There seems to be a lot of interest in stocks from young investors. I imagine that many will make their way from WSB to this sub because WSB is a bunch of monkeys flinging poo. You may have lost some money and now you want to explore stocks from less of a Meme and emotional perspective.
There is nothing wrong with Meme stocks. Meme stocks can be fun. I have had fun with it. I am also a 42-year-old man with rental properties, commercial properties, and a few small businesses. BB, NOK, AMC, and even GME are all fine. The DD is fine behind all of them. The issue is that if I lose $1,000 then I can write myself a check from one of my businesses for $10,000 to make myself feel better. That is not a brag...it is simply sharing that people come from different places in life.
You are just starting off life and probably have far fewer resources and every dollar matters more.
I challenge anyone to CMV but I am not a big proponent of stocks as a core investment strategy. Here are my reasons why.

1. Information has a time-decay of value. Meaning that information becomes less valuable over time. Data is what is mined to often produce new Information. You are at a disadvantage when it comes to both data and information. The information that you get on a retail level has already lost much of its value. This is where the saying "if you read it in the news you are already too late"
2. You have no power. You simply cannot compete with whales and whales don't become whales by letting people glean the crumbs that are leftover. They have the power to move markets, you don't.
3. You have no control over outcomes. You have no control over the success of a company. You have no control over other investors. You have no control over anything.
4. The odds on options are not that great. Even compared to blackjack our betting the outside of a roulette table they are just not that good.
5. Many people that are far more intelligent than you are, lose money at stock investing.
6. Your emotions and FOMO will be a hindrance and problematic.
7. Most stock investors are too young to understand the market cycles

I like stocks as a small part of an overall investment strategy for young people for the following reasons.

1. Time is valuable and you have the most time
2. Compound interest is the "force" behind all investing and compound interest compliments the stock market very well
3. Certain strategies can complement long-term wealth building

Building wealth through stocks is like trying to build a house one brick at a time...just you, and you are gathering the straw, digging the mud, and pressing each brick by hand. When it rains many of your bricks will wash away. If the sun shines for enough days then you will make good progress.
The problem is that all markets cycle. The housing market cycles. Petroleum and natural gas cycles. The stock market cycles. I believe that a full market cycle is around 18 years with around 7-12 years in an up cycle and 6-11 in a down cycle. In the stock market, they call these bull and bear markets. We are currently in one of the longest bull markets on record due to interest rates and the feds printing money. No one has a crystal ball but sooner or later the market will peak. When this happens Boomers will be the first to pull money out and put it into bonds or CDs. Boomers are as big of a whale as retail can get. Anyone and I mean anyone could have made money in the current market. If ten years ago you had asked a five-year-old to pick five of their favorite things and invested in their choices you would have made money. That could be Barbies, YouTube, Pizza, Sprite, and their Dog. They would have made money on any stocks you picked around those five things.
There will come a day sooner or later when Boomers and GenX will see trends in the market that they don't like. Boomers own multiple houses and are deep into retirement. GenX is a small but powerful generation that is now on the back Nine Holes of life. Gen X will largely inherit the wealth of the Boomers. There will come a shift towards mitigating losses and that shift is not far away. When they move their money from markets so goes the market.
Is it fair to say that one of the longest bull cycles on record could transition to one of the longest bear cycles?
Let's look at Millenials...a generation that is struggling to just buy a home. Boomers own a few. GenX may own a couple and Millenials that are now entering into their forties struggle with one. Millenials are a massively sized generation that I believe is now bigger than both GenX and Boomers combined because Boomers are dying at a rapid pace. Millenials are the generation that were adults starting life and careers in 2008 and full-blown families with Covid-19. Maybe one of the unluckiest generations.
GenZ is this very talented and intelligent generation. Y'all are creating disruptions in culture, in politics, and in Wall Street. You are savvy and demanding. Giving billionaires the finger while pissing on the front door of their mansions.
But you need to be careful.
Stocks are not the key to your success. They are just a single tool in your toolbox. A better tool may be early homeownership or owning a small business. Life is about options...and I am not talking about the gambling options of Wall Street. I am talking about the options of having equity in a home to adapt to economic swings. I am, talking about the options of owning a small business where your day to day decisions make you smarter and more valuable. Where you own assets that make you money. Most importantly you have control over your own destiny.
I am not telling you not to invest in stocks. I am just telling you that it should be a limited part of your overall strategy in life. Unless someone has been through two complete cycles of the stock markets then I would take their advice with a grain of salt.
General advice:

1. Don't sell stocks that you have taken a loss on
2. Buy when everyone is selling and sell when everyone is buying
3. Invest in stocks with a strategy based on your knowledge and experience
4. Invest only what you can afford to lose
5. Stocks work best with time. Leave them alone
6. Be a value investor
7. Invest with a purpose

Number seven is important. For example, I like Robotics, AI, and Automation. I like these is two specific areas....transportation and mining. I operate in the Transportation industry. I know that very soon human drivers will be eliminated and self-driving trucks will take over. Trucks will be loaded, driven, and unloaded without a single human being doing any of that work. With that will come an entire supporting industry. Tow trucks will need to be automatically dispatched when trucks break down or in accidents. AI will need to be involved in decision making. I will see these changes before I am dead and I am 42.
I like underwater mining. Our oceans are the next frontier and the next gold rush. We have areas of sea bottom that has very little life but is rich in gasses, minerals, and thermal energy. Automation, AI, and robotics will play a huge role in underwater mining. I will see this transition start in my lifetime and I am 42.
Beyond that, once we have machines that are capable of underwater mining then we have the basics for machines that can mine inner-system planetary objects. From nearby asteroids to the moon, to thermal energy collection closer to the sun, to Mars and beyond. The wealthiest person in existence will be the person that is able to start the first off-planet mining operation. Where there is no EPA, no taxes on land, where we are not building sub-divisions next to mines. Where we don't have to worry about the ecosystem. Where gasses and pollutants are not pollutants because there is nothing of consequence to pollute. The largest land-owners in existence will be the owner of off-world mining operations. That may not happen in my lifetime...but it may in yours.
I like investing in Meme stocks because they are fun. But I also invest in Robotics, AI, and automation with one-single question....is this company taking humanity one-step close to automated transportation or underwater mining? I invest with a purpose.
Sure I will grab up some value stocks every now and then. People are going to be flying more than ever in a few years. People are going to be more social than ever in a few years. Shoot Condom manufacturers are a buy right now because people will be..........you get the idea.
The whole reason that I wrote this excessively long post is to maybe get you into thinking about your strategy....what is it? And to caution you on being "all-in" on stocks.
Stonks don't always go up.

My players are going to be visiting the palace of a demon lord of pleasure who's more CN than CE. I want to show that despite his title, he represents all forms of pleasure and good feelings, not just sex. Also space in his realm doesn't work the same way as it does in the mortal plane. He essentially has an infinite amount of space to work with and can customize it as he pleases, so there are no size constraints.

1. A casino to feel the thrill of gambling.
2. A dining hall with an endless buffet that visitors are allowed to eat as much as they wish.
3. An idyllic beach with perfectly white sand to relax or play on.
4. An arena where gladiators brawl it out against each other. The point of it isn't to kill each other as much as make the battles look stunning to the audience.
5. A hotel with the most comfortable beds possible. Here anyone with enough money can enjoy a good rest after all the excitement.
6. A beautiful and well tended garden filled with aromatic flowers and sweet fruits.
7. A vineyard where exquisitely-aged wine can be produced just by pressing the grapes. (u/_SovietMudkip_)
8. A petting zoo full of the babies of dangerous creatures. (u/_SovietMudkip_)
9. An opulent concert hall where the best musicians of the realms perform (u/_SovietMudkip_)
10. A small, cozy looking wooden library, with a cushioned bay window where rain gently scatters against the glass and a cup of some hot liquid gently rising with steam. (u/QuietOracle)
11. An owl-bear hugging zoo. Go to sleep in the embrace of their soft down. (u/QuietOracle)
12. The room of sensory experiences. The room itself is fairly plain, with the main feature being long tables running the length of the room. On closer inspection there are fist-sized carved holes, each one holding a small round crystal... (u/QuietOracle)
13. A room with dozens of sacks filled with beans, lentils and grains where visitors can put their hands in and let the contents run through their fingers. (u/_WhiteCubeCat_)
14. A hag (or any other long nailed creature) giving visitors a scalp massage. (u/_WhiteCubeCat_)
15. A museum of little-known or long-forgotten art pieces, sculptures, and history. (u/MoonlightMancer)
16. A festival full of colors, music, and drinks. Everyone seems to love you, and you can’t stop laughing. (u/MoonlightMancer)
17. A hallway of endless doors. In each room is someone you know, complimenting you endlessly, sharing every positive, even begrudgingly jealous thought they ever had about you. (u/MoonlightMancer)
18. A room full of bubble wrap. (u/EmmaDrake)
19. A hot spring/spa, with fluffy towels, those showers that are like rain with perfect water pressure, mud baths, and refreshing food and drink. (u/lionesslindsey)
20. A room full of people that constantly give you validation and laugh at all your jokes. (u/CountryJeff)
21. Never-ending line of gold chalices, crystal vases, silver artwork, and other valuables. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
22. People who are “better” than you are marched in a stripped of their superior qualities. Beautiful people are disfigured and turned ugly. Wealthy powerful people are ruined and made to beg you for pennies. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
23. Mass groups of people enter the room and tell you how they admire you and how wonderful you are. They stroke your ego and inflate your pride. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
24. Servants do everything for you. Feed you, give you drinks, wash you, wipe your arse, etc. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
25. You are given a wickedly barbed leather whip. A slave creature is bound to a post and you can whip this creature to inflict your wrath upon them as much as you desire. If the poor soul dies, another is brought in to replace them. (u/PutridMeatPuppet)
26. 'Knight for a day'. The full experience; lance, shiny outfit, a squire, a trusty stead, a dragon and a princess/prince to rescue. (u/mr_earthman)
27. The magical equivalent of a holo deck (u/cyber-viper)
28. Wide, flat plain with the fastest vehicles in the multiverse (a good place to use the Avernus vehicles) (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
29. A selection of cities and villages for you to destroy with war machines or your own magic. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
30. A collection of wand that allow you to test out powerful magic. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
31. A magical version of a movie theatre, allowing you to watch all manner of stories, true and legendary. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
32. A moderately large pool where small battleships with tiny animated crewmen can be deployed in teams to shell and board each other for the audience's amusement. Honored guests can put their strategic abilities to a test against other players by directly giving orders to their ships, and in certain hours guests may even swim in the pool to live out the power fantasy of being a sea monster. (u/VIixIXine)
33. A colorizer-device that transforms any clothes/armoweapons/other gear to any desired hue you wish (as long as it doesn’t affect the workings of the gear) (u/PaigeOrion)
34. A grand screen, showing a nearly infinite number of (screen)plays from all space and time, including the show with the disgraced human paladin delivering a green baby gnome back to his home land through incredible odds. (u/PaigeOrion)
35. A tiara that allows you to experience the sensory experience of a black cat as long as you wear it and close your eyes. (u/PaigeOrion)
36. A plethora of small, multicolored blocks that will magically interlock with one another to render almost any architectural structure imaginable. (But don’t step on them barefoot!) (u/PaigeOrion)
37. A band of musicians who are the perfect musical backup for any performances. Alone, they are more low key, but no less skilled, playing haunting melodies of unknown origin. (u/PaigeOrion)
38. A massive walk-in closet where you can try in any clothes in any fashion you like. (u/Tezla44)
39. A "schadenfreude" theatre, with shows that rely on slapstick and cringe comedy. (u/Martinus_XIV)
40. A REALLY good chocolate fountain (u/BrokenBanette)
41. A room designed to give you closure. When you enter this room, someone you loved and lost is there, sitting in a couch. The room feels vaguely familiar, but you can't place why. If Detect Magic is used, the room is full of magic (divination, transmutation, illusion) but the person seems like a normal person. You can chat with them for as long as you like. They behave just as you remember them, with the good and the bad. (u/ohsurenerd)
42. A theatre performing the most magnificent tragedies. When you watch the performance, you find yourself completely enraptured: you cheer when things go right, scream when something terrifying happens, and moan and weep at the inevitable horrible ending. When you leave, it feels like removing a backpack full of lead that you'd been carrying for so long you'd forgotten it was there. (u/ohsurenerd)
43. A room where there's a button, there's someone outside and it explains that if you enter there's a 50/50 chance of you dying or not, the room won't actually kill you and it's there just to make you feel the pleasure of near death experience. (u/SupremeGodDictator)
44. A massage parlor with the universes best staff pampering your every need as you receive the most relaxing massage of your life whether it be scalp, back, foot, full body, etc. Has the worlds fluffiest towels and robes to luxuriate in while you wait or if you simply want to sit in a comfy chair and enjoy your ache free muscles. (u/Blue_Mando)
45. An arena where you and your opponents heal near instantly, and you can fight endlessly (u/ellen-the-educator)
46. A reenactment of your greatest failures in life, but this time they turn into your greatest achievements. (u/CountryJeff)
47. A room with the world's finest works of art.... and a myriad of implements you can use to destroy them. (u/redrosebeetle)
48. A torture chamber with mages on hand to create illusions of the people you wish to torture. Or increasingly realistic versions of them, depending on the level of magic you wish to implement. (u/redrosebeetle)
49. A room full of gold and jewels you can roll around in, ala Scrooge McDuck. But woe betide anyone who tries to take a souvenir.... (u/redrosebeetle)
50. As you're walking through the gardens, a person comes up to you. They introduce themselves as an adventurer who's also here on a quest. They seem to be the same class as you, and they're incredibly attractive-- almost exactly your type. You immediately click and end up spending the day together, talking about everything and anything. You tell them things you've never told anyone else before. They understand everything you tell them, almost innately, but they're still impressed by your feats and your stories. The two of you find an empty bedroom and close the door behind you. It's perfect in its imperfections. In the morning they're gone. No matter where you look, you can't find them. (u/ohsurenerd)
51. A room lined with shelves and shelves of bottles and vials containing a crimson liquid flowing slowly (like a syrup), all with small labels on them. As you inspect the labels, you realize they've all got names on them: famous adventurers, kings and queens, great sages. If you drink one, you experience a selection of their memories as they experienced them: battles won, discoveries made, historical alliances and friendships being forged or broken... (u/ohsurenerd)
52. A room that turns anyone that enters it into a child. It is full of every toy imaginable (u/arual_x)
53. A tour of a chocolate factory. Kobolds work there, and the owner, who gives the tour, is a Metallic Dragon in Humanoid form. (u/arual_x)
54. A fortune teller who has a Deck of Many Things with only the good cards. If you in any way offend them, they will sleight of hand vs perception check slip you a bad card instead. (u/arual_x)
55. An island theme park of reanimated dinosaurs. The owner is a level 20 Necromancer called Hamm Johnand. (u/arual_x)
56. A Virtual Reality style game that allows you to battle horrible monsters over and over again without risk of injury physical. But still allows you to gain XP... (u/arual_x)
57. A perfect expanse of thick snowy ground. There is constantly a snowball fight going on. (u/arual_x)
58. A giant room full of mattresses where everyone immediately gets a wonderful massage. (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
59. A room where you get to torture all of your worst enemies (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
60. A room where people applaud you, give you a trophy, etc (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
61. A room where you get something that was denied to you (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
62. A room full of gold and exquisite things, from beautiful furniture to magic weapons (u/Revanclaw-and-memes)
63. A seemingly endless room where adventurers can drink a potion to grow wings and flit about to their hearts' delight (u/iriedashur)
64. An ordinary classroom containing the adventurer's childhood friends, enemies, and their most hated teacher. Upon entering the room, the adventurer discovers that they are invisible, and free to pull pranks as they wish (u/iriedashur)
65. A brightly colored room piled high with wrapped gifts, large and small, for the adventurers to open endlessly (u/iriedashur)
66. A purple and black dragon named Ace who cooks you garlic bread and cake. (u/sanorace)
67. A magic pair of goggles/glasses that simulate any “What if” question you pose to them. (u/lewiscann)
68. A magical weather room where you can ask for any weather for your pleasure (I love listening to rain) (u/lewiscann)
69. A room full of lounges with a floating slow burning piece of wood that warms the whole area, the piece of wood is so large you can see the flame spread through this piece of wood forever (u/lewiscann)
70. A room where you can bite your fingernails and they grow back instantly ( so you can bite them some more )(u/razenastie)
71. A room with incredibly weakened versions of powerful monsters. (u/Your_InsideMan)
72. A vast room on wooden sculptures, oil, and torches. (u/Your_InsideMan)
73. A zoo of sentient races (u/Paralytica)
74. A collection of legendary heroes magically transfixed in blocks of ice. (u/Paralytica)
75. Palanquin rentals (u/Paralytica)
76. A booth that will remake your face whilst in the palace (ostensibly to make you more beautiful but it could be used for anything) (u/Paralytica)
77. A magic chair that gives really good back massages (u/TenNinetythree)
78. A playground where the slides and carousels are for adults (u/TenNinetythree)
79. A room where you become a giant and can destroy cities and fortresses kaiju style. (u/Paralytica)
80. Drug Olympics. A room with every drug imaginable to try. Leaving the room cleanses you of their effects. (u/Skitsafrit)
81. No Pauses. A room that has the effect of making all conversations flow perfectly. No silence stretches too long, no one mishears you, and every topic segways perfectly into the next. (u/Skitsafrit)
82. Deprivation Room. The room is so absolutely featureless and quiet, that you can meditate magnitudes better here than anywhere else. (u/Skitsafrit)
83. A games room where you play against your perfect match (u/Nesurame)
84. Similar to the previous, a games room where you're matched against nothing but weaker opponents (u/Nesurame)
85. A smoky, dreamweed hookah lounge (u/reallyenjoyscarbs)
86. A heist simulator where you always get away with the big diamond, chest, etc (thrill of theft) (u/reallyenjoyscarbs)
87. A sauna room with a central pillar. Inside the pillar is a chamber containing a magic stone which can detect the exact temperature preferences of those inside, and making each person feel said preference. (u/TgagHammerstrike)
88. An oval-shaped room with countless glass lotion bottles, with each smelling better than the last. If you look for a specific scent (no matter how rare), you'll certainly find it with the help of a goblin near the back of the room. (u/TgagHammerstrike)
89. A room that consists of A bunch of mortals so utterly jaded from years of plesure seeking that they need the hardest of drugs and the wildest of sensations to feel anything,with lesser demons feeding on their pursuit of euphoria. Think the emperors children from warhammer 40k. (u/TgagHammerstrike)
90. A buffet of the lids of yogurt/pudding cups to lick. (u/Hunter37594)
91. An olfactory room that reads your memories and replicates smells that remind you of your most joyous moments. (u/lecorbusianus)
92. A wildlife reserve for Druids to find new and exotic wild shapes. (u/lecorbusianus)
93. A room with musical instruments that you're able to master immediately. (u/lecorbusianus)
94. Zero gravity obstacle course. (u/lecorbusianus)
95. A cooking class taught by a master chef that always seems to have enough time to guide you one-on-one. (u/lecorbusianus)
96. An enchanter who allows you to relieve the best moments of your life over and over again. (u/lecorbusianus)
97. An illusionary room that brings up past experiences and let’s you make different choices to fix mistakes or win arguments. (u/The_Rhibo)
98. A murder simulator to allow an individual to live out the fantasy of killing that special someone. (u/Brann_The_Kid)
99. A library full of blackmail and secret knowledge regarding historical and political figures. A conniving, plotting character’s dream! (u/MoonlightMancer)
100. A room where you can see colors that shouldn't exist. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
101. A room with a creature in a dark robe sitting at a table covered in maps and dice. He helps you play a strange game where you and your party make up characters that go on adventures while the robed creature acts as all of the other characters and determines new events. (u/Clickclacktheblueguy)
102. ...

Hello, I am using a throwaway.
I am an ex-con released in 2018 for car crime. You can read one of the links from my post history if you want more details but the relevant facts are these:

• - I started with the group in 2011 when I was just out of my teens
• - I carried on for 4 years
• - I got arrested in 2015 and received a 6 year prison sentence. All my cash (£4,000) and cars were seized during the raid at my rental house. Most of the the money was returned to me as they were proceeds of gambling (I was a heavy drinker and gambler). Some of the cash and all of the the cars that belonged to the group I was involved in were confiscated. I had no POCA or HMRC action against me.
• - I was released in 2017 on tag.

Right before I was arrested in 2015 I bought bitcoins in cash from a BTC ATM machine. I had 20.33 BTC in my possession, they were bought for around £400 each back then. I gave them to my sister to hold onto when my landlord kicked me out of my rental house and I left my personal possessions with her when I went inside. I have proof of receipts for the purchases and I have the gambling transactions from my William Hill online account that show I made purchases from the BTC ATM next door to the bookie each time I had a good day at the bookies and bought one coin.
When I came out of prison, I spoke to an accountant about them. He showed me guidance from HMRC that said that bitcoins were considered gambling and therefore not subject to tax.
I have been selling them for the last few years, in cash and used them to fund my living expenses and equipment for my job (I was living in a probation service approved hostel whilst working as a painter and decorator and would sell them when I was low on work).
I still have just over 16 bitcoins left. However, I went to my accountant just before Christmas and gave him my receipts for my painting and decorating jobs. He said guidance has now changed in 2018 and that the bitcoins would also have to be accounted for also and that they were subject to capital gains tax less my personal allowance. I would also have to redo my tax returns for 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 to account for the ones that I sold previously, less my allowance.
My question is, if I redo the tax returns, is there a possibility that my bitcoins could all be confiscated as Proceeds of Crime?
My accountant seemed shocked when I pointed out to him that they had climbed in price and were now standing at £16,000 (he said I'm the only client with bitcoins he has, and he doesn't know much about them). He said that he would try to speak to a HMRC officer off-the-record and see if there was a chance to do a full disclosure. He said there is something similar called a Code 9 but that is for criminal offences of tax fraud or tax evasion. He is worried that HMRC might not believe that I bought the coins with the proceeds of gambling, but that they were proceeds of crime from the car ringing I was doing. I still have some of my ATM receipts and I have the blockchain records that show I bought the bitcoins and transferred them onto paper printouts from bitaddress.org (they are now kept on a Trezor). But there's no proof they were bought in cash with the gambling proceeds.
He seem quite concerned that I am sitting on assets worth £250,000 and that I could potentially be liable to lose them all. He has suggested that he won't submit my tax returns yet, until he speaks to some colleagues of his and a tax investigator that he knows. Then he says, it might be better to speak directly to HMRC and ask for a sit-down interview or a Zoom call and make a full disclosure.
He said I also have the possibility of leaving the United Kingdom and moving to a tax haven. However I am now married and my wife's little boys from her previous marriage are in school, they call me 'dad' now. I'm not sure £250,000 would last forever in Switzerland or wherever, plus I'm an ex-con and might not get a residency permit. I'd prefer to stay in the UK and pay my taxes and get on with my life. My painting and decorating job is going really well now and I've got a full order book for spring 2021. I no longer drink or gamble. I moved away from my hometown and no longer have any contact with any of my old group. Any advice any accountants here can give is most welcome.
Tl;DR: I'm scared HMRC might confiscate my 16 bitcoins as Proceeds of Crime for an earlier offence, is there anything I can do and what's the % chance of me losing my coins?

Hello, I am using a throwaway.
I am an ex-con released in 2018 for car crime. You can read one of the links from my post history if you want more details but the relevant facts are these:

• - I started with the group in 2011 when I was just out of my teens
• - I carried on for 4 years
• - I got arrested in 2015 and received a 6 year prison sentence. All my cash (£4,000) and cars were seized during the raid at my rental house. Most of the the money was returned to me as they were proceeds of gambling (I was a heavy drinker and gambler). Some of the cash and all of the the cars that belonged to the group I was involved in were confiscated. I had no POCA or HMRC action against me.
• - I was released in 2017 on tag.

Right before I was arrested in 2015 I bought bitcoins in cash from a BTC ATM machine. I had 20.33 BTC in my possession, they were bought for around £400 each back then. I gave them to my sister to hold onto when my landlord kicked me out of my rental house and I left my personal possessions with her when I went inside. I have proof of receipts for the purchases and I have the gambling transactions from my William Hill online account that show I made purchases from the BTC ATM next door to the bookie each time I had a good day at the bookies and bought one coin.
When I came out of prison, I spoke to an accountant about them. He showed me guidance from HMRC that said that bitcoins were considered gambling and therefore not subject to tax.
I have been selling them for the last few years, in cash and used them to fund my living expenses and equipment for my job (I was living in a probation service approved hostel whilst working as a painter and decorator and would sell them when I was low on work).
I still have just over 16 bitcoins left. However, I went to my accountant just before Christmas and gave him my receipts for my painting and decorating jobs. He said guidance has now changed in 2018 and that the bitcoins would also have to be accounted for also and that they were subject to capital gains tax less my personal allowance. I would also have to redo my tax returns for 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 to account for the ones that I sold previously, less my allowance.
My question is, if I redo the tax returns, is there a possibility that my bitcoins could all be confiscated as Proceeds of Crime?
My accountant seemed shocked when I pointed out to him that they had climbed in price and were now standing at £16,000 (he said I'm the only client with bitcoins he has, and he doesn't know much about them). He said that he would try to speak to a HMRC officer off-the-record and see if there was a chance to do a full disclosure. He said there is something similar called a Code 9 but that is for criminal offences of tax fraud or tax evasion. He is worried that HMRC might not believe that I bought the coins with the proceeds of gambling, but that they were proceeds of crime from the car ringing I was doing. I still have some of my ATM receipts and I have the blockchain records that show I bought the bitcoins and transferred them onto paper printouts from bitaddress.org (they are now kept on a Trezor). But there's no proof they were bought in cash with the gambling proceeds.
He seem quite concerned that I am sitting on assets worth £250,000 and that I could potentially be liable to lose them all. He has suggested that he won't submit my tax returns yet, until he speaks to some colleagues of his and a tax investigator that he knows. Then he says, it might be better to speak directly to HMRC and ask for a sit-down interview or a Zoom call and make a full disclosure.
He said I also have the possibility of leaving the United Kingdom and moving to a tax haven. However I am now married and my wife's little boys from her previous marriage are in school, they call me 'dad' now. I'm not sure £250,000 would last forever in Switzerland or wherever, plus I'm an ex-con and might not get a residency permit. I'd prefer to stay in the UK and pay my taxes and get on with my life. My painting and decorating job is going really well now and I've got a full order book for spring 2021. I no longer drink or gamble. I moved away from my hometown and no longer have any contact with any of my old group. Any advice any accountants here can give is most welcome.
Tl;DR: I'm scared HMRC might confiscate my 16 bitcoins as Proceeds of Crime for an earlier offence, is there anything I can do and what's the % chance of me losing my coins?

Based in England.
Hello, I am using a throwaway account.
I am an ex-con released in 2018 for car crime. You can read one of the links from my post history if you want more details but the relevant facts are these:

• - I started with the group in 2011 when I was just out of my teens
• - I carried on for 4 years
• - I got arrested in 2015 and received a 6 year prison sentence. All my cash (£4,000) and cars were seized during the raid at my rental house. Most of the the money was returned to me as they were proceeds of gambling (I was a heavy drinker and gambler). Some of the cash and all of the the cars that belonged to the group I was involved in were confiscated. I had no POCA or HMRC action against me.
• - I was released in 2017 on tag.

Right before I was arrested in 2015 I bought bitcoins in cash from a BTC ATM machine. I had 20.33 BTC in my possession, they were bought for around £400 each back then. I gave them to my sister to hold onto when my landlord kicked me out of my rental house and I left my personal possessions with her when I went inside. I have proof of receipts for the purchases and I have the gambling transactions from my William Hill online account that show I made purchases from the BTC ATM next door to the bookie each time I had a good day at the bookies and bought one coin.
When I came out of prison, I spoke to an accountant about them. He showed me guidance from HMRC that said that bitcoins were considered gambling and therefore not subject to tax.
I have been selling them for the last few years, in cash and used them to fund my living expenses and equipment for my job (I was living in a probation service approved hostel whilst working as a painter and decorator and would sell them when I was low on work).
I still have just over 16 bitcoins left. However, I went to my accountant just before Christmas and gave him my receipts for my painting and decorating jobs. He said guidance has now changed in 2018 and that the bitcoins would also have to be accounted for also and that they were subject to capital gains tax less my personal allowance. I would also have to redo my tax returns for 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 to account for the ones that I sold previously, less my allowance.
My question is, if I redo the tax returns, is there a possibility that my bitcoins could all be confiscated as Proceeds of Crime?
My accountant seemed shocked when I pointed out to him that they had climbed in price and were now standing at £16,000 (he said I'm the only client with bitcoins he has, and he doesn't know much about them). He said that he would try to speak to a HMRC officer off-the-record and see if there was a chance to do a full disclosure. He said there is something similar called a Code 9 but that is for criminal offences of tax fraud or tax evasion. He is worried that HMRC might not believe that I bought the coins with the proceeds of gambling, but that they were proceeds of crime from the car ringing I was doing. I still have some of my ATM receipts and I have the blockchain records that show I bought the bitcoins and transferred them onto paper printouts from bitaddress.org (they are now kept on a Trezor). But there's no proof they were bought in cash with the gambling proceeds.
He seem quite concerned that I am sitting on assets worth £250,000 and that I could potentially be liable to lose them all. He has suggested that he won't submit my tax returns yet, until he speaks to some colleagues of his and a tax investigator that he knows. Then he says, it might be better to speak directly to HMRC and ask for a sit-down interview or a Zoom call and make a full disclosure.
He said I also have the possibility of leaving the United Kingdom and moving to a tax haven. However I am now married and my wife's little boys from her previous marriage are in school, they call me 'dad' now. I'm not sure £250,000 would last forever in Switzerland or wherever, plus I'm an ex-con and might not get a residency permit. I'd prefer to stay in the UK and pay my taxes and get on with my life. My painting and decorating job is going really well now and I've got a full order book for spring 2021. I no longer drink or gamble. I moved away from my hometown and no longer have any contact with any of my old group. Any advice any accountants here can give is most welcome.
Tl;DR: Is there a good chance HMRC might confiscate my 16 bitcoins as Proceeds of Crime for an earlier offence, is there anything I can do and what's the % chance of me losing my coins?

My Gramp and Gram raised my brothers and me for a goodly part of our childhood. Our summers would be spent on their family farm way back among the mountains and hollers (hollows) of our ancestral landscape. When Mom and Dad went their seperate ways, we went to live with them year-round. It wasn’t what Momma wanted, but she had a hard time for a long time after he left. She had the littler ones to take care of, and we boys were more than she could handle on her own.
It was a good life - one of hard work, because everyone had to do their part, including us, as young as we were. There are places still where youngsters not yet ten years old have callouses on their hands, but maybe not as many as there used to be. I had mine. We had ours.
But it taught us early on that the food you ate came from hard work, as we grew much of ours. It was a valuable lesson that would stand us in good stead for the rest of our lives. None of us were ever shirkers. But, damn! I hated pulling weeds and hoeing those endless rows of corn!
Soybean harvest was a hell of a time. We grew fields of it in addition to everything else on what flat ground there was. It was extra winter fodder for the stock, along with low-grade corn grown and dried for the purpose (as opposed to what we grew for ourselves), dried corn husks, hay, and the grain and feed that we bought or traded for.
The soybeans, when ready, would be mown by hand with big two-handed sythes (picture the Grim Reaper, and we Were reapers) to lay just right. Once they had dried and cured enough, we use pitchforks to load ‘em up, truckload by truckload, and store them in an old barn we used for the purpose. We’d fill that fucker to the rafters. You had to lay it all up just right, though, so the air could circulate through it all. Pack it too tight, mold would grow and spread, and you’d just done a hard season’s work for nothing. That was an all day job, sometimes two or three, and we’d be dead worn out by the end of it.
Little brother sliced his knee wide open once, on one of those sythe blades; just below the kneecap. Gram kept it cleaned and dressed, with liniment on it, and left it to heal. Nobody went to the doctor for minor shit like that. He had a hell of a scar for years, a big red eye-shaped thing from where the edges never pulled together and new skin grew to cover the open wound.
Hell, Gramp cut his thumb damn near half way off once when he slipped on a slick rock in the creek bed while retrieving a minnow trap he’d set out to catch bait fish for fishing. The securing line had knotted tight, and he had his knife out to cut it. The blade sliced down through the webbing between his thumb and finger nearly to the bone. He kept that blade razor sharp on a big Arkansas whet-stone that sat on the well box, the surface worn smooth as glass from repeated use over the years.
He didn’t say a word or make a sound; just washed the wound out good in the running creek water, went to the house and poured alcohol in it, and wrapped it in a clean rag. It took a little while, but it healed just fine. He was one tough old man, and he’d had worse.
Times when there wasn’t work to be done, though, Good Lord! We had the run of the hills, and complete freedom to roam. We could go where we wanted and do what we wanted, like the half-wild things we were. The nearest neighbor was two miles away, and the world was our plaything.
We made the most of it. There were creeks to wade and swim in, trees and cliffs to climb, caves to explore, and vines to swing on.
Wild grape vines grew in the hills. The best way to make use of them was to find one on a steep slope, or, preferably, at the edge of a cliff or rock face. You would back off with it until you had stretched it as tight as it would go, grab hold tight, run toward the edge as fast as you could, and swing way out over empty air. There was nothing like it. Tarzan didn’t have shit on us.
You had to pick the right vine, though, a good, sturdy one - yank on it hard a few times to make sure it wouldn’t brake, really put your weight into it. Some of them would be anchored to the tree at the top by not much more than twigs. Swing out off the edge of a thirty-foot cliff face on one of those and have it snap free, it was your ass.
We had a cousin from the city learn about that the hard way once. He didn’t know any better. We were teenagers then, he older than us. He’d brought his girlfriend with him, and was trying to impress. He didn’t know to test the vine first, and sure enough, he picked the wrong one. We yelled and tried to stop his dumb ass, but it was too late.
He let out a loud King of the Apes yodel I guess he thought would make her damp her panties, took a run and a jump, and was airborne. The yodel turned into a scream as that fucker snapped clean off at the top.
We knew it was going to happen, and there wasn’t a damn thing we could do but watch. It had been nice knowing him. He wasn’t a bad guy. His Momma was going to be sad.
The only thing that saved him from more serious injury was the steep pitch of the slope at the base of the cliff. He hit the ground hard, and went tumbling down the slope like he was auditioning for a circus acrobatic act. He bounced off of a couple of trees on the way, and went off the edge of a fifteen-foot rock face to land face-down in the creek.
He got a broken arm out of the deal. At least it wasn’t his neck.
His girlfriend wasn’t impressed. She screamed a little bit and cried a lot, though. I guess she liked him.
We told him he was a dumbass. You do ignorant shit, you bring things on yourself. We had no sympathy.
We got yelled at some. He was an infant in the woods, and we were supposed to be looking out for him.
It was hard on us boys when the folks split up. We were young kids at the time. Things were bad when he was with us. He was a hard worker, but was an out-of-control alcoholic for as long as I knew him, so we never had much. He made decent money, but drank a lot of it up. He would go on benders and sometimes disappear for days at a time.
There were a few times when we didn’t know where he was, and there was nothing to eat in the house. With hungry kids to feed, Momma would have to beg food from neighbors. That was hard on her.
A time or two when he was home, passed out on the bed after having returned from a bar somewhere, she would send my brother and me to go through his pockets looking for money, if he still had any. We were scared shitless we’d wake him up. He could turn violent.
But he would always direct it at Momma. I can remember sitting on the stairs in the middle of the night with the littler kids, all of us staring unspeaking into space as we listened to him slapping Momma around downstairs, and her pleading with him to stop and defending herself as best she could.
He never did hit any of us. Momma told him once that if he ever laid a hand on us, she’d kill him in his sleep. I think he believed her.
I was the oldest, and felt responsible for the littler ones. I’d have done my best to protect them, if he came after us, but he never did. I was seven at the time.
Things got so bad that, at one point, there were times when I would kind of just zone out, and stop what I was doing and just stand staring into space. I never remembered anything in between the time I stepped out of things and the time I came back. Sometimes I’d pass out, and have to be revived. Doctors said it was the stress.
Little brother tried to kill him once. Dad had Momma pinned down in a recliner and was slapping her repeatedly, backhand and forehand, as she kicked at him and tried to fend him off.
Little bro ran into the kitchen and grabbed a fork from the drawer. I don’t know why he didn’t choose a knife - just snatched up the first thing he saw, I guess. He ran up behind the old man and tried to stab him in the back with it. Four years old, but, by God, he was going to protect his Momma. My other brother and I had to grab him and wrestle it out of his hand, and he fought us the whole time. We didn’t care if he hurt Dad, but we were afraid he’d turn on the little guy.
That same four-year-old would become a fearless and to-be-feared young man. He never got very big. He was a little guy, and skinny. But he had this rage in him, man! I guess maybe it stemmed from past events.
People were afraid of him, and rightly so. He got picked on a lot, because he was small, but no one ever did it more than once. He was afraid of nothing and nobody, and he didn’t hold back. He hurt people.
He came walking up to the house once, covered in blood. One of our other brothers ran out to help him, asking what had happened. He just smiled this cold smile and replied “It ain’t mine.” Someone had made the mistake of crossing him, again.
He beat a 6’ 2”, 220 pound, 32-year-old man unconscious once, for offering insult to our Mother, and tried to break his legs with a cinder block as he lay on the ground. He was 16 years old at the time, maybe 5’ 4”, and weighed a hundred pounds.
I had to go speak with his school principle once, when I was home on leave, to persuade the man to give him another chance and let him back into school. He had been suspended; the fourth fight in two weeks.
He eventually did a stint in juvy. A condition of his release was that he attend psychological counseling and give up his martial arts training.
Little bro eventually did a stint in the Navy. Today he is a Father, and a Grandfather, a fan and player of classical Spanish acoustic guitar, owns his own home, has worked the same great job for nearly thirty years, and has been married to the same wonderful woman for as long. He has never raised his hand in anger to her, his Children, or his Grandchildren. He is a calm, considered man, and compassionate to others.
But he is still as fearless as he was in his youth, and will be pushed only so far. Those who know him know that when he gets still and quiet is the dangerous time. What was about to be said had best be left unsaid. What was about to be done is best left undone.
He’s one of the finest men I have ever known, and one of those that I love and respect the most.
As I said, things were bad when Dad was with us, and they were hard when he was gone. But with all that, we boys still loved him. We missed our Dad. We were children, and clung to the handful of good times, and tried to forget the rest. He was a good father and husband when he was sober; kind and funny. You try to forget the rest.
When he was still with us, and I was small, we would watch Ali fight in live televised bouts on television. He was a little racist, and didn’t like the guy’s personality, but he openly admired his skill, and considered him perhaps the greatest fighter of all time.
He would take me to work with him sometimes, and we would spend the shift together, talking and laughing. Those were good times.
On one of his late-night janitorial jobs, after the bathrooms were cleaned and the floors waxed and buffed, his duties were merely to sit in an office in a big, empty building, answering the rare phone call and taking messages. He showed me how to look behind the Coke machine in the hallway for change that would spill out of that particular machine. There was always enough for a cold Coke for us both. We would while away the hours in the dark, quiet, empty building, talking and laughing and playing hangman on a sheet of paper; a small boy and his Dad. It’s one of my favorite memories. Despite all the bad, he was still somehow my god.
After he left, and when I had grown older, a rift would grow between us; resentments rising to the surface that a younger me had suppressed, bad memories coming back to haunt, and taking hold. We would not speak for fifteen years.
He asked for me when he was dying, and for my brothers. We travelled out of state to the hospital where he was recovering from the first surgery that had been performed to try to fight the cancer that Kool had spread throughout his body. We stood quietly by his bedside in a darkened room and spoke with this shell of a man whom we had not seen in so many years. Sometimes his speech would be strange and incoherent from the medication, but he knew that we were there, and was glad that we had come.
I would visit him again, before the end. For the first and only time, he would meet my wife and hold our two young Sons. We would step outside for privacy, he and I, and would walk a little way into the warm, quiet summer country darkness, he frail now and almost gone.
We would speak of many things, and of past regrets. We would make an uneasy peace between us. He had decided to stop treatments. He knew that the end was near, and he was tired. He wanted to make peace with me, and with God.
A short while later, he was gone.
As a young Marine, I began to drink heavily at the same age that the bottle that was to destroy his life first took hold of him, never to let go. I was addicted to the hard stuff. When the blackouts started, I remembered what had happened to him, and how a life that was never really lived had been destroyed by it. I backed that shit off. I still drank some after that, but rarely liquor anymore, and I never let it take control. Today I hardly drink at all, just now and then, when a lifetime of accumulated memories becomes a little heavy to bear. My wife (Momma) understands, and doesn’t chide me for the times when I sit outside in the nighttime darkness with a bottle or a glass.
But all that was to come later.
Back then, life was good, and I was excited to see my father. He was back again, from out of state, to the misty hollers, fast-flowing streams, and shrouded mountains and valleys of his and my childhood home.
He had come to Gram and Gramp to visit with my brothers and me, and to ask their permission to have us spend a little time with him at his cousin’s home on Charles Creek, where he would be staying for a couple of days. Although they knew that our Mother would surely not approve, they gave that permission for me alone. The other two were younger, and would stay at home with them. He thanked them, and said that he understood. I was excited to get to go. We had not seen him in nearly two years, and we had missed him. We were children, and clung to the handful of good times, and tried to forget the bad.
I had prayed, after our folks had broken up, to a God in whom I had been taught to believe, for them to get back together, with a child’s naïveté that somehow things would be better this time. Those prayers had gone unanswered, and perhaps had caused me to believe a little less.
But this was better than nothing.
Dad had no vehicle of his own, and had been driven by a neighbor man of the cousin with whom he would be staying for a couple of days.
He was a courtly old gentleman, dressed always in a black suit and a starched white dress shirt minus tie, shoes polished to a gleam. He drove an old behemoth of a car that was ancient even at that time, but which was well-kept, and ran well. Gram and Gramp were delighted to see him, for he was a beloved companion of their youth. I gleaned the impression that he may have at one time courted Gram himself. Many had. Half Cherokee from her Mother, she had been an unusually beautiful woman in her youth. She had chosen Gramp. Through trials and tribulations, as long as I knew them, I never got the impression that she ever regretted her choice.
Old Man Willard was as pleased as they to spend some pleasant time together, catching up on things since they had seen each other last.
He had also, though he hid it well, been drinking, as I was shortly to find out. He carried himself with such a false appearance of sobriety, though, that it was not evident. Had it been, of course, Gram and Gramp would not have let me go.
I was to discover, from Dad, that drunkenness was his usual condition, and that he was rarely sober, though, through long habit and association, he usually carried it well. He had abstained somewhat, at Dad’s gentle request, for this particular occasion. That was not to last.
We left eventually, as the evening grew late. My brothers were disappointed, of course, but Dad assured them that we would return in a couple of days, and he and they would spend some time together. Perhaps, he said, with Gramp’s permission, he could spend the night. Gram and Gramp said that would be fine.
The long ride out on the bad road was a jostling one, but the old car’s suspension handled it well. It was full-on dark when we turned into the paved two-lane State road.
Old Man Willard had started drinking soon after we had left Gram and Gramp, from a bottle he had retrieved from under his seat. Dad, I could tell, hadn’t liked it much, but had kept his peace.
He didn’t keep it much longer.
A few miles passed without much incident, but Willard had been pulling heavily at the bottle, and it was beginning to take effect. He was beginning to swerve a little, and crossed the yellow lines a time or two. Dad could no longer restrain himself.
“Willard, you want me to drive?”
“No, no, Dale, I’ll be all right.” He weaved across the yellow line again.
“I can drive if you want me to, Willard. I don’t mind.”
“It’s all right. I can do it.”
Coming from around a curve, a pair of headlights approached, coming in our direction in the other lane. The lights must have gotten in Willard’s eyes. The old car started drifting left. The two vehicles passed within fourteen inches of each other.
“Jesus!!” Dad yelled, pushing himself back into the seat cushions. I wasn’t sure if he was baspheming, or if he was expecting momentarily to meet his Maker, and had had a sudden last-minute conversion.
“God damn it, Willard!!”
Ok, it was the former. I thought it was some funny shit. I was having a high old time. In the light of the dashboard instruments, it looked to me like Dad was sweating a little bit.
In the near distance, another set of headlights fast approached. The old car drifted left again until it was in the other lane, and we were staring into onrushing oblivion. I stopped laughing. This wasn’t good! A horn sounded a prolonged blast, and we could hear, through the open windows, brakes being stomped on hard.
“Sonofabitch!!” Dad yelled, grabbed the wheel, and managed to abruptly steer us back into our lane without rolling us. We passed the truck with which we had been about to become intimately acquainted to a stream of shouted invective from the bearded head leaning out of its window.
“Willard, pull this motherfucker over! Now!”
The old man finally grumblingly acquiesced, coasting to an uneventful stop on the gravel shoulder. He and Dad switched seats, and we proceeded on. Within minutes, Willard was fast asleep, quietly snoring, his chin in his chest.
Dad had a pretty good gig going at the time. A certain older gentleman, fairly wealthy by the standards of that place and time, had met a certain young woman. He had taken a fancy to her, and she had taken a fancy to his money. Each understanding the parameters of the relationship, she had moved in with him. Her husband had been less than pleased.
His wife’s new boyfriend, among other holdings, owned a number of rental properties up and down the Creek. Some of them were vacant at the moment. Some of the vacant ones began to catch on fire late at night.
Troubled at the pending loss of future income, the wife’s paramour hired Dad and a few others to reside in those that remained intact, with a loaded shotgun at the ready, especially during the nighttime hours. Free living acommodations, groceries provided, and a small salary to sweeten the pot.
Dad’s assigned post happened to be within view of Old Man Willard’s place, and also that of his cousin Drew’s house. He had, at Drew’s wife Lilly’s request, agreed to stay with Drew and keep him company for a couple of days while she was gone. Her sister was sick in bed, and needed her assistance. She didn’t trust Drew, whose domestic ineptitude was the stuff of legend, to either fend for himself or not burn their own house down while she was gone. Besides, she reasoned, Dad could keep an eye on his employer’s property from there.
Dad and Drew had a history of carousing together in their younger days. Many a night if drunken debauchery had occurred in a certain roadhouse just off of the State road.
One particular night had not ended well, when Drew’s natural tendency toward being an asshole had started a fight that did some small damage to some furniture. The State Police had been called, the place falling under their jurisdiction, and the two found themselves cuffed in the back seat of a cruiser, and heading toward a free bed and breakfast at State expense.
That might have been the end of it had Drew chosen to exercise his Constitutional right to remain silent. He instead, in incrementally increasing volume, began to express his dissatisfaction at the situation and to demand redress if this gross injustice to which he was being subjected.
“I ain’ drunk! I want a s’briety test, God damn it!”
“Shut up, hillbilly” from the front seat.
“For the love of God, Drew, will you please shut the fuck up?!” Dad hissed under his breath. He, unlike Drew up to this point, had had interaction with the Staties once before, and had not enjoyed the experience.
Drew would not be dissuaded.
“I ain’ fuckin drunk! I wan’ a ‘brity test, you sonsabitches!” Drew yelled, rearing back, lifting his legs, and kicking at the mesh screen that seperated the front seat from the rear.
“You kick that thing one more time, you cocksucker, you’re gonna be sorry!” from the front seat.
Drew kicked it again, and then a few more times for good measure.
A turn-off loomed ahead, a dirt road heading off of the two-lane. Without another word of warning, the car slowed and turned onto it.
“Oh, shit!” Dad whimpered to Drew. “You’ve done it now.”
As the road meandered down into a wooded stretch, even Drew grew silent as they drove further into the darkness under the trees. Even in his quite inebriated state, he apparently began to realize that maybe he had been a little inconsiderate.
Once well out of sight of the road and the view of any passers-by, the car eased to a stop. The two Troopers got out, and the rear doors opened on both sides. As Dad and a now quiet and apprehensive Drew sat stiffly staring straight ahead, the Trooper on Drew’s side rested his hand in the roof of the cruiser, leaned down and in, and looked down at Drew.
“Now, listen here, you backwoods son of a bitch. If you want a sobriety test, we can give you one right here. Now, are you sure you want one?”
“No, Sir” a chastened Drew answered.
“That’s what I thought. Now you keep your fuckin’ mouth shut. One more word outta you, and I swear to God.......”
The rest of the trip was quiet, and uneventful.
That roadhouse was still in business when we were boys. The preacher got to ranting about it and the evils of drink during one Sunday night’s sermon.
“That place is the den of Satan!” he screamed from the pulpit. “And I know there’s a few in this here congregation that’s been seen at it! If you want to avoid damnation, you best stay the hell away from it!”
Nobody remarked on his choice of words. He was known to slip up now and then.
My brother and I looked at each other and smiled. It seemed like just about every damn thing worth doing, the preacher and the Lord didn’t like. If he was that much against it, it couldn’t help but be a good time. His usual fervent descriptions of an afterlife in Heaven seemed to us pretty boring, truth be told, and hadn’t nobody actually Seen the place. If what was expected of us to get into it was a life of abstinence and self-denial in order to hopefully find tickets waiting for us at the Gate, and we weren’t even sure it was there, it seemed to us like taking a hell of a gamble.
It was after Thanksgiving and before Christmas when Dad and I spent that first night there at Drew’s place. Lilly had made us up some dinners from left-over turkey and dressing and put them in the freezer. She had reminded Drew about his upcoming checkup tomorrow, and that, with her gone, he’d have to drive himself to the Doc. “And make sure you wash your ass before you go, Drew, you nasty bastard!” she had admonished. “He’s gonna check back there, too.”
Dad and Drew had taken out a dinner for each of us for a late supper, and put them in the oven to heat. I guess maybe they didn’t leave them in long enough, or maybe didn’t have the temperature set right, ‘cause they were mostly still frozen. Neither of them seemed to mind, and I was too hungry to give a shit.
Drew got up to go take a leak. Dad took that opportunity to lean in and, in a low voice, tell me about Lilly’s ass-washing remark. “Don’t that beat all?” he asked. “A grown-ass man needin’ to be told to wash his own ass. He sure is a dumb sumbitch” he remarked, breaking off a piece of frozen gravy with his fork and chewing on it.
The next morning broke cold and misty, with a steady light drizzle. Drew was still asleep, and I was in the kitchen looking in the Frigidaire for something to eat for breakfast, when I heard Dad call to me from outside.
I went out to where he was standing in the yard. He nodded toward what he wanted me to see. It was Old Man Willard. It seemed like he’d been hitting the bottle particularly early that morning, or maybe he was just carrying on from the night before. You could tell at a glance that he was none too steady.
A footbridge of sorts spanned the banks of the stream that seperated where he kept his old car parked from his house. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a single log laid across from bank to bank. But it was big enough around that walking across it shouldn’t have proved much of an obstacle, even wet from the misty drizzle.
Not for Willard. Not today. We watched as he made his unsteady way to the near end of the log. With careful consideration, the top of a flask bottle of cheap whiskey sticking out of his suit coat pocket, he stepped gingerly out onto it and began to slowly make his unsteady way across. It began to look like he might actually make it.
Half-way across, he slipped off and fell into the creek. Now, if he had been sober (though he very rarely was), the sensible thing to do would be to pick himself up out of the water and wade the rest of the way across.
But he wasn’t, and he didn’t. He crawled on his hands and knees back up the near bank, stood up, his usually immaculate suit muddy now as well as drenched, and went to give her another try. The log had offended him, and he wasn’t giving up for shit.
He again made it about halfway, and in he went again.
“Shouldn’t we help him?” I asked Dad.
“Naw” he replied. “I’ve tried before. This ain’t the first time. He’d just git mad.”
The third try was just as unsuccessful.
He finally just said “Fuck it”, crawled up the far bank, stood up and straightened his mud-smeared jacket, and staggered into his house.
“Now, that right there” said Dad, “is a sorry sight to see. Let that be a lesson to you, Son” he said, raised the bottle in his hand to his lips, and took a long drink of Four Roses.

…The raging river, pulled them down.
Now they’ll always, be together,
In that Happy Hunting Ground…
- Running Bear by Sonny James
“Snakeyes! New roller, please, next up.” The game runner raked in the dice and chips and ignored the despair in the countenance of the most recent “high roller”. Ted shook his head and other people crowded him away from the dice pit. He was almost out of funds and it was still early. He’d budgeted his, “loss level” carefully to maximize his time at the reservation casino. It was an older one, filled with stereotypical paintings and statues intended to honor the local First Nations Tribes while fulfilling the expectations of rude tourists. He looked around forlornly for a new game to play. He didn’t care for the slots or the drawn-out and ever-shifting card games… ah, Blackjack! There was an opening at the table.
He rushed over before anyone else could snag it and bustled onto the chair. “Okay to deal me in on the next hand?” He interrupted the dealer, who ignored him until he was done dealing out the rest of the players and raking in the chips. He still did not speak but once Ted placed the minimum bet, he flipped a card down in front of him and the game began. Ted immediately started winning the straightforward game. He picked up most of his losses from his unfortunate run at craps and was finally enjoying himself. The couple at the far end of the table had apparently had enough and didn’t care for the new player. Ted liked to talk to new people and thought he was good at it. Before long, the other players had left and it was down to him, the dealer, and an older man, who wore a black cowboy style hat and chain-smoked thin cigarillos.
Ted, grinning heartily at his latest win, glanced over at the man, who had just fired up his next cancer-stick, “You know casinos, and a few bars are the last public places where anyone smokes. I remember when there were smoking sections at most places and my parents told me that there used to be no restrictions. I’ll bet you get plenty of pressure to stop from your family and friends. It’s a pretty bad habit for your long-term health…” Ted usually rambled on past any non-verbal cues that people might give him to stop talking, yet his diatribe came to a screeching halt at the look with which the stern-faced elder favored him.
The older man drew in a long pull on the firestick and then exhaled the stinking cloud into Ted’s face. He coughed a little and gagged at the odor of the raw blend of tobacco and chemicals. The old one removed the cigarillo from his mouth and tapped ashes onto the edge of the table and down onto the floor at his toes, “Sonny, nobody cares. Nobody wants your opinion, and you are not special, no matter what your mommy told you. I’ll do as I please and if you don’t like it, go bother people at another table.”
Ted gaped in shock. In his mind, the man’s words verged on an “assault”. He looked helplessly at the dealer, who just ducked his head and tried not to laugh. Indignant, he rose, took his pile of chips and fled into the depths of the gaming house in search of a friendlier table. He didn’t find one that he liked, so he finally gave up and sat at the bar. The bartender seemed to ignore him in favor of tidying up her workspace. He cleared his throat and received only a glance. He mumbled as much to himself as to her, “I just want a drink while I wait for a table to open.” He wondered at her stony silence, maybe she resents me for being…
His vocal ruminations were interrupted by a feminine voice, “What do you want?”
Ted looked up to see the bartender, mocking smile in place below shining, mesmerizing eyes. Ted simply gaped and eventually worked his jaw uselessly. The bartender shrugged and walked back to the other end of the bar. She spoke with a large man who was clearly part of the security team. He glared at Ted while she spoke. Ted wanted to avoid a confrontation. He’d been conditioned that he should seek authorities if such a situation loomed. Yet casino security was the only available authority here locally. There were Tribal Police on the Reservation, but he wasn’t sure they would want to listen to him. He finally shrugged and decided to go back over to the hotel for the rest of the night. This trip had been very unsatisfying… like all those he’d taken since he moved away from his parents’ home a few years previously.
There was an indoor walkway to the hotel, but Ted decided to go by the outdoor route to get some fresh air and enjoy the natural beauty that the builders had incorporated into the facility. As he walked dejectedly down the sidewalk, local flora pressing in from each side, he heard, from the nearby forest, a screeching wail. It startled him and he had to stop a moment to catch his breath and wait for his heart rate to slow to something more manageable. He realized that it must have been an owl or some other night bird. His father had told him that there were always weird noises “out in the sticks”.
As he plunged his hands into his pockets and determined to go to his room for rest, he caught the faint smell of burning tobacco on the breeze. It wafted over his shoulder from behind and caused him to emit a feeble cough. He looked back in annoyance. In the shadows behind him, he saw a figure. It was dark and stood still in a way that made him uncomfortable. An orange glowing circle of embers hovered around the face and rendered just enough light to illuminate the blue-grey curls of smoke as they exited the tiny conflagration and rose above the brim of a black hat. The ember flared for a moment and then flashed to the ground and was snuffed by a shadowed… foot? It wasn’t exactly clear to Ted; the figure’s lower extremities were... blurred. An even brighter flare, from a lighter or match stabbed into Ted’s eyes as the Smoker lit his next cigarillo.
Ted glared irritation but felt uncomfortable at the unnatural stillness to which the figure returned once the new fire was lit. He coughed once more, this time deliberately in a passive-aggressive attempt to communicate his displeasure and resumed his walk. He strained to listen behind him to determine whether the figure followed. He truly wished to get away from the stink and the threat of cancer or other respiratory illnesses. He slowed to listen, then gave up and looked over his shoulder again. There was no figure in the dark back near the exit to the casino. He turned to resume his walk, but a smoky black form now loomed before him! Its eyes glowed and smoked like large twin cigars as it gaped a maw that emitted pure black smoke and glowed with blue flames within the deep tunnel of the throat. Ted’s consciousness fled his body and found itself in a burning nightmare landscape that extended for as far as he could perceive in all directions.
**** * ****
Darnell, known to his public as “Murder Bush” a deliberate mistranslation of “merde bouche” a.k.a. “Deadly Rapper” for having been a suspect in a shooting back in his youth, stepped up to the dice pit as the geeky dude left. He had plenty of chips and cash to back them. His entourage was there to support him and kiss his backside as often as he wished. He rolled through six passes before he crapped out. He hadn’t over-bet, so he’d won a small amount. He picked up his latest winning chips and handed them to the hostess who had kept him well plied with drinks and snacks. He was sure that for the right price, she would take care of his other needs. He played a few card tables and finished with Roulette.
Each time he won a few chips, he passed them on to the young woman or to one of his flunkies. In the end, they had all received at least some reward for the praises they’d heaped upon him; not for any real accomplishments, but rather to curry favor with the man whom they considered to be wealthy and important: a celebrity. The girl stayed at his side and except for when he asked her questions, she said nothing. He liked that: bitch know her place, he reveled in internal satisfaction. He liked her looks too. She was medium height and a little, “thick”. She was clearly interested but hadn’t gotten in his way when he flirted with other women. He truly liked this one. The more he considered her, the more he wanted to get down to business.
Eventually, he posed the question to her, “How much for the next few hours?” His brazen suggestion that she would take money for sexual favors was the final test. If she grew angry, then she didn’t appreciate his genius…
“Whatever you think is fair. How about we see if I can satisfy you? If I can, then you may want to be generous… as you have been so far.” She hefted the chips so that the pieces clinked in her palm. “If not, I don’t deserve a reward.”
She had passed with flying colors. Might even take this one back to civilization with me, he purred in his mind. He’d always thought of himself as a Big Cat… maybe a leopard or jaguar, definitely something dangerous and sleek. His need grew more intense by the moment. He desperately wanted this woman. “Come on, let’s go to my room.” He husked in a voice grown thick with desire.
They reached his suite, his groupies having been dismissed to their own nefarious pursuits, even his bodyguard. The big man had shrugged, “Your call boss-man.” and then stumped across the hallway to his own room. Now he was finally alone with… her. He stripped off his shirt and flipped his shoes into a corner. She stood by the window and watched. The drinks he’d consumed finally caught up with him before he’d shucked his pants and drawers, “Hold on, I’ll be right back.” He was excited, which made urinating a challenge, but it had to be done, so that he could maximize his pleasure. When he stepped from the restroom, au natural, he saw that his latest conquest had done the same and now stood, bare to the world and staring out the window, all the curtains on it pushed to one side, so that the night loomed and the light of a single small desk lamp lit the room. He stalked over to her, ready to take her right there at the window in full view of anyone who looked up from the outside. He secretly hoped for an audience. He enjoyed having others watch him take what he wanted.
She turned to face him, her head lowered… no, it had sunken into her body, only her hair remained above her shoulders! A… mouth, gaping and slavering opened on her stomach, a mouth too large for her body and rimmed with rows of teeth like sharpened spikes. She stepped forward to embrace him and the screaming began… sounds that he was accustomed to eliciting from others rather than emitting from his own person.
**** * ****
“Rhino” was unhappy. He didn’t like to leave Darnell unattended. Perhaps now that his boss was in the room, he could go stand guard outside the door. He took care of some personal ablutions as he wolfed down a couple of energy bars and then walked out into the hallway. He started to settle in front of Darnell’s door, when he heard a muffled scream and faint… slobbering-gobbling noises come from the other side. He quickly tried the door, initially too panicked to think of the extra key card with which Darnell had entrusted him. He fumbled for it and soon had the door open. The interior was completely dark. The light from the hallway spilled inward but didn’t seem to reach as far into the room as it should.
He drew his pistol from the holster on his waistband and began to stalk forward, “Boss, you okay? You hurt?” The room was as silent as a tomb, he shivered a little as that thought crossed his mind. Over by the closed drapes, he smelled something awful: fresh blood and spilled entrails… recent death. His feet squelched on wet carpet. He turned around quickly. There had been no noise, but he’d felt a… presence. There she stood, arms spread wide, mouth on her gut spread wider. Rhino wasn’t one to scream or yell, even in extremis, so no others would come to this room to investigate.
**** * ****
Shelly was glad when the rowdy group left the roulette wheel that sat behind her favorite row of slots. The former “one-armed bandits”, that were now, “multiple button digital bandits” lined every available wall space, and in some spaces stood in rows that drew regulars like a dung-heap draws flies. She’d grabbed her favorite machine early in the evening and sat sliding in dollar bills and working up her points. It was called “Buffalo Dance” and featured images of American Bison and feather-bedecked hunters. The theme on the screen matched and she hoped to one day see the “White Buffalo” image adorn the entire set of images… the grand prize view. Despite the fun graphics, it was her favorite because it was near a restroom and a free soda and snack bar. She found herself ahead and on a roll. She absently lipped her dangling cigarette back into her mouth for a long draw. The smoke obscured the screen for a moment, and then she noted a shadow that lengthened across the reflective surface. Someone stood close behind her. Someone who exuded a chilly air. She paused and looked around, “Can I help you?”
There was no answer, though the shadow shifted slightly as if its caster had heard her.
Now she grew annoyed, this is just the sort of thing to break my winning streak! she raged internally. She braced her hands against the machine and worked her buttocks to make the stool on which she perched spin, so she could confront her harasser. She gaped, and nearly lost her cigarette, there was no one standing near enough to cast the shadow. No one even faced her. She chalked it up to excitement, maybe someone stepped too close when passing to go to the restroom, she thought, still a little annoyed and... chilled.
She turned back to her game and continued working the buttons, pumping in bills, and winning, a little at a time, the points now built well above her investment. This weekend is gonna pay for the last two months of losing and breaking even, she thought triumphantly. The shadow loomed across the screen once more, this time even larger, as though the figure that cast it stood closer. The shape was amorphous but hinted at anthropomorphic. She shivered as an icy breeze flowed around her, as though the air conditioning had sent out a short, cold burst, a minor malfunction…
She turned around with more alacrity and determination than the last time, mouth agape, cigarette once more dangling… precipitously and endangering the cleavage she displayed, already baked and wrinkled from years of sunbathing. The frigid air passed, and no one stood anywhere near her, though a customer approached, headed for either snacks or relief. “Excuse me sir, did you just see someone, maybe a large man, standing behind me?”
The man paused and looked at her in confusion. He had clearly been absorbed in his own thoughts, “Er, what? Uh, No. I wasn’t really paying attention, but… no.” He bustled on toward the free fountain drinks machine.
Shelly shrugged, can’t give up now, the pot is even bigger. She checked her points; she was nearing her all-time high. The winnings would pay her space rental fee at the RV park for the entire month. She pressed and played the buttons more fervently than ever, determined to break the bank on straight points or to reach that magical spin that would offer an instant reward of $10,000.00. She set her new points record and reveled for a moment. She reached for the now small stack of dollar bills the rest having been devoured by the machine. She fed in the entire remaining amount, then once more gazed at the screen. It was entirely blackened by a looming shadow.
The temperature of the air around her plummeted and she shuddered with the sudden biting cold. The cigarette was long extinguished, and she’d let the cold fag fall into the ash tray built onto the side of the machine opposite the drink holder. She was so cold, and she wanted to cry out for help, but the darkness closed in around her as the shadow enveloped her and cut off her breathing. Her fingers, paused above the “spin” button, struck and as her consciousness faded, she saw the flashing blue light and heard the blare of the winner’s siren. White Buffalo images filled all nine spaces. I won! The grand prize!
**** * ****
Terry filled his large cup and stood sipping and daydreaming. He’d lost everything he’d budgeted to lose. Yet he knew that one more try would put him back in black for this trip. He mused about what he would do with the prize money. He’d set his limit at $300.00 and had quickly lost it all on slots. Maybe he could risk just a few more dollars… skip a lunch or two until his next paycheck if it didn’t work. He was startled by the jackpot winner’s flashing light and siren that went off just behind him. That bitch! He yelled internally. Figures some old used up skank would win the big prize. He looked over at the nearby machine with anger and envy vying for control of his senses. She was gone!
He stepped over to the machine and looked around in confusion. Maybe she’d gone to the restroom? No, she’d have passed right by me. He shook his head and stepped up to look at the screen. He could still feel the recent presence of a player, the trace of warmth from a human body that might linger in a space for just a moment after the human had vacated the space. He looked around the casino floor, she was nowhere in sight. She’d been wearing a low-cut silver-spangled top that was cut way too low for her sagging, sun-ravaged bosom. She should be easy to spy, she looked like a deflated disco ball that had fallen from the ceiling to play slots. The only thing that came his way was a train of employees, led by a waitress in a skimpy outfit with purple sparkles and carrying a tray with a glass and a dark bottle. She was followed by other employees, who’d formed a sort of conga line: they sang a congratulatory chorus as they approached.
Terry gaped for a moment when he realized that they thought he was the big winner. He’d have to deny it of course. Surely the woman would be back at any moment to claim her prize. The floor cameras would have recorded who had sat at the machine, but it was too late. The group of enthused employees encircled him, and the attractive young waitress poured him a glass of champagne and snuggled up to him. The manager approached and seized his hand for a vigorous shake, “Well done sir! I see that not only have you hit the jackpot, but you’ve raised an additional $3,000.00 in points. A fabulous prize and well played I’m sure.”
Terry was flabbergasted. He’d never won anything like this… I still haven’t, not really, he reminded himself. He rarely broke even on his gambling forays, whether to the casino, or the corner store for lottery tickets and video slots. He allowed himself to be swept into the reverie and led from the machine to the bar. The employees peeled away as they approached, and he soon found himself with only the bottle and a receipt that he could cash out before he left the premises. A sullen-looking woman stood behind the bar, wiping glasses and a large, mean-looking security staffer menaced the far end. He already had his bottle, so he wasn’t sure why the staff members had deposited him with these two killjoys. He shrugged, picked up the champagne and started to walk away from the bar.
“You can’t take that with you. Either drink it here or give it to me and I’ll put it in the trash.” The bartender stated in monotone.
The security officer stood up straight from where he’d been leaning against the far wall, apparently propping up the building. He folded his massive arms in a threatening manner. Silly, thought Terry, folded arms should be a hindrance, but I get the feeling he’s dangerous regardless. He figured that he’d had enough anyway and set the nearly empty bottle on the bar, “You can keep it ma’am. I can afford another at the hotel.” Terry started to walk away from the bar, but a huge ham-like hand seized his shoulder.
Sausage-sized fingers applied painful pressure, “You apologize to the lady.” The wet heat from a mouth placed uncomfortably close to his ear and beath smelling of river bottom, sent a shiver of disgust through his body. The voice was low and deep as the river that ran past the back side of the property.
Terry decided on the better part of valor and head facing forward to avoid the obscene orifice, “Sorry ma’am, I meant no offense.”
The fingers let go and a harsh laugh sounded from behind the bar. “He don’t even know why he’s apologizing, fool. He ain’t worth the trouble, let him go.”
Terry felt a slight shove and he was sent on his way to the cash-out window. There he met with the lead cashier, an older woman in drab clothing, “I’m sorry sir, we give out only these pre-paid cards, we cannot provide cash over $1,000.00. However, you can treat them like a debit or credit card.” the cashier informed him. It seemed he had no choice, so he accepted. Thirteen grand is thirteen grand, he assured himself. He was elated, though he continued to glance around nervously, waiting for the woman in the sparkly fish-scale top to accost him and name him thief. Yet she was nowhere to be seen. The floor was full of players, some laughing, some intense, some dejected or mesmerized by the games of chance in which they’d lost themselves.
He thought about what to do with the rest of his evening. He didn’t have a hotel room; he’d planned to sleep in his station wagon as he always did before the long haul home. Perhaps he should get a room? Maybe they would take him without a reservation… he giggled a little at the unintended pun: a reservation at the Reservation… he shook his head to clear his overreaction to the silly internal joke. He decided that maybe someone on staff could help him. He approached the major domo at the front entrance that led to the interior walkway and the hotel beyond, “Excuse me sir, do you know whether the hotel will accept a resident without a prior reservation?”
The man, single dark braid wrapped in a leather holder and draped over one shoulder, looked at him gravely, “Yes, I know.” He said nothing more and did not smile as though he’d intended to be humorous.
Terry tried again, “Will you tell me please?”
The man flicked his chin in the direction of the hotel, “See the clerk at the desk.”
“Jerk, you’d think I hadn’t pissed away enough cash in this place over the past few years,” Terry muttered as he stumped toward the hotel, ensuring that he was well beyond earshot before he spoke. His head had begun to buzz a little from the champagne. Took a while for it to affect me, he mused. The hallway appeared to narrow, and his peripheral vision grew grey. He felt dizzy and as he entered the main lobby, the large room began to spin. His last view was of the sky-blue ceiling decorated with a few puffy clouds as it faded into darkness like the sun had set.
He awakened to the sounds of voices chattering happily. He looked around, his vision blurred slightly and his head feeling heavy and sore. He soon found that he could not move his arms or legs… they were bound… he was strapped to a table. He saw numerous bodies moving about in the mostly dark space in which he found himself. “Please.” He croaked, throat dry and feeling scraped. “Please, help me, let me loose. Loose me…” his perceptions cleared slowly, and he saw that the bodies that moved around him, now chanting rhythmically rather than babble-chattering, were emaciated. The owners showed as much bone through their skin as would a dead thing, long decayed. He noted spikes above a few heads… no, antlers… The rest wore… masks? Of various beasts… no, the skulls of those creatures, still filled with glistening fangs. Their dance grew ever more frantic, more energetic than they should be capable of performing. Then one of them reached out with a stick, on the end of which was a small claw, taken and preserved from some dead animal. It used the claw to gouge out a scoop of flesh from Terry’s side. He screamed in torment and horror. His screams soon matched the rhythm of the chanting and they went on for a long time before they at last faded when he’d lost too much blood to remain conscious.
**** * **** END PAGE 1 of 2

…The raging river, pulled them down.
Now they’ll always, be together,
In that Happy Hunting Ground…
- Running Bear by Sonny James
“Snakeyes! New roller, please, next up.” The game runner raked in the dice and chips and ignored the despair in the countenance of the most recent “high roller”. Ted shook his head and other people crowded him away from the dice pit. He was almost out of funds and it was still early. He’d budgeted his, “loss level” carefully to maximize his time at the reservation casino. It was an older one, filled with stereotypical paintings and statues intended to honor the local First Nations Tribes while fulfilling the expectations of rude tourists. He looked around forlornly for a new game to play. He didn’t care for the slots or the drawn-out and ever-shifting card games… ah, Blackjack! There was an opening at the table.
He rushed over before anyone else could snag it and bustled onto the chair. “Okay to deal me in on the next hand?” He interrupted the dealer, who ignored him until he was done dealing out the rest of the players and raking in the chips. He still did not speak but once Ted placed the minimum bet, he flipped a card down in front of him and the game began. Ted immediately started winning the straightforward game. He picked up most of his losses from his unfortunate run at craps and was finally enjoying himself. The couple at the far end of the table had apparently had enough and didn’t care for the new player. Ted liked to talk to new people and thought he was good at it. Before long, the other players had left and it was down to him, the dealer, and an older man, who wore a black cowboy style hat and chain-smoked thin cigarillos.
Ted, grinning heartily at his latest win, glanced over at the man, who had just fired up his next cancer-stick, “You know casinos, and a few bars are the last public places where anyone smokes. I remember when there were smoking sections at most places and my parents told me that there used to be no restrictions. I’ll bet you get plenty of pressure to stop from your family and friends. It’s a pretty bad habit for your long-term health…” Ted usually rambled on past any non-verbal cues that people might give him to stop talking, yet his diatribe came to a screeching halt at the look with which the stern-faced elder favored him.
The older man drew in a long pull on the firestick and then exhaled the stinking cloud into Ted’s face. He coughed a little and gagged at the odor of the raw blend of tobacco and chemicals. The old one removed the cigarillo from his mouth and tapped ashes onto the edge of the table and down onto the floor at his toes, “Sonny, nobody cares. Nobody wants your opinion, and you are not special, no matter what your mommy told you. I’ll do as I please and if you don’t like it, go bother people at another table.”
Ted gaped in shock. In his mind, the man’s words verged on an “assault”. He looked helplessly at the dealer, who just ducked his head and tried not to laugh. Indignant, he rose, took his pile of chips and fled into the depths of the gaming house in search of a friendlier table. He didn’t find one that he liked, so he finally gave up and sat at the bar. The bartender seemed to ignore him in favor of tidying up her workspace. He cleared his throat and received only a glance. He mumbled as much to himself as to her, “I just want a drink while I wait for a table to open.” He wondered at her stony silence, maybe she resents me for being…
His vocal ruminations were interrupted by a feminine voice, “What do you want?”
Ted looked up to see the bartender, mocking smile in place below shining, mesmerizing eyes. Ted simply gaped and eventually worked his jaw uselessly. The bartender shrugged and walked back to the other end of the bar. She spoke with a large man who was clearly part of the security team. He glared at Ted while she spoke. Ted wanted to avoid a confrontation. He’d been conditioned that he should seek authorities if such a situation loomed. Yet casino security was the only available authority here locally. There were Tribal Police on the Reservation, but he wasn’t sure they would want to listen to him. He finally shrugged and decided to go back over to the hotel for the rest of the night. This trip had been very unsatisfying… like all those he’d taken since he moved away from his parents’ home a few years previously.
There was an indoor walkway to the hotel, but Ted decided to go by the outdoor route to get some fresh air and enjoy the natural beauty that the builders had incorporated into the facility. As he walked dejectedly down the sidewalk, local flora pressing in from each side, he heard, from the nearby forest, a screeching wail. It startled him and he had to stop a moment to catch his breath and wait for his heart rate to slow to something more manageable. He realized that it must have been an owl or some other night bird. His father had told him that there were always weird noises “out in the sticks”.
As he plunged his hands into his pockets and determined to go to his room for rest, he caught the faint smell of burning tobacco on the breeze. It wafted over his shoulder from behind and caused him to emit a feeble cough. He looked back in annoyance. In the shadows behind him, he saw a figure. It was dark and stood still in a way that made him uncomfortable. An orange glowing circle of embers hovered around the face and rendered just enough light to illuminate the blue-grey curls of smoke as they exited the tiny conflagration and rose above the brim of a black hat. The ember flared for a moment and then flashed to the ground and was snuffed by a shadowed… foot? It wasn’t exactly clear to Ted; the figure’s lower extremities were... blurred. An even brighter flare, from a lighter or match stabbed into Ted’s eyes as the Smoker lit his next cigarillo.
Ted glared irritation but felt uncomfortable at the unnatural stillness to which the figure returned once the new fire was lit. He coughed once more, this time deliberately in a passive-aggressive attempt to communicate his displeasure and resumed his walk. He strained to listen behind him to determine whether the figure followed. He truly wished to get away from the stink and the threat of cancer or other respiratory illnesses. He slowed to listen, then gave up and looked over his shoulder again. There was no figure in the dark back near the exit to the casino. He turned to resume his walk, but a smoky black form now loomed before him! Its eyes glowed and smoked like large twin cigars as it gaped a maw that emitted pure black smoke and glowed with blue flames within the deep tunnel of the throat. Ted’s consciousness fled his body and found itself in a burning nightmare landscape that extended for as far as he could perceive in all directions.
**** * ****
Darnell, known to his public as “Murder Bush” a deliberate mistranslation of “merde bouche” a.k.a. “Deadly Rapper” for having been a suspect in a shooting back in his youth, stepped up to the dice pit as the geeky dude left. He had plenty of chips and cash to back them. His entourage was there to support him and kiss his backside as often as he wished. He rolled through six passes before he crapped out. He hadn’t over-bet, so he’d won a small amount. He picked up his latest winning chips and handed them to the hostess who had kept him well plied with drinks and snacks. He was sure that for the right price, she would take care of his other needs. He played a few card tables and finished with Roulette.
Each time he won a few chips, he passed them on to the young woman or to one of his flunkies. In the end, they had all received at least some reward for the praises they’d heaped upon him; not for any real accomplishments, but rather to curry favor with the man whom they considered to be wealthy and important: a celebrity. The girl stayed at his side and except for when he asked her questions, she said nothing. He liked that: bitch know her place, he reveled in internal satisfaction. He liked her looks too. She was medium height and a little, “thick”. She was clearly interested but hadn’t gotten in his way when he flirted with other women. He truly liked this one. The more he considered her, the more he wanted to get down to business.
Eventually, he posed the question to her, “How much for the next few hours?” His brazen suggestion that she would take money for sexual favors was the final test. If she grew angry, then she didn’t appreciate his genius…
“Whatever you think is fair. How about we see if I can satisfy you? If I can, then you may want to be generous… as you have been so far.” She hefted the chips so that the pieces clinked in her palm. “If not, I don’t deserve a reward.”
She had passed with flying colors. Might even take this one back to civilization with me, he purred in his mind. He’d always thought of himself as a Big Cat… maybe a leopard or jaguar, definitely something dangerous and sleek. His need grew more intense by the moment. He desperately wanted this woman. “Come on, let’s go to my room.” He husked in a voice grown thick with desire.
They reached his suite, his groupies having been dismissed to their own nefarious pursuits, even his bodyguard. The big man had shrugged, “Your call boss-man.” and then stumped across the hallway to his own room. Now he was finally alone with… her. He stripped off his shirt and flipped his shoes into a corner. She stood by the window and watched. The drinks he’d consumed finally caught up with him before he’d shucked his pants and drawers, “Hold on, I’ll be right back.” He was excited, which made urinating a challenge, but it had to be done, so that he could maximize his pleasure. When he stepped from the restroom, au natural, he saw that his latest conquest had done the same and now stood, bare to the world and staring out the window, all the curtains on it pushed to one side, so that the night loomed and the light of a single small desk lamp lit the room. He stalked over to her, ready to take her right there at the window in full view of anyone who looked up from the outside. He secretly hoped for an audience. He enjoyed having others watch him take what he wanted.
She turned to face him, her head lowered… no, it had sunken into her body, only her hair remained above her shoulders! A… mouth, gaping and slavering opened on her stomach, a mouth too large for her body and rimmed with rows of teeth like sharpened spikes. She stepped forward to embrace him and the screaming began… sounds that he was accustomed to eliciting from others rather than emitting from his own person.
**** * ****
“Rhino” was unhappy. He didn’t like to leave Darnell unattended. Perhaps now that his boss was in the room, he could go stand guard outside the door. He took care of some personal ablutions as he wolfed down a couple of energy bars and then walked out into the hallway. He started to settle in front of Darnell’s door, when he heard a muffled scream and faint… slobbering-gobbling noises come from the other side. He quickly tried the door, initially too panicked to think of the extra key card with which Darnell had entrusted him. He fumbled for it and soon had the door open. The interior was completely dark. The light from the hallway spilled inward but didn’t seem to reach as far into the room as it should.
He drew his pistol from the holster on his waistband and began to stalk forward, “Boss, you okay? You hurt?” The room was as silent as a tomb, he shivered a little as that thought crossed his mind. Over by the closed drapes, he smelled something awful: fresh blood and spilled entrails… recent death. His feet squelched on wet carpet. He turned around quickly. There had been no noise, but he’d felt a… presence. There she stood, arms spread wide, mouth on her gut spread wider. Rhino wasn’t one to scream or yell, even in extremis, so no others would come to this room to investigate.
**** * ****
Shelly was glad when the rowdy group left the roulette wheel that sat behind her favorite row of slots. The former “one-armed bandits”, that were now, “multiple button digital bandits” lined every available wall space, and in some spaces stood in rows that drew regulars like a dung-heap draws flies. She’d grabbed her favorite machine early in the evening and sat sliding in dollar bills and working up her points. It was called “Buffalo Dance” and featured images of American Bison and feather-bedecked hunters. The theme on the screen matched and she hoped to one day see the “White Buffalo” image adorn the entire set of images… the grand prize view. Despite the fun graphics, it was her favorite because it was near a restroom and a free soda and snack bar. She found herself ahead and on a roll. She absently lipped her dangling cigarette back into her mouth for a long draw. The smoke obscured the screen for a moment, and then she noted a shadow that lengthened across the reflective surface. Someone stood close behind her. Someone who exuded a chilly air. She paused and looked around, “Can I help you?”
There was no answer, though the shadow shifted slightly as if its caster had heard her.
Now she grew annoyed, this is just the sort of thing to break my winning streak! she raged internally. She braced her hands against the machine and worked her buttocks to make the stool on which she perched spin, so she could confront her harasser. She gaped, and nearly lost her cigarette, there was no one standing near enough to cast the shadow. No one even faced her. She chalked it up to excitement, maybe someone stepped too close when passing to go to the restroom, she thought, still a little annoyed and... chilled.
She turned back to her game and continued working the buttons, pumping in bills, and winning, a little at a time, the points now built well above her investment. This weekend is gonna pay for the last two months of losing and breaking even, she thought triumphantly. The shadow loomed across the screen once more, this time even larger, as though the figure that cast it stood closer. The shape was amorphous but hinted at anthropomorphic. She shivered as an icy breeze flowed around her, as though the air conditioning had sent out a short, cold burst, a minor malfunction…
She turned around with more alacrity and determination than the last time, mouth agape, cigarette once more dangling… precipitously and endangering the cleavage she displayed, already baked and wrinkled from years of sunbathing. The frigid air passed, and no one stood anywhere near her, though a customer approached, headed for either snacks or relief. “Excuse me sir, did you just see someone, maybe a large man, standing behind me?”
The man paused and looked at her in confusion. He had clearly been absorbed in his own thoughts, “Er, what? Uh, No. I wasn’t really paying attention, but… no.” He bustled on toward the free fountain drinks machine.
Shelly shrugged, can’t give up now, the pot is even bigger. She checked her points; she was nearing her all-time high. The winnings would pay her space rental fee at the RV park for the entire month. She pressed and played the buttons more fervently than ever, determined to break the bank on straight points or to reach that magical spin that would offer an instant reward of $10,000.00. She set her new points record and reveled for a moment. She reached for the now small stack of dollar bills the rest having been devoured by the machine. She fed in the entire remaining amount, then once more gazed at the screen. It was entirely blackened by a looming shadow.
The temperature of the air around her plummeted and she shuddered with the sudden biting cold. The cigarette was long extinguished, and she’d let the cold fag fall into the ash tray built onto the side of the machine opposite the drink holder. She was so cold, and she wanted to cry out for help, but the darkness closed in around her as the shadow enveloped her and cut off her breathing. Her fingers, paused above the “spin” button, struck and as her consciousness faded, she saw the flashing blue light and heard the blare of the winner’s siren. White Buffalo images filled all nine spaces. I won! The grand prize!
**** * ****
Terry filled his large cup and stood sipping and daydreaming. He’d lost everything he’d budgeted to lose. Yet he knew that one more try would put him back in black for this trip. He mused about what he would do with the prize money. He’d set his limit at $300.00 and had quickly lost it all on slots. Maybe he could risk just a few more dollars… skip a lunch or two until his next paycheck if it didn’t work. He was startled by the jackpot winner’s flashing light and siren that went off just behind him. That bitch! He yelled internally. Figures some old used up skank would win the big prize. He looked over at the nearby machine with anger and envy vying for control of his senses. She was gone!
He stepped over to the machine and looked around in confusion. Maybe she’d gone to the restroom? No, she’d have passed right by me. He shook his head and stepped up to look at the screen. He could still feel the recent presence of a player, the trace of warmth from a human body that might linger in a space for just a moment after the human had vacated the space. He looked around the casino floor, she was nowhere in sight. She’d been wearing a low-cut silver-spangled top that was cut way too low for her sagging, sun-ravaged bosom. She should be easy to spy, she looked like a deflated disco ball that had fallen from the ceiling to play slots. The only thing that came his way was a train of employees, led by a waitress in a skimpy outfit with purple sparkles and carrying a tray with a glass and a dark bottle. She was followed by other employees, who’d formed a sort of conga line: they sang a congratulatory chorus as they approached.
Terry gaped for a moment when he realized that they thought he was the big winner. He’d have to deny it of course. Surely the woman would be back at any moment to claim her prize. The floor cameras would have recorded who had sat at the machine, but it was too late. The group of enthused employees encircled him, and the attractive young waitress poured him a glass of champagne and snuggled up to him. The manager approached and seized his hand for a vigorous shake, “Well done sir! I see that not only have you hit the jackpot, but you’ve raised an additional $3,000.00 in points. A fabulous prize and well played I’m sure.”
Terry was flabbergasted. He’d never won anything like this… I still haven’t, not really, he reminded himself. He rarely broke even on his gambling forays, whether to the casino, or the corner store for lottery tickets and video slots. He allowed himself to be swept into the reverie and led from the machine to the bar. The employees peeled away as they approached, and he soon found himself with only the bottle and a receipt that he could cash out before he left the premises. A sullen-looking woman stood behind the bar, wiping glasses and a large, mean-looking security staffer menaced the far end. He already had his bottle, so he wasn’t sure why the staff members had deposited him with these two killjoys. He shrugged, picked up the champagne and started to walk away from the bar.
“You can’t take that with you. Either drink it here or give it to me and I’ll put it in the trash.” The bartender stated in monotone.
The security officer stood up straight from where he’d been leaning against the far wall, apparently propping up the building. He folded his massive arms in a threatening manner. Silly, thought Terry, folded arms should be a hindrance, but I get the feeling he’s dangerous regardless. He figured that he’d had enough anyway and set the nearly empty bottle on the bar, “You can keep it ma’am. I can afford another at the hotel.” Terry started to walk away from the bar, but a huge ham-like hand seized his shoulder.
Sausage-sized fingers applied painful pressure, “You apologize to the lady.” The wet heat from a mouth placed uncomfortably close to his ear and beath smelling of river bottom, sent a shiver of disgust through his body. The voice was low and deep as the river that ran past the back side of the property.
Terry decided on the better part of valor and head facing forward to avoid the obscene orifice, “Sorry ma’am, I meant no offense.”
The fingers let go and a harsh laugh sounded from behind the bar. “He don’t even know why he’s apologizing, fool. He ain’t worth the trouble, let him go.”
Terry felt a slight shove and he was sent on his way to the cash-out window. There he met with the lead cashier, an older woman in drab clothing, “I’m sorry sir, we give out only these pre-paid cards, we cannot provide cash over $1,000.00. However, you can treat them like a debit or credit card.” the cashier informed him. It seemed he had no choice, so he accepted. Thirteen grand is thirteen grand, he assured himself. He was elated, though he continued to glance around nervously, waiting for the woman in the sparkly fish-scale top to accost him and name him thief. Yet she was nowhere to be seen. The floor was full of players, some laughing, some intense, some dejected or mesmerized by the games of chance in which they’d lost themselves.
He thought about what to do with the rest of his evening. He didn’t have a hotel room; he’d planned to sleep in his station wagon as he always did before the long haul home. Perhaps he should get a room? Maybe they would take him without a reservation… he giggled a little at the unintended pun: a reservation at the Reservation… he shook his head to clear his overreaction to the silly internal joke. He decided that maybe someone on staff could help him. He approached the major domo at the front entrance that led to the interior walkway and the hotel beyond, “Excuse me sir, do you know whether the hotel will accept a resident without a prior reservation?”
The man, single dark braid wrapped in a leather holder and draped over one shoulder, looked at him gravely, “Yes, I know.” He said nothing more and did not smile as though he’d intended to be humorous.
Terry tried again, “Will you tell me please?”
The man flicked his chin in the direction of the hotel, “See the clerk at the desk.”
“Jerk, you’d think I hadn’t pissed away enough cash in this place over the past few years,” Terry muttered as he stumped toward the hotel, ensuring that he was well beyond earshot before he spoke. His head had begun to buzz a little from the champagne. Took a while for it to affect me, he mused. The hallway appeared to narrow, and his peripheral vision grew grey. He felt dizzy and as he entered the main lobby, the large room began to spin. His last view was of the sky-blue ceiling decorated with a few puffy clouds as it faded into darkness like the sun had set.
He awakened to the sounds of voices chattering happily. He looked around, his vision blurred slightly and his head feeling heavy and sore. He soon found that he could not move his arms or legs… they were bound… he was strapped to a table. He saw numerous bodies moving about in the mostly dark space in which he found himself. “Please.” He croaked, throat dry and feeling scraped. “Please, help me, let me loose. Loose me…” his perceptions cleared slowly, and he saw that the bodies that moved around him, now chanting rhythmically rather than babble-chattering, were emaciated. The owners showed as much bone through their skin as would a dead thing, long decayed. He noted spikes above a few heads… no, antlers… The rest wore… masks? Of various beasts… no, the skulls of those creatures, still filled with glistening fangs. Their dance grew ever more frantic, more energetic than they should be capable of performing. Then one of them reached out with a stick, on the end of which was a small claw, taken and preserved from some dead animal. It used the claw to gouge out a scoop of flesh from Terry’s side. He screamed in torment and horror. His screams soon matched the rhythm of the chanting and they went on for a long time before they at last faded when he’d lost too much blood to remain conscious.
**** * ****

Looking to trade! I have over 100 confirmed trades :) Right now I am mostly looking for the wants I have listed below, especially the high priority stuff, but I may be open to offers. Just please do not be offended if I say no!
p.s. "CIB" means complete, as in including all the booklets and such that were supposed to come in there, otherwise I will clarify what is included. "NIB" means New In Box, aka sealed, "brand new," in the shrink, etc.
p.p.s. If we are going to trade, all I ask is please be honest about the condition of your items. I can provide pictures for anything I have, please be willing to do the same! Thanks!

HAVE

Mini Consoles

• NES Classic Mini - NIB
• NES Classic Mini Refurbished direct from Nintendo - NIB
• Famicom Mini (JP) - NIB

N64 games

• Army Men Sarge's Heroes 2 - CIB
• Banjo Kazooie - game and manual
• Beetle Adventure Racing - CIB, some box wear
• Diddy Kong Racing - CIB
• Extreme-G - game and manual
• Mario Tennis - CIB
• Mickey's Speedway USA - game only
• Mischief Makers - CIB, some box wear
• Rugrats in Paris - CIB
• Space Station Silicon Valley - game only, rental sticker on label
• Star Wars Rogue Squadron - CIB, box has wear
• Super Smash Bros - CIB
• Tetrisphere - game only
• Wipeout 64 - CIB
• World Driver Championship - CIB, some box wear

N64 booklets

• 1080 Snowboarding - manual, operations card
• Army Men Air Combat - manual
• Banjo Tooie - manual
• Battletanx Global Assault - manual with wear
• Bomberman 64 - manual
• Buck Bumble - manual with sticker and wear
• Donkey Kong 64 - manual
• Kirby 64 the Crystal Shards - manual
• Mario Kart 64 - manual, operations card and player's guide offer booklet
• Mario Tennis - manual (separate from the CIB above)
• Rugrats Scavenger Hunt - manual
• Star Fox 64 - manual
• Star Wars Episode 1 Battle for Naboo - manual in poor condition
• Super Mario 64 - manual
• The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time - manual with wear

Switch

• Fornite Wildcat Bundle console - NIB
• Pro Controller with Super Mario Odyssey download code - NIB
• Battle Chef Brigade - NIB Best Buy version
• Blossom Tales - LRG trading card only
• Code of Princess EX launch edition - CIB
• Crayola Scoot - loose cart in a GameStop case
• Danmaku Unlimited 3 - NIB
• Dandara CE - NIB
• Darius Cozmic Collection CE - NIB
• Downwell with Flip Grip - NIB, slight box damage
• Final Fantasy XII - CIB
• Flashback - have CE and standard both NIB, CE has box damage, may trade either depending on value
• Gekido Kintaro’s Revenge big box - CIB and like new
• Graceful Explosion Machine - NIB
• Grip Combat Racing Airblades vs Rollers Ultimate Edition - CIB, DLC code used
• Guilty Gear 20th Anniversary Pack EU - CIB
• Katamari Damacy Reroll - digital code
• Korg Gadget JP - NIB, would love to trade for North America release
• Lumo - CIB
• Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition - CIB
• Old School Musical - NIB
• Pode Artist's Edition EU - NIB but has some box damage
• Rive - SRG trading card pack only
• Saturday Morning RPG - NIB
• Sayonara Wild Hearts - Have 3 NIB, two have exclusive iron-on patch the other does not
• Shakedown Hawaii CE - CIB but contents are sealed, outer box has very minor damage
• Shantae and the Pirate's Curse - LRG trading card only
• Shantae and the Seven Sirens CE - NIB with card
• Skullgirls 2nd Encore - NIB
• Snake Pass - SRG trading card pack only
• Super Mario Odyssey - digital code
• The Legend of Zelda BotW Special Edition - CIB
• Thumper - NIB (small nick on spine)
• Tricky Towers - NIB
• Ultracore - CIB

3DS consoles, games, accessories

• 2DS blue with black front - loose with charger
• Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars - NIB
• Disney Frozen Olaf's Quest - CIB with some damage to cover art
• Rhythm Thief and the Emperor's Treasure - CIB except for Club Nintendo insert
• TMNT Master Splinter's Training Pack - loose
• Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward - CIB, has a hole in front of case/cover art
• Zero Escape Zero Time Dilemma - Pre-order bonus watch only
• Nyko Game Boost power attachment for launch model 3DS - NIB, some box damage

3DS boxes and manuals (no games)

• Fire Emblem Warriors
• Miitopia
• Poochy and Yoshi's Woolly World EU region big box only (can hold both game and Poochy amiibo from any region, really nice display piece)
• Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright MANUAL ONLY
• Tomodachi Life MANUAL ONLY
• Operations manual and other inserts (no AR cards) for launch model 3DS in bag
• 2DS XL quick start guide

DS console, games and accessories

• Brain Age - CIB
• Brain Age 2 - CIB
• Jewel Time Deluxe - loose
• Pac Pix - CIB
• Paws and Claws Pet Resort - box and game only, game cart has wear
• Polarium - CIB
• Spongebob Squarepants Atlantis Squarepantis - NIB
• EMS NDS Adapter - CIB (Not the newest version, works best with Windows XP)

DS boxes and manuals (no games)

• Advance Wars Dual Strike - box, manual, other inserts (spine of box has a tear, cover art not affected)
• Okami Den - manual only
• Scribblenauts Unlimited - manual only
• Operations manual and other inserts for black DSi in bag
• Instruction booklet for launch model DS

GBA games and videos

• Dogz - CIB, some wear to box
• Muppets Pinball Mayhem - game only
• Nickelodeon Rugrats All Grown Up! Volume 1 GBA Video - NIB
• Pocket Dogs - CIB, box has damage
• Road Trip Shifting Gears - CIB
• Sonic Advance / Sonic Pinball Party combo cart - game only
• Sonic Advance 2 - box only (no tray)
• Sudoku Fever - game only
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 - game only

GBC games and more

• Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 3 - game and manual
• Game and Watch Gallery 3 - game only
• Kirby Tilt n Tumble - game only
• M and M's Minis Madness - CIB
• Tonka Raceway - game only, missing battery cover
• GameShark Pro - box, manual (no tray or gameshark)

GB games and more

• 4 in 1 Funpak Volume II - game only
• Alleyway - game only
• Bo Jackson Hit and Run - game and manual
• Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2 - game only
• Casino Fun Pak - game and manual
• Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame - game only
• Dr. Mario - CIB
• Face Ball 2000 - game only
• High Stakes Gambling - CIB
• Hyper Lode Runner - game only, has pink marker along top that won't come off
• Kwirk - game only
• Ms. Pac Man - game only
• Nemesis - game only
• Super Mario Land - game only
• Tetris 2 - game only
• The Amazing Spiderman - game only
• GameShark for Game Boy and Game Boy Pocket - accessory only
• Nuby Worm Light safety instructions - booklet only

GB manuals (no games)

• 4 in 1 Funpak
• Aladdin
• Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2
• Centipede Millipede (creased front)
• Dr Mario
• Ducktales
• Galaga Galaxian (creased front)
• Game and Watch Gallery
• Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues
• Kirby's Dream Land
• Kirby's Pinball Land (stained front)
• Paperboy
• Tetris Attack
• Solomon's Club

Wii U games and packaging

• Assassin's Creed III - NIB
• Hyrule Warriors - CIB
• Runbow Deluxe Edition - NIB or CIB (willing to trade one of these)
• Shovel Knight - NIB
• Star Fox Zero / Guard Double Pack - NIB, one corner of outer box is slightly bent

Wii games and accessories

• 30 Great Games Winter Fun - CIB
• ABC Wipeout 2 - CIB
• Ford Racing Off Roads - CIB
• Gallop and Ride! - CIB
• Game Party - CIB
• Hello Kitty Seasons - CIB
• M. Knight Shamalayan's The Last Airbender - CIB
• Metroid Prime 3 - promo inserts only
• MLB Power Pros 2008 - CIB
• NCIS - CIB
• No More Heroes - CIB
• PBR Out of the Chute - CIB
• Petz Horse Club - CIB
• Petz Sports - CIB
• Press Your Luck 2010 Edition - CIB
• Shaun White Snowboarding Road Trip - CIB
• Vegas Party - CIB
• Victorious Boxers Revolution - CIB
• Wii Fit - CIB
• Zhu Zhu Pets Featuring the Wild Bunch - CIB
• Big Town Shootout 2 Blasters big box - NIB (game download no longer works) (these blasters are attachments for Wiimotes to make them into pistols, great accessory IMO)

GameCube games, accessories and packaging

• 007 Agent Under Fire - box and disc only, box has wear
• Army Men Air Combat The Elite Missions - disc and manual only
• Custom Robo - CIB
• Godzilla Destroy All Monsters Melee - CIB
• Mario Party 6 - CIB
• Superman Shadow of Apokolips - CIB, also have a Nintendo Power poster to go with it
• Tak the Great Juju Challenge - CIB
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - manual only
• Action Replay - manual only

NES games and accessories

• Original game pad - loose
• Hogan's Alley - loose
• Tiger Heli - loose
• 4 cart sleeves

PS3 boxes and manuals (no games)

• Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness

PS2

• PS2 console with cords and three controllers (one authentic, two aftermarket)
• Ace Combat 04 greatest hits - CIB
• Alter Echo - CIB
• Call of Duty Finest Hour - CIB
• Crash and Burn - CIB
• FIFA Soccer 2003 - CIB
• Gadget Racers - CIB
• IndyCar Series - CIB
• Madden 2003 - CIB
• Maximo - CIB
• Need for Speed Underground greatest hits - loose
• Rumble Racing - CIB
• Sky Odyssey - CIB
• SpyHunter - CIB

PS2 boxes and manuals (no games)

• River King A Wonderful Journey (has wear)
• WWE Crush Hour BOX ONLY

PSX games

• 2 Xtreme - CIB
• Blast Lacrosse - CIB
• Cool Boarders 2 greatest hits - CIB
• Crash Bandicoot 2 Cortex Strikes Back - Case, back cover art, disc (missing manual)
• FIFA 99 - CIB
• G-Police - CIB
• Gex - CIB
• Einhander - CIB
• Jeopardy! (case is cracked) - CIB
• MDK - CIB
• Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions - CIB
• Medal of Honor (case is cracked) - CIB
• MLB 99 - CIB
• Moto Racer 2 (case is cracked) - CIB
• Need for Speed Hot Pursuit greatest hits green label - CIB
• NFL Blitz greatest hits green label (case is in poor shape but could swap) - CIB
• NFL Gameday 2000 - CIB
• NHL 99 - CIB
• Rainbow Six greatest hits - CIB
• Sled Storm - CIB
• Star Wars Rebel Assault II - CIB, case is damaged
• Tetris Plus greatest hits green label - CIB
• Tiger Woods 99 PGA Tour Golf - CIB
• Tomb Raider greatest hits green label - CIB
• Tomb Raider 2 - CIB
• Uprising X - CIB
• Wheel of Fortune greatest hits green label - CIB

PSX boxes and manuals (no games)

• 007 Tomorrow Never Dies
• Army Men World War

PC

• Cubix: Robots for Everyone - NIB
• Mighty Switch Force / Shantae Risky's Revenge double pack - NIB
• Oil Tycoon - NIB

Strategy guides

• Advance Wars Dual Strike (NP)
• Spyro Season of Ice (BradyGames)
• Super Smash Bros Brawl (Prima)
• Conflict Desert Storm II (Prima)
• Mario 64 Unauthorized guide (missing front cover)

Books

• NES/Famicom: A Visual Compendium (still in shrinkwrap)

Collectibles and posters

• Ni No Kuni II Figpin "Evan" - CIB
• Hatsune Miku Funko Pop - NIB
• Poster: Monster Hunter 3 Tri 20x27"
• Poster: Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games 40x14"
• Poster: New Super Mario Bros Wii / Zelda Spirit Tracks 12x17"
• Poster set: Bravoman and Bravoman x Wonder-Momo 11x15"
• Poster: Superman Shadow of Apokolips (from Nintendo Power)

Comic Books

• Marvel - Original Human Torch #3
• Marvel - Steelgrip Starkey #6
• Marvel - Kickers Inc #1
• Marvel - Justice 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
• Marvel - The 'Nam #14
• Marvel - The Punisher Armory #9
• Marvel - Spider-Man Storm and Power Man Battle Smokescreen!
• Marvel - Spider-Man Battles the Myth Monster
• Marvel - Spider-Man Magazine for Kids - Summer 1996, Fall 1996
• DC - Steel #1
• DC - Batman #509
• DC - Catwoman (93 Series) #4
• DC - The Green Lantern Corps #206
• DC - Hawkman #2
• DC - Tales of the Legion of Super Heroes #5
• Dark Horse - Predator Big Game #1
• Dark Horse - Jonny Quest The Real Adventures 1, 2, 3
• image - The Savage Dragon #11
• Star Wars X-Wing Rogue Squadron The Phantom Affair (book)
• Officer Snook #1

Random Stuff

• White Verizon iPhone 5S with protective case and charger
• Sprint Samsung Galaxy Note 2 - Pretty sure this is unlocked, but will not work on Verizon, comes with Cyanogen OS, charging cable and dock
• GameKlip controller mount NIB - Would work great with the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, requires a PS3 (aka DS3) controller, learn more here
• Micro Machines Star Wars Tie Starfighter Sealed
• Holy Ghost - Static on the Wire Vinyl Like New
• ABSRDST - Boss Beats CD sealed (An EP of Mega Man remixes)
• Speed Racer: The Movie VHS CIB
• Adventure Time: Jake vs Me-Mow DVD + Finn Hat CIB
• Regular Show: The Best DVD in the Universe
• Avengers: Infinity War Moviebill
• 2x Madonna CDs
• Trial of the Clone - A modern CYOA style book
• Three Word Phrase Volume One
• Little Red Book Complete Street Guide to New York City
• 2 1932 Olympic stamps
• Dolce and Gabanna Intenso leather bag new, open box
• Mark McGwire 62nd Home Run Gold card

WANT

The high priority stuff:

• 3DS: Etrian Odyssey Nexus cart only
• GBA:
  • Bomberman Tournament cart only
  • Sonic Advance 2 poster only or CIB
• GBC: Wario Land 2 cart only
• GB:
  • Kirby's Block Ball manual only
  • Kirby's Dream Land 2 CIB
• N64: Mario Party 2 CIB or box and game or box only

Lower priority:
Limited Print Switch Games (prefer CIB, also fine with Best Buy retail versions when applicable)

• Axiom Verge Multiverse Edition
• Battle Princess Madelyn any version
• Double Switch
• Earthlocke
• Evoland
• Fox n Forests
• Night Trap
• Puyo Puyo Tetris big box with target exclusive decals or CIB
• Shantae and the Pirate's Curse CE
• Shikhondo
• The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince
• The Messenger cover art and manual or CIB (already have but looking for a nicer copy)
• Tiny Metal

Retail Switch Games

• Alliance Alive HD
• Captain Toad Treasure Tracker
• Crayola Scoot case or CIB
• Dragon Quest 1 2 3 Collection with English cover
• Korg Gadget
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3
• Okami JP version
• Pikmin 3 Deluxe
• Romancing Saga 3 Remastered Asia version

3DS Games

• 7th Dragon Code VFD CE
• Beyblade CE with beyblade
• Cooking Mama Sweet Shop
• Disney Big Hero 6 and Frozen Olaf's Quest two-pack
• Final Fantasy Explorers CE
• Kirby Battle Royale
• PENDING IN Mario Golf
• PENDING IN Mario Tennis
• Project X Zone 1 and 2 launch editions
• Scribblenauts Unlimited big box with rooster hat case CIB

DS Games

• Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Apollo Justice
• Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Justice for All
• Amazing Adventures the Forgotten Ruins
• Big Bang Mini slipcover only or CIB
• Bomberman Land Touch 2
• Diddy Kong Racing
• DK Jungle Climber game and booklets or CIB
• Dokapon Journey
• Dragon Quest 4, 5, 6
• Harvest Moon Frantic Farming
• Jewel Time Deluxe box and inserts or CIB
• Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ
• Mega Man Starforce Series
• Okami Den box and game or CIB
• Sonic Rush Adventure
• Veggy World
• Viewtiful Joe Double Trouble
• Zuma's Revenge with slipcover

GBA

• Klonoa 2 CIB
• Mega Man Battle Chip Challenge CIB
• Warioland 4 box and inserts or CIB

GBC

• Legend of the River King 2 CIB
• Game and Watch Gallery 2 CIB
• Game and Watch Gallery 3 box and inserts or CIB

Game Boy

• Kirby's Star Stacker CIB
• Ninja Boy 2 CIB
• Pinball Dreams poster and reg card or CIB
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan CIB
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit CIB

Wii U Games

• Pac Man and the Ghostly Adventures 1 and 2
• Pikmin 3
• Scribblenauts Unmasked Walmart version with Green Lantern DVD
• Wii Party U
• Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2013

Wii Games

• Babysitting Mama with baby
• Bit.Trip Complete with soundtrack
• PENDING IN Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 with bonus DVD
• Dragon Quest Swords
• Fortune Street
• Lost in Shadow
• Mario Sports Mix manual and other booklets or CIB
• Okami
• Pandora's Tower
• Prince of Persia the Forgotten Sands
• The Sky Crawlers

GameCube games

• Baten Kaitos Origins
• Pro Rally
• SEGA Soccer Slam
• Tales of Symphonia
• Timesplitters Future Perfect
• Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 1, 2, 3
• Viewtiful Joe Red Hot Rumble
• XGRA

PS2 Games

• Monster Rancher 4

PS3 Games

• Earth Defense Force 2025
• Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon
• Wipeout HD Fury (PAL UK exclusive)

Strategy Guides

• Animal Crossing New Horizons
• Final Fantasy VII
• Gotcha Force
• Minecraft Dungeons
• Super Mario Odyssey
• Super Mario RPG
• The Legend of Zelda Oracle of Ages / Seasons Nintendo Power
• The World Ends With You
• Xenogears and Xenosaga 1, 2, 3

Also if you've read this far, I recently started an Instagram dedicated to video game collecting and would love to connect with others! My username is chillcollector.

I would call myself a libertarian. I am a Marxist in that I use a materialistic interpretation of history and events. I have some ideas that I think would benefit the UK. Some of which are in line with conservative ideas. I would love to know what you guys think or what you think would be a better idea. Please criticize. I hope to have a dialogue about this as much as possible.
Drugs
de criminalise all drugs (much like portugal) treat it as a mental health issue. A lot of people take drugs because of homelessness and poverty so by dealing with those hard drug use will go down. Legalise Cannabis, Mushrooms (and most hallucinegics), LSD, MDMA and Cocaine (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/jun/13/bad-science-cocaine-study). tax them inline with the estimated costs for misuse of them. regulate them like tobacco and alcohol.
Obesity and Food
Ban the sale of energy drinks to children below 16. ban the sale of very sweet confectiionary and drinks to children below 16 (some mexican states have done it recently), This includes in schools. tax very fatty, sugary or nutritionly rare foods in line with what the estimated costs are for the NHS to deal with the health problems caused by them (much the same way we do with alcohol, tobacco and in my tax system other drugs). Possibly make it mandatory to fortify very cheap foods with minerals and vitamins so the impoverished can get more nutrients. although the body doesnt absorb these very well so it might be pointless.
Make it illegal for a company/business to throw away food stuff and make them donate it to foodbanks/food charities.
Advertising/product placement/Games/Gambling
Ban all adverts to children in any way. Ban alcohol ads, vaping ads, gambling ads, payday loan ads, ads for big SUV/highly polluting vehicles. Ban product placement, ban TV shows for kids that have toys explicitly linked to them. Ban Loot box system in games. Make fixed odds betting machines have lower returns. Either tax very highly online gambling sites (spin wheel style), forced break periods or make it a state monolopy. Gambling is effectively a license to print money. why shouldn't the state take the proceeds from what is a worthless noncontributing part of the economy. All ads that have photoshopped used need to a sign saying they've been photoshopped and very thin models have to have a medical certificate that they are healthy (like france).
NHS
repeal the Blair laws making the NHS act more a competitive business which have proved to ineffective. Make the English NHS system more in line with the Scottish system.
Tax or in some make people who do more dangerous activities pay a small amount extra for the increased likelihood of needing the services of the NHS like motorcyclists, horse riders, extreme sportspeople.
Free speech
repeal a lot of the Blair era censorship legislation. repeal with 2014 porn ban.
prostitution
legalize brothels. but make prostitution licensed to stop sex trafficking. Mandate the wearing of a condom. Possibly make it that you can only be a prostitute if you hold a british passport to stop sex trafficking from abroad.
Trade Unions
repeal the anti-trade union legislation.
Electoral reform
I think a system like Single Transferrable Vote would be better than FPTP. I think that registered political parties should somehow get some minimum funding from the state to facilitate a healthy and varied democracy. Remove the hereditary peerages from the house of lords.
availability of credit
I don't think payment plans for normal consumer goods should be available. I think it should be harder to get a pay day loan than it currently is.
Fines
I think that fines for speeding, other fine-able offenses should be means tested and shouldn't have a cap.
Copyright
I think that Copyright should expire for everything after 50 years. So at the this point everything from before 1969 should be in the public domain. I think any British citizen creator who leaves the UK to not pay income tax should have the copyright for their work removed in the UK when they do leave.
Welfare
Introduce Universal basic income in the UK. replace all the means tested and tedious bureaucracy associated with current system. I think it should start from 18 years old and increase slightly each year. Maybe start at 5,000 pounds and by your thirties move up to 10,000 pounds by the time you want to start having kids etc. I think UBI would make work always pay more than being on benefits. It would disincentive benefits fraud as well as people having children to acquire more benefits.
Tax
I do believe in a progressive taxation system. I think the tax free threshold should be raised. I think the brackets for taxation are good at the moment but I would add higher tax thresholds at higher rates e.g. 50% at 200,000, 60% at 500,000. I am unsure what the upper limit should be for tax rate or income. The rich will leave anyway (Jim ratcliffe most recenty) no matter what the tax rate is. If they ever wants to come into the UK they should have to pay to do so. If they have a knighthood it should be taken away.
Immigration.
remove all EU citizens not in critical under supplied or high paying jobs from the UK as well migratory workers from outside the EU. Syrian Civil war refugees should go back as well. basically as many people as possible should be made to go back to their country of origin without directly endangering their lives. I think the pay threshold for workers to legally migrate here should be much higher probably 40,000 pounds a year. there should be not net migration to the UK each year.
children and population growth
I think the UK should aim for net 0% population growth. I think couples who want to have kids should be made to screen for any hereditary recessive genetic diseases before they plan to have a child so they can know if they're kid is going to be disabled. Possibly people should have to have in the womb embryo testing as well to see if theyre child has any genetic diseases. legalise child euthanasia (like belgium and the netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_Protocol). I think people should be discouraged from having lots of children especially those without the means to provide for them. however if people do decide to have kids I think the provision for parenting should be a lot. 2+ years of paid maternity leave. free parenting lessons, support as much as possible the needs of the child and mother in the critical early bonding years. Ban all Child beauty pageants including trans ones (like france has done). I don't think childen can legally consent to hormone replacement drugs. I think the age of criminal responsibility should be raised should be raised to about 14. I think there are arguments to lower the age of consent in the UK to 15.
the environment
Library of things/Repair cafes in towns and cities to be able to more easily repairs good or not have to buy in the first place.
Government subsidy scheme to better insulate homes across country.
More extensive use of nuclear fission energy for electric generation.
Large scale food waste reclamation for Compost or animal feed.
Subsidy for Ground source heat pumps for poor households
Subsidy for Thermal exchangers in home for poor households
Make planned obselescene illegal. Make right to repair legally mandated.
simplify the amount and types of plastic products to make it easier to recycle goods. Ban non recyclable plastics from being used in single use items.
Make products label their expected lifetime (from average use) so consumer knows what a good long lasting product is. For large electric goods perhaps put a minimum expected lifespan for it to be sold in the UK.
I think you could legislate to make products illegal from rainforests or unsustainable harvested forest.
Tax loopholes
make all gift-aid illegal, make art donations as tax write off illegal, donations to think tanks,charities illegal as tax write-offs,
currently if you live outside the UK for more than 6 months you don't pay any income tax. I think the amount of income tax you pay should be proportionate for how long you spend in country with a bare minimum of 20% (estimate).
Make shell companies illegal so large multinationals can't escape to tax havens and not pay corporations tax. If they don't ban them from trading in the UK. This may need to be done in a coalition of states working together.
education
repeal Blair era education legislation that created needless hoops and paper work for teachers. repeal new laws that teachers can you sources from anti-capitalist, anti-democratic sources etc. repeal the Gove/Cameron legislation that made schools behave like businesses. The point of school is for the kds to work hard and earn qualifications not the teacher. It is an inherently discriminatory system. allow at GCSE much more education in technical qualifications. e.g. bricklaying, carpentry, electricians etc, machine work. I don't think they need to start at 16 or above. I think theres an argument that children should be able to leave school at 16. Some of the courses they do are pointless. Apprenticeship pay is so low that in the short term it makes more sense to get a minimum wage job. Atleast make apprenticeship pay in line with minimum wage to incentivise it rather than literally force kids to be extremely cheap labour.
self defense
I think it should be legal to carry around pepper spray, mace or stun gun. The criminals already have weapons. Why not decriminalise the ability for an individual to defend themselves especially women. Free female self defence classes.
BBC
release all BBC created media onto the Iplayer. The British Tax payer paid for it. Why shouldn't they be able to access it. Perhaps make a BBC iplayer app to host it all for foreigners to use and pay for like Netflix.
International business
Make corporations who sell goods in the UK prove that they don't come from slave/child labour. If they don't then they can't sell that product in the UK.
VAT
remove VAT for resold,recycled products, upcycled products, products that are good the planet (re-chargeable batteries, battery chargers). effectively rebrand VAT as a carbon tax. completely remove VAT on sanitary products, all energy efficiency/saving products.
Voting
like Australia make it mandatory to go to the polling booth.
University
make universities offer their humanities subjects as online only option so that people can do their degree from anywhere and not necessarily in the expensive university town. the course would be cheaper. Make foreign students pay for their healthcare when they are here.
Tourism
make foreigners pay to get into British Museums especially the big ones in london. I realise this may be cost prohibitive for smaller Museums.
Housing
change the rental legislation that tenants can legally not pay full rent if a landlord hasn't done repairs to the standard of the property when the renter moved in.
No foreigner can own more than 2 homes in the UK (in thailand you can't own any property unless you're thai)
Cap the number of a properties anyone can own. especially for buy to let landlords.
If a house has sat vacant for too long it has to be put on the market as a competitive price.
houses cannot be treated as an investment where it doesn't matter if its occupied or not. a roof over ones head is a right.
Homelessness
expand the access to homeless shelters. the best way to stop human and sex trafficking as well hard drug use to is stop homelessness.
migratory farm workers
ban migratory farm workers in the UK. there are thousands of Uni, GCSE, college and A level students who have months off school in the picking season. Why not get them to pick fruit and vegetables? same thing goes for homeless people. Get them all to pick fruit and veg.
littering & dog tax
small tax on having a dog to pay for dog park maintenance, dog bins, etc. small tax on single use packaging to pay for more Bins on high street, bins to be emptied more regularly to reduce littering. Same small tax on tobacco for cigarette butt bins.
These are all my ideas. Please critique them.