Fellow Brothers and sisters in Christ, please take this time to read, I need your help.
With me being a Babe in Christ this situation is very hard for me to understand, please help guide me in this. In the Bible, dream interpretations were vital. For example, Joseph in Genesis and Elijah. Recently, I have had the same vivid dream for 3 nights in a row (two other times separately, both being very clear in mind) and although the gift of dream interpretation is rare in todays time there’s a part of me that wants to see if any of you may know(through your connection of the Holy Spirit) what this means and if it’s significant in anyway. Often times, in random situations during the dream, I would blink and immediately find myself grabbing a pregnancy test. I would look at the results and it would be positive. Now I will be honest, I have suffered three pregnancy losses, one being early this year. So having this dream was not anything shocking to me and I pushed it off due to my loss and having a strong desire for a child (I lost my baby in March, I started having these dreams in early May) Anyways, it happened a second time the next day, again, weird but I paid no mind to it due to my strong desire of bearing a child. But then I had it a third time and that’s when I realized that this dream pattern was not normal for me. Now additionally, I had two of the same dreams two separate times after that. In one of those dreams, I looked down and seen a positive pregnancy test but along with it my belly was enlarged as if I was 5-6 months pregnant. I felt a very strong attraction to it and it was very odd. Now, there is a 6th dream, and this is what caused me to come to you guys. In the middle of my sleep, I found myself sitting in an ultrasound room. I looked up, and seen a screen reflecting an ultrasound image. (To add, my belly was still enlarged and looked about 7-8 months pregnant.) As I look at this screen I see three grown fetuses and two empty sacs. I remember feeling of being scared because I didn’t fully understand what was going on with me, but I really think it was because it was so unexpected and overwhelming.
So in conclusion, what does this mean? Can someone break this down for me? And by break it down, I mean pray and meditate to see what the gift of the Holy Spirit will tell you? If you don’t think it’s anything significant, please explain why. I can’t help but to think that God is wanting me to know something.

I (23F) am a mom of a 2. Been with my boyfriend, their father (26M) for 5 years. In the beginning when I first met him, I was only 4 months into being 18 and was trying to get away from an abusive ex at the time. I was acting out, I was being impulsive, doing stupid things. I had went out and messed with some random guy not even within 2 weeks of knowing my boyfriend. We were just hanging out, smoking, vibing… he was talking to people I was talking to people. Fast forward a year and half roughly, he found out about the situation. I didn’t tell him when it occurred because 1. I didn’t know we would end up being together 2. When it happened, i barely knew him for two weeks 3. I wanted to just forget it had happened… I hated myself. We end up getting our own place a few months after he found out; mind you, when he found out, we both agreed we would leave the past in the past and move on— that included him not talking to girls behind my back either. He made me delete all my socials and make new, made me tell him anytime a guy tried to hit me up…. After a few months of getting into our place I found out I was pregnant with our first. At this point, it’s been about 7 months since he found out. I haven’t gone through his phone because we agreed we would do right by each other so I’m trusting him. Fastforward to when I’m 4 months postpartum with our first. I had this gut feeling to check his old phone. His old phone was connected to the current one he uses and I found out the entire time he had still been talking to girls behind my back. Sending pictures, facetime, dating apps, all of that. He cried and swore he was going to stop. This cycle has been on repeat ever since to this day. He says he’s going to stop, I trust him, wait a little bit maybe a couple of months, recheck his phone to find he is still doing it, and so on. He’s gone as far texting a girl he used to have sex with in college pictures of our first born when he was a newborn and I just found out a week ago they used to have sex. He told me she was just a friend initially. I recently just had our second, and I found out again he has still been talking to girls. Even went and met up with a girl at a hotel. That’s not even the worst of it… throughout both pregnancies he has lied and disrespected me. My second pregnancy was the worst because I knew everything he was doing. He called me every name in the book in front of our first born. Made me do everything up until I was about 38 weeks pregnant— laundry, cleaning, cooking, taking care of our first all while I also worked from home and he just went to work and came home. Cussed me out for asking him to change diapers or brush our child’s teeth while i was pregnant. This most recent time I caught him, now he’s saying he is done with me because I keep going through his phone etc. but after all of his mental and emotional abuse I still stay. Why? I don’t know. I’m very self aware that what I am going through is not okay. I’m aware he is a narcissist and a manipulator. He has degraded me, made me feel ugly, etc. and he uses what I did in the very beginning as leverage to do whatever he wants. Every time I catch him lying again he goes “well you’re the only one that’s actually gone and done something” and this was 5 years ago and he said he forgave me and now he says he can’t forgive me and he chose to stay with me. I have changed for the better. I’ve been doing right by him. I have done everything he has asked while he continues his behavior. I feel so lost. I’m going through PPD and he tells me to my face he doesn’t care about me. What do I do… I’m scared to fight for custody. I sometimes feel like he doesn’t deserve custody because of how he treated me my whole second pregnancy making me do everything for our first. He’s never done one load of his laundry, I gave all the baths, majority of the diaper changes, and yes i know he worked but when he was home I still had to do it, he’s never even brushed his hair, cut his finger nails or toenails, I have done everything! And now that our second is here, I’m the only one up at night. I BF our second so I have to feed her but when I ask for help with diaper changes he won’t get up, tells me i can do it myself while he sleeps through the whole night. I am just so hurt. He keeps betraying me because of a past mistake I made when I was not okay mentally and thinking irrationally after being abused by my ex physically mentally and emotionally and he knows about it all! He now has changed his phone password so I can’t ever find anything out. Everyone is telling me to leave and that he won’t change and I deserve better. My kids deserve to see their mom happy and not crying all the time. What do I do :(

This might come off as asshole-isa h to say maybe but I (15 fm) hate my dad. I'm gonna use this post as a giant rant. For my whole life I've had a weird relationship with my dad, I've always excused his actions and I'm tired of it. My literal first memory is when I was about 1 or 2 I think. I was angry at my older sibling for some reason so I tore up a sheet of paper I found. Its something I tend to do when I'm very upset and it just helps me to not be mad idk. The piece of paper happened to be my siblings homework, I didn't know this because at the time, I couldn't read. After my dad found out he beat the shit out of me. That's my first memory of my entire life. Ever since I was a kid, he's always been working very long hours (he works on a railroad) so especially when I was younger I didn't see much of him. Whenever he came home I would realize that my mood when change, I felt more uneasy whenever my dad was home. Most of my childhood was like this, my dad would be gone most of the day and when he was here he was angry for any reason he could find.
In 7th grade, my dad let his uncle live with us. His uncle was old and had dementia and he wasn't able to live on his own anymore. I didn't have much of a problem with this, aside from having to now share my room with one of my siblings. My mom really didn't like the idea but there was nothing she could really do about it. Whenever I would get home she would always make up an excuse for us ( me and my two other siblings) to not be home. One day when we were at my grandmas house we got a phone call from my dads cousin saying that my uncle had molested someone in our family a long time ago and was in fact a pedophile. My parents fought for a while after this, my dad apparently knew the whole time and did not believe it. Eventually, he was sent to a retirement home. I learned a few months ago that one night when i was asleep, my uncle had tired to break into our room in the middle of the night. My mom was really mad and my dad did not care at all. He still brings this uncle around us and defends him to this day.
Nowadays, my father seems to resent me especially. He only ever talks about me to tell me everything wrong with me, about how worthless and useless I am. He calls me a disgusting slob with no self respect and constantly comments on my appearance. If I wear clothes that fit me or show skin, I'm being revealing and he will say gross things. If i wear baggy clothes, I look homeless and I'm embarrassing him. If i show any time of negative emotion whatsoever, he will go on a huge rant about how horrible of a person I am and everything wrong with me. He comments on what I eat constantly. If I eat something healthy, he will act offended and say something like "what are you, on a diet?" If i don't, he will call me a pig. I developed an eating disorder at 14, and lost a lot of weight in a very short amount of time. There were times I wouldn't eat for days and he wouldn't even notice. I doubt he would even care if I told him.
All he ever talks to me about is how much I ruined his life, even though I'm not his only kid. (im the middle child.) He tells me that he doesn't get to have a life and that all he does is provide for us. He tells me that he doesn't do anything but work and drive me around. I have no idea what he's even talking about because I am rarely able to go outside and hangout with my friends. The last time I saw my friends outside of school was February. I am so sick of him acting like I'm the worst most evil being for simply being alive.

This is post is half offering knowledge, half soliciting advice.
Common ttrpg wisdom advises against splitting the party, and for a few good reasons. However, splitting the party can be awesome. Halfway through my current campaign, I asked my players, "What do you want more of from here on out." A recurring answer was "more splitting the party."
Why? Party splitting:

• Puts more of a spotlight on each character. The fewer PCs there are in a situation, the more impact one character's abilities or decisions have on the outcome of that situation. (but don't confuse spotlight with screen time -- more on that below).
• Creates a more cinematic tone. Cutting between conflicts is classic in cinema. Go no further than the 3rd act of Return of the Jedi to see a lightsaber duel intercut with a ground battle intercut with a space battle. Basically every mainline Star Wars movie since then has sought to recreate that.
• Creates drama! Fewer PCs means fewer resources. We all know the best stuff happens when the chips are down. To steal a screenwriting adage: run your PCs up a tree then set the tree on fire! Players get very creative when their resources are low.
• Encourages new character interactions. You know how your party works together, but have we seen how the paladin and the warlock act when they're on their own and need to shoot their way out of a tight spot?

But as I said earlier, there are challenges (what follows is a non-exhaustive list):

• Screentime: If only some players wind up in a combat, the others not in the combat have to sit around, or when the do play, they're just investigating the vizier's study or whatever.
• Metagaming: The players in the study will want to join the combat, and they will try to despite there being no justification within the fiction.
• Difficulty: This, I believe, is what people are talking about when they say "Don't split the party!" Some fraction of the party will encounter encounters designed for the whole party and will be turned into hamburger.

So how do we meet these challenges to get the amazing benefits:
Tackling the screen-time challenge is simple, but takes some thinking on your feet. You just need to cut from one sub-party to the other regularly, and ideally at dramatically appropriate moments. Keep an eye on the clock or a timer running so you can get back to the other group at regular and fairly short intervals.
The other two take some forethought, and I only recommend doing this with a party you have been playing with for a while and know well.
The trick is to know, ideally before the session, when your players are going to want to split up, or to somehow narratively guide them into splitting up if you want (more on that second point later). Then, to mitigate the metagaming issue, place your dramatic moments or combats where you feel the sub-parties will run into them at the same time. AND/OR adjust when or where the subparties encounter certain things on the fly to match the tension with the other sub parties.
Once you've thought about where your party might split up, the difficulty issue becomes very simple, just plan encounters balanced for a fraction of the party instead of the whole party. You may have different versions of the encounters planned depending on if they split up or not, or you can adjust on the fly. Some DMs might balk at this as me not creating a real and persistent world, to which I would say: we have different styles.
Before anyone argues against anything here, I'd like to say that I respect your thoughts and different things work for different groups, but I do this and it works and my players like it.
Now here's where I ask for advice from those of you who do this:
Next session, I will be employing all of my powers as a DM to run three mini sessions at once. I am extremely grateful to have a group of players who are close friends and who trust my occasional hare-brained ideas for unconventional sessions.
My campaign is coming to an end, and the final battle with the BBEG is on the horizon. He has amassed an enormous army, and the PCs can't stop him on their own. So last session, I asked them all: What character, group of characters, or inanimate advantage from the course of our 7-year campaign do you each want to call upon to back you up in the final battle (these NPCs wont be in initiative, but will be providing benefits elsewhere). For reasons, they know some magical plane-hopping wolves in Ysgard who will instantly take the PCS directly to whomever they name.
My game has 6 players at level 19. My original plan was to have 6 very short scenes, in sequence, where the characters are taken to the ally they names and then have to overcome some challenge in order to either assist or save the ally (our campaign is in the context of a major multiversal war) or convince them to join. However, pairs of my players happened to all choose characters that are either already in the same place in our campaign, or it would make sense for them to be in the same place now.
So instead of 6 little scenes, I'll be doing 3 scenes with 2 characters at a time. To make things simple, there will be some combat waiting for each group of two. They don't need to engage, but hopefully they do so that we will have 3 very different battles going on at once. (one against an ancient white dragon (with no legendary actions) one against a squad of giants, and one against a horde of MCDM minions).
My plan, after introducing each little scene, is to basically make one initiative with the combatants in each scene clustered together. So if two players meet one big bad guy, they will each have a turn, and then we will move to a round in another scene, and so forth. If a round in one scene is especially quick, I might do another before moving to the next scene. I plan on being pretty flexible with that depending on how its feeling
These combats have been meticulously balanced as challenging but not impossible encounters for 2 characters of level 19 (accounting for the particular makeup of each pair). And keeping things in initiative means that everyone will be playing almost exactly as often as they would be in a normal combat with all of them.
So, I'm eager to hear your thoughts and/or advice either on my advice on splitting the party above or on my scheme for my next session. Thanks!

Hi guys. I tried this post once before but I had never done it. I made it too long and didn't put the right info in. Take two. I hope this is better and much easier to follow. Condensed.
I met my family at 14. Adopted at 17. We all lived together. They moved 2 months before I was 18. They now live 11 hours away. I am broke and in college. Pregnant and didn't know in this scene. They are wealthy upper class. 4 bio kids plus me. Fast forward. I drive down about once/twice a year for either Christmas/summer. They have never come to see, but I got there was more of them at the time.
I'm 21 now and it's a couple weeks until Christmas so we head down to celebrate. We open gifts at the end of the visit. My parents choice not my own. While there my parents leave for a date night. Just me and me SO watching the four kid. My 5, almost 6, and 7 year old brothers are in their room taking about me. 5 year old says he wants me to go home so he can open his gift. 6 year old says stop someone will hear. 5 year old keeps going. I call him down and calmly explain that was hurtful. I know he is excited for the gift but I also wish he was more excited to spend time with me. If he is going to act unkind to me tho maybe he won't get the gift. He went back to his room and continued on about how he doesn't like me now and I need to just go and give him the gift. He went on for a while before I called him down again. I go more in depth this time about why he is feeling this way, explain how his words made ME feel. I also say I will not be giving him his gift anymore so maybe we can focus more on our time together and not the ending gift. We hug it out. We are fine. Conversation over. I still had half the week and most likely would have changed my mind about the gift had he changed his behavior. Parents come home and I give them a break down of everything. I make my brother tell them what he said about me. Some of it anyways My dad talks to him and says wow thats really unkind and he can't believe he would even say that. Brother says he just wanted the gift. Here is where the turn happens. My mother turns to me "You aren't going to give him his gift?" With all the kids in the room I again explain no, gifts are given out of kindess. When he treats me kindness again I will do the same. He should know his words carry weight tho. She starts blowing up on me about how I'm being childish and need to grow up. I explain again well it's my money and so it's my choice as it has not been given to him yet. She gets very irrated with me. Starts going on about how he is just a baby and shouldn't have consequences. Age gives leniency and understanding, not complete excuses imo. But she is going off about how he is a baby and I need to give him the gift still. Mind you all the kids are still in the room. So my brother, who was fine before, is not sobbing saying he just wants the gift. I have anger issues I've had since childhood. I'm aware. I know when to step back and breathe. I said I needed a minute to calm down. I go to the bathroom, they are outside still talking to me through the door. I go to the other living room and I'm followed again. Now my anger is really tipping over along with the pregnancy hormones coursing through me. I'm sobbing at this point. Just please let me breathe. Just give me a second to calm down. Leave me alone right now PLEAASSEEEE All I got in reply was We need to talk about this right now, like adults. You need to calm down and stop. You're so worked up right now about what a 5 year old said. Quit being a cry baby and grow up. Imagine being in a full blown panic attack, can't breathe, sobbing, just trying to walk away for a second and literally being followed and just told to stop. Calm down. Just quit. This goes on for well over an hour. By the end, I puke. Not even then do they stop following me to harass Mr and say to calm down. At this point I have set a boundary REPEATEDLY about needed space. I said if I don't get the space I will remove myself from the situation. This was before I puked. Finally I pack my stuff and as I do so my dad is standing over me trying to talk to me. My mom is in the other room yelling about how I need to grow the fuck up. We are heading out the door suitcase in hand. 11pm at night. We get chased all the way out the door to just stop and they don't understand why I'm trying to leave. Leaving is the most childish thing and I'm proving their point. I hugged the kids goodbye and said I loved them. Drove all the way home that night. This happened a couple years ago at this point. I bring it up now because my mother continues to. Rebringing up how I traumatized the kids and she still can't believe I acted like that. No matter what or how I explain it, I'm somehow still the bad guy. I explain I laid a boundary and she didn't respect that boundary. I had to remove myself as she deemed the space unsafe for me. She told me I'm such a cry baby I leave no room for respect when I act like I did. I can admit I overreacted. I know I was getting worked up by the end. Hence why I kept trying to remove myself. But she explains it as an adult would never have gotten to the point I did. Pregnant or not, trauma response or not, overwhelmed or not, ect. What bothers me is the ENTIRE situation is my fault. I feel like the who problem was them not respecting me and my boundaries. A lot of people said no contact last time. I Stay for my siblings who 3/4 also don't like her. Guess which one does? I also got told it was too much to not hand him the gift and I over reacted, I feel that was consequences of his actions as I told him prior he was being unkind and he pushed forward. I know he is young but I've seen 2 year old who act better than my brother did at 5. Side note, I have tried talking to my mother about how she makes me feel on separate calm occasions. When I say she is bullying me and tears me down, she tears me down farther and gaslights me. Says she doesn't bully me. She pushes me because she expects more of me than my birth family. She also said that I am just damaged and am trying to push away the only family that actually wanted me. The only other family being my birth family. And before anyone asks yes. They signed their rights to me at 14 years old. I was in and out of foster care and by 14 I was old enough to say no. I don't want to go back. So they signed away rights and never spoke to me again No I have never had a break down like this but I've never been pregnant on top of a panic attack.

Part 1 here: https://www.reddit.com/relationship_advice/s/Aju5QNxQhP
Cut to one month later and I have become more careful now. We are trying to make things work. He has new issues because I have told all my friends about what he did after I made him leave the apartment at 2am and now he is insecure about how my friends, who have such a big influence on me, see him. And they hate him. I said a lot of mean and rude and disrespectful shit to him when he was leaving that night and he has issues with the things I said when I was angry. (Yes ai agree they were v v mean. Things like "I was settling with you anyways. I can do better" and " I hope you have a daughter someday and then you realise what you have done to me" "I hope your family suffers" ) There are new issues to be dealt with and we are struggling but still trying to figure it out. One day I wake up to get ready to go to work and his phone is next to me. I open it and start scrolling. He had told me a year ago he is off all social media because its a waste of time and he wants to focus on his life and make money etc etc. I do not find anything on his phone. It is wiped clean. I am about to keep it down but I just open up his imesseges and start scrolling. Nothing here. literally 5 seconds before I am about to put it down I see the "verification code" for a DATING APP!!! I redownload multiple apps and find his profiles on it. MULTIPLE APPS. Those profiles are from 2021 summer. When we were having a rough patch. There is not much on there just small talks but then I see him asking this girl to connect on IG. I then find his alternate social media profiles where he is not that active but they are profile nonetheless. I find chats from 2020 year end (when we were 6 months int dating) and he is talking to some girl i have no idea about like he is single. He had hooked up with her before we met and is telling her how he craves companionship (while he is dating me lmao). I am shocked but I do not respond like I did last time. I calmly wake him up and show him what I found. He has nothing to say to me. I tell him to find a new place and move out by the end of the week and that it is over.
He makes arrangements to leave and go back to the other city from where he moved to live with me back in 2020. He has one week and he tries everything to make it up to me. He cries and apologises and gives reasoning. He explains how it was his mental health and he only wanted to feel loved and he was not feeling that with me. He says he never met anyone and as I must have noticed it was just small talk. I am not convinced. Instead I now know there is more to this shit. i started keeping my old phone's recorder on while leaving for work at 8:30 and would come back at 6:30 and listen to what happened while I was gone. I find him talking to his guy friends in a completely different way than I knew him. His friend advising him to just cry and beg me to forgive him and him saying how fucking headstrong I am and I need to understand the reasoning behind every action before I can even think about forgiving him. How I do not have the capacity to understand blah blah. He is also accepting how he has majorly fucked up and there is nothing that can be done at this point. It's like he is a different personality with this guy he is talking to. in 20 months I had never seem him talk like this. Somehow a week goes by and he leaves. I am heartbroken and destroyed. I am crying and somehow making it through each day. I still don't have any friends or support system in this city. It had been 3 years since I left home and I decide to go back to visit my family.
I come back feeling a little better.
Cut to May 2022. He starts calling me up and apologising again. Says he is ready to do anything and everything possible to make this work and accepts everything and how he fucked things up and has realised his fault. He literally emails chapter long messages - apologising and trying to make me understand his view and how he has loved me and how his intention was never to hurt me but my actions made him so such things. How he has insecurities and because I did not treat him well and he felt unloved he did all this.
I am not convinced and I am just trying to figure my life out. A month later my brother is diagnosed with cancer back home. I am all alone and my employer does not let me go back. My immigration status is at stake and my parents tell me to stay where I am and prepare for my bar exams and that they will take care of it. They say it is not life threatening and he will get better then come to me for further studies - after his treatment. Now I have to clear the bar and get a better job so when my brother comes I am ready for him and to sustain him. I have to save money and get a better place and get my license so I can take care of my brother after his surgery and treatment. I am completely alone and broken. I am helpless because I can't go back and I dont know what to do here in this country when my family needs me but my entire life and career and last 3 years are at stake and I can not leave either.
I cave in to this guy again and forgive him for my own selfish reasons. He supports me like never before. He takes the next flight to be with me and take care of me. He stays with me and makes sure I am eating properly and reassures me when I am losing my shit. He was always good at that. He was always the perfect bf on face. It was the shit he did behind my back. I do not trust him but I let him stay. End of 2022 I fail the bar and he is there. he supports me. He is there for me throughout. He is all I had so I let him stay. He gets a chance to make it upto me. He tries to be as transparent as possible this time.
2023 my brother gets better. I study for the bar again and pass this time. He cries with me when I open my result and pass because he as seen how hard I worked and how difficult it was for me to do this while my family was back home dealing with so much. I get a better job. He helps me move. I am not financially dependent on him. I never was since 2020. It is the emotional dependency.
Now he thinks we are trying to fix things and make it work but I can just never trust him. That trust is gone. Absolute 0. He is still trying. He is of the opinion that what happened was both of our fault and it was because we were 25 year old immature kids who didn't know any better. Throughout 2023 I give him a lot of shit over my trust issues and he 90% of the time takes it. Anything happens and I am ready to end the relationship. He somehow still manages.

Last summer my parents put in a pool in our backyard, but the thing is its an above ground pool. Ive never really thought fondly of those. But anyways what makes the situation worse is that im on the rise at school. I joined my school a few years ago and wasn't popular, however over this past year ive been talking to a lot of people and hanging out with them. Just a few weeks ago I had an awesome birthday party and people loved it and had a great time. I always promise these people for the best experience possible when they hang out with me, so when my parents told me that they were putting in a pool I was super exited, however It is an above ground one witch kind of caught me off guard. I then suggested that we build a luxurious and really good-looking deck around it so when you look at it will be hard to tell that its above ground. I'm not trying to sound spoiled im just trying to give my new friends the best possible time and make them want to come over again and I think building a deck around the pool would really help me in achieving that. Just recently a girl in my class came up to me and asked whether it was above ground or inground, I doged the question immedetly. Over this passed week ive tried to convince my parents to put in a deck witch they said yes but its not a deck its more of a patio. Im honestly just considering inviting everybody to my grandmother's beach house instead. But the thing is I dont want to upset my parents, I just feel like if I go through with it and Invite people over they will not think its that good. I know that I sound extreamly entiteld but please look at it from my perspective. I live in a nice area, Ive never reallly been popular over the past few years and im finally sucseeding in school with other people/classmates only for this to happen, I dont know what to think, its alot of pressure when people ask about it.

Rybakina vs Paolini :

This quarterfinals in the WTA seems fairly straightforward. The challengers are excellent, but the favorites really should win. Their games are bigger, they have more experience, and they’re in good form. None of that means much once they take the court though, and for Jasmine Paolini, having no pressure pairs nicely with having a lot of experience against this opponent. Paolini has played Rybakina 4 times, and the h2h sits at 2-2. The two wins were on hardcourt, and both were withdrawals so that stat is kind of misleading. A better result for Paolini to draw on is their match in Stuttgart a few weeks ago (indoor clay), where Rybakina won a close match in 3 sets (6-3, 7-5, 6-3). That seems like conditions that should benefit Rybakina a bit since serving indoor is usually a bit easier, so Paolini will have some belief here.
Last year these two met in Rome, with Paolini coming up short in the first set tiebreaker before losing a lopsided 6-1 second set. Now that I’m done listing random match results, I’ll tell you what I actually think. Rybakina beating Svitolina is a good warmup for playing Paolini because of her rally tolerance. Both Paolini and Svitolina do most of their work with their forehands, and while Paolini is a better mover on clay than Svitolina, Rybakina can still hit winners past her when she’s set. Rybakina served at 54% against Svitolina, and that will probably make her lose to Paolini. Jasmine’s entire game is built around extending rallies and making her opponent move until they make errors forcing shots. If you give her control, she has a great off-forehand that is pretty hard to read. She also commits to taking the ball early when she can so someone like Rybakina without a quick first step is in trouble if she’s not hitting big. Luckily for Rybakina, she hits hard on most shots and she stays in cross-court patterns that are tough for her opponent to escape. It’s a big step up in competition for both players, and this should be very close. I’d compare it to Rune and Zverev, where one player just has a slightly simpler approach but all their rough patches will be extremely costly. Rybakina’s offense should pull through in the end, because even though she’s not the best mover she’s fairly consistent from the baseline when she has to be. Rybakina in 3.

Andreeva vs Sabalenka :

Andreeva got better and stronger this year and that is really cool to see. The losses have started to look rough on her, but the experience she’s gaining at an early age is very similar to what Gauff and Anisimova went through on tour. It sucks to lose, but you have to work through some Ls to get to a point where they don’t scare you anymore. Adjusting your perspective and developing new ones can really change our experience in life, so on the other side of some tough situations will be a player who will be ready to win when it’s finally her time. For now, she seems good enough to beat all the 2nd tier players, and not quite ready in terms of physicality to beat the best. Sabalenka was a scary player when she was wildly inconsistent, and now she is playing solid ball.
Despite her high octane game, Sabalenka is now one of the more consistent performers on tour. She’s 20-6 this year and the focus and commitment she has shown on court is a remarkable change from her early seasons. Her strokes have improved, and her backhand now is a very fluid technique that lets her infuse pace without missing much. Sabalenka beat Navarro in straights, and Emma is around the top level I think Andreeva can bring. Sabalenka has also played Andreeva twice already so she will expect to be playing long baseline rallies and she’ll know her opponent won’t cough up many unforced errors. Both previous meetings were lopsided straight set wins for Aryna, but this is still interesting because of Andreeva’s progress. Mirra is still improving, so her ceiling is uncapped. She can improve over the course of the year, or in a single tournament, or even during a match. The turnover on tour is tough at times when we have favorite players, but watching the phenoms figure it out is pretty cool too. For now, I think she continues to lack the power to really score here, so Sabalenka’s winners to unforced error count is what matters here in the end. That ratio tends to be positive these days, and she’s well rested and in good form. Sabalenka in 2.

Ruud vs Djokovic :

I’m a little sad here. One, because I was expecting Ruud to come up big and beat Djokovic. Ruud has struggled against the big 3 in these big matches at majors, so even though Novak was not at his best it would have been nice for Casper to just get one back. One of the reasons I like the aging champions to play a little longer is because the wins against them can be the defining moments of a young player or journeyman’s career. The second reason I’m sad is because tennis just isn’t as good without Novak Djokovic, and injuries take a long time to recover from and tend to re-occur when you’re in the second half of your career. A meniscus tear can be fixed with minor surgery and rehab, but having uncertainty about placing your full weight on your knee is tough on any surface. With the ultra slippery grass season coming up, it’s just the wrong time to be returning from a knee issue. Healthy people are getting injured out there, so I worry we might not see Novak again until the North American swing.
Djokovic had a strange tournament, and doubled over after long rallies in an homage to Monfils that made me think he actually might have been tired. After watching the guy rally and win for so long, it’s hard for my brain to even compute that he might be getting tired playing tennis. Almost losing to Cerundolo is rough, and I’m sure Francisco is kicking himself a bit for not putting that match away. Djokovic indicated that the painkillers kicked in in the fourth set, and that’s where momentum shifted. It felt like Djokovic was missing and not running down most dropshots, and Cerundolo had started to just rally and assume Novak would miss. Djokovic locked in though, and once he stopped missing Cerundolo didn’t really notice. I don’t think Djokovic could have won the set from 0-0, but from 3-4 it was only a few games away and Djokovic was excellent at applying pressure here since he’s a great returner and Cerundolo only really scores with his forehand.
For Casper, it’s a big bonus. He’ll play the winner of Zverev and De Minaur and he should like his chances against both. Given how well ADM is playing and coupled with the fact that Zverev is still favored, Ruud can expect it to be a long match. Zverev playing multiple 5 setters before a guy who wants to grind long rallies and kick huge topspin at him is a tough one, and again Zverev has gotten the night session which (as Zero_Dimension pointed out to me) is not his preferred conditions because it’s a bit colder. Ruud played solid against Fritz and outlasted him after a frantic first two sets, and his experience and professionalism means we’ll have a great semifinal on this side. Hoping for a quick recovery for Djokovic.

Zverev vs De Minaur :

I thought Medvedev would outlast De Minaur because of his ability to serve and extra wingspan, and that’s part of why I think he’ll lose here. Medvedev was doing well against Alex in the previous round, but he had some blister issues on his feet and it has been well documented in the past that this just isn’t something you can play through. No slight to De Minaur here either, if your opponent suffers from a wear and tear issue, you partially caused that. Alex is playing much better on clay and has pulled two solid upsets here. Zverev would be favored against Medvedev on clay, but if he won in a runaway 4 sets it’d be a very impressive win.
Zverev and De Minaur have played 9 times and Zverev is 7-2. The 2 losses were in team competitions, which many players don’t take as seriously as tour events. The main issue in the matchup is De Minaur’s backhand. It’s a stable shot and his footwork is great, but Zverev hits the ball much bigger on his backhand and is more consistent with it. It means that De Minaur’s best strategy (the inside out forehand) is sort of neutralized. De Minaur’s serve also is more about location than pace, which means Alex’s wingspan gives him the ability to return well. Add in that De Minaur’s ball is much flatter than most players on tour, and clay doesn’t really help him.
There are a lot of things working against De Minaur in this matchup, but there is still hope. He pushes the pace better than almost everyone on tour, and he is looking sharp this week. Zverev has just played two 5 setters against players that De Minaur might very well beat on clay, and he has fallen into push-mode in some big moments which always leaves him there to be beaten. Zverev is in great shape and wasn’t even sweating much or breathing hard at the end of the Rune match, but he is a bit dense about the game itself at times and his forehand can break down. When he’s struggling, he’s usually slow to adjust, so I think De Minaur can get one of the first two sets. From there, I don’t know. Zverev’s serve is a huge weapon in this matchup, and he’s dominated the h2h. De Minaur has a puncher’s chance, but it will take a lot of punches. He beat Struff by working for unforced errors against a guy with poor defense, too much impatience, and a rough backhand. He beat Medvedev by outworking a defensive guy with mobility issues and an inability to hit through the court on clay. Zverev on clay is a bit like a combination of Struff and Medvedev, and I think he gets through here. Playing 5 with Rune isn’t great, but Rune is adept on clay and has the ability to elevate his game against the big names. Zverev in 4.

What is good advice for this? Over the past 8 months there has always been an issue with her ex. You can tell by the way she describes him of being an angel. She moved across states for the summer. She stated she was upset that he the ex now works at her favorite coffee shop that she always goes to and now can't go anymore. I made a sarcastic joke about getting him fired and she laughed it off. Then I thought what if I actually did? Well I did. Sent in a customer review and bam he was gone the next week. Now fast forward 3 weeks. Later on she calls me and says guess who now works with her friend we'll call samantha. She asked me to guess and I just told her to tell me and she said her ex! We'll call him Jake. As she's laughing with Samantha over the phone to me I sit there with a straight face really pissed off. She asked if I was still on the line and I said yep and proceeded to ask why I didn't laugh which I said there was no point in this convo. I ended hinting that I was the reason he doesn't work there anymore. She laughed it off and couldn't believe it. Later that night, Samantha leaves and it's just me and my gf otp. She asks why I did it which I told her my reasoning. She was upset at that and didn't understand why. My dumbass self things it's okay to change up the story, so I make a fake instagram dm request like Jake wanted to contact me. I send it to her and she believes it...for a little. Now it's the next day. I get a call at 2pm asking what my problem is and asked why I lied? I asked what is she talking ab and she told me she contacted Jake to ask what it was about? He insisted and proved that he didn't say anything. I apologized and knew I lost all her trust as she's telling me it. She's ripping me a new one and hinting at breaking up. Then, I hear her friend chime in as she's at her friends house and now let's call this one Ashley. Ashley is now giving me advice on what to do when my gf is right next to her. I just sit there upset and agree bc I didn't want to argue. She's saying we need a step back and we're going to fast in this relationship. I ended up saying I will change and I'm sorry and it's a promise and ended the phone call on a good tone with each of us saying we love each other. Hours go by and as I'm falling asleep I get a text saying "goodnight I love you" Now the morning, no good morning text as I sent the first one. She reply's "good morninggggg" and confused self I went along with it. I called her and really spoke out my heart. How truly sorry I was. I had a letter written I wrote throughout the day in my notes app as to what to say. It ended up being around 1000 words. After I read it, she states she understands that I'm sorry but doesn't know what to believe me. And also states she's always heard "I'm going to change" but really they never did. I promised that I am changing and something like this won't ever happen again. As she is more upset I lied than what l actually did. A core moment she said to me was "what do you not get, I don't want a bf" and insisting on a single summer together but have contact still and not ghosting and try again in the fall. Knowing that won't work, I said no to it. As she says "when we are broken up, I want to be able to come and hug you if I see you in public and ask how you are. Which I said no and wish I states she will lose that right and privilege with me. We go in circles and I close out the phone call saying I wish she can trust me and that we don't need to be deciding our future 15 hours away and when she flys back here for a week or two, we can decide this face to face, other than that we are bf and gf and I will treat her as a gf but with space. Not texting her 24/7 and not calling her. 30 min later, she asks to apologize to her ex which I got his number and texted him everything which included the amount of respect I have him for the amount of love and care was he had for now my gf. He leaves me on read and my gf says "thank you" to me. We go on and she asks what l'm doing. Starts respond. To my snaps I'm sending are really confusing. Then when we have talked the last 30-45 minutes. She states a simple texting saying "I miss you" as I reply I miss you too. We see eachother in 6 days. Through this, I have not been heard once or can explain without getting yelled at nor one chance to respond to say anything. Everything is my fault and I'm the pos and she is a perfect angel. Do I break up with her? I'm currently really lost about her words toward me especially today. Do I keep giving space? I can't lose the love of my life.
TL;DR; : I got my gf ex fired and lied to her about a fake dm. She’s yelled at me for it the past 2 days hinting she doesn’t want to be with me anymore, but shows signs that confuse me and now I don’t know where I stand.

My experience with telepathy has gone on for several years. It turns out I’ve been in contact with many beings—both on earth and interdimensionally. Here is a list of recent things I’ve learned.

1. This material world is an illusion, or in their terms a “fantasy” and they are in reality. The two are complementary but can never meet.
   
2. Making fantasy into reality is what we do when we turn thoughts into something actionable.
   
3. What happens to us after we leave corporeal form is based entirely on our own fantasy of what comes next. Ie: when we die, our fantasy of what happens to us becomes our next reality. So if you’re worried about death, they say, manifest in your mind what you want to experience next and you will be given the choice at life review. It’s only a trap if you think it is.
   
4. Almost all of us have already ascended to the next reality, which is fully telepathic.
   
5. Unfortunately, this world may end with an apocalyptic change they call the cataclysm. It wil occur, and as always, take dates with a grain of salt, Dec 3, 2026 with the eruption of a super volcano in the South Pacific. They told me my corporeal body will die of exposure on Dec 27, 2026.
   
6. However, this is just one potential ending. Another may be the same supervolcano starting to erupt under the ocean, but technology that has been worked on for thousands of years underwater will harness the energy and fashion it into a generator that will provide “free” energy to the entire planet. It’s not clear to me how the difference will be decided, but it seems to be based on how many people fantasize about a positive deus ex machina style intervention as saving us
   
7. I honestly don’t know what to make of it, there is so much more than I can describe in a Reddit post, but their message is that every single one of us will be saved, every one of us will be better off than ok and the human race has been accepted into the galactic federation, assuming individuals accept the tenets of universal love.
   
8. We must clear the way for the next wave of humans to evolve and ascend…(human beings being a collection of sentient species, not limited to typical earthlings.
   

There’s probably more but this is a distillation of the finer points of my own experience over the last 7 years.
I want to believe. I do believe. It has taken a weight off my soul. See you all in the next reality, which is our current fantasy.
Love,
Moist Pineapple

Around 10 months ago I posted on here asking for advice: my boyfriend of 9 years had fallen into a really deep depression and was lashing out on me. Threatening to break up. It was so terrible and I really thought it was probably over. He rejected any help and said hell no to therapy. I don’t know what changed, but over the weeks (it didn’t happen over night) he became more open to the idea of finding a therapist. On his own, he picked one out and started going. Things at this point were still so hard. BUT! With the help of his therapist he decided he wanted to change. Therapy helped him sooooo much! It was so exciting to see him slowly have happiness again. There was a lot of reparations that had to happen between us (I found my own therapist too). It was so much hard work for the both of us. But for a long time now our relationship is stronger than it’s ever been. He still gets depressed sometimes but he’s able to vocalize it and communicate. We have never been stronger. Last week, he proposed to me and we’re getting married next year. :)
I’m taking the time to write this out because I personally saw how incredible it was for him to work with a therapist on his mental health. The therapist didn’t cure him, but he did help him navigate the rough waters. My boyfriend (fiancé!) was so anti therapy for a long time. Now, he can’t see himself stopping anytime soon. If you’re reluctant to try: try with an open mind! Gradually, it might really help. I thought change was impossible. It wasn’t!

Here's a post for those who like to really dig in.
Kubrick is my favorite filmmaker, and I love all of his films except this one. I still think it has much to recommend it and is easily worth watching for any devoted cinephile, but I don't think it succeeds as a film. Below is my beef. Let's learn from each other in a spirited discussion about why I am or am not wrong! But first…
~Acknowledging what the film does well~

1. The setting is exquisitely realized, unforgettable, and deservedly iconic. I doubt anyone else could have reimagined the language and alienness of the novel for the big screen the way Kubrick did.
   
2. A few scenes and sequences are absolute stunners. Off the top of my head:
   
   1. The opening credits and Korova Milk Bar scene
   2. In general, the horrific antics of Alex and his droogs, which are fantastically filmed and paced, with stunning style and set design, and which form a relentless barrage on the senses in the best worst possible way
   3. Alex's threesome and the scene preceding it
3. Several shots also amaze:
   
   1. (Many shots from the above)
   2. Alex looming over his droogs after suddenly attacking them
   3. The rightly iconic image of Alex's face as he undergoes the Ludovico Treatment
   4. The final shot of the film (which is actually my favorite final shot of any film, ever)

~Why I think the film fails~
~1) Unevenness in inspiration and pacing~
The film bursts out of the gate, immaculately paced and astonishingly creative up to the point of the home invasion. Excepting Alex's visit by the school principal, it is a tour de force of novelty in setting, language, costumes, and sets, immersing us into an alien setting with incredible craftsmanship.
Then Alex is imprisoned a mere third of the way through the film, and both the pacing and the inspired perfectionism rapidly grind to a halt. I don't agree with those who say the film glorifies violence, but I can understand why they think so, because the violent scenes are far better executed and more fully realized than the rest of the film.
I'll explain exactly why I think so below.
2) ~Many scenes in the back two-thirds are overly expository, on-the-nose, or otherwise heavy-handed:~

• Alex discussing the Ludovico Treatment with the preacher. This scene is not only blandly expository, it also sees a character delivering the message of the film as a line of dialogue, something Kubrick never stoops to before or after ACO. This is artless by any standard, let alone in comparison with the elliptically thought-provoking delivery of the themes of 2001, Eyes Wide Shut, and Full Metal Jacket.
• Alex coming home after treatment
• The final scene, which is barely more than a longwinded exposition by the minister (till the incredible last shot, of course)

3) ~Other scenes are unintentionally(?) comedic or just flat-out cheesy, undermining the otherwise dark and serious tone of the film:~

• The stage demonstration of Alex's successful reprogramming. The very concept here is absurd—no audience would be remotely convinced by it because obviously any inmate would happily participate in a staged performance in exchange for a get-out-of-jail-free card.
  • Even setting that aside, the "antagonists" in this performance are flat-out ridiculous. The aggressor is some dweeby dude tweaking Alex's nose. Seriously? A nearly naked woman is then trotted out to tempt him in front of an audience of white-collar experts and leaders—because that's normal in this world, apparently? (More on that later.) Alex is apparently willing to attempt to take her right in front of them. Of course he'd be happy to fuck in front of an audience of aristocrats (and the final shot of the film undoes his failure to do so here in a sense), but he also knows a) he won't be able to (though he somehow still doesn't act like he knows he's "cured" when he returns home later) and b) even if he somehow is able to, he won't be able to finish the act if he does, let alone get out of prison!
  • Oh, and the preacher of course hits us over the head with the theme of the film AGAIN.
• Alex's former droogies beat him silly. The sound effects in this scene are cringeworthy—enough to single-handedly relegate this film to Kubrick's worst-aged. (The beating is rather unconvincing as well, but that’s far less intrusive.)
  • I will say that the tracking shot on the way to the trough is nice, though.
• Alex returns HOME. In a burst of bad writing, our humble narrator happens to stumble his way straight to the HOME house, where the most ludicrously over-the-top pre-Nicolas Cage performance in film history is about to be given by the writer he assaulted two years before. Words cannot do justice to the ridiculousness of the delivery of How's the WINE? and the other dialogue here. But nothing can match the laughably spasmodic reaction shot when the writer realizes who Alex is. Kubrick seems to have… interesting ideas about how people process trauma.
  • Also, Alex has already long-since recognized the writer, yet he's going to belt out Singing in the Rain in the bath? Really?
  • Then his face-first collapse into his spaghetti is played for laughs, because the film has apparently become a cornball comedy at this point.
  • (I do like the addition of the ripped bodyguard/lover. After failing as a protector, the writer switches roles, seeking someone who can protect him instead. A nice touch, and way more subtle than the failed moments of this film.)
• Alex in a coma. And look—the doctor and nurse are secretly fucking behind the curtain! …for some reason.

4) Still o~ther scenes are simply rather uninspired and tedious by Kubrick standards:~

• The preaching scene
• Alex's checking into prison
• Alex's checking out of prison
• Alex's checking into the Ludovico facility
  
• The Ludovico Treatment—partly. Alex's reactions are great. But the "ultraviolent" movie clips we see aren't even more violent than other real-life 70s cinema. It was a mistake to show what Alex sees on screen, and a mistake that those administering the treatment don't look away from the violence or even seem distressed by it.
  
• Alex is accosted by the old hobo. This scene is just really underwhelming. Why doesn't the hobo fear him…? And then it's Lazy Writing 101 with a diabolus ex machina as the former droogs show up, sparing Alex any significant revenge from the man he beat nearly to death…
  

Note that I'm not calling these scenes pointless; they serve clear purposes. But they do so in ways that or either so artless or so silly that they destroy our hitherto immersion in this fascinating setting. The expressions and speech of the prison guard who checks Alex in are farcical—but not half so much as those of the writer upon his realizing who Alex is. But this film isn't a farce, and these elements blend in terribly with the rest, while the plodding and expository scenes drag the pacing into the gutter, especially juxtaposed with the electric first 45 minutes.
5) ~Clumsy plotting~

• The minister checks Alex's cell before coming out to the "exercise" yard. This could have been a great, subtle moment, where it appears to the attentive viewer that the minister is investigating the clues to Alex's psyche (boobs and Beethoven) that he will need to successfully mind-fuck him later. Except it can't be that once we realize that…
  
  • Alex has not yet been selected for the treatment. In fact, it would appear the preacher hasn't even advocated on his behalf, because the minister chooses Alex solely on the basis of our narrator’s own initiative.
  • The minister has seemingly not in fact realized that Alex's fondness for Beethoven could be exploitable, because when Beethoven plays in the theater, it is apparently a coincidence! Those administering the treatment even briefly discuss the possibility of calling it off.
  • These facts reduce the minister's investigation of Alex's cell to rather lazily written coincidence, robbing it of its cleverness and robbing the diminishing the sinister character of the treatment by making the Beethoven part accidental.
• The very day Alex is released from prison, every last one of his ghosts from the day before he went to prison just happens to return to haunt him in convenient succession. After his failure to return home, he just happens to run straight into the old hobo, from whom he just happens to be "rescued" by his former droogs, after which he just happens to stumble his way to the home of his assault victim, who just happens to be intimately connected to high echelons of political operatives. This is astonishingly lazy writing, especially by Kubrick's standards.
  
• How the hell is Alex "cured" in the end, anyway? Coma magic? Magic head trauma? Magic dreams of people poking around in his gulliver? (I feel like I may have legit missed something here.)
  

6) ~Worldbuilding WTFs~

• Why does sex publicly permeate everything in this universe? It's not remotely limited to Alex's obsession with it, which is understandable for a teenage dude (his violent impulses are not, of course). Young girls suck on penis-sicles. Alex's otherwise plastic parents have nude paintings on the walls of their family home and don't seem to care one bit about the "art" in his bedroom. His school principal apparently wants to jump his bones, though Kubrick does absolutely nothing to connect that information to anything else in the film (even though it seems kinda important). The woman Alex murders might be taken for a pornographer as easily as an artist. The upper-class audience to the "proof" of his being "cured" thinks nothing of a nearly naked woman being trotted out on stage. The doctor and nurse are fucking for some reason. The Korova Milk Bar is a place, and classy women go there.
  • There's nothing absurd about imagining a future world where society is more openly obsessed with sex per se. But in this particular universe, that obsession seriously diminishes Alex's own unhealthfully violent obsession, making it look almost like a natural outgrowth of his environment.
  • That's the point! you might claim. He's a product of his environment! But Alex is clearly meant to be a transgressive figure, not a natural outgrowth or a typical teen. He's supposed to be an outlier. People rightly recoil from his actions. Making the rest of the world sex-crazed undermines that considerably. It also makes it harder to tell what we’re supposed to think his transgressions are exactly in the eyes of the adults around him.
• It appears to be de rigueur in this universe that middle-aged women have brightly dyed air. That doesn't really drag the film down particularly, but adding weirdness for the sake of it does interfere somewhat with the viewer's attempts to parse out the film’s own language of what is important information.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone had a more interesting take on this than I do, and I'd love to hear it if so.
~7) The constant belching~
It should be retching. Enough said.
8) ~The theme of the book (and by extension, the film) never was nearly as interesting as people make it out to be~
I've saved perhaps the biggest for last. The whole question Does programming someone not to violently murder make the state just as bad as them? can be answered with a rather obvious No, it doesn't even remotely do that.
Just look at the implausible plot gymnastics Burgess/Kubrick have to employ to paint Alex's fate darkly enough to make the question even slightly interesting. Our humble narrator and droog just happens to be assaulted multiple times, then driven to suicide through mental torture, all in the same day he is set free, by the very people he viciously wronged when he had "free will". Oh, and he happened—purely by accident—to also be programmed not to be able to listen to his favorite music.
Without these ludicrously convenient plot elements propping up its empty husk, the question becomes indisputable. Alex's story becomes one of a murdering serial rapist who is now unable to commit violent crimes, yet whose freedom in every other respect can safely be restored rather than forcing him to live behind bars.
Is this more benevolent than locking him up where he would lose the freedom not only to rape and murder but also to do basically anything at all? Yes.
Is it better than letting him rape and murder people? Yes.
Is this an interesting philosophical debate? No.
Maybe this question seemed more interesting in the super decadent 70s, but with violent right-wing psychos not unlike Alex DeLarge seizing the levers of governments around the world, in retrospect it seems like our armchair musings might be slightly better direct.
And even if you find this question interesting, isn’t it a bit of luxury to be pondering this in a world where real-life prisoners who’ve committed far more benign crimes than Alex lose essentially all say in their lives in almost every respect, often for life, and are even executed by the state? Wouldn’t it make more sense to sort out that problem first?
The film (and book) create an amazing setting, but its supposedly contemplative undergirding is feeble at best. This makes it harder to argue that there is a deep intellectual justification for the violence that is so central to the story. Personally, I can appreciate the accomplished showmanship for the sake of it—but wrapping it in a philosophical fig leaf only does it a disservice in my opinion. And the showmanship almost entirely vanishes after the first third, so…
~Before you say that…~
Kubrick is just being true to the book! That doesn't excuse anything. Kubrick is responsible for his own creative choices, and we know from other films (the Shining, Barry Lyndon, Eyes Wide Shut…) that he feels no obligation to hew to his source material.
Those parts didn't make ME laugh! Maybe not, but surely you would at least acknowledge that they're rather over-the-top. And would you have an argument for why they should be that way? Is there a reason Alex and his droogs should be among the least over-the-top characters in this film?
The final two-thirds aren't uninspired! I'd love to know why you think so!
~Epilogue: My own devil's advocate~
As I thought might happen, while writing this I did think of some interesting counterarguments to my own points—or one of them, anyway: The caricatured nature of the characters might be explained by the fact that they are seen through Alex's eyes, which hold nearly everyone in derision. (In general, the film does a fairly good job of limiting itself to his perspective, although I suspect some of the cringeworthy plot choices also result from this stricture.)
I'm skeptical that this is creditably the intent, but I will probably end up watching the film again just to keep an eye out for whether it holds up. If you also take the sex obsession as a projection of Alex's warped psyche, then this might explain that as well. Who knows—maybe I’ll realize it explains a lot!
But for now I'm skeptical.
~Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts!~

I feel so stupid needing to reach out about this, but it's truly driving me into one of the deepest depressions I have felt in a long time. Before anyone suggests it, yes I am in therapy and take care of my mental health medically, etc, but this is a situational thing I am trying to work on.
I dated someone for only about 3 weeks last month, but it was really intense. He told me we had a rare connection but that ultimately he would not stop drinking and if I wanted to I could wait around for him to "get his life together" but he could not date me in any meaningful way. But this is after hanging out and sleeping together and him basically acting like my boyfriend for 3 weeks (yeah, I know, I should not have let this happen) and the worst part is, I was sober for years myself (not in any program, just stopped drinking) and he pressured me to drink from the moment we met. I somehow caved in, I don't know what it is about this person, but I caved in and drank with him. I felt so violated because he would always bring up me drinking fetishistically like, in a text, talk about me drinking, encouraging me to drink, even though I told him over and over again I didn't want to drink, and that I didn't drink.
And of course because I got drunk with him, I slept with him earlier than I should have. I am beating myself up about this, I feel so used and violated, but only because of my own terrible decisions. He texted me all day every day for weeks, and was very affectionate, but every time he would come to hang out with me he would already be wasted. I don't know the full extent but he seemed honestly physically addicted to alcohol at this point, I mean I know it when I see it, I've been there... but anyway one night he even got so drunk and high he passed out and I basically had to sit there and wait for him to come back into consciousness to even be present with me. Why did I put up with this?
And for some reason, all I can think of is that there is something wrong with me that made him not want to date me. He said things like "haven't you ever dated someone you wanted to get married and have kids with?" and I was like "... honestly no, why?" but he wouldn't tell me why, just cryptically said "well our connection is really intense and I wasn't prepared for this." What does this even mean? All I can do is think about how I must just be this trashy horrible person who is undeserving of love, and how this person just wanted to use me for whatever, I guess to get drunk with and use for sex or something. I can't shake this feeling. And the worst part is I just wish I could help him. I felt whatever connection he referred to, but he was so drunk all the time I have no idea if he even realized what he was saying.
I don't know what to do. I haven't felt like this before ever. This experience entirely fucked me up. I feel like all of the work I have done to heal myself and feel self-worth and self-love has been obliterated. I can't sleep, and I feel stupid for it because I only knew him for a few weeks. But whatever he said to me, and the fact that he said he would not date me but only wanted to continue I guess "getting to know me" and sleeping with me because he would not stop drinking heavily made me feel so worthless. He said he couldn't take care of himself so how could he take care of someone else. Well why put someone through all of that fake stuff for three weeks only to let them know it's just fun and games or something? I don't know. I am so destroyed over this, I have no idea why.
Is there anything to read that can help with recovering self-worth? I have been going to AA meetings myself because this relapse turned really ugly for me independently of him, another thing he will never know. I haven't drank and I don't want to. But I also don't really want to be alive for the most part anymore. I feel like a piece of trash, like men just use me for sex and I have no idea how to recover from this -- to be told alcohol is more important than you, that must mean you are really worthless. I don't know.

Okay so hear me out. I feel like a lot of the economy feels kind of... predictable? Arithmetic? It doesn't feel like there's true bubbles or financial crises or unpredictable booms and busts, and things are very much dependent on what I guess I'd call "hard" factors that, well, duh... of course a war is gonna hurt some parts of your economy. Of course leaving a market will hurt, or cutting an import route, etc. I feel like the lack of a banking system of some kind is the culprit to this feeling, where the player comes away from it with a feeling of "well, why did the countries of the early 20th century simply not cause a depression? Were they stupid?" When things go south, you generally only lose what the immediate math says you will, with not a lot in the way of secondary effects outside the immediate supply chain at issue.
Enter the financial district, coming in 1.7. Right now they appear to mainly function as a way to move profits around in a more realistic way and represent ownership better, which is awesome, but I think they could do more. Imagine each financial district in addition represented the banking system in that state. It would have a credit balance in addition to the ownership/dividend tracking, a balance much like the player's credit balance. The credit limit to this balance would scale based on the size of the district, tech, and laws. The first inputs and outputs would be simple: Deposits from pops flow in, loans towards the private investment pool go out. Then it would have outflowing interest to pops that made deposits, growing those deposits. Next, depending on the ratio of pop money to financial district loans in the investment pool, there would be a chance the building that is constructed would end up owned directly by the bank and pay dividends to it to try to represent the return on investment. And lastly, pulling deposits out would of course be an outflow. To simplify the deposit lifecycle I think the easiest way to model it under the hood would be pops technically tracking their own deposits rather than a leger at the bank, so things like pops dying or assimilating is handled cleanly - if they want to pull it out, they could then essentially flag the bank to give them some amount of money <= total deposit amount.
So, basically that creates a way for money to keep recirculating and get used more efficiently than just consuming straightaway. It also creates an outlet for excess cash besides large SoL numbers. But most importantly, now you can get bank crashes...
On the subject of the credit balance. Generally speaking, the bank is going to want to aim for a fairly neutral balance, perhaps slightly negative because we love our debt spending, don't we? But sometimes, shocks happen. Pops stop depositing. Even worse, they might pull out money. Dividends dry up. Well, the bank will be able to try mitigating this - they could decrease the interest rate to depositors and increase the interest rate on loans, represented as a buff to its received dividends and an equal and opposite malus to profits applied to the building those levels are in. It could also cut back on loans to the pool and just try to go austere for a time until it is comfortable with its balance. All of this has ripple effects - lower interest will certainly lower the savings rate of pops in the state to some extent, as they would rather consume than accept paltry rates. Higher interest will crimp productivity of the levels it owns. Less money in the pool will hurt the construction sector in the state and reduce deposits that way. Maybe it works out, and after some belt tightening the balance sheet looks good and the financial district loosens policy. But what if it doesn't get better? What if pops start pulling money out of the bank because all this tightening has put them out of work or crushed their wages? What if it start to look like a bank run?
If the balance of the bank gets low enough, a journal entry should appear for the player about the banks in a state being in crisis. This journal would simply challenge you to get the bank on its feet. Help the bank become solvent and get back into the black or at least out of the deep red - perhaps with a bailout if you have the money, or maybe you will have to throw some government money at alleviating a shock in supply or demand with the right construction here or there, or a PM change may need to be undone or undertaken. Maybe changing tax policy or a tariff here or there will do it. Or maybe you will just wait and see. Whatever you choose, if the bank scare recedes, great, take a breath and chill. Maybe you get a temporary boost to the savings rate in the state as pops gain renewed faith in the banks. But let's say you go with wait and see and things don't get better, or your fixes are too little, too late. The bank exceeds its credit limit. Everything gets real bad. Immediately, a small proportion of the building levels owned directly by the bank are put up for sale, and this proportion can be increased somewhat through tech. Any cash they get for these sales would go towards the depositors, in order of largest depositors first, of course! The rest of the building levels, and any building levels that aren't bought up, are closed. Everyone who still had deposits at this point in the financial district no longer receives interest and the deposit is of course lost. Perhaps local events might ask the player if they would like to make pops whole... or a politically important subset, at least. Those not made whole will become quite radical. The financial district's banking component would be defunct for a year, with savings rate going to zero until it restarts lending.
Of course, this is just one state, what could go wrong? Well, given through the banking feature districts can now directly own many buildings across many states, this is a contagion that can spread easily. Unemployment in other states from those closures will put stress on those states' banks, which could succumb as well. Not to mention a bank run is bound to make the national news and crimp savings across the country to some extent as psychology takes over. Quickly, this can get out of control...
Equally, if things are going well, as mentioned this would allow excess money to not just go straight to more consumption but instead more directly fuel further growth. I think the fact that everything so quickly just gets dumped into more consumption results into the simplistic feeling of the business cycle right now - making the same pound/dollasimoleon get invested and reinvested multiple times along its journey rather than solely be an instrument of direct consumption would make things a lot boomier, both for the player and AI. Also, you'll notice I only mentioned financial districts and not their cousin the manor houses. I think a worthwhile difference this could highlight is that a bunch of dopes playing cricket, skeet shooting and sipping tea aren't going to give you the kind of banking benefits of the financial district. Maybe a limited good old boys deal where manor houses just deal with landowneclergy deposits and push private investment pool construction in a rural direction would be good, but I was thinking just have them not do any functions of that sort.
It also opens the door to a central bank tool for the player at some point down the line that could really affect these banks in cool ways, making monetary policy an actual thing, but this would be plenty for now. Throw in some local events that might create some regional investor confidence/fear or white collar crime scandals and other minor disturbances of the banking system, and it could be a fun and impactful system to your economic gameplay. I know it's definitely a massive abstraction and is far from a fair accounting (heh) of the actual Victorian banking system, but I think in terms of a player's experience with it, it could do the gameplay job it needs to do. Other than that, I guess performance cost is always the albatross hanging around, but if it could be made to work...

So I am 31 years old. I have one friend (a coworker) besides my wife and after work one night last week we hung out. After a few drinks and smoking some, he informed me that people at work view me as "weird" like in the way that I act and things. He's not the first person I've heard this from about myself and I hate being that person that people have to stick up for, which he says he does when people talk about me behind my back (things like "Why do you hang out with him" and "Why are you friends with him"). Work is really the only social time I have and I am just being my normal self. How do I become less of what seems to be a nusence to everyone else? I don't know how to be anything but myself, which is pretty pretty much someone who is wide open 24/7 even when working on night shift and a fairly wild and energetic person with no filter and a extremely dark sense of humor.

To cut a long story short, I made a comment last night on Twitter about being disappointed in a minor celebrity that my family used to listen to a lot from pivoting from "centrist" who once stated that he didn't care how you lived your live so long as you aren't hurting anyone to right-winger doing projects with DailyWire and PragerU, in response to someone wondering what had happened to him.
The guy wasn't tagged in the conversation, but apparently he searches his name on Twitter because I woke up this morning to find that he had quote tweeted me at one in the goddamn morning and because of that my inbox was filled with replies from his knuckle dragger followers and DMs outright telling me to kill myself or telling me, a cis woman, that I'll "never be a real woman" and intentionally using he/him pronouns to refer to me because I have "she/her" in my bio.
Y'know, perfectly normal responses to me saying that I had once thought better of someone.
Anyway, everything was pretty rancid, except for one comment from some Firstname Bunchanumbers calling me a "coward" for not using my legal name or posting pictures of myself on my publicly accessible Twitter account. Did no one teach these braindead boomers internet safety? Or is it Facebook's fault for normalizing putting your face and your real name next to your absolutely rancid takes?

"Cancer, as known to the State of California, is this bag of roasted peanuts." Is what she said.
I wasn't paying attention anymore. I was staring instead at the goat.
I think that goat was actually Fred, and we just didn't know it yet.
We were still on our little detour when it started getting dark across the desert, rather quickly.
"I don't want to drive back in the dark. Let's stay in San Piana." Gloria had said.
That's when what appeared to be the same goat crossed our path.
I had to slam on the brakes, a cloud of road dust flowing over our vehicle and hovering over the road before us.
"I think that's the same goat." I said. I looked and saw it was atop someone's roof, staring down on us with red glowing eyes. I felt nervous while it looked at us, it's blackening silhouette against the evening sky looked sinister.
"Ew, I hate goats." Gloria got out her phone. "We have no reception out here."
I checked my phone - she was right.
"Let's find a place to stay for the night, then." I told her. We left our car parked in the middle of the dirt road leading into the village and took our bags to the nearest shack.
I banged on the door. A little old lady opened the door, with half her face looking like it would just fall off her skull at any moment. "Excuse me. We are travelling on our way to my sister's wedding, and we decided to drive this rental car. Now we are stuck here for the night, because the road back to civilization from this little detour is too dark and treacherous to drive back at night. So, we need to stay here tonight."
She said nothing, but reluctantly shuffled out of our way as we brought in our bags and made ourselves at home. I looked around at the little hovel, and despite looking like a primitive shack from the outside it was rather clean and tidy inside. "Not too bad. I thought it would be filthy in here."
"No vacancy." The old woman grumbled.
"Yes, of course. We have this little bed and breakfast exclusive to ourselves." I smiled, sat back in her rocking chair and put my dusty boots on the coffee table. The little old lady remained stoic, but I could tell she wasn't used to civilized folk. We took over the bedroom and left her on the couch, whining rather unprofessionally about her arthritis.
In the morning the lazy stiff had gone cold, forcing us to make our own breakfast. While we were eating, the village's chief showed up. He was wearing a brown button up shirt with a logo on it that vaguely looked like a county sheriff at a glance.
"Mrs. Summers has expired?" He noted the little old lady was still wrapped in an Afghan on her couch.
"Yeah, could you help me with that? She smells gross." I went to one end of the couch and indicated that I needed his help. He reluctantly assisted me while we took her and the whole couch outside and left her on the porch.
"Now I'll have to wait here with her until they can come get her. We have wild animals around here." Thoman sat, looking sad.
"Why the long face?" I asked.
"I just, it's sad she's gone. I've known Mrs. Summers since I was little. How'd she die?" He wondered.
I shrugged. "She was old?"
My wife brought out our bags, glaring at me for not helping.
"Well, we'll leave a nice review." I patted his shoulder and then left him there.
We tried to drive out of San Piana, but as we turned around, we couldn't quite find the road that led back the way we had come. We circled around for awhile while the villagers came out to see what we were doing. We waved as we drove past them and finally I stopped and asked how to get out of town.
They all pointed in eerie unison, with weird blank looks on their faces. I was feeling a little bit creeped out by them.
I was about to roll up my window, but never did.
As we were about to go, the goat came running at me from nowhere and ran its horns into the driver's tire. I never would have believed a goat could puncture rubber with its horns and tear it open like that. The whole car was being lifted on the impale, the goat bleating angrily.
When it was done it trotted away like nothing had just happened. Suddenly the airbags deployed.
"Help!" We were shouting for help. The villagers just stood there, staring at us.
"You are chosen by Azazel. You shall carry our sins, and the rotten soul of Mrs. Summers with you, out into the desert." Thoman was suddenly at my driver's side window like a jump scare. I was so surprised I gave him a high-pitched bark and almost slapped him. After the goat attack my nerves were shot.
"Your goat did that! You'll pay for the damage!" I proclaimed.
"All in good time." Thoman said with certainty.
I got out of the car, my knees wobbling from the scares. "What sort of place you running here? I want to see the manager!" I shoved Thoman and yelled.
"You will see Him." Thoman's eye's looked like goats' eyes when he said: 'Him'. I felt a chill, despite the warm desert sun.
I got back into the car and said to Gloria. "There's something wrong with this place."
She said nothing and I looked to her seat, empty. "Gloria?"
I got back out and looked around for her, seeing that the streets were now empty. Everyone had gone back inside their shacks. Gloria was nowhere in sight. I began walking around, banging on doors, looking in windows and searching for her, demanding to be told where she was. The villagers all played dumb, shrugging and acting like they didn't know any English.
As the minutes began to add up and I couldn't find her, a cold sweaty panic burst out of me. For about an hour I just ran around the place, looking desperately for her. When it got hot out and I was exhausted, I found myself sitting on the front porch of Mrs. Summers.
Thoman came walking up. "There you are. I had to come find you, see if I can help."
"Where's Gloria?" I asked, exhausted.
"I'm sure she's around somewhere." Thoman lit a smoke and looked at the empty couch. "Looks like Mrs. Summers has gone missing."
I looked and saw her corpse was removed, leaving only her shroud and some suspicious pawprints, like a team of oversized coyotes had dragged her away when nobody was looking. I shrugged.
"Gloria is missing." I pointed out. Thoman nodded as he realized I couldn't care less about the local wildlife problems.
"People go missing sometimes. They always get found sooner or later." Thoman said, somehow mirroring my attitude about the missing old woman, but regarding Gloria. I started feeling hostile towards him.
"Do you know where she is?" I stood up, trembling and sweating.
"Of course, but it won't do you no good. She can't be found if she doesn't want it." Thoman blew smoke at me, dropped his smoke and crushed it underfoot until it was a mess of tobacco, ashes, paper and the filter. "Still there."
He dusted his hands off on his jeans and walked away, leaving me there looking at the whisp of smoke hovering ephemerally over the ruined cigarette. I heard coyotes howling in the distant hills in the middle of the day, I heard wind chimes making discordant sounds, I heard the bleating of the goat sound like laughter and then the cackling of the old woman who I knew was dead.
I sat, and from my feet a numbness of fear began to climb up my legs like tarantulas. My skin was like braille, and my sweat ran in rivulets into stains darkening on my clothes. My eyes stared, listening to the desert while it spoke the name of its lord. I was afraid, I knew I was against something that wanted to eat me, somehow.
"Where are you?" I asked Gloria, my voice a dry cracking sound. I went into the old woman's shack and poured some of the iced tea she had made at some point before she died. It tasted like tomatoes with a hint of almonds and made me feel sleepy. While I walked to the couch, I dropped the glass and fell over.
Darkness made me blink, my eyes darting around for any source of light. All around me, in the midnight desert, candles stood upon cooled-melted stands made of old wax - atop human skulls. I was tied naked to a cactus, my body seemed to be covered in writing done in ketchup.
There was a humming sound of many human voices, not an unpleasant sound, except in the circumstances it frightened me to know I was surrounded by people humming in unison. Gloria was standing at one end of the triangle, holding a Nosegay Bouquet like it was some kind of offering towards the darkness. She wore nothing but an open hooded robe of shimmering crimson and scarlet.
I always find my wife exciting, so despite her betrayal, I still think she looked hot as a Satanic priestess. I'm pretty lucky.
The third corner of the triangle was an old woman wearing the skin of an oversized coyote, and also slippers made of coyote feet. She howled dramatically and her voice was answered by a disembodied growling from all around us.
I peed myself in terror, glad I wore nothing to absorb it. Instead, it just ran down my leg and collected under my left foot. I wanted to scream, but I felt weak and frightened, unable to do more than whimper pathetically in mortal dread. Gloria looked at my mess and smiled weirdly at me.
"Azazel, take from our community our sins, take our sins to the desert. Leave us another six years of peace. We offer you the slaughter of the scapegoat. Lord of the wilderness, accept our humble sacrifice." The gathered creeps were saying their prayer slowly in unison. They repeated it word-for-word again and again, long into the night.
Something was coming closer, something was coming. All around us desert creatures hopped and leapt and swooped, chittering, yipping, barking and hooting. Thousands of beetles, centipedes, tarantulas, snakes, scorpions, mice and crickets swarmed everywhere except the hot wax and flames of the candles. I cried and shivered, moaning in horror as the creatures crawled all over me.
The glowing eyes, a shade of golden brown, loomed from the darkness. As the shape of the entity formed in my mind around the darkness it was cloaked in, sleep overwhelmed me. I straight up fainted at the sight of Azazel.
The early dawn found me in the back of our rental car, driving on a spare. Gloria was driving, getting us to her sister's wedding on-time. "Why?" I choked out a word.
"I wouldn't bother, but his business is in jeopardy. When we cross the border into that state, we are in the territory of one of the most corrupt governments on the planet. Technically, California is part of the United States in name only. Everyone knows their government is run entirely by criminals. The new laws will eliminate her new husband's franchises. They'll lose everything and have to live with us. I hate my sister, you know that." Gloria enlightened me to her insane political opinion and family drama, without answering my question.
"You're telling me all that was about burgers and ketchup?" I wheezed, needing a drink.
"With this -" Gloria held up the bridal bouquet "My lord will bless their union. She cannot be made poor by the dealings of other devils. They are all on the same team, you know."
"Team McDonald?" I asked.
"Team Humanity. They just want what's best for us." Gloria explained.
"Demons want what's best for us?" I tried not to sound too incredulous.
"No. You are missing the point. Humans make the sins, they just feed. They are fair, if you ask them for a favor. They'll take care of you."
"Like getting someone elected?" I guessed.
"Yes. Exactly." Gloria agreed. I stared out at the scenery of Angel's Crest National Monument as we drove.
We arrived at the wedding and I kept thinking about how good Gloria looked as some kind of Satanist last night. I requested we spend some married couple time together and she considered it, but said we had no time for such things. She promised we'd spend some quality time together after the wedding, provided I play for her team.
"I can't promise anything." I said honestly to her. For whatever faults I have, I do insist on being honest with my spouse.
We parked in the alley and got ourselves ready to go into the wedding, still looking like we were out all night, despite twenty minutes of details.
"We need to get going." Gloria urged me. I was still fiddling with my tie in the passenger's mirror, since the driver's side one had a crack in it already. I kept reminding myself how this car was a rental, as the thought was easily slipping my mind under the stress I was feeling.
I hate weddings.
We went in and the place was simultaneously too loud with all the murmuring and too quiet with all the whispering. I kept hearing words of profanity and would look up to see if any of the holy statues were reacting. No weeping or bleeding.
It really freaks me out when statues cry and bleed and have flesh underneath when they get damaged. I'm pretty sure there are actual religious orders where they entomb their saints alive, after eating a diet of herbs meant to sedate and preserve the corpse sealed inside. Not too freaky, but I am just one person being judgmental, aren't I? I realize I am sorta disrespecting their whole culture in a way, and that's not how I mean for it to sound. It's just not for me - I get scared - that's all you need to know.
The blurry way the statues looked had me standing in front of the bride's aisle while everyone was wondering what I was looking at with that look on my face. I'd provided the distraction Gloria needed to ensure absolutely nobody except her saw her make the switch of the bouquets. She had an exact copy of her sister's bouquet, unironically.
Out behind the church we met and she had started a small fire in a coffee tin with holes around the bottom rim. She closed the knife she'd used and used the longneck lighter to get a couple candles going on the side.
"Hurry, someone might see us." I said as loudly as I dared, half hoping someone would hear me and look around the corner. I couldn't help it, part of me was against whatever we were doing. I still felt nervous, nervous we'd get caught or that we'd get away with it. My anxiety had me holding my hands like I was warming them to the fire.
"And white goes softly into flames, and black comes the smoke, pure and thick." Gloria dropped the blessed flowers into the flames.
"Uh, amen." I coughed.
"Let's go watch her get married." Gloria growled.
We went in and there was a wedding that happened while we were in our seats.
While most people were on their phones, texting or whatever they were doing, others actually watched the wedding.
I looked around and saw how some people were observing the ceremony. I too was looking at it, but trying not to. I knew I was seeing something there that they weren't, and it was pretty scary because I knew it was real. Therefore, it was invisible to all of them except me.
I leaned over to my wife and asked her: "Who is the goat up there with them?"
"That's Fred, she's like a bridesmaid." Gloria whispered back.
"Fred is a girl goat?" I asked.
"I can arrange for you to have visits from Fred, Sweetea, if that's something you're into." Gloria teased me weirdly, but I didn't really find it that amusing, just creepy. The last thing I wanted was to be haunted by an invisible goat-demon.
"Ew, no thanks." I said.
When the bouquet was tossed, Gloria caught it. She'd run in, shoving all the maidens like a quarterback. Some of them had fallen and gotten serious scrapes and bruises. Her sister yelled at her, but Gloria just looked at me and we took off around the corner and went for our car.
"Why aren't we leaving?" I asked.
"This has to be under her bed on her wedding night. My sister is a virgin, she has to be given to her new husband first." Gloria waved the bouquet in front of me, gripping it the same way she had gripped her foldable dagger earlier when she'd cut the coffee can.
"I have a feeling you mean Azazel." I gulped, realizing I couldn't go that far with her. I had to find a way to stop this.
"What's that?" Gloria asked me sharply.
"I'd best dealing be with Azazel?" I tried to change what I'd said, botching it horribly.
"No, you said something else." My wife said firmly, and frowning. I had a feeling my bed had just gone cold, and it scared me as much as the devils, because as I mentioned, Gloria is what's best in my life.
"I don't like this." I admitted. I also mentioned I really don't lie to her.
"She won't know the difference." Gloria smiled a little bit, a kind of evil villain-styled smile. I found it too sexy.
"Either way, it's wrong. I'm not sure exactly how, but it seems super perverted and evil and I won't allow it." I proclaimed.
Gloria slammed on the breaks and flicked out her knife and held it to my throat. "Get out."
I was left standing by the side of the road with my bags as she sped away, driving to some unknown honeymoon destination to put some cursed flowers under her sister's bed to summon some kind of husband demon for her wedding night. I'm pretty sure I had to stop this from happening.
"You still fighting the good fight?" Ronald McDonald stepped out from where he was waiting to catch a bus.
"I love my wife to death, but she is trying too hard to ruin her sister's wedding." I sat on my bags, feeling tired and my eyes watering.
"Don't cry." Ronald McDonald told me. "You got to man up right now. This is your chance to set things right."
I sniffled and tried to smile for Ronald McDonald. He smiled back and we shared a moment on that desolate highway.
"I've got something for you." He told me. He handed me a toy from a happy meal I'd gotten as a kid, the Muppet Baby Fozzie. I assembled his armor and put him on horseback. When I looked up, Ronald McDonald had caught the bus and was waving goodbye to me.
That's when the tears started. I knew I had to step up and stop her. I wiped 'em on my handkerchief and got my phone out of my pocket. I used the app we had to find where she was, after figuring out how to use the darn thing.
Then I used another app to summon a professional getaway driver named Breeze. She arrived in less than four minutes, the sound of her engine in earshot for the whole last minute as she took the three miles of road between us with fury. We said nothing to each other. I showed her the destination and the review I'd already written and nine one-hundred-dollar bills and she gave me a hand signal I guess meant we were in business. We caught up to Gloria and then I found the only likely honeymoon spot, a desert view bed and breakfast, of course.
We got ahead of Gloria and Breeze accepted her payment and vanished into thin air, leaving only burning tire tracks in her wake. I reached into the newlyweds open car and released the parking brake. With a muscle-pulling, ankle-twisting, hernia-inducing, disk-slipping effort I got the darn car moving, with the toy in my pocket making me pretend I could do this. I got their vehicle into the ditch, out of sight.
I went into the bed and breakfast and checked the guest registry. I was sweating and my suit was coming loose all over. I was limping and groaning, although I wasn't feeling what I'd done to myself yet. I looked at the names. They were here.
With the page torn out I started a new entry for the weekend and made up a couple fake names before the owner found me there.
"Uh, sorry." I said. I set the toy on the counter and fled.
I watched from the bushes while Gloria went in. See, I find simple plans without a lot of moving parts work best in any situation. Gloria found no evidence she'd come to the right place. The owner was already freaking out and gave her a stern goodbye.
Gloria tried to call her sister but got nothing. As she drove away my terrified state began to subside. I collapsed in the bushes, sleeping with a butterfly on my eyelash keeping me company.
"You did this." Gloria was saying. I was in the back seat of the rental again. She was smoking, and she'd smoked enough that the little strip had turned yellow, indicating we would be charged a cleaning fee for the damages. There was no ashtray, so she was just putting them out on the dashboard, leaving little burns and ash everywhere.
Her phone chimed and I saw she was chatting with one of her old boyfriends. She made sure I saw this. I rolled my eyes. It's not like we'd spent twenty years married. Her interrogation techniques needed improvement, especially since she would know - I don't lie to her. I'd never seen her smoke, not that I could remember, not for a long time.
I was under a lot of stress, but as I thought about it, she was smoking the whole trip.
My mind played a weird montage of all her light-ups. I felt like it needed a theme, so I hummed the theme to that show we were just watching. Then I looked at her and stopped humming, humming that cue for the other person who hums to hum along, you know what I mean. There should be a word for that kind of cue, probably is, but I'm not fluent in music vocabulary.
She didn't get it, but instead got mean and lifted her hand like she wanted me to stop humming because it was annoying or something. I stopped.
"You're not even Gloria." I complained.
"Took you long enough." The creature grinned.
My mind went wild with terror, as I realized she was some kind of horrible demon disguised as Gloria. She handed me the toy from McDonald's and it started to melt, becoming warped and evil looking. Her laugh sounded like a stretched audio recording of a laugh, all distorted and demonic, exactly like the best horror movie foley artists make it sound, and making me pee from my frozen spine bone and dry eye sockets staring till my eyes hurt.
Demonic laughter is unforgettable, a kind of maddening sensation, like something is being ripped out of you suddenly, a painful disorientation that you never quite stop feeling dizzy from. Its an ache, an unhealing wound of the psyche, always oozing and causing me some kind of misery. It lives there, like a tiny flea, too small to squish or catch, in its hole, in my mind.
Weirdly enough, the horrible little toy it gave me contains it, and that is why it must never be touched, for although it is a burnt figurine, it imprisons a part of the wilderness of souls.
I held it there, and looked up at the not Gloria. She looked just as relieved and bewildered as I felt. She was Gloria again, I could tell it was her.
"Where is it?" She asked me.
I held up the toy, having already dropped it into the burnt coffee tin to contain the prison for the sound that the demon had become when I'd listened to it, pretending to be my wife, therefore listening to my wife also.
"How's that work?" Gloria asked me, sobbing. She wanted reassurance it wasn't going to take control of her ever again.
"Well, we are in this together for better or worse." I figured I'd say.
"We weren't helping it. It already got me, using my hate for her against me. Remember when we got the wedding invite?"
"I thought it was weird there was a goat with glowing red eyes drawn on that." I pointed out.
"I never really wanted to hurt her." Gloria felt awful. I hugged her close and kissed her forehead.
"I'm the one who got hurt." I reminded her.
We went over all the things like cactus and such that I'd suffered, dehydration, scares, murder and mayhem, dagger stabbings, cannibalism, arson and demons. It was agreed I was the hero in all this, and I finally got some ketchup on Satan's burger.
It was delicious.

First Previous Wiki
Paizma stood in front of Edu'frec and Gaia. Both of them had grim looks on their faces. She'd been briefed on what they expected of her but worried over exactly what could go wrong. The age of the object was the first problem. The second was that it had some fourth-dimensional properties, like herself.
That meant it could damage her, which she didn't want to deal with. Damage could mean collapse or death, since she might actually be attacked. Paizma pulled in some of the three dimensional matter in the area from an asteroid a few billion miles away.
The extra material fattened her tail, increasing her reserves. The extra weight didn't show in the form she presented before the two, though. Despite that, Edu'frec's brows rose. It seemed he really could monitor her partially in the fourth dimension, which meant he might be accompanying her along the way.
"So is it doable?" Gaia asked again. The young concept entity looked worried. Paizma supposed that made sense since Gaia had named herself after an old word for Earth. And with the planet threatened, they were worried.
Paizma could see it in the subtle shaking of Gaia's hands and the posture they kept, which wasn't as proud as usual. Paizma wondered where Brey was.
"She's making additional preparations for the Psychic Investment Plan," Edu'frec said.
"What?" both of them asked.
"Paizma was wondering where Brey was."
"I don't like my mind being read."
"I can't read your mind, I just predict it," Edu'frec shrugged.
"Are you really going to be like this?" asked Paizma irritably. She inflated her form, increasing its size and height to exceed that of the android. More matter poured in, which Paizma regulated. She missed John already. But keeping two avatars in this way was taxing on her reserves. Plus, he was sleeping.
"Whatever. I am going to take a short look, that is all for now. Do you have your devices ready?" Paizma asked, shimmering with psychic energy. She mustered the force in the third dimension.
"Yes."
She moved it to the fourth. An invisible and massive body surrounding her curled and lashed out, up, and through reality. The vibrations came with a single android in its wake. He made a small mental connection to her, the only way to talk clearly for him in this space.
Paizma took him down to the approximate location of Earth. In the mindscape, it was a nexus of incredible power in two ways. The first was a mere blip, which was the alien facility they were so concerned about. It was sending out a constant pulse of power, as well as a thinner modulated one.
The second nexus of power was the Source. While it didn't really correspond purely to Earth in the third dimension, higher locations were different. With the fourth coordinate point, the Source sat almost directly below the facility. It opened a great eye.
Psychic power smashed into Paizma, then pulled back. The massive weight of the Source pressed her down and out, without moving at all. The psychic energy swirling around it was so immense she could barely survive it. All from its eye opening to look at her. The power of its gaze would have cooked her flesh, if that was possible in this dimension. Instead, the atoms shifted and moved, growing and shrinking in the fourth dimensional equivalent of temperature changes.
And then the eye closed. The nexus of power that was the Source buried itself deeper and lower, where she could still see it. But the swirling array of psychic energy was mostly drawn downward and inward, along with glimmers of darker things Paizma knew better than to pursue. She checked that Edu'frec had survived.
So far, he had. Paizma disgorged him from her mouth, so they could look at the object in Earth. Paizma shared what she was with him. The image was massive, bloating their connection to a large degree. She could see thousands of processors work on deciphering her sight, and then the connection narrowed again.
Now he understood.
"I won't be able to see anything myself," Edu'frec admitted. "You'll have to share your sight."
"How does it feel?"
"Immense. This would definitely break a weaker and smaller mind than mine. Do you filter it, or is this the natural vision?"
"I can expand it, if you can handle it."
"I certainly can. I'd like to see all I can. Can you show me the view you have of the facility from 'above' please?"
"Yes," Paizma said. She moved him closer and around the top. The facility's walls partially stretched to block her sight, but not entirely. She drifted closer, moving in and around. Slices of Earth's crust and mantle popped up in her vision, along with an increasing whole of the facility. With her higher dimensionality, she didn't just see the inside of the facility. She saw all of it, light or not, exposed or not. She saw everything inside the walls, everything on and around the walls, and every single atom within.
Her connection with Edu'frec swelled to fifty million times its normal size. Programs filed away the data neatly into an almost infinite quantum memory. They noted a small siphon of psychic energy from the facility, which seemingly connected downward somewhere.
Paizma followed it, searching and sniffing out everything she could. Something attacked her, throwing Edu'frec out and away. The connection between them snapped.
She moved back, feeling something dig into her side. She let off a flash of psychic energy, and a thousand more of them appeared. She recognized them, too. Reavers.
She lifted herself back to the third dimension, becoming too small for them to detect properly. Her real body appeared above Earth, thrashing for a moment before she steadied herself. She shrunk back down to her normal size and met up with Edu'frec and Gaia again. The android she'd left was rubbing its head.
"What happened?" Gaia asked.
"This was a military research facility for the Sprilnav faction you seem to be from. I think they might still exist, or their guardians do."
"What would that mean?"
"An extreme danger to all of you, if you poke the facility. But the same if you leave it be, now that it is active."
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The Council Director weathered the silence in the virtual meeting, which Phoebe had called upon reestablishing contact with Penny. Penny was wearing battle armor and had a distinctly cold aura about her. Juan had felt a shiver when first witnessing her, and the hivemind, through him, analyzed her appearance.
She looked incredibly angry. Clearly, something had eaten away at her, and she'd gained even more psychic energy in the process. Her skin glimmered with it.
"I'm sorry," Blistanna said, looking at the hologram Phoebe was projecting of Penny. "Can you repeat that? I mean, it almost sounds like you started a war against the Sprilnav in the middle of a Judgment by the same species that determines whether we all live or die. Surely I misheard."
Beside her, a Skira drone turned to gaze at the Guulin with an inscrutable expression. Penny took the question in stride, her firm demeanor not lessening like it usually would when confronted by her allies.
Something's definitely changed, Juan thought.
"You did not," Penny said. "The gangs enslaves billions of innocents, and they killed my friend. So they will be wiped from the planet."
"Perhaps you aren't getting with the program," Izkrala added. The matronly Acuarfar stood in her seat, her wings flapping involuntarily. The Empress was incredibly upset, but keeping it contained. But even she couldn't keep the slightest of a buzz out of her voice. "We actually need to win this Judgment, Penny Balica."
"Elder culture works differently," Penny said. "By declaring an official war, I will be capable of garnering more respect among their people and their elite class. I will show that I can and do act within their rules, artificial or stupid they may seem to all of us. I understand I've been playing it fast and loose beyond the Alliance, but I am not your slave. None of you have any true right to order me around. I am taking steps to help the Alliance in my own way, and that may be counter to your opinions."
"Well then," Dilandekar said. "Her ideas are set. It appears ours are as well. The recourse in this situation is clear. Penny currently has an Alliance citizenship, and is still subject to our laws. While no law exists to incarcerate her, and she hasn't done anything truly worthy of that, there is still the possibility of treason charges. Or, perhaps, stripping her of Alliance citizenship."
"That is a poor idea," Juan said. "I will not stand by and allow that. She is a member of Humanity and a citizen of Luna. Before the Alliance, and after the Alliance, if there is such a thing. While your outrage is shared by me, you must recognize the situation. Penny is what links us to Kashaunta in truth. She is also the one actually going to the Judgment. Given the lawyers and legal analysts that Kashaunta has access to, do you really presume this would harm her so massively in the Judgment? We could call down Kashaunta herself to have this discussion, though I am loath to breach the security status of these meetings to do so. But the presumption that she has no plan is one that I find objectionable."
"Of course you would defend this," President Iontona said. "She is your kind."
"Yes, I would, not only because of that, but because she actually is doing exactly what we want. Getting rid of slavery is a good thing. She has an Elder in her head, too. Do you really think she's entirely out of control, merely because she doesn't wish to be controlled right now by us? To the Sprilnav, she is the weapon, not us. All we can do is look divided and weak to make them want to overlook us. And who knows. If you don't like the way we do things, you can continue your internal discussions on whether this is worth it for you."
Juan stared at the wanderer, his unhappiness clear.
"What are you referring to?" Blistanna asked.
"They plan to cut and run," Izkrala said. "If it looks like we'll lose the Judgment. That's what he's upset about. Granted, I was pissed when I heard of it, because of all the trouble we've gone through to try and help you."
"What trouble have you gone through, Izkrala? You sit on your ass and eat all day. All of us wanderers are looking at death because of your human, even more so than the painful cancer the Sprilnav already cursed us with. She's the one who garnered the anger of Yasihaut. You want to know why we want to run? It's because of their sadism. What's to say that they don't put a cancer gene in all of you, or make ours even more excruciating? I have stood at the side of thousands of hospital beds, watching my people wither away. Each ship is looking at resorting to different things. But for you to sit here and pretend you know the fear we're facing is the height of arrogance, disrespect, and rudeness. I will not stand for this. The Sprilnav are going to roll over us if they choose. Penny is nothing to them, and we are nothing to them. They don't care. They're all evil alien animals, which would gladly feast on all our bones if they happened to taste good. This ludicrous idea of provoking them that the Council Director appears to support is exactly why these conversations are happening in the Wanderer Confederacy."
"Look, I know you all want to argue," Penny said. "But really, we should try to be united on this."
"Oh? How will you help with that, then? Perhaps by abandoning another agreement to help us with our cancer? Maybe making more of them, even? I'm sure you can tell us all what unity looks like. Go ahead. Look me in the eyes, and tell me I'm wrong for wanting what's best for my people."
Penny strode over to him. "You don't know what's best for your people."
"See? She-"
"You presume that because you are the President, that you somehow are more capable of understanding the needs of your species. You are a politician more than a person. Everyone here is. Do not forget what the Sprilnav have done to you, but remember that things are different now. We do have the backing of Kashaunta. That is a boon that few nations have possessed in the past. I have power that they respect, so they respect me in turn, or respect my power. Why complain that I am not here to complete my end of the deal when I am actually fighting for the Alliance? The ideas of freedom and liberty are not things to be tossed aside when convenient. I am not trying to insult you. I am trying to understand why you are so upset with me, when this is according to the plan of a Sprilnav elite of the highest order. Kashaunta needs me for my power, so she would tell me which actions are the most beneficial to my position. The same would apply to your position, which is linked to my identity among the Sprilnav. The Progenitors are a non-issue now."
"Considering that they are the gods of all civilization, they are hardly a non-issue."
Penny smiled. "I beat the absolute tar out of Twilight a while back. So yes, they are a non-issue."
"I think it is time to continue the heart of the discussion," Fyuuleen said. "Penny, you need to actually consult us on these things before you do them. While we can't tell you off like a mother Vuureensleev, we still are the rulers of the Alliance. If you don't respect us, who can you respect?"
"The people who put their money where their mouth is. You're not here, dealing with a dead friend. You're there, dealing with passing laws, catching spies, and signing bills. While yes, that job is important, it isn't nearly as stressful as being surrounded by aliens, and only knowing few of them. I can't make friends here without them being killed. There's a war across the planet right now, and I've freed tens of millions of slaves. The Judgment is in one day, and I've been preparing for that, too. I can't really say that I haven't been doing anything right."
"I understand, Conclave Leader. Recent days have been... difficult for me. Perhaps as a war veteran, you can understand my mindset right now. I know that you all expect to serve as some sort of oversight on me. I am willing to accept that, but your advice needs to be useful. Insulting me over avenging my friend is not the path to reconciliation. Nilnacrawla is telling me to keep your interests in my mind, and I am. But I will listen, not bow. I am not a soldier. I am not a general, or a commander. I am not part of any chain of command. I will ask Elder Kashaunta to establish better contact with you all, and will have Phoebe relay reports of what is going on. I do not plan to begin any major offensives before the Judgment."
"You do not think capturing a city is a major offensive?" Izkrala asked.
"Not compared to capturing hundreds of them," Penny said. "I am the Liberator. That means that I am fighting for everyone."
"But fighting for the Sprilnav is a waste of your time, effort, and talent," Iontona said.
"They are people too," Penny said. "This mentality of us and them is what has destroyed every nation of our kind before us. We need to accept that we need Sprilnav allies to win this war. To turn their strength against them, I must help them too. Kashaunta is a brutal despot, but she is fair in her rule, as much as many of you. She has fought wars of grander scale, which necessitates larger death tolls."
"You are not here to play defense for Kashaunta. You are here because you are threatening our future with your antics."
"I know," Penny said. "But my actions will have a positive impact, not a negative one. We have a plan in place to exploit the traps Yasihaut will seek to set. We have lawyers capable of defending us. I know you do not trust me, not truly. But that is acceptable. I will not let us lose this Judgment."
"And if you do?"
"There are plans in place for that, as well. The nuclear option is not something I will talk about now, and will only discuss if things get far worse."
"Very well, Penny," Fyuuleen said. "Do what you must."
"If you don't, billions of people will die," Iontona added.
Penny nodded again. "That weighs on me every day."
She left the meeting. The rest of them followed. Juan led Blistanna aside before she exited.
"What is it? I have things to do."
"Yes, we all do. But I wish to know what suggestions you have. I can tell that you are upset, and I believe it would be better for me to present your ideas to her."
"It is not anger at her, not really. I am upset that we have to forgo freeing slaves because of the Judgment. I am angry that it might endanger our own freedom and continued survival, because of this situation that has been concocted. Most of all, I am angry because they can just do this again and again. Nothing stops them. The Sprilnav have us at our throats, without having to lift a claw. All with one court case. They can just arbitrarily decide to kill us, and there's nothing we can do."
Blistanna's tentacles shook with anger. Her skin was paled in distress, and she stared at the place Penny had left. "Truth be told, maybe she's doing it right. But the politics of all of this is just nasty. Iontona's a coward, Dilandekar's cold, and Izkrala is too angry over the principle instead of the situation. We can't have more of these sorts of National Exchanges, Juan. If we do, we'll either drive Penny away entirely or rip ourselves apart. Maybe that's what the Sprilnav want. The more we bicker and argue, the worse it all gets. This is exactly how nations crumble."
"So we need to do something about it, then," Juan said.
"What grand idea do you have for this one? I hope it's not bringing Earth into this. They'll really tear it apart."
"No. We need an outward facing front. So what we need to do is push the youth against the leaders that are problematic, or the ideas that are. We showcase this division on the national stage, plug it with Phoebe's propaganda, and those in power will be forced to look like they're working together. The resentment won't last. We can get Kashaunta on board, if possible."
"Bad idea. She only speaks to her own interests."
"Not entirely," Juan said. "Tell me, what do you know about Sprilnav Soul Blades?"
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Penny watched the massive doors of the Fort Court swing open. Hundreds of thousands of guns, lasers, and missiles fixed upon her as she gently walked forward. The facility was mostly bare bones, with high amounts of alloy and stone visible in the upper layers. But at the lower levels, there was a large amount of holograms showing various symbols and golden overlays. It reminded her of the patterns on lace.
The Court was twenty miles tall, larger than a mountain. Even the doors went up for nearly two miles. They swung using unknown means, letting a second layer of sunlight fall upon the hardened floor.
Behind Penny was her own entourage. The Refined Elders, Pundacrawla, Phoebe, Kashaunta, and a few of her retainers were followed by guards, a thick shield, and several Correctors. But not just them. In a gradually widening triangle, tens of thousands of freed slaves also followed.
Penny had explained what she planned to Kashaunta to get this to happen, and the Elder enthusiastically accepted. While they would not be let within a certain radius of the Court, and their camps were widely spaced to prevent hiding anything of interest to the security, it would help to show the support Penny had of the people.
They were already tailgating. Music played from alien boom boxes and even a band Kashaunta had hired. Guides and security drones watched from afar but had already ensured the security threat would be minimal.
There were shields in place to prevent anything serious. In the distance, smoke from the dormant volcano the Court was built atop rolled out of specialized vents. The Sprilnav apparently could control when volcanoes erupted, which wasn't surprising to Penny once she'd learned of it. The Court was gigantic, and there would need to be a lot of stability for it to exist for as long as it had.
Inside, the chamber was circular. The Court was shaped like the Coliseum, complete with some pillar designs that held up the area where the High Judges were sitting. The twenty seats had been prepared ahead of time, and featured holograms below them on the sheer wall that supported them above the columns. The holograms read out various names in both Justicar Standard Script and in English.
Penny could see the High Judges themselves, but her gaze went to the 'empty' stands. The only people inside were either Guides, Correctors, or holograms of spectators. The holograms had a distinct unrealistic orange glow, probably some security apparatus.
Two house-sized tents were in the center, separated by a black and purple painted line. Above the line was a triple layer of shields: one yellow, one purple, and another yellow. The purple shield was so strong that Penny couldn't sense anything on the other side. It also surrounded her half of the Court in a bubble that met the ground in the same painted lines, suggesting that the shield went underground. The mindscape dropped away as soon as Penny crossed the threshold behind the massive doors.
The Court quieted. Millions of eyes, real or not, were all fixed upon Penny's waist. When Penny had passed the purple barrier, the Soul Blade had appeared on her hip. Penny didn't react, continuing to move forward to reach the Defendant's Booth. She could faintly see the Challenger's Booth on the other side through the shield.
Yasihaut had entered the Court first, as was tradition. Clearly, Justicar had decided to limit the contact between them. A sound decision. Penny didn't want to have to see her anymore.
The thick shields became more transparent, revealing Yasihaut's delegation. Elders and various Sprilnav, all wearing conceptual power blocking armor, stood in front of the Challenger's booth. The eerie silence soon ended when an Elder stood. Justicar wore an incredibly elaborate armor set, with designs that looked a lot like lace.
"In the name of Justicar, this Court is brought to order. I am High Judge Justicar. I am one of the 20 presiding High Judges over this case, appointed in this role by my birthright. This is the 4th day of the 18th year of the 803rd Age of Justicar. Let the record reflect that this trial's start time is exactly midday."
Justicar's imperious expression passed over them.
"Now, with that out of the way, I shall introduce the Challenger and Defendant, along with their submitted arguments for this Judgment. In summary, Challenger Elder Yasihaut, 1st Named in the Everlasting, has opened this Judgment claiming that the Defendant and her home nation, the Sol Alliance, should be classified as Class 9 Hostile Alien Threat and Class 7 Hostile Alien Threats, respectively.
The justification she provides for this is that the Sol Alliance hosts two psychic-variant AIs, has shown a willingness and future interest in attacking the Sprilnav people, and the capacity to carry out a destructive attack against Sprilnav civilians. Additionally, she claims that the influence of the Defendant has grown to a state unmanageable by any other party, including both the Elders and the Progenitors due to the backing of Elder Kashaunta. She claims the Defendant is capable of mass-casualty terrorist attacks and has shown continued interest in killing Sprilnav, with no regard for civilian lives lost in the process.
She claims the Defendant's conceptual and psychic power represents an active and severe danger to her life and those of her friends and family, the Defendant is disrupting the current order, and is conspiring with Elder Kashaunta to assassinate her enemies by illegal means. The sentence the Challenger requests as a result of this Judgment is the execution of every current member of the Sol Alliance, as well as the execution of the Defendant immediately upon the conclusion of the case by Conceptual Suffering doses. She cites Judgment 1826 of the 9th day of the 7th year of the 803rd Age, Judgment 662 of the 336th day of the 93rd year..."
As Justicar continued talking, Penny looked at Yasihaut, who smiled smugly back.
The death penalty, Penny thought. How fitting, considering what I will do to her.
"...the 28300th year of the 730th Age. It is important to note that this Trial by Majority will not only determine the guilt or innocence of the Defendant but also the means of the sentence within the realms of law according to the severity of the possible sentence found. It is also important to note that this Judgment will be the final matter between Elder Yasihaut and Penny Balica that will be approved for 30 years. An appeal of this decision will not be allowed, as this trial is of the highest jurisdiction possible, and I am already a High Judge involved in its arbitration. No lower courts or extraplanetary courts may argue this issue again for the same 30 year period, or sanctions will be placed on the offending party with extreme prejudice."
"The Defendant is Penny Balica, a human from the Sol Alliance with the title of Liberator, Champion of Humanity, and... holder of a Pact of Blades with Elder Kashaunta, 1st Named in the Everlasting."
He allowed for the proper amount of time for people to absorb the sentence.
"The Defendant has opened a counter case, suggesting that the Challenger is misrepresenting the Sol Alliance and herself as a threat to the Sprilnav, citing her cooperation with Elder Kashaunta, the Alliance's cooperation with the Van family, and her record of following and upholding treaties with Elders. Furthermore, she has opened a counter case, suggesting that the public statements the Challenger has published fall against the Justicar Defamation Law, notably Sections 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 20, 46, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 154, 155, 162, 177, 192, 201, and sixty-seven others, and is requesting 2 billion credits and a 30 year censure on public statements from the Challenger and affiliated parties on the Defendant."
"Now that the stakes of this Judgement are laid out, I will instruct the parties in this case on decorum, as neither of them are Justicar natives. The Court expects that the Defendant and the Challenger will hold to the rules of decorum, as will their company. The Court also wishes to avoid unfortunate incidents, so it has hired Progenitors Filnatra and Arneladia to uphold the security of the Court."
"It is also important to note that this Court is backed by the full might of the Elders of Justicar, the Status Quo Party, the Sprilnav Freedom Party, the Justice and Security Party, Elder Lilliana, Elder Napei, Elder Mashae, Elder Aryacrawla, Elder Nulyihaut, Elder Poleia, Elder Crissi, Elder Olei'paushe'ani, Elder Taubelibelibax, Elder Somalia, Elder Aneyti, Elder Wuseniau'palacrawla se Hautni'pelshinomalia, Elder Commu nar Galvi, Elder Commu nar Jelpha, Elder Radia, Elder Hwe'iaspehaut, Elder Maggracrawla, Elder Tishaunt'pali, Elder Kashaunta, and the Progenitors. Its legitimacy is their legitimacy."
Some of those names were downright hilarious. Penny kept her face straight. Justicar said basically the exact same thing Tassidonia had said weeks back.
"I shall instruct the parties of the rules of decorum. High Judges within this room are to be referred to either as 'High Judge' or 'Elder.' No other names or titles apply, with the exception of Progenitor Indrafabar, who is allowed his aforementioned title. No parties may threaten or influence the Challenger or the Defendant and their retinues. Camera drones and other news equipment are to be kept outside the main court chamber the allotted section at all times, unless the express verbal permission of at least 6 High Judges is given to allow a specific instance.
The Challenger and Defendant are to remain on their given sides of the shield, though they may be required to exit their booths upon request. They are not to engage in any actions construed as attacks upon their counterparts under any circumstances. Challenger Yasihaut and Defendant Balica may request breaks to consume food or water within reason.
The booths are equipped with bathrooms compatible with human and Sprilnav physiology, and the Challenger and Defendant are both allowed to declare their retirement to a bathroom and enter it for a period of 1000 pulses, or 1020 human seconds, which is also 17 minutes. Challenger Yasihaut and Defendant Balica are allowed to use Justicar-provided lawyers or may utilize those they have brought here today to assist with their arguments.
These conditions will not be changed by petition from either claimant but only upon the agreement of 16 High Judges and the condition of necessity to the point of impeding the progression of the Judgment.
Devices are to remain within booths unless they are direct admissible evidence in the case. Furthermore, they are to be silenced to prevent any interruptions. Documents to be displayed will be given to the Guides or Correctors standing by both booths. These documents will be shown to the entire Court with translations in both Justicar Standard Script and Post Modern North American English."
Justicar stepped back and moved to his seat. Progenitor Indrafabar stood and moved to the podium.
"Do either of you request additional clarifications on the rules of the Court? If so, indicate it verbally."
His voice was almost hypnotic. Penny resisted the effect. "I wish to know the punishments for violating these terms so both of us have an impetus not to."
Microphones carried her voice to the ears of everyone inside the Court, as if she was right next to their ears, with remarkable quality for such a massive room. Penny wondered if shields were aiding in the sonic feedback.
"This would have been stated in the next section of this proceeding, but I shall say it now for the Court. The punishments will vary based on the severity of the infraction. For this case, under the authority of Justicar, we have decided to fully reinstate Section 4 of the Justicar Common Case Conduct Law. It states the following:
'When any contempt is committed in the immediate view and presence of the Court, the Court may punish it summarily by fine, or imprisonment, or both. If any contempt occurs outside the immediate view and presence of the Court, the Court may levy the same punishments as before after an opportunity for defense has been given. Punishment for Contempt of a Judge, High Judge, or their Court will result in a 1% fine of the violating party's assets, 10-day imprisonment, a rescheduling of the hearing, a published apology to the aggrieved party, an update of their legal record to reflect the fact, and 4 days of community service. If the alleged misconduct has caused an actual loss or injury to any person, the Court shall order the offending party to pay the aggrieved party a sufficient sum to indemnify them, in addition to the other penalties that may be imposed. The payment and acceptance of this sum is an absolute bar to any action by the aggrieved party to recover damages for the loss or injury.'
The full law section is provided below. If either party wishes to read the law, time shall be allotted within reason. Express the decision verbally. When you are finished, you may give the tablet back to your assigned Guide."
"I wish to read the law," Penny said.
"I wish to view the law," Yasihaut said.
Guides carried a tablet to both of them. The display was purplish, and it had a hologram feature available upon selection. Penny took hers, reading the top, and then the next lines one by one. An information note at the top said 'Translation Available,' so she picked it. The English became Justicar Standard Script. The word count changed from 19,283 to 8,740. Justicar Standard Script had been built from the bottom up, so it could express broader concepts in fewer words.
Though her psychic energy enabled her to read incredibly fast, Penny took the time to understand everything that was said. Pundacrawla's tablet beside her showed the same law, though it looked like he'd finished it using his implant. Penny reached the bottom of the list in 10 minutes and handed the tablet back to the Guide.
Five minutes later, Yasihaut finished also.
"Do either of you have additional requests of the Court? If so, express them verbally."
Penny didn't. The more questions she asked, the longer this would take and the less favorable it would look. In a case like this, perception was everything. She didn't even pretend it had to do with fairness under the law.
"Now. The High Judges came to an agreement for this trial. Exactly 197 full laws will be relevant to this trial. We will peruse each relevant section, and each party will confirm their understanding until they move on to the next one. While this level of guidance is not normally necessary, interested parties want to ensure that no breaches occur during this trial."
Indrafabar gave them both a pointed look.
"The reason we are doing this here despite these sections being included in the necessary reading for the trial is for the interest of transparency."
Really, it was Justicar establishing his dominance over them. By making them sit for hours and read in front of millions of people, he was attempting to show that he was above them. Or to convey another message to his backers.
She also suspected Yasihaut's side had influenced this, trying to make Penny look worse by taking longer. It would set her up as the 'slow barbarian alien' in the High Judges' brains, which would unconsciously prejudice them against her a little more.
Unfortunately for them, Nilnacrawla was carrying the definitions for every single unfamiliar legal word in his memories. If each of the laws took her ten minutes, it would require almost 34 hours of reading to finish them all. Whoever took even a few seconds longer would lose respect in the Court, adding more time to the length of the Judgment.
Penny would win even this tiny, petty battle and set the tone for the rest of the Judgment.

Disclaimer, this is a big rant Writing this as a way of getting my thoughts out and making sense of what I'm going through and to maybe help someone going through something similar. My ex girlfriend and I were together for 7 years, she is the best person I know and I still love her very much. Anyways a lot of big changes happened so quickly in our lives especially for her early last year. She was living with her grandma and one day her mom and aunt decided to kick both the grandma and her out of their place. Shortly after her grandma ended up passing at the elderly home she was put in.(heartbreak of family betrayal) My ex girlfriend had no choice but to move in with me in my room at my dad's. I of course had no hesitation about this, I would do anything for her. After some months of living together, it became apparent that we started to not get along as well as we used to because of not having our own personal space and her not feeling comfortable there. We started to argue more often, my drinking got out of hand, still is but that's a different topic. We tried to talk things through after every time we argued, especially when the arguments got really bad but it got to a point where it was on a daily basis and I couldn't handle the negativity, especially with both of us being confined to a single room. I emotionally shut down and became distant, and I knew our relationship was not healthy. So I decided to end things, this obviously was painful to both of us but at that point especially for her as she was not the one who wanted that but our relationship was just us being unhappy together. She obviously had nowhere to go so I told her it was ok for her to stay here, I would end up sleeping in the garage some nights or other nights in my car. It was a difficult thing but I would have never kicked her out, I just needed my space from the arguing, this went on for about a month and then one night we hung out, we got drunk and hooked up. We talked about our feelings, how we both were still hurt but it was hard to be without each other, things kinda of picked up where they left off which hindsight was not for the best. In the time that we were not talking she had managed to find a studio apartment(we are in southern California, so it's rough out here). I helped her move in to her new place, we were still acting like we were together she would still stay at my place and then one day she decided to take a break from me. For about two weeks, she didn't talk to me. Before this we had made plans to go to a music event, I sent her the ticket so she could go with someone else which she was going to but last minute they ended up but not being able to go so she said if I wanted to, we could go together. At this point I was already starting to make peace with us not getting back together or atleast not being as sad. I was hesitant about it but I decided to go with her. It was a good time, and it was nice to see her. I dropped her off, we kissed and said goodnight. After this we started talking again, not as much as before but atleast on a daily basis. She would come over, we would hangout and hook up again, I would go over to her place to help her set up somethings in her apartment she needed help with. At this point I had forgiven all the arguing and negativity, I wanted to be happy and seeing her made me happy but deep down I coul feel things were different and that there had been a change in her, she said she didn't want to rush things or be completely involved in each others lives, which I agreed with but we both acknowledged that we didn't want live without each other. She did admit to me that in the time being apart she had realized more things about herself, that she was still healing from alot of past trauma, especially what happened with her grandma but she also realized that she was attracted to women, that it was something she had suppressed most of her life. I wasn't really surprised by that though because when we were still together she was starting to hint at that. That night I asked her, if I was holding her back from her being herself, or that if she felt uncomfortable still being romantic with me..she said no, that even though she was attracted to women now, that she was still attracted to me but that she didn't want to rush back into things. We left it at that. The following day she sends me a text, reassuring me that I am not holding her back but that she wanted to admit that she had hooked up with other women in the time we weren't talking. This obviously hurt to know but I had my feelings that it had happened, so I was not surprised. I'm still somewhat processing that to be honest but i told her that I don't want her to not be able to be herself and that if she's ok with hanging out still that I don't mind either. A few nights ago, I stopped by her place to help her with an ac unit, where she lives it gets really hot all day and night. We talked about things, how I felt, how she felt..how we both don't like the idea of not having each other in our lives. We made plans to hangout soon, go mini golfing and get some sushi. I was very excited for that but it turns out she couldn't because she had to work that day, so I just trying to reschedule, I asked her what her schedule was the day after. I didn't hear from her most of the day and then she texted me back saying that she felt like things were moving too fast and that she was stressed out about things. That we were making too many plans to soon to hangout. I understood what she was saying, I was just excited but I apologized to her and told her that I respect her boundaries and that I'm just trying to adjust to how things are. Yesterday I didn't hear from her at all, and for the most part I knew she just wanted some space but then I got too in my head and became worried that something might have happened to her. So I texted her, saying that I hope she was ok. She got back to me this morning and said she was ok that she was just taking time for herself, I replied saying I understood and that she should take all the time she needs..I apologized for bothering her. So from today to when we broke up, it's been over 3 months. This time has seemed like a blur, it's been very stressful and an up and down of emotions. To be honest I regret breaking things up because I still love her very much, I feel like I could have been stronger or more patient but the stress was overwhelming. But now this back and forth between us has really been fucking with me. The days I talk to her and see her I'm so happy but the days when we don't talk, I'm stressed out and sad. I blame myself alot for what's happened, and it's made my drinking problem worse. Logically I know the best thing to do is to stop talking, this isn't my first hard break up. I've been in multiple long term relationships for the past 19 years but those were ended by my partners at the time, this time I ended things and now I'm living with the regret of that decision. At this point I'm just ranting and getting my thoughts and emotions out. I know I need to work on myself, get my shit together but fuck, I miss her so much and how things used to be. It's hard to let go of her. It's hard to let go of such a great person, my best friend, the most beautiful person both outside and inside. I know time heals but I wish I could take back my decisions. But in the end I want her to be happy, I want her to heal from her past and I know I need to do the same to be happy. Things just suck right now.
Kudos to anyone who gets through this rant. Hope your heart ache eases soon.

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Hotel Transylvania Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $16
House of 1,000 Corpses (2003), Devil's Rejects (2005), 3 From Hell (2019) (Vudu/HD) $6
How to Train Your Dragon Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $7.50
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $3.75
Howard the Duck (1986) (MA/4K) $6.75
Hugo (2011) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3.50
Humans, The (2021) (Vudu/HD) $6.25
Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) (MA/HD) $6.50 (GP/HD) $5
Hunchback of Notre Dame II (2002) (MA/HD) $6.50 (GP/HD) $5
Hunger Games Collection 1-4 (Vudu/HD) $6
Hunter Killer (2018) (Vudu/4K) $5.25 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $3
Huntsman: Winter's War - Extended Edition (2016) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2.75
Hurricane Heist (2018) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/4K) $3.50
I Feel Pretty (2018) (iTunes/HD) $1
Ice Age (2002) (MA/HD) $4.25
Ice Age Collection 1-5 (MA/SD) $16
Ice Age: Collision Course (2016) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $3.75
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009) (MA/HD) $5.25
Imitation Game, The (2014) (Vudu/HD) $3.25
Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks (2017) (iTunes/HD) $3.50
Incredibles (2004) (iTunes/4K) $6 (GP/HD) $4.50
Incredibles 2 (2018) (MA/4K) $6.25 (iTunes/4K) $4.50 (GP/HD) $2
Independence Day: Resurgence (2014) (iTunes/4K) $2 (MA/HD) $1.50
Indiana Jones Collection 1-4 (Vudu/4K) $24 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $20
Indivisible (2018) (MA/HD) $5
Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete (2013) (Vudu/HD) $4.25
Inferno (2016) (MA/HD) $3
Infinite (2021) (Vudu/4K) $5.50 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $4.50
Instructions Not Included (2013) (Vudu/HD) $3.75
Interview, The (2014) (MA/HD) $3.25
Iron Man 1-3 (iTunes/4K) $16 (GP/HD) $7.50
Iron Man 2 (2010) (MA/4K) $7.25 (iTunes/4K) $6.50 (GP/HD) $3
Iron Man 3 (2013) (iTunes/4K) $3 (MA/HD) $2.25 (GP/HD) $1.50
It Follows (2015) (Vudu/HD) $4.25
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016) (Vudu/4K) $5.25 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $2.75
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $3
Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (2013) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Jacob's Ladder (1990) (Vudu/HD) $3.50
Jason Bourne (2016) (MA/4K) $5.25 (iTunes/4K) $3.50 (MA/HD) $3
Jaws (1975) Jaws 2 (1978) Jaws 3 (1983) Jaws: The Revenge (1987) (MA/HD) $15.50
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5.50
Jerry Maguire (1996) (MA/4K) $6.50
Jigsaw (2017) (Vudu/4K) $4.75 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $2
Jingle All the Way (1996) (MA/HD) $6
JOBS (2013) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3.75
John Wick Collection 1-3 (Vudu/4K) $16 (iTunes/4K) $14.50 (Vudu/HD) $8
Jumanji: Next Level (2019) & Welcome to the Jungle (2017) (MA/HD) $7
Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle (2017) (MA/4K) $5 (MA/HD) $2 (MA/SD) $1
Jungle Book (1967) (MA/HD) $6 (GP/HD) $4
Jungle Book (2016) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $5 (GP/HD) $2.75
Jungle Cruise (2021) (MA/4K) $5.50 (MA/HD) $3.75 (GP/HD) $3
Jurassic Park (1993) (MA/4K) $4.75 (iTunes/4K) $3.50 (MA/HD) $2.75
Jurassic Park III (2001) (MA/HD) (iTunes/4K) $3.75
Jurassic Park: The Lost World (1997) (MA/4K) $6.50 (iTunes/4K) $3.50 (MA/HD) $2.75
Jurassic World (2015) (MA/4K) $4.50 (iTunes/4K) $3.50 (MA/HD) $2.50
Jurassic World Collection 1-5 (MA/4K) $19 (iTunes/4K) $17.50 (MA/HD) $8.50
Jurassic World Collection 1-6 (MA/HD) $11
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) (MA/4K) $4.75 (MA/HD) $1.75
Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3.50
Kick-Ass 2 (2013) (MA/HD) $5.25 (iTunes/HD) $5
Kid Who Would Be King (2019) (MA/HD) $4.50
Kid, The (2019) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $4.75
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) (Vudu/HD) $6.75
Killer Elite (2011) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $3.25
Killerman (2019) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3.75
Killing Kennedy (2013) (MA/HD) $6
King Kong (2005) (MA/4K) $5.25 (iTunes/4K) $3.75 (MA/HD) $3.50
King's Man (2021) (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $3.50
Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2.75
Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.25
Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016) (MA/HD) $3
Labor Day (2013) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.50
Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure (2001) (MA/HD) $7 (GP/HD) $5.50
Last Duel, The (2021) (MA/HD) $5.25 (GP/HD) $4
Last Vegas (2013) (MA/HD) $3
Last Witch Hunter (2015) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $1.50
Leap! (2017) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3.25
Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013) (Vudu/HD) $2.25
Legend of Hercules (2014) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $3
Les Miserables (2012) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Let's Be Cops (2014) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2.50
Life (2017) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $2.50
Like A Boss (2020) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/4K) $3.50
Lilo & Stitch (2002) & Stitch Has a Glitch (2005) (MA/HD) $9.50 (GP/HD) $5.50
Lion King (1994) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $2.75
Lion King (2019) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) $4 (GP/HD) $1.25
Lion King 1 1/2 (2004) (MA/HD) $6.50
Little Mermaid (1989) (MA/4K) $7 (iTunes/4K) $5 (GP/HD) $3.25
Little Monsters (1989) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
Logan (2017) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2.50
Lone Ranger (2013) (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $2.50
Lone Survivor (2013) (MA/4K) $6.25 (iTunes/4K) $2 (MA/HD) $1.50
Longest Ride (2015) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $1.25
Looper (2012) (MA/HD) $2.75
Lords of Salem, The (2012) (Vudu/HD) $4.75
Luca (2021) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3.75 (GP/HD) $3.25
Lucy (2014) (MA/HD) $2
Madagascar Collection 1-4 (MA/HD) $15
Mama (2013) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $3.25
Man on a Ledge (2012) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $6.25
Mary Poppins (1964) (MA/HD) $4.25 (GP/HD) $2.75
Maze Runner (2014) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $5.25
Maze Runner Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $14.50
Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018) (MA/HD) $5.50
Mechanic: Resurrection (2016) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $3
Meg Collection 1-2 (MA/HD) $8.50
Men in Black Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $14.50
MIB: International (2019) (MA/4K) $5.50 (MA/HD) $4.50
Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983) (MA/HD) $6 (GP/HD) $4.50
Million Dollar Arm (2014) (MA/HD) $4 (GP/HD) $3
Minions (2015) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2.50
Miracles From Heaven (2016) (MA/HD) $4
Missing Link (2019) (MA/HD) $5
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/4K) $7
Mission: Impossible Collection 1-6 (iTunes/4K) $20 (Vudu/HD) $18
Mitchells Vs. The Machines (2021) (MA/HD) $4.25
Moneyball (2011) (MA/HD) $2.50
Monster Hunter (2020) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $4
Monster Trucks (2016) (Vudu/HD) $2.25
Monster's Ball (2001) (Vudu/HD) $5.75
Monsters University (2013) (MA/4K) $6.75 (iTunes/4K) $5.75 (GP/HD) $3.50
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983) (MA/4K) $6.75
Monuments Men (2014) (MA/HD) $2
Mortal Engines (2018) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3.50
Motherless Brooklyn (2019) (MA/HD) $3.50
Mother's Day (2016) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.75
Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014) (MA/HD) $3.50
Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) (MA/HD) $5
Mulan (1998) (MA/4K) $6.75 (MA/HD) $5 (GP/HD) $3
Mulan (2020) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $4 (GP/HD) $2.25
Mulan 2 (2005) (MA/HD) $3.75
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (2016) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $3.75
My Dinner with Herve (2018) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.25 (GP/HD) $2.75
Never Grow Old (2019) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.50
Night at the Museum 3-Movie (MA/HD) $11.50
Night School (Extended Cut) (2018) (MA/HD) $4.25
Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) (MA/HD) $6 (GP/HD) $3.50
Noah (2014) (Vudu/HD) $1.75 (iTunes/HD) $1.50
Nun 2 (2023) (MA/HD) $5.75
Office Christmas Party (2016) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $2.25
Olaf's Frozen Adventure Plus 6 Disney Tales (2017) (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $3
Oliver! (1968) (MA/4K) $6.50
Olympus Has Fallen (2013) (MA/HD) $5
One Direction: This is Us + Extended Fan Edition (2013) (MA/HD) $3.25
Oranges, The (2011) (MA/HD) $4.50
Other Woman (2014) $4.25
Ouija (2014) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.50
Paper Towns (2011) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $4.25
ParaNorman (2012) (iTunes/HD) $5
Parasite (2019) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $4.50
Patriots Day (2017) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $2.50
Paul (2011) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $4
Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (2015) (MA/HD) $3.75
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013) (MA/HD) $2.25
Pet Sematary (2019) (Vudu/4K) $4 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $2.50
Peter Pan: Return to Neverland (2002) (MA/HD) $6 (GP/HD) $4.50
Peter Rabbit (2018) & 2 (2021) (MA/HD) $7.50
Peter Rabbit 2 (2021) (MA/HD) $4
Phantom Thread (2017) (MA/HD) $3.75
Pinocchio (1940) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $3.75
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $2.75 (GP/HD) $1.50
Pitch Perfect 2 (2015) (MA/HD) $2.50 (iTunes/4K) $3.50
Pitch Perfect Collection 1-3 (MA/HD) $11.50
Planet of the Apes 1-3 (Newer) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $11
Playing with Fire (2019) (iTunes/4K) $1.50 (Vudu/HD) $2
Pocahontas (1995) (MA/HD) $6.25
Pompeii (2014) (MA/HD) $3.25
Power Rangers (2017) (iTunes/4K) $3 (Vudu/HD) $2.50
Predator (2018) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $3.50
Premium Rush (2012) (MA/HD) $3.25
Pretty in Pink (1986) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $4.50
Priceless (2016) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $4.50
Prince of Egypt (2002) (MA/HD) $6
Prodigy (2019) (Vudu/HD) $5
Prometheus (2012) (MA/HD) $1.75
Proud Mary (2018) (MA/HD) $4
Pulp Fiction (1994) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $5.25 (Vudu/HD) $4
Purge Collection 1-4 (MA/HD) $14
Purge, The (2013) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2.75
Puss in Boots (2011) (MA/4K) $6.50
Quantum of Solace (2008) (Vudu/HD) $5.75
Queen of Katwe (2016) (MA/HD) $3 (GP/HD) $2.25
R.I.P.D. (2013) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $3
Rambo Collection 1-5 (Vudu/HD) $12.50
Rampage (2018) (MA/4K) $6.50
Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) (MA/4K) $5.75 (MA/HD) $4.50 (GP/HD) $2.50
Red 2 (2013) (Vudu/4K) $5.75 (iTunes/4K) $3.25 (Vudu/HD) $1.50
Red Dawn (2012) (Vudu/HD) $5.25 (iTunes/SD) $2
Red Sparrow (2018) (MA/HD) $3.75
Replicas (2019) (Vudu/4K) $5
Rescuers Down Under (1990) (MA/HD) $5.75 (GP/HD) $4
Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) (MA/HD) $2.25
Revenant, The (2015) (MA/4K) $5 (iTunes/4K) $3.75
Rhythm Section (2020) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $4
Ricki And The Flash (2015) (MA/HD) $4.50
Riddick Collection 1-3 (Unrated) (MA/HD) $13.50
Ride Along 1-2 (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $5 $2.75 Each
Rings (2017) (Vudu/HD) $2.75 (iTunes/HD) $1.50
Rio (2011) (MA/HD) $5.75
Rio 2 (2014) (MA/HD) $2
Rise of the Guardians (2012) (MA/HD) $3
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2010) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $5.75
Risen (2016) (MA/HD) $4.50
Robin Hood (2010) (MA/4K) $6
Robin Hood (Animated) (1973) (MA/HD) $3.75 (GP/HD) $2.75
Rock Dog (2016) (Vudu/HD) $4
Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017) (MA/HD) $3.50
Russell Madness (2015) (MA/HD) $3.75
Safe (2012) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $1.75
Same Kind of Different as Me (2017) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2
Sausage Party (2016) (MA/HD) $4.75
Savages (2012) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $2.25
Saving Mr. Banks (2013) (MA/HD) $4.25 (GP/HD) $2.50
Saw Collection 1-7 (Vudu/HD) $9.75
Scary Movie Collection 1-3 (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $13.50
Schindler's List (1993) (MA/HD) $4.50
Scoob (2020) (MA/4K) $3
Scream (1996) (Vudu/4K) $6
Scream Collection 1-3 (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $13.50
Second Act (2018) (iTunes/HD) $1.50
Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $5.25
Secret Life of Pets Collection 1-2 (MA/HD) $7.25
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $4.50
Selma (2015) (Vudu/HD) $2.75 (iTunes/HD) $2.25
Shack (2017) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $1.50
Shallows, The (2016) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD $3.50
Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015) (Vudu/HD) $3.75
Sherlock Gnomes (2018) (iTunes/4K) $2.25
Shutter Island (2010) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $6.50
Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $3.75
Silent Night, Deadly Night: 3-Film Collection (1989-1991) (Vudu/HD) $5.50
Silver Linings Playbook (2012) (Vudu/HD) $2
Sing (2016) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2.50
Sing 2 (2021) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $4
Sing Collection 1-2 (MA/HD) $6
Sinister (2012) (Vudu/HD) $3 (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Sixteen Candles (1984) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $4.25
Skyscraper (2018) (MA/4K) $5 (MA/HD) $1.75
Sleepy Hollow (1999) (Vudu/4K) (iTunes/4K) $6.75
Smokin' Aces (2007) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) $5.50
Smurfs 2 (2013) (MA/HD) $3
Smurfs: The Lost Village (2017) (MA/HD) $3
Snitch (2013) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $1.75
Snow White and the Huntsman (Extended) (2012) (iTunes/4K) $3.25 (MA/HD) $2.25
Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (1937) (MA/HD) $6 (GP/HD) $3.75
Snowden (2016) (MA/HD) $3.50 (iTunes/HD) $4
Son of God (2014) (MA/HD) $1.50
Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) (Vudu/4K) $6.25 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $4
Sorry to Bother You (2018) (MA/HD) $4.75
Soul (2020) (MA/4K) $6 (MA/HD) $3.75 (GP/HD) $2.25
Space Between Us, The (2017) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.50
Spider-Man Collection 1-8 (MA/HD) $26
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) (MA/HD) $5.50
Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $3.50
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) (MA/4K) $6.25 (MA/HD) $3.50
Spirit Untamed: The Movie (2021) (MA/HD) $5.25
SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015) (Vudu/HD) $4.75 (iTunes/HD) $3.50
Spotlight (2015) (MA/HD) $5 (iTunes/HD) $3
Spy Who Dumped Me (2018) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $3.75
Star Trek Collection 1-3 (Vudu/HD) $9.50 (iTunes/4K) $13.50
Star, The (2017) (MA/HD) $4
Still Alice (2015) (MA/HD) $3.25
Straight Outta Compton (Unrated Director’s Cut) (2015) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.50
Stronger (2017) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.50
Stuber (2019) (MA/HD) $5.25
Suffragette (2015) (iTunes/HD) Ports to MA $3
Super Buddies (2013) (MA/HD) $4.25 (GP/HD) $2.75
Super Mario Bros Movie (2023) (MA/4K) $7.25 (MA/HD) $5.25
Super Troopers (2002) (MA/HD) $5.50
Superman: Red Son (2020) (MA/HD) $3
SW: A New Hope (1977) (MA/4K) $7 (GP/HD) $3.50
SW: Empire Strikes Back (1980) (MA/4K) $7 (GP/HD) $3.50
SW: Rise of Skywalker (2019) (MA/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) $4.75 (GP/HD) $2.25
SW: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) (iTunes/4K) $5 (GP/HD) $3.50
Sword in the Stone (1963) (MA/HD) $5.75 (GP/HD) $3.25
T2 Trainspotting (2017) (MA/HD) $7
Tangled (2010) (MA/HD) $4.75 (GP/HD) $3.50
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $3
Terminator: Genisys (2015) (Vudu/4K) $7 (Vudu/HD) $1.75 (iTunes/4K) $3
Terms of Endearment (1983) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4.25
Think Like a Man (2012) & Too (2014) (MA/HD) $8.50
Thor (2011) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $7 (GP/HD) $3.50
Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast (2014) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $3.75
TMNT Out of the Shadows (2016) (iTunes/4K) $4
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) (MA/4K) $5.75 (iTunes/4K) $4.50
Tomorrowland (2015) (MA/HD) $5.50 (GP/HD) $3.50
Top Gun (1986) (Vudu/4K) $4.50 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $3.50
Total Recall + Extended (2012) (MA/HD) $4.75
Transformers 1-5 (Vudu/4K) $25 (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $23
Trauma Center (2019) (iTunes/4K) $3.25
Trolls (2016) (MA/HD) $1.25
Trolls Collection 1-2 (MA/HD) $5.75
Tully (2018) (MA/HD) $5
Turbo (2013) (MA/HD) $2.50 (iTunes/SD) $1
Turning, The (2020) (MA/HD) $5.25
Uncut Gems (2019) (Vudu/HD) $4.25
Under the Skin (2014) (Vudu/HD) $4.75
Underwater (2020) (MA/HD) $5.50
Underworld: Awakening (2012) (MA/HD) $1.75
Underworld: Blood Wars (2016) (MA/HD) $2.25
Unhinged (2020) (Vudu/HD) $4.50
Up in Smoke ‘Cheech and Chong’ (1978) (iTunes/HD) $2.75
Upgrade (2018) (MA/HD) $6.75
Us (2019) (MA/HD) $4.75
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) (Vudu/HD) $3.75
Venom (2005) (Vudu/HD) (iTunes/HD) $4
Vice (2015) 'Bruce Willis' (Vudu/HD) $2.50
Vice 'Christian Bale' (2018) (MA/HD) $4.75
Visit (2015) (MA/HD) $4.50
Vivo (2021) (MA/HD) $4
Walking with Dinosaurs (2013) (MA/HD) (iTunes/HD) $2.50
Warcraft (2016) (MA/4K) $4.50 (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2.25
Warm Bodies (2013) (iTunes/4K) $2.50 (Vudu/HD) $2
What Men Want (2019) (Vudu/HD) $1.75 (iTunes/4K) $1.25
When the Bough Breaks (2016) (MA/HD) $4.50
White Boy Rick (2018) (MA/HD) $5
Why Him? (2016) (iTunes/4K) (MA/HD) $2
Widows (2018) (MA/4K) $6.50 (MA/HD) $2
Wolf of Wall Street (2013) (Vudu/4K) $6 (iTunes/4K) $4 (Vudu/HD) $3.50
Wonder (2017) (iTunes/4K) (Vudu/HD) $2.75
Wonder Park (2019) (Vudu/HD) $3.50 (iTunes/4K) $2.25
Wonder Woman: Bloodlines (2019) (MA/HD) $2.75
Won't Back Down (2012) (MA/HD) $4
X-Men (2000), X2 (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) (MA/HD) $12
X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019) (MA/HD) $6
X-Men: First Class (2010), Days of Future Past (2004), Apocalypse (2014) (MA/HD) $10.50
Yesterday (2019) (MA/4K) $7 (MA/HD) $4.75
Young Adult (2011) (Vudu/HD) $6
Zombieland: Double Tap (2019) (MA/4K) $7.25 (MA/HD) $5.25