Hello there
I'm a 30 year old guy from the North West. I am usually super busy with work so I figured that I'd see who is around this weekend for a bit of an escape from reality.
I am open to a short term thing but not against the idea of building something with someone if we decide that we click really well.
So, day to day, I work and that's all I seem to do. I want to retire and travel as soon as I can. I'm already fortunate enough to be mortgage free and just want to keep working towards financial freedom.
I am single and child free. I do wants kids one day and do see myself in more of a traditional relationship with a woman who enjoys looking after the kids/home life. TPE and 1950s lifestyle resonates with me in some ways.
Since this is a short term post, if we meet I am looking for something sexual. I am into some kinks which include cnc, free use and face fucking. I don't want to go into too much detail here but I think that paints a good picture. With that said, sex should be enjoyable and fun for both parties. I will respect your boundaries at all times and expect the same in return.
I am more than happy to share a recent picture of myself in a chat but I'm 5'9, blonde and 95kg. I have tattoos as well.
Interests: Music (classical, metal, rap, indie and psytrance mostly) Exploring (the world, food, my taste, my sexuality and my mind) Gym (trying to get back in shape post covid) Gaming (not so much anymore) Anime (Some tattoos are anime inspired) UFC (quite enjoy betting and watching fights here and there)
That is all!
I am willing to chat to anyone from anywhere in the UK if you think my interests align alarming well with your own.

The whirring blades of my MD-902 throbbed against the warm evening air, and I smiled.
From 5,000 feet, the ground flew by in a carpet of dark forests and kelly-green fields. The sun hung low on the horizon in a picturesque array of dazzling orange and gold, and I could make out the narrow strip of the Ohio River to my left, glistening in the fading daylight. This time of year, the trees would be full of the sweet aroma of fresh blossoms, and the frequent rains kept small pockets of fluffy white mist hanging in the treetops. It was a beautiful view, one that reminded me of why being a helicopter pilot trumped flying in a jumbo jet far above the clouds every day of the week.
Fourteen more days, and I’m debt free.
That made me grin even more. I’d been working as a charter pilot ever since I obtained my license at age 19, and after years of keeping my nose to the grindstone, I was closing on the final payment for real-estate in western Pennsylvania. With no debt, a fixer-upper house on 30 rural acres all to myself, and a respectable wage for a 26-year-old pilot, I looked forward to the financial freedom I could now enjoy. Maybe I’d take a vacation, somewhere exotic like Venice Italy, or the Dominican Republic. Or perhaps I’d sock the money back for the day I started a family.
“Remember kleineun, a real man looks after his own.”
My elderly ouma’s voice came back from the depths of my memories, her proud, sun-tanned face rising from the darkness. She and my Rhodesian grandfather had emigrated to the US when they were newlyweds, as the violence against white Boer descendants in South Africa spiraled out of control. My mother and father both died in a car crash when I was six, and it had been my grandparents who raised me. Due to this, I’d grown up with a slight accent that many of my classmates found amusing, and I could speak both English, and Afrikaans, the Boer tongue of our former home.
I shifted in my seat, stretched my back muscles, and glanced at the picture taped to my console. Both my parents flanked a grinning, gap-toothed six-year-old me, at the last Christmas we’d spent together. My mother beamed, her dark hair and Italian features a sharp contrast to my father’s sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. Sometimes, I liked to imagine they were smiling at me with pride at how well I flew the old silver-colored bird my company had assigned to me, and that made the long, lonely flights easier to bear.
A flicker caught my eye, and I broke my gaze away from the photograph.
Perched in its small cradle above the controls, my little black Garmin fuzzed over for a few seconds, its screen shifting from brightly colored maps to a barrage of grey static.
Did the power chord come loose?
I checked, ensuring the power-cable for the unit’s battery was plugged into the port on the control panel. It was a brand-new GPS unit, and I’d used it a few times already, so I knew it wasn’t defective. Granted, I could fly and navigate without it, but the Garmin made my time as a pilot so much easier that the thought of going blind was dreadful.
My fuel gauge danced, clicked to empty, then to full, in a bizarre jolt.
More of the gauges began to stutter, the entire panel seeming to develop terrets all at once, and my pulse began to race. Something was wrong, very wrong, and the sludge inside my bowels churned with sour fear.
“Come on, come on.” I flicked switches, turned dials, punched buttons, but nothing seemed to fix the spasming electronics. Every gauge failed, and without warning, I found myself plunged into inky darkness.
Outside, the sun surrendered to the pull of night, the sky darker than usual. A distant rumble of thunder reverberated above the roar of my helicopter’s engine, and I thought I glimpsed a streak of yellowish lightning on the far horizon to my left.
Calm down Chris. We’re still flying, so it must just be a blown fuse. Stay in control and find a place to set her down.
My sweaty palm slid on the cyclic stick, and both feet weighed heavy on the yaw pedals. The collective stuck to my other hand with a nervous vibration, and I squinted against the abyss outside.
Beep.
I jumped despite myself, as the little Garmin on my panel flared back to life, the static pulling aside to reveal a twitching display. Each time the screen glitched, it showed the colorful map detailing my flight path over the ground below, but I noticed that some of the lines changed, the names shifting, as if the device couldn’t decide between two different versions of the world.
One name jutted out at me, slate gray like most of the major county names, appearing with ghostly flickers from between two neighboring ones.
Barron County.
I stared, confused. I’d flown over this section of southeastern Ohio plenty of times, and I knew the counties by heart. At this point, I should have been over the southern end of Noble County, and maybe dipping lower into Washington. There was no Barron County in Ohio. I was sure of it.
And yet it shown back at me from the digital landscape, a strange, almost cigar-shaped chunk of terrain carved from the surrounding counties like a tumor, sometimes there, sometimes not, as my little Garmin struggled to find the correct map. Rain began to patter against my cockpit window, and the entire aircraft rattled from a strong gust of wind. Thick clouds closed over my field of vision like a sea of gray cotton.
The blood in my veins turned to ice, and I sucked in a nervous breath.
Land. I had to land. There was nothing else to do, my flight controls weren’t responding, and only my Garmin had managed to come back to life. Perhaps I’d been hit by lightning, and the electronics had been fried? Either way, it was too dark to tell, but a storm seemed to be brewing, and if I didn’t get my feet on the ground soon, I could be in real trouble.
“Better safe than sorry.” I pushed down on the collective to start my slow descent and clicked the talking button for my headset. “Any station, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, over.”
Nothing.
“Any station, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, requesting emergency assistance, over.”
Still nothing.
If the radio’s dead, I’m really up a creek.
With my hand shaking, I clicked on the mic one more time. “Any station, this is—”
Like a curtain pulling back, the fog cleared from around my window, and the words stuck in my throat.
Without my gauges, I couldn’t tell just how far I’d descended, but I was definitely very low. Thick trees poked up from the ground, and the hills rolled into high ridges with flat valley floors, fields and pastures pockmarking them. Rain fell all around in cold, silvery sheets, a normal feature for the mid spring in this part of Ohio.
What wasn’t normal, were the fires.
At first, I thought they were forest fires for the amount of smoke and flames that bellowed from each spot, but as I swooped lower, my eyes widened in horror.
They were houses.
Farms, cottages, little clusters that barely constituted villages, all of them belched orange flames and black pillars of sooty smoke. I couldn’t hear above the helicopter blades, but I could see the flashes on the ground, along the road, in between the trees, and even coming from the burning buildings, little jets of golden light that spat into the darkness with anger.
Gunfire. That’s rifle fire, a whole lot of it.
Tiny black figures darted through the shadows, barely discernable from where I sat, several hundred feet up. I couldn’t see much, but some were definitely running away, the streaks of yellow gunfire chasing them. A few dark gray vehicles rumbled down one of the gravel roads, and sprayed fire into the houses as it went. They were fighting, I realized, the people in the trucks and the locals. It was horrific, like something out of war-torn Afghanistan, but worse.
Then, I caught a glimpse of the others.
They didn’t move like the rest, who either fled from the dark vehicles, or fired back from behind cover. These skinny figures loped along with haphazard gaits, many running on all fours like animals, swarming from the trees by the dozens. They threw themselves into the gales of bullets without flinching, attacking anyone within range, and something about the way they moved, so fluid, so fearless, made my heart skip a beat.
What is that?
“Echo Four Actual to unknown caller, please respond, over.”
Choking back a cry of shock, I fumbled at the control panel with clumsy fingers, the man’s voice sharp and stern. I hadn’t realized that I’d let go of the talking button and clicked it down again. “Hello? Hello, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot out of Pittsburgh, over.”
An excruciating moment passed, and I continued to zoom over the trees, the fires falling away behind me as more silent forest took over.
“Roger that Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, we read you loud and clear. Please identify yourself and any passengers or cargo you might be carrying, over.”
Swallowing hard, I eyed the treetops, which looked much closer than they should have been. How far had I descended? “Echo Four Actual, my name is Christopher Dekker, and I am alone. I’m a charter flight from PA, carrying medical equipment for OSU in Columbus. My controls have been damaged, and I am unable to safely carry on due to the storm. Requesting permission to land, over.”
I watched the landscape slide by underneath me, once catching sight of what looked like a little white church surrounded by smaller huts, dozens of figures in the yard staring up at me as I flew over a nearby ridgeline.
“Solid copy on that Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot. Be advised, your transponder shows you to be inside a restricted zone. Please cease all radio traffic, reduce your speed, climb to 3,000 feet and proceed north. We’ll talk you in from there. How copy, over?”
My heart jumped, and I let out a sigh of relief. “Roger that Echo Four Actual, my altimeter is down, but I’ll do my best to eyeball the altitude, over.”
With that, I pulled the collective upward, and tried my best to gauge how far I was by eyesight in the gathering night, rain still coming down all around me. This had to be some kind of disaster or riot, I decided. After all, the voice over the radio sounded like military, and those vehicles seemed to have heavy weapons. Maybe there was some kind of unrest going on here that I hadn’t heard about yet?
Kind of weird for it to happen in rural areas though. Spoiled college kids I get, but never saw farmers get so worked up before. They usually love the military.
Something moved in the corner of my eye, and I turned out of reflex.
My mouth fell open, and I froze, unable to scream.
In the sky beside me, a huge shadow glided along, and its leathery wings effortlessly carved through the gloom, flapping only on occasion to keep it aloft. It was too dark for me to see what color it was, but from the way it moved, I knew it wasn’t another helicopter. No, this thing was alive, easily the size of a small plane, and more than twice the length of my little McDonald Douglass. A long tail trailed behind it, and bore a distinct arrow-shaped snout, with twig-like spines fanned out around the back of its head. Whatever legs it had were drawn up under it like a bird, yet its skin appeared rough and knobby, almost resembling tree bark. Without pause, the gigantic bat-winged entity flew along beside me, as if my presence was on par with an annoying fly buzzing about its head.
Gripping the microphone switch so tight, I thought I’d crack the plastic, I whispered into my headset, forgetting all radio protocol. “T-There’s something up here.”
Static crackled.
“Douglas Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, say again your last, you’re coming in weak and unreadable, over.”
“There’s something up here.” I snarled into the headset, still glued to the controls of the helicopter, afraid to deviate even an inch from my course in case the monstrosity decided to turn on me. “A freaking huge thing, right beside me. I swear, it looks like a bat or . . . I don’t know.”
“Calm down.” The man on the other end of the radio broke his rigorous discipline as well, his voice deep, but level. “It won’t attack if you don’t move too fast. Slowly ease away from it and follow that course until you’re out of sight.”
I didn’t have time to think about how wrong that sounded, how the man’s strict tone had changed to one of knowledge, how he hadn’t been the least surprised by what I’d said. Instead, I slowly turned the helicopter away from the huge menace and edged the speed higher in tiny increments.
As soon as I was roughly two football fields away, I let myself relax, and clicked the mic switch. “It’s not following.”
“You’re sure?”
Eyeing the huge flapping wings, I nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see me. “Yeah, I’m well clear.”
“Good. Thank you, Mr. Dekker.”
Then, the radio went dead.
Something in my chest dropped, a weight that made my stomach roil. This wasn’t right, none of it. Who was that man? Why did he know about the thing I’d just seen? What was I supposed to—
A flash of light exploded from the trees to my right and shot into the air with a long finger of smoke.
What the . . .
On instinct, I jerked the cyclic stick to one side, and the helicopter swung to avoid the rocket.
Boom.
My world shook, metal screeched, and a dozen alarms began to go off inside the cockpit in a cacophony of beeps and sirens. Orange and red flames lit up the night sky just behind me, and the horizon started to spin wildly outside. Heat gushed from the cockpit door, and I smelled the greasy stench of burning oil. The safety belts dug into my shoulders, and with a final slip, the radio headset ripped free from my scalp.
I’m hit.
Desperate, I yanked on the controls, fought the bird even as she spun toward the ground in a wreath of flames, the inky black trees hurtling up to meet me. The helicopter went into full auto-rotation, the sky blurring past outside, and the alarms blared in a screech of doom. Panic slammed through my temples, I screamed at the top of my lungs, and for one brief second, my eyes locked on the little black Garmin still perched atop my control panel.
Its screen stopped twitching and settled on a map of the mysterious Barron County, with a little red arrow at the center of the screen, a few words popping up underneath it.
You are here.
Trees stabbed up into the sky, the belts crushed at my torso, glass shattered all around me, and the world went dark.
Copper, thick, warm, and tangy.
It filled my mouth, stank metallic in my nose, clogged my throat, choking me. In the murkiness, I fought for a surface, for a way out, blind and numb in the dark.
This way, kleineun.
My ouma’s voice echoed from somewhere in the shadows.
This way.
Both eyes flew open, and I gagged, spitting out a stream of red.
Pain throbbed in my ribs, and a heavy pressure sent a tingling numbness through my shoulders. Blood roared inside my temples, and stars danced before my eyes with a dizzying array. Humid night air kissed my skin, and something sticky coated my face, neck, and arms that hung straight up toward the ceiling.
Wait. Not up. Down.
I blinked at the wrinkled, torn ceiling of the cockpit, the glass all gone, the gray aluminum shredded like tissue paper. Just outside the broken windows, thick Appalachian bluegrass and stemmy underbrush swished in a feeble breeze, backlit by flashes of lightning from the thunderstorm overhead. Green and brown leaves covered everything in a wet carpet of triangles, and somewhere nearby, a cricket chirped.
Turning my head from side to side, I realized that I hung upside down inside the ruined helicopter, the top half burrowed into the mud. I could hear the hissing and crackling of flames, the pattering of rain falling on the hot aluminum, and the smaller brush fires around the downed aircraft sizzling out in the damp long grass. Charred steel and burning oil tainted the air, almost as strong as the metallic, coppery stench in my aching nose.
They shot me down. That military dude shot me out of the sky.
It didn’t make sense. I’d followed their orders, done everything they’d said, and yet the instant I veered safely away from whatever that thing in the sky had been, they’d fired, not at it, but at me.
Looking down (or rather, up) at my chest, I sucked in a gasp, which was harder to do that before.
The navy-blue shirt stuck to my torso with several big splotches of dark, rusty red. Most were clean slashes, but two held bits of glass sticking out of them, one alarmingly bigger than the other. They dripped cherry red blood onto my upturned face, and a wave of nausea hit me.
I gotta get down.
I flexed my arms to try and work some feeling back into them, praying nothing was broken. Half-numb from hanging so long, I palmed along my aching body until I felt the buckled for the seat belts.
“Okay.” I hissed between gritted teeth, in an effort to stave off my panic. “You can do this. Just hold on tight. Nice and tight. Here we go . . .”
Click.
Everything seemed to lurch, and I slid off the seat to plummet towards the muck-filled hole in the cockpit ceiling. My fingers were slick with blood and slipped over the smooth faux-leather pilot’s seat with ease. The shoulder belt snagged on the bits of glass that lay just under the left lowest rib, and a flare of white-hot pain ripped through me.
Wham.
I screamed, my right knee caught the edge of the aluminum ceiling, and both hands dove into a mound of leaf-covered glass shards on the opposite side of the hole. My head swam, being right-side-up again enough to make shadows gnaw at the corner of my eyes.
Forcing myself to breath slowly, I fought the urge to faint and slid back to sit on the smooth ceiling. I turned my hands over to see half a dozen bits of clear glass burrowed into my skin like greedy parasites, red blood weeping around the new cuts.
“Screw you.” I spat at the rubbish with angry tears in my eyes. “Screw you, screw you, screw you.”
The shards came out easy enough, and the cuts weren’t that deep, but that wasn’t what worried me. On my chest, the single piece of cockpit glass that remined was almost as big as my palm, and it really hurt. Just touching it felt like self-inflicted torture, but I knew it had to come out sooner or later.
Please don’t nick a vein.
Wiping my hands dry on my jeans, I gripped the shard with both hands, and jerked.
Fire roared over my ribs, and hot blood tickled my already grimy pale skin. I clapped a hand over the wound, pressing down hard, and grunted out a string of hateful expletives that my ouma would have slapped me for.
Lying on my back, I stared around me at the messy cargo compartment of the MD-902. Most of the medical supplies had been in cardboard boxes strapped down with heavy nylon tow-straps, but several cases had ruptured with the force of the impact, spraying bandages, syringes, and pill bottles all over the cluttered interior. Orange flames chewed at the crate furthest to the rear, the tail section long gone, but the foremost part of the hold was intact. Easily a million-dollar mess, it would have made me faint on any other trip, but today it was a godsend.
Half-blind in the darkness, I crawled along with only the firelight and lightning bolts to guide me, my right knee aching. Like a crippled raccoon, I collected things as I went, conscious of the two pallets of intact supplies weighing right over my head. I’d taken several different first-aid courses with some hunting buddies of mine, and the mental reflexes kicked in to help soothe my frazzled mind.
Check for bleeds, stop the worst, then move on.
Aside from my battered chest and stomach, the rest of me remained mostly unharmed. I had nasty bruises from the seatbelts, my right knee swelled, my nose slightly crooked and crusted in blood, but otherwise I was intact. Dowsing every scratch and cut with a bottle of isopropyl alcohol I found, I used butterfly closures on the smaller lacerations that peppered my skin. I wrapped soft white gauze over my abused palms and probed at the big cut where the last shard had been, only stopping when I was sure there were no pieces of glass wedged inside my flesh.
“Not too bad.” I grunted to myself, trying to sound impassive like a doctor might. “Rib must have stopped it. Gonna need stitches though. That’ll be fun.”
Pawing through the broken cases, I couldn’t find any suture chord, but just as I was about to give up, I noticed a small box that read ‘medical skin stapler’.
Bingo.
I tore the small white plastic stapler free from its packaging and eyeballed the device. I’d never done this before, only seen it in movies, and even though the cut in my skin hurt, I wondered if this wouldn’t be worse.
You’ve gotta do it. That bleeding needs to stop. Besides, no one’s coming to rescue you, not with those rocket-launching psychos out there.
Taking a deep breath, I pinched the skin around the gash together, and pressed the mouth of the stapler to it.
Click.
A sharp sting, like that of a needle bit at the skin, but it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the cut itself. I worked my way across the two-inch laceration and gave out a sigh of relief when it was done.
“Not going to bleed to death today.” I daubed ointment around the staples before winding more bandages over the wound.
Popping a few low-grade painkillers that tumbled from the cargo, I crawled wriggled through the nearest shattered window into the wet grass.
Raindrops kissed my face, clean and cool on my sweaty skin. Despite the thick cloud cover, there was enough constant lightning strikes within the storm to let me get glimpses of the world around me. My helicopter lay on its back, the blades snapped like pencils, with bits and pieces of it burning in chunks all around the small break in the trees. Chest-high scrub brush grew all around the low-lying ground, with pockets of standing water in places. My ears still rang from the impact of the crash, but I could start to pick up more crickets, frogs, and even some nocturnal birds singing into the darkness, like they didn’t notice the huge the hulk of flaming metal that had fallen from the sky. Overhead, the thunder rumbled onward, the feeble wind whistling, and there were other flashes on the horizon, orange and red ones, with crackles that didn’t sound quite like lightning.
The guns. They’re still fighting.
Instinctively, I pulled out my cellphone, and tapped the screen.
It fluttered to life, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t get through to anyone, not even with the emergency function designed to work around having no service. The complicated wonder of our modern world was little better than a glorified paperweight.
Stunned, I sat down with my back to the helicopter and rested my head against the aluminum skin of the craft. How I’d gone from a regular medical supply run to being marooned in this hellish parody of rural America, I didn’t know, but one thig was certain; I needed a plan. Whoever fired the missile could have already contacted my charter company and made up some excuse to keep them from coming to look for me. No one else knew I was here, and even though I now had six staples holding the worst of my injuries shut, I knew I needed proper medical attention. If I wanted to live, I’d have to rescue myself.
My bag. I need to get my go-bag, grab some gear and then . . . head somewhere else.
It took me a while to gather my green canvas paratrooper bag from its place behind the pilot’s seat and fill it with whatever supplies I could scrounge. My knee didn’t seem to be broken, but man did it hurt, and I dreaded the thought of walking on it for miles on end. I focused instead on inventorying my gear and trying to come up with a halfway intelligent plan of action.
I had a stainless-steel canteen with one of those detachable cups on the bottom, a little fishing kit, some duct tape, a lighter, a black LED flashlight with three spare batteries, a few tattered road maps with a compass, a spare pair of socks, medical supplies from the cargo, and a simple forest green plastic rain poncho. I also managed to unearth a functioning digital camcorder my ouma had gotten me for Christmas a few years back, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to do any filming in such a miserable state. Lastly, since it was a private supply run from a warehouse area near Pittsburgh to a direct hospital pad in Ohio, I’d been able to bring my K-Bar, a sturdy, and brutally simple knife designed for the Marine Corps that I used every time I went camping. It was pitiful in comparison to the rifle I wished I had with me, but that didn’t matter now. I had what I had, and I doubted my trusty Armalite would have alleviated my sore knee anyway.
Clicking on my flashlight, I huddled with the poncho around my shoulders inside the wreck of the chopper and peered at the dusty roadmaps. A small part of me hoped that a solution would jump out from the faded paper, but none came. These were all maps of western PA and eastern Ohio. None of them had a Barron County on them anywhere.
The man on the radio said to head north, right before they shot me down. That means they must be camped out to the north of here. South had that convoy and those burning houses, so that’s a no-go. Maybe I can backtrack eastward the way I came.
As if on cue, a soft pop echoed from over the eastern horizon, and I craned to look out the helicopter window, spotting more man-made flashes over the tree tops.
“Great.” I hissed between clenched teeth, aware of how the temperature dipped to a chilly 60 degrees, and how despite the conditions, my stomach had begun to growl. “Not going that way, are we? Westward it is.”
Walking away from my poor 902 proved to be harder than I’d anticipated. Despite the glass, the fizzling fires, and the darkness, it still held a familiar, human essence to it. Sitting inside it made me feel secure, safe, even calm about the situation. In any other circumstance, I would have just stayed with the downed aircraft to wait for help, but I knew the men who shot me down would likely find my crash site, and I didn’t want to be around when they did.
Unlike much of central and western Ohio, southeastern Ohio is hilly, brushy, and clogged with thick forests. Thorns snagged at my thin poncho and sliced at my pant legs. My knee throbbed, every step a form of self-inflicted torture. The rain never stopped, a steady drizzle from above just cold enough to be problematic as time went on, making me shiver. Mud slid under my tennis shoes, and every tree looked ten times bigger in the flickering beam of my cheap flashlight. Icy fear prickled at the back of my neck at some of the sounds that greeted me through the gloom. I’d been camping loads of times, both in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, but these noises were something otherworldly to me.
Strange howls, screeches, and calls permeated the rain-soaked sky, some almost roars, while others bordered on human in their intonation. The more I walked, the softer the distant gunfire became, and the more prevalent the odd sounds, until the shadows seemed to fill with them. I didn’t dare turn off my flashlight, or I’d been completely blind in the dark, but a little voice in the back of my head screamed that I was too visible, crunching through the gloomy forest with my long beam of light stabbing into the abyss. It felt as though a million eyes were on me, studying me, hunting me from the surrounding brush, and I bitterly recalled how much I’d loved the old Survivor Man TV series as a kid.
Not so fun being out in the woods at night. Especially alone.
A twig snapped somewhere behind me, and I whirled on the spot, one trembling hand resting on the hilt of my K-Bar.
Nothing. Nothing but trees, bushes, and rain dripping down in the darkness.
“This is stupid.” I whispered to myself to keep my nerves in check as I slowly spun on the spot. “I should have went eastward anyway. God knows how long I’m going to have to—”
Creak.
A groan of metal-on-metal echoed from somewhere to my right, and I spun to face it, yanking the knife on my belt free from its scabbard. It felt so small and useless in my hand, and I choked down a wave of nauseas fear.
Ka-whump. Creak. K-whump. Creak.
Underbrush cracked and crunched, a few smaller saplings thrashed, and from deep within the gloom, two yellow orbs flared to life. They poked through the mist in the trees, forming into slender fingers of golden light that swept back and forth in the dark.
The soldiers . . . they must be looking for me.
I swallowed hard and turned to slink away.
Ice jammed through my blood, and I froze on the spot, biting my tongue to stop the scream.
It stood not yards away, a huge form that towered a good twelve feet tall in the swirling shadows. Unpolished chrome blended with flash-rusted spots in the faded red paint, and grime-smeared glass shone with dull hues in the flashes of lightning. Where the wheels should have been, the rounded steel axels curved like some enormous hand had bent them, and the tires lay face-down on the muddy ground like big round feet, their hubcaps buried in the dirt. Dents, scrapes, and chips covered the battered thing, and its crooked little radio antenna pointed straight up from the old metal fender like a mast. I could barely make out the mud-coated VW on the rounded hood, and my mind reeled in shock.
Is . . . is that a car?
Both yellow headlights bathed me in a circle of bright, blinding light, and neither I nor the strange vehicle moved.
Seconds ticked by, the screech-thumping in the background only growing closer. I realized that I couldn’t hear any engine noises and had yet to see any soldiers or guns pointed my way. This car looked old, really old, like one of those classic Volkswagen Beetles that collectors fought over at auctions. Try as I might, I couldn’t see a driver inside the murky, mold-smeared windows.
Because there wasn’t one.
Lightning arched across the sky overhead, and the car standing in front of me blinked.
Its headlights slid shut, as if little metal shades had crawled over the bulbs for a moment and flicked open again. Something about that movement was so primal, so real, so lifelike, that every ounce of self-control I had melted in an instant.
Cursing under my breath, I lunged into the shrubs, and the world erupted around me.
Under my shoes, the ground shook, and the car surged after me in a cacophony of ka-thumps that made my already racing heart skip several beats. A weather-beaten brown tow truck from the 50’s charged through the thorns to my left, it’s headlights ablaze, and a dilapidated yellow school bus rose from its hiding place in the weeds to stand tall on four down-turned axel-legs. They all flicked their headlights on like giants waking from their slumber, and as I dodged past them, they each blared their horn into the night in alarm.
My breaths came short and tight, my knee burned, and I crashed through thorns and briars without thought to how badly I was getting cut up.
The cheap poncho tore, and I ripped it away as it caught on a tree branch.
A purple 70’s Mustang shook off its blanket of creeping vines and bounded from a stand of trees just ahead, forcing me to swerve to avoid being run over, my adrenaline at all-time highs.
This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.
Slipping and sliding, I pushed through a stand of multiflora rose, and stumbled out into a flat, dark expanse.
I almost skidded to a stop.
What had once been a rather large field stood no taller than my shoestrings, the grass charred, and burnt. The storm above illuminated huge pieces of wreckage that lay scattered over the nearly 40-acre plot, and I could just make out the fire-blackened hulk of a fuselage resting a hundred yards away. The plane had been brought down a while ago it seemed, as there weren’t any flames left burning, and I threw myself toward it in frenzied desperation.
Burned grass and greasy brown topsoil slushed underfoot, and I could hear the squelching of the cars pursing me. Rain soaked me to the bone, and my lungs ached from sucking down the damp night air. A painful stich crept into my side, and I cursed myself for not putting in more time for cardio at the gym.
Something caught my left shoelace, and I hurtled to the ground, tasting mud and blood in between my teeth.
They’ve got me now.
I clawed at the mud, rolled, and watched a tire slam down mere inches from where my head had been. The Mustang loomed over me and jostled for position with the red Volkswagen and brown tow truck, the school bus still a few yards behind them. They couldn’t seem to decide who would get the pleasure of stomping me to death, and like a herd of stampeding wildebeest, they locked bumpers in an epic shoving match.
On all fours, I scampered out from under the sparring brutes, and dashed for the crumpled airplane, a white-painted DC-3 that looked like it had been cut in half by a gargantuan knife blade. I passed a snapped wing section, the oily remains of a turbo-prop engine, and a mutilated wheel from the landing gear. Climbing over a heap of mud, I squeezed into the back of the ruined flight cabin and dropped down into the dark cargo hold.
Wham.
No sooner had my sneakers hit the cold metal floor, and the entire plane rocked from the impact of something heavy ramming it just outside. I tumbled to my knees, screaming in pain as, once again, I managed to bash the sore one off a bracket in the wall.
My hand smeared in something gooey, and I scrabbled for my flashlight.
It clicked on, a wavering ball of white light in the pitch darkness, and I fought the urge to gag. “Oh man . . .”
Three people, or what was left of them, lay strewn over the narrow cargo area. Claret red blood coated the walls, caked on the floor, and clotted under my mud-spattered shoes. Bits of flesh and viscera were stuck to everything, and tatters of cloth hung from exposed sections of broken bone. An eerie set of bloody handprints adorned the walls, and the only reason I could tell it had been three people were the shoes; all of them bore anklebones sticking out above blood-soaked socks. It smelled sickly sweet, a strange, nauseas odor that crept into my nose and settled on the back of my tongue like an alien parasite.
Something glinted in the beam of my flashlight, and my pulse quickened as I pried the object loose from the severed arm that still clung to it.
“Hail Mary full of Grace.” I would have grinned if it weren’t for the fact that the plane continued to buck and roll under the assault from the cars outside.
The pistol looked old, but well-maintained, aside from the light coating of dark blood that stained its round wooden handle. It felt heavy, but good in my hand, and I turned it over to read the words, Waffenfabrik Mauser stenciled into the frame, with a large red 9 carved into the grip. For some reason, it vaguely reminded me of the blasters from Star Wars.
I fumbled with a little switch that looked like a safety on the back of the gun and stumbled toward a gap in the plane’s dented fuselage to aim out at the surrounding headlights.
Bang.
The old gun bucked reliably in my hand, its long barrel spitting a little jet of flame into the night. I had no idea if I hit anything, but the attacking cars recoiled, their horns blaring in confusion.
They turned, and scuttled for the tree line as fast as their mechanical legs could go, the entire ordeal over as fast as it had begun.
Did I do that?
Perplexed, I stared down at the pistol in my hand.
Whoosh.
A large, inky black shadow glided down from the clouds, and the yellow school bus moved too slow to react in time.
With a crash, the kicking nightmarish vehicle was thrown onto its side, spraying glass and chrome trim across the muddy field. Its electro-synth horn blared with wails of mechanical agony, as two huge talon-like feet clamped down on it, and the enormous head of the flying creature lowered to rip open its engine compartment.
The horn cut out, and the enormous flying entity jerked its head back to gulp down a mass of what looked like sticky black vines from the interior of the shattered bus.
At this range, I could see now that the flying creature bore two legs and had its wings half-tucked like a vulture that had descended to feed on roadkill. Its head turned slightly, and in the glow of another lightning bolt, my jaw went slack at the realization of what it was.
A tree trunk. It’s a rotted tree trunk.
I couldn’t tell where the reptilian beast began, and where the organic tree components ended, the upper part of the head shaped like a log, while the lower jaw resembled something out of a dinosaur movie. Its skin looked identical to the outside of a shagbark hickory but flexed with a supple featheriness that denoted something closer to skin. Sharp branch-like spines ranged down its back, and out to the end of its tail, which bore a massive round club shaped like a diseased tree-knot. Crouched on both hind legs, it braced the hooked ends of its folded wings against the ground like a bat, towering higher than a semi-truck. Under the folds of its armored head, a bulging pair of chameleon-like eyes constantly spun in their sockets, probing the dark for threats while it ate.
One black pupil locked onto the window I peered through, and my heart stopped.
The beast regarded me for a moment, making a curious, sideways sniff.
With a proud, contemptful head-toss, the shadow from the sky parted rows of razor-sharp teeth to let out a roar that shook the earth beneath my feet. It was the triumphant war cry of a creature that sat at the very top of the food chain, one that felt no threat from the fragile two-legged beings that walked the earth all around it. It hunted whenever it wanted, ate whatever it wanted, and flew wherever it wanted. It didn’t need to rip the plane apart to devour me.
Like my hunter-gatherer ancestors from thousands of years ago, I wasn’t even worth the energy it would take to pounce.
I’m hiding in the remains of the cockpit now, which is half-buried under the mud of the field, enough to shield the light from my screen so that thing doesn’t see it. My service only now came back, and it’s been over an hour since the winged beast started in on the dead bus. I don’t know when, or how I’m going to get out of here. I don’t know when anyone will even see this post, or if it will upload at all. My phone battery is almost dead, and at this point, I’m probably going to have to sleep among the corpses until daylight comes.
A dead man sleeping amongst friends.
If you live in the Noble County area in southeastern Ohio, be careful where you drive, fly, and boat. I don’t know if it’s possible to stumble into this strange place by ground, but if so, then these things are definitely headed your way.
If that happens . . . pray that they don’t find you.

John Wick Chapter 5: Retribution

The word "retribution" isn't totally necessary but it sounds badass and applies so I ran with it
First of all, the film opens some years later with the revelation that John didn't truly die at the end of Chapter 4. Instead, he faked his death, seeing it as the only way to truly escape and go live in peace somewhere else. In fact, the only other soul who knew was Winston, who helped him with it.
I've seen this speculated as the case online, and some have said it'd ruin the ending, but I don't think so. It could be pulled off right. Correct me but from a first impression It doesn't make the most sense for John to die at the end of 4, and brutally honestly it isn't the most satisfying, after he'd spent three movies fighting to live peacefully again. And he gets so close- Winston even says he'll take him home. So I propose that's exactly what happens
John is living alone somewhere far away. You tell me where. One day, a guy shows up at his house. This guy is called Judah, and at first John believes he's an assassin or spy sent from the high table to kill him, but he says he isn't and keeps begging John to listen to him. So he ends up staying in his house late into the night, all while John is like continually pointing a gun at him and keeping him under watchful eye, while Judah tells him his story.
The name "Judah" just came to me and I thought "that sounds like such a sick assassin name, like someone out of John Wick," and just like that I came up with this whole movie concept. It'd probably be his codename so to speak, similarly to how Caine probably isn't actually named "Caine."
So obviously when some sketchy dude shows up at his house, John will think it's the high table coming to finish him off. In fact, he'd probably be paranoid about that, seeing as they're so good at knowing everything and they have so many spies, he's probably expecting someone to come for him at this point. Judah is actually a good guy, but John is highly skeptical and remains so throughout pretty much the whole movie
Judah is here because he wants to take down the high table completely. He wants to kill every last member and free the underworld from their rule. We can give him some kind of backstory, but I haven't thought of one yet and I'm not good with tragic backstories so I'd probably screw it up. But he has a vendetta against the high table, and he wants to take it down once and for all, but he needs John's help to train him and maybe come with him.
John asks him "how did you know I was still alive?" and Judah says something along the lines of "everyone in the underworld believes you're dead, but I knew you were still alive. They talked about you like the most legendary assassin of all time, and I knew you were my only hope in taking down the high table. So I went looking for you, and it took years, but I heard many whispers and one day I finally found you." Essentially, he just had a gut feeling John was still out there somewhere, and went seeking him out.
After much convincing, Judah somehow convinces John to train him and accompany him on a mission. knowing how far the high table can go, John is still skeptical and he always keeps an eye on Judah, but he works with him. He's kind of like a grandmastesensei character while Judah is like an overly talkative student with a bunch of questions, but John has patience. Now, Judah is by no means a beginner. He's already a super skilled assassin with the potential to even become better than John Wick (foreshadowing). He just has John train him even more, and show him secrets and stuff. He also just needs him as a partner if they're gonna have any chance.
Another factor as to why John decides to go with Judah is because maybe he's tired of living a peaceful life. It's been a few years since 4 and he's enjoyed a calm home life but maybe he just wants to get back into his element of killing again, for a third (and final) time in his life. It's all very fragile seeing as how throughout the series he's been wanting to get peace so badly and we hear all about how he just wants to live at home and remember his wife, etc. But I think it could work
One day, the two finally embark on their mission. Now there's a huge gap in this part, since I don't really have a whole storyboard for all the stuff they go through and how exactly they plan on taking down the high table. So, let's just skip to when they successfully do it. I basically have the beginning and the end planned, as you can see.
John and Judah have successfully taken down the high table and killed all its members, setting the assassin world free from the tyranny of the high table and satisfying the two, who've both been wronged by it in their pasts. Throughout the experience, the two have forged a brotherly bond, working together to take down a common enemy.
So now, John is getting ready to go back home and live out the rest of his days, when Judah asks him "hey, why don't you come with me and we can do more assassin work, now that we're free from the high table? You won't have to worry about them being behind you all the time, you can just do what you love freely and be a legend again." Now, I have TWO possible endings here:
Ending 1: John declines, and the friends salute each other and part ways. Throughout the film, John has noticed Judah bettering him in every way. John is getting older and he decides to pass on the legendary title to Judah, as his sort of apprentice. While John goes back home with final peace, not only having won his freedom, but having actually taken down the entire high table, able to finally live in peace for the rest of his life for real this time, Judah takes his mantle and becomes the new John Wick, running off to do badass assassin stuff in the underworld without the high table on his ass.
Ending 2: John accepts, but not before visiting his own grave. On it, as we saw at the end of chapter 4, reads, "John Wick Loving Husband." This symbolizes the grieving version of him having been laid to rest, with John finally realizing the assassin life is his true element, and he decides to go live the rest of his days kicking ass in the underworld, having had sufficient time to grieve in his home years between chapters 4 and 5, and having realized assassin life is his true, final destiny. He's getting worse at being an assassin, but he's okay with it. John and Judah team up, best friends, and become legendary assassins. From here, we have a hopeful future. John finally has a friend in life. Not to mention, even if John dies eventually (which we know he eventually will have to, seeing as he's getting older and rustier) we'll still have Judah to carry on his legacy.
​
While writing this, I realized it's way more underdeveloped than I even realized. In fact, maybe it's fundamentally flawed and it's best to scrap the idea entirely. Either way I think it's a pretty cool concept. A guy who wants to actually take down the entire high table comes along, John decides to go back "in" one final time to do the mission with this guy, they forge a bond and take down the high table together. Then, they either team up and go become assassins together (happy ending with John having a friend and discovering his true destiny) or John goes home (happy ending, he took down the high table, he has an apprentice to carry on his legacy, and he finally has true peace). Originally, the second ending was the only one. But as I wrote this post I realized these two endings are equally satisfying in my eyes, so I'll leave it up to all of you to decide!
Please critique this a lot and tell me what you think

I say this because he won the UCL, World Cup, La Liga and the ballon dor all the 2000s also his dribbling,skill moves and playmaking ability in his prime meant that defenders were always struggling to tackle him
or because of the partying and showing up drunk and late to training meant his longevity was hindered so he couldn’t be as skillful at Ac Milan like he was a at Barca

La nueva generación en el nuevo mundo Across the sea, life goes on

XIV FEBRERO MDXVI
Giovanni wept to himself, quietly at first, and then with wrenching, heart-shaking shudders of a man who was barely contained. Pedrarias would have admonished him. His wife, Maria, would have berated him. His brother, William, would have told him that prayers were worth more than tears. And Cesare Borgia would have stabbed him and said, "Now you have something to cry about." His first-born daughter, Maria-Theresa, was stillborn, and his line remained stillborn with her. There would be no Palaiologos to carry on their claim to the Queen of Cities. He wept for himself, he wept for his wife, he wept for his family, and he wept for the New World and the life he thought he was building here. What had survival on Bermuda been for if not to bring new life into this world?
The year of 1516 had been set for the most brilliant and jubilant arrival of new life and peace for the city of Panama. Instead, the death of Maria de Paleólogo y Téllez-Girón had brought only sadness. The indigenous people listened to Giovanni's story and understood his belief that his family was cursed. They understood where his self-belief came from and the role his family played across the waves of the Atlantic. They called him 'El emperador perdido' or 'el hombre sin familia,' and they knew why he worked as hard as he did. He tried his best to treat them well, but 1516 was a cursed year, and even the estate of Elysia was renowned for being a bleak place. There was little to inspire joy or happiness that year.
By the turn of the year, Maria was herself again, a woman of fierce temperament and fiercer demands. She was driving her land hard, and Giovanni harder. There was little that stood between the young woman and her future. She was determined to see her estate rival any on Cuba and aspire to match the great landowners of Spain proper. Her bargain was known to all; working for the Lady of Elysia, the so-called 'Persephone,' was a fast route to favours and wealth beyond imagination. Spanish and indigenous alike knew of her reputation and her favour.
Ninguané spent the year planning the grandest expedition that Pedrarias would ever undertake. It would not be this year, nor 1517, or even 1518, it was to take place in 1520. A full four years of planning time in preparation. Pedrarias himself would lead it, Juan to be his second, and Ninguané their chief guide. They were going to utilise a ludicrous amount of men and arms, and provisions sufficient to establish two colonies in their own right. Any native tribe who stood against the Old Man would find itself crushed. To aid him, Ninguané used the maps and information provided by the foreign traders. He also used lessons learned from fighting the Cuevá to have Juan write some simple guides for the condottiero who would come with them. This was all just the first step though, and as planning commenced Juan got to work on ensuring Panamá was the ideal place to launch this expedition from.
----
XXII JULIO MDXVII 1517 was destined to be one of the greatest years in the entire lifetime of the House of Paleólogo, who now officially adopted the Spanish translation of their name. On a warm day, near midday, Lady Maria Luisa Enríquez y Téllez-Girón, after carrying a heavy belly for nine months, finally gave birth. On that sweltering summer day, baby Guillermo de Paleólogo y Téllez-Girón was born healthy and crying. He already had a thick head of hair, and his lungs heralded the arrival of a new generation of Paleólogo, who would carry the family name and the title of Imperator Constantinopolitanus. Word had finally reached them from across the sea that Guglielmo, in his solitude, was unlikely to provide an heir to the family. Juan, known as Giovanni in his Italian name and Ioannes in Latin, was rightfully his brother's heir, and the baby boy Guillermo was his own heir. As his wife's laboured breathing turned to laughter and joy after hours of agonising screams, Juan's love for her overflowed. In four different languages, he praised her. First in Italian, then in Latin, then Greek, and finally Spanish. He spoke of love and vitality, of eternal marriage. He whispered sweet nothings that made the midwives blush and turn away in embarrassment. Together, Juan and Maria held their new son and thanked the Lord Almighty for their happiness. On that July day, nothing could have shattered their joy, not even the fall of Rome itself, for their whole world was cradled in their arms. The year went by, and Guillermo proved to be strong-willed for a baby, expressing himself in every possible way. Part of Maria knew that her husband would desire another son sooner rather than later. Juan, having tasted fatherhood, yearned for more. He told them that family, like faith, was strongest when held with love in their hearts. Together, they prayed for another child, and their zealousness was soon rewarded. Meanwhile, Ninguané took charge of managing affairs between Elysia, Panamá, and the Coclé tribe. Being fluent in Spanish, his native language, and Latin, thanks to the church, made him indispensable to the Spanish around him, especially Pedrarias and Juan. Part of him regretted not being able to be there for his family more, and he knew that sooner or later, he would need to take a wife of his own. Yet, a small part of him harboured a fascination with the women who came from across the sea and wanted Pedrarias and Juan to arrange a Spanish wife for him. He wasn't entirely sure why, but there was an intrigue surrounding these women. He also knew that his family expected him to marry someone from his tribe since he was the chieftain's son. While Elysia had expanded Panamá to the size of Medina del Oro and Nombre de Dios combined, Juan and Ninguané aimed even higher. Together, they began constructing a fortress in Panamá. It wouldn't be a grand castle, but it would be sufficient to hold the region of Castilla del Oro against aggression and exert influence over the surrounding areas. It was also intended to serve as a residence for the future Duc. With this in mind, Ninguané sought his father's input, and Juan commissioned Spanish engineers. The Fuerte de San Constantino would serve as the base of Spanish power in the Atlantic, initially for Pedrarias and later for the planned grand expedition to the north. From this stronghold of Spanish might, the region would be secured eternally for the Spanish Monarchs. However, something about this plan unsettled Ninguané, yet the undeniable prosperity of his tribe kept those concerns at bay most of the time.
----
VII AGOSTO MDXVIII
Pedrarias surveyed the room and expressed his gratitude to God, the Queen, and the Kingdom. Juan cradled the boys in his arms, his wife gazing at him with love while the proud midwives beamed at the woman who had just given birth. The priest blessed the family in Latin. They named the twin boys Bonifacio de Paleólogo y Téllez-Girón and Constantino de Paleólogo y Téllez-Girón. It was a double blessing from God that even Pedrarias had made the journey from Nombre de Dios to witness. They called him the Old Man, and though he was indeed old, he was not too old to visit one of his key administrators on such a significant day. His own children were now grown, with wives and soon-to-be children. Pedro and Francisco, his sons, were grown men, while Arias, 18 years old, had thoughts of sending him to court. His daughters included María de Peñalosa, who would turn 16 this year and soon be married, Isabela de Bobadilla, 13 years old, and Elvira, his youngest at just 9. Pedrarias knew the joys of having children and understood the significance of this moment for Juan.
However, the joy and celebrations of the 'double-headed eagle' in Elysia were short-lived. Constantino caught a cradle cough and passed away barely two months after his birth. Juan and María were devastated once again, especially Juan. Ninguané, who had witnessed life come to Panamá, now watched it fade from his friend's face once more. While the previous year had been filled with good news and abundant energy, the administrator retreated into himself. Missives and directions came through assistants and helpers, and Pedrarias rarely called upon his senior advisor, knowing that the man was barely eating, let alone fit for conversation. Fortunately, preparations for the grand expedition and the construction of the Fuerte de San Constantino continued, with Ninguané and Pedrarias taking charge while Juan managed the finances and other foremen oversaw the actual construction.
Towards the end of the year, Ninguané and Pedrarias grew particularly close in the absence of Juan managing their affairs. The native prince of Panama, now 22 years old, had matured since joining the colony at the age of 18. Pedrarias saw before him a handsome man, dark-skinned but lacking the refinement of civilization, yet intelligent, creative, and cunning—traits that Pedrarias appreciated. What became apparent to him, beyond his own admiration and dependence, was the affection that Maria held for Ninguané as well. The young girl became a frequent "guest" whenever Ninguané stayed late at Pedrarias' residence. She would bombard him with questions about his family and his thoughts on the Spanish. She would quiz him on the various Kings and Queens of Spain. Before the year ended, Maria started asking her father about whom he thought Ninguané would marry and the laws regarding such matters.
Juan Paleólogo and his wife, along with the rest of Elysia, returned to active service for the colony in the final quarter of the year. With renewed vigour, which he found by turning to his two living sons, Juan fully immersed himself in his duties. This involved weekly trips from his estate to Panamá proper or Nombre de Dios to visit the governor. He resumed the process of formalising the plans for what was now referred to as 'La gran expedición' and personally wrote letters to investors, the Casa, and Corte Real de Madrid. His mastery with the quill was unrivalled, having spent time in Rome, and Pedrarias was immensely grateful to have him back. The loss of Bobadilla some years ago had hindered progress in Medina, but with his competent Greek administrator, the colony rediscovered its purpose and attracted new investments.
Together, the three men rallied once again and devoted themselves to ensuring that Castilla del Oro became the crown jewel of the New World. They formed perhaps the finest trio of officials on this side of the Atlantic.
----
Summary
Juan de Paleólogo and his wife have had a number of children over the years. He has been up and down emotionally but on the whole Panamá has now become as large as Medina del Oro and Nombre de Dios combined.
Ninguané has grown much closer to Pedrarias with Juan focussed on family following the death of his son. Ninguane and Maria, the eldest daughter of Pedrarias, are growing closer.
Pedrarias has begun preparations for probably his final expedition; it is to be particularly large.
A new fort is being built in Panama for ƒ100,000 (mil), costs splot ƒ75k (Casa) and 25k (del Oro).

Taken from a thread in DebateCommunism:
Credit to u/theDashRendar

The Lucanamarca Incident removed all credibility from the PCP

No it didn't. The People's War continued to grow support for another nine years after Lucanamarca, and that event had absolutely no detrimental effect on that growth (and only exists when you wish to imagine there to be). It took the entire Peruvian state, backed by the full might of the amerikkkan finance and military support machine over a decade to crush Gonzalo's People's War. Meanwhile, the other significant and sincere attempt at a communist revolution in Peru under Luis de la Puente Uceda and his MIRLM was defeated and crushed in a matter of weeks. How does one communist revolution last so long under much more difficult and violent conditions, while another fails utterly despite being a much more favourable time for revolution against a much weaker and more poorly armed Peruvian state?
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Peru's(an organization staffed by conservatives and state officials and thus far from "independent"––which blamed many of the brutal policies of Alberto Fujimori's Grupo Colina death squad on the PCP-SL) findings of Lucanamarca had reactionary militia testimony -- straight from the Rondas militia. It's pathetic people still believe the "baby boiling" nonsense. Reactionaries and their supporters were dispatched after physically lynching a lone senior Cadre member from the PCP. If you needed a debrief of the situation, there you go. Was it overkill? Yes. Did Gonzalo admit it was overkill? Yes.

Why did they fall?

They (US) literally funneled so much IMF money directly to Fujimori (Peru's President at the time) that Peru was able to become a total war fascist state economy despite having basically no production going on. Finance capitalism is the real power of the amerikkkan empire -- as you just pointed out, their armed forces were thwarted decisively by Afghans and Iraqis with vastly inferior equipment -- and amerikkka basically gave Peru a blank cheque to do whatever it took to murder the revolution in its tracks.

Did they even accomplish anything?

Yes, they did; this was the defeat of "the end of history" before Fukiyama had even declared it. After the death of Stalin, the red flag in the USSR fell to the ground, betrayed by Khrushchev's bourgeois line -- a knife in the back that killed the greatest socialist project humans had ever embarked upon. However, Mao's China took up that red banner, and continued the struggle, not only against global capitalism, but now also against the revisionist USSR in defence of real socialism. When Mao died, his China too, fell to revisionism, the red flag fell to the ground again and the bourgeoisie pushed into a total strategic offensive against a shattered and broken communism in global retreat. Instead of their victory being a global celebration and victory, they were instead met with Gonzalo's Peruvian Communist Party, taking up the tattered red banner, rallying the broken communist movement, and unrelentingly launching a counter offensive in the back yard of the empire itself. The lessons necessary for the defeat of neoliberalism are contained within this first battle against it.
They (PCP) had nearly 40% of the country under liberated zones free of Peruvian fascist state control. They had begun to breach into Lima and were regularly cutting its power and services (so much so that citizens were afraid to take elevators, and you could routinely look to the countryside to see burning hammer and sickles emblazoning the surrounding mountains).
No revolution in the era of neoliberalism -- especially in the era in which both the rear-base, financial aid, and arms suppliers of the USSR and China were totally lost to counter-revolutionary revisionism (forever depriving all revolutionary movements of the very supplies and support they need to even get off the ground, a good historical example is Greece, where the movement would have failed within days had it not been for the USSR's aid) -- has advanced as far or accomplished as much as Gonzalo's People's War (with Nepal in a close second, and the Philippines in a distant third). With no backing, no support, no coherent International Communist Movement, and no help, every revolutionary movement on the planet has had a forced reset to zero, and needs to begin again from nothing. Not only that, but contemporary states are now more established, better armed, more interconnected, and run much deeper than they ever did at any point over the past one hundred years, making the gap between zero and revolution exponentially larger and longer than it was during Lenin's time (and all of the subsequent revolutions were so heavily dependent on the USSR for support that they would have all failed without it -- this is what is so vital about proletarian internationalism). Instead, Gonzalo was on the verge of strategic equilibrium (possibly already there by 1992, but failed to declare it and reorganize), and no other revolution or movement has made it to his high water mark against hegemonic neoliberalism.

but muh unsuccessful because of muh violence
"The fundamental distinction between revisionism and revolution is that revisionists demand the assurance of victory as the precondition to struggle, where the revolutionaries dare to fight, dare to win. Revolutionaries are not scared of defeat."

• Charu Majumdar

It's called opportunism when you only support the revolutionaries that win. Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were defeated. In fact, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao were all defeated by revisionism in the end.
The white kids on the internet are the ones mostly doing the exact same thing, embracing a bourgeois fiction and fully reactionary anti-communist narrative of history as indisputable historical fact, labelling him a "baby boiler" and "indigenous peasant murderer" -- as if his movement was not comprised and representative of the overwhelming majority of the indigenous peasants in Peru (and the revolution with the largest involvement of women in all of communist history as well). Somehow Lenin using toxic weapons at Tambov does not bother anyone (nor should it), nor does Red Army violence against civilians in the Second World War (again, nor should it), nor Chinese revolutionary violence against pro-KMT civilians during the civil war (and again, nor should it) and Cultural Revolution (only the SWCC are bothered by this and that's because the people they support today were the targets of that violence), but Lucanamarca is somehow the line that one must not cross? Gonzalo's revolution was actually one of the cleanest in civilian death counts in communist history, pound for pound -- so much so that liberals basically ignore it on the victims of communism narrative. The Bolsheviks and the Chinese revolution left countless more civilian corpses in their wake than Gonzalo, both imaginary and real. And during the struggle in Peru, it was Garcia and then Fujimori who had enacted the "ten for one" policy and committed the overwhelming majority of the violence against the peasants, and that violence continues to this day (which we see now still happening in Peru) -- Gonzalo was the only force trying to put an end to it. Where do the moralistic sub-sect in this sub stand on the above, I wonder. ;)
Do you actually think no children or elderly died at Tambov? Lenin smoking out bandits from the treeline with chemical weapons is somehow okay, because of..well.. it being Lenin, right? Children died in that engagement, yet no one here vilifies Lenin and douses his legacy in western optic trashed analyses. So why Gonzalo? Western "Marxists" pick and choose which instances of revolutionary violence to either vilify or ignore, it seems.

if they were legit, why didnt the AES help them?

Gonzalo appealed to DPRK and Cuba. Cuba said no, and DPRK made probably their worst crime and error of their existence and the reason why they shouldn't be totally let off the hook for the criticism of revisionism -- DPRK sent Alan Garcia thousands of weapons in exchange for immediate cash (which he had thanks to the IMF) which were used in the People's War against Gonzalo. In fact, Gonzalo retaliated by bombing the DPRK embassy for this betrayal.
Investigate or don't speak.
https://www.demvolkedienen.org/index.php/en/t-international-en/2833-asi-mueren-los-enemigos-de-la-clase
http://moufawad-paul.blogspot.com/2011/12/people-of-shining-path-old-dispatches.html?m=1
https://kites-journal.org/2020/12/30/when-we-ride-on-our-enemies/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HnH-MguElU
Interview with Chairman Gonzalo
http://www.redsun.org/pcp_doc/pcp_0788.htm
https://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/countries/peru/labbetrayedrev.html
https://www.bannedthought.net/Peru/index.htm
https://www.bannedthought.net/International/RIM/index.htm

Hello all!
First off, Happy Memorial Day weekend and thank you for your service to all PM fiends who are, or have, served in the armed forces.
Some updated prices and added items from previous sale, enjoy! Have items added on CHEAP or a la carte for a premium.
The main attraction is this 1884 MS64 CAC Morgan. Man, I love this thing. The TONING 🤤🤤🤤 but with picking up my quest to collect all commem half dollars, I’m getting rid of CC duplicates. Almost picked this one over my MS65
don’t hesitate to ask for more pictures if needed!!
Proof: https://imgur.com/a/Vb8KDsT
WTT - Fine-BU Morgan’s. Think I’ve reached my max on cull-VG condition for now. Also Commem halfs. Looking for Lafayette, Vermont, Texas currently.
THE GOODS:

• 1884 MS64 CAC Morgan TONERRRR. I think this is a fair price, but CC Morgan’s have been all over the place and the toning adds a variable - $420
  
• 1810 Mexico Spanish Colonial 8 Reales - $95 SOOOLLLDDDD
  
• x2 2021 1oz Solomon Island Tasmanian Tiger in really cool display folder - $44 each (more than 1 has to go priority, must take both to take advantage of the add ons below)
  
• x18 Peace Dollars - selling them all as a lot. Mixed condition, all 22,23 or 26. See pics and videos, but decent condition, some more than others, I think it balanced out. 531 all 18 (29.50 each, but selling as a lot)
  
• 1900 Morgan ICG MS65 (buy the coin not the holder 😂) - $130
  
• x14 Fiji Pacific Dollar, just bought these, but am pivoting here! 😅 - $28.50 each (minimum 4 ordered)
  
• Hard Date Peace dollar lot, 4 total (x2 1934S, 1935S, 1928S) - $140
  

THE BELOW ITEMS CAN ONLY BE ADDED ON TO AN ORDER OF ONE OF THE ABOVE (Can buy a la carte if you add $4 to the below prices)

• 4 Washies; (3) 1939, (1) 1952 - $19
• Casino token (.6oz silver) - $15
• 1917 S on Rev Walker - $14
• 1964 MS64 Roosevelt dime - $8
• 1963 proof set (in cellophane only, did I spell that right?) - $15

Thanks!
🚢Shipping 5 FC Priority 9
Disclaimer:
Responsibility of package is no longer mine once I hand it off to USPS. Before that point I can guarantee extremely thorough packing, plenty of bubbles and tape. Will ship within 2 days of receipt of payment
Payment methods: (in order of pref)
Zelle Venmo ff Ca ff Apple Pay Ppff if it’s a deal breaker without it

I’ll close the post when I’m no longer considering responses, so don’t be afraid to apply if the post is a little old! (Reposting this one last time for a little more visibility, so don't worry if you've already responded!)
I'm hoping for this to become a weekly, long-term game that can see some serious development over time. Expect things to be a bit different from the traditional Tolkienesque adventurer fantasy (though there'll be plenty of action and excitement!); the world of Galrea is my personal 5e setting, designed with an eye towards my strengths as writer and DM! Some big inspirations are Fullmetal Alchemist for themes and handling dark topics, Star Wars for worldbuilding, Fallout New Vegas for intrigue and factions, The Order 1886 for many stylistic and plot elements, and FFVII for getting fantasy elements to work with firearms and an industrial setting. And as for the campaign pitch proper:
For 50 years the elves waged a campaign of subjugation against the human nations of Galrea. The war devastated much of the known world, and saw the rise of many new innovations; well-developed firearms have become the standard ranged weaponry while the armored, hulking, tank-esque constructs known as juggernauts now stalk the battlefields of Galrea. At great cost, through blood and steel, the Osinyan Empire finally broke the elvish invaders - and in turn united two-thirds of the mortal realm under one banner for the first time in history. The Empire is ascendant; a new era of history has begun.
But now, 17 years after the Union, the cracks in this order have become increasingly apparent. The once backwater collection of city-states to the East have reorganized themselves into the Ancian Federation, a rival power capable of effective opposition to the Empire. In the new territories, Osinyan rule has proven unpopular with many, who sometimes even resort to violent insurgencies. All the while the Empire struggles with itself; falling victim to the corruption and internal rivalries that have plagued Osinyan society for nearly as long as history can remember. For all its size, power, and industrial might - the Empire is stretched to the limit.
Within this oversized polity is an organization of exceptional people known as the Imperial Knights; a group your character is expected to be a junior member of, or perhaps simply associated with. For the most part, the Knights do whatever needs to be done to keep the empire running in situations where throwing manpower, metal, or money at a problem isn’t viable. This ranges from monster hunting to espionage to arcane research - even confronting eldritch terrors. Most knights typically specialize in a couple of areas, but the group as a whole are multipurpose enforcers. (The Knights aren't really the traditional, plate-armored kind - the title is more about the nature of their service than it is about a specific role.)
A skilled knight can expect lavish rewards for their service. Riches, land, noble titles, and political influence are common, and it is far from unheard of for an important individual to request more creative favors. The party are not yet full knights, lacking some of the formal authority and informal influence that come with the title - but as initiates they're acknowledged as candidates for the title, should they prove themselves clapable.
But, don't let the above limit your character ideas and backgrounds too much! The Knights have a large amount of freedom in how, exactly, they resolve the situations they are faced with; so long as the problem goes away, their methods needn't conform with traditional Osinyan thinking. (I'm pretty specifically trying to avoid an evil campaign here!) And your character doesn't have to be on board with the whole imperialism thing to have good reason to join; perhaps they might want a measure of social mobility, to use a knight's influence to support unpopular reforms, or simply to stop the bloodshed of a second war. (The one major restriction I have on character motivation is to avoid an outright double-agent type who is expected to backstab the party at some point. I want to make sure everybody can stick together as a cohesive group!)
This campaign is a living world and in many ways a sandbox for the players. In practical terms, while the party is expected to pursue tasks assigned to them, the methods you choose in doing so are entirely up to you, and you'll have increasing opportunities to set your own objectives as your influence grows. All the major people you encounter are probably playing an angle of some kind - you're encouraged to work towards your own ends, too! Don't be afraid to be a driver of the plot in your own right; you'll lose your head in the Empire if you only ever do things you're told. Play your cards right and you might just be able to change the fate of the world.
That’s all the important player buy-in out of the way for now. So, as for some details, I’m going for a smaller party (3-4 people, if we lose somebody I’ll repost here and work with you for replacements), and I’m looking at a level 5 or 6 start. I do have some moderate house rules, the most notable of which is “gritty realism”, though I mostly like it as a pacing tool as I’m not fond of overly much grit nor realism. I should note that while roleplay is my primary focus, I come from XCOM and JRPGs so I do have a love of tactics. I might not always have frequent combat, but I like to think quality beats quantity for tabletop fights! And if you’d like some basic lore I have written up to skim…
-Here’s some lore on regions of the world: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iuaYmO12DxAHGAOv\_Gnddog8wIJ9dQOpNYQLuyOyMSg/edit?usp=sharing]
-And here’s some lore on races and cultures: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zbIcWgB11olDWF3WJ1oqEvuOlfjAXmyh5PyY5UiJg-M/edit?usp=sharing]
Feel free to message me here for any questions!
And with that, here’s a link to a player survey I’d like you to fill out: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSctG93invNb8w3TvtgStDISco2EMGoelAV8Aqngh9c-xTZSoA/viewform?usp=sf\_link
I know this one was bit long, so thank you if you’ve stuck with me up till this point! Hope to hear from you!

French film actress Adèle Haenel memorably walked out of César Awards in 2020 (along with Céline Sciamma, Noemie Merlant, and Aïssa Maïga) shouting "La honte!" (Shame!) and "Bravo la pédophilie!" ("Bravo, paedophilia!") after Roman Polanski won the award for Best Director. She stepped away from the film industry in 2022 saying she didn’t want to be part of a “patriarchal, racist, sexist world of structural inequality”. She announced a few weeks ago that she has now retired due to the complacency and indifference of the French industry in relation to the #MeToo movement and that those in positions of power have ignored and ostracised women who have come forward, name checking Gerard Depardieu, Roman Polanski and Dominique Boutonnat. She writes that ”It bothers them that the victims make too much noise. They preferred that we disappear and die in silence.” Haenel herself experienced sexual harassment from the ages of 12 to 15 from director Christophe Ruggia. In January 2020, the police officially charged Ruggia with sexual aggression against a minor by a person of authority and sexual harassment however I am not sure on the current progress of the case.
More information here:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/adele-haenel-quits-cinema-french-metoo-protest-1235482838/

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 66%. (I'm a bot)

A man who opened an emergency exit door during a flight in South Korea was formally arrested Sunday and faces up to 10 years in prison on a charge of violating the aviation security law, officials said.
During Friday's incident, the man succeeded in opening the door likely because the plane was flying at a low altitude while preparing to land and there wasn't much difference in pressure, according to Asiana Airlines officials.
The Transport Ministry said the plane was at 700 feet when the man pulled the door open.
On Sunday, a district court in Daegu approved a warrant to formally arrest the man.
Police earlier sought the arrest warrant, citing the graveness of the crime and a possibility the man may flee, according to Daegu police.
If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for breaching the aviation security law that bars passengers from handling entry doors, emergency exit doors and other equipment on board, according to the Transport Ministry.

Summary Source FAQ Feedback Top keywords: man^#1 door^#2 plane^#3 emergency^#4 exit^#5
Post found in /worldnews, /AutoNewspaper and /NBCauto.
NOTICE: This thread is for discussing the submission topic. Please do not discuss the concept of the autotldr bot here.

Could be just a walking sim (or maybe crafting/survival for added interest, but doesn’t matter). Like Subnautica, but with real life.
The main loop would be inputing a desired age of the earth, warping there, and traveling around an environment teeming with whatever flora and fauna and landscapes would actually have been there. Like punch the button labeled Carboniferous period to drop into fern forests with gigantic dragonflies or type 400 million yrs ago to when fungi ruled the world and were as tall as trees, dinosaurs in the Jurassic, witness the Cambrian explosion, etc. You get the idea.
Seems doable with procedural generation a la games like No Man’s Sky.

One of my favorite theories is that Hits Different is a fictional story about a murder. I take no credit for the origin of this theory. Strap in folks, we are going to dive straight in.
Verse 1:

“I washed my hands of us at the club”

No one said the narrator was a professional killer because girl, why are you washing the blood off your hands in public? But then again, the scene of the murder itself is never described.

“You made a mess of me”

The breakup was messy… cause she killed him.

“I pictured you with other girls and threw up on the street”

It’s a murder of passion after all so of course jealously is involved.

“Each bar plays our song, nothing has ever felt so wrong”

Cause he’s dead. RIP to dude.
Chorus:

“It hits different this time” “moving on was always easy for me to do” (key phrases)

This is harder because she’s murdered him. It hits different because he dead.
Verse 2:

“I use to switch out these kens and just ghost”

In the past the narrator user to disappear from her ex’s lives when she’s moved onto another but this time she made him the ghost (literally 👻).

“Rip off the bandaid and skip town like an asshole outlaw”

Except this time she is an asshole outlaw cause she killed him, whoops!

“Freedom felt like summer than on the coast but now the sand burns my heart and the sun hurts my feelings”

This is the guilt setting in.

“And I never don’t cry at the bar”

Again, guilt!

“I slur your name till someone puts me in car”

She’s drunk and accidentally talking about the murder so her friends get her out of there.

“I stopped receiving invitations”

No one wants a murderer at the party.
Bridge: (tighten your seatbelts!)

“I find the artifact, cried over a hat”

His stuff still lingers and she has to clean up his belongings. She’s crying because, again, guilt and she’s being directly confronted with what she did because of items like his hat.

“I traced the evidence”

…

“Make it make some sense why the wound is still bleeding”

Because, again, she killed him and the guilt is an open wound.

“This is why you shouldn’t kill off the main guy”

AHA! The narrator admits to doing it. As she’s dealing with her guilt she’s regretting murdering him (at least she’s remorseful?).

“Dreams of your hair and your stare”

He is haunting her dreams.

“And sense of belief in the good in the world, you once believed in me”

Cause, ya know, he never thought she’d kill him. Poor guy. Never saw it coming.
Verse 3:

“I heard your key turn in the door down the hallway”

This is her hoping the murder was all a bad dream. He’s alive and he’s coming home

“Is that your key in the door? Is it okay? Is you?”

She’s clinging to the hope that it was bad dream, he’s alive, everything is okay, she didn’t murder him…

“Or have them come to take me away? To take me away”

But he is dead, it’s not a dream, and they have come to take her away.

I'm writing this in the very rare moment of clarity when I feel completely relaxed, on harmony and not worrying about what can go wrong otherwise it wouldn't even be possible to make this post.
I find myself stuck in my routine. My day is like - wake up - read news - some work - gym - coffeeshop - being at home. I always have a desire to change my life, to try new things, ideas come to my mind but they can't go further. They break at the moment when I start to think about them and always find a reason why it is meaningless. I feel very uncomfortable if I don't do something from my routine, if something changes. I'm afraid of missing something.
But my mind blocks me to bring any changes to my life, even if they are small. Like saying "hey" instead of "hello". It feels impossible to do that. I'm scared that it can change my routine, that it can make me look silly or something else can go unusual or that it will just change my life. I'm afraid if a girl likes me and also afraid that she doesn't. I'm afraid of making any changes.
So for the past years I live like a robot, that doesn't see, hear. I have no emotions(both good and bad) except for frustration that I can't break through this loop. It feels that I'm skipping my life just like in a "Click" movie.
It helped with the anxiety and constant body and mind tension. But I feel like all my sense are disabled. Like I'm disconnected from a real world and skipping my life. Like I live inside a box in my head, hiding while my body doing routine and sometimes makes some minor improvements to it. Like a robot living my life by my scripts(that I overthinked) and can't make a step left or right. I barely can remember something during these periods. So I kinda look, but don't see. Listen, but don't hear. And it makes communication impossible.
Sometimes, when I'm very exhausted to that point that my body can't hold that tension anymore I feel so happy, so alive. I can do anything I want. Get pleasure from everything. Communicate with people and not ro react with scripted reaction and can feel free to behave like I want. Like my mind loses power and give me some time to breathe and enjoy life without being disconnected.
My life feels like a big ocean with small islands. I feeel like I live 1-3 days in a months. Others are just a large abyss and I can't remember anything like it wasn't my life. Feels like I'm going through these islands of freedom(days), skipping the ocean(months). And as a result 10 years feels like a several months....
Leaving my routine makes my anxiety unsustainable and I hide even deeper in my mind. Especially when travelling or long roads.
I want to enjoy life, experience good and bad emotions, look and see, listen and hear. I do have this state after mind exhaustion, but only for that day. The very next day I'm disconnected again. Mindfullness makes it just a bit better. But I always come back and every time seems even worse...
Does anyone have something similar? How can I at least increase frequency of this states of clarity and presence? Any advice and experience appreciated

Illegal art refers to any form of expression, including books, memes, sculpture, street art, and other visual art, created without authorization from authorities. These arts can sometimes induce disgust in us, but why should we protect illegal arts?

1. Freedom of Expression: Artistic expression is a fundamental right protected by the First Amendment and non-American equivalents. We advocate that artists have the freedom to express themselves without fear of censorship or punishment.
2. Games: People who don't understand games will find ways to fault them for all ills in the society. We believe all arts in the end represents fantasy and advocate protection of these videogames.
3. Cultural Significance: Illegal art can help us get a glimpse into history of a culture. It can serve as a form of resistance against dominant cultural narratives as seen around the world. Please read more about Cultural Genocide
4. Beautification: We have all seen those AMVs that brings the original to light by adding a good music or through nice edits. But these annoying companies always file the copyright on them and take them off of YouTube.