The origins of this list came about when the Denver Nuggets won the NBA chip last year. I asked my bball group chat if winning the NBA chip made Jamal the best NBA player named Jamal/Jamaal. I then made this list:
Jamal Murray Jamal Crawford Jamal Mashburn Jamaal Magloire Jamaal Tinsley
After some research we learned about Jamaal Wilkes and then we made Tinsley an honorable mention.
With the NBA playoffs coming, I thought I tried to do something similar but on a much larger scale and share it with the NBA subreddit community.
I'm not sure if such a list has been done before. If it has, please send me the link to it so I can read it.
Also this is how I came up with the list. The list is not in any specific order per letter. Its more like the first name for each letter is the first name I thought of. Whenever I have trouble finishing up the list, I go to Google and basketball reference. I indicate when I do so.
The list is done by first name and not last. So for example, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will fall under K and not A. The other thing is players will be listed by their actual given name and not nicknames. For example, magic Johnson will be under I for Earvin "magic" Johnson.
Please let me know what you think about the list and let me know what players you feel I missed. Also let me know which letter has the best NBA players.
A: 1. Alex English 2. Allen Iverson 3. Anthony Davis 4. Adrian Dantley 5. Andre Iguodala 6. Amar'e Stoudemire 7. Alonzo Mourning 8. Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway 9. Artis Gilmore 10. Allan Houston
Honorable mentions: Aaron Gordon Arron Afflalo Al Jefferson Antoine Walker Andre Miller Antawn Jamison Al Horford
B: 1. Baron Davis 2. Bernard King 3. Bradley Beal 4. Ben Wallace 5. Ben Gordon 6. Blake Griffin 7. Brook Lopez 8. Brad Daugherty 9. Brad Miller 10. Bam Adebayo
Honorable mentions Buddy Hield Byron Scott Bonzi Wells Ben Simmons
C: 1. Chris Paul 2. Charles Barkley 3. Clyde Drexler 4. Chris Webber 5. Carmelo Anthony 6. Chauncey Billups 7. Chris Bosh 8. Chris Mullin 9. Christian Laettner 10. Carlos Boozer
Honorable mentions
C.J. McCollum Cedric Maxwell Chris Kaman Corey Maggette Cuttino Mobley
D: 1. Dirk Nowitzki 2. David Robinson 3. Dwyane Wade 4. Dwight Howard 5. Damian Lillard 6. Draymond Green 7. Dikembe Mutombo 8. Dominique Wilkins 9. Dennis Rodman 10. Derrick Rose
Honorable mentions
DeAndre Jordan Domantas Sabonis Demar DeRozan DeMarcus Cousins
E: 1. Elgin Baylor 2. Elton Brand 3. Elvin Hayes 4. Eddie Jones 5. Emanuel David "Manu" Ginóbili 6. Eric Gordon 7. Evan Turner 8. Eric Bledsoe 9. Earvin "Magic" Johnson 10. Eddie Johnson
Honorable mention Enes Kanter Emeka Okafor Evan Mobley
F: (I had to use basketball reference for the majority of these) 1. Furkan Korkmaz 2. Fred Brown 3. Frederick "Freddie" L. Lewis 4. Franz Wagner 5. Francis "Frank" Stanley Kaminsky III 6. Francisco García 7. Fredderick Edmund "Fred" VanVleet 8. Frank Vernon Ramsey Jr 9. Franklin Delano Selvy 10. Fred Hoiberg
G: 1. Giannis Antetokounmpo 2. Gary Payton 3. George Gervin 4. Grant Hill 5. Gail Charles Goodrich Jr 6. George Mikan 7. Glen Rice 8. Gilbert Arenas 9. Glenn Robinson 10. Goran Dragic
Honorable mention Gerald Wallace Gordon Hayward Gordan Giriček
H: (had to use basketball reference for #9&10) 1. Hakeem Olajuwon 2. Harold Everett "Hal" Greer 3. Hersey Hawkins 4. Hubert Davis 5. Horace Grant 6. Harrison Barnes 7. Hassan Whiteside 8. Hedo Türkoğlu 9. Harthorne Wingo 10. Hamidou Diallo
I: (had to use basketball reference for #6-7) 1. Isiah Thomas 2. Isaiah Thomas 3. Ish Smith 4. Iman Shumpert 5. Immanuel Quickley 6. Isaiah Rider 7. Isaac Okoro 8. Ime Udoka 9. Isaiah Stewart 10. Isaiah Hartenstein
J: 1. Jason Kidd 2. Julius Erving 3. John havlicek 4. Jerry West 5. Jimmy Harden 6. James Worthy 7. Jayson Tatum 8. Johm Stockton 9. Jimmy Butler 10. Jermaine O'Neal
Honorable mention Jamal Crawford Jamal Mashburn Jack Sigma Jason Terry Joe Johnson Jerry stackhouse Jamal Murray Joe Dumar John "hot rod" Williams Joakim Noah
K: 1. Kareem Abdul Jabbar 2. Kobe Bryant 3. Kevin Durant 4. Kyrie Irving 5. Klay Thompson 6. Kevin Garnett 7. Kevin Love 8. Kahwi Leonard 9. Kevin McHale 10. Karl Malone
Honorable mention Kevin Love Karl Anthony Towns Kevin Johnson Kemba Walker Chris Middleton
L: 1. LeBron James 2. Larry Bird 3. LaMarcus Aldridge 4. Lou Williams 5. Lafayette "Fat" Lever 6. Luol Deng 7. Luka Dončić 8. Latrell Sprewell 9. Larry Johnson 10. Lamar Odom
Honorable mentions Lonzo Ball Lamelo Ball Luis Scola Landry Shamet Lance Stephenson
M: 1. Michael Jordan 2. Mark Jackson 3. Moses Malone 4. Manu Ginóbili 5. Marc Gasol 6. Mark Price 7. Mike Conley 8. Mitch Richmond 9. Monta Ellis 10. Maurice Edward Cheeks
Honorable mentions Metta world Peace (formerly Ron artest) Micheal Finley Mike Bibby Michael Redd Michael Beasley Michael Cooper Maurice "Mo" Williams Mahmoud Abdur-Raouf
N: (used basketball reference for norm Nixon) 1. Nate Robinson 2. Nikola Jokić 3. Nikola Vučević 4. Nick Anderson 5. Norman Powell 6. Nicolas Batum 7. Nene Hilario 8. Norm Nixon 9. Nick Van Exel 10. Nate "the great" Thurmond
Honorable mentions Nikola Mirotić Nikola Peković
O: (used basketball reference for #7) 1. Oscar Robertson 2. Otis Thorpe 3. Otto Porter 4. O.J. Mayo 5. Omer Asik 6. Omri Casspi 7. Onyeka Okongwu 8. OG Anunoby 9. Obi Toppin 10. Otis Birdsong
P: 1. Paul George 2. Paul Pierce 3. Patrick Ewing 4. Pau Gasol 5. Paul Millsap 6. Pascal Siakam 7. Pooh Richardson 8. Paul Westphal 9. "Pistol" Pete Maravich 10. Purvis Short
Honorable mentions Patrick Beverly Patty Mills Pat Connaughton
Q: (used bball reference from #4-10) 1. Quentin Richardson 2. Quincy Acy 3. Quincy Pondexter 4. Quincy Douby 5. Quinn Cook 6. Quinndary Weatherspoon 7. Quinn Snyder 8. Quentin Grimes 9. Quintin Dailey 10. Quinton Ross
R: 1. Ray Allen 2. Russell Westbrook 3. Rajon Rondo 4. Robert Parish 5. Reggie Miller 6. Robert "Bob" Lanier 7. Robert "Bob" Cousey 8. Ralph Sampson 9. Robert E. Lee "Bob" Pettit 10. Robert "Bob" McAdoo
Honorable mention Rasheed Wallace Rudy Gay Rik Smits Rick Barry Richard "RIP" Hamilton Rod Strickland Ron Harper Rudy Gobert Ronaldo Blackman
S: 1. Shaquille O'Neal 2. Scottie Pippen 3. Steve Nash 4. Stephen Curry 5. Shawn Kemp 6. Serge Ibaka 7. Sidney Moncrief 8. Shawn Marion 9. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 10. Sam Cassell
Honorable mentions
Samuel Dalembert Shareef Abdur-Rahim Sam Perkins Stephen Marbury Stephen Jackson Steve Francis Steve Smith
T: 1. Tim Duncan 2. Tony Parker 3. Tracy McGrady 4. Terry Porter 5. Tom Chambers 6. Thaddeus Young 7. Tyrese Haliburton 8. Toni Kucoc 9. Trae Young 10. Tayshaun Prince
Honorable mentions Terry Rozier Tobias Harris Tyreke Evans Tyler Herro Ty Lawson
U: (literally used bball reference for everyone after udonis) 1. Udonis Haslem 2. Uwe Blab 3. Usman Garuba 4. Udoka Azubuike 5. Ulice Payne 6. Uluss Thompson 7. Uroš Slokar 8. Ulysses Cleon Reed 9. N/A 10. N/A
V: 1. Vince Carter 2. Victor Oladipo 3. Vlade Divac 4. Vin Baker 5. Vernon Maxwell 6. Vinnie Johnson 7. Vince Edwards 8. Vern Fleming 9. Vince Taylor 10. Vinny Del Negro
Honorable mentions
Voshon Lenard
W: (used basketball reference for #8-10) 1. Wilt Chamberlain 2. Walt Bellamy 3. Walt Frazier 4. Willis Reed 5. Westley Sissel "Wes" Unseld 6. Willie Anderson 7. Wesley Matthews 8. Wesley Person 9. Walter Davis 10. Wayne Embry
Honorable mention Willie Cauley-Stein Wayne Ellington
X (used basketball reference for all except #1&2) 1. Xavier Tillman 2. Xavier Henry 3. Xavier McDaniel 4. Xavier Munford 5. Xavier Cooks 6. Xavier Rathan-Mayes 7. Xavier Sneed 8. Xavier Silas 9. Xavier Rey 10. Xue Yuyang
Y. (Used bball reference for #5-10)

1. Yao Ming
2. Yi Jianlin
3. Yuta Watanabe
4. Yogi Ferrell
5. Yakhouba Diawara
6. Yaroslav Korolev
7. Yinka Dare
8. York Larese
9. Yuta Tabuse
10. Yante Maten

Z (used bball reference for #7-9)

1. Zion Williamson
2. Zach Randolph
3. Zach Lavine
4. Zaza Pachulia
5. Zach Collins
6. Ziaire Williams
7. Zoran Planinić
8. Žan Tabak
9. Žarko Čabarkapa
10. Zydrunas Ilgauskas

Thank you for the read to all those who read. Let me know your thoughts on the players I chose for each letter and if I missed any players or if I put someone on the list who doesn't deserve to be on it. Also let me know which letter has the best NBA players.
Looking forward to reading your comments!

I'm coming to you, oh great U.S. of A., for permission to return to the gymnasium.
I have my own reasons for being there.
As I slide into middle age, it is even more important to take care of the body.
It has nothing to do with you, or the other patrons of the establishment.
In exchange for being allowed to exercise my God Given body without intrusion, I will...
Promise to hold the door open for people entering and exiting the facility, as I enter and exit.
Wipe down the machines as I finish using them.
Not hog machines for too long, and other forms of gym etiquette.
I promise that what little muscle and strength I build will not be used to intimidate or as a weapon.
There is some ego involved, but unlike the Supreme Leader J.C., as a human I cannot be without ego. Better to put it to work than deny it's existence, lest it consume me further.
Thank you for your time, patience, and understanding.
God Bless,
And yours truly,
M. Dubya

We talk about passwords a lot (common passwords and password strategies) but we don't talk about pins as much.
This week on his podcast Steve Gibson talked a little about pins. He cited a summary of 3.4 million real-world (leaked?) 4-digit pins plotted in graphic form with first 2 pin digits on horizontal axis (scaled 0 to 99) and 2nd 2 digits on the vertical axis (also scaled 0 to 99) as shown here: https://www.grc.com/miscfiles/pin.png
The bright colors are more frequent. You can see a bright diagonal line, which means people are prone to making the 3rd and 4th digits a repeat of the first and 2nd (for example 4747). And the brightest points on this line are things like 0000, 2222, 7777, 8888. And also 6969
There is also a bright horizontal line with vertical values 19 or 20 representing years (probably birth years) with the highest concentration being around 1965 to 1990.
And there's a bright horizontal rectangle between 1-12 on the vertical axis and 1-31 on the horizontal axis probably representing mostly birthdays in form MMDD. And a ligher vertical rectangle between 1-12 on horizontal axis and 1-31 on vertical axis representing birthdays in the form DDMM
But the real kicker, out of those 10,000 possible 4 digit pins, the top 20 most-common pins (0.2%) make up 27% of pins in the set. Those top 20 are: 1234 0000 7777 2000 2222 9999 5555 1122 8888 2001 1111 1212 1004 4444 6969 3333 6666 1313 4321 1010.
There are a variety of pin applications with different requirements. But using something like a birth year or birt day probably isn't a good idea. You could generate a random numeric pin using the bitwarden password generator and unchecking everything except for digits. You may want it to be memorable though. People may have a variety of ways to come up with memorable numbers...
I'll share one way to come up with memorable pin numbers (or at least re-creatable, as long as you remember the seed word):

1. Come up with a word that has the same number of letters as your desired pin.
2. Convert every letter to a number by its position in the alphabet (A=1, B=2... Z=26)
   • For example if your letter is L that corresponds to 12
3. Multiply the number by 3 (*)
   • same example, 3*12 = 36
4. Take the last digit, that is your pin digit.
   • same example, last digit of 36 is 6
5. Put all the pin digits together

That procedure maps the letters to numbers as follows:

• A=3
• B=6
• C=9
• D=2
• E=5
• F=8
• G=1
• H=4
• I=7
• J=0
• K=3
• L=6
• M=9
• N=2
• O=5
• P=8
• Q=1
• R=4
• S=7
• T=0
• U=3
• V=6
• W=9
• X=2
• Y=5
• Z=8

As you can see it spreads the 26 letters out over the 10 digits pretty well (there are 4 digits assigned 2 characters each and 6 digits assigned 3 characters each).
As an example if my word is WARDEN, then my pin would be 934252
(*) You could use the same procedure multiplying by 7 (instead of 3), and the 26 letters would again spread out pretty well over the 10 digits... but the multiplication is a bit harder.
It's probably not great from an entropy standpoint (my 6 digit example representing one of a million possible 6 digit pins could be derived from one word which is probably among the 8000 most common). But it's memorable /recreatable and sometimes that factors into the decision.
Take it or leave it, it's just a thought.

III. Changing Modes of Making It: From Horatio Alger to the Happy Hooker
…
From “Self-Culture” to Self-Promotion through “Winning Images”
In the nineteenth century, the ideal of self-improvement degenerated into a cult of compulsive industry. P.T. Barnum, who made a fortune in a calling the very nature of which the Puritans would have condemned (“Every calling, whereby God will be Dishonored; every Calling whereby none but the Lusts of men are Nourished: …every such Calling is to be Rejected”), delivered many times a lecture frankly entitled “The Art of Money-Getting,” which epitomized the nineteenth-century conception of worldly success. Barnum quoted freely from Franklin but without Franklin’s concern for the attainment of wisdom or the promotion of useful knowledge. “Information” interested Barnum merely as a means of mastering the market. Thus he condemned the “false economy” of the farm wife who douses her candle at dusk rather than lighting another for reading, not realizing that the “information” gained through reading is worth far more than the price of the candles. “Always take a trustworthy newspaper,” Barnum advised young men on the make, “and thus keep thoroughly posted in regard to the transactions of the world. He who is without a newspaper is cut off from his species.”
Barnum valued the good opinion of others not as a sign of one’s usefulness but as a means of getting credit. “Uncompromising integrity of character is invaluable.” The nineteenth century attempted to express all values in monetary terms. Everything had its price. Charity was a moral duty because “the liberal man will command patronage, which the sordid, uncharitable miser will be avoided.” The sin of pride was not that it offended God but that it led to extravagant expenditures. “A spirit of pride and vanity, when permitted to have full sway, is the undying cankerworm which gnaws the very vitals of a man’s worldly possessions.”
The eighteenth century made a virtue of temperance but did not condemn moderate indulgence in the service of sociability. “Rational conversation,” on the contrary, appeared to Franklin and his contemporaries to represent an important value in its own right. The nineteenth century condemned sociability itself, on the grounds that it might interfere with business. “How many good opportunities have passed, never to return, while a man was sipping a ‘social glass’ with his friends!” Preachments on self-help now breathed the spirit of compulsive enterprise. Henry Ward Beecher defined “the beau ideal of happiness” as a state of mind in which “a man [is] so busy that he does not know whether he is or is not happy.” Russell Sage remarked that “work has been the chied, and you might say, the only source of pleasure in my life.”
Even at the height of the Gilded Age, however, the Protestant ethic did not completely lose its original meaning. In the success manuals, the McGuffey readers, the Peter Parley Books, and the hortatory writings of the great capitalists themselves, the Protestant virtues - industry, thrift, temperance - still appeared not merely as stepping-stones to success but as their own reward.
The spirit of self-improvement lived on, in debased form, in the cult of “self-culture” - proper care and training of mind and body, nurture of the mind through “great books,” development of “character.” The social contribution of individual accumulation still survived as an undercurrent in the celebration of success, and the social conditions of early industrial capitalism, in which the pursuit of wealth undeniably increased the supply of useful objects, gave some substance to the claim that “accumulated capital means progress.” In condemning speculation and extravagance, in upholding the importance of patient industry, in urging young men to start at the bottom and submit to “the discipline of daily life,” even the most unabashed exponents of self-enrichment clung to the notion that wealth derives its value from its contribution to the general good and to the happiness of future generations.
The nineteenth-century cult of success placed surprisingly little emphasis on competition. It measured achievement not against the achievements of others but against an abstract ideal of discipline and self-denial. At the turn of the century, however, preachments on success began to stress the will to win. The bureaucratization of the corporate career changed the conditions of self-advancement; ambitious young men now had to compete with their peers for the attention and approval of their superiors. The struggle to surpass the previous generation and to provide for the next gave way to a form of sibling rivalry, in which men of approximately equal abilities jostled against each other in competition for a limited number of places. Advancement now depended on “will-power, self-confidence, energy, and initiative” - the qualities celebrated in such exemplary writings as George Lorimer’s Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son. ” By the end of the nineteenth century,” writes John Cawelti in his study of the success myth, “self-help books were dominated by the ethos of sales-manship and boosterism. Personal magnetism, a quality which supposedly enabled a man to influence and dominate others, became one of the major keys to success.” In 1907, both Lorimer’s Saturday Evening Post and Orison Swett Marden’s Success magazine inaugurated departments of instruction in the “art of conversation,” fashion, and “culture.” The management of interpersonal relations came to be seen as the essence of self-advancement. The captain of industry gave way to the confidence man, the master of impressions. Young men were told that they had to sell themselves in order to succeed.
At first, self-testing through competition remained almost in-distinguishable from moral self-discipline and self-culture, but the difference became unmistakable when Dale Carnegie and then Norman Vincent Peale restated and transformed the tradition of Mather, Franklin, Barnum, and Lorimer. As a formula for success, winning friends and influencing people had little in common with industry and thrift. The prophets of positive thinking disparaged “the old adage that hard work alone is the magic key that will unlock the door to our desires.” They praised the love of money, officially condemned even by the crudest of Gilded Age materialists, as a useful incentive. “You can never have riches in great quantities,” wrote Napoleon Hill in this Think and Grow Rich,” unless you can work yourself into a white heat of desire for money.” The pursuit of wealth lost the few shreds of moral meaning that still clung to it. Formerly the Protestant virtues appeared to have an independent value of their own. Even when they became purely instrumental, in the second half of the nineteenth century, success itself retained moral and social overtones, by virtue of its contribution to the sum of human comfort and progress. Now success appeared as an end in its own right, the victory over your competitors that alone retained the capacity to instill a sense of self-approval. The latest success manuals differ from earlier ones - even surpassing the cynicism of Dale Carnegie and Peale - in their frank acceptance of the need to exploit and intimidate others, in their lack of interest in the substance of success, and in the candor with which they insist that appearances - “winning images - count for more than performance, ascription for more than achievement. One author seems to imply that the self consists of little more than its “image” reflected in others’ eyes. “Although I’m not being original when I say it, I’m sure you’ll agree that the way you see yourself will reflect the image you portray to others.” Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
<The American Religion by Harold Bloom (California Orphism)>
The Apotheosis of Individualism
The fear that haunted the social critics and theorists of the fifties - that rugged individualism had succumbed to conformity and “love-pressure sociability” - appears in retrospect to have been premature. In 1960, David Riesman complained that young people no longer had much social “presence,” their education having provided them not with “a polished personality but [with] an affable, casual, adaptable one, suitable to the losing organizations of an affluent society.” It is true that “a present-oriented hedonism,” as Riseman went on the argue, has replaced the work ethic “among the very classes which in the earlier stages of industrialization were oriented toward the future, toward distant goals and delayed gratification.” But this hedonism is a fraud; the pursuit of pleasure disguises a struggle for power. Americans have not really become more sociable and cooperative, as the theorists of other-direction and conformity would like us to believe; they have merely become more adept at exploiting the conventions of interpersonal relations for their own benefit. Activities ostensibly undertaken purely for enjoyment often have the real object of doing others in. It is symptomatic of the underlying tenor of American life that vulgar terms for sexual intercourse also convey the sense of getting the better of someone, working him over, taking him in, imposing your will through guile, deception, or superior force. Verbs associated with sexual pleasure have acquired more than the usual overtones of violence and psychic exploitation. In the violent world of the ghetto, the language of which now pervades American society as a whole, the violence associated with sexual intercourse is directed with special intensity by men against women, specifically against their mothers. The language of ritualized aggression and abuse reminds those who use it that exploitation is the general rule and some form of dependence the common fate, that “the individual,” in Lee Rainwater’s words, “is not strong enough or adult enough to achieve his goal in a legitimate way, but is rather like a child, dependent on others who tolerate his childish maneuvers”; accordingly males, even adult males, often depend on women for support and nurture. Many of them have to pimp for a living, ingratiating themselves with a woman in order to pry money from her; sexual relations thus become manipulative and predatory. Satisfaction depends on taking what you want instead of waiting for what is rightfully yours to receive. All this enters everyday speech in language that connects sex with aggression and sexual aggression with highly ambivalent feelings about mothers.
In some ways middle-class society has become a pale copy of the black ghetto, as the appropriation of its language would lead us to believe. We do not need to minimize the poverty of the ghetto or the suffering inflicted by whites on blacks in order to see that the increasingly dangerous and unpredictable conditions of middle-class life have given rise to similar strategies for survival. Indeed the attraction of black culture for disaffected whites suggests that black culture now speaks to a general condition, the most important feature of which is a widespread loss of confidence in the future. The poor have always had to live for the present, but now a desperate concern for personal survival, sometimes disguised as hedonism, engulfs the middle class as well. Today almost everyone lives in a dangerous world from which there is little escape. International terrorism and blackmail, bombings, and hijackings arbitrarily affect the rich and poor alike. Crime, violence, and gang wars make cities unsafe and threaten to spread to the suburbs. Racial violence on the streets and in the schools creates an atmosphere of chronic tension and threatens to erupt at any time into full-scale racial conflict. Unemployment spreads from the poor the white-collar class, while inflation eats away the savings of those who hoped to retire in comfort. Much of what is euphemistically known as the middle class, merely because it dresses up to go to work, is now reduced to proletarian conditions of existence. Many white-collar jobs require no more skill and pay even less than blue-collar jobs, conferring little status or security. The propaganda of death and destruction, emanating ceaselessly from the mass media, adds to the prevailing atmosphere of insecurity. Far-flung famines, earthquakes in remote regions, distant wars and uprisings attract the same attention as events closer to home. The impression of arbitrariness in the reporting of disaster reinforces the arbitrary quality of experience itself, and the absence of continuity in the coverage of events, as today’s crisis yields to a new and unrelated crisis tomorrow, adds to the sense of historical discontinuity - the sense of living in a world in which the past holds out no guidance to the present and the future has become completely unpredictable.
Older conceptions of success presupposed a world in rapid motion, in which fortunes were rapidly won and lost and new opportunities unfolded every day. Yet they also presupposed a certain stability, a future that bore some recognizable resemblance to the present and the past. The growth of bureaucracy, the cult of consumption with its immediate gratifications, but above all the severance of the sense of historical continuity have transformed the Protestant ethic while carrying the underlying principles of capitalist society to their logical conclusion . The pursuit of self-interest, formerly identified with the rational pursuit of gain and the accumulation of wealth, has become a search for pleasure and psychic survival. Social conditions now approximate the vision of republican society conceived by the Marquis de Sade at the very outset of the republican epoch. In many ways the most farsighted and certainly the most disturbing of the prophets of revolutionary individualism, Sade defended unlimited self-indulgence as the logical culmination of the revolution in property relations - the only way to attain revolutionary brotherhood in its purest form. By regressing in his writings to the most primitive level of fantasy, Sade uncannily glimpsed the whole subsequent development of personal life under capitalism, ending not in revolutionary brotherhood but in a society of siblings that has outlived and repudiated its revolutionary origins.
Sade imagined a sexual utopia in which everyone has the right to everyone else, where human beings, reduced to their sexual organs, become absolutely anonymous and interchangeable. His ideal society thus reaffirmed the capitalist principle that human beings are ultimately reducible to interchangeable objects. It also incorporated and carried to a surprising new conclusion Hobbes’s discovery that the destruction of paternalism and the subordination of all social relations to the market had stripped away the remaining restraints and the mitigating illusions from the war of all against all. In the resulting state of organized anarchy, as Sade was the first to realize, pleasure becomes life’s only business - pleasure, however, that is indistinguishable from rape, murder, unbridled aggression. In a society that has reduced reason to mere calculation, reason can impose no limits on the pursuit of pleasure - on the immediate gratification of every desire no matter how perverse, insane, criminal, or merely immoral. For the standards that would condemn crime or cruelty derive from religion, compassion, or the kind of reason that rejects purely instrumental applications; and none of these outmoded forms of thought or feeling has any logical place in a society based on commodity production. In his misogyny, Sade perceived that bourgeois enlightenment, carried to its logical conclusions, condemned even the sentimental cult of womanhood and the family, which the bourgeoisie itself had carried to unprecedented extremes.
At the same time, he saw that condemnation of “woman-worship” had to go hand in hand with a defense of woman’s sexual rights - their right to dispose of their own bodies, as feminists would put it today. If the exercise of that right in Sade’s utopia boils down to the duty to become an instrument of someone else’s pleasure, it was not so much because Sade hated women as because he hated humanity. He perceived, more clearly than the feminists, that all freedoms under capitalism come in the end to the same thing, the same universal obligation to enjoy and be enjoyed. In the same breath, and without violating his own logic, Sade demanded for women the right “fully to satisfy all their desires” and “all parts of their bodies” and categorically stated that “all women must submit to our pleasure.” Pure individualism thus issued in the most radical repudiation of individuality. “All men, all women resemble each other,” according to Sade; and to those of his countrymen who would become republicans he adds this ominous warning: “Do not think you can make good republicans so long as you isolated in their families the children who should belong to the republic alone.” The bourgeois defense of privacy culminates - not just in Sade’s thought but in the history to come, so accurately foreshadowed in the very excess, madness, infantilism of his ideas - in the most thoroughgoing attack on privacy; the glorification of the individual, in his annihilation.
<…>
Standing-Reserve.
Note a lack of the “Greek” in Lasch.
Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939 by Georges Bataille, Edited by A. Stoekl, Translated by A. Stoekl, C.R. Lovitt, and D.M. Leslie Jr.
<…>

After tonight's episode, it seems that again the consensus here is that Kenzie wins. I can 100% see it: she aligns with a lot of the themes in the season, she has a very carefully-crafted edit, very likeable with a lot of positivity, and we hear from her a lot even when we don't need to.
...but I think this subreddit as a whole is ready to christen her, perhaps because we want to see her win over milquetoast nerd narrator, when Charlie in no way should be eliminated right now. I guess I'll go against the grain and make the case for Charlie to keep things interesting:
1) Charlie these past few episodes has hit consistent strategic themes about having options, being adaptable, and ultimately playing to win. Last week, this looked a bit hypocritical as Q stayed and Venus went home. This week, we see Charlie honor these themes by taking out Q, betraying his ally Maria (who admittedly was also betraying him), and "playing to win." We got the big crescendo in the music at the reward after his letters from home. The other players left in the game have not really had the same consistency. Focusing on Kenzie specifically, a lot of her content has centered around wanting Q out. Now, this in of itself isn't a bad thing given that Q is basically the season's big bad, and in the bitter jury/social winner theory that's been circling around, this could explain why a jury would be more willing to vote for Kenzie over Charlie. But, this episode was basically presented as Charlie's move. It wasn't Kenzie and co. convincing Charlie to flip. It was Charlie himself building up social connections (tying back into his themes) and making a move when the time was right. It almost stands in stark contrast to last week's episode, when we see Kenzie and Venus try to flip Charlie and fail, versus this week when it's portrayed more as an individualistic move from him and not the result of Kenzie building a social bond.
2) Charlie's win conditions. Last week, he said he needs to get out Q/Maria. This week, he got out Q. I think most of us here agree that Maria won't be in the F3. If he gets out Maria (probably at 5), he satisfies the win condition he set out for himself. In a more meta sense, he also finally got a flashback package.
3) Charlie is a threat in-game. We got (subtitled) conversations this week about Charlie being super likable and beating everyone in the end. While this isn't the end-all-be-all, it's worth noting.
4) Kenzie as a runner-up. This subreddit has gotten on-board with a Kaoh Rong dynamic for this season, with Michele/Kenzie beating Aubry/Charlie. But I want to propose another theory: maybe Kenzie is built up to be a compelling and rootable runner-up because Charlie really did just play that strong of a strategic game. I mean objectively speaking, the man has completely steamrolled. The edit has downplayed the alliance of himself/Maria/Ben throughout the middle of the merge, instead choosing to focus on more entertaining characters, but we knew that they were in control. Charlie also got his moment this episode to one-up Maria, which plays into what the edit has suggested with Charlie always getting his way and being the center of that duo. But having Charlie march to the end and win wouldn't make for a compelling FTC in what would be the most obvious win of the New Era thus far. Kenzie is the last of her tribe standing; she's been called a threat by others who ultimately took her out. She's slipped through as Q foretold in his hide-and-seek prophecies. She's even tied into a lot of the major themes of the season. But none of these things are exclusive to winners. I think a key example here is Carolyn, who was edited as a super rootable character that was portrayed in the edit to be a lot closer to winning and a much bigger threat than she actually was. There are other things too, such as the unfortunate reality of female winners not usually having such big edits, and Kenzie (I believe) would be the first New Era winner, male or female, to actually lead in overall confessional time for the cast. She'd be an incredibly unique winner for the series in that regard.
All-in-all, I think this subreddit has jumped a lot onto the notion of Kenzie winning when I don't think it's the slam dunk yet that a lot of this subreddit thinks. After voting out Q this week, there isn't anything that is glaringly wrong with his edit. Sure, he's a bit boring and doesn't have a ton of personal content outside of, say, Taylor Swift, but maybe there just isn't much there? The New Era has also done a lot of editorial legwork to try and mask obvious winners in the past. 41 basically made up fiction about Erika to make her seem more in-danger than she was when in reality her alliance of herself/Deshawn/Heather ran the game. 44 propped up Carolyn to be a legitimate threat to Yam Yam when that wasn't the case. 45 chose to spend most of the merge focusing on the downfall of Belo and Emily's underdog arc and then only really circled back around to the Reba dynamics at the end. I can see the editors of 46 choosing to focus on the more wacky and compelling rest of the cast over a dull dominance of a Charlie + playing up Kenzie as a legitimate threat to win so the finale isn't a slog when Maria probably goes out 5th.
I'm personally probably split about 50/50 between Kenzie and Charlie. I do see the argument for a Kenzie social victory. But I also think that the Finale and FTC is going to have to do a lot of legwork on why Charlie loses given the edit has basically done nothing but show him playing a stellar strategic game; given the current meta of the show and how fans have reacted to "wtf?" winners as of late, I'd expect the editors to be a bit more explicit on why Charlie would lose to someone who admittedly didn't do as much strategically. But we will see.

Greetings, Swappers! Looking to move along a bunch of stuff tonight. Seeking PayPal F&F on everything. Not looking for any trades at the moment.
I am working a 12 tomorrow so these will all have to ship out Friday, May 17, 2026 via USPS. Will have everything packed and tracking numbers provided after work tomorrow (~6pm EST).

Timestamp/Album

CRK Large Sebenza 31 Plain Jane Magnacut Steel DOB June 27, 2023 -- SV: $370 SOLD to u/roberttri2

• This one has definitely been a user. It's been in my pocket for nearly a year and bears the snail trails to prove it on the scales and pocket clip. Some scratching toward the very tip, but nothing else major to point out. Has been resharpened and stropped. Has excellent centering and that bank vault lockup you've come to expect from CRK knives. I did cut the lanyard off, so it'll be included in the original box along with the tool, microfiber cloth, and other goodies. I am the original owner and it'll come in the original box, along with its papers.

Benchmade Shootout Sage Green Colorway DLC-coated Cru-Wear Steel -- SV: $235

• This one has been a user and does bear some snail trailing on the DLC from breaking down some cardboard. Has been resharpened and stropped by me. Action is silky smooth -- haven't had it go off the rails on me yet. Will come in the original packaging. I am the first owner and only user.

Buck Folder Bundle 2x 110s, 1x 389, 1x 500 -- SV: $75 SOLD to u/Kodiakfighter

• Buck 110 #1 is an older 110 that I purchased off eBay about 8 months ago. Had Buck reblade it with a 420HC drop point blade, though they did so with a blade with an ugly grind finish on the top of the blade. I have since resharpened the blade and tightened up the pivot bolster to eliminate the slight blade play it had. Centering isn't perfect, but the action is decent and it's a great tool. No box and no sheath.
• Buck 110 #2 is the SMKW Exclusive in S30V steel. It has god-awful ugly scales in my opinion, which is why I'm moving it along. It is pretty well centered, but there's a slight bit of side-to-side blade play when deployed. Original edge on this one. No box and no sheath.
• Buck 389 is the Walmart Exclusive Buck Canoe. Never carried/cut/sharpened. I am the orignal owner. Has super minimal blade play on the "large" blade. No box or sheath on this one. I am the original owner.
• Buck 500 is something I picked up from Buck's website last year. Came with some side to side blade play but it is centered. Original edge on this one and will come with its sheath. No box.

DMT Diafolds Coarse/X-Coarse & Fine/X-Fine -- SV: $45

• Two DMT Diafolds. Super lightly used (as in maybe 3 uses), have a ton of life in 'em. They're a Coarse/Extra Coarse stone and a Fine/Extra Fine stone. I am the original owner.

Civivi Bluetick Green Micarta Scales Blackwashed 14C28N Steel -- SV: $40

• I am the original owner. Has been carried for a few weeks. Some minor sails on the blackwashed blade and a very faint one on the clip. Replaced the stock clip with the titanium Civivi clip (will include the orignal in the box). Centering is excellent, no blade play, and drops shut as you'd expect from a Civivi. Comes with the original box and taco.

Otter Messer Large Classic Folding Knife Carbon Steel -- SV: $40 SOLD to u/Snottsdale

• I ordered this recently due to being on a carbon steel slipjoint kick, but it couldn't push my GEC Bullbuster out of my pocket, so I'm moving it along. Never pocketed, might have opened a letter or two with it. Has its original edge. 3.25" blade, made in Solingen, Germany. No blade play and centering is pretty solid. Action is snappy. No box on this one.

Im just curious cuz I did lmao.
Middle school - girl threatened to kill herself everytime I did something she didn’t like. Also called me and her friends bakas AND HAD A CRUSH ON ME? She described me when she asked me to guess her crush I was so tired. A girl below my grade spammed the yarichin bitch club opening in zoom no teacher did anything. Same girl stole a ton of anime art for our art showcase. Another girl submitted paint by numbers 🙄 I called her out on it and she HATED ME, roleplayed killing me in chats.
High school - Couple always flirted in chat and came up with code names for people, and got angry when someone asked wtf they were talking about. U guys r a couple just text each other 💀 . They always got chat disabled SMH. Some pretentious guy in creative writing ALWAYS unmuted himself he was INSUFFERABLE. Got pissed off at every assignment and went on rants about how they were unnecessary. He tried to start arguments all the time, a girl said she had a tattoo to remember her dog and he said “I don’t get why some people think it’s smart to stain their skin” STFU! There’s more but I can’t get recognized on here 😭
I blocked every single person from this school on insta, I left this hellhole and felt like sharing. I thought it was normal to have falling outs with everyone u talk to in school 😭 this school legit made me a misanthrope in 7th grade because I literally could not befriend anyone here. If a parent is reading this do NOT make ur kids do K12 I swear there’s like 10 other virtual schools u can consider. There’s so many alternatives

to solve the meme creators fair takes on the comment2vote system, i suggest the following:
1-because meme creators rely on outsiders votes the tip2vote is not a fair solution as outsiders don't own donuts to vote so i suggest that we have another command so that outsiders can upvote without the need to own donuts.
2-because using commands is harder than using the up button many will stop upvoting as they are too lazy or lack of time, we must use the simplest command ever "the one letter or number command" 1 - v - u where you only need to write one of the three and that would be as easy as using the up button so no one will stop upvoting.
3-because comments section can become full of commands, there must be a pinned comment at the top that's used to write the commands within it.
4-because outsiders don't know the command to upvote and hence reward the post, an easy to notice colorful rectangle with the following message in big sized words
"write 1 at this 1st pinned comment to make the community reward this user"
is used as the pinned comment at the top so that everybody can notice the message and knows how to upvote and hence reward the post. also anyone making a meme post should add this short phrase at the beginning of his/her post
"write 1 at the 1st pinned comment to make the community reward this user"
which can be in big sized words and even be colorful so that outsiders notice easily how to upvote and hence reward the post.
5-because even comment2vote can be used to manipulate votes, a more strict minimum (x thousands) account karma + a more strict minimum (x months) account age to upvote, must be applied to solve this problem.

So originally this was a question from a redditor, u/Madmax0622, about why Gepirone hasn't been on the market yet despite being approved in September, 2023 and doing some research into has led to a rabbit hole of murder, intrigue, and one very disappointed boy having his father arrested at his 7th birthday party. Okay, not really, but the story is interesting and there is some important points to make about how drugs become approved and how data is represented. So i thought I would mkae it a full post (and comments have a smaller character limit).

What the hell is Gepirone?

Gepirone (Exxua) is a novel azapirone drug that is thought to work as a partial agonist at the Serotonin-1a (5HT-1a) receptor. This is a fancy way of saying that Geprione is a drug that is structurally similar to other serotonin receptor agonists. In the United States we only have Buspirone (Buspar, approved 1986) as our 5HT-1a agonist but internationally there are several others such as Perospirone (Lullan, Japan), Tandospirone (Sediel, Japan), and Binospirone (China). All in all, these drugs share very similar structures and only really differ in their pharmacokinetic properties such as half life, bioavailability, and first pass metabolism.
Where Gepirone differs from these other 5HT-1a agonists is that it is a partial agonist which means that when administered into the body, it creates a partial response to the receptor rather than a full response. While Gepirone is novel because it is the first drug who's primary mechanism of action (MOA) is this partial agonism at 5HT-1a, it is not an unknown one. Several common medications also have this mechanism, such as some newer antidepressants (Trazodone, Vilazodone, Nefazaodone), old and new antipsychotics (Haloperidol, Olanzapine, Clozapine, Ziprasidone), and some other known anti-anxiety chemicals (cannabidiol, LSD, and gingko biloba).
So if Gepirone wasn't the first drug to work on 5HT-1a, why did it get delayed?

What did the data say?

Well I should say first that Gepirone did show benefit. In a double blind trial of two different doses of Gepirone in treating depression, patients received either a high dose, low dose, or placebo and were found to have lower depression scores (HAM-D) at the end of 6 weeks. Based on these results (among other trials, it takes years and millions to submit a drug for approval--im paraphrasing here), Gepirone's pharma company Organanon submitted their data to the FDA. Their package of data contained one positive phase 3 trial--a randomized trial of over 200 participants with drepssion who either received Gepirone and had a reduction in depression score of 9.05 points (17% reduction in depression score) vs those who received placebo and had a 6.75 reduction in depression score (13% reduction) after 8 weeks of treatment.

• Their big bad trial of only ~200 people is not really robust so the FDA rejected their 2001 application and told Organanon in 2002 that they needed two large trials with positive results. Okay....Organanon submitted the two trials in 2003 and even added in data on relapsing depression when Gepirone was stopped vs continued. What they found was that people who stuck with Gepirone ER (at this point they reformulated the drug to be extended release) had a relapse rate of 23% vs people who stopped the drug had a relapse rate of 35%. The FDA looked at this data and said, "yeah that's not positive enough" and walked out of the room.

Feeling dejected, Organanon was sitting on the marble steps outside the main FDA office when little Fabre-Kramer came walking by.

"Hey Organanon, did the FDA deny your reapplication?" Fabre-Kramer asked. "Yeah, they said my drug failed to show explicit benefit. That in the analysis of the main endpoints, submitting 25 studies and only have 2 be positive against placebo and the rest be negative or fail when challenge other established drugs doesn't show positive results." "Man that really sucks. How much did you spend on developing this drug?" "About $1.3 billion." "Well that's not too bad, you just got NuvaRing (2001, still makes up 22% of their revenue) approved and are making a killing off of it. Likewise you are still making boatloads off of Mirtazapine (1997)." "Well don't tell anyone but we are actually in a major scandal with Medicaid in Massachusetts and Texas where we were defrauding state government," Organanon lamented. "Yikes, that sucks," Fabre-Kramer said, "Hey, why don't I take Gepirone off yours hands. Afterall I originally got it from Bristol-Myers Squibb in 1993 before I sold it to you in 1998." "Aight, bet."

And so Gepirone was handed off to Fabre-Kramer in 2005 so Organanon could write off this whole venture to their shareholders.
Fabre-Kramer started by conducting an additional randomized trial of 238 adult participants who received Gepirone ER for 8 weeks. Results were....the same as before--people who received Gepirone showed a 10 point reduction while the placebo group showed an 8 point reduction. In 2007 this third trial was included and sent over to the FDA for approval (for the 3rd time) and the FDA looked at it and said, "yeah no thanks kid." They said that the positive results from the most recent phase 3 trials was good but the 23 other small trials that showed negative results was troubling.
Fabre-Kramer then pushed up their glasses and pulled up their suspenders a bit and said, "I'd like to appeal that decision" and in 2012 the decision was send to the FDA's Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee (PDAC) in Dec 2015. In a 9-4 ruling, the committee voted that Fabre-Kramer smelled funny and they were dummy and that their drug was not good enough. They said they could resubmit another drug application again when they had more data.
Eventually Fabre-Kramer did submit another application in 2022 and Gepirone ER was approved by the FDA for the treatment of Depression in 2023.

If Gepirone was denied so many times, does that mean its a bad drug?

It would be easy to look at Gepirone's story and say that the drug is just not good enough and the pharma companies had to complete multiple trials (and thus generate more data) to prove its efficacy. Truthfully, its a mixed bag and I am going to try to shoot down the middle hear so you can make an informed decision on your own if you want to try Gepirone ER.
The Good

• Its always good to have additional drugs that focus on mechanisms that we know work. Remember that Gepirone works very similarly to Buspirone, as they both affect 5HT-1a, but importantly it has a longer half life. Unlike Buspirone, Gepirone is offered as an extended release form so instead of 3-4 doses a day you'd potentially only have 1 or 2.
• Now Gepirone is a partial agonist while Buspirone is a full agonist, which does have some important pharmacodynamic factors but based on the impact of other partial 5HT-1a agonists as discussed above, we can say that Gepirone is likely to work the way we want it. So you can attack the receptor that Olanzapine affects without all of Olanzapine's other effects.
• Likewise, the side effect profile is similar to or better than Buspirone. Again, this is most likely due to the improved half life or extended release.
• Gepirone also respresents another option for a non-traditional antidepressant that 1) does not cause weiight gain and 2) does not cause sexual dysfunction--two of the biggest reasons why people stop their depression treatment.

The Bad

• The data is very meh. Look at the differences in scores in these studies of reduction in depression score when given Gepirone vs Placebo: -9.04 vs -6.75; -10.2 vs -8.0; -9.0 vs -6.6; -10.1 vs -7.8. These differences are extremely close--a difference of 3 points (12.5%) in someone's depression? Would you take a drug knowing it would only lead to a potential 12.5% reduction in your depression after 8 weeks? Now its important to note that some people did have massive benefit, and im glad they did. But on average, 12.5%. Not great.
  • Now, don't get me wrong, Buspirone also doesn't have great data. In the trial that got Buspirone approved it showed that 7.5mg 3x daily of Buspirone had a HAM-D score reduction of 10.45 points vs the placebo of 7.92. So only a 10% reduction in depression score. But, then again Buspirone was primarily approved for anxiety, not depression like Gepirone, and Buspirone shows a 30-42% reduction in anxiety score at 8 weeks. Maybe Gepirone will show better results in Depression-Anxiety copresentation.

Alright, this is where my brain is wanting to stop for now. If I think of additional things to add I will throw them in. Cheers!

Serious question (US based)
How do I become upper class?
CONTEXT: My family grew up middle class in an upper middle class neighborhood. I remember feeling ashamed because my friends would vacation to Europe every summer or other exotic destinations while I spent my summers working, and my only "vacation" was to go to the local public pool.
I've been out of college for a year now and have been able to take some short vacations within the US, which has been nice. However I still work in retail making a very low salary and my parents have given me a deadline to move out soon. I'm well aware that what I make is NOT a liveable salary, at least in the part of the country where I live.
I've been applying to jobs for almost two years and have gotten the occasional interview or phone screen but have not landed a single offer. I majored in a liberal arts degree but changed my mind on my ideal career path at a point where I was already stuck in my degree. I'd love to work in business but have already been rejected from all the firms in my area, not just the top ones (all without even getting an interview). I've been applying to jobs daily but I know I need a way to earn more money if I need to start supporting myself soon. I've even signed up for a side gig just to supplement my current job but am still waiting to get approved.
I've thought about becoming a gold digger (I am female) or starting an OnlyFans, although I can't quite overcome my conscience to do the latter, and I am too fat to be the former (I have PCOS and have struggled with my weight my whole life). I am currently learning to watch my diet and calories and working on losing weight, but I am currently well over my ideal weight and am only losing weight at a very slow rate which means it will be several years before I am down to a healthy weight.
Now for the good news.
For one, because I grew up surrounded by the upper middle class, I am familiar to some extent of the aesthetic of that class (although it is very different from my own personal style). I don't know some of the really boujee etiquette things like the different types of forks and what not (tbh being so concerned that someone's using a salad fork to eat steak or whatever is stupid. A fork is a fork.)
Because I went to an affordable public college, I graduated debt free, which is huge. I also graduated with a very good GPA and scored fairly highly on both undergraduate and graduate school standardized exams.
I also have a few different credit cards that I use responsibly and don't spend beyond my means (for the most part). I always pay my cards off in full every month and have a FICO credit score of about 770.
I try to diversify my portfolio, and of my savings I've accumulated so far, just under 10% is in a mutual fund, about 25% is in my 401k with company match, and the rest is in a high yield traditional savings account. With every paycheck, I contribute 10% to my 401k and an additional 10-25% into my savings account (I aim for 25% since I still live at home and have fewer expenses right now, but some months it's less).
It's hard because I've tried looking online for advice as far as how to become wealthy and I feel like I'm doing everything right - I went to college, I got good grades, I save a lot, I have no debt, I don't spend beyond my means, I've even tried going above and beyond to show my dedication in my job search by cold emailing recruiters at companies I'd be interested in (especially those who were alumni of my school), writing personalized cover letters, etc. and yet here I am stuck in my barely-above-minimum-wage soul-sucking retail job with a clock ticking over my head that I don't have much time to somehow find something that provides a liveable wage / move up in class so I can move out of my parents house. In addition, I don't really have the money to immerse myself into affluent circles by joining expensive country clubs, etc. (and even if I did, I feel like I would be judged and dismissed because I'm a fat woman), so that severely limits any opportunities to network or rub shoulders with the rich.
I know this is a very long post so thank you if you made it all the way to the end. I would really appreciate any sincere advice on how to move up in socioeconomic status, find a better paying job, etc. thank you ♥️

Hello, I'm a junior high school student going into my senior year in a few months. I have different plans laid out for college, and I was wondering which of these seem best. Ideally, I want to study urban planning (or at least something that connects with it and pursue a masters in urban planning after) or civil engineering in a non-commuter college, in an urban setting, while not having to spend too much (I'm in California).

1. Community college to a 4 year (Hopefully UCB or UCLA 🙏🙏). I'm interested on doing this because it's not only cheaper than going straight into a four year but I'll also have a higher chance of getting into a more prestigious school
2. Going straight into a four year. While going to a CC first would probably be the smarter move, it doesn't intrigue me in the same way going straight into a four year does, and I don't want to feel as if I missed out on the college experience/experience living in a big city.
3. Going international for a bachelor's, and then getting my master's in the US. I am a dual Mexican-American citizenship holder, and I was considering going to UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico). It's one of the most prestigious universities in Latin America, and the tuition is essentially free. However I don't see myself working there after I graduate, which could make getting a job in the U.S difficult. Also my Spanish isn't perfect, but I can definitely improve it within the next year, but traveling there has also been a dream of mine for a while, and I feel like I would enjoy the experience of living there.

Stats (just in case this helps): UW GPA: 3.8 W GPA: 4.04 First generation Hispanic/Latino First to go to college Household income: 60-70k I think? Like middle-class but lower middle for the area Class rank: Top 13% (probably will increase with 2nd semester grades put in) My extracurriculars aren't that strong, with a paid summer internship at the local government being my strongest one.
I also have several questions such as

• If my first semester senior grades will matter, and if that will be included in my GPA? (Especially for UC schools) because if that is the case I believe I can make my GPA even higher (to a 4.16W at most)
• If I should even bother taking the SAT/ACT

This account is not for vulnerability but let me be vulnerable once in a while because it fucking hurts so much. "In the Stars" by Benson Boone keeps on repeat, I want to wallow myself in sadness and tears even just for a while until I accepted the fact that you're gone, FOR REAL.
Remember June 2012 when I decided to change career, the career that I am passionate. You're welcoming freshman, transferees and unit earners that time, naisip ko na lang bigla "Ay!Shuding ites!" because your feminine side was screaming, but boy I was wrong personality mo lang talaga pala yun. You're a 3rd year student, and I was a 2nd year irregular student that time. May mga subjects kayo na nakuha ko kasi masyado kong inoverload ang sarili ko non since I wanted to finish it as much as possible, masyado akong nagdwell sa pressure na I am getting older to have my dream career. I never thought na magiging kaklase kita given na magkaiba tayo ng major, nasa English ka, nasa Mathematics naman ako. Sinasabi nila whenever your block has someone new you entertain them dahil ayaw mo na naoOP (out of place) sila, which is doon lahat nagstart.
From chikka to talking to being my confidant. Maraming nangyari sa buhay natin non, hindi natin akalain na yung mga vacant periods ko is magiging vacant periods mo din noon kaya kahit magkaiba ang major natin we still have the time catch-up, exchange ideas and even help one another sa mga plans for the school activities. And then June 2013 came, you even asked me kung pwepwede ba akong sumali sa organization ninyo for our department dahil you love may suggestions and even you admire my creativity (pakulo) sa department natin. I said yes, kahit wala akong bilib noon sa sarili ko, you were running for President and I am for Vice-President. At sa di inaasahang pagkakataon, tayong dalawa yung napasama sa organization na yun. Alam mo mga panahon na yun, nagkakaroon na ako ng tiwala sa sarili ko kasi kaya ko pala. Doon pa lang ang laki na ng pasasalamat ko sayo kasi ikaw yung naging bridge towards what I am now. Sa tambalan natin, doon naimpress at naging active ang department natin dahil sa mga pinaggagagawa nating mga trip. Perfect couple nga daw kung magiging tayo man, but we were committed that time kaya we respect our boundaries.
Halos malapit na ang graduation non, so I have to handle most of the task. Nahirapan but still you find time to help me kahit yung pumunta sa bahay namin in the middle of the night para lang matapos yung mga reports and plans. Halos ikaw na nga ang kilala ng nanay ko na bf ko that time, tinawanan lang natin 'to. In that short amount of time, we've became bestfriends. Graduation mo noon, I even gave you flowers to congratulate you hindi mo ineexpect pero kinilig ka. First time nilang makakita ng babae ang nagbibigay ng flower sa lalaki. Though, you were busy having your career you consistently checking-up on me, there was no single day na hindi mo ako itetext, and sharing your life for that day. That's when I knew I am falling for you but I choose our friendship over that petty feelings.
Busy tayo having our own careers pero we do friendly dates, and a lot of sharing life updates. One night, you called and was crying, I knew something was up, so, pinapunta kita sa bahay to tell me everything. Nabuntis mo yung gf mo that time and wala kang magawa kundi pakasalan yung gf mo. There's a lot in your mind pero comfort ko lang yung ibinigay sayo and a few solutions. The day of your wedding came, wala akong ganap pero I attended dahil you requested na umattend ako. I wouldn't miss the wedding of my bestfriend. Tinawag ka ng parents mo para you'll walk down the aisle na pero that time you choose to hug me and say this fucking word that put me into tears during your wedding and my "what ifs" for months. "Alam mo bang mahal na kita simula pa nung niligawan kita to be the Vice-President of our org? Sorry hindi ko inamin because I choose to respect our boundaries and commitment, pinangako ko na bago ako pumasok sa buhay kong ito masabi ko man lang yan sayo."
After that, we parted ways, iniwasan na kita as much as possible because you have to divert you feelings for me to your wife and to your kids and masaya ako na you're building your dream family with her, having you career and such. The last hug I received from you was nung dumalaw ako at nasa hospital ka pa. Telling me pagod ka na and you wanted to rest, I cried, I wanted to confess everything to you but I heldback. Nakakapangsisi pala no? Alam ko nasa gilid kita ngayon para icheck 'tong letter ko sayo. Please hug me because I do not know what to do - selfish, I know pero paano ko 'to tatanggapin? Ngayon alam kong alam mo na ngayon kung ano nararamdaman ko para sayo, na hindi ko na masasabi ito ng buhay ka pa. Albeit it fucking hurts but the thought of no more sufferings na for you, makes me at ease. Guide your loved ones Ken until we meet again. I love you!

In 1945, the United States underwent Operation Paperclip which gave over 1,600 German scientists, engineers and technicians sanctuary and absolution of their crimes in exchange for the continuation of their research.
In 1953 those same individuals came up with and executed MK Ultra, an illegal human experiment that used its citizens (targeting schools, hospitals and prisons) as test subjects.
In 1954 the Plum Island was turned into a research center for diseases.
In 1975 the first documented case of Lyme disease occurred. Rumored to have escaped Plum Island.
In 2005 the DHS announced that all the work done at Plum Island would be continued in Kansas. Not just the center of the continental United States, but also home to crops seen in grocery stores all over the country.
The following is a true story.
Getting into work, one of the first things I do is check my mail. I’ve been a reporter for years and have amassed fans who like to write in and give me leads. Most of the time these leads don't amount to much (Sometimes I wonder if people send me things because of my apophenia and they are trying to get me off their scent), but every once in a while I strike gold.
I had been working at Whisper Alley Echos for a few months by the time I got my first lead. The package I got was small and when I opened it I saw a DVD that had the words “play me” written in black marker on it. Not knowing what was on it, I waited until I got home to put it on. Not just because I didnt know what was on it, but I was also busy working on a different project about how everyone in a nearby town just went missing. The official story is that they all went on vacation or went to visit a relative and decided to stay. I dont know about you, but I found that suspicious.
After getting home and shifting gears to get into the movie mood (popcorn, blinds pulled, etc…) I popped the DVD in and began watching.
There were dozens of different videos to pick from, some ranging from a minute to half an hour. Instead of picking one at random, I just played them in order. After all, all their titles were dates and times and I didnt want to miss anything that might make sense later.
The first video featured a tardigrade, at the time I didnt know what it was, but the scientist doing the voice over described it as being a microscopic animal as well as being extremely resilient. This went on for several minutes and for a moment it felt as though I was watching a nature documentary instead of something given to me by a government whistleblower.
The next few videos featured footage of the tardigrades being given something called “BB-F828” and the changes it caused.
The voiceover talked about how a tardigrade (this time he called them water bears and the two terms were interchangeable from this point on) was showing signs of several thousand generations of evolution in only a few days. Even though I know nothing about science, I could see that the thing on the television was not the same animal that was shown in the first video.
While they were never “cute”, at least they never looked like predators, but after a few videos I saw that the tardigrades were covered in what appeared to be padding. In a later video this padding would change into being chitin-like armor.
The last video was filmed two months after the water bears were given BB-F828 and in it the scientists could see them even without a microscope.
The next morning I went into work and started writing on my computer, copying notes from my small notebook. However by the time I started the second draft, Andrea, the office secretary, dropped a letter off at my desk.
It was the first time I got a letter about an “inside scoop” two days in a row.
The letter said that they were the ones who sent the DVD and if I wanted to know more I would have to go to The Rats Skeleton (a bar that used to be a speakeasy during prohibition. Because of this the place feels as though its a front for a comic book villain. The owners have leaned into this and did everything they could to reinforce this feeling with sparse lighting and everything that isn't red velvet on the walls being painted black) at a specific time.
Usually I wouldn't go meet strangers after getting an anonymous letter that tells me to come alone, but its a small town and I didn't have much going on that particular Thursday.
Parking behind the Merc (short for mercantile, where most of the grocery and general shopping is done in town), I descended the stairs and made my way to the back of the bar. There I found a woman that didnt look like she slept in days. Since no one else was in that back area I figured she must have been the person I was there to see.
“Hey, I’m Daniel West. Am I—”
“Sit” the woman said, motioning across from her. I sat down and asked her for her name but she didn’t want to answer me and when i asked for it a second time she claimed it was Jane, but there is no doubt that was not her real name.
“What made you reach out, Jane?”
“You saw the video?”
I nodded. “Yup.”
“And?”
“I have a lot of questions” I answered.
“Figured you would” Jane said. “Ask.”
“Well, first” I said, my journalistic inexperience showing as I went through my pocket notebook. “Who are you and why do you know all this?”
“Name isnt important” Jane answered. “Let me start from the beginning. We thought we were working on human survivability” Jane answered. “I thought that I was working for some company that had a government contract. That might be true, it might not be. Either way lots of money and resources have been put into this.”
“I saw the video” I answered. “What exactly was it that I was watching?”
Janes eyes were frantic as she looked at the stairs behind me. When I turned around to see what she was looking at I saw a local descending the steps and approach the bar. She only answered my question when she was convinced that the man wasn't eavesdropping, still, she spoke in whispers.
“We were working on human survivability.”
“You said that. What does that mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. Consider we civilize mars and the long term effects from the static radiation there. Or another planet that demands thicker bones because of increased gravity? Evolution might give us those things eventually but what if we need it now? In this generation?”
“So you made super humans?”
Jane was annoyed and slapped the table. No one was around to hear or see her but I still looked around anyways.
“We didn’t work on humans. We piggybacked off of some other countries' genetic research and made some breakthroughs of our own. When—-“
“Other countries?” I interrupted instead of letting her talk.
“Yeah” Jane said with a shrug. “Some countries aren’t tied down by the same code of ethics as ours.”
“That’s why you got a hold of me? To tell—-“
“We were working on small parts. At first individual genes, building from that success we went on to more complex organisms. Eventually, hopefully, test on humans.”
“But you never made it that far?”
“No” Jane said, taking a sip from her glass. “We tested BB-F828 on other things, building up towards human testing.”
“Okay, like what?”
Jane inhaled through her nose and looked at me as though she wasnt sure if I could be trusted. Then she sighed when she realized it was too late not to trust me, she had already went too far to turn back. “What do you think has the best chance of not only surviving a planet wide disaster, but also thrive in it?”
“Cockroaches” I answered.
Jane nodded. “Sure. Lots of people would agree with you, however that wouldn't be the best pick.”
“Oh? Then what would be?”
“Rats.”
I laughed.
“They are tough and can thrive anywhere. Even before BB-F828 they are smarter than roaches, plus rats have a complicated social hierarchy, similar to humans. Remember, I didn't just say survive. I said thrive.”
“So you tested all this on rats?”
Jane nodded. “We did.”
I waited for Jane to continue, but thanks to her staring off into space due to lack of sleep, she waited longer.
“What happened?”
Janes eyes drifted back at me, she was running on fumes. “Huh? Oh, yeah. Rats, right?” she asked while pulling a folder out from the seat next to her. She set it on the table and slid it over to me. “Here, take a peek.”
I opened it, expecting redacted pages of ‘evidence’ and while I got some of that, it was the photos that drew my attention the most. At first the photos were individual rats and a designated number they received instead of a name.
“How many rats did you experiment—” I started, but my voice trailed off when I came across a photo of the one rat with unique markings on its back now appearing to be bred for a war on pleasant dreams. Its eyes were pearly gray, teeth became tusks, its whiskers were thick and barbed. According to the scale it was on when the second photo was taken it weighed twenty nine point four kilos.
“A few hundred?” Jane answered, though it was obvious that it was just a guess. “They were paired off and put in different environments to see how they adapt.”
“Why would you pair them off?”
“I think it was to see if some would branch out and become their own species” Jane answered as she checked her watch. Seeing the time she sped up. “See, when something with BB-F828 finds itself in a desert, it might adapt to the point that it grows a hump like a camel. Or grow gills if they are in the ocean. The original purpose was for human survivability on other planets. We thought if we could discover how the adaptations work, and it could be repeated exactly the same over and over again, we could do something for humans. After all you wouldn't want anything unexpected to happen when you're in the middle of growing another set of arms or a dorsal fin, right?”Jane said. “But to do this we needed lots of subjects and all in their own environments. Each one had their own surprises, after all, evolution is random. Favors some things over others. One species can branch out to be dozens or hundreds. Thousands with enough time and environmental factors. When the tardigrades started displaying more predatory behavior we thought it was due to the change in diet and the increase in protein, but now we think its due to the rapid change. It drives them insane. All of this was surprising, but none as surprising as the ‘dirt rats’.”
“Wait. They are all insane? Also, dirt rats?” I asked, flipping the photo over to show the next one. This one revealed what I thought was a bear, but when I was about to flip it over to look at the next one I noticed its teeth. Thats when I noticed that it was a huge, muscular rat.
“Six breeding pairs, all kept in an empty pool full of dirt. They weren't given enough room to get out of the dirt, so they had to adapt to living in it. Anyways, because they are in the dirt its harder to keep track of what they are doing. Because of that, by the time we discovered that they had burrowed their way out of the facility it was too late. They were gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean?”
“Escaped,” Jane whispered. “And they are growing.”
“Growing?”
“Last I heard, they were nearly sixty feet but we honestly don't know. It's not like we can compare them to anything else.”
“Sixty feet?” I laughed. “Someone would have saw them by—”
“Underground” Jane said with a shake of her head. “They are underground. I know it's hard to believe, but how else can you explain those earthquakes in Chicago? New York?”
“Are you saying there are giant rats under those cities?”
“I am saying they aren't rats anymore. They are something else entirely. I am saying six breeding pairs might not sound like a lot, but rats reproduce so quickly it's terrifying. I am saying that they are so big and there are so many of them that they are causing those earthquakes. I am saying that due to their size they burn off lots of calories and some have evolved to hibernating.”
“Why hibernation?”
“No idea, but when they wake up they are going to be very hungry. Ravenous.”
“Any idea when that might be?” I asked.
Jane shrugged. “Some already have. We just covered it up.”
It might have been my apophenia talking, but with that statement I started seeing the bigger picture and asked Jane about the town that went missing (The story I was working on before her DVD reached me). Jane gave me the politician's answer, saying something without actually saying something, and that was enough to confirm that I was indeed on the right track.
Unfortunately Jane and I did not speak for much longer, she got a call that freaked her out and she took off. Before she left she took the folder and the pictures I was still going through. I haven't seen or heard from her since and have dropped the story about the disappearances that have secretly been plaguing our country.
WAE

In 1945, the United States underwent Operation Paperclip which gave over 1,600 German scientists, engineers and technicians sanctuary and absolution of their crimes in exchange for the continuation of their research.
In 1953 those same individuals came up with and executed MK Ultra, an illegal human experiment that used its citizens (targeting schools, hospitals and prisons) as test subjects.
In 1954 the Plum Island was turned into a research center for diseases.
In 1975 the first documented case of Lyme disease occurred. Rumored to have escaped Plum Island.
In 2005 the DHS announced that all the work done at Plum Island would be continued in Kansas. Not just the center of the continental United States, but also home to crops seen in grocery stores all over the country.
The following is a true story.
Getting into work, one of the first things I do is check my mail. I’ve been a reporter for years and have amassed fans who like to write in and give me leads. Most of the time these leads don't amount to much (Sometimes I wonder if people send me things because of my apophenia and they are trying to get me off their scent), but every once in a while I strike gold.
I had been working at Whisper Alley Echos for a few months by the time I got my first lead. The package I got was small and when I opened it I saw a DVD that had the words “play me” written in black marker on it. Not knowing what was on it, I waited until I got home to put it on. Not just because I didnt know what was on it, but I was also busy working on a different project about how everyone in a nearby town just went missing. The official story is that they all went on vacation or went to visit a relative and decided to stay. I dont know about you, but I found that suspicious.
After getting home and shifting gears to get into the movie mood (popcorn, blinds pulled, etc…) I popped the DVD in and began watching.
There were dozens of different videos to pick from, some ranging from a minute to half an hour. Instead of picking one at random, I just played them in order. After all, all their titles were dates and times and I didnt want to miss anything that might make sense later.
The first video featured a tardigrade, at the time I didnt know what it was, but the scientist doing the voice over described it as being a microscopic animal as well as being extremely resilient. This went on for several minutes and for a moment it felt as though I was watching a nature documentary instead of something given to me by a government whistleblower.
The next few videos featured footage of the tardigrades being given something called “BB-F828” and the changes it caused.
The voiceover talked about how a tardigrade (this time he called them water bears and the two terms were interchangeable from this point on) was showing signs of several thousand generations of evolution in only a few days. Even though I know nothing about science, I could see that the thing on the television was not the same animal that was shown in the first video.
While they were never “cute”, at least they never looked like predators, but after a few videos I saw that the tardigrades were covered in what appeared to be padding. In a later video this padding would change into being chitin-like armor.
The last video was filmed two months after the water bears were given BB-F828 and in it the scientists could see them even without a microscope.
The next morning I went into work and started writing on my computer, copying notes from my small notebook. However by the time I started the second draft, Andrea, the office secretary, dropped a letter off at my desk.
It was the first time I got a letter about an “inside scoop” two days in a row.
The letter said that they were the ones who sent the DVD and if I wanted to know more I would have to go to The Rats Skeleton (a bar that used to be a speakeasy during prohibition. Because of this the place feels as though its a front for a comic book villain. The owners have leaned into this and did everything they could to reinforce this feeling with sparse lighting and everything that isn't red velvet on the walls being painted black) at a specific time.
Usually I wouldn't go meet strangers after getting an anonymous letter that tells me to come alone, but its a small town and I didn't have much going on that particular Thursday.
Parking behind the Merc (short for mercantile, where most of the grocery and general shopping is done in town), I descended the stairs and made my way to the back of the bar. There I found a woman that didnt look like she slept in days. Since no one else was in that back area I figured she must have been the person I was there to see.
“Hey, I’m Daniel West. Am I—”
“Sit” the woman said, motioning across from her. I sat down and asked her for her name but she didn’t want to answer me and when i asked for it a second time she claimed it was Jane, but there is no doubt that was not her real name.
“What made you reach out, Jane?”
“You saw the video?”
I nodded. “Yup.”
“And?”
“I have a lot of questions” I answered.
“Figured you would” Jane said. “Ask.”
“Well, first” I said, my journalistic inexperience showing as I went through my pocket notebook. “Who are you and why do you know all this?”
“Name isnt important” Jane answered. “Let me start from the beginning. We thought we were working on human survivability” Jane answered. “I thought that I was working for some company that had a government contract. That might be true, it might not be. Either way lots of money and resources have been put into this.”
“I saw the video” I answered. “What exactly was it that I was watching?”
Janes eyes were frantic as she looked at the stairs behind me. When I turned around to see what she was looking at I saw a local descending the steps and approach the bar. She only answered my question when she was convinced that the man wasn't eavesdropping, still, she spoke in whispers.
“We were working on human survivability.”
“You said that. What does that mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. Consider we civilize mars and the long term effects from the static radiation there. Or another planet that demands thicker bones because of increased gravity? Evolution might give us those things eventually but what if we need it now? In this generation?”
“So you made super humans?”
Jane was annoyed and slapped the table. No one was around to hear or see her but I still looked around anyways.
“We didn’t work on humans. We piggybacked off of some other countries' genetic research and made some breakthroughs of our own. When—-“
“Other countries?” I interrupted instead of letting her talk.
“Yeah” Jane said with a shrug. “Some countries aren’t tied down by the same code of ethics as ours.”
“That’s why you got a hold of me? To tell—-“
“We were working on small parts. At first individual genes, building from that success we went on to more complex organisms. Eventually, hopefully, test on humans.”
“But you never made it that far?”
“No” Jane said, taking a sip from her glass. “We tested BB-F828 on other things, building up towards human testing.”
“Okay, like what?”
Jane inhaled through her nose and looked at me as though she wasnt sure if I could be trusted. Then she sighed when she realized it was too late not to trust me, she had already went too far to turn back. “What do you think has the best chance of not only surviving a planet wide disaster, but also thrive in it?”
“Cockroaches” I answered.
Jane nodded. “Sure. Lots of people would agree with you, however that wouldn't be the best pick.”
“Oh? Then what would be?”
“Rats.”
I laughed.
“They are tough and can thrive anywhere. Even before BB-F828 they are smarter than roaches, plus rats have a complicated social hierarchy, similar to humans. Remember, I didn't just say survive. I said thrive.”
“So you tested all this on rats?”
Jane nodded. “We did.”
I waited for Jane to continue, but thanks to her staring off into space due to lack of sleep, she waited longer.
“What happened?”
Janes eyes drifted back at me, she was running on fumes. “Huh? Oh, yeah. Rats, right?” she asked while pulling a folder out from the seat next to her. She set it on the table and slid it over to me. “Here, take a peek.”
I opened it, expecting redacted pages of ‘evidence’ and while I got some of that, it was the photos that drew my attention the most. At first the photos were individual rats and a designated number they received instead of a name.
“How many rats did you experiment—” I started, but my voice trailed off when I came across a photo of the one rat with unique markings on its back now appearing to be bred for a war on pleasant dreams. Its eyes were pearly gray, teeth became tusks, its whiskers were thick and barbed. According to the scale it was on when the second photo was taken it weighed twenty nine point four kilos.
“A few hundred?” Jane answered, though it was obvious that it was just a guess. “They were paired off and put in different environments to see how they adapt.”
“Why would you pair them off?”
“I think it was to see if some would branch out and become their own species” Jane answered as she checked her watch. Seeing the time she sped up. “See, when something with BB-F828 finds itself in a desert, it might adapt to the point that it grows a hump like a camel. Or grow gills if they are in the ocean. The original purpose was for human survivability on other planets. We thought if we could discover how the adaptations work, and it could be repeated exactly the same over and over again, we could do something for humans. After all you wouldn't want anything unexpected to happen when you're in the middle of growing another set of arms or a dorsal fin, right?”Jane said. “But to do this we needed lots of subjects and all in their own environments. Each one had their own surprises, after all, evolution is random. Favors some things over others. One species can branch out to be dozens or hundreds. Thousands with enough time and environmental factors. When the tardigrades started displaying more predatory behavior we thought it was due to the change in diet and the increase in protein, but now we think its due to the rapid change. It drives them insane. All of this was surprising, but none as surprising as the ‘dirt rats’.”
“Wait. They are all insane? Also, dirt rats?” I asked, flipping the photo over to show the next one. This one revealed what I thought was a bear, but when I was about to flip it over to look at the next one I noticed its teeth. Thats when I noticed that it was a huge, muscular rat.
“Six breeding pairs, all kept in an empty pool full of dirt. They weren't given enough room to get out of the dirt, so they had to adapt to living in it. Anyways, because they are in the dirt its harder to keep track of what they are doing. Because of that, by the time we discovered that they had burrowed their way out of the facility it was too late. They were gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean?”
“Escaped,” Jane whispered. “And they are growing.”
“Growing?”
“Last I heard, they were nearly sixty feet but we honestly don't know. It's not like we can compare them to anything else.”
“Sixty feet?” I laughed. “Someone would have saw them by—”
“Underground” Jane said with a shake of her head. “They are underground. I know it's hard to believe, but how else can you explain those earthquakes in Chicago? New York?”
“Are you saying there are giant rats under those cities?”
“I am saying they aren't rats anymore. They are something else entirely. I am saying six breeding pairs might not sound like a lot, but rats reproduce so quickly it's terrifying. I am saying that they are so big and there are so many of them that they are causing those earthquakes. I am saying that due to their size they burn off lots of calories and some have evolved to hibernating.”
“Why hibernation?”
“No idea, but when they wake up they are going to be very hungry. Ravenous.”
“Any idea when that might be?” I asked.
Jane shrugged. “Some already have. We just covered it up.”
It might have been my apophenia talking, but with that statement I started seeing the bigger picture and asked Jane about the town that went missing (The story I was working on before her DVD reached me). Jane gave me the politician's answer, saying something without actually saying something, and that was enough to confirm that I was indeed on the right track.
Unfortunately Jane and I did not speak for much longer, she got a call that freaked her out and she took off. Before she left she took the folder and the pictures I was still going through. I haven't seen or heard from her since and have dropped the story about the disappearances that have secretly been plaguing our country.
WAE

ooc: co-written with the lovely u/LyrePlayerTwo
READ PART 1 HERE
The Final Guess

Suspects	Weapons
Cerberus???	The Shirt of Nessus
The Minotaur	Siren Song
Lamia???	Harpy Talon
The Hydra??	Celestial Bronze Sword
Typhon	A-C Encyclopedia
Echidna	Cerberus Fang

Harper made eye contact with Amon, slack-jawed. Any trace of condescension in her brown eyes was replaced with panic. “You were wrong.”
Amon let her words hang in the air as he sank into the chair by the desk with more force than he had intended.
“They’re her parents. They would have more of a motive than the rest of the suspects,” he retorted quickly, repeating Harper’s earlier words with a bitter edge. “Is what I recall hearing.”
“There were no other options!” Harper turned back to the wall, and tapped her chalk against the board. The powdery stick threatened to snap in her grip as she read out the remaining suspect names. “The Hydra was in the middle of a fight, Cerberus was working, and Lamia could not lie about being innocent.” She looked back towards Amon. “We eliminated all of those together.”
Amon remained composed, attempting to keep his voice steady despite the tension caused by their blunder. “And yet, we both made a mistake,” he agreed, scrutinizing the board in front of him as if it held a secret answer they had missed. “We have no room to make another one. But it must be one of those three.”
Though Amon’s words were calm and measured, his furrowed brow and clenched jaw betrayed an inner turmoil of his mind working overtime.
“Emotions or not, I think we can be sure it was not Lamia.” Harper began to pace around the study, her restless movements a physical manifestation of her racing mind. “So we should take a look at Cerberus and the Hydra again.”
"I was guarding the entrance, my duty unbroken," Amon repeated Cerberus’ alibi, resting his chin in his hands as he leaned against the desk.
Harper nodded. “I really don’t think that Cerberus could have lied about staying on guard. Or that he would have. He would not risk the gods’ wrath.”
“True,” Amon agreed, his dark gaze following Harper as she paced around the study room. “The voice of duty is more eloquent than the voice of sin. At least, the father of Greek tragedy said so,” he added with a hint of smug satisfaction.
Harper stopped walking. Amon's words seemed to have pulled her out of her spiral. She looked over at Amon again, a hint of amusement in her brown eyes. She remarked, “You always quote other people when you're arguing. Do you ever speak for yourself?”
Amon opened his mouth, then closed it, his olive complexion growing pink as he glared at Harper.
"Understanding the thoughts of those who came before us is not a lack of capacity for original thought. It is a foundation upon which we can build our own ideas.” He stood up from his chair, folding his arms across his chest. “Ideas that we need to get out of this job alive.”
“And I deeply respect the writings of Aeschylus,” Harper began diplomatically, “But I think the tragedians would have very unhelpful things to say about our predicament. I say we focus on writing our own story.”
She shrugged, offering Amon a slight smile before she turned away.
“Alright.” Amon grumbled as he sat back down in the chair, noting that Harper had named Aeschylus before he had a chance to cite his source. “Let us keep going with the problem at hand then.”
It was unfortunate how easily they had fallen into their patterns of needless bickering, but he almost missed it as the room fell back into a suffocating silence. Amon had no other leads, and, for once, nothing else to say.
It looked like Harper had nothing either. She stopped wandering around and sank into a chair close to the chalkboard, the active analytical expression on her face giving way to a chilling blankness.
Amon was not going to give up. He pursed his lips, attempting to recall the details of every obscure Greek text he had ever read.
Yet, despite the gravity of their current circumstances, his thoughts couldn’t help but return to Harper’s comment. What a ridiculous thing to say– of course he could think for himself, speak for himself. Admittedly, he had quoted Aeschylus to show off, but the words of the Ancient Greeks were not irrelevant in solving a mythological murder mystery. The key here was that, alone, Amon would never know enough. It would always be useful to have input from a second mind, whether it was from a long-dead playwright or another demigod sitting right in front of him.
A second mind.
Amon shut his eyes, massaging his temples as he tried to visualize the fleeting holograms. “Harper. Who spoke for the Hydra? Was it all of the heads, or just one?”
“The middle head, I think?” Harper's voice grew louder as she stood and approached him, waiting for him to elaborate.
Amon’s eyes flew open, gleaming with a sudden excitement. “Well, if the heads can talk independently - “
“-then they can act independently!” Harper clapped a hand over her mouth in realization of her interruption. She smiled apologetically at Amon before continuing. “Sorry. But you're right. We focused on the wrong technicality. It wasn't what they said. It was who said it.”
“But your point about monster opposable thumbs still holds true,” Amon’s shoulders sagged slightly. “And we know that the sword must be correct.”
Harper shook her head sheepishly. “I don't think it matters. I knew it probably wouldn't after the first guess, really. I just didn't want to be wrong.”
The room fell into a heavy silence as the pair considered their final answer, broken only by the soft hum of the air conditioning. Harper scanned the chalkboard again, pursing her lips as she checked their work. Amon's jaw clenched tighter as his gaze remained fixed on Harper, lost in thought.
He broke the silence with a firm declaration, his voice steady and assured. "I feel confident about the Hydra and the sword. Do you?"
Harper nodded. “Yes. Do you want to be the one to tell her?”
Amon stood up from the chair once more, smoothing the wrinkles in his sweater. “I’ll leave the honors to you.”
“Okay,” Harper agreed, exhaling slowly. Her fingertips brushed against the base of her kopis as she called out to the monster, her voice even and clear. “For our final guess, we accuse the Hydra of killing the sphinx with a Celestial Bronze Sword.”
The sphinx rolled over and then stood. She took measured steps towards the demigods, eyeing the shortswords at their waists with a relaxed, almost sleepy expression.
Harper stiffened as the lioness drew closer. Even if Harper and Amon tried to fight her off now, it was not likely that they would win. This sphinx had the unbothered demeanor of a being who no longer feared death.
“You are correct,” the sphinx proclaimed, after a long silence. “And what an agonizing death it was,” Her melodramatic ranting was muted by the disappointment of her defeat. Still, she held her head high as she judged the demigods who had outsmarted her. “I must say that you have both exceeded expectations. If only barely.”
Harper and Amon exchanged looks. Harper took another cautious step towards the sphinx, saying, “You said you would leave if we got it right.”
“So I did.” the lioness agreed. “Humans spend their lives in pursuit of knowledge, you know. So often, they fail to apply it, only to repeat the same mistakes that they made before. You do not have the luxury of learning from your past lives, as I do. So I hope you have learned something that you will remember.”
She stalked towards the window, turning to offer the demigods one last prideful glance. “Goodbye, demigods.”
The Sphinx pushed the curtain aside and jumped through the open window.
As she left, the shimmering, translucent energy that had materialized the suspects returned once more. It swirled around the six weapons the pair had gathered, slowly dissolving them into sparkling motes of blue light. The door to the study room creaked back open.
“Well,” Amon slid his hands into the pocket of his trousers, “I am glad that our initial oversight did not lead to imminent death.” His tense and stony features had finally relaxed into a rare smile, exposing the metallic gleam of the brackets and wires on his teeth.
“All men make mistakes,” Harper intoned with exaggerated pretension. “But a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong. Or so the tragedians say.”
She walked over to the chalkboard and began to erase her script, barely restraining a laugh.
Amon nodded in approval as he crouched down to pick up some of the remaining debris. “A bit of a mainstream citation, yes. But contextually relevant and rich with insight.”
Soon, the study room was back to its ordinary state, and they were ready to leave. Amon held the door open as they exited the room. “Now, returning to the topic of thinking for oneself…”
References: Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan, Clue, Wordle, Aeschylus, and Antigone by Sophocles

Hello Adventurer!💨
This subreddit is created to have conversations about development WordByWord Game and other projects.
I know a little about reddit, and I'm not native English speaker, so my posts may not be grammatically correct, but I will try my best:) and while posting it here, I would love to hear community (if it would be any:)) feedback commenting development process.

About the Word By Word

The initial idea of the game was created by me and my wife during long trips on transport, which required fast, simple and fun game which can work offline on one device and it was based on simple rule - which famously known as "Snowball" (or similar) - I say "Adventure" the the next person should say word which will contain three last letters from the word, i.e. "ure", so he may say "capture", the next person, can say "bureau" and so on.
Over time, I've tried several ideas and prototypes about what the game could be and finally came to the following:
It would be good to keep the same principle, but create new mechanics around it, to change the goal of the game - instead of comparing and confronting players, it would be better to give players thought the game can be played together, and while playing - research some new words and languages.
So, based on this, the final idea can be described in following principle:
The word entering mechanics are key to use everything in the game, and all players - are the passengers of hot air balloon which travels through some landscapes.
Currently I already implemented the new logic, which allows players to.control hot air balloon through the words, actions (moving crystals) and technologies.
I'm not great in UI design, so currently not focusing on it and making opposite - mechanics, and testing it how it works.
A latest walkthrough video of this concept is below
https://youtu.be/7qU1wVzyL-U?si=AYjwHV90OyNWoPac
and a light version of the game is currently released on snapstore, google play and playable in browser on itch.io.
https://snapcraft.io/word-by-word-game
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dev.xsoulspace.word_by_word_game
https://arenukvern.itch.io/word-by-word-game

Monetization plans

I follow only one rule yet:) - during gameplay should be no ads at all. Ads should not interrupt process in any cases, and can be just addition - for example to revive the player (I think the best reference here is Alto Odyssey).

Current links and talks:)

sometimes I'm posting on discord
https://discord.com/invite/y54DpJwmAn
or itch io
https://arenukvern.itch.io/word-by-word-game

About me

I'm a self taught software developer with a full-time job. I've started making games at school and failed many times (even in programming), but still have a goal & dream to create games and useful apps along the way.
All my fails gave me reason to believe that development is more about living - in constant process of researching, failing, trying again until something is good happens:)
Why two (or few projects) in the same time Over last years I had several burnouts, after which I'm trying carefully balance work-life-hobby projects, to minimise impacts of such things:) because of that, sometimes I work half of year on Word by word Game, and other half - on LastAnswer.

So I recently just graduated high school. Just fir a little background information: I was the "oops" baby. My parents gave me my basic needs, but truely didn't care much for me. I have 2 older brothers who are both in college and by the middle of my sophomore year, my parents basically stopped caring for me since i had my lincese.
Well during 10th grade, I met these 2 people Jay (28M) and Becca (30F) on a game. We started to game and talk more and since then, I've considered them older siblings. We talk daily with 2 other people (both 20M) and just game. All of them have helped me through senior year when it came to colleges and scholarships, since my parents didnt. We were even in call when I opened my acceptance letter.
The topic of graduation came up a few weeks ago and Becca asked me who's all going to graduation for me. I said no one and told them that, "yeah my parents are going on a trip during the time" and that I'm not close to other family and we didn't talk about it more.
About 2 days later, I get a dm from Becca saying like "Hey about what you said a couple days ago about graduation. Me and Jay will totally drive out there (about 7hrs away) just so somebody will cheer for you." And I was just shocked that these 2 adults with jobs and lives would even want to do that.
Us 3 got talking and I gave them all the information for the day. Said day comes and low and behold, the 2 showed up. When my name was called, i could hear them yelling and cheering and I just wanted to start sobbing.
Yknow grad ends and immediately, Becca gives jay the gift they got me and runs to bear hugs me saying she's so proud of me. And honestly, I'm fulling sobbing that these random people I met playing fucking overwatch were the only ones to show up for me.
Now that I'm out of high school and a legal adult, they asked if I wanted to stay at their house for the summer since the school I got into was a city apart from where they live (it's the same school Jay went to and has friends who work admissions who he totally didn't recommend me too.) I finally got people who care for me and I'm so happy about it.

So I've been wanting to rant this for a while and I'm finally willing. I had a journal when I was younger and I just found it again so I'm just posting based from what I read and remember. So first is kinda the backstory. This starts from 6th grade to 8th grade. In 6th grade there was two sides and the rest of the friends, these will not be real names. So I was on the side that was mostly in the right/didn't start it. There was me and this girl I'll call Kelly, then on the other side was Lav and Jams. The rest of the friend group was more like bystanders and kind of judges to both sides. The main judge was May, who was the therapist friend for a lot of my friends throughout elementary and middle school. Kelly and Jams always conflicted over stupid things. After me and Lav got our side of the story we came together and talked about it, sometimes bringing it up to May for help. At the time Lav had a boyfriend I'll call Bear. Bear and Jams hated each other, but they both wanted to hang out with Lav. Our teacher literally made Lav have to hang out with only one of them because they fought so much. During this time me and Jams were having problems with our sexual and gender identity, and Kelly was homophobic, which was also another reason Kelly and Jams conflicted. So in 7th grade Kelly and Jams were no longer friends, during some lunch hours I would go to Kelly and Lav's lunch (they had a separate lunch from me and Jams). They vented about Jams a lot and I never expected them to be friends again. Not much else happened in 7th grade besides Jams dating about 20 people (yes this is an accurate number) and finding out they were transgender. In March or some time near then of that year they brought a flag to school (I think it was omnisexual) and started telling people that was my sexuality when I wasn't out (they told Kelly and May). I didn't know about this until my birthday party in late summer when May and Lav told me. May started texting Jams and Jams ended up blocking me. About halfway through 8th grade me and Jams became friends again, although they manipulated me and my friends. Now, they still haven't figured out their gender and sexual identity at this point. They got mad at me for flirting (terriblely) with their boyfriend. Their boyfriend did flirt back and was totally comfortable about it and knew it was platonic. Me and their boyfriend did start dating after they broke up and that lasted for a month. We were friends afterwards but because we started dating Jams hated me. They said I was using them and making their boyfriend get a cursh on me even though I've told them we were just joking. Soon after I gave them a letter explaining everything from 6th grade from my PoV and they stopped hating me. They were still annoying and said stupid things, they also do not respect boundaries at all and have literally put their hands around my neck like they'd strangle me. They also jump on my back and said things that made me uncomfortable (flirting with me in a weird way) even though I told them to stop.

So I've been wanting to rant this for a while and I'm finally willing. I had a journal when I was younger and I just found it again so I'm just posting based from what I read and remember. So first is kinda the backstory. This starts from 6th grade to 8th grade. In 6th grade there was two sides and the rest of the friends, these will not be real names. So I was on the side that was mostly in the right/didn't start it. There was me and this girl I'll call Kelly, then on the other side was Lav and Jams. The rest of the friend group was more like bystanders and kind of judges to both sides. The main judge was May, who was the therapist friend for a lot of my friends throughout elementary and middle school. Kelly and Jams always conflicted over stupid things. After me and Lav got our side of the story we came together and talked about it, sometimes bringing it up to May for help. At the time Lav had a boyfriend I'll call Bear. Bear and Jams hated each other, but they both wanted to hang out with Lav. Our teacher literally made Lav have to hang out with only one of them because they fought so much. During this time me and Jams were having problems with our sexual and gender identity, and Kelly was homophobic, which was also another reason Kelly and Jams conflicted. So in 7th grade Kelly and Jams were no longer friends, during some lunch hours I would go to Kelly and Lav's lunch (they had a separate lunch from me and Jams). They vented about Jams a lot and I never expected them to be friends again. Not much else happened in 7th grade besides Jams dating about 20 people (yes this is an accurate number) and finding out they were transgender. In March or some time near then of that year they brought a flag to school (I think it was omnisexual) and started telling people that was my sexuality when I wasn't out (they told Kelly and May). I didn't know about this until my birthday party in late summer when May and Lav told me. May started texting Jams and Jams ended up blocking me. About halfway through 8th grade me and Jams became friends again, although they manipulated me and my friends. Now, they still haven't figured out their gender and sexual identity at this point. They got mad at me for flirting (terriblely) with their boyfriend. Their boyfriend did flirt back and was totally comfortable about it and knew it was platonic. Me and their boyfriend did start dating after they broke up and that lasted for a month. We were friends afterwards but because we started dating Jams hated me. They said I was using them and making their boyfriend get a cursh on me even though I've told them we were just joking. Soon after I gave them a letter explaining everything from 6th grade from my PoV and they stopped hating me. They were still annoying and said stupid things, they also do not respect boundaries at all and have literally put their hands around my neck like they'd strangle me. They also jump on my back and said things that made me uncomfortable (flirting with me in a weird way) even though I told them to stop.

Written by u/GoldWhale & u/JD397
Thanks everyone for your patience with us getting this written up. Much appreciation to my co-author u/JD397 for his work, scouting analysis, and comprehensive background knowledge on where Demidov sat compared to historical players, and the international analysis. Please note, this analysis won’t focus on why Demidov>Levshunov. In terms of BPA, Demidov is nearly unanimously over Levshunov based on consolidated rankings. With the Blackhawks publicly saying they want to go BPA, we hope to establish a case as to why Demidov truly stands above the rest, by a good margin. We hope that this was worth the wait, and we haven’t disappointed anyone who may have wanted more. We’re amateurs, give us a small break 😉
When Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly flipped the decisive card to reveal the number one overall pick, Blackhawks fans were disappointed. They were going to miss out on Macklin Celebrini, the consensus number one center and number one overall player in the draft. After winning Connor Bedard the prior year, many fans were hoping for a one two punch down the middle, their own version of McDavid and Draisaitl, Crosby and Malkin; this was not to be.
Despite the initial dismay, fans were still happy. The Blackhawks won the second lottery, and with that, the rights to select a franchise player at number two overall. Immediately, though, there was debate. Swirling on social media there were rumors that the Blackhawks were predominantly looking at two high end prospects: Ivan Demidov (RW/C) and Artyom Levshunov (D). On one hand Demidov is an elite prospect at wing with excellent hands, creativity, and legitimate top line wing with PPG+ upside. On the other, Levshunov is a dynamic offensive defenseman with a stellar shot, solid size, dynamic skating, and most importantly right-handedness.
The Blackhawks, realistically, need both positions. Last year the Blackhawks iced one of the worst offenses in the entire league, scoring the second least goals behind only San Jose. They also had the fourth worst defense, surrendering 290 goals on the season. Neither are acceptable in the push for a playoff spot in the coming years, but ultimately with number two, you can only choose one of the two players. After our hours of analysis, u/JD397 and I believe there is no debate – as good as Levshunov is, Demidov is closer in skill and projection to Celebrini than anyone else in the draft is to him.
So who is Ivan Demidov? He’s an 18 year old forward playing for SKA 1946, a MHL affiliate of SKA of the KHL. Since the 2023 draft the big story out of the KHL was the dominance of Matvei Michkov. This was a kid who destroyed the MHL by putting up 38 points in 22 games and going PPG+ in the playoffs his D-1 Year. Michkov then outperformed Connor Bedard by putting up 16 points in 7 games at the IIHF U18s in 2021. Michkov was, and still is, borderline generational but there was someone else waiting in his shadow. In his D-1 Year, Ivan Demidov put up 62 points in 41 games, and scored 1.3PPG in the MHL playoffs. While putting up a lower PPG pace than Michkov, Demidov’s game was substantially more well rounded and scouts started to take notice of another potential franchise winger in Ivan Demidov.
Demidov exploded in his D-0 Year, putting up a literal 2.0 PPG pace in the MHL the highest pace ever for a player 18 or under, and the third highest PPG in league history. In the playoffs, despite an injury, Demidov posted a ridiculous 28 points in 17 games. This production was unheard of beforehand and bested Kucherov’s 1.87 point pace at 18. Not only did Demidov have better production AND two way play, but he also did it nearly 7 months younger. Demidov remains a bright spot who is able to elevate his play to the competition. Before talking about playstyle, strengths, comps, projections, etc. it needs to be noted just how dominant Demidov was on the scoresheet.
Now that fans know who Ivan Demidov is, let’s address the elephant in the room. Demidov is Russian and with the political climate worldwide, being a Russian is associated with an inherent risk of a prospect not coming over. Rest assured – there is no such concern in this case. Last year, rumors swirled around Michkov not coming over due to three factors:

1. Michkov did not meet with more than two teams and actively told specific teams he would not play for them.
   
2. Michkov was incredibly difficult to get ahold of predraft and it made scouts and front offices skeptical on his character and desire to come to the NHL.
   
3. Michkov had 3 more years left on his contract with SKA.
   

Demidov, on the other hand, is actively engaging with teams. He’s hosting a workout in Florida before the draft for multiple teams to attend, and is actively having his agent coordinate interviews and meetings with interested front offices. Demidov has publicly declared his intention to come over to the NHL as soon as possible, even venturing so far as to say he’s looking at options for getting out of his KHL contract to get to the NHL for the 24-25 season. Finally, Demidov only has 1 year left on his contract so there isn’t long term concern about losing the ability to develop him internally. An interesting note that we found during analysis was that Demidov’s agent, Dan Milstein, is “hated” in the KHL because of how consistently he pushes for his clients to leave Russia and transition them to the NHL. Even if Demidov is stuck in Russia all of next year, there’s almost zero risk he doesn’t come over.
On Demidov, the other large question that looms is his lack of play in the KHL, and SKA’s decision to play him in the MHL. Despite being the one of the best players in MHL history, Demidov only saw action in 4 KHL games and scored a total of 0 points which has also turned off many scoresheet watchers. Let us reassure you – Demidov was predominantly the 13th forward and played an average of 3-5 minutes per game with unfamiliar linemates. He did not have a chance to play enough to succeed, and built no chemistry with the teammates he was playing with in his limited time. SKA is notorious for handling their prospects poorly. Young players are consistently given limited ice time, especially when they’re expected to leave Russia. Michkov, despite his skill, couldn’t crack the SKA roster in his D-0 or D+1 simply because of this bias. All said, this is not a concern scouts have when it comes to the potential drafting of Demidov.
With the Russia question answered, we believe there is no doubt that Ivan Demidov is the pick to make in the 2024 draft. Ivan Demidov is really really good. He is the complete package for what you look for in a franchise winger. Demidov has excellent hands, dynamic edgework, elite hockey IQ, high end compete and energy, a relentless forecheck, creativity in the offense he provides, solid two way play, and finally rapid speed in terms of release and puck control. There is no one like him in this draft who offers such an elite skillset with no obvious flaws in his game outside of his build. He can also play center when needed which gives him additional offensive flexibility and adds even more dynamism to his game.
While analytics don’t tell the full story, they can often be a useful baseline to build from. The first item we want to call attention to is Byron Bader’s model, which projects Demidov as the best #2OA prospect since Eichel.. Let's again be clear, we don’t put much merit into this due to the low gradings of Carlsson and Laine, but it’s important to contextualize how Bader’s model works. It compares prospects to the league they’re in and projects them out. Demidov dominated the MHL to such a degree that the model favorably views him due to being almost untouched in play, and setting multiple records. Continuing with Hockey Prospecting and Bader, who is an active NHL draft consultant, they project Demidov to be an absolute STUD based on production. No forward who they’ve ever given 99%s to has ever been less than PPG+. Demidov has a very comparable offensive game to Celebrini, and is all but guaranteed to be a star due to his production and skillset. Alanen also projects Demidov to be elite in all 3 zones, and gives him a total RARE grade of 100, due to his next level offense and transition, and above average defensive work despite his assignments. Again, analytics aren’t an end all be all by any means. They’re just an exceptional base to build from when scouts, data scientists and NHL draft consultants unanimously believe a player to be elite. From our research, no prospects with comparable profiles have busted or not succeeded in the NHL.
Whilst reading multiple articles, watching videos on Demidov, and going through tape, we compiled the following scouting report.
Physical Attributes:
Demidov is not very physically imposing, or even one of the most physical players in the draft. He’s expected to show up to the combine around 6ft tall and weighing 170lbs. Admittedly one knock that some scouts have for him is his build and need to bulk up. Thankfully, this is easy to build at the professional level. Nonetheless, Demidov has sturdy base that enables him to dominate around the boards and in front of the net due to his rapid twitch movements and lower body power. Demidov is able to outskate and outwork larger and stronger players by being smart with his legs and driving to the inside consistently when in transition. His remarkable agility and lower-body strength allow him to outmaneuver opponents and maintain possession in tight spaces, or separate for quick attacks or desperation back checking.
Skating:
Demidov's skating is characterized by irregularities; while he exhibits great power on his edges, his transitions suffer due to a wide stance, leading to questionable but explosive pivot work. Despite this, his rapid acceleration and agility enable him to navigate through traffic seamlessly, while his powerful stride generates significant momentum, making him a constant threat in transition. Let’s clear up a misconception; Demidov is not a bad skater. He’s got decent speed, a good handle on body control, power on the inside of his edges and with quick crossovers, etc. His posture and stance need work, but this is something that looks completely fixable at the NHL level. It doesn’t require a rebuild of his skating style, rather a retool that can utilize his edgework as a base. Instead of hunching over at the end of a shift and losing speed and energy, Demidov can rely on quicker small movement cuts on for rapid movement and longer, albeit slower strides while holding himself higher to preserve energy while covering distance. While the 10 and 2 skating that Demidov employs isn’t conventional, it allows him to see a good deal of the ice, and when in close provide breaking speed towards the play. Fixing the reliance on 10 and 2 also offers faster top level skating and easier quick pivoting in a 200ft game, rather than a longer turn. Again, his skating is unorthodox – but it isn’t bad. It’s not mechanically sound, but it can be polished to a high level without a large amount of concern. Because of how unpredictable his skating is now, scouts across the board acknowledge that it potentially even grants an advantage as his body is harder to read.
Scoring Ability:
A natural sniper, Demidov possesses a lethal shot with pinpoint accuracy and a lightning-quick release that catches goaltenders off guard. Whether he's unleashing a blistering wrist shot from the slot or wiring a one-timer on the power play, Demidov consistently finds the back of the net with precision and finesse. One really underrated part of Demidov’s scoring ability comes from the aforementioned elite edgework. Due to how rapidly he can change directions while holding full control over the puck, he can create scoring lanes with almost zero room, and his accuracy is again one of the best we’ve evaluated as amateur scouts in the last few drafts. When there isn’t an immediate opening or shot, Demidov is patient, draws coverage where he wants, and again has no qualms about firing the puck to the net. If there’s one question about his ability to score, it’s his slapshot. He hasn’t had to use it in almost any occasion due to how the offense is structured on SKA 1946, and therefore it’s not as developed as his snap or wrister. This is a relatively minor knock, though. Demidov can take slapshots and find twine without much difficulty, it’s just the least refined part of his goalscoring ability.
Playmaking and Elite Hands:
Demidov has the best hands that we have scouted. Better than McDavid, better than Fantilli, better than Hughes, better than Bedard, better than Michkov, and yes, better than Patrick Kane as a prospect. Yep, that good. Hadi Kalakeche, one of Dobber’s lead scouts says, “…he has THE best handling skill I’ve seen… he’s the closest thing we’ve seen to Pavel Datsyuk since Pavel Datsyuk.” The rapidity of his movement, the purposeful puck placement, the astounding protection rate, and his ability to pull defenders off of him without moving his body is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. Again, he has the most individual puck skill and innate offensive talent in the draft. These skills with his hands allow him to become an absolutely next level playmaker. Demidov is crafty, and has a history of faking shots to make a pass, or vice versa to help his team. He’s able to create lanes and take advantage of his puck control by having absolutely next level zone entry to set up the offense on a consistent basis. While his decision making needs some work when it comes to choosing the best move, he almost always makes the right one, and is able to think through solutions when there’s no apparent move forward. Whether it’s a drop pass, running the puck up the boards, a regroup, finding a teammate with a perfectly slotted pass, Demidov has no real ceiling. The only question remains is whether these skills will work as well at the next level. All said though, there’s no real debate between scouts that he’ll be a franchise winger.
Creativity and IQ:
Demidov is electrifying, brilliant, dynamic, innovative, transcendent, and any other adjective you want to use. There is no prospect in this draft with Demidov’s offensive upside, including Macklin Celebrini. As mentioned above, Demidov has been compared to Datsyuk: he is stellar at opening up lanes with his body or finding passes, even if they’re banked off the boards. While Bedard is a guy who was expected to shoot first, Demidov is a passer. This works in his favor, though. Demidov certainly doesn’t lack a scoring touch. His positioning and body will tell goalies and defenders he’s planning to pass and he’s able to quickly change direction using his edges to put a shot on net. His ability to think several steps ahead of the play allows him to execute highlight-reel passes and capitalize on scoring opportunities that others on his team might miss, or simply not have the skill to execute. He’s unpredictable because his vision is at such a high level. He’s got a game reminiscent of Jack Hughes and Patrick Kane, and the way he views the game has scouts absolutely over the moon about his pro projection. There really is nothing that Demidov doesn’t have the ability to do – this year in the MHL he took advantage of the strength of competition and tested it out. Demidov tried different reads, different styles, working more heavily down the middle, shooting, playdriving, etc. We’re blown away by the flexibility that he shows across every facet of the game. A really fun quote to mention from Lassi Alanen, EP’s director of Euro scouting is, “I still have like 100+ unused clips of Demidov's play from this season. He must be the most clippable prospect I've ever watched. Something eye-catching happening almost every shift during his second half of the season.” Demidov’s highlight reel isn’t really a “reel” – that’s just how he plays the game on most shifts that he takes.
Physicality and Defensive Awareness:
Demidov's physicality extends well beyond his height, as he isn't afraid to throw his weight (all 170lbs) around and engage in board battles to win possession. His defensive awareness is equally impressive, as he uses his size and reach to disrupt passing lanes and apply pressure on opposing forwards both in the defensive zone and in the neutral zone, showcasing a commitment to playing a complete, two-way game. As briefly mentioned, Demidov doesn’t exclusively play wing – he plays center too. While he’s not going to be Patrice Bergeron he is capable of handling both ends of the ice, and has consistently improved his defensive play throughout the year.
Work Ethic and Engagement:
While almost all prospects “work hard” to play their best on the ice, Demidov does that little bit more. Despite being a winger, he’s consistently one of the first players up and down the ice. He rarely coasts and drifts around but is engaged rather consistently all around the ice. One thing that’s often hard to teach prospects is how to be aggressive and assertive without being risky. Demidov never worries about challenging his opponents, fighting hard board battles, or giving his all to get back into a play after he’s low after driving to the net. This is something that the Blackhawks LOVE in their players, and should hopefully encourage GMKD to pull the trigger, if everything else didn’t sell him. As we see Demidov continue to improve in skating with NHL coaches, this should only give him more energy to expend in the 200ft game, and improve his engagement across plays. He’s an absolute workhorse, and consistently pushes to improve which evidenced by the massive improvement across this season in the MHL. There’s no reason to think this same drive can’t come through on the NHL level.
Areas to Improve and Questions:
With all the hype around Demidov, it’s hard to initially understand why he’s considered a lower end prospect than Celebrini. Digging in, though, it becomes more clear. While Demidov has the higher ceiling, he also has a much lower floor. The number one factor that limits Demidov is his exposure to higher end competition. The MHL is a good league, but Demidov was ready for the KHL last year. Since he wasn’t exposed to higher end competition there is still question on how much of his skillset will translate when playing higher level men’s hockey. There isn’t an expectation of a problem, but when a player lacks that experience, it undoubtedly makes them more challenging to project. Remember, Demidov didn’t really play meaningful KHL minutes when he got 4 games this year. He got 13th forward exposure and didn’t play with the same linemates that he worked with in the pre-season. Nonetheless, he wasn’t perfect. He did see some questionable decisions while trying to adapt to higher competition. There’s little concern that this is an actual issue, but Demidov needs to grow and play against men, even for a few games, before coming to the NHL. Thankfully, he should have the entire season in 2024-2025, and I haven’t read a single scouting report that expects him to have an issue putting up Michkov+ numbers.
The second factor is skating. Demidov is a good skater, but he’s unorthodox at best. While this skating relies heavily on his edgework which gives him amazing playmaking ability, his pivoting, high end speed, position and stride could all use refinement and improvement. While these are all skating mechanics that are easier to fix, skating is NOT a guarantee. If he’s unable to improve his skating with NHL skating coaches, it could limit his upside. He is still expected to be a top line winger, but it could be the difference between 70+ and 100+ points if skating doesn’t develop. Remember, some scouts view his skating as a “hidden” upside in his game, but improving skating not only gives him more offensive flexibility, but also defensively. There’s room for improvement, and it could be an easier lever to correct to see high rewards from.
The third factor is decision making. Demidov is creative to a fault, but just like in art, not every project works out. With such an advanced toolkit, Demidov needs to work with video coaches to better understand which moveset is appropriate in which scenario and when to deploy it. There’s a difference between decision making and IQ. Decision making is hard to fix when a prospect is set in their ways based on playstyle, but if playstyle is more flexible, then there’s much less of a concern. IQ, on the other hand is uncoachable, and Demidov has arguably the best offensive IQ in the draft. There’s no reason to believe that he can’t fix this, but due to being stuck abroad, and potentially even the MHL again next year, it could take him a bit longer to get up to NHL speed.
The final factor is defense. While it seems that every single forward prospect has a knock on their defense, we can qualify Demidov’s specifics a bit more easily. Demidov is a competent defender, and a very good well rounded player, but again decision making plays a factor in the challenge of projecting him here. While players like Celebrini are dominant both ways, Demidov often doesn’t make the right choice when defending – he has a lot of offensive instincts which have him sit higher on the blue, and while he is always engaged on the puck, he needs to be more responsible in coverage rotations. Off the rush, Demidov doesn’t always read the play correctly, and the inconsistency can create shooting lanes for his opponent. Just like Michkov, he can also cheat on plays where he finds himself a bit further away from a play and loses sight of his defensive assignment. He’s extremely energetic and consistently pushes to get back, but working with him on understanding when to cheat will be important for his development as well. We again want to reemphasize that Demidov plays solid defense and a good two way game, especially for a wingecenter. But there’s room for improvement in terms of bridging the gap between him and other recent prospects like Celebrini, Carlsson, and Johnston.
Pro Projection:
While he doesn’t have the skating that Jack Hughes had, he’s still a great projection and comparable. A smaller but nimble player who isn’t afraid to get involved on the rush, around the boards, or in transition. Demidov’s offensive upside is similar as well – like Hughes, the defense isn’t the best, but he’s able to run an entire offense both on the wing and playing center. He’s creative to a fault, has a great set of hands, and the toolkit to be a consistent top 5 player at his position in the NHL. Pro projections are always hard because you can never guarantee how a player will turn out, whether they’re undrafted or a #1OA, but Demidov is truly all but a sure thing. His creativity rivals players like Nikita Kucherov and Mitch Marner in their ability to think ahead of where the play is, his handling rivals Kane and Datysuk, his defensive play is above average for a winger, he has a great shot comparable to players like Matt Tkachuk, and is a bitch to get off the puck. Even when Demidov is literally on the ground, he’s consistently able to hold possession and find a play with no room left. With a toolkit like his, decent size at an estimated 6ft, there should be no reservations that Demidov should succeed at the next level. Most scouts see his floor around 65-70 points, and his ceiling closer to 120. I stand by the Jack Hughes comp I made earlier. While they differ in skating, they play very similar games, and should expect similar success at the next level.
Quotes:

“He’s got the best hands in the draft… and has made more one-on-one skill plays so far this season than almost any prospect I’ve scouted for any draft. He’s also a pretty engaged off-puck player who keeps his feet moving, hunts pucks on the forecheck, and can turn a steal into a game-breaking play in an instant.”
Scott Wheeler, The Athletic
“Demidov is already a game-breaking forward who can move the puck effortlessly and there’s no question he’d be a fantastic partner to some of the best prospects in the NHL today. His production in the MHL is comparable to Patrick Kane’s 2006-07 season with the Ontario Hockey League’s London Knights… Demidov is a bonafide first-line winger who will score tons of goals.”
Dayton Reimer, The Hockey Writers
“In a vacuum he’s the most talented forward this draft class has to offer outside of Celebrini. Demidov possesses many of the same traits Celebrini does, only his track record is against younger, more unproven talent."
Sam Cosentino, Sportsnet
“The talent of Demidov is impossible to deny. His raw skills might be the best in terms of offense in the entire draft. His puckhandling, shot, passing, and even skating makes him a unique hockey player and prospect. There are many great offensive players, but not many quite like Demidov. Especially who will also have a great drive and motor to play a strong 200 foot game… he could easily be a point per game player in the NHL on most teams first line.”
Frederik Frandsen, Last Word on Sports
“At the end of the day, what you get in a player like Ivan Demidov is a generational offensive dynamo with the mind of a master chess player. Each time he gains possession of the biscuit, his ability to think many steps ahead of the opponent, find creative solutions involving his puck handling abilities, as well as creating tremendous execution at creating space with his skating or precisely hitting the net is considered to be up to par at the NHL level.”
Tyler Ballesteros-Willard, Draft Prospects Hockey
“Any forward that has ever had the type of equivalency we’ve seen from Demidov in his pre-draft year and draft year, going back to the ’80s, has turned into a point-per-game-plus superstar over their careers… You need stars to compete and contend in the NHL, and Demidov is almost guaranteed to be that.”
Byron Bader, Hockey Prospecting
“Demidov is the most dynamic, verstatile, and creative [puck] handler we’ve seen come through the draft in recent years. Elements of his on-puck decision-making remain raw, but his upside as a 100-point top-line winger is supported by decent off-puck and defensive engagement and lightning-quick processing of the game. His elite-level of on-puck intelligence and his trifecta of dynamic handling, playmaking, and goalscoring tools give him the foundation to become an electrifying creative force and offensive driver.”
Sebastian High, Dobber
“Demidov breaks defences. He spots a tiny gap in coverage, bursts right through, and blows it open. He plays mostly a finesse game, but does so hyper-aggressively, attacking everything he can. Demidov succeeds at pulling off plays that most prospects can't. He plans, processes, and anticipates faster than he can stickhandle. He's a pure creator with the puck, making plays out of nothing.”
David St. Louis, Elite Prospects
“Demidov is the more dynamic and flashy prospect [Than Michkov].Demidov is the single-most gifted handler in the entire 2024 class. He projects to be the superior one-on-one attacker…someone who can single-handedly create out of thin air. When it comes to passing ability…Demidov’s ability to chain together handling sequences into following passing plays is second to none.”
Lassi Alanen, Elite Prospects
“It’s a no brainer[at #2OA]. It’s Ivan Demidov all day, every day, 24/7. You run to the stage and pick him… if you ask me, Ivan Demidov is better than Matvei Michkov… He’s the only prospect in our rankings who we gave a 10 grade to for a specific ability. It’s not just the handling skill in isolation it’s the creativity. He comes up with solutions no one can expect.. his motor is underrated, puts in work defensively… it’s a no brainer there.”
Hadi Kalakeche, Locked on NHL/Dobber

Our Scouting:
Clip 1:
As we talked about prior, Demidov has a great IQ and the ability to create lanes and plays out of nothing. Demidov pushes up the ice and enters the zone with pressure closing onto the side. He uses his hands to pull in control, but more impressively, puts his body between the defender and the puck. He uses his edgework and breaking speed to push past the defender, then is patient enough to draw 3 defenders towards him, away from his teammate. When he sees the trailing defenseman waiting, he immediately finds a tight pass for a wide open teammate to capitalize.
Clip 2:
There’s a difference between a safe move, and then there’s an insane move. Watch as Demidov comes up on the left side. He sees that the defender is getting desperate and goes for a large poke. Demidov slides the puck under the Dman’s stick and once again shows off his patience. Instead of going for a quick shot he reads that the other defender is slowly coming across the crease to prevent a passing lane. Instead of just shooting like most players, Demidov baits the goalie into thinking he’s going to run into the defenseman, and in that second, puts the puck in the net.
Clip 3:
Small play, but this is just about how slick his passing is. He slides the puck through a very tight lane while baiting the defenseman into sliding due to not knowing where the play is going to be.
Clip 4:
While we can put on nonstop highlights, it’s also important to see how smart Demidov’s game is. Demidov and the other SKA players move the puck around a bit trying to find an opening until they give it to Demidov. Demidov reads an open play and passes the puck down, but instead of immediately following the puck or staying at his spot, Demidov uses his high engagement to instead move to the other side of the net down low to offer accessory support for his teammates on his anticipated cross crease pass, should there have been a rebound.
Clip 5:
Not every highlight is going to be a goal. One really underrated part of Demidov’s game is how well he’s able to read the offense. As he holds high initially, he’s able to help move the puck out in order to reset the offense when the play fails. His motor keeps him in the play and with his excellent edges, he’s able to make a quick pivot after rushing around in order to step up and create an open shooting lane. While his teammate can’t make the pass to get the puck to him, Demidov read where the play WOULD be, not just where it was. Those IQ aspects really can’t be taught, and are part of what makes him so special. By anticipating the open play rather than following the puck, he establishes himself as a play driver by creating options rather just following and executing structure at a high level.
Clip 6:
We're not even going to analyze this one. It’s just fucking fun. Talent oozes.
Clip 7:
This video has a ton of highlights, which I’d definitely recommend watching, but we’re going to focus specifically on the play at 0:45. We can post clips of Demidov scoring goals, finding breakaways, etc. all day long, but when thinking about translation to the NHL, IQ and decision making is what we’re really drying to drill down on. Demidov arrives in the zone through to middle and pushes the initial F1 to the F3 spot and changes the rotation. The puck is dumped to him and the initial F1 leaves a drop pass for Demidov approaching the goal. As soon as Demidov gets the puck, at 0:47, you can see him primed and in a good shooting position. The bigger defender misread the play and has drifted too far towards the center of the ice, leaving Demidov with a nearly unobstructed shooting lane as the netfront defenseman is also too far toward the middle. Instead of taking the shot, he instead waits to draw over the netfront defenseman, and the bigger defenseman closer towards him, leaving his teammate literally untouched across the crease. Demidov trusts his hands and ability with an extremely quick and accurate pass through the stick range of three defenders to find his teammate wide open. His decision making has been progressively improving and his ability to look off the shot to find an elite pass will translate extremely well to the next level.
Clip 8:
Another play where you can just be excited about Demidov. The puck is wrapped up around the boards and the defenseman sitting at the top of the blue just pushes the puck back into the zone without a clear target, or a player who has an explicit opening to the puck. If anything, the puck is put in the middle of all 5 Karpat skaters. Despite starting on the outside, Demidov’s engagement shines through where he uses his edgework to get a rapid explosive burst of speed, and pushes through both defenders in front of him to gain possession. Once he gains possession, his ability to control the puck, and his handles help to demonstrate just how strong of a prospect Demidov is. Even when the defender is falling onto him, Demidov is patient, makes the netfront defender bite to believe he’s going wide, creating a lane (effectively bypassing 3 separate Karpat players) to get to the goalie unobstructed. Then, his hands come out and he absolutely undresses the netminder with moves that the video literally cannot fully capture. He makes highlights like this look routine, every single game.
Clip 9:
Sometimes when you see a play it’s hard to say anything but wow. Demidov leads the rush through the neutral zone and reads the coverage a much less conventional 1-4 scheme. The offensive rush is a bit unconventional as well, but can offer a smart solution. By having 3 attackers, two concentrated up the middle and one wide, it allows for quick movement up the middle, and post defensive collapse onto the puck, a pass to the outside for a clear entry lane and shot. Demidov passes to his teammate directly across the center of the ice as he expects that teammate to immediately get puck to their teammate on the outside as coverage collapses. Demidov gauges where the openings are pre pass, as evidenced by the head movement. Unfortunately, instead of immediately passing again to the outside for an open lane, his teammate runs into pressure, and panics. He passes back to Demidov who is less than 8ft away and will inevitably will run into immediate pressure as well. Somehow, this is no problem for Demidov. He collects the puck with the literal tip of his stick, uses his body push the defender off, and then pulls the puck in while facing the wrong direction to slip past the defender. Despite being placed in a no win situation his hands and creativity shine through and he creates a clean lane to shoot the puck at the net. It’s almost inhuman what he’s able to do with his hands. When he gets to the net, he’s patient, baits the goalie, pulls wide, and then puts in a clean backhand. Some of these highlights are literally awe-inspiring.
Closing Thoughts:
If this scouting report doesn’t get you excited for Demidov, we don’t think anything will. He’s truly the most electric player in the draft with absolutely ridiculous hands, compete, dynamic play, and highlight reel performance. His IQ is next level, and his hands allow him to do truly amazing things with his skillset and competency. Demidov’s vision is absurd; he consistently makes passes to his teammates without looking, or sends a pass before a teammate has a clean break by using anticipation. These RARELY lead to a turnovers and are often not only creative but unorthodox methods to continue to move the puck up ice. Although his skating is unorthodox, he’s explosive, able to create comprehensive offensive maneuvers due to quick transitions, and make off angle passes with ease due to his edgework. He is elite in transition and able to run a breakout, an offense, and play any of the F1/F2/F3 roles when the situation calls for it. Despite his expected size of “only” 6ft 170lbs, Demidov knows how to use his body and hands. He not only protects the puck on offense but can draw defenders away from his teammates in predictable patterns, once again opening up space for him to capitalize. The same goes for defense where he's able to use his positioning to get the edge on his opponents for a rapid takeaway or a box out off the rush.
As we mentioned earlier, Demidov’s game isn’t limited only to offense, he has a decent understanding of the two way game as well. He’s a relentless forechecker, aggressive on the boards, and also always willing to use his high running motor to jump back into a play that leaves the zone, even if he’s right next to the net. Demidov has the most skill and raw talent out of any player in this draft, including Celebrini. Had Demidov not been demoted to the MHL due to SKA’s poor management, there is almost no doubt that he would be considered nearly neck and neck with Celebrini. As it is now, Demidov is ranked #2 on most boards, and the overall #2 in the consolidated ranking. Demidovs don’t come around often; people last year were genuinely considering whether Michkov was at Bedard’s level. Demidov rivals Michkov if not exceeds him.
You can nitpick the analysis we have of any one single aspect of Demidov. Not everyone buys analytics. Not everyone buys playmaking in a lower league. Not everyone likes irregular skating. Not everyone is on board with the MHL stat sheet, our hype etc. etc. We get it. Really, we do. But at the end of the day, when you step back and appreciate the full body of work, the comps, the analytics, the rave scouting reports, unanimous love, models, stat sheets, skill, work ethic, and more that ALL say that this kid is elite, there’s fire beyond the smoke. Demidov is THE guy. There should not be a debate at #2.
For those of you who made it to the end, thanks for reading! Ultimately we know there will be inevitable debate about a prospect, but we appreciate you hearing us out, and at least letting me, u/GoldWhale, spam the sub over the last few weeks in love of Demidov. Whether or not you agree with our analysis, we encourage you to do your own scouting, read from the authors we've included, watch through all the highlights in the linked videos, and draw your own conclusions!
We appreciate everyone in this community, and will try to answer any questions that you may have in the comments. If you so choose, please feel free to crosspost to other subs, edit, or utilize this writeup anywhere you like (forums/blogs/youtube etc.), just link back to our original post! For those in professional media who have contacted us with the hope of utilizing our writeup, feel free, again just link back to the original post as well. Thanks again!

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