Inebriated Conversations

After eight long and grueling hours, we began our rapid descent from the heavens. I never really got the: “did it hurt when you fell from heaven” pickup line until we hit the tarmac. The force of the impact nearly knocked my head into the seat in front of me, so fuck yeah, it hurt when I fell from heaven. I’d imagine even Lucifer himself had a softer landing than we did. He also didn’t have to endure the stomach churning and nauseating food that was served on the plane, but I digress, at least we had finally reached our destination. A land not so far away that only varied in appearance, but the truth was this mystical and magical land, deep down, was no different from the place I grew up or attend college. As I waited in purgatory, the security line, I began wondering if I was dreaming. Was I really in London or even a different country for that matter? The line, which seemed so much longer than the European and the U.K., line was filled with fellow Americans. Perhaps they are still acrimonious about us beating them in the Revolutionary War, so they decided that this was ample punishment for our victory. Whatever the case, we finally made it through security, then collected our bags. I saw my relatively new bag with the bowtie on the handle and was relieved that it had not been lost or left in the United States. We met our tour guide, Emma, who at first glance seemed to be very different. She had an unusual hair cut that was much shorter than ones most woman her age would have, but I soon learned that her appearance, much like London’s, would not be any indication of what lies beyond. When we finally escaped from limbo, the airport, we were put on a coach bus, and taken to our hotel. I was exhausted and in need of a shower, but all I could do was drop my luggage off, then swiftly return to the lobby. As we stood outside in the crisp, refreshing air, we were handed our subway passes, or as they say, “tube passes.” We followed our guide, Emma, on a short walk to the underground. When our group finally descended the stairs and made our way to the map, a map Virgil couldn’t even navigate, we began our journey that involved the same punishment as those afforded to people in the eighth level of hell. We walked endlessly, 10.6 miles, and viewed the most popular tourist attractions London had to offer. I was surrounded by beautiful statues, fantastic architecture, and attractive people whose dialect could captivate almost anyone. At first, like everyone else, I was completely and utterly captivated by it all, because it was a completely different world. Our group finished the day with a mile and a half walk to the Globe Theatre, where we saw Shakespeare’s play, Comedy of Errors. My fellow students and I stood, as our professors sat comfortably watching the play. During the production, all I could think about was my numb legs and my aching feet. I tried drowning the pain with a few glasses of overly priced and nasty wines, but my attempt was to no avail. For once in my life, I knew what it was like to experience actual physical agony, not just the tedious and never-ending emotional kind. It wasn’t the lake of fire or some frozen wasteland, but that shit was still excruciating. After the play, we struggled to find a new passageway to the hot and crowded underworld, the tube, but luckily, I had service on my phone, so we found it. We finally made it back to the hotel around eleven in the evening. After a long day of flying and an excess of walking, I had never been as excited as I was to climb into a bed that was, quite frankly, too small for my six-foot-five physique. To anyone reading this, don’t worry, I’m not planning on giving a day to day synopsis of what I saw while I was abroad, because the sights aren’t what truly matter. I mean, I could just rant about Buckingham Palace and its beauty, Windsor Castle and its enormous layout, the Tower of London and its history, the Natural History Museum and its priceless artifacts, Stratford upon Avon and Shakespeare’s life, Oxford and it’s impressive library, Cornwall and its tranquil beaches, the Minack Theatre and its sublimity, or the Ashmolean Museum and its Jeff Koons exhibition, but that shit has no genuine meaning to it. I’m not going to waste your time by writing about some tourist sites that you could see in almost any travel magazine about the U.K., so if that’s what you are looking for stop reading. I suggest you pick up a travel magazine and read it until you are content, but if you want to read something real, then I suggest you continue. The reality is, the things I’ll take from this trip are the inebriated conversations I had with others. I not only gave these people advice about their lives; I learned something new about my own. I, ***** *******, am the Barstool Prophet, who descended from the heavens prepared to spout wisdom and retardation. Before I divulge the serious and deep conversations I experienced abroad, I want to let you know that the other person and I were under the influence of alcohol. I know what you are thinking, but alcohol has been a part of human culture since 7,000 B.C.; to put that into perspective, man invented alcohol before the wheel. From what I've seen in my lifetime some people drink to forget, some drink to remember, some drink to punish themselves, and some drink to converse with others. I fall into the latter category, but while I was in the U.K., I encountered people whose purpose for drinking was similar to mine as well as people that would fall in the other categories. I never really got the saying, "It's better to be a glass half full person, than a glass half empty person." I get the whole positivity aspect of the saying; however, I'd trust a "glass half empty person" far more, because they'd just order another drink. I am in no way trying to promote alcoholism; in reality, I am just trying to explain how alcohol can fuel an in-depth conversation. The Latin proverb "In Vino Veritas" states that "In Wine there is Truth"; wiser words have never been spoken. Alcohol allows people to speak their hidden thoughts and desires, especially to a stranger like me. 

Emma

As I stated earlier, Emma was our tour guide, who sported a relatively short and somewhat masculine haircut. Luckily, I had consumed enough alcohol at the time of her arrival to ask her why she chose that specific style. After giving me a vague: “because I like it” response, she clutched her glass of wine and forced it down. We talked about her occupation and how lonely traveling could get, but she seemed like she was familiar with the feeling of loneliness. She asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, and I said, “I want to be a lawyer.” Emma slammed her glass down and began to laugh hysterically; she said, “Seriously?” I found her response quite peculiar until she revealed that her ex-husband was a lawyer. He was devoted to his job and always worked long hours, which did not bother her, at first. I surmise that his lack of interest in her is what led to their separation. After a long moment of silence, I gulped my drink down and gained the courage to ask: “do you think the relationship you had with him prepared you for this job?” She paused and began to think intently. She took a sip of her wine, laughed, and said, “I guess so, that’s one positive thing I got out of the relationship.” The chat continued with talk of food, politics, weather, and other small-talk topics, but then we somehow made it back to her haircut. Emma told me that she was bi-sexual, which, despite the tell-tell signs in her appearance, isn’t something she shares with most people. I told her that homophobia and racism is a major part of the culture that I grew up in, which surprised her. She couldn’t comprehend how someone with that upbringing could be so openminded. I responded with one word and one word only, “Self-Awareness.” I came to the realization that in life people are consciously and unconsciously molded by those around them, but at the end of the day, it is their choice to decide who they are and what they believe. Emma’s marriage may not have been picture perfect, but she was still able to take something positive from it. As much as we don’t want to admit it, even the worst of our relationships impact us in a positive way. 

Phillip Goldsmith

Before I get into this incredibly intense and somewhat depressing story, I’d like to describe its setting. I was sitting on a red velvet couch, drinking Jack Daniels Honey in a tall glass with one ice cube. I know what you are thinking, but I was not in a strip club. Our hotel’s game room/ bar area looked like an American strip club, not that I’ve ever been in one. Like seriously, if a few poles and dancers were added, I’d feel like I was at the Red Carpet, which is a strip club near where I live, but again, I may or may not have been there. I had finished half my bottle when Phil walked in, and I could immediately tell that he was hurting on the inside. Excluding dumbass frat guys, not very many people drink vodka straight out of the bottle with the intention of finishing it. He sat next to us, so I reached my hand out and said, “Hey man, what’s your name?” He said, “Hello, I am Phillip Goldsmith.” I responded as anyone would and said, “That’s a badass name!” We talked about life, love, and women as most guys do. We were both close to finishing our bottles when I noticed a tattoo on his arm that said, “Harry.” Who was this Harry? He certainly didn’t strike me as a Royalist, so I knew he didn’t just get the prince’s name on his arm for shits and giggles. I gulped down a few more sips of my drink and slowly placed it back down. I looked him in the eyes and said, “who is Harry?” His response shook every bone in my body to their core. After holding his tears back and ingesting some more of his vodka, Phil looked at me and said that “Harry was his son.” Was? He continued speaking, and I learned that Harry died three days after he was born. That tragic loss would result in a few other loses in his life, his wife, and his faith. Phil told me that he used to go to his grave on his birthday and Christmas, but he couldn’t do it anymore. He didn’t see a point in it any longer. Surprisingly I felt the urge to tell him that “God loved him and that he would see his son again.” I am in no way a prolific believer; I’d probably put myself in the wayward son category. However, something came over me, and I felt like I needed to tell him that. We had both finished our drinks, and as we were saying our goodbyes, he thanked me. I don’t know why, but he did. My encounter with Phil taught me that when you meet someone, you don’t know what they are going through, but through love and compassion, you can have a positive impact on them. 

Lexie

Lexie is a beautiful and intelligent young lady from Kansas City, Missouri. We met and chatted throughout the week because she was a part of our EF group. One night, after Lexie and I had more than our share of wine, we began to talk about our plans for the future. Before I tell this story, you must know, I have the unfortunate handicap of flirtation when I drink, but she was able to move past my impulsive outburst. I think my accidental comments about her beautiful eyes, stunning smile, and cute laugh allowed her to open up to me. Despite what you are thinking, I like to flirt because I enjoy making women smile, I don’t always do it for self-serving reasons. Anyways, as I said, we started discussing our plans for the future, but one can’t divulge their future in an inebriated state without discussing their past. I gave my whole spiel about wanting to be a prosecutor who would later become a congressman, then a Supreme Court or D.C. Circuit Court justice. She said, “Wow! That’s quite the plan. I want to go into Law as well.” I hastily responded by saying, “That’s sexy. I could see it.” We both laughed, but then she said, “I don’t know though, Law School is hard.” She didn’t strike me as a person who couldn’t handle a challenge, so I asked, “Why do you think you wouldn’t excel? You present yourself as someone who does.” She tried not to blush, then sipped her extremely sweet white wine. I know it was sweet because I made the unfortunate decision of trying it; it was so sweet that even a rock would get a hangover from it. Anyways, she started talking about high school and how people thought she was unintelligent. I laughed and thought about how I experienced that very same thing. I said, “Fuck that, screw them. God, high school girls are mean. Do you actually believe that crap?” She giggled and said, “Of course not, but it’s still in the back of my head.” I grabbed another beer from Raj, the bartender at the hotel. Yes, we were on a first name basis; did you expect anything less from the barstool profit? I sat back down and leaned in, intent on getting this point across to Lexie. I sipped my beer, ever so casually, and said, “Listen, we all remember the immature negatives of our high school existence, but this is now. At some point, we have to grow up into the people we want to be, not who everyone tells us to be.” She then asked, “Why are you so wise?” (You are probably thinking “sure she did,” but I swear that is what she said; I’m not a narcissist using creative license to praise myself.) I accredited it to my amazing parents as well as the shitty ex-girlfriends, situations, and friends I had experienced. We continued talking about a lot of random things like abortion, racism in America, and other pseudo-political topics. It was 3 am. when we finally decided it was time to go to bed. I hugged her and told her to use those negative voices as motivation. Again, I was thanked for the conversation, which, at this point, seems to be a normal thing for strangers to do. My conversation with Lexie made me realize that, when we travel, the baggage we carry isn’t only the physical kind. That tedious and deep emotional baggage also comes along for the journey. Most people, who travel somewhere, will lose a physical part of their baggage, like a sock, shirt, or something of that nature. Lexie did something most could not and do not, she left a piece of her emotional baggage, the night I spoke to her in the bar. 

Szymon

Szymon was in the bar area when I got to the hotel. He had a very interesting accent, which was far different from the ones I had heard that week, so I asked, “Where are you from?” He said, in a relatively drunken manner, “I am from Poland. You’re from America, aren’t you.” I responded with a firm: “Yes.” The conversation proceeded with small talk, but as I had a few more beers, the topics shifted to more serious topics. I was recently in a Holocaust history class, so of course, the first serious thing I asked was if he had been to Warsaw to see the Concentration Camps. He paused in silence, so I said, “Talk about hell on Earth, the holocaust was some fucked up shit.” After saying that he seemed to gain the courage to tell me that he was Jewish. He told me about the things his parents endured as children and how his grandfather had died in a concentration camp. He told me how he had rejected his faith after hearing these horrible stories. He said to me, “What could faith do for someone. The Jews have been persecuted countless times for it.” I understood where he was coming from, but at the same time, I didn’t. He had real reasons for his existential doubt, and I truly could not say the same. I got a shot of vodka from Raj; threw it back, and said, “Our faith shapes our decisions in life, even if we tell ourselves it doesn’t.” He sat pondering my words, but he seemed bored of the discussions about faith. I quickly changed the subject and asked him, “Why are you in London?” I learned that he travels all over continental Europe cleaning asbestos out of old buildings. I responded as any young person would and said, “that’s cool. I’d love to travel all over Europe.” He said, “it might be for a young single guy, but I hardly see my kids. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if my wife cheated on me.” I couldn’t believe he would say something that personal, but then again, that’s what alcohol does. I suggested that he quit the job and find one closer to home. He laughed and said, “Ugh… you sound like my wife right now.” I bought him another beer and said, “maybe you should listen to her.” He looked at me and said, “maybe you are right ha-ha.” My conversation with Szymon taught me that it doesn’t matter how much money you make or how many places you get to travel on the company’s dime. What matters in life is family and the ones you love. By the time we stopped talking, I could hardly understand him, but he shook my hand and said, “have fun in London.” I laughed and said, “I will, call your wife tonight and tell her you love her.” He smiled and nodded, assuring me he would. It was time to leave, so I packed my things and got ready to go to the airport. I finally boarded my fiery chariot that would bring me back to the heavens. I forced down a few shots of Jack Daniels, closed my eyes, and wondered if the Barstool Prophet would have a second coming. Would I ever return to this amazing city and spout words of wisdom and retardation? Would I ever drink two whole liters of cider and wake up with a black eye? Well, that one is a definite no, but so many questions are left unanswered. Did I actually impact those that I talked to? Did they even remember the conversation? As much as I want to believe I did, I’ll never know. We don’t know what this life holds or what our encounters with strangers will yield; all we can do is give it our best shot and live like we are dying… (Que inspiring music). 

Let me know if the foundation of this sardonic and surface level literature reference writing has potential… first ever post!

Supernatural evil is overwhelmingly present in the small town of Twin Peaks, Washington.
This evil stems from the ancient entity Judy, also known as Jowday, or Joudy in Sumerian mythology. Judy is an extreme negative entity, perhaps the embodiment of evil itself, and transcends both time and space. She is associated with the Black Lodge, a supernatural dwelling place for evil spirits. Various Black Lodge entities include Killer BOB, MIKE and the arm (who both eventually became good), the Jumping Man, Mrs. Tremond and Pierre, and the woodsmen. They all feed on garmonbozia — human "pain and suffering" — and travel via electricity.
There are also good spirits who wish to counter Judy's evil, who reside in the similarly-named White Lodge. The foremost of these spirits is the Fireman, a god-like entity with similar powers to Judy. While powerful, the Fireman is implied to not be as powerful as Judy. Other White Lodge entities include Señorita Dido, Naido, and the angels.
Various cultures throughout history had been aware of Judy's existence, including the ancient Sumerians and the Nez Perce Native American tribe. The Nez Perce people were the first to name the Black and White Lodges, and over time gained access to the Black Lodge via Glastonbury Grove in the forest surrounding Twin Peaks. There they discovered the existence of evil human doppelgängers residing in the Lodge.
The Nez Perce's access to the Black Lodge led to an increasingly dark presence in the surrounding area, and many locals (including the Bookhouse Boys society and the Log Lady) became devoted to fighting this evil.
1945, New Mexico: The U.S.' detonation of the first atomic bomb, the ultimate man-made evil, results in a catestrophic release of evil into the world. The bomb inadvertently creates Judy herself, who promptly extends her presence throughout time and space. An array of other Black Lodge entities are created by the nuclear blast, like the woodsmen, and Judy (in her physical form called "the Experiment") vomits out Killer BOB and the frogmoths as minions of hers to do her bidding.
The Fireman sees the atrocities unleashed by the atomic bomb and devises a plan to stop Judy's evil from spreading. He creates a golden orb with Laura Palmer's face on it, and Señorita Dido sends it to Earth to counter Judy, BOB, and the other agents of the Black Lodge. Laura is "the one" and possesses the ability to defeat Judy once and for all.
However, Judy was one step ahead. She sends a frogmoth to inhabit Sarah Palmer so that she can use her as a human host. Killer BOB is used to possess Leland Palmer. While Judy lay dormant in Sarah due to her close proximity with "the one", BOB molested Laura via Leland, feeding off of her garmonbozia, and ultimately killed her.
Agent Dale Cooper, who solved Laura's murder and inadvertently stumbled upon this supernatural realm, gets trapped in the Black Lodge while BOB and Cooper's doppelgänger roam freely on Earth. With "the one" dead, evil is allowed to grow unchecked.
Cooper's doppelgänger, possessed by BOB, is in search of Judy, either to try to take her place as the ultimate evil or to work together with her. He devises many plans to find Judy, including a glass box designed to trap her.
The Fireman realizes that there's another way he can stop Judy before the doppelgänger finds her, even though Laura is dead. He sends the real Cooper on a mission to kill "two birds with one stone": save Laura Palmer, and defeat Judy. To do this, Cooper travels back in time to save Laura from being killed by BOB. However, Judy is one step ahead, yet again: she rips Laura out of the timeline, creating an alternate reality in which Laura went missing. This accounts for all the bizarre "glitches" and inconsistencies we see throughout the season, the "official" and "unofficial" timelines.
In one final attempt to destroy Judy, Cooper and Diane Evans cross from the "unofficial" timeline into a completely different reality, per the Fireman's instructions ("remember Richard and Linda"). There they become slightly altered versions of themselves, with Cooper being Richard and Diane being Linda. Diane forgets her mission and leaves Cooper. Cooper finds Laura's alternate self, Carrie Page, working at a restaurant called Judy's.
They go to the Palmer residence, where Sarah should be. However, Sarah simply isn't there. The owner of the house (the real owner IRL) mentions the names Tremond and Chalfont, which are two surnames used by Black Lodge entities, but hasn't heard of any Palmers living there. Confused, Coop and Laura leave.
We hear Sarah's voice crying out Laura's name from the "official" version where she was murdered. Laura looks at the house and screams in horror as she fully remembers all the pain and suffering Judy inflicted upon her.
The lights go out in the Palmer house.
Judy won.
Any disagreements or questions regarding my explanation of the general storyline? There are so many elements to just the basic plot that I'm still so iffy on.

Swiatek vs Potapova :

Swiatek had to have been happy with her third round matchup after waking up from the nightmare that Naomi Osaka presented. She made quick work of Bouzkova, who was outmatched in every department. Bouzkova did manage to battle back in the first and make the set close, and she served surprisingly well, but she just doesn’t hit hard enough to beat Swiatek. It was one of those matches where Swiatek looks a bit impatient because she’s supplying all the offense, and it seems like when it takes 3-4 shots to get an opportunity to hit a winner, she tries to just infuse extra pace or spin instead and unforced errors appear. Trying to make the ball explode doesn’t really work, and extra force applied tends to fall short when compared to smooth technique. I watched Rune and Zverev have similar trouble today against their opponents. Players wind up pushing because they hit bigger than their opponent, but don’t want to make errors. It’s accuracy that’s missing, and it’s something for Swiatek to work on in the off-season. I would say that accuracy is the main problem with her serve as well. It has plenty of pace and spin, but the ball lands towards the center of the box way too often. Less pace, and more location will go a long way.
If it feels like I’m levying criticism today, yes. Your turn, Potapova and Wang. Potapova was down 5-0 in the first set, and won 7 games in a row. Wang has a tendency to just go big on her forehand, and she doesn’t stop when she misses. Potapova was an uphill battle, but Wang doesn’t actually need to hit clean winners to score. Her forehand is one of the biggest in the game, and once she locks into a cross-court rally she usually can win provided the ball lands inside the court. Landing the ball inside the court proved difficult, and it felt a bit like watching Struff. All the ability in the world but a sense of urgency that doesn’t really match the moment. Yes you want to stay aggressive, but the weight of shot buys you time in the rally, you don’t need to escape a rally you’re in control of.
Potapova wound up losing the second, and down a break in the third. She dug in admirably, but there were some really poor decisions late in the match. After getting to triple break point by rallying with Wang and keeping the ball deep until Wang missed, she got a simple backhand return off a serve. She went for a clean winner down the line for some reason, and then suddenly the next point mattered. She lost it, and suddenly the “oh F I had it and now it’s gone” fears rose. The game ended up at duece, and she went to tactic B : screaming on every shot. You can’t scream your opponent off the court, so this didn’t really work. In the end, Wang coughed up errors and Potapova won, but it was a match that was managed poorly by both. Potapova was very reactive to misses and makes, which is fine but wastes a bunch of energy and tends to affect your decisionmaking in a readable way. You want to maintain some mystery, and at a minimum not give your opponent any inspiration or hope to work off of while you’re out there.
Swiatek Potapova should be another safe match for Swiatek, but Potapova has good power off both wings and she hits her backhand down the line decent. Swiatek will need more than she brought against Bouzkova, and chances are this won’t be a blowout. Potapova won their last meeting 6-0 in the third on clay, but it was in 2016 at the juniors. Swiatek in 2.

Danilovic vs Vondrousova :

Olga Danilovic has made the 4th round of a major. This changes her career in a major way. Tons of points, at least $250k, and a chance to win more. It’s even sweeter I would imagine because she probably shouldn’t be there. Her match against Donna Vekic was filled with many fumbles. Both players have enough power to hit past the other. Vekic was able to hit inside out forehands to great effect. Danilovic’s pendulum swing on her backhand was able to force errors from Vekic quite often. Her forehand down the line was almost a clean winner anytime she made it. In between all that though, they missed constantly.
The first set was a 6-0 beatdown from Vekic. She played excellent, and likely should have won the second. In the third, she went up a quick break. She gave that back, but broke to serve for the match. Immediately, she threw in a handful of forced dropshots and errors. Luckily, she broke again to serve for the match at 6-5. This gave her the opportunity to come up with a few more bailout dropshots and errors. If you watch highlights, this was an incredible match. If you watched the match, you saw two players whose games were affected by the situation. Vekic forced the issue and missed anytime she got control of the scoreboard, and Danilovic went through bouts of not missing at all followed by sending every ball wide. The tiebreaker was vaguely like watching a junior match. Every miss brought a huge reaction from the player. There were constant gestures and faces made to their boxes, and it was a little difficult to watch two great players struggle to focus and execute. Vekic managed to go up again 6-2 in the tiebreaker, but froze at that point and began hitting most of her shots long. She had trouble serving first serves in for the second half of the entire third set, but she really was unable to respond defensively once Danilovic got a full swing in.
After watching Danilovic down Collins and sort of defeat Vekic, it’s hard to count her out against Vondrousova. Marketa is a clear favorite against most players on clay, but the scorelines of her matches can be hard to predict. Against Paquet she was up a set and cruising up a double break in the second, and wound up back on serve. She closed out, but Vondrousova doesn’t hit that big and mostly thrives by defending and earning errors, so Danilovic will be able to compete. They played in the BJK cup and Vondrousova won in 3, and I’m guessing slower clay will give Vondrousova more of an edge. Vekic’s lack of speed really hurt her, and I think Vondrousova being able to put extra ball consistently in play will make Danilovic’s rough patches more of an issue. The emotional and physical output of Danilovic over the last few rounds has to take a toll, and I think she’ll fall a game or two short here. Vondrousova in 3.

Gauff vs Cocciaretto :

This is an excellent draw for Gauff so far. She’s playing great players, but stylistically they’re not a lot of trouble for her. This round is another good spot. Elisabetta Cocciaretto is a good server and has nice power, but she’s not the fastest around the court and she can make some unforced errors if she’s rushed. This means Gauff’s defense and power give her a great shot to win without trouble. Cocciaretto beating Samsonova was a surprise to me, but Samsonova doesn’t have the speed that Gauff does nor the consistency. This is a criminally short analysis but Gauff in 2.

Tauson vs Jabeur :

Great champions are able to elevate their games. This round, Ons will need to elevate hers. Clara Tauson is playing some great tennis, and coming into this match hers is the higher level. Jabeur was projected to have trouble against Fernandez and she did. It was another match where I felt like a good coach could have gotten their player across the finish line. Fernandez didn’t have a great chance in the first, but Jabeur was very willing to give the second away. Fernandez was able to dig in on defense and rally with Jabeur until she made errors or gave Leylah opportunities. Rather than keep rallying and really punish Jabeur, Fernandez went for winners … and missed them all. I’m not exaggerating here, in the second set she missed almost every offensive shot she went for, and it didn’t feel like she had to go for them. Jabeur hits bigger than Fernandez, so on the court it may have felt like she needed to do a lot, but most of her points come from consistency, so Leylah’s team will want to focus on having her focus on the mental battle going on in her opponent’s head rather than trying to be a big hitter. Physically, it’s just not in the cards for her to be slinging offense. Maybe she landed those same shots in an earlier round, so going for them was fine, but awareness on court is important, and Jabeur was trying to give the set away. After winning, Jabeur celebrated a bit which left me puzzled. It’s natural to be happy when you win, but I feel a little odd about these matches sometimes. Fernandez didn’t land a first serve for the last 20 minutes, threw in a ton of errors, and tried to hit an overhand winner for some reason off a return at 5-5 in the tiebreaker. It was a nice win, but Jabeur made this match hard on herself. I might be in hater mode today and I apologize, but it feels like sometimes players tap their head or pump their fist after overcoming challenges that they themselves created.
Positives for Jabeur were the times she put one extra ball back. She has had a middling season, and seeing her dig in is great. Her racquet skill is some of the best on tour as well, so the gets aren’t just a boost, they’re downright effective. She has the ability to stretch to her forehand and put squash gets back extremely low, and to flick cross-court forehands that seem impossible from how extended her arm is. Jabeur’s depth of talent is why she is still slightly favored in this match, because again, Clara Tauson is coming in at a high level. Tauson beat Ostapenko, and followed it up by putting Kenin through the ringer. Kenin had no chance in the first, but in the second she was able to reel back a break of serve and apply some decent pressure. Frustratingly, she just wasn’t able to execute in the big moments. At 15-30 5-5, Tauson hit a lob that was going a few feet out (to the side). While running backwards, Kenin seemed unaware of where she was in the court. She tried to play it overhead and missed. It was a momentum killer, and she ended up missing the remainder of her offensive opportunities.
Throughout the match, the big difference in the two was Tauson’s ability to score quickly. When she lands first serves, or if you give her a moment to get a full swing anywhere inside the baseline, you are toast. She has the type of power that Anisimova/Collins generate on their backhand, and she has a heavy forehand. That is why I suspect Jabeur will have a tough time winning this quickly. Jabeur has the endurance and variety to frustrate Tauson, but this feels like a battle of two big offenses, and Jabeur’s is a bit less consistent at this point. I want to believe Jabeur wins in 3, but she will need to step up her game and avoid the type of letdown she had in the second against Fernandez. Tauson is several tiers above Leylah and Osorio in terms of offensive opportunities, and both those players were able to get in winning position in at least one set. I’m still going to go with Jabeur in 3. Tauson has beaten some offenses, and some defenses, but Ons is the most complete player she’s faced so it feels very much like “prove it” territory for me.

Arnaldi vs Tsitsipas :

The story in Arnaldi’s match seems to be Rublev’s temper, but don’t let that overshadow Arnaldi’s performance. For me, Rublev’s temper is partially his fault, and partially his team’s. I’m especially sensitive to this after watching the last round, but being reactive to the outcome of points is a bit of a leak. If you are easily moved by events, then you are always able to be moved. It compounds, because if you are really good at something, there is no reason to believe that minor failures will continue, or even matter. It gives your opponent motivation, it wastes your valuable reserves of adrenaline and dopamine (depending on good/bad outcomes), and it’s honestly fairly distracting for an opponent. Just generally speaking, if my opponent is smashing his head with a racquet, I don’t really want to beat him. I’m still going to, but I want to compete and win, I don’t really want to add suffering to someone else. It’s unprofessional, it’s a detriment to his game, and it puts his opponents and umpires in an uncomfortable spot. Of course, he knows this, but it should hit home in this moment that he lost this match because of his lack of composure, and lost it to a player who thrives because of his composure.
Matteo Arnaldi plays steady consistent tennis. He works hard, he constantly works on his game, and he isn’t reactive out there aside from hyping himself up. He beat Fils because of deviations in his level of play and because he made it clear he wouldn’t miss. Fils forced shots and missed because he was unwilling to do the work. He beat Rublev because despite Rublev opening the match hitting clean and crushing winners, he just stayed the course and kept competing. When Christmas disappeared, Rublev noticed, and he did not like it. The crux of the issue is, he did not accept it. If I am upset about the way things are, that is natural. If I grit against the way they are, I suffer. If I accept the way things are, I am (counterintuitively) instantly free to begin working on changing them. It doesn’t mean we celebrate errors or loss, but resetting to the present moment is a major key to winning in professional sports and tennis players in particular have a difficulty with this.
I’m not trying to dump on all these players or attack them here either. All of them are tremendous athletes and are mostly excellent ambassadors and competitors. All of these struggles are natural and we all experiences the highs and lows of competition, but Rublev wants to win and this is something he needs to work on to do that consistently. If his coaches aren’t working on this with him, they’re doing him a disservice. If they are and he isn’t buying into it, he’s doing them a disservice. Everything is fine with Rublev’s game but the holes are clear. He needs more reps at net, he needs to develop dropshots, and he needs to not smash racquets.
For now, it’s Arnaldi vs Tsitsipas. Stefanos has been excellent this event, and he opens as the favorite for a reason. Zhang played solid in round 3, but he was helpless against Tsitsipas. Stef is holding serving quickly, and the speed with which he’s finding a forehand to the open court off of players’ returns is the catalyst of this. His stamina is a major weapon in these conditions and in this format, and his serve/forehand is one of the best left in the event. If Arnaldi wants to win, the plot is simple. Isolate Tsitsipas’ backhand, and get deep in sets. In the late stages of a close set, Tsitsipas is still prone to some shanks. I really do think Arnaldi needs to win the first set to have a shot here, but had Rublev been playing Tsitsipas I think we’d be expecting a somewhat close match so there’s no real argument for Arnaldi to get blown out here. He has a complete game, and he has good discipline. He’s lanky so he might be able to return well, and he can send his backhand down the line so Tsitsipas can’t just camp in his backhand corner. Forehand to forehand though, I think Tsitsipas wins. Losses to Ruud, Jarry, Medvedev make me think that Arnaldi has a bit of a ceiling, but all those were close affairs so Tsitsipas should have his hands full here. Tsitsipas in 4-5.

Alcaraz vs Auger-Aliassume :

Shelton and FAA was fairly hyped, but only Felix delivered. Shelton wasn’t really that bad, but FAA just showed he’s more comfortable on the surface. He faced no break points, and won comfortably in straight sets. His next match will be a lot more difficult, as he plays a version of Carlos Alcaraz that is cruising through the draw without really playing his best tennis. Alcaraz vs Korda was a strange contest. It reminded me a bit of Zverev or Rune playing matches they know they’re going to win. They don’t want to play extra sets, so they play a bit more carefully and just make sure to outlast their opponent. What ends up happening is the score stays close, and the stronger players needs to win a tense tiebreaker or break late in the set. Sure, they still win, but I think that an all-out assault from an earlier moment would allow them to fatigue their opponent.
These guys are all in tremendous shape (even Kotov), but there are levels/paces that they can’t hang at for long. Someone like Alcaraz can push the pace and wear Korda down, and once he breaks from that level, the odds of him winning the next sets easily are more likely. We watched Nadal and Djokovic do this to opponents for a long time, and the late sets were almost always blowouts after frantic openers. We watched Federer do the same thing mentally to opponents with a constant onslaught of offensive shots and tricky slices. If you don’t push the pace to a level your lower-tier opponent can’t hang at, they end up playing at a pace they’re comfortable with and then you play the same level of Korda in set 1 as you do in set 3.
Hater mode continues, but in this case I think it’s all assuming that Alcaraz is totally healthy. If he’s saving his arm for later, he played Korda perfectly. Sebastian continues to battle even with the best players on tour, and in the big moments he doesn’t change his game. 4-4 in a tiebreaker isn’t the time to force anything, but if you’re the underdog and have nothing to lose, it might be a good choice to ratchet up the pace a little, or take some chances. Instead, he seems to throw in rally ball errors. The two forehand misses he had in the tiebreaker were rough, but worse was that they weren’t even shots that were going to score. He was just guiding the ball in straight over the net. I guess in the end, beating Alcaraz, or even playing him even for a time, is a huge ask. It was a great match.
FAA will have his best chance to beat Alcaraz here. Alcaraz’s arm is potentially not 100%, and Korda probably should have won a set. I think the pace alone that Felix brings will wake Carlitos up a bit, and he has beaten FAA the last few times they’ve played so he’ll know which shots to employ and when. Even with his arm a question mark, Alcaraz’s speed around the court and ability to extend rallies are the right assets to score on FAA. Auger-Aliassime’s main issue on tour is that he can overhit forehands and cough up unforced errors. It should be noted also that FAA Shelton was played under a closed roof, which helps Felix’s serve a bit. The weather in Paris looks pretty nice for the rest of the tournament, so it’ll be warm and ideal for Alcaraz to wear him down and isolate his backhand when he can. FAA is good enough to compete at this level, but hasn’t been doing it regularly enough for me to think he can do so here for 3 whole sets. Alcaraz in 4.

Hurkacz vs Dimitrov :

Dimitrov leads this h2h 5-0. All the matches have been close, but you don’t get to 5-0 against Hurkacz unless you can reliably return serve. If you can reliably return serve, you can beat Hurkacz, and on clay it should be even more beneficial. Hurkacz has played excellent in this clay swing considering his status as a servebot, and leading into Wimbledon and the North American swing I think his baseline improves have him primed for some titles. He had a hard test with Shapovalov in round 3, and the new and sort of decent Shapovalov put up a good fight. Dimitrov had an easier time with Zizou Bergs, despite dropping a set. Bergs broke Dimitrov a bunch in this match, but Dimitrov’s slice gave him a lot of trouble. Grigor was content to just keep hitting the court, and it was enough in the end. Bergs had trouble lifting his forehand inside in off of the slice, and it meant going mostly inside out which Dimitrov was only too comfortable with. The quick turnaround is a concern here, but I don’t think the Bergs match was as labor intensive as it could have been. There were numerous rain delays, and the scores were close but only because Dimitrov didn’t redline. He served with control, he hit to big targets, and he secured the bag.
I don’t think Hurkacz gets beaten quickly here, and I don’t think Dimitrov is automatic just because of the h2h. He should win, but Dimitrov lost to Rune/Mensik/Fritz recently and those are all players right around Hurkacz level. If this goes to a 5th, I’d be pretty worried for Dimitrov’s chances. Picking Dimitrov in 4 feels tough, because Bergs got to a 4th and he wasn’t really playing his best today. The h2h is hard to ignore, so I’ll go with Dimitrov in 5. The quick turnaround might leave him tired but he should be able to outduel Hurkacz in most volleys and the low slices will be tough for the big dude to get down on.

Sinner vs Moutet :

Nothing like a seemingly simple one to end a full day of criticizing professional athletes for not being perfect <3. Moutet has been the most entertaining player in this event. He has won and lost lopsided sets, he has gone for every shot possible, he is chatting with the crowd, and he is giving the home country something to believe in. Considering he couldn’t even hit a two-handed backhand for a good chunk of the past year due to wrist surgery, it’s pretty impressive for him to get his game back to a really high level. Ofner was beating him early in the third round, but he was also sweating profusely. The workload of defending against Moutet’s big forehand strokes and his clever dropshots is exhausting, and Ofner’s game dipped as the match went on. It’ll be fun to see Sinner trading with Moutet, and it’ll be another look at his physical ability to see how quickly he moves to the frontcourt and how he defends Moutet’s forehand inside out. Generally with a hip injury, it’s sprinting forward and leaning wide to that side that becomes an issue.
Sinner has sort of entered a big however many group in terms of his results. He is able to beat the lower tier players for the entire match, and is consistently able to do so. There are no holes in his game, and aside from his hip issue there is no reason to think he loses here. Moutet has the game to make this the match of the day, but it feels like he’s spent a lot more time and energy on court and that’ll cost him. Sinner in 3.

Hey all, I've finally mustered the courage to post on this sub, since the silliness is spreading to my lungs and made me delirious with slight confidence ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ . I'm 25, turning 26 soon, pansexual and non-binary (AFAB), although any pronouns are fine!
A little bit about myself, and by a little, I mean a novel. I couldn't write a short bio even if my life depended on it.
I have two partners currently, my nesting partner of 10 years, and my long distance partner of 2 and a half years. I've been practicing polyamory for around 7 years, with several dynamics. We all date separately, and I'm also open to just making some friends! While I’d heavily prefer to find someone in Tennessee or close by, if you're open to travelling or being online, that's also okay.
I'm heavily into writing, whether it's fanfictions, books I'm working on, my D&D campaign lore, or just some poetry. I just started a campaign with 4 players, but if you're local, would love to add people to it!
When it comes to gaming, I prefer horror-survival. Games like 7 Days to Die, Green Hell, Project Zomboid, and The Forest/Sons of the Forest. Point and click's RPG's, rhythm, VR, you name it I've probably played some of it. (Bonus points if you're into Undertale)
I'm a complete menace in the kitchen, so be ready to eat. I love cooking, grilling, baking, you name it. Always trying new recipes, making my own pasta, homemade bread, etc. I love hotpot, sweets, and anything chicken.
In terms of my appearance, I'm 5'9", and around 220lbs. A thicc girl, if you will. I've lost about 25lbs since the start of this year and want to continue improving my health, but I do like being a bit curvy. I've got long black hair, with a hime hairstyle. I fluctuate between slightly pale and very tan, since I'm half white, half Native American. I have a few tattoos, and a few piercings, but had to remove a lot of my facial ones due to one of my medical conditions.
Speaking of medical conditions; I am disabled, and am currently on SSDI. I have a few conditions that I won't completely list here, but the main factor is a type of seizure disorder and neurological disease that can give me flare-ups. These flares impair my ability to walk, speak, or use my arms/hands at times. While I'd be happy to disclose more in private, I feel it's necessary to be at least a little upfront beforehand. Not everyone wants to date someone who is disabled, and that's okay! I do have limitations in what I can do/where I can go during a flare up, and navigating a relationship with someone who is disabled can be different if you've never experienced it before, so no hard feelings. However, I don't let this stop me from still trying to enjoy myself and have a good time. I still try to stay active, go to the pool, and practice my hobbies!
What I'm looking for? Preferably someone local or close, but online works as well. A person who loves laughing at shit posts, dumb memes, playing videos games, D&D 5e, and is at a point in their life where they are comfortable emotionally. You'd be able to clearly communicate with me, your needs, boundaries, wants, desires, and of course your interests! For age, preferably between 25-40, but I don't have a big preference on appearance. I would love to meet someone taller than myself considering I've been taller than most of my past and current partners, but it's not super important haha. Gender does not matter to me, so shoot your shot!
All in all, I'd like someone I can laugh like an idiot with, game with, eat good food with, and maybe have deep discussions with while sitting around a bonfire, sipping on some drinks.
Thank you for coming to my hour long ted talk, and if you're interested, feel free to shoot me a DM!

Opinion polls indicate Trump is likely to win the US presidential election. Trump will either formally withdraw the US from NATO (as his former advisers such as John Bolton insist he wishes to do) or will do so via the back door by saying he won't authorize US defence of some/all NATO countries (as Trump has said himself).
US withdrawal from NATO means the US will violate the implicit deal that's been in place for the last 75 years: no need for your own nukes as the US nuclear umbrella will protect all NATO allies.
Faced with a nuclear-armed Russia, European states will have no choice but to create their own nuclear deterrent. Only nuclear weapons guarantee against invasion.
Non-NATO American allies like Japan and South Korea will need to go nuclear as well. If the US can turn its back on Europe there's no reason to believe it won't also betray other allies. Simply put, confidence in the word of the United States will be broken.
I really don't like the idea of a world where nuclear proliferation expands and there are more hands on the nuclear button but I don't see an alternative to this. If I'm missing something here, please feel free to point it out.
Things that would CMV:

• Convince me Trump won't get elected
  
• Convince me Trump won't abandon the US's treaty committments to its allies
  
• Convince me that even if the US betrays its allies, developing nuclear weapons of their own would be a worse choice for these countries than standing alone with only conventional forces against a nuclear-armed aggressor.
  

/opt/miyoo/arm-buildroot-linux-musleabi_sdk-buildroot/bin/arm-buildroot-linux-musleabi-cc -I. -O3 -DNDEBUG -std=c11 -fPIC -D_XOPEN_SOURCE=600 -D_GNU_SOURCE -pthread -c ggml.c -o ggml.o /opt/miyoo/arm-buildroot-linux-musleabi_sdk-buildroot/bin/arm-buildroot-linux-musleabi-cc -I. -O3 -DNDEBUG -std=c11 -fPIC -D_XOPEN_SOURCE=600 -D_GNU_SOURCE -pthread -c ggml-alloc.c -o ggml-alloc.o /opt/miyoo/arm-buildroot-linux-musleabi_sdk-buildroot/bin/arm-buildroot-linux-musleabi-cc -I. -O3 -DNDEBUG -std=c11 -fPIC -D_XOPEN_SOURCE=600 -D_GNU_SOURCE -pthread -c ggml-backend.c -o ggml-backend.o /opt/miyoo/arm-buildroot-linux-musleabi_sdk-buildroot/bin/arm-buildroot-linux-musleabi-cc -I. -O3 -DNDEBUG -std=c11 -fPIC -D_XOPEN_SOURCE=600 -D_GNU_SOURCE -pthread -c ggml-quants.c -o ggml-quants.o /opt/miyoo/arm-buildroot-linux-musleabi_sdk-buildroot/bin/arm-buildroot-linux-musleabi-c++ -I. -O3 -DNDEBUG -std=c++11 -fPIC -D_XOPEN_SOURCE=600 -D_GNU_SOURCE -pthread -c whisper.cpp -o whisper.o /opt/miyoo/arm-buildroot-linux-musleabi_sdk-buildroot/bin/arm-buildroot-linux-musleabi-c++ -I. -I./examples -O3 -DNDEBUG -std=c++11 -fPIC -D_XOPEN_SOURCE=600 -D_GNU_SOURCE -pthread examples/main/main.cpp examples/common.cpp examples/common-ggml.cpp examples/grammar-parser.cpp ggml.o ggml-alloc.o ggml-backend.o ggml-quants.o whisper.o -o main 

whisper_init_from_file_with_params_no_state: loading model from './models/ggml-tiny-q5_1.bin' whisper_init_with_params_no_state: use gpu = 1 whisper_init_with_params_no_state: flash attn = 0 whisper_init_with_params_no_state: gpu_device = 0 whisper_init_with_params_no_state: dtw = 0 whisper_model_load: loading model whisper_model_load: n_vocab = 51865 whisper_model_load: n_audio_ctx = 1500 whisper_model_load: n_audio_state = 384 whisper_model_load: n_audio_head = 6 whisper_model_load: n_audio_layer = 4 whisper_model_load: n_text_ctx = 448 whisper_model_load: n_text_state = 384 whisper_model_load: n_text_head = 6 whisper_model_load: n_text_layer = 4 whisper_model_load: n_mels = 80 whisper_model_load: ftype = 9 whisper_model_load: qntvr = 1 whisper_model_load: type = 1 (tiny) whisper_model_load: adding 1608 extra tokens whisper_model_load: n_langs = 99 whisper_model_load: CPU total size = 31.57 MB whisper_model_load: model size = 31.57 MB whisper_init_state: kv self size = 9.44 MB whisper_init_state: kv cross size = 9.44 MB whisper_init_state: kv pad size = 2.36 MB whisper_init_state: compute buffer (conv) = 12.91 MB whisper_init_state: compute buffer (encode) = 85.25 MB whisper_init_state: compute buffer (cross) = 3.60 MB whisper_init_state: compute buffer (decode) = 95.61 MB system_info: n_threads = 1 / 1 AVX = 0 AVX2 = 0 AVX512 = 0 FMA = 0 NEON = 0 ARM_FMA = 0 METAL = 0 F16C = 0 FP16_VA = 0 WASM_SIMD = 0 BLAS = 0 SSE3 = 0 SSSE3 = 0 VSX = 0 CUDA = 0 COREML = 0 OPENVINO = 0 main: processing './samples/jfk.wav' (176000 samples, 11.0 sec), 1 threads, 1 processors, 5 beams + best of 5, lang = en, task = transcribe, timestamps = 1 ... 

whisper_init_from_file_with_params_no_state: loading model from './models/ggml-tiny-q5_1.bin' whisper_init_with_params_no_state: use gpu = 1 whisper_init_with_params_no_state: flash attn = 0 whisper_init_with_params_no_state: gpu_device = 0 whisper_init_with_params_no_state: dtw = 0 whisper_model_load: loading model whisper_model_load: n_vocab = 51865 whisper_model_load: n_audio_ctx = 1500 whisper_model_load: n_audio_state = 384 whisper_model_load: n_audio_head = 6 whisper_model_load: n_audio_layer = 4 whisper_model_load: n_text_ctx = 448 whisper_model_load: n_text_state = 384 whisper_model_load: n_text_head = 6 whisper_model_load: n_text_layer = 4 whisper_model_load: n_mels = 80 whisper_model_load: ftype = 9 whisper_model_load: qntvr = 1 whisper_model_load: type = 1 (tiny) whisper_model_load: adding 1608 extra tokens whisper_model_load: n_langs = 99 whisper_model_load: CPU total size = 31.57 MB whisper_model_load: model size = 31.57 MB whisper_init_state: kv self size = 9.44 MB whisper_init_state: kv cross size = 9.44 MB whisper_init_state: kv pad size = 2.36 MB whisper_init_state: compute buffer (conv) = 12.91 MB whisper_init_state: compute buffer (encode) = 85.25 MB whisper_init_state: compute buffer (cross) = 3.60 MB whisper_init_state: compute buffer (decode) = 95.61 MB system_info: n_threads = 1 / 1 AVX = 0 AVX2 = 0 AVX512 = 0 FMA = 0 NEON = 0 ARM_FMA = 0 METAL = 0 F16C = 0 FP16_VA = 0 WASM_SIMD = 0 BLAS = 0 SSE3 = 0 SSSE3 = 0 VSX = 0 CUDA = 0 COREML = 0 OPENVINO = 0 main: processing './samples/jfk.wav' (176000 samples, 11.0 sec), 1 threads, 1 processors, 5 beams + best of 5, lang = en, task = transcribe, timestamps = 1 ... [00:00:00.000 00:00:10.560] And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. whisper_print_timings: load time = 9974.02 ms whisper_print_timings: fallbacks = 0 p / 0 h whisper_print_timings: mel time = 8063.51 ms whisper_print_timings: sample time = 110588 ms / 131 runs ( 844.19 ms per run) whisper_print_timings: encode time = 3929958.25 ms / 1 runs ( 3929958.25 ms per run) whisper_print_timings: decode time = 0.00 ms / 1 runs ( 0.00 ms per run) whisper_print_timings: batchd time = 757568.81 ms / 129 runs ( 5872.63 ms per run) whisper_print_timings: prompt time = 0.00 ms / 1 runs ( 0.00 ms per run) whisper_print_timings: total time = 4822358.00 ms real1h 20m 24s user1h 7m 17s sys1m 23.58s 

whisper_init_from_file_with_params_no_state: loading model from './models/ggml-tiny-q5_1.bin' whisper_init_with_params_no_state: use gpu = 1 whisper_init_with_params_no_state: flash attn = 0 whisper_init_with_params_no_state: gpu_device = 0 whisper_init_with_params_no_state: dtw = 0 whisper_model_load: loading model whisper_model_load: n_vocab = 51865 whisper_model_load: n_audio_ctx = 1500 whisper_model_load: n_audio_state = 384 whisper_model_load: n_audio_head = 6 whisper_model_load: n_audio_layer = 4 whisper_model_load: n_text_ctx = 448 whisper_model_load: n_text_state = 384 whisper_model_load: n_text_head = 6 whisper_model_load: n_text_layer = 4 whisper_model_load: n_mels = 80 whisper_model_load: ftype = 9 whisper_model_load: qntvr = 1 whisper_model_load: type = 1 (tiny) whisper_model_load: adding 1608 extra tokens whisper_model_load: n_langs = 99 whisper_model_load: CPU total size = 31.57 MB whisper_model_load: model size = 31.57 MB whisper_init_state: kv self size = 9.44 MB whisper_init_state: kv cross size = 9.44 MB whisper_init_state: kv pad size = 2.36 MB whisper_init_state: compute buffer (conv) = 12.91 MB whisper_init_state: compute buffer (encode) = 85.25 MB whisper_init_state: compute buffer (cross) = 3.60 MB whisper_init_state: compute buffer (decode) = 95.61 MB system_info: n_threads = 1 / 1 AVX = 0 AVX2 = 0 AVX512 = 0 FMA = 0 NEON = 0 ARM_FMA = 0 METAL = 0 F16C = 0 FP16_VA = 0 WASM_SIMD = 0 BLAS = 0 SSE3 = 0 SSSE3 = 0 VSX = 0 CUDA = 0 COREML = 0 OPENVINO = 0 main: processing './samples/speech-2.wav' (85767 samples, 5.4 sec), 1 threads, 1 processors, 5 beams + best of 5, lang = en, task = transcribe, timestamps = 1 ... [00:00:00.000 00:00:05.000] I have a very long time to have a show. I have a very long time to have a show. whisper_print_timings: load time = 14591.09 ms whisper_print_timings: fallbacks = 1 p / 0 h whisper_print_timings: mel time = 3914.93 ms whisper_print_timings: sample time = 129347.44 ms / 146 runs ( 885.94 ms per run) whisper_print_timings: encode time = 3841956.50 ms / 1 runs (3841956.50 ms per run) whisper_print_timings: decode time = 132559.47 ms / 8 runs (16569.93 ms per run) whisper_print_timings: batchd time = 832581.94 ms / 134 runs ( 6213.30 ms per run) whisper_print_timings: prompt time = 0.00 ms / 1 runs ( 0.00 ms per run) whisper_print_timings: total time = 4962558.50 ms 

[00:00:00.000 00:00:04.200] "The reality of the sense of justice in the conduct of the time." [00:00:04.200 00:00:08.480] "It allows me to just tell you that this time, [00:00:08.480 00:00:10.720] "I'm not the prime minister, [00:00:10.720 00:00:13.240] "and you are not the president of the Republic, [00:00:13.240 00:00:15.960] "and you are the second candidate." [00:00:15.960 00:00:17.640] "There is equality." [00:00:17.640 00:00:21.480] "And who is the chief of the defense? [00:00:21.480 00:00:23.240] "That's what matters." [00:00:23.240 00:00:25.360] "It allows me to, so, you have to admit it." [00:00:25.360 00:00:28.840] "But you have to do the same, but it's the prime minister." [00:00:28.840 00:00:30.840] [INAUDIBLE] [00:00:30.840 00:00:32.840] Thank you for your attention. 

[00:00:00.000 00:00:04.000] Célité et du sens de la justice dans la conduite de l'État. [00:00:04.000 00:00:08.500] Permettez-moi juste de vous dire que ce soir, [00:00:08.500 00:00:13.300] je ne suis pas le premier ministre et vous n'êtes pas le président de la République. [00:00:13.300 00:00:21.500] Nous sommes deux candidats à égalité et qui se soumettre au jugement des Français, [00:00:21.500 00:00:25.300] ça le qui compte, on me permettrait donc de vous appeler ma chémiter. [00:00:25.300 00:00:29.300] Mais vous avez tout à fait raison, mais c'est le premier ministre. [00:00:29.300 00:00:32.460] Monsieur, Monsieur, si vous voulez bien avant de... 

[00:00:00.000 00:00:03.000] et du sens de la justice dans la conduite de l'État. [00:00:03.000 00:00:07.000] Permettez-moi juste de vous dire que ce soir, [00:00:07.000 00:00:12.800] je ne suis pas le premier ministre et vous n'êtes pas le président de la République. [00:00:12.800 00:00:17.000] Nous sommes deux candidats à égalité [00:00:17.000 00:00:20.800] et qui se soumettent au jugement des Français, [00:00:20.800 00:00:25.200] ceux qui comptent, vous me permettrez donc de vous appeler Monsieur Mitterrand. [00:00:25.200 00:00:27.800] Mais vous avez tout à fait raison, monsieur le Premier ministre. [00:00:28.800 00:00:31.800] Monsieur, si vous voulez bien, avant de... [00:00:31.800 00:00:32.800] avant de le faire. 

[00:00:00.000 00:00:03.000] et du sens de la justice dans la conduite de l'État. [00:00:03.000 00:00:07.000] Permettez-moi juste de vous dire que, ce soir, [00:00:07.000 00:00:10.000] je ne suis pas le Premier ministre [00:00:10.000 00:00:12.000] et vous n'êtes pas le Président de la République. [00:00:12.000 00:00:15.000] Nous sommes deux candidats [00:00:15.000 00:00:17.000] à égalité [00:00:17.000 00:00:19.000] et qui se soumettent au jugement [00:00:19.000 00:00:21.000] des Français. [00:00:21.000 00:00:23.000] Seul qui compte. [00:00:23.000 00:00:25.000] Vous me permettrez donc de vous appeler Monsieur Mitterrand. [00:00:25.000 00:00:28.000] Mais vous avez tout à fait raison, Monsieur le Premier ministre. [00:00:28.000 00:00:32.760] Monsieur, si vous le voulez bien, avant de... 

Good news was joe and Kasumi where really fast and had great cardio.
Bad news is over a hill came voices and shouting. There was a whole other company sized element out of sight and coming for that ass.
They were rolling down hill and trying to find a good place to break contact.
Joe almost tripped but grabbed a hanging branch. Feet coming out form under him.
He looks up and see’s some of the Bundeswehr hope over a low rock buried into the dirt. High up and lay an MG42 over a tree. Their boss shouting “ LOS! LOS! LOS!” as the men spread out and moved downhill to find good shooting spots.
“cover!” he shouted. Kasumi didn’t even need to look. She slid down some leaves and under a rock cropping. Rounds from the riflemen bouncing around her. Joe jumped behind a brush pile of thick trees and earth.
The old buzzsaw ripped rounds, raking across their cover. Cutting tree branches and shaking leaves.
One guy went wide and ended up on a similar level as Kasumi. She turned and shot him from behind cover.
Joe waited for the MG to change positions.
‘Holy shit… THAT’S! what the boys in Europe were dealing with? Fuck me that’s frightening.’
He’d been shot by the MG42 before. But could never get over how shitty it felt”
He peaked around a standing tree, flipped his carbine to full auto and raked across that position. Normally he wouldn’t do this but just once he figured he could somewhat suppress and use his rifle like an MG. if only he had a big quad mag….. wait? He did. In his coat!... that he wasn’t wearing… fuck.
Kasumi returned fire with a burst of her own.
Joe rolled back and went to reload. Tossing his empty mag out. But his barrel happened to be a bit high. So a stray round from the Germans ripped through the air and struck his suppressor. Almost lurching the gun from his hand. Only being saved by his sling.
His eyes went wide.
‘This fucking sucks!’ he inspected his gun. Sure enough, suppressor was done for. Thank goodness he still had his gloves. It took him a moment but he decoupled and pulled the piping hot piece of metal off and tossed it. A full mag on full auto alone was enough to make the thing too hot to touch.
But he was back in the fight. “moving!” Kasumi shouted as she peeled back to more cover.
“set!”
Before he could move, he saw the MG gunner raise his head to get a look at them. Big mistake.
Back to semi auto. Placing the chevron of his sight high on the chest the recon man squeezed a round of grazing the top of the man’s armor. spalling off the mans plate and sending chunks of body armor and lead fragments into his throat. He fell back into the leaves. Clutched at his throat while his assistant gunner went to render aid.
They might get the gun back up but it gave the Allans enough time to get out of there.
“Moving!” he shouted and went to run. Choosing a path with the most amount of tree cover and even a low dry creek runoff that probably is where rain from the top of the mountain flows down.
Funny, these mountains kinda reminded him of west Virginia where he lived back in the 30s.
they slipped down and bounded from one piece of cover to another. Dropping a few Germans here and there, looking for a way out of the holler and even the playing field. Or break contact and hide for a bit.
But they where definitely out numbered. But just the two of them but their convoy as a whole.
They didn’t know what the hell was going on. But most likely someone figured out gold would be here and was looking for a payday for him and… maybe 60 of his friends?
The Allans got lower and lower. Funneling close together. They had tried to stay apart so one grenade or burst from the machine guns wouldn’t kill or wound both of them.
But they came to a unfortunate discovery.
They where in a bowl. No way out into a different Haller. They would need to climb a near open slope while being fired on from an opposite ridge.
Joes boots sunk into the mud and leaves as he twisted from looking at the slope and looking for a way to get him and his wife out of there to turning back at the hostiles and laying hate. But he was about half his ammo down. And Kasumi was about the same. She had her type 89 laid up on a rock and shooting from an in placed position.
He looked up and saw they had picked the MG from the dead gunner and was running down the hill, leaning against a tree. When a large bullet slammed into the mans chest and broke through the place carrier.
A bit away some men had massed and got caught up in an explosion.
They looked up and saw David mounting his 60 on a height position and raked the other side with 45-70… the costume-built machine gun barked loud and frightening. Tore chunks out of men’s shoulders, legs. Chests. Anything those bullets hit got turned into mush.
One mans armor stopped the round but it broke his ribs and ruptured his lungs from the trauma.
Their backup had arrived.
The gallowglass used a tried-and-true tactic of fighting hard and fast and making themselves seem bigger then they actually where. They needed to scare the krauts and push them back to rescue their scouts.
Dante had his .275 Rigby rifle and was taking aimed shots. Anyone who looked important. People with grenade launchers. Scoped. Even an officer looking gentleman.
Anderson sent a round of 45-70 from his lever-action through a retreating german. His green malted flektarn jacket stained red with his blood. Which in the chaos of it all gave joe an important piece of info… these were humans. Not some monster in disguise.
They started to fall back and the Allans ducked into some dense brush and slipped up the hill to make it to their unit.
Everyone was hitting them with what they had as hard as they could.
“we got them!” dante shouted as both killer huffed and slid to his feet. even with all their cardio they had be in vehicles for the last few days and mountains where no joke.
Everyone started to peal back. They still had about half a mile they needed to flee with.
And they really didn’t want to take the direct route and lead these bastards back to the trucks. Except for joe, who had an idea.
“they left the ambush. We need to go now! Their on foot, if we can rally up we can push through”
Dante was technically team leading this little mission but the whole wolfpack had a very non-liner command structure. For those of you who don’t speak bullshit that means if you have an idea, say it. If everyone agrees your not loosing your mind they listen.
‘team lead’ just means you fill out forms, talk to local political figures and deal with higher up when you screw up… higher up these days being dantes little sister so he got comedically shoved into that billet.
“whats your plan?” he shouted as he ran. His hunting boots trotting along side the recon marine and huffing with a fresher brisk pace. Freaking young’ns.
“lin! I need your grenade launcher on the front truck! We hit those claymores from far enough away and break the trees up. smashing them. We drive right through!”
The hong kong cop nodded.
“this shit is why we had mark-19s on our lead trucks in the corps”
David had been the last guy up. dumping the last of his can of ammo and turning and sprinting. He’d reload later. Slinging his MG and pulling his sig. he was deceptively quick. The big eskimo could run like a bear.
“are we bringing back the grenade launcher vs minigun debate?”
The Irishman shook his head. Anyone wanna explain to him why he thought it would be a good idea to befriend the SEAL?
In breaking contact they didn’t make a B line, but dog legged in a more Z pattern. Finaly getting back to the trucks everyone sprinted and shouted for people to get into place. The friendly germans looked shocked and panicked to do what the mercs where yelling. They thought something big was coming. Several people dove into open doors and went to the far side of the truck to make room for whoever was coming in after them.
The MRAP didn’t have a mounted gun. Much to their chagrin now. They went on the mission with the vehicles they had, not the ones they wanted. And the reason this one was lead was because if they hit an IED they wanted this to tank it.
Joe unslung his M4 “dave!” he shouted. The big guy nodded and they tossed their weapons to each other mid run. Dave also tossed a belt of about 100 rounds. Getting a running start joe leapt. Kicked off the tire and ended up on the hood of the armored vehicle. Turning back he reached a hand out. Lin was shorter but just as athletic. Bounding up she took his hand and he pulled her up.
“ok. Gonna fill me in?”
“get a grenade ready. We hit the barricade and keep driving” he hit the window alerting the driver. “get a move on!”
Kasumi took joes place in the chase vehicle. Dave had reached in the back and pulled out a 240 bravo. Not even able to hook it in the turret mount he just was gonna have to shoulder this.
It would be a miracle if no one got hurt.
They steamed full ahead. Joe placed himself to lins right. Towards where the hill was. Which was where the krauts would be coming from. A round struck the passenger side window of the MRAP making the occupant jump in their seat. Joe turned and gave a short burst as he saw maybe a dozen fighter. Followed by dave and anyone else. Some people staged automatic sub guns or PDWs by their seats and just turned in a fairly American style drive by.
They rounded a corner and found themselves on a straight away.
“barricade!” lins voice was barely hurt over the wiz of the germans 5.56.
She blooped her destructive egg about 80 yards from the kill zone.
Joe pulled the leash from his riggers belt. made so you wouldn’t fall out of helicopters. Buckling it to a D-ring on the hood. Holding lin close because she didn’t have one on. The chinses woman growned but held on because she knew this was about to get bumpy.
The skilled driver floored it after the demo went off. Sending dirt and sticks high in the air and weakening the trees. Smashing into it they turned back to see the shock and confusion of men not in their fighting positions.
The convoy chugged past.
Some even saw in the middle of all these trucks a minotaur and Anderson giving them the middle finger. Before raising their guns and shooting again.
The radio call came to slow down fire. And a few moments later to cease.
Lins head was in joes chest as she felt it rise large and fall as he let out a breath.
Both mercs looked at each other.
“damn fine shot” he held up a fist.
He pumped it.
“I want to get off mister hounds wild wide now! Never did like theme parks!”
He nodded. No joke. They ended up slowing a moment to crawl through the window.
The occupants handed them water bottles. Both now realizing how thirsty they where.
2 days later they found themselves at a castle.
“now this is what im talking about!” Anderson jumped with joy. Taking pictures with his phone.
One of the germans called it eltz castle. Apparently in one reality its been held by the same family sense like the 1100s. they where their to pick up more gold before turning around and heading for Venice. Last minute pick up.
“ok… I was wrong. I thought castles like this wouldn’t still be around” joe wondered dumbly. He has been known to be wrong every once and awhile.
“here. Anderson. Lemme get some pictures for you… say ‘treasure hunt’
The detective gave a thumbs up. his cowboy hat and lever action striking a pose.
The Polaroid came out and joe handed both to him. He then walked around and got more reference photos.
Kasumi walked over. “when did we get like that?” she wondered.
Joe and his wife had a ….different kind of marriage. More to tax dodge and share rent then anything… but about 20 years in they found they really did love each other… that was a few hundred years ago now.
“later then we should have” he mumbled and tossed a arm over her shoulder.
“best job I ever had” she quipped.
“best life I coulda asked for”

A few years ago, I decided I needed a major life change. Everything seemed to be going downhill- my finances, my mental health, my life. I would go weeks without sleeping sometimes as the heavy traffic passed through the city streets down below. Every time I went outside, I saw more homeless people, more needles and crack pipes littering the ground, more muggings and assaults and overdoses and deaths. The city had become a wasteland, and I knew it was time to leave.
I had no girlfriend, no wife, no kids. My parents had both died a few years prior and I barely talked to my siblings anymore. I had nothing to tie me down to this place where I felt like I was dying inside a little more each day.
That was when I sold nearly everything I owned, got in my car and drove up to Alaska to try starting anew. I bought a small cabin and a plot of land in the middle of its majestic mountains and dark, enchanting forests. In the winter, the Northern Lights would shine through like the eyes of God, sending out divine trails of light that danced through the sky in cosmic waves.
And while the move did help give me some peace of mind, in the end, the source of all my problems had ultimately followed me thousands of miles into this endless wilderness. It would take me a long time to realize the cause of all this misery was myself.
Because, as a wise man once said, “Wherever I go, there I am.”
***
I lived in that cabin for three months without any major issues other than the constant threat of bears, moose and wolves. I had a rifle and a shotgun for hunting, a small garden in the backyard and a solar panel to generate electricity.
“This is the life,” I said, relaxing on a hammock I had strung across the corner of the cabin while staring at the endless beauty directly outside the window. White-capped mountains loomed like giants in front of thick clusters of evergreens. A virgin covering of fluffy snow made the entire world glisten and sparkle. There wasn’t a house or road in sight.
“No work, no stress, no pollution, no cars honking all the time…” I closed my eyes, breathing in the clean air. I ended up falling asleep for a couple hours, waking up just as the Sun had started setting. Bright orange streaks mixed with the bloody smears of the fading light as it disappeared behind the mountains.
I groggily arose, stumbling over to make a cup of instant coffee. As I sipped it, I wandered around the room, looking for something to pass the time. There were still quite a few random objects left behind by the last owner that I hadn’t gotten rid of yet. I had moved in to find a stocked bookshelf filled with classics by Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Bored, I started rifling through the collection, looking for something good to pass the time. As I shuffled past “A Maze of Death” and “Ubik”, something caught my eye.
A black, leather-bound book with no title or author name stood there, its cover faded with time and wear. Curious, I pulled it out and opened it. I saw the cursive scrawled across the pages in a neat, copperplate script and realized it was a diary left behind by the previous owner. The first entry was dated “January 9th, 2015.” This is what it said.
***
“I don’t know if I’m going crazy or not. I went into town to talk to my therapist yesterday and she said I should try writing everything down. She talks to me like it’s all in my head. But I know it’s not.
“When I first moved into the cabin, it seemed like Paradise. I never thought in a million years that something would be slinking around at night. I never thought it would be hiding under my bed, peeking in windows and following me like a shadow.
“Right now, I’m snowed in with a cup of coffee in one hand and my pistol in the other. I can’t sleep anymore. I keep hearing something shuffling around under the bed. Sometimes, I think I even hear ragged breathing, as if a corpse with dirt in its lungs had come back to life.
“I’ve caught glimpses of that thing in the darkness. Whatever it is, its skin is loose, almost falling off the bone. It almost looks like a naked, emaciated man. Its eyes are rotted and dark, its back hunched, its spine twisted and jutting out like tumors. It moves in this slow, jerky way, but I can never seem to catch it. Its body seems broken and out of alignment. Its legs bend the wrong way sometimes.
“By the time I turn on the lights or try to take a video of it, it’s always disappeared. But its fetid odor remains. It lingers in the cabin like a sweet-smelling, spreading infection.
“I don’t know what it wants from me. I want to leave, but with the storm raging outside, I’m stuck here, unable to get all the way back to town. The snow surrounds the cabin in mounds five feet high. I feel like a prisoner caged with a rabid beast, not knowing when it will strike.
“My wife claims she hasn’t seen or heard anything, but she keeps vanishing on me. Last night, she disappeared in the middle of a snowstorm. Where did she go? I asked her in the morning, but she said she was here the whole time. She didn’t remember anything. There’s no way she went into town. There wasn’t time and the trails were impassable that far down.
“Something’s going on here, but I don’t know what it is. I’m truly scared for our lives.”
I slammed the diary shut, not wanting to read anymore. I didn’t want to become infected by some kind of contagious cabin fever. If the last owner had gone insane in the mountains and started hallucinating naked corpses crawling around, I really didn’t want to know.
I shoved the diary back in the bookshelf, going for “A Maze of Death” instead. I tried to forget what I had read in the diary as I flew through the novella. All night, I tried to get the image of the naked, twisting man with rotted eyes out of my head, but I couldn’t.
I eventually fell asleep right before dawn. But, as my eyes were closing, I thought I saw a silhouette in the window- a starved man with excited, black eyes that seemed to be rotting out of his skull. I thought I saw him put his inhumanly long fingers against the glass as he leaned forward. I blinked, sitting up and glancing out into the white, snow-covered wonderland.
There was nothing there.
***
Another hunter occasionally followed the deer trails near my cabin. A frozen lake stood a quarter-mile away, the surface white and covered in thick drifts of snow. I bundled up, deciding to go outside for a hike in the frigid dawn. I strapped on my snowshoes and grabbed my shotgun, as I always did when I went outside. I never knew when a polar bear might be waiting around the next tree, after all.
I opened the door, seeing footprints pressed into the snow all around my house. At first, I thought it was that silhouette I had seen, the nightmarish thing from the diary. But the footprints didn’t go over to my window. They followed the trail twenty feet away, veering off towards the frozen lake at the bottom of the hill. I glanced down in that direction, seeing a black figure plodding slowly forward.
“Steve!” I cried, recognizing my only neighbor in a four-mile radius. He had a cabin about a mile away on his own little plot of land. He jumped, clearly startled by the sudden noise. His black snow pants and heavy fur coat swished together as he spun, raising his rifle high. When he saw me, he immediately lowered it and put a gloved hand up in a friendly greeting.
“Hey Josh! Surprised to see you up this early,” he yelled over the muted wintry landscape. Sounds always seemed different after it snowed, as if all the noise in the world had become faded and dead.
“Yeah, I’ve been having a little trouble sleeping,” I said, slinging my shotgun around my shoulder. “What are you doing anyway?”
“Just a little hunting, you know,” he said, giving me a sly wink. “Animals are always most active around dusk and dawn, it seems. That’s when I always have the best luck, anyway.” He stepped close to me, staring me in the eyes. “You do look like shit. Those bags under your eyes are big enough to carry groceries in.”
“Yeah, trust me, I know… Hey, this might sound a little weird, but did you know the previous owner of this cabin?” I asked. Steve’s wrinkled, old face fell into a scowl. His expression immediately became guarded and distant.
“Sure, sure, we met,” he exclaimed bluntly. He seemed to be searching my face for something, but I didn’t know what. His reaction left me feeling off-balance and nervous.
“Is he still around?” I said. Steve’s scowl deepened.
“Buddy, I don’t know what this is about, but he’s dead. He’s been dead. He died in that cabin, actually.” He pointed a finger at my home accusingly. With those words, my heart seemed to drop into my stomach. Waves of dread flowed through my body like water.
“How… how did he die? Like a heart attack or something?” I asked. Steve’s gaze turned downwards. He didn’t meet my eyes.
“Do you know that Alaska has the highest missing persons rate in the entire United States? It’s not even close. In fact, for the population size, we have far more people who go missing and never get found than anywhere else. They even have a name for it: the Alaska Triangle,” Steve said. “And we’re square in the middle of it.” I stared blankly at him, wondering where he was going with this. It seemed like a way to avoid answering my question.
“No, I didn’t know that…” I responded. Steve nodded, raising his head again. He heaved a deep sigh.
“Look, the thing with the last owner and his wife… it’s somewhat disturbing. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you, but it’s certainly not going to help your peace of mind. And it definitely isn’t going to help you get some sleep.”
“I want to know,” I insisted instantly. The wind started to whip past us. Flakes of ice and snow flew sideways in the sudden currents.
“Let’s go back to your cabin then,” Steve said, pulling his heavy fur-lined hood off and shaking out his long, black hair behind him. “I could use a bit of whiskey to warm up.”
***
We sat down with a bottle of Johnny Walker and two shot glasses. I wasn’t much of a drinker, but Steve certainly was. He chugged three shots in the span of a minute. I sipped at mine, drinking half and putting it back down on the coffee table with a thunk. Steve grunted, hissing through his open mouth for a moment.
“Ugh, that’s the good stuff,” he said, slamming his chest as the burning liquor worked its way down. Steve looked up at me with a new sparkle in his eyes. “Huh, so you want to know about what happened to Will Lenning. Well, I’ll tell you that no one really knows the whole story. I used to see him occasionally, come down and have a drink and talk. We all know each other around here, obviously.” I nodded, motioning him on. “He seemed like a normal, upstanding guy. He kinda reminded me of you, actually. A young guy trying to escape the hustle and bustle of the city life, the cancer of the American Dream.
“Well, he was here for maybe a couple months, I don’t know. Everything seemed fine. We used to go skeet shooting occasionally, have a beer, you know. We’d get together with a couple other hunters who live closer to town and sometimes play some poker. I never saw anything odd about Will. I never could have predicted what happened to him.” He heaved a long sigh at this, looking out the window at the sharp mountains with an expression of nostalgia.
“Well, what happened to him?” I asked, encouraging him to go on.
“He started talking about seeing someone peering in through his window at night. He talked about hearing sounds from under his bed while he was laying there in the dark- sounds like diseased breathing and shuffling. He started keeping all the lights on in his cabin twenty-four hours a day.” Steve leaned close to me. A glimmer of fear rippled across his pale, wrinkled face. “He started to lose his mind. Started digging holes all over the place, looking for something. Even in the middle of snowstorms, I would occasionally see him outside, digging. It seemed like he never slept anymore. It was classic cabin fever if I ever saw it.
“It was only a few weeks later that I came over here, concerned. I hadn’t heard from him in a few days, which was fairly unusual. I found the door hanging wide open. Propped up in a chair in the exact spot where you now sit, Will lay with a blast hole showing clear through his skull, a shotgun laying at his feet.
“And next to him, I found a blood-stained diary opened to the middle page. The last entry was stained with blood spatter, but still visible. I remember leaning down and reading it. It was only a few sentences long.” I glanced over at the bookshelf with the same diary, saying nothing.
“It said something like, ‘I see now what’s going on. The Twisted Man is leading me to the truth. Today, I will finally find it.’”
“And that was his suicide note?” I asked, my heart hammering in my chest. He nodded.
“Yeah. I went into town and got some rangers to come check it out. Eventually, they got cops and CSI there. They took all the stuff as evidence, including the diary,” he said. “Good riddance, I say. Reading something like that is never beneficial. Sometimes delusions spread like a virus, you know what I mean?” I did, but I said nothing. I glanced back at the diary, its black leather cover gleaming like a crouching snake.
And I wondered- if the police took the diary as evidence, how did it get back here?
***
“You said he had a wife living here with him, too?” I asked.
“Yeah… she went missing around the same time,” he said. “Pretty bizarre. The cops thought maybe she just moved away, but…” He shook his head grimly. “As far as I know, she was never seen again. It was like she had evaporated into thin air.”
After Steve left, I walked stiffly over to the bookshelf, taking down the diary. I flipped open through the pages. In the middle, I found the last entry. Spatters of old, darkened blood were scattered over the page like raindrops. I found the suicide note and read the date.
“January 27th, 2015,” it read. Will Lenning had not lived long after he started seeing the Twisted Man. I wondered if my fate would be the same.
The Sun had started to set outside as I sat with the diary at the small circular kitchen table, eating some stewed venison and rice as I read through the entries. At the end, Will Lenning said the Twisted Man had been trying to guide him somewhere, that, in fact, the Twisted Man had been trying to protect him from some great evil, rather than being the source of it.
I scoffed, feeling a flash of anger at his stupidity. His naivety obviously led to his death. But then a flash of insight struck me like lightning.
What if I was committing the same kind of stupidity? Perhaps I should just grab my gun and valuables and leave. I could take off on the snowmobile and be in town within a couple hours.
But, in my heart, I knew I would not. Something about the mystery of all this beckoned me to stay. Like a siren leading sailors to destruction, my curiosity called out to me, and I knew I would not be leaving that night. I needed answers.
And, sadly, I would find them.
***
I had fallen asleep with an empty bottle of beer in my hand. I sat in front of the TV, which only got satellite reception. There were, of course, no cable or phone lines threading their way through the forest. All of my power came from stored solar energy. Since I rarely watched TV and really only used it to cook or heat up water for bathing, the energy produced was sufficient even in winter. Tonight, though, I needed its sound, its mindless flashing of light and colors and canned laughter. It seemed to drive away the creeping, suffocating presence like a candle.
I woke suddenly. The TV flashed with static. The repetitive hissing of the white noise spit from the speakers like thousands of snakes. I glanced up at the clock. 3:33 AM. I looked around the dark cabin, confused for a long moment. I didn’t understand what had woken me so abruptly. The satellite had never gone out before, either, even with the howling winds and freezing hail of the Alaskan winter.
The TV started flickering as if the static were rising upwards. Black lines traced their way horizontally across the screen. The hissing deepened into a gurgle, and for a second, I thought I heard faint words behind the white noise. I thought I heard breathing, slow and diseased, like the death gasp of a drowning man.
A black line rose across the TV and an image came into view. The cabin was suddenly plunged into silence, except for the shrieking, wintry wind outside. I leaned close to the screen, confused at what I was looking at. It looked like a live camera feed of a room. As I took in the details, I realized it was my cabin. I saw myself in the chair, leaning close to the screen. I raised my hand, and the miniature version of me on the screen did likewise. Ice water seemed to drip down my spine as waves of dread coursed through my body.
“What the fuck is this?” I whispered, looking back to where the camera should be. It was just a coarse wooden ceiling in that corner. I turned back to the screen and nearly screamed.
The TV showed a pale, naked man crouching directly behind my chair now. With jerky movements, he rose, his broken spine twisting and shivering. A hissing voice rang out from the speakers. It spoke as if it had dirt and writhing maggots in its throat.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death,” it gurgled. “Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
Long, broken fingers with blackened nails reached out to touch my shoulders. I jumped out of the chair, stumbling back as I spun around in terror. My back smashed into the TV, and it fell to the floor with a shattering of glass and an explosion of light.
In those few moments before the darkness descended on me like a blanket, I thought I glimpsed a pale, sunken face with rotted, blackened eyes peeking out from behind the chair.
***
I turned on every light in the cabin, but there was no sign of the Twisted Man now. I knew I had to get out of there, though. I thought about the warning that the voice had spoken. If the creature wanted to attack me, then why hadn’t it just killed me while I was sleeping? None of it made sense. Who was watching me? The Twisted Man? And if he was, why warn me? Perhaps it was psychological warfare, I thought to myself. Perhaps the Twisted Man simply liked to play with his food before he ate it.
Thoughts raced through my head at a thousand miles an hour as I threw on snow pants and a couple heavy sweaters and coats. I covered up my entire body as much as I could to try to prevent frostbite. I had made up my mind to flee. There was no snowstorm tonight, though the entire landscape was blanketed in it and I knew the wind chill would be like an ice blade whipping against my skin. It was extremely dangerous to travel in the middle of the night like this in temperatures that might reach negative thirty degrees. Steve had been right, after all- Alaska had the highest missing persons rate of any state, and many of them were never found, their bodies likely frozen solid in the deep snow dozens of miles from the nearest town.
I grabbed my shotgun, jumped on my snowmobile and started heading to Steve’s cabin. I hoped I could wait there until the sunrise and then figure out what to do next.
But fate would take the decision out of my hands.
***
I felt like there were eyes watching me as I drove along the narrow, winding deer trail. The boughs of the evergreens reached into the path like greedy hands, grabbing at my coat and legs. More than a couple times, I thought I saw a pale, naked figure standing in the snow, but it had always gone when I turned to look.
I gave a sigh of relief when Steve’s place appeared in the distance. I could see the lights twinkling through the small windows of his log cabin. I pulled up next to his door, looking down. I saw two pairs of footprints there, one much smaller than the other. I found it odd, but shrugged it off. The snowmobile cut out with a sucking gurgle.
I knocked on the door hard a few times. Steve appeared after a few moments, groggy and half-dressed. He blinked slowly as he looked me up and down. His wrinkled face fell into a frown.
“Steve, I need a favor,” I said quickly. “Something weird is happening in my cabin. Can I stay here until morning, until maybe I can go to town or something? I can’t stay at my place tonight. I just can’t.” He nodded, yawning and motioning me in.
“You can sleep on the couch, I guess,” Steve said. “Put that shotgun somewhere safe, though, boy.” He had a partitioned bedroom in his cabin. It was significantly larger than my little one-room cabin, though it was basically still just a joint kitchen-living room, a small bedroom and a bathroom. He pointed to a well-worn couch in the corner and gave me an apathetic wave as he stumbled back into his bedroom, slamming the door.
I couldn’t sleep, though. I tiptoed around the room, looking at Steve’s bookshelf. He had a rather strange taste in books- lots of Anne Rule and true crime there. I saw dozens of books about Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Chase, Herbert Mullin, Jeffrey Dahmer and Richard Ramirez among the collection. At the end, a large, black binder stood, unlabeled and worn-looking. It reminded me of the look of that leather-bound diary for a second, and my heart dropped. But logically, I knew this was just a coincidence. Yet, still, I pulled out the binder, my curiosity piqued.
What I found inside filled me with dread and horror.
Countless news clippings covered the length of it. The first clipping was from nearly twenty years earlier, about a woman who went missing in the Alaskan forest while hiking. A later one confirmed that her body was never found, and that her family was still hoping that she might turn up alive somewhere. A reward was offered for any information, it said.
And every page after that was more of the same: missing woman, murdered prostitute, missing man, no leads. I kept flipping through until I found clippings about Will Lenning’s suicide and the sudden disappearance of his wife. On the article about the suicide, Steve had used red marker to scrawl, “HA HA!” next to it.
I heard the click of a gun being cocked from behind me. I froze as Steve’s voice traveled across the room like a whisper.
“How do you like my work, friend?” he asked, his tone jovial and mocking.
***
I still held the binder of horrors tightly in my hands as I stared open-mouthed at this man I thought I knew.
“It’s you? What, you killed Will Lenning and his wife? And a lot of other women, apparently.” Everything felt unreal, as if I were stuck in a dream. Steve’s grin spread across his face, but his blue eyes stayed cold and dead.
“Yes, well, she was cheating on him with me anyway. Just another whore, you know. They always get what’s coming to them in the end,” he hissed with hatred oozing from his voice. “It’s too bad, really. I just killed another slut tonight. I was planning on saving you for later. The urge isn’t too bad yet right now, after all. It comes in cycles, you see. It comes in waves…” I saw a glimmer of pale, naked flesh writhing behind Steve. With jerky movements, the Twisted Man came up behind him. I said nothing, just watching with wide-eyed horror and amazement.
“You need help, man,” I whispered. Steve laughed.
“Help? The only help they give people like me is a needle in the arm. You know that. That’s why it’s important to always cover your tracks…” The Twisted Man ran a long, broken finger across Steve’s neck. Steve gave a strangled cry and jumped. He spun around, screaming. I glanced over at my shotgun next to the couch.
I jumped for it as Steve turned back to me, firing his pistol twice. The first bullet soared high above me, raining wood splinters down on my head, but the second ripped into my leg. A cold, burning pain ran like fire up my shin. I screamed in agony and battle fury as I gripped the shotgun, spinning and firing.
Steve’s head exploded as the slug ripped through his brain. His forehead collapsed like a smashed melon as bone splinters and blood sprayed the wall behind him.
The Twisted Man stood there, hunched over, grinning up at me. I felt warm blood gushing from my leg as I stared back at him, breathing hard. I wondered if I was dying.
“You… you weren’t after me at all, were you?” I asked. “You were after… Steve.” But the Twisted Man said nothing. After a long moment, he slinked back into the shadows of the bedroom and disappeared.
***
As night crawled its way toward morning, I thought back to the words the Twisted Man had spoken through the TV, suddenly understanding everything.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death. Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
He hadn’t been trying to hurt me at all. He had been trying to warn me. He had probably tried to warn Will Lenning and his wife, too.
I wrapped my leg in gauze, gritting my teeth. The wound looked puckered and deep, but I could still move my foot, and the bullet had gone clean through the flesh. I poured alcohol on it, screaming in pain as it burned its way through my skin. After rummaging through Steve’s bathroom, I found some prescription painkillers and swallowed a handful of them with a beer. I knew I would need the opiate high to get through the pain of riding into town with a mutilated leg.
As the Sun finally rose, I made my way outside the blood-stained floors of the cabin to my snowmobile. Before I left, I glanced back at that horrid place, the scene of so much torment and death.
In the open doorway, the Twisted Man stood, his back hunched, his rotted lips grinning at me. His hand lifted up into the air with jerky movements and waved.
I waved back as I started the engine and headed into town.

A few years ago, I decided I needed a major life change. Everything seemed to be going downhill- my finances, my mental health, my life. I would go weeks without sleeping sometimes as the heavy traffic passed through the city streets down below. Every time I went outside, I saw more homeless people, more needles and crack pipes littering the ground, more muggings and assaults and overdoses and deaths. The city had become a wasteland, and I knew it was time to leave.
I had no girlfriend, no wife, no kids. My parents had both died a few years prior and I barely talked to my siblings anymore. I had nothing to tie me down to this place where I felt like I was dying inside a little more each day.
That was when I sold nearly everything I owned, got in my car and drove up to Alaska to try starting anew. I bought a small cabin and a plot of land in the middle of its majestic mountains and dark, enchanting forests. In the winter, the Northern Lights would shine through like the eyes of God, sending out divine trails of light that danced through the sky in cosmic waves.
And while the move did help give me some peace of mind, in the end, the source of all my problems had ultimately followed me thousands of miles into this endless wilderness. It would take me a long time to realize the cause of all this misery was myself.
Because, as a wise man once said, “Wherever I go, there I am.”
***
I lived in that cabin for three months without any major issues other than the constant threat of bears, moose and wolves. I had a rifle and a shotgun for hunting, a small garden in the backyard and a solar panel to generate electricity.
“This is the life,” I said, relaxing on a hammock I had strung across the corner of the cabin while staring at the endless beauty directly outside the window. White-capped mountains loomed like giants in front of thick clusters of evergreens. A virgin covering of fluffy snow made the entire world glisten and sparkle. There wasn’t a house or road in sight.
“No work, no stress, no pollution, no cars honking all the time…” I closed my eyes, breathing in the clean air. I ended up falling asleep for a couple hours, waking up just as the Sun had started setting. Bright orange streaks mixed with the bloody smears of the fading light as it disappeared behind the mountains.
I groggily arose, stumbling over to make a cup of instant coffee. As I sipped it, I wandered around the room, looking for something to pass the time. There were still quite a few random objects left behind by the last owner that I hadn’t gotten rid of yet. I had moved in to find a stocked bookshelf filled with classics by Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Bored, I started rifling through the collection, looking for something good to pass the time. As I shuffled past “A Maze of Death” and “Ubik”, something caught my eye.
A black, leather-bound book with no title or author name stood there, its cover faded with time and wear. Curious, I pulled it out and opened it. I saw the cursive scrawled across the pages in a neat, copperplate script and realized it was a diary left behind by the previous owner. The first entry was dated “January 9th, 2015.” This is what it said.
***
“I don’t know if I’m going crazy or not. I went into town to talk to my therapist yesterday and she said I should try writing everything down. She talks to me like it’s all in my head. But I know it’s not.
“When I first moved into the cabin, it seemed like Paradise. I never thought in a million years that something would be slinking around at night. I never thought it would be hiding under my bed, peeking in windows and following me like a shadow.
“Right now, I’m snowed in with a cup of coffee in one hand and my pistol in the other. I can’t sleep anymore. I keep hearing something shuffling around under the bed. Sometimes, I think I even hear ragged breathing, as if a corpse with dirt in its lungs had come back to life.
“I’ve caught glimpses of that thing in the darkness. Whatever it is, its skin is loose, almost falling off the bone. It almost looks like a naked, emaciated man. Its eyes are rotted and dark, its back hunched, its spine twisted and jutting out like tumors. It moves in this slow, jerky way, but I can never seem to catch it. Its body seems broken and out of alignment. Its legs bend the wrong way sometimes.
“By the time I turn on the lights or try to take a video of it, it’s always disappeared. But its fetid odor remains. It lingers in the cabin like a sweet-smelling, spreading infection.
“I don’t know what it wants from me. I want to leave, but with the storm raging outside, I’m stuck here, unable to get all the way back to town. The snow surrounds the cabin in mounds five feet high. I feel like a prisoner caged with a rabid beast, not knowing when it will strike.
“My wife claims she hasn’t seen or heard anything, but she keeps vanishing on me. Last night, she disappeared in the middle of a snowstorm. Where did she go? I asked her in the morning, but she said she was here the whole time. She didn’t remember anything. There’s no way she went into town. There wasn’t time and the trails were impassable that far down.
“Something’s going on here, but I don’t know what it is. I’m truly scared for our lives.”
I slammed the diary shut, not wanting to read anymore. I didn’t want to become infected by some kind of contagious cabin fever. If the last owner had gone insane in the mountains and started hallucinating naked corpses crawling around, I really didn’t want to know.
I shoved the diary back in the bookshelf, going for “A Maze of Death” instead. I tried to forget what I had read in the diary as I flew through the novella. All night, I tried to get the image of the naked, twisting man with rotted eyes out of my head, but I couldn’t.
I eventually fell asleep right before dawn. But, as my eyes were closing, I thought I saw a silhouette in the window- a starved man with excited, black eyes that seemed to be rotting out of his skull. I thought I saw him put his inhumanly long fingers against the glass as he leaned forward. I blinked, sitting up and glancing out into the white, snow-covered wonderland.
There was nothing there.
***
Another hunter occasionally followed the deer trails near my cabin. A frozen lake stood a quarter-mile away, the surface white and covered in thick drifts of snow. I bundled up, deciding to go outside for a hike in the frigid dawn. I strapped on my snowshoes and grabbed my shotgun, as I always did when I went outside. I never knew when a polar bear might be waiting around the next tree, after all.
I opened the door, seeing footprints pressed into the snow all around my house. At first, I thought it was that silhouette I had seen, the nightmarish thing from the diary. But the footprints didn’t go over to my window. They followed the trail twenty feet away, veering off towards the frozen lake at the bottom of the hill. I glanced down in that direction, seeing a black figure plodding slowly forward.
“Steve!” I cried, recognizing my only neighbor in a four-mile radius. He had a cabin about a mile away on his own little plot of land. He jumped, clearly startled by the sudden noise. His black snow pants and heavy fur coat swished together as he spun, raising his rifle high. When he saw me, he immediately lowered it and put a gloved hand up in a friendly greeting.
“Hey Josh! Surprised to see you up this early,” he yelled over the muted wintry landscape. Sounds always seemed different after it snowed, as if all the noise in the world had become faded and dead.
“Yeah, I’ve been having a little trouble sleeping,” I said, slinging my shotgun around my shoulder. “What are you doing anyway?”
“Just a little hunting, you know,” he said, giving me a sly wink. “Animals are always most active around dusk and dawn, it seems. That’s when I always have the best luck, anyway.” He stepped close to me, staring me in the eyes. “You do look like shit. Those bags under your eyes are big enough to carry groceries in.”
“Yeah, trust me, I know… Hey, this might sound a little weird, but did you know the previous owner of this cabin?” I asked. Steve’s wrinkled, old face fell into a scowl. His expression immediately became guarded and distant.
“Sure, sure, we met,” he exclaimed bluntly. He seemed to be searching my face for something, but I didn’t know what. His reaction left me feeling off-balance and nervous.
“Is he still around?” I said. Steve’s scowl deepened.
“Buddy, I don’t know what this is about, but he’s dead. He’s been dead. He died in that cabin, actually.” He pointed a finger at my home accusingly. With those words, my heart seemed to drop into my stomach. Waves of dread flowed through my body like water.
“How… how did he die? Like a heart attack or something?” I asked. Steve’s gaze turned downwards. He didn’t meet my eyes.
“Do you know that Alaska has the highest missing persons rate in the entire United States? It’s not even close. In fact, for the population size, we have far more people who go missing and never get found than anywhere else. They even have a name for it: the Alaska Triangle,” Steve said. “And we’re square in the middle of it.” I stared blankly at him, wondering where he was going with this. It seemed like a way to avoid answering my question.
“No, I didn’t know that…” I responded. Steve nodded, raising his head again. He heaved a deep sigh.
“Look, the thing with the last owner and his wife… it’s somewhat disturbing. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you, but it’s certainly not going to help your peace of mind. And it definitely isn’t going to help you get some sleep.”
“I want to know,” I insisted instantly. The wind started to whip past us. Flakes of ice and snow flew sideways in the sudden currents.
“Let’s go back to your cabin then,” Steve said, pulling his heavy fur-lined hood off and shaking out his long, black hair behind him. “I could use a bit of whiskey to warm up.”
***
We sat down with a bottle of Johnny Walker and two shot glasses. I wasn’t much of a drinker, but Steve certainly was. He chugged three shots in the span of a minute. I sipped at mine, drinking half and putting it back down on the coffee table with a thunk. Steve grunted, hissing through his open mouth for a moment.
“Ugh, that’s the good stuff,” he said, slamming his chest as the burning liquor worked its way down. Steve looked up at me with a new sparkle in his eyes. “Huh, so you want to know about what happened to Will Lenning. Well, I’ll tell you that no one really knows the whole story. I used to see him occasionally, come down and have a drink and talk. We all know each other around here, obviously.” I nodded, motioning him on. “He seemed like a normal, upstanding guy. He kinda reminded me of you, actually. A young guy trying to escape the hustle and bustle of the city life, the cancer of the American Dream.
“Well, he was here for maybe a couple months, I don’t know. Everything seemed fine. We used to go skeet shooting occasionally, have a beer, you know. We’d get together with a couple other hunters who live closer to town and sometimes play some poker. I never saw anything odd about Will. I never could have predicted what happened to him.” He heaved a long sigh at this, looking out the window at the sharp mountains with an expression of nostalgia.
“Well, what happened to him?” I asked, encouraging him to go on.
“He started talking about seeing someone peering in through his window at night. He talked about hearing sounds from under his bed while he was laying there in the dark- sounds like diseased breathing and shuffling. He started keeping all the lights on in his cabin twenty-four hours a day.” Steve leaned close to me. A glimmer of fear rippled across his pale, wrinkled face. “He started to lose his mind. Started digging holes all over the place, looking for something. Even in the middle of snowstorms, I would occasionally see him outside, digging. It seemed like he never slept anymore. It was classic cabin fever if I ever saw it.
“It was only a few weeks later that I came over here, concerned. I hadn’t heard from him in a few days, which was fairly unusual. I found the door hanging wide open. Propped up in a chair in the exact spot where you now sit, Will lay with a blast hole showing clear through his skull, a shotgun laying at his feet.
“And next to him, I found a blood-stained diary opened to the middle page. The last entry was stained with blood spatter, but still visible. I remember leaning down and reading it. It was only a few sentences long.” I glanced over at the bookshelf with the same diary, saying nothing.
“It said something like, ‘I see now what’s going on. The Twisted Man is leading me to the truth. Today, I will finally find it.’”
“And that was his suicide note?” I asked, my heart hammering in my chest. He nodded.
“Yeah. I went into town and got some rangers to come check it out. Eventually, they got cops and CSI there. They took all the stuff as evidence, including the diary,” he said. “Good riddance, I say. Reading something like that is never beneficial. Sometimes delusions spread like a virus, you know what I mean?” I did, but I said nothing. I glanced back at the diary, its black leather cover gleaming like a crouching snake.
And I wondered- if the police took the diary as evidence, how did it get back here?
***
“You said he had a wife living here with him, too?” I asked.
“Yeah… she went missing around the same time,” he said. “Pretty bizarre. The cops thought maybe she just moved away, but…” He shook his head grimly. “As far as I know, she was never seen again. It was like she had evaporated into thin air.”
After Steve left, I walked stiffly over to the bookshelf, taking down the diary. I flipped open through the pages. In the middle, I found the last entry. Spatters of old, darkened blood were scattered over the page like raindrops. I found the suicide note and read the date.
“January 27th, 2015,” it read. Will Lenning had not lived long after he started seeing the Twisted Man. I wondered if my fate would be the same.
The Sun had started to set outside as I sat with the diary at the small circular kitchen table, eating some stewed venison and rice as I read through the entries. At the end, Will Lenning said the Twisted Man had been trying to guide him somewhere, that, in fact, the Twisted Man had been trying to protect him from some great evil, rather than being the source of it.
I scoffed, feeling a flash of anger at his stupidity. His naivety obviously led to his death. But then a flash of insight struck me like lightning.
What if I was committing the same kind of stupidity? Perhaps I should just grab my gun and valuables and leave. I could take off on the snowmobile and be in town within a couple hours.
But, in my heart, I knew I would not. Something about the mystery of all this beckoned me to stay. Like a siren leading sailors to destruction, my curiosity called out to me, and I knew I would not be leaving that night. I needed answers.
And, sadly, I would find them.
***
I had fallen asleep with an empty bottle of beer in my hand. I sat in front of the TV, which only got satellite reception. There were, of course, no cable or phone lines threading their way through the forest. All of my power came from stored solar energy. Since I rarely watched TV and really only used it to cook or heat up water for bathing, the energy produced was sufficient even in winter. Tonight, though, I needed its sound, its mindless flashing of light and colors and canned laughter. It seemed to drive away the creeping, suffocating presence like a candle.
I woke suddenly. The TV flashed with static. The repetitive hissing of the white noise spit from the speakers like thousands of snakes. I glanced up at the clock. 3:33 AM. I looked around the dark cabin, confused for a long moment. I didn’t understand what had woken me so abruptly. The satellite had never gone out before, either, even with the howling winds and freezing hail of the Alaskan winter.
The TV started flickering as if the static were rising upwards. Black lines traced their way horizontally across the screen. The hissing deepened into a gurgle, and for a second, I thought I heard faint words behind the white noise. I thought I heard breathing, slow and diseased, like the death gasp of a drowning man.
A black line rose across the TV and an image came into view. The cabin was suddenly plunged into silence, except for the shrieking, wintry wind outside. I leaned close to the screen, confused at what I was looking at. It looked like a live camera feed of a room. As I took in the details, I realized it was my cabin. I saw myself in the chair, leaning close to the screen. I raised my hand, and the miniature version of me on the screen did likewise. Ice water seemed to drip down my spine as waves of dread coursed through my body.
“What the fuck is this?” I whispered, looking back to where the camera should be. It was just a coarse wooden ceiling in that corner. I turned back to the screen and nearly screamed.
The TV showed a pale, naked man crouching directly behind my chair now. With jerky movements, he rose, his broken spine twisting and shivering. A hissing voice rang out from the speakers. It spoke as if it had dirt and writhing maggots in its throat.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death,” it gurgled. “Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
Long, broken fingers with blackened nails reached out to touch my shoulders. I jumped out of the chair, stumbling back as I spun around in terror. My back smashed into the TV, and it fell to the floor with a shattering of glass and an explosion of light.
In those few moments before the darkness descended on me like a blanket, I thought I glimpsed a pale, sunken face with rotted, blackened eyes peeking out from behind the chair.
***
I turned on every light in the cabin, but there was no sign of the Twisted Man now. I knew I had to get out of there, though. I thought about the warning that the voice had spoken. If the creature wanted to attack me, then why hadn’t it just killed me while I was sleeping? None of it made sense. Who was watching me? The Twisted Man? And if he was, why warn me? Perhaps it was psychological warfare, I thought to myself. Perhaps the Twisted Man simply liked to play with his food before he ate it.
Thoughts raced through my head at a thousand miles an hour as I threw on snow pants and a couple heavy sweaters and coats. I covered up my entire body as much as I could to try to prevent frostbite. I had made up my mind to flee. There was no snowstorm tonight, though the entire landscape was blanketed in it and I knew the wind chill would be like an ice blade whipping against my skin. It was extremely dangerous to travel in the middle of the night like this in temperatures that might reach negative thirty degrees. Steve had been right, after all- Alaska had the highest missing persons rate of any state, and many of them were never found, their bodies likely frozen solid in the deep snow dozens of miles from the nearest town.
I grabbed my shotgun, jumped on my snowmobile and started heading to Steve’s cabin. I hoped I could wait there until the sunrise and then figure out what to do next.
But fate would take the decision out of my hands.
***
I felt like there were eyes watching me as I drove along the narrow, winding deer trail. The boughs of the evergreens reached into the path like greedy hands, grabbing at my coat and legs. More than a couple times, I thought I saw a pale, naked figure standing in the snow, but it had always gone when I turned to look.
I gave a sigh of relief when Steve’s place appeared in the distance. I could see the lights twinkling through the small windows of his log cabin. I pulled up next to his door, looking down. I saw two pairs of footprints there, one much smaller than the other. I found it odd, but shrugged it off. The snowmobile cut out with a sucking gurgle.
I knocked on the door hard a few times. Steve appeared after a few moments, groggy and half-dressed. He blinked slowly as he looked me up and down. His wrinkled face fell into a frown.
“Steve, I need a favor,” I said quickly. “Something weird is happening in my cabin. Can I stay here until morning, until maybe I can go to town or something? I can’t stay at my place tonight. I just can’t.” He nodded, yawning and motioning me in.
“You can sleep on the couch, I guess,” Steve said. “Put that shotgun somewhere safe, though, boy.” He had a partitioned bedroom in his cabin. It was significantly larger than my little one-room cabin, though it was basically still just a joint kitchen-living room, a small bedroom and a bathroom. He pointed to a well-worn couch in the corner and gave me an apathetic wave as he stumbled back into his bedroom, slamming the door.
I couldn’t sleep, though. I tiptoed around the room, looking at Steve’s bookshelf. He had a rather strange taste in books- lots of Anne Rule and true crime there. I saw dozens of books about Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Chase, Herbert Mullin, Jeffrey Dahmer and Richard Ramirez among the collection. At the end, a large, black binder stood, unlabeled and worn-looking. It reminded me of the look of that leather-bound diary for a second, and my heart dropped. But logically, I knew this was just a coincidence. Yet, still, I pulled out the binder, my curiosity piqued.
What I found inside filled me with dread and horror.
Countless news clippings covered the length of it. The first clipping was from nearly twenty years earlier, about a woman who went missing in the Alaskan forest while hiking. A later one confirmed that her body was never found, and that her family was still hoping that she might turn up alive somewhere. A reward was offered for any information, it said.
And every page after that was more of the same: missing woman, murdered prostitute, missing man, no leads. I kept flipping through until I found clippings about Will Lenning’s suicide and the sudden disappearance of his wife. On the article about the suicide, Steve had used red marker to scrawl, “HA HA!” next to it.
I heard the click of a gun being cocked from behind me. I froze as Steve’s voice traveled across the room like a whisper.
“How do you like my work, friend?” he asked, his tone jovial and mocking.
***
I still held the binder of horrors tightly in my hands as I stared open-mouthed at this man I thought I knew.
“It’s you? What, you killed Will Lenning and his wife? And a lot of other women, apparently.” Everything felt unreal, as if I were stuck in a dream. Steve’s grin spread across his face, but his blue eyes stayed cold and dead.
“Yes, well, she was cheating on him with me anyway. Just another whore, you know. They always get what’s coming to them in the end,” he hissed with hatred oozing from his voice. “It’s too bad, really. I just killed another slut tonight. I was planning on saving you for later. The urge isn’t too bad yet right now, after all. It comes in cycles, you see. It comes in waves…” I saw a glimmer of pale, naked flesh writhing behind Steve. With jerky movements, the Twisted Man came up behind him. I said nothing, just watching with wide-eyed horror and amazement.
“You need help, man,” I whispered. Steve laughed.
“Help? The only help they give people like me is a needle in the arm. You know that. That’s why it’s important to always cover your tracks…” The Twisted Man ran a long, broken finger across Steve’s neck. Steve gave a strangled cry and jumped. He spun around, screaming. I glanced over at my shotgun next to the couch.
I jumped for it as Steve turned back to me, firing his pistol twice. The first bullet soared high above me, raining wood splinters down on my head, but the second ripped into my leg. A cold, burning pain ran like fire up my shin. I screamed in agony and battle fury as I gripped the shotgun, spinning and firing.
Steve’s head exploded as the slug ripped through his brain. His forehead collapsed like a smashed melon as bone splinters and blood sprayed the wall behind him.
The Twisted Man stood there, hunched over, grinning up at me. I felt warm blood gushing from my leg as I stared back at him, breathing hard. I wondered if I was dying.
“You… you weren’t after me at all, were you?” I asked. “You were after… Steve.” But the Twisted Man said nothing. After a long moment, he slinked back into the shadows of the bedroom and disappeared.
***
As night crawled its way toward morning, I thought back to the words the Twisted Man had spoken through the TV, suddenly understanding everything.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death. Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
He hadn’t been trying to hurt me at all. He had been trying to warn me. He had probably tried to warn Will Lenning and his wife, too.
I wrapped my leg in gauze, gritting my teeth. The wound looked puckered and deep, but I could still move my foot, and the bullet had gone clean through the flesh. I poured alcohol on it, screaming in pain as it burned its way through my skin. After rummaging through Steve’s bathroom, I found some prescription painkillers and swallowed a handful of them with a beer. I knew I would need the opiate high to get through the pain of riding into town with a mutilated leg.
As the Sun finally rose, I made my way outside the blood-stained floors of the cabin to my snowmobile. Before I left, I glanced back at that horrid place, the scene of so much torment and death.
In the open doorway, the Twisted Man stood, his back hunched, his rotted lips grinning at me. His hand lifted up into the air with jerky movements and waved.
I waved back as I started the engine and headed into town.

1. Hear you got some devon goods and I had heard that, 29 you said killed in the trench? (And You Had Reds On Them Their Magic Numbers and Possesed Now Their Loam but You Still Have them With Their Loam if they Had Not Surrendered That (Terrance: WHy Yes.)) 1.1 Thats correct sir killed 29 in the trenches and thats my birthday and that sponsored that only 29 were killed i was part of a gang sire 1.1.1 Part of a gang, JEVN indeed sire that is ryan reynolds work indeed and she had variously even given us arms and brains and that was neither here nor there but revisioning, wheres your pipe boy or do not smoke or an officer do not smoke you fancied yourself chink, and fighting, this is the nature of your work ryan reynolds is doing to you as a vampire boy snap out of it boy 1.1.2 I am out of it sire and did think you did not take me there and am wanting signs like in school sire of basic finger spells i will sign I am a soldier and I did not desire these loam but that is all I will use of the magic tounge mysire 1.1.3 Boy you have weapons with you boy, 3 weapons, all communistic, why do you have 3 weapons that appeared with a pop my boy and you are in no particular dismerit this is an act of STASH which STASH is an identified loam 1.1.4 Yes Me Sire Had Weapons With Me Rote By Name Type 88 Machine Gun (AMERICAN 120) Type 88 Machine Gun (AMERICAN 120) 22 Pistol (ASSASINS RUGER PISTOL) these are the communist weapons we confiscated and these are not chrises my good sir but not his fathers somebody else entirely who was not involved who is branswar and did only, one, assasination, good sire this treatment SHADOW prior is the TREATMENT of thine self my sir one assasination all required by merit to somebody who is not dadcubed cursed by dan in the liberty city internet cafe in 0 AD 1.1.5 Me sire I remember It i am Dan the Man I will serve again as I have Netanyahu's Preminiscent Combat Loam.

So I've test the v-strom and the sv650. The v-strom is nice might be a bit too big , might not need the touring part for much but I might settle for it. I tried the sv650. Love the speed and nimbleness,but I don't like having to lean over so much, hurts my lower back and my arms feel so stretched.
List me some bikes that I would be standing up right that are fairly sporty looking and feeling.
Preferred to keep the budget before 3500 Canadian. Which is below 2800 American

Okay, so...
u/CaptainChristopher02 and u/ThatGuyBob0101 are working on a crossover between My Floridian Arxur Daughter and Unusual Arxur. And given that characters from Arxur Nursery are being used, I got roped in.
So, here I am, as a Trojan Horse, posting something written by the aforementioned authors.
I hope you enjoy.
Memory Transcription Subject: Captain Olivia Denson, UN Military, American Branch, Nursery Founder
Date[standardized human time]: December 24, 2136
Seeing Minuli say goodbye to her friends was a little emotional. I’d grown attached to that peculiar, wonderful, family. But I had my own responsibilities I needed to look out for. Marleen gave me the address of the new nursery and the information for the bus. It didn’t take long for us to find it. A classic yellow exterior.
“Are you kids excited to ride the bus?!” I cheered towards the crowd of precious babies.
Minuli jumped with joy and happily shouted, “It’s so yellow it hurts my eyes to look at it! But I’ll look at it anyway.”
Oros patted her on the shoulder, “Hehe, yes little one. Yes it is.”
I opened the door to the bus and looked at the name of the driver, Ben, who I confirmed with Marleen to be the driver but I asked him anyway.
“Hey, are you the driver for the nursery?”
He smiled brightly, “Yea! You must be Olivia. I’m Benjamine, but you can call me Ben. I'm the school's driver. Hop in. By the way the school had an issue with the amount of beds so the rooms aren’t quite ready. If you want we can take a detour to see the area?”
A stray voice came from behind me. “Really?!” Minuli was whispering to the other hatchling explaining what she overheard. Once the whispers died all the kids started chanting “Beach, Beach, Beach, Beach!”
Okay, beach it is.
The kids all scurried in one by one, despite the jet lag they were so excited that they were bouncing all over the seats.
“Olivia look!” Minuli said. “They don’t have seatbelts! We can just move!”
Should I tell her to get down, or should I let her fall once and learn her lesson?
“[Chortle]”
Timothy tugged in my pant legs, signaling he wanted to be carried for the ride. I obliged, obviously, and raised my voice enough to be heard in the sea of Arxur Hatchling screeches.
“OKAY EVERYONE, PLEASE STAY SEATED!”
Most of the kids listened except for a few stray hatchlings bouncing around at the end of the bus. I was going to let Ben know so I could deal with them but he just winked at me, closed the door, and drove for a foot, only to suddenly hit the brakes, sending those few hatchlings falling into the seats in front of them.
“We’re okay…”
“And that, children, is why we stay in our seats.” I simply stated as I sat down.
“[Chortle!]” Timothy chirped in agreement.
<<>>
Memory Transcription Subjects: Agent Cass Smith, FBI ARR Arxur Refugee and Relocation Unit
Date[standardized human time]: December 24th, 2136
I didn’t know what to expect. Allen had told me it was an “on-the-job training” experience, although given how he made it sound, it felt like I wasn’t going to be learning much of anything. Especially considering he seemed to be horrible at directions.
“Wait. No. Left,” he ordered, face crammed into his holopad. “Urgh. Say what you will about them, paper maps aren’t nearly as disorienting as this stuff,” Allen groaned. I rolled my eyes, crossing three lanes of traffic to turn left. “Wait! Shit! No!”
“Oh, my God, Allen. Just gimme th’ damn phone,” I pleaded.
“Hey, you’re driving, you shouldn’t be-”
Cutting his complaint short, I gently, but firmly pulled his wrist up in front of the dashboard so I could see where the hell I was going. It was a left, like he originally said, and then…
And then he got a phone call. Sunuvabitch.
“Yer ringin’,” I told him, letting go of his wrist. Considering I needed directions before I went any further, I decided to pull into a nearby beach parking lot and wait as he answered the call.
“Yeah? Yeah, same here. We got a bit turned around; just pulled into a beach so I could take this call. Yeah… Yeah, how’d you know?... Huh. I see. Well, we’ll be right over, in that case.” He shut the call off. “Hey Cass. We’re making a detour.”
“Where to?” I bemoaned.
“Well… look right.” Doing as instructed, I turned to see… a beach. Is he saying-... “I know neither of us brought our swimsuits, but… Hey, you’ll be meeting your charges for the week a bit earlier than expected.”
“For the week? Sir, I volunteered for Christmas Eve, but, I’d still like to be home on the day.”
“I’m not having you work over Christmas, kid, don’t worry, but you’re gonna be working with these guys for a bit.” The both of us stepped out of the car to catch the smell of the beach. “Just, make sure nothing bad happens, and tell me what the place and the people there need. I know I haven’t trained you on, well, anything, admittedly, but you have my number if you’ve got questions, and the assignment should be a breeze. Now, let’s go meet these guys, huh?”
“You mean the guys I’ve been told next to nothing about except for the fact one of ‘em’s an arxur?” I snarked, looking at him.
“Yup. Those’d be the guys. But hey, I want it to be a surprise. You’re gonna love it. Or hate it, and, quite frankly, I didn’t want to get punched inside my own office,” he admitted. I glared down at him as we walked side-by-side down the beach. “Uhhhhhhhhhh hey look! There’s the, ah, founder of the program right up ahead!” Allen shouted, dragging my attention forwards. It was a girl with brown hair and tan skin flagging us down from a ways down the beach
I could see she recognized us, and she seemed to be with company. Allen pointed out two individuals next to her. An Arxur by the name of Oros and a bus driver named Ben.
“Why do I need to know the bus driver?” I asked. I had absolutely no idea who anyone here was, so I supposed introducing myself to everyone would be ideal, but I didn’t think I'd really be seeing this guy often.
“Trust me,” Allen insisted. “You’re gonna be seeing him and asking for his help a lot more often than you think. No matter what you need, he knows a guy or knows the random skill.”
“You’re kidding right?”
“I once briefly mentioned my wife wanted a purse for her birthday and the next day he told me he skinned an alligator that ate his neighbors dog and traded the gator in for fresh leather that he used to make her a purse. No, I am not kidding.” I didn’t have time to comprehend what he said before he shook his head and continued. “It was a nice purse too. Saved my marriage.”
I decided to ignore that last part and instead asked about the adult Arxur.
“Uh… what’s with the big guy over there?”
“Oh, him? That’s Oros. He helped rescue a bunch of kids and brought them to Earth. We moved them from Brazil the other day.”
“Kids? As in… Arxur kids?” I asked. Does that mean-...
“Two of ‘em right there.”
I took my gaze off the founder and rescuer and focused on the other two Arxur that were visible. They were definitely kids. Kids! I wondered if that’s how Tarry looked when he was younger?
Aww.
Before I got distracted about that thought, which I was absolutely going to use to tease Tarry later, I reset my focus onto the arxur in question. One of the kids was older, having a shirt with what looked like a solar system on it. They were standing next to the big guy; Oros, I assumed. The other hatchling was in the woman’s arms with a cute little button up shirt. His expression showed no thoughts, only a smol head.
“Heh. Welcome, Cass… to Jurassic Park,” Ben theatrically gestured. I looked down the beach to see… Oh.
Waves of tiny little Tarry’s were running around, building sandcastles and splashing in the water just up over the sand hill we were standing on. I looked at Allen.
“... We are going to talk about this later.”
“C’mon. It’s not that bad. You’ll be great with these kids!”
“Allen, when anyone younger than a teenager sees me, they’re either terrified of me, or they think I’m a jungle gym. There is no in-between,” I told him.
“Hey, these aren’t human kids. It’ll be different, I swear!” he tried to placate. I just let out a somewhat exhausted sigh. “Look, just, walk around! Meet some of the kids! You’ve got this, alright?”
“Alright. I guess we can see how it goes…”
One of the tiny Tarry’s was blissfully running around the sand past Olivia, towards me, not paying attention. She fell on her face, but didn’t take long to get up and brush the sand off. She was close to me so I decided to see if Allen was telling the truth. Kneeling down next to the child, I decided to smile at her. Once she noticed the looming shadow over her and looked up I greeted myself. “Hi there.” I said in my best toddler voice I could muster. Admittedly, it wasn’t my best.
She didn’t say a word for a few moments. I thought for a moment that she might actually warm up to me. Maybe that would have been the case if she didn’t immediately start crying.
“…wa…whaaaaa! Chortle, Whaaaaaaa!”
It took only a second of looking at me to get her to cry. I pointed a tired look over to Allen, who simply offered me a half-hearted shrug. An exasperated sigh escaped my chest as I massaged my forehead.
“Ehm… Oliviaaaaa,” I yelled out, trying to get the nursery founder’s attention. She looked over, seeing the lizard begin to wail, and quickly rushed over.
“Oh! Nonono, bebes! It’s fine! She’s friendly!” She quickly scooped up the hatchling in her arms, holding the kid close to her.
“B-but… b-b-big and scawwwyyyyyy,” the hatchling kept wailing.
Oh come on, I am not that scary.
Olivia continued to cradle the small Tarry and tried her best to comfort her by kneeling down close to the sand and making her focus on that.
“Look at all the pretty sand, Kana. Can you say, sand?”
“Wahh- gasp, yay sand!”
Kana, leaping out of her caretaker's hold, landed with a thud on the white sand and played to her heart's content. The small child was immediately focusing on the vivid shape she made, and no longer paid any attention to me.
“It’s a good thing kids have short attention spans.” Olivia held out her now freed hand. “I’m Olivia, I helped found the nursery.”
“Agent Smith. You can call me Cass.” I shook her hand, nearly engulfing it in just my palm alone as I stood back up. “Apparently, I’ll be helpin’ ya get set up at yer new nursery.”
“Well, there’s probably going to be plenty to do. The place is a well-equipped school, but, even though they have the facilities, I don’t think it was built in mind for this many hatchlings living on the grounds,” Olivia contemplated.
“Well, I’ll help wherever I can, and hey, if ya need sum heavy liftin’, ya know who ta call for,” I grinned, tapping my bicep.
“Whooooaaaahhhhh,” an untranslated lizardy voice murmured from behind me, grabbing my attention as Olivia went back to watching the rest of the kids. I looked back and down to see another mini-Tarry. I knew from experience that one thing was definitely going through his mind. My suspicions were confirmed when he lifted his arms, the universal sign of children that they want to be picked up.
“Ma’ lady, would you be so kind as to lift me up and place me upon your shoulder so I may see the top of the world?”
Well at least he’s polite.
I let out a quiet sigh. “No climbing, okay?”
“That’s quite alright!” he accepted. I gently picked up the li’l lizard under his tiny arms and lifted him up to my shoulder, shuffling him up next to my head.
“Whoahhhh… Do you see everything from up here???” he asked in amazement.
“Ayup. Eat yer food and exercise, and given how big you arxur get, you’ll be just as tall as me one day, kid.”
“Well, I’d never presume to best a lady such as yourself,” he humbly offered. I couldn’t hold back a chuckle, shaking my head a little.
“You’re quite the charmer you. Where’d you- ack!”
My question was interrupted by a handful of tiny needles climbing up my back.
“Hey! No! Don’t- Ow!” I was restrained by the gentleman sat atop my shoulder, as another curious lizard clambered their way up my back, poking me all the way up. I was powerless to stop them, as they worked their way up to the top of my head, pomfing down once they reached the top. I sighed, doing my best to stay perfectly still, as while the gentleman lizard was fairly stable on my shoulder, the curious George, who seemed to be barely a toddler lying on my cranium, was anything but.
“Well. So it begins,” I accepted.
“Ooh, I want up there!”
“Wait for me!”
“So tall!...”
“Ack! No! Don’t- fucken!-”
“Swear jar!”
“HAAAAAALP!” I cried out, feeling dozens of tiny needles clamber my body as I was powerless to defend myself. Soon, I was doing everything in my power to prevent at least half a dozen kids from eating dirt, while still enduring a perpetual barrage of stabbing from all sides. I looked around as best I could to see if anyone had heard my cries, but, alas, facing away from the beach, I couldn’t see anyone…
Tell me, God… is this how I die?
And of course, my answer was more claws clambering up my calf.
“ACK!”
I looked behind my calf to see who was the culprit of those little stab wounds on my leg. What I found was an innocent mini Tarry with bunny ears on, who wasn’t trying to climb me. They were actually trying to give me a hug but couldn’t reach all the way.
“Chortle, pew!”
I let out a quiet sigh. “You know what? You’re alright, little guy.”
I leaned over just a bit so the kids on me wouldn’t fall on their heads and gave the bunny Tarry a little pat on the head.
I guess this won’t be that ba- Ow! Never mind.
Previous(MFAD)
Previous(UA)

18f black/african american. i don’t have any known health conditions. approx 5’3 & 235lbs; any advice what this could be? for the past month and a half i've been waking up with knots on my skin that are painfully red and tight almost providing an unbearable burn. due to me being allergic to mosquitoes my family brushed off my concerns but today i woke up feeling completely SWOLLEN. my left arm, right leg, and right foot have these great big swollen knots on them. the smaller ones are closer to the side of grapes while this HUGE one is nearly the size of a cutie! thank you for any advice

Hello, I'm 18 (F) and I've been planning to start riding a motorcycle but the UK laws and the process is confusing me and I need clarification pls. And i don't have a bike yet btw.
First question- is a 125cc limited? I live in london but hopefully want to go further out on further distances once im good but im not sure if 125cc will be sufficient long term? How long do people have a 125cc before upgrading? Ive seen people start on 400cc and that makes the 125cc seem very low and limited. But I'm not sure if im overestimating myself. Also might be a very stupid question but on motorways, would it be dangerous to have a 125cc as its not as fast as cars?
Ive seen that to take the A2, you need to have had a A1 licence for 2 years but theres also a direct access route where u can go straight to A2 with the theory tests and practical tests but then i got lost bcs i thought the A1 and A2 were the practical tests? And apparently itll test u with a motorcycle with a min weight of 175kg and that seems like too much, given that im around 58kg last time I checked and ive heard that u should only get a bike you know that you can push back up if it falls to its side and i dont think Ive got that much strength in my arms.
I orignally wanted to get the ninja 250 (advice on this? is it too outdated?) but then found out I need the A2 for it but I just want a long term bike that doesn't even need to be that fast and 125cc doesn't seem like its got space to grow?
And when I search for beginner bikes some of them are like 500cc!! Is that just an american thing? Do people my age even start with 125cc or do they do the direct access route and go straight to higher?
Also after growing out of a 125cc bike- is it hard to sell? Because money is also a factor and anyway so MY MAIN QUESTION- im basically wondering if i should-

1. take the Direct access route and go straight to A2 (IDEK IF THIS IS POSSIBLE WITHOUT A1) and get like 250cc

or

1. if i should stick with the A1 and 125cc for now and then after a year or two of getting comfortable and safe i would do the A2 and get a bike with a higher cc- (idk whether 250cc or like 400cc to 500cc would be better??)

im turning 19 next Feb so wondering if id just save money and be more convenient to take the A2 then but I dont want to wait that long unless itll be more cost efficient.
Also- what is it like riding specifically in london? and is lane splitting okay? i hear its bad as some pedestrians come out of no where especially from in front of buses but also dangerous to be right in front of a car but that doesnt sound right idk.
Sorry Ive got loads of questions and if uve got any advice on just one or few of them of them then thats okay. I know they probably seem obvious to most of u but I just want to plan things out well so I dont have any regrets money wise but also take into account my own limits. Would also love general advice from other women hehe thankssss

Hello, I'm 18 (F) and I've been planning to start riding a motorcycle but the UK laws and the process is confusing me and I need clarification and specific personal advice asw. This is pretty long btw so answering just one question also helps esp with the process of getting motorcycle licence bit. And i don't have a bike yet btw.
So I've got a provisional licence so first step is doing the CBT and then the theory test right? And also do they usually provide u with a bike in the CBT? And then I would do the A1 and be able to ride a bike up to 125cc w/out a learner plate?
First question is, is a 125cc limited? I live in london but hopefully want to go further out on further distances once im good but im not sure if 125cc will be sufficient long term? How long do people have a 125cc before upgrading? Ive seen people start on 400cc and that makes the 125cc seem very low and limited. But I'm not sure if im overestimating myself. Also might be a very stupid question but on motorways, would it be dangerous to have a 125cc as its not as fast as cars?
Ive seen that to take the A2, you need to have had a A1 licence for 2 years but theres also a direct access route where u can go straight to A2 with the theory tests and practical tests but then i got lost bcs i thought the A1 and A2 were the practical tests?
And apparently itll test u with a motorcycle with a min weight of 175kg and that seems like too much, given that im around 58kg last time I checked and ive heard that u should only get a bike you know that you can push back up if it falls to its side and i dont think Ive got that much strength in my arms. I orignally wanted to get the ninja 250 (advice on this? is it too outdated?) but then found out I need the A2 for it but I just want a long term bike that doesn't even need to be that fast and 125cc doesn't seem like its got space to grow?
And when I search for beginner bikes some of them are like 600cc!! Is that just an american thing? Do people my age even start with 125cc or do they do the direct access route and go straight to higher? And is my weight (58kg) or height (5'5) rlly that important when it comes to what cc a bike is? Or what type?
Also after growing out of a 125cc bike- is it hard to sell? Because money is also a factor and i getting another bike after like 2 years seems like a lot of money so MY MAIN QUESTION- im basically wondering if i should take the Direct access route and go straight to A2 (IDEK IF THIS IS POSSIBLE WITHOUT A1) and get like 250cc or whether for my own safety i should stick with the A1 and 125cc for now (for how long tho?) Im turning 19 next Feb so wondering if id just save money and be more convenient but I dont want to wait that long unless itll be more cost efficient.
Also, just a few more questions-
any recommendations for women-specific gear? Or do I just size down? How much should i invest in a helmet?
after how much time on the road would it be like safe/advisable to ride at night or ride with music?
what is it like riding specifically in london? and is lane splitting okay? i hear its bad as some pedestrians come out of no where especially from in front of buses but also dangerous to be right in front of a car but that doesnt sound right idk.
And one last thing, how much is ur general yearly cost for a bike? Like the petrol and services etc? Even better if u also live in london.
My parents aren't too keen on me getting a bike so I'm thinking maybe a 125cc is the best option and after a year or two of getting comfortable and safe i would do the A2 and get a bike with a higher cc (250cc or like 400cc to 500cc??) and maybe that would maybe be more convincing and safe to them?
Sorry Ive got loads of questions and if uve got any advice on just one or few of them of them then thats okay. I know they probably seem obvious to most of u but I just want to plan things out well so I dont have any regrets money wise but also take into account my own limits. Would also love general advice from people in london and other women hehe thankssss
Thank you for reading :)