Ever since we started taking our kids (kindy thru teen) on vacation in the Appalachians and going day hiking, I've thought it would be amazing to bring our dogs with us. We have an 8 year old Staffy and 1 year old Staffy mix. Both super high energy. Both looooove being outside. Both well behaved. I've always been super jealous when I see other families on the trail with their dogs. I keep thinking our pups would have the time of their lives. This year, we were able to add them to our reservation and we leave next week. And now I'm anxious. We've been working hard with the 1 year old in loose leash training and he's come a long way, but he's still a bit distractible. Is this going to be an adventure full of new discoveries for all of us or a leash pulling nightmare for the grown ups? Am I dreaming thinking that we can all pleasantly meander through the forest together? Does anyone have fool proof tips to make it work or should I give up and board the younger dog while we're gone?

I've been playing Smash all my life - Melee might've been the first game I truly fell in love with - and the series has always served as exposure to other franchises. For over four years I've been slowly, methodically playing the source games for the entire Smash Ultimate roster. Most of them I wanted to play anyway, and this was just a neat excuse to try them out. And I do mean slowly, I really spread them out to avoid burnout. I also never forced myself to finish a game if I wasn't having fun; sometimes I just played the first section/level to get a feel for it, then dropped it. Overall it's been a fun way to expose myself to new genres and gain appreciation for gaming history. I'd already played quite a bit of Mario, Pokemon, Zelda, Metal Gear, and Sonic, but the rest was all pretty new for me. I won't mention the games I played before Ultimate's release, which is when I started this challenge. If you don't see a game on here, that's why.
For each character I picked the game I thought was most relevant, most similar to their depiction in Smash, or provided their backstory. Sometimes I just chose a game I was most interested in, assuming it still fits. For simple characters or characters who appear in lots of games, I was pretty lenient on which one I chose. If you want, you can look at the checklist here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rOlk8dXwEL6wd2Lw4zouBiAce8UJabHOIgIP8bKL_7c/edit?usp=sharing
It's worth noting that this wouldn't be feasible without emulation. A lot of these games aren't available on modern platforms, and some aren't even localized into English. I'm not a collector and I'm not willing to track down old consoles on ebay.
Games are roughly ordered within their tiers, based on how much I enjoyed them. I'll try to be brief for each one.
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'It's old and I can't help being a zoomer' tier - Games I played just long enough to understand them, then dipped. I would not have chosen to play them for fun.

• Ice Climber (Ice Climbers)
• Kid Icarus (Pit)
• Game & Watch Gallery 4 (Mr. Game & Watch)
• Duck Hunt (Duck Hunt Dog)
• Star Fox (Fox)

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'Not very good' tier - Reserved exclusively for Pac-Man World 2.

• Pac-Man World 2 (Pac-Man) - This game is not very good.

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'Just not for me' tier - Games I struggled to connect with or I'm not a fan of the genre. Maybe I'd like them if I played longer, but I don't plan to pick them up again.

• Kingdom Hearts (Sora) - Exceeds my admittedly high tolerance for power-of-friendship anime schlock. Combat felt a little dull and I'm not crazy about Disney. Maybe I dropped it too early, but what little I know about the rest of the series doesn't really excite me.
• Street Fighter V (Ryu / Ken) - Cool character designs, I can say that much. Traditional fighters are interesting to learn about, but they don't really grab me as a player. I expect I'll feel the same way about Tekken and KOF.
• Mega Man 11 (Mega Man) - Some neat mechanics, but the punishing old-school level design isn't my cup of tea. Happy that fans got a new one though.
• Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (Marth) - Moving units with the touch screen is nice and I appreciate the strategy, but the generic fantasy plot bored me to tears. I might be spoiled by modern FE; this felt like going back in time and finding out my great-great-great-grandfather sold corn.

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'It was alright' tier - Games that were pretty enjoyable. I'm glad I tried them and likely won't play them again.

• Star Fox 64 (Falco / Wolf) - Pretty much what I expected. I didn't love it, but it's fun and short. The branching paths are cool for its time.
• Dr. Mario (Dr. Mario) - A pleasant surprise. I expected to play for ten minutes and ended up enjoying it for much longer. Just a solid puzzle game.
• Kirby's Dream Land 3 (King Dedede) - It's good, I think? I know I enjoyed it but honestly don't remember anything about the experience.
• Kid Icarus: Uprising (Palutena / Dark Pit) - Great writing, good music, and really inventive mechanics. Would be much higher if the controls didn't cause me physical pain.
• Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Dark Samus) - Atmosphere, music, and visuals are impeccable. I feel mean putting it this low, but Prime 1's difficulty was perfect for me and I didn't care for the dark world being so oppressive. Still want to play Prime 3 though.
• Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (Ike) - Decent story and characters, but battles are really slow. I kind of want to go back and finish it, in which case I could see it moving a lot higher.
• Splatoon 2 (Inkling) - Novel mechanics and a fun aesthetic. I don't really play multiplayer games, but the single-player levels are enjoyable. One of the most fun credits sequences I've sat through since NieR: Automata.
• Kirby Super Star (Meta Knight) - Short, sweet, and charming, like all Kirby games. Did a lot to redeem The Great Cave Offensive, though I still hate that stage.
• Final Fantasy VII (Sephiroth) - Extremely impressive for its time, but I don't totally vibe with JRPGs from that era. Probably wouldn't have finished it without the 3x fast-forward battle option in modern ports. Famously the music is some of Uematsu's best work, and he has a lot of good work.
• Bayonetta 2 (Bayonetta) - This game oozes personality and charisma (that Moon River remix goes unreasonably hard). If I were more into the DMC school of action games, it would easily be top-tier. I could see myself getting more out of a second playthrough.

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'Hey, this is pretty good' tier - Games I liked quite a lot and would recommend to anyone with similar tastes.

• Super Mario Sunshine (Bowser Jr.) - The most unique 3D Mario. Movement is fluid and satisfying to master, and I enjoy the Margaritaville locale. Held back by some frustrating sections (you know the ones).
• Luigi's Mansion 3 (Luigi) - Great visuals, art direction, and environmental design. Feels a little too padded for time.
• F-Zero GX (Captain Falcon) - The controls and tracks are gratifying to learn, and the cutscenes are pure cheese in the best way. Would be higher if I were more into racing games, or if I were skilled enough to finish it.
• Final Fantasy VII Remake (Cloud) - After playing the original, I liked how Remake brings the characters to life and reimagines old scenarios. Decent combat, cool bosses, and an amazing soundtrack are offset by egregious padding and an ending I don't quite know how to feel about.
• EarthBound (Ness) - Full of heart behind the quirky humor. I can forgive aimless progression and outdated dungeon design when everything else is so remarkably endearing and well-written.
• Banjo-Kazooie (Banjo & Kazooie) - Having played Mario 64, I was surprised how much better the camera is. Fun characters and catchy music make for a very laid-back experience. And in a genre infamous for bloated collectathons, it shows respectable restraint in the number of collectibles.
• Super Metroid (Ridley) - Near-perfect synthesis of atmosphere, mechanics, progression, and visuals. An incredible achievement, but hard to revisit after being spoiled by the fluidity of Dread. Still, if you claim this is the greatest game ever made, I'm not gonna argue with you.
• Donkey Kong Country (King K. Rool) - Great level design and a memorable aesthetic that was probably really hard to pull off on the SNES. For a game about silly apes, the soundtrack by David Wise is gorgeously atmospheric.
• Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong-Quest (Diddy Kong) - Basically DKC1, but a slight step up in every category. Though I will say, a couple of the late-game levels are unreasonably hard.
• Metroid: Zero Mission (Zero Suit Samus) - Feels a little held back by the original's level design, but still a fantastic remake. The post-game sequence without the power suit is a huge highlight.
• WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! (Wario) - Beat it in two hours and don't feel like I wasted a single second. This game actually made me laugh out loud, and often. Definitely want to play more WarioWare in the future.
• Super Mario World (Piranha Plant) - Not much to say about this one, just a good-ass platformer. I prefer it to Mario 3, but I understand why someone wouldn't.

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'This is the shit' tier - Games I thoroughly loved and would rank among my favorites.

• Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (Yoshi) - Besides Chrono Trigger, I don't think any other SNES game is this beautiful. A creative central mechanic, great level design, and wonderful art direction. The "classics" don't always speak to me, but this one did.
• Metroid Prime (Samus) - Super impressive for its time and a near-perfect translation of the series formula into 3D. Music, atmosphere, and exploration are exquisite. To me, what elevates it from good to great is the immersion factor; the diagetic HUD and scan visor really ground the player in Samus' perspective.
• Pikmin (Olimar) - Technically an RTS, but it feels entirely distinct from the genre. The vibes are immaculate in a way I don't really know how to articulate; it's all goofy and cute and serene and a little brutal. What a charming little game this is. Olimar in Smash is kind of insufferable, but this redeems him in my eyes.
• Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Byleth) - Likeable characters and a story that, while not perfect, explores a conflict from multiple people's perspectives, nobody having all the information. I don't know how longtime fans feel about it, but I thought the core gameplay was fun and accessible. Undeniably flawed, but for me it's greater than the sum of its parts. I played two routes and still might go back for a third.
• Mother 3 (Lucas) - Not everyone vibes with this game, but I sure as hell do. A beautiful story, gorgeous pixel art, interesting themes, memorable music, and near-perfect gameplay balance. I'd appreciate an official release, but the fan translation is so good I'm not sure they should bother.
• Persona 5 (Joker) - It's funny. If you asked me to list everything I don't like about P5, I could probably go all day. The writing is a little shallow and it's far, far too long. And yet, I can't deny how completely engrossed I was that first time through. This game enthralled me. As a sensory experience, everything about how P5 looks and sounds tickles my brain so well. This series occupies a wholly unique space in the modern RPG landscape, in terms of both mechanics and visual identity. This game made me a Persona/SMT fan, and I'd put in my all-time top five, at least.

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Here's what's left on the list. Looking forward to some of them more than others. I might get around to them this year, or three years from now, or never. Who knows.

• Super Mario 3D World (Peach)
• Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade (Roy)
• Fire Emblem Fates (Corrin)
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Villager / Isabelle)
• Wii Fit (Wii Fit Trainer) (lmao)
• Xenoblade Chronicles (Shulk)
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Pyra / Mythra)
• Super Castlevania IV (Simon)
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Richter)
• Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (Hero)
• King of Fighters XV (Terry)
• ARMS (Min Min)
• Minecraft (Steve)
• Tekken 7 (Kazuya)

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Did I learn anything by doing this? I think so. I definitely have a greater appreciation for a wider variety of genres and franchises. This got me to try certain games I never would have considered otherwise. And in turn, I gained a greater appreciation for the crossover aspect of Smash; every time I look at the character select screen, I have exponentially more memories attached to each icon. I can spot all the references in the movesets and stages. It's just... cool, I guess.
I try to never look at this like a to-do list. I call it a "challenge" but really it's just checking the list every few months, or whenever I remember it exists, and picking one or two games to try out. Some hook me and some don't. And I play a lot of stuff in-between. Turning my favorite hobby into a list of tasks to complete sounds like an easy way to ruin it for myself.
Thanks for reading. Hope you're having a good day. Please don't hate me for dismissing your favorite game.

Hi everyone! I have a reactive 2.5 year old rescue mutt. She is the sweetest dog but is quite fearful and anxious at times. Our biggest issue has been leash reactivity toward other dogs (she’s fine with them off leash), but she is also reactive towards strangers and fearful of new things in the home, new places, etc.
She has made some progress with CC and we have also been working with a behaviourist, but she is still anxious and reactive. I spoke to my vet who suggested a few things to try before medication (CBD, Adaptil, Calming Care). They didn’t help, so the vet prescribed Fluoxetine. I was going away on vacation and boarding my dogs at their daycare, so I planned to wait until we returned to start the medication so I could monitor her closely.
We returned from vacation a week ago and for some reason she hasn’t been reacting to other dogs on our walks - not once. I’m pleasantly (an understatement) surprised, but now I’m hesitant to start the medication as I’m worried it may somehow undo this progress. Her other anxieties are still present (she was afraid of our suitcases on the floor when we brought her home, and she barked at a kid asking to pet her) so I’m very on the fence about what to do.
Can anyone provide some advice? Wait it out to see if she continues to improve without medication, or start her on it anyways? If I start now it’s going to be hard to monitor whether any improvement is coming naturally or as a result of the medication. Is there a possibility if I start it now, her natural progress could be undone? Should I be talking to my vet about this? Thanks in advance for any insight!

Hello, fellow Survivors,
just a quick summary of subjective experiences that may help other players to make the jump.
Mostly due to the numerous tales of overabundant wolves, I'd been hesitating to try Stalker. I've accumulated over 250 hours on Voyageur, slowly learning mechanisms, nuances, strategies and maps.
Well, I made the jump. And it was quite the ride - but for different reasons than anticipated.
On Voyageur, I like to start in Milton (because I won't be coming back here for a long time) and progress to ML, but for Stalker I decided to do it the other way around to have some basic gear before attempting Wolf Town... aaand promptly almost froze to death. Wound up with hypothermia, a raging blizzard outside, no torch yet and a total of four sticks in a pitch-black dam and was still not warming up.
Fast forward to my ninth day, I'm all but done with Milton, have a moose hide curing and literally the only things I still don't have are hacksaw, hammer, maglens, some best-in-slot clothing upgrades, arrows, backpack and the (soon to be made) satchel.
Here's what I've learned:
Wolves
They're not everywhere, but there's definitely more of them and their aggro radius is increased. Stop and listen regularly. Having the different anti-wolf routines down pat will play a big role in making your Stalker run enjoyable - you will acquire a stalker on a regular basis.
Approach any known/potential wolf spawn only if

• you've got a torch out and it's not too windy
• you've got a weapon or flare already in hand
• you've sneak-scouted and found the area to be clear

When in doubt, blindly toss a stone as a distraction
As far as anti-wolf routines go:

• If a stalking wolf isn't in the way of where you want to go, Walking the Dog is still the easiest and most resource-efficient method. Just keep an eye on the distance and be ready to escalate if it gets too close to charge range.
  • You can often reroute a Walk by circling around a building or a large boulder.
  • Keep in mind that, once your current escort gives up, you're fair game again to the others - you don't want to be hip-deep in an (up until now indifferent) wolf pack if that happens.
  • Stalking wolves are easily distracted by rabbits or deer. This can also be used for hunting.
• Having a torch out is an efficient, fairly reliable and cheap anti-wolf shield. Dropping it to aim a weapon (even a stone) at them will reliably chase them away once. Throwing it at them or, in a pinch, charging them with a torch in hand also works. Zaknafein made a great video about this, watch it.
  • Once scared by the aim trick, their AI becomes unpredictable for short while, so if you're staying in an area (i.e. for harvesting) and suspect that you've recently scared that wolf, it'd be safer to just shoot it. (Tossing torches might also work, haven't tested that yet extensively enough). I've had a recently scared wolf charge me straight past a harvesting fire despite aiming at it. (Does anyone in the community have more input on that?)
  • If you stumble across a wolf at point-blank range behind a ridge or corner, it will attack if it's already inside the torches "scare radius". Throwing the torch might help. Avoid crossing corners too closely if you can, try to go around ridges, or toss a stone, or stop, crouch and listen just before the top.
• In regards to all of the above, a red flare is just a super torch. I always keep two at hand in case I desperately need to use torch tactics in bad weather. There's a rumor that regular wolves reaction to marine flares is unreliable, haven't tested that yet.

Overall, they're actually not too much of a pest - mostly, they're only trouble if they're blocking a chokepoint or an area you want to work in / explore in-depth. Acquiring the habit of torch-walking will greatly ease your troubles (and save matches, to boot.)
The Cold
The weather on Stalker is undeniably harsher, which is especially noticeable since you start with less / worse clothing and it takes longer to find what you need. Especially early game, you'll find yourself freezing more often than you're used to. It's OK to take some cold damage, but plan your treks so you can warm up occasionally to bleed off frostbite/hypothermia risk and your condition doesn't get too low to survive a wolf struggle.
Fire behaviour is one of the biggest changes - a Voyageur-honed intuition of what constitutes a "decent" fire no longer applies. Always double check external temperature vs fire output and make sure you're actually warming up before doing anything time-consuming. Get in the habit of carrying more fuel.
Loot
Loot is definitely more sparse - getting decked out fully will take more time and hitting more loot spots. I'd suggest to no longer fully clean out one map after another, but try to quickly hit major loot spots until you're decked out for Summit & Ash Canyon, then doing those before returning and exploring at depth.
Overall, if you explore quickly, you'll still quickly wind up with more than you carry and find yourself leaving sub-par finds behind.
Misc Tips
Craft the Improvised Crampons (5 x scrap metal, 2 x leather, needs a work bench) as soon as you can, but definitely before Summit/AC, they'll make your life much easier.
Keep an eye out for moose markings and try to bag one early, the satchel is invaluable. Big game hunting is easier with a rifle than with the bow, but the latter will still work.
While you're still exploring quickly, clothing that hast to be repaired with something other than cloth can be a pain, only use it if you truly can't find a viable alternative. Later on, you can get into the habit of always having some of the appropriate hides curing in your regional base.
Learn to manage your Everyday Carry.

Prices are firm, but I take off $.75 for every $10 spent (multiple items)
I accept PayPal, Venmo, & Cashapp
Codes are always split/dual portion where applicable, & have no DMI
Only redeem portion you pay for
New additions
14 Blades HD/VU $4.5
22 Jump Street HD/MA $3.5
3 Extremes HD/VU $4.5
355 HD/MA $4.5
48 Hrs 4K/VU $6
50/50 HD/VU $4
600 Miles HD/VU $4
80 for Brady HD/VU $7
A Dog's Purpose HD/IT $3
A Good Day to Die Hard (Ext) HD/VU $2.5
A Journal for Jordan HD/MA $5
A Man Called Otto HD/MA $6.5 or SD/MA $3.5
A24 5-Film Set (X, Green Room, It Comes at Night, Hereditary, Witch) HD/VU $15
Addams Family (2019) 4K/IT $4.5
Addams Family 2 4K/IT $5
Addams Family w/ More Mamushka! 4K/VU $5.5
After Yang HD/VU $4.5
Age of Adeline HD/VU or IT $3
Agent Game 4K/VU $5
Air Force One 4K/MA $6
Alien 6-Film Collection HD/MA $18
Alien Resurrection HD/MA $4
Allied HD/VU $3.5
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Amsterdam HD/GP $3.5
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Another Cinderella Story HD/MA $3.5
Ant-Man & Wasp Quantumania 4K/MA $10.50 or HD/MA $9
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Banshees of Inisherin
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Braveheart HD/VU $3.5
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Bridget Jones's Diary HD/VU $4.5
Bullet Train HD/MA $5
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Campaign HD/MA $2.5
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Charlie Brown 4-Film Set HD/VU $15
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Crawl HD/VU $3
Creed 3 HD/VU $10
Criminal HD/VU $3.5
Cube HD/VU $5
Damsel HD/VU $4.5
Dangerous 4K/VU $4.5
Dark Crystal 4K/MA $6
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DC League of Super-Pets HD/MA $5
Death of Me HD/VU $4
Death on Nile HD/MA $4 or HD/GP $3.5
Deepwater Horizon 4K/IT $3
Defiance HD/VU $4
Despicable Me 3 4K/MA or IT $5
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Devotion HD/VU $6.5
Die in a Gunfight 4K/VU $5
Dig 4K/VU $6
Doctor Strange Multiverse of Madness HD/GP $3.5
Dolittle 4K/MA $5
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Downton Abbey A New Era HD/MA $4.5
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Evil Dead 1 & 2 Bundle 4K/VU $8
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Ghost In Shell 2.0 HD/VU $4.5
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Giant 4K/MA $5.5
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Grease 4K/IT $5.5
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Hellraiser Judgment HD/VU $4
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Highlander 4K/VU $5.5
Hitman (Uncut) & Hitman 47 Bundle HD/MA $7
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I Love You Phillip Morris HD/VU $4.5
Ice Age Collision Course HD/MA $3
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Inhabitant HD/VU $4.5
Interview w/ Vampire HD/MA $4
Iron Man & Hulk Heroes United HD/GP $3.5
Iron Mask (2019) HD/VU $4.5
Isle of Dogs HD/MA $4
It Happened One Night 4K/MA $5.5
Italian Job 4K/VU $6.5
Jack Reacher Never Go Back HD/VU $3 or 4K/IT $3.5
Jeff Who Lives at Home HD/VU $4
Jobs HD/MA or IT $3.5
Joe Kidd HD/MA or IT $4
Jordan Peele 3-Film Collection (Nope, Us, Get Out) HD/MA $11
Journey to West Conquering Demons HD/VU $3.5
Joy HD/MA $3
Juliet, Naked 4K/VU $5.5
Jungle Book (2016) 4K/MA $4.5 or HD/GP $2.5
Ju-On Grudge HD/VU $4.5
Jurassic Park 3 HD/VU $3.5
Jurassic World 6-Film Collection (Dominion Thea & Ext) HD/MA $18
Jurassic World Dominion (Thea & Ext) HD/MA $5
Kama Sutra HD/VU $4.5
Kid Who Would Be King 4K/MA $5.5 or HD/MA $4
Kill Zone (2005) HD/VU $4.5
King Richard 4K/MA $5.5
King's Man 4K/MA $5.5 or HD/GP $3.5
Knives Out 4K/VU $5.5
Knock at Cabin HD/MA $8
Knowing 4K/VU $5.5 or HD/VU $4
Knowing/Push Double Feature HD/VU $7.5
Labyrinth HD/MA $4.5
Lady & Tramp HD/MA $4.5 or HD/GP $4
Lair of White Worm HD/VU $4.5
Last Christmas HD/MA $4
Last Duel HD/GP $3.5
Last Flag Flying HD/MA $4
Last Picture Show 4K/MA $5.5
Last Samurai HD/MA $4
Legend of Hercules 4K/IT $3
Let Them All Talk 4K/MA $5.5
Lightyear HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Lilo & Stitch HD/MA $4.5 or HD/GP $4
Limey 4K/VU $5.5
Lion King HD/GP $3
Locked Down 4K/MA $5.5
Lyle Lyle Crocodile HD/MA $5
M3GAN (Thea & Unrated) HD/MA $7.5
Mack & Rita HD/VU $4.5
Mad Max 1-4 Set 4K/VU $18.5
Mad Max 2 Road Warrior 4K/VU $5.5
Mad Men Complete Series HD/VU $35
Magic Mike's Last Dance HD/MA $7
Magnificent Seven 4-Film Set (1960, Return, Guns, Ride) HD/VU $13
Man of Tai Chi HD/VU $4
Man Who Fell To Earth 4K/VU $6
Manchester by Sea HD/IT $3.5
Marksman HD/MA $4
Marlowe HD/MA $7.5
Mask of Zorro 4K/MA $6
Mask of Zorro 4K/MA $6
Mauritanian 4K/IT $5
Maze Runner Death Cure HD/MA $3.5
Maze Runner HD/MA $3.5
Meatballs HD/VU $4
Memory HD/MA $4
Men HD/VU $4.5
Men in Black 3 HD/MA $3
Men in Black HD/MA $4
Menu HD/MA $4.5 or HD/GP $4
Mickey & Minnie 10 Classic Shorts HD/MA $5.5 or HD/GP $5
Mid-Century 4K/VU $5
Midsommar HD/VU $4
Miracle on 34th Street (1947) HD/MA $4
Missing Link HD/MA $4
Missing SD/MA $4
Mission Impossible 3 4K/VU $4.5
Mitchells vs Machines HD/MA $4.5
Mommy HD/VU $4
Monster High Electrified HD/VU or IT $2.5
Moonfall 4K/VU $4.5
Morbius HD/MA $4
Mother's Day HD/IT $2.5
Moving On HD/VU $5.5
Mrs Harris Goes to Paris 4K/MA $6
My Brilliant Friend Season 1 HD/VU $4
My Fair Lady 4K/VU $5.5
Nashville HD/VU $4
Needle in a Timestack 4K/VU $5.5
Night House HD/GP $4
No Sudden Move 4K/MA $6
Nope HD/MA $5.5
Northman HD/MA $4
Oliver! 4K/MA $5
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood HD/MA $3.5
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood HD/MA $4
Paradise Highway 4K/VU $5.5
Paranormal Activity 1-8 Collection HD/VU $22
Paranormal Activity Ghost Dimension (Unrated) HD/VU $4.5
Paul Blart Mall Cop 2 HD/MA $3.5
Paw Patrol Movie HD/VU $4.5
Percy Jackon Lightning Thief SD/IT $1.5
Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters HD/MA $3
Perfectos Desconocidos HD/VU $4
Peter Pan (1953) HD/MA $4 or HD/GP $3.5
Peter Rabbit HD/MA $3.5
Phantom Thread HD/MA $4
Piano HD/VU $4.5
Pitch Black (Unrated) HD/MA or IT $4
Plane 4K/VU $6.5
Pocahontas 2 Journey to a New World HD/GP $3.5
Pompeii HD/MA $3.5
Pretty in Pink HD/VU $3.5
Prey for Devil 4K/VU $6
Prince of Egypt HD/MA $4.5
Protege HD/VU $4
Proud Mary HD/MA $3.5
Pulp Fiction 4K/VU $5.5
Pulp Fiction 4K/VU $5.5
Push 4K/VU $6
Puss in Boots Last Wish HD/MA $6.5
Queen of Katwe HD/MA $3 or HD/GP $2.5
Raid Redemption (Thea & Unrated) HD/MA $4.5
Ran (1985) 4K/VU $5.5
Ratatouille 4K/MA $6 or HD/GP $4
Rear Window HD/MA $3.5
RED 2 HD/VU or IT $2
Red Heat 4K/VU $5
Redline HD/VU $4.5
Reign of Assassins HD/VU $4.5
Repo Genetic Opera HD/VU $4.5
Rescuers Down Under HD/MA $5 or HD/GP $4.5
Rescuers HD/MA $5 or HD/GP $4.5
Reservoir Dogs 4K/VU $5.5 or HD/VU $4
Resident Evil Retribution 4K/MA $5 or HD/MA $3.5
Retaliation (2017) HD/VU $4
Ride Like a Girl HD/VU $4
Right One 4K/VU $5.5
Ring HD/VU $4.5
Rio 2 HD/MA $3
Rio SD/IT $1.5
Rocky Knockout Collection 1-4 (Rocky IV w/ Thea & Rocky vs Drago Ultimate Cut) 4K/VU $20
Rules of Attraction HD/VU $4
Rumble HD/VU $5
Running Man 4K/VU $5.5
Safe Haven SD/IT $1.5
Saint Maud HD/VU $4.5
Sausage Party HD/MA $3.5
Saw 7-Film Collection (Unrated) HD/VU $18
Saw 8-Film Collection HD/VU $20
Scott Pilgrim vs World 4K/MA $5.5
Scream 4 HD/VU $4
Scream HD/VU $4.5
Secret Garden (2020) 4K/IT $5
Secret in Their Eyes HD/VU or IT $3
Sense & Sensibility 4K/MA $5
Sex & City 2 SD/IT $1.5
Sex Tape HD/MA $3.5
Shaun of Dead HD/MA $4 or 4K/IT $4.5
Shawshank Redemption 4K/MA $5.5
Shazam! Fury of Gods HD/MA $10
She Said HD/MA $6.5
Shooter 4K/VU $5
Show Dogs HD/MA $3.5
Siberia (2018) HD/VU $3
Silent Night, Deadly Night 3-Film Set (3-5) HD/VU $8
Silent Twins 4K/MA $6
Silk Road 4K/VU $5
Sing 2 HD/MA $4
Sing Street HD/VU $4
Sixteen Candles HD/MA $4
Skeleton Twins HD/VU $4.5
Smile HD/VU $5.5
Smokey & Bandit HD/MA $3.5
Smokin' Aces 4K/MA $5.5
Smurfs Lost Village HD/MA $3.5
Snake Eyes G.I. Joe Origins 4K/VU $5.5 or HD/VU $4
Snatch 4K/MA $5.5
Social Network 4K/MA $5.5
Son of God HD/MA $3
Source Code 4K/VU $5.5
Spartacus HD/MA $3.5
Spider-Man Into Spider-Verse 4K/MA $5.5
Spider-Man No Way Home HD/MA $4
Spinning Man HD/VU $4
Spirit HD/VU $4
Spontaneous HD/VU $4.5
Starship Troopers 4K/MA $6
Sting 4K/MA $5 or HD/MA $3.5
Strange World HD/GP $4
Strangers Prey at Night HD/MA $3
Stripes 4K/MA $5
Sudden Death HD/IT $4
Taken 2 HD/MA $3.5
Tangled HD/MA $4
Tar HD/MA $6
Taxi Driver HD/MA $4
Teen Spirit (2019) HD/MA $4
Teen Titans Go! & DC Super Hero Girls Mayhem Multiverse HD/MA $6
Teeth HD/VU $4.5
Ten Commandments (1923) HD/VU $4
Ten Commandments (1956) HD/VU $4
Tetro HD/VU $4
Thanks for Sharing HD/VU $4
The Batman HD/MA $4
This is End HD/MA $3.5
This Means War SD/IT $1.5
Thor Love & Thunder 4K/MA $5.5 or HD/GP $3.5
Till 4K/IT $7
Time Freak HD/VU $4
To Kill a Mockingbird 4K/IT $4
To Sir w/ Love 4K/MA $5.5
Tomb Raider Cradle of Life 4K/VU or IT $5.5
Top Gun Maverick 4K/VU $6 or HD/VU $4.5
Touched w/ Fire HD/VU $4.5
Town SD/IT $1.5
Trading Places HD/VU $4
Transformers 4K/VU $5
Transformers Age of Extinction HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Transformers Dark of Moon 4K/VU $4.5
Transformers Revenge of Fallen 4K/VU $5
Triple 9 HD/IT $3.5
Troy (Director's Cut) HD/MA $4.5
True Grit SD/IT $1.5
Tucker Man & His Dream 4K/VU $5
Turning Red HD/GP $3
Twilight 1-3 (Ext) HD/VU $10
Twilight Breaking Dawn Pt 1 HD/VU $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Twilight HD/VU $4
Umma HD/MA $4.5
Uncharted HD/MA $4
Uncut Gems HD/VU $4
Under Skin HD/VU $3.5
Underwater HD/MA $4.5
Underworld 5-Film Set HD/MA $17
Venom Let There Be Carnage HD/MA $4
Virtuoso 4K/VU $5
Vivo HD/MA $5
Voyagars 4K/VU $5
W. HD/VU $4
Wall Street Money Never Sleeps SD/IT $1.5
War of Worlds 4K/VU $5.5
War on Everyone HD/VU $4
Warhunt 4K/VU $4.5
Waterworld HD/MA $4
Wayne's World 4K/VU $5.5
Weekend HD/VU $4
What We Did on our Holiday HD/VU $4
Where Crawdads Sing HD/MA $4.5
Whitney Houston I Wanna Dance w/ Sombody HD/MA $5.5 or SD/MA $3
Wicker Man (1973) HD/VU $4.5
Winnie Pooh Springtime w/ Roo HD/MA $4.5 or HD/GP $4
Wolf Man (1941) HD/MA $3.5
Woman King HD/MA $5.5
Women Talking 4K/IT $7
X-Men Days of Future Past Rogue Cut 4K/IT $5.5
X-Men First Class & Days of Future Past HD/MA $6.5
X-Men Trilogy (X-Men, X2, Last Stand) HD/MA $12
Zero Dark Thirty HD/MA $3.5
All other movies (A-Z)
101 Dalmatians HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
12 Years a Slave HD/MA $3.5
13 Hours Soldiers of Benghazi HD/VU $2.5
1917 HD/MA $3.5
2 Fast 2 Furious 4K/IT $3.5
2 Guns HD/VU or IT $2.5
21 Jump Street HD/MA $3
3 From Hell (Unrated) 4K/VU $4 or HD/VU $2.5
31 HD/VU $2.5
310 to Yuma 4K/VU $5
47 Meters Down HD/IT $3.5
47 Meters Down Uncaged HD/VU $3.5
47 Ronin HD/VU $3 or 4K/IT $3.5
71 HD/VU $4
A Clockwork Orange 4K/MA $5
A Most Wanted Man HD/VU $3.5
A Quiet Place HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
A Quiet Place Part 2 4K/VU $5.5 or HD/VU $4
A Wrinkle in Time HD/MA $3 or HD/GP $2.5
About Time HD/VU or IT $3.5
Action Point HD/IT $2
Adore HD/IT $3.5
Adventures Of TinTin HD/VU or IT $2.5
After Earth HD/MA $3
Aladdin (2019) 4K/MA $4.5 or HD/MA $3 or HD/GP $2.5
Alex Cross HD/VU or IT $2
Alfred Hitchcock 5-Film Set Vol 2 4K/MA $24
Alice Through Looking Glass HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Alita Battle Angel 4K/MA $5 or HD/MA $3.5
All Eyez on Me HD/IT $3
All Money in World HD/MA $3.5
Aloha HD/MA $3.5 or SD/MA $1
Alvin & Chipmunks Road Chip HD/MA $2.5
Amazing Spider-Man 2 HD/MA $4
Amazing Spider-Man HD/MA $3.5 or SD/MA $1.5
America Imagine World w/out Her HD/VU $1.5
American Assassin 4K/VU $4.5 or HD/VU $3
American Frontier Trilogy (Sicario, Wind River, Hell or High Water) HD/VU $7.5
American Hustle SD/MA $1.5
American Made 4K/MA $5 or HD/MA $3.5
American Night HD/VU $4
American Reunion HD/VU or IT $3
American Ultra HD/IT $4
Anchorman 2 Legend Continues HD/VU or IT $2.5
Angel Heart 4K/VU $5.5
Angel of Mine 4K/VU $5.5
Anna 4K/VU $5 HD/VU $3.5
Anna Karenina HD/IT $3.5
Annie (2014) HD/MA $3.5 or SD/MA $1.5
Annihilation HD/VU $3
Antebellum 4K/VU $5
Ant-Man & Wasp HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Ant-Man HD/MA $4 or HD/GP $3.5
Apollo 13 4K/MA or IT $5 or HD/MA $3.5
Arctic HD/MA $4
Arnold Schwarzenegger 6-Film Collection (Last Stand, Total Recall, T-2, Red Heat, Maggie, Hercules in NY) HD/VU $14
Arrival HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Ash vs Evil Dead Season 3 HD/VU $5
Assassination Nation HD/MA $3.5
Assassin's Creed HD/MA $3
Atomic Blonde 4K/MA $4.5 or HD/MA$3
August Osage County HD/VU $3
Avengers Age of Ultron HD/MA $3.5 pr HD/GP $3
Avengers Endgame HD/MA $2.5 or HD/GP $2
Avengers HD/GP $3
Avengers Infinity War HD/MA $2.5 or HD/GP $2
Back to Future Trilogy 4K/MA $14 or HD/MA $9.5
Bad Boys for Life HD/MA $4
Bad Grandpa HD/IT $2.5
Bad Words HD/IT $3
Bambi HD/MA $4 or HD/GP $3.5
Bangkok Dangerous HD/VU $4
Bank Job HD/VU $3.5
Barbie & Her Sisters in Great Puppy Adventure HD/VU or IT $3.5
Barbie in Princess Power HD/IT $3.5
Barbie Star Light Adventure HD/IT $3.5
Battle of Year HD/MA $3.5
Battleship HD/VU $3 or 4K/IT $3.5
Baywatch HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Beatriz at Dinner HD/VU $4.5
Beauty & Beast (1991) HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Beauty & Beast (2017) HD/MA $2.5 or HD/GP $2
Before I Fall HD/VU or IT $3.5
Begin Again HD/VU $3.5
Ben-Hur (2016) HD/VU or IT $3.5
BFG HD/MA $3.5
Big Eyes HD/VU $3.5
Big Hero 6 4K/MA $5 or HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Big Lebowski 4K/MA $5.5 or HD/MA $4
Big Little Lies Season 1 HD/GP $2.5
Big Short HD/VU or IT $3.5
Big Wedding SD/IT $1
Birth of a Nation HD/MA $3.5
Black Panther 4K/MA $4.5 or HD/GP $2.5
Black Widow HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Blackhat HD/IT $3.5
Blair Witch Project (1999) HD/VU $4
Blockers HD/MA $3.5
Boardwalk Empire Season 1 HD/VU or IT $4
Bombshell 4K/VU $5
Book Club HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Book of Life HD/MA $3.5
Born a Champion 4K/VU $5
Boss Baby HD/MA $2.5
Bourne Identity HD/VU $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Bourne Legacy HD/VU $2
Bourne Supremacy HD/VU $3.5
Bourne Ultimatum 4K/MA $5 or HD/MA $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Boy 2 HD/IT $3.5
Boy Erased HD/MA $4
Boy HD/IT $3.5
Boyhood HD/VU or IT $2.5
Braven HD/VU $4
Butler HD/VU $3
Butterfly Effect HD/MA $4
Bye Bye Man (Unrated) HD/IT $2.5
Cabin in Woods 4K/VU or IT $4.5 or HD/VU $2.5
Call of Wild 4K/MA $4.5 or HD/GP $2.5
Captain America Civil War HD/GP $2.5
Captain America First Avenger HD/MA $4 or HD/GP $3.5 or SD/IT $1.5
Captain America Winter Soldier HD/GP $3.5
Captain Marvel HD/GP $2
Captain Phillips HD/MA $3.5 or SD/MA $1.5
Carol HD/VU $4
Cars 3 HD/GP $2.5
Case for Christ HD/IT $2.5
Chaos Walking 4K/VU $5
Chicago HD/VU $4
Children (2008) HD/VU $4
Christopher Robin HD/MA $4 or HD/GP $3.5
Cloverfield 4K/VU $5.5 or HD/VU $4
Coco HD/GP $2.5
Cold Pursuit 4K/VU $5 or HD/VU $3.5
Collection HD/VU $3.5
Columbiana (Unrated) HD/MA $4
Come & Find Me HD/VU $4
Commuter 4K/VU $5 or HD/VU $3.5
Company of Heroes HD/MA $4
Contraband HD/IT $3
Cooties HD/VU $4
Cornetto Trilogy (Shaun of Dead, Hot Fuzz, World's End) 4K/MA $15
Counselor HD/MA $4
Courier 4K/VU $5.5 or HD/VU $4
Crank 4K/VU $5.5
Crimson Peak HD/IT $3.5
Croods HD/VU $3.5
Cruella HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
D Train 4K/IT $4
Daddy's Home 2 HD/IT $3
Daddy's Home HD/VU $3
Dark Tower HD/MA $3.5
Darkest Hour (2017) 4K/MA $5.5
Darkness HD/IT $3
Dawn of Planet of Apes HD/MA $3.5
Daybreakers 4K/VU $5.5
Deadpool 2 (w/Super Duper Cut) HD/MA $4
Deadpool HD/MA $2.5
Dear White People HD/VU $3.5
Dementia 13 (Director's Cut) HD/VU $4
Descendants SD/IT $1.5
Despicable Me 2 HD/VU $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Despicable Me 4K/IT $5 or SD/IT $1.5
Detroit HD/MA $3.5
Dilemma HD/VU $3.5 or SD/IT $1.5
Dirty Dancing 4K/VU $5 or HD/VU $3.5
Disney Animated Short Films Collection HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Divergent Allegiant HD/VU $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Divergent HD/VU $1.5 or 4K/IT $2 or SD/VU $0.5
Divergent Insurgent HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Django Unchained HD/VU $3 or SD/IT $1.5
Do Right Thing 4K/MA $5.5 or HD/MA $4
Doctor Strange HD/GP $2.5
Dom Hemingway HD/MA $3.5
Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot HD/VU $4
Doom (Unrated) 4K/MA $5.5
Doorman HD/VU $3.5
Doors 4K/VU $5.5 or HD/VU $4
Dora & Lost City of Gold HD/VU $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Downton Abbey Movie HD/MA $4
Dracula Untold HD/VU $3 or 4K/IT $3.5
Draft Day HD/VU $3.5
Dragged Across Concrete HD/VU $3.5
Dreamkatcher HD/VU $4
Dredd HD/VU $2.5
Duff SD/VU $1.5
Dumbo (2019) HD/GP $3
Dune 4K/MA $5.5
Dying of Light HD/VU $2.5
E.T. Extra Terrestrial 4K/VU or IT $5 or HD/MA $3.5
Edge of Seventeen HD/VU or IT $3
Edge of Tomorrow 4K/MA $5
Edward Scissorhands HD/MA $3.5
El Chicano HD/MA $4
Encanto 4K/MA $4 or 4K/GP $3.5
Enemy at Gates HD/VU $4
Enough Said HD/MA $3.5
Epic HD/MA $3
Escape Plan HD/VU $2
Eternals HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Everest 4K/MA or IT $4.5
Ex Machina HD/VU $3
Exodus Gods & Kings HD/MA $3.5
Expendables 2 HD/VU or IT $1
Expendables 3 (Thea) HD/VU $2 or 4K/IT $2.5
Extreme Prejudice (1987) HD/VU $4
Fast & Furious (2009) HD/VU $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Fast & Furious 6 (Ext) HD/VU $2 or 4K/IT $2.5
Fast & Furious 6-film Collection HD/VU $12.5
Fast & Furious 7-film Collection HD/VU $14
Fast & Furious 8-film Collection (9 Films) HD/MA $17.5
Fast & Furious 9-film Collection (11 Films) HD/MA $20
Fast & Furious HD/VU $3.5
Fast Color 4K/VU $5.5
Fast Five (Ext) HD/IT $2.5 or SD/IT $1
Fatale 4K/VU $5 or HD/VU $3.5
Fate of Furious (Ext) HD/VU $2
Fate of Furious (Thea) HD/VU or IT $1.5
Fault in Our Stars HD/MA $3.5
Fences HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Ferdinand HD/MA $3.5
Fifty Shades Darker (Unrated) HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Fifty Shades of Grey (Unrated) HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Finding Dory HD/MA $2.5 or HD/GP $2
Finding Nemo HD/GP $3.5
Finest Hours HD/GP $3
First Blood 4K/VU $5
First Man HD/MA $4
Flight HD/VU or IT $3
Florence Foster Jenkins HD/VU or IT $3
Footloose (2011) HD/IT $3
Forever My Girl HD/IT $3
Fortress HD/VU $4
Four Kids & It HD/VU $3.5
Fox & Hound 2 HD/MA $4
Frank & Lola HD/VU or IT $3
Frankenstein (1931) HD/VU $3.5
Free Guy HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
French Dispatch HD/MA $4 or HD/GP $3.5
Friday 13th Pt 3 HD/VU $3.5
Frozen (Sing-Along Edition) HD/MA $2 or HD/GP $1.5
Frozen 2 4K/MA $4 or HD/MA $2.5 or HD/GP $2
Frozen Ground HD/VU $3.5
Frozen HD/GP $2
Furious 7 (Ext) HD/VU $2 or 4K/IT $2.5
Fury HD/MA $3.5
G.I. Joe Retaliation HD/VU $3 or 4K/IT $3.5
Gambit (2012) HD/MA $4
Gambler HD/IT $3
Gambler HD/VU $3
Gemini Man 4K/VU or IT $4.5 or HD/VU $3
Get Out HD/MA $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Ghostbusters (1984) HD/MA $3.5
Ghostbusters 2 HD/MA $3.5
Ghostbusters Afterlife HD/MA $4
Girl on Train HD/VU $3 or 4K/IT $3.5
Girl w/ All Gifts HD/VU $4
Girls Trip HD/VU or IT $2
Glass Castle 4K/VU $5.5
God's Not Dead 2 HD/MA or IT $2.5
Gods of Egypt HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Gold (2016) HD/VU or IT $2.5
Good Dinosaur HD/MA $3 or HD/GP $2.5
Good Kill HD/VU or IT $3.5
Grace Unplugged HD/VU $2
Greatest Showman HD/MA $3.5
Green Mile 4K/MA $5.5
Grey HD/VU or IT $3
Guardians of Galaxy Vol 1 HD/MA $3.5 or HD/GP $3
Guardians of Galaxy Vol 2 HD/MA $2.5 or HD/GP $2
Guest House 4K/VU $5
Guilt Trip HD/IT $3
Gunman HD/MA $3
Hacksaw Ridge HD/VU $3.5 or 4K/IT $4
Hail, Caesar! HD/IT $3
Hammer of Gods HD/VU $2
Hands of Stone HD/VU $3.5
Hannibal Season 1 HD/VU $5
Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters (Unrated) 4K/IT $4
Hard Target 2 HD/IT $1.5
Hardcore Henry HD/VU or IT $3.5
Hateful Eight HD/VU $3.5
Heat HD/MA $3
Heaven is for Real SD/MA $1.5
Hell Fest 4K/VU $5
Hell or High Water HD/VU $2.5
Hellboy (2019) HD/VU $3 or 4K/VU $4.5
Hercules (1997) HD/MA $4.5 or HD/GP $4
Hercules (2014) HD/VU $2.5 or 4K/IT $3
Here Comes Boom HD/MA $3.5
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This post expands on a comment I made in last week's scuffle thread about a multi-decade disagreement about what color the now-defunct Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW) used to paint its steam locomotives and by extension, what color the 491, a now-restored locomotive operating at the Colorado Railroad Museum (CRM), should have been painted during her restoration. Tie a red bandanna around your neck, grab some popcorn, and sit back for a two-for-one hobby history and drama.
First, four short disclosures. One, I am associated with CRM, but I did not participate in the restoration of 491. Second, I have no preference what color 491 should be, I'm just glad she’s running. Third, this is US-centric, because I'm not going to eat up word count clarifying international differences every paragraph. Fourth, 491 uses she/her pronouns. That’s not woke, it's historically accurate. Deal with it, you friggin’ lopsided, melting snowflake.
Before we get to the drama, let’s get a bit of context and background. The D&RGW railroad was founded in 1870 and eventually became a part of Union Pacific in the 1990s. D&RGW built and operated routes in the US states of Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. For a long time, these tracks were among the very few ways to easily travel west of Denver and through the Rocky Mountains. Those corridors were, and still continue to be, foundational parts of the US rail network.
Over time, D&RGW became renowned around the world for operating in some of the most beautiful but technically difficult terrain in North America. The passenger trains themselves became destinations, and the mountainous routes fascinated historians, railroad photographers, and model railroaders. Seriously--just look at this train going up a mountain like a goat. In addition, the railroad was notable for operating an extensive network of "narrow gauge" tracks—the rails were 3' apart instead of the standard 4' 8.5". Without getting too far into the technical weeds, narrow gauge worked better than standard in mountainous terrain.
Another thing that made the D&RGW a darling among railroad enthusiasts is that while they got rid of the steam locomotives on its mainline tracks in late 1940s or early 50s, just like most other railroads did, they kept on chuggin' down the narrow gauge tracks until 1968. To put that in perspective, that's the year the White Album came out, and the year that Planet of the Apes and Night of the Living Dead were released. 1968 was the year before Woodstock and Apollo 11, and only 15 years before the Internet was invented.
1968, in other words, is incredibly recent. It is within the lifespan of some of you reading this post. It should be kept in mind that when we talk about the D&RGW and the 491’s service life, those things, while distant, have not yet faded into history. There are many still-living people who worked on this railroad, operated specific pieces of equipment, and saw it around their communities. There are far more people who had a father, grandfather, uncle, or other relative involved in this industry. We aren’t discussing events in the distant past, and the people who care about this aren’t just hyper-fixated on arcane details of history. For many people, the presence of this railroad, and the continued preservation of its remnants, are intensely personal.
Before we move on, let's take a moment to get some additional context on how railroads used color on their equipment. Today, you might notice that most railroads have a set "livery" that they paint on their locomotives. (UP yellow, BNSF orange, CSX blue, ect.) Prior to about 1900, steam locomotives were just as colorful, and were often decorated with elaborate trimmings made of polished metal. This is actually where the idiom "all the bells and whistles" comes from. Most toys, clip art pictures, and children's television programs depict locomotives from this era.
However, after roughly1900, the appearance of most steam locomotives became far more utilitarian. The Victorian maximalist style started to fall out of favor across the board, especially after the wars, and most railroads in the US accordingly preferred unembellished equipment. Now, their locomotives were most often painted black with minimal amounts of gray, white, or silver trimming.
By about 1900, railroads companies had also noodled out that keeping a brightly colored and decorated locomotive clean enough that it didn't reflect poorly on the company required a lot of labor. Remember, these machines— this is worth harping on both because it's going to be a plot point in a little bit and because modern readers might not fully grasp what “steam power” means—are ON FIRE AT ALL TIMES WHILE OPERATING. A very messy chain of events results from this intrinsic property:
1.Where there’s fire, there’s smoke.

1. Where there’s smoke and exhaust steam going out the same smokestack, there is the creation of a thick, jet-black sludge of train-dirt.
   
2. The smokestack belching train-dirt is attached to a locomotive that is usually moving forward, which means that cancerous inky puke blows back onto any and every part of the locomotive situated behind the smokestack.
   

If anything on the locomotive isn’t painted black, in other words, it will very quickly become black unless it is being cleaned almost daily. Since corporate penny-pinching is always historically accurate, most railroads did the math and realized it was better for their bottom line to paint things the same color as train-dirt than it was to pay people to clean up train-dirt.
There were some exceptions to this preference. Often, railroads painted passenger locomotives to distinguish them from freight locomotives or to fit into the paint scheme used for every piece of equipment on a specific train. Two good extant and operable examples of colorful locomotives are the Southern Pacific 4449 and the Norfolk & Western 611. Other railroads preferred colorful, but very dark shades of paint for at least some of their locomotives. One of those railroads just so happened to be the D&RGW: There's documented evidence that instead of using black, they painted some of their locomotive a shade of dark green. For the curious, it is approximately hex code 1E3D0E.
Speaking of D&RGW, let's jump back to the 1960s and introduce the specific steam locomotive at the center of this drama: D&RGW no. 491. For you nerds—you know who you are—she is a K-37 Class superheated, outside-frame, 2-8-2 Mikado. She and nine other K-37s were built in-house by the D&RGW in 1928. 491 was taken out of revenue service in 1963.
As an aside, it was actually really rare for railroads to build their own steam locomotives. D&RGW decided to do this because of an entirely different historical drama which, though at the time was complex enough to max out the character limits of gossipy telegrams, can with hindsight be briefly summarized as:
Baldwin Locomotive Works: "Fuck you, pay me."
D&RGW: "NO."
Luckily for the K-37s, by the time they were taken out of service, there had emerged a very dedicated coalition of people actively working to preserve steam power in general and Colorado’s unique railroad history specifically. They were resoundingly successful: All but 8 of the 10 K-37 locomotives, and numerous examples of many other classes, were saved. All tolled, there are about 15 former D&RGW steam locomotives in operable condition or being considered for restoration at the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, the Cumbres & Toltec railroad, and the Colorado Railroad Museum. Additionally, most of the heritage railroads in Colorado operate on routes decommissioned by the D&RGW.
Two of the K-37s—the 491 and the 493—have been restored to operating condition. The 491 got her second lease on life at CRM in the early 2000s-2010s, and the Durango & Silverton returned the 493 to service in 2020.
While D&S made some purposeful modifications to 493 to render her more suited to 21st century operation, CRM set out with the goal of restoring 491 as close to historically accurate condition as possible. They were in fact contractually bound to do so, since the museum had applied and received significant funding from the Colorado State Historical Fund, and the terms of that grant required that any change made to the locomotive would have to be backed up by records or photographs preserved from her days in revenue service.
That should be easy, right? We just talked about those revenue days that were very recent, didn't we? Hit the independent and the automatic brake, and throw on a handbrake just for good measure, because historical accuracy can be VERY tricky for railroad preservation.
Given that, the revenue service life of most pieces of equipment was, on average, about 40 years, many have been overhauled or significantly modified while in service. Others have been subjected to "Red Green this thing out of my shop and get it back on the mainline" types of repairs that, while technically accurate to the period, were not the typical or best practice and are inappropriate in a preservation setting.
There are, in other words, sometimes multiple and equally well documented versions of “historically accurate,” and it becomes a matter of opinion as to which one is best to recreate. Because of the very powerful personal connections to the equipment we discussed earlier, those opinions are often VERY passionate. It's at this point where we FINALLY where we get to the meat of this drama, because the restoration of the 491 put one specific question in the crossfires of that passion:
What color did the D&RGW paint the 491 and, more importantly, what color should CRM paint her?
Most people assumed that since the 491 showed up at the museum painted almost all black and silver, she would be painted the same way during her restoration. However, given that she had been in service for 35 years, it was possible that she had been repainted at least once or twice. In fact, for a long time, and I mean longer that the internet has even been around long, there has been a dogged faction of people who that believed the 491 operated at least some of her revenue service with her boiler jacket(a thin, metal sheet that holds insulation against the boiler and protects the boiler itself from the elements) painted dark green. As evidence, they pointed to old shop records, a few eyewitness testimonies, and cans of paint found in various facilities. This faction made it known that they wished the 491 to be painted green, and those who preferred black or thought black was better documented raised their objections.
It should have been easy to figure out which color was 'correct,' right? Didn’t you say there are records? There are, but the catch is that while those records amount to a pretty good body of evidence that the D&RGW used green paint at some point, on some of its locomotives, they don't provide a comprehensive record of exactly which locomotives were painted what color at what time. There’s nothing substantive that the 491 herself was painted green.
The next best bet, you'd think, would be to look at photographs. Unfortunately, this isn't reliable. Most of the revenue service photographs of the 491 and her sisters are in black and white, and it is difficult to conclusively determine which colors are being depicted, especially when they are very similar like black and the shade of green in question. Team Green indicated that some pictures render the boiler jacket in slightly lighter shades of gray, meaning it must be a different color, and Team Black counters that the difference might be due to shadows or that paint being more glossy than what was used on other components. Besides, they say, if 491 had been painted green, wouldn't more people REMEMBER her that way? Team Green has a hand answer for that, too: The K-37s simply spent most of their service lives too dirty for the green paint to be seen. That sounds like a stupid ass-pull of an answer, but until we cleaned her up a few weeks ago, I genuinely forgot that 491 was (spoiler alert) painted green.
For YEARS, this was such a hot debate that it probably could have raised 491 up to operating pressure. Some of the source threads I’ve linked to are from the early 2000s—note that many of them mention discussing this issue in the 80s and 90s—and this debate was brought up in pre-internet railfan publications and correspondences. It came to a head when, in the process of the restoration, staff at CRM found flecks of green paint while inspecting and cleaning 491 for restoration. The samples were collected, compared against known samples, and shown to people who were familiar with 491 and other D&RGW locomotives while in service. This exhaustive, almost forensic investigation proved that the 491 had, in fact, been painted green, so proponents of a black boiler jacket revised their position in the face of new evidence.
Just kidding of course.
While there was no question that CRM's restoration of 491 was very well done, there was, and is, a lot of grousing about whether those paint flecks were enough to prove that she was ever painted green. Some say that they were not present in great enough quantities to prove definitively that the paint came from the 491 or to determine exactly what parts of the locomotive had been painted that color.
Others point out that while the 491 and her sisters were built by the D&RGW, the railroad used boilers that had been assembled by Baldwin Locomotive Works earlier than 1928. Unless their customers requested otherwise, Baldwin painted the locomotives and parts it produced green as a default. The presence of the flakes, this opinion states, is only proof that the boiler was painted green at some point, not that it was painted green while it was part of 491.
The complicating factor is that Baldwin appears to have been very inconsistent with how they mixed up their “Baldwin Green:” Sometimes it was a very dark emerald. Other times, as with some paint on the tender 100% established to be Baldwin Green, it is an almost tan shade of olive green. Since we don’t have extant representations of all of those variations, the counterargument goes, we can’t definitively rule out that the boiler jacket samples came from Baldwin.
The most vehement of the anti-green coalition imagined a full-tilt, “Red Alert, folks, Andi in Kansas, you're on the air” level conspiracy about where the paint chips actually came from. They propose that they might have been, *ahem,* conveniently put there by someone who definitely wasn’t a D&RGW employee and who most certainly was not working on the 491 between 1928 and 1963. I don’t want to say much on this, because these folks just won’t be convinced, but that opinion is out there.
Who was convinced that the chips were good evidence, though, was the State Historical Fund, which approved changing the color of 491's boiler jacket to green. That’s how she is to this very day. There’s still some grousing that the she should have been painted black, and the broader debate about exactly which members of the D&RGW fleet was painted green is still a point of contention among narrow gauge railroad enthusiasts. I want to stress again that even though this drama might seem overwrought, most of it comes from a heartfelt dedication to preserving things “correctly,” and very personal reasons to prefer a certain version of “correct.”
I’m going to end this post, though, by saying this: It doesn't really matter what color the 491 actually is, because we also strive for historical accuracy in how often we wipe her down.
Finally, if you ever get a chance to visit the museums or heritage railroads mentioned here or others that weren't relevant, please by all means do so! There are many people working as hard as they can to keep this history alive, and we can always use your support, advocacy, and patronage.
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Source
Another source
Third source

I was pouring drink number three when my phone rang… I'm 20 years old, a little drunk and in about an hour, I will have almost shot my colleague in the chest in front of three police officers and two frozen dead bodies. Weird. I can't say that I'm mentally ready for what I'm about to see this evening, who’s ever really ready to walk into a garage with a Chevy Cavalier riddled with bullets and two frozen gang bangers inside. My name is Grant and These are My Funeral Home Stories.
Chapter Two: three drinks, Two dead & One Candy Bar
It's about six o'clock on the 3rd Tuesday in February and factoring in the windchill, it's negative 14 degrees outside. I've been off of work for about an hour and I'm not on call tonight…So naturally, I'm just finishing up my second drink and considering whether to order pizza or Chinese tonight. I use my finger to stop by drink from bubbling over and the phone rings. It’s Andy, one of the directors from the funeral home that’s on call when Ned and I are off AND apparently the person he's on call with this evening is unreachable…If it's your job to be on call, you don't want this to happen. It's almost the equivalent of a no call no show at any other job. If you're on call, the only thing you have to do is wait for the phone to ring and when it does ring, you answer it. It’s really not that hard.
Andy is calling me to ask if I would fill in and go on a police call with him. There was a shooting and apparently there are two frozen dead bodies in a car… inside the police station. OK. Why are they at the police station? Great question. Apparently it was too cold outside to investigate and process the crime scene so they moved the crime scene into a heated garage inside a police station. This all sounds incredibly interesting to me but there's only one problem… I'm drunk. Well, on my way to drunk and I'm not old enough to drink. I'm not going anywhere near a police station. I explained to Andy that I'm in no condition to drive to the funeral home and he'd have to find someone else. He interrupted me and said, “ but you're not old enough to drink. Stay put. I'm picking you up. See you in 10.” He hung up the phone before I had time to argue.
Welp. Looks like I'm going to the police station against all better judgment. I finish my third drink as I put on my black 3 button double breasted black suit by Chaps that I picked up at Kohls. (Side note: all my other suits were at the dry cleaners. I hate this suit. It makes me look like a walking rectangle.) It's our funeral home’s policy that we dress cleanly and professionally while in public. This means you ruin a lot of good dress clothes but at least you look sharp… and you can write off your dry cleaning as a job related expense.
I run a razor over my face sans shaving cream because I’m in a hurry and our funeral home also has a strict no facial hair policy. No mustaches, no goatees and definitely no beards. I'm not sure why this is a rule, It just is. I take an extra long look at myself in the mirror to make sure I have myself in order. The last thing I want to do tonight is walk into a police station looking like a sloppy, drunk unshaven underage mess. Could I get fired for getting an underage drinking ticket while on a death call? I sure hope not. I hear a horn honking in the driveway. I peak out the front window, Andy’s out front in our 2004 black Pontiac minivan. It’s a pretty slick…Instead of back seats, our van has a polished oak floor with rollers spaced evenly down the length of the van. These rollers aid in sliding caskets in and out without scratching the van or caskets.
I’m almost ready. I decided to wear a heavy wool four button top coat, scarf and rubberized dress boots by Ecco, all black of course. (Side note: Always spend extra money on ‘nicer’ boots. You don't want your socks wet on death calls.) Although I hate the suit I have on, I am wearing my favorite necktie. It's white, black and navy blue diagonally striped made from handwoven silk by Ralph Lauren. Very sharp. Remember this tie… my favorite tie, it’ll come up again later. On my way out the door I stuffed a handful of garlic flavored chips in my mouth and pulled a Nestle Butterfinger candy bar out of the pantry. The garlic will help cover up the three Jack and Cokes I just had and put a little food in my stomach. The Butterfinger…well, that's my reward. I'll eat it on the way home. I fucking love Butterfingers and why not reward myself for what I'm about to do? I'm not even on call tonight. I deserve it.
From my house to the police station, it’s about 10 minutes… a straight shot with no traffic. Andy starts nervously giggling almost immediately when my door closes and buckle my seatbelt. Funeral Directors are generally interesting people but our pal, Andy, he's a real card. I'm going to tell you a few things about Andy and hopefully won't sound too judgmental in the process. Andy had a gastric bypass surgery three years ago and as has lost about 150 pounds andI don't think he's gone clothes shopping since his weight loss. All of his suits look like they're about five sizes too big. His skin is loose around his jawline giving him a permanent droopy dog expression. It's weird seeing someone whose clothes and skin don't fit their body. He's a nervous guy and he's always afraid of getting in trouble…but somehow he's blindly confident. That's it for the positives.
Andy talks the most deliberate and malicious shit about everyone in the office. It's pathological at this point, I'm not sure he's even aware of it. You really have to watch what you say around this guy… I mean, if you don't want it repeated or used against you, don't say it around Andy. Andy's jumped from funeral home to funeral home around the country settling in towns just long enough to fuck things up and make a quick exit. He’s was a total creep and we found out a few years later that he was stealing from one of our funeral homes. He had his moments but for the most part, I didn't want anything to do with this guy…Especially after drinking almost half of my $36 bottle of Gentleman Jack. Actually, I'm probably just drunk enough to enjoy his company.
We turn on to Roosevelt, the police station is on our right. Andy has managed to keep the van under control even with the several inches of black ice and snow covering the roads. Andy tells me that we're to call a number when we're outside the police station parking garage and an officer will open the giant chain gate to let us in. The car with the dead bodies is in a separate heated garage inside the building to thaw out for processing.
It just dawned on me, I'm kind of hammered and last time I checked I'm still not old enough to drink… I feel my anxiety levels rising…I’m not super eager to walk into a police station in my current condition. My plan is to keep my head down and stay as far out of the officers’ breath smelling distance as possible. I'm so happy I decided to eat those chips before I left. I can still taste the garlic. Garlic breath is better than booze breath. I'm fairly certain they won't lock me up for having bad breath.
Andy calls the number, the gate opens and we drive down a pretty drastic slope and enter the garage filled with a fleet of police cars. There must be 40 decked out Chevy Impalas polished up and ready for dispatch. We pull forward and an officer signals us to stop next to a plain gray door in the center of a the cinder block wall on our right. Andy loaded two stretchers in the van this evening. One standard, one oversized, we get out of the van and unload both without incident. The officer walks to the back of the van and tells us to follow him.
We walk through the gray door and quickly move through three different beige hallways, no windows, just ugly plain cinderblock. I realized that I've completely lost my bearings. When we come to the end of the hallway with another gray door. I feel a combination of claustrophobia and vertigo hit me all at once or maybe that was drink number three kickin’ in. The officer opens the door and Andy and I wheel our stretchers into a 20 by 20 garage lit by the brightest fluorescent lights I've ever experienced. The temperature of the light in this room is unnerving among other things.
'Welcome to the crime lab garage' I think to myself. Immediately upon entering the room, I'm almost knocked to the floor by a smell that burns my nasal cavities. It wasn't the smell of rotting flesh or piss and shit, I’ve smelled all those things before. This was new. It’s so unique but the more Im exposed to it the more I realize I’ve smelled this before at the funeral home but I can’t place it….Then it hits me almost as intensely as the smell itself. Ammonia, that's it! It smells like someone took two or three large bottles of ammonia and just poured them all over the room. I look at Andy as we park the stretchers. We make eye contact and I pointed my nose while simultaneously making a confused face. “What the fuck is that?” I whisper.
Andy pulls two pair of blue heavy duty surgical gloves out of the front pocket of his stretcher, hands me a pair and then proceeds to blow my mind. He quietly tells me that the strong ammonia odor is coming from the blood. Apparently when someone dies suddenly all the blood cells in the body make one last screaming effort to stay alive and dump a ton of waste into the bloodstream. The waste is what gives the blood a strong scent of ammonia. You know when someone says they can smell blood in a movie or TV show? I think If this is what they're talking about.
Now that I have my gloves on and have adjusted to the smell, I take off my overcoat and suit jacket and tuck my tie between two buttons on my white dress shirt. This is simply precautionary. There is nothing worse than dipping your tie into something gross. It's almost always UNcleanable.
In this moment, I'm able to take in my surroundings. Perhaps it's the alcohol but something feels off. Under rows and rows of fluorescent lights there’s a maroon Chevy Cavalier riddled with bullet holes with all four of its doors and trunk wide open. Upon initial inspection, my eyes are drawn to two dead men in the backseat and rusted hood with a smattering of bullet holes. It seems that most of the shots were through the windshield, windows and door panels.The windshield is barely able to hold itself up.
Andy and I walk around the car to figure out our plan of attack. He flips open a black vinyl body bag, unzips it and places it on the ground next to the car and he tells me his plan. “If they’re frozen in a seated position, we won't be able to move em that easily… So we'll wiggle them out, lay them on the body bags and zip up the disaster pouch around them.” This sounds good to me. We move in.
We decided to start with the body in the driver's side backseat. The door’s already open and the hinges appear to be hyper extended. The crime scene techs probably bent the hinges while they were scrubbing the scene. Now up close, I’m finally able to take in the two dead men sitting in the backseat in front of me. These guys must have been a couple years older than me, both wearing Timberlands, black jeans and black jackets… like big puffy down jackets. One man has a New Era baseball cap on backwards while the other has a black stocking cap atop his head. I didn't see any logos but the brain matter, bullet holes and blood may have made it hard to notice. The ammonia smell inside the car is completely overwhelming. Blood is literally covering everything in the backseat. Chunks of thawing brain and meat are all over the headrest. I pick up a piece near the seat belt and squeeze it with my middle finger and thumb. It's still a little frozen so it crunches a bit before turning into mush between my fingers. I wiped my hand on a clean part of the interior.
Bullet holes are weird…For something that can end your life so quickly, they don't leave much of a mark on their way in…BUT the way out is a totally different story. I have no idea how many times these men were shot but they’re covered and destroyed by bullet holes. Chin, hands, thighs under the eyeballs and everywhere else. There wasn’t a part of either of these men’s bodies that didn’t have at least one bullet hole… I didn't see their feet though…if I’m being completely transparent.
This is gore. This is a complete horror show. Someone wanted these men dead… like seriously dead. Was it the driver or could it have been the front seat passenger? There must have been someone sitting in the front seat, right? Why else would two grown men sit in the backseat together if there was an open front seat? By the number of holes, I come to the conclusion that at least two people had to have shot up this car….Far too many holes for one shooter and it was definitely people they thought they were close to…
With half my body in the car, the smell of ammonia is blending with the smell of shit…which is undoubtedly oozing from one or all of the many holes in these men's stomachs. Thankfully, the taste of the garlic chips and whiskey I had earlier keeping me from gagging. Both men looked like they were sleeping like someone's dad or brother in the backseat on a road trip but riddled with holes and covered and smelly blood and falling human chunks.
There's only enough room for one of us in the car’s backseat door opening so Andy gets in the driver's seat backwards and reaches back around the front seat to help shimmy the body out. I press the button and unbuckle the seatbelt, it whips back into its home position startling Andy and I. Everything in this car is covered with blood or some sort of human matter. My gloves are literally covered in blood from just unbuckling the seatbelt and now the taste of the ammonia smell is dripping its way into my mouth through my throat. The officers are having some sort of quiet discussion standing by the door we came in earlier. It's not uncommon for police officers to be completely apathetic about crime scenes when the funeral home arrives. The investigation is basically over tonight these officers couldn't care less about their scene. They just wanted to get these bodies moved out of the garage so they could get home to their families. I get that… but their lack of supervision is troubling, especially with what happens next.
I am now completely hunched over the body in the back passenger seat while Andy is supervising from the front turned around in the driver's seat with his gloved hands on the headrest. I tell Andy that I think I'm strong enough to grab this man’s right forearm and slide his body out on my own. When I grabbed the man's forearm, I immediately feel something isn't right. I've grabbed lots of dead people's forearms before. None felt like this though. It was so hard and rigid….don’t get me wrong I understand this man is frozen BUT whatever I'm grabbing on to isn't human. It's something else. It's hard and feels like metal one of those cheap metal canes you'd buy at a drugstore. The three drinks circulating through my bloodstream make me curious but pensive. I tell Andy that I'm not touching a man's arm and that there's something else in this man’s jacket.
I interrupted the police officers conversation. “Hey, something isn't right here.” An officer and I switch places as he pulls out a tactical knife and starts cutting away the sleeve to the blood soaked down jacket. “It’s a FUCKING GUN.” I look over his shoulder and see the open sleeve of a jacket revealing a sawed off shotgun. The inside of the coat was some sort of bright orange material so the short barrel of the shotgun stand out…and so did the trigger but not because of its color. It stood out because of frozen dead man’s finger hooked over and frozen around it. Did I mention the gun was cocked. This means that the slightest movement would have caused a sudden discharge… The gun would have fired directly into the driver's seat, the seat where Andy was supervising from AND apparently Andy and I noticed this at the same time.
The next sound we hear was an officer saying, “Gun! Loaded gun!”
Andy and I step back while the officers deal with the gun… he's freaked out…I can tell by the blotchy greenish yellow color he skin has turned in the last 30 seconds. Andy says, “I don't like guns. I don't like guns.”
“It's cool, man. Nobody got shot.” I say not being too sympathetic. I'm definitely drunk now and the idea of a frozen dead man shooting my partner in the chest is kind of hilarious, even if it would have been my fault. I giggle internally. Andy quickly moves towards the door and says, “I need to get some fresh air” and scurries out like an asshole letting the door slam behind him. Almost at the same moment the door closed. The three officers approached me from behind, “We got it out….It was loaded. Your buddy's lucky you didn’t shoot him in the chest.” I just snicker and tell the officers my partner needed some air and that I'll make the removals myself. How hard could it be? I'll just grab and pull.
Frozen bodies move in one piece while regular room temperature bodies are just floppy deadweight. These fellas are frozen solid…they felt like moving a heavy chair or peculiar shaped table out of your friend's car. Square peg in round holes, it was actually considerably easier than I anticipated.
The sound of the two bodies hitting a cold cement after pulling them out was very satisfying…a simple loud hollow frozen thud. I'm surrounded by awfulness and all I can think about is how proud I am that I just handled this crime scene on my own. I can't wait to eat that Butterfinger waiting for me in the car. It's a fitting reward but also something to get rid of this ammonia and garlic taste overpowering my senses at the moment.
Andy still hasn't come back and we're about to zip up the last body bag. An officer had put on a pair of gloves to help me maneuver the second man's rigid bent knees into the body bag. This man's body was like a complicated Tetris piece. Once in, we each grab a zipper on either side of the black vinyl bag and zip our respective ends until they meet in the middle. I nod my head at the officer and say, “That's how it's done!”
The officer looks at me sternly and says, “Did you just come from a party?” I look at him confused and respond, ”What?”
The officer tells me that he just got a waft of alcohol. “It reeks like booze over here.” I closed my mouth quickly and my heart begins to beat out of my chest. I must smell like a distillery… so much for those garlic chips. Laughing, I say, “On a Tuesday? Come on, man!” The officer stands up and says, “Let's run a tox screen on these guys to find out how fucked up they were before getting blasted.”
Looks like a dodged a bullet. How did he smell my whiskey breath over the ammonia smell? Does my breath just smell like straight rubbing alcohol? I feel bad that these dead guys got blamed for MY alcohol breath but, at least, I won't be walking out of here with an underage drinking ticket.
Calming down and feeling relieved. I looked down on my shirt and see that my necktie, my very favorite Ralph Lauren necktie, had fallen out of my shirt at some point and had been dipped into some smelly smelly blood. Fuck! Of course I ruined my favorite necktie on a night I'm not even supposed to be working. I undo the knot and throw the tie into a biohazard bag. The rest of the removal was kind of a blur because I was laser focused thinking about that Butterfinger I left in the car. The alcohol plus all the blood smell I kind of made my stomach sour. My mouth starts to water thinking about that candy bar.
One of the officers helps me wheel the stretchers out to the van in the main area of the police station parking garage. I can see exhaust coming out of our van. It's on? Did we leave the van running? I open the back of the van to find Andy laying down in the center of the wooden roller board taking up the entire back of the van. The sound startles him and he quickly jumps up to a seated position and says, “I'm sorry man, guns really freak me out. I almost got shot…. I thought I was gonna pass out.”
I notice a yellow rapper sitting next to his right leg. He noticed that I noticed. “Oh yeah, I owe you a candy bar.” He says in a nonchalant manner.
All at once, my dislike for Andy hit me like a tidal wave. I ruined my favorite tie and this asshole ate my candy bar? Andy, sensing my disappointment and anger, didn't say another word and I imagine what it would have been like if that shot gun would have gone off.
My name is Grant and these are My Funeral Home Stories.
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I was pouring drink number three when my phone rang… I'm 20 years old, a little drunk and in about an hour, I will have almost shot my colleague in the chest in front of three police officers and two frozen dead bodies. Weird. I can't say that I'm mentally ready for what I'm about to see this evening, who’s ever really ready to walk into a garage with a Chevy Cavalier riddled with bullets and two frozen gang bangers inside. My name is Grant and These are My Funeral Home Stories.
Chapter Two: three drinks, Two dead & One Candy Bar
It's about six o'clock on the 3rd Tuesday in February and factoring in the windchill, it's negative 14 degrees outside. I've been off of work for about an hour and I'm not on call tonight…So naturally, I'm just finishing up my second drink and considering whether to order pizza or Chinese tonight. I use my finger to stop by drink from bubbling over and the phone rings. It’s Andy, one of the directors from the funeral home that’s on call when Ned and I are off AND apparently the person he's on call with this evening is unreachable…If it's your job to be on call, you don't want this to happen. It's almost the equivalent of a no call no show at any other job. If you're on call, the only thing you have to do is wait for the phone to ring and when it does ring, you answer it. It’s really not that hard.
Andy is calling me to ask if I would fill in and go on a police call with him. There was a shooting and apparently there are two frozen dead bodies in a car… inside the police station. OK. Why are they at the police station? Great question. Apparently it was too cold outside to investigate and process the crime scene so they moved the crime scene into a heated garage inside a police station. This all sounds incredibly interesting to me but there's only one problem… I'm drunk. Well, on my way to drunk and I'm not old enough to drink. I'm not going anywhere near a police station. I explained to Andy that I'm in no condition to drive to the funeral home and he'd have to find someone else. He interrupted me and said, “ but you're not old enough to drink. Stay put. I'm picking you up. See you in 10.” He hung up the phone before I had time to argue.
Welp. Looks like I'm going to the police station against all better judgment. I finish my third drink as I put on my black 3 button double breasted black suit by Chaps that I picked up at Kohls. (Side note: all my other suits were at the dry cleaners. I hate this suit. It makes me look like a walking rectangle.) It's our funeral home’s policy that we dress cleanly and professionally while in public. This means you ruin a lot of good dress clothes but at least you look sharp… and you can write off your dry cleaning as a job related expense.
I run a razor over my face sans shaving cream because I’m in a hurry and our funeral home also has a strict no facial hair policy. No mustaches, no goatees and definitely no beards. I'm not sure why this is a rule, It just is. I take an extra long look at myself in the mirror to make sure I have myself in order. The last thing I want to do tonight is walk into a police station looking like a sloppy, drunk unshaven underage mess. Could I get fired for getting an underage drinking ticket while on a death call? I sure hope not. I hear a horn honking in the driveway. I peak out the front window, Andy’s out front in our 2004 black Pontiac minivan. It’s a pretty slick…Instead of back seats, our van has a polished oak floor with rollers spaced evenly down the length of the van. These rollers aid in sliding caskets in and out without scratching the van or caskets.
I’m almost ready. I decided to wear a heavy wool four button top coat, scarf and rubberized dress boots by Ecco, all black of course. (Side note: Always spend extra money on ‘nicer’ boots. You don't want your socks wet on death calls.) Although I hate the suit I have on, I am wearing my favorite necktie. It's white, black and navy blue diagonally striped made from handwoven silk by Ralph Lauren. Very sharp. Remember this tie… my favorite tie, it’ll come up again later. On my way out the door I stuffed a handful of garlic flavored chips in my mouth and pulled a Nestle Butterfinger candy bar out of the pantry. The garlic will help cover up the three Jack and Cokes I just had and put a little food in my stomach. The Butterfinger…well, that's my reward. I'll eat it on the way home. I fucking love Butterfingers and why not reward myself for what I'm about to do? I'm not even on call tonight. I deserve it.
From my house to the police station, it’s about 10 minutes… a straight shot with no traffic. Andy starts nervously giggling almost immediately when my door closes and buckle my seatbelt. Funeral Directors are generally interesting people but our pal, Andy, he's a real card. I'm going to tell you a few things about Andy and hopefully won't sound too judgmental in the process. Andy had a gastric bypass surgery three years ago and as has lost about 150 pounds andI don't think he's gone clothes shopping since his weight loss. All of his suits look like they're about five sizes too big. His skin is loose around his jawline giving him a permanent droopy dog expression. It's weird seeing someone whose clothes and skin don't fit their body. He's a nervous guy and he's always afraid of getting in trouble…but somehow he's blindly confident. That's it for the positives.
Andy talks the most deliberate and malicious shit about everyone in the office. It's pathological at this point, I'm not sure he's even aware of it. You really have to watch what you say around this guy… I mean, if you don't want it repeated or used against you, don't say it around Andy. Andy's jumped from funeral home to funeral home around the country settling in towns just long enough to fuck things up and make a quick exit. He’s was a total creep and we found out a few years later that he was stealing from one of our funeral homes. He had his moments but for the most part, I didn't want anything to do with this guy…Especially after drinking almost half of my $36 bottle of Gentleman Jack. Actually, I'm probably just drunk enough to enjoy his company.
We turn on to Roosevelt, the police station is on our right. Andy has managed to keep the van under control even with the several inches of black ice and snow covering the roads. Andy tells me that we're to call a number when we're outside the police station parking garage and an officer will open the giant chain gate to let us in. The car with the dead bodies is in a separate heated garage inside the building to thaw out for processing.
It just dawned on me, I'm kind of hammered and last time I checked I'm still not old enough to drink… I feel my anxiety levels rising…I’m not super eager to walk into a police station in my current condition. My plan is to keep my head down and stay as far out of the officers’ breath smelling distance as possible. I'm so happy I decided to eat those chips before I left. I can still taste the garlic. Garlic breath is better than booze breath. I'm fairly certain they won't lock me up for having bad breath.
Andy calls the number, the gate opens and we drive down a pretty drastic slope and enter the garage filled with a fleet of police cars. There must be 40 decked out Chevy Impalas polished up and ready for dispatch. We pull forward and an officer signals us to stop next to a plain gray door in the center of a the cinder block wall on our right. Andy loaded two stretchers in the van this evening. One standard, one oversized, we get out of the van and unload both without incident. The officer walks to the back of the van and tells us to follow him.
We walk through the gray door and quickly move through three different beige hallways, no windows, just ugly plain cinderblock. I realized that I've completely lost my bearings. When we come to the end of the hallway with another gray door. I feel a combination of claustrophobia and vertigo hit me all at once or maybe that was drink number three kickin’ in. The officer opens the door and Andy and I wheel our stretchers into a 20 by 20 garage lit by the brightest fluorescent lights I've ever experienced. The temperature of the light in this room is unnerving among other things.
'Welcome to the crime lab garage' I think to myself. Immediately upon entering the room, I'm almost knocked to the floor by a smell that burns my nasal cavities. It wasn't the smell of rotting flesh or piss and shit, I’ve smelled all those things before. This was new. It’s so unique but the more Im exposed to it the more I realize I’ve smelled this before at the funeral home but I can’t place it….Then it hits me almost as intensely as the smell itself. Ammonia, that's it! It smells like someone took two or three large bottles of ammonia and just poured them all over the room. I look at Andy as we park the stretchers. We make eye contact and I pointed my nose while simultaneously making a confused face. “What the fuck is that?” I whisper.
Andy pulls two pair of blue heavy duty surgical gloves out of the front pocket of his stretcher, hands me a pair and then proceeds to blow my mind. He quietly tells me that the strong ammonia odor is coming from the blood. Apparently when someone dies suddenly all the blood cells in the body make one last screaming effort to stay alive and dump a ton of waste into the bloodstream. The waste is what gives the blood a strong scent of ammonia. You know when someone says they can smell blood in a movie or TV show? I think If this is what they're talking about.
Now that I have my gloves on and have adjusted to the smell, I take off my overcoat and suit jacket and tuck my tie between two buttons on my white dress shirt. This is simply precautionary. There is nothing worse than dipping your tie into something gross. It's almost always UNcleanable.
In this moment, I'm able to take in my surroundings. Perhaps it's the alcohol but something feels off. Under rows and rows of fluorescent lights there’s a maroon Chevy Cavalier riddled with bullet holes with all four of its doors and trunk wide open. Upon initial inspection, my eyes are drawn to two dead men in the backseat and rusted hood with a smattering of bullet holes. It seems that most of the shots were through the windshield, windows and door panels.The windshield is barely able to hold itself up.
Andy and I walk around the car to figure out our plan of attack. He flips open a black vinyl body bag, unzips it and places it on the ground next to the car and he tells me his plan. “If they’re frozen in a seated position, we won't be able to move em that easily… So we'll wiggle them out, lay them on the body bags and zip up the disaster pouch around them.” This sounds good to me. We move in.
We decided to start with the body in the driver's side backseat. The door’s already open and the hinges appear to be hyper extended. The crime scene techs probably bent the hinges while they were scrubbing the scene. Now up close, I’m finally able to take in the two dead men sitting in the backseat in front of me. These guys must have been a couple years older than me, both wearing Timberlands, black jeans and black jackets… like big puffy down jackets. One man has a New Era baseball cap on backwards while the other has a black stocking cap atop his head. I didn't see any logos but the brain matter, bullet holes and blood may have made it hard to notice. The ammonia smell inside the car is completely overwhelming. Blood is literally covering everything in the backseat. Chunks of thawing brain and meat are all over the headrest. I pick up a piece near the seat belt and squeeze it with my middle finger and thumb. It's still a little frozen so it crunches a bit before turning into mush between my fingers. I wiped my hand on a clean part of the interior.
Bullet holes are weird…For something that can end your life so quickly, they don't leave much of a mark on their way in…BUT the way out is a totally different story. I have no idea how many times these men were shot but they’re covered and destroyed by bullet holes. Chin, hands, thighs under the eyeballs and everywhere else. There wasn’t a part of either of these men’s bodies that didn’t have at least one bullet hole… I didn't see their feet though…if I’m being completely transparent.
This is gore. This is a complete horror show. Someone wanted these men dead… like seriously dead. Was it the driver or could it have been the front seat passenger? There must have been someone sitting in the front seat, right? Why else would two grown men sit in the backseat together if there was an open front seat? By the number of holes, I come to the conclusion that at least two people had to have shot up this car….Far too many holes for one shooter and it was definitely people they thought they were close to…
With half my body in the car, the smell of ammonia is blending with the smell of shit…which is undoubtedly oozing from one or all of the many holes in these men's stomachs. Thankfully, the taste of the garlic chips and whiskey I had earlier keeping me from gagging. Both men looked like they were sleeping like someone's dad or brother in the backseat on a road trip but riddled with holes and covered and smelly blood and falling human chunks.
There's only enough room for one of us in the car’s backseat door opening so Andy gets in the driver's seat backwards and reaches back around the front seat to help shimmy the body out. I press the button and unbuckle the seatbelt, it whips back into its home position startling Andy and I. Everything in this car is covered with blood or some sort of human matter. My gloves are literally covered in blood from just unbuckling the seatbelt and now the taste of the ammonia smell is dripping its way into my mouth through my throat. The officers are having some sort of quiet discussion standing by the door we came in earlier. It's not uncommon for police officers to be completely apathetic about crime scenes when the funeral home arrives. The investigation is basically over tonight these officers couldn't care less about their scene. They just wanted to get these bodies moved out of the garage so they could get home to their families. I get that… but their lack of supervision is troubling, especially with what happens next.
I am now completely hunched over the body in the back passenger seat while Andy is supervising from the front turned around in the driver's seat with his gloved hands on the headrest. I tell Andy that I think I'm strong enough to grab this man’s right forearm and slide his body out on my own. When I grabbed the man's forearm, I immediately feel something isn't right. I've grabbed lots of dead people's forearms before. None felt like this though. It was so hard and rigid….don’t get me wrong I understand this man is frozen BUT whatever I'm grabbing on to isn't human. It's something else. It's hard and feels like metal one of those cheap metal canes you'd buy at a drugstore. The three drinks circulating through my bloodstream make me curious but pensive. I tell Andy that I'm not touching a man's arm and that there's something else in this man’s jacket.
I interrupted the police officers conversation. “Hey, something isn't right here.” An officer and I switch places as he pulls out a tactical knife and starts cutting away the sleeve to the blood soaked down jacket. “It’s a FUCKING GUN.” I look over his shoulder and see the open sleeve of a jacket revealing a sawed off shotgun. The inside of the coat was some sort of bright orange material so the short barrel of the shotgun stand out…and so did the trigger but not because of its color. It stood out because of frozen dead man’s finger hooked over and frozen around it. Did I mention the gun was cocked. This means that the slightest movement would have caused a sudden discharge… The gun would have fired directly into the driver's seat, the seat where Andy was supervising from AND apparently Andy and I noticed this at the same time.
The next sound we hear was an officer saying, “Gun! Loaded gun!”
Andy and I step back while the officers deal with the gun… he's freaked out…I can tell by the blotchy greenish yellow color he skin has turned in the last 30 seconds. Andy says, “I don't like guns. I don't like guns.”
“It's cool, man. Nobody got shot.” I say not being too sympathetic. I'm definitely drunk now and the idea of a frozen dead man shooting my partner in the chest is kind of hilarious, even if it would have been my fault. I giggle internally. Andy quickly moves towards the door and says, “I need to get some fresh air” and scurries out like an asshole letting the door slam behind him. Almost at the same moment the door closed. The three officers approached me from behind, “We got it out….It was loaded. Your buddy's lucky you didn’t shoot him in the chest.” I just snicker and tell the officers my partner needed some air and that I'll make the removals myself. How hard could it be? I'll just grab and pull.
Frozen bodies move in one piece while regular room temperature bodies are just floppy deadweight. These fellas are frozen solid…they felt like moving a heavy chair or peculiar shaped table out of your friend's car. Square peg in round holes, it was actually considerably easier than I anticipated.
The sound of the two bodies hitting a cold cement after pulling them out was very satisfying…a simple loud hollow frozen thud. I'm surrounded by awfulness and all I can think about is how proud I am that I just handled this crime scene on my own. I can't wait to eat that Butterfinger waiting for me in the car. It's a fitting reward but also something to get rid of this ammonia and garlic taste overpowering my senses at the moment.
Andy still hasn't come back and we're about to zip up the last body bag. An officer had put on a pair of gloves to help me maneuver the second man's rigid bent knees into the body bag. This man's body was like a complicated Tetris piece. Once in, we each grab a zipper on either side of the black vinyl bag and zip our respective ends until they meet in the middle. I nod my head at the officer and say, “That's how it's done!”
The officer looks at me sternly and says, “Did you just come from a party?” I look at him confused and respond, ”What?”
The officer tells me that he just got a waft of alcohol. “It reeks like booze over here.” I closed my mouth quickly and my heart begins to beat out of my chest. I must smell like a distillery… so much for those garlic chips. Laughing, I say, “On a Tuesday? Come on, man!” The officer stands up and says, “Let's run a tox screen on these guys to find out how fucked up they were before getting blasted.”
Looks like a dodged a bullet. How did he smell my whiskey breath over the ammonia smell? Does my breath just smell like straight rubbing alcohol? I feel bad that these dead guys got blamed for MY alcohol breath but, at least, I won't be walking out of here with an underage drinking ticket.
Calming down and feeling relieved. I looked down on my shirt and see that my necktie, my very favorite Ralph Lauren necktie, had fallen out of my shirt at some point and had been dipped into some smelly smelly blood. Fuck! Of course I ruined my favorite necktie on a night I'm not even supposed to be working. I undo the knot and throw the tie into a biohazard bag. The rest of the removal was kind of a blur because I was laser focused thinking about that Butterfinger I left in the car. The alcohol plus all the blood smell I kind of made my stomach sour. My mouth starts to water thinking about that candy bar.
One of the officers helps me wheel the stretchers out to the van in the main area of the police station parking garage. I can see exhaust coming out of our van. It's on? Did we leave the van running? I open the back of the van to find Andy laying down in the center of the wooden roller board taking up the entire back of the van. The sound startles him and he quickly jumps up to a seated position and says, “I'm sorry man, guns really freak me out. I almost got shot…. I thought I was gonna pass out.”
I notice a yellow rapper sitting next to his right leg. He noticed that I noticed. “Oh yeah, I owe you a candy bar.” He says in a nonchalant manner.
All at once, my dislike for Andy hit me like a tidal wave. I ruined my favorite tie and this asshole ate my candy bar? Andy, sensing my disappointment and anger, didn't say another word and I imagine what it would have been like if that shot gun would have gone off.
My name is Grant and these are My Funeral Home Stories.
​
Here this episode wherever you listen to podcasts:
Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-funeral-home-stories/id1462188362?i=1000437632125
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/episode/5rzZhNGCCkIaHbhWQ1irjd?si=2e0eae46d64e4066
YouTube: https://youtu.be/UYVL66uyfAE
Download the 45 minute Epilogue & Commercial Free Episodes & Seasons: www.MyFuneralHomeStories.com

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11/7/2019 RUINER
10/31/2019 SOMA
10/24/2019 Layers of Fear
10/24/2019 Q.U.B.E. 2
10/17/2019 >observer_
10/17/2019 Alan Wake's American Nightmare
10/10/2019 Surviving Mars - Mysteries Resupply Pack
10/10/2019 Surviving Mars - Space Race
10/10/2019 Surviving Mars
10/4/2019 Minit
9/26/2019 Metro: 2033 Redux
9/26/2019 Everything
9/19/2019 Lego Batman Trilogy
9/19/2019 Batman Arkham - Trilogy
9/18/2019 Conarium
8/29/2019 Inside
8/29/2019 Celeste
8/23/2019 Fez
8/21/2019 The Cycle Early Access
8/15/2019 Mutant Year Zero
8/15/2019 Hyper Light Drifter
8/8/2019 GNOG
8/3/2019 Alan Wake
8/3/2019 For Honor Standard Edition
7/25/2019 This War of Mine
7/25/2019 Moonlighter
7/18/2019 Limbo
7/11/2019 Torchlight
7/4/2019 Overcooked
7/3/2019 Dauntless
7/3/2019 Last Day of June

Mods please delete if this isn't appropriate for the sub. I just thought it'd be fun to write up my thoughts on the experience so far.
I've been playing Smash all my life - Melee might've been the first game I truly fell in love with - and the series has always served as exposure to other franchises. For over four years I've been slowly, methodically playing the source games for the entire Smash Ultimate roster. Most of them I wanted to play anyway, and this was just a neat excuse to try them out. And I do mean slowly, I really spread them out to avoid burnout. I also never forced myself to finish a game if I wasn't having fun; sometimes I just played the first section/level to get a feel for it, then dropped it. Overall it's been a fun way to expose myself to new genres and gain appreciation for gaming history. I'd already played quite a bit of Mario, Pokemon, Zelda, Metal Gear, and Sonic, but the rest was all pretty new for me. I won't mention the games I played before Ultimate's release, when I started this challenge.
For each character I picked the game I thought was most relevant, or most similar to their depiction in Smash. If you want, you can look at the checklist here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rOlk8dXwEL6wd2Lw4zouBiAce8UJabHOIgIP8bKL_7c/edit?usp=sharing
It's worth noting that this wouldn't be feasible without emulation. A lot of these games aren't available on modern platforms, and some aren't even localized into English. I'm not a collector and I'm not willing to track down old consoles on ebay.
Games are roughly ordered within their tiers, based on how much I enjoyed them. I'll try to be brief for each one.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
'It's old and I can't help being a zoomer' tier - Games I played just long enough to understand them, then dipped. I would not have chosen to play them for fun.

• Ice Climber (Ice Climbers)
• Kid Icarus (Pit)
• Game & Watch Gallery 4 (Mr. Game & Watch)
• Duck Hunt (Duck Hunt Dog)
• Star Fox (Fox)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
'Not very good' tier - Reserved exclusively for Pac-Man World 2.

• Pac-Man World 2 (Pac-Man) - This game is not very good.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
'Just not for me' tier - Games I struggled to connect with or I'm not a fan of the genre. Maybe I'd like them if I played longer, but I don't plan to pick them up again.

• Kingdom Hearts (Sora) - Exceeds my admittedly high tolerance for power-of-friendship anime schlock. Combat felt a little dull and I'm not crazy about Disney. Maybe I dropped it too early, but what little I know about the rest of the series doesn't really excite me.
• Street Fighter V (Ryu / Ken) - Cool character designs, I can say that much. Traditional fighters are interesting to learn about, but they don't really grab me as a player. I expect I'll feel the same way about Tekken and Fatal Fury.
• Mega Man 11 (Mega Man) - Some neat new mechanics, but the punishing old-school level design isn't my cup of tea. Happy that fans got a new one though.
• Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (Marth) - Moving units with the touch screen is nice and I appreciate the strategy, but the generic fantasy story bored me to tears. I might be spoiled by modern FE; this felt like going back in time and finding out my great-great-great-grandfather sold corn.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
'It was alright' tier - Games that were pretty enjoyable. I'm glad I tried them and likely won't play them again.

• Star Fox 64 (Falco / Wolf) - Pretty much what I expected. I didn't love it, but it's fun and short. The branching paths are cool for its time.
• Dr. Mario (Dr. Mario) - A pleasant surprise. I expected to play for ten minutes and ended up enjoying it for much longer. Just a solid puzzle game.
• Kirby's Dream Land 3 (King Dedede) - It's good, I think? I know I enjoyed it but honestly don't remember anything about the experience.
• Kid Icarus: Uprising (Palutena / Dark Pit) - Great writing, good music, and really inventive mechanics. Would be much higher if the controls didn't cause me physical pain.
• Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Dark Samus) - Atmosphere, music, and visuals are impeccable. I feel mean putting it this low, but Prime 1's difficulty was perfect for me and I didn't care for the dark world being so oppressive. Still want to play Prime 3 though.
• Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (Ike) - Decent story and characters, but battles are really slow. I kind of want to go back and finish it, in which case I could see it moving a lot higher.
• Splatoon 2 (Inkling) - Novel mechanics and a fun aesthetic. I don't really play multiplayer games, but the single-player levels are enjoyable. One of the most fun credits sequences I've seen since NieR: Automata.
• Kirby Super Star (Meta Knight) - Short, sweet, and charming, like all Kirby games. Did a lot to redeem The Great Cave Offensive, though I still hate that stage.
• Final Fantasy VII (Sephiroth) - Extremely impressive for its time, but I don't totally vibe with JRPGs from that era. Probably wouldn't have finished it without the 3x fast-forward battle option in modern ports. Famously the music is some of Uematsu's best work, and he has a lot of good work.
• Bayonetta 2 (Bayonetta) - This game oozes personality and charisma (that Moon River remix goes unreasonably hard). If I were more into the DMC school of action games, it would easily be top-tier. I could see myself getting more out of a second playthrough.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Hey, this is pretty good' tier - Games I liked quite a lot and would recommend.

• Super Mario Sunshine (Bowser Jr.) - The most unique 3D Mario. Movement is fluid and satisfying to master, and I enjoy the Margaritaville locale. Held back by some frustrating sections (you know the ones).
• Luigi's Mansion 3 (Luigi) - Great visuals, art direction, and environmental design. Feels a little too padded for time.
• F-Zero GX (Captain Falcon) - The controls and tracks are gratifying to learn, and the cutscenes are pure cheese in the best way. Would be higher if I were more into racing games, or if I were skilled enough to finish it.
• Final Fantasy VII Remake (Cloud) - After playing the original, I liked how Remake brings the characters to life and reimagines old scenarios. Decent combat, cool bosses, and an amazing soundtrack are offset by egregious padding and an ending I don't quite know how to feel about.
• EarthBound (Ness) - Full of heart behind the quirky humor. I can forgive aimless progression and outdated dungeon design when everything else is so remarkably endearing and well-written.
• Banjo-Kazooie (Banjo & Kazooie) - Having played Mario 64, I was surprised how much better the camera is. Fun characters and catchy music make for a very laid-back experience. And in a genre infamous for bloated collectathons, it shows respectable restraint in the number of collectibles.
• Super Metroid (Ridley) - Near-perfect synthesis of atmosphere, mechanics, progression, and visuals. An incredible achievement, but hard to revisit after being spoiled by the fluidity of Dread. Still, if you claim this is the greatest game ever made, I'm not gonna argue with you.
• Donkey Kong Country (King K. Rool) - Great level design and a memorable aesthetic that was probably really hard to pull off on the SNES. For a game about silly apes, the soundtrack by David Wise is gorgeously atmospheric.
• Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong-Quest (Diddy Kong) - Basically DKC1, but a slight step up in every category. Though I will say, a couple of the late-game levels are unreasonably hard.
• Metroid: Zero Mission (Zero Suit Samus) - Feels a little held back by the original's level design, but it's still a fantastic remake. The post-game sequence without the power suit is a huge highlight.
• WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! (Wario) - Beat it in two hours and don't feel like I wasted a single second. This game actually made me laugh out loud, and often. Definitely want to play more WarioWare in the future.
• Super Mario World (Piranha Plant) - Not much to say about this one, just a good-ass platformer. I prefer it to Mario 3, but I understand why someone wouldn't.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
'This is the shit' tier - Games I thoroughly loved and would rank among my favorites.

• Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (Yoshi) - Besides Chrono Trigger, I don't think any other SNES game is this beautiful. A creative central mechanic, great level design, and wonderful art direction. The "classics" don't always speak to me, but this one did.
• Metroid Prime (Samus) - Super impressive for its time and a near-perfect translation of the series formula into 3D. Music, atmosphere, and exploration are exquisite. To me, what elevates it from good to great is the immersion factor; the diagetic HUD and scan visor really ground the player in Samus' perspective.
• Pikmin (Olimar) - Technically an RTS, but it feels entirely distinct from the genre. The vibes are immaculate in a way I don't really know how to articulate; it's all goofy and cute and serene and a little brutal. What a charming little game this is. Olimar in Smash is kind of insufferable, but this redeems him in my eyes.
• Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Byleth) - Likeable characters and a story that, while not perfect, explores a conflict from multiple people's perspectives, nobody having all the information. I don't know how longtime fans feel about it, but I thought the core gameplay was fun and accessible. Undeniably flawed, but for me it's greater than the sum of its parts. I played two routes and still might go back for a third.
• Mother 3 (Lucas) - Not everyone vibes with this game, but I sure as hell do. A beautiful story, gorgeous pixel art, interesting themes, memorable music, and near-perfect gameplay balance. I'd appreciate an official release, but the fan translation is so good I'm not sure they should bother.
• Persona 5 (Joker) - It's funny. If you asked me to list everything I don't like about P5, I could probably go all day. The writing is a little shallow and it's far, far too long. And yet, I can't deny how completely engrossed I was that first time through. This game enthralled me. As a sensory experience, everything about how P5 looks and sounds tickles my brain so well. This series occupies a wholly unique space in the modern RPG landscape, in terms of both mechanics and visual identity. This game made me a Persona/SMT fan, and I'd put in my all-time top five, at least.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's what's left on the list. Looking forward to some of them more than others. I might get around to them this year, or over three years, or never. Who knows.

• Super Mario 3D World (Peach)
• Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade (Roy)
• Fire Emblem Fates (Corrin)
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Villager / Isabelle)
• Wii Fit (Wii Fit Trainer) (lmao)
• Xenoblade Chronicles (Shulk)
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Pyra / Mythra)
• Super Castlevania IV (Simon)
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Richter)
• Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (Hero)
• Garou: Mark of the Wolves (Terry)
• ARMS (Min Min)
• Minecraft (Steve)
• Tekken 7 (Kazuya)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Did I learn anything by doing this? I think so. I definitely have a greater appreciation for a wider variety of genres and franchises. This got me to try certain games I never would have considered otherwise. And in turn, I gained a greater appreciation for the crossover aspect of Smash; every time I look at the character select screen, I have exponentially more memories attached to each icon. I can spot all the references in the movesets and stages. It's just... cool, I guess.
Thanks for reading. Hope you're having a good day. Please don't hate me for dismissing your favorite game.

I don't know if this is really appropriate for the sub, but I thought it'd be fun to write up my thoughts on the experience so far.
I've been playing Smash all my life - Melee might've been the first game I truly fell in love with - and the series has always served as exposure to other franchises. For over four years I've been slowly, methodically playing the source games for the entire Smash Ultimate roster. Most of them I wanted to play anyway, and this was just a neat excuse to try them out. And I do mean slowly, I really spread them out to avoid burnout. I also never forced myself to finish a game if I wasn't having fun; sometimes I just played the first section/level to get a feel for it, then dropped it. Overall it's been a fun way to expose myself to new genres and gain appreciation for gaming history. I'd already played quite a bit of Mario, Pokemon, Zelda, Metal Gear, and Sonic, but the rest was all pretty new for me. I won't mention the games I played before this challenge.
For each character I picked the game I thought was most relevant, or most similar to their depiction in Smash. If you want, you can look at the checklist here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rOlk8dXwEL6wd2Lw4zouBiAce8UJabHOIgIP8bKL_7c/edit?usp=sharing
It's worth noting that this wouldn't be feasible without emulation. A lot of these games aren't available on modern platforms, and some aren't even localized into English. I'm not a collector and I'm not willing to track down old consoles on ebay.
Games are roughly ordered within their tiers, based on how much I enjoyed them. I'll try to be brief for each one.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
'It's old and I can't help being a zoomer' tier - Games I played just long enough to understand them, then dipped. I would not have chosen to play them for fun.

• Ice Climber (Ice Climbers)
• Kid Icarus (Pit)
• Game & Watch Gallery 4 (Mr. Game & Watch)
• Duck Hunt (Duck Hunt Dog)
• Star Fox (Fox)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
'Not very good' tier - Reserved exclusively for Pac-Man World 2.

• Pac-Man World 2 (Pac-Man) - This game is not very good.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
'Just not for me' tier - Games I struggled to connect with or I'm not a fan of the genre. Maybe I'd like them if I played longer, but I don't plan to pick them up again.

• Kingdom Hearts (Sora) - Exceeds my admittedly high tolerance for power-of-friendship anime schlock. Combat felt a little dull and I'm not crazy about Disney. Maybe I dropped it too early, but what little I know about the rest of the series doesn't really excite me.
• Street Fighter V (Ryu / Ken) - Cool character designs, I can say that much. Traditional fighters are interesting to learn about, but they don't really grab me as a player. I expect I'll feel the same way about Tekken and Fatal Fury.
• Mega Man 11 (Mega Man) - Some neat new mechanics, but the punishing old-school level design isn't my cup of tea. Happy that fans got a new one though.
• Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (Marth) - Moving units with the touch screen is nice and I appreciate the strategy, but the generic fantasy story bored me to tears. I might be spoiled by modern FE; this felt like going back in time and finding out my great-great-great-grandfather sold corn.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
'It was alright' tier - Games that were pretty enjoyable. I'm glad I tried them and likely won't play them again.

• Star Fox 64 (Falco / Wolf) - Pretty much what I expected. I didn't love it, but it's fun and short. The branching paths are cool for its time.
• Dr. Mario (Dr. Mario) - A pleasant surprise. I expected to play for ten minutes and ended up enjoying it for much longer. Just a solid puzzle game.
• Kirby's Dream Land 3 (King Dedede) - It's good, I think? I know I enjoyed it but honestly don't remember anything about the experience.
• Kid Icarus: Uprising (Palutena / Dark Pit) - Great writing, good music, and really inventive mechanics. Would be much higher if the controls didn't cause me physical pain.
• Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Dark Samus) - Atmosphere, music, and visuals are impeccable. I feel mean putting it this low, but Prime 1's difficulty was perfect for me and I didn't care for the dark world being so oppressive. Still want to play Prime 3 though.
• Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (Ike) - Decent story and characters, but battles are really slow. I kind of want to go back and finish it, in which case I could see it moving a lot higher.
• Splatoon 2 (Inkling) - Novel mechanics and a fun aesthetic. I don't really play multiplayer games, but the single-player levels are enjoyable. One of the most fun credits sequences I've seen since NieR: Automata.
• Kirby Super Star (Meta Knight) - Short, sweet, and charming, like all Kirby games. Did a lot to redeem The Great Cave Offensive, though I still hate that stage.
• Final Fantasy VII (Sephiroth) - Extremely impressive for its time, but I don't totally vibe with JRPGs from that era. Probably wouldn't have finished it without the 3x fast-forward battle option in modern ports. Famously the music is some of Uematsu's best work, and he has a lot of good work.
• Bayonetta 2 (Bayonetta) - This game oozes personality and charisma (that Moon River remix goes unreasonably hard). If I were more into this brand of action game, it would easily be top-tier.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Hey, this is pretty good' tier - Games I liked quite a lot and would recommend.

• Super Mario Sunshine (Bowser Jr.) - The most unique 3D Mario. Movement is fluid and satisfying to master, and I enjoy the Margaritaville locale. Held back by some frustrating sections (you know the ones).
• Luigi's Mansion 3 (Luigi) - Great visuals, art direction, and environmental design. Feels a little too padded for time.
• F-Zero GX (Captain Falcon) - The controls and tracks are gratifying to learn, and the cutscenes are pure cheese in the best way. Would be higher if I were more into racing games, or if I were skilled enough to finish it.
• Final Fantasy VII Remake (Cloud) - After playing the original, I liked how Remake brings the characters to life and reimagines old scenarios. Decent combat, cool bosses, and an amazing soundtrack are offset by egregious padding and an ending I don't quite know how to feel about.
• EarthBound (Ness) - Full of heart behind the quirky humor. I can forgive aimless progression and outdated dungeon design when everything else is so remarkably endearing and well-written.
• Banjo-Kazooie (Banjo & Kazooie) - Having played Mario 64, I was surprised how much better the camera is. Fun characters and catchy music make for a very laid-back experience. And in a genre infamous for bloated collectathons, it shows respectable restraint in the number of collectibles.
• Super Metroid (Ridley) - Near-perfect synthesis of atmosphere, mechanics, progression, and visuals. An incredible achievement, but hard to revisit after being spoiled by the fluidity of Dread. Still, if you claim this is the greatest game ever made, I'm not gonna argue with you.
• Donkey Kong Country (King K. Rool) - Great level design and a memorable aesthetic that was probably really hard to pull off on the SNES. For a game about silly apes, the soundtrack by David Wise is gorgeously atmospheric.
• Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong-Quest (Diddy Kong) - Basically DKC1, but a slight step up in every category. Though I will say, a couple of the late-game levels are unreasonably hard.
• Metroid: Zero Mission (Zero Suit Samus) - Feels a little held back by the original's level design, but it's still a fantastic remake. The post-game sequence without the power suit is a huge highlight.
• WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! (Wario) - Beat it in two hours and don't feel like I wasted a single second. This game actually made me laugh out loud, and often. Definitely want to play more WarioWare in the future.
• Super Mario World (Piranha Plant) - Not much to say about this one, just a good-ass platformer. I prefer it to Mario 3, but I understand why someone wouldn't.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
'This is the shit' tier - Games I thoroughly loved and would rank among my favorites.

• Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (Yoshi) - Besides Chrono Trigger, I don't think any other SNES game is this beautiful. A creative central mechanic, great level design, and wonderful art direction. The "classics" don't always speak to me, but this one did.
• Metroid Prime (Samus) - Super impressive for its time and a near-perfect translation of the series formula into 3D. Music, atmosphere, and exploration are exquisite. To me, what elevates it from good to great is the immersion factor; the diagetic HUD and scan visor really ground the player in Samus' perspective.
• Pikmin (Olimar) - Technically an RTS, but it feels entirely distinct from the genre. The vibes are immaculate in a way I don't really know how to articulate; it's all goofy and cute and serene and a little brutal. What a charming little game this is. Olimar in Smash is kind of insufferable, but this redeems him in my eyes.
• Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Byleth) - Likeable characters and a story that, while not perfect, explores a conflict from multiple people's perspectives, nobody having all the information. I don't know how longtime fans feel about it, but I thought the core gameplay was fun and accessible. Undeniably flawed, but for me it's greater than the sum of its parts. I played two routes and still might go back for a third.
• Mother 3 (Lucas) - Not everyone vibes with this game, but I sure as hell do. A beautiful story, gorgeous pixel art, interesting themes, memorable music, and near-perfect gameplay balance. I'd appreciate an official release, but the fan translation is so good I'm not sure they should bother.
• Persona 5 (Joker) - It's funny. If you asked me to list everything I don't like about P5, I could probably go all day. The writing is a little shallow and it's far, far too long. And yet, I can't deny how completely engrossed I was that first time through. This game enthralled me. As a sensory experience, everything about how P5 looks and sounds tickles my brain so well. This series occupies a wholly unique space in the modern RPG landscape, in terms of both mechanics and visual identity. This game made me a Persona/SMT fan, and I'd put in my all-time top five, at least.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's what's left on the list. Looking forward to some of them more than others. I might get around to them this year, or over three years, or never. Who knows.

• Super Mario 3D World (Peach)
• Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade (Roy)
• Fire Emblem Fates (Corrin)
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Villager / Isabelle)
• Wii Fit (Wii Fit Trainer) (lmao)
• Xenoblade Chronicles (Shulk)
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Pyra / Mythra)
• Super Castlevania IV (Simon)
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Richter)
• Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (Hero)
• Garou: Mark of the Wolves (Terry)
• ARMS (Min Min)
• Minecraft (Steve)
• Tekken 7 (Kazuya)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Did I learn anything by doing this? I think so. I definitely have a greater appreciation for a wider variety of genres and franchises. This got me to try certain games I never would have considered otherwise. And in turn, I gained a greater appreciation for the crossover aspect of Smash; every time I look at the character select screen, I have exponentially more memories attached to each icon. I can spot all the references in the movesets and stages. It's just... cool, I guess.
Thanks for reading. Hope you're having a good day. Please don't hate me for dismissing your favorite game.

I don't think this sub vibes with Nintendo quite as much as I do, but I thought this'd be fun to write up. I've been playing Smash all my life - Melee might've been the first game I truly fell in love with - and the series has always served as exposure to other franchises.
For at least four years I've been slowly, methodically playing the original games for the entire Smash Ultimate roster. Most of them I wanted to play anyway, and this was just a neat excuse to try them out. And I do mean slowly, I really spread them out to avoid burnout. I also never forced myself to finish a game if I wasn't having fun; sometimes I just played the first section/level to get a feel for it, then dropped it. Overall it's been a fun way to expose myself to new genres and gain appreciation for gaming history. I'd already played quite a bit of Mario, Pokemon, Zelda, Metal Gear, and Sonic, but the rest was all pretty new for me. I won't mention the games I played before Ultimate's release, which is when I started the challenge.
For each character I picked the game I thought was most relevant, or most similar to their depiction in Smash. If you want, you can look at the checklist here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rOlk8dXwEL6wd2Lw4zouBiAce8UJabHOIgIP8bKL_7c/edit?usp=sharing
It's worth noting that this wouldn't be feasible without emulation. A lot of these games aren't available on modern platforms, and some aren't even localized into English. I'm not a collector and I'm not willing to track down old consoles on ebay.
Games are roughly ordered within their tiers, based on how much I enjoyed them. I'll try to be brief for each one.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
'It's old and I can't help being a zoomer' tier - Games I played just long enough to understand them, then dipped. I would not have chosen to play them for fun.

• Ice Climber (Ice Climbers)
• Kid Icarus (Pit)
• Game & Watch Gallery 4 (Mr. Game & Watch)
• Duck Hunt (Duck Hunt Dog)
• Star Fox (Fox)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
'Not very good' tier - Reserved exclusively for Pac-Man World 2.

• Pac-Man World 2 (Pac-Man) - This game is not very good.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
'Just not for me' tier - Games I struggled to connect with or I'm not a fan of the genre. Maybe I'd like them if I played longer, but I don't plan to pick them up again.

• Kingdom Hearts (Sora) - Exceeds my admittedly high tolerance for power-of-friendship anime schlock. Combat felt a little dull and I'm not crazy about Disney. Maybe I dropped it too early, but what little I know about the rest of the series doesn't really excite me.
• Street Fighter V (Ryu / Ken) - Cool character designs, I can say that much. Traditional fighters are interesting to learn about, but they don't really grab me as a player. I expect I'll feel the same way about Tekken and Fatal Fury.
• Mega Man 11 (Mega Man) - Some neat new mechanics, but the punishing old-school level design isn't my cup of tea. Happy that fans got a new one though.
• Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (Marth) - Moving units with the touch screen is nice and I appreciate the strategy, but the generic fantasy story bored me to tears. I might be spoiled by modern FE; this felt like going back in time and finding out my great-great-great-grandfather sold corn.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
'It was alright' tier - Games that were pretty enjoyable. I'm glad I tried them and likely won't play them again.

• Star Fox 64 (Falco / Wolf) - Pretty much what I expected. I didn't love it, but it's fun and short. The branching paths are cool for its time.
• Dr. Mario (Dr. Mario) - A pleasant surprise. I expected to play for ten minutes and ended up enjoying it for much longer. Just a solid puzzle game.
• Kirby's Dream Land 3 (King Dedede) - It's good, I think? I know I enjoyed it but honestly don't remember anything about the experience.
• Kid Icarus: Uprising (Palutena / Dark Pit) - Great writing, good music, and really inventive mechanics. Would be much higher if the controls didn't cause me physical pain.
• Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Dark Samus) - Atmosphere, music, and visuals are impeccable. I feel mean putting it this low, but Prime 1's difficulty was perfect for me and I didn't care for the dark world being so oppressive. Still want to play Prime 3 though.
• Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (Ike) - Decent story and characters, but battles are really slow. I kind of want to go back and finish it, in which case I could see it moving a lot higher.
• Splatoon 2 (Inkling) - Novel mechanics and a fun aesthetic. I don't really play multiplayer games, but the single-player levels are enjoyable. One of the most fun credits sequences I've seen since NieR: Automata.
• Kirby Super Star (Meta Knight) - Short, sweet, and charming, like all Kirby games. Did a lot to redeem The Great Cave Offensive, though I still hate that stage.
• Final Fantasy VII (Sephiroth) - Extremely impressive for its time, but I don't totally vibe with JRPGs from that era. Probably wouldn't have finished it without the 3x fast-forward battle option in modern ports. Famously the music is some of Uematsu's best work, and he has a lot of good work.
• Bayonetta 2 (Bayonetta) - This game oozes personality and charisma (that Moon River remix goes unreasonably hard). If I were more into this brand of action game, it would easily be top-tier.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Hey, this is pretty good' tier - Games I liked quite a lot and would recommend to anyone with similar tastes.

• Super Mario Sunshine (Bowser Jr.) - The most unique 3D Mario. Movement is fluid and satisfying to master, and I enjoy the Margaritaville locale. Held back by some frustrating sections (you know the ones).
• Luigi's Mansion 3 (Luigi) - Great visuals, art direction, and environmental design. Feels a little too padded for time.
• F-Zero GX (Captain Falcon) - The controls and tracks are gratifying to learn, and the cutscenes are pure cheese in the best way. Would be higher if I were more into racing games, or if I were skilled enough to finish it.
• Final Fantasy VII Remake (Cloud) - After playing the original, I liked how Remake brings the characters to life and reimagines old scenarios. Decent combat, cool bosses, and an amazing soundtrack are offset by egregious padding and an ending I don't quite know how to feel about.
• EarthBound (Ness) - Full of heart behind the quirky humor. I can forgive aimless progression and outdated dungeon design when everything else is so remarkably endearing and well-written.
• Banjo-Kazooie (Banjo & Kazooie) - Having played Mario 64, I was surprised how much better the camera is. Fun characters and catchy music make for a very laid-back experience. And in a genre infamous for bloated collectathons, it shows respectable restraint in the number of collectibles.
• Super Metroid (Ridley) - Near-perfect synthesis of atmosphere, mechanics, progression, and visuals. An incredible achievement, but hard to revisit after being spoiled by the fluidity of Dread. Still, if you claim this is the greatest game ever made, I'm not gonna argue with you.
• Donkey Kong Country (King K. Rool) - Great level design and a memorable aesthetic that was probably really hard to pull off on the SNES. For a game about silly apes, the soundtrack by David Wise is gorgeously atmospheric.
• Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong-Quest (Diddy Kong) - Basically DKC1, but a slight step up in every category. Though I will say, a couple of the late-game levels are unreasonably hard.
• Metroid: Zero Mission (Zero Suit Samus) - Feels a little held back by the original's level design, but it's still a fantastic remake. The post-game sequence without the power suit is a huge highlight.
• WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! (Wario) - Beat it in two hours and don't feel like I wasted a single second. This game actually made me laugh out loud, and often. Definitely want to play more WarioWare in the future.
• Super Mario World (Piranha Plant) - Not much to say about this one, just a good-ass platformer. I prefer it to Mario 3, but I understand why someone wouldn't.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
'This is the shit' tier - Games I thoroughly loved and would rank among my favorites.

• Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (Yoshi) - Besides Chrono Trigger, I don't think any other SNES game is this beautiful. A creative central mechanic, great level design, and wonderful art direction. The "classics" don't always speak to me, but this one did.
• Metroid Prime (Samus) - Super impressive for its time and a near-perfect translation of the series formula into 3D. Music, atmosphere, and exploration are exquisite. To me, what elevates it from good to great is the immersion factor; the diagetic HUD and scan visor really ground the player in Samus' perspective.
• Pikmin (Olimar) - Technically an RTS, but it feels entirely distinct from the genre. The vibes are immaculate in a way I don't really know how to articulate; it's all goofy and cute and serene and a little brutal. What a charming little game this is. Olimar in Smash is kind of insufferable, but this redeems him in my eyes.
• Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Byleth) - Likeable characters and a story that, while not perfect, explores a conflict from multiple people's perspectives, nobody having all the information. I don't know how longtime fans feel about it, but I thought the core gameplay was fun and accessible. Undeniably flawed, but for me it's greater than the sum of its parts. I played two routes and still might go back for a third.
• Mother 3 (Lucas) - Not everyone vibes with this game, but I sure as hell do. A beautiful story, gorgeous pixel art, interesting themes, memorable music, and near-perfect gameplay balance. I'd appreciate an official release, but the fan translation is so good I'm not sure they should bother.
• Persona 5 (Joker) - It's funny. If you asked me to list everything I don't like about P5, I could probably go all day. The writing is a little shallow and it's far, far too long. And yet, I can't deny how completely engrossed I was that first time through. This game enthralled me. As a sensory experience, everything about how P5 looks and sounds tickles my brain so well. This series occupies a wholly unique space in the modern RPG landscape, in terms of both mechanics and visual identity. This game made me a Persona/SMT fan, and I'd put in my all-time top five, at least.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's what's left on the list. Looking forward to some of them more than others. I might get around to them this year, or over three years, or never. Who knows.

• Super Mario 3D World (Peach)
• Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade (Roy)
• Fire Emblem Fates (Corrin)
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Villager / Isabelle)
• Wii Fit (Wii Fit Trainer) (lmao)
• Xenoblade Chronicles (Shulk)
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Pyra / Mythra)
• Super Castlevania IV (Simon)
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Richter)
• Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (Hero)
• Garou: Mark of the Wolves (Terry)
• ARMS (Min Min)
• Minecraft (Steve)
• Tekken 7 (Kazuya)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Did I learn anything by doing this? I think so. I definitely have a greater appreciation for a wider variety of genres and franchises. This got me to try certain games I never would have considered otherwise. And in turn, I gained a greater appreciation for the crossover aspect of Smash; every time I look at the character select screen, I have exponentially more memories attached to each icon. I can spot all the references in the movesets and stages. It's just... cool, I guess.
Thanks for reading. Hope you're having a good day. Please don't hate me for dismissing your favorite game.

This post is part of a series looking at the massive amount of 'rhyming' (and occasionally rhyming) recursivity I believe exists between (a) the homecoming of Petyr Baelish to the Fingers and (b) the homecoming of Theon Greyjoy to Pyke.
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger (including every post in this sub-series) [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits discussion.
NOTE: In what follows, all uncited quotes are from ASOS Sansa VI, which describes Petyr's homecoming to his "Drearfort" tower of the 'Smallest Finger', or ACOK Theon I, which describes Theon's homecoming to "drear" Pyke.
As in past posts, I sometimes use "→" as shorthand for "'prefigures' and/or 'informs' and/or 'is reworked by' and/or 'finds a recursive rhyme in'.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
This post picks up straight-away from where Part 5 left off. You can read Part 5 [HERE].
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE].

Wallowing Tubs

Let's jump back to the beginning of Theon's homecoming and consider that Theon's thoughts and actions vis-a-vis the Myraham, its captain, and the captain's daughter can be read as prefiguring the story of Petyr taking over the Vale, such that we can read Theon as Petyr, the captain's daughter and the Myraham as both Lysa and the Vale, and the captain as the Lords Declarant unhappy with Petyr's ascendency.
(As ever, this 'rhyme' makes literary sense if Littlefinger has a connection to the Iron Islands, i.e. if he's Hoare-ish.)
After Theon's takes in the "stirring sight" of Pyke with its Sansa-esque banner overhead and 'his' comet "in the sky behind" it, we read how he got there:

A longship would have made the crossing in half the time as well. The Myraham was a wallowing tub, if truth be told, and he would not care to be aboard her in a storm.

Lysa is likewise a "wallowing tub":

[H]er body sagged and bulged. Her face was pink and painted, her breasts heavy, her limbs thick. She was taller than Littlefinger, and heavier; nor did she show any grace in the clumsy way she climbed down off her horse.

Like the Myraham, she's awful to deal with "in a storm" (i.e. in her anger and/or madness), as Catelyn—

Lysa's rage had been frightening to behold. (AGOT Catelyn VIII)

—and Sansa (near-fatally) discover.
It's plain that "storm" is an appropriate metaphor for Lysa's rage after Petyr gets Lysa to unhand Sansa, just a few paragraphs before he decides he would not care to be aboard her any longer, so to speak, and shoves her out the Moon Door:

"Lysa," Petyr sighed, "after all the storms we've suffered, you should trust me better. I swear, I shall never leave your side again, for as long as we both shall live." (ASOS Sansa VII)

And where "a longship would have made the crossing in half the time" the wallowing tub Myraham takes, the wallowing tub Lysa, too, takes seemingly forever to get where she's going:

It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived.

Finding Amusement Where They Can

Having spent most of the voyage fucking the captain's daughter, Theon gets one final "amusement" in the form of a blowjob:

Still, Theon could not be too unhappy. He was here, undrowned, and the voyage had offered certain other amusements. He put an arm around the captain's daughter. "Summon me when we make Lordsport," he told her father. "We'll be below, in my cabin."

Like Theon vis-a-vis the captain's daughter, Petyr isn't actually interested in Lysa romantically, but all the same he beds her and finds "amusements" in the process, both in the bedding ceremony—

Lord Petyr… submitted with good grace and a wicked tongue, giving as good as he got. By the time they had gotten him into the tower and out of his clothes, the other women were flushed, with laces unlaced, kirtles crooked, and skirts in disarray.

—and seemingly in his marriage bed:

"Petyr," her aunt moaned. "Oh, Petyr, Petyr, sweet Petyr, oh oh oh. There, Petyr, there. That's where you belong." … "Make me a baby, Petyr," she screamed, "make me another sweet little baby. Oh, Petyr, my precious, my precious, PEEEEEETYR!"

Turning Over The Captain's Cabin

Back to Theon:

The cabin was the captain's, in truth, but it had been turned over to Theon's use when they sailed from Seagard.

This prefigures the Vale — House Arryn's Vale — being 'turned over to Littlefinger's rule when he commenced to sail the wallowing tub Lysa', so to speak, wedding her and becoming Lord Protector (i.e. de facto Lord) of the Vale:

"Petyr will soon set all that to rights, though. I shall make him Lord Protector of the Vale." -Lysa to Sansa in Littlefinger's bedchamber, the morning after their wedding

Willing Bed Companions & Wine

The captain's daughter comes "willingly" to Theon—

The captain's daughter had not been turned over to his use, but she had come to his bed willingly enough all the same.

—as Lysa had come willingly to Petyr back at Riverrun—

"You enticed him, just as your mother did that night in Riverrun…. You think I could forget? That was the night I stole up to his bed to give him comfort. I bled, but it was the sweetest hurt." (ASOS Sansa VII)

—and as Lysa comes to him at the Drearfort:

"I am the Lady of the Eyrie, and I command you to wed me this very moment!"

Theon beds the captain's daughter with the help of wine:

A cup of wine, a few whispers, and there she was.

This prefigures both the way Lysa bedded Petyr the first time—

"[Petyr] drank until he passed out at the table. Uncle Brynden carried him up to bed before my father could find him like that." (ASOS Sansa VII)

—as well as Lysa's 'current' fondness for wine that's likely Petyr's:

Among the loads [Oswell] brought ashore were several casks of wine.
Her aunt's breath smelled of wine. (ASOS Sansa VII)
"That's past and done, Lysa. …" Littlefinger moved closer. Have you been at the wine again?" (ibid.)

Booby Maidens

Where the captain's daughter (whose "plump", large-breasted physique is akin to Lysa's) "had been a maiden the first time [Theon] took her"—

The girl was a shade plump for his taste, with skin as splotchy as oatmeal, but her breasts filled his hands nicely and she had been a maiden the first time he took her. That was surprising at her age, but Theon found it diverting.

—Lysa, too, 'had been a maiden the first time Petyr took her', so to speak, long ago at Riverrun.

Resentful, Paid-For 'Captains'

Just as Hoster Tully was not happy about Petyr bedding his daughter under his own roof, so is the Myraham captain unhappy with Theon availing himself of his daughter, and in his own cabin, no less:

[Theon] led the girl away aft, while her father watched them go in sullen silence.

The captain's resentment prefigures the Vale lords "resent[ing]" Petyr's marriage to Lysa and his appointment as Lord Protector:

Sansa knew that Jon Arryn's bannermen resented Lysa's marriage and begrudged Petyr his authority as Lord Protector of the Vale. (ASOS Sansa VII)

Theon isn't concerned about the captain's feelings, though, because he's been bought and paid for:

He did not think the captain approved, and that was amusing as well, watching the man struggle to swallow his outrage while performing his courtesies to the high lord, the rich purse of gold he'd been promised never far from his thoughts.
The promise of gold had turned the Oldtowner into a shameless lickspittle.

This prefigures Littlefinger's strategy after he disposes of Lysa. Belying the beliefs of e.g. Randyll Tarly—

"Lady Lysa is dead. … Littlefinger holds the Eyrie now . . . though not for long. The lords of the Vale are not the sort to bend their knees to some upjumped jackanapes whose only skill is counting coppers." (AFFC Brienne III)

—Littlefinger maintains his position in the 'captain's cabin' of the Eyrie because, just as Theon buys the Myraham's captain, so does Littlefinger buy many of the Lords Declarant:

"Belmore is corrupt and can be bought. …Bronze Yohn Royce will continue to be hostile, I fear, but so long as he stands alone he is not so much a threat." (AFFC Alayne I)
"The Waynwoods are very old and very proud, but not as rich as one might think, as I discovered when I began buying up their debt. Not that Lady Anya would ever sell a son for gold. A ward, however . . . young Harry's only a cousin, and the dower that I offered her ladyship was even larger than the one that Lyonel Corbray just collected. It had to be, for her to risk Bronze Yohn's wroth. (AFFC Alayne II)

The line foregrounding the notion of Anya Waynwood "sell[ing] a son for gold" reads like it could be a wink at the captain of the Myraham essentially selling his daughter to Theon for gold. Note that the Waynwood sigil is a broken wheel, a la the captain's wheel of an olde tyme sailing vessel. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship%27s_wheel) Thus it's an almost perfect metaphorical representation of the captain being 'broken' by Theon's gold into "swallow[ing] his outrage".

'Rhyming' Rejections

Finally, at the end of Theon's voyage, when he is done with the "wallowing tub" Myraham, he disposes of the captain's daughter:

"Milord." Her eyes were red. When he took the pack, she made as if to embrace him, there in front of her own father and his priestly uncle and half the island.
Theon turned deftly aside. "You have my thanks."
"Please," she said, "I do love you well, milord."
"I must go." He hurried after his uncle, who was already well down the pier. Theon caught him with a dozen long strides.

Theon's parting with the daughter of the captain of the wallowing tub Myraham is kaleidoscopically reworked when Petyr disposes of his wallowing tub, Lysa. The recursion includes the crying and hugging motifs, a declaration of love, pithy final words ("I must go" → "Only Cat"), and a parallel post-parting urgency (Theon "hurried" → "run… quick now"). And note how "deftly" Petyr deflects Lysa (to her doom):

Lysa threw herself into Littlefinger's arms, sobbing. As they hugged, Sansa… crawled from the Moon Door on hands and knees and wrapped her arms around the nearest pillar. …She shuddered, and hugged the pillar tighter.
Littlefinger let Lysa sob against his chest for a moment, then put his hands on her arms and kissed her lightly. "My sweet silly jealous wife," he said, chuckling. "I've only loved one woman, I promise you."
Lysa Arryn smiled tremulously. "Only one? Oh, Petyr, do you swear it? Only one?"
"Only Cat." He gave her a short, sharp shove.
Lysa stumbled backward, her feet slipping on the wet marble. And then she was gone. She never screamed. For the longest time there was no sound but the wind.
…Lord Petyr pulled Sansa to her feet. …"Run let my guards in, then. Quick now, there's no time to lose. This singer's killed my lady wife."

"Deftly" done, indeed.
Petyr giving Lysa "a short, sharp shove" feels like a physical manifestation of Theon figuratively shoving the captain's daughter away and 'out the door'.

Silver Clasps

I'd be remiss not to point out that when Theon leaves the girl, his cloak is pointedly pinned "with a silver clasp":

Theon swept his cloak off its peg and over his shoulders. "Fathers are like that," he admitted as he pinned the folds with a silver clasp.

Who else pins his cloaks like that?

They went well with the silver mockingbird that fastened his cloak. (AGOT Catelyn IV)
The man wore a heavy cloak with a fur collar, fastened with a silver mockingbird…. (AGOT Sansa II)

Petyr.

The Captain's Daughter & Bryen's Toothless Licking Dog

All that said, Petyr's relationship with Lysa isn't the only thing about ASOS Sansa VI (and VII) prefigured by Theon's relationship with Myraham's captain's daughter.
Consider also the old dog we're shown hanging out with Sansa immediately after we read that Lysa takes "eight long days" to arrive, a la the "wallowing" Myraham taking way too long to get to Pyke, and immediately before we read about Lysa's arrival, when she looks every inch a wallowing tub:

It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived. On five of them it rained, while Sansa sat bored and restless by the fire, beside the old blind dog. He was too sick and toothless to walk guard with Bryen anymore, and mostly all he did was sleep, but when she patted him he whined and licked her hand, and after that they were fast friends.

Where Theon rides out his long voyage at sea with the the oral sex-giving captain's daughter, Sansa rides out most of her long, rainy wait for Lysa with the friendly, toothless, licking dog.
All the dog does is "sleep… beside" — i.e. literally sleep with — Sansa. That reworks the captain's daughter spending the long voyage figuratively 'sleeping with' (i.e. boning) Theon. To this point:

Bryen's old blind dog in her little alcove beneath the steps, and lay down next to him. He woke and licked her face. "You sad old hound," she said, ruffling his fur.

That the dog "whine[s]" and is "sad" recalls the captain's daughter "beg[ging]" Theon to come ashore and later calling to him in a "plaintive" voice while walking "forlornly" adeck when he visits Lordsport. (ACOK Theon II)
The devotion the captain's daughter thereby demonstrates — refusing to give up on Theon, long after he's gone — is reworked by the dog being called Sansa's "fast friend" (i.e. loyal friend), which also works as double entendre referring back to the captain's daughter, as "fast" is a euphemism for a girl who is fast to engage in sexual activity. (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fast)
Note that the dog is never named: It's simply "Bryen's old blind dog", just as the captain's daughter is just "the captain's daughter".
Of course, Sansa does get one small break from the monotony of her time with the dog: her sight-seeing 'field trip' with Petyr:

It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived. On five of them it rained, while Sansa sat bored and restless by the fire, beside the old blind dog. [Dog stuff.] When the rains let up, Petyr walked with her around his holdings, which took less than half a day. [Description of the sight-seeing 'field trip' of Petyr's lands, including all manner of things that 'rhyme' with Theon's description of Pyke, all of which I discuss in detail elsewhere.]

The sight-seeing 'field trip' as a whole reworks the opening paragraphs of ACOK Theon I, in which Theon is likewise taking a break from his usual routine (sex with the captain's daughter) to do a little sight-seeing: Where Theon soaks in the "stirring sight" of castle Pyke on its wave-carved stacks of rock with its banner overhead and the fiery comet high "in the sky" behind it, which he takes to be a (verbatim) "sign", Sansa's sight-seeing tour of Petyr's holdings include a rock carved with the (verbatim) "sign" of the Seven next to a tidal blowhole shooting water high "into the air", as well as "a hermit's cave" where a hermit "groped" Petyr as Theon gropes the captain's daughter just after gazing at castle Pyke and the comet.
It's only when Theon is done gazing at Pyke that the captain's daughter appears on the page and we read about the "certain other amusements" he's enjoyed during his voyage. This gets flipped around with Sansa and her dog: Where Theon found "amusement" in the sex he was constantly having, Sansa is "bored and restless" during her time with the dog; it's only the brief excursion that breaks the monotony of her time (literally) sleeping with the old toothless dog.
The story of how Sansa spent her time waiting for Lysa (with the dog) is thus a 'rhyme' for Theon's time on the Myraham with the captain's daughter. That we read about Sansa's time with the dog (a) immediately after we read that Lysa was, like the Myraham, slow to arrive and (b) immediately before Lysa's arrival, when she seems every inch the wallowing tub herself, further convinces me that Theon's treatment of the captain and captain's daughter do indeed prefigure Petyr's treatment of Lysa and the Lords Declarant, while also by dint of association suggesting that Petyr is trying to groom Sansa as surely as Theon did the captain's daughter.

Sansa & The Captain's Daughter

Regarding Petyr grooming Sansa, when Sansa first comes before Lysa, it seems very much like an echo of what happens when Theon and the captain's daughter go below deck. Consider:

Littlefinger beckoned Sansa forward with a hand. "My lady, allow me to present you Alayne Stone."
Sansa did a deep curtsy, her head bowed. "A bastard?" she heard her aunt say. "Petyr, have you been wicked? Who was her mother?"

Notice the curtsy and bowed head, the bastard motif, and the way Lysa treats Sansa as if she isn't there. This seems a recursion of this:

[Theon] drew the captain's daughter close and kissed her on her ear. "Take off your cloak."
She dropped her eyes, suddenly shy, but did as he bid her. When the heavy garment, sodden with spray, fell from her shoulders to the deck, she gave him a little bow and smiled anxiously.

• "[Theon] drew the captain's daughter close" → "Littlefinger beckoned Sansa forward with a hand"
  
• "she gave him a little bow" + "she dropped her eyes" → "Sansa did a deep curtsy, her head bowed"
  

A few lines later, we read:

The stupid girl did not seem to be listening.

Coupled with Theon telling the captain's daughter she's likely pregnant with "a king's bastard" — i.e. his bastard — that prefigures Lysa's talking about Sansa being "a bastard" as if she's not there, i.e. as if she isn't 'listening':

"A bastard?" she heard her aunt say. "Petyr, have you been wicked? Who was her mother?"

(The 'rhyme' is even tighter if Littlefinger aspires to be king, like Theon. Which I believe he does.)
Shortly after Theon thinks the captain's daughter doesn't "seem to be listening", we read that…

She was timid at first, but learned quickly for such a stupid girl….

As stated in earlier posts in this series, if we remove the sexual context, that's a bald-faced preview of Sansa in her Littlefinger era: initially trepidatious, but quickly warming to Littlefinger and learning to use lies and arbor gold in the service of his schemes, such that he calls the once hopelessly naive girl "clever" — i.e. the same word Theon uses when remarking of the captain's daughter:

She looked rather stupid when she smiled, but he had never required a woman to be clever.

Theon forces the captain's daughter to swallow his 'seed' just before he tells her she's probably pregnant with his "bastard", thus (also) prefiguring Littlefinger's [surreptitiously making Sansa swallow moon tea to ensure she is not pregnant with Tyrion's child], i.e. to cleanse herself of any spawn of Tyrion's "seed".
As I've said before, I have to think this little 'rhyme' between Sansa and the captain's daughter is there to further the suggestion that Littlefinger is per se grooming Sansa.

The Myraham and Mia Hamm

That the Myraham's story has so much to do with its captain's daughter makes sense given that the name Myraham is almost certainly a nod to Mia Hamm, who at the time A Clash of Kings was being written was widely recognized as the best women's soccer player in the world and newly famous in the United States, having been hyped to the moon before she famously played through injury during the United States' victory in the gold medal game of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, to much media ballyhoo. (see e.g. https://vault.si.com/vault/1996/08/12/uswnt-1996-olympics-gold-medal-china-atlanta)
The thing, is, despite being the most popular and celebrated player on the US team, Mia Hamm wasn't the team captain. That was the older Carla Overbeck, a comparatively uncelebrated central defender. So it's fitting that the story of the Myraham is in large part the story not of its captain, but of its captain's daughter.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 7: Sights-Seen While Sight-Seeing

This post is part of a series looking at the massive amount of 'rhyming' (and occasionally rhyming) recursivity I believe exists between (a) the homecoming of Petyr Baelish to the Fingers and (b) the homecoming of Theon Greyjoy to Pyke.
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger (including every post in this sub-series) [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits discussion.
NOTE: In what follows, all uncited quotes are from ASOS Sansa VI, which describes Petyr's homecoming to his "Drearfort" tower of the 'Smallest Finger', or ACOK Theon I, which describes Theon's homecoming to "drear" Pyke.
As in past posts, I sometimes use "→" as shorthand for "'prefigures' and/or 'informs' and/or 'is reworked by' and/or 'finds a recursive rhyme in'.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
This post picks up straight-away from where Part 5 left off. You can read Part 5 [HERE].
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE].

Wallowing Tubs

Let's jump back to the beginning of Theon's homecoming and consider that Theon's thoughts and actions vis-a-vis the Myraham, its captain, and the captain's daughter can be read as prefiguring the story of Petyr taking over the Vale, such that we can read Theon as Petyr, the captain's daughter and the Myraham as both Lysa and the Vale, and the captain as the Lords Declarant unhappy with Petyr's ascendency.
(As ever, this 'rhyme' makes literary sense if Littlefinger has a connection to the Iron Islands, i.e. if he's Hoare-ish.)
After Theon's takes in the "stirring sight" of Pyke with its Sansa-esque banner overhead and 'his' comet "in the sky behind" it, we read how he got there:

A longship would have made the crossing in half the time as well. The Myraham was a wallowing tub, if truth be told, and he would not care to be aboard her in a storm.

Lysa is likewise a "wallowing tub":

[H]er body sagged and bulged. Her face was pink and painted, her breasts heavy, her limbs thick. She was taller than Littlefinger, and heavier; nor did she show any grace in the clumsy way she climbed down off her horse.

Like the Myraham, she's awful to deal with "in a storm" (i.e. in her anger and/or madness), as Catelyn—

Lysa's rage had been frightening to behold. (AGOT Catelyn VIII)

—and Sansa (near-fatally) discover.
It's plain that "storm" is an appropriate metaphor for Lysa's rage after Petyr gets Lysa to unhand Sansa, just a few paragraphs before he decides he would not care to be aboard her any longer, so to speak, and shoves her out the Moon Door:

"Lysa," Petyr sighed, "after all the storms we've suffered, you should trust me better. I swear, I shall never leave your side again, for as long as we both shall live." (ASOS Sansa VII)

And where "a longship would have made the crossing in half the time" the wallowing tub Myraham takes, the wallowing tub Lysa, too, takes seemingly forever to get where she's going:

It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived.

Finding Amusement Where They Can

Having spent most of the voyage fucking the captain's daughter, Theon gets one final "amusement" in the form of a blowjob:

Still, Theon could not be too unhappy. He was here, undrowned, and the voyage had offered certain other amusements. He put an arm around the captain's daughter. "Summon me when we make Lordsport," he told her father. "We'll be below, in my cabin."

Like Theon vis-a-vis the captain's daughter, Petyr isn't actually interested in Lysa romantically, but all the same he beds her and finds "amusements" in the process, both in the bedding ceremony—

Lord Petyr… submitted with good grace and a wicked tongue, giving as good as he got. By the time they had gotten him into the tower and out of his clothes, the other women were flushed, with laces unlaced, kirtles crooked, and skirts in disarray.

—and seemingly in his marriage bed:

"Petyr," her aunt moaned. "Oh, Petyr, Petyr, sweet Petyr, oh oh oh. There, Petyr, there. That's where you belong." … "Make me a baby, Petyr," she screamed, "make me another sweet little baby. Oh, Petyr, my precious, my precious, PEEEEEETYR!"

Turning Over The Captain's Cabin

Back to Theon:

The cabin was the captain's, in truth, but it had been turned over to Theon's use when they sailed from Seagard.

This prefigures the Vale — House Arryn's Vale — being 'turned over to Littlefinger's rule when he commenced to sail the wallowing tub Lysa', so to speak, wedding her and becoming Lord Protector (i.e. de facto Lord) of the Vale:

"Petyr will soon set all that to rights, though. I shall make him Lord Protector of the Vale." -Lysa to Sansa in Littlefinger's bedchamber, the morning after their wedding

Willing Bed Companions & Wine

The captain's daughter comes "willingly" to Theon—

The captain's daughter had not been turned over to his use, but she had come to his bed willingly enough all the same.

—as Lysa had come willingly to Petyr back at Riverrun—

"You enticed him, just as your mother did that night in Riverrun…. You think I could forget? That was the night I stole up to his bed to give him comfort. I bled, but it was the sweetest hurt." (ASOS Sansa VII)

—and as Lysa comes to him at the Drearfort:

"I am the Lady of the Eyrie, and I command you to wed me this very moment!"

Theon beds the captain's daughter with the help of wine:

A cup of wine, a few whispers, and there she was.

This prefigures both the way Lysa bedded Petyr the first time—

"[Petyr] drank until he passed out at the table. Uncle Brynden carried him up to bed before my father could find him like that." (ASOS Sansa VII)

—as well as Lysa's 'current' fondness for wine that's likely Petyr's:

Among the loads [Oswell] brought ashore were several casks of wine.
Her aunt's breath smelled of wine. (ASOS Sansa VII)
"That's past and done, Lysa. …" Littlefinger moved closer. Have you been at the wine again?" (ibid.)

Booby Maidens

Where the captain's daughter (whose "plump", large-breasted physique is akin to Lysa's) "had been a maiden the first time [Theon] took her"—

The girl was a shade plump for his taste, with skin as splotchy as oatmeal, but her breasts filled his hands nicely and she had been a maiden the first time he took her. That was surprising at her age, but Theon found it diverting.

—Lysa, too, 'had been a maiden the first time Petyr took her', so to speak, long ago at Riverrun.

Resentful, Paid-For 'Captains'

Just as Hoster Tully was not happy about Petyr bedding his daughter under his own roof, so is the Myraham captain unhappy with Theon availing himself of his daughter, and in his own cabin, no less:

[Theon] led the girl away aft, while her father watched them go in sullen silence.

The captain's resentment prefigures the Vale lords "resent[ing]" Petyr's marriage to Lysa and his appointment as Lord Protector:

Sansa knew that Jon Arryn's bannermen resented Lysa's marriage and begrudged Petyr his authority as Lord Protector of the Vale. (ASOS Sansa VII)

Theon isn't concerned about the captain's feelings, though, because he's been bought and paid for:

He did not think the captain approved, and that was amusing as well, watching the man struggle to swallow his outrage while performing his courtesies to the high lord, the rich purse of gold he'd been promised never far from his thoughts.
The promise of gold had turned the Oldtowner into a shameless lickspittle.

This prefigures Littlefinger's strategy after he disposes of Lysa. Belying the beliefs of e.g. Randyll Tarly—

"Lady Lysa is dead. … Littlefinger holds the Eyrie now . . . though not for long. The lords of the Vale are not the sort to bend their knees to some upjumped jackanapes whose only skill is counting coppers." (AFFC Brienne III)

—Littlefinger maintains his position in the 'captain's cabin' of the Eyrie because, just as Theon buys the Myraham's captain, so does Littlefinger buy many of the Lords Declarant:

"Belmore is corrupt and can be bought. …Bronze Yohn Royce will continue to be hostile, I fear, but so long as he stands alone he is not so much a threat." (AFFC Alayne I)
"The Waynwoods are very old and very proud, but not as rich as one might think, as I discovered when I began buying up their debt. Not that Lady Anya would ever sell a son for gold. A ward, however . . . young Harry's only a cousin, and the dower that I offered her ladyship was even larger than the one that Lyonel Corbray just collected. It had to be, for her to risk Bronze Yohn's wroth. (AFFC Alayne II)

The line foregrounding the notion of Anya Waynwood "sell[ing] a son for gold" reads like it could be a wink at the captain of the Myraham essentially selling his daughter to Theon for gold. Note that the Waynwood sigil is a broken wheel, a la the captain's wheel of an olde tyme sailing vessel. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship%27s_wheel) Thus it's an almost perfect metaphorical representation of the captain being 'broken' by Theon's gold into "swallow[ing] his outrage".

'Rhyming' Rejections

Finally, at the end of Theon's voyage, when he is done with the "wallowing tub" Myraham, he disposes of the captain's daughter:

"Milord." Her eyes were red. When he took the pack, she made as if to embrace him, there in front of her own father and his priestly uncle and half the island.
Theon turned deftly aside. "You have my thanks."
"Please," she said, "I do love you well, milord."
"I must go." He hurried after his uncle, who was already well down the pier. Theon caught him with a dozen long strides.

Theon's parting with the daughter of the captain of the wallowing tub Myraham is kaleidoscopically reworked when Petyr disposes of his wallowing tub, Lysa. The recursion includes the crying and hugging motifs, a declaration of love, pithy final words ("I must go" → "Only Cat"), and a parallel post-parting urgency (Theon "hurried" → "run… quick now"). And note how "deftly" Petyr deflects Lysa (to her doom):

Lysa threw herself into Littlefinger's arms, sobbing. As they hugged, Sansa… crawled from the Moon Door on hands and knees and wrapped her arms around the nearest pillar. …She shuddered, and hugged the pillar tighter.
Littlefinger let Lysa sob against his chest for a moment, then put his hands on her arms and kissed her lightly. "My sweet silly jealous wife," he said, chuckling. "I've only loved one woman, I promise you."
Lysa Arryn smiled tremulously. "Only one? Oh, Petyr, do you swear it? Only one?"
"Only Cat." He gave her a short, sharp shove.
Lysa stumbled backward, her feet slipping on the wet marble. And then she was gone. She never screamed. For the longest time there was no sound but the wind.
…Lord Petyr pulled Sansa to her feet. …"Run let my guards in, then. Quick now, there's no time to lose. This singer's killed my lady wife."

"Deftly" done, indeed.
Petyr giving Lysa "a short, sharp shove" feels like a physical manifestation of Theon figuratively shoving the captain's daughter away and 'out the door'.

Silver Clasps

I'd be remiss not to point out that when Theon leaves the girl, his cloak is pointedly pinned "with a silver clasp":

Theon swept his cloak off its peg and over his shoulders. "Fathers are like that," he admitted as he pinned the folds with a silver clasp.

Who else pins his cloaks like that?

They went well with the silver mockingbird that fastened his cloak. (AGOT Catelyn IV)
The man wore a heavy cloak with a fur collar, fastened with a silver mockingbird…. (AGOT Sansa II)

Petyr.

The Captain's Daughter & Bryen's Toothless Licking Dog

All that said, Petyr's relationship with Lysa isn't the only thing about ASOS Sansa VI (and VII) prefigured by Theon's relationship with Myraham's captain's daughter.
Consider also the old dog we're shown hanging out with Sansa immediately after we read that Lysa takes "eight long days" to arrive, a la the "wallowing" Myraham taking way too long to get to Pyke, and immediately before we read about Lysa's arrival, when she looks every inch a wallowing tub:

It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived. On five of them it rained, while Sansa sat bored and restless by the fire, beside the old blind dog. He was too sick and toothless to walk guard with Bryen anymore, and mostly all he did was sleep, but when she patted him he whined and licked her hand, and after that they were fast friends.

Where Theon rides out his long voyage at sea with the the oral sex-giving captain's daughter, Sansa rides out most of her long, rainy wait for Lysa with the friendly, toothless, licking dog.
All the dog does is "sleep… beside" — i.e. literally sleep with — Sansa. That reworks the captain's daughter spending the long voyage figuratively 'sleeping with' (i.e. boning) Theon. To this point:

Bryen's old blind dog in her little alcove beneath the steps, and lay down next to him. He woke and licked her face. "You sad old hound," she said, ruffling his fur.

That the dog "whine[s]" and is "sad" recalls the captain's daughter "beg[ging]" Theon to come ashore and later calling to him in a "plaintive" voice while walking "forlornly" adeck when he visits Lordsport. (ACOK Theon II)
The devotion the captain's daughter thereby demonstrates — refusing to give up on Theon, long after he's gone — is reworked by the dog being called Sansa's "fast friend" (i.e. loyal friend), which also works as double entendre referring back to the captain's daughter, as "fast" is a euphemism for a girl who is fast to engage in sexual activity. (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fast)
Note that the dog is never named: It's simply "Bryen's old blind dog", just as the captain's daughter is just "the captain's daughter".
Of course, Sansa does get one small break from the monotony of her time with the dog: her sight-seeing 'field trip' with Petyr:

It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived. On five of them it rained, while Sansa sat bored and restless by the fire, beside the old blind dog. [Dog stuff.] When the rains let up, Petyr walked with her around his holdings, which took less than half a day. [Description of the sight-seeing 'field trip' of Petyr's lands, including all manner of things that 'rhyme' with Theon's description of Pyke, all of which I discuss in detail elsewhere.]

The sight-seeing 'field trip' as a whole reworks the opening paragraphs of ACOK Theon I, in which Theon is likewise taking a break from his usual routine (sex with the captain's daughter) to do a little sight-seeing: Where Theon soaks in the "stirring sight" of castle Pyke on its wave-carved stacks of rock with its banner overhead and the fiery comet high "in the sky" behind it, which he takes to be a (verbatim) "sign", Sansa's sight-seeing tour of Petyr's holdings include a rock carved with the (verbatim) "sign" of the Seven next to a tidal blowhole shooting water high "into the air", as well as "a hermit's cave" where a hermit "groped" Petyr as Theon gropes the captain's daughter just after gazing at castle Pyke and the comet.
It's only when Theon is done gazing at Pyke that the captain's daughter appears on the page and we read about the "certain other amusements" he's enjoyed during his voyage. This gets flipped around with Sansa and her dog: Where Theon found "amusement" in the sex he was constantly having, Sansa is "bored and restless" during her time with the dog; it's only the brief excursion that breaks the monotony of her time (literally) sleeping with the old toothless dog.
The story of how Sansa spent her time waiting for Lysa (with the dog) is thus a 'rhyme' for Theon's time on the Myraham with the captain's daughter. That we read about Sansa's time with the dog (a) immediately after we read that Lysa was, like the Myraham, slow to arrive and (b) immediately before Lysa's arrival, when she seems every inch the wallowing tub herself, further convinces me that Theon's treatment of the captain and captain's daughter do indeed prefigure Petyr's treatment of Lysa and the Lords Declarant, while also by dint of association suggesting that Petyr is trying to groom Sansa as surely as Theon did the captain's daughter.

Sansa & The Captain's Daughter

Regarding Petyr grooming Sansa, when Sansa first comes before Lysa, it seems very much like an echo of what happens when Theon and the captain's daughter go below deck. Consider:

Littlefinger beckoned Sansa forward with a hand. "My lady, allow me to present you Alayne Stone."
Sansa did a deep curtsy, her head bowed. "A bastard?" she heard her aunt say. "Petyr, have you been wicked? Who was her mother?"

Notice the curtsy and bowed head, the bastard motif, and the way Lysa treats Sansa as if she isn't there. This seems a recursion of this:

[Theon] drew the captain's daughter close and kissed her on her ear. "Take off your cloak."
She dropped her eyes, suddenly shy, but did as he bid her. When the heavy garment, sodden with spray, fell from her shoulders to the deck, she gave him a little bow and smiled anxiously.

• "[Theon] drew the captain's daughter close" → "Littlefinger beckoned Sansa forward with a hand"
  
• "she gave him a little bow" + "she dropped her eyes" → "Sansa did a deep curtsy, her head bowed"
  

A few lines later, we read:

The stupid girl did not seem to be listening.

Coupled with Theon telling the captain's daughter she's likely pregnant with "a king's bastard" — i.e. his bastard — that prefigures Lysa's talking about Sansa being "a bastard" as if she's not there, i.e. as if she isn't 'listening':

"A bastard?" she heard her aunt say. "Petyr, have you been wicked? Who was her mother?"

(The 'rhyme' is even tighter if Littlefinger aspires to be king, like Theon. Which I believe he does.)
Shortly after Theon thinks the captain's daughter doesn't "seem to be listening", we read that…

She was timid at first, but learned quickly for such a stupid girl….

As stated in earlier posts in this series, if we remove the sexual context, that's a bald-faced preview of Sansa in her Littlefinger era: initially trepidatious, but quickly warming to Littlefinger and learning to use lies and arbor gold in the service of his schemes, such that he calls the once hopelessly naive girl "clever" — i.e. the same word Theon uses when remarking of the captain's daughter:

She looked rather stupid when she smiled, but he had never required a woman to be clever.

Theon forces the captain's daughter to swallow his 'seed' just before he tells her she's probably pregnant with his "bastard", thus (also) prefiguring Littlefinger's [surreptitiously making Sansa swallow moon tea to ensure she is not pregnant with Tyrion's child], i.e. to cleanse herself of any spawn of Tyrion's "seed".
As I've said before, I have to think the whole 'rhyme' between Sansa and the captain's daughter is there to further the suggestion that Littlefinger is per se grooming Sansa.

The Myraham and Mia Hamm

That the Myraham's story has so much to do with its captain's daughter makes sense given that the name Myraham is almost certainly a nod to Mia Hamm, who at the time A Clash of Kings was being written was widely recognized as the best women's soccer player in the world and newly famous in the United States, having been hyped to the moon before she famously played through injury during the United States' victory in the gold medal game of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, to much media ballyhoo. (see e.g. https://vault.si.com/vault/1996/08/12/uswnt-1996-olympics-gold-medal-china-atlanta)
The thing, is, despite being the most popular and celebrated player on the US team, Mia Hamm wasn't the team captain. That was the older Carla Overbeck, a comparatively uncelebrated central defender. So it's fitting that the story of the Myraham is in large part the story not of its captain, but of its captain's daughter.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 7: Sights-Seen While Sight-Seeing

...And I need to get this out. I'm a dog walker and just recently expanded to offering in my home boarding. My first sleepover was 2 senior (10 & 12 yrs old) Frenchies that were recommended to me by my best friend who is in the same line of work as me, but she was busy this weekend and couldn't take them. I've known the dogs through her for years. One of them is special needs - was born with multiple defects and has had multiple surgeries throughout her lifetime.
Today, I went out with my family for a few hours and put the 2 Frenchies in a large wire crate with a memory foam bed. One of my dogs was crated, and my other dog kept in my office (with the other 2 crates) with a baby gate (office door open so my dog wouldn't scratch at it).
I was gone for just over 4 hours, and came home to find the special needs Frenchie had passed away. She looked like she was sleeping but had also pooped in the crate (she has severe back end issues and couldn't always feel when she had to go so did have incontinence issues sometimes). Needless to say, it was devastating and traumatizing to find her deceased. I had to call her Mom (who just lost her own Mom less than a month ago) and tell her - and she's destroyed. I had to take her sweet dog to a pet mortuary where they will keep her there for her Mom to come back. She was due home tomorrow but started the trip home right away after I called her. Her brother in law met me at the mortuary to grab the other dog from me.
It's been about 10 hours since this happened and I cannot stop the tears or the guilt. I love these dogs and cannot fathom that the spunky little firecracker has passed. I keep replaying today over and over in my head trying to figure out if I did something negligent that caused this.
My best friend who is their regular caregiver insists it was just her time and that she's had many health scares in the past, and that I did nothing wrong. Deep down I know this. But I can't stop crying, and my mind keeps racing with all the "what ifs". Did I somehow miss something critical that led to this? If I hadn't have left for those few hours would this have happened?
Her mom will be having a necropsy done so I'm hoping that will shed some light. But a small part of me also fears that it will show that I did somehow mess up and cause her death - and I don't know what I'll do with myself if that's the case.
Part of me is also very triggered due to losing my Mom 4 yrs ago, and my 15 yr old lab 3 weeks after that. It was a devastating time for me, and I hate so much that my client is now going through the same thing.
It's been an exhausting day and this was truly something I needed to unload, so I'm appreciative of this sub for being here for that.
If you have pets, please cuddle them extra and send some love to my client and her beloved Frenchie.
If you made it this far in my post, thank you for listening.
Edit - a spelling error

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7/3/2019 Last Day of June

“Now Paige, you’re sure there isn’t anything for me to sign?”, my mother asked.
“No mom. It’s ‘Bring your sibling to work day’. Caroline is 10 and old enough for the summer training, even though she can’t officially serve as an Imperial Page for two more years.”, I reply.
At 14 myself, I’ve been an Imperial Page for 2 years now. “I did the summer training.”, a month each, for two summers starting at 10, “I wanted to see if she might be interested serving as well.”
“I just don’t want her getting in someone important’s way.”, mother continues.
“She’ll be fine. The shuttle flights in/out off-world will be the most exciting part. ‘Court’ is currently in session on Tau Ceti 9a, with the Emperor himself at one of the orbital Space Stations. He’s overseeing rescue, recovery, and restoration operations dealing with the aftermath of the two recent super-typhoons on the planet. We’ll mostly be delivering snacks & meals and hand delivering documents and supplies all day. Routine stuff.”
“I just don’t want her to do something to upset the Emperor.”, mother said.
I reply, “He’s trying to help people in distress mom. People left with next to nothing. He’s just a man.”
Mother shakes her head and mumbles, “I worry about that too.”
I snort, “He wouldn’t do anything to us and the Sezrakeen (the Imperial Guard) wouldn’t allow it anyway.”
I remember something they told us in training . . . “Even if you see the Emperor in a room, seemingly by himself, two of the Sezrakeen are always there. Though they can be invisible, and you may not see them. One to protect him from evil in the world and one to protect the world from any evil in him.” No one in the Imperial Court has treated me badly.
Mother finally relents, cleans up after breakfast, and sees us off. We catch the community transit to the city-center, then on to Lacross Spaceport. One shuttle to the regional military base, then a shuttle combining many groups to go to / from wherever Court is in session at the current time.
With 7,645 inhabited worlds in the known multiverse, “Imperial Court” moves around every few months trying to spread the attention around. Currently there are 74 regional centers large enough to house the staff of the traveling court. 17 of which could be classified as “Palaces”. (Including “The Winter Palace” the Emperor build by himself, by hand on Beatrice Nine. It’s beautiful and one of my favorites to visit and serve in, though knowing he was abandoned alone on the planet for almost 40,000 years, time enough to build the central structures by himself . . . sort of brings a melancholy air to the place.)
Caroline and I arrive at R44 (the closest Regional Center), and I take her to Security while we wait for the morning shuttle. I scan my left forearm under the ID scanner. You can wear a ring, bracelet, pendent, or carry a card or pen-sized wand for ID . . . But I opted for the radial (bone) implant. It’s much harder to forget and leave your left arm at home. And since it registers body heat and blood flow, it can’t practically be taken from you and used by someone else. (I did “neglect” to tell my parents I opted for the implant 18 months ago.)
Caroline gets her biometrics recorded. (Photographs, walking gait, finger-hand prints. Reads a sample text for voice capture and a pinprick for DNA.) She opts for a subtle ring ID and asks me, “Why does it look like I’m the only sister or brother here?”
I respond, “It’s only you today. I just wanted you to see what a day was like in the Imperial Court.”
“What do you mean ‘only you’? Is it really ‘Bring your sibling to work day?’”
“As far as I know there is no such thing. I just wanted you to come and see the Emperor and the Court.”
“You’re just bringing someone to see the Emperor of the Known Multiverse and the Imperial Court? Who approved it?”
“I did.”
“You can do that?”
“An Imperial Page can do what they need to.”, I say as we finish her setup. Most of the biographical info (date of birth, relatives, placed lived) I entered to her personnel record weeks ago. I scan my ID and vouch for her to match the biometrics to the central data personnel record.
“Let’s go, the Shuttle will be ready for boarding about the time we get there.”, I put my left arm around Caroline’s shoulders and nudge her in the right direction.
Feeling the tenseness in her shoulders I ask, “Are you worried?”
“A little bit.”, she says with a bit shaky voice.
“Don’t. Just keep your ears open. Follow me and help me whatever I’m doing. Unless someone there directly addresses you, try not to interfere. You’ll hear things meant to be kept private. Try and let it flow in one ear and out the other without thinking about it or remembering it. Normally its boring procedural matters running the Empire. But for the past few weeks at this odd location there has been a lot of ‘sad news’ from the deaths, injuries, from the storms. It’s been turning around a bit. Back to more rebuilding hospitals, schools, city halls, and some factories. You can whisper me questions but try not to bother the others there. You’ll do fine.”
The morning shuttle we are on (of 6 per day cycling in/out wherever court is) arrives and docks with the station. The contents depart and scan past security checkpoints. Caroline her ring and me my forearm. Which leaves Caroline with a perplexed look. (I didn’t explain yet that the implant was an option, and she sees no ring on my hand.)
I lead Caroline past stationed guards, secretaries and administrators, dignitaries, and court personnel to one of the inner facility rooms. One of the court cooks sees me, points to a cart loaded with coffee and tea Thermos’s, water pitchers, cups, and an assortment of donuts, sweets, ‘breakfast things’, and says “Conference L2 Room 6a.”
I begin pushing the cart to the Lift for Level 2, room 6a. Caroline stays almost glued to my left hip. She’s being inordinately quiet. But then I remember what it was like for myself, only a few years ago.
More guards at the conference room recognize me and one holds the door as I push the cart in. One points at Caroline. I simply say, “Sister.” The guard nods.
Caroline and I spend the next 10 minutes distributing drinks and retrieving used cups/plates, and occasionally pulling my sister gently along by her arm. With over 7,000 inhabited planets and an average population of 2 billion, a good 80% of the 14 trillion in the known multiverse have seen images/video of the Emperor. But it’s quite another thing to pass by him close enough to touch for the first time. Not to mention Admirals, Generals, and dignitaries of all sorts around the conference table and outer ring chairs many with a dizzying array of medals, epaulets, and such.
She hands me things as I place them on the table. (So, if she spills anything, it’ll only get me, not a General) and I place them on the table.
I half listen as Admiral Burns shows video on the large screen at the end of the room and describes the current situation on the planet below.
“. . . Rescue operations have officially completed everywhere. Recovery (of human/animal remains) and final demolition of dangerous structures continue in the Rangor and Balok districts.
Next, I’ll go over how we plan to deploy Military-Imperial construction teams to begin assisting with infrastructure repair and restoration . . .”, as the Admiral’s aide works on a laptop on the conference table to bring up the next presentation.
An imperial aide I recognized pops their head in the end door and says, “Sire, message on F23.” The emperor says, “One second Admiral.”, and taps some keys on a tablet at his right hand.
The presentation clears on the end video screen and a woman dressed in what I’ll say is a doctor's white cloak appears on screen. Momentarily fazed upon seeing the Emperor himself, she stutters, “I uhh,”
The Emperor said, “Its fine Doctor. How can we help you?”
The woman tries to continue, “I, uhh. I’m sorry, I . . .”, closing her eyes for a second and opening, “I’m Doctor Akins on Brandenburg 2, Jellico City Memorial Hospital. I have a patient, Angela Graham. I’m afraid she’s had a heart attack and at her age of 97, I fear she won’t last more than a day or two, despite our best efforts. Her son a . . .”, looking down at a tablet she was holding, “. . . Captain Angus Graham was listed as family-emergency contact with instructions to call the Regional Base and explain any issues. I vid-called and two people later and I’ve somehow ended up with you.”, she adds hesitantly, “Sire”, not quite sure the proper form of address for the Emperor.
The Emperor responded, “He’s on station here with his Star Carrier the Perecles so they bounced you through to us. I’ll find him and let him know to go home. Thank you, Doctor Akins.”
The Doctor nods and the screen returns to the aide’s presentation slide.
Caroline and I had been clearing coffee cups and snack dishes from afternoon tea away from the conference table and were pushing the tray to the door to leave when the Emperor held up a hand towards us.
The Emperor asked aloud “Donna? (The computers name) Locate Captain Angus Graham”.
Donna: “Captain Angus Graham has just entered the Officers Lounge on Deck 23, at Bulkhead 41.”
The Emperor hand wrote a note on a sheet of paper, folded it in half, looked my way and said “Paige”.
Paige was an inconvenient name to have in my position, I was never quite sure if he knew my name and was saying Paige or just Page.
“You heard the location?”, the Emperor asked
Paige, “Yes sire.”
“Directly to Gus.”, the Emperor said, handing me the folded note.
I nodded.
Pushing the tray on through the door, I saw another page standing nearby and said, “Please.”, pointing to the tray and nodding to the closest kitchen. Thomas nodded and began pushing the tray in that direction.
We, Caroline and I, headed for the nearest Lift. (The multi-axis elevators that span the height and breadth of the station.) And I spoke tilting my head up a bit, “Deck 23, closest Bulkhead 41.”
“Deck 23, Bulkhead 42.”, the Lift responded.
The station bulkheads are about 50ft apart, so not that far to walk.
I opened the folded note and read it silently.
Caroline, still at my side and mostly silent since a flurry of questions when we stopped to have lunch, finally spoke inside the Lift, “Can you read the note?”
I responded, “An Imperial Page can do what they need to.”
We reached the Lift destination. I spoke to a nearby common terminal and said “Officers Lounge Deck 23, Bulkhead 41.”.
The terminal responded back, “The Mango Room. Light Blue”, simultaneously a Light Blue courtesy light appeared on the wall-track and began moving at a walking pace to the right.
Caroline and I followed the dot as it matched pace to lead us.
We reached The Mango Room double doors.
I tried the door handle but while it turned, the door didn’t unlatch. I tapped the “knock” button on the rightmost door.
A few seconds later a man about 40, with slicked back black hair and a pencil thin mustache appeared on the screen above the knock button. Seeing me, he only said, “Beat it kid. This is the Officers Lounge.”, and the screen went blank again.
I pressed the button again.
This time when he appeared, I spoke before the man could, “I am an Imperial Page with a message to be hand delivered to Captain Graham. I believe him to be inside.”
“I don’t give a fuck who you are ‘Little Girl’. Children aren’t allowed in here to bother the patrons. Get lost.”, the man sneers and clicks off again.
I turn and retrace steps to the Lift, Caroline following.
I tell the Lift, “Armory”.
Scanning arm ID at the doorway, we enter and I approach the wire cage behind which stands a man I have never seen before. I fill out a “request form” on the tablet nearby, tap it to and scan my ID to the nearby sensor.
The man looks at the list popping up on the screen on his side of the cage, “A bit young, aren’t you? Why don’t you try back in a couple years.”, snickering and turning back to his desk behind him.
Back out the Armory door, to the Lift and back to the conference room with the Emperor.
I enter, holding one palm back, indicating for Caroline to stay in the doorway of the room.
Saying nothing to anyone, I walked around to the left of the Emperor and pulled the Imperial Signet off the little finger of the Emperor’s left hand and placing it onto my right index finger, while he continued to ask questions about Engineering Group deployments on the planet below.
Outside the conference room, I pointed my index/middle finger in the direction of two Imperial Marine Guards on the distant side of the room, in self-contained fully body armor then motioned with a cupping hand a ‘follow me’ hand signal.
Four of us in the Lift this time.
Back at the armory. I held my right hand up in a fist, index finger with signet facing the clerk, then swept the signet over the ID reader and entered the Emperor’s personal 18 character passcode.
The display lit up on the clerk’s side of the cage . . .
Things moved much faster this time.
The Armory attendants fitted us both with PDS’s (Personal Defense Shields), I pointed at Caroline and said “Openers”.
One Armory tech clipped two breaching charges on Caroline's belt, as I reached for the thermal viewers and mid-sized carbine the other tech held.
Facing the two Marines that had accompanied us, I waved my left hand in their direction and said, “Released.” They turned and left.
The tech previously holding the carbine asked, “You know . . .”
I turned the side of the weapon towards him and said, “Kill/Stun”, clicking that lever to Stun pointed at a 2nd switch “Rate of Fire, Single, 3 shot burst, Full Auto”, and pointing to the last, “Power Setting”.
I turned to leave with Caroline in perpetual tow.
Caroline asked, “A gun?”
I responded, “The Power settings for Stun go from level 1 to 5. One would sting. Two feels like a dozen angry bees stung you with the pain fading over the next hour. Three might knock out a child. Four would definitely knock out ANY ordinary man/woman, unconscious for an hour or so. Five would stop a charging elephant and bring it to the ground for three or four hours.”
I click the carbine settings to Level Two . . . Full Auto.
Back at “The Mango Room” doors, I swatted Caroline with the back of my hand to see our PDS fields light up and confirm it on like mine, flipped down the thermal viewer over my eyes and look to see if anyone is standing directly behind the doors.
“Take one of the breaching pucks off your belt.”, holding my hand up as if I was carrying one on my fingertips, “Set the dial on the side to 2.”
I look down the hallways to the left and right. No one on the left. I hold up one flat palm and stop a group to the right in their tracks about 20 yards away.
Speaking to Caroline again, mimicking the motion I say, “Fling it towards the center-line between the two doors.”
She flings the puck, it self-orients to flat-on face the two doors.
A half inch from the doors it discharges. The central 90% of the doors vaporize and blow back past Caroline and me in a plume of smoke and wood-metal shards. Harmlessly skittering off and around our PDS’s.
Mustache man steps out from beside the doors and seeing me begins to approach. I aim the carbine at him and hold the trigger down moving the impact point around his body.
They shoot you once during page training at settings two and three. A single shot at level two hurt worse than anything I’d felt to that point in my life for the next hour. A week later when they did Three . . . I was out for an hour.
I can’t imagine 2 seconds of Full Auto felt pleasant as mustache man crumpled to the floor.
Officers and Civilian Dignitaries around the room stood up from their tables upon seeing/hearing the door breach.
I took the opportunity to step up from one of their chairs to a nearby table, trying to dodge drink glasses.
Addressing the room with a firm voice, “I am an Imperial Page. With a message from the Emperor for Captain Angus Graham. Captain Graham present yourself.”
The crowd somewhat parted as a man in his late 60’s answered, “Here Miss.”
Stepping down from the table/chair, slinging the rifle, and approaching Captain Graham, I didn’t remove the note, but chose simply to speak directly to the Captain.
“Gus”, (the Captain understood it was the Emperor speaking), “Word just came through and it seemed better to deliver it in person. Your mother has suffered a heart attack and we fear her time is near. If your responsibilities allow it, take my shuttle and go home while you still can. Spend what time you need with her. I’m very sorry old friend.”
The Captain responded softly to me, “Thank you John.”
I stepped back and to the side, using my right hand to wave Caroline back out of the way.
Captain Graham passed through the crowd, presumably to gather personal items and head home.
I, with Caroline following, turned to follow Captain Graham out.
The “very angry” bouncer was just getting up on one hip, trying to push himself up on one hand and yelled through clenched teeth, “Why you little Bit. . . ”
He didn’t finish the sentence. I clicked the gun up to level 4, single shot, pushing him back 3 feet, and pinning him to the wall. Unconscious for at least a couple hours this time.
Caroline and I returned to the armory, dropping off the Carbine, Thermals, PDSs, and one un-expended breaching puck. Signing them back in. Logging one puck as “expended”, and 0.2% down on the carbine charge.
Back in the Lift to return to the conference room, I notice out the corner of my eye, a still silent Caroline, looks over and up at me with a thousand questions on her face.
I continued looking forward at the Lift doors and said, “An Imperial Page can do what they need to.”
I reentered the conference room, Caroline still in tow. Walked around the Emperor to his left, lifting his left hand and placing the signet back on his little finger and whispered, “Thank you John.”
As a video of reconstruction projections continued on the vid-screen at the end of the room, the Emperor nodded to me, understanding the message was from Gus and after I had crossed around behind him, looked to his right and said, “Thank you Paige.”, nodding to my sister, “Caroline.”
Caroline, her eyes as big as dinner plates, half bowed, half curtsied, and we left the conference room.
I looked over at Caroline, “It’s been a long day for you. We can just catch the next shuttle back to R44 and home if we leave now.”
Off the local transport, our parents were just stepping out of their personal car. Dad had two grocery bags in each hand, mother had two in one hand and was reaching for the last one in the open trunk-hatch.
“You survived!”, she said teasingly, looking our direction.
“Yes mother.”, I said.
“Did anything interesting happen?”, she asked.
“No mother. It was just another ordinary day. Passing out coffee, meals, and delivering notes.”, I replied
Caroline picked up the last of the grocery bags from the car while mother closed the hatch.
“How about you nibblet?”, Father asked, stopping to look at Caroline, “Were you bored to tears? Do you think you might like to be a Page in two more years when you’re old enough? You’d have to go through the training classes for the next two summers like your sister did.”
“Yes father. I think I’d like that.”, and lead the way into the house.
Caroline sets the grocery bag on the kitchen table and moves into the living room to sit down on the sofa. She faced the vid-screen and clicks it on. One of the weekly shows is on about one or another of the nation’s larger zoo’s. But she’s got that “glazed over” thousand yard stare . . . That I probably had after my first day after seeing the Imperial Court.
I wonder to myself if she’ll follow in my footsteps. Someone, from somewhere will need to replace me in about two years. In theory you can stay an entire career as a page. Some do.
But in two years I’ll be sixteen. And with four years’ experience as an Imperial Page, I can begin training for a range of other jobs in the Imperial administration.
“Combat Courier” sounds interesting.