Right aid pharmacy hours

Hello everyone! I am a 21 year old, recently married, planning to move to a new state for the first time. My lease ends in 28 days and I have no income and no apartment secured, and I quit my job that I worked at for 1 yr and 7 months, 2 months ago because I was going through extreme burnout. The manager was awful and only pretended to care about his employees, but did not give two shits when customers yelled at us, harassed us, or made us uncomfortable. There was a gun threat and he just brushed it off like it was nothing… $18/hour was not worth it anymore, and I quit. I began an aggressive job search for a remote data entry position because I had no other experience than customer service. I thought this was the only job I would be able to get, but I was wrong, because I couldn’t even get this job. I actually got scammed with a fake job post and lost money. I will not say the amount because it is very embarrassing and I still feel very stupid about it. It sent me back a lot and I was extremely stressed out and could not focus on any of the positivity in my future life. I could not see a future anymore. After the scam, I buried myself into applying to hundreds of jobs, and I did not hear back from any of them. I only got one actual interview and they rejected me anyway. I was losing all hope. Then I got a message on ZipRecruiter from what seemed like a “customer service rep job” it wasn’t a very good description but my expectations were falling so fast I was willing to take anything remote. To my surprise, it was for becoming an independent insurance agent. The person I spoke to was very nice and welcoming, but I was very skeptical because being an insurance agent is something I never thought about, I don’t know anything about finances. Completely new career industry. But I took a risk, and I started studying and I passed my state exam in a week. Studying is over exaggerating actually, I just memorized the answers from the practice quizzes and then crammed other information that explains the answers like for two days prior to my exam. I am now a licensed life and health and accident and annuities insurance agent at 21!! I feel so much better about my future. No more altering my resume, applying for jobs, and no more awkward job interviews!! Detailed job description: The company is called Pinnacle Elite. Pay $125 for 1. Background check federal and state 2. You get added to the payroll (will get paid every Tuesday and every Friday) 3. Access to the company platform in all 50 states 4. Complimentary training every week 5. World class mentorship Other Licensing Fees (some depend on what state you’re in) 1. Pre-Licensing Fee $30ish to get access to study course 2. Application fee $53ish for when you pass exam and apply for your license 3. Errors and Emissions (Business Insurance) for Life Licensed Agents $40/Month (I did not pay this yet) 4. Platform fee for Licensed Agents $15 (I didn’t have to pay this yet either) Get 24 hours of studying time (this is the requirement for PA. And you don’t actually have to study for this long, just have to have the screen open and let the time tick) Complete all of the practice quizzes (they tell you not to go back and redo the quizzes, but you can and I did to memorize the answers) the questions and answers are almost exactly what they will be on the actual exam!! Made it super easy! Also you only need 70% on the exam to pass! In CA it’s only 65% After you pass you have to get fingerprinted which costed me $25 Apply for your state license - $50-$60 (already listed above) Then is the waiting period for getting your license approved. This is where you have to plan how you are going to broadcast and promote your own INDEPENDENT BUSNIESS. You are working with WITH a company, not for it. Every single thing is done from the comforts of your home over Zoom. They will figuratively “hold your hand” and personally help you through every single step in the process. They will train you on the job, be with you while you are doing practice appointments, and help you get clients. Right now I am currently waiting on my application to be processed. So I’m in the process of finding potential clients and potential future agents. One of the great things about this, is you are learning how to help YOURSELF and then helping your family, friends, and anyone else. You will learn how to do anything you can imagine with finances and secure your financial future! You also do not have to quit your current job if you cannot afford to. You can apply yourself to this around your current schedule. Everything is done around YOUR availability. But you have to COMMIT. Anyone skeptical about being an insurance agent, just google how much you possibly could make if you get through the initial process.. it might change your mind. It is a process and a risk but I hope I explained everything enough and maybe caught some of your attentions. If you are genuinely interested and ready to commit to change your life around completely, please reach out to me! If you want, I can keep updating you on my career and maybe inspire you to join so you can help me help you!!

Needless to say, all three Gems were speechless. They starred blankly at the kids’ smiling faces before Pearl finally spoke up. “Well…thank you, Steven,” she said awkwardly, “but…uh,” She turned. “Garnet, help me.” The leader Gem got up. “Thank you, Steven, but you were still right to be upset.“ “We promise not to keep stuff from you, dude,” Amethyst added. “And we will truly try and take some time off,” Pearl finished. The three leaned down and reached out, expecting a group hug, but Steven and Connie merely exchanged glances and giggled to themselves. “Okay, now I’m confused,” Garnet said as they stood back up. Steven looked up at his three guardians, hands on his hips. “We’re glad you guys are sorry for everything, but you’re not getting off that easy.” “Yep,” Connie added, “We’re still going to punish you.” “Punish us?!” Pearl said incredulously. “Yep,” Steven said, loving the control. “You can forget about any missions for the rest of the day,” “Or hiding out in the Temple,” Connie added. “Becaus you’re going to be spending the rest of your day here,” he handed them a flyer and they all looked at it. Beach City Ocean Breeze Spa! Wash off all the stresses of life! Book you appointment today. “Steven,” Pearl asked, “What is this?” “Only the greatest spa in Beach City,” Steven replied. “Connie told me about it.” “But what exactly is a spa?” The white Gem asked. “It’s a building that offers heath and beauty treatments,” Connie explained. “My mom’s a regular there.” It’s the only way she can recover from her long shifts at the hospital. Anyway, she took me a couple weeks ago and it was amazing! They have everything: manicures, pedicures, massages, mud baths-“ “Mud baths?!” Amethyst cried. “I’m in!” “Hold on there, Amethyst!” Pearl said. Looking back down at the flyer, she said, “Kids, this is incredibly generous of you, but I’m not sure how comfortable I’d be-“ “Around other humans?” Connie asked. “No, of course not,” Pearl said, “It’s just-it seems to involve a lot of…intimate contact and I-“ “Oh please!” Steven said, “You guys fuse all the time.” “Yes, but that’s with Gems.” “You danced with Dad in Empire City,” Steven pointed out, “You have no excuse.” “And it’s incredibly clean, Pearl,” Connie explained, “Everything’s super clean and spotless and they actually have you shower in between appointments. It’s actually very fancy. You’ve got nothing to worry about.” “And even if you did, it wouldn’t matter. We already booked appointments for all of you, starting at noon. Dad’s paying for everything.” Smiling smugly, the boy folded his arms. “No way out.” Pearl opened her mouth, possibly to argue again, but Garnet cupped a hand over it. “Pearl, you really should keep your mouth closed,” she advised. “Bugs could nest.” The Gem leader turned back to Steven and, to his delight, she was smiling. “Steven, we’d love to.” “Yeah we would!” Amethyst agreed. “But what about Beach City?” Pearl freed herself from Garnet. “We can’t just leave it unguarded.” “Leave that…to us.” The kids took each other’s hand and were instantly engulfed in a pink flash of light. In their place stood Stevonnie, sword at the ready. The fusion saluted the Gems. “Stevonnie, Beach City protector, reporting for duty! And look!” They whistled and Lion barged in and bowed before them. “We’ve got our own trusty stead.” “Well, that solves that,” Garnet stated. “Whoo-Hoo!” Amethyst cheered, “Mud baths, here we come!” Pearl stared, then opened and closed her mouth in thought before straightening up and giving a small sigh. “Well, I guess you do have everything covered,” She cupped her hands, even giving a small smile. “And I did say I would start trying out new things, didn’t I?” “Sure did,” the fusion said, “And the Pearl we know can handle anything a mere human could.” They shot her a sly grin. “You are a Crystal Gem, aren’t you?” “Well, OF COURSE, I am!” Pearl scoffed, acting as though she felt insulted. Putting her hands on her hips, she added. “And you know what? I’m actually lookin forward to this spa. I’ve got nothing better to do and frankly, all these missions have left me rather tarnished.” “Then, we better be on our way. Our appointments start in an hour,” Garnet said, leading them to the door. She stopped for a moment to address Stevonnie. “Good luck you two. Remember to keep the harmony.” Amethyst shot them a wink as she walked past. “Slick.”
Despite its name, Beach City Ocrean Breeze Spa wasn’t actually in Beach City, but on the outskirts. The road there took the Gems through a forested area and l, after about half an hour of walking, ended in a long grass plain where their location revealed itself.
There was a large while building that appeared to be made of glistening white marble. The road leading to end ended in a cup-de-sac, with statues and flowers on either side. In front of the spa stood a large elegant fountain. The three made their way up the road (Pearl taking a minute to admire the fountain) and entered the building. Inside was a massive, spacious lobby that appeared to be made of the same glittering marble as the outside. A stone walkway leading up to the front desk was flanked on both sides by, among even more rows of flowers, magnificent, stone basins that caught water pouring out of the ceiling. Behind the front desk was a massive stone mural of a mermaid on some rocks with the name of the spa written above. Off to the sides were seating areas with comfy couches and armchairs. The whole room sparkled in the sunlight streaming in from the skylight and there was an aroma of perfume in the air. “Wow,” Amethyst said, scratching her head. “Connie wasn’t kidding when she said it was fancy.” “Nice ambiance,” Pearl said, before taking a whiff. “And that smell is almost as good as mine in the Temple.” The three walked over to the front desk, where a blind woman in a white blouse and pants was typing at a computer. Hearing their footsteps, she looked up and smiled. “Hello, welcome to Beach City Ocean Breeze Spa. How can I help you?” “We have scheduled appointments,” Garnet explained. “They should be under Universe.” The woman turned back to her computer. “Universe, Universe, ah, there you are!” She tapped her headset. “Jolene, we have guests.” A door opened and another woman, wearing the same uniform as the receptionist, stepped into the room. “They have three noon sessions,” the receptionist explained. “Thank you, Celia. I’ll take it from here.” Turning to the Gems, she held out her hand. “Welcome. My name is Jolene.” Not wanting to appear rude, Pearl took her hand and shook it. “Hi Jolene, I’m Pearl and this is Garnet and Amethyst. I must say, your spa is very lovely.” “Thank you. I take it this is your first time here?” “It’s our first time at any spa period.” “Well, we’re delighted to have been chooses as your first.” “We really didn’t have a choice,” Garnet said. “Our little boy forced us to come.” “Yeah, said we were overworked and we had to come here as a punishment.” “Well, I assure you, this will be one of the finest punishments you’ll ever get,” Jolene laughed. “If you follow me, we can get started.” She lead the Gems down a hallway to a pair of shower rooms. “It’s required that all guests shower in between treatments,” Jolene explained, holding out three robes and pairs of slippers. “No argument there,” Pearl happily took one. “Just head in there, rinse off, and then we’ll escort you to your treatments.” Upon entering, the Gems were hit with a thick cloud of steam and the sight of twenty or so naked women occupying the various shower stalls. Garnet shifted her gaze, Pearl blushed, and Amethyst giggled. “Oh, you need to shower?” One of the women came out from her stall, wrapping a towel around herself. She pointed to three ones nearby. “These are empty.” Still feeling awkward, the Gens each got into a stall and turned the water on. The bather giggled. “Aren’t you going to undress first?” Pearl’s cheeks grew even more teal. “Well…uh-“ “No need to be shy,” the lady said, motioning to the other bathers. “We’re all girls here.” “It’s not that,” Garnet explained. “It’s just that our bodies are a bit…different from yours.” Pearl nodded. “Oh, we see all kinds in here,” the woman smiled. “Go on, take your clothes off.” The three Gems looked at each other. “Well, I guess she has a point,” Pearl said. Garnet nodded. “Let’s do it.” All three stalls filled with bright lights, forcing all the other bathers to cover their eyes. “Whoa!” the woman said, “What was with-AHHHHHHHHH!” “Wow, this actually does feel good,” Pearl smiled. She and the other Gems started to shower, only to pause at the horrified faces of everyone around them. “What?” Garnet asked, all three eyes uncovered. “O-oh, it’s nothing,” their friend forced a nervous smile. “You know…they let you wear bikinis in here too.”

Hi thank you so much for your time. At the black moon I lit a charge/ dedication candle for the main deity that I worship, The Morrigan. It was a red female shaped hoodoo candle and took about 6 hours to burn. Something happened that has never happened when I have used these types of candles before and I'm not sure how to interpret the Divination of the wax. The female candle split completely down the center and only half of the wax melted. There was in a hole in a wax right below the heart on the side where the wax remained. The full moon is coming up and I'm not sure how to interpret this offering that happened at the new Black Moon a couple weeks ago. Thank you for taking the time to read my post and I would truly appreciate any advice or insight.

I just watched Steven Kenneth "Destiny" Bonnell Goransson the Second's response to DPak. In that video, Destiny claims that DPak's views are "not mainstream" and that he's "barely center left, but more far left".
I disagree. Though it's obviously debatable where "center left" ends and "far left" begins, the policies that Destiny called out as "far left" are supported by a majority of Americans. I think that fits the definition of "mainstream".
In a different reddit comment, Destiny also describes four of Elizabeth Warren's policies as making her '"far left" on basically every single country on Earth.' So I'll include her positions here too, though it isn't the main focus of this post.
Also, to quote another comment Destiny made, I'm going to ignore other countries and focus on their popularity with Americans because "why the fuck would international politics be relevant when defining American political media consumed in America??"

$15/hour minimum wage (aka "2x the minimum wage")

DPak's position

DPak has multiple videos supporting $15/hour minimum wage and then pegging it to inflation. Here's a recent example.

Warren's position

Warren's Raise the Wage Act of 2021 planned to increase the minimum wage to $15/hour over a period of 5 years.

Polls

According to a 2023 University of Maryland Poll 65% of Americans support raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 over a 5 year period. This includes 90% of Democrats, 64% of Independents, and 41% of Republicans.
Contemporary polls during Warren's presidential candidacy show about the same: between 60% and 65% of Americans support a $15/hour minimum wage.

Elections

Election results from some very "not far-left" states:

• Nebraska (Trump +19.1 in 2020) voted in 2022 to increase its minimum wage to $15/hour and peg it to the CPI by 2026. It passed with 59% of the vote.
  
• Florida (Trump +3.4) voted in 2020 to increase its minimum wage to $15/hour by 2026. It passed with 61% of the vote.
  
• Missouri (Trump +15.4) voted in 2018 to raise minimum wage to $12/hour and peg it to the CPI starting in 2023. Depending on how the CPI does, it will probably hit $15/hour between 2028 and 2030.
  

tldr

All this to say, it's clearly not a "far left" position.

Universal healthcare

DPak's position

DPak supports Warren and Bernie's push for universal healthcare, but he is agnostic about how to implement it. Two systems he specifically mentions are Singapore's and Germany's. I'm not completely familiar with these systems, but a quick Google indicates they have a mix of private and public health insurance. So while he seems amenable to their "single payer only" systems, he doesn't seem tied to them and is more focused on getting people covered.

Warren's position

Warren's Medicare for All plan would have phased in a single-payer system over 3 years, at which point "duplicate coverage" would be illegal. AKA most private insurance would be banned.

Polls

About 57% of the country, including 59% of Independents, supports some kind of universal healthcare, according to a Gallup poll in December 2022. So at least that position (and the one DPak holds) is not "far left". I think it'd be more accurate to say it's center-left.
It's not clear to me that their question about preference for a "government run health care system", which they say has 43% support in that same 2022 poll. So I checked an older Pew poll from 2020, which does appear to break it out. In this poll, 36% of respondants chose "single national government program" over "mix of government of private programs".

tldr

DPak's position of supporting universal health care is supported by over half the country, including 3/5 of independents. I don't think you can say that is "far left" or "not mainstream" with any seriousness.
As for Warren, she's certainly farther left than the majority of the country or DPak's position. I guess it'd depend on where you draw your boundaries as to whether this is "far left" or not. However, if having single-payer only healthcare, a position on the left, has 36% support and is "far left" then not raising the minimum wage to $15/hour, which has 35% support and is a position on the right, would seem to be "far right".

Free education for the entire country

DPak's position

DPak seems to support tuition-free public colleges and universities. Here is a video where he discussed the topic with Andrew Yang. Here is another video where he discusses his support for states trialing free college programs that could then be rolled out nationally if they work.

Warren's position

Elizabeth Warren supported "giving every American the opportunity to attend a two-year or four-year public college or technical school without paying a dime in tuition or fees".

Polls

63% of Americans support tuition-free public college and universities according to an August 2021 Pew poll.

tldr

Again, this is a position supported by the majority of the country. It's not "far left".
Some of Warren's other related positions, like cancelling $50k of student loan debt, are less popular and you can make a stronger argument about that being far left.

Wealth tax

DPak's position

DPak seems skeptical about a wealth tax working, even if he supports it in principle.

Warren's position

Warren proposed a wealth tax. It would have been 2% on wealth between $50 million and $1 billion and then 6% on wealth over $1 billion.

Polls

64% of respondents to a Reuters/Ipsos poll strongly or somewhat agreed that "the very rich should contribute an extra share of their total wealth each year to support public programs". This included 77% of Democrats, 63% of Independents, and 53% of Republicans.
63% of respondents to a 2019 New York Times/SurveyMonkey poll supported Warren's wealth tax plan. This included 77% of Democrats, 55% of Independents, and 57% of Republicans.

tldr

The NY Times poll is pre-COVID (I wasn't able to find a more recent poll) so maybe things have changed as it became more tied to Bernie and Warren, but at least at that point it didn't seem to be a "far left" idea.

Overall TLDR

Of the policies that Destiny called out as "far left", they are all supported by more than half the country. So it seems that, at least for DPak and those policies he called out, that label is inaccurate and DPak is within the "mainstream".
My intuition is that Warren could be called far left, particularly among elected officials. However, that's not due to these policies, with the exception of the part of her universal health care plan where she wants to abolish duplicate private coverage. It's more due to other things like wanting to cancel $50,000 of student loan debt or her positions on social issues.

Hi thank you so much for your time and allowing me to be part of they are - witchcraft community. At the black moon I lit a charge/ dedication candle for the main deity that I worship, The Morrigan. It was a red female shaped hoodoo candle and took about 6 hours to burn. Something happened that has never happened when I have used these types of candles before and I'm not sure how to interpret the Divination of the wax. The female candle split completely down the center and only half of the wax melted. There was in a hole in a wax right below the heart on the side where the wax remained. The full moon is coming up and I'm not sure how to interpret this offering that happened at the new Black Moon a couple weeks ago. Thank you for taking the time to read my post and I would truly appreciate any advice or insight.

I rescued a poodle mix about 4 months ago, and he’s almost a year and a half old now.
We’ve made progress with a lot of training like simple commands, but it completely goes out the window with his separation anxiety. He’s incapable of being okay with being bored, despite the hour walks we go on twice a day. I’ve bought a ton of different toys and it still isn’t enough.
Yesterday, I broke down crying. I have online therapy for PTSD, and he had to be in the same room because my partner wasn’t home. For the entire hour-long call, he starts stealing things off counters again and jumping up on me. My arms are covered in scratches and bruises (fingers to shoulders) from trying to ignore him. I just can’t fucking handle him right now anymore because he did it again today when I got an important call from work. He chewed through his leash and a hat of mine when I stopped interacting with him for two minutes.
I’m at my wit’s end. I love him, but right now I absolutely cannot stand him.

My 16F have been single since i was 10 or something for the past couple of years my dad kept asking when will i get a boyfriend and keep asking about my private life, i gently told him not to ask and when it’s the right time i will.
Despite the fact i told him not to ask multiple times, yesterday we had a family gathering for dinner ( that included my aunts and our relatives & friends).
And during the dinner when they ran out of conversations, he looked at me and said oh X when you will bring a boyfriend to the table? I got extreme mad and said well if i didn’t inherit your ugly ass genes he would be with us right now also i can’t believe how desperate my mom was when she accepted to marry you like is the bar this low?
Our friends gasped and my aunt tried to cool it down by saying anyone wants desert?
Couple of hours later my mom talked to me and said i was an asshole and i should never ever talk like this.
Aita given that i told him before not to ask?

Embarrassing Moment! Help
So I occasionally go on a gay chat app. I'm very careful who I talk to or send pics to as I don't really "consider" myself gay but i like to talk to guys occasionally and find new friends. I think someone I know had a clue who I was as they were at a beach in my area(very small area). I went to the store in town an someone passed yelling my name. I couldn't see who it was in time. About hour later on the app I got a message asking " Is this (my name) so I responded about 40 min later after actually seeing the message asking "who"? Then I said my name is Dan with the local opera crew hanging out with a bunch of people , do you wanna come chill? We live in a tourist area with a opera right down the road also and every spring/summer it gets busy an all the people from around the country come here to be a part of the opera show and set. So anyway, next morning I got to work and my buddy pulled up next to me as we always park next to eacother. He said " how's it going (my name)? Then quickly he followed with it was him, his gf, his sister an her friend all on their way BK from the beach and seen me pulling into the store and yelled my name. They live like 35mim away. So I played it off like ooh shit I had no idea who it was cause I couldn't turn my head around fast enough. It was at that moment I knew/had a feeling it was him an his weird sister and her weird girlfriend probably on the gay chat app . My profile pic wasn't anything direct that it was me other then of my upper chest and some of my chin along with my left arm an no visable tattoo. I think they strictly knew they were within couple miles of where I live and it just happened I don't know. All I had was an approx height an 15 lb over my actual weight nothing more on my discription. I added a few pics of some opera stuff that goes on locally and also made my profile info about after opera rehersal how we go to the lake out on the boat with the crew(I don't own a boat or.go to the lake). Then yesterday on the app I made it look like I had to go BK to Massachusetts for few days untill Saturday so that way they would see why I'm off the chart now for few days till I either keep playing the opera role when "he" returns an slowly delete the account shortly after that or just not sign BK in after everyone thinks i went BK to mass for few days? I'm pretty sure I have my buddy like 60% convinced it wasn't me by the way I talked about what I did over the weekend an so on. he wasn't really asking toto many more detailed questions through out the day but I felt like I had some hints. Or I was gonna just put on Facebook, visable only to him an few others to make it look good , that my info was stolen an compromised online WHICH I did mention to him earlier in the week my bank was being weird not taking my auto payments for some reason for most my bills(true story) then once I see him at work I'll elaborate more that someone must of jacked my photo off only fans an was trying to use it to make money themselves on a bunch of weird apps or something ? Then he'll ask " you had an only fans " an I'll just play it off like yeah I messed around on there not knowing I had to put no one has the right to use or promote my photos without my permission an just kinda go that route with it?

Today i had the pleasure of trying to confirm an interaction they inquired about. I told the person answering the phone i wanted to clarify a drug interaction of which they called about. He said "i dont know what you mean by interaction". Seriously?
Every time i call its hold times of about an hour and then i'm refused the ability to talk to a pharmacist sometimes. Its an arduous task to clarify scripts that they question. Today it was an interaction between dex and lenalidomide. Now I get calling if you don't understand and you see the interaction alert but if it takes hours of effort to confirm a commonly prescribed combination of medications this just harms patients in the long run and wastes time of everyone involved.
I guess my question is, is there a direct line to clinical people? The phone trees are horrible and the people answering the phone have no clue how a pharmacy operates

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, meaning they outnumber Native Americans or the Romani) 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](SE02.jpg) ); 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.

Feature mix in the link below:
https://on.soundcloud.com/PJBRW
What does "Arhlo" mean and how'd you come up with it?
Arhlo: My oldest child's name is Thomas Arlo. There are a lot of Arlo's in the producer hemisphere so I doubled down and threw in the "h" to help make my name unique.
So speaking on that is it true you produced lullabies for your son during his infancy?
Arhlo: Yes. I felt creative enough and alert enough to do this. I knew what lullabies were. Very simple melodies. The point of a lullaby is to make someone sleep, no? I did that and made a soundtrack to my (then) infants life to help them go to sleep. I actually made 5 more lullabies when my second was born. I played them once for him and deleted them forever. I am weird about keeping my songs out in the open. I don't like attention.
Now digging a little deeper into YOU, you went through the Icon Collective course, ultimately do you feel it was a worthy experience, would you recomend it to other producers who are on the fence about it?
Arhlo: YES. 100%. Granted, I didn't physically attend Icon, but my experience has made me who I am today. Icon will throw out ideas you thought to be canon, and then shake up your life more. I was able to nuture and grow my strength as a producer through their curriculum. Icon was the difference between wanting to do something, and doing the f*cking thing.
You also went to school for jazz as well, yeah?
Arhlo: Correct. I spent almost 3 years going to college for Jazz performance. That was my major when I left. I grew up in Connecticut, and subsequently went to school in the state as well. I used to sit through jazz history classes, then take the train into NYC to go to jazz clubs like 55 Bar and Smalls and hear some of the greatest players in the world. Unfortunately 55 is now closed but I have fond memories of taking $50 to take the MTA into Grand Central, walking an hour down to the village, and going to one of the aforementioned clubs to spend my last dollar to hear these cats play. It is still the Mecca for musicians. No doubt about it.
I heard a rumor you had an ep mixed and mastered by Mayhem?
Arhlo: Yes the EP is on my private soundcloud. I just didn't feel it was right to release it at that time. Maybe now might be the time. I don't know. My barometer for music culture is so out of touch I didn't even know Alison Wonderland was pregnant until a week ago
So now that we have our more basic questions out of the way; we are gonna get a little personal, because we know you personally.
Arhlo: Understood. Cue the Shaq meme.
We have been to A LOT of shows together, that night at tabernacle, was waiting with me an hour and a half worth it?(you bought those tickets)
Arhlo: Yes. We saw an amazing show. Rickyxsan and NGHTMRE? Are you kidding me? Then we waited in the pouring rain. Luckily we caught Tyler coming out of the venue with Ricky and got to chat with them. Between Tyler blowing up and Ricky holding it down for the underground, we had an awesome time picking brains and taking names. (NGHTMRE) is an outlier in terms of mainstream artists, he is a consummate professional. He told us that he gave away the majority of his profits to increase the value of the show for the audience, something that is not done today at all by artists at his level. He would use his profit and throw it into the production, so the lights, sound, and overall experience were pieces that were curated and amplified due to his hard work and what he contributed to the production.
So when we talk about great djs, what seperates, a good dj from a bad dj?
Arhlo: A bad DJ plays what people want to hear; a good DJ plays what they want to hear. If the two sync up in some sort of serendipitous way, that's a great dj.
If you could have a conversation with yourself on the day you started pursuing music, what would you say?
Arhlo: I would tell myself to make music that makes myself happy. Don't try to be someone you're not, be the creative that you organically are. That's how one gets a unique sound and it's how you develop and evolve as a producer.
Whats a piece of advice you were never given, but try to pass on to other DJs?
Arhlo: The piece of advice that I try to pass on is that you're going to be faced with a lot of rejection. A musician I admire once told me you will fail 9/10 times, but that 1 time will make all the difference. Just brush off the rejection and move on. There's no time to dwell on rejection.
Who has helped you the most or supported you the most, this is the time to shoutout and thank your folks!
Arhlo: First off I want to thank YOU. You have supported me since the day we met. You're a true friend and fan and will always be there to support and give advice. You're honest and extremely helpful when it comes to bouncing ideas around and showing you WIP's. Other "mentors" I've had that have helped me get to where I am as a producer and DJ today include Protohype, my first mentor at Icon, Mayhem, for being the premier Atlanta producer and DJ, Pryzms, who has had an amazing journey here in Atlanta, and Blvk Sheep. I've taken several lessons from Blvk Sheep over the years and he has great knowledge when it comes to not only the craft, but the industry as well.

Hoping to hear people's 2 cents on this one.
I have access to 3 warzone accounts.

• My own
• My brother's
• New account I created 2 days ago

So essentially, I created an account 2 days ago in order to have another account to play WZ ranked with my IRLs, as they either don't play much or are not so good at the game and are in lower divisions than the other 2 accounts listed.
I, along with my brother bought MW2 when it came out, and grinded out camos etc...and neither account has ever been shadowbanned. Both accounts are 3-6kd (in warzone), so I'm certain I would have been spam reported by some players throughout both account's WZ2 journeys. - still no shadow ban on either.
This is where it gets kind of wild for me, I've hit the 10 kill shadowban cycle. First game I played on the account was plunder quads; I died right off the bat, and then proceeded to get 9 kills. On the 10th kill....boom...server disconnected. Checked the ban appeal page, and yes...under review. Today, 24 hours after the shadow ban, I check the website, no longer shadow banned. Boy was my slight excitement short lived :( I go into another plunder game, exact same story as yesterday...9 kills fine, 10th kill...server disconnected. Again checked the ban appeal page, and yep; under review.
Full disclaimer, I use a vpn. I use a vpn on any of the accounts I play on. Albeit I didn't initially, but with the introduction of ranked, I started to use one...because quite honestly, I don't have time for custom lobbies in ranked post 3pm UK time. So I vpn to w.e location and then geofence to the US to play on their servers. I haven't been shadow banned while using vpn on either 2 older accounts, so it's not this.
I have been shadow banned multiple times (on my original account) on wz1, and back then, if I played on another account while that was shadow banned. Said account would also be shadow banned. On WZ2 however, since being shadowbanned on the new account, I can continue to play on the other 2 accounts fine.
One ask, please don't bog down this thread with "I've never been shadow banned and I don't cheat so you must be" kind of responses. We are all different skill levels, and that's okay. I play with people that are much better than myself, and also much worse. I don't cheat, I never have cheated, and never will cheat.
​
IF anyone has any info on how you got out of the shadowban loop, please let me know how. Just wanna level my account up faster than 2 levels per day :'(

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I really need help finding an ASD mentor who can help me navigate my changing workplace environment. I was able to find mentor services for teens and professional mentorship programs in the UK. I am looking for a mentor in the USA, preferably a woman.
In 2019, I was given the most amazing role I could have imagined at work. I got to work when was best for me. Every new developer came through my training program before moving onto their development team. I got great reviews from new hires, coworkers, and managers. I got feedback that many people were impressed at how great a job I was doing. I was absolutely THRIVING!
Several weeks ago, without any ceremony, discussion, or warning, I was given the role of Scrum Master. This means that it is now my job to facilitate team meetings. I went from like 3 hours of planned meetings a week to facilitating over 10 hours and attending more. In addition to that, I'm supposed to do some subset of my previous job, but I'm not sure what parts are the right things to do, since I've been told that the job of training is going back to the individual teams. I'm so overwhelmed that I'm crying right now. The context switching from Scrum Master to Knowledge Management is a very slow process. It takes me like 30 minutes to shift from one to the other, so it feels like I'm not accomplishing anything. By the time I'm working again, it's almost time for another meeting.
It doesn't help that I was in this role about a decade ago and was ASSAULTED AT THE OFFICE IN THE COURSE OF MY JOB AS SCRUM MASTER. Yes, really. And, yes... my boss and people who I think could control this decision are fully aware of that and the nearly decade of Complex PTSD that it left me with. My case was so severe that I couldn't go anywhere without triggering PTSD. Sometimes I couldn't even stay in my own backyard. I could easily trigger it over a dozen times a day. For years, I didn't understand that's what it was. I'm really struggling with psychological trauma of being a Scrum Master again, all this context switching, and climbing uphill against my brain to fulfill my new job duties.
I've gone from having a job that used all of my strengths and didn't require struggling against my weakest areas to a job that uses very few of my strengths and relies very heavily on my greatest weaknesses. I feel like I'm being set up to fail. I just want to go outside and hang out with the bees and forget that anybody else even exists...

Embarrassing Moment! Help
So I occasionally go on a gay chat app. I'm very careful who I talk to or send pics to as I don't really "consider" myself gay but i like to talk to guys occasionally and find new friends. I think someone I know had a clue who I was as they were at a beach in my area(very small area). I went to the store in town an someone passed yelling my name. I couldn't see who it was in time. About hour later on the app I got a message asking " Is this (my name) so I responded about 40 min later after actually seeing the message asking "who"? Then I said my name is Dan with the local opera crew hanging out with a bunch of people , do you wanna come chill? We live in a tourist area with a opera right down the road also and every spring/summer it gets busy an all the people from around the country come here to be a part of the opera show and set. So anyway, next morning I got to work and my buddy pulled up next to me as we always park next to eacother. He said " how's it going (my name)? Then quickly he followed with it was him, his gf, his sister an her friend all on their way BK from the beach and seen me pulling into the store and yelled my name. They live like 35mim away. So I played it off like ooh shit I had no idea who it was cause I couldn't turn my head around fast enough. It was at that moment I knew/had a feeling it was him an his weird sister and her weird girlfriend probably on the gay chat app . My profile pic wasn't anything direct that it was me other then of my upper chest and some of my chin along with my left arm an no visable tattoo. I think they strictly knew they were within couple miles of where I live and it just happened I don't know. All I had was an approx height an 15 lb over my actual weight nothing more on my discription. I added a few pics of some opera stuff that goes on locally and also made my profile info about after opera rehersal how we go to the lake out on the boat with the crew(I don't own a boat or.go to the lake). Then yesterday on the app I made it look like I had to go BK to Massachusetts for few days untill Saturday so that way they would see why I'm off the chart now for few days till I either keep playing the opera role when "he" returns an slowly delete the account shortly after that or just not sign BK in after everyone thinks i went BK to mass for few days? I'm pretty sure I have my buddy like 60% convinced it wasn't me by the way I talked about what I did over the weekend an so on. he wasn't really asking toto many more detailed questions through out the day but I felt like I had some hints. Or I was gonna just put on Facebook, visable only to him an few others to make it look good , that my info was stolen an compromised online WHICH I did mention to him earlier in the week my bank was being weird not taking my auto payments for some reason for most my bills(true story) then once I see him at work I'll elaborate more that someone must of jacked my photo off only fans an was trying to use it to make money themselves on a bunch of weird apps or something ? Then he'll ask " you had an only fans " an I'll just play it off like yeah I messed around on there not knowing I had to put no one has the right to use or promote my photos without my permission an just kinda go that route with it?

Trigger Warning: mentions of drug abuse, self harm, suicide Disclaimer: I am on mobile so please excuse any formatting issues.
So, most of this is just needing to vent, but I also want to know if somehow I'm being irrational. I'm not looking for sympathy, but I'm more than grateful for any advice or feedback on the matter. I'll try to make it as short as I can, but lord is it a lot to unpack. If you make it to the end, or just a few sentences in, thank you. Sometimes it helps just to get the words out there.
I (24f) made the choice last year to cut my father (47M) out of my life. This was not any easy choice for me; I have tried many times over the years to do so, and always ended up caving and letting him back in. I developed into an adult with some serious issues, a lot (but not all of them) due to the things I witnessed and experienced as the child of an absent, drug addicted father. My father repeatedly chose meth and women over his only child, and I saw every side of addiction in him you could imagine.
I saw the weeks without sleep or food, frantically peeking through curtains and the suddenly religious ramblings of a formerly atheistic madman while he was "up". I saw the days spent barely conscious, filled with irrational bouts of rage and verbal abuse, when he was "down". I saw him spend hours "fixing" things while I held the flashlight and wondered how you could fix something by tearing it apart and scattering the pieces, then abandoning the project 14 hours later, never to touch it again. While arguing once in the car, he threatened to flip it with me in it and kill us both. He was irrational, unstable, and just all around toxic. I loved my dad, idolized him, but even as a child knew something wasn't right and that it shouldn't be like this.
Any time I spoke up, any time I had the slightest smidge of a backbone, he left or I was emotionally manipulated into submission by him and the enablers on his side of the family. For months, there would be no contact, and I would spiral into a pit of fears that he had died and would never come back. He would show up with empty promises and pull me back in, just for the cycle to repeat.
I begged, I screamed, I cried, I did everything I could to get him sober. I talked until I was blue in the face, crying, pleading, asking him WHY. Why couldn't he just choose me. Why couldn't he love me.
I developed such a deep-seeded fear of abandonment and rejection that it directly influenced how I treated those I allowed into my life. I single handedly self-sabotaged every friendship and relationship I ever had, because no one can leave you if you leave them first. I also, up until my current boyfriend who is an absolute angel of a man, chose partners that were toxic and abusive in one way or another, because I believed that's all I deserved.
I was a clinically depressed child, and in my teens I myself turned to a raging pill addiction, self harm, and multiple suicide attempts. However, I am proud and thankful to say that I have been completely sober for going on 9 years in September. I have BPD as a direct result of what I endured has a child, and have spent the last year soul searching and working on myself. Breaking down everything about myself that I don't like, habits and mannerisms I want to change, and I have made so much progress on the road to self-love and acceptance. I wholeheartedly believe there is always room for personal growth and improvement, no one is perfect.
So, part of my whole self improvement thing has been cutting out toxicity, in whichever form it presents itself to me. Things and people that bring me more stress and drama than I actually have to take on, gone. I quit the job where I was overworked, underpaid, and severely underappreciated. I left the "partner" who used and took advantage of me, and am currently with someone who appreciates and values me for who I am, not just what I have to offer. I'm pursuing my dream job, trying to get my life on track; I'm finally choosing me instead of always taking care of everyone else and throwing my life and my wellbeing on the backburner. I'm choosing to be happy, and to love myself and my life, and I am so proud of who I am becoming.
So, that sums it up and brings us to last night. I had stopped talking to my father, I would still open messages he sent but not respond; in my mind I was at least giving him the peace of mind to know I was alive, which is far more than he ever gave me. He was upset when I cut him off, and messaged me at least every 3 days to a week at the latest. The responses ranged from acting as if nothing changed, to pleading, to gaslighting, to playing the victim, and to outright narcissistic rage. I took it all in stride, still committing to my vow of not speaking to him, because I had asked if he was sober and he lied. I had given him one more chance, one more time to make it right: get sober, or lose me and his grandchild. My cross to bear is not my sons, and I wont subject him to the things I grew up with.
My father being in and out also began affecting my life as an adult, and I'd find myself reverted to the same lost little girl pacing and anxiously waiting for her father to show up. He'd say he was coming to visit us, then cancel hours later with some recycled excuse, over and over and over. I'd get my hopes up, and be crushed again and again. I sat up many nights, angry and inconsolable, wondering why he couldn't just LOVE me.
So, I made the choice for me, and for my child. I can't be the best mother to him if I can't be the best version of myself. I stand by my decision, because at the end of the day, I deserve better and my son deserves to see his mother happy and to have the best version of me that I can give him.
Last night, my father sent a novel over text, with nothing but gaslighting and emotional abuse. Telling me that I destroyed him, I traumatized him by cutting him out, that he would never recover. Telling me that since I "assumed" he was using, I ruined everything because I wasn't "man" enough to talk to him face to face. Basically painting me to be the villain, and he the poor victim blindsided by my crimes against humanity.
Mind you, he had initially confessed to using and still coming down from his high from 2 days prior the last time my child and I saw him, the day I decided I was done. Last night, in his tirade, he swore that at that point it had been at least a month and a half; so, how DARE I just assume and deprive him of myself and his grandchild, who he "decided to get sober for". Since I couldn't be an adult and talk to him, I had caused this.
He made a point to strike every emotional chord he could, in hopes that I would do as I always had; rip his head off, which opens the door for talking again. He brought up my dead best friend, he tried to manipulate me against my mother, he talked about my son, he talked about my partner. I sat with it, I still said nothing, and then I blocked every social media account he had ever made, regardless of how old it was.
He doesn't know my phone number, or my address, and I made it very clear that anyone who divulged that information to him would also be permanently cut out. My mistake was allowing him a way back into my head by still reading his messages and not blocking him entirely. However, last night he completely torched that bridge while still standing on it begging for entrance.
I made it very clear when I cut him out that it wasnt for lack of loving him, it was because I love myself and my child more. I don't believe he ever had the capacity to be a father, or to love me the way one should love their child. The fact of the matter is, he loved his disease and his vices more.
Be good to those who are good to you. Treat the people you love like you love them. It's never too late to get better, but there aren't always gonna be people still there to cheer your successes when the damage is done and the smoke has cleared. Take accountability for your actions, and put the effort into acting on the apologies you make. Words mean nothing when it comes to repairing what you've broken. Be good to YOU. Take care of YOU and yours. And, for fucks sake, if you can't be a parent, just go.
TL/DR: finally choosing myself, cut out drug addicted parent, hurting but standing by my decision.

Basic scenario; I’m in manufacturing, I run a team of 12 industrial mechanics of varying skill levels (1-3). There are two other people that have my same job, covering two other teams of similar size. We also have a MIT program, mechanic in training. Our company has decided to cut the training program for budgetary reasons so the trainees are essentially sent back to their production job and we wipe our hands with them. Well I had two openings on my graveyard shift for months, nobody wanted them and the people that did want them couldn’t pass our assessment. Queue the situation at hand;
Two of the ex-trainees apply for the two openings, they both pass assessments and get scheduled interviews. I’m on vacation for the interviews so my two aforementioned colleagues handle them. One passes the interview, one does not. When I ask about the second, they said that she’s just not ready. I leave it at that for a while. A few weeks pass and that opening on graveyard is causing problems with coverage and response time, I partner with my scheduler who tells me he doesn’t know why she was passed over for the position when she works hard, has a positive attitude, always completes her assigned work. I go speak with said associate and she tells me she doesn’t know, she didn’t get any real feedback other than that she’s young and inexperienced and not ready. (She’s an early 20s female, my colleagues are both older males. For reference)
My scheduler and I speak about the staffing problem for a few hours and I ask him if he would be willing to take her on with her lack of experience. He says yes, she passed all the assessments and she’s worked in our area for months before the training program was cancelled. She’s familiar with the team and all of our equipment. We decide to make the call to hire her and assume any risk.
I run this by HR about how I would do this since she didn’t pass the interview, I’m told to run it by my boss and get his blessing. I do that as well and he says it’s my team and to hire who I want. I give that information to HR and extend the offer. All is well, I’m fully staffed and the associate is happy she gets an opportunity.
Fast forward to this week, my colleagues find out about the hire and ask me who made that call? I say I did and I believe she will succeed with the right support and environment. They both make a few comments but nothing more. I get an email later that day that they reported me to HR for hiring someone who is unqualified, I get reprimanded for “not respecting the opinions of my peers.”. I send a lengthy reply about all the steps I took and why I made the decision and CC’d my colleagues on it. I got a reply all from one of them that said “I hope no one gets hurt.” With the head of HR on the same email. Wtf?
TLDR; hired a woman against the opinions of my colleagues, went through HR to ensure I was allowed and then was reprimanded by HR for doing so.

When I just got them a month ago they immediatly went nuts for the shrimp king food. But now they dont eat from it almost at all. So I figured I am over feeding and my snails went nuts and eggs everywhere. Oke I am definetly over feeding. I dont mean to breed so many snails. So I start feeding every other day. Still not eating all of the food. Some pekking at it but not really eating. So I tried feeding once every three days.
But still they prefer to peck at the rocks and other surfaces. Also after a month no saddled females or berried. Now im quite new at this but my shrimp are blue tigers and are 1 to 2 cm long right now. They should be breeding if I have to believe the internet. So I thought maybe it is their diet.
So today I decided to get them some frozen bloodworms like I see online and some catapa leafs. So I dropped it in their feeding dish about an hour ago. And 3 visited the leaf as far as I saw. But none have touched the bloodworms. I might add that I changed their dish and the location but they swim right over it.
My shrimp are quite active especially when I turn on their light in the morning. Not scared of me at all. In fact they colonize my hand when doing maintenance which is amazing.
Is this normal, am I doing something wrong?