Looking to make some swaps! I have 80 confirmed trades. Also, fair warning, these lists are long, I have a lot of stuff for trade! Looking to do fair value but where I have an item that is worn / in poor shape I value that lower than eBay averages due to condition.
p.s. "CIB" means 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.

HAVE

Switch games and accessories

• Celeste CE - NIB, hard trade
• Danmaku Unlimited 3 - NIB with card
• Downwell - NIB
• Gekido Kintaro’s Revenge - CIB
• Helmut the Badass from Hell - NIB
• Rive - SRG trading pack only
• Snake Pass - SRG trading pack only
• The Darkside Detective - NIB with sealed cards, hard trade
• PowerA Premium Game Card Case red Super Mario M - NIB and authentic
• PowerA game card case black Zelda Z - loose, knock-off :(

Wii U

• Assassin's Creed III - NIB
• NintendoLand - box, manual and booklets only
• Runbow Deluxe Edition - NIB or CIB (willing to trade one of these)
• Shovel Knight - NIB, hard trade

Wii games and accessories

• ABC Wipeout 2 - CIB
• Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 - NIB
• Gallop and Ride! - CIB
• Game Party - CIB
• Ghost Squad - CIB
• Ghostbusters the Video Game - NIB
• Hello Kitty Seasons - CIB
• Link's Crossbow Training - disc and manual in cardboard sleeve
• M. Knight Shamalayan's The Last Airbender - CIB
• MLB Power Pros 2008 - CIB
• NCIS - 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
• Walk it Out! - NIB
• Wii Fit Plus - CIB (no balance board)
• 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 and accessories

• Army Men Air Combat The Elite Missions - game and manual only
• Hunter the Reckoning - CIB, hard trade
• Lego Star Wars - CIB
• Lego Star Wars II - CIB
• NBA Courtside 2002 - CIB, has wear
• NCAA Football 2003 - CIB
• Robotech Battlecry - CIB
• Scooby Doo Mystery Mayhem - CIB, hard trade
• Superman Shadow of Apokolips - CIB, also have a Nintendo Power poster to go with it
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - manual only
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 - CIB
• Action Replay - manual only

N64 booklets
Most of these have wear

• 1080 Snowboarding - manual and operations card
• Army Men Air Combat - manual
• Banjo Kazooie - manual (wrinkled)
• Banjo Tooie - manual
• Battletanx Global Assault - manual (wrinkled)
• Bomberman 64 - manual
• Buck Bumble - manual
• Diddy Kong Racing - manual, operations card
• Donkey Kong 64 - manual
• Extreme-G - manual
• Goldeneye 007 - manual
• Kirby 64 - manual
• Mario Kart 64 - manual, operations card and player's guide offer booklet
• Mario Party 2 - manual
• Mario Tennis - manual
• Rugrats Scavenger Hunt - manual
• Star Wars Episode 1 Battle for Naboo - manual (has marker on top right)
• Super Mario 64 - manual
• Yoshi's Story - manual and operations card
• Zelda Ocarina of Time - manual

NES games and accessories
Pictures of most items here

• Original game pad
• Original orange zapper
• RC Pro Am - game only
• Super Mario Bros / Duck Hunt - game only
• Tiger Heli - game only

3DS games and accessories

• Brain Age Concentration Training - box, manual (cover art has a small tear on back)
• Legend of Legacy big box launch edition - CIB, hard trade
• Legend of Zelda Triforce Heroes - NIB
• Poochy and Yoshi's Woolly World EU region big box only (can hold both game and Poochy amiibo)
• Sonic Lost World - CIB, has a small hole on front cover
• Tomodachi Life - manual
• Operations manual and other inserts (no AR cards) for launch model 3DS in bag
• 2DS XL quick start guide
• Nyko Game Boost power attachment for launch model 3DS - NIB, some box damage

DS games and more

• Chrono Trigger - box, manual, all inserts including the poster
• Dragon Quest Heroes Rocket Slime - box, manual, all inserts
• Fossil League Dino Tournament Championship - CIB
• Hamsterz Life - CIB
• Go Diego Go Great Dinosaur Rescue - CIB
• Junior Brain Trainer - CIB
• Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games - manual, all inserts
• Metroid Prime Pinball - box, manual, health and safety insert (cover art says Rumble Pak included but there is no Rumble Pak)
• Rune Factory - box, manual, all inserts
• Scribblenauts Unlimited - manual only
• Spongebob Squarepants Atlantis Squarepantis - NIB
• Star Fox Command - box, manual, all inserts
• Warioware DIY - box, manual, all inserts
• Yoshi's Island DS - box, manual, health and safety insert
• EMS NDS Adapter - CIB (Not the newest version, works best with Windows XP)
• Operations manual and other inserts for black DSi in bag
• Instruction booklet for launch model DS
• I also have some health and safety precautions booklets and one WiFi connection booklet

GBA

• 3rd party charger - looks like an OEM charger but isn't
• An American Tail Fievel's Gold Rush - CIB
• Atari Anniversary Advance - CIB
• Backyard Basketball - game only
• Backyard Football - game only
• Candy Land / Chutes and Ladders / Memory - CIB
• Connect Four / Perfection / Trouble - CIB
• Crash Bandicoot the Huge Adventure - game only
• Disney's Monsters Inc. / Finding Nemo - game only
• Ecks vs Sever - game only
• Ed Edd n Eddy the Mis-Edventures - game only
• F-14 Tomcat - game only
• Garfield the Search for Pooky - CIB
• Golden Nugget Casino / Texas Hold 'Em Poker 2 in 1 value - CIB
• Madden 2003 - game only
• Mario Pinball Land - CIB
• Mario Tennis Power Tour - game only
• Medabots Rokusho Version - game only
• Monster Trucks - game only
• Muppet Pinball Mayhem - game only
• Need for Speed Underground - game only
• Pac Man Collection - game only
• Pac Man World - game only
• Pocket Dogs - CIB
• Rayman Advance - game only
• Road Trip Shifting Gears - CIB
• Rugrats I Gotta Go Party - game only
• Sonic Advance 2 - game only
• Spongebob Squarepants Battle for Bikini Bottom - game only
• Spongebob Squarepants Lights Camera Pants - game only
• Spongebob Squarepants Revenge of the Flying Dutchman - game only
• Spyro 2 Season of Flame - CIB
• Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World - game only
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 - game only
• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell - game only
• Uno / Skip Bo - game only
• Yoshi's Topsy Turvy - CIB

GBA Video sealed titles
Pictures here

• Dragon Ball GT Volume 1
• Nickelodeon Rugrats All Grown Up! Volume 1
• Nicktoons Collection Volume 2

GBC games and more

• Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 3 - game and manual
• Game and Watch Gallery 2 - box, manual and game with repro tray
• The Legend of the River King - game only
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater - game only
• Wings of Fury - CIB
• GameShark Pro - box, manual (no tray)

GB games and more

• Mint condition Game Boy Pocket silver launch model with booklets
• 4 in 1 Funpak Volume II - game only
• Baseball - box, game with repro tray
• Battleship - box, game, registration card, poster with repro tray
• Bo Jackson Hit and Run - game and manual
• Centipede and Millipede - box, tray, game, manual
• Desert Strike - box, manual, game, inserts with repro tray
• Dr Mario - box and game with repro tray
• Face Ball 2000 - game only
• Game and Watch Gallery - box and manual with repro tray
• Ghostbusters II - game only
• Golf Player's Choice - box, manual and game with repro tray
• Hyper Lode Runner - game only
• James Bond 007 - game only
• Kirby's Pinball Land - game only
• Kwirk - game only
• Mickey's Dangerous Chase player's choice - game only
• Mole Mania - game only
• Nemesis - game only
• Paperboy - game only
• Penguin Wars - CIB
• Shanghai - game only
• Super Mario Land - Box, game, manual, with repro tray, game label has some wear
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fall of the Foot Clan - game only
• The Chessmaster - box, game, inserts with repro tray (no manual)
• The Smurfs - game only
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit? - game only
• WWF Superstars 2 - box, game, manual, all inserts with repro tray
• Nuby Worm Light safety instructions booklet only

SEGA Genesis games

• Madden NFL '94 - CIB
• Mike Ditka Power Football - Cardboard box and game, box has a lot of wear
• Pat Riley Basketball - CIB, has wear
• Sports Talk Baseball - CIB, has wear
• Super Battleship - CIB
• Triple Play 96 - CIB, has wear
• Unnecessary Roughness 95 - CIB, has wear
• World Series Baseball 96 - CIB, in cardboard box with registration card, has wear

PS3 games

• Battleship - NIB
• Burnout Paradise greatest hits - CIB
• Killzone 3 - NIB
• Mini Ninjas - CIB
• Uncharted 3 Drake's Deception - NIB
• WWE 12 - CIB

PS2 games
Pictures of most games here

• Ace Combat 04 greatest hits - CIB
• Alter Echo - CIB
• American Idol - CIB
• Blade II - CIB, poor condition
• Crash and Burn - CIB
• Dead to Rights - CIB, poor condition
• Dropship: United Peace Force - Box and disc
• FIFA Soccer 2003 - CIB
• Final Fantasy XI Online - CIB (I have two copies, one is a double disc version)
• Gadget Racers - CIB
• Gauntlet Dark Legacy - CIB
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - CIB
• IndyCar Series - CIB
• LA Rush - Box and disc, no bonus disc, case is a rental case
• Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 - CIB but disc is red label
• Pirates Legend of the Black Buccaneer - box and disc
• Pryzm Chapter One: The Dark Unicorn - CIB, poor condition
• R-Type Final - disc only
• RTX Red Rock - CIB, poor condition
• Rumble Racing - CIB, hard trade
• Rune: Viking Warlord - CIB
• Savage Skies - Box and disc, poor condition
• Sky Odyssey - CIB, hard trade
• Star Wars Battlefront greatest hits red label - CIB
• SOCOM II: US Navy Seals - manual only
• Supercar Street Challenge - CIB
• The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - CIB with a bonus loose DVD disc of the film
• UFC Throwdown - CIB
• Wrath Unleashed - CIB, poor condition
• WWE Crush Hour - Box and disc
• Yanya Caballista City Skater - CIB, poor condition

PSX games
Pictures of most games here

• 007 Tomorrow Never Dies - Case, manual (no disc)
• Crash Bandicoot 2 Cortex Strikes Back - Box, back cover art, disc (missing manual)
• Jeopardy! - CIB
• Need for Speed Hot Pursuit greatest hits green label - CIB
• Star Wars Rebel Assault II - CIB
• Tetris Plus greatest hits green label - CIB
• Wheel of Fortune greatest hits green label - CIB

IBM Tandy

• Mario Teaches Typing big box - NIB

PC

• Cubix: Robots for Everyone - NIB
• Jimmy Neutron vs Jimmy Negatron - manual only
• Oil Tycoon - NIB

Strategy guides and gaming magazines
Pictures of most guides here

• Pokemon Black White
• Pokemon Black White Version 2 CE Hardcover
• Pokemon Ruby Sapphire
• Super Smash Bros Brawl
• Conflict Desert Storm II (Prima)
• Mario 64 Unauthorized guide (missing front cover)
• Game Informer (Magic Legends Cover)
• Game Informer (Pokemon Sword Shield cover, the style with legendaries on front and back)
• PC Gamer (Star Trek Online)
• EGM (Year of the Portables), missing back cover

Collectibles and posters

• Ni No Kuni II Figpin "Evan" - still in box
• Hatsune Miku Funko Pop - NIB
• Club Nintendo Super Mario Children's Book JP Exclusive - New
• 2003 Nintendo Duck Hunt Patch - New
• 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 - Toys R Us Limited Edition X-Men #1
• Marvel - X-Men: The Ultra Collection Jan Book 2 of 5
• Marvel - Wolverine #109
• Marvel - Wolverine #111
• Marvel - X-Force #27
• Marvel - X-Force #28
• Marvel - The Invincible Iron Man #1
• Marvel - Original Human Torch #3
• Marvel - The Thing #16
• Marvel - Daredevil #362
• Marvel - The Beast #3
• Marvel - Cable #34
• Marvel - The Secret Defenders #15
• Marvel Fanfare #2
• Marvel - X-Factor #\71
• Marvel - Wonder Man #1
• Marvel - Inhumanoids #1
• Marvel - Inhumanoids #2
• Marvel - Inhumanoids #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
• Ledger Nano S Whitepaper Edition NIB
• 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
• AMC Walking Dead playing cards NIB (NY Comic Con promo)
• 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
• Vintage Academy Broadway Duffel Bag
• Mark McGwire 62nd Home Run Gold card

WANT

Would really like to pick up a Super Mario Maker 2DS console either CIB or loose with stylus
I also need cover art and manual for The Messenger on Switch, in case anyone snagged the cover art and manual extras that were on sale from SLG recently.
Pre-order bonuses

• ACNH GameStop Poster
• ACNH Target Journal
• Fire Emblem 3 Houses pin set
• Link’s Awakening HD GameStop Poster
• Link’s Awakening HD Pin Set
• Puyo Puyo Tetris Target exclusive decals
• Yoshi’s Crafted World frame

AC Amiibo Cards

• #107 Katie

Mario Sports Amiibo Cards

• Peach Golf
• Bowser Jr. Soccer
• Rosalina Soccer
• Rosalina Baseball
• Rosalina Horse Racing

Amiibo

• Poochy (loose)
• Goomba (loose)
• Boo (loose)

LRG Cards
Cards for Flinthook, Dust, Slime San, Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, ToeJam and Earl, Golf Story, Dragon's Lair Trilogy, PixelJunk Monsters 2, Lumines Remastered, Yooka-Laylee, Blazing Chrome, Battle Chef, Windjammers, The Escapists and Saturday Morning RPG
Limited Print Switch Games (prefer CIB but also fine with NIB)

• Bridge Constructor Portal
• Bud Spencer and Terence Hill: Slaps and Beans
• Dimension Drive (LE or standard)
• Duck Game
• Fox n Forests
• Furi
• Gorogoa
• Gris
• Ms. Splosion Man
• Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid
• Puyo Puyo Tetris big box contents with target exclusive decals or CIB
• RXN Raijin
• The Messenger cover art and manual or CIB (already have but looking for a nicer copy)
• Timespinner
• Transistor

Other Switch Games (looking for CIB and clean)

• 1-2 Switch
• Astral Chain
• PENDING Atari Flashback Classics
• Axiom Verge
• Disgaea 1 Complete
• Dusk Diver Day 1 Edition
• Hollow Knight box or CIB (already have but looking for a nicer box)
• I am Setsuna
• Little Town Hero Big Idea Edition
• Mario and Sonic at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games
• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
• Moonlighter
• Ninja Saviors
• Octopath Traveler
• Overcooked Special Edition or double pack
• Phoenix Wright Trilogy (JP)
• Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl Gold
• Space Invaders Invincible Collection (JP)
• Super Mario Maker 2 stylus
• Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late[Cl-R]
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna the Golden Country with unused DLC code or NIB
• Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair
• Yoshi's Crafted World
• WRC 8

3DS Games

• Beyblade Collector's Edition - CIB or NIB
• Bravely Default - CIB
• Cooking Mama 5 - CIB
• Cooking Mama Sweet Shop - CIB
• Etrian Odyssey Untold soundtrack bundle - CIB
• Etrian Odyssey Nexus launch edition - CIB
• Frogger 3D - CIB big box version with cover plates
• LEGO Chima Laval's Journey - CIB big box with minifigure
• Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright - CIB
• Radiant Historia Perfect Chronology launch edition - big box with contents or CIB
• Style Savvy Fashion Forward - CIB

DS

• Bomberman Land Touch 2 - CIB
• Elektroplankton - Nintendo Power booklet
• Infinite Space - loose
• Jewel Time Deluxe - box, manual
• Korg DS10+ JP Limited Edition - CIB
• Korg M01 JP - Club Nintendo insert
• Nanostray - CIB
• Phantasy Star 0 - CIB
• Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney games (except Trials and Tribulations) - CIB
• Shepherd's Crossing 2 - CIB
• Space Invaders Extreme - CIB

GBA

• Car Battler Joe - manual
• Drill Dozer - A Girl and Her Dozer Mini Comic (the one I have is ripped)
• Fire Emblem - CIB
• Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones - CIB

GBC

• Metal Gear Solid - box, manual, inserts
• Shantae - CIB
• The Legend of the River King 2 - CIB
• The Legend of Zelda Oracle of Seasons and Ages - CIB

GB

• Kirby's Dreamland 2 - CIB
• Mario's Picross - manual

Wii

• Babysitting Mama - CIB or NIB bassinet bundle
• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - CIB
• The Last Story - soundtrack in sleeve

GameCube

• Army Men Air Combat the Elite Missions - box
• Baten Kaitos Origins - CIB
• Doshin the Giant (PAL) - CIB
• Mega Man Network Transmission - CIB
• Mega Man X Command Mission - CIB with trading card
• Phantasy Star Online Episode 1 and 2 Plus - CIB
• Smashing Drive - CIB
• Smuggler's Run War Zones - CIB
• Viewtiful Joe Red Hot Rumble - CIB

N64

• N64 Expansion Pack with tool to open expansion slot, or Donkey Kong 64 box, tray, manual, etc with expansion pack included
• Hey You Pikachu! - box, tray, manual, etc. (I already have the game, mic and voice unit)
• Star Fox 64 box, tray, manual, etc. (I already have game and rumble pack)

PS3

• Boku no Natsuyasumi 3 (JP) - CIB
• Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness - disc
• Railfan: Taiwan High Speed Rail Asian version with English subtitles - CIB

PS2

• Godzilla Save the Earth - CIB
• Gradius 3 and 4 - CIB
• Naval Ops Warship Gunner - manual
• Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 - black label disc
• River King a Wonderful Journey - disc

PSX

• Army Men: World War - disc only
• Konami Justifier Lightgun(s)
• Official mouse - loose or CIB

NGPC
If anyone has a Neo Geo Pocket Color and/or games for it, I'm interested...
Strategy Guides

• Gotcha Force
• The Legend of Zelda Oracle of Ages / Seasons Nintendo Power

I'm also happy to look at lists, but these are my priority wants.

Tulsa's event list.

Ongoing

• Blue Dome Pop-Up Shops (Blue Dome District - Tulsa) Thru Sun, Dec 22nd Get your holiday shopping fix at the Blue Dome District in downtown Tulsa during this series of pop-up markets featuring…

Wednesday, Nov 13th

• Fruition (The Shrine - Tulsa) Start Time: 8:00pm
• 😂 Gabriel Rutledge (Loony Bin - Tulsa) Thru Sat, Nov 16th
• 🎭 Kill Vargas // Salt Creek (The Vanguard - Tulsa) Start Time: 8:00pm
• 🎭 Love, Loss, and What I Wore (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Thru Sun, Nov 17th Start Time: 8:00pm "Love, Loss, and What I Wore" is a series of monologues and ensemble pieces about women, clothes and memory…
• 🎨 OkJFF: 93Queen (The Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:00pm Join us at Circle Cinema on Wednesday, November 13th at 7:00pm for a screening of the fascinating and insightful new documentary "93Queen" (USA, 2018). This film is in English and Yiddish. All seats are $10 and on sale now. About 93Queen: Set in the Hasidic enclave of Borough Park, Brooklyn, 93QUEEN follows a group of tenacious Hasidic women…
• Oklahoma Jewish Film Festival (Circle Cinema - Tulsa) 1 day left For an entertaining and rewarding cinematic experience, join the audience in Tulsa for the Oklahoma Jewish Film…
• PAWS For Reading (Owasso Library - Owasso) Start Time: 4:00pm Registered therapy dogs are excellent listeners. Kids ages 5-12 are invited to read their favorite books to a furry, four-pawed friend. Each reader will receive a free book provided by the Raymond and Bessie Kravis Foundation through the Tulsa Library Trust. Registration is required. Register online at…

Thursday, Nov 14th

• The Birth of Loud: The Guitar Rivalry That Shaped Rock-n-Roll (Oklahoma Center for the Humanities - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:00pm The Birth of Loud is “a hot-rod joy ride through mid-20th-century American history” (The New York Times Book Review), this one-of-a-kind narrative masterfully recreates the rivalry between the two men who innovated the electric guitar’s amplified sound—Leo Fender and Les Paul—and their intense competition to convince rock stars like…
• 😂 Gabriel Rutledge (Loony Bin - Tulsa) Thru Sat, Nov 16th
• The History of the Osage (Tulsa Artists Coalition - Tulsa) Start Time: 12:00pm As part of Tulsa Artist Fellow Anita Fields's Osage Arts & History Workshops please join us for "The History of the Osage," a presentation by Dr. Andrea Hunter. The presentation will will trace the history of the Osage people from their earliest known existence to the removal of the tribe to Oklahoma. Free and open to all. Light lunch and…
• 🍴 In the Middle Book Club (Owasso Library - Owasso) Start Time: 6:00pm We will discuss "The Spirit of Cattail County" by Victoria Piontek. Snacks and activities included. For ages 9-12. Request your copy here: https://tccl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/4206765063.
• 🎭 Love, Loss, and What I Wore (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Thru Sun, Nov 17th Start Time: 8:00pm "Love, Loss, and What I Wore" is a series of monologues and ensemble pieces about women, clothes and memory…
• 🎨 OkJFF: The Last Band In Lebanon (The Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:00pm Join us at Circle Cinema on Thursday, November 14th at 7:00pm for a Closing Night Jewish Film Festival screening of the hilarious comedy "The Last Band In Lebanon" (Israel, 2016). This film is in Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles. All seats are $10 and on sale now. About The Last Band In Lebanon: Three reservists wake up to discover that…
• Oklahoma Jewish Film Festival (Circle Cinema - Tulsa) Last Day For an entertaining and rewarding cinematic experience, join the audience in Tulsa for the Oklahoma Jewish Film…
• Old Dominion in Concert (BOK Center - Tulsa) Acclaimed country band Old Dominion is heading to Tulsa on their national Make It Sweet Tour. Head to the BOK Center to hear…
• Rittz / Dizzy Wright (The Shrine - Tulsa) Start Time: 6:30pm

Friday, Nov 15th

• Christmas Local Art Market (Inner Circle Vodka Bar - Tulsa) Day 1 of 2 Transformed into a winter wonderland as a pop-up Christmas bar and shop, Inner Circle Vodka Bar will be bustling with unique…
• Curator Tour: Horsin' Around (Philbrook Downtown - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:00pm Celebrate Native American Heritage Month. Explore some of the many ways horses figure prominently in the Museum’s diverse collections of Native American art with curator Christina E. Burke. FREE for Members & Youth (tickets available 10/14) $19 Not-Yet-Members (tickets available 10/21) Space limited, ticket required. All tickets include…
• Electric Okie Test (Blackbird On Pearl - Tulsa) Start Time: 9:00pm
• 😂 Gabriel Rutledge (Loony Bin - Tulsa) 1 day left
• Kickoff Classic (Expo Square - Tulsa) Day 1 of 2 Gather up your friends and bring them to Tulsa Expo Square for the Kickoff Classic wrestling tournament. Watch as…
• ♪ Kottonmouth Kings (The Shrine - Tulsa) Start Time: 8:00pm
• 🎓 Legally Blonde (Theatre Tulsa - Tulsa) Thru Sun, Nov 17th Start Time: 7:30pm Presented By: Theatre Tulsa Our Broadway Bound students present the inspiring story of Elle Woods as she journeys from sorority party girl to Harvard Law student.
• Legally Blonde (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Thru Sun, Nov 17th Theatre tulsa presents the inspiring story of Elle Woods as she journeys from sorority party girl to Harvard Law…
• 🎭 Love, Loss, and What I Wore (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Thru Sun, Nov 17th Start Time: 8:00pm "Love, Loss, and What I Wore" is a series of monologues and ensemble pieces about women, clothes and memory…
• 🎓 Play With Me: A Parent/Child Workshop (Owasso Library - Owasso) Playing is learning! Join us for a three-week play workshop series for parents and children ages 1-3. Class size is limited. Registration is required and is for all three weeks of the series. Each program offers opportunities for children to play with developmentally appropriate toys in a play group atmosphere. Early childhood specialists also…
• 🎨 Recall/Respond Opening Reception (The Gilcrease Museum - Tulsa) Start Time: 5:30pm Join us for a free public opening celebration of the second and final round of our exhibition with Tulsa Artist Fellowship RECALL/RESPOND. With a series of responses to the Gilcrease Museum collections and the history of Oklahoma itself, artists and writers in the Tulsa Artist Fellowship recall the past and present new perspectives for today.…
• Rose District Ice Rink (Rose District Plaza - Broken Arrow) Thru Sun, Jan 5th Skate under the festive twinkle lights at Broken Arrow's only outdoor skating rink. Bring your ice skates or rent them…
• Swan Lake Gentlemen's Society (The Shrine - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:30pm
• 🎭 Tulsa Town Hall's 85th Anniversary Season (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 10:30am
• Vintage Tulsa Show (Expo Square - Tulsa) Thru Sun, Nov 17th Some of the finest vintage and antique dealers in the nation are headed to Tulsa Expo Square to present their wares at the…

Saturday, Nov 16th

• 98° in Concert (Osage Event Center - Tulsa) Head to the Osage Casino in Tulsa for a night to remember as chart-topping 98° takes the Skyline Event Center Stage this…
• ♪ 2019 Woody Guthrie Prize honoring Chuck D (Woody Guthrie Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 8:00pm The Woody Guthrie Center is honored to present the 6th Annual Woody Guthrie Prize to Chuck D at a November 16th event at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The award recognizes those who exemplify the work and spirit of Woody Guthrie and promote positive social changes in our world. Rapper, author, and producer Chuck D will be recognized for…
• Christmas Local Art Market (Inner Circle Vodka Bar - Tulsa) Day 2 of 2 Transformed into a winter wonderland as a pop-up Christmas bar and shop, Inner Circle Vodka Bar will be bustling with unique…
• Chuck D in Concert (Cain's Ballroom - Tulsa) See rapper Chuck D live as he accepts the 2019 Woody Guthrie Prize at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa. This hip-hop artist…
• Classics Concert Series (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) The Tulsa Symphony Orchestra presents a regular Classics Concert Series. Take a seat at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center,…
• ♪ Classics III: Mozart Piano Concerto with Robin Sutherland (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:30pm Guest artist Robin Sutherland (San Francisco Symphony) joins Tulsa Symphony led by Gerhardt Zimmermann to perform Mozart’s overtly dramatic piano Concerto in C Minor. The wonderful string interplay of Berlioz’s Beatrice and Benedict Overture and Lutoslawski’s elaborate and melodic Concerto for Orchestra round out the evening’s program,…
• ♪ Cliffdiver: At Your Own Risk EP Release (The Vanguard - Tulsa) Local indie rock band Cliffdiver mashes up several genres, delivering an energetic mix of emo, pop, rock and punk sounds to…
• 🎭 The Drunkard and the Olio (Tulsa Spotlight Theatre - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:30pm
• 😂 Gabriel Rutledge (Loony Bin - Tulsa) Last Day
• 🎨 Holiday Hosting Workshop (Tulsa Garden Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 11:00am Our friends at Penelope & Lu Events, a local boutique wedding planning company, and Pottery Barn Utica Square, a home decor business, will lead this class focusing on tablescaping, the art of arranging a table, and holiday flower arranging. Join us to master the craft of setting your table for the holidays, learn how to create your own…
• 🎭 Imagination Series Season Tickets (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Imagination Series Season Tickets Sept. 28, Oct. 26, Nov. 16, Mar. 15 at 7 p.m. :: John H. Williams Theatre Family Fun Night! Get your tickets now to SAVE on all four Imagination Series shows: Diary of a Worm, a Spider and a Fly ; read more GET TICKETS
• Jim Gaffigan (Paradise Cove @ Margaritaville - Tulsa) Get ready to laugh as Jim Gaffigan brings his sidesplitting brand of observational humor to Paradise Cove at the River…
• Kickoff Classic (Expo Square - Tulsa) Day 2 of 2 Gather up your friends and bring them to Tulsa Expo Square for the Kickoff Classic wrestling tournament. Watch as…
• 🎓 Legally Blonde (Theatre Tulsa - Tulsa) 1 day left Start Time: 7:30pm Presented By: Theatre Tulsa Our Broadway Bound students present the inspiring story of Elle Woods as she journeys from sorority party girl to Harvard Law student.
• Legally Blonde (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) 1 day left Theatre tulsa presents the inspiring story of Elle Woods as she journeys from sorority party girl to Harvard Law…
• 🎭 Love, Loss, and What I Wore (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) 1 day left Start Time: 8:00pm "Love, Loss, and What I Wore" is a series of monologues and ensemble pieces about women, clothes and memory…
• National Day of Mourning: Thanksgiving as Native Genocide Day (Philbrook Downtown - Tulsa) Start Time: 2:00pm Join us for a lively and informative conversation about Native histories, current cultures, and how all of us can work together to help ensure a vital, thriving future for American Indians and the many cultures that make up this diverse group of peoples. Host: Dr. Kimberly Gail Wieser, President of the Board, Native Writers Circle of the…
• 🎓 Puppies at the PAC! (Theatre Tulsa - Tulsa) Puppies @ the PAC! is inspired by our upcoming production of "Legally Blonde: The Musical!" Theatre Tulsa has partnered with several rescue groups that have dogs who are single and ready to mingle! We will also have representatives from other pet care organizations, such as River Trail Animal Hospital, Pooches Daycare and Boarding, fun music…
• 🎓 Puppies at the PAC! (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Puppies @ the PAC! is inspired by our upcoming production of "Legally Blonde: The Musical!" Theatre Tulsa has partnered with several rescue groups that have dogs who are single and ready to mingle! We will also have representatives from other pet care organizations, such as River Trail Animal Hospital, Pooches Daycare and Boarding, fun music…
• 🎨 Restoring the Adams Building: Alexander Tamahn (Philbrook Downtown - Tulsa) Start Time: 1:00pm Artist and community advocate Alexander Tamahn has been spending the last year painstakingly restoring the Art Deco façade of the Adams Building by hand. Attendees will have the opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes tour and learn what it takes to restore a historic building from the artist who has made it happen. Attendees will meet at…
• Rose District Ice Rink (Rose District Plaza - Broken Arrow) Thru Sun, Jan 5th Skate under the festive twinkle lights at Broken Arrow's only outdoor skating rink. Bring your ice skates or rent them…
• Vintage Tulsa Show (Expo Square - Tulsa) 1 day left Some of the finest vintage and antique dealers in the nation are headed to Tulsa Expo Square to present their wares at the…

Sunday, Nov 17th

• 😂 Comedy & Cabaret Series Tickets (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Comedy & Cabaret Series Tickets Sept. 29, Oct. 27, Nov. 17, Mar. 9 at 8 p.m. :: John H. Williams Theatre Save $20 ($5 per show) by purchasing this brand-new series as a package! The series includes the famous comedy troupe THE SECOND CITY , jazz pianist read more GET TICKETS
• 😂 The Copenhagen Bandit (Loony Bin - Tulsa)
• The Dirty Heads in Concert (Cain's Ballroom - Tulsa) The Dirty Heads churn out a diverse range of collaborations with each new music release. At the Cain's Ballroom concert,…
• 🍴 Dirty Heads (rescheduled from May 9) (Cain's Ballroom - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:00pm Cain's Ballroom welcomes the @[6210992146:274:Dirty Heads] to Tulsa, OK on November 17, 2020 This show has been rescheduled from May 9, 2019. If you plan on attending the new date, no need to exchange your tickets from the previous show. If you need a refund, please contact Ticketfly prior to September 27, 2019. REFUNDS WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE…
• 🎓 Legally Blonde (Theatre Tulsa - Tulsa) Last Day Start Time: 7:30pm Presented By: Theatre Tulsa Our Broadway Bound students present the inspiring story of Elle Woods as she journeys from sorority party girl to Harvard Law student.
• Legally Blonde (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Last Day Theatre tulsa presents the inspiring story of Elle Woods as she journeys from sorority party girl to Harvard Law…
• 🎭 Love, Loss, and What I Wore (Tulsa Performing Art Center - Tulsa) Last Day Start Time: 8:00pm "Love, Loss, and What I Wore" is a series of monologues and ensemble pieces about women, clothes and memory…
• Oklahoma Bridal & Wedding Expo (Expo Square - Tulsa) Newly engaged couples are invited to attend the Bridal & Wedding Expo held at Tulsa Expo Square. Future brides can soak…
• Rose District Ice Rink (Rose District Plaza - Broken Arrow) Thru Sun, Jan 5th Skate under the festive twinkle lights at Broken Arrow's only outdoor skating rink. Bring your ice skates or rent them…
• Vintage Tulsa Show (Expo Square - Tulsa) Last Day Some of the finest vintage and antique dealers in the nation are headed to Tulsa Expo Square to present their wares at the…

Monday, Nov 18th

• 🎓 Be Internet Awesome (Owasso Library - Owasso) Start Time: 5:00pm Let's become Internet Awesome! This 5-week digital safety & citizenship course encourages children to *Think critically and evaluate websites, email, and other content online. *Protect themselves from online threats, including bullying and scams. *Get smart about sharing: what, when, how, and with whom. *Be kind and respectful toward other…
• Big Brothers Big Sisters (Tulsa Ballet - Tulsa) Start Time: 5:30pm Bring your Little and peak “behind the curtain” at a rehearsal of the Nutcracker, Tulsa’s favorite holiday tradition! Following the rehearsal, you and your little can enjoy cookies and meet some of the Tulsa Ballet Dancers! Tulsa Ballet is proud to partner with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Oklahoma for this wondrous evening. RSVP's by…
• Fiction Addiction Book Club (Owasso Library - Owasso) Start Time: 6:00pm Love talking about books? So do we! Join us to discuss "Daisy Jones and the Six" by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Reserved copies of the book are available at the desk. For adults.
• 🎨 Rock 'n Roll Holiday (Tulsa Garden Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 10:30am Kick up your heels! Raise funds for landscape architecture and horticulture students of OSU Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture and Tulsa Community College's Second Chance programs at Dick Conner Correctional Center. -Silent auction and drawing feature amazing prizes -Exclusive trellis and garden poles by Garden Deva Sculpture…
• Rose District Ice Rink (Rose District Plaza - Broken Arrow) Thru Sun, Jan 5th Skate under the festive twinkle lights at Broken Arrow's only outdoor skating rink. Bring your ice skates or rent them…

Tuesday, Nov 19th

• Borneo - All the "B" Birds and More by Dr. Doug Wood (Tulsa Garden Center - Tulsa) Start Time: 7:00pm Dr. Doug Wood is a frequent and popular presenter for TAS. Come hear about Doug's recent trip to Borneo and Malaysia. Doug's program will cover birds, mammals, herps and more. Refreshments begin at 7:00 pm with Doug's presentation beginning about 7:30 pm. Event is free and open to the public. You are welcome to come join Doug and other TAS…
• Build a Reader Storytime: Babies and Toddlers (Owasso Library - Owasso) Ready, set, READ! This beginning storytime focuses on helping your baby or toddler develop important literacy skills while emphasizing the fun of reading. This month, we will be celebrating "Dinovember" with fun dinosaur stories, songs, and activities. For ages birth-2. Stay after storytime for Stay and Play (11-11:30 a.m.) which includes toys…
• ORU Golden Eagles vs Rogers State Hillcats (Mabee Center - Tulsa) The ORU Golden Eagles men's basketball team strives for success on the court. Watch the team work together toward…
• Rose District Ice Rink (Rose District Plaza - Broken Arrow) Thru Sun, Jan 5th Skate under the festive twinkle lights at Broken Arrow's only outdoor skating rink. Bring your ice skates or rent them…
• 🎓 Teen Guitar Lessons (Owasso Library - Owasso) Start Time: 6:30pm Bring your own guitar and come for a free beginning guitar workshop taught by local musician Ryan Pennington. Registration is required. Register online HERE https://events.tulsalibrary.org/event/3301411 or call 918-549-7323. For ages 10-18.
• 🎭 VEAUX (The Vanguard - Tulsa) Start Time: 8:00pm

See Also

• OK Gamers
• Techlahoma
• Tulsa Meetup Groups
• Tulsa Library Events

Introduction

Here's a comparison of all Tales games' ports and (English) translations, either by official localization or fan translations. This guide also seeks to find the "best" version of each game, or rather, provide enough information for you to make your subjective conclusions about which version to seek out.
This guide is useful for both PC players and those who play on the original hardware (though getting translations working on hardware may be a bit more difficult).
If you are familiar with certain ports/translations, please help me fill in the gaps! This post is initially going to be a collection of what I can find on the internet - I've played very few titles myself, so this post will become more helpful as others chime in. (Be sure to tag any spoilers, though!)
Legal notice: These are just links to patches, not patched ROMs. Obtain the ROM yourself, and check it's checksum with the one listed on the RomHacking.net page (alternatively, if no checksum is listed, the Dat-O-Matic lists the checksums of clean ROMs). This will prevent issues from patching dirty ROMs.
I know that patched ROMs are already out there for most of these hacks. Not only are there legal issues with linking them here, there's also the possibility that outdated patches and/or dirty ROMs were used to make the prepatched ones you can find on Google.
Moderators, if there's any parts you'd like me to change (for whatever reason), I will do so. Once this guide reaches sufficient quality, I would hope it could land a spot on the sidebawiki.

Note for playing Japanese-only games

"Two more things when playing Japanese only exclusives:
The Google Translate app is your best friend. It has a feature called "camera translation" and is able to scan your TV screen for Japanese and will gladly convert it into English for you.
If you get a kick out of playing all those mysterious, Japanese titles, I also recommend you to learn the Katakana alphabet. They're about 50 characters to remember and they come in very handy. Japanese people use them to convert English words into Japanese and with that power, you can convert them right back. For many people this takes no longer than 4 hours, but that's an individual number for anyone.
For example: ファイアボ-ル is read as Fa-I-A-Bo-O-Ru. If you read that quicker... Faia Booru... Fire Ball. Got it? That's pretty cool, isn't it?"

• Saphir0

TL;DR:

Game	How to play
Phantasia	PSX w/ translation patch (see below for more info)
Destiny	PSX original (or Director's Cut with translation guide)
Destiny 2	Translation guide
Eternia	PSP port
Symphonia	GC version
Symphonia 2	Wii/PS3
Rebirth	Translation guide
Legendia	PS2
Abyss	PS2/3DS
Innocence	DS translation patch or Vita remake w/ Google Translate
Vesperia	Definitive Edition (PC/PS4/X1/NX)
Hearts	Vita remake
Graces	PS3 port
Xillia	PS3
Xillia 2	PS3
Zestiria	PC/PS4
Berseria	PC/PS4
Tempest	Translation patch

Main Series Titles

Phantasia

Port Comparison

System	Availability	Features
SNES	Japanese only, but has translations	Original version
PSX	Japanese only, but has translations	Skits, Anime opening, better battling system/controls (from Destiny)
PSP - "Full Voice Edition"	Japanese only	Same as PSX version but with voice acting
PSP - "Phantasia X"	Japanese only. Included with the spin-off/sequel: Narikiri Dungeon X	Fully voiced skits, new character, new story elements. Medium/High spells don't interrupt movements anymore.
GBA	English	Terrible all around. Mushed sprites, slow battles, terrible music. Avoid.
iOS	English/Japanese	In-app-purchase riddled always-online garbage. Shut down ages ago. Didn't even last 6 months. Good riddance.

What port you should play: While the SNES version is a classic, many prefer the PSX version's enhancements. Phantasia X is definitely the best version, but not available in English (AbsoluteZero had a translation in progress, but disbanded recently). Just stay away from the GBA version.

Translation Comparison

System	Author	Features
SNES	DeJap	While not too accurate, it's comically racy. I personally like it. Released in the 90s (!!), it's a classic ROM hack that's circulated the web for ages.
SNES	Topping Translations, Spinner 8, & more	DeJap's translation but with an English voice acting dub for most characters. The VAing isn't quite the best, but it's better than Japanese, I suppose? (This version of the patch works on clean ROMs - no digging up interleaved variants necessary.)
PSX	Phantasian Productions	"The intent of this patch is to feel closer to a lost, official Namco Bandai localization." NOTE: While the previous link is an "official" download page, there's some things to know: #1. If playing on a real PSX, use the pre-1.1 version, not 1.0. #2. For emulation, use this patch insteadthat removes the custom boot logo. More info here.
PSX	Gemini	Skits and spoken dialogue have subtitles. Not sure what the "DTE" in the description refers to - some sort of compression, perhaps? (Google has little results). The readme is down, unfortunately.
GBA	Bamco	Official localization

What translation you should play: The only complete SNES translations I could find were DeJap-based, which, as I mentioned, is fairly inaccurate but fun. If you want a bit more accuracy, I'd go with either PSX patch. While the GBA version is official, the port quality is poor enough to outweigh any quality the translation may hold.
"Phantasian Translation is the best IMHO. You can change the way Artes are pronounced in the menu, like transliteral or localized for exampple. The manual book is added from the beginning. Stuff like that. The PSX version is highly prefered for anyone without Japanese language skills or with a need for multiplayer." - Saphir0

Destiny

Port Comparison

System	Availability	Features
PSX	English	Original version
PS2	Japanese only	Remake
PS2 - "Director's Cut"	Japanese only	Updated Remake

What port you should play: Director's Cut is definitely the best version, but not available in English (AbsoluteZero had a translation in progress, but disbanded recently). I recommend playing the PSX version first. Once you know the story, then you can enjoy Director's Cut! (Alternatively, you can use a DC translation guide - see below)

Translation Comparison

System	Author	Features
PSX	Bamco	Official localization
PS2 - GUIDE	TOD Trans	Nearly complete (missing some text later on). Covers Stahn's side.
PS2 - GUIDE	chibimazoku	Leon's side
PS2 - GUIDE	abcd9146	Item Guide
PS2- GUIDE	yangxu	FAQ/General Walkthrough. Includes guide to getting extra character.

What translation you should play: If you want to play the game without a guide, you're stuck with the original version. It's a shame AbsoluteZero trashed all their work.
As mentioned above, I recommend playing the PSX version first and then DC with a guide.

Destiny 2

Port Comparison

System	Availability	Features
PS2	Japanese only	Original version
PSP	Japanese only	Updated Port

What port you should play: The updated port is better, but neither is available in English :(

Translation Comparison

System	Author	Features
PS2	Cless	Incomplete. Basically just the menus.
GUIDE	Kirameki, Sair Lenneth & NarcolepticSloth	This is an Italian guide run through Google Translate with some additional fixes. Covers NPCs too!
GUIDE	Lanyn	Main story and skits guide. More accurate, but no NPCs.

What translation you should play: Use both guides! Or at least the Google Translate one - it's still pretty good overall.

Eternia

Port Comparison

System	Availability	Features
PSX - "Destiny II"	English	Original version
PSP	English	Port

What port you should play: The PSP port retains the correct name in English. Additionally, there's minor improvements. Only released in EU/AU for some reason.

Translation Comparison

System	Author	Features
PSX	Bamco	Official localization
PSP	Bamco	Official localization

What translation you should play: PSP version is clearly better, as the title is the only difference. Additionally, if you prefer the Japanese intro anime (song), you can always use this patch.
There's also an undub floating around somewhere... I could only find pre-patched ROMs, though. I suppose I could create a patch out of it by obtaining both the original/patched ROMs if no one can find the patch.

Symphonia

Port Comparison

System	Availability	Features
GCN	English	Original version. 60 FPS.
PS2	Japanese only	Port with additional content. 30 FPS. Read more here.
PS3	English	Port of PS2 version/content. 30 FPS lock. Some of the same bugs in PC port, see bug thread below
PC	English	Port of PS3 version/content. Severe performance issues, 30 FPS/artificial 720p lock, poor shading. Some translation regressions and other bugs, some of which are still unpatched.

What port you should play: Tough call. The non-GC versions retain the additional content, but are less smooth. The PC version is often on sale for ~$5, so if you want to throw Bamco so money, feel free to do so. However, the Gamecube version feels better overall, especially since PC players can add widescreen support and an HD texture pack through emulation. I recommend emulating the GCN version and later downloading a save game for the PC/PS3 version to experience the additional end-game content (it's nothing major - casino minigame, cameo costumes/titles, a few mystic artes, and a different bonus dungeon boss). Aside from the boss, you'd probably get just as much enjoyment looking it up in a wiki/youtube video.
If you do play the PC port, be sure to grab the "Fix" patch. It installs some HD textures, lets you switch from Xbox to PS/GC controller prompts, somewhat fixes stability (still 30 FPS with dips/stuttering though), and even fixes the outlines/shading. It's not perfect, but makes the game much more tolerable.

Translation Comparison

System	Author	Features
GCN	Bamco	Official localization
PS3	Bamco	Official localization
PC	Bamco	Official localization (some bugs?)

What translation you should play: Nothing of note, here. PC (and possibly PS3) may have some minor bugs, but there's no reason to choose another version over this.

Symphonia: Dawn of the New World

Port Comparison

System	Availability	Features
Wii	English/Japanese	Original version
PS3 - "Symphonia Chronicles"	English/Japanese	I don't know of any differences. Maybe a 30 FPS lock?

What port you should play: Doesn't matter, AFAIK

Translation Comparison

System	Author	Features
Wii	Bamco	Official localization
PS3	Bamco	Official localization

What translation you should play: Both are the same (?)

Rebirth

Port Comparison

System	Availability	Features
PS2	Japanese only	Original version
PSP	Japanese only	Port

What port you should play: The port is probably better, but neither is available in English :( If you do play, be sure to watch a battle tutorial, as the battle system is a little different than normal.

Translation Comparison

System	Author	Features
VIDEO GUIDE	lanyn	A subbed walkthrough of the story.
PSP TEXT GUIDE	lanyn	Same thing by same person, but in text form.
PS2 TEXT GUIDE	Spekio	Same general thing, but for PS2.

What translation you should play: Give a guide a shot! At the very least, watch it if you don't want to play it.

Legendia

Port Comparison

System	Availability	Features
PS2	English/Japanese	Original version. Only first half is voiced in English.

What port you should play: Only one version!

Translation Comparison

System	Author	Features
PS2	Bamco	Official Localization

What translation you should play: Only one version! Though it might be good to find an undub for the second half of the game. It's better than silence. Not sure if it exists though.

Abyss

Port Comparison

System	Availability	Features
PS2	English/Japanese	Original version
3DS	English/Japanese	Port

What port you should play: No real differences. I suppose PC players can emulate in higher resolutions, but that applies to both consoles. Only difference I've noticed so far was a minor missing text ("this door is locked") glitch that was fixed in the 3DS version. The PS2 only supports widescreen with a patch, but the 3DS runs natively in kinda-widescreen aspect ratio at the cost of a much lower resolution (on real hardware). Oh, and the quick-reach arte binds (typically bound on the right stick) are now the quadrants of the touchscreen. Otherwise, the touchscreen is basically never used in the 3DS version aside from showing the map and stuff.
One useful "hack" is that any hacked 3DS can install games to the internal SD card so that you don't have to carry the cartridge around. May even improve loading speed (I've only played digitally, and it's always instant loads for me). Perhaps the PS2 had poor load times? That may be one benefit of the 3DS version. Anyways, you normally can't install the game digitally since it's not available on the eShop.

Translation Comparison

System	Author	Features
PS2	Bamco	Official Localization
3DS	Bamco	Official Localization

What translation you should play: No differences. There is a PS2 undub, but it's only available in prepatched form. The English cast is fantastic, though.

Innocence

Port Comparison

System	Availability	Features
DS	Japanese only, but has translations	Original version
PS TV, Vita - "Innocence R"	Japanese only	Remake with new battle system, more story content, 2 new characters, bonus dungeon, etc.

What port you should play: Innocence R is clearly superior, but you'll need to stick to the original if you can't read Japanese.

Translation Comparison

System	Author	Features
DS	AbsoluteZero	Mostly complete
DS GUIDE	PeckingBird	Guide for DS content.
Vita WIKI	H1G(???)	Just a general wiki (for arte info and stuff). In Japanese, but Google Translate works well on it.

What translation you should play: If you don't want to use Google Translate, you're stuck with the DS version.

Vesperia

Port Comparison

System	Availability	Features
360	English/Japanese	Original version
PS3	Japanese only, but has translations	Remake with additional content
PC/PS4/X1/NX - "Definitive Edition"	English/Japanese	Port of the PS3 content. Hopefully not as poor of a port as Symphonia...

What port you should play: Hopefully, the DE will be the best all around. However, if it's of poor quality, you may be better off playing a patched PS3 version (this shouldn't be the case, though).

Translation Comparison

System	Author	Features
360	Bamco	Official localization
PS3	Pikachu025	Complete translation
PC/PS4/X1/NX	Bamco	Official localization

What translation you should play: Just wait for the DE :)

Hearts

Port Comparison

System	Availability	Features
DS	Japanese only	Original version. Comes in two variants - "Anime Edition" and "CG Movie Edition"
PS TV, Vita - "Hearts R"	English/Japanese	Remake with additional content
iOS - "Hearts R"	Japanese only	No longer available

What port you should play: Gotta go with Vita. No emulator at this time, but it's in progress. Or perhaps you own a Vita already!

Translation Comparison

System	Author	Features
PS TV, Vita	Bamco	Official localization

What translation you should play: Get yourself a Vita!

Graces

Port Comparison

System	Availability	Features
Wii	Japanese only	Original version.
PS3 - "Graces f"	English/Japanese	Port w/ additional content

What port you should play: PS3 port, of course

Translation Comparison

System	Author	Features
PS3	Bamco	Official localization

What translation you should play: Only one choice. (There was an incomplete Wii translation, but you're better off grabbing the PS3 version now).

Xillia

Port Comparison

System	Availability	Features
PS3	English/Japanese	Original version.

What port you should play: Only one choice.

Translation Comparison

System	Author	Features
PS3	Bamco	Official localization

What translation you should play: Get yourself a PS3!

Xillia 2

Port Comparison

System	Availability	Features
PS3	English/Japanese	Original version.

What port you should play: Only one choice.

Translation Comparison

System	Author	Features
PS3	Bamco	Official localization

What translation you should play: Get yourself a PS3!

Zestiria

Port Comparison

System	Availability	Features
PS3	English/Japanese	Original version
PS4	English/Japanese	Port
PC	English/Japanese	Port. Several issues.

What port you should play: While the PC port has many issues, you can fix most of them with TZF. Other than, any version is fine. I can't see any reason to prefer the PS3 version over the ports, though.

Translation Comparison

System	Author	Features
PS3/PS4/PC	Bamco	Official localization

What translation you should play: Any is fine.

Berseria

Port Comparison

System	Availability	Features
PS3	Japanese only, but translation patch exists	Original version
PS4	English/Japanese	Port
PC	English/Japanese	Port. Minor issues.

What port you should play: You can fix PC issues with TBF. Other than that, any version is fine. I can't see any reason to prefer the PS3 version over the ports, though.

Translation Comparison

System	Author	Features
PS3	Temple of Tales Translations	Backport of PC's English text/textures.
PS4/PC	Bamco	Official localization

What translation you should play: Any is fine.

Spin Offs

Coming soon!

Tempest

Port Comparison

System	Availability	Features
DS	Japanese only, but a patch exists	Original version

What port you should play: Only one choice!

Translation Comparison

System	Author	Features
DS	AbsoluteZero	Complete translation

What translation you should play: The one and only!

Mobile

These are all Japanese-exclusive flip phone mini games. You're not missing out. In fact, there's practically any record of these games even existing outside a few screenshots. They're mostly board/card/trivia games.

VS.

It's a 2D platform fighter for PSP - think Tales fighting in a Smash Bros. stamina battle. There's not much story here from what I can tell. There's some screenshots of the main menus with English subtitles to help you get around - I found a few just by typing "tales of vs english" into Google Images.

Heroes: Twin Brave

There's a prepatched version out there, but I think it's just the menus.

Asteria

There's some English reference material here

Link

"Japanese and Global versions existed (with various differences to available units and unit stats, plus the story progressed further in the JP version), but the servers for both are now closed, so the game is no longer playable. Various videos of gameplay and story exist on YouTube, such as the channel Story archive is available on YouTube on the Channel TimeFactor, plus some story translations of the advanced JP story are available on its subreddit, /TalesofLink." - drleebot

Rays

"Japanese version ongoing, Global version lasted a year (through the first story arc) before servers were shut down. It's possible for Global players to play the Japanese version through some hacks, though forbidden by the Terms of Service. Aside from release order of events, the fact that the Japanese version is still ongoing, and obviously the translations, the versions were identical. Story archive is available on YouTube on the Channel TimeFactor." - drleebot

Tales of the World

Coming soon!

Narikiri Dungeon

The PSP remake is way better than the GameBoy Color original. There's a semi-complete translation (just menus?) here (link to patch in video description).

Narikiri Dungeon 2

• 50% English patch.

Narikiri Dungeon 3

• Dhaos new voice actor patch.
• Menu and some script translation patch.

Summoner's Lineage

Radiant Mythology

Radiant Mythology 2

Radiant Mythology 3

Dice Adventure

Tactics Union

Credits

Most information was pulled of Wikipedia or my own experience with the game. Since the original post, these commenters have helped:
SecretDragoon - Destiny/Rebirth Information
Genius_Mage - Update on Vita emulation
DoomOrHope - Vs. Information
Saphir0 - A little about everything!
Hellioning - Graces f info
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I used to think I could be happy anywhere. I wanted to see the world, and imagined I could make a life for myself wherever you plunked me down. Now I chalk that up to a youthful lack of taste. The same one which makes small children prefer pieces of breaded, processed chicken in the shape of dinosaurs over filet mignon.
There’s a connection between my body and the land where I was born. Yes, that’s a real thing. I didn’t believe it either until I moved out here. As I grow older, I crave familiarity more than novelty. Familiar sights and sounds. Familiar flora and fauna. The very scent of the air.
I have nobody to blame but myself. I made a classic young man’s error, getting on a plane for somebody I wasn’t married to. “Yet”, I told myself. Had my future with her all planned out, down to the color of the curtains...only to be dumped over the phone while unpacking.
I just wanted to go home after that. I wanted the comfort of those familiar sights, sounds and smells. Instead, because I spent my last dime transplanting my life from Oregon to Florida, I found myself stranded in an utterly alien environment.
I don’t belong here. Certainly not my body, but my heart least of all. Come to think of it, my true “happy place” was never a place, but a person. Was. Now I’m a stranger in a strange land, surrounded by incomprehensible beasts I have no ability nor desire to understand.
The first thing that struck me when I left the airport was the faint smell of burning tires, mixed with what I would soon learn is a scent typical of swampland. An obese woman dressed up as Uncle Sam occupied a booth set up outside, handing out free baby turtles to “police, firefighters or military in uniform.” I still don’t know what that was about.
The smell inside the cab was the same as outside but intensified by heat. A dense musk I was reluctant to immerse myself in, except that I knew nothing of local public transit options and couldn’t afford to bring my car.
On the drive from the airport to the apartment complex, I spied gators sunbathing right on the front lawns of houses adjacent to a large pond. Just right out in the open. And here I always thought the point of creating civilization was to get away from large predators.
A news report on the cab’s radio described a recent altercation between a shirtless man and police. Evidently he lit his beard on fire, declared that he could turn his entire body to steel and fire lightning from his eyes at will, then challenged bystanders to face him on the field of honor.
There’s a running joke that every time a news report begins with “A Florida man…” followed by a list of depraved crimes against nature and decency, they’re really all about the same guy. Some sort of demented superhero named “Florida Man”.
It was followed by a report on a string of missing persons cases. I didn’t know it then, but pretty soon I’d regard that as an improvement. If the rate of disappearances picks up, pretty soon this could be a dramatically nicer place to live.
This state is, at the very least, never boring. Maybe it’s something in the air, or the water. Maybe it’s the frequent hurricanes. Frequent by my standards anyway. But more likely it’s just the abundance of meth.
I was mugged on my third night, though mugged might not be the right word. The poor slob was too out of his mind to actually take my wallet. He wore a vomit stained undershirt and something resembling a kilt fashioned from a garbage bag around his lower body.
I couldn’t understand a word that came out of his nearly toothless mouth. I don’t know for certain if he was tweaking, he may simply have been homeless. Every native I’ve run into since I got here speaks English, but degenerated by varying degrees.
It’s not just a Southern drawl. Not much of that here. Nor is it a self consistent local dialect. It’s a mushy, corrupted patchwork, ever-changing to suit the mood of the speaker. I’m not just trying to be difficult, there have been times when I sincerely had to nod and smile because I couldn’t understand the fellow speaking to me.
I have known plenty of brilliant Southerners. This isn’t about North and South. I recall struggling to describe the nature of that cultural divide to an exchange student once, realizing in the process how petty and artificial it is.
The only actual, literal rocket scientist I personally know speaks with a Southern accent so thick, he ought to wear a tablet around his neck to display subtitles. So whatever’s wrong with Florida has nothing to do with the larger Southern US, which has produced a respectable number of accomplished thinkers. It’s specifically a Florida thing.
When you’re little, everyone you trust tells you to follow your heart. What awful advice that turned out to be! I followed my heart all the way from a lush, temperate wonderland of natural beauty to a putrid swampy hellscape prowled by roving bands of mutants. Fuck you, heart.
That’s not to say I haven’t met some interesting people here, albeit nearly all of them from out of state. I don’t have a large enough sample size to say this with any confidence, but it does seem like Florida is a popular place to pass through when you’re young, figuring yourself out and deciding what to do with your life.
Passing through Florida, and through my life. Each of them like a momentary sip of water, just barely sustaining me as I languish in this human desert. The cab ran over another of the increasingly common potholes.
I would later learn that the city concentrates maintenance funding on the areas immediately surrounding the theme parks which bring in all those lucrative tourist dollars. They visit the parks, maybe they visit the beaches, then they’re gone. No sense in fixing up what they’ll never see.
Consequently everything outside of the oasis of city spending surrounding those theme parks looks like a borderline post apocalyptic banana republic. I’m exaggerating, but not by much. As with any state there are nice and not so nice parts of Florida, I’ll be generous and assume I happened to move to one of the latter.
The landscape consists of dodgy, cobbled together strip malls and various small businesses of questionable legality. All of them operating out of dirty single story hovels which change hands frequently. Payday loans, pawn shops, cash for gold, and churches.
Oh, the endless variety of churches! One on every street corner, as plentiful as coffee shops back home. Pentecostal, Seventh Day Adventist, Scientologists, Eckankar, even a few snake handlers. The more gonzo, sensationalist and fringe, the better.
Like Vegas without the casinos. Everything’s instant, value priced, while-u-wait. Culture without nuance, depth or patience, with a population to match. If you’re familiar with the website “People of Wal Mart”, imagine that, but everywhere you look any time you step outside.
Partly due to the cultural disconnect and partly due to the lingering shock of being dumped, I began floating through life high above everything, nowhere touching the Earth. It no longer had anything I wanted. Nothing with which to entice me to re-engage.
The sting of the breakup, though it felt as if it would last forever at the time, eventually petered out. The habit of disconnection I picked up in the process did not die with it, but persisted as a permanent new feature of my personality...one which quickly proved its worth as a pain avoidance mechanism.
Nobody could hurt me if I never sincerely invested myself in them. What an ingenious trick! Nothing prevented me from going through the motions. From saying all the same kinds of things I would’ve, if I allowed myself to return the love so generously invested in me by a string of women more emotionally adventurous than I.
This way I could have companionship, gratification and the various other benefits of a relationship, but with none of the danger. It never lasted longer than a few months though. They always picked up on what I was doing when, sometimes just experimentally, they tried to hurt me a little bit.
A test of some sort. Going to dinner with an old boyfriend, sloppy makeouts with some rando at a party or something of that nature. I was supposed to get angry. To yell, to cry, even to slap them depending on their tastes. Anything but an indifferent shrug.
If only they weren’t so curious, things might’ve lasted longer. But they had to know. They couldn’t just accept outward appearances as reality. They had to scrape at the skin, recoiling in horror when the wound refused to bleed. When only cold, dull metal shone back at them through the opening.
I know I’m the one who was in the wrong. To lead them on like that, letting them entrust their hearts to an emotional cripple. I should be guilty. But then, guilt is a feeling. I’m just about out of those by now.
It’s the same way anywhere there’s loads of people. Malls, airports, theme parks, bars. I imagine a sort of invisible force field just slightly larger than I am. A full body condom. To separate me from these people, however frequently I must immerse myself in them.
A Christian roommate back in college had his own term for it: Being in the world, but not of the world. A stopped clock is still correct twice a day. This particular world is one I have to be “in” for the time being, I decided...but I will never be “of” it.
There’s no avoiding interaction, not forever. Don’t think I haven’t tried. I don’t even leave my apartment lately, performing online jobs for a service called Mechanical Turk. Basically human assisted search results.
I did it on the side at first, but once you’ve stuck with it for long enough and are highly rated, you can make serious money at it. Enough for rent and utilities anyway, plus a little extra for the occasional pizza or energy drinks that food stamps won’t cover.
So I stagnated. Then I stagnated more. Days, weeks, months went by with no human contact save for text on my monitor. The only times I’d go out would be for booze or coffee. Or to hike. With practice, over time I whittled down the number of words I needed to say to the bartender (in order to communicate what I wanted) to the absolute minimum.
She didn’t notice what I was doing at first. When she did, she started giving me the stink eye every time I ordered. Not that I care. I don’t know her. I don’t fucking know any of these people. This may as well be a foreign country.
Back home, I loved to hike. You really can’t get away with being an indoor person in the Pacific Northwest. There’s an embarrassment of gorgeous wilderness just minutes from any city. Not so much here. Just endless flat expanses of asphalt or swampland, punctuated by big budget tourist attractions and gimmicky, low budget Americana.
I chose this apartment complex in large part because it’s directly adjacent to a much nicer, more upscale complex. They’ve got their own beautifully landscaped bicycle path, the closest thing to a wooded trail for miles.
Naturally, they’ve put up a rustic wooden fence as a “suggestion” that those of us who don’t pay for the path’s upkeep should stay out. Of course I just step right over that shit. I don’t know these people. I don’t care what they think of me, or owe them anything.
It’s one of the rare bright spots in my life since moving here. Nothing like a proper hiking trail but it makes for pleasant Sunday walks. The landscaping is a little overdone and artificial, like everything else in this state...natives included.
Even so, simply being out in the sun, more or less surrounded by trees, flowers and grass is a sorely needed respite. The only interruption is the occasional overly disciplined cyclist, wearing full body neon spandex and a teardrop helmet, rocketing past to one side.
One of ’em stopped once to lecture me for making use of the path. He could tell from my clothing where I must live. I just stood there, expressionless, until he tired himself out and left. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Except for incidents like that, I could be both outside and alone for the entire day once a week. I needed the exercise too. My hermitic lifestyle had begun to take a toll on my body. The regular diet of rice, beans and pasta plus the occasional pizza delivery also wasn’t doing me any favors.
Despite the weekly exposure I’d grown distressingly pale. All muscle definition vanished and with each passing day I felt myself growing weaker. Every Sunday, when I emerged from the apartment for a walk, the sun hurt my eyes a little more.
Deterioration. Progressively worse, resembling the transformation already underway within me. A gradual withering which I could imagine no plausible way to reverse. To hell with it, I decided. It’s not as if I’m terribly attached to life at this point.
It was during one of these Sunday walks, specifically a stopover in an undeveloped field of grass, that I found it. The field is one of the few places I can reach from the path that’s purely natural, neither landscaped nor built upon.
I didn’t think much of the object jabbing me in the back initially. I simply meant to lay down and look up at the sky, maybe listen to some music. But something sharp pressed into me as I reclined. Rolling over and retrieving the offending object, I stared.
Can’t say why I didn’t notice the smell sooner. Once close enough to my face, it made me gag. Something like the cracked, partly decomposed claw of a crab. Not any species I’ve ever seen. Too large for one thing, and black as night.
Here and there, coarse, pointy bristles protruded from it. Like the ones which cover tarantulas, seen up close. Coconut crabs? Out here? Not that I knew of. Lobsters? Not this far inland. As repulsive as it was, it made for a welcome curiosity. A disruption of my usual, increasingly mind numbing routine.
I contemplated bringing it back to the apartment, but decided against it because of the smell. Instead I took a picture with my phone, then laid elsewhere in the field until the sun began to set. I’ve become accustomed to the heat since moving here, but it’s downright pleasant in the evening.
Except in the Summer, and even then only for a scant few days, back home it was never warm enough that I could take walks after dark without a jacket. Strolling along beneath the stars, the now comfortably tepid air tickling my bare arms made me resolve to schedule some more evening walks in the following weeks.
Now and again I passed through great teeming clouds of gnats or some other tiny winged insect. I knew these small, localized swarms assembled in the evening for breeding purposes and felt mildly disgusted by that as I picked them out of my hair.
Then again, they inconvenienced me relatively little compared to what it must be like from their perspective. Imagine some gigantic, incomprehensible beast plowing into you while you’re just trying to get laid. A brief moment of disgust for me. But for many of those flies, a brutal and unexpected end to their already short lives.
They’re the lucky ones. I’ve got to go on living here. I took a shower when I got home to wash the remaining gnats out of my hair, as otherwise I could feel a few stragglers writhing against my scalp, fighting to free themselves. Down the drain with ’em.
I ordered a pizza online afterwards, still dripping, towel wrapped around my waist. I didn’t even bother getting dressed in time for the delivery. Just opened the door, took the pizza and handed him the cash. “Oh. I uh, I didn’t mean to…sorry!”
I didn’t so much as make eye contact. “Well, have a great evening and enjoy your pizza!” Token friendliness, and thinly veiled pleading for a generous tip. I shut the door in his face. I order pizza once a month at most. The rate of turnover is such that it’ll be someone else next time anyway, guaranteed.
Strangers in the night, just how I like it. The pizza was decent for what I paid, though some strange process happens as it cools down. It’s never anywhere close to as good reheated as it is freshly baked.
The same thing happens to any fast food I’ve tried. Addictively tasty when fresh and hot, but it slowly congeals as it cools, saturated fats solidifying until achieving a rubbery texture. It doesn’t stop me from eating it though. My insides are no less cold, no less limp.
I played computer games on one monitor while ‘turking’ on the other until the sun came up. All told I made nearly fifty dollars. Something about sleep deprivation really puts me in “the zone”. The energy drinks probably have something to do with it.
I enter this hazy, almost dreamlike mindset where the work flies by. I’m no less proficient in MOBAs when I get like this either. My skills improve, if anything. Time loses all meaning. My bloodshot eyes track the action with no conscious effort on my part, my every movement automated.
During one of these semi-lucid marathon gaming sessions, in the wee hours of the morning, I first glimpsed one. A whole, living specimen that must’ve followed the scent I picked up from touching that claw. I only saw it out of the corner of my eye mind you, and because I knew I was inebriated, I didn’t take it seriously.
Mild hallucination comes with the territory. It was hardly the first time I spotted blotchy, moving silhouettes in my peripheral vision. Mildly concerning the first time, but I don’t scare easily. I have a solid grasp on what’s real. On what’s even possible, versus the mind playing tricks on itself.
That infuriates some people. Usually ones with some frivolous worldview built on a mixture of sloppy thinking and outright fraud. I could be less abrasive if I were to qualify my statements as if they were just my opinions, but they’re not. Anyway, do they deserve that level of consideration? It’s their own fault for being suckered into such obvious hokum.
This fortified materialistic mindset insulates me against fear of the dark. In most cases I’m likely to be the scariest thing hiding in the dark anyway. I can’t pinpoint when I turned into what I am now, but any crazed vagrant, thief or meth head concealed by cover of night has more to fear from me than the inverse.
That’s just realistic threats, too. Ghosts, demons and the like never enter into my consideration. To reach the center in my brain responsible for fear, such ideas would first have to pass through the center responsible for separating the plausible from the implausible. They never do.
I simply know better. It’s a bleak, boring world out there. No sasquatches, no devils, no ghosts or chupacabras. Humans are the only monsters on this planet, myself included. The longer you live around them, the more of their attributes you absorb until one day you look in the mirror and see one of ’em staring back at you.
That reminds me, I should start smoking. Whatever it takes so that I die before the transformation completes. Death is my destination, as certainly as someone with a gun to his temple. I’ve just chosen to take a more circuitous, scenic route.
To that end, when I woke up the next morning with a pounding headache, I headed straight for the bar. Sheila was surprised to see me, I think. I don’t look at her face much. I’m also not actually sure that’s her name. Sharla? Shauna?
“Shit, you’re a mess.” No argument from me, I left the apartment without showering. My hair must’ve been a riot to look at, stiff oily tufts sticking out all over. When I said nothing, she sighed and asked me what I wanted.
“Whisky, neat.” She frowned. “This ain’t fuckin Star Trek. I’m not that machine. Whatever it was, you know. Tea, earl grey, hot. Can’t you say hello first? Maybe ask how I’m doing?” I smiled. Shirley’s not usually funny. Shanna?
“I just want my drink.” I paid upfront. A tab would’ve been too much of a commitment for my liking. The beginnings of roots I had no intention of putting down in a place like this. I already felt hungover and would undoubtedly regret this later in the day.
Morning drinking is one of those cliche signs that you’ve lost control of your life. I’ve got no life to lose control of, so I ought to be alright. My eyes wandered, then came to rest on the dingy little strip club across the street.
I think it used to be a Blockbusters. They repainted but didn’t bother to change the architecture, just blacked out the windows. The sign was missing some letters, and had been for the past year. The giant pair of neon outlined cartoon tits above that communicates their value proposition clearly enough. Most of their regulars probably can’t read anyway.
A pair of surly, shirtless men with huge beer bellies were duking it out in the strip club’s parking lot. Really going at it, smashing each other’s ugly, drunken faces with their fists, a trash can lid, and at one point the hood of a parked car. I looked away, having seen that sort of thing so many times around here that it wasn’t even worth paying attention to.
I’m not an eavesdropper by nature. I could care less what anybody around me is talking about, but it’s occasionally ridiculous or outrageous enough that my ears perk up. This is how I’ve learned everything I know about how their minds work, which is more than I ever wanted to.
For one thing, there exists no semblance of critical thought in their understanding of the world. Their method for determining what’s true basically boils down to what they’ve heard other people say. The more people say the same thing, the more credible it is in their estimation.
I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard them breathlessly discussing obvious internet hoaxes as though they were real. Confusing satire for news, or the contents of tabloids and chain letters as if they were the products reputable journalism.
This is how they accumulate a sort of “folk wisdom”. What “everybody knows is true”. A mishmash of politically motivated rumors, investment scams or other get rich quick nonsense, and the sort of hollow Earth, Jewish conspiracy, ancient aliens bullshit of the sort commonly discussed on Coast to Coast AM and Infowars.
Whether they believe it boils down to how cool they think it would be if true, and the degree to which it reinforces their entrenched political views...which are themselves dictated in large part by fear, selfishness and stupidity.
According to the average conversation I overhear while drinking, Obama was born in Kenya, The government puts fluoride in our water and chemtrails in the sky to dumb us down (as if these people need any help with that) anybody who’s not some sort of evangelical Christian is out to get everybody that is, and these various menaces are all somehow in cahoots with each other.
Rolling up everybody you dislike into a single vague, sinister entity as if Jews have any truck with Muslims, or atheists with either is surely simpler than forming separate opinions of each group. Which is easier still than getting to know individuals, though I suppose I’m not one to talk as I avoid that like the plague.
Topping off their list of bogeymen, there’s the feminists, the gays, the blacks, the ACLU, the government and basically any other barrier to achieving their idea of utopia; a country under the exclusive control of people who look, sound, think, dress, fuck, and smell like they do.
That’s a wonderful joke to me, because if you ask one of these creatures to list the qualities they imagine all blacks possess that they find so disagreeable, what you’ll get from them is a spot on description of themselves.
They’re disgusting, aren’t they? It can’t just be me. There are days when I wonder if I’ve judged them too harshly. This usually happens when I haven’t run into one for a while. That little shred of guilt vanishes the moment I next hear one of them speak.
“Oh ya, dem fings is real. I seen ’em” says the plump woman with the ratty blonde hair seated near me. Whoever she’s speaking to is just outside my field of vision, but I don’t care enough to turn my head. I continue listening anyway, and discover she’s talking about ghosts.
“Dey had experts on dat show, I done watched it t’other night on da Histry channel.” Oh yes, of course. The History channel. Also known as the Hitler, ghosts and aliens channel. Gotta give the people what they want, integrity be damned.
“Expert” has a very particular meaning for these people. “Scientist” is a dirty word. It has political connotations for them. It’s those damnable “government scientists” who tell them that climate change exists, that the Biblical account of human origins probably isn’t accurate, that vaccines are a necessary precaution against pathogens, that fluoride is harmless in sufficiently small amounts, etcetera.
Just a bunch of dour, humorless spoilsports in their view, whose input on any matter of emotional importance is never welcome. “Experts” are another story. That’s any white or Asian man in nice clothes who argues in favor of their own ill formed opinions, with a command of the English language far enough in advance of their own that he sounds intelligent and credible, but not so much that he comes off as snooty.
These buffoons regularly appear in so-called documentaries about the existence of mermaids, the alien origins of Bigfoot and so on with “Expert” under their names at the bottom of the screen. It’s these “experts” the locals are referring to when they use the ambiguous “they”.
As in “Did you hear that they proved the existence of Atlantis?” or “They found evidence dragons really existed back in the middle ages”. Which it turns out was the poor fellow’s interpretation of The Last Dragon, an openly fictitious mockumentary which speculates about how the anatomy of dragons might work if they existed. If.
Doesn’t matter. He saw it, it sounded serious and authoritative, so in his mind he’s got a rock solid basis for making such a claim. There’s no use arguing. He’s got that vague but convincing memory to latch onto.
Even if you take out your phone and show him the exact program he’s talking about to demonstrate for him that it was never meant to be taken as fact, he’d shrug and say something like “close enough”. As if it was a reasonable mistake anybody could’ve made, and you’re the asshole for taking it seriously enough to settle the matter.
It’s maddening and never, ever worth the hassle. When you wrestle with a pig, you both get filthy, but the pig enjoys it. I learned that the hard way when I took a night class on programming.
A well built fellow in a pink polo shirt with a popped collar was impressing the anorexic blonde with the disproportionately huge bust seated next to him by explaining that time is the fourth dimension.
Not realizing the tar baby I was about to become entangled with, I muttered that time isn’t objectively the fourth dimension (since it isn’t as though they have numbers carved into them) and that there exist spatial dimensions in excess of the three familiar to us as well, one of which could be accurately called the fourth.
He “corrected” me, citing a Michio Kaku television special he watched the night before. Didn’t matter that we could both be right. That duration can indeed be added to length, width and height as one of the metrics used to describe a solid at the same time that spatial dimensions exist in excess of the three familiar to human experience.
What mattered is that he saw something on TV which sounded credible, so he felt certain that the irritating nerd contradicting his recollection of it couldn’t possibly know better. I drew a tesseract for him. To his credit he recognized it. Most people recognize a tesseract even if they don’t know the term for it.
“This is a four dimensional cube, or at least a flat drawing of one. Yet the fourth dimension expressed here isn’t temporal, but spatial. What’s being visualized isn’t the duration of the cube, but an additional degree of extrusion.
A line is an extrusion of a point, a square is an extrusion of a line, and a cube is an extrusion of a square. When you extrude a cube, you get a tesseract. That has nothing to do with time and everything to do with space.”
He scoffed but didn’t explain why. “Whatever nerd. Just go look up what I was watching, then come back and tell me that. You think you know everything.” Of course I don’t, but this particular topic was one I happened to know something about.
His posturing further impressed the tits on a stick whose narrow white ass he’d been blowing smoke up before I made the mistake of involving myself. “Ooohhh, you’re so smaaart. You should come to my place and help me study tonight.”
Maybe I really am the fool. He was presumably balls deep in her a few hours later, while I pulled another all-nighter playing MOBAs and narrowing search results for random internet retards. If you judge a method by the results it produces, impressive sounding horseshit outperforms factual accuracy every time.
The women I did occasionally capture the interest of seemed mainly attracted to the novelty of dating somebody who could string together a coherent sentence without straining himself. I’ve got opposable thumbs, an even number of toes and all my original teeth, apparently rare and enticing qualities around these parts.
A few tugged at my heart. Tempted me to engage, to become entangled. Really sweet, bright, worthwhile girls who had the misfortune of meeting me. Of being fooled by the human shaped outer shell, mistakenly imagining there was still anything of substance left inside.
Even then, they could tell what I was turning into. I don’t blame them for leaving. If I had any scruples I would’ve warned them off myself when we met, but I didn’t. Nothing that I once liked about myself remains. It all burnt to the ground the day I received that phone call while unpacking.
When my blood alcohol level rose to the point where I could no longer silently endure the braying and bleating of barnyard animals carrying on behind me, I stumbled out through the double doors in a blinkered stupor. Is the sun always this painfully bright?
The debilitating level of intoxication made the heat and humidity surprisingly bearable. I was soon drenched with sweat but only noticed when my hand became too slippery to hold onto the bottle. Wait, I paid for the whole bottle? Shit, I’d better finish it then.
Drank too much? Drink more, that’ll fix it. Booze logic at work. I can’t say exactly how I got there, but after a long unintelligible smear of blurry scenery, I realized I was back in the field. I really ought to wear a GPS collar when I drink, so that after I sober up I can have Google Maps show me the route I took. Something like those Billy focused Family Circus comics with the dotted line all the fuck over the yard.
I concluded it was an ideal place to pass out, and was in the process of laying down when I spotted the unmarked van pulling into the parking lot at the far side of the field. I pressed down as flat as I could, but continued watching with rapt interest.
Someone must own this field after all. I worried about how they might react to finding me here, drunk and disheveled. Not for long though. Curiosity quickly supplanted fear as I watched a quartet of men in black suits, white rubber gloves and sunglasses emerge from the vehicle.
Even if I were sober, they were far enough away that I couldn’t make out what they were doing in any real detail. Whiskey goggles only added to the difficulty. What is that, I thought. What the fuck is it?
Some kind of carrion. A dead animal, about the size of a man. Too many legs though! Too many for a bear, or a deer, or anything I know about. Jet black all over. Long spindly legs dragging behind as they heaved it into a body bag, zipped it up, then loaded it into the back of the van.
Fuck me. I studied the label on the bottle but could find nothing to blame for what I’d just seen. When I looked up, one of the agents seemed to stare directly at me. I froze. He turned a few degrees. Then a few more, surveying the field for any witnesses.
Despite my drunken incompetence, just by laying flat in the tall grass, I managed to evade notice. Once fully satisfied that there were no witnesses, all four men piled into the van and drove off. Why during broad daylight? Even in such a state, that seemed odd to me.
Unless they didn’t want to risk anybody finding whatever the fuck it was that they bagged up and made off with. Didn’t want to leave it rotting out here even a second longer than necessary, heading out to retrieve it the moment somebody called it in.
Cops? No, no. FBI? Maybe. Spooks of some kind. I don’t know enough about the agencies which handle hush hush, cloak and dagger type shit to venture a guess at who employs those men. Just that they weren’t the sort of fellows I should introduce myself to.
I remained there for a time, watching for any further activity. Then I abruptly vomited, getting some on my shirt. I stood up swearing at myself, every other word slurred to the point of unintelligibility. Then it struck me.
They did it. They finally fucking did it. I’m one of the local creatures now. God damnit. Maybe this is how it happens? Maybe nobody’s actually native to this fetid swamp, the prehistoric peninsula that time forgot. Maybe they come here and begin changing. By the time they realize what’s happening, it’s too far along.
Fuck me. Fuck this place. Garbage, all of it. But I could no longer exclude myself from the mess around me. Now I’m just another figure in the background, fitting in at last when I hoped I never would. Death, take me now.
I tripped in a gopher hole and stumbled, falling to my hands and knees. When my senses returned, it took a while to fully process what was in front of me. I never really bothered to explore the whole field before this, just wandered a short ways in and laid down to watch the clouds roll by.
But now, close to dead center of the field, I found myself peering down what appeared to be a borehole of some kind. A sinkhole, maybe? Is this what they look like? Didn’t sound right. This looked excavated, not naturally formed.
It was about five feet in diameter and so deep that I couldn’t see the bottom. It just faded into inscrutable blackness after about fifty feet. If I didn’t stumble on that gopher hole, I’d probably have fallen into the much larger opening instead.
What is this? Something related to construction? That must be it. A freshly dug well, possibly. Or the early stages of a geothermal heating and cooling setup for whatever building would soon be erected here. With atypically good timing, my stomach chose this point to once again empty itself.
The remains of my liquid breakfast spiraled down into the darkness, scattering along the way into so many soupy droplets. I dry heaved a couple times, confirming that was the last of it. I then repeatedly called out into the abyss. I don’t remember exactly why. Just to listen for the echo I think.
There’s a lot I don’t remember about that day. How I wound up at the field for example. I just know that I got home somehow, because that’s where I woke up, head pounding like Michael J. Fox working a jackhammer.
The sun had already gone down. Not recently either; when I stepped outside to gauge the temperature it was chilly enough that I decided against walking it off. My cat wove between my ankles as though deliberately trying to topple me.
It’s a stretch to call Goblin “my cat”. Just a stray who tolerates me because I feed and shelter her. A scraggly little creature that I welcomed into my life because she’s cleaner and better mannered than most of the people I’ve run into since my arrival.
I spent so much time developing an immunity to human attachment that I neglected to do the same for animals. I’m helpless but to dote on this grumpy, stubborn little critter. I’m sure I’d love her less if she could speak. Makes me wonder if the locals might be rendered equally charming by a sudden outbreak of mutism.
Goblin leapt onto my lap the moment I sat down at my computer, aggressively burrowing into my jacket. She gets clingy at night. Probably less to do with affection than the fact that my body emits a good deal of heat.
What was that, I thought. What exactly was it? A jumble of half remembered sights and sounds trickled back into my mind, bit by bit, as I struggled to sort out how much of it really happened. Most of all, I felt captivated by fleeting memories of the hole.
What’s down there, I wonder. Down that hole, deep in the Earth. What could be down there? What’s down in the hole? Gotta get my thoughts under control. Clicking the time in the lower right of the screen brought up the calendar. Thursday already?
Hardly the first time my sleep cycle became inverted. Takes forever to fix it, too. I’ve read you need to stay awake until evening, resisting the urge to crash before then. I never manage. Instead, I stay awake further and further into the wee hours of the morning, falling asleep later and later in the day until I come full circle.
It’s hell on my body, and increasingly my mind as well. When a series of soft knocks came at the door, I initially ignored them under the assumption I was hallucinating. Who would visit me? I stumbled to the door and opened it just a crack.
Camille, my next door neighbor. She brought me cornbread and grits the night after I finished moving in. I ate it all, but other than that we’ve had no contact since, save for occasional glances when we both retrieve our mail at the same time.
“I don’t mean to bother you, it’s just...I never see you leave your apartment anymore. Is something wrong?” I searched for answers to that question which wouldn’t fill many volumes. “No” I grunted. She didn’t buy it, probably smelling the whisky on my breath.
“If something’s happening in your life...if you’re hurting and don’t have anybody to talk to about it, you could come see me any time you want. I don’t know anything about you, so I can’t promise I’ll know how to help, but I’m a good listener.”
I just wanted her gone. “I go for walks sometimes. Don’t worry about me.” I began to shut the door, but she wedged her foot in there. “Somebody left a thing on your door.” She carefully handed me a post-it note through the narrow opening.
Sure enough. Looked to be from the landlord, too. “...Thanks.” With that, I pushed her foot out of the opening with my own, then shut the door the rest of the way. The note expressed similar concerns about “antisocial behavior”.
Asocial rather than antisocial, surely? What is there to complain about? In most ways, I’m a model tenant. I don’t blast music at odd hours, I don’t host parties, I don’t do much of anything. If not for the light coming out of my windows at night, one could be forgiven for assuming this apartment is vacant.
The note ended with something or other about an upcoming “community party” in the “clubhouse”, the same large structure which houses the office where I signed all the necessary paperwork to move in. What “community” exactly? I just live here.
I crumpled it up and threw it in the bin on my way to the kitchen. The moment I flicked the light switch, a single cockroach fled beneath the fridge. I grimaced. Not much to speak of in the fridge except the pizza I ordered the other day.
Read the rest here.