Sharing my timeline because I finally feel motivated again and I’m hoping it can help others remember how susceptible we addicts will always be to falling back into smoking.
Age 15–29:
I started smoking occasionally with a neighbor friend when I was just 15. By the time I was 21, I was smoking most of a pack daily. By 25, it was easy to see the end of a pack or even more at parties on weekends.
Around age 28-29, I started having panic attacks mostly correlated to hangovers and ultimately a couple of those panic attacks took me to the emergency where I found out my blood pressure was dangerously high. This harsh confrontation with mortality was enough to scare me into quitting.
Age 29–36: Smoke free! I made it more than 6 years and even got into running.I ran 3 half marathons in that time and was running 4-5 times a week. It is a golden age in my life that I still treasure.
Age 36:
I smoked on New Years Eve with some friends and kinda laughed at it. “Look at me! Isn’t this weird? Hahaha.” But after that night, I had cigarettes left. And smoked the pack. And a few more. I realized that this was a bad idea and quit again, using a hiking trip as my first week distraction.
A month later, Covid emerged. My anxiety came back. I bummed some cigarettes from my friend while we commiserated about what felt like life in the apocalypse.
Four months later, George Floyd was murdered a few miles from where I live. Unrest, violence, protests, all on top of life during Covid—my anxiety spiked to record highs and I caved in and started buying cigarettes again. And smoking became a false comfort in scary times.
Age 36-38:
I have been smoking a pack a day pretty consistently since 2020. I have tried quitting a handful of times but only made it a few days until I broke down again.
Today:
I’m nearly 5 days into a quit and this time feels like it’s going to stick. I’m keeping it simple mentally: I can whine and complain, I can lay down if I need to, I can walk miles to burn my anxious energy. The only thing I cannot do is take another puff. It’s one thing I am deciding no longer fits in my life. Again.
If you’re in the middle of transitioning to living smoke free, or considering trying, or even if you’ve been smoke free for years like I was: remember—you’re stronger than your addiction. You can change. And no matter the stories your brain makes up, you aren’t a smoker. You are a person who smoked. And a person who can choose not to smoke.
Thanks for all the support you all bring every day! <3

Male aged 32) 6ft tall) ectomorph (long legs short torso slim appearance body type)
I currently weigh 10.7 stone and I’m quite bigger overall than 2-3 years ago when I was 11.4 stone when I fitted in to 32’ pants but now they’re too tight they make my legs look like long sticks when they used to be baggy or fitted
(I only ever eat between 6-9pm and it always kept me lean)
But I gradually got bigger during lockdowns with not working
▪️my feet and ankles are a normal white colour where my calves upwards are bigger and are a darker dull colour too
But the pants fit the same around the waist
But noticed a more prominent pot belly is more outwards
even lost that 11lbs weight by restricting eating less then 1000 cals a day
▪️I noticed that going down on the scale is way easier than going up idk why
It didn’t work as I’m still the same or bigger
So Iv been doing more than 10k steps 4-5 days a week which is what I used to do but I’m hearing it will make them bigger?

I personally think the following list could fit either kinda good or super good into the world of We Happy Few, but I wanna know what your guy's thoughts are. I really love old music and when I listen to these songs it reminds me of the game!
Strawberry Fields Forever - The Beatles
California Dreamin' - The Mamas & The Papas
You Don't Own Me - Lesley Gore
Tiptoe Thru' The Tulips With Me - Tiny Tim
Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite! - The Beatles
Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles
Do You Believe In Magic? - The Lovin' Spoonful
Downtown - Petula Clark
Sunshine, Lollipops, And Rainbows - Lesley Gore
Build Me Up Buttercup - The Foundations
Run, Rabbit, Run! - Flanagan And Allen
Maxwell's Silver Hammer - The Beatles

I got a aliexpress carbon mtb frame(you already know where this is going) And while it looked just like the genuine article in shape, you could tell the fit and finish wasn’t the same(bottle bosses instead of a swat door, paint chipped around bearing pivot bolts, headtube bearing surfaces not cosmetically uniform)
It was billed as a airwolf stumpjumper evo but it’s just the 2019 29 geo.
Yes it fits everything (chain guard, 27.5x2.8 dhr, headset) that the genuine bike does but when I first built it up, I thought “okay, maybe cable management isn’t the only thing lacking here.”
Still, felt good enough to ride it, starting out cautiously but then moving to actual trail with actual tech, features, and impacts like drops, step ups and gaps.
Now, I didn’t case anything badly but I definitely fell and bashed it a few times, and drove it on a hitch rack for several hundreds of miles within the first five months and ten or so rides(I have other bikes) so you can imagine my lack of surprise but also genuine curiosity when I noticed a small hairline crack had formed at the headtube Downtube junction along the layup axis. “Well, this is what I signed up for with a $800 shipped frame” I thought.
Of course the seller was totally unhelpful and to be fair, can’t 100% qualify the damage as a defect. They don’t make these to be indestructible and maybe it was a rock strike(more on that)
So it got stripped and hung on the wall for about six months while I got the supplies, mental fortitude, and spare time(read:not riding other bikes) to repairwolf.
Someone in the know said “put it this way, you’ve already started the experiment.”
And that I did.
So after staring at it for more hours than I’d like to admit, I started prep and sanded back the area to fill and patch.
I noticed that 1. The area where the crack had formed seemed to be laid up in bunches, not neatly interwoven or overlayed past where the pattern swatches become structural.
Think “clothes from a hamper” instead of “cards mid shuffle”
And

1. the crack was totally from stress and not an impact as the fracture didn’t spider or shatter outward even on the inside

This 1. Gave me hope for a strong repair and 2. Concerns that similar weaknesses and failure points could exist on other parts or in other critical areas of the frame.
So I endeavored to repair it. See pics.
Put in six layers of twill and compressed for full cure under Saran Wrap and electrical tape, then sanded flat and put on another six layers on a second wider patch again compressing for full cure and sanding down flat.
I was pretty happy with it but due to it being cold the cure took longer than I had wanted or is likely optimal for the cheap but good epoxy used.
Did some more cosmetic sanding and clearcoated over it with krylon (I think a mid gloss?) which contrasts pretty wildly with the flat paint of the frame, and will not be the final paintjob but is good while the repair proves it’s worth.
Built it back up and again started riding it cautiously, progressing from standing on it, riding slow on flat land, plenty of pedal cycles, then up to dirt, then pumping, then technical trail, and finally features and the biggest drops and gaps I’ve ridden/will ride. And it’s held! I’ve taken six to eight foot drops with it, landed rear heavy on ten foot gap doubles, and ridden it hard down pretty rowdy singletrack from blue to black and double black(even some pro lines) of trail that hs beaten better frames.
Scary? Sure. A gamble? Definitely. Sense of accomplishment all the same? Yes.
Tl;dr: don’t buy cheap carbon on marketplaces but also don’t throw out frames if they are good candidates for repair. It’s easier than you think.

Hi!
Please help me find a highchair, will try to keep this short but the highchair we currently have is this one from John Lewis: https://www.johnlewis.com/john-lewis-anyday-lemon-highchair-blue/p110492446?s_ppc=2dx92700070985443024_mixed_fashion_BAU&tmad=c&tmcampid=2&gclid=CjwKCAjwpuajBhBpEiwA_ZtfhcVVT37jH8V16jfZyVkyF9Kk6ziUZCtlr30TWBBDbpwvHyVo0Cwz8RoCR-cQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
My 25th centile baby boy who is now 11 months has always looked tiny in it, I asked for a highchair for Christmas, when I saw the John Lewis box come out I was excited, the second I put him in it and did the harness up I was disappointed, he was miles away from the tray, his legs had to stick out straight infront of him, and the harness seems incredibly redundant because it just pins him back into the seat. Even the reviews say it would be better for a 3 year old! My boy still wasn't sitting independently by 6 months so I bought a Bumbo for the mean time.
I've tolerated it since Christmas because it was a gift and I figured all highchairs would be the same, however my friends highchair is lovely and her baby is snug in it and the tray is right infront of her, trouble is it doesn't fold up. I live in a 2 bedroom flat with no dining room and no dining table. When I feed my boy I just set the highchair up infront of the sofa and I sit on the sofa to give him his food. Because the tray is so far away if he drops anything it drops onto his lap or the floor instead of back onto the tray. Will also add the living room is carpeted so I'm already getting frustrated with mess!
I'm fully aware feeding babies is going to make horrendous mess but obviously I want to reduce it where possible, also who thought white straps on a highchair was a good idea haha, instant staining! Oh and the tray on mine doesn't detach so I can't take it off for easy cleaning either.
And he slumps back in the current highchair because his legs can't bend over at the end, the crotch guard he can cross his legs infront of. I just can't tell if all these style of highchairs will be this way if I need one that folds up.
Anyway we've had a sick bug going round the home and my boy just threw up into the strap gaps, it stinks and I feel like I can use this excuse to get a new one!
I know people recommend the IKEA one but it doesn't fold up so would be annoying sat in our living room all the time!
Sorry for the super long yarn, I felt like I needed to explain what I don't like about my current highchair to understand if anyone can recommend the ideal highchair haha!
I really appreciate if you've got this far, so are there any highchairs that my boy will actually fit in and will fold up (and are easier to clean than this one!) I would really appreciate it.
Thank you in advance!

This is my post for the Defending The Draft series over on NFL_Draft. Decided to post it here as well for any Bucs fan who aren't draft fans that may be interested.
Preface
The old man has finally left… As a Bucs fan I have to just start by thanking Tom Brady by giving me some of the best years of Buc’s football I have seen in my 22 years of life. From eliminating the Saints and retiring Brees to winning the SB the Bucs teams from the Brady era will always be special to me. But saying that this move had to happen as with Brady the Bucs would not be able to rebuild the roster to the degree that is needed.
While a roster top loaded with talent the Bucs are in a huge deficit of depth through the roster even before Brady left. During this season we saw the effect of this lack of depth with the amount of injuries we had throughout the interior of the O-line and through the entire defense. Injuries to Ryan Jensen and Aaron Stinnie forced inexperienced players upfront which led to the biggest problem of the season which was pressure from the interior of the line. While backup Center Robert Hainsey held up and gave the Bucs fans hope for a post Ryan Jensen O-Line first year player Luke Goedeke was a detriment in his first year at guard to the point the Bucs will be switching him to RT for next season. For the defense we saw injuries throughout it from our depleted CB room to our barren safety room to our ravaged EDGE room to our destroyed IDL room… you get the point. Injuries were the main thing that destroyed the Bucs last season and during this offseason the Bucs lost even more depth.
The main positive about the Bucs lost season was GM Jason Licht firing OC Byron Leftwich from his role. While seemingly a good guy Leftwich might have been the worst OC in football last season. Continually calling plays which seemed to be against the players and the team's best interest. At times watching Leftwich call games was similar to spamming the A button in Madden and letting the game decide what play you were calling for you. It was infuriating his constant tirades he would go on about during the season when asked why he never called play action when we were one of the best play action teams in the league. Along with his thought process that the run game has to be dominant to set up the play action game which continually caused 3 and outs as he would call to run plays up the gut and an over schemed passing play on 3rd down. Replacing Leftwich was paramount, and I truly do believe Jason Licht found a good one in Dave Canales coming from Seattle. Canales was the WR coach for the Seahawks from 2010-2017 before becoming QB coach and passing game coordinator from 2018-2023. Canales is a Carroll disciple being part of Carrolls tenure at USC. Canales should bring life to the Tampa Bay passing game and with his already raving reviews of Mike Evans and Chris Godwin it should at least be a fun year for the Bucs.
New Coaching Hires:
Dave Canales (Offensive Coordinator)
Brad Idzik (Wide Receiver Coach)
Skip Peete (Running Back Coach)
Thad Lewis(QB Coach)
George Edwards(OLB Coach)
Notable Arrivals
QB Baker Mayfield
G Matt Feiler
IDL Greg Gaines
S Ryan Neal
RB Chase Edmonds
Summary: The Bucs additions this off season are nothing to write home about. Mayfield joins Tampa looking to win his final opportunity to show he is a starting QB in the NFL he will be in a stiff competition with Kyle Trask who Dave Canales is hyping up. At the end of the day I believe Trask will win the QB competition and be thrown into a sink or swim situation like Sam Howell and Desmond Ridder. While Gaines and Neal are phenomenal value signing with both being immediate contributors on the Bucs defense with Gaines being projected to rotate with Vita Vea along with playing next to the behemoth and Neal seemingly replacing Mike Edwards role at SS opposite of AWJ these players aren’t gamebreakers. Feiler and Edmonds should be nice depth pieces with Fieler competing to be the starting LG. Overall the Buc’s didn’t make any splash signings in free agency but with the limited cap room they had the moves they made were more than fine.
Notable Departures
LT Donovan Smith
S Mike Edwards
RB Leonard Fournette
G Shaq Mason
TE Cameron Brate
CB Sean Murphy-Bunting
K Ryan Succop
Summary: With this offseason the Buc’s ended up losing a ton of starters on both sides of the ball. On offense the Bucs lost their starting LT, RB, RG, TE and K. While Donovan Smith was a liability in pass protection his departure does mean the Bucs will now be shifting All-Pro RT Tristan Wirfs to LT which causes hesitation in people. I believe this move will be fine in both the long and short term for Tampa but it is still something to note. On defense the Bucs lost both starting SS Mike Edwards and NCB SMB. These moves leave the Bucs secondary especially thin at the CB position with Zyon McCollum slotted to start at NCB now.
Bucs Draft Selections
1.19: Calijah Kancey IDL Pittsburgh 6’1 281lbs
RAS Score: 9.60 Draft Grade: A
While some people believed that taking a OT here was a must with the top 4 OT’s all gone before the Jets pick the Bucs were put into one of the most interesting situations in the draft, seemingly picking between defensive players at this point GM Jason Licht stated that at the top of board they had to players one being “The Linebacker who went to the Lions(Jack Campbell) and Calijah Kancey'' with Kancey being BPA after the OT’s were taken. In a draft class with very few true top end talents I see this as a major win for the Bucs taking a top 10 player on the board and a premier pass rusher from day 1.
Kancey from day 1 should be a menace on the interior of the Bucs D-line paired with the best NT in football Vita Vea. Kancey doesn’t just win with his elite first step; he is an extremely refined player in every aspect of rushing the passer. From hand usage, leverage, pass rushing moves and intensity Kancey makes up for his miniscule size and arm length with his athleticism which is otherworldly. The comparison to Aaron Donald is over blown, Kancey doesn’t play with the functional strength that Donald had or the run defense ability that Donald has. Personally, I can see Kancey becoming a in between of Aaron Donald and Prime Sheldon Richardson a pass rushing specialist who will collapse the interior and will develop into a 3-down player as his career and body develop in the NFL.
2.48: Cody Mauch G North Dakota State 6’5 302lbs
RAS Score: 9.32 Draft Grade: B
Mauch is very much a Jason Licht pick. Small school guard with a mean streak and tons of athleticism. Mauch is not just a meme because of his missing front teeth he is a legitimate RG prospect similar to Alex Cappa and Ali Marpet for the Bucs. With how the O-Line is shaping up and Licht seemingly happy to move Goedeke from LG to RT, Mauch makes complete sense to shore up the RG position giving the Bucs a much younger and deeper interior then they had last year where every single projected starter interior lineman was hurt at some point.
With Mauch on tape I can see exactly what Licht loves in his linemen with a player who has aggressive hands and a base when pass blocking. Mauch has shown that he is a coachable player making the switch from TE to O-Line. You can sense the traits and upside that Mauch has over some other guard prospects in this class. I do believe that the Bucs switching to a zone blocking scheme which Seattle runs will aid the young O-Line and play to Mauch’s strength which is his athleticism. Playing beside Ryan Jensen makes this pick a B-B+ for me, a big addition especially if Goedeke is the answer at RT.
3.82: YaYa Diaby EDGE Louisville 6’3 263lbs
RAS Score: 9.87 Draft Grade: A
Diaby is a tale of untapped potential. Playing completely out of position at Louisville Diaby was forced to play with his hand in the dirt. Diaby is one of the most athletic players the NFL has ever seen from the EDGE position with his initial quickness and long arms Diaby should be able to develop into at minimum a role player for Tampa. Playing behind Shaq Barrett and Joe Tryon should help Diaby develop into the premier EDGE player he can be. He shows flashes on tape of just using his superior size and athleticism to overpower linemen and his speed to get past them.
For the Bucs I think Diaby will play a rotational role at the moment similar to Anthony Nelson’s role as a smart rotational EDGE that Bowles will use on unique blitz packages which push JTS or Shaq into a 4-3 stance. I have massive hope for Diaby in this defense as a future foundational piece for the Bucs who will more likely than not have to move on from Shaq Barrett next off season.
5.153: SirVocea Dennis LB Pittsburgh 6’1 226lbs
RAS Score: 7.28 Draft Grade: A+
My favorite pick in the Bucs draft I have Dennis as a top 5 LB in the class. Dennis is a do it all LB who is able to not only tackle well but is able to blitz the passer from the ILB position better than anybody in this class. His biggest deficiency to his game is his lack of experience in coverage but he wasn’t a player who was dominated there either. On film you could see him being put into situations in coverage which he couldn’t make the play. In Tampa Dennis will be mentored by one of the best coverage LB’s in the NFL for over a decade in Lavonte David. And with Bowles coaching the defense Dennis will be able to use his ability to rush the passer from the ILB position to its full effect.
With Dennis I can see this being one of the best picks in the entire draft. Dennis’s fit in Tampa is like a glove and with the situation with Devin White where we aren’t sure if he will be a Buc next season I can see Dennis being put into a starting position next to Lavonte David and like former Bucs Kwon Alexander taking it and never looking back.
5.171: Payne Durham TE Purdue 6’6 253lbs
RAS Score: 6.58 Draft Grade: B-
Durham is a big TE who is good at everything but a master at nothing. Very similar to what the Bucs had in longtime player Cameron Brate. Durham at Purdue was a team leader for the offense he set the tone playing an aggressive brand of football dragging defenders wherever he went with the ball. Durham runs decent routes and has decent hands but was never a player who took the top off a defense. With Durham you are giving Mayfield or Trask a reliable receiver in the passing game and a decent blocker to boot. For his size Durham was able to produce decent YAC at Purdue rumbling his way down the field in a similar way that Jason Witten was able to do for the Cowboys during his tenure.
For the Bucs Durham joins one of the youngest TE rooms in the NFL with last year's pick Cade Otton and Ko Kieft being the only players that seem to have roster spots in that room at the moment. Durham should compete with Kieft to be TE2 for this season, but he should be able to still carve a decent role for himself in Tampa with how new OC Canales uses TE’s. Where each TE has a specific role and was able to contribute with Geno Smith at QB.
6.181: Josh Hayes NCB Kansas State 5’11 189lbs
RAS Score: 4.82 Draft Grade: C
The biggest surprise in the Bucs draft was grabbing Josh Hayes, a prospect most people didn’t even have a priority free agent grade on in the top of the 6th. Hayes for all intents and purposes is a prototypical Bowles NCB. Hayes has the speed to play in the NFL and on tape you can see he has adequate tackling skills from the NCB position which he played in college along with the S position. With Hayes you have to believe that the coaching can turn this player into a solid starter because if not the CB room and S room take a massive hit forcing Winfield Jr into NCB full time.
Hayes' best film in my opinion was for North Dakota State where he was a former teammate of Bucs 2nd round pick Cody Mauch. At NDSU you can see the making of a very good CB prospect with how he is able to play in both Man and Zone coverage. At Kansas State he was never forced to be CB1 or even CB2 at times but he did hold his side of the field down and was able to put up some decent performances as a Wildcat. To me this C grade is more of a “I trust Bowles to develop CB’s/S’s” grade.
6.192: Trey Palmer WR Nebraska 6’0 192lbs
RAS Score: 6.18 Draft Grade: A+
A great value pick for the Bucs with their depleted WR core. Palmer has serious upside as a deep threat and even as a return man for the Bucs. Past Evans, Godwin and Gage every spot in the receiver room is wide open and Palmer seems to have the talent to set himself apart as WR4 by the end of the year. Palmer does have reasons for falling this far in the draft though as he has serious drop issues and apparent character issues which have set him back before. I don’t see this as a big problem in Tampa with Evans and Godwin being locker room leaders and his past season at Nebraska.
With Palmer you can see the obvious talent that is there but you can see the reasons he was drafted in the 6th round even when he has Day 2 talent in this class. And with this talent I can see him developing into a player similar to MVS for the Packers and now the Chiefs. A good deep threat that can blow the top off of a defense and isn’t scared of making plays on contested passes even if they aren’t the biggest receiver on the team by any means.
6.196: Jose Ramirez EDGE Eastern Michigan 6’2 242lbs
RAS Score: 8.10 Draft Grade: B
When you watch Ramirez on tape it’s hard to not like what you see. At first when looking at this pick, I thought about how our EDGE room was already a bit full with Diaby but in hindsight I like the Ramirez pick more and more from a talent standpoint. Ramirez is never going to be the most athletic guy on the team but he makes up for it with his effort, timing and technique. Extremely similar to how Shaq Barrett plays for the Bowles defense Ramirez has a talent for being the first guy to get into the QB’s area with his blend of pass rushing moves and leverage. Ramirez was dominant at Eastern Michigan being one of the best players to ever play for EMU.
For a dart throw pick Ramirez should bring the effort needed to truly succeed in some capacity in the NFL and being mentored by the player your game is most similar to in Shaq Barrett is a plus as well. Ramirez should find a role as a utility pass rusher but I don’t see him playing much at all this season and having to compete against Cam Gill for EDGE 5 on the roster.
Key UDFA’s
Sean Tucker RB Syracuse 5’10 205lbs
RAS Score: N/A
Jeremy Banks LB Tennessee 6’1 232lbs
RAS Score: 8.90
Luke Haggard OT Indiana 6’6 297lbs
RAS Score: N/A
Rakim Jarrett WR Maryland 6’0 190lbs
RAS Score: 7.89
Chris Inzen S Rutgers 5’10 200lbs
RAS Score: N/A
Projected Final Roster
Offense(26)
QB(2)
Baker Mayfield
Kyle Trask
RB(4)
Rachaad White
Ke'shawn Vaugn
Chase Edmonds
Sean Tucker
WR(7)
Mike Evans
Chris Godwin
Russell Gage
Trey Palmer
Deven Thompkins
Rakiim Jarrett
TE(3)
Cade Otton
Ko Kieft
Payne DurhamOT(4)
Tristan Wirfs
Luke Goedeke
Brandon Walton
Luke Haggard
OG(4)
Cody Mauch
Matt Feiler
Aaron Stinnie
John Molchon
C(2)
Ryan Jensen
Robert Hainsey
Defense(24)
IDL(5)
Vita Vea
Calijah Kancey
Greg Gaines
Logan Hall
Pat O’Connor
EDGE(5)
Shaq Barrett
Joe Tryon
Anthony Nelson
Yaya Diaby
Jose RamirezLB(4)
Lavonte David
Devin White
SirVocea Dennis
KJ Britt
CB(6)
Carilton Davis
Jamel Dean
Zyon McCollum
Josh Hayes
Dee Delany
Don Gardner
S(4)
Antoine Winfield Jr
Ryan Neal
Nolan Turner
Chris Inzen
Special Teams(3)
K(1)
Chase McLaughlin
P(1)
Jake Camarda
LS(1)
Zach Triner
Final Thoughts
For what seems to be a retooling/rebuilding year I actually liked what Jason Licht and the Bucs did. For me this draft was easily the best draft they have had since drafting Tristan Wirfs and Antoine Winfield Jr in 2020. With this draft you get an elite pass rushing DT that pairs perfectly next to Vita Vea. Cody Mauch who should be a starter at RG for years to come and fits this team's identity. YaYa Diaby who was a great value pick with Pro Bowl upside at EDGE. SirVocea Dennis who I think can easily become one of the best LB’s in this class and maybe even the league. Then the rest of the draft contained high floor prospects who can contribute to a rotational role in some way or form. Overall, the draft for the Bucs was a massive win in my books.
For this offseason I would also say it was a win if not adequate at worst. As an organization we know we needed to retool the roster and slowly claw ourselves out of cap hell in some way shape or form and using this season to get out of it is a good way to do it. There are 2 ways this season will go for us with us either being a team similar to the Seahawks that is able to dominate a weak NFC South, or we are one of the worst teams in the league and are in contention for Drake Maye and Caleb Williams. Either way I am looking forward to watching this season play out for the Bucs. David Canales should bring life back to our offense and Mike Evans should continue his campaign towards the most consecutive 1000-yard seasons.
Overall, I am happy with this off season and especially the draft that came with it. Let me know what you guys think! This is my first time defending the draft and I hope this isn’t terrible and if it’s not I would love to do this again next year! Go Bucs Go!

Brief-ish background (more detail on some of the career description below).Grew up in the southwest. Not very good options as far as schools and career paths post college (it’s all operations and warehouses). Could have probably gotten into better undergrads but as a first-gen student (parents not from US), I didn’t really understand the importance of college choice for career path nor what career paths were out there.
Post graduation I worked at an insurance firm since it was the first role I was offered. Didn’t really like it but stayed about a year.
Worked at an investment management firm as a broker. Stayed for 21 months. The role was a call center environment and was not a good fit for what I was looking for. Struggled to get a promotion. Was ultimately fired
Took a job not long after doing the same thing at another broker. Was there for about 10 months. Was also fired over a weird reason elaborated further below but the broker sold their practice to a larger broker-dealer which I think factored in the decision.
After this I was feeling pretty down and lacking confidence in finding a career in business. I decided to try my hand at Computer Science and studied math and computer science at a local community college. Took a night shift job to cover cost of living after a semester. COVID hit and I decided it was best to not take hard math and computer science classes in an online environment.
After much deliberation, I explored and decided to attend a Masters in Finance program as a mini-MBA. I found a program that would suit me well and still had in-person options. Graduated in a year.
Accepted a job offer at a regional bank (in the S&P 500) working in Corporate Finance; specifically Corporate Profitability Analytics. The role is more data related and has me using SQL, Power BI, and other data related software/programs in addition to Excel. Currently 1.5 years in. Have been doing well and hoping to be able to gain a promotion soon although the company is sort of cheap when it comes to this sort of thing. While I don’t mind my current work, it is niche and not something I find particularly interesting outside of the skillset I’ve been able to gain.
If I weren’t considering applying to an MBA I’d probably start searching for other opportunities, however, I also realize that with my pre-MSF experience, the job hopping doesn’t look good and there will be more benefit to sticking with the company for almost 3 years at the start of the program and having a promotion under my belt.
MBA Info
· Why I want an MBA:
· Short-term I’m hoping to pivot into management/strategy consulting for my longer-term goal of being able to be a leader in my community. I would want to pivot into starting my own non-profit firm where I help members of low-income communities and URM owned businesses grow with the knowledge I gain from my consulting experience. I also think consulting would help with my eclectic nature and help with preventing the need to job hop given constantly being in new environments (probs wont mention this in an application though)
· Why I want one now:
· My current role is pretty niche in the banking industry. I’m afraid of being pigeonholed and the skillset I’m gaining, while desirable, isn’t necessarily one I see that aligns with my long-term goals.
· Target schools:
· Planning to apply through Consortium. Columbia (reach), Tuck, Yale, NYU, UVA, Rochester (safety school). Also open to applying outside of Consortium or changing the schools I apply to if better fit is recommended.
Background
· Work experience (starting from most recent)
· Nov 2021-Present; Corporate Financial Analyst at regional bank in S&P 500*.*
· I work in Corporate Profitability Analytics. While my title is a Financial Analyst, skillset wise, I would say my role is closer to a data analyst. I utilize SQL, Power BI, Excel, and other software to help develop, design and refine models to allow the bank to conduct data driven research in regards to the profitability of the bank. I develop and maintain reports and dashboards to disseminate information to executives and other relevant stakeholders and field questions and concerns related to the information.
· Oct 2020 – Aug 2020; Masters in Finance student at a state school
· This served as a mini-MBA for me. In my previous roles prior to this program, I was a bad fit as the roles were far too customer service oriented and led to me being fired from 2 of the roles and me quitting before I could be fired from another.
· December 2019 – July 2020 Bi-Lingual Fraud Representative at a large Credit Card Company (Capital One/DiscoveAmex type)
· This was a role I took on while I was considering a career switch into Computer Science/Financial Engineering. The role was a night shift and allowed me to work while taking classes.
· Left the role on my own terms as I wanted time to prepare for my Masters in Finance program
· Aug 2019 – March 2019; Math/Comp Sci student at community college
· Attended a local community college where I was majoring in Math/Computer Science as I was considering a career switch during a crisis of confidence. Took math, programming and engineering classes while attending. COVID struck during second semester and decided that taking a STEM heavy course load online was not optimal for me.Around this time, I decided to look into MBA’s and Masters in Finance programs. One MBA program (Rochester) really wanted me to apply there, but overall, I felt the MSF suited me better for my experience and where I was at in life. It would allow me to keep the MBA in the back pocket for any other potential switches.
· Oct 2018 – Jul 2019; Licensed Investment Professional at a Broker-Dealer
· Worked as a Series 7 and Series 63 licensed contractor. The company is large and serves a specified client base but did not have a large broker-dealer segment. Took a hands-on approach in all aspects of wealth and asset management: consulting and educating investors in mutual fund options and other products to help meet financial goals.
· Consistently led entire department in relationship management and engagement metrics: survey responses, survey scores, and new business development through sales referrals to advisory consultants in a fast-paced environment
· Consistently led entire department in operations and efficiency metrics while exceeding accuracy requirements and adhering to legal compliance through attention to detail
· Ended up being fired after a client complained to a friend of his in the Board of Directors that I wouldn’t help them with something that was not possible. The company ended up being bought out by a larger broker-dealer during that same month and they had been letting contractors expire w/out being renewed. I am under the impression they were downsizing regardless. I understand this section is speculative and would most likely omit it from any actual application.
·
· Nov 2016 – Aug 2018; Licensed Investment Professional at a top Broker-Dealer (PIMCO/Vanguard/Schwab type)
· Similar functional duties as other broker-dealer. In addition to those duties, demonstrated leadership and ability to work collaboratively through training and development of new hires, presentation of materials and investment methodology for new hires in multiple meetings, coaching, and mentorship of peers
· Voluntarily cross-trained and developed skills from higher level departments in order to liaison with those departments and assist in their service levels and learn new skills
· Consistently led the department in efficiency metrics such as calls taken and average handle time while maintaining high accuracy
· Ended up being placed on a performance improvement plan without warning and subsequently fired by my manager not long after. This happened after she found out I was looking into other companies as I was feeling dissatisfied with my lack of promotion. I had talked about seeking other roles within the company that would be less customer service oriented and she said she was supportive of that. When I would apply to jobs that were more in line with what I was looking for in the company, I would get great feedback from the interviewers. They would then ask my current manager for feedback and after that I would seemingly get rejected. I understand this section is speculative and would most likely omit it from any actual application.
· Aug 2015 – Jul 2016 Workers Compensation Insurance Adjuster at a top firm (Travelers/Hartford/Zurich type)
· Under minimal supervision interpreted and applied insurance contract policies exercising sound judgment in order to quickly reach outcome of fraud investigation while still maintaining high quality and meeting regulatory audits and requirements.
· Knowledgeable point of reference and correspondence for witnesses, agents, other insurance companies, medical providers, attorneys, and others.
· Utilized discipline, self-motivation and strong organizational skills to properly handle multiple tasks for proper case management of existing claims as a full caseload was often 100+ claims.
· Worked with internal partners on a special project to help conduct and report data driven risk analysis by identifying patterns and industry trends and researching strategies to reduce negative trends; provided qualitative feedback/analysis as an adjuster.
· Consistently led the department in client survey feedback in both number of survey responses and survey scores (never received less than a 9). Won the monthly competition 7 of the 8 months it was in place.
· Left on my own terms. Realized early on into the job that the insurance industry was not interesting to me nor where I wanted to be. Once I received a job offer from an Investment Management company, I put in my two weeks.
· Extra curriculars and other experience:
· I’m a religious individual. During undergrad I was very involved with my church in its ministry and even interned there. Since graduating, I have been heavily involved in youth ministry in poor areas that are heavily minority. I have a particular calling to kids of these backgrounds because I used to from a similar background and know many of them don’t see enough positive male role models who have been able to overcome many of the trappings that growing up in less-than-optimal conditions can provide. In this role, I am able to connect with youth and facilitate conversation about life, faith, and development with them.
· I also serve as a member of the Finance Council and Development Advisory Board of a local church. In these roles I take part in creating and monitoring budgeting and finances of the church as well as developing ideas to raise revenue and seek out potential tithing partners.
· Undergrad school/major:
· State School ranked outside of top 200. Double majored in Political Science and Business Economics
· Chose to attend there due to full-ride scholarships. Did not realize the importance of choosing certain colleges for certain career paths
· Other education/coursework:
· Masters in Finance at state school w/top 50 business program
· Graduated with a 3.5 GPA
· Race/nationality:
· Primarily Hispanic (mixed w/other minorities but not sure how it classifies)
· Sex:
· M
Stats
· GMAT Score: Include breakdown
· 670 (42q/40v). Looking/probably need to retake as it may expire soon. Think I can score 700+ since I took this before taking math/computer science classes at community college
· Undergrad GPA:
· 3.41 for Bachelors. (3.6 at community college)
· Grad School GPA
· 3.5

Preface
The old man has finally left… As a Bucs fan I have to just start by thanking Tom Brady by giving me some of the best years of Buc’s football I have seen in my 22 years of life. From eliminating the Saints and retiring Brees to winning the SB the Bucs teams from the Brady era will always be special to me. But saying that this move had to happen as with Brady the Bucs would not be able to rebuild the roster to the degree that is needed.
While a roster top loaded with talent the Bucs are in a huge deficit of depth through the roster even before Brady left. During this season we saw the effect of this lack of depth with the amount of injuries we had throughout the interior of the O-line and through the entire defense. Injuries to Ryan Jensen and Aaron Stinnie forced inexperienced players upfront which led to the biggest problem of the season which was pressure from the interior of the line. While backup Center Robert Hainsey held up and gave the Bucs fans hope for a post Ryan Jensen O-Line first year player Luke Goedeke was a detriment in his first year at guard to the point the Bucs will be switching him to RT for next season. For the defense we saw injuries throughout it from our depleted CB room to our barren safety room to our ravaged EDGE room to our destroyed IDL room… you get the point. Injuries were the main thing that destroyed the Bucs last season and during this offseason the Bucs lost even more depth.
The main positive about the Bucs lost season was GM Jason Licht firing OC Byron Leftwich from his role. While seemingly a good guy Leftwich might have been the worst OC in football last season. Continually calling plays which seemed to be against the players and the team's best interest. At times watching Leftwich call games was similar to spamming the A button in Madden and letting the game decide what play you were calling for you. It was infuriating his constant tirades he would go on about during the season when asked why he never called play action when we were one of the best play action teams in the league. Along with his thought process that the run game has to be dominant to set up the play action game which continually caused 3 and outs as he would call to run plays up the gut and an over schemed passing play on 3rd down. Replacing Leftwich was paramount, and I truly do believe Jason Licht found a good one in Dave Canales coming from Seattle. Canales was the WR coach for the Seahawks from 2010-2017 before becoming QB coach and passing game coordinator from 2018-2023. Canales is a Carroll disciple being part of Carrolls tenure at USC. Canales should bring life to the Tampa Bay passing game and with his already raving reviews of Mike Evans and Chris Godwin it should at least be a fun year for the Bucs.
New Coaching Hires:
Dave Canales (Offensive Coordinator)
Brad Idzik (Wide Receiver Coach)
Skip Peete (Running Back Coach)
Thad Lewis(QB Coach)
George Edwards(OLB Coach)
Notable Arrivals
QB Baker Mayfield
G Matt Feiler
IDL Greg Gaines
S Ryan Neal
RB Chase Edmonds
Summary: The Bucs additions this off season are nothing to write home about. Mayfield joins Tampa looking to win his final opportunity to show he is a starting QB in the NFL he will be in a stiff competition with Kyle Trask who Dave Canales is hyping up. At the end of the day I believe Trask will win the QB competition and be thrown into a sink or swim situation like Sam Howell and Desmond Ridder. While Gaines and Neal are phenomenal value signing with both being immediate contributors on the Bucs defense with Gaines being projected to rotate with Vita Vea along with playing next to the behemoth and Neal seemingly replacing Mike Edwards role at SS opposite of AWJ these players aren’t gamebreakers. Feiler and Edmonds should be nice depth pieces with Fieler competing to be the starting LG. Overall the Buc’s didn’t make any splash signings in free agency but with the limited cap room they had the moves they made were more than fine.
Notable Departures
LT Donovan Smith
S Mike Edwards
RB Leonard Fournette
G Shaq Mason
TE Cameron Brate
CB Sean Murphy-Bunting
K Ryan Succop
Summary: With this offseason the Buc’s ended up losing a ton of starters on both sides of the ball. On offense the Bucs lost their starting LT, RB, RG, TE and K. While Donovan Smith was a liability in pass protection his departure does mean the Bucs will now be shifting All-Pro RT Tristan Wirfs to LT which causes hesitation in people. I believe this move will be fine in both the long and short term for Tampa but it is still something to note. On defense the Bucs lost both starting SS Mike Edwards and NCB SMB. These moves leave the Bucs secondary especially thin at the CB position with Zyon McCollum slotted to start at NCB now.
Bucs Draft Selections
1.19: Calijah Kancey IDL Pittsburgh 6’1 281lbs
RAS Score: 9.60 Draft Grade: A
While some people believed that taking a OT here was a must with the top 4 OT’s all gone before the Jets pick the Bucs were put into one of the most interesting situations in the draft, seemingly picking between defensive players at this point GM Jason Licht stated that at the top of board they had to players one being “The Linebacker who went to the Lions(Jack Campbell) and Calijah Kancey'' with Kancey being BPA after the OT’s were taken. In a draft class with very few true top end talents I see this as a major win for the Bucs taking a top 10 player on the board and a premier pass rusher from day 1.
Kancey from day 1 should be a menace on the interior of the Bucs D-line paired with the best NT in football Vita Vea. Kancey doesn’t just win with his elite first step; he is an extremely refined player in every aspect of rushing the passer. From hand usage, leverage, pass rushing moves and intensity Kancey makes up for his miniscule size and arm length with his athleticism which is otherworldly. The comparison to Aaron Donald is over blown, Kancey doesn’t play with the functional strength that Donald had or the run defense ability that Donald has. Personally, I can see Kancey becoming a in between of Aaron Donald and Prime Sheldon Richardson a pass rushing specialist who will collapse the interior and will develop into a 3-down player as his career and body develop in the NFL.
2.48: Cody Mauch G North Dakota State 6’5 302lbs
RAS Score: 9.32 Draft Grade: B
Mauch is very much a Jason Licht pick. Small school guard with a mean streak and tons of athleticism. Mauch is not just a meme because of his missing front teeth he is a legitimate RG prospect similar to Alex Cappa and Ali Marpet for the Bucs. With how the O-Line is shaping up and Licht seemingly happy to move Goedeke from LG to RT, Mauch makes complete sense to shore up the RG position giving the Bucs a much younger and deeper interior then they had last year where every single projected starter interior lineman was hurt at some point.
With Mauch on tape I can see exactly what Licht loves in his linemen with a player who has aggressive hands and a base when pass blocking. Mauch has shown that he is a coachable player making the switch from TE to O-Line. You can sense the traits and upside that Mauch has over some other guard prospects in this class. I do believe that the Bucs switching to a zone blocking scheme which Seattle runs will aid the young O-Line and play to Mauch’s strength which is his athleticism. Playing beside Ryan Jensen makes this pick a B-B+ for me, a big addition especially if Goedeke is the answer at RT.
3.82: YaYa Diaby EDGE Louisville 6’3 263lbs
RAS Score: 9.87 Draft Grade: A
Diaby is a tale of untapped potential. Playing completely out of position at Louisville Diaby was forced to play with his hand in the dirt. Diaby is one of the most athletic players the NFL has ever seen from the EDGE position with his initial quickness and long arms Diaby should be able to develop into at minimum a role player for Tampa. Playing behind Shaq Barrett and Joe Tryon should help Diaby develop into the premier EDGE player he can be. He shows flashes on tape of just using his superior size and athleticism to overpower linemen and his speed to get past them.
For the Bucs I think Diaby will play a rotational role at the moment similar to Anthony Nelson’s role as a smart rotational EDGE that Bowles will use on unique blitz packages which push JTS or Shaq into a 4-3 stance. I have massive hope for Diaby in this defense as a future foundational piece for the Bucs who will more likely than not have to move on from Shaq Barrett next off season.
5.153: SirVocea Dennis LB Pittsburgh 6’1 226lbs
RAS Score: 7.28 Draft Grade: A+
My favorite pick in the Bucs draft I have Dennis as a top 5 LB in the class. Dennis is a do it all LB who is able to not only tackle well but is able to blitz the passer from the ILB position better than anybody in this class. His biggest deficiency to his game is his lack of experience in coverage but he wasn’t a player who was dominated there either. On film you could see him being put into situations in coverage which he couldn’t make the play. In Tampa Dennis will be mentored by one of the best coverage LB’s in the NFL for over a decade in Lavonte David. And with Bowles coaching the defense Dennis will be able to use his ability to rush the passer from the ILB position to its full effect.
With Dennis I can see this being one of the best picks in the entire draft. Dennis’s fit in Tampa is like a glove and with the situation with Devin White where we aren’t sure if he will be a Buc next season I can see Dennis being put into a starting position next to Lavonte David and like former Bucs Kwon Alexander taking it and never looking back.
5.171: Payne Durham TE Purdue 6’6 253lbs
RAS Score: 6.58 Draft Grade: B-
Durham is a big TE who is good at everything but a master at nothing. Very similar to what the Bucs had in longtime player Cameron Brate. Durham at Purdue was a team leader for the offense he set the tone playing an aggressive brand of football dragging defenders wherever he went with the ball. Durham runs decent routes and has decent hands but was never a player who took the top off a defense. With Durham you are giving Mayfield or Trask a reliable receiver in the passing game and a decent blocker to boot. For his size Durham was able to produce decent YAC at Purdue rumbling his way down the field in a similar way that Jason Witten was able to do for the Cowboys during his tenure.
For the Bucs Durham joins one of the youngest TE rooms in the NFL with last year's pick Cade Otton and Ko Kieft being the only players that seem to have roster spots in that room at the moment. Durham should compete with Kieft to be TE2 for this season, but he should be able to still carve a decent role for himself in Tampa with how new OC Canales uses TE’s. Where each TE has a specific role and was able to contribute with Geno Smith at QB.
6.181: Josh Hayes NCB Kansas State 5’11 189lbs
RAS Score: 4.82 Draft Grade: C
The biggest surprise in the Bucs draft was grabbing Josh Hayes, a prospect most people didn’t even have a priority free agent grade on in the top of the 6th. Hayes for all intents and purposes is a prototypical Bowles NCB. Hayes has the speed to play in the NFL and on tape you can see he has adequate tackling skills from the NCB position which he played in college along with the S position. With Hayes you have to believe that the coaching can turn this player into a solid starter because if not the CB room and S room take a massive hit forcing Winfield Jr into NCB full time.
Hayes' best film in my opinion was for North Dakota State where he was a former teammate of Bucs 2nd round pick Cody Mauch. At NDSU you can see the making of a very good CB prospect with how he is able to play in both Man and Zone coverage. At Kansas State he was never forced to be CB1 or even CB2 at times but he did hold his side of the field down and was able to put up some decent performances as a Wildcat. To me this C grade is more of a “I trust Bowles to develop CB’s/S’s” grade.
6.192: Trey Palmer WR Nebraska 6’0 192lbs
RAS Score: 6.18 Draft Grade: A+
A great value pick for the Bucs with their depleted WR core. Palmer has serious upside as a deep threat and even as a return man for the Bucs. Past Evans, Godwin and Gage every spot in the receiver room is wide open and Palmer seems to have the talent to set himself apart as WR4 by the end of the year. Palmer does have reasons for falling this far in the draft though as he has serious drop issues and apparent character issues which have set him back before. I don’t see this as a big problem in Tampa with Evans and Godwin being locker room leaders and his past season at Nebraska.
With Palmer you can see the obvious talent that is there but you can see the reasons he was drafted in the 6th round even when he has Day 2 talent in this class. And with this talent I can see him developing into a player similar to MVS for the Packers and now the Chiefs. A good deep threat that can blow the top off of a defense and isn’t scared of making plays on contested passes even if they aren’t the biggest receiver on the team by any means.
6.196: Jose Ramirez EDGE Eastern Michigan 6’2 242lbs
RAS Score: 8.10 Draft Grade: B
When you watch Ramirez on tape it’s hard to not like what you see. At first when looking at this pick, I thought about how our EDGE room was already a bit full with Diaby but in hindsight I like the Ramirez pick more and more from a talent standpoint. Ramirez is never going to be the most athletic guy on the team but he makes up for it with his effort, timing and technique. Extremely similar to how Shaq Barrett plays for the Bowles defense Ramirez has a talent for being the first guy to get into the QB’s area with his blend of pass rushing moves and leverage. Ramirez was dominant at Eastern Michigan being one of the best players to ever play for EMU.
For a dart throw pick Ramirez should bring the effort needed to truly succeed in some capacity in the NFL and being mentored by the player your game is most similar to in Shaq Barrett is a plus as well. Ramirez should find a role as a utility pass rusher but I don’t see him playing much at all this season and having to compete against Cam Gill for EDGE 5 on the roster.
Key UDFA’s
Sean Tucker RB Syracuse 5’10 205lbs
RAS Score: N/A
Jeremy Banks LB Tennessee 6’1 232lbs
RAS Score: 8.90
Luke Haggard OT Indiana 6’6 297lbs
RAS Score: N/A
Rakim Jarrett WR Maryland 6’0 190lbs
RAS Score: 7.89
Chris Inzen S Rutgers 5’10 200lbs
RAS Score: N/A
Projected Final Roster
Offense(26)
QB(2)
Baker Mayfield
Kyle Trask
RB(4)
Rachaad White
Ke'shawn Vaugn
Chase Edmonds
Sean Tucker
WR(7)
Mike Evans
Chris Godwin
Russell Gage
Trey Palmer
Deven Thompkins
Rakiim Jarrett
TE(3)
Cade Otton
Ko Kieft
Payne Durham OT(4)
Tristan Wirfs
Luke Goedeke
Brandon Walton
Luke Haggard
OG(4)
Cody Mauch
Matt Feiler
Aaron Stinnie
John Molchon
C(2)
Ryan Jensen
Robert Hainsey
Defense(24)
IDL(5)
Vita Vea
Calijah Kancey
Greg Gaines
Logan Hall
Pat O’Connor
EDGE(5)
Shaq Barrett
Joe Tryon
Anthony Nelson
Yaya Diaby
Jose Ramirez LB(4)
Lavonte David
Devin White
SirVocea Dennis
KJ Britt
CB(6)
Carilton Davis
Jamel Dean
Zyon McCollum
Josh Hayes
Dee Delany
Don Gardner
S(4)
Antoine Winfield Jr
Ryan Neal
Nolan Turner
Chris Inzen
Special Teams(3)
K(1)
Chase McLaughlin
P(1)
Jake Camarda
LS(1)
Zach Triner
Final Thoughts
For what seems to be a retooling/rebuilding year I actually liked what Jason Licht and the Bucs did. For me this draft was easily the best draft they have had since drafting Tristan Wirfs and Antoine Winfield Jr in 2020. With this draft you get an elite pass rushing DT that pairs perfectly next to Vita Vea. Cody Mauch who should be a starter at RG for years to come and fits this team's identity. YaYa Diaby who was a great value pick with Pro Bowl upside at EDGE. SirVocea Dennis who I think can easily become one of the best LB’s in this class and maybe even the league. Then the rest of the draft contained high floor prospects who can contribute to a rotational role in some way or form. Overall, the draft for the Bucs was a massive win in my books.
For this offseason I would also say it was a win if not adequate at worst. As an organization we know we needed to retool the roster and slowly claw ourselves out of cap hell in some way shape or form and using this season to get out of it is a good way to do it. There are 2 ways this season will go for us with us either being a team similar to the Seahawks that is able to dominate a weak NFC South, or we are one of the worst teams in the league and are in contention for Drake Maye and Caleb Williams. Either way I am looking forward to watching this season play out for the Bucs. David Canales should bring life back to our offense and Mike Evans should continue his campaign towards the most consecutive 1000-yard seasons.
Overall, I am happy with this off season and especially the draft that came with it. Let me know what you guys think! This is my first time defending the draft and I hope this isn’t terrible and if it’s not I would love to do this again next year! Go Bucs Go!

This mini series of sort is inspired by a few sources, most notably the "Alien invasion" things made by a few Pivot Animators as well as Warhammer 40K in some way that will become apparent later.

Date: April 6, 2408 POV: Ambassador Ra-Kakon of the 6th Cigadreth Dynasty [Description of the Cigadreth: Reptilian, 3.11 ft tall average, 20~ kg average, bright yellow to dark red colored scales, 2 side facing eyes, bipedal with long tail for movement support and balance] Location: Andromeda Galaxy

10 years ago, we have started to recieve some weird transmissions and signals from the Western fringe of the galaxy. A Kolshif colony, which was the closest to the origin of the signals was ordered to keep listening to them and report on their findings. The signals was so garbled that it was almost as if it was written by a Cigadreth hatchling. [Description of the Kolshif: Insectoid, 4.10 ft average, 40~kg average, yellow to red head carapace, purple to velvet thorax and mid carapace, 4 eyes(2 side facing, 2 front facing), quadrupedal(4 legs and 4 arms)]
We brought this up with the Graddath Council, a galactic organization that consists of 20 space faring species, and after much deliberation and squabbling, we ordered the colony to keep on listening but it took us a few weeks to realize that, 'maybe a sub-par reciever of a colony world is not the best equipment to use in this endeavor.' and so we decided to start construction of a listening post. The station itself was not that big, only being about 100 x 200 x 100 meters big but it will do the job once it was finished which took about 3 years due to unexpected delays and random budget cuts by sector officials.
When the station was done and activated, the first signal we recieved shocked us.

"???: Andromeda Expeditionary Force, status update.
"AEF: Doing good Sol, colony reached 1 billion inhabitants a few weeks ago. Grandbattlefleet Acasta is detecting more signs of extraterrestrial life that isn't just plants, wildlife and flat-out hostile.
"Sol: Avoid initiating First Contact, let them come to us first. Last time we did that it plunged the Milky Way into war.
"AEF: We observed them making a listening post because of us flinging transmissions to God knows where. We'll report on any activity from these natives.
"Sol: Acknowledged. Make hell if they fire first. End conversation."

They knew! They knew all along! Its a good thing that the whole galaxy was listening in on the situation, its hard to cover up the sudden construction of a station near a colony world of 14 billion, let alone the random signals they were flinging into the void. Now we can't just stand there and do nothing.
An emergency meeting was called into session with all representatives of the council.
"Due to sudden events and findings from LP-4," High-Speaker Kohdrin of the Sal'reth Empire began "What is our course of action? Should we send them a greetings or should we leave them be?" [Description of the Sal'reth: Avian, 3.9 ft tall average, 30~ kg average, bright blue to dark green colored feathers(royal purple for nobles), 2 side facing eyes, long beak with colors ranging from charcoal black to metallic gold, bipedal]
There was a long silence with only a few murmurs between allies and the occasional exchange of looks between representatives. Even the Kolshif guards themselves look angsty by their nervous swaying and movements.
"What shall we do fellow representatives?" Kohdrin said suddenly, quickly stopping the murmuring in the chamber "Shall we send a signal of greetings?"
"I say we shall, High-Speaker." Ambassador Nihje of the Shai Republic "After all, they already know that we exist and it seems like they have been waiting for some time now." [Description of the Shai: Mammalian-Feline, 3.8 ft tall average, 50~ kg average, yellow to red orange short fur with with black or red rings, 2 front facing eyes, quadrupedal/bipedal, long tail for balance]
"Any objections?"
The chamber was silent.
"No words from the Fal'riths? Not looking for a squabble Suler?"
"I uh... N-no High-Speaker." Fal'rith Representative Suler replied "For all we know, the aliens are probably listening in on us right now. No need for a petty squabble that will lead to nowhere!" [Description of the Fal'rith: Aquatic based species, 6 tentacles, colors vary from family to family, though nobles are always a tint of yellow, 4 eyes(positioning doesnt matter because the author is one tired bastard)]
This kind of surprised me. You see, Suler was always that kind of petty bastard who likes himself a good screaming match. Almost everything brought up in the chamber is somehwat influenced by him. I leaned my head onto my right arm as I look at my pad to see if there were any updates to the station, but like the old days in school, the High-Speaker took notice like my history teacher.
"Anything you want to say Ra?"
"No Kohdrin, just seeing if there were any updates on LP-4."
Almost as if on cue, all of our pads lit up in unison. It was a message from LP-4.
"Khodrin, may I read it aloud?" asked Ambassador Kal'Re of the 2nd Rakatoth Republic. [Description of the Rakatoth: Rodent, 2.10 ft tall average, 60~ kg average, dark brown to orange fur, 2 front positioned eyes, short snout, quadrupedal]
"Go on," replied the High-Speaker "Read it louder for the others at the back."
"Very well," he replied. He stood up on his two hind legs and read the message for all of us to hear.
"Dear representatives of the council, we apologize for interrupting your meeting for there is some urgent news. The aliens have been detected slowly moving towards us, almost as if like they are getting ready to do a warp directly into the capitol system.
"We beg of you for the lords on high for speedy decision making in order to defuse the situation and seek for a more peacful route in this quagmire of a galaxy. Also its a contingent of 2 humongous ships and they look like they are itching to pull the trigger."
When the last word was said, Kal'Re was still standing to see the reactions of everyone present, there was a few seconds of silence as we are digesting the information fed to us.
The short few seconds felt like an eternity and once that was over, everyone in the chamber started talking erratically.
"What do they mean by 'humongous'?" Nihje said confused at the situation.
Normally, the High-Speaker would bang on the gavel for silence in the chamber, but the situation was so surreal that she watched in stunned silence seemingly forgetting her position in the council. After a while and the talking starting to get louder, Khodrin remembered where she was and squawked "Silence!"
"My fellow Ambassadors!" I spoke aloud, "Make your decision for this situation is starting to go sideways!"
"Ra is right!" said Ambassador Lilia of Curtel Prime from inside her shell, "Leaving them alone is soon going to be an impossibility because they are slowly moving towards us!" [Description of the Curtels: Mollusk, 1 ft tall average, 30~kg average, dark green to light yellow shell, 2 side facing "eyes" on a small "head" from within the shell)
"Its better now than later!" Nihje chimed in "Later is looking sketchy!"
"All in favor of sending a message of peace?" Suler said, surprisingly.
The whole room errupted in confirmation and with a few button presses from Khodrin the message was sent.
I hope it makes it to them before it they make it to us. I thought to myself, Hopefully we continue the 100 cycles of no needless bloodshed.
We recieved a message from the Cigadreth colony world Za-Kai 2 about how "2 oddly shaped large cargo haulers failed to respond to the hails". We recieved a follow up message that the 2 ships stopped beyond the orbit of the Gas Giant designated 'Ra-998b'. Scans to reveal more about the ships were unsuccessful due to some "weird electronic interferences".
Everyone let out one shaky sigh of relief, though the ships stopped, they were still in council territory. We recieved another message from the colony stating:

"Forwarded from one SVS-Living Litany:
"Dear representatives of the Graddath Council, we are humanity. This is Rear-Admiral Johnathan Beckett. We would formally like to invite all of you aboard the SVS-Sol's Might for a diplomatic meeting and proper introduction of all the species in your care.
"Terra Lives On."

The High-Speaker opened her beak once more to speak but before anything came out a violent shaking rocked the station. This kind of shake was no meteor strike or some ambassador's transport bumping into the station, this was like-
"A SHIP HAS WARPED IN CLOSE PROXIMITY WITH THE STATION!" Shouted a Kolshif guard on the PA system.
Rude.
I helped Nihje get up on her feet and as I was dusting her off, a few of the council started murmuring profanities at the event that happened. We heard a scream from a Rakatoth staff member down the hall, we saw her running by the doorway and before a brave Kolshif can investigate, 5 aliens came into view.
They looked like they were bipeds, clad in grey armor with grey helmets and blue visors as well as pouldrons varying from white with blue trim to purple with blue trim. Their chest piece displays a blue and green marble(which I assume is their cradle world) surrounded by a blue ring and a golden laurel. Each step they take into the council chamber is taken with pride and confidence.
One of them stands out from the others. It has a purple pouldron and its main armor is like that of the ontourage but it wears a sache colored with blue, red and white with a roundel leading to the shoulder. It does not carry any visible weapon. The ontourage carry weapons of unknown class.
The Kolshifs were aiming their weapons at them yet the aliens look like they don't care at all. The High-Speaker ordered them to stand down but they never took their hands off their pulse rifles.
The aliens stood in front of doorway. The one with the sache turned its head slowly from one end of the chamber to the other, and once it was done it spoke. We heard its real voice, loud, almost like a roar though muffled by its helmet. Then the translator cracked to life.
"My name is Ambassador Wilhelm of the Terran United Federation. 11 years ago, we sent a colony fleet to this galaxy for better pastures for our own galaxy is growing smaller for our explorers and more hostile to its inhabitants. We only ever encountered another extraterrestrial race though when we approached them first, it sent our galaxy spiraling into a hundred year long war that saw said race be wiped from the universe." It spoke in Graddath Standard.
Right, don't tick them off. I thought to myself.
"They used to call themselves Ostrens, and when we first saw them we were happy and relieved to know that we were not alone in this universe. That joy and excitement was quickly snuffed out when they attacked one of our colonies. We are once again happy to know that there are more intelligent life in the nearest galaxy over, but due to lingering xenophobia, we never made the first move until one Rear-Admiral Beckett decided to push his luck by moving both of his large ships closer."
Ah, that's nice. Big boys with big toys. Better make sure this Beckett doesnt touch our things.
"We would like to apologize for the inconvenience that those ships may impose on that colony, but we would also like to know if all of you would join us aboard the TIES-Endurance."
We all looked at each other to see who would make the first move. It was then I felt the Kolshif Ambassador, Indrex, slowly push me towards the aliens. I cursed under my breath and as I slowly walked towards them, it felt like it was warmer. When I closed the gap, Ambassador Wilhelm suddenly extended his hand towards me, realizing what he did, he quickly put it back to his side.
"Sorry," he spoke softly, almost like a whisper "force of habit, never met another culture that didn't take the gesture as a sign of peace and greeting."
Damn, I should've took his hand, now I kind of feel bad.
One by one the other ambassadors took up the invitation, a Rakatoth had to carry Lilia because of the fact she had no limbs for movement. Wilhelm almost seemed happy and relieved when the last of us finally joined in.
"Very well then," Wilhelm said startling a few of us "follow Sargeant Macaraig over there. Macaraig, show us the way."
Macaraig nodded and lead the way, the station guards were trying to stop them but seeing as we were willingly following them they decided to stay. We all shared nervous glances with one another, its not everyday we get to encounter intelligent life, let alone an advanced one at that. The silence in the hall where we walked was almost deafening, only broken by the clanking of the alien soldiers' armor and sabatons.
It was then we saw their ship on the window. It was huge, probabaly bigger than the station itself. Its guns were bristling with energy and they made no attempt to hide the cannons. A wierd bulb was mounted at its bottom, it didnt look like it served a purpose. An alien saw my confusion and shook its head.
What? Why? It doesnt look like a weapon. I thought to myself, Better ask questions later.
We arrived to a docking airlock which was seemingly blasted open. Wilhelm saw what we were looking at and assured us that "some idiot got lazy and used an explosive instead of opening it manually." I gulped nervously, Nihje was suspicious at their intentions judging by her nervous tail swaying, Khodrin was a little worried with a few of the feathers on her back seemingly ruffled, and Suler was growing anxious.
When we took a look inside the airlock, we saw an alien with a black mask next to a weird trapezoid shaped object with a blue light flickering on top of it. The alien seemed to be doing something judging by the fact that both its hands are sticking into an opening. This alien was not wearing any armor and instead some thick, heavy fabric covered in oils of some sort. Wilhelm coughed which made the oily alien flinch.
"Is it done lieutenant?" Wilhelm said calmly.
"Just a few more minutes," the alien replied "some bits of shrapnel are jammed in the inner workings. Nanites are helping me so it should work as it is intended to."
Nanites? How advanced is this race we are facing?
The lieutenant closed the opening on the trapezoid object. He took a look at all of us. I'll admit, it was a little uncomfortable. He then took a look at the object and let out a groan. He kicked said object and the light on it turned green.
Almost in an instant, I saw the alien guards dissappear with a green flash, and then Wilhelm, then us. I was the last to go but before then I tried to run, with my instincts taking over.
I felt myself slamming on a cold metal floor.
LP-4: Listening Post - 4 SVS: Sol's Venerable Ship TIES: Terra's Indefatigable Escort Ship [Note from the Author: First time poster here, some gaps may have formed whilst writing this, so ask in the comments for clarification. Will probably attach an illustration to each story of this mini series when I see it fit and the situation calls for it or when I feel like it lol.]

A bit of a long rant on all the reasons why I am officially done with C41 home developing and scanning. I will be using labs again from now on and I'm not looking back.
I've been shooting film since 2019, and in that time I've been developing and scanning all my own film for the last two years (C41 and black and white). Initially I did it to save money on dev and scan from the labs, and then came to really enjoy it as part of the whole process of creating the image from start to finish. As much as I enjoyed it, I've come to realize that all of the extra time and effort that goes with it isn't really worth it in the end due how much time I was putting in dealing with all the extra steps and work on my end.
I'll start by saying the first headache comes with scanning. I use a flatbed scanner since I don't have a DSLR setup, which is painfully slow, and usually incorporates a lot of dust no matter how clean you keep everything (especially for 35mm). It also was a roll of the dice on if the negatives were going to dry nice and straight, or curl up and make it virtually impossible to fit into the film holders. Even with the lomography film holders which were a big help, it could still be a huge pain to get negatives in place that would for some reason dry extremely curly as opposed to others. Once the negs were in, the scanning process starts and no matter what the first thing is always DUST. It's not hard to remove in lightroom or in Silverfast, but it becomes quite tedious, especially if you're scanning multiple rolls in one sitting. After you get rid of the dust, then comes color grading and editing. Again, it's not hard to color grade or correct the colors for a single image, but I it seems that no matter what steps I take to keep the process consistent, I would always have wildly varying color results on the same roll that I would need to correct in silverfast during scanning or after the fact in light room just to keep one roll of shots consistent.
Next is the chemicals themselves. Like most people, I used the cinesitll C41 chemicals. I've tried both powder and liquid which were both fine, but I could never really get consistent results on anything past the first 4 rolls or so. I tired all manner of internet advice of different time intervals to extend developing time, and I never used any chemicals older than 6 weeks. I always was able to have the best and most consistent results with the C41kit from Rollei which is more expensive, but definitely better in terms of consistency, and they give you a reliable time table on how to extend your developer. But still, after about 8 rolls, I would always notice some color shifting or grain I wasn't expecting and would have to correct it during the scanning process.
On top of that, C41 chemicals are a race against time. Once you mix them, you want to develop as many rolls as possible before they start to go bad, no matter how well you seal them away in the special air tight accordion containers that you store them in. I always felt like I was racing against the clock and putting so much pressure on myself to get all my rolls developed and scanned within a months time, which really adds a lot of stress and pressure on the entire process, and takes away a lot of time from other things.
I think the reason I put up with all of these things and did this for over two years was because I really started to think of it as much more of an important part of the photographic process, and that somehow it made me more of an "artist" or a better photographer since I was handling it all myself from start to finish. Don't get me wrong, you do have a lot more creative control when you do everything yourself for every step of the process, but getting lab scans and editing the files in lightroom makes you just as much of a photographer as the person who does home developing and scanning. It took me a while to realize that and accept that I shouldn't force myself to do all this because it will somehow make me a better artist.
All of this being said, I know there's lots of other things I could try, like other brands of chemicals, I could Invest in a DSLR setup, I could buy negative Lab pro, but after two plus years of dealing with all these minute headaches it feels so good to just get scans back from the lab that are clean and consistent every time (shoutout to Memphis film lab for their amazing service).
It's also worth mentioning that almost none of the above issues apply to black and white film (except dust and slow scanners). Black and white is cheap, easy, consistent, the chemicals last almost forever, you never have to worry about temperature, and pushing/ pulling is much easier and more forgiving. I could go on about how much simpler black and white developing is, but the point is I'll still be doing all black and white myself.
​
TL;DR : Developing and scanning color film takes a lot of work, I'll stick to film labs and black and white dev only from now on.

god I just had an appointment for a bra fitting and it fucking SUCKED. I'm not even that big but because of how my figure is, the band ALWAYS digs into me if it's unwired, and the wired sticks in when I sit down. I have two marks that could be scarring from previous bras underneath my tits, it feels like I got top surgery but they forgot to remove the boobs.
anyway, love getting told that there's "nothing else we can do" and that my best bet is just to use an extender because I'm at the highest band size...
I've used the damn calculator hundreds of times. I've tried every solution but I always have to "settle". I hate this stupid industry that goes "love your body!" but never shows a model who is ACTUALLY fat, with a stomach and rolls. I don't care if I'm an hourglass or what, it still just won't goddamn fit!

So, we already discussed what DC was doing to match the tenor of the early years of the War on Terror: A grim, smarter-than-it-thinks miniseries full of gratuitous rape that was meant to take the shine off the Silver Age by showing the darker side of its greatest heroes. Marvel, on the other hand, was trying to find a way to capture the zeitgeist of a post-9/11 era of existential threats, constant government surveillance, and the idea that if you weren’t with America, you were against it. A Captain America storyline saw Cap wrestle with the very concept of Guantanamo Bay; like any story arc that involves Cap doubting whether America lives up to its ideals, this made certain conservatives pissy, to the point that bad movie cataloguer Michael Medved wrote an entire article asking if Cap was a traitor. Avengers Disassembled briefly saw the Avengers face down their demons, as the Scarlet Witch goes crazy (again) and starts killing team members, her reality manipulations causing fault lines to form among Marvel’s greatest superteam. But there hadn’t yet been a storyline that would tie the entire Marvel Universe together with the burning question, “Which side are you on?”
Yeah, it’s got nothing to do with the Sokovia Accords. We’d be a lot better off if it did.
Part 1: Mark Millar’s March to the C-Word
Content Warning: Sexual assault. None of this is germane to the topic of the drama, so feel free to skip ahead to Part 1.5 if you don’t want to deal with this. Tl;dr: Mark Millar, the writer of the event, has a near pathological need to be a 3edgy5u contrarian.
Every comics crossover is ultimately a chance for one creative in the stable to shine or falter. The editors pick a writer who has turned out dependable work and give them a chance to try to alter the status quo but good. And for Civil War, Marvel’s EiC Joe Quesada decided the best person to lead the charge was Ultimates writer Mark Millar.
But who is Millar? Well, we could say “edgelord” and leave it at that, but we’re trying to dig deeper. Millar came up in comics alongside fellow Scot Grant Morrison, long before Morrison said the only time they want to bump into Millar on the streets of Glasgow is while going at 100 miles per hour. This antipathy is alleged to have stemmed from Millar copping several ideas from Morrison that went into Superman: Red Son. But after getting a start on Superman Adventures and as a cowriter on parts of Morrison’s JLA run, Millar soon branched out to WildStorm, where he took over The Authority from departing creatowritesex pest Warren Ellis.
The reason I bring up Red Son (for those non-geeks, an alternative universe comic premised on “What if Superman’s rocket had landed in Soviet Russia?”) is to frame a constant refrain about Mark Millar. He has good high-concept ideas… which often get trammeled up in an almost Pavlovian urge to shock, disturb, and/or titillate the reader. For instance, in The Authority, Ellis had introduced Apollo and Midnighter, two close companions who just happened to share the rough power sets and demeanors of Superman and Batman, with a few tweaks. Then he revealed they were boyfriends, which was a pretty bold move for a late Nineties comic book full of widescreen action and lovingly-rendered eviscerations.
In Millar’s first arc on the title, centered on a villainous Jack Kirby clone sending out a team of baddies who totally aren’t the Avengers, Apollo is subdued and is strongly implied to have been raped by someone who’s not Captain America. Apollo gets revenge by destroying EvilCap’s spinal column with his laser vision, then leaving him to the tender mercies of Midnighter, who is strongly implied to have sodomized him with a jackhammer.
In case you can’t tell, Millar loved him some rape. And it kept showing up in his creator-owned titles as well, all of which were basically written as Hollywood pitch docs. Wanted asks the question, “What if the supervillains won and secretly ruled the world from behind the scenes?” Well, an Eminem clone would take the opportunity to step into his dead villainous dad’s shoes and commit a lot of rape (yeah, there’s a reason the movie version replaced this with basically the Euthanatos from Mage: the Ascension getting orders from a magic loom). Chosen asks the question, “What if Jesus were born today?” Well, in a blatantly obvious twist, it turns out he’s actually the Antichrist, and part of his journey into realizing his evil nature involves being raped by all the demons of Hell.
It’s not that Millar can’t write innocent or restrained; he got started on the Superman: the Animated Series comic spin-off, and some of his titles such as Huck and Starlight have been praised for being relatively wholesome (keep in mind Huck is basically “What if Superman was Forrest Gump?” when I say “relatively”). And, as mentioned above, his works are made for high-concept log lines. You might recognize some of his various pitch docs: Kick-Ass, The Secret Service (source for the Kingsman movies), and, as mentioned above, Wanted. It’s just there’s this unctuous contrarian streak to a lot of his titles, a tendency to focus on venality, grotesquerie, and sodomy, with an air of pop culture edge. This also leaked into his image outside of his writing, with comments like “Games are for pedos” and ventures like the creator-owned comics periodical CLiNT (yes, the kerning is intentional). This streak continues to this day, as The Magic Order, a title that emerged from his deal with Netflix, features a magical escapologist who, she feels it very important to tell the reader in a direct monologue, escaped her own abortion. Bottom line, Millar has a sense of vision, but it’s betrayed at times by this reflexive desire to prove he’s smarter than the reader, to rub your face in the contradictions and make you a party to the artifice of it all. Usually with a dash of rape.
But at Marvel, Millar was riding the lightning of the Ultimate Universe. His Ultimates title was drawing on the wide-screen action image of JLA and The Authority, creating the cinematic language that would come to define the MCU. The choice to fantasy cast Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury is why we have Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. He also painted the Hulk as a cannibalistic monster, cemented Hank Pym’s reputation as a wifebeater, and gave us Captain America yelling “Surrender? Do you think this A on my head stands for France?”, so let’s just keep that in perspective.
But the Ultimate Universe was its own pocket universe. Millar was being tapped to write a story for Earth-616, the main Marvel Universe. And he had a vision:

“I opted instead for making the superhero dilemma something a little different. People thought they were dangerous, but they did not want a ban. What they wanted was superheroes paid by the federal government like cops and open to the same kind of scrutiny. It was the perfect solution and nobody, as far as I'm aware, has done this before.”

Yeah. About that.
Part 1.5: What Has Come Before
Ultimately, the crux of Civil War is something that has been explored lightly in the past at Marvel: The idea that, instead of being unlicensed vigilantes who decide the best solution of societal issues is to beat up assholes in spandex, superheroes become licensed government officers that register their true identities with Uncle Sam and solve societal issues by beating up assholes in spandex. In Marvel’s history, it hasn’t gone well. The reality of government liaisons to superhero bodies has ranged from Valerie Cooper, who worked with government mutant team X-Factor but still found herself backing the genocidal Sentinel program as a big “Yeah, but what if…?”, to Henry Peter Gyrich, an inflamed obstructionist asshole who had to be held back from flipping a switch that would depower every superhuman individual on Earth. The idea of heroes themselves bristling against a government they disagreed with had a long history, as there was a period where Steve Rogers quit being Captain America, and the government had to find a replacement while he rode around on a motorcycle in a surprisingly slutty costume. But the idea of registering with the government has usually ended up on the “No” side due to one big cohort at Marvel: Mutants.
Ever since the days of Chris Claremont, a general conceit of the Marvel Universe is that mutants are a stand-in for your minority group of choice. Hated and feared, born different and feeling alienated, painted as an existential menace and threat to the status quo. Of course, it’s long been pointed out that the metaphor breaks down on the general grounds that, say, gays can’t shoot laser beams out of their eyes. I have my thoughts on that which I might share in the comments if someone pokes me hard enough, but it’s been general editorial consensus that people with powers, especially those of persecuted minorities, being compelled to share their true names, addresses, and natures with the federal government is a “That train’s never late!” move. Not only that, it’s a slippery slope. The classic X-Men story “Days of Future Past” is entirely premised on the idea that a government program of genocidal robots built to wipe out mutants will eventually run out of mutants… and then start turning on humans who could give birth to mutants, and then it’s Skynet all over again.
Another running meme in the Marvel Universe is that the X-Men usually exist in a Schrodinger’s cat situation with the rest of the superhero universe, both coexisting and in their own worlds. Yes, mutants have served on the Avengers, and yes, Thor intervened when the Morlocks were nearly wiped out in the sewers under New York. But Captain America, for all his proud statements of living up to America’s ideals, has a habit of missing the plot whenever the US government (or Canada, seat of all the Marvel Universe’s governmental evils - no, really) decides it’s Genocide O’Clock. And when the mutant nation of Genosha was completely wiped out by said murder robots, the Avengers seemed to be all “New phone who dis?” But when the two do intersect, there’s usually support for the mutants. One story in Fantastic Four had Reed Richards - Mr. Fantastic, stretchy man, greatest genius in the Marvel Universe, guy who’s probably being cucked by a fish-man - get tapped by the US government to make a device that detects mutants and other people with powers. He does… and then uses it to show why the government probably doesn’t want it, as it pings several members of Congress as having just enough genetic variation to qualify as “mutants,” even if they don’t have powers.
All in all, while the argument has some merit, for years, Marvel has come down on the position that asking people with powers to reveal their identities to the federal government is something that could go really bad if somebody with a hate-on for superheroes ends up in power. Something that would never happen oh yeah it totally did. But before it all went to Hell, Civil War at least gave an opportunity to reexamine the concept and see if it had merit.
It might have. But not with this argument.
Part 1.75: What Else Has Happened Before?
And now, some things that will ultimately give context for what happens next:

• In the pages of Thor, all of Asgard eventually runs headlong into Ragnarok. Thor and the rest of the Asgardians give their lives to save the earth, taking Thor off the board… for now.
• As mentioned above, the Avengers experience a critical fault due to Wanda going batshit (a common lament). With Avengers Mansion destroyed and the team at odds, it is eventually reunited under Tony Stark, who put the Avengers up in a tower he built.
• Nick Fury has vanished due to doing some skullduggery in the pages of the miniseries Secret War (no, not Secret Wars, this is different). Acting head of SHIELD, the all-purpose super spy squad of Marvel, is Maria Hill, who can’t seem to draw her pistol without shooting herself in the foot.
• Due to Wanda continuing to go batshit, the House of M crossover event ends with her casting a spell: “No more mutants.” While the damage is staunched, Earth-616’s population of mutants (which was recently established to be somewhere around 16 million) is reduced to 200, the rest being depowered or dying as a result of being depowered. This was because, as Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada said, the idea of mutants being everywhere made them “boring.” The fact that mutants were starting to be written less as a minority stand-in and more as an actual minority group with fashion, culture, music, and neighborhoods might have had something to do with that. From the wake of this event emerges Sally Floyd, a journalist whose own mutant daughter died before the mass depowering due to having a power that was more curse than blessing. The series Generation M follows her as the viewpoint character as she investigates the stories of former mutants.

Part 2: Connecticut Can’t Catch a Break
The big kick-off for Civil War involves the New Warriors, a team of teen heroes who have, as of a recently canceled series, been trying to make it big as reality TV stars. They get in a fight with a bunch of villains in the small town of Stamford, CT, when exploding villain Nitro goes positively nuclear, resulting in a blast much bigger than any he’s generated. [1] Not only does this mostly wipe out the New Warriors (save for kinetic energy-absorbing goofball Speedball), but it also happens to hit a nearby school. In the end, 612 people are dead, many of them children, and the nation wants answers.
With public opinion turning against the New Warriors, former member Hindsight starts leaking secret identities to get the heat off his back. This only makes things worse. Secret identities have only recently stopped being a thing for some heroes: Captain America only came out a few years ago, it was only recently that Tony Stark stopped pretending Iron Man was his bodyguard, and Daredevil was almost outed in the pages of his book. But something needs to be done, so Tony helps work with Congress to pass the Super Human Registration Act, which requires that all people with powers or working as vigilantes register their identities with the government to receive training and oversight. If you don’t? Believe it or not, jail, right away.
Fault lines quickly develop in the superhero community. While Tony is leading the “pro” side, alongside Reed Richards (yeah, we’ll get to that), Captain America, usually painted as the embodiment of the dream of America despite its compromised history and many sins, is against it. He’s lived through Richard Nixon being a secret fascist and shooting himself in the head after being fingered as mastermind of a vast criminal conspiracy (yes, that happened ); he knows how badly this could go in the wrong hands. Needless to say, Maria Hill and SHIELD hear his concerns, understand his problems with it, and are willing to iron out the kinks through reasoned debate.
Just kidding. Before the law has even been signed, Maria sics SHIELD’s elite Cape-Killers squad on Cap with the intent of getting him behind bars. Cap swiftly goes underground and starts his own group of anti-registration superheroes.
The fight continues for the next few issues. Spider-Man, caught in the middle, reveals himself to be Peter Parker at a press conference, declaring his support for the SHRA. Doctor Strange is so powerful that he tells the government to fuck off, and somehow, Maria Hill doesn’t decide to go charging up his asshole. Ben Grimm, the ever-loving blue-eyed Thing, is so sick of all the conflict he goes to France. But things are still at a stalemate, and while SHIELD may be acting like a bunch of merry assholes, it seems like there’s a debate to be had that could still be resolved reasonably… except for one key factor.
Part 3: I Fought the Law, and the Law… Huh?
No one ever really defined what the Super Human Registration Act, the legislation that tore the Marvel Universe’s superhero community asunder, did. Every book that had an issue that touched on the event seemed to have a different understanding of its principles, as well as just how fascist it might be in the long run. In the pages of She-Hulk, attorney Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk argues the law is a net good, as it gives heroes the backing and resources they need to not have to go it alone, while also having some measure of government oversight. In the pages of Civil War Frontline (oh, and we’ll get back to Civil War Frontline, don’t you worry), Wonder Man is told by the government that he needs to do a job for them, and if he refuses, well, one thousand years dungeon.
Which then leads into the other issue behind the SHRA. Namely, that everyone in favor was either starting to swing towards fascism or embracing bootlicking as a lifestyle, not a kink. In the pages of Amazing Spider-Man, Peter asks Reed Richards, who has always bucked authority and once stopped the US government from doing something just like this with mutants, why he’s pro-registration. Reed then reveals that an uncle who has never been mentioned before was called before HUAC; he refused to name names, his career was ruined, and he killed himself. From this, Reed - the man who stole a rocketship because the government said “no” to his planned space voyage - has learned that the government is always right, especially when they could step on your neck (this was received so badly that a later comic revealed he’d actually borrowed the concept of psychohistory from Asimov’s Foundation, he’d made it work somehow, and his calculations showed that this was the only way to avoid a greater disaster). This comic also revealed that people who were in violation of the SHRA were sent to a literal extradimensional Gitmo, a prison in the Negative Zone that later comics would reveal was overseen by… Captain Marvel. No, not that one. No, not that one. The Kree superhero Captain Mar-Vell, who had famously died of cancer decades before. How did he come back from the dead? Fuck if we know.
This “the law says what you want it to say” approach spread across various books and miniseries meant to cross over into the event. In the pages of a crossover mini between the Runaways and the Young Avengers, this meant SHIELD Cape-Killer squads were using lethal force against teenagers. The second-to-last issue of the mini ends with several members of both teams in extradimensional Gitmo, about to be dissected by a guy who’s horny for torture. The fact that all the captive heroes were the queer members of both teams? Total coincidence. Honestly.
So, it quickly becomes clear that the editorial control on this event is less than cohesive. There are different ideas all over as to what the SHRA does, and some of those ideas are tacking pretty fashy. But if the law is being painted as that bad, then clearly, there must be some greater statement of freedom vs. security. Maybe Millar’s really painting a subversive picture of what happens when you trade liberty for control, right?
Part 4: Why Do You Hate the Good Thing?
After the publication of Civil War #3, Millar would say in an interview he was actually pro-registration. I can’t find that interview, but here’s a similar sentiment shared years later:

“Weirdly, some of the other writers would often make Tony the bad guy, which I thought was a strange choice because I was actually on Tony’s side... In the real world, if somebody had superpowers, I’d like them to be registered in the same way that somebody who has a gun has to carry a license. But a gun can kill several people while a superhero can kill several thousands of people, so on a pragmatic level I’m 100% on Tony’s side. Maybe on a romantic level, Cap’s position makes sense but I don’t think anybody in the real world would really want that."”

And again, here’s the thing: He’s not entirely wrong. As said above, the idea of civil liberties for all and “free to me you and me” falls down a little when one of your neighbors can blow up a city block by thinking real hard. But Millar is fighting against years of ideological inertia in the Marvel Universe, as well as painting Captain America, the guy who has always embodied the ideal of a righteous, just America, as in the wrong. He needs to make one hell of an argument.
So here’s what happens in the pages of Civil War #3 to sell the audience on the SHRA:

• Thor comes back from the dead… and he’s on Tony’s side! Well, not really. Tony and Reed both realized that having one of the most beloved gods of the Marvel Universe come out on their side would be a big win… if only he wasn’t dead. So, they cloned him. Or rather, they T-800’d him, putting cloned divine flesh on a robot skeleton. But I’m sure he’s perfectly under control, and - oh, he just killed Goliath. In the next issue, one of Marvel’s black male heroes, frozen at the size of a small townhouse in death, will be buried in a gigantic ditch, wrapped in a tarp and chains. You’d think Hank Pym could grow a large enough coffin, at least.
• With Cap and the anti-registration side escaping once again, Tony decides he needs a dedicated team that can track down fugitive superhumans. To do so, he creates a new version of the Thunderbolts, a concept long associated with “villains acting like heroes.” And who does he put on this team? Venom, the Spider-Man villain who eats people’s brains; Bullseye, the Daredevil villain who will kill anyone for the lulz; and Norman Osborn, a.k.a. The Green Goblin, who famously murdered Spider-Man’s girlfriend Gwen Stacy.

Again. Tony’s in the right. The SHRA is good.
Part 5: Yadda, Yadda, Yadda
The next few issues of Civil War might best be described as “They fight, and fight, and fight and fight and fight.” The anti-registration side picks up The Punisher, Marvel’s most avowed murderer of criminals - and Cap is somewhat shocked but not entirely surprised when two minor villains join the anti-registration side and Frank promptly kills them on sight. Spider-Man starts realizing things are weird on the pro-reg side and defects, after he has set his entire life on fire. The X-Men have continued to stay out of this whole mess. In the lead-up, Emma Frost called Tony out on the Avengers’ complete absence when Genosha got nuked. Later, Carol Danvers (then Ms. Marvel, now Captain Marvel) will show up at the Xavier School to pitch the SHRA just after a massive terrorist attack kills dozens of students. Emma responds by telepathically dogwalking her.
By the final issue of the miniseries, the SHRA has expanded out into the Fifty States Initiative, wherein each state gets its own superteam. There’s a big final battle, Hercules kills Robo-Thor, and Cap nearly takes out Tony, only to be stopped by… the heroes of 9/11. No shit, Captain America is subdued by cops, firefighters, and paramedics. And when that happens, Cap finally takes a look around, realizes their big ideological street brawl has resulted in collateral damage, and surrenders. The SHRA wins, though Tony feels a little bad about it. Cap is ready to stand trial and to argue that, while he may have done something wrong, he did it for the right reasons.
Once again: Yeah. About that.
Part 6: MySpace Tom Didn’t Die For This
Running alongside Civil War is Civil War Frontline, a street-level book written by Paul Jenkins that managed to capture this world-breaking conflict through the eyes of people on the street. Though it has side stories, its main leads are Ben Urich, Peter Parker’s journalist buddy at The Daily Bugle, and the aforementioned Sally Floyd. Throughout the series, they start to realize there’s a story underneath the SHRA, as if somebody is playing the angles.
Before we talk about that conclusion, let’s talk about a side story. Remember how we said part of the comics community saw Identity Crisis as a driven effort to make things less “wacky” and intentionally darken the DCU? Well, that same tonal approach led to one of the more laughable moments of a pretty laughable arc. See, despite the fact that, as established, it was Nitro who blew up Stamford, it’s Speedball, the only survivor of the New Warriors, that views himself as responsible and is held up as a scapegoat by the general public. In addition, the blast screwed up his powers. Now, he doesn’t absorb and reflect kinetic energy; rather, he generates energy based on pain. So, he builds himself a new, extreme outfit lined with 612 spikes, one for each person who died in Stamford. This will drive his crusade to make things right - not as Speedball… but as Penance.
It was so laughably DeviantArt “OC do not steal” that no one could take it seriously. Look what you did, you took a perfectly good goofball and gave him an emo streak. The turn is swiftly mocked in other Marvel books, and it’s eventually revealed that Speedball still had his original powerset and always intended to put Nitro in the Goofy Suit of Dark Inner Torment as punishment for his crimes. But this turn gives you a sense of the tone and heft Jenkins was bringing to the proceedings.
Anyway, back to the main plot. Ben and Sally follow the thread as Namor, as he is wont to do, declares war on the surface world after an Atlantean diplomat is shot. But it turns out the assassination was arranged by Norman Osborn, who decided it was better to beg forgiveness than ask permission and manipulated Atlantis into war so that Tony could have another piece of evidence for getting superhumans on a leash. And the two journalists deduce that, on some level, Tony had to know this would be an inevitable outcome of giving state backing to an unhinged mogul who dresses like a Power Rangers villain. Weighing what to do with this information, Ben and Sally, who are kind of sick of the collateral damage by this point, sit on it while they go in for an interview with Captain America, now in custody and willing to tell his side of the story.
And then. And then. The monologue. If you want a lesson in how to assassinate a character in 30 seconds or less, this monologue is a great example. Sally Floyd calls Captain America out as completely divorced from American values. Now, again, Captain America has long served as the beating liberal heart of the Marvel Universe. He has always represented an America that reckons with its legacy of things like internment camps, Manifest Destiny, and Jim Crow, in order to transcend these scars and embody the promise offered by Emma Lazarus’s New Colossus, carved on the side of the Statue of Liberty. Why is he out of touch with Americans at the dawn of the 21st century?
Well, he’s never heard of MySpace. [2] He doesn’t watch NASCAR. He doesn’t follow American Idol. There are pop culture moments that have aged like milk; this one had all the permanence of an ice cream cone in a blast furnace. But despite the inanity of Floyd’s argument - and trust me, there are fan edits dedicated to Cap pointing out how full of shit this argument is - it’s clear it represents something else. This is a post-9/11 world. Fuck civil liberties, we have a no-fly list and Gitmo, and if the American people really cared, they’d do something other than watch Simon Cowell read aspiring singers to filth. What does Captain America stand for in this moment of crisis?
Nothing. Because he just looks away from Sally Floyd. No doubt thinking, “Oh my God this bitch.” But to underline the argument in question, Sally storms out of the interview, Ben in tow. She still has that information on Norman Osborn’s false flag operation… and while she and Ben confront Tony on everything that went down, they decide the story should never see the light of day. Because they wouldn’t dare jeopardize the SHRA, because security is more important than the truth.
Oh. And then Cap gets shot. And dies. He totally dies (except he doesn’t but we’ll get to that). If ever there was an unintentional thesis statement for this event, running in the late stages of the Bush era, it would be this: “It’s better to trust that the powers that be who oversee the new America will keep you safe, even when they stage false flag operations, stick you in a gulag, and put their trust in monsters. All that civil liberty stuff was the old America. And the old America was hopeless. It wasn’t even on MySpace.”
Epilogue: Consequences Keep Consequencing
As you can tell from that last paragraph, a lot of the fan reception to Civil War likely had a lot to do with the period. This was the Bush era, a time where you were for America or against it. We were in the shadow of the Patriot Act, Gitmo, and widespread wiretaps, paranoid about what civil liberty we’d be asked to put on the pyre next in the name of Freedom. A story all about the warm, clenching fist of government control that tells you to ignore the collateral damage… well, it wasn’t great for the cultural moment.
The ideas of Civil War aren’t necessarily bad ones. I frame Cap as the liberal dream of what America could be, but there are good arguments to be made that America has never been that and Cap is just copium for liberals. His most recent title, Sentinel of Liberty, opens with Steve saying he is out of touch with the average American - not because he doesn’t watch NASCAR, but because he’s a WWII veteran who looks maybe 30 years old at most and whose best friends are all superheroes or spies. A narrative that has him on the wrong side of the issue and detonates his beliefs isn’t impossible, but it probably shouldn’t be one where people who got powers due to a fluke of birth or a radiation accident are told by the government, “Join with us or we’ll send supervillains after you.” Hell, as the Civil War movie proves, there is a way to tell a story about a superhero community torn in half by the idea of mandatory registration as government-controlled actors, and just why people would think that could be a bad idea (“Hey, remember when a good chunk of our intelligence apparatus turned out to be Nazi stay behinds?”).
But in the context of the era, and coupled with the execution, Civil War felt like a hard sell, and you could feel the thumb pressing on the scale every second while reading it. The moral center of the Marvel Universe is wrong, the winning side employs sadistic murderers and has an extradimensional Gitmo, and the writer is telling you that any sane individual would be on Team Green Goblin Employer.
So how did that all work out? Well…

• With Cap seemingly dead, shot by his brainwashed love interest Sharon Carter as part of a plot by the Red Skull, Bucky Barnes/the Winter Soldier becomes the new Cap. Only it turns out Steve wasn’t killed, but shot with a time bullet that Billy Pilgrims his ass. He eventually comes back.
• Thor comes back, finds out what Tony did, and beats his ass all the way across post-Katrina New Orleans.
• The Secret Invasion event happens next, which leads to Skrull infiltrators hitting everything (this is also the explanation for Captain Mar-Vell’s miraculous resurrection: He was a Skrull all along). With Tony caught with his pants down and Norman Osborn seeming to save the day, Norman - who has been losing his shit for some time - takes over the Initiative and forms his own fascist cabal, HAMMER. To try and stop Norman from learning everything on every hero ever, Tony goes on the run and actually starts deleting his own brain, which he then reassembles with a backup from before anyone even thought of the SHRA. The fact that getting rid of Tony’s “Oops I did a fascism” period came out alongside Iron Man hitting theaters is a coincidence, I’m sure.

As for Spider-Man? It might not shock you, but having a hero without the resources of Tony Stark out himself to the world carries liabilities. An assassin who tries to kill Peter instead hits Aunt May, and it appears she’ll die of her injuries. All this leads to One More Day… and if you thought the fans hated Civil War? Oh, BABY.
[1] This is eventually explored in the pages of Wolverine, of all books, as Wolverine decides maybe somebody should track down the person who actually killed hundreds of children. It’s revealed that Nitro was given power-boosting drugs by the CEO of Damage Control, Marvel’s designated “clean up after the super-battle” corporation, as a way of generating business. In a sign of how little this matters, Wolverine tells Maria Hill to her face that the person responsible for a mass casualty event is the pawn of a powerful conspiracy, and she basically says, “Not my problem.” Cobie Smulders must thank the gods that her Maria Hill is written as somebody with basic human decency.
[2] Hilariously, when Sally Floyd was brought back during Nick Spencer’s Captain America run because no one had piled enough dung on her corpse, this line was retconned to her asking him about Twitter. Given everything Elon’s been doing lately, we’ll see if that ages just as poorly.

This was posted in the AngryObservation subreddit (that I stumbled on two seconds ago)
Essay posted by u/dcmetro7
https://www.reddit.com/usedcmetro7/
Democrats have a branding problem : AngryObservation (reddit.com)

Democrats have a branding problem

😴 Long Observation 😴
I was inspired by u/Randomuser1520 's post about the Democratic Party's seemingly weak bench of future potential presidential nominees.
A lot of the problems trace back to 2016, but I'd argue the Democrats' branding woes go back even further. Think all the way back to the last time the Democrats had a consistently strong electoral record as a party -- the 90s, where the only truly bad year for Ds was 1994. Bill Clinton had successfully rebranded the party under the 'Third Way' label that Dems at any level could embrace and benefit from, and he had a clear successor in Al Gore. But Gore loses narrowly in 2000, and the problems for the Dems' brand begin.
'Yes We Can'
After 9/11, the electorate supports Bush and they support war. Dems' brand takes a hit and they lose the 2002 midterms. In 2004, John Kerry is successfully painted as an out-of-touch Ivy League liberal, disengaged from 'real America.' Dems lose and their brand suffers further.
But by the end of Bush's term, most Americans are disillusioned with Dubyaism. They wanted change, and one man promises to lead them to it with posters that proclaim 'HOPE' and cries of 'Yes We Can,' heralding in a new age of politics. Barack Obama and the Democrats are swept into a trifecta in Washington.
And we certainly got a new age of politics. When Obama was inaugurated, pundits speculated about the 'emerging Democratic majority', and how the GOP may literally go extinct in ten years. By the end of Obama's second term, those same pundits are surveying the absolutely decimated state of the Democratic party at all levels of power. Dems had lost the Senate, the House, most governorships, and most state legislatures. Control of the state legislatures makes the GOP's hold on the House even stronger. Control of the Senate effectively leads to control of the Supreme Court.
While Obama certainly can't be blamed for everything the GOP threw at him, I feel like it's safe to say his rebranding of the Democratic party failed in the long run. The 'Party of Hope' was sunk into the quagmire of a slow economic recovery, some of the most cynical politicking ever, and some of the most dysfunctional White House-Congress relationships in the history of the country. Obama's signature healthcare legislation would languish in the 30s approval-wise until after he left office. By 2015, no one was talking about the Democrats as the Party of Hope anymore. Even the guy who designed the original 'Hope' poster said he was frustrated by the lack of progress under the Obama admin. I'd argue that the Republicans were responsible for the clear majority of this dysfunction, but if their goal was to muddy the waters between the parties, they succeeded. And with the Tea Party, they were better at rebranding themselves even when they were in the opposition.
And none of this was helped by the face that Obama seemed extremely reluctant, even uninterested, in stepping into the role of party leader. Congressional Democrats were frustrated at the way he kept his distance from them, making it hard to solidify the policy goals they'd implemented in his first term. This article (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/19/us/aloof-obama-is-frustrating-his-own-party.html) sums it up well, with this prescient quote sticking out:

In interviews, nearly two dozen Democratic lawmakers and senior congressional aides suggested that Mr. Obama’s approach has left him with few loyalists to effectively manage the issues erupting abroad and at home and could imperil his efforts to leave a legacy in his final stretch in office.

And sure enough, Obama's legacy was in peril before he even left office.
'Stronger Together'
In 2016, Democrats didn't plan for a primary, they planned for a coronation. Hillary Clinton had been locking up all the support she could get from the Democratic establishment while Obama was serving his second term. Biden would seem like the clear establishment successor, but by the time he was able to turn his attention from VP duties to the primary he realized Hillary had completely boxed him out. She had already corralled all the big donors, operatives, and endorsements into her corner, and Joe was checkmated before he even sat down to the board. Thus, he turned down the opportunity, likely burying his long-nurtured presidential ambitions.
But then the coronation gets bumpy. Sanders challenges her from the outside, and immediately begins putting her on the spot as to why she's running. In other words, what does she envision for the Democratic brand? Hillary herself doesn't know. Is it a third term of Bill (whose star was starting to fade among everyone whose name doesn't rhyme with Shames Scarville), a third term of Obama (whose Hope posters have since become landfill), or an all-new thing?
To Hillary's credit, she couldn't portray herself as a total break from the past, both because she had been was strongly anchored to the national political landscape for the last thirty years, and because she could hardly attack Obama's record too harshly. In the end, she also struggled to brand both herself and the party. Consider the slogans most associated with her campaign; 'Forward Together' and 'Stronger Together' sound like the slogans of a centrist third party with no concrete policy ideas. They just attempted to project a feeling of unity onto a people who were united only, if the candidacies of Sanders and Trump meant anything, in the feeling that 'establishment' politicians like HRC had failed. And, of course, 'I'm with Her' was barely a rebrand at all, simply associating the party with its uncharismatic yet seemingly unstoppable frontrunner.
In the meantime, Trump had done the opposite, rebranding himself and the GOP as the party of 'America First populism.' What that meant exactly in terms of policy seemed to change from day to day But as a brand, as a forceful statement of intent, it worked, especially when contrasted with a seemingly rudderless HRC campaign that failed to answer the age-old question: 'Why are you running for president?'
'For the People'
After the 2016 fiasco, the Democrats were decimated and leaderless. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had passed his leadership position to Chuck Schumer and passed on soon after Trump took office. Tim Ryan led a mutiny against Nancy Pelosi, blaming her in part for the party's plunge from ascendance to irrelevance in the House. Hillary Clinton disappeared into the woods of Chappaqua. Obama started making a docu-series for Netflix. Joe Biden entered semi-retirement and wrote a book.
But in all of this, they found something they had been lacking. A brand.
Not the one they would have preferred, but one that would work nonetheless for winning elections. House Dems would embrace the (once-again) vague slogan of 'For the People' ahead of the 2018 midterms, but the aim was clear. The Democrats were now the Opposition; the Anti-Trump party.
Trump's approval rating was not just low, but incredibly sticky. People tended to have very firm opinions on him, and so his approval rating barely escaped the 35-45% range, with him almost hitting 50% before the pandemic hit. Thus, running on opposition to Trump would be fine electorally. In 2018, the Democrats had a blue wave year based mostly on opposition to Trump, retaking the house. Ironically, a big policy motivator for voters was backlash against the GOP's effort to repeal and replace Obamacare -- a promise that had driven Republican electoral gains since the bill was passed into law. Republican branding and messaging had been so successful that, for the better part of the decade, people trusted them to 'fix' the ACA until the very last minute before the replacement was signed.
'Battle for the Soul of the Nation'
But the problem remained for 2020 -- who would lead them? This was a difficult decision even before the pandemic. And Democratic primary voters were treated to a veritable buffet on angles on how to rebrand the party to beat Trump.
Should the party embrace democratic socialism under Sanders, or heavy consumer advocacy under Warren? Should it embrace a young, charismatic up-and-comer like Harris, Buttigieg, or O'Rourke or someone just as 'establishment' as Hillary, like Michael Bloomberg? Old-school liberalism with the Klob? Whatever Andrew Yang was doing?
But as the polls drew near, the Democrats seemed to conclude that beating Trump was simply more important than charting a new course for the party. If they could get elected or rebrand, they'd choose the former. And so all the other more moderate candidates dropped out to consolidate the vote around Biden, as the safe, expected pick who could stay the course. Biden and his surrogates began adopting the slogan 'Battle for the Soul of the Nation,' an epic and apocalyptic phrase that is still fundamentally reactive in tone, implying that the biggest motivator to vote for Democrats that fall was not to pass any specific agenda, but to put a stop to the GOP's plans.
Biden wouldn't govern in this way, but he would campaign this way -- as the normal, capable candidate who could lead the country's post-covid recovery in opposition to Trump's perceived incompetence. Biden won, but Democrats didn't get nearly the boost they wanted from covid, and House candidates underperformed Biden nationally, leading to a surprising loss of seats in the House. And after the effort to throw out the election failed, Trump left office with severely damaged standing with independents. The anti-Trump brand had delivered Dems a trifecta; now it was time to use it; hopefully to establish a new brand for a new decade.
'Building Back Better'
Upon taking office, Biden and the Dems lay out their agenda; the 'Build Back Better' plan, which centers on a three-pronged approach; a pandemic relief bill, an infrastructure bill, and a social policy bill. Passing such plans will involve all 50 Senate D's on board in some cases, and a bipartisan filibuster-proof majority of 60 senators in other cases.
People laugh, think back to 2010, and begin arguing whether a prediction that the GOP will control 55 Senate seats by 2023 is too conservative. Nancy Pelosi is trying to manage a mere five-seat majority in the house. Mitch McConnell, who once feasted on the Democrats' lost hopes the way a hungry turtle devours a plate of juicy strawberries, still held enough sway in the Senate to hold up any significant policy not related to budget reconciliation. Even then, Schumer must wrangle mavericks like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Dramatic divisions still rip across the fabric of American society. But then, something truly strange happens.
The 117th Congress ends up being one of the most productive sessions ever.
Whether or not you think any or all of the 117th's acts were good policy, it's undeniable that this was an unusually politically efficient session, especially considering the last decade of hardball politics. Bipartisan majorities drive the infrastructure act, a gun control act, a tech-manufacturing promotion act, and even a somewhat-legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide. Plus, Schumer and Pelosi navigate their tiny majorities toward passing partisan priorities, like the pandemic relief act and the scaled-down Build Back Better social policy bill, rebranded as the Inflation Reduction Act or IRA. McConnell drops his trademark stonewalling and collaborates with Biden on the bipartisan bills, and 'Yea' votes roll in even from deep red states -- Republican senators from Mississippi, West Virginia, and North Dakota get these bills over the line. Bipartisanship returns to Congress in fleeting glances -- something that I feel confident in arguing absolutely no one expected Biden or the Dem leaders to be able to do.
Of course, no one has forgotten 2010, and 2022 looks to be another rough year. Inflation soars, and Biden's approval rating drops. Dems brace for impact. The Dobbs ruling happens, but polls repeatedly suggest that the economy is the top issue on voters' minds, and they don't like Biden's handling of it.
But while these things are true, they ignore a crucial factor -- the GOP is embroiled in an identity crisis of its own. The leader of the party is claiming to be the legitimate president of the United States, which is a bit of a hard issue to ignore. Trump loyalists beat out 'establishment' Republicans in the primaries, and bring their hard promotion of the MAGA brand to the general elections. And they lose.
I think it's fair to say that the GOP lost most of the key races of the 2022 midterms, rather than Democrats winning them. Swing state Republican parties chose candidates who adhered so closely to a brand so toxic that independents still chose the Democrats, even in some cases where they were dissatisfied with the party. Republicans who have managed to establish a brand for themselves -- DeSantis, Kemp, and DeWine among them -- soar, while the Trumpiest candidates fall flat. McConnell remains in the minority, and McCarthy becomes the head of a very, very dysfunctional family.
Will Brandon's Rebrand Stand?
So, coming off an unusually strong midterm, where does the party go in 2024? Probably, as u/Randomuser1520 said, back to Biden. When your party wins one of the most fiercely contested elections in American history, has a productive legislative session, and then massively overperforms in the midterm, you don't usually change horses regardless of what approval polling says. If Biden were just 10 years younger and the health concerns were off the table, there would be no question in anyone's mind who to nominate.
The establishment and progressive wings of the party seem to be behind him if he runs, meaning challenges will only come from real outsiders like Marianne Williamson and Robert Kennedy Jr. The DNC will probably work to make those challenges as unviable as possible.
2024 is tricky to predict. Trump is favored on the Republican side, and as said before, his brand is so toxic that Biden can probably glide to reelection barring any massive economic downturns or serious health problems. I won't get too much into 2024, because it seems pretty clearly on the path to becoming another referendum on the GOP's brand, not the Democrats'. Biden's second term (and the rest of his first term) may be defined as much by implementation of the legislation they passed during the 117th as much as by new legislation, if not more.
So the question becomes this -- where does the party go in 2028? Or, in other words, what will Democrats take away from the Biden presidency, and how will Biden shape the party's brand going forward? Who they choose to lead the party next will tell, and Biden's presidency may already be laying out a blueprint.
In his 1996 State of the Union address, Bill Clinton declared 'the era of big government is over,' essentially conceding that Reagan and his vision of a small role for the federal government in domestic affairs had won out for the time, and that Democrats would need to work within that political reality in order to win elections. Obama's efforts to change that status quo resulted in an avalanche of backlash from Tea Partiers, self-proclaimed champions of fiscal conservatism. Hillary Clinton's failed campaign strategy arguably rested more on that understanding of the political climate than anything else, causing her to miss a series of growing frustrations with Reaganism at times channelled by Sanders and, at times, Trump -- at decimation of the manufacturing sector, at the growing gap between rich and poor, at China's seemingly unstoppable three-decade rise at the expense of the U.S.
Biden's approach to American industry and government is a strong repudiation of Reaganism, based around the idea that it is the government's job to fortify and guide the economy in ways that are necessary where the free market has little incentive to. It argues that the issues of infrastructural decay, manufacturing decline, and the growing need for green energy in the face of climate change will only be solved if the government directs the power of the private sector towards those goals at great upfront cost. And free trade, long held as the unassailable source of America's prosperity, must now only be employed in moderation -- if the U.S. has to arguably break international law to lure foreign investment into the U.S. through generous subsidies, it will be worth it, even if it earns the fury of our economic partners. This may be the groundwork of Bidenism.
These plans may fail. The money may be wasted by incompetent or corrupt administrators and the American people may become even more jaded at the thought of big government. But movement within the GOP may suggest a broader shift in the American mind towards this kind of economic interventionism is already in progress. Promising to reverse the decline of manufacturing through tariffs and other measures would have been political anathema twenty years ago, but it has become a core Republican plank. Florida Republicans' punitive measures towards Disney and the GOP's growing support for government action against Big Tech companies suggests openness towards not just using state power to guide the economy, but also to reshape the social landscape by manipulating the private sector. It may well be that the era of small government is over.
I've sorted some potential 'brands' and some of the people who might be nominated in 2028 / become party standard-bearers should the Democrats go in that direction. These lists aren't exhaustive; I'm just trying to establish a general vibe.
The 'Biden Blueprint': Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Gina Raimondo
These are members of the Biden admin who have been given great power (and great piles of money) to enact the legislation of the 117th. If American sentiment towards big government changes as quickly as I think it could, a Cabinet secretary could have a decent shot in 2028. Harris would be the natural successor as the VP, but Transportation Sec Buttigieg and Commerce Sec Raimondo, who were empowered to implement much of the Infrastructure Act and the CHIPS Act respectively, could become standard-bearers for this new vision of technocratic governance if they administer these programs well (and in a way that makes headlines). If Energy Sec Granholm were a natural-born citizen, she would definitely fit here as well, considering how much power the IRA gave her department.
The 'New New Deal': Amy Klobuchar, Catherine Cortez Masto, Mark Kelly, Tammy Duckworth, Raphael Warnock
Liberal senators who are capable of working across the aisle to achieve compromise could be a strong bet if Democrats want to recreate the success of the 117th Congress in the future. There's always an argument that effective legislators won't necessarily make for effective executives, but these choices would help with Democrats' goal of rebranding the Democratic party as the party you vote for if you want Washington to function properly and anticipate constituents' needs. Such a ticket could brand itself as the path to bipartisan yet assertive solutions on familiar and emerging issues like immigration reform, federal protection for abortion, the housing shortage, and the drug crisis.
The 'Bulwark': Roy Cooper, Laura Kelly, Andy Beshear
I'll admit that when I began writing this post, I had a more favorable opinion of the above three governors and politicians like them as presidential nominees and the potential 'future of the party.' I no longer feel as strongly about them, however, because I don't believe they do enough to change the brand of the Democrats and the political environment as a whole. These governors are best known for winning races in red states; for holding the line against the most conservative policies while finding areas of compromise, especially on kitchen-table issues.
But this brand of Democrat is fundamentally reactive, even defensive -- it assumes that most of the job will be obstructing right-wing legislation from a red legislature. In other words, it is a kind of strategy you use when you're trying to hold ground, not gain it. It works well when your opponent's brand is toxic (as the GOP's has been since 2016), but this I suspect this brand of 'competent normality' will struggle if the opposition ceases to actively repel voters. If Trump and his acolytes continue to hold a strong grip on the party through 2024 and beyond, this brand may not be a bad bet short-term, but long-term Democrats want to be the ones establishing the rules of the game, not just beating your opponent at theirs. That's what a successful political brand does. While Dems in similar situation should definitely look to these governors for guidance in running their campaigns (and hopefully, their administrations), I would caution at this point against basing the national party's brand on their model.
I think somewhere between these three groups lies a successful path forward for the Democrats that towards becoming the dominant party in U.S. politics at the federal level. There are some other interesting currents in the party; like how Democratic governors like Whitmer, Evers, and Walz have rebuilt D strength the Midwest after a rough 2010s, and how Western Dems like Jared Polis, Mary Peltola, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez have found unexpected electoral stength by embracing a form of libertarianism. However, these currents may be regional, and Democrats shouldn't necessarily try to nationalize every idea that works in one part of the country. Creating different regional 'flavors' of Democrat would be necessary to keep the party relevant in all parts of the country.
Regarding the 2020 primary runners-up, I don't think most of the visions laid out then work post-2024, and for this reason I tend not to give too much weight to current Democratic primary polling, because it assumes these same people would be running again.
Assuming Biden ends his term without catastrophe, I don't think the party needs to place all their faith in a young, charismatic Obama wannabe like O'Rourke or Swalwell, nor does it need to drastically pivot to the center, nor does it need to proclaim itself the party of 'outsiders,' nor does it need to give the reins to the progressive wing. If everything goes right, they can remain ideologically where they are now (roughly) and establish a solid brand for the first time in a generation.
The Democrats been losing the branding war since the days of Nixon. They may currently have all the tools they need right now to change that, and set the expectations for the next fifty years of politics. Let's see how they do.
This is my first big write-up, so I almost certainly missed some stuff and made some assumptions. Let me know what you think.

Detailing all the little things of the next few weeks would tell you that, all things considered, my life was a rich one, but it would not offer great insight…at least not in things I hadn’t already conveyed in previous observations and experiences, save for one exception, which I will relay next, but after that, the next few weeks of journal entries were labeled as ‘scraps’. I couldn’t bring myself to dispose of them, so in the nonacademic work, ‘The Scraps of My Life’ they can still be found. They however, are not included here, as they detail the more ‘ordinary’ things that were pleasant and charming, but in areas where I had already reached conclusive observations.
This was ‘Michael’s Return’. Before I explain what this entailed, it must be understood that since the end of the Silent Civil war, a lot of things changed, a few years were come and gone, Fauve was no longer under constant guard, and though she would never have a normal life without ‘some’ security…
Humans are flexible, and she’d gotten used to having a security team around within some proximity to her. Unsurprisingly, her relationships with others of a more adult nature were now only with those who also had to deal with having considerable security concerns. The daughter of an admiral, the son of a lawmaker… she seemed in a hurry for a permanent bond, but it was clear that she’d taken a lesson from her time with Halbert.
People who cannot understand your life or your pressures, whatever their character, will never be a good fit. This in the end, is why I have concluded that nepotism becomes the dominant method of governing, over and over again even in their far more egalitarian present.
I wish I could have had more time with my human, of course, but… we do still have coffee at night together sometimes even when she’s traveling. When it comes to humans, you can be together, even when you’re apart, as long as you make the time for it and have a proper network connection.
But I digress. What this departure and shift in her security meant was that Byron and Boatswain were now fixated solely on the security of the Walker house, meaning that their residence was always monitored, but the people themselves were not, unless the trip took someone away for an extended period of time.
Which in Michael’s case meant going to Fort Knox for classes taught by the ‘JSFT’ or the ‘Joint Special Forces Team’.
The brainchild of the human and dlamisa soldiers, a request signed off on by both units through to both chains of command fell on the same day on the desks of both commanding Generals, that the two teams be based together and undergo a series of joint exercises with an eye toward, and I quote, ‘The mutual security of vital trade lanes currently under consideration’.
That was quite a ways away, but I knew the truth. Probably most people involved did. It was an excuse… the humans didn’t want the dlamisa to go, and the dlamisa didn’t want to leave ‘their humans’.
I think we can probably credit Bonny Red for some influence here, as her ‘mass resignation’ remained a blight that would never be washed off, and she probably warned Gaozu that if he tried to force them to leave…they’d quit.
So, conveniently enough, a joint unit was created on an Earth military base that was now part of the community… and which taught children various forms of martial arts.
Since Genghis wasn’t going anywhere, he and Iskandar became part time instructors, and Michael continued to burn off his superabundance of energy in their training hall.
Notably though… despite being what amounted to a ‘star pupil’ to some of the most dangerous people I’d ever met, he still lost.
And yes, I said ‘lost’. He placed second, which means he didn’t actually ‘win’. I have to analyze my own mindset here before relaying the events… my thinking is very ‘Dlamisan’. In my culture, on my homeworld, your only real value is in excellence at your field, your identity is tied to your triumphs and the degree to which knowing you is helpful, dictates your wider influence on others, which means you have ‘currency’ when it comes to asking for or doing favors for others.
To be the expert on humans, the one to rise to the heights of my people’s renown would not only ensure my immortality in our histories, but also would have provided me with broad access to creature comforts and quality of life unrivaled by those mired in mediocrity. To put it another way, if you have to be an apple in a barrel, do you want to be at the top, or at the bottom?
To be the second best at anything was to be ‘lesser’ than someone else.
Or so that had been my thinking… not that many years ago, really. It’s hard to believe, but even having left that behind, it still lingered in the back of my head as some great misfortune that he wasn’t the ‘very top’ and the best of all the others.
Now that my thinking and my inherent bias is out of the way… I turn to his arrival.
I was coming up the stairs to get coffee when Michael burst through the door shouting, “Mom! Dad! I won second place!”
Here is the first distinction. He considered ‘second’ to be a victory. He was thrilled, running into the house and waving a silver trophy around, it was shaped like a closed fist pointed skyward, nice work, really.
“They haven’t gotten back yet!” I shouted from the kitchen as Byron and Boatswain entered after him.
As I worked the old fashioned coffee maker, he followed my voice. “I won second! I won second!” He shouted again as if I hadn’t heard him the first time.
Human young are very loud, especially, I’ve noticed, their young males.
And the happier they are, the louder they tend to be. He rushed into the kitchen and I just barely had time to set my favorite coffee mug down on the countertop before he barrelled into me and squeezed me in a hug. Affection in young humans is heavily focused on interpersonal contact, even more so than that between more mature adults. They actively seek out that contact often, as it helps their brains form more neural connections and improves their overall cognitive function.
Some humans have said, ‘Love makes you stupid’ and…admittedly I’ve seen people make some bizarre decisions over affection. But the general truth is that this ‘love’ emotion in humans actually assists the development of their emotional intelligence that makes them function far more effectively in a social environment.
It doesn’t mean they’ll be better at learning calculus, but it does mean that they’ll be better able to understand how to ask for or offer help when they need assistance in learning it. In short, it’s the foundation of their social reasoning skills.
I returned his gesture and said, “Excellent work!” He squeezed again, he was getting bigger, faster, growing at an impressive rate and was rapidly building the muscle that would one day make him a particularly capable and, with training, dangerous adult human male.
I had to restrain myself from saying, ‘Maybe next time you’ll win first.’
And that was hard to do. This is what people coming to Earth and settling here struggle most with… as human ‘therapists’ began trying to help…albeit somewhat clumsily given the differences in our species, we did encounter one common thing.
Breaking patterns of thought, refraining from saying what was once second nature, is very difficult.
Instead I said, “You did great.” I then looked past him to see Byron and Boatswain walk into the house, it was very different from the old days, when they would have swept the grounds first… but with so many dead that might have once been a threat… they’d earned something closer to a familial existence.
“That he did.” Boatswain agreed, “He’d have taken first too, if not for a bit of bad luck.”
“Meh, it’s not a matter of whether you win or lose, it’s what you learn from either.” Byron offered his pragmatic advice and sat at the table, “Coffee?” He asked.
“Coming up.” I said, and when Boatswain gave me a look, I got two more cups out. “Next time I’ll win first… but second is a good start!” Michael emphasized with determination in his voice.
My conclusion from this, and from my other observations, is that a focus on opportunity and a praise for progress, together with supportive interpersonal contact and a sense of safety and security at home, is the leading indicator of future confidence and success in growing humans.
In short, in my own view, right then…
I was watching a boy prepare to one day become a very great man, and one whom I would take great pride in.
“Can I try some coffee too?” Michael asked, and I furrowed my brow, he was a little young for it but… “I’ll pour some milk, and add a little coffee to it, let’s just start with that, and you can tell me how it all went.” I suggested, and got out another cup to share at the table, which he promptly sat down at, an unspoken agreement to tell me absolutely everything I missed.

I've been reading this sub for a while and thinking about the AI/artist dilemma. About me: I generate fiction and 2D images every day with a variety of LLM & diffusion tools, mostly for fun but have also made some Patreon money. I understand what a foundation model is, the difference between a weight and a parameter, and what latent space is (insofar as any can understand it). I'm also a published author in a few different media, and earn royalties from books I've written, but it's small amounts, I have a different job now that's not particularly threatened by AI. I do care a lot about the motivation of artists to create art, which leads me to my statement:
The future potential of creative AI generation depends in part on continued human creativity. It's important to preserve or create incentives for humans to create art.

• "I make creative work because it's fun and I want to express myself" is a real incentive (I'm going to spend most of today doing just that, summer Fridays.) But if we rely solely on this incentive, which is a "free time" kind of incentive for most (but definitely not all) creative people, we will lose a lot of creative potential.
• For similar reasons, UBI is a perfectly fine idea, but provides people enough to survive and be well on. In most UBI models, there are further incentives -- making more than basic survival income, being recognized, making people happy, etc. -- for people to strive and apply themselves to do more, create more, etc.

Getting into more detail if you're wondering "wait, but what do you mean by..."
Why Care About Human Creativity vs. AI Creativity: At least in the current models, AI are bounded by training data. The latent space is an interpolation, though it contains a huge but finite set of possibilities. At some point, AI may be able to extend latent space by incorporating e.g. sensory perceptions of the real world, but for now this is something humans are much better at: having experiences, being conscious most of the time (processing stuff unconsciously the rest) taking in data and mulching it up in a "noisy" way that's specifically biological and analog, and each brain is at least slightly different. This is what has allowed humans to expand the possibilities of visual, auditory, written creative works between 45000 years ago and now. Right now, humans are the best source of expanding the field of the latent space. If you don't see how this is true, imagine that some extremely talented artist comes up with a really distinctive, original new style of visual art that very cool and at least somewhat different from other artists you've seen before. If you'er an AI art generator, would you want this human's art to be part of training data for an AI? (Let's say they're happy to include it, are compensated somehow, etc.) Probably you would. I assume that the further exploration of creative possibilities ("what could we create tomorrow that's not here today?" is an intrinsic good.
Not Enough Incentives: humans have many reasons to make creative work. We should make sure these reasons stick around and are sufficient for humans to invest the time and energy to acquire skill, practice, get feedback, improve, learn and take inspiration from all the sources that are vital for human creative work, etc.

• "I do it for the pleasure of expression" or "I do it because I like to make things for my friends & family." Fine and valuable, and this has been the main incentive for hobby and side-gig kind of creativity since human creativity began. There are even some brilliant artists who would of course keep making art, maybe with all their time and energy, just because they're psychologically driven to. However, if we only had those artists + people doing some creative work in their free time, we're reducing the exploration of creative possibility space compared to today's situation. It's a huge reduction in incentive
• "I do it for the money / as my career / because I have wealthy patrons" Of course, this is a huge one and at the center of "automation replacement" arguments. It's very controversial in the history of human creative work and incentives, because these structures have allowed some people to spend ALL their time getting very good at creative work while making a living. Being able to pour more time into creative work also allowed institutions like schools, museums, art movements and circles, etc to flourish, often beneficial sometimes gatekeeping, etc. Capitalism is extremely imperfect, so some of the creative work is not good, of course. And having to "grind out a living" can destroy creative spirit, etc." There are lots of points in favor that creative work would be better off in a post-scarcity utopia where nobody is forced to work to survive, but of course we're not there yet, and this incentive is "endangered" by generative AI.
• "I do it so people will see and recognize my work, ideas, skills / I do it to connect with an audience / to gain notoriety and fame." This is the most complicated incentive, and also has good and bad sides. When we envision a utopia where creativity wouldn't be "monetized" as a career, taking away the second incentive above, I think it's usually been assumed that this motivation would stick around. "I have something to show the world!" and get credit for what you made. It's a natural impulse. How does generative AI affect this? It's related to the question of credit and training data. The artist I mentioned above, with the completely new style. In the future, if a "valuably original new creative work" will immediately become part of the dataset without credit and recognition, how will the human component of that creativity be recognized, valued, seen? Or if there's no consideration for that, why wouldn't a creative person avoid sharing except in very limited, protected ways? Some artists who don't care about recognition or credit at all might still "show the world," but again I don't think we're talking about most artists.

Every human being has artistic potential. This isn't a supporting argument and it's more of my intuitive belief as someone who's taught writing and art to students, but I think it's important. Actually, I think playing with ML tools may be showing more people that they CAN do creative work beyond just prompting over and over in search of the perfect generation -- you can mingle your creative ideas WITH an AI's generations, and that's often the best stuff you'll make with ML, right. (Just like part of a pro artist's workflow who uses AI tools.) However, going hand in hand with the traditional, over-simplified idea that "only some people are talented enough to.... X" there's now this idea that AI is the "alternative" to being artistically talented. Definitely not, they could actually go hand in hand.
Summary: if you want the possibilities of any kind of creative work to increase, think about ways that enough artists can be sufficiently incentivized to keep exploring creative possibilities. UBI and "I do it for fun" won't go far enough -- they won't even go as far as capitalist incentives in all their horrifically imperfect glory, and our creative world would contract more.

Hear me out. I'm not saying a surgery would fix my problems.. but it would help me feel more feminine.. and not as pressured to be skinny.
My boobs are barely a B, probably an A at this point. I'm a tall gal, like 5'10" ish. If my boobs were even a cup size bigger I feel like I wouldn't feel this pressure to be skinny enough to have my boobs stick out more than my stomach. My abusor engrained into my skull that "if your stomach sticks out more than your boobs, you're fat." Which isn't true AT ALL but for some reason his voice enchos in my head. It's probably trauma.. but it still makes me feel really awful that no matter how skinny I get, so matter how much weight I lose, my boobs are always going to be smaller than my stomach.
Idk what the point of this post is, sorry if I triggered anyone. I just don't know what to do. I can't afford a boob job by any means, and I hate the thought of modifying my body like that. I'm not about plastic surgery or any of that, but I'm tired as hell of dealing with my AN. I've been "in recovery" for the last few months. I've put on a few pounds, but this is the point where I usually relapse. When I realized I've gained weight, when my clothes aren't baggy anymore. I spiral and go back down the hole of st***ing myself. Idk what to do.
I feel like without my boobs (I've had 3 kids so any breasts I did have are sad, empty, saggy sacks of skin) I'm less feminine. Shirts have never fit me right, I can't wear low cut tops. Dresses are made for cleavage that I don't have. I just want to feel pretty, I want to feel like a girl. Idk. This probably makes no sense. I get my lashes done to try to feel better but it doesn't make clothes fit me in a more flattering way.

Hi everyone
First I want to say that ever since middle school I was always told that if I was taller I’d be the most attractive person in the school. Have also had plenty of experiences where girls would tell me if I was taller they’d date me from school till now.
I turned 25 two weeks ago and consistently get confused for a 19 year old. I feel like I don’t get taken seriously anywhere I go and it’s made me consistently want to change my character.
I’m a nice guy. I’ve been told many times I have a good heart but because of so much heartache I tried going through a “idgaf” attitude, but never could stick to it.
Well this year something incredible happened. I met this girl who is significantly taller than me tell me she was very attracted to me and would like to have a relationship with me. Even going so far as telling me that it’s a “flex” to be seen out in public with me. In reality, I feel that way about her as she is the most beautiful person I’ve met in such a long time.
And honestly because of her, I feel unstoppable now. I can actually be me.
I write this in the hopes that everyone here eventually finds love and peace within themselves and know that the world isn’t all bad. Don’t change your character to try and fit in, I’ve tried way too many times. I still have my days with her where I get upset thinking that people make fun of us or thinking “wtf is she doing with him”, or that she can do so much better
But a king needs a queen right?
Have a blessed day everyone. I’m so happy that this community is so supportive of everyone so let’s keep doing that

Need to vent
Short story: I recently got banned from ftm, over a dispute on whether "walk-in/same day clinics" exist. I discussed my stance with reasoning with the mod who said they'd should be able to unban me, but after I stated my view for innate gender identity, I remained banned.
Someone posted an advert for a lawyer working to help detransitionsers and their family for damages and to work so the liberal woke lgbts can't keep "poisoning" and confusing girls. The ad stating that clinics are "giving out hrt like candy and girls are making choices they then regret". At that point we all in the group agreed how messed up those ads were. But people were saying "this is dumb and fake because that isn't how it works! You have to go through the system and it takes months to years!" Which is true....or it was. The newest changes to the DSM take away the need for therapy and recommended wait times before starting hrt leaving the procedure up to the state/locality or the facility. So in places like my home town, they have started a few "walk-in clinics" based on the informed consent model. At the one down the road from me, a person can walk in become a patient, chat with the doctor and say they've been experiencing gender dysphoria for 6months, doctor will explain hrt and give the warnings, you sign a waiver then you can get your hrt prescription. May differ given different circumstances but basically if everything goes as planned you can walk in and possibly leave with the shot in your leg a couple hrs later. I know people who walked in got the prescription and was able to start next day. This is amazing but very worrisome to me. Point is, these places exist.. and i got banned for stating a truth...These locations are in a few places all over the country and at some still need you to talk to their in-house therapist for varying lengths of time. But it just really grinds my gears because I do not think it is safe to give people hormones with less than 6mo the therapy, even for the stereotypical transsexual male who knew at a young age, has phantom limbs, and fits all the male social role expecting other than his genitals dont match. So I said as much. I think it will only be used as reasons to try to shut us down faster and that will have more detransitionser. The reason our have low percentage of regret and reversal is cuz of the standards that had been set being so strict! It was too strict so we loosened it and got more detransitionsers who cant hold themselves accountable and stick up for us and they they work with the right or get used by the right!And the amount of people that wouldn't believe my statement and then possibly! (Definitely more understandably)got mad at me view on the situation flagged me and got me banned. I might have understood if my statements were red flag triggery statements.. maybe to some i sounded like i agreed with the ad, but i wasn't given a chance to explain my view.
After that I contacted a mod, who implied I was gatekeepery but said they'd let me back on. I figured ok fair enough I want to better the group and help guys through rough times, so maybe I'll hold my tongue or just leave depending on what is considered "gatekeeping". I asked questions trying to get an idea and I let them know that I believe we are actually born this way, gender identity is part of our brain from birth, and that I had noticed the overwhelming majority of that group, including the mod I assume, is that "gender is a construct" in its ENTIRETY, not just the rules and expectations. Guys saying "If society didn't have its enforced roles making you feel bad then you wouldn't be dysphoric". This just is an asinine point of view in my opinion if you scratch deeper than the surface! But I think my differences in philosophical and experience based views got me permanently banned....and I feel some kinda way! that group is supposed to be where people can share their experiences and beliefs (within respectable reason) among people and have intelligent conversations and broaden the core brotherhood of those on the transmasc spectrum. And I got the boot because I didn't fit in. Sheesh I didn't think so much would change since lady gaga's "born this way" came out. That is our mission statement! Telling people how diverse humans are naturally/inhetetly/innately/intrinsically, not how fucked up and traumatized society can make us. The thought process is sooooo problematic and im made to feel wrong for pointing it out. Obviously someone can be trans and have trauma from experiences, and yes sometimes someone's life experiences can make them traumatized in a way that they feel that it is safer or better to look/live like/be the other gender, but that isn't being transgender! Thats a whole other set of serious issues (there is nothing wrong or bad to experience these different conditions btw) that need dealing with, but it is not innate. The path of treatment is completely different! I'm not trans because of trauma, no one is.
Wtf is happening in our community

Hello popheads, or at least the 80 of you who actively do rates, and welcome to the Alt Club Girls Rate. Now you may be wondering "King, what is alt club?" and my answer to you is: I don't know. Alt Club is kind of just a genre I made up!! But club and dance music obviously has an extensive history and it covers a whole range of sounds, and these albums all solidly fit under that umbrella. One thing (for me) that unites these albums, other than being three of my favourites from 2022, is their maximalism: Sudan, Kilo and Shygirl are all mixed media artists who have a clear creative vision for their work and these albums and eras are what they created when they were free of any societal or genre confinement.
Another thing the three of them having common is being black artists in alternative spaces, and how that reflects itself in their music. I think highlighting that they are black does a lot for representation and allowing people to see themselves in these genres, but on the flipside seeing someone only as a 'black artist' can be limiting, and these projects expertly break free of those labels and restrictions. These albums dance from genre to genre like they're going through themed rooms in a nightclub, and I'm so excited for everyone who loves them to get a chance to talk about them, and everyone who is unfamiliar to fall in love with them!
In case you don't know what the fuck is going on, we conveniently have a very helpful introduction to and explanation of what rates are and how they work, and we have a very active and lovely community in the rates discord channel in the popheads discord server who are willing to help any newcomers!! And ofc if you're already a regular here and know exactly what you're doing:
Submission Link Pastebin Ballot Spotify Playlist Apple Music Playlist

Sudan Archives - Natural Brown Prom Queen

Spotify Apple Music YouTube Tidal

If I cut my hair, hope I grow it long Back long, back time like way before If I wear it straight will they like me more? Like those girls on front covers

- Selfish Soul
One of the primary themes of Natural Brown Prom Queen is homecoming; Sudan (who now lives in LA) is originally from Cincinatti, Ohio (area code #513), and spends a lot of the album tackling the idea of feeling at home or belonging and the restlessness of feeling in between two places. On the albums lead single Home Maker she sings about how she makes her apartment and home studio feel more homely, and compares it to feeling at home with someone you love. In fact, this album was entirely crafted in that home studio over lockdown, with Sudan self producing almost the whole thing. The project is much more electronic than her previous album (the earthy Athena) but is still rooted very firmly in the same sentiments and style, and of course the same brilliant violin work that Sudan is known for woven throughout.
Another thread across the album is Sudan saying things that people are afraid to say, or doing things she might not be supposed to. Milk Me gets outrageously horny, with Sudan singing "your finger up my pussy like a honey stick" over such ethereal production that the subject matter might slip right by you. Sudan tackles her identity as a black women throughout, writing about the colorism she faces being darkskin, or about how her hair ties into her self-worth and other's perception of her on Selfish Soul. Ultimately this album is a lot about her reinventing her image and putting her blackness at the forefront.
"The highest version of myself is a ghetto fabulous girl. I can’t run away from that. It’s time to show these motherfuckers who I am. I’m from Cincinnati, baby.”

1. Home Maker
2. NBPQ (Topless)
3. Ciara
4. Selfish Soul
5. Loyal (EDD)
6. OMG BRITT
7. ChevyS10
8. Copycat (Broken Notions)
9. FLUE
10. TDLY (Homegrown Land)
11. Freakalizer
12. Homesick (Gorgeous & Arrogant)
13. Milk Me
14. Yellow Brick Road
15. #513

Kilo Kish - AMERICAN GURL

Spotify Apple music YouTube Tidal

It's so hard to come to grips like this If I wanted truth this life is it If I wanted you there goes my end

- ATTENTION POLITICIAN
If I were to sum Kilo up as an artist in one word it would be chameleon. Each body of work Kilo's put out, whether it be music, fashion or art, has been an evolution, but not along one linear path. AMERICAN GURL isn't her finale, it's just a representation of where she is at now. The album is the embodiement of a candy store or an arcade, where the album's narrative takes place, sickeningly sweet synthy chaos with deceptively dark lyrical themes of consumerism and tackling what it means to be American looming underneath. On the albums' title track she sings "In a locked box, in a locked draw, will I find me an American Girl", immediately jumping into the idea that as a black artist she doesn't identify with the idea of an 'american girl' that is presented to us, instead that her own american girl is locked up inside of her. On my personal favourite bonus track Star Power, Kilo tackles fame and trying to make it in LA, and how endless that feels. Kilo ponders the idea that in such a capatlist world we consume so many different things, when you strip that all away, what of that actually is you?
The album couldn't be more of a 180 from her debut album six years prior, Reflections in Real Time, an alternative r&b and indie album that is equal parts manifesto and intimate diary. Where in her previous work she opted for minimalism, now is the time for all out maximalism. The use of bright, campy consumerism and Americanism allows Kilo to reflect on fears that are both unanimous and extremely personal: Am I pretty enough? Am I good enough? Why can't I do what somebody else is doing?
"That's the theme of American Gurl — exploring that I am a product of my environment and these are the things that have been put on me in this time so far."

1. AMERICAN GURL
2. DEATH FANTASY
3. DISTRACTIONS III: SPOILED ROTTEN
4. NO APOLOGY!
5. BLOODY FUTURE
6. CHOICE COWBOY
7. ATTENTION POLITICIAN
8. NEW TRICKS: ART, AESTHETICS AND MONEY
9. TV BABY V.2 (LATCH KEY MARCH)
10. ON THE OUTSIDE (JUSTIN'S SONG)
11. SUPER KO LOVE
12. INTELLIGENT DESIGN
13. GOOD MONEY?
14. NOT YOUR ACCESSORY
15. STAR POWER: LA NIGHTMARES
16. INCREDIBLE WORLD

Shygirl - Nymph

Spotify Apple music YouTube Tidal

Yeah it's you that I'm thinking of when I'm feelin' hot Your voice dripping like honey straight from the honey pot Don't stop running on my mind, I can't get enough Is it so bad to just like to be touched?

- Shlut
Nymph is actually a very different debut from Shygirl than what we could've got - she more or less made a record over lockdown, in a similar vein to her fan favourite ep ALIAS, but felt like it was too easy. "If I don't give myself that space to myself, no one is! No one's gonna expect me to do anything else." and thank god she did give herself that challenge, because Nymph is the perfect evolution of Shygirl's character and sound. Taking strong influence from 00's garage and r&b, tracks like the lead Firefly bring the sound into the 2020's with added hyperpop flourishes. Much like Sudan and Kilo, Shygirl is very much a sole visionary, but she has a star studded team of producers behind her to help bring her vision to life consisting of Bloodpop, Danny L Harle, Mura Masa and longtime collaborator and friend Sega Bodega. Album opener Woe is a haunting telling of fame and expectations, with Shygirl singing "When will you see it from my side?". I actually saw Shygirl at the tail end of last year at Printworks in London, which if you're unfamiliar, was a sweaty, gay warehouse used for all kinds of raves and gigs, and I truly can't imagine a setting where Shygirl's music is better suited.
Shygirl also is on a mission to reclaim her own body from everyday misogyny, with Coochie (a bedtime story) being a playful, nursery rhyme esque track about women's bodies and battling the idea that they are weird or undesirable. But of course the overarching theme and imagery of the album is that of a woodland nymph, inspired by romanticism work like Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Nymph as a record is not an attempt to rebrand Shygirl's image, but add depth to it - she can be a provocative, industrial rapper just as well as she can be an ethereal, sensitive artist, and there's no need to limit herself to one or the other.
“When I think of a nymph, I feel an affinity to the ethos of that character – I have felt beguiling, fascinating, mysterious, supernatural and also part of nature. You don’t see people like me in these stories, and I have as much right as anyone else.”

1. Woe
2. Come For Me
3. Shlut / Shlut (feat. Sevdaliza)
4. Little Bit
5. Firefly
6. Coochie (a bedtime story)
7. Heaven / Heaven (feat. Tinashe)
8. Nike / Nike (feat. Deto Black)
9. Poison
10. Honey
11. Missin u
12. Wildfire
13. Crush (feat. Erika de Casier)
14. Playboy / Positions
15. Cleo

Shygirl dropped Nymph_O this year, a side/deluxe album with additional tracks, features & remixes. For the tracks with added features that didn't necessarily remix the song (Shlut, Heaven and Nike) I have added the more popular version on the ballot/playlist (originals for both Shlut and Nike, Tinashe remix for Heaven) but feel free to score whichever version you'd rather

Kelela - Raven

wait til January 2024

Rules

Most of you know all of this, but if you don’t, please read this!! And if you then still have any questions about the rate process or the formatting of your ballot or anything, feel free to ask away :D

• You must listen to and submit a score for every song, ballots with missing scores will not be accepted and you will be asked to submit a score
  
• Each song must be scored between a 1 and a 10 (with exception of an optional 0 and 11). Scores are allowed to one decimal point but no further, meaning you are allowed to score something a 5.5 or a 9.7, but a 5.42 or 9.75 will make the rate machine act all goofy so please don’t. ^{Also please make sure to use periods and not commas for any decimal places}
  
• Your 11 and 0 are reserved for one song each in the whole rate. You aren’t obligated to use either of them at all, but they are fun to use
  
• Please please use the message format linked in this post, and if that doesn’t work, just use this backup pastebin ballot and send it to me with that.
  
• If you want to change any of your scores after you submit them, message me on reddit or discord (king!#2326). So long as it is before the final due date that should be okay :)
  
• Your scores are not considered confidential, you are free to talk about them once you have submitted them (you are also free to keep it all to yourself til your reveal) meaning I am also allowed to publicly drag the bad ballots I get
  
• Including comments in your ballot is not mandatory, however if you do include any they must be formatted like this:
  

FLUE: 10 me when i sneeze ✅

Any other formats will simply be rejected, such as:

Ciara: 4, does anyone think capitalism is a good thing? i love ciara i think she's a really interesting artist ❌
ATTENTION POLITICIAN: (9.5) what is joe biden's plan to fix this ❌
Nike: 0 - he told me Nike just tank it (please don't tank Nike) ❌

• You can also leave album comments, but if you do, make sure you put a colon at the end of the album title, for example:

Album: Nymph: for a shy girl she doesn't seem to be very shy

• Finally, and this one should be obvious, do not sabotage/tank an album for petty reasons. If you just prefer one album to the others that is completely okay! As long as your ballot seems fair and like you've genuinely given them a chance and justified your possibly controversial scores in your comments. I may ask you to provide further comments/raise your average if I think you are sabotaging, but that is only in dire circumstances.

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask!! Rate is *tentatively* due on FRIDAY 21ST JULY

Submission Link

Pastebin Ballot Spotify Playlist Apple Music Playlist

Happy rating :)

Hello people! I’m a 17 year old guy who wishes to turn to wrestling to help me get more strong and fit. I currently weight around 103 kg and am 6 feet tall ( I’m fat ) I wish to learn wrestling to help me with a host of things, like cardio, strength, fitness and self defence.
I’m currently not very strong and my cardio is bullshit, so I was wondering what the fitness requirements are, and if the learning curve is steep or not. I want to start mma in the future and have heard from a lot of practitioners that wrestling is a good foundation, hence my interest in it. Good wrestling supposedly helps strengthen your game.
If anybody could clear my doubts regarding these it would be much appreciated. Thanks!