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.]

So I've been trying to fix my credit and my fiances credit so we can get a mortgage loan. It's becoming a bit frustrating because it seems like I'm getting a ton of different answers every time.
I use MyFico and the experian app for our scores I've paid for the reports and paid to update scores as we pay things. I also use credit karma
Right now for all 3 bureaus experian app has me at 621, 622, 613 for her it's 657,633,634
I just had the mortgage lender do a soft pull again to get an update. Apparently I'm at a 551 on my experian score. And she's at a 599 and a 621.
Why are they getting such different scores. Transunion is a little closer for me on their score as is equifax but experian for me and everything for her is way off. Equifax actually isn't even reporting for her they couldn't get her score.
Whats going on here? Will a hard pull for them show more accurate scores? Who's score is right?

All movies listed are from 4K releases, unless otherwise noted. All listed below are full codes.
DMI redeemed for most Disney titles (noted on each title). Willing to do offers on bundles. Duplicates listed on purpose.
I also have some Disney Movie Insiders codes/points for sale (no movies, just rewards points) listed at the bottom.
Check the redemption sheet to see if the movie you want will redeem on the platform you are looking for.
I take PayPal F&F only
​

• Movies:

$4.00 - 3 From Hell - LG
$3.00 - Avengers - Endgame - MA (NO DMI)
$5.00 - The Batman - MA
$5.00 - The Batman - MA
$8.00 - Christmas Vacation (National Lampoon's...) - MA
$5.00 - Coco - MA (NO DMI)
$5.00 - Cruella - MA (NO DMI)
$6.00 - Dr. Strange - In the Multiverse of Madness - MA (NO DMI)
$6.00 - Dr. Strange - In the Multiverse of Madness - MA (NO DMI)
$5.00 - Evil Dead 2 - LG
$8.00 - It's a Wonderful Life - Paramount
$5.00 - Lightyear - MA (NO DMI)
$4.00 - The Mountain Between Us - Fox
$5.00 - No Time to Die (007 James Bond) - iTunes
$6.00 - Pulp Fiction - paramount
$6.00 - Pulp Fiction - paramount
$6.00 - Pulp Fiction - paramount
$5.00 - Ralph Breaks the Internet - MA (NO DMI)
$6.00 - Reservoir Dogs - LG
$6.00 - Reservoir Dogs - LG
$5.00 - Rambo - Last Blood - LG
$7.00 - Rocky - WB
$6.00 - Rocky II - WB
$6.00 - Rocky III - WB
$7.00 - Rocky IV / Rocky VS Drago - ultimate directors cut (both movies) - WB
$5.00 - Saw - LG
$7.00 - Shawshank Redemption - MA
$3.00 - Sicario - LG
$5.00 - Snatched - fox
$5.00 - Shooter - paramount
$5.00 - Star Wars: The Last Jedi - MA (NO DMI)
$5.00 - Star Wars: The Last Jedi - MA (NO DMI)
$3.00 - Super 8 - paramount
$4.00 - Total Recall (1990) - LG
$4.00 - Toy Story 4 - MA (NO DMI)
$5.00 - Unbreakable - MA (NO DMI)
​

• Movie Collections

$22 - Spiderman Trilogy: 1,2,3 (Sam Raimi) - MA
$22 - Rocky I - IV - WB
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• Disney Movie Insiders rewards (points only NO MOVIES)

0.75 (75 cents) - Cars 2 DVD (100 points)
0.75 (75 cents) - Cars 2 DVD (100 points)
FIRM price for DMI code(s) (only 1 movie title can be used per account)

I have a story to share.
This has been on my mind for years and I until now I haven't figured out a way to come out with it in a way that would be inaccessible for any of my family members or friends and completely anonymous. I don't use this platform often, and I may never reply.
Sorry if it's badly written, I tried.
​
All throughout my life I was a ray of sunshine, I was confident, happy, social and optimistic. My parents split when I was 3, they were never married as that isn't a requirement where I live. My dad was an alcoholic but he worked, so he wasn't a complete deadbeat, and my mum had to quit her profession due to an injury she got from a life threatening situation, money was tight basically.
For the first 3 years of my life it was my dad, brother, mum, and I which obviously changed after my parents splitting. After I turned 4 my mother introduced a new man into our lives, stepdad, he was nice, fun, welcoming, loving and all of those things a father should be, we went to the themepark, zoo, local swimmingpool, I even learned how to bike with him around, even to spell some things such as "bird", "mum" and "dog".
However life isn't all butterflies and sunshine as we all know and my biological dad was still fighting for custody over my brother and I, he was granted shared custody with my mum, so there were weekends my brother and I went to see our dad who had also gotten a new girlfriend, she'd usually drop us off by our grandma's house while our dad was at the pub getting drunk or something, there were many times I'd see him sleeping on the couch instead of his bed. Girlfriend was nice to us, she didn't tell us much about the circumstances of our dad and why he was sleeping on the couch again and stuff.
Fast forward a year: my sister's birth, she was the child of my stepdad and mum and of course I love(d) her with all my heart and it's been an honor to see her grow into the wonderful young lady she is now, we moved to a different part of our country, to a house, to start a new life for the now expanded family and all that, we moved a few more times which isn't really relevant to the story so I'll spare you the details.
Fast forward 3 years: I was 8 and I had just learned to read a year prior, I was sitting in the courtroom deciding to never see my dad again, which I've upheld since, and my brother made a similar decision, the court then decided to give full custody to my mother over both of us till we were old enough and could decide for ourselves.
A year later my mum had my fourth sibling, (we also got a dog, chihuahua, he will be relevant, I swear) which means we were 7 people living under the same roof. Not much happened in these years until I hit 10, which is when everything went downhill. My parents got a complaint from my brother's kindergarten, suggesting that he's a troubled kid and needs to be properly raised, of course we didn't have any problems with him at home and he was a shy little boy with big bright blue eyes that would make you melt in seconds, the report was forwarded to the family section of the communal services who took the case very seriously and drove to our house to discuss this matter, one of the women got my mother's name wrong and I corrected her, she admitted to mistakenly mixing the two cases together and apologizing deeply for it, she then asked where our two big dogs were, we all looked at her confused and said we don't have two dogs, we have one and it is a chihuahua, the woman grew impatient and seemed awkward. They eventually left and apologized for the disturbance, thinking it was all over we went back to our normal lives. Boy were we wrong. It started flooding in with accusations of abuse and negligence, they called me dirty and my older brother a troubled kid, my brother was always the shy one of the two of us and was an easy target for bullying, people would call him delusional and stupid which lowered his confidence to rock bottom, I doubt getting saved by his little sister made him feel any better though.
It continued going downhill. When I was 11 my brother and I changed schools and were the new kids, though I never really knew how his school treated him I sure as hell knew how mine treated me. My classmates were mainly stuck-up snobs who always had the newest of the newest, everyone had known each other since preschool and the overall environment was a hell to work/study at. I was bullied, I had never been bullied before so I didn't know how to grasp the situation, my self esteem was trampled and the confidence I had built was long gone, I spent a lot of time at home with my ipad and just watched youtube videos till I had to eat dinner and go to bed again, most of the time I'd stay up late watching videos and wake up tired and ill, unable to move out of bed. My parents weren't understanding at that point, when they did manage to drag me to schoo I'd get sent home for feeling "ill" when in reality I just wanted to leave the psychological torment. I lied to my parents about school and how they were treating me, I just didn't know how to tell them so I went with "school's okay". The bullying was never physical, only emotional and psychological they tormented me for being new and different, it almost got physical once but I got myself together and said he wouldn't hit me, so he didn't.
I lived that lie for 2 years before moving to a different part of the country and moving to a new school, again, this school was different, they included me and tried getting to know me. But by then I had developed a stutter and I had a hard time looking them directly in the eyes, my teacher told me a bunch of other students dealt with anxiety "like me", though I was never diagnosed with anxiety, mainly because I don't have it. They were understanding and we went on trips to mcdonalds and burgerking every once in a while.
Everything went well till I hit my teenage years, of course, and my mental health dipped. I went to bed at 2-3am and woke up at 6, a lot of the time I was tired when I arrived at school and never learned anything because of it, my grades were terrible, I was barely passing, this continued till I was 14, when covid hit, 2020 was a nightmare for me, isolation was even worse than staying home willingly, for my mental health that is, my parents were also unable to work due to quarantine and a lot of us were glued to our computers to do homework and attend zoom meeting. I slept through classes and my grades were still barely passable, maybe even worse. Allegations continued and in 2021 my siblings were taken from us, my parents were devastated and both went into depression, I think, I made dinner every once in a while because they just couldn't. I stayed with my mum on the couch and hugged her when she started crying, my brother for the most part was having a hard time dealing with it as well and so he stayed in his own room, so did my stepdad, he always slept because he knew he couldn't deal with it awake. I was 14 and due to all of this my emotions developed a filter that made it impossible to speak about them to anyone. The same year as when my siblings were taken, I was taken to an orphanage for 8 weeks and my brother moved to live at a college dorm while he studied, this was in May and it took a huge toll on my parents once again, they had to relive what happened to my siblings all over again, but this time they were alone in the house. I turned 15 at the orphanage and had lost a bunch of weight, I felt light in my own body despite all this and I was finally smiling again. The orphanage was good for me, but the circumstances could and should have been way different from what they were.
I don't have a good ending for this unfortunately, I'm currently the only child living in this house and it's lonely. But I am doing my best in school and I hope they're proud of me, they deserve everything and more. As I'm writing this I am 16, turning 17, and I'm doing pretty okay, I'm passing my exams and being as social as possible. I don't know what this post is, I think the correct term is a vent? But it doesn't feel like a vent, it feels more like something I've been aching to say, a scratch that I've been dying to itch but haven't known how to, it wasn't even supposed to be this long. Anyway, thank you for reading, I think?

Hello everyone,
I've got a late 70's LA 318 w/ the A727 trans. I'm considering hopping up the HP some and maybe going the manual route
I see a ton of stuff on the T-56, but they look pretty pricey.
What low buck options might I have Man or Auto (that has more than 3 gears 😂) that will mate up to the LA or have adapters? Think sub $500, junkyard, I'll build it to match engine HP later when I also upgrade the engine HP.
I'm a novice in transmissions compared to engines, but I'm here to learn!
TIA

PSVR2 launch day was only 100 days ago today! There seems to be a fair amount of anxiety on this sub about the future of the platform, but I feel like it’s off to a pretty strong start. Here are some reasons I’m feeling good about PSVR2:

• The hardware is an awesome step up from VR1. The tracking and ease of set up alone make PSVR2 so much more comfortable and inviting to use than VR1. On top of that, there’s the improved resolution and FOV and the fact that the platform is designed to make full use of the PS5’s power.
  
• The library is solid. Gran Turismo 7 and Resident Evil Village are undisputed AAA gems that were available at launch with PSVR2. And for those of us who already had the flat versions, they were free. Opinions on No Man’s Sky and Horizon: Call of the Mountain seem more mixed, but personally I adore NMS and Horizon has its champions as well. Beyond the AAA titles, VR2 launched with a ton of fun games that were previously available on other platforms but arguably shine brightest on PSVR2, like Synth Riders, Pistol Whip, Moss 1&2, Pavlov, The Light Brigade, Ragnarock, Tetris Effect, Thumper, and Rez! On top of that, the following weeks brought Saints & Sinners, Walkabout Golf, Red Matter 2, and Nock, which each had their day in the sun as favorites on this sub.
  
• More games to come! Last week’s showcase brought confirmation that we are getting the full campaign for early GOTY contender Resident Evil 4 Remake. We also got another peek at Synapse, which looks promising. And this week we learned that we’ll be getting the VR version of Bulletstorm, which is gonna be really cool! We all want to see more heavy-hitters announced like Astro-Bot (which I think we’ll get) or Half-Life Alyx (less likely), and I certainly hope we get some more, but in my experience the world of VR is filled with cool surprises. You never know which game is going to become your new favorite, and there are a lot of titles announced for PSVR2.
  
• It’s selling. Sony recently confirmed that PSVR2 has exceeded PSVR’s sales in the months after each headset’s launch. This is especially impressive given that the PS4 had a bigger install base at the time of the PSVR launch and also considering that PSVR came out much closer to the holidays. And to top it off, VR2 exceeded VR1’s numbers without a retail launch in the biggest market (the US). Judging by the activity on this sub, sales got another boost once VR2 got a retail release in the US on May 12. Before that, all sales in the US were through PS Direct!
  
• The high-end VR market is expanding. With Quest 3 announced and Apple VR coming, it’s an exciting time for VR. Hopefully the new headsets will bring more sophisticated games that will make good use of PSVR2’s capabilities when they’re brought to the platform.
  

Anyway, those are my thoughts on how things stand 100 days after launch. I have every expectation that VR2 will continue to grow and bring us cool new experiences. I’ll be really interested to see what happens during the holidays if Sony announces one or two must-haves, we get a Black Friday deal, and there’s a burst of new interest in VR with Apple’s headset arriving.
How’s everyone else feeling?

Galatians  

The Gospel of Paul  

Paul can be forgiven for equating the destruction of Israel with the end of the world. Everyone who loves Israel wants to save her, the controversy between the Judaizers and Paul was over how to do it.  
From The Interpreters’ Bible:  
"Introduction  
-1. Occasion and Purpose  
Conservative preachers were persuading the Galatians that faith was not enough to make sure of God’s kingdom. Besides believing that Jesus was the Messiah, one must join the Jewish nation, observe the laws and customs of Moses, and refuse to eat with the Gentiles (2:11-14, 4:10). One must have Christ and Moses, faith and law. Paul insisted that it must be either Moses or Christ. (5:2-6). [Mind you, the congregations were literally segregated at meals according to whether the male members’ foreskins were circumcised; compare with the trouble regarding the allocations between the two groups of widows reported in Acts.]  
Not content with raising doubts concerning the sufficiency of Christ, the Judaizers attacked Paul’s credentials. They said that he had not been one of the original apostles, and that he was distorting the gospel which Peter and John and James the Lord’s brother were preaching. They declared that his proposal to abandon the law of Moses was contrary to the teaching of Jesus, and they insinuated that he had taken this radical step to please men with the specious promise of cheap admission to God’s kingdom (1:10). If he were allowed to have his way, men would believe and be baptized but keep on sinning, deluding themselves that the Christian sacraments would save them. Claiming to rise above Moses and the prophets, they would debase faith into magic, liberty into license, making Christ the abettor of sin (2:17). The Judaizers were alarmed lest Paul bring down God’s wrath and delay the kingdom. They had not shared the emotion of a catastrophic conversion like Paul’s, and they found it hard to understand when he talked about a new power which overcame sin and brought righteousness better than the best that the law could produce.  
Another party attacked Paul from the opposite side. Influenced by the pagan notion that religion transcends ethics and is separable from morality, they wanted to abandon the Old Testament and its prophetic insights. They could not see how Paul’s demand to crucify one’s old sinful nature and produce the fruit of the Spirit could be anything but a new form of slavery to law (2:19-20, 5:14, 2-24). They accused him of rebuilding the old legalism, and some said that he was still preaching circumcision (2:18; 5:11). Whereas the Judaizers rejected Paul’s gospel because they believed it contrary to the teaching of the original apostles, these antilegalists felt that he was so subservient to the apostles as to endanger the freedom of the Christian Movement.  
Actually Paul had risen above both legalism and sacramentarianism ... his faith was qualitatively different from mere assent to a creed (5:6). He was living on the plateau of the Spirit, where life was so free that men needed no law to say ‘Thou shalt’ and ‘Thou shalt not’ (5:22-24). But this rarefied atmosphere was hard to breathe, and neither side could understand him. The conservatives were watching for moral lapses… and the radicals blamed him for slowing the progress of Christianity by refusing to cut it loose from Judaism and its nationalistic religious imperialism.” (Stamm, TIB 1953, vol. X pp. 430)  
Paul’s defense of his gospel and apostleship was the more difficult because he had to maintain his right to go directly to Christ without the mediation of Peter and the rest, but had to do it in such a way as not to split the church and break the continuity of his gospel with the Old Testament and the apostolic traditions about Jesus and his teaching. …  
To this end Paul gave an account of his relations with the Jerusalem church during the seventeen years that followed his conversion (1:11-2:14). Instead of going to Jerusalem he went to Arabia, presumably to preach (1:17). After a time he returned to Damascus, and only three years later did he go to see Peter. Even then he stayed only fifteen days and saw no other apostle except James the Lord’s brother (1:18-20). Then he left for Syria and Cilicia, and not until another fourteen years had passed did he visit Jerusalem again. This time it was in response to a revelation from his Lord, and not to a summons by the authorities in the Hoy City.  
Paul emphasizes that neither visit implied an admission that his gospel needed the apostolic stamp to make it valid. His purpose was to get the apostles to treat the uncircumcised Gentile Christians as their equals in the church (2:2). Making a test case of Titus, he won his point (2:3-5). The apostles agreed that a Gentile could join the church by faith without first becoming a member of the synagogue by circumcision. … They … recognize[d] that his mission to the Gentiles was on the same footing as theirs to the Jews – only he was to remember the poor (2:7-10). So far was Paul from being subordinated that when Peter came to Antioch and wavered on eating with the Gentile Christians, Paul did not hesitate to rebuke him in public (2:11-14). (Stamm, 1953, TIB vol. X pp. 430-431)  
Paul’s defense of his apostolic commission involved the question: What is the seat of authority in religion? A Jewish rabbi debating the application of the kosher laws would quote the authority of Moses and the fathers in support of his view. Jewish tradition declared that God delivered the law to Moses, and Moses to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the men of the Great Synagogue, and that they had handed it down through an unbroken rabbinical succession to the present. If Paul had been a Christian rabbi, he could have treated the Sermon on the Mount as a new law from a new Sinai, which God had delivered to Jesus, and Jesus to Peter, and Peter to Paul, and Paul to Timothy and Titus, and so on through an unbroken apostolic succession until the second coming of Christ. Instead of taking his problems directly to this Lord in prayer, he would ask, ‘What does Peter say that Jesus did and said about it?’ And if Peter or the other apostles happened not to have a pronouncement from Jesus on a given subject, they would need to apply some other saying to his by reasoning from analogy. This would turn the gospel into a system of legalism, with casuistry for its guide, making Jesus a second Moses – a prophet who lived and died in a dim and distant past and left only a written code to guide the future. Jesus would not have been the living Lord, personally present in his church in every age as the daily companion of his members. That is why Paul insisted that Christ must not be confused or combined with Moses, but must be all in all.  
The Judaizers assumed that God had revealed to Moses all of his will, and nothing but this will, for all time, changeless and unchangeable; and that death was the penalty for tampering with it. The rest of the scriptures and the oral tradition which developed and applied them were believed to be implicit in the Pentateuch as an oak in an acorn. The first duty of the teacher was to transmit the Torah exactly as he had received it from the men of old. Only then might he give his own opinion, which must never contradict but always be validated by the authority of the past. When authorities differed, the teacher must labor to reconcile them. Elaborate rules of interpretation were devised to help decide cases not covered by specific provision in the scripture. These rules made it possible to apply a changeless revelation to changing conditions, but they also presented a dilemma. The interpreter might modernize by reading into his Bible ideas that were not in the minds of its writers, or he might quench his own creative insights by fearing to go beyond what was written. Those who modernized the Old Testament were beset with the perils of incipient Gnosticism, while those who, like the Sadducees, accepted nothing but the written Torah could misuse it to obstruct social and religious progress. (Stamm, 1953, TIB X pp. 431-432)  
To submit to circumcision would have betrayed the truth of the gospel because it contradicted the principle that all is of grace and grace is for all (2:5). Perpetuated in the church of Christ, the kosher code and other Jewish customs would have destroyed the fellowship. Few things could have hurt the feelings and heaped more indignity upon the Gentiles than the spiritual snobbery of refusing to eat with them.  
The tragedy of division was proportional to the sincerity of men’s scruples. The Jews were brought up to believe that eating with Gentiles was a flagrant violation of God’s revealed will which would bring down his terrible wrath. How strongly both sides felt appears in Paul’s account of the stormy conference at Jerusalem and the angry dispute that followed it at Antioch (2:1-14). Paul claimed that refusal to eat with a Gentile brother would deny that the grace of Christ was sufficient to make him worthy of the kingdom. If all men were sons of God through Christ, there could be no classes of Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female (3:26-28). What mattered was neither circumcision not uncircumcision, but only faith and a new act of creation by the Spirit (5:6; 6”15). (Stamm, 1953, TIB X p. 433)  
Church unity was essential to the success of Christian missions. Friction between Aramaic and Greek-speaking Jewish Christians in Palestine had to be eliminated (Acts 6:1). The death of Stephen and a special vision to Peter were required to convince the conservatives of the propriety of admitting the Gentiles on an equality with the Jews; and even Peter was amazed that God had given them the same gift of the Spirit (Act 11: 1-18). This hesitation was potentially fatal to the spread of Christianity beyond Palestine. Many Gentiles had been attracted by the pure monotheism and high morality of Judaism but were not willing to break with their native culture by submitting to the painful initiatory rite and social stigma of being a Jew…. Had the church kept circumcision as a requirement for membership, it could not have freed itself from Jewish nationalism.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB X p. 433)  
III. Some Characteristics of Paul’s Thinking  
… “the law” of which Paul is speaking does not coincide with “law” in a twentieth-century state with representative government. His Greek word was νομος [nomos], an inadequate translation of the Hebrew “Torah,” which included much more than “law” as we use the term. [When “תורה ThORaH” appears in the text I translate it as “Instruction” – its literal definition - capitalized.] Torah was teaching on any subject concerning the will of God as revealed in the Scriptures. Since the Jews did not divide life into two compartments labeled “religious” and “secular,” their law covered both their spiritual and their civil life. Nor did Paul and his fellow Jews think in terms of “nature” and the “natural law.” They believed that everything that happened was God’s doing, directly or by his permission. The messiah was expected to restore the ancient theocracy with its power over both civil and religious affairs.  
The Gentiles too were accustomed to state regulation of religion and priestly control of civil affairs. The Greek city-states had always managed the relations of their citizens with the gods, and Alexander the Great prepared the way for religious imperialism. When he invaded Asia, he consolidated his power by the ancient Oriental idea that the ruler was a god or a son of God. His successors, in their endless wars over the fragments of his empire, adopted the same device. Posing as “savior-gods,” they liberated their victims by enslaving them. The Romans did likewise, believing that the safety of their empire depended upon correct legal relations with the gods who had founded it. … Each city had its temple dedicated to the emperor, and its patriotic priests to see that everyone burned incense before his statue. Having done this, the worshiper was free under Roman ‘tolerance’ to adopt any other legal religion. … Whether salvation was offered in the name of the ancient gods of the Orient, or of Greece, or of the emperor of Rome, or of Yahweh the theocratic king of the Jews, the favor of the deity was thought to depend upon obedience to his law.  
One did not therefore have to be a Jew to be a legalist in religion. … Since Paul’s first converts were drawn from Gentiles who had been attending the synagogues, it is easy to see how Gentile Christians could be a zealous to add Moses to Christ as the most conservative Jew.  
This is what gave the Judaizers their hold in Galatia. The rivalry between the synagogue, which was engaged in winning men to worship the God of Moses, and the church, which was preaching the God who had revealed himself in Christ Jesus, was bound to raise the issue of legalism and stir up doubts about the sufficiency of Christ.  
Gentile and Jewish Christians alike would regard Paul’s preaching of salvation apart from the merit acquired by obedience to law as a violently revolutionary doctrine. Fidelity to his declaration of religious independence from all mediating rulers and priesthoods required a spiritual maturity of which most who heard his preaching were not yet capable. … Paul’s gospel has always been in danger of being stifled by those who would treat the teachings of Jesus as laws to be enforced by a hierarchy. (Stamm, TIB 1953, X pp. 434-435)  
V. Environment of Paul’s Churches in Galatia  
The conclusion concerning the destination of the epistle does not involve the essentials of its religious message, but it does affect our understanding of certain passages, such as 3:1 and 41:12, 20.  
From the earliest times that part of the world had been swept by the cross tides of migration and struggle for empire. The third millennium found the Hittites in possession. In the second millennium the Greeks and Phrygians came spilling over from Europe, and in the first millennium the remaining power of the Hittites was swept away by Babylon and Persia. Then came the turn of the Asiatic tide into Europe, only to be swept back again by Alexander the Great. But the Greek cities with which he and his successors dotted the map of Asia were like anthills destined to be leveled by Oriental reaction.  
About 278 B.C. new turmoil came with the Gauls, who were shunted from Greece and crossed into Asia to overrun Phrygia. Gradually the Greek kings succeeded in pushing them up into the central highlands, where they established themselves in the region of Ancyra. Thus located, they constituted a perpetually disturbing element, raiding the Greek cities and furnishing soldiers now to one, and now to another of the rival kings. Then in 121 B.C. came the Romans to 'set free' Galatia by making it a part of their own Empire. By 40 B.C. there were three kingdoms, with capitals at Ancyra, Pisidian Antioch, and Iconium. Four years later Lycaonia and Galatia were given to Amyntas the king of Pisidia. He added Pamphylia and part of Cilicia to his kingdom. But he was killed in 25 B.C., and the Romans made his dominion into the province of Galatia, which was thus much larger than the territory inhabited by the Gauls. (Stamm, 1953, TIB X pp. 437-438)  
War and slavery, poverty, disease, and famine made life hard and uncertain. In religion and philosophy men were confused by this meeting of East and West. But man’s extremity was Paul’s opportunity. The soil of the centuries had been plowed and harrowed for his new, revolutionary gospel of grace and freedom.  
Not all, however, were ready for this freedom. The old religions with prestige and authority seemed safer. Most Jews preferred Moses, and among the Gentiles the hold of the Great Mother Cybele of Phrygia was not easily shaken. Paul’s converts, bringing their former ideas and customs with them, were all too ready to reshape his gospel into a combination of Christ with their ancient laws and rituals. The old religions were especially tenacious in the small villages, whose inhabitants spoke the native languages and were inaccessible to the Greek-speaking Paul. To this gravitational attraction of the indigenous cults was added the more sophisticated syncretism of the city dwellers, pulling Paul’s churches away from his gospel when the moral demands of his faith and the responsibilities of his freedom became irksome. This was the root of the trouble in Galatia. (Stamm, 1953, TIB X p. 438)  
VI. Date and Place of Writing  
Some consider it the earliest of Paul’s extant letters and place it in 49 … In support of this date it is said that Paul, who had come from Perga by boat, was met by messengers from Galatia, who had taken the shorter route by land. They reported the disturbance which had arisen in his churches soon after his departure. He could not go back immediately to straighten things out in person, because he saw that he would have to settle the matter first in Jerusalem, whence the troublemakers had come. So he wrote a letter.  
But … [w]e do not know that the trouble in Galatia was stirred up by emissaries from the church in Jerusalem … Moreover, this solution overlooks the crux of the issue between Paul and the legalists. His contention was that neither circumcision nor the observance of any other law was the basis of salvation, but only faith in God’s grace through Christ. … On the matter of kosher customs, as on every other question, he directed men to the mind and Spirit of Christ, and not to law, either Mosaic or apostolic. That mind was a Spirit of edification which abstained voluntarily from all that defiled or offended.  
We may say that the situation [in Galatia] was different – that in Macedonia it was persecution from outside by Jews who were trying to prevent Paul’s preaching, whereas in Galatia it was trouble inside the church created by legalistic Christians who were proposing to change his teaching; that in one case the issue was justification by faith, and in the other faithfulness while waiting for the day of the Lord.  
The letter to the Romans, written during the three months in Greece mentioned in Acts 20:2-3, is our earliest commentary on Galatians. In it the relation between the law and the gospel is set forth in the perspective of Paul’s further experience. The brevity and storminess of Galatians gives way to a more complete and calmly reasoned presentation of his gospel. (Stamm, 1953, TIB X pp. 438 - 439)  
At Corinth, as in Galatia, Paul had to defend his right to be an apostle against opponents heartless enough to turn against him the cruel belief that physical illness was a sign of God’s disfavor … and they charged him with being a crafty man-pleaser … He exhorts his converts to put away childish things and grow up in faith, hope and love…  
Most childish of all were the factions incipient in Galatia, and actual in Corinth … He abandoned the kosher customs and all other artificial distinctions between Jews and Gentiles and laid the emphasis where it belonged – upon the necessity for God’s people to establish and maintain a higher morality and spiritual life… He substituted a catholic spirit for partisan loyalties ... (Stamm, 1953, TIB X pp. 440-441)  
VII. Authorship and Attestation  
If Paul wrote anything that goes under his name, it was Galatians, Romans, and the letters to Corinth. … F.C. Baur and his followers tried to show that the letters ascribed to Paul were the product of a second-century conflict between a Judaist party and the liberals in the church, and that they were written by Paulinists who used his name and authority to promote their own ideas.  
[But] the earliest mention of the epistle by name occurs in the canon of the Gnostic heretic Marcion (ca. [approximately] 144). He put it first in his list of ten letters of Paul. A generation later the orthodox Muratorian canon (ca. 185) listed it as the sixth of Paul’s letters. … While the first explicit reference to Galatians as a letter of Paul is as late as the middle of the second century … the authors of Ephesians and the Gospel of John knew it; and Polycarp in his letter to the Philippians quoted it. Revelation, I Peter, Hebrew, I Clement, and Ignatius show acquaintance with it; and there is evidence that the writer of the Epistle of James knew Galatians, as did the authors of II Peter and the Pastoral epistle, and Justin Martyr and Athenagoras. (Stamm, 1953, TIB X pp. 441-442)  
VIII. Text and Transmission  
Although the epistle was composed neither carelessly nor hastily, the anxiety and emotional stress under which Paul dictated his cascading thoughts have produced some involved and obscure sentences … and a number of abrupt transitions… These have been a standing invitation to scribal clarification. … Paul’s debate with his critics takes the form of a diatribe, which is characterized by quotations from past or anticipated objectors and rapid-fire answers to them. Paul did not use quotation marks, and this accounts for the difficulty in 2:14-15 of deciding where his speech to Peter ends. The numerous allusions to person and places, events and teachings, with which Paul assumed his readers to be acquainted, are another source of difficulty. All theses factors operated to produce the numerous variations in the text of Galatians." (Stamm, 1953, TIB p. 442)  
From Adam Clarke’s Commentaryⁱ :  
"The authenticity of this epistle is ably vindicated by Dr. Paley: the principal part of his arguments I shall here introduce …  
'Section I.  
As Judea was the scene of the Christian history; as the author and preachers of Christianity were Jews; as the religion itself acknowledged and was founded upon the Jewish religion, in contra distinction to every other religion, then professed among mankind: it was not to be wondered at, that some its teachers should carry it out in the world rather as a sect and modification of Judaism, than as a separate original revelation; or that they should invite their proselytes to those observances in which they lived themselves. ... I … think that those pretensions of Judaism were much more likely to be insisted upon, whilst the Jews continued a nation, than after their fall and dispersion; while Jerusalem and the temple stood, than after the destruction brought upon them by the Roman arms, the fatal cessation of the sacrifice and the priesthood, the humiliating loss of their country, and, with it, of the great rites and symbols of their institution. It should seem, therefore, from the nature of the subject and the situation of the parties, that this controversy was carried on in the interval between the preaching of Christianity to the Gentiles, and the invasion of Titus: and that our present epistle ... must be referred to the same period.  
… the epistle supposes that certain designing adherents of the Jewish law had crept into the churches of Galatia; and had been endeavouring, and but too successfully, to persuade the Galatic converts, that they had been taught the new religion imperfectly, and at second hand; that the founder of their church himself possessed only an inferior and disputed commission, the seat of truth and authority being in the apostles and elders of Jerusalem; moreover, that whatever he might profess among them, he had himself, at other times and in other places, given way to the doctrine of circumcision. The epistle is unintelligible without supposing all this. (Clarke, 1831, vol. II p. 361)  
Section VII.  
This epistle goes farther than any of St. Paul’s epistles; for it avows in direct terms the supersession of the Jewish law, as an instrument of salvation, even to the Jews themselves. Not only were the Gentiles exempt from its authority, but even the Jews were no longer either to place any dependency upon it, or consider themselves as subject to it on a religious account. "Before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto faith which should afterward be revealed: wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith; but, after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." (Chap. [chapter] iii. 23-25) This was undoubtedly spoken of Jews, and to Jews. … What then should be the conduct of a Jew (for such St. Paul was) who preached this doctrine? To be consistent with himself, either he would no longer comply, in his own person, with the directions of the law; or, if he did comply, it would be some other reason than any confidence which he placed in its efficacy, as a religious institution. (Clarke, 1831, vol. II pp. 366-367)  
Preface  
The religion of the ancient Galatae was extremely corrupt and superstitious: and they are said to have worshipped the mother of the gods, under the name of Agdistis; and to have offered human sacrifices of the prisoners they took in war.  
They are mentioned by historians as a tall and valiant people, who went nearly naked; and used for arms only a sword and buckler. The impetuosity of their attack is stated to have been irresistible…’” (Clarke, 1831, vol. II p. 369)  
From The New Jerome Biblical Commentaryⁱⁱ  
"Introduction  
The Galatai, originally an Indo-Aryan tribe of Asia, were related to the Celts or Gauls (“who in their own language are called Keltae, but in ours Galli”) ... About 279 BC some of them invaded the lower Danube area and Macedonia, descending even into the Gk [Greek] peninsula. After they were stopped by the Aetolians in 278, a remnant fled across the Hellespont into Asia Minor …  
Occasion and Purpose  
… He … stoutly maintained that the gospel he had preached, without the observance of the Mosaic practices, was the only correct view of Christianity … Gal [Galatians] thus became the first expose` of Paul’s teaching about justification by grace through faith apart from deeds prescribed by the law; it is Paul’s manifesto about Christian freedom.  
... Who were the agitators in Galatia? … they are best identified as Jewish Christians of Palestine, of an even stricter Jewish background than Peter, Paul, or James, or even of the ‘false brethren' (2:4) of Jerusalem, whom Paul had encountered there. (The account in Acts 15:5 would identify the latter as ‘believers who had belonged to the sect of the Pharisees.’) … The agitators in Galatia were Judaizers, who insisted not on the observance of the whole Mosaic law, but at least on circumcision and the observance of some other Jewish practices. Paul for this reason warned the Gentile Christians of Galatia that their fascination with ‘circumcision’ would oblige them to keep ‘the whole law’ (5:3). The agitators may have been syncretists of some sort: Christians of Jewish perhaps Essene, background, affected by some Anatolian influences. … (Joseph A. Fitzmyer, 1990, TNJBC pp. 780-781)   END NOTES
ⁱ The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The text carefully printed from the most correct copies of the present Authorized Version. Including the marginal readings and parallel texts. With a Commentary and Critical Notes. Designed as a help to a better understanding of the sacred writings. By Adam Clarke, LL.D. F.S.A. M.R.I.A. With a complete alphabetical index. Royal Octavo Stereotype Edition. Vol. II. [Vol. VI together with the O.T.] New York, Published by J. Emory and B. Waugh, for the Methodist Episcopal Church, at the conference office, 13 Crosby-Street. J. Collord, Printer. 1831.  
ⁱⁱ The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Edited by Raymond E. Brown, S.S., Union Theological Seminary, New York; NY, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J. (emeritus) Catholic University of America, Washington, DC; Roland E. Murphy, O.Carm. (emeritus) The Divinity School, Duke University, Durham, NC, with a foreword by His Eminence Carlo Maria Cardinal Martini, S.J.; Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1990  
  Chapter One  
…  

Tiding of [בשורת, BeSOoRahTh, Gospel] one
[verses 6-10]  

…  

…………………………………………  
How [כיצד, KaYTsahD] was [היה, HahYaH] Shah`OoL [“Lender”, Saul, Paul] to become a Sent Forth [Apostle]
[verses 11 to end of chapter]  

…  
Chapter Two  

Sending forth of Shah’OoL required upon hands of the Sent Forth
[verses 1-10]  

…  

…………………………………………  
The YeHOo-DeeYM [“YHVH-ites”, Judeans] and the nations, righteous from inside belief
[verses 11 to end of chapter]  

...
-16. And since [וכיון, VeKhayVahN] that know, we, that [כי, KeeY] the ’ahDahM [“man”, Adam] is not made righteous in realizing commandments [of] the Instruction [Torah, law],
rather in belief of the Anointed [המשיח, HahMahSheeY-ahH, the Messiah, the Christ] YayShOo`ah [“Savior”, Jesus],
believe, also we, in Anointed YayShOo`ah,
to sake we are made righteous from inside belief in Anointed,
and not in realizing commandments [of] the Instruction,
that yes, in realizing commandments [of] the Instruction is not made righteous any [כל, KahL] flesh.  

“As a Pharisee, Paul had been taught that works of law were deeds done in obedience to the Torah, contrasted with things done according to one’s own will. The object of this obedience was to render oneself acceptable to God – to ‘justify’ oneself. Having found this impossible, Paul reinforced the evidence from his own experience by Ps. [Psalm] 143:2, where the sinner prays God not to enter into judgment with him because in God’s sight no man living is righteous. Into this passage from the LXX [The Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible] Paul inserted ‘by works of law,’ and wrote σαρξ [sarx], ‘flesh,’ instead of ζων [zon], ‘one living.’ This quotation warns us against setting Paul’s salvation by grace over against Judaism in such a way as to obscure the fact that the Jews depended also upon God’s lovingkindness and tender mercies (I Kings 8:46; Job 10:14-15; 14:3-4; Prov. [Proverbs] 20:9; Eccl. [Ecclesiasticus] 7:20; Mal. [Malachi] 3:2; Dan. [Daniel] 9:18).” (Stamm, 1953, TIB X p. 483)  
“Justified is a metaphor from the law court. The Greek verb is δικαιοω [dikaioo], the noun δικαιοσουνη [dikaiosoune’], the adjective δικαιος [dikaios]. The common root is δικ [dik] as in δεικνυμι [deiknumi], ‘point out,’ ‘show.’ The words formed on this root point to a norm or standard to which persons and things must conform in order to be ‘right.’ The English ‘right’ expresses the same idea, being derived from the Anglo-Saxon ‘richt,’ which means ‘straight,’ not crooked, ‘upright,’ not oblique. The verb δικαιοω means ‘I think it right.’ A man is δικαιος, ‘right’ when he conforms to the standard of acceptable character and conduct, and δικαιοσυνη, ‘righteousness,’ ‘justice,’ is the state or quality of this conformity. In the LXX these Greek words translate a group of Hebrew words formed on the root צדק [TsehDehQ], and in Latin the corresponding terms are justifico, justus, and justificatio. In all four languages the common idea is the norm by which persons and things are to be tested. Thus in Hebrew a wall is ‘righteous’ when it conforms to the plumb line, a man when he does God’s will.  
From earliest boyhood Paul had tried to be righteous. But there came a terrible day when he said ‘I will covet’ to the law’s ‘Thou shalt not,’ and in that defiance he had fallen out of right relation to God and into the ‘wrath,’ where he ‘died’ spiritually… Thenceforth all his efforts, however strenuous, to get ‘right’ with God were thwarted by the weakness of his sinful human nature, the ‘flesh’ (σαρξ) [sarx]. That experience of futility led him to say that a man is not justified by works ‘of law.’” (Stamm, 1953, TIB X p. 483)  

[Actually Paul changed his point of view as a result of his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, not as a result of intellectual contemplation. His many failures hitherto had not led him to this conclusion. The description of Paul in the preceding paragraph is a fiction.]  

“In the eyes of the psalmists and rabbis this was blasphemously revolutionary. Resting on God’s covenant with Abraham, they held it axiomatic that the ‘righteous’ man who had conscientiously done his part deserved to be vindicated before a wicked world; otherwise God could not be righteous. … In Judaism God was thought of as forgiving only repentant sinners who followed their repentance with right living …  
The theological expression for this conception of salvation is ‘justification by faith.’ Unfortunately this Latin word does not make plain Paul’s underlying religious experience, which was a change of status through faith from a wrong to a ‘right’ relationship with God… It conceals from the English reader the fact that the Greek word also means ‘righteousness.’ … (observe the ASV [American Standard Version] mg. [marginal note], ‘accounted righteous’).  
But ‘reckoned’ and ‘accounted’ expose Paul’s thought to misinterpretation by suggesting a legal fiction which God adopted to escape the contradiction between his acceptance of sinners and his own righteousness and justice.  
On the other hand, Paul’s term, in the passive, cannot be translated by ‘made righteous’ without misrepresenting him. In baptism he had ‘died with Christ’ to sin. By this definition the Christian is a person who does not sin! And yet Paul does not say that he is sinless, but that he must not sin. … This laid him open to a charge of self contradiction; sinless and yet not sinless, righteous and unrighteous, just and unjust at the same time. Some interpreters have labeled it ‘paradox,’ but such a superficial dismissal of the problem is religiously barren and worse than useless.  
The extreme difficulty of understanding Paul on this matter has led to a distinction between ‘justification’ and ‘sanctification,’ which obscures Paul’s urgency to be now, at this very moment, what God in accepting him says he is: a righteous man in Christ Jesus. Justification is reduced to a forensic declaration by which God acquits and accepts the guilty criminal, and sanctification is viewed as a leisurely process of becoming the kind of person posited by that declaration. This makes perfection seem far less urgent than Paul conceived it, and permits the spiritual inertia of human nature to continue its habit of separating religion from ethics. To prevent this misunderstanding it is necessary to keep in mind the root meaning of ‘righteousness’ in δικαιοω and its cognates.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB X pp. 484-485)  

-19. I died according to [לגבי, LeGahBaY] the Instruction, because of [בגלל, BeeGLahL] the Instruction, in order [כדי, KeDaY] that I will live to God.  

“… The Pharisees taught that the Torah was the life element of the Jews; all who obeyed would live, those who did not would die (Deut. [Deuteronomy] 30:11-20).” (Stamm, 1953, TIB X pp. 488-489)  

-20. With the Anointed I was crucified, and no more I live, rather the Anointed lives in me.
The life that I live now in flesh, I live them in the belief of Son [of] the Gods that loved me and delivered up [ומסר, OoMahÇahR] himself in my behalf [בעדי, Bah`ahDeeY].  

“The danger was that Paul’s Gentile converts might claim freedom in Christ but reject the cross-bearing that made it possible. Lacking the momentum of moral discipline under Moses, which prepared Paul to make right use of his freedom, they might imagine that his dying and rising with Christ was a magical way of immortalizing themselves by sacramental absorption of Christ’s divine substance in baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The church has always been tempted to take Paul’s crucifixion with Christ in a symbolic sense only, or as an experience at baptism which is sacramentally automatic. It has also been tempted to reduce Paul’s ‘faith’ to bare belief and assent to his doctrine, and to equate his ‘righteousness’ with a fictitious imputation by a Judge made lenient by Christ’s death.  
Against these caricatures of ‘justification by faith,’ Paul’s whole life and all his letters are a standing protest. He never allows us to forget that to be crucified with Christ is to share the motives, the purposes, and the way of life that led Jesus to the Cross; to take up vicariously the burden of the sins of others, forgiving and loving instead of condemning them; to make oneself the slave of every man; to create unity and harmony by reconciling man to God and man to his fellow men; to pray without ceasing ‘Thy will be done’; to consign one’s life to God, walking by faith where one cannot see; and finally to leave this earth with the prayer ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.’  
… When Christ the Spirit came to live in Paul … Paul was guided at each step, in each new circumstance, to answer for himself the question: What would Jesus have me do? And the answer was always this: Rely solely on God’s grace through Christ, count others better than yourself, and make yourself everybody’s slave after the manner of the Son of God who loved you and gave himself for you.  
… The phrase εν σαρκι [en sarki] … means, lit. [literally], in the flesh. Someday – Paul hoped it would be soon – this would be changed into a body like that of the risen Christ, which belonged to the realm of Spirit.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB X pp. 490-493)  
“Christ lives in me: The perfection of Christian life is expressed here … it reshapes human beings anew, supplying them with a new principle of activity on the ontological¹ level of their very beings.” (Joseph A. Fitzmyer, 1990, TNJBC p. 785)  

-21. I do not nullify [מבטל, MeBahTayL] [את, ’ehTh (indicator of direct object; no English equivalent)] mercy [of] Gods;
is not if [it] is possible to become righteous upon hand of the Instruction, lo, that the Anointed died to nothing [לשוא, LahShahVe’]?  

“It is not I, he says, who am nullifying the grace of God by abandoning the law which is his grace-gift to Israel, but those who insist on retaining that law in addition to the grace which he has now manifested in Christ.” (Stamm, 1953, TIB X p. 495)

  Footnotes   ¹ Ontological - relating to the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being   An Amateur's Journey Through the Bible An Amateur's Journey Through the Bible

Season 4 really did feel like it should have been 10 episodes, that got edited down to 8 at the end of writing them. I don’t feel this way about seasons 1-3 at all, I think they fit perfectly with 8 per season. But season 4 rushes a few moments, that would have worked better with some more time to breathe. Still loved what we got with 4 though. Just a few little moments that were brushed over a little quickly.

First new episode is one between Barry and Sally running of together, and the controversial time jump episode (That I personally really like).

A potential additional episode I think would help ease the time jump into feeling more natural would be an episode where the common theme is characters running away from their problems, after Barry and Sally run away. An episode showing them sneaking out of L.A. And we keep getting mini time jumps, where they establish their on the lamb life, and at first they like it, and Sally feels safe, but as reality sets in, Sally realizes she’s committed to living on the lamb in a terrible home, where she develops her poor coping mechanisms of drinking her pain away, and not being able to have connections with others. Have her get pregnant during one of these smaller time jumps, further locking her to this life with Barry. However Barry loves his new life.
Meanwhile, Gene runs to Israel, and starts finding peace, but regrets immensely what he did to his son, but can’t find the courage to reach out.
Hank in this time grows his empire, while trying to hide his pain and guilt of what he did to Cristobal by theming the empire around his memory, and trying to deny to himself that he didn’t have have Cristobal killed. But his mask is flimsy and all his guys see the cracks in him. Hank has also been shown time and time again to be a bad leader, and cowardly, so maybe his company isn’t as great as it looks from the outside.
Fuches starts building his prison army/gang with their growing respect for him.
And finally Jim Moss goes crazy in these time jumps, unable to find Barry, Sally, and Gene, leading him to get sloppier at his job as it becomes a full on obsession, where he starts thinking Gene had more to do with it than he previously thought.

Second new episode is a trippy one after Moss kidnaps Barry.

To also extend the last couple episodes, I’d have maybe a majority of an episode dedicated to Moss’s torturing of Barry, but way more in depth. This would be the weird experimental “Ronny/Lilly” or “710N” of the hypothetical extended season. We could delve more into Barry’s past with his family, and start of his work with Fuches in this. And fully see how much pain Jim Moss has been in the last decade. Show that this is different from Moss’ other torturings. This one is personal, and from a place of deep deep pain. Make Barry genuinely remorseful of his life, until it ends with Hank having caught Sally and John and telling Barry on the phone. Then the next episode is still almost entirely the same, but it serves as a how Hank got a hold of Sally and John type thing. Basically what was happening during the torture episode in the other characters lives.
Also the singular thing that I did not like about the final season was how easily and lazily Barry got out of Moss’. I mean, his legs weren’t even tied up. If you’re not gonna bolt the torture chair to the ground, you can’t just leave a knife out for him to freely cut his hand straps. Just make it a bit harder for Barry to actually get out somehow. Or actual show that Jim had gotten sloppy at this as he became unhealthily obsessed with the idea of Gene being the true mastermind.
Most of this was originally a comment on another person’s post, but I thought it got too in depth for that, so I made it into its own post. Maybe this is just the super Barry fan in me, but I also do scriptwriting for myself, so these are just potential dumb little ideas of mine, if what I’d like to see in a potential 10 episode final season. Would love to hear thoughts.

Hi all, I'm a fairly new data scientist working on a regression project with Random Forest and can't seem to get models that perform well. I know the data may just not be able to yield strong models, but based on preliminary projects, I'd really expect a better outcome. Considering that I'm pretty new to my DS position, I'm thinking that the poor outcome may be from mistakes or lack of knowledge on my end.
For preprocessing, so far I've:

• Dropped completely unnecessary features
• Done a stratified shuffle split on an important (based on domain knowledge) feature that my EDA revealed was pretty unbalanced
• Removed extreme outliers that were a result of improper data entry
• Dropped features with a significant amount of missing data
• Used mode imputation on features with a small amount of missing data
• Looked at Pearson's correlation for numerical features and dropped some columns with extreme values (I know RF isn't too disturbed by multicollinearity, but we are interested in feature importance, which to my understanding is)
• One-hot encoded remaining categorical features
• Experimented with log transforming the target (target is heavily skewed, and while RF has a reputation for being fine with that, some reading revealed that this reputation is debated. For what it's worth, log transforming typically improved my R-square by about 0.05-0.1)

After preprocessing, I've been running the data through SciKit Learn's RandomForestRegressor using GridSearchCV with a handful of parameters for 'n_estimators', 'max_depth', and 'max_features'. Unfortunately, my models are still very poor, with R-squares of 0.1-0.3.
Does anyone have advice for other steps that I may be missing? Or more generally, comments on my workflow? I'd be enormously appreciate of any input from more senior data scientists. Thanks in advance!

I hate to even have thoughts like this but I can’t help but suspect it…
Husband of 13 years been acting strange lately and in the mornings he’s been leaving earlier than usual.. like at first he was leaving at 5:30 because his shift started at 6.. now all of a sudden he’s leaving at 4:30 because his shift suddenly changed to 5 a few weeks ago—- his paychecks are the same as before— that extra hour isn’t reflecting and sometimes his checks are less than what they typically are but he says he’s working his full 40 hrs and the HR ladies must keep “messing up his checks”.
Plus it only takes him 8-10 mins to get to work so I don’t see why he has to get there so early anyhow.
Not only this but he’s been getting offered to go places by his work— a baseball game, a 3 day raceway event, 3 luncheons, and a go kart day etc… I can see workplaces doing things like this every once in a while but… all the time like multiple times a month… a small factory? Seems odd.
He makes 18.54 an hour… works 40-50 hrs and gets paid bi weekly.. I can understand taxes being taken out but if he works the hours that he says he works then how is he only bringing home 1100-1200 bi weekly???
And he’s just been acting strange/distant… we still do have sex but it’s only like once or twice a week if I’m lucky. And he only lasts like 2 minutes. I spend the whole time giving him a blowjob & then he sticks it in and lasts 1-2 minutes… there’s no pleasing me / it’s all about him… I don’t mind but I’m starting to get annoyed. Plus there’s no like… intimacy… he f*cks me but never cuddles me/holds me.. nothing. He doesn’t rub my back or feet… nothing. I’m just getting irritated. It’s just all about him.
Something seems off and idk if he’s cheating or doing drugs but it’s something and I’m really not sure how to bring it up… I’ve brought it up in the past and he just gets pissed off so I don’t like to even bring it up.
Idk but it’s kinda eating me upside.. so much so I’ve been having terrible nightmares of him with another woman and leaving me & our 4 kids for her. It’s awful.
I know people will say “has he given you a reason not to trust him?” And I will say yes… about 3 yrs ago I caught him on a dating website and a p0rn website with an account where he was talking to other account users. We split for a month after that until I took him back because he was a wreck and regretted it—wanted his family back— claimed he was “just trying to make money but never met up with anyone— it was all just sexual chat”.
Since the incident he has left his phone laying about unlocked for me to go through it whenever and of course I haven’t found anything but I just wonder if he’s gotten better at hiding it?
I’m trying my best to trust him and it’s been fine up until these last few weeks when he started acting funny and work schedule changed etc paychecks not reflecting hourly & working hours…
So… what should I do?? I feel like buying air pods and putting them in his truck if I’m being honest… even if he’s not cheating or doing drugs it might make me feel more at ease? Can air pods record sound too or just location???
Also, how should I bring up my concerns to him without him flipping out? Thanks

So I've been thinking about this for years, and have had no luck bringing in a third into any of my relationships. I'm at the point now where I'd like to join a couple. I'm very interested in watching and learning, and exploring new things.
I have a huge passion for music, and never outgrew my emo phase. I love sports, craft beer, food, tattoos, true crime docs, and traveling. I'm always down for a new adventure, obviously!
I work from home 3 days a week, and have a ton of time to chat. I'm a pretty laid back guy, so let's see if we can connect!

Bonus chapter celebration continues. Part 3 at the same time tomorrow.
Previous Chapter - Read 10 weeks ahead on Patreon - Read the story so far on Royal Road
*
Chapter Twelve - The Blacksmith's Boy (Part Two)
‘Grrrn.’
Cal stumbled in the stones, sliding a few paces down the slope. The rocks bit at his boots, and he began to topple forward, but his shoulder thumped into a tree trunk, jarring him to a stop. He hugged it to his chest, panting hard, and stood there for a few moments, surrounded by the silence of the forest. His brow ached from frowning, and his eyes stung with salty tears. But he never slipped. Not ever.
He pulled himself upright on the trunk, shivering. It was cold without his cloak, he noticed now. Cold with winter. There was an ominous dark to the evening sky, clouded with thick banks of shadow, and a distant rumble hummed against the mountainside. A storm was coming, and it would be dark before he made it back to the forge. He cursed under his breath, and set off again through the trees, feet skipping over the stones. The Blacksmith would be…
Hang the Blacksmith. He had stopped him from going to the Old Man. Stopped him from warning him. The cave was still smoking. There had been time. He could have stopped it. Instead, the cave was empty, full of ash, and the Old Man was in the ground. What was left of him. His half-riddled words. His ancient stories. His knowing. Of that, there was nothing. Whispers in the wind. Perhaps it had been nothing, all along.
Cal exhaled. His word was hard as stone, now. The ache of waiting was gone. Only the word was left.
He gritted his teeth, shaking his head. The Blacksmith was only protecting him. What could he have done, that a Greycloak couldn’t? The man was old, but he knew these hills almost better than Cal did. There wouldn’t have been anything he could have done. He’d have burned with him.
Thunder cracked, closer this time, and Cal was scowling. He could have warned him. Before. There had been time. He could have fled. The clouds overhead had taken on a faint purplish hue, drinking the last light of the day. The darkness was deepening, and he was still far from home. But the anger was hot in his chest, and his tears were spent.
Asking after that Greycloak fellow.
The Blacksmith had stopped him, but he didn’t light the fire. He had not killed him. The Innkeep’s words echoed in his ears, vibrating like a distant bell. Strangers had come asking. Strangers from the lowlands. And the cave had burned.
His breath was thick and hot in his breast. Cold air raw against his spent throat. The salt of his tears cracked on his cheeks, and his empty belly was a lead ball in his gut. The narrow pines rushed past him like blades, blurring into a patchwork of slashed shadows, and his feet beat against the silence, crunching in the shale and loam. There’d be time for thinking, later. Time for figuring out what to do next. Once he was warm beside a fire, and the storm was spent.
He blinked. He squinted into the gathering dark. Something was moving. Moving in the shifting trees. Off across the slope to the north. Nothing much, mind, but any moving up this far from the village was unusual. The hunters said that wolves roamed this high in the hills, sometimes. The hungry kind, the kind that find no food on the lower slopes, that come wild-eyed and desperate to the rock and shale. Not that Cal had ever seen one, but he slowed his pace all the same, suddenly very aware of the sound of his footsteps. His breath. He stared off along the slope, tracing the swaying trees. Nothing else stirred. Nothing but him. His mind was playing tricks. He took another step…
… and stopped dead again. There it was. Away to his right. North. He couldn’tt have imagined it, this time. Something darker than the trees. He turned slowly, blinking at the creeping gloom. The silence clawed at his ears, and his breath rattled in his raw lungs. Nothing but the rumble of the clouds. Nothing but…
Footsteps. And not his own. There were shadows moving through the trees, coming closer. Shadows in black. His breath caught in his throat, and a shiver ran up his spine. One. Two. He tried to count them all, and failed. Not wolves. Something else. Something that didn’t belong.
He was already running again, all thoughts of the Blacksmith and the Old Man’s grave gone in a flash. He knew the way. It didn’t matter who the shadows were. What they were. No one could catch him in the hills. Not even shadows. His boots skimmed over the stones, cold forgotten. The wind rushed past his face, and the clouds cracked and beat against the blackened sky. The storm was almost on him. He could feel the shadows moving, closer, hear the footsteps thudding in the heavy quiet of the air. They were on both sides of him now, darting between the trees, silently clawing at his heels. They. Who were they? He wasn’t going to wait to find out.
He looked ahead. The telltale line of his path arched north and west across the slope, a soft string of pale stones in the dark. His eyes flicked towards the shadows, spilling like clouds through the trees behind him. A stone's throw, two, maybe less. But close, now. Close enough to see them. Black shapes, swarming over the stones. Clawing at the dark. His head ached, and his eyes blurred. He couldn’t see their faces, but it didn’t matter. They meant no good. There was something cold in his empty gut, dragging it into his heels. Time to move.
He looked back to the path. There, he knew his way, but they were too close. Instead, he turned west, looking straight down the slope. The village would not be far, that way. He fancied he could see the lights blinking through the trees. But it was too steep. Far too steep.
He looked back over his shoulder again. The shadows were coming closer, footsteps pounding like drums, faceless and dark. Whoever they were, they’d followed him. They had been there. Must have been watching the old man’s cave. Waiting for someone to come looking for him. Waiting to finish the job. Cal cursed silently. Careless.
The thunder cracked, overhead now, and lightning forked across the roiling sky with a flash. Faceless figures leered back at him in the dark, frozen like ice, and tore his eyes away, heart pounding in his chest. Don’t think. No time. He looked back down the slope. It was too steep. But there was no other way.
So he took one last deep breath, and started forward, plunging headlong down the bank. The dark rushed past him in blurring streaks, purple light bleeding through the clouds. He could barely see the way, staggering, stumbling, sliding, half-blind and weary to the bone, breath clawing at his throat. The shadows were at his back, surging over the rocks like a black tide. His heart beat to the rhythm of their footsteps, pounding in his chest. He forced himself not to look back. Lightning flashed. A tree loomed suddenly out of the searing white before him, and he fell clumsily around it, catching his shoulder with a jolt as he staggered past. Wind screeched through the silence of the trees, and rain speared down out of the broken sky, filling the air with sound. But he could still hear the footsteps. Close now. Almost at his heels, snatching at him. The slope was slick with water, and the wind bit at his frigid skin. Still they came on. Closer. His head ached, and his lungs were hot as forge-fire.
Then the air cracked, split, boomed, and the hillside shook as lightning slashed white fire across the sky. One of the trees beside him exploded in a hail of sparks, and he whirled away, skidding madly across the loam. The shadows fell away for a moment, and he stumbled on, weary and numb, frenzied heart driving him onward. Downward. Faster, faster. He blinked rain from his eyes, squinting. They were there, just ahead of him. The lights of the village, blinking back at him through the thinning trees. Just a few more steps…
Something hard caught his boot, and he tipped forward, suddenly off balance. A moment froze on his lips, and the trees were still, full of motionless shadows.
Then he was falling, tumbling head over heel, down, up, down, up, wild as wind. His world spun, and stones bit at his arms, his legs. His face. The shadows were almost on him. Faceless shapes spun past him as he fell, black as night, frozen and sightless. His head was bursting. His skin was on fire. Thunder crashed above the trees, and his world turned white. He closed his eyes, throwing out his arms to stop himself.
And took nothing but air. The scratching claws of the trees vanished. A moment, suspended, floating. The storm was far away. There was light in his eyes. Flickering…
His world lurched to a sudden, angry halt. The soaked earth crunched, and he went limp, shoulders crashing into his chest. Pain erupted down his spine, and a gargled breath caught in his wretched throat, choking the air from his lungs. The sound of thunder filled his ears again, and the wind slashed at him like a whip. He groaned, trying to untangle his legs, blinking at the water in his eyes, stinging, blurring. The lights of the village winked back at him, lanterns swinging wildly in the wind. He had made it. But the trees behind him were thrashing in the gale, and there were shadows moving through the boughs. Closer. They were coming. Coming for him.
He rolled onto his front, spasming like a beached fish. Lines of pain scored every inch of his arms and legs, and his shirt was ragged as willow leaves. He gritted his teeth, somehow getting his hands beneath him. He had to move. He heaved, almost screamed as his chest left the dirt. Spit turned sour, eyes blurred.
But then he was up. He was up, and he was moving, shambling grotesquely across the open ground. Towards the lights. They would help him. Footsteps. He could hear them. Footsteps on the stones. The storm roared overhead, thundering, stabbing, flashing fire across the sky. He stumbled, lurching like a cripple, back a rod of fire. The lights swayed, the wind howled, and the footsteps beat like drums at his back. He was working the latch, fingers scrabbling at the wood, breath ragged, heart pounding…
Then the door fell away, and he spilled helplessly into the light beyond. He slumped to his knees, staring wildly into the blinding gleam, and the villagers stared back at him dumbly, slack-jawed, mugs slipping from their fingers.
‘Makers be good.’ Someone murmured.
The floor rose up to meet him, and his eyes went slack.

Bonus chapter celebration continues. Part 3 at the same time tomorrow. Series Page - Read 10 weeks ahead on Patreon - Read the story so far on Royal Road * Chapter Twelve - The Blacksmith's Boy (Part Two)
‘Grrrn.’ Cal stumbled in the stones, sliding a few paces down the slope. The rocks bit at his boots, and he began to topple forward, but his shoulder thumped into a tree trunk, jarring him to a stop. He hugged it to his chest, panting hard, and stood there for a few moments, sur-rounded by the silence of the forest. His brow ached from frowning, and his eyes stung with salty tears. But he never slipped. Not ever. He pulled himself upright on the trunk, shivering. It was cold without his cloak, he noticed now. Cold with winter. There was an ominous dark to the evening sky, clouded with thick banks of shad-ow, and a distant rumble hummed against the mountainside. A storm was coming, and it would be dark before he made it back to the forge. He cursed under his breath, and set off again through the trees, feet skipping over the stones. The Blacksmith would be… Hang the Blacksmith. He had stopped him from going to the Old Man. Stopped him from warning him. The cave was still smoking. There had been time. He could have stopped it. Instead, the cave was empty, full of ash, and the Old Man was in the ground. What was left of him. His half-riddled words. His ancient stories. His knowing. Of that, there was nothing. Whispers in the wind. Perhaps it had been nothing, all along. Cal exhaled. His word was hard as stone, now. The ache of wait-ing was gone. Only the word was left. He gritted his teeth, shaking his head. The Blacksmith was only protecting him. What could he have done, that a Greycloak couldn’t? The man was old, but he knew these hills almost better than Cal did. There wouldn’t have been anything he could have done. He’d have burned with him. Thunder cracked, closer this time, and Cal was scowling. He could have warned him. Before. There had been time. He could have fled. The clouds overhead had taken on a faint purplish hue, drink-ing the last light of the day. The darkness was deepening, and he was still far from home. But the anger was hot in his chest, and his tears were spent. Asking after that Greycloak fellow. The Blacksmith had stopped him, but he didn’t light the fire. He had not killed him. The Innkeep’s words echoed in his ears, vibrat-ing like a distant bell. Strangers had come asking. Strangers from the lowlands. And the cave had burned. His breath was thick and hot in his breast. Cold air raw against his spent throat. The salt of his tears cracked on his cheeks, and his empty belly was a lead ball in his gut. The narrow pines rushed past him like blades, blurring into a patchwork of slashed shadows, and his feet beat against the silence, crunching in the shale and loam. There’d be time for thinking, later. Time for figuring out what to do next. Once he was warm beside a fire, and the storm was spent. He blinked. He squinted into the gathering dark. Something was moving. Moving in the shifting trees. Off across the slope to the north. Nothing much, mind, but any moving up this far from the vil-lage was unusual. The hunters said that wolves roamed this high in the hills, sometimes. The hungry kind, the kind that find no food on the lower slopes, that come wild-eyed and desperate to the rock and shale. Not that Cal had ever seen one, but he slowed his pace all the same, suddenly very aware of the sound of his footsteps. His breath. He stared off along the slope, tracing the swaying trees. Nothing else stirred. Nothing but him. His mind was playing tricks. He took an-other step… … and stopped dead again. There it was. Away to his right. North. He couldn’tt have imagined it, this time. Something darker than the trees. He turned slowly, blinking at the creeping gloom. The silence clawed at his ears, and his breath rattled in his raw lungs. Nothing but the rumble of the clouds. Nothing but… Footsteps. And not his own. There were shadows moving through the trees, coming closer. Shadows in black. His breath caught in his throat, and a shiver ran up his spine. One. Two. He tried to count them all, and failed. Not wolves. Something else. Something that didn’t belong. He was already running again, all thoughts of the Blacksmith and the Old Man’s grave gone in a flash. He knew the way. It didn’t matter who the shadows were. What they were. No one could catch him in the hills. Not even shadows. His boots skimmed over the stones, cold forgotten. The wind rushed past his face, and the clouds cracked and beat against the blackened sky. The storm was almost on him. He could feel the shadows moving, closer, hear the foot-steps thudding in the heavy quiet of the air. They were on both sides of him now, darting between the trees, silently clawing at his heels. They. Who were they? He wasn’t going to wait to find out. He looked ahead. The telltale line of his path arched north and west across the slope, a soft string of pale stones in the dark. His eyes flicked towards the shadows, spilling like clouds through the trees behind him. A stone's throw, two, maybe less. But close, now. Close enough to see them. Black shapes, swarming over the stones. Clawing at the dark. His head ached, and his eyes blurred. He couldn’t see their faces, but it didn’t matter. They meant no good. There was something cold in his empty gut, dragging it into his heels. Time to move. He looked back to the path. There, he knew his way, but they were too close. Instead, he turned west, looking straight down the slope. The village would not be far, that way. He fancied he could see the lights blinking through the trees. But it was too steep. Far too steep. He looked back over his shoulder again. The shadows were com-ing closer, footsteps pounding like drums, faceless and dark. Who-ever they were, they’d followed him. They had been there. Must have been watching the old man’s cave. Waiting for someone to come looking for him. Waiting to finish the job. Cal cursed silently. Careless. The thunder cracked, overhead now, and lightning forked across the roiling sky with a flash. Faceless figures leered back at him in the dark, frozen like ice, and tore his eyes away, heart pounding in his chest. Don’t think. No time. He looked back down the slope. It was too steep. But there was no other way. So he took one last deep breath, and started forward, plunging headlong down the bank. The dark rushed past him in blurring streaks, purple light bleeding through the clouds. He could barely see the way, staggering, stumbling, sliding, half-blind and weary to the bone, breath clawing at his throat. The shadows were at his back, surging over the rocks like a black tide. His heart beat to the rhythm of their footsteps, pounding in his chest. He forced himself not to look back. Lightning flashed. A tree loomed suddenly out of the searing white before him, and he fell clumsily around it, catching his shoulder with a jolt as he staggered past. Wind screeched through the silence of the trees, and rain speared down out of the broken sky, filling the air with sound. But he could still hear the footsteps. Close now. Almost at his heels, snatching at him. The slope was slick with water, and the wind bit at his frigid skin. Still they came on. Closer. His head ached, and his lungs were hot as forge-fire. Then the air cracked, split, boomed, and the hillside shook as lightning slashed white fire across the sky. One of the trees beside him exploded in a hail of sparks, and he whirled away, skidding madly across the loam. The shadows fell away for a moment, and he stumbled on, weary and numb, frenzied heart driving him onward. Downward. Faster, faster. He blinked rain from his eyes, squinting. They were there, just ahead of him. The lights of the village, blink-ing back at him through the thinning trees. Just a few more steps… Something hard caught his boot, and he tipped forward, suddenly off balance. A moment froze on his lips, and the trees were still, full of motionless shadows. Then he was falling, tumbling head over heel, down, up, down, up, wild as wind. His world spun, and stones bit at his arms, his legs. His face. The shadows were almost on him. Faceless shapes spun past him as he fell, black as night, frozen and sightless. His head was bursting. His skin was on fire. Thunder crashed above the trees, and his world turned white. He closed his eyes, throwing out his arms to stop himself. And took nothing but air. The scratching claws of the trees van-ished. A moment, suspended, floating. The storm was far away. There was light in his eyes. Flickering… His world lurched to a sudden, angry halt. The soaked earth crunched, and he went limp, shoulders crashing into his chest. Pain erupted down his spine, and a gargled breath caught in his wretched throat, choking the air from his lungs. The sound of thunder filled his ears again, and the wind slashed at him like a whip. He groaned, trying to untangle his legs, blinking at the water in his eyes, stinging, blurring. The lights of the village winked back at him, lanterns swinging wildly in the wind. He had made it. But the trees behind him were thrashing in the gale, and there were shadows moving through the boughs. Closer. They were coming. Coming for him. He rolled onto his front, spasming like a beached fish. Lines of pain scored every inch of his arms and legs, and his shirt was ragged as willow leaves. He gritted his teeth, somehow getting his hands beneath him. He had to move. He heaved, almost screamed as his chest left the dirt. Spit turned sour, eyes blurred. But then he was up. He was up, and he was moving, shambling grotesquely across the open ground. Towards the lights. They would help him. Footsteps. He could hear them. Footsteps on the stones. The storm roared overhead, thundering, stabbing, flashing fire across the sky. He stumbled, lurching like a cripple, back a rod of fire. The lights swayed, the wind howled, and the footsteps beat like drums at his back. He was working the latch, fingers scrabbling at the wood, breath ragged, heart pounding… Then the door fell away, and he spilled helplessly into the light beyond. He slumped to his knees, staring wildly into the blinding gleam, and the villagers stared back at him dumbly, slack-jawed, mugs slipping from their fingers. ‘Makers be good.’ Someone murmured. The floor rose up to meet him, and his eyes went slack.

So I've been thinking about this for years, and have had no luck bringing in a third into any of my relationships. I'm at the point now where I'd like to join a couple. I'm very interested in watching and learning, and exploring new things.
I have a huge passion for music, and never outgrew my emo phase. I love sports, craft beer, food, tattoos, true crime docs, and traveling. I'm always down for a new adventure, obviously!
I work from home 3 days a week, and have a ton of time to chat. I'm a pretty laid back guy, so let's see if we can connect!

So I've been thinking about this for years, and have had no luck bringing in a third into any of my relationships. I'm at the point now where I'd like to join a couple. I'm very interested in watching and learning, and exploring new things.
I have a huge passion for music, and never outgrew my emo phase. I love sports, craft beer, food, tattoos, true crime docs, and traveling. I'm always down for a new adventure, obviously!
I work from home 3 days a week, and have a ton of time to chat. I'm a pretty laid back guy, so let's see if we can connect!

Strength day!
Tread - 5min 1min base @3% 1min base @4% 1min base @5% 1min base @1% 1min all out
Tread - 7.5min 2min push @3% 1min base 90sec push @4% 1min base 1min push @5% 1min all out
Tread - 7.5min 1min push @5% 1min base 90sec push @4% 1min base 2min push @3% 1min all out
Floor - 5min Mini bands around wrists Alt reverse lunge with arm raise (10ttl) Walk out to plank (5) High plank S/A glide (5ea)
Floor - 7.5min Deadlift heavy (6) DB uppercut to stand light (6) After finishing 2x of exercises above, member’s choice of (1) row until time or (2) continue exercises
Floor - 7.5min Seated DB bent over low row heavy (6) DB squat to alt neutral front raise light (6) After finishing 2x of exercises above, member’s choice of (1) row until finisher or (2) continue exercises 1min finisher: alt front raise or alt uppercut

I am 32 year old female who is BRCa1 positive but otherwise active healthy, very active non smoker, very light drinker.
I had a preventive mastectomy with direct reconstruction exactly 6 weeks ago. Healing has gone super well. No complications and i feel really lucky.
But at around 4 weeks and continuing until today at 6 weeks I’ve noticed random things going on with my body and was wondering if its some like “post surgical” pendulum swing or “comedown” from whatever hormones or processes were going on in the initial healing phase.
Some symptoms I’ve noticed over the past two weeks

• sleep disturbances (mostly trouble falling and staying asleep)
• light headedness on standing (I’ve always had issues with low BP and low iron but more so of late)
• flaky skin which has mostly resolved but still flaky /itchy scalp
• along with scalp, probably have had some hair loss
• really hard stools—probably going once every other day and stools are really hard. I had the initial constipation with the narcotics for the first couple days but after day 3 was just on Tylenol and in combo with coláce seemed to resolve the problem. But last two weeks have just been hard dry stools—I eat lots of veggies and fruits, drink tons of water and after week one of recovery was walking long distances (5-6 miles) and have recently started reincorporating running

Is this kind of thing common? I know hair loss is common but other symptoms?