However, he is devastated to find her in the arms of a German officer. In a fit of rage he shoots them both dead and escapes by the skin of his teeth pursued by a German patrol. Jones unwittingly leads the Germans to Mainwaring’s hideout. However, Mainwaring has planned ahead and his redoubt is well defended. After a brief skirmish, five of the Nazis lie dead, one is seriously wounded and one taken alive. Mainwaring realises that they have no facility for taking prisoners and orders the prisoner to be taken outside and shot. Jones volunteers but Mainwaring, wary of the blood-lust in Jones’ eyes orders Private Fraser, a dour Scotsman to carry out his orders which he does without hesitation realising that the same fate would await him if the roles were reversed. Mainwaring administers the coup-de-grace to the wounded German with his pistol. With this act, the platoon realises that there is no going back now.
When the German patrol does not return, the Nazis unleash a terrible vengeance. Mr Godfrey’s cottage is burned to the ground and elderly Mr Bluett is tortured for days by the Gestapo. Bluett refuses to divulge any knowledge of the home guard and throws his torturers off the scent by going on for hours about his bunions.
Realising that they are unlikely to gain any intelligence from the old man, Klaus Von Macheim, the newly appointed Gaulieter of Walmington-on-Sea, orders the entire town out of their homes to the town square where they are forced to watch Bluett’s execution. A proclamation is read holding Mainwairing’s platoon responsible and Bluett is shot by firing squad. His last defiant words are ‘but what about my roses? I've just mulched them’ which causes Von Macheim to fly into a rage and to mutilate Bluett's corpse.
The townspeople are stunned into silence until a lone voice from the middle of the throng starts singing in a plaintive voice ‘who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler?’ A couple of voices join in until the whole town are singing the defiant statement of freedom at the top of their lungs. Von Macheim fires his luger indiscriminately into the crowd and several people are killed. The townspeople flee and Von Macheim orders a total lockdown of Walmington-on-Sea.
News of this horrific event spreads along a secret network of gossiping housewives, delivery boys and spivs. Meanwhile, the people of Scotland still hold out against the invader, who soon realises it's just not worth invading the land to the North as the natives are too insane and warlike to ever be subjugated.
Months pass and Mainwairing and his crack platoon of misfits are still in hiding, plotting a plan of attack. Meanwhile, the Americans hatch a plan to secretly reinforce and arm Scotland with a steady supply of weapons and ammunition from disguised fishing boats and submarines. When the time comes, American troops will flood Scotland and attack Nazi occupied England.
The resistance groups across England listen to US forces radio for coded messages in-between the incessant Glen Miller records.
Mainwairing appoints himself Prime Minister of Free England and forms a war cabinet. Jones is appointed minister for War, Sgt Wilson is Foreign Secretary, Pike is minister for Intelligence , Fraser is Chancellor of the Exchequer and Sponge is Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
The US enters the war after Pearl Harbour and the platoon’s assassination campaign is put on hold.
Pike attends a resistance summit and returns with the news that a US backed attack from Scotland is imminent. When the message ‘Oh Lady Melton-Mowbray, what a lovely pair of pomegranates’ is broadcast the invasion will begin. The platoon begin training in earnest. Jones suffers a bout of malaria and imagines he is in the Sudan.
The platoon’s morale suffers a serious blow when their beloved medic Mr Godfrey passes away in his sleep.
Mainwairing asks for volunteer for suicide mission and Jones in his demented state volunteers. He walks into the Walmington-on-Sea tearoom frequented by Nazi officers with several pounds of high explosives under his clothes. He detonates his device and twelve Nazi officers are killed. Somehow Jones survives and stumbled out with his clothes in rags his spectacles hanging from one ear and his face all covered in dust. He is quickly hidden by the townspeople.
Fraser is sent to Scotland to liaise with his countrymen and to secure military aid.
A Mass invasion is launched from Scotland supported by American air power after Fraser’s pleas for help are accepted. Those Scots not armed with American weapons charge behind with broken bottles, bricks and home made ‘chibs’, united in their desire to ‘malky’ the Germans and free the Sassenachs.
Mainwairing orders a massive campaign of destruction and sabotage. The Nazis retreat back to fortress Europe. News reaches Hitler who delares Mainwairing an enemy of the Nazi state and orders his arrest and murder. Mainwairing has recently had posters put up describing the Fuhrer as a ‘madman who looks like Charlie Chaplin’.
Von Macheim, attempting to flee dressed as a nun, is captured by Private Sponge. Mainwairing orders that Von Macheim be taken to the exact spot of Mr Bluett’s murder and reads a short proclamation that the Gaulieter will be summarily executed. The platoon form a firing squad and Von Macheim is shot despite pleading for his life in a last cowardly act. His corpse is dragged through the streets of Walmington-on-Sea and mutilated before being hung from a lamppost.
The remaining surrendered German troops are then murdered by the platoon despite Mainwairing’s orders to take them prisoner under the terms of the Geneva Convention.
Collaborators are rounded up. The Vicar and Mr Yeatman are tied to posts, blindfolded and shot. Various women who slept with the Germans, including Mrs Pike, have their heads shaved and are tied to lampposts and tarred and feathered. Private Walker escapes. The bodies are buried in a mass grave behind Timothy White’s.
Mainwairing’s terrible revenge on the town’s collaborators is hushed up by the authorities desperate to avoid bad publicity and driven by a need for heroic tales of British pluck. The tale of 'Mainwairing's Marauders' is deliberately constructed.
Pike is elected MP for Walmington-on-Sea and is given a cabinet position as minister for reconstruction.
Mainwairing is promoted to full colonel and Jones awarded the VC in ceremony at Buckingham palace. Sgt Wilson is admonished for trying to chat up the Duchess of Gloucestershire.
Fifteen years later, a man’s body is found hanging underneath the pier at Walmington-on-Sea. Pinned to his chest is a message - ‘no hiding place for traitors’. The body is later identified as that of Eastgate resident James Beck - the post war identity assumed by Private Joe Walker. The murder is never solved.

Operation Sea Lion is launched and is an immediate success.
Nazi Germany has won the Battle of Britain. England lies defenceless, the RAF is utterly defeated. The Nazi hordes swarm across the channel and although they are met with fierce resistance, British morale is low and without air support the British Army is overwhelmed and defeated in a shockingly quick time.
London is encircled and Churchill surrenders. He is sent to the Tower of London and held, awaiting trial as a war criminal.
The King and the Royal Family are smuggled out of the country on one of the last boats to leave a free Britain, bound for Canada.
Meanwhile, in Walmington-on-Sea, the Home Guard, a motley collection of old men; sickly mummies-boys; medical exemptions and conscientious objectors are the small seaside town’s last and only line of defence. The order comes down the line to surrender but the Platoon’s leader, a crazed patriot called Captain George Mainwaring, refuses to acknowledge this and orders his men to fight on, if need be, to the death, rather than laying down their arms.
Accepting that his men have little chance in facing down battle hardened SS troops and Panzers, Mainwaring orders his men to quickly forage for as many supplies and weapons as possible and to head for the countryside from where he intends to fight a guerrilla war, causing as much disruption to the enemy as possible.
Realising that this means certain death, private Joe Walker immediately surrenders to the civil authorities – the local police constable – and accepts the cease fire. The Nazi tanks roll into Walmington and the SS and Gestapo quickly establish order. Mainwaring convenes a court-martial in secret in Walker’s absence and imposes the death penalty. At the same meeting, a death list of local collaborators and Quislings is drawn up who must be executed at the earliest opportunity. Among those earmarked for death are The Vicar (Rev Timothy Farthing), The verger (Maurice Yeatman), The Air raid Warden (William Hodges) who have collaborated with the Nazis by supplying them with comforting religious services and fresh vegetables from Hodges’ greengrocer shop.
Mainwaring orders one of his crack troops – Lance Corporal Jack Jones - to sneak into Walmington and post a notice in the town square advising that collaborators will be shot on sight without trial. Jones risks capture by paying a visit to his lady companion, glamorous widow Mrs Fox. However, he is devastated to find her in the arms of a German officer. In a fit of rage he shoots them both dead and escapes by the skin of his teeth pursued by a German patrol. Jones unwittingly leads the Germans to Mainwaring’s hideout. However, Mainwaring has planned ahead and his redoubt is well defended. After a brief skirmish, five of the Nazis lie dead, one is seriously wounded and one taken alive. Mainwaring realises that they have no facility for taking prisoners and orders the prisoner to be taken outside and shot. Jones volunteers but Mainwaring, wary of the blood-lust in Jones’ eyes orders Private Fraser, a dour Scotsman to carry out his orders which he does without hesitation realising that the same fate would await him if the roles were reversed. Mainwaring administers the coup-de-grace to the wounded German with his pistol. With this act, the platoon realises that there is no going back now.
When the German patrol does not return, the Nazis unleash a terrible vengeance. Mr Godfrey’s cottage is burned to the ground and elderly Mr Bluett is tortured for days by the Gestapo. Bluett refuses to divulge any knowledge of the home guard and throws his torturers off the scent by going on for hours about his bunions.
Realising that they are unlikely to gain any intelligence from the old man, Klaus Von Macheim, the newly appointed Gaulieter of Walmington-on-Sea, orders the entire town out of their homes to the town square where they are forced to watch Bluett’s execution. A proclamation is read holding Mainwairing’s platoon responsible and Bluett is shot by firing squad. His last defiant words are ‘but what about my roses? I've just mulched them’ which causes Von Macheim to fly into a rage and to mutilate Bluett's corpse.
The townspeople are stunned into silence until a lone voice from the middle of the throng starts singing in a plaintive voice ‘who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler?’ A couple of voices join in until the whole town are singing the defiant statement of freedom at the top of their lungs. Von Macheim fires his luger indiscriminately into the crowd and several people are killed. The townspeople flee and Von Macheim orders a total lockdown of Walmington-on-Sea.
News of this horrific event spreads along a secret network of gossiping housewives, delivery boys and spivs. Meanwhile, the people of Scotland still hold out against the invader, who soon realises it's just not worth invading the land to the North as the natives are too insane and warlike to ever be subjugated.
Months pass and Mainwairing and his crack platoon of misfits are still in hiding, plotting a plan of attack. Meanwhile, the Americans hatch a plan to secretly reinforce and arm Scotland with a steady supply of weapons and ammunition from disguised fishing boats and submarines. When the time comes, American troops will flood Scotland and attack Nazi occupied England.
The resistance groups across England listen to US forces radio for coded messages in-between the incessant Glen Miller records.
Mainwairing appoints himself Prime Minister of Free England and forms a war cabinet. Jones is appointed minister for War, Sgt Wilson is Foreign Secretary, Pike is minister for Intelligence , Fraser is Chancellor of the Exchequer and Sponge is Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
The US enters the war after Pearl Harbour and the platoon’s assassination campaign is put on hold.
Pike attends a resistance summit and returns with the news that a US backed attack from Scotland is imminent. When the message ‘Oh Lady Melton-Mowbray, what a lovely pair of pomegranates’ is broadcast the invasion will begin. The platoon begin training in earnest. Jones suffers a bout of malaria and imagines he is in the Sudan.
The platoon’s morale suffers a serious blow when their beloved medic Mr Godfrey passes away in his sleep.
Mainwairing asks for volunteer for suicide mission and Jones in his demented state volunteers. He walks into the Walmington-on-Sea tearoom frequented by Nazi officers with several pounds of high explosives under his clothes. He detonates his device and twelve Nazi officers are killed. Somehow Jones survives and stumbled out with his clothes in rags his spectacles hanging from one ear and his face all covered in dust. He is quickly hidden by the townspeople.
Fraser is sent to Scotland to liaise with his countrymen and to secure military aid.
A Mass invasion is launched from Scotland supported by American air power after Fraser’s pleas for help are accepted. Those Scots not armed with American weapons charge behind with broken bottles, bricks and home made ‘chibs’, united in their desire to ‘malky’ the Germans and free the Sassenachs.
Mainwairing orders a massive campaign of destruction and sabotage. The Nazis retreat back to fortress Europe. News reaches Hitler who delares Mainwairing an enemy of the Nazi state and orders his arrest and murder. Mainwairing has recently had posters put up describing the Fuhrer as a ‘madman who looks like Charlie Chaplin’.
Von Macheim, attempting to flee dressed as a nun, is captured by Private Sponge. Mainwairing orders that Von Macheim be taken to the exact spot of Mr Bluett’s murder and reads a short proclamation that the Gaulieter will be summarily executed. The platoon form a firing squad and Von Macheim is shot despite pleading for his life in a last cowardly act. His corpse is dragged through the streets of Walmington-on-Sea and mutilated before being hung from a lamppost.
The remaining surrendered German troops are then murdered by the platoon despite Mainwairing’s orders to take them prisoner under the terms of the Geneva Convention.
Collaborators are rounded up. The Vicar and Mr Yeatman are tied to posts, blindfolded and shot. Various women who slept with the Germans, including Mrs Pike, have their heads shaved and are tied to lampposts and tarred and feathered. Private Walker escapes. The bodies are buried in a mass grave behind Timothy White’s.
Mainwairing’s terrible revenge on the town’s collaborators is hushed up by the authorities desperate to avoid bad publicity and driven by a need for heroic tales of British pluck. The tale of 'Mainwairing's Marauders' is deliberately constructed.
Pike is elected MP for Walmington-on-Sea and is given a cabinet position as minister for reconstruction.
Mainwairing is promoted to full colonel and Jones awarded the VC in ceremony at Buckingham palace. Sgt Wilson is admonished for trying to chat up the Duchess of Gloucestershire.
Fifteen years later, a man’s body is found hanging underneath the pier at Walmington-on-Sea. Pinned to his chest is a message - ‘no hiding place for traitors’. The body is later identified as that of Eastgate resident James Beck - the post war identity assumed by Private Joe Walker. The murder is never solved.

Have

• Items with "various" condition indicates I have more than one copy.
• Modded systems will NOT come with illegal/pirated games.
• Most disk based games for trade have been professionally resurfaced and tested, unless the game was already in pristine condition.
• Do not ask me for prices or what value I have on these items. They are either listed or readily available on various sites. Please research prices thoroughly and make an offer.

Stock Consoles

Item	Condition	Notes
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XAW1011] OEM Red (not Mario Red) Joy-Cons, glass screen protector, custom transparent backplate, Pokemon stickers, kickstand, and case
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XKW1000] OEM Red/Blue Joy-Cons, glass screen protector, kickstand, and case
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XAW9420] This is a demo/kiosk unit that displays a message "Could not load software" upon boot. The console has been formatted and does not display the demo software. It needs to either be modded or loaded with the demo software to run. This is a collector's item more than anything. Kickstand and screen protector included. No Joy-Cons.
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XAW1003] UNPATCHED, Neon/Red Joy-Cons, includes glass screen protector, kickstand, and case
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XAW 1002] UNPATCHED, Pink/Neon Joy-Cons, glass screen protector, kickstand, and case
Nintendo Switch Lite (Blue)	CIB
Nintendo Switch Lite (Gray)	Very Good	Loose
Nintendo New 3DS (Black Friday)	Very Good	New top screen shield installed, some general signs of use throughout. Comes with charger.
Nintendo 3DS XL (Black)	Good	Loose; will come with third party charger
Nintendo *New* 3DS XL (Black)	Very Good	Comes with soft case, charger, and Nintendo-branded hard shell case
Nintendo WiiU Black 32GB	Very Good	Loose, comes with all cords (may be third party) and fresh setup prompt
Nintendo WiiU Black 32GB Legend of Zelda Edition	Very Good	Loose, comes with all cords (may be third party) and fresh setup prompt
Nintendo WiiU White (PAL) with New Super Mario Bros. U (PAL)	Very Good	Loose, comes with all cords and fresh setup prompt
Nintendo N64	Various	Loose, can include cords, Jumper or Expansion Pak, and OEM or custom controller
Nintendo N64 (Jungle Green)	Very Good	loose, can include cords, Jumper or Expansion Pak. Will come with a matching OEM Jungle Green custom controller if desired
NES	Good	New pin connector, lockout chip removed. Can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo Gamecube (Black & Platinum)	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers
Sega Dreamcast	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo Wii (White & Black, Gamecube compatible) with Homebrew Launcher	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo Wii (White & Black, Gamecube compatible)	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo Wii (Light Blue)	Very Good	Can include cords and/or controllers
Playstation 2 (Slim & Fat) with Free McBoot	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers
Playstation 3 (Slim)	Various	Loose, can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo DS Lite (Black)	Good	No charger, stylus, or Game Pak cover; charges with good battery and both cartridge slots work
Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie! Game Boy Color	Very Good	Loose
Nintendo 3DS (Pink)	CIB	With box protector
Playstation Classic	Loose	(x2) Includes 1 controller (each)

Modded Consoles

Item	Condition	Notes
Nintendo N64 (USB-C power mod)	Various	Loose, console has a USB-C port instead of stock power brick connector. Can include cords, Jumper or Expansion Pak, and OEM or custom controller. Console will be made to order
Nintendo Gamecube (Black & Platinum) with GCLoader ODE and/or USB-C power mod	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers. Console has a usb-c port instead of stock power brick connector. Console will be made to order.
Sega Dreamcast with GDEmu ODE	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers. No other mods installed.

Cartridge Games

Console	Item	Condition	Description/Notes
NES	Super Mario/Duck Hunt	Various	Loose
NES	Super Mario Bros. 3	Various	Loose
SNES	Super Mario World	Various	Loose. Will come with new save battery
Nintendo 64	Super Bowling 64	Very Good	Loose (Valued $800 firm)
Nintendo 64	Super Mario 64	CIB Very Good	Player's Choice
Nintendo 64	Super Smash Bros.	CIB Good
Game Boy (Color)	Pokemon Blue	Very Good	Loose. Will come with new save battery.
Game Boy (Color)	Pokemon Pinball	Various	Loose.
Game Boy Advance	Super Mario Advance	CIB Very Good
Nintendo 3DS	Pokemon Moon	Very Good	CIB
Switch	Nickelodeon Kart Racers	Very Good	Loose
Switch	Minecraft	Very Good	Loose
Switch	Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania	Loose
Switch	Super Mario Party	Very Good	CIB
Switch	Mario Kart 8 Deluxe	Very Good	CIB. Box art is slightly crinkled
Switch	Pokemon Scarlet & Violet Double Pack	New	Sealed

Disk Games (Complete or Semi-Complete)

• All boxes will be OEM boxes unless otherwise noted
• I can't stress enough that everything in this category COMES WITH THE GAME TOO.

Console	Item	Condition	Description/Notes
Gamecube	Legend of Zelda Collectors Edition Promo Disk	Good	Box and disk only, no inserts, some wear on the box art
Wii	Wii Sports	Various	Cardboard sleeve & Manual (some are missing manuals)
Wii	Mario Kart Wii	Very Good	Big Box, Wii Wheel (new in bag), Game with Manual & Inserts
Wii	Zelda Twilight Princess	Very Good	Box, Manual, & Inserts
Wii	Mario Party 8	Very Good	Box, Manual, & Inserts
Wii U	Mario Kart 8	Very Good	Box & Manual
Dreamcast	NFL 2K	Factory Sealed
Dreamcast	Sonic Advance	Very Good	First run
Playstation	Jet Moto 2	Very Good	Black label
Playstation	Road Rash 3D	Very Good	Greatest Hits
Playstation	Crash Team Racing	Various	Greatest Hits & Black Label, some missing manuals
Playstation	Soul Blade	Very Good	Greatest Hits
Playstation	Resident Evil Director's Cut	Various	Greatest Hits CIB

Loose Disks

• All disks have been professionally resurfaced/buffed when necessary and tested thoroughly
• I am also interested in "completing" collections of loose items I currently own (boxes, manuals, etc.). If you have a case, box, or manual for any of the items listed below, I am interested in acquiring it.

Console	Title	Description
Dreamcast	Marvel vs. Capcom 2	Has a Hollywood Video protective security sticker overlay
Gamecube	ATV 2: Quad Power Racing
Gamecube	Batman: Vengeance
Gamecube	Bionicle Heroes
Gamecube	Conflict Desert Storm II: Back to Baghdad
Gamecube	Crash Tag Team Racing
Gamecube	Crazy Taxi
Gamecube	Donkey Konga	Also have several DK Bongos for trade!
Gamecube	FIFA 2003
Gamecube	Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
Gamecube	Harry Potter to Himitsu no Heiya (JAP)
Gamecube	Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup
Gamecube	Home Run King
Gamecube	LOTR: Return of the King
Gamecube	Mega Man Anniversary Collection
Gamecube	Metroid Prime Echoes Bonus Disk
Gamecube	MC Groovz: Dance CRAZE
Gamecube	Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance
Gamecube	Naruto Clash of Ninja 2
Gamecube	NAMCO Museum
Gamecube	Need For Speed Underground
Gamecube	Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2
Gamecube	NHL 2003
Gamecube	Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
Gamecube	Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Gamecube	Resident Evil 4	Disk 2 only
Gamecube	Resident Evil Biohazard 0 (JAP)	Both disks
Gamecube	Robotech Battlecry
Gamecube	Shrek 2
Gamecube	Sonic Heroes
Gamecube	Sonic Mega Collection
Gamecube	Splinter Cell: Double Agent	Both disks
Gamecube	Spy Hunter
Gamecube	Spyro: A New Beginning
Gamecube	Star Fox Adventures
Gamecube	Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast
Gamecube	Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron 2
Gamecube	Super Smash Bros. Melee (x2)
Gamecube	Tak: The Great Juju Challenge
Gamecube	Tak: The Power of Juju
Gamecube	The Simpsons Road Rage
Gamecube	Tony Hawk's Underground
Gamecube	True Crime: Streets of LA
Wii	Backyard Baseball '10
Wii	Battalion Wars II
Wii	Bleach: Shattered Blade (Shonen Jump)
Wii	Donkey Kong Country Returns
Wii	Donkey Kong Jungle Beat
Wii	Kirby Epic Yarn
Wii	Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
Wii	Mario Kart Wii
Wii	New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Wii	Super Mario Galaxy
Wii	Super Mario Galaxy 2
Wii	Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Wii	Wii Sports
Wii	Wii Sports & Wii Sports Resort (Single Disk)
Wii	Wii Sports Resort
Wii	Zelda Twilight Princess
Wii U	Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival
Wii U	Minecraft Wii U Edition
Wii U	New Super Mario Bros. U
Wii U	Pokken Tournament
Wii U	Splatoon
Wii U	Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
Wii U	Zelda BOTW	Will come with home-printed cover
Playstation	Agile Warrior F-III X
Playstation	Auto Destruct
Playstation	Blasto
Playstation	Breath of Fire III
Playstation	Casper
Playstation	Chrono Cross	White Disks
Playstation	Crash Team Racing
Playstation	Croc: Legend of the Gobbos
Playstation	Dragonball Final Bout	Gray/Blue Disk (Bandai version)
Playstation	Final Fantasy Chronicles & Chrono Trigger	White Disk
Playstation	Final Fantasy Tactics	White Disk
Playstation	Final Fantasy VII	White Disks
Playstation	Grand Theft Auto
Playstation	Jet Moto 2
Playstation	Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver	Green Disk
Playstation	Lode Runner: The Legend Returns/Extra
Playstation	Mega Man X4	White Disk
Playstation	Mega Man X5	Blue Disk
Playstation	Metal Gear Solid	Disk 1 (Black)
Playstation	MYST
Playstation	Need for Speed 3
Playstation	Need For Speed: High Stakes
Playstation	Playstation Demo Disk 42 March 2001
Playstation	Playstation Underground Jampack Fall 2001
Playstation	Power Serve: 3D Tennis
Playstation	Ready 2 Rumble Boxing
Playstation	Revolution X: Music is the Weapon
Playstation	Ridge Racer
Playstation	Rogue Trip
Playstation	Saga Frontier 2	Comes with waterlogged manual cover and back art
Playstation	Silent Hill
Playstation	Squaresoft 1998 Collector's CD vol. 1
Playstation	Spyro The Dragon	Silver Disk
Playstation	Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles
Playstation	Syphon Filter 2	Disk 1
Playstation	Tekken 2	Color disk edition
Playstation	Tekken 3	Color disk edition
Playstation	Tenchu: Stealth Assassins
Playstation	Test Drive 4
Playstation	The Last Revelation
Playstation	Tony Hawk's Pro Skater	Blue Disk & Greatest Hits (x2)
Playstation	Tomb Raider II	Red Disk & Greatest Hits (x2)
Playstation	Tomb Raider III	Green Disk (x2)
Playstation	Tomb Raider	Blue Disk
Playstation	Toy Story 2
Playstation	Twisted Metal 4	SilveGreen Disk
Playstation	Twisted Metal II
Playstation	Wild Arms 2	Disc 2 only
Playstation	Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories
Playstation 2	Contra: Shattered Soldier
Playstation 2	Dark Cloud
Playstation 2	Def Jam Fight For NY	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	Def Jam Vendetta	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	Drakengard 2
Playstation 2	Ed, Edd, n Eddy: The Mis-EDventures
Playstation 2	Gran Turismo 3
Playstation 2	Jak 3
Playstation 2	Marvel Ultimate Alliance
Playstation 2	Metal Gear Solid 3
Playstation 2	Metal Slug Anthology
Playstation 2	Midnight Club Street Racing	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	MLB Power Pros
Playstation 2	MLB Slugfest 2006
Playstation 2	Need For Speed Underground 2 (x2)
Playstation 2	NFL Street	DEMO NOT FOR RESALE
Playstation 2	Resident Evil X Code: Veronica	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	Skate 3
Playstation 2	Sonic The Hedgehog
Playstation 2	Spider-Man Web of Shadows Amazing Allies Edition
Playstation 2	The Simpsons Road Rage	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	TMNT	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	Tomb Raider Anniversary
Playstation 2	True Crime: Streets of LA
Playstation 3	Bayonetta
Playstation 3	Ratchet and Clank FUTURE: A Clank in Time	Greatest Hits
PSP	007 Casino Royale (Movie)	Tested, in original white shell
PSP	Capcom Classics Collection Remixed	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Daxter	(x2) Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Dissidia: Final Fantasy	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Final Fantasy IV	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (Movie)	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	From Dusk Till Dawn (Movie)	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix	(x2) Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Kotoba no Puzzle: Mojipittan Daijiten	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Medal of Honor Heroes 2	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Medievil Resurrection	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Metal Slug Anthology	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Midnight Club 3 DUB Edition	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Midnight Club L.A. Remix	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	MLB	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam vs. Gundam	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Monster Hunter Freedom	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	NAMCO Museum Battle Collection	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	NBA Ballers Rebound	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Need For Speed Most Wanted 5-1-0	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	NFL Street 2 Unleashed	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Pursuit Force	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Secret Agent Clank	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Splinter Cell Essentials
PSP	Star Wars Battlefront Elite Squadron	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Star Wars Battlefront II	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Star Wars Battlefront Renegade Squadron	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Star Wars Lethal Alliance	(x2) Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Tekken Dark Resurrection	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Tony Hawk's Underground 2 REMIX	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Tron Evolution	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	True Crime: Streets of LA

Game & Console Boxes

• Check description for quality, quantity, and other information
• I am also interested in "completing" collections of loose items I currently own (boxes, manuals, etc.). If you have an item to complete a set from the items listed below, I am interested in acquiring it.

Console	Game	Item	Condition
Nintendo Gamecube	The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker	K-Mart exclusive cover and Nintendo Power Strategy Guide (no game or inserts)
Nintendo Switch	Switch Lite	Yellow and Coral boxes (no inserts)
Nintendo Switch	Switch Gen 1 & 2 Boxes	Red/Blue and Gray variants, some inserts
Nintendo 3DS	Pokemon X	Box and inserts only
Nintendo 2DS	2DS Console (Black/Blue) Super Mario Bros. 2	Console Box (x2)
Nintendo 2DS	2DS Console (White/Red) Super Mario Bros. 2	Console Box (x2)
Gamecube	Spongebob Sauarepants: Creature from the Krusty Krab	Black Label Box
Gamecube	Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble	Black Label Box
Switch	Zelda BOTW	Box & Art

Manuals

• Check description for quality, quantity, and other information
• I am also interested in "completing" collections of loose items I currently own (boxes, manuals, etc.). If you have an item to complete a set from the items listed below, I am interested in acquiring it.

Console	Game	Item	Condition
Atari 2600	Centipede	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Combat	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Missile Command	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Pac-Man	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Space Invaders	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Tutankham	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Asteroids/Missle Commands	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Bionic Battler	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Brain Drain	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Donkey Kong	Loose Manual
Game Boy	F1 Race	Loose Manual (x3)
Game Boy	Game Boy Camera	Loose Manual (x2)
Game Boy	Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Joshua The Battle of Jericho	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Jurassic Park	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Kid Icarus	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Kirby’s Pinball Land	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge	Loose Manual (x2)
Game Boy	Pokemon Sapphire	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Star Wars	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Tetris	Loose Manual (x2)
Game Boy	Tetris Blast	Loose Manual
Game Boy	The Rugrats Movie	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Toy Story	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Yoshi	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Breath of Fire	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Breath of Fire II	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Cima The Enemy	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	DK King of Swing	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Frogger’s Adventure: Temple of the Frog	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Frogger Advance: The Great Quest	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Gauntlet/Rampart
Game Boy Advance	Golden Sun (With Poster)	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Lufia The Ruins of Lore	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Mario Kart Super Circuit	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Metroid Fusion	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Namco Museum
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Emerald	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Pitfall The Mayan Adventure	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Sapphire	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Shaun Palmer’s Pro Snowboarder	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Star Wars Trilogy: Apprentice of the Force
Game Boy Advance	Super Mario World - Super Mario Advance 2	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Super Mario Advance	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Warioland 4	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Wolfenstein 3D	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Duke Nukem	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Frogger	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Pokemon Pinball	Loose Manual (x3)	2 in good condition, 1 has a loose cover
Game Boy Color	Revelations The Demon Slayer	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	X-Men Mutant Academy	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Zelda Oracle of Seasons	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	NFL Blitz	Loose Manual
Gamecube	NBA Live 06	Loose Manual
NES	Duck Hunt/Super Mario Bros	Loose Manual (x2)
NES	Excitebike	Loose Manual
NES	Formula One Built To Win	Loose Manual
NES	Mega Man 2	Loose Manual
NES	Super Mario Bros 2	Loose Manual (x2)
NES	Super Mario Bros 3	Loose Manual
NES	Tetris 2	Loose Manual
Nintendo 64	Donkey Kong 64	Loose Manual (x2)
Nintendo 64	Goldeneye 007	Loose Manual (x2)
Nintendo 64	Mario Kart 64	Loose Manual
Nintendo 64	Zelda Ocarina of Time	Loose Manual (x2)
SNES	Super Mario All Stars	Loose Manual (x2)
SNES	Super Mario Kart	Loose Manual
SNES	Super Mario World	Loose Manual (x3)
Wii	Mario Party 8	Loose Manual
Wii	Mario Super Sluggers	Loose Manual
Wii	Super Mario Galaxy 2	Loose Manual
Wii	Super Smash Bros. Brawl	Loose Manual
Playstation	Crash Bandicoot (Greatest Hits)	Loose Manual
Playstation	Crash Bash (Greatest Hits)	Loose Manual
Playstation	Duke Nukem Total Meltdown	Loose Manual
Playstation	Final Fantasy VIII	Loose Manual
Playstation	Spyro The Dragon (Greatest Hits)	Loose Manual
Playstation	Tekken 2	Loose Manual
Playstation	Twisted Metal III (Greatest Hits)	Loose Manual

Strategy Guides & Magazines

• Check description for quality, quantity, and other information
• Some of these did not advertise posters or other promotional items, so I did not include that in the description. The ones that do indicate a promotional item will have that in the description

Console	Game	Item	Condition
Game Boy	Game Boy Player's Guide	Official Nintendo	Very Good
Game Boy	Pokemon Red	Prima Strategy Guide (x2)	Very Good
Game Boy Color	Pokemon Trading Card Game	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Very Good - no promotional card
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Emerald	Official Nintendo Power Guide (x2)	Acceptable, no poster, some loose binding, creases
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Emerald	Prima Strategy Guide	Very Good - poster included (detached)
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire	Prima Strategy Guide	Acceptable, slightly waterlogged
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire	Prima Strategy Guide	Good
Game Boy Advance	Zelda Minish Cap	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Very Good - poster included (attached)
Gamecube	Super Smash Bros. Melee	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Good, some creases
Gamecube	Zelda Wind Waker	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Acceptable, some loose binding, creases
Multi	Primal Rage	Brady Totally Unauthorized Guide	Good, some creases
Nintendo 64	Diddy Kong Racing	Brady Totally Unauthorized Guide	Acceptable, some loose binding, creases
Nintendo 64	Pokemon Stadium	Prima Strategy Guide	Very Good
Nintendo 64	Star Wars Episode I RACER	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Very Good
Nintendo 64	Zelda Ocarina of Time	Prima/Gamestop Exclusive	Good
Nintendo DS	Pokemon Diamond and Pearl	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Acceptable, some loose binding, creases
Nintendo DS	Pokemon White 2 and Black 2	Official Preview Guide	Very Good
Nintendo Power	Volume 99 - Goldeneye 007	Official Nintendo Power Magazine	Very Good, includes tear-outs (attached), small price sticker on front

Controllers, Accessories, & Misc.

Item	Condition	Notes
Official SNES Controller for Nintendo Switch	Very Good	(x2) CIB but missing plastic bags
Official Nintendo 64 Controller for Switch	Very Good	Loose
Nintendo Swtich Pro Controller	CIB	Used but in Very Good condition
Super Mario Game & Watch	Various	NIB & CIB but missing outer sleeve
Nintendo New 3DS Black Friday Bottom Faceplate	Very Good	Will trade for literally any other set of OEM faceplates
Mario WiiMote	Very Good	Loose, comes with blue strap and red WiiMote sleeve
N64 Expansion Pak	Very Good	Loose
Xbox One Minecraft Controller	Very Good	Loose
Various Nintendo Consoles & Handhelds Parts & Mods	Various	See what I do here
Custom Nintendo 64 Controllers	Various	See what I do here
Nintendo 64 Joystick Gears	New	See what I do here
Pokemon Go Plus wristband	Very Good	Complete in Box
Gamecube DK Bongos	Various
Retro Fighters N64 Controller (Ice Blue)	Very Good	Loose, but not used other than to test.
Dreamcast VMU's (Gray, Clear Blue, Clear Green)	Very Good	Missing caps, looking for other colored variants. I have: Clear Blue, Clear Green, Clear Black, Clear Red

Swaps

• I would like to straight swap these items for other specific items.

Console	Item	Swap For:
Xbox Series S/X	Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War Disk Version (Loose)	Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War Xbox Digital Code
Nintendo 64	Orange/Yellow Pokemon N64 Controller	Blue/Yellow Pokemon N64 Controller

High-Priority Wants

Console	Item	Description/Notes
Nintendo 64	Blue/Yellow Pokemon Pikachu N64	Light and Dark Blue varieties, Console and controller
Neo Geo Pocket Color	Baseball Stars	CIB Preferred
Miscellaneous	Tony Hawks' Pro Skater 1&2 Vinyl	Click link for specific release
Nintendo Gamecube	Paper Mario TTYD	Manual only
Game Boy Advance	Metroid: Zero Mission	Game and manual only
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Sapphire	Box only
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Emerald	Box only
Misc. Nintendo	Nintendo Oddities	Kiosks, displays, promotional items, NFR cartridges, etc. Not dumb little Target/Walmart keychains
Nintendo New 3DS	New 3DS White	Can have any/missing faceplates
Nintendo Switch	Poor Condition Joy-Con Controllers	Any and all OEM Joy Cons. Can have stick drift. All buttons must be functional. Do not value these any higher than $25/set. Do not try to trade broken junk controllers for high value items. You will be blocked.
Dreamcast	VMU Variants	Looking for clear yellow and other international variants

Other Wants

• Open to offers!

Console	Item	Description/Notes
NES	Super Mario 3	Box only; Left Bros preferred
Nintendo Virtual Boy	Virtual Boy Games, Boxes & Accessories	I have: Mario Clash, Mario Tennis, Teleroboxer, Golf (CIB), Wario Land, 3D Tetris, Galactic Pinball, Red Alarm, Red Alarm (NFR cart) & Virtual League Baseball (CIB); CIB preferred
Nintendo 64	JAP Watermelon console	Loose preferred, do not need cords/controller
Nintendo 64	Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3	Loose or CIB
Game Boy Advance	Zelda Four Swords	Box & Manual (Greatest Hits Okay)
Game Boy Advance	Pac Man (NES Classic GBA Series)	CIB preferred
Game Boy Advance	Metroid (NES Classic GBA Series)	CIB preferred
Nintendo Gamecube	Mario Party 4	Manual only
Nintendo Gamecube	Mario Party 5	CIB only (Greatest Hits Okay)
Nintendo Gamecube	Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disk	CIB only
Nintendo Gamecube	Paper Mario TTYD	Manual only
Nintendo Gamecube	Soul Calibur II	Box & Manual only
Nintendo Gamecube	The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker	Disk and manual only
Nintendo DS	HeartGold/SoulSilver PokeWalkers	Any and all, including the clip and cardboard insert
Nintendo Gamecube	Metroid Prime 1 & 2	Case art that advertises the dual pack only with manuals (no games)
Nintendo 3DS	Special Edition 2DS/3DS systems	I have: Pokemon B, Zelda Hyrule, Zelda Triforce, Black Black Friday, White Black Friday, Pokemon Red & Yellow 2DS (JAP), NES, Mario Maker 2DS, Galaxy, New Super Mario Bros. 2; Interested in basically any special edition variant of the 2DS/3DS line, New & XL models preferred. Complete In Box preferred
Nintendo 2DS	White/Red Nintendo 2DS	Loose preferred
Nintendo 2DS	Blue/Black Nintendo 2DS	Loose preferred
Nintendo 2DS	2DS Screen	Or one with a damaged motherboard or other issues. Screen must be in working condition
Misc. Nintendo	Pokemon Boxes & Manuals	Any and all cardboard variants
Misc. Nintendo	Nintendo Game & Watch handhelds	Pre-Game Boy era systems only. Not looking for the new re-releases
Dreamcast	OEM Controller Variants	I have: Clear Green/Red/Black/Blue looking for other transparent variants and Sega Sports Black with matching VMU's
Dreamcast	Typing of the Dead	Case/Manual/Box only
Playstation 2	DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3	Manual only
Miscellaneous	Celeste OST LP Vinyl	Complete preferred, any edition
Miscellaneous	Lo-Fi Girl Vinyls	All collections, any edition
Miscellaneous	Console/Game Boxes & Styrofoam	Any and all, non-stock versions preferred

Items Pending Receipt

Item	Status

Ted did not leave my head. He said he "didn't want to risk getting lost," also he could see this way, using my eyes. He was used to being in a body with multiple minds, only, he was the dominant one before. He might still be come to think of it, the Irritating worm.
My walk home was more of a stumble and scrape now. My sides hurt and I'm sure I lost some weight. I needed a walking stick—or a wheelchair, hell, get me a gurney.
Ted kept me talking. I think it was just to make sure I didn't double over and die.
He asked, "So, that thing took you for a ride huh? Made you dream of things? What happened before I came and rescued you?"
That Ted, always reminding me that I almost died without him. I would have to use this opportunity to punish him.
"Oh, it was the best. I was dreaming of my ex-girlfriend. Let me describe her—"
"Actually, I take that back. I know where this is going," Ted interrupted. "I believe you. Go back to groaning or—whatever."
"Let's see, I can only describe her as the extra-most-bestest hot-and-ready pornstar-Barbie I've always wanted," I said dreamily.
"La-la-la I'm not listening," he sang.
"But, and it's a big but, to keep in the pizza theme; to her, Little Caesars' Crazy Bread is just plain ol' bread. She was crazy, which was great sometimes. I would tap that like Morse code."
"Please, I beg of you. I take back all of the bullying I've ever inflicted upon you. Just stop."
"But I'm just getting to the good part. You aren't bashful, are you?" I took a note. Ted, from planet Tedidian-Beta, had a cultural modesty like Earth. I could use that.
"No, I am not bashful. I merely wish not to hear of your conquests," he shot back.
"Well good, then I'll continue. You know that awkward interlude between when you go, and you can go again?"
"I wish to be acquainted with this God fellow you mentioned before. Kill me now so I can meet him."
"Not in a fever dream. Yeah baby. It's all day and all night in there," I tapped my head.
Bullying Ted aside, I really wasn't having that much fun. If you remember, I'm still being held together by glue, but as it turns out, nothing in this place is insignificant. Every small detail would be important to my survival, or lack thereof.
In this case, it would be in the form of those little creatures with way too much skin. When I last saw them, they were in the carved-out tunnel licking clean the protein bar wrapper. Now, I noticed a cautious following of these things. They hid from me when I shined a light towards them, but not completely, always peering around a rock or corner. They were getting braver, perhaps smelling my blood in the air.
Now that I can see them a little better, I think of a quote from one Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet.
"Give me an ounce of gold, and I'll plate the whole world."
"Give me just one of these skin aliens, and I'll upholster the whole crypt, throw pillows included," a quote from one Sean Miller, American astronaut, just now.
I aimed Ted's gun, and they all scattered. "Smart enough to know what this thing is," I thought. "Not smart enough not to follow unfortunately."
They kept coming when I turned back, keeping a respectful distance. Whenever I stopped for a break, they stopped. Whenever I sped up, they sped up. Whenever I needed to eat, they too stopped and ate, finding burrowing creatures the way I had when I was opened like a fish. They even stopped to "relieve themselves" when I found nature's call too strong to ignore.
I really shouldn't ignore them. The moment I ignore them, they will assuredly pounce like bloodthirsty rats. Though, it has been a few days. I know, "days" with quotes, but if I don't use some unit of time I am familiar with, I might go insane—or insaner. My circadian rhythm clung to any cycle it could find, like an overly attached girlfriend. It found no rhythm in; when I could eat, lighting level cycles, nor in exertion. As a result, sleep came irregularly, but I still feel the need to call the moments in between sleep "days."
It was days of following and not approaching. Days of me stumbling about when I should be horizontal in a hospital bed. Days of little to no food, and only juicy hydrating glow fungus to keep my lips wet.
They followed like a pack of ugly flat wolves, waiting for the first sign of weakness. I can't think like that. I can't imagine myself being torn apart, prey to another lesser carnivore. Not now, not after having defeated so many greater carnivores. Thoughts like that are bad—bad for me, bad for America.
I miss home. More now that I am semi-coherent. I miss sashaying my way through training of all things. I remember everything leading up to the launch like it was today. It was after the death of the greatest space craze in human history. After 14 more shallow graves were dug on Mars, where no flesh could decompose properly, leaving a final lonely body without a hole of his own to lay in.
That was very sad news to everyone of all nations. We were, for the first time in human history, united in common grief. There were efforts, but no amount of money in the world could save them. They signed up for that, as I had this. No one ever wanted to speak of space again after this, then "it" was found. A thing that punched far and above its weight class in gravitational pull. It just appeared amongst the asteroid field between Mars and Jupiter, affecting neither, and affected by neither. No one knew what it was, or how it got there. It just was.
It was barely big enough to be considered a dwarf planet, but for some reason or another, the lab coats at NASA refused to classify it as such. Pluto had suffered a similar fate, downgraded from planetary status to dwarf planet. How good it must feel to be able to revoke "dwarf planetary membership" from this thing, like what was done to her. Or maybe Pluto would have preferred to have a friend. Schadenfreude vs. loneliness, that was Pluto's dilemma.
Of course, Pluto was just a rock, uninterested in such opinions. This thing, however, was more than that. Sure, it was "rock" but why so heavy? Why just appear out of nowhere? And why do we see movement in the holes peppering its surface?
I am, like the Martian astronauts before me, like the alien explorers long dead, like Ted who was also dead, doomed to a graveless death, no marker left behind but my body.
Then why am I still walking? Why not find a nice little planet with low gravity for my back pain, and maybe some nice aliens that eat what I eat? I could learn their language, and find a nice little blue lady to settle down with. But for some reason, I don't. Even if I have to walk, I will on bloody stumps, make it home. There's that human stubbornness I mentioned earlier, or perhaps delirium.
"My word, you are mawkish," Ted said. "And yes, I know what you were thinking. You were monologuing to yourself, in your own head. Do you like the sound of your own voice? You know, you can think in any voice you want. I've heard you do it."
"Entertaining parasites never was my forte, but I'll work on it."
"Well, while you were listening to the sound of your own inner voice—boring by the way, find a new hobby—I found a pattern in the walls."
"Huh?"
"We are approaching another portal," he spelled out. "Look."
He took control of my right arm and pointed with it. Hidden within images of unknown creatures, chicken scratch I can only assume is language, and other nonsensical markings, was an image of a six-armed alien reaching out to touch the hand of a hunchbacked creature.
I stared at it for a moment, then asked. "How close are we?"
"Very," he said.
I then remembered the planet that nearly crushed me.
"How big is the planet? Can I breathe there?" I asked.
"I don't know, but you are an explorer. Go explore."
"And you're my translator. Translate."
Secretly, I think Ted was more interested in exploring than I was at the moment. I was just internally monologuing about home, but I have to admit, seeing alien worlds is what I signed up for.
I walked on, still followed by my hungry wolf pack, and came to the portal Ted predicted. It was solid like concrete. The residents of this world must have been tired of visitors, or chasing wandering children, and sealed shut this tomb. I placed a hand on the rocky surface.
"Shame. I was really hoping to see the other side," Ted said.
"Can you blame them? This portal appeared in their own backyard. They could have nations like mine. Which nation did it land on? Did that country survive when all others wanted to take this thing? Or even if they were united, this place is full of so much death and danger."
"True," was Ted's reply. "Still though. It's a shame to have to turn back."
We would turn back, but found ourselves cornered by the little rats. They formed a carpet of folds and freckles. When I pointed Ted's gun at them, all but one scattered. That one approached carefully, coming to just about mid-shin height, and laid at my feet, some worm with gills. That one left, and another came. Then another, and another, and another. By the time they were finished, there was a pile of quietly shrieking worms. Knowing my luck, those worms were probably also intelligent, but I won't turn down a free meal.
Had I just gotten here, I would have politely declined, thanked them, and offered them some of my food in return. Now that I have tasted what it takes to survive in a place like this, I knelt down in front of the pile, and ate like a starving animal. I stopped only when my wounds reminded me how inelastic my sutures were.
In stories, people feared alien diseases. Think, the aliens from "War of the Worlds." Honestly, I think that author just wrote himself into a corner. In reality, our diseases never would have evolved to infect alien hosts. The food sources they were after would not have existed in the alien landscape of a Martian's respiratory system unless they originated from Earth. It's the same reason my body struggles to digest any alien creature I come across. I'm here to tell you, If I find a dead human, I'm eating it, no second thoughts. My gut would thank me. You judge, but you haven't been brought to the point I have. The worms did help though. They took the edge off. Thank you, little wrinkly mice.
Apparently, I was to be their big scary bipedal glass-domed monster, emphasis on "their." We found ourselves in a crypt full of monsters and ghouls, and I was the friendliest of them all. Not to mention, this monster just whopped another bigger scarier one's ass, Though, at great cost and bodily harm.
Placing my hand back to the wall, the concrete felt warm. I forgot how cold I was. It turns out, it's cold out here with no sun. One of the few sources of warmth were these portals that happened to exist on a planet's surface.
The largest of the naked rats crawled on a five-limbed chassis towards me, stared up, then to the wall. I'm going to call him Jim-Bob from here on out. His uneven number of limbs each tapped the ground rhythmically, with no real discernible pattern other than the rhythm and semi-constant speed.
"I think he's talking," Ted spoke.
"Can you tell what he's saying?"
"Their speech travels through the ground and I can't feel what they feel because your feet aren't sensitive enough, so no. I can't translate, but I can tell you they are attempting to drill through the concrete."
Sure enough, I looked over, and that's exactly what they were doing. Powerful teeth and grasping claws were hard at work. These creatures had a profound understanding of leverage, and used it well. It wouldn't be long before they made it through, no matter how thick the concrete was.
"That's a bad idea," I suggested.
"Why?" Ted asked.
"They plugged this hole for a reason. What if they were constantly being invaded by aliens and monsters? What if they shoot me on sight? It's best we leave them alone."
Ted was profoundly disappointed, but admitted, "and they could have guards stationed just outside. Then how do you suggest we stop them?"
"Walk away?" I suggested.
I did. The hard workers stopped, looked to me, then scurried to the front of me, leading the way.
It worked. It seemed the rats were desperate to appease me. They were like used car salesmen offering me snacks and water to convince me to buy their most expensive model. Kinda slimy if you think of it, or cute if you squint.
As all things inevitably end up down here, we ran into yet another monster... "yippee," I say in my most nauseated voice.
A lazy xenobiologist would call this thing reptilian, just because it came with scales and feathers, and a forked tongue. Nothing you find off Earth could ever be reptilian, of course, because reptiles never left Earth. Or, as far as I'm aware. The verdict is still out on the dinosaurs.
I take that back. Maybe this is a dinosaur, after 65 million more years of evolution. In that case, I take back what I said about lazy xenobiologists. My inner child hopes against reason to see a dinosaur so much that I'll even tack that title onto something that couldn't possibly be one.
I drew Ted's gun and aimed it. It backed away. Okay then, Maybe we have an understanding.
Its head tilted towards the gun. There was a strong sense of recognition and fear in those eyes.
"Ted? Tell me you didn't shoot one of these when you were alive."
"I assuredly did not," he responded.
"Then why is it looking at your gun like this?"
Next chapter: https://www.reddit.com/HFY/s/875wnXbxrl

Ted did not leave my head. He said he "didn't want to risk getting lost," also he could see this way, using my eyes. He was used to being in a body with multiple minds, only, he was the dominant one before. He might still be come to think of it, the Irritating worm.
My walk home was more of a stumble and scrape now. My sides hurt and I'm sure I lost some weight. I needed a walking stick—or a wheelchair, hell, get me a gurney.
Ted kept me talking. I think it was just to make sure I didn't double over and die.
He asked, "So, that thing took you for a ride huh? Made you dream of things? What happened before I came and rescued you?"
That Ted, always reminding me that I almost died without him. I would have to use this opportunity to punish him.
"Oh, it was the best. I was dreaming of my ex-girlfriend. Let me describe her—"
"Actually, I take that back. I know where this is going," Ted interrupted. "I believe you. Go back to groaning or—whatever."
"Let's see, I can only describe her as the extra-most-bestest hot-and-ready pornstar-Barbie I've always wanted," I said dreamily.
"La-la-la I'm not listening," he sang.
"But, and it's a big but, to keep in the pizza theme; to her, Little Caesars' Crazy Bread is just plain ol' bread. She was crazy, which was great sometimes. I would tap that like Morse code."
"Please, I beg of you. I take back all of the bullying I've ever inflicted upon you. Just stop."
"But I'm just getting to the good part. You aren't bashful, are you?" I took a note. Ted, from planet Tedidian-Beta, had a cultural modesty like Earth. I could use that.
"No, I am not bashful. I merely wish not to hear of your conquests," he shot back.
"Well good, then I'll continue. You know that awkward interlude between when you go, and you can go again?"
"I wish to be acquainted with this God fellow you mentioned before. Kill me now so I can meet him."
"Not in a fever dream. Yeah baby. It's all day and all night in there," I tapped my head.
Bullying Ted aside, I really wasn't having that much fun. If you remember, I'm still being held together by glue, but as it turns out, nothing in this place is insignificant. Every small detail would be important to my survival, or lack thereof.
In this case, it would be in the form of those little creatures with way too much skin. When I last saw them, they were in the carved-out tunnel licking clean the protein bar wrapper. Now, I noticed a cautious following of these things. They hid from me when I shined a light towards them, but not completely, always peering around a rock or corner. They were getting braver, perhaps smelling my blood in the air.
Now that I can see them a little better, I think of a quote from one Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet.
"Give me an ounce of gold, and I'll plate the whole world."
"Give me just one of these skin aliens, and I'll upholster the whole crypt, throw pillows included," a quote from one Sean Miller, American astronaut, just now.
I aimed Ted's gun, and they all scattered. "Smart enough to know what this thing is," I thought. "Not smart enough not to follow unfortunately."
They kept coming when I turned back, keeping a respectful distance. Whenever I stopped for a break, they stopped. Whenever I sped up, they sped up. Whenever I needed to eat, they too stopped and ate, finding burrowing creatures the way I had when I was opened like a fish. They even stopped to "relieve themselves" when I found nature's call too strong to ignore.
I really shouldn't ignore them. The moment I ignore them, they will assuredly pounce like bloodthirsty rats. Though, it has been a few days. I know, "days" with quotes, but if I don't use some unit of time I am familiar with, I might go insane—or insaner. My circadian rhythm clung to any cycle it could find, like an overly attached girlfriend. It found no rhythm in; when I could eat, lighting level cycles, nor in exertion. As a result, sleep came irregularly, but I still feel the need to call the moments in between sleep "days."
It was days of following and not approaching. Days of me stumbling about when I should be horizontal in a hospital bed. Days of little to no food, and only juicy hydrating glow fungus to keep my lips wet.
They followed like a pack of ugly flat wolves, waiting for the first sign of weakness. I can't think like that. I can't imagine myself being torn apart, prey to another lesser carnivore. Not now, not after having defeated so many greater carnivores. Thoughts like that are bad—bad for me, bad for America.
I miss home. More now that I am semi-coherent. I miss sashaying my way through training of all things. I remember everything leading up to the launch like it was today. It was after the death of the greatest space craze in human history. After 14 more shallow graves were dug on Mars, where no flesh could decompose properly, leaving a final lonely body without a hole of his own to lay in.
That was very sad news to everyone of all nations. We were, for the first time in human history, united in common grief. There were efforts, but no amount of money in the world could save them. They signed up for that, as I had this. No one ever wanted to speak of space again after this, then "it" was found. A thing that punched far and above its weight class in gravitational pull. It just appeared amongst the asteroid field between Mars and Jupiter, affecting neither, and affected by neither. No one knew what it was, or how it got there. It just was.
It was barely big enough to be considered a dwarf planet, but for some reason or another, the lab coats at NASA refused to classify it as such. Pluto had suffered a similar fate, downgraded from planetary status to dwarf planet. How good it must feel to be able to revoke "dwarf planetary membership" from this thing, like what was done to her. Or maybe Pluto would have preferred to have a friend. Schadenfreude vs. loneliness, that was Pluto's dilemma.
Of course, Pluto was just a rock, uninterested in such opinions. This thing, however, was more than that. Sure, it was "rock" but why so heavy? Why just appear out of nowhere? And why do we see movement in the holes peppering its surface?
I am, like the Martian astronauts before me, like the alien explorers long dead, like Ted who was also dead, doomed to a graveless death, no marker left behind but my body.
Then why am I still walking? Why not find a nice little planet with low gravity for my back pain, and maybe some nice aliens that eat what I eat? I could learn their language, and find a nice little blue lady to settle down with. But for some reason, I don't. Even if I have to walk, I will on bloody stumps, make it home. There's that human stubbornness I mentioned earlier, or perhaps delirium.
"My word, you are mawkish," Ted said. "And yes, I know what you were thinking. You were monologuing to yourself, in your own head. Do you like the sound of your own voice? You know, you can think in any voice you want. I've heard you do it."
"Entertaining parasites never was my forte, but I'll work on it."
"Well, while you were listening to the sound of your own inner voice—boring by the way, find a new hobby—I found a pattern in the walls."
"Huh?"
"We are approaching another portal," he spelled out. "Look."
He took control of my right arm and pointed with it. Hidden within images of unknown creatures, chicken scratch I can only assume is language, and other nonsensical markings, was an image of a six-armed alien reaching out to touch the hand of a hunchbacked creature.
I stared at it for a moment, then asked. "How close are we?"
"Very," he said.
I then remembered the planet that nearly crushed me.
"How big is the planet? Can I breathe there?" I asked.
"I don't know, but you are an explorer. Go explore."
"And you're my translator. Translate."
Secretly, I think Ted was more interested in exploring than I was at the moment. I was just internally monologuing about home, but I have to admit, seeing alien worlds is what I signed up for.
I walked on, still followed by my hungry wolf pack, and came to the portal Ted predicted. It was solid like concrete. The residents of this world must have been tired of visitors, or chasing wandering children, and sealed shut this tomb. I placed a hand on the rocky surface.
"Shame. I was really hoping to see the other side," Ted said.
"Can you blame them? This portal appeared in their own backyard. They could have nations like mine. Which nation did it land on? Did that country survive when all others wanted to take this thing? Or even if they were united, this place is full of so much death and danger."
"True," was Ted's reply. "Still though. It's a shame to have to turn back."
We would turn back, but found ourselves cornered by the little rats. They formed a carpet of folds and freckles. When I pointed Ted's gun at them, all but one scattered. That one approached carefully, coming to just about mid-shin height, and laid at my feet, some worm with gills. That one left, and another came. Then another, and another, and another. By the time they were finished, there was a pile of quietly shrieking worms. Knowing my luck, those worms were probably also intelligent, but I won't turn down a free meal.
Had I just gotten here, I would have politely declined, thanked them, and offered them some of my food in return. Now that I have tasted what it takes to survive in a place like this, I knelt down in front of the pile, and ate like a starving animal. I stopped only when my wounds reminded me how inelastic my sutures were.
In stories, people feared alien diseases. Think, the aliens from "War of the Worlds." Honestly, I think that author just wrote himself into a corner. In reality, our diseases never would have evolved to infect alien hosts. The food sources they were after would not have existed in the alien landscape of a Martian's respiratory system unless they originated from Earth. It's the same reason my body struggles to digest any alien creature I come across. I'm here to tell you, If I find a dead human, I'm eating it, no second thoughts. My gut would thank me. You judge, but you haven't been brought to the point I have. The worms did help though. They took the edge off. Thank you, little wrinkly mice.
Apparently, I was to be their big scary bipedal glass-domed monster, emphasis on "their." We found ourselves in a crypt full of monsters and ghouls, and I was the friendliest of them all. Not to mention, this monster just whopped another bigger scarier one's ass, Though, at great cost and bodily harm.
Placing my hand back to the wall, the concrete felt warm. I forgot how cold I was. It turns out, it's cold out here with no sun. One of the few sources of warmth were these portals that happened to exist on a planet's surface.
The largest of the naked rats crawled on a five-limbed chassis towards me, stared up, then to the wall. I'm going to call him Jim-Bob from here on out. His uneven number of limbs each tapped the ground rhythmically, with no real discernible pattern other than the rhythm and semi-constant speed.
"I think he's talking," Ted spoke.
"Can you tell what he's saying?"
"Their speech travels through the ground and I can't feel what they feel because your feet aren't sensitive enough, so no. I can't translate, but I can tell you they are attempting to drill through the concrete."
Sure enough, I looked over, and that's exactly what they were doing. Powerful teeth and grasping claws were hard at work. These creatures had a profound understanding of leverage, and used it well. It wouldn't be long before they made it through, no matter how thick the concrete was.
"That's a bad idea," I suggested.
"Why?" Ted asked.
"They plugged this hole for a reason. What if they were constantly being invaded by aliens and monsters? What if they shoot me on sight? It's best we leave them alone."
Ted was profoundly disappointed, but admitted, "and they could have guards stationed just outside. Then how do you suggest we stop them?"
"Walk away?" I suggested.
I did. The hard workers stopped, looked to me, then scurried to the front of me, leading the way.
It worked. It seemed the rats were desperate to appease me. They were like used car salesmen offering me snacks and water to convince me to buy their most expensive model. Kinda slimy if you think of it, or cute if you squint.
As all things inevitably end up down here, we ran into yet another monster... "yippee," I say in my most nauseated voice.
A lazy xenobiologist would call this thing reptilian, just because it came with scales and feathers, and a forked tongue. Nothing you find off Earth could ever be reptilian, of course, because reptiles never left Earth. Or, as far as I'm aware. The verdict is still out on the dinosaurs.
I take that back. Maybe this is a dinosaur, after 65 million more years of evolution. In that case, I take back what I said about lazy xenobiologists. My inner child hopes against reason to see a dinosaur so much that I'll even tack that title onto something that couldn't possibly be one.
I drew Ted's gun and aimed it. It backed away. Okay then, Maybe we have an understanding.
Its head tilted towards the gun. There was a strong sense of recognition and fear in those eyes.
"Ted? Tell me you didn't shoot one of these when you were alive."
"I assuredly did not," he responded.
"Then why is it looking at your gun like this?"
Next chapter: https://www.reddit.com/HFY/s/875wnXbxrl