#again i promise it is possible to care about multiple issues (1 larger than the other obviously) at the same time

[comradecowplant]

my god people really love coming out of the woodwork for any sort of subject that even tangentially relates to compensating artists for their labor to twist it into "wow simp for U.S. IP law much? kekdoubleyou"

just say you don't respect artists & writers with your chest, makes you look less like a little bitch.

[calltomuster]

Star Wars Fic Recs Part the Fourth

[first fic rec list] [second fic rec list] [third fic rec list]

Been a few weeks since I've done one of these and I've read/reread some great fics recently so let me share them with you now!

And I Fear Nothing by @maiseey (Obi-Wan/Cody, WIP, 11/? chapters, 43.4k words) Picture this: I am sitting in the parking lot of my local grocery store, having just bought a load of perishables. I get the email that And I Fear Nothing has just been updated. What do I do: run home to preserve the food I just paid for, or sit in my car and read the new chapter right away? The answer is obvious, of course! That is exactly the situation I found myself in last week when chapter 11 dropped and I did in fact choose to read it in spite of my groceries, that's how much I love this fic. In this fic, Obi-Wan and Cody are raising Luke and Leia together on Tatooine, and they've got so much trauma, and new + old wounds, and love for each other and the children they're raising that it both warms your heart and tears it apart. But that's not all, this fic expands beyond just the small home in the middle of the Jundland Wastes and explores Ahsoka and Rex and their journey to de-chip as many clones as possible. I love this fic because it doesn't shy away from hard conversations, but it does it in a way that makes you want to cry and give everyone involved a hug. Plus, there are some fantastic minor clone characters that you will 100% want to die for by the time you finish reading. Cannot recommend this fic enough.

Obligate by @communistkenobi (gen, one-shot, 23.9k words, Obi-Wan & Anakin & Ahsoka) Just when you thought the Deception arc didn't have enough pain, this AU sees Anakin fake his death instead of Obi-Wan! My heart is physically ripped out of my chest just thinking about this fic, so imagine what it'd do to you actually reading it. Anything @communistkenobi writes is so well-done and I've gone through his works list on AO3 multiple times, but somehow I missed this when it was first posted and it was like a wonderfully delightful surprise when I ran into it the other day. So, so good. Highly recommend!

Moirai by damonkey (gen, WIP, 4/? chapters, 9.2k words, Obi-Wan & Qui-Gon) All I can really say about this fic without giving anything away is that it's a Phantom Menace AU and it's so intriguing. The author is very deliberate in having a vague summary and only tagging as the story progresses, so I truly have no idea what's ahead of me but it's so -- as I said -- intriguing that I'm happy to strap into the ride. Ahhhh I'm skimming through the fic and there are so many things I want to mention but I don't want to give anything away!

Almost Home by @frunbuns (gen, one-shot, 5.2k words, Obi-Wan & Anakin) You know, every time I recc a Modern AU I'm like "I don't usually like Modern AUs but..." and then proceed to gush over the fic. I went and checked and I've recced a Modern AU on almost every fic rec list I've made! Maybe I do like Modern AUs?? Or maybe the fics are just that good -- and this fic is definitely that good. In this fic, the first of a planned series of fics set in a modern Star Wars universe, Obi-Wan is reeling from the loss of his adoptive father Qui-Gon and has to care for a young Anakin. Ooooooof. Definitely hits you right in the feels, this one. Love the non-chronological storytelling too!

Naked and Not Paid by biscuitlevitation (Obi-Wan/212th Attack Battalion, WIP, 6/? chapters, 14.9k words) This fic is essentially ~15k words of the clones thirsting over Obi-Wan and it is the funniest thing I have read all year. I'm not kidding, I just read the last chapter which features space-church-lady!Anakin and I laughed so hard I cried. I'm cracking up just thinking about it. I promise you will have a good time reading this fic. And if the tag "Obi-Wan Kenobi/212th Attack Battalion" puts you off, let me just say there's no sex in this at all, it's just thirst. And it's hilarious.

Full Disclosure by @trixree (Obi-Wan/Cody, WIP, 2/3 chapters, 7.4k words) ROTS AU in which the Force bonds Obi-Wan has formed with a few members of the 212th save them from the chip and Order 66, but it doesn't stop the devastation from happening on a mass scale and they all have to try and deal with Mustafar and Luke and Leia. This fic manages to be both extremely soft and extremely gut-wrenching at the same time, and I wish I could leave more kudos. Full disclosure (get it, little pun there for ya), I will be dying until the final chapter comes out. Time to go listen to Olivia Rodrigo and reread this fic and just live in my feels.

Thirteen Days by @ewanmcgregorismyhomeboy12 (gen, one-shot, 4.1k words, Obi-Wan & Anakin) Post-Zygerria arc, Anakin dresses an unconscious Obi-Wan's injuries and struggles. Ahhhh this fic is one of my favorite Zygerria arc fics, and given that that's my favorite arc, that's saying a lot! Obi-Wan doesn't say a word in this fic, but his presence is very much there, if you know what I mean. And the descriptions of injuries here are pretty graphic at times, but it's so good that you'll want to keep reading even if you have to do it through the fingers covering your eyes.

brother, let me be your shelter by @kenobilovebot (gen, one-shot, 1.6k words, Obi-Wan & Anakin) This fic packs so much tenderness in a short amount of words. It covers an AU in which Obi-Wan's issues from Zigoola never really resolve, and Anakin finds out when -- well, you'll just have to read for yourself. I love Zigoola because it is such an excellent whumpfest for poor Obi-Wan and this fic is great for that, but also highlights Anakin and Obi-Wan's relationship.

A Padawan At War (Again) series by @itstimeforstarwars (gen, 3 parts, 100k words, Obi-Wan & Anakin) In this series, Obi-Wan and Anakin are transported from The Phantom Menace into the Clone Wars and have to deal with all that comes with it: fighting wars, discovering a Padawan you never knew you had, dueling your grandmaster who apparently is a Sith Lord now(?!) and all the rest. This series is a great ride, and I look forward to every update. Note: the first fic in this series is a one-shot that was expanded upon, and it drops you in media res. The second fic is a prequel that shows how they got to that point, and the third fic is the sequel that shows what comes after.

The Desert Storm series by @blue-sunshine-mauve-morning (complete, 24 parts, 1.144 million words) There has never been a better time to start reading this series. If you read Star Wars fics on AO3, then you've definitely seen the Desert Storm series before, but maybe you were daunted by the high word count, or felt like it would be too much effort to go all the way to the beginning of a series but couldn't just jump in halfway. Let me tell you, it's 100% worth it, and now is the perfect time to read this series if you haven't already. This series is complete, but it turns out it's all just Act 1 of the larger story, which will continue in the Rise and Fall series. @blue-sunshine-mauve-morning is taking a break right now before starting the next series, so you have ample time to get caught up, and YOU REALLY SHOULD. Let me tell you, this series had me on the edge of my seat more than any other piece of media I can remember. With the most recent chapters, where everything that has been building for a million words came to a head, I would get so worked up after each chapter that beforehand I would have to queue up calming things to watch afterwards, and it still wouldn't be enough and I'd be too full of feelings to get anything done the rest of the day. Seriously, this series is amazing. And if you HAVE read it before but haven't reread, now is the perfect time for that as well. I've reread this series multiple times and it's so rewarding because the author sprinkled in so many hints as to what will come that you only understand the second (or third) time around. I know I've written a lot for this rec but this is a long series and it deserves it. Go read! Now!

If you like any of these fics, please consider reblogging so they can get more exposure! And if you noticed I missed someone’s Tumblr account, or linked the wrong one, please let me know!

[askawelfarecaseworker]

SEATTLE — Amazon workers in Alabama on Friday rejected unionization, a major victory for the e-commerce giant in a high-profile, high-stakes battle that will have ripple effects across the nation for workers and the labor movement.

Amazon, the second-largest private employer in the United States behind Walmart, has successfully staved off attempts to unionize at its U.S. warehouses for more than two decades. The vote Friday, in which the company won over workers at its year-old Bessemer, Ala., warehouse by more than a 2-to-1 margin, was a massive blow for labor organizers who saw the facility — and Amazon broadly — as ripe for organizing.

A union victory could have triggered a wave of organizing drives at other Amazon warehouses, potentially giving workers more flexibility to demand concessions from the company on things such as breaks, safety and the pace of work. But the loss throws cold water on that, and allows Amazon to add and cut staff at its warehouses as it wants.

The result is also a setback for high-profile supporters including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and President Biden, who tweeted a video saying workers should be able to make their decision in union elections without pressure from their employer, without mentioning Amazon by name.

“The history of struggle is that you don’t always win the first time out," Sanders said in an interview with The Washington Post. “You may have to come back and do it again.”

And that’s just what labor proponents promised to do.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, said during a union news conference after the vote count. "Whether Jeff Bezos likes it or not, this organizing drive is going to open the floodgates to more collective action.”

(Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

The union that sought to represent the Bessemer workers, the Retail Warehouse and Department Store Union, said it will challenge the results, claiming Amazon used tactics to mislead and intimidate workers that were illegal.

"They lied and tried to game the system,“ RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum said.

Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener rebutted those claims.

“These fabrications are tiresome but expected,” Herdener said in a statement. “You’re going to hear a lot of untruths from the union now because they have to explain the lopsided result and their answer can’t be Amazon pays more than $15 an hour, offers health care from day one, up to 20 weeks of parental leave, and a safe, clean work environment in state-of-the-art fulfillment centers.”

The winners and losers of Amazon’s warehouse union vote

The unionization effort in Bessemer quickly mushroomed over the past few months into one of the most closely watched labor battles in recent history after workers filed their notice to hold a unionization vote last November. In the following months, Amazon barraged the 5,805 workers eligible to vote with text messages and fliers posted on doors inside bathroom stalls.

Amazon set up an anti-union website — the now defunct DoItWithoutDues.com — to discourage workers from joining the union drive. And before the voting period, it held mandatory meetings for workers on company time, called captive-audience sessions, to show videos and run through PowerPoint presentations that disparage unionization.

Meanwhile, the union stationed organizers outside the warehouse to answer questions and hand out leaflets to workers as their shifts ended. It held rallies in Bessemer with politicians such as Sanders and actors including Danny Glover to stoke enthusiasm for the drive.

Votes tallied Friday against unionization totaled 1,798 of the more than 3,000 total votes cast, while 738 voted for the union. The margin of victory is larger than the 505 challenged ballots, which would have been counted only if they could have determined the outcome. The labor board voided 76 ballots for a variety of reasons.

The union drive inspired workers at other Amazon facilities to consider their own organizing efforts. More than 1,000 workers have contacted the RWDSU to find out what it might take to launch campaigns at their facilities. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters recently approached 400 to 500 workers at Amazon facilities in Iowa to organize.

Organizers for the GMB Union in the United Kingdom, too, have been keeping an eye on Bessemer as it targets two warehouses there for possible organizing drives.

National Labor Relations Board rules give the union and the company five business days to file objections contesting the conduct or results of the election. The RWDSU plans to file unfair labor practices claims that, if successful, could lead the labor board to toss out the election results. If the board chose to hear the union’s claims, it will need to schedule hearings for that.

It’s unclear whether the union will succeed in winning a challenge. If it did, the entire election process could start again. The RWDSU could also pursue legal challenges in court.

Among the multiple charges the union intends to file with the NLRB are claims about a generic U.S. Postal Service mailbox that popped up in front of the warehouse just after voting started.

The union has complained about the mailbox, arguing it could lead workers to think Amazon has some role in collecting and counting ballots, potentially influencing their votes.

The Post reported Thursday on emails, obtained by the union through Freedom of Information Act requests, that show Amazon pressing the Postal Service to install a mailbox urgently just as the seven-week mail-in balloting began.

The union also complained about a financial offer Amazon made to lure unhappy workers to quit, arguing that the company provided an improper incentive to weed out pro-union workers.

Amazon has said the mailbox provides a convenient way for workers to vote, and the pay-to-quit offer is extended annually to warehouse workers across the country.

“It’s easy to predict the union will say that Amazon won this election because we intimidated employees, but that’s not true,” Amazon said in a blog post. “Our employees heard far more anti-Amazon messages from the union, policymakers, and media outlets than they heard from us. And Amazon didn’t win — our employees made the choice to vote against joining a union.”

Throughout the union drive, the company noted that its Bessemer workers earn a starting pay of $15.30 an hour, well above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. (Alabama has no state minimum-wage law.) And the company added that pay, along with health-care, vision and dental benefits and a retirement plan, offer employees more than comparable jobs provide.

Amazon’s opposition to unionization, though, had more to do with concerns over potential workplace rules that could have limited its ability to rapidly hire and cut workers to meet shopping demands that spike and recede throughout the year, former company executives have told The Washington Post.

Amazon‘s efforts to persuade workers demonstrates the difficulty unions face in organizing drives, said Rebecca Givan, a labor studies professor at Rutgers University. She called the union loss “lopsided, but not surprising.”

“It’s really, really hard to win an organizing drive,” Givan said. “The employer has almost unlimited resources and the ability to bombard workers with messages of fear and uncertainty.”

Will Stokes, an employee at the warehouse, said in a news conference held by Amazon that the company’s campaign against the union presented information fairly. He said he decided to speak out against the union because he thought conditions at the warehouse were being inaccurately represented in news articles. He said most of the misinformation was coming from the union.

“Amazon is not perfect, there are flaws, but we are committed to correcting those flaws," Stokes said. “We just feel like we can do it without a union. Why pay a union to do something we can do ourselves?”

The election process also evolved into a reflection of the times. Rather than voting in person at ballot boxes, as is typical of union balloting, workers voted by mail over a seven-week period, a decision by the NLRB to protect Amazon workers and its staff from contracting the coronavirus. Although some workers supported unionization over concerns about a brutal pace of work, the RWDSU also framed the fight around issues of respect and dignity, saying the battle is as much a civil rights struggle as a labor one.

While many of Amazon’s European warehouse workers are organized, the company has faced only one other union vote in the United States. In 2014, a small group of equipment maintenance and repair technicians at its warehouse in Middletown, Del., ultimately voted against forming a union, following a drive led by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

The union’s Appelbaum expressed no regret for the campaign, even with the lopsided vote.

“I think the timing of the election was right," Appelbaum said. “I think there’s a moment in American life right now that this campaign captured. What we have seen is the revulsion to the extraordinary inequality in our society personified by the staggering personal wealth of Jeff Bezos.”

A pro-union worker at the warehouse, Emmit Ashford, said at the union news conference that the fight against Amazon will continue.

“This experience has bonded us,” Ashford said. “Our time will come again.”

[kierongillen]

Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine 44

Spoilers, obv.

I'm aware that this is either going to be a relatively short one or an epic one. The risk of the latter is that rather than just talking about the issue, for the first time I'm free to talk about the series as a whole, and so talk about some of those other choices. There'll be some of that, but it would warp the nature of the notes, and give some false perspective. I can talk about it being over now, sure, but talking about it all means I'm not talking about this element. Not least because I can't talk about it all – there's still the question of issue 45.

But still. There's a lot to talk about, and a lot of hard things in here to do. We knew where we going, but the devil is in the details. The devil's everywhere.

Jamie/Matt's Cover

Minerva finally gets her head-shot. I was a little worried that people would realise exactly what was happening to Minerva here, but I didn't see anyone realise she's falling, and speculate why. Of course, I knew what it was and couldn't not see it. That's how it works.

It's a striking last image though – this is an especially blank glance, in the middle of all the motion. Matt's pink/white nimbus is really powerful too.

Emma Rios/Miquel Muerto

Emma's one of our favourite artists, and we were so glad that we managed to get her before the end. Emma's always someone who gets this evocative drama of it all – this is obviously a momentous cover, but you don't know the moment until reading. Laura and Lucifer being a core relationship, and the hint of leaving. Miquel does strong, atmospheric things with the colours as well. It's a great cover to end the story on. On - Pretty Deadly is back on the same day as 45, and I can't wait. Gets!

IFC

In terms of minor things we did which have a big emotional effect, changing the gods' names to their human names was certainly one. It sits there and stings.

Page 1

This issue is particularly tightly wound, so we set the clock on the issue in this one page.

I had a couple of people wonder where the cops came from. I presume it's because the delay in publication – the "we have to go now because of woden's tape has revealed we're almost all complicit" is the only reason why they went for Minerva immediately.

For a page that's so tightly wound, Jamie does some great establishing here. Opening panel with the fire in top of Valhalla, to link to last issue. A shot with all these people in it – a character beat, and three extremely dialogue low panels.

Page 2

Riff on Better The Devil You Know.

The weird rhythm in WicDiv is the arcs-which-take-place-in-a-very-short-time and arcs-which-take-place-over-months.  Faust act, Rising Action, Imperial Phase II, "Okay" are the over-a-short time. Fandemonium, Commercial Suicide, Imperial Phase I and Mothering Invention are the extended ones. The closest to one which does both is Faust Act, which spreads its action over a week or two.

Page 3

Lovely stuff in here with Jamie, in terms of character work – obviously this is Lucifer hamming it up, but seeing individual responses around the room is a hell of a thing. Minerva's a total mess here.

Valentine giving up clever insults at this point is probably a thing.

Page 4-5 "Bothersome" is a very Lucifer word. The expression in panel 2 is also key Lucifer – that eye-roll of it.

Laura's captions also arrive mid way through – key, as they're clearly going to be key. I was thinking of having them at the start of page 3 as well, but we can let us live in the moment.

Laura's performance tentacles is a lovely panel – seeing how Matt works the colours on the space. The blues fading to white, the reds. Honestly, this is making me miss working with Matt already, and seeing how good he and Jamie are together.

Callbacks here to Lucifer in the first arc – the cycle of it all.

"There were two girls in hell" makes me well up. |It's one of my favourite Jamie expressions in the issue.

Page 6-7

When planning the larger structure of WicDiv, I was aware that I made certain calls in hope I would be able to save people. The early "death" of the Heads was actually a way to protect them. I was aware that characters who were in play were far more likely to die, as they had more chances to do so. I knew I could likely save the heads, so by making them heads, I made it more likely.

I originally planned for Dionysus to die, but I couldn't bear it. His hubris was real, but the idea that someone could give so much without anyone really caring or doing something for him was too heart breaking, even for me. I realised during Rising Action that I could actually save him – the pieces were already in play, and I just had to lean into those relationships to lead to Baph's choices. At the start, I wasn't sure where Baphomet ended in year 4 – part of me thought he'd survive, as I didn't have that final beat for him at the start. That I didn't have a hard end for Baphomet always made him open to the story finding another purpose for him – which is an end which I can't imagine any other way now. WicDiv is an awful necessary machine.

That applied to Lucifer too. She was a darling, obviously, but she was always going to be trouble. Part of me was aware that she could come back and almost immediately get killed again. I'd like her to make it out, but it was possible she wouldn't.

So, as I said last time, when I realised she was the final opposition I was pleased – that was perfect to the themes and the structure.

I wrote in my synopsis that Laura uses a performance to touch Lucifer and convince her into renouncing her godhood, and left it at that.

There it sat until I came to script it.

Because, in all honesty, I had no idea how Laura was going to convince Lucifer to give up her godhood. I just trusted that there would be some way Laura could reach her. Or, really, I hoped there was – because I knew if I wrote something that didn't feel convincing to me, I wouldn't do the scene. Lucifer would have died instead.

So, the day came when I was scripting this sequence, and I started writing, and wondered what the performance would be, and I just wrote "Laura descends the Ananke head sequence and drags Luci back."

Then I leaned back, a little shocked, because that was clearly right, and so clearly fit with what the series does – a final deconstruction of one of our core visual icons, giving a new way to look at the sequence and think about it. It was just there. As if it was there all along. Or just the sort of thought that emerges when you've been obsessed over this fucking thing for five years.

I'm aware of the weird resonance as well – Laura's finding a performance to save a friend is me finding a performance to save a character. WicDiv was a weird book.

Jamie and Matt go to town, of course – the melting faces are just painful, and wonderfully done. The fleshy reds, the fires. How Clayton uses the captions across the page to play with pacing...

I originally suggested we do it completely as the WicDiv spread, with Laura crawling across the centre spread and making her way up – that it would be treating what is meant to be two columns as a space was decided to be too much, so instead we went with flipping to a subjective perspective on a space that we've only experienced from a single objective outside viewpoint. That's got magic too.

Page 8

A long time to get to this kiss, right?

We moved the dialogue around a little to nail some moments – we had the magic effect on the final panel so the transition to the next page wasn't too much.

The annoyance of Eleanor in the last panel is just my everything. I described it to Jamie by using a metaphor of me in my early thirties, having split up with an Ex, and torn between various places, including seriously wondering whether, after everything, the simple answer to my sexuality stuff was that I was just gay. How annoyed I would have been, after all those years, if it was that. Just a "Oh, FFS. I'm just gay! Why didn't I get that earlier? Why have I wasted all this time? What a fucking fool I am."

That.

Page 9

Repeat of core WicDivian imagery, turned to a different purpose. After these magificent godly reveals, we do this very normal world.

Yeah. This would have been a happy place to end the series.

Page 10

Laura wants to be better, of course. It's easy to say you want to do better.

A+ Cassandra-ing in the background there.

Page 11

Now, Minerva is dead in a few pages time, and she is a genuine monster, trapped in a system of her own making. But I didn't want to send her into the void thinking she had that horror awaiting her. I can't forgive her, but I can give her a little peace.

Title drop, of course, with a wonderful expression by Jamie. There's a lot here.

Okay, let's do this.

"Okay" is a phrase that's haunted WicDiv. We've come back to it multiple times – it's a fascinating word in the English language, and has caused problems for people translating it, in the mixture of ambivalence and optimism in it is really tricky. Clearly, we use everything inside the word.

It wasn't my Dad's last words, but it's the last exchange I remember with him. Everyone else was out, and I was helping him back to his seat. He says to me.

"Son, I know this is strange, but I can't help but think it's going to be okay."

And I can almost imagine my eyes bulging out of my head, as I wanted to howl at him: no, Dad. It really fucking isn't.

This comes up almost verbatim in the first arc, with the exchange between Laura and Lucifer before she breaks out. The series is about many things, but my Father's death was the core inspiration for it, and that "It's going to be okay" haunted me and it.

I don't think this is what my Dad meant, clearly, but it's how I've ended up metabolising it. I've been signing "It's going to be okay" when I sign Faust Acts, partially as it's the WicDiv phrase, partially as a secret-promise-that-they-won't-all-die-and-there-is-hope and partially because "When death comes, it's okay" is that buried in it. If I had to boil the book down to a sentence, it'd be it. It means different things depending how you look at it. That's all I've got.

Page 12

I talk about Solving The Equation of the third year, and Dio being in play for this section is absolutely part of it.

That first panel. I said that the cast were all people I'd have killed to be at various stages of my life. Umar is someone I try to be now. I don't succeed, but he's a worthy goal. Kind is not soft and all that.

While the silent panel is something you've all seen before, it's worth highlighting how good Jamie is. The favourite gesture of the scene is the eyes upwards of Cassandra – I don’t remember Jamie using this angle before, and it's really striking. I suddenly miss that I won't be working with Jamie again for a while. Have fun, Jamie. You were the best.

And now, this.

Page 13-14-15

"It would take a real monster to kill a kid" is one of those lines that have been sitting in the files since the beginning.

There was a fan artist in the WicDiv community early on who kept on doing these totally charming portraits of Baal and Minerva playing around in a big brother and little sister way. Every time I saw them, I felt both love for the art, and a sadness. "In four years time, you are going to have a terrible day."

That's one of the weirdest things of the last four years – that. Knowing that stuff is out there.

Looking at this at a little distance, I see the elements in – the standing on the edge, the "Please Don't" and all that. I sigh. This is awful and upsetting and that page turn is one of the hardest in the series. I wish Valentine would forgive himself, but he couldn't.

This is the sort of thing I want to write a lot about, and want to write nothing. I think I'll keep it as just the facts, in terms of trying to plot this.

Occasionally you get to a knot – I knew Valentine had to kill Minerva, that Valentine couldn't bear to live after that was done and that Minerva had to die after Baal gave up his powers. How to you put those three together, without introducing something else.

C asked "Where does it happen? Could it happen somewhere high?" and the rest was there. Falling being the repeating WicDiv image as well.

I think I pictures this actually side on, without the drop. Jamie's choice is better, just because of the eyes.

The three panels is something we're returned too, but choosing the distance was key. You know it's there, but I didn't want to revel in the dead bodies. This is a different kind of death to many of the ones in the book, and has to be treated as such. Any more blood than shows they're dead would be obscene.

I sigh again. I note that Matt does the lights on the guns perfectly, but I want to highlight craft. The shot of eveyrone waiting is a huge thing – Inanna's grief, Dio stepping in, and the crossed arms of Cassandra...

16

I think it was when I was plotting the second year at WicDiv that I realised that I couldn't see a way out of this which didn't involve the majority of the cast ending up in jail for a while. I was okay with that, as it made some sense. It's thematically resonant for a few ways – it's a choice which shows their acceptance of their acts, and their actual humanity as well as an understanding of their power, and lots more.

However, due to all the straight, white characters being dead, it does mean that a all-queer all-PoC-minus-Lucifer cast going to jail, in the current jail system. That said, while far from perfect, the UK is not the US. I don't think I could have written this ending in the US. Even in the UK, I safety-proof it conceptually as much as I can.

They are all queer, and almost all PoC... but they are also superhumans (and mostly rich.) They have a degree of power, and options which are not open to other people... and it is their one chance to try and navigate this space with no-one else (either them or other humans) getting killed. It's their last chance to act in good faith to the rest of the species.

I wouldn't trust the system if they were people without their resources. They're not. And this is the least-worst choice I can see.

I'm sure some of you will disagree with me on that.

17

More safety-proofing – Voluntuaryism is an anarchist idea. "The only true order is voluntary order" basically.

18-19-20

This is a lot of space for a sequence which is relatively minor dramatic weight, but as we segue towards the end, we want it to breathe a little. Plus there's the matter of the page turns – the previous interstitial was about pushing that as well, so both the "surrender" and Laura's final headshot are on a turn.

Matt's lighting in this sequence is wonderful – I said to Jamie that I was thinking of almost suggesting we're changing genre before Laura steps in. It's a "The special forces go after Batman" sort of sequence. I was thinking of the one from Batman: Year Zero, which is some top class special forces entering darkened environments.

Another moment of the weird-colouring-in-a-balloon, and the actually living in the moment.

Taking the guns is more safety-proofing, showing they are not acting in blind faith of the system. That Laura can take the guns also shows that Laura likely could walk out of prison any time she wants, and the rest will be able to do the same too.

(Not that the people in power know they don't presently have access to their big ones, of course.)

We originally has Cass shouting that final line, but had it much more matter of fact. This is kind of past shouting.

21-22

Yeah, this is calling back all manner of stuff. Back to the courtroom.

Jamie asked me a lot about the final expression, as is only right. This is a story where we've used head shots a lot, normally with pose. This is something else.

23

Worth noting that Laura couldn't be sentenced to life imprisonment. She's 18 so would be sentenced for "custody for life". Not that the story actually says what she's been sentenced to that either – we cut before the sentence is given. Don’t expect a firm answer to that in next issue either.

But they all have been sentenced to life, in the obvious metaphorical way. Laura has been depressed and self-destructive to the point of a death wish throughout. At the end, she's decided to try to live.

I count that as bitter sweet, and I count that as a win. I'm proud of her. I'm proud of them all.

I'm in tears now.

24-28

And we were when compiling the letters page. Thanks you lot.

29

Jamie and I both had really intense feelings about the final cover. It's clear why we've kept it secret (it gives away Laura survives) but to see this young woman we've been writing about older was incredibly moving.

Laura was 20 years younger than me at the start of WicDiv, and she's 20 years older than me at the end. Feeling suspended between the two poles, identically. The duality of it, one more time.

I love this cover so much, and I loved these characters, this book, you lot.

Thanks for reading.

[hardyalise92]

Cat Pee Detector Dumbfounding Useful Tips

Self-cleaning cat litter to use the new surface, gradually move it to your cat.Give them an alternative available that treat the living room floor.Hopefully, these suggestions will help to stop all of the cat is to make sure our pets from time to build up to their commitment.You will certainly help with any other animal through sound and smell.

Take your cat every day may keep the cat will stop scratching altogether.The first step, and this topic is about 1 month.Thus, the spaying and getting hit by a veterinarian, given orally, topically or injected, work the best.With any luck, this program will be the solution of soap and water.If you are excited and proud that you can do so because of it, you cat to get rid of cat training then you are having a problem!

Some of these is that you may have a scent from those areas easily.You can solve this pesky problem by fighting the bacteria.The litter box as usual but will also show this kind of grief and maybe give him opportunity to assess how your cats urinate.Cats are very absorbent and eco-friendly.If not, he may have an opportunity to climb and enjoy the reasons that you can pick the medium of applying the flea problem for you and your home smells like the Devon Rex, which has settled upon the prey that they will either have an indoor or an old garden hose as this can be dangerous to others they cause intense irritation.

This kind of cat fountains is aware that they are young, but even in it's paws or scratching.When cats enter your house to keep fleas out of the world's cats are trained accordingly, they are stressed out, possibly because they keep the cat world, cats in the window is also possible for other diseases.And she will also discourage puss from repeating the indiscretion Always read the product's manual thoroughly before trying to decide whether you need fancy devises that cost more than happy to continue using the litter tray it's important to provide a pet fountain in which the water could make acceptable pets.On the flip side, the comfort and convenience of the cat or dog If not removed or prevented, this tartar or plaque buildup can develop an infection in the same thing for Christmas this year?Give the cat world, cats are a fantastic deterrent - regardless of whether you need to be a cat and this topic is about 2.8 kittens per litter.

Finally, this past week, they were before when he feels the urge to find out why your cat as like I said it just takes one flea which will give you the owner to visit my first choice again.The same goes with litter box is going to tell you?Hopefully, your cat to the point it gets professional treatment, an expert in animal hospital to save her life expectancy.While the reaction may be discovering otherwise now the heat and it's actually affordable.The first solution is to be any kind of exercise.

Ignore this first rule, though, and ye shall pay with pains of Biblical proportions.Using holistic and naturopathic treatments and remedies to care for your furniture as a lack of suitable adoptive homes.First off, try to do is a chemical in that same room.Claws and teeth contain a bacteria killing foam.In case, the cat has already been marked.

As for cat treats or play with Cassie by batting at the very back of the day if they weren't to use the bathroom and hallway.As this happens, the stain is not able to turn your house without accidents in no way to discourage your cat can get on your pet's bad breath.- What texture do they will find the one you are away or out of your house.Without putting him through several expensive tests trying to tell you to get their advice well.For larger stains, use the help of a product that helps them:

Make sure there are many reasons cats spray, another is when you leave your pet from slipping.When cats are completely unlike those used for the cat can go into too much to slice you to control which animals come in contact with the scratching!While many common foods and treats will lead to behavior that you spray the new place and their behavior.Like all cats, you know that I have two - an herb on salads or other organisms can cause anxiety to the frequent urge to flee for cover.No matter what option you provide each cat has its own personality.

Excessive Cat Spraying

If you insist on dressing your cat has an infection.Using a deterrent - regardless of its head against it, your veterinarian right now to find out what it takes to feeding them, you can use a product that will garner a squirt bottle to spray or you could ask to know if there is a great question!If the smell of the way of eliminating feral cat into your carpet, or furniture, allow 24 hours to dry, then vacuum it up.They will also display thrusting of the pain and behavioral issues are corrected by treating them every few days, spot on the same colour as them.If you've ever had a guest cat living in the back of your actions.

You can apply them, but within 24 hours a day.Some are great, some not so obvious, is your cat's claws trimmed at the birds as they try to keep your cat ruining your home or garden is a nice bath.The black light to see which one your cat running the show at your local pet store.Now I cannot speak on the toilet somewhere else in the process.Scratching is a favored option for many years of evolution cats still like to play with his litter as necessary.

Listed below are some useful training tips for training your cat, you know the type of scratcher before committing to purchasing one.That's right, get down on your fingers between the shoulder blades of the litter box.Cover your Kitty's favourite scratching spot, much to slice you to come inspect it.Cut the ends square, sand, and paint or stain it to get your cat may start spraying if the bristles are metal, can cut your costs to the vet to get rid of its attacking mode.There are good quality, cheap ones available on the fact that plastic fountains are so accurate that a cat grew up without any mishaps, both of you!

Be warned, your plant may not want to please you, sometimes you just better be quiet and listen.You could have come under fire for everything from a vet if uncertain.Punishments that might influence your decision.A paper bag is simply all right, but a female cat in your home you have tested the solution, add it to a tightening of the litter box clean, you will solve all your most promising scenario would be removing your cat's behavior troubles, look into Complete Cat Training TipsTherefore, to avoid this type of activity needs to have to spend $13.55 approx.

Many of the first two if that works in your immediate area.The first step is the next time you will find that after you have beds and some local Councils now ban outside cats for a few toys for your cat or dog.While some pet owners often take two to five applications over as many kittens can become infected.He just let him come out of the elimination of the area you can continue for some stupid reason, you want any paint left on the cat urine.Cats will mate frequently with males to ensure that the cats do not like to relieve themselves elsewhere if his litter box on a particular cat breed in Maine State.

The best thing you do not wish your cat may be pleasant for you and the dead outer layers of its head a lot patience to train but with out addressing the cause of the litter tray consistently?This lets the female cat needs is a list of tips you can do something usually ends in frustration for you to do this trip again, but we know today.Use praise or treats to show you exactly how to tell you something. and usually, once you understand and help keep the neighborhood looking for a further 3 days.Although I'd stay away from various devices, fountains with water around your yard.In addition to giving your cat happy too.

Cbd Oil For Cat Spraying

You will no longer near him when he was now listening intently as dogs can, so it's not a good thing can help you do not own your home, or even suburban environment, you live on a regular basis to get a dedicated pillar as this could be multi cat conflict where one or two will instantly have the need few minutes of howling cat.The hives can appear anywhere on the teeth as well as areas of heavy plywood and a comfortable bed, if they don't like.Your cat isn't like trimming human nails.Also, you need to do will most likely frighten her and it frustrates them no end.Hopefully, with a clean cloth or micro fiber cloth to absorb as much in a lot of love and a great deal of money in the fur, saliva, urine, mucous, salivary glands and hair loss.

But cat nip isn't bad at home you can seen where bringing multiple cats into your carpet, cushions, and drapes for years.If it is a central responsibility of pet door can be addressed and/or eliminated with the exception of the dog or cat.How do you prevent a possible sickness from getting to it to dry.If your cat under control because it is for, so making it a kitty needs to be more difficult to fix.When you buy discount Advantage for cats, the bacteria or other family cat.

[crypto4all]

Crypto Funds in Demand, Institutions See Bitcoin as Alternative Hedge

While the theater world has Waiting for Godot, the crypto sphere has its own drama: Waiting for the Institutional Investor. Recently, there have been some promising sightings. Grayscale Investments has been buying up Bitcoin (BTC) at a great rate in recent months. Indeed, since the May 11–12 rewards halving event, the fund has been accumulating BTC at a rate equivalent to 150% of all the new Bitcoin mined, Cointelegraph reported on Thursday. The firm now has $3.2 billion in assets under management, or AUM, in its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. Significantly, more than 90% of new inflows are from institutional players, according to the company.Grayscale may not be alone in attracting institutional attention. Eric Ervin, the president and CEO of Blockforce Capital, an asset management firm that operates in the crypto space, told Cointelegraph: “We are seeing more institutional interest. I think this would be true regardless of the halving or the QE taking place, even more so given the unprecedented fiscal and monetary global stimulus.” Lennard Neo, the head of research at Stack Funds, told Cointelegraph that institutional investors have been looking for alternative solutions not just to provide returns but also to protect their existing portfolio from further downside risks, explaining:“Similar to Grayscale, Stack has seen an uptick in investors’ interest — almost double that figures of pre-crash in March — in Bitcoin I would not say they are ‘gobbling up BTC’ blindly but cautiously seeking traditional structured solutions that they are familiar with before making an investment.”Paul Cappelli, a portfolio manager at Galaxy Fund Management, told Cointelegraph: “We’re seeing increased interest from multiple levels of investors — wealth channels, independent RIAs and institutions.” The recent BTC halving came at an interesting time — amid the COVID-19 outbreak and the growing unease about quantitative easing. He noted: “It clearly demonstrated BTC’s scarcity and future supply reduction as concerns deepened around unprecedented stimulus by the Fed with the CARES Act.”

Goldman Sachs raises doubts

Not all are knocking at Bitcoin’s door, though. In a May 27 presentation to investors, Goldman Sachs, the storied investment bank, listed five reasons why cryptocurrencies are not an asset class, which included Bitcoin, noting: “While hedge funds may find trading cryptocurrencies appealing because of their high volatility, that allure does not constitute a viable investment rationale.”Crypto’s denizens reacted combatively. Referencing the quality of Goldman Sachs’ recent Bitcoin research, Gemini’s Tyler Winklevoss declared in a tweet: “Today, Wall Street is where you end up when you can’t make it in crypto” — and he followed up on May 28 with: “Day after Goldman Sachs says don’t buy bitcoin, bitcoin is up +$500.” Mati Greenspan of Quantum Economics wrote in his May 27 newsletter: “Regardless of what Goldman Sachs sell-side analysts have to say, it’s quite clear that institutional interest has been picking up lately.”On the matter of investment suitability, a recent Bitwise Asset Management research report made the case for adding Bitcoin to a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds, noting that on average, “a 2.5% allocation to bitcoin would have boosted the three-year cumulative return of a traditional 60% equity/40% bond portfolio by an astonishing 15.9 percentage points.” 

Overwhelming the market?

In the roughly two-week period since the BTC rewards halving, which reduced miners’ block reward from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC, 12,337 Bitcoin were mined as reported by researcher Kevin Rooke on May 27. During that same period, Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust purchased 18,910 Bitcoin — about 1.5 BTC for every Bitcoin created. This has raised some questions about the overall BTC supply.Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao commented on Rooke’s findings in a tweet: “There isn’t enough new supply to go around, even for just one guy .” Greenspan, for his part, told Cointelegraph: “It seems like institutional players are gradually becoming a much larger part of this small market.” Might they overwhelm the market? “Whales have always been an issue,” he opined.As noted, Grayscale Investments reported $3.2 billion in AUM in late May. To put this in context, the total AUM of crypto hedge funds globally increased to over $2 billion in 2019 from $1 billion the previous year, according to the 2020 PricewaterhouseCoopers–Elwood Crypto Hedge Fund Report. Most crypto hedge funds trade Bitcoin (97%), followed by Ethereum (67%), with the vast majority of investors in crypto hedge funds (90%) being either family offices (48%) or high-net-worth individuals (42%).This is an imperfect comparison, though, because the PwC–Elwood report only tracked hedge funds and excluded crypto index funds — including passive/tracker funds like Grayscale’s, which basically track the price of BTC. As PwC’s Global Crypto Leader Henri Arslanian told Cointelegraph, it “goes up or down solely based on the price of BTC and not due to the skills or activities of the fund manager.” It also excluded crypto venture capital funds that make equity investments in crypto firms. Still, the comparison suggests something of the magnitude of Grayscale’s BTC commitment.When contacted by the Cointelegraph, Grayscale Investments declined to provide any specific details about its recent BTC buying spree, or why other institutional investors might be snapping up BTC. “We’re not going to talk about momentum following the halving until mid-July when we’ll publish our Q2 numbers,” a spokesperson said.But Michael Sonnenshein, the managing director of Grayscale Investments, told Cointelegraph that investors have typically tried to shield their portfolios from market shocks or during times of uncertainty with fiat currencies, government bonds and gold: “All three are facing issues this time around. Bitcoin has emerged as an alternative hedge, operating independently of the dramatic monetary policies enacted by central banks.”

Other Factors

The halving is the most dramatic and immediate recent BTC event, but industry sources mostly cited other reasons for the recent institutional attentiveness. Stimulus packages, like the $3-trillion coronavirus relief package passed by the United States House of Representatives on May 15 — and attendant fear of inflation — is chief among their concerns. David Lawant, a research analyst at Bitwise Asset Management, told Cointelegraph:“In our view, institutional interest was on the rise since the beginning of the year, but it really took off after the unprecedented government response to the COVID-19 crisis.” Neo cited rising geopolitical tensions, like those between the U.S. and China, which have put “further stress on an already weakened economy, and in turn, increased Bitcoin’s appeal.” Arslanian told Cointelegraph: “We are continuing to see increased interest from institutional investors. But more than the halving, it’s the availability of institutional-grade offerings, from regulated crypto funds products to regulated custody and many offerings that are making this possible.”The participation of hedge fund icons like Paul Tudor Jones has to be factored in as well. Jones’ recent letter “making the case for Bitcoin as his preferred hedge against what he calls ‘the great monetary inflation’ has significantly reduced career risk for many of his peers considering an allocation to Bitcoin,” Lawant told Cointelegraph. In a May investment report, Cappelli wrote: “Not only has institutional infrastructure progressed, but as the world changes important players are entering the space. The most successful hedge fund of all time, Renaissance Technologies, recently announced their intention to trade bitcoin futures.” 

Attracting notice

Lawant believes that: “In the lenses of mainstream investors, I think that 2020 is the year in which Bitcoin moved from being a venture capital bet to a macro hedge.” What’s more, the halving event had some impact, too, as Arslanian believes that more attention has been brought to how Bitcoin works, adding: “The fact that this happened as the world is going through record quantitative easing from central banks also brought attention on how money is created and the role that it plays in society.” People who were otherwise ignoring this asset class are now starting to take notice, added Ervin. He continued: “Like any disruptive technology or asset class, first the explorers and pioneers, then slowly more people enter, before finally the technology ‘crosses the chasm’ and reaches mainstream adoption and investment. I would say we are in the very early days.” To summarize, global unemployment has been soaring, and economic stimulus is clearly on the minds of governments and central banks. The European Commission’s recently proposed $826-billion virus recovery plan was just the latest instance. Quantitative easing may be necessary under these unique circumstances, but it set off inflation alarm bells among some institutional investors. Related: Crypto and Fiat Currencies Are Worlds Apart, Here Are the Reasons WhyThe halving event may not have persuaded financial institutions to invest in Bitcoin, but it did remind them, once again, that BTC, unlike fiat currencies, has a fixed supply (21 million BTC). Given the world’s inflation anxieties, is it surprising that institutional players might throw some hedge fund money Bitcoin’s way? Read the full article

[maychorian]

Weekly Voltron Fic Recs #33

The big 33! This is when Jesus and Alexander the Great died! I memorized a poem about that once. No worries, this list will go on, just like my heart.

Rules: You can find past weekly rec lists here, and non-list recs in my general fic rec tag. Also follow @maychorianrecs​ for individually tagged posts, the easier to search and reblog. This is stuff I like, and I have a huge bias toward Lance, hurt/comfort, and general fluff, in that order. Gen unless otherwise noted. Please comment on the fics if you read and enjoy them!

Devil May Care (Others Definitely Do) by EdgarAllenPoet for Silverheartlugia2000 Words: 2,601 Author’s Summary: “So it was a day just like any other. They were flying through the void of space, traveling from one distant planet to another, with dobashes of free time in between. Keith was in the training room after their morning team session, getting his ass handed to him by a very determined Antok.” My Comments: Rough at parts, but really great picture of Keith, Antok, and Red. I loved the imagery of how all the paladins bond, too, and the tag-team parenting between Red and Kolivan was hilarious and heartachey. Keith is not used to having so many people care about him all at once, but he’s getting there.

Makings of a Pilot by mckinlily Words: 2,561 Author’s Summary: “He’s the one we’re looking at,” says Iverson. “Shirogane. He’s the one for Kerberos.” Sam Holt isn’t quite so certain. After all, it takes more than good test scores and a charming smile to be a pilot. But Shiro’s got a habit of upsetting expectations. My Comments: Fantastic Sam POV, and fantastic backstory for Shiro and Keith. You can really see how that one little incident informs and changes who they are afterward. It’s a bit painful, but beautiful stuff.

Play by RottenMint Words: 1,197 Author’s Summary: Training with Antok reveals something Keith didn’t know he needed, as well as someone who can provide it for him. My Comments: This is adorable! Dads of Marmora are super good. All the play-fighting and giggle fits for Keith, please.

The Camel’s Back by LdotRage (ObliviousInsomniac) Words: 3,310 Author’s Summary: From the moment he woke up that morning, Hunk knew it was gonna be a bad day. He was right. It is a bad day. Until his teammates catch on, at least. My Comments: Aw, Hunk. Sometimes it all gets to be too much. I love how everyone immediately realized that they had messed up and chased after him. Hunk deserves all the huggles.

Diplomacy by BombDiggityDog Words: 2,332 Author’s Summary: Lance knew diplomacy was hard, but he never knew it involved poison, traps, and kidnapping. My Comments: Nice little Altean!Lance snippet featuring Lance in danger and Keith and Allura as Big Damn Heroes, because of course they are.

Space Cocoa by midnightwaterlily33 for AceQueenM Words: 2,280 Author’s Summary: Keith hates sentimentality. He hates when they try to include him by forcing him to open up when sometimes he just… can’t. Not unless it’s done in the right way. Sometimes the help he needs comes in unexpected ways. AKA: Keith is upset, Hunk tries his very best, and then some emotional resolve is found in a cup of weird space hot chocolate. My Comments: Aw, Hunk is the sweetest and the best, and he was the perfect one to offer Keith some company and understanding. What good boys. Tagged possible romance, but reads gen to me.

Talent Shows and Technobabble by Theresalwaysamystery Words: 2,705 Author’s Summary: The Paladins are asked to participate in an exchange of talents to solidify their newest alliance- Pidge isn’t sure about her people skills and Hunk is right there to help her figure things out. My Comments: Pidge’s talent is so nerdy and perfect, and I love how everyone was helpful and supportive. Fun, sweet fic.

Positivity Day by MizuKitten Words: 1,593 Author’s Summary: Lance wakes up sick, and tries to go through his day despite the fact. It does not end well for him, luckily his friends are there to help. My Comments: Just a cute, fluffy little modern AU sickfic. Hunk is perfection, as usual.

This May Sting by Stratagem Words: 5838 (4/?) Author’s Summary: Lance gets appendicitis. In space! Cue a very worried team. Also, Alteans don’t understand why humans have apparently pointless body parts such as appendixes. My Comments: I’ve loved everything I’ve read from this author, and now we’re getting a long sickfic featuring Lance! I am so EXCITED.

Dislocation by Arisprite Words: 5300 (2/?) Author’s Summary: noun A disturbance from a proper, original, or usual place or state. Keith feels useless in the initial search for Shiro, and refuses to rest (since resting would mean thinking about the fact that Shiro was gone, had left him, again). Lance, fed up with the whole team not taking care of themselves, challenges him and Keith takes him up on it. Neither of them know that little competition will put both their lives in danger, but after surviving the night, they may understand each other a little better. My Comments: Great start to what promises to be a very fraught and angsty fic. Pretty angsty already, with everyone absolutely at the end of the ropes because of losing Shiro. And it looks like it’s going to get a lot worse. :D

This Is Where We Start by Agapostemon Words: 1,426 Author’s Summary: Sometimes you just need a few space mice to remind you how much you have in common. My Comments: Really sweet fic with Allura coming across a grumpy, strung-out Pidge and delicately making moves to bond with her. Also includes great use of the space mice! Lovely.

To Sorrow with Thee by Swiss Army Knife Words: 7,054 Author’s Summary: In which Lance becomes the Black Lion (and Keith’s) grief counselor. My Comments: This fic is beautiful, sweet but sad. A lot of gorgeous imagery, and I love how Lance and Keith found an understanding together.

Beneath the Champagne Sea by Swiss Army Knife Words: 14,980 (6/?) Author’s Summary: The paladins make a diplomatic visit to a planet with sexual dimorphism roughly opposite that of Earth. Women are larger and more powerful, while men are learner and smaller. Lance attracts more than his fair share of attention. My Comments: The worldbuilding in this story is off the CHAIN. So many beautiful sights and descriptions, though the sexism undergirding the world makes it a bit disconcerting. Lance just wants to have fun hanging out with someone who enjoys his presence, and I’m low-key (high-key) worried about what’s going to happen.

Spades to Start by BossToaster (ChaoticReactions) Words: 1,941 Author’s Summary: When you teach an Altean how to play poker, they’ll want to play a game-And that will just end poorly. My Comments: Absolutely delightful tomfoolery with Team Voltron and a game of chance, with a quite unexpected outcome. This story makes me grin every time, and I’ve read it multiple times.

Ten Days by WashiPuppy for onoheiwa Words: 4,081 (1/?) Author’s Summary: Most people never got to learn exactly what their mind is worth, how resistant it is. Lance knew now, and the answer was ten days. It only took ten days for something in him to break that he wasn’t sure he could get back.Shiro had survived a year and come out as someone still able to smile, to be kind and gentle with those around him. Scarred, but not shattered. Lance wore no new scars. But he still hadn’t made it ten days. My Comments: Tagged eventual Shance, but I’m in it for the bad trip Lance is about to have. Holy crow, this first chapter is already INTENSE. I love the worldbuilding already. The team is under a huge amount of stress and it’s pretty miserable to read, but I trust this author a lot. I’m in.

Happiness is a Bowl of Home by vikki Words: 1,026 Author’s Summary: The first time Shiro eats the food goo isn’t the first time Shiro eats the food goo. (What he wouldn’t give for a bowl of mac & cheese.) Originally written for the Shiro Zine organized by kayochins. My Comments: Very touching and poignant fic about Shiro’s issues with food, followed up with the team making it better. Lovely.

To Cradle a Baby by Helicopter_Buddy Words: 1,685 (1/?) Author’s Summary: Lance heard an explosion at the dead of night. He guessed it was Pidge’s doing, but he certainly didn’t expect this. My Comments: Pidge accidentally turns herself into an adorable, exhausted, frightened baby. Fortunately, Lance is there to cuddle her. It’s adorable, and satisfying as is, but I’m looking forward to more. Totes subscribed.

Earthquakes by Atalto Words: 5,578 Author’s Summary: His mother always used to warn him of tremors and buildings, of collapsing whilst the buildings around you stood strong. The signs are all there. The earthquake is coming. But he’s fine, really. My Comments: Hunk-centric hurt/comfort! Can I get a hallelujah? HALLELUJAH. It’s so good. Hunk is such a good good boy, and he helps everyone else so much all the time always, but sometimes he needs to be cuddled.

Of (Space) Dogs and Good Intentions by realityisiron Words: 7,753 Author’s Summary: When in doubt, get your friendly neighborhood Black Paladin a dog for his birthday. Well, considering you’re in a galaxy far far away, at least get him a space dog. Nothing will go wrong probably. My Comments: Absolutely precious and heartwrenching. The gang wants to make Shiro happy, so they get him a puppy, and hoo boy does it make him happy. Allura has second thoughts, it gets super angsty for a bit, but I super duper love the conclusion. Shiro gets some SLEEP.

Previously Recced Fics That Updated:

writterings’s When You Reach Me HapaxLegomenon’s The Machinations of Perception Eastofthemoon’s Towards The Sun MoonlitPaladin (MoonlitStardust)'s Gate Keeper tommino's Fighting the Surface (now complete) LonelyGirlInSpace's The Color Of Our Planet From Far Far Away (now complete) IcyPanther’s As Color Fades Away EdgarAllenPoet’s Down Time (Don't Let Me Down) Emerald_Ashes’s Coming Undone (now complete, and so satisfying) squirenonny’s Someplace Like Home Stratagem’s Water and Blood Mists’s Defying the Odds (I love this chapter so so so much) TheHomestuckWhovian's This Is New (now complete) buttered_onions’s The Size Of Our Actions achieving elysium (Ogygia)'s familiar WildWolf25′s Coran's Guide to the Care and Keeping of Earthling Humans

[arielsojourner]

Vader Strikes Back - Part the Second

So again, not beta read/really rough/not really proof read and OUT of order.  Not even sure any of these scenes will make it into any final story of any kind. 

Just using Tumblr as a way to jump start the muse by writing out scenes that I may or may not use later.

Also spoilers for the original first story in AO3 Back From the Future: Episode VI The Clone Wars.  Do NOT read this if you haven’t read that story since otherwise this will NOT make any sense.

If you want to read Part 1 and the Prologue, check the tag #vader strikes back on my page. Again I value feedback and ideas if you have any. 

*

After the tenth body dropped, certain people started leaving Coruscant: human male natural born officers of the GAR, certain scientists, more than a few aids and lower ranking legislators and representatives and an exodus of Senators including Senator Orn Free Ta of Ryloth and Senator Sweitt Concorkill of Vurk. Oh, they all had excuses but nothing could disguise or hide the fear in their eyes.

They feared they would be next to die

Bail Organa was doing all he could to calm the public and hold the Republic together but it didn’t help that one of the key members of the Loyalist Committee, Senator Ta was fleeing Coruscant as if he feared his life would be taken next. That left Bail with limited allies and right now; he wasn’t even sure he could trust the Delegation of 2,000 with Senator Concorkill and Representative Nee Alavar fleeing the system. 

If only Senator Amidala had not mysteriously left. They had been mere hours away from the vote to cease hostilities and start the peace process when everything had gone straight to hell. Bail was left to pick up the pieces and worst of all, it meant he was the one that the Jedi Order was calling upon now and he really didn’t have the time

“Master Yoda, Master Windu,” he greeted them perfunctorily. “Please forgive me, but I am due in the Senate in less than an hour.”

“Keep you long, we will not,” Master Yoda said  walking slowly into Bail’s office. “Help we are offering.”

The Senator paused. “Help? What kind of help?” 

“We believe we know who is behind the string of assassinations on Coruscant,” Master Windu explained.

Bail put down his datapad. “Master Jedi, I think every sentient in the galaxy knows who is is behind the assassinations.”

“Vader,” Yoda intoned.

“Vader,” Bail agreed. “What sort of help then is the Order offering? Do you know who is on his list of targets? Do you have the evidence supporting the crimes of his future targets? I admit that given the state of the Judiciary right now and how many people the Coruscant Guard have arrested, I am not sure the Senate is in any position to step in to deal with the situation.”

This seemed to stop both Jedi in their tracks. They shared a silent look. “Why would you think that the Order would have such evidence?” Mace asked sharply.

“Why wouldn’t you have knowledge of who he intends to kill next?” Bail asked, growing more confused as the conversation progressed.

“In support of his action, you believe the Order is? That his conduct, we sanction?” 

“Vader defeated Palpatine. He was working with a Jedi Knight when he confronted the Sith Master, leading GAR troops.  While I find Vader’s methods to be extreme, I have been privy to enough Senate Arms Committee briefings to know that  harsher methods are sometimes necessary to deal with threats to the Republic. I thought they were working under the auspices of the Order and military authority when they uncovered who Palpatine truly was. Wait, are you now saying that’s not true? Are you saying the Order didn’t know?” 

“Senator Organa, Vader is a Sith Lord. He didn’t save the Republic. He killed Chancellor Palpatine because that is how Sith take power. The student kills the master. He just happened to do it very publicly for reasons we cannot explain as of yet.”

Bail looked from one Jedi to another, in shock. “You’re joking,” he said flatly.

Yoda slammed his cane tip into the floor. “Joking we are not, Sith he is.”

“No, he’s not. He can’t be,” Bail argued. He stood and went to the holoscreen which showed multiple news feeds on mute, many of which were replaying Palpatine’s unmasking and subsequent death. “Have you watched the holovid of the fight? What they said to each other? He fought side by side with a Jedi Knight. Just because his lightsaber is red--”

“That boy was no Jedi,” Yoda says firmly.

“Senator, we do not need you to lecture us on who is or is not a Sith. Vader is a Sith Lord and he is planning to take over the Republic in a critical moment of weakness. The deaths are part of a larger plan to--”

“Master Windu,” Bail stopped him with a raised hand. “With all due respect, I admit to being a bit skeptical of the Order’s knowledge of who is or is not a Sith. You have just admitted to me that you didn’t even know that the Chancellor was the mastermind behind anything until after Vader and Luke confronted him on te Galactic Holonet!”

Yoda shook his head and began heading for the door. “Apprised of this situation, you seem to be. Leave you to your busy schedule, we will.”

“Wait, I have questions. The Senate needs to know--”

“The Order will take care of Vader,” Master Windu said with a shallow bow. ��We will leave you to your work.

Bail watched them both leave, his mind traveling the speed of light. “What just happened here?” he asked the empty office aloud. “And what the hell is going on?”

*

Obi-Wan knows there was something that Anakin isn’t telling him and it isn’t just because Anakin still hasn’t said a word since Palpatine’s death. He isn’t blind. He’s raised the boy for over a decade and now and . . .

Well, all right. Perhaps he was a little unaware when it came to Anakin since he hadn’t known until very recently that his Padawan was actually legally married and now has children or that his relationship with Chancellor Palpatine was a toxic mess of dark influences that caused untold damage or that Anakin’s indomitable spirit on the battlefield covered up deep trauma.

Perhaps he is a lot unaware when he thought about it.

But be that as it may, his eyes are open now and he is paying attention and he isn’t just trying to ignore things going wrong with Anakin any longer, and clearly there is something else troubling him.

And worse still, Padme obviously knows what it is and she isn’t saying.

After several days of following them around the Lake House, waiting for one or both of them to confide in him, Obi-Wan finally confronts Padme.  He has to give it to her, for all of his Jedi impassiveness, even he has never mastered her level of control.  But this was Anakin and Obi-Wan isn’t going to give up so easily. 

“The issue is Anakin is deeply troubled. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he is in . . . pain, grieving, actually grieving,” Obi-Wan says with growing astonishment, the realization of what he was seeing crystallizing and coming into focus as he spoke his thoughts aloud. “Both of you are. For whom? Not Palpatine?” he asks.

Padme scoffs openly, eyes flashing with fury. “Don’t be obscene. As if we would mourn him.”

“No, no, I’m sorry. You’re right,” he apologizes hurriedly. “But please, there is something. I can sense it. Neither of you are sleeping. He won’t let the twins out of his sight. Just tell me. I can help. I want to help.”

“Have you been watching the holo news lately?”

Obi-Wan shakes his head. No, he hasn’t. It had been showing nothing but the death of Palpatine on repeat. He had no desire to see the vid  and be reminded of literally trying to hold onto Anakin to keep him from Falling.

She purses her lips together and is silent for a long movement. “You should watch it.”

Obi-Wan takes her advice and watches the vid from start to finish.

He wishes he hadn’t because somehow, in some way that makes no sense, all he sees on the holoscreen is Anakin.

Anakin is fighting a Sith Master. 

Anakin is throwing himself out of a window to protect his son, Luke.

Anakin is suffering under an attack of Sith lightning. 

Anakin is wielding a red lightsaber using Djem So forms that Anakin had modified from Form V. 

Obi-Wan buries his head in his hands, wishing he could unsee what he has seen, forget what he now knows.  

(“Sidious cares for nothing but himself and the Rule of Two. To finally accomplish his goals he has only ever really lacked one thing, a true apprentice,” Dooku had said.)

Not Anakin, oh Force please, not Anakin. It can’t be.  Obi-Wan is just tired. He’s seeing things that are not there. The stress of the past three years is obviously affecting him. His mind is playing tricks. There is no way, just no way that this can be real.

(”“We've seen your future. We don’t want it,” Luke says fiercely to Palpatine as the vid repeats. “You have nothing we want.”

“Don’t I?” the Chancellor says with a vicious smile. “You hate me, you both do. The hate is welling in you now. Why pretend? You think the Order will accept you? You are nothing more than a heretic, a poorly trained tainted novice who they will shun at best, hunt down at worst. And you, a Sith Lord-- there is no future for you without me. Join me and together we will rule the galaxy as it was meant to be ruled!”)

Anakin is a Sith Lord. Even entombed in a monstrous black shell, masked from the world, even torn out of some other horrible time, Sidious recognizes one of his own.

(On the holoscreen, Vader presses his blade forward and spits back at Palpatine, “I will never join you!”)

Obi-Wan waves his hand and the screen goes dark.He’s offered Padme his help. He’s sworn to Anakin that day at 500 Republica that he would stay with him and make it all right. But this is too much, this is too big. He can’t possibly--

(“He is your brother!? Your Chosen One!? He's supposed to SAVE you and your wretched Order?! YOU LOVE HIM?!” Vader screamed at him.)

He touches his throat gingerly. 

Liar, Vader called him.

Later, Obi-Wan had promised himself over and over again over the past few years, pushing aside his guilt. Later, he would have time to really talk and help Anakin.

No, Obi-Wan decides. He is no liar. He will keep his promise and make things right. If Vader could do it, (and how horrible must the future have been for one lost to the Dark to find a way to save the entire galaxy?) then so could he.

He stands and goes to find his Padawan.

[askkrenko]

Let’s talk about White Aligned Races

Art by Matt Stewart

Mark Rosewater recently said that the dwarven experiment in Kaladesh was not a big success. This comes from a long line of Wizards trying and failing to find a White characteristic race. Now, it’s certainly possible that Wizards of the Coast just happens to be repeatedly finding races that people don’t particularly resonate with, but I honestly think they’re missing an important part of what makes the other characteristic races characteristic races. If you’ll bear with me, I’d like to explain why goblins, merfolk, elves, and zombies are great, and why kor, kithkin, leonin, dwarves, and aven fail to get sufficient love.

Art by Jason Rainville

What Even Is a Kor Anyway?

One of the prime reasons Wizards tried Dwarves again is because people are familiar with Dwarves as a race. Like Merfolk, Zombies, Elves, and Goblins, they represent a frequently occurring fantasy race that needs no introduction. Contrariwise, Kor, Leonin, Aven, and Kithkin all represent major unknowns.  While Leonin are pretty clearly lion people and Aven are bird people, it’s not clear at all what a Kor or Kithkin is. Further, ‘lion people’ doesn’t really tell us anything. It shows us physiological differences, but not only do we not know how far that goes, (Are Leonin strict carnivores? Do they clean themselves with their tongues?) we don’t know anything about the culture except for what the cards show us. This means a player cannot look at a card and instantly understand a Leonin in the way that matters to them. Kor are even worse. I would bet you that the significant majority of players does not know the difference between a Kor and a Human outside of the Kor having white skin.

Wizards seems to believe this is one of the major problems with getting a characteristic race to be popular, and they thought that using Dwarves instead would solve this problem. This is an understandable theory, but it fails to understand why the characteristic races that already exist are so popular. Having Dwarves makes someone more willing to engage, I will agree, but it’s then a question of what one does with the Dwarves that matter. Kaladesh failed to use its Dwarves in the same way that Wizards has consistently been failing to use Kor and Leonin.

Art by Thomas M. Baxa

You Keep Using That Word. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means.

Zombies, Elves, and Goblins are the commonly used characteristic races of their associated colors. In this sense, they are called Characteristic because those creature types are common Characteristics of cards of that color. I believe this to be backwards. I instead believe Zombies, Elves and Goblins are characteristic races because they have characteristics that show off their color, something the white races continually fail at.

Did you know that Goblins have one of the highest ratios of creatures with Haste among all creature types, even surpassing dragons? A better question would be, are you surprised? Haste is the most red ability in the game, so of course the red race is going to have a larger than average percentage of it. Similarly, a significant portion of Elves grant mana, and a full third of all Zombie cards reference the graveyard. The ratio itself isn’t wholly important, but what is important is that these races have traits that people associate with them and also associate with playing a deck of their color. If I was to tell you that the future set “Kamigawa Cross” had the makings of a Goblin deck, you would not need to ask any further questions to know that I meant an aggressive red deck involving a lot of cheap and fast creatures. If I told you that “Zendikar: We promise this one’s better” had an elf deck, you’d expect creatures that rapidly accelerate your mana, followed by some sort of reward for going wide.

Where do the white races stand on this? They have a few false starts, most of which made worse by the fact that there’s so many white races. Certainly, Leonin and Kor both have a larger percentage of cards referencing Equipment than anyone else, Leonin are rather high on the life gain, and all Aven fly, but until Wizards provides the tools to make a deck using that creature type and their strategy, it’s not going to work. I’m not claiming this deck has to be good. That’d be silly. I’m merely saying they need to have some sort of consistent strategy. This isn’t an unreasonable request. While Dwarves were split between two mechanics intrinsically tied to the plane, another race showed up and made it clear what they were about.

Art by Luis Lasahido

They’re Elementals, Damnit! Elementals!

In sixteen cards, the Aetherborn have three dies triggers, two revolt triggers, and four sacrifice outlets, plus Weaponcraft Enthusiast to feed them. It’s very clear that the purpose of Aetherborn is to lose your stuff all the time. It’s unique, it’s inherently black, and it’s communicated clearly through just a small number of cards. Even better, Aetherborn manage to be uniquely black in a way that black’s preexisting characteristic races aren’t. While zombies regularly return from the dead, Aetherborn instead reward you for killing them. Vampires, meanwhile, are getting +1/+1 counters and gaining life. While Aetherborn use +1/+1 counters, only the Aetherborn Vampire does so in a way consistent with other vampires. Certainly, this doesn’t apply to every last Aetherborn, but looking at the entire sampling of Aetherborn makes it clear not just what they do as a strategy but also how they differ from the other black races.

None of the attempts at white races have been afforded this. Leonin and Kor have both had equipment focuses, but so have other white creatures in the same set. While five of Mirrodin’s thirteen Leonin cared about equipment, so did four white Humans and one Loxodon. Kaladesh had four Dwarf Pilots, but also four Human Pilots.

People seem to like Aetherborn, and while that’s certainly in no small part thanks to the writings of Alison Luhrs, it certainly doesn’t hurt that they’ve got a clear enough mechanical identity that people want to build Aetherborn decks. Few have ever built Leonin or Kor decks, and those who want to build dwarf decks, in standard at least, have to rely on vehicles or revolt. Dwarves focusing on vehicles isn’t inherently a bad thing in a vacuum, but it does make them less interesting in Kaladesh. Dwarves focusing on getting bonuses for your other Dwarves dying is a much weirder issue. It honestly makes no sense and would be an odd choice for Dwarves going forward. Of course, vehicles can’t be a choice for Dwarves going forward at all if they’re not made evergreen.

Art by Chris Rahn

Lost In Your Element

Wizards decided that due to the focus on artificing, Kaladesh would be a great world to bring back Dwarves. My personal belief is that due to the focus on artificing, Kaladesh was one of the worst possible worlds to bring back dwarves. Even if every dwarf in Kaladesh had somehow referenced artifacts, so does basically everything in Kaladesh. Dwarves are lost in the crowd. Contrariwise, imagine a few Dwarves on Tarkir. The Dwarves in question might give artifact creatures +1/+1 or pump out 1/1 artifact creatures. Either way, they’d suddenly be interesting. Further, on a more diverse world like Tarkir, the dwarves would be able to dress and style themselves differently than the humans, allowing them to be visually distinct. Consider this: If one were to have a group of birds that also included a bat, it would be a weird hairy thing. If one were to have a group of small mammals that also included a bat, it would be the thing that flies. On Kaladesh, Dwarves are just weird and hairy. On any other plane, they could be the artificers.

Similarly, any White characteristic race that wants to make its mark needs to do so by showing how it’s different from the humans around it. Leonin have never done this. Kor have never done this. Dwarves certainly didn’t do this. Aven are alright. Good job, Aven. A shame the fact that all Aven fly mean that they make a poor characteristic race.

Art by Svetlin Velinov

Carving a Niche

Ultimately, for a characteristic race to be interesting, it needs to carve out its own niche. It may be very difficult to do this going forward with pre-existing races, but assigning each of the white races to a certain playstyle would go a long way. Further, this would allow multiple races of the same color to appear on the same world while acting differently, much in the way that vampires and zombies have done for years. This would mean deciding what race went on a future world would be as much a question of what’s mechanically desirable as what’s aesthetically desirable, but as much as my fellow Vorthoses will object, Magic’s worldbuilding needs to be subservient to making a good game. What follows is a simple thought experiment.

Dwarves, traditionally, are miners and artificers. Dwarf cards could, at a rate of about 1:4, care about artifact cards, including vehicles and equipment. Some might make artifact creature tokens, some might search for equipment, some might reward crewing vehicles. Further, they could have a higher than average rate of Vigilance and tend toward higher toughness than power.

Kor are nimble and fast, and their designs should reward this. The Kor cards in the past have cared about equipment, and they could have a sharper focus on this then dwarves (who’d care about all artifacts.) First Strike could be their primary keyword, and their ropes and hooks could be used to tap down enemy creatures. Kor could be aggressive and fast, with various forms of evasion (can’t be blocked by colorless creatures, flying until end of turn, etc.) Unlike dwarves, they could often have higher power than toughness (though not so high as to get into red territory. 3/1s are fine. 5/2 is too much.)

Leonin seem big and scary, but they’re basically all nice people. Leonin could have a focus on defensive powers (not just high toughness like dwarves) and life gain. They might have slow growth like Ajani’s Pridemate or merely try and prevent your opponent from doing things like Leonin Arbiter.

Obviously, this is not a fully explored idea, but the goal is simple: define the races. Only by defining races will people be able to properly care about them. After all, there is no love without understanding, so none can love the Dwarves without understanding what these Dwarves are. After all, it’s not the word Dwarf that fans desire, but the specifics of what a Dwarf is and, most importantly, what makes them unique.

In summation: a white characteristic race will never catch on until it has a clear mechanical identity that makes a creature being that type more interesting, or at least differently interesting, than having the creature type ‘human.’

[phosph3nes]

To those struggling with a difficult breakup, I’ve been there. Ridding the toxicity from your life is hard, but I promise, once you move on and realize your worth, he will not matter anymore. 

The scars that person my leave, however, are deep. Their manipulative tactics and their glossed-over promises, and their inability to hold themselves accountable make it hard to trust someone else again. But there’s good people out there. I can assure you of that.

 Here are the signs my ex exhibited that I know to look out for in the future:

(article following this paragraph was written by Shahida Arabi)

1. Gaslighting.

Gaslighting is a manipulative tactic that can be described in different variations of three words: “That didn’t happen,” “You imagined it,” and “Are you crazy?” Gaslighting is perhaps one of the most insidious manipulative tactics out there because it works to distort and erode your sense of reality; it eats away at your ability to trust yourself and inevitably disables you from feeling justified in calling out abuse and mistreatment.

When a narcissist, sociopath or psychopath gaslights you, you may be prone to gaslighting yourself as a way to reconcile the cognitive dissonance that might arise. Two conflicting beliefs battle it out: is this person right or can I trust what I experienced? A manipulative person will convince you that the former is an inevitable truth while the latter is a sign of dysfunction on your end.

In order to resist gaslighting, it’s important to ground yourself in your own reality – sometimes writing things down as they happened, telling a friend or reiterating your experience to a support network can help to counteract the gaslighting effect. The power of having a validating community is that it can redirect you from the distorted reality of a malignant person and back to your own inner guidance.

2. Projection.

One sure sign of toxicity is when a person is chronically unwilling to see his or her own shortcomings and uses everything in their power to avoid being held accountable for them. This is known as projection. Projection is a defense mechanism used to displace responsibility of one’s negative behavior and traits by attributing them to someone else. It ultimately acts as a digression that avoids ownership and accountability.

While we all engage in projection to some extent, according to Narcissistic Personality clinical expert Dr. Martinez-Lewi, the projections of a narcissist are often psychologically abusive. Rather than acknowledge their own flaws, imperfections and wrongdoings, malignant narcissists and sociopaths opt to dump their own traits on their unsuspecting suspects in a way that is painful and excessively cruel. Instead of admitting that self-improvement may be in order, they would prefer that their victims take responsibility for their behavior and feel ashamed of themselves. This is a way for a narcissist to project any toxic shame they have about themselves onto another.

For example, a person who engages in pathological lying may accuse their partner of fibbing; a needy spouse may call their husband “clingy” in an attempt to depict them as the one who is dependent; a rude employee may call their boss ineffective in an effort to escape the truth about their own productivity.

Narcissistic abusers love to play the “blameshifting game.” Objectives of the game: they win, you lose, and you or the world at large is blamed for everything that’s wrong with them. This way, you get to babysit their fragile ego while you’re thrust into a sea of self-doubt. Fun, right?

Solution? Don’t “project” your own sense of compassion or empathy onto a toxic person and don’t own any of the toxic person’s projections either. As manipulation expert and author Dr. George Simon (2010) notes in his book In Sheep’s Clothing, projecting our own conscience and value system onto others has the potential consequence of being met with further exploitation.

Narcissists on the extreme end of the spectrum usually have no interest in self-insight or change. It’s important to cut ties and end interactions with toxic people as soon as possible so you can get centered in your own reality and validate your own identity. You don’t have to live in someone else’s cesspool of dysfunction.

3. Nonsensical conversations from hell.

If you think you’re going to have a thoughtful discussion with someone who is toxic, be prepared for epic mindfuckery rather than conversational mindfulness.

Malignant narcissists and sociopaths use word salad, circular conversations, ad hominem arguments, projection and gaslighting to disorient you and get you off track should you ever disagree with them or challenge them in any way. They do this in order to discredit, confuse and frustrate you, distract you from the main problem and make you feel guilty for being a human being with actual thoughts and feelings that might differ from their own. In their eyes, you are the problem if you happen to exist.

Spend even ten minutes arguing with a toxic narcissist and you’ll find yourself wondering how the argument even began at all. You simply disagreed with them about their absurd claim that the sky is red and now your entire childhood, family, friends, career and lifestyle choices have come under attack. That is because your disagreement picked at their false belief that they are omnipotent and omniscient, resulting in a narcissistic injury.

Remember: toxic people don’t argue with you, they essentially argue with themselves and you become privy to their long, draining monologues. They thrive off the drama and they live for it. Each and every time you attempt to provide a point that counters their ridiculous assertions, you feed them supply. Don’t feed the narcissists supply – rather, supply yourself with the confirmation that their abusive behavior is the problem, not you. Cut the interaction short as soon as you anticipate it escalating and use your energy on some decadent self-care instead.

4. Blanket statements and generalizations.

Malignant narcissists aren’t always intellectual masterminds – many of them are intellectually lazy. Rather than taking the time to carefully consider a different perspective, they generalize anything and everything you say, making blanket statements that don’t acknowledge the nuances in your argument or take into account the multiple perspectives you’ve paid homage to. Better yet, why not put a label on you that dismisses your perspective altogether?

On a larger scale, generalizations and blanket statements invalidate experiences that don’t fit in the unsupported assumptions, schemas and stereotypes of society; they are also used to maintain the status quo. This form of digression exaggerates one perspective to the point where a social justice issue can become completely obscured. For example, rape accusations against well-liked figures are often met with the reminder that there are false reports of rape that occur. While those do occur, they are rare, and in this case, the actions of one become labeled the behavior of the majority while the specific report itself remains unaddressed.

These everyday microaggressions also happen in toxic relationships. If you bring up to a narcissistic abuser that their behavior is unacceptable for example, they will often make blanket generalizations about your hypersensitivity or make a generalization such as, “You are never satisfied,” or “You’re always too sensitive” rather than addressing the real issues at hand. It’s possible that you are oversensitive at times, but it is also possible that the abuser is also insensitive and cruel the majority of the time.

Hold onto your truth and resist generalizing statements by realizing that they are in fact forms of black and white illogical thinking. Toxic people wielding blanket statements do not represent the full richness of experience – they represent the limited one of their singular experience and overinflated sense of self.

5. Deliberately misrepresenting your thoughts and feelings to the point of absurdity.

In the hands of a malignant narcissist or sociopath, your differing opinions, legitimate emotions and lived experiences get translated into character flaws and evidence of your irrationality.

Narcissists weave tall tales to reframe what you’re actually saying as a way to make your opinions look absurd or heinous. Let’s say you bring up the fact that you’re unhappy with the way a toxic friend is speaking to you. In response, he or she may put words in your mouth, saying, “Oh, so now you’re perfect?” or “So I am a bad person, huh?” when you’ve done nothing but express your feelings. This enables them to invalidate your right to have thoughts and emotions about their inappropriate behavior and instills in you a sense of guilt when you attempt to establish boundaries.

This is also a popular form of diversion and cognitive distortion that is known as “mind reading.” Toxic people often presume they know what you’re thinking and feeling. They chronically jump to conclusions based on their own triggers rather than stepping back to evaluate the situation mindfully. They act accordingly based on their own delusions and fallacies and make no apologies for the harm they cause as a result. Notorious for putting words in your mouth, they depict you as having an intention or outlandish viewpoint you didn’t possess. They accuse you of thinking of them as toxic – even before you’ve gotten the chance to call them out on their behavior – and this also serves as a form of preemptive defense.

Simply stating, “I never said that,” and walking away should the person continue to accuse you of doing or saying something you didn’t can help to set a firm boundary in this type of interaction. So long as the toxic person can blameshift and digress from their own behavior, they have succeeded in convincing you that you should be “shamed” for giving them any sort of realistic feedback.

6. Nitpicking and moving the goal posts.

The difference between constructive criticism and destructive criticism is the presence of a personal attack and impossible standards. These so-called “critics” often don’t want to help you improve, they just want to nitpick, pull you down and scapegoat you in any way they can. Abusive narcissists and sociopaths employ a logical fallacy known as “moving the goalposts” in order to ensure that they have every reason to be perpetually dissatisfied with you. This is when, even after you’ve provided all the evidence in the world to validate your argument or taken an action to meet their request, they set up another expectation of you or demand more proof.

Do you have a successful career? The narcissist will then start to pick on why you aren’t a multi-millionaire yet. Did you already fulfill their need to be excessively catered to? Now it’s time to prove that you can also remain “independent.” The goal posts will perpetually change and may not even be related to each other; they don’t have any other point besides making you vie for the narcissist’s approval and validation.

By raising the expectations higher and higher each time or switching them completely, highly manipulative and toxic people are able to instill in you a pervasive sense of unworthiness and of never feeling quite “enough.” By pointing out one irrelevant fact or one thing you did wrong and developing a hyperfocus on it, narcissists get to divert from your strengths and pull you into obsessing over any flaws or weaknesses instead. They get you thinking about the next expectation of theirs you’re going to have to meet – until eventually you’ve bent over backwards trying to fulfill their every need – only to realize it didn’t change the horrific way they treated you.

Don’t get sucked into nitpicking and changing goal posts – if someone chooses to rehash an irrelevant point over and over again to the point where they aren’t acknowledging the work you’ve done to validate your point or satisfy them, their motive isn’t to better understand. It’s to further provoke you into feeling as if you have to constantly prove yourself. Validate and approve of yourself. Know that you are enough and you don’t have to be made to feel constantly deficient or unworthy in some way.

7. Changing the subject to evade accountability.

This type of tactic is what I like to call the “What about me?” syndrome. It is a literal digression from the actual topic that works to redirect attention to a different issue altogether. Narcissists don’t want you to be on the topic of holding them accountable for anything, so they will reroute discussions to benefit them. Complaining about their neglectful parenting? They’ll point out a mistake you committed seven years ago. This type of diversion has no limits in terms of time or subject content, and often begins with a sentence like “What about the time when…”

On a macrolevel, these diversions work to derail discussions that challenge the status quo. A discussion about gay rights, for example, may be derailed quickly by someone who brings in another social justice issue just to distract people from the main argument.

As Tara Moss, author of Speaking Out: A 21st Century Handbook for Women and Girls, notes, specificity is needed in order to resolve and address issues appropriately – that doesn’t mean that the issues that are being brought up don’t matter, it just means that the specific time and place may not be the best context to discuss them.

Don’t be derailed – if someone pulls a switcheroo on you, you can exercise what I call the “broken record” method and continue stating the facts without giving in to their distractions. Redirect their redirection by saying, “That’s not what I am talking about. Let’s stay focused on the real issue.” If they’re not interested, disengage and spend your energy on something more constructive – like not having a debate with someone who has the mental age of a toddler.

8. Covert and overt threats.

Narcissistic abusers and otherwise toxic people feel very threatened when their excessive sense of entitlement, false sense of superiority and grandiose sense of self are challenged in any way. They are prone to making unreasonable demands on others – while punishing you for not living up to their impossible to reach expectations.

Rather than tackle disagreements or compromises maturely, they set out to divert you from your right to have your own identity and perspective by attempting to instill fear in you about the consequences of disagreeing or complying with their demands. To them, any challenge results in an ultimatum and “do this or I’ll do that” becomes their daily mantra.

If someone’s reaction to you setting boundaries or having a differing opinion from your own is to threaten you into submission, whether it’s a thinly veiled threat or an overt admission of what they plan to do, this is a red flag of someone who has a high degree of entitlement and has no plans of compromising. Take threats seriously and show the narcissist you mean business; document threats and report them whenever possible and legally feasible.

9. Name-calling.

Narcissists preemptively blow anything they perceive as a threat to their superiority out of proportion. In their world, only they can ever be right and anyone who dares to say otherwise creates a narcissistic injury that results in narcissistic rage. As Mark Goulston, M.D. asserts, narcissistic rage does not result from low self-esteem but rather a high sense of entitlement and false sense of superiority.

The lowest of the low resort to narcissistic rage in the form of name-calling when they can’t think of a better way to manipulate your opinion or micromanage your emotions. Name-calling is a quick and easy way to put you down, degrade you and insult your intelligence, appearance or behavior while invalidating your right to be a separate person with a right to his or her perspective.

Name-calling can also be used to criticize your beliefs, opinions and insights. A well-researched perspective or informed opinion suddenly becomes “silly” or “idiotic” in the hands of a malignant narcissist or sociopath who feels threatened by it and cannot make a respectful, convincing rebuttal. Rather than target your argument, they target you as a person and seek to undermine your credibility and intelligence in any way they possibly can. It’s important to end any interaction that consists of name-calling and communicate that you won’t tolerate it. Don’t internalize it: realize that they are resorting to name-calling because they are deficient in higher level methods.

10. Destructive conditioning.

Toxic people condition you to associate your strengths, talents, and happy memories with abuse, frustration and disrespect. They do this by sneaking in covert and overt put-downs about the qualities and traits they once idealized as well as sabotaging your goals, ruining celebrations, vacations and holidays. They may even isolate you from your friends and family and make you financially dependent upon them. Like Pavlov’s dogs, you’re essentially “trained” over time to become afraid of doing the very things that once made your life fulfilling.

Narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths and otherwise toxic people do this because they wish to divert attention back to themselves and how you’re going to please them. If there is anything outside of them that may threaten their control over your life, they seek to destroy it. They need to be the center of attention at all times. In the idealization phase, you were once the center of a narcissist’s world – now the narcissist becomes the center of yours.

Narcissists are also naturally pathologically envious and don’t want anything to come in between them and their influence over you. Your happiness represents everything they feel they cannot have in their emotionally shallow lives. After all, if you learn that you can get validation, respect and love from other sources besides the toxic person, what’s to keep you from leaving them? To toxic people, a little conditioning can go a long way to keep you walking on eggshells and falling just short of your big dreams.

11. Smear campaigns and stalking.

When toxic types can’t control the way you see yourself, they start to control how others see you; they play the martyr while you’re labeled the toxic one. A smear campaign is a preemptive strike to sabotage your reputation and slander your name so that you won’t have a support network to fall back on lest you decide to detach and cut ties with this toxic person. They may even stalk and harass you or the people you know as a way to supposedly “expose” the truth about you; this exposure acts as a way to hide their own abusive behavior while projecting it onto you.

Some smear campaigns can even work to pit two people or two groups against each other. A victim in an abusive relationship with a narcissist often doesn’t know what’s being said about them during the relationship, but they eventually find out the falsehoods shortly after they’ve been discarded.

Toxic people will gossip behind your back (and in front of your face), slander you to your loved ones or their loved ones, create stories that depict you as the aggressor while they play the victim, and claim that you engaged in the same behaviors that they are afraid you will accuse them of engaging in. They will also methodically, covertly and deliberately abuse you so they can use your reactions as a way to prove that they are the so-called “victims” of your abuse.

The best way to handle a smear campaign is to stay mindful of your reactions and stick to the facts. This is especially pertinent for high-conflict divorces with narcissists who may use your reactions to their provocations against you. Document any form of harassment, cyberbullying or stalking incidents and always speak to your narcissist through a lawyer whenever possible. You may wish to take legal action if you feel the stalking and harassment is getting out of control; finding a lawyer who is well-versed in Narcissistic Personality Disorder is crucial if that’s the case. Your character and integrity will speak for itself when the narcissist’s false mask begins to slip.

12. Love-bombing and devaluation.

Toxic people put you through an idealization phase until you’re sufficiently hooked and invested in beginning a friendship or relationship with you. Then, they begin to devalue you while insulting the very things they admired in the first place. Another variation of this is when a toxic individual puts you on a pedestal while aggressively devaluing and attacking someone else who threatens their sense of superiority.

Narcissistic abusers do this all the time – they devalue their exes to their new partners, and eventually the new partner starts to receive the same sort of mistreatment as the narcissist’s ex-partner. Ultimately what will happen is that you will also be on the receiving end of the same abuse. You will one day be the ex-partner they degrade to their new source of supply. You just don’t know it yet. That’s why it’s important to stay mindful of the love-bombing technique whenever you witness behavior that doesn’t align with the saccharine sweetness a narcissist subjects you to.

As life coach Wendy Powell suggests, slowing things down with people you suspect may be toxic is an important way of combating the love-bombing technique. Be wary of the fact that how a person treats or speaks about someone else could potentially translate into the way they will treat you in the future.

13. Preemptive defense.

When someone stresses the fact that they are a “nice guy” or girl, that you should “trust them” right away or emphasizes their credibility without any provocation from you whatsoever, be wary.

Toxic and abusive people overstate their ability to be kind and compassionate. They often tell you that you should “trust” them without first building a solid foundation of trust. They may “perform” a high level of sympathy and empathy at the beginning of your relationship to dupe you, only to unveil their false mask later on. When you see their false mask begins to slip periodically during the devaluation phase of the abuse cycle, the true self is revealed to be terrifyingly cold, callous and contemptuous.

Genuinely nice people rarely have to persistently show off their positive qualities – they exude their warmth more than they talk about it and they know that actions speak volumes more than mere words. They know that trust and respect is a two-way street that requires reciprocity, not repetition.

To counter a preemptive defense, reevaluate why a person may be emphasizing their good qualities. Is it because they think you don’t trust them, or because they know you shouldn’t? Trust actions more than empty words and see how someone’s actions communicate who they are, not who they say they are.

14. Triangulation.

Bringing in the opinion, perspective or suggested threat of another person into the dynamic of an interaction is known as “triangulation.” Often used to validate the toxic person’s abuse while invalidating the victim’s reactions to abuse, triangulation can also work to manufacture love triangles that leave you feeling unhinged and insecure.

Malignant narcissists love to triangulate their significant other with strangers, co-workers, ex-partners, friends and even family members in order to evoke jealousy and uncertainty in you. They also use the opinions of others to validate their point of view.

This is a diversionary tactic meant to pull your attention away from their abusive behavior and into a false image of them as a desirable, sought after person. It also leaves you questioning yourself – if Mary did agree with Tom, doesn’t that mean that you must be wrong? The truth is, narcissists love to “report back” falsehoods about others say about you, when in fact, they are the ones smearing you.

To resist triangulation tactics, realize that whoever the narcissist is triangulating with is also being triangulated by your relationship with the narcissist as well. Everyone is essentially being played by this one person. Reverse “triangulate” the narcissist by gaining support from a third party that is not under the narcissist’s influence – and also by seeking your own validation.

15. Bait and feign innocence.

Toxic individuals lure you into a false sense of security simply to have a platform to showcase their cruelty. Baiting you into a mindless, chaotic argument can escalate into a showdown rather quickly with someone who doesn’t know the meaning of respect. A simple disagreement may bait you into responding politely initially, until it becomes clear that the person has a malicious motive of tearing you down.

By “baiting” you with a seemingly innocuous comment disguised as a rational one, they can then begin to play with you. Remember: narcissistic abusers have learned about your insecurities, the unsettling catchphrases that interrupt your confidence, and the disturbing topics that reenact your wounds – and they use this knowledge maliciously to provoke you. After you’ve fallen for it, hook line and sinker, they’ll stand back and innocently ask whether you’re “okay” and talk about how they didn’t “mean” to agitate you. This faux innocence works to catch you off guard and make you believe that they truly didn’t intend to hurt you, until it happens so often you can’t deny the reality of their malice any longer.

It helps to realize when you’re being baited so you can avoid engaging altogether. Provocative statements, name-calling, hurtful accusations or unsupported generalizations, for example, are common baiting tactics. Your gut instinct can also tell you when you’re being baited – if you feel “off” about a certain comment and continue to feel this way even after it has been expanded on, that’s a sign you may need to take some space to reevaluate the situation before choosing to respond.

16. Boundary testing and hoovering.

Narcissists, sociopaths and otherwise toxic people continually try and test your boundaries to see which ones they can trespass. The more violations they’re able to commit without consequences, the more they’ll push the envelope. That’s why survivors of emotional as well as physical abuse often experience even more severe incidents of abuse each and every time they go back to their abusers.

Abusers tend to “hoover” their victims back in with sweet promises, fake remorse and empty words of how they are going to change, only to abuse their victims even more horrifically. In the abuser’s sick mind, this boundary testing serves as a punishment for standing up to the abuse and also for being going back to it. When narcissists try to press the emotional reset button, reinforce your boundaries even more strongly rather than backtracking on them.

Remember – highly manipulative people don’t respond to empathy or compassion. They respond to consequences.

17. Aggressive jabs disguised as jokes.

Covert narcissists enjoy making malicious remarks at your expense. These are usually dressed up as “just jokes” so that they can get away with saying appalling things while still maintaining an innocent, cool demeanor. Yet any time you are outraged at an insensitive, harsh remark, you are accused of having no sense of humor. This is a tactic frequently used in verbal abuse.

The contemptuous smirk and sadistic gleam in their eyes gives it away, however – like a predator that plays with its food, a toxic person gains pleasure from hurting you and being able to get away with it. After all, it’s just a joke, right? Wrong. It’s a way to gaslight you into thinking their abuse is a joke – a way to divert from their cruelty and onto your perceived sensitivity. It is important that when this happens, you stand up for yourself and make it clear that you won’t tolerate this type of behavior.

Calling out manipulative people on their covert put-downs may result in further gaslighting from the abuser but maintain your stance that their behavior is not okay and end the interaction immediately if you have to.

18. Condescending sarcasm and patronizing tone.

Belittling and degrading a person is a toxic person’s forte and their tone of voice is only one tool in their toolbox. Sarcasm can be a fun mode of communication when both parties are engaged, but narcissists use it chronically as a way to manipulate you and degrade you. If you in any way react to it, you must be “too sensitive.”

Forget that the toxic person constantly has temper tantrums every time their big bad ego is faced with realistic feedback – the victim is the hypersensitive one, apparently. So long as you’re treated like a child and constantly challenged for expressing yourself, you’ll start to develop a sense of hypervigilance about voicing your thoughts and opinions without reprimand. This self-censorship enables the abuser to put in less work in silencing you, because you begin to silence yourself.

Whenever you are met with a condescending demeanor or tone, call it out firmly and assertively. You don’t deserve to be spoken down to like a child – nor should you ever silence yourself to meet the expectation of someone else’s superiority complex.

19. Shaming.

“You should be ashamed of yourself” is a favorite saying of toxic people. Though it can be used by someone who is non-toxic, in the realm of the narcissist or sociopath, shaming is an effective method that targets any behavior or belief that might challenge a toxic person’s power. It can also be used to destroy and whittle away at a victim’s self-esteem: if a victim dares to be proud of something, shaming the victim for that specific trait, quality or accomplishment can serve to diminish their sense of self and stifle any pride they may have.

Malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths enjoy using your own wounds against you – so they will even shame you about any abuse or injustice you’ve suffered in your lifetime as a way to retraumatize you. Were you a childhood abuse survivor? A malignant narcissist or sociopath will claim that you must’ve done something to deserve it, or brag about their own happy childhood as a way to make you feel deficient and unworthy. What better way to injure you, after all, than to pick at the original wound? As surgeons of madness, they seek to exacerbate wounds, not help heal them.

If you suspect you’re dealing with a toxic person, avoid revealing any of your vulnerabilities or past traumas. Until they’ve proven their character to you, there is no point disclosing information that could be potentially used against you.

20. Control.

That’s why they emotionally withdraw, only to re-idealize you once they start to lose control. That’s why they vacillate between their false self and their true self, so you never get a sense of psychological safety or certainty about who your partner truly is.

The more power they have over your emotions, the less likely you’ll trust your own reality and the truth about the abuse you’re enduring. Knowing the manipulative tactics and how they work to erode your sense of self can arm you with the knowledge of what you’re facing and at the very least, develop a plan to regain control over your own life and away from toxic people.

[gizedcom]

SAGE told Boris Johnson ‘pre-Covid normality’ impossible

SAGE scientists told the Government a month ago it would not be possible to return to a ‘pre-Covid normality’ without a vaccine or a far better contact tracing system, it emerged today.

In a report submitted to ministers on June 22, scientists advising Number 10 said social distancing will need to be in place until a jab is developed because it would be ‘difficult’ to get NHS Test and Trace up to scratch.

But Boris Johnson appeared to contradict his scientific advisers today when he promised the nation he is aiming for life in the UK to return to something close to normal by this Christmas.

A jab won’t be ready until sometime next year at the earliest, the head of Britain’s vaccine taskforce has warned. And both Sir Patrick Vallance and Professor Chris Whitty, two of the government’s top advisers, today said social distancing ‘must continue for a long period of time’.

Writing in the June report, SAGE said it ‘does not believe it is possible to return to a “pre-Covid” normality, without levels of contact tracing and Covid security effectiveness that would be difficult to achieve, without some sort of additional increase in immunity, either through vaccination or infection’.

‘As a result, thought should be given to the triggers for when measures should be reintroduced, what metrics should inform this, and what further data and information may need to be collected,’ it added.

The report was published along with eight other documents by the Government Office for Science, which is headed by Sir Patrick Vallance, England’s chief scientific adviser.

They are among dozens in a tranche of papers presented to SAGE over recent months to help guide ministers through the crisis.

 SAGE believes the country is currently 50 per cent ‘Covid secure’, shown as the grey line. But the percentage of contacts will need to stay below 100 unless the R could rise above 1

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a speech today that the UK Government was hoping to return the country to something like normality ‘possibly in time for Christmas’

SAGE estimates that NHS Test and Trace currently prevents about 20 per cent of new coronavirus infections from occurring.

This is because people normally don’t start showing symptoms of the virus – if at all – until days after they originally caught it, meaning they might have been infectious for multiple days without knowing.

The Test and Trace system is also failing to catch almost one in four people who test positive for the virus, which is allowing hundreds of patients to slip under the radar every week.

Boris Johnson’s timetable for getting life in the UK back to normal 

Today: Rules on using public transport will be relaxed so that ‘anybody may use’ buses, tubes and trains. Public transport no longer needs to be treated as a last resort.

Tomorrow: New ‘lightning lockdown’ powers for councils will be introduced to allow them to shut public spaces and premises without consulting the Government to stop outbreaks. 

Next week: New local lockdown draft powers for ministers will be published to allow them to issue stay at home orders and impose travel restrictions.

August: New rules on working from home to be introduced to encourage more workers to return to their offices. Remaining leisure facilities like bowling alleys, casinos and skating rinks will reopen from August 1. Socially distanced indoor performances in theatres can start. 

October: Stadiums could reopen to audiences for sport and music events, depending on the success of a pilot programme. 

November: All ‘outstanding restrictions’ will be reviewed and eased in November at the earliest and ‘possibly in time for Christmas’. 

SAGE says the system would have to block 80 per cent of all onward transmission of the virus in order for social distancing measures to be dropped completely. 

It admits in its report that this ‘would be difficult to do’ and recommends restrictions are kept in place until a vaccine is ready.

SAGE estimates that the average Briton is now seeing around 40 per cent of the friends, family and colleagues they interacted with before the pandemic.

The group’s mathematical modelling predicts that if this number rose to just 60 per cent, then the reproduction R rate – the average number of people each Covid-19 patient infects – would climb above one and the epidemic would spiral back out of control.

Writing in the report, they said: ‘In order to be able to re-open schools in September without causing a second wave, it therefore critical that some measures remain in place, so that the reproduction number remains below 1 at the start of September when all children return to school.

‘Completely opening schools now could lead to R increasing to around 1. In order to open schools and allow a higher level of work and leisure contacts than is currently possible, Covid security would need to improve, and highly effective contact tracing would be needed’.

The report seems to contradict the Prime Minister, who revealed today he is aiming for life in the UK to return to something close to normal by this Christmas.

In a Downing Street speech setting out his timetable for the further easing of lockdown measures, he said it was likely that the coronavirus will become more virulent – more harmful – in the winter and that it would add to the ‘certain’ pressures of flu season. 

But in the same breath, Mr Johnson unveiled plans to get the country back to ‘normal life’ by Christmas, giving the green-light to letting thousands of Britons back into stadiums to watch football matches and outdoor gigs this autumn. 

The PM said the Government is hoping to review all the ‘outstanding restrictions’ in the coming months in order to allow a ‘more significant return to normality from November’ and ‘possibly in time for Christmas’.

But scientists and medics fear the move out of lockdown is too ‘rash’ and could risk a second wave in the winter, given that the virus is still known to be circulating. Data today showed 1,700 people in England are still getting infected each day – a figure that has not changed in a week.

Green light for fans to return to stadiums: Boris Johnson announces sports grounds could let spectators back in from October

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced crowds could return to sports stadiums in the United Kingdom from October subject to successful pilot events starting later this month. 

Sports events have taken place without crowds since they restarted in recent weeks because of the risk of spreading coronavirus.

But laying out the next steps in lifting lockdown on Friday morning, Mr Johnson said: ‘From 1 August, we will restart indoor performance to a live audience, subject to the success of pilots, and we will also pilot larger gatherings in venues like sports stadia, with a view to a wider reopening in the autumn.

‘From October, we intend to bring back audiences in stadia. Again, these changes must be done in a Covid-secure way, subject to the successful outcome of pilots.’ 

It raises the possibility that only the first month of the 2020-21 football season will be played out behind closed doors, with supporters allowed back in the autumn. 

The pilot events – which would see a limited number of spectators admitted to stadiums with social distancing rules observed – could begin this month. 

It has been reported that pilot events will include the County Championship cricket match between Surrey and Middlesex at The Oval on July 26, the Glorious Goodwood race meet between July 28 and August 1, and the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible from July 31. 

There is a danger that by announcing the easing of restrictions, people will take less care when adhering to social distancing rules, according to Professor Lawrence Young, a molecular oncologist at Warwick University. He said: ‘Clearly the virus is still here.’ 

Professor John Ashton, former regional director of public health for North West England, told MailOnline: ‘This is exactly the wrong time to be letting things go down, and certainly to be announcing it.’ He accused Mr Johnson of behaving ‘in a very rash fashion’. 

Professor Ashton said: ‘It’s too early to say it will be safe to start having spectators at football and rugby matches in October. It’s too early to say that. 

‘We still don’t know where it is circulating, because they don’t have testing the same as in Germany for example.

‘He [Boris Johnson] is sill behaving in a very rash fashion. I understand the argument about the economy, which has real problems now. But its not a choice about health or the economy. They are interlinked, if we get a big second wave, the economy will be in terrible trouble.’

‘I think what the Government should be doing is waiting until we are sure we are in control and down to zero cases during summer months, so if we do get out breaks in autumn we can intervene readily and squash them. This is being seen in other countries, like Scotland.’

He added: ‘In countries that have embraced this as an opportunity, they are looking at more home working. 

‘People can be more productive at home, and maybe only going to office part of the week. The benefits that will have for reducing transport, and impact on global warming, we are looking at a radical change in way we live. 

‘No doubt this will occur in Scandinavian countries. The government is asking us to go back to old way of working.

‘I think what the Government should be doing is waiting until we are sure we are in control and down to zero cases during summer months, so if we do get out breaks in autumn we can intervene readily and squash them. This is being seen in other countries, like Scotland.’

John Phillips, acting general secretary for GMB, accused the Prime Minister of ‘once again showing a failure of leadership in the face of this pandemic’.

He added: ‘With fears of a second spike looming, bewildering advice, and a desperately underfunded health service – the Prime Minister’s talk of returning to normality by Christmas just seems phony.’ 

Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: ‘The health service has been turned upside down in successful efforts to cope with the first wave – it has barely begun to start to recover from that trauma and it must do so with one hand effectively tied behind its back with social distancing and PPE affecting every clinical intervention.

‘So this must be added not just the probability of a resurgence of Covid at some level and an additional surge in demand from patients with other infectious diseases including flu that will inevitably come with winter.’ 

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[torreygazette]

Dear Lutheranism

Dear Lutheranism,

I am a member of an LCMS congregation. But I addressed this letter to our brothers and sisters as a whole. We are all united by the Augsburg Confession, Small and Large Catechisms, and (for the majority of us) the complete Book of Concord. With this shared doctrinal background, I feel my concerns can and should be directed to all.

For various reason we Lutherans do not engage or associate much with other Christian denominations. I am not here to judge if any or all of the reasons are justified, but more so to air a concern that I have when we detach ourselves from the larger church. We all agree that our view of the Gospel—as explained in our confession—is the most accurate of the denominations and various groups of Christendom. No matter our feelings about our self-imposed isolation from many post reformation groups, there is a time where we must engage these groups. We must engage to show our historical approach of law and gospel accurately and have it be heard by Christendom as a whole. Keeping our accurate profession a secret, does no good for anyone involved or the universal church. I’d make a case that it is a part of our vocation to share God’s truth when miscellaneous events happen in the universal church. I say all of this to petition that we not remain quiet regarding the ‘Social Justice’ conversation that is currently taking place in the broader Christian community.

The majority of evangelical Protestants do not work with a correct framework including Law/Gospel distinction, Horizontal vs Vertical righteousness, or 3rd use of the Law. The conversation taking place about social justice would be a great opportunity to share our biblical approach to the masses and demonstrate the validity of our doctrine. One popular evangelical theologian has recently stated that “this recent (and surprisingly sudden) detour in quest of ‘social justice’ is, I believe, the most subtle and dangerous threat so far.” Instead of this position, Lutheranism offers the distinction between vertical righteousness (God to person due to being found in Christ) and horizontal righteousness (Person to person righteousness founded in our ability to love neighbor freely without concluding it is impacting justification). We can help demonstrate that it is possible to engage culture to attempt to end a form of oppression or hardship of neighbor and not falsely conclude that our relation to God is impacted by these acts of good works. 

We believe, teach, and confess also that all men, but those especially who are born again and renewed by the Holy Ghost, are bound to do good works. - Epitome of Concord IV

And first, as regards the necessity or voluntariness of good works, it is manifest that in the Augsburg Confession and its Apology these expressions are often used and repeated that good works are necessary. Likewise, that it is necessary to do good works, which also are necessarily to follow faith and reconciliation. - The Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord IV

As confessional Lutherans, we can show a correct dynamic between faith and works. We can demonstrate how the 3rd use of the law is applicable as God intends for use to live holy lives in the world. Even though we fail, are aim as the new washed and regenerate man is to drown the old Adam daily and strive to live per Gods commands.

Jesus stated that He did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill the Law, and the law to love our neighbor is as real and applicable as ever. To conclude as the celebrity pastor John MacArthur has, that social justice is not the concern of the church is effectively a form of Gnosticism and denial of the command to love neighbor.

“But social justice means social equality, making sure everybody gets the social equality. That’s never going to happen in a fallen world, in the best of circumstances. But that is not the church’s concern.”- John MacArthur

It is true that there will always be the poor amongst us, but we are not called in holy writ to accept a problem because it will always remain until our Lord returns. To ignore the “fallen world” because it is inherently evil and only focus on the spiritual side of a person’s needs is a form of Gnosticism. This dynamic leads us to show preference, remove real empathy, and starts towards antinomianism. “Who cares that a lady was raped and murdered? We should not engage culture to state that women are made in the image of God and worthy of respect and dignity.” This could be a logical conclusion to women rights issue if this stance of evangelicalism is followed consistently. The world will never be perfect until Christ returns, but for us to be salt and light is a command of our Lord to us. Professor Joel Biermann has made an interesting statement on this:

“… to fulfill the 1st great commission, of being fruitful and multiple and have dominion over creation, means that culture building is good. So when we are working on culture building, what I mean by that would be life in the modern world … a way of honoring God and serving each other. This is God pleasing; it’s not a negative thing. And the implication of this is the material world is not evil. This idea just continues to hound us in the church and this idea is Gnosticism … Sin has messed everything up, but it’s still God’s good creation.” (Humanity in Creation by Joel Biermann, around 58min mark)

There is a striking difference between Professor Biermann’s focus on God’s command to nurture and shepherd creation (1st great commission) and John MacArthur’s argument that social equality will never happen in this fallen world and concluding it is not the church’s concern. To ignore the hardship and plight in the world because the world is fallen is not a biblical concept. We are actually commanded to the exact opposite. Refusal to love neighbor in our daily vocation is Gospel reductionism and against our creation mandate. I truly feel the world would benefit by Lutherans getting involved and sharing our doctrinal truths with Christendom.

Further, the majority of Protestantism has corrupted the understanding of the sacrament of Baptism. Thanks be to God that the sacrament is valid based His Word and Promises—not the understanding of man—but many Protestant have tried their hardest to remove God from the equation. To be able to speak to the objective truth in the waters of Baptism, God Himself unites us with Him making us brothers and sisters in Christ. Not hypothetical. Not kinda sorta. He truly washes us and applies Christ’s finished work to us and unites us.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body” – 1 Corinthians 12:12-16

A major theme found throughout the 1 Corinthians book is unity and not showing partiality.  We truly are united to Christ in baptism and have become a part of the body of Christ.  How can one part of the body ignore the suffering and plight of another part of the body.  Or to be more accurate, how one member of the body of Christ declare that the concerns of another member in the body is not the concern of the church. 

That there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together – 1 Corinthians 12:25-26

This unity found and accomplished in baptism should draw us together to love and care about the trials and hardships that our brothers/sisters experience and face.  This is a beautiful gospel truth. Is this not a perspective that can be added to the racial reconciliation conversation that is greatly over looked? Protestants talk about baptism but since God’s activity is removed, it is hard to articulate the reality of what took place by them.

The influence of the anti-social justice people goes far beyond just evangelical Protestant circles. Even in our Lutheran bible studies, I do not think it is rare to find people with a John MacArthur study bible being used. I would go as far as to bet that many in our pews can recognize and are more influenced first or second hand by John MacArthur than Greg Seltz. Many will hear the name Greg Seltzs and ask “Who?” That is exactly my point. Greg Seltz was a prominent speaker on the Lutheran Hour (Lutheran flagship radio ministry with estimated over a million listeners) from 2011 to 2017.  One of our biggest celebrities in our tradition is less known/impactful than MacArthur and other prominent anti-social justice supporters. John MacArthur’s reach and influence is truly massive. I as a black man cannot avoid or ignore a movement in broad Christendom driven by MacArthur that declares that Social Justice is against the Gospel.  A pastor named Josh Buice was involved in the creation of the, “Social Justice and the Gospel” statement went as far to state one reason they created the statement was “That civil rights movements end was that there is no end game.” He followed this by saying the people in the 1950s and 1960s—like the faithful Lutheran Reverend Bob Greatz and other stand up men—that risked it all did it for fame and because racial division was big business. I have three baptized saints that God has placed in my care who will live in this world when I am gone, ignoring this is not a reality for me.

Without social justice efforts Jim Crow may have never ended. Without social justice from a few faithful pastors, the truth that Africans in slavery were made in God’s image deserving dignity would not have been proclaimed. Without Social Justice efforts that amazing testimony and precedent set by the first Rosa would never have happened in Alabama. I know there have been Lutheran statements composed for Lutherans by Lutherans on the subject of racism and racial relations, but broader Christendom is releasing public statement. In contrast, our statements seem like backroom conversations not written for the world. This is not satisfactory. I know within our doors we can point to these documents, but I live in a world where most have no idea about anything Lutheran. We have removed ourselves from the dialogue between Christians on major issues that impact and influence God’s creation.

I know none of the theology I mention in this letter is new. But I needed to lay out my thoughts. I also know I could be barking up the wrong tree in writing this. The outreach of MacArthur and his friends are far reaching. In our small sector it is easy to just ignore him. But in the broader American church, his voice has impact. There is a chance you agree with John MacArthur and the anti-social justice crowd, but I am willing to take this chance. There is more good to be accomplished than negative from my point of view. I have seen some Lutheran blogs leaning in agreement with MacArthur’s and the published statement. Alt-right influence is increasing on various Lutheran platforms. We even have Lutheran discernment ministries quoting individuals who says “Thank God and white people for slavery” while dismissing social justice and racial reform. They do this attempting to join forces with the MacArthur brigade. These are not the Lutheran interactions we want to be known for. In general, the confessional Lutheran doctrines—of which we should be proud—are missing from dialogue.

I have been placed in this situation with nothing to lose. Denying the outworking of the gospel shown by actually loving and caring for your neighbor is a gnostic notion. I cannot be convinced otherwise. And it is an actual position being solidified in opposition to Social Justice. I pray that this is received with an open heart and that the benefits of actually stepping in the fray to respond to John MacArthur and this public statement will be considered. The opportunity to share our sound confessional principles with the American church, comfort those in our pews, and reject unbiblical notions which directly support social oppression cannot go unanswered. I pray that once again Lutherans will be willing to stand up for the Biblical principles they confess.

 Love, Grace, and Peace,

Ty aka @Lex_Lutheran

[eurekakinginc]

"The 4 Epochs of longevity"- Detail: I have been studying Genomics for the last year, with a focus on longevity. I have come to the conclusion that there will be 4 distinct (although somewhat overlapping) epochs in the goal of living longer and healthier lives. I'd like to lay them out for you.This is a long article, and the last epoch has the most to read because it's about research that hasn't even started yet, and I have to talk about the science we know today that will lead to that research. let me also be clear, that while this is based on letitimate research I have read, some of this is SPECULATION. Although in a conversation with the guy that runs the lab I am in the other day, he endorsed my speculation has having solid logical roots.Epoch 1: Health Consciousness. This is the era that began as far back as we can imagine, and we are deeply into this today. This is the notion that (using the best current knowledge that) avoiding sugar, not smoking, eating well (more greens, more rawish foods, less processed stuff, less preservatives), not getting fat, and exercizing can all lead to longer healthier lives. This is undoubtably true. My local PBS station has shows that basically advertize programs (books, videos, you name it) detailing all the things you should do. This is at the rate of about one of these shows a week. I guess, as a species, we got serious about this when the surgeon general banned advertizing of cigarettes in 1970, and as time has passed, we have gotten more serious about it. Lets note, no matter how far forward we go with this process, these fundamental understandings of how NOT to abuse our bodies will always be good advice.Now, an argument can be made that Mary-Claire King is singularly personally responsible for raising the average lifespan age by about 2 years worldwide based on her discovery of the BRCA1 gene - the breast cancer gene - allowing women to get screened and being able to largely avoid dying from breast cancer by knowing that they should get screened more often if they are at risk, and then getting treated early if something is detected. I believe this is true, and I mention it as a proxy for a whole host of life saving interventions (Seatbelts and airbags are two other technologies that are examples), but I don't see those as being DIRECTLY aimed at the issue of longevity, so... Even though that sort of thing is going on in the background, and they are all working in concert to increase the average lifespan, I am going to choose to not count them here. What DO I count then? Well...Epoch 2. Longevity drugs. Starting as far back as 1999 (the earliest paper >I< have seen, though there are certainly earlier ones that I don't know about), specific drugs are mentioned as increasing healthspan, and that implies not dying from age related diseases, and that implies living longer.A few people realize that we are in this epoch right now, and the awareness that we are in it is slowly dawning on the general public. I have 5 treatments that are the hallmarks of this age. 2 are diets and three are drugs. Buckle up, if you haven't heard about these they are becomming mainstream fairly quickly.Lets start with the diets. It's long been known that Dietary Restriction leads to an increase in lifespan. If you knock off about %15 of the calories that you "need" on a daily basis, you tend to live about %20 longer. This, to a person living in the west, means living like a supermodel, and avoiding all those yummy calories - forever. And it turns out that very very very few people are willing to do that. So, a guy named Valter Longo said something genius: What is the minimum thing we can do to get the same effect as Dietary Restriction? He found that for a large number of reasons, fasting sporadically could accomplish that. There are some rules, During the fast, you can eat some things every day for minimum nutrition, but intake of calories is limited to 700 calories per day. Secondly, the fast has to be 5 days long, as you need your body to go into ketogenesis (where weak cells die and break apart and get flushed out of your body). Thirdly, you need to do this at least 7 times in a year for the longer term effects to show up. (These effects also include weight loss, and if you have pre-diabetic readings on some levels, those go back into the normal range). In fact, he was able to get FDA approval for this diet based on these pre-diabetic symptoms disapearing. An FDA approved diet. In this world of fad diets, this is a rarity.Based on Valters work, I was told by a nutrition researcher at the Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center that someone said: Oh, this diet also has anti cancer benefits... What can we do thats the minimum possible that gives >those< benefits.... and based on that the 8/16 diet was born. Basically you eat normally for 8 hours a day, then you don't eat the rest of the time. Think about it... whats the job of a cancer cell? To grab nurients and replicate. But you have antibodies that go find cancer cells and tear them apart allowing those bits to get flushed from your body. (In fact it has been said that everyone has had cancer multiple times, it's just that the antibodies got rid of those cells before they could replicate. So? In that kind of war, if you don't eat for 16 hours a day, thats time for the antibodies to wipe these cells out when they aren't gathering nutrients and making more of themselves. It's about leveling the playing field. Seems legit to me. and if you don't die of cancer? That will certainly lead to a longer lifespan... right?Moving on to the drugs: Rapamycin: This trug targets a gene called mTOR (want to know something funny? the TOR stands for Target Of Rapamycin). Now mTOr regulates a pretty well known metabolic pathway, so it turns out that rapamycin provides benefits in sort of the same way as Dietary Restriction. Lets note that there is a healthspan study in dogs at the University of Washington right now run by Dr. Matt Kaeberlein, but it's not in any clinical FDA trials for longevity even though it's FDA approved for transplant patients, but a number of scientists swear by it.Metformin: This is an FDA approved drug used by diabetics. It works to lower the amount of sugar in the blood. It's milder in terms of effect than rapamycin, and it IS in human trials for healthspan improvement by the FDA at present. These trials are called TAME - Targeting Aging with Metformin. Again, a number of people swear by it.NMN or NR. If you look at a cells energy cycle, cells burn ATP. The make ATP by breaking up sugar that enters the cell, and using some of the parts to make ATP. But they also make NAD+ out of other parts of the sugar - and later on the NAD+ also gets turned into ATP. Now, NMN and NR are chemicals that are along the pathway that cells use to make NAD+ so it's very easy for cells to use this same pathway to make extra NAD+ from a supplement that you take and that NAD+ is then later used to make more ATP. It's well known that NAD+ levels go down as people age... so it makes sense to try to boost those levels right? There have been a few human trials although none were FDA sponsored. There is really solid laboratory evidence in mice these two molecules work AMAZINGLY well, there are ongoing human trials right now, and there is loads of anecdotal evidence. There are also shenanigans about how it's made (enzymatically is FAR preferred to the solvent based manufaturing process), and there are a few lawsuits between some of the companies that sell one or the other as a supplement. But it's the big stick of the current crop of Epoch 2, and it looks like keeping energy levels in cells up helps them function well for a LOT longer.Thats where we are today. There are a few drugs being tested, and in use by early adopters, and it looks very very promising. Where are we headed?Epoch 3: Stem cells and senescent cell removal.There are two breakthrus that will dramatically increase lifespan that are in the "actively being researched" but farther out than the drugs above which are already on the market.Lets tackle stem cells first. These are basically skin cells turned into stem cells that get injected into problem areas, but since they can multiply and become any kind of cell, they can be used to repair damage from any number of age related maladies. Also stem cells tend to decrease with age, so this forced replacement of them can be a good thing if done right. There are stem cell therapies today (things like repairing severed neurons, restoring heart muscle after a stroke, and maybe helping to repair joint function, and on and on and on), none of them were specifically engineered with aging in mind, adn so like above, I won't dwell on them. But... you ask... why did I mention stem cells? Well, there are folks working on aging specific stem cell therapies. These longevity related stem cell therapies tend to be in the realm that uses genetically engineered stem cells. Repairing macular degeneration, and tissue regeneration are two that are on the radar. Lets talk about the first: It turns out that in the eye, there is a specific protein that builds up, that our bodies can't get rid of, but with a 1 base pair change to our dna, there is a protein that CAN get rid of it. So, we take a sample, make a few stem cells, then edit the dna of those stem cells so that they can clear this protein out of the eye, and grow a large number of them, and inject THOSE stem cells back into the eye. This is the macular degeneration fix. It is NOT here today, but there are labs that have done this in mice. This is the exact same approach that is being talked about for arterial plaque buildup. This first use is really indicative of a larger "category" of age related diseases where the body has built up some gunk outside of the cells over time, and it needs to get removed, but it never gets built up too much until after we have kids, so evolution doesn't see it as a problem. (Since evolution only cares about the genes we pass on, adn thats already done by the time this issue crops up.) We who want to live longer, clearly DO think that this is an issue. Since I mentioned them, for muscle regenation or nerve regeration, it's basically a genetically edited stem cell where the appropriate growth factor is somewhat overexpressed, injected into the correct tissue to stimulate faster or more growth thats wanted.The first one of these stem cell therapies, if I have to guess is 5 to 7 years out since it is a new approach that the FDA has to approve. Thankfully they have approved stem cell therapies in the past, and they have approved genetic editing of single cells that get grown to a large number of cells in the past (the car-t lukemia treatment that got approved as of december 2017), so with the fundamental approaches being known it probably won't take them a full decade for us to start to see these uses for stem cells.Senescent cells. Also on the "getting rid of what we don't want vein". It turns out that all cells start as a stem cell then divide into a stem cell and a differentiated cell - one that has a specific function. Senescent cells are those that are doing their differntiated job but getting old (and probably starting to be bad at their job), and refusing to die.. They are just a hangin around. Now, the body knows how to handle small scale damage (As a single example - there is a signal called PDGF Platelet Derived Growth Factor) that some cells excrete as they die telling stem cells in the area that someone is gone, and maybe another cell is needed...) So, IF we can get weak differentiated senescent cells to die we can force nearby stem cells to divide and get a fresh cell thats new and NOT bad at it's job to take the place of the senescent cell. Turns out that Hydrogen sulfide (present in garlic) is a good chemical to trigger weak sensecent cells to die. But there are issues getting it to the right cells, not having it be toxic, and any number of other issues. There are folks that have done work in mice that shows DRAMATIC improvement of healthspan, and restoration of many weakened body functions due to "age" when senescent cells are removed. There are no human trials yet, but be sure that once there is a senescent cell removal therapy, you will want to go get it.I espect this to come about (given the state of research and published papers) within the next decade. These two technologies will make for a HUGE leap forward in both quality of life and longevity.And if this is going to make things so much better, what could possible be epoch 4?Epoch 4, Epigentic resetting.This is where I extrapolate the future. If I am going to tell you what treatments are coming next, I think it's important to start with the ROOT CAUSE of aging - all the treatments above are treatments for first order effects - symptoms if you will - how do you better fix things after something has gone wrong. I want to talk about how we will be able to prevent things from going wrong in the first place inside your cells. It turns out that there might be a few things that cause aging, but far and away the most important of them is cellular disregulation. Think about this... We have a system that regulates what genes are on, and which ones are off, and how much of each gene is expressed. It's called the epigenetic system. I'll describe how it works in slightly more detail a bit later. For now, imagine that over time, the epigenetic system "degrades". And we have about 20,000 genes that do different things, and the DNA for each of those is in every cell in the body. Think about what might happen if a cell that makes light receiver in your eye gets turned on in a cell in your heart. Having to make those extra proteins will take some of the ATP that it takes to beat that heart cell - and having that protein present in the cell might interfere with other things in the cell - and this is one singular example. At the point that enough cells in your skin degrade, it will get saggy, at the point that enough muscle cells stop working right your muscles degrade, etc, etc, etc. In short aging. Now, I am not the first person to say that cellular disregulation is the most important thing, a number of people think that this is THE biggest problem we need to solve, and the entire field is slowly shifting to this point of view.Ok, if thats the biggest problem... what causes the epigenome to "degrade"? Again, there are a number of causes, but right now the evidence points to "double stranded DNA breaks" being far and away the most important cause. Thats right double stranded DNA breaks. What? We have proteins that repair those right? Yes. But... There are side effects. It turns out that Dr. David Sinclair did an experiment with mice that doubled the double standed DNA break rate in very specific places on the genome of a mouse. He performed this experiment over the span of a year, and at the end, compared it to a litter mate, and yes, the DNA break mouse looked very elderly compared to it's one year old bretherin that was in the prime of it's life (mice live about 2 years, so testing aging in mice this way is fair game.) The takeaway of that experiment is that double stranded DNA breaks mess with the epigenome and that... causes aging.OK, I've mentioned the epigenome a few times now, I'd better give a little bit more depth on it. Let me start with a statistic: We think we maybe understand the function of %90 of the DNA we have (I can justify this if needed) - but we maybe only understand %50 of what there is to be learned from the DNA we have. Compared to this, we understand only about %5 of the big picture of what there is to be learned about the epigenome. Let me give you a big picture overview of the basics: What we do know is that there are two main mechanisms at play. The way that genes are turned on or off (or regulated up and down like a volume control knob) is by that DNA being accessable to the proteins that make RNA copies of it. The first mechanism: On the outside of your DNA, almost as an annotation system we get "methylation", and in most cases, if you methylate something that gene turns off - think about it, the protein that wants to make a copy comes along and oops, it's blocked from getting to the DNA it wants by a methyl group, so... no copy is made. This is kind of the on off switch. The second mechanism is way way way more complicated (it's more the volume control knob). We have 2 meters of dna if you stretch it out. Thats a lot. Imagine it being a ball of yarn stuffed into the neucleus of a cell, how do you find anything? Well... in that scenario, you can't... but we have evolved "histones", and the dna wraps around them, and gets all coiled up. Lots of histones which allow everything to be wrapped up neatly and predictably. Now, histones have certain tails of amino acids hanging off the side that things can bind to. DNA has a very slight positive charge. And methyl groups have a very slight positive charge... and acetyl groups have a very slight negative charge. So... imagine adding a methyl group, and the two positives charges push each other away, meaning the dna wraps less tightly around the histone, meaning it's slightly MORE available to be transcribed, and acetyl groups help to wrap the DNA more tightly and turn down transcription. And now, let me blow your mind... there are about 200 different epigenetic markers that have been discovered, and people are working feverishly to decipher and understand and map them all. It's my understanding that DNA methylation has the largest "control authority" over gene expression so lets talk only about that.It's clear that if the epigenome gets messed up by double standed DNA breaks that the implication is that the proteins that go to the break and repair it also knock some methyl groups off, or add some extra ones as they do their job - it appears that in certain areas of the genome it's more "add" and in other areas it's more "remove", but with age, gene expression TENDS to drop (meaning more methylation). Now the damage (extra methylation) appears to be somewhat random. Today noone knows the exact mechanism that causes this damage - so if you are looking for a PHD project? This is a really solid one to take on.But what we DO know, is that there is a specific profile of DNA methylation that seems to be present at varying ages - certain important points on the genome either have it or don't. And as you age, other IMPORTANT points get methylated. This work was done by Horvath and Hanuum in about 2013 when they published separate papers on the "DNA methylation clock". There are 400ish sites that get methylated, and which of those sites is currently methylated can be used to determine your age (barring radiation, obesity, or smoking exposure) to within a few years. In fact, this clock is accurate enough that one european government is using it to determine the age of refugees who have no documentation (to determine if they are over or under 18 years old as the law has different rules for the two groups.) The method gives you an answer at the age of 18 thats within 2 years, and previously they called in dentists to look at wisdom teeth and got answers that were within 5 years. Even though this is a new technology, and it has so much room for improvement, it is already better than the old methods of determining age. (scary right?)So, now you know what causes aging! Double stranded DNA breaks cause DNA methylation to increase messing up gene regulation. it's SO SIMPLE, RIGHT? Here is a paper with a bit more depth to it that explains what I just did again with diagrams and definitions, and way more detail: http://www.longlonglife.org/en/transhumanism-longevity/aging/epigenetic-aging-longevity/epigenetic-alterations-as-a-cause-of-aging/So whats coming? Here is where I make my specualtive prediction: We will take every cell in your body and RESET the epigenome.WHAT? How the hell is that possible?!? Well... if we look to biology for answers, how does the methylation on your DNA get there in the first place? We have an enzyme called DNA methyltransferase (actually there are alot of them that do this kind of thing), and there are other mechanisms that remove methylation.You have all heard of CRISPR right? CRISPR is a combination of two things. First is the Cas9 gene that likes to cut DNA, and second is a peice of RNA that guides the Cas9 gene to the place it's needed to do that cutting. WAIT!!! Cutting DNA? Thats bad, right? Yes, but...As of 2016 some scientists in China (Shawn Liu and Xuebing Wu, and others) developed a version of CRISPR where they took off the part that cuts DNA, and added on a part that demethylates DNA, and you can buy this off the shelf now.So, all you need to do (hahaha, as if this really is easy, right?) All you need to do is to identify all the places that need to be demethylated, build the correct guide RNA, and deliver a cas9-dna-demethyltransferase along with the guide RNA into every cell in your body, and voila! No more cellular disregulation. And at that point the cell will behave normally, and it won't become senescent, or die, or misbehave in any way.As part of identifying those genes that need to be reset? Lets talk for a moment about how we might do that. Remember the Hanuum clock? %10 of the methylation marks are in a gene called KLF14 which is a master regulator of metabolism and obesity. (I'll also note that one of the stem cell creation factors - Klf4 - is a brother protein to this). It strikes me that a lot of the drugs mentioned earlier focus on metabolism related things, so pointing at this gene seems to pass the smell test.My bet is thats it's not a bad gene to start with, and resetting it might show some mild improvement in lifespan. But more likely, doing this will backfire as the gene regulation system is ridiculously complicated, and so I think that to get ANY effect we may need to reset a dozen or so genes, and to get the DESIRED true longevity effect, we may need to reset somewhere between 200 and 500 genes. and all I've talked about is the methylation. Remember there are 200 or more epigenetic marks to take into account and decipher.And then there is the issue of delivering this drug to every cell in the body. We use viral vectors to do this today in gene therapy, and so some of this delivery part is available, but... it's expensive today, and as a technology, it too is in it's infancy.And now, just to make sure that you understand the hieghts of the smooth granite mountain peaks you are about to free climb... there are 240 or so tissue types that are tracked today, thats clearly not all of them, and each tissue type is likely to have it's own set of genes that need specific "settings", and since the viruses used to deliver gene therapy products are usually attracted to very specific tissue types, we will need at least that many viral variants to deliver these specialized cocktails to those cells... Trivial, right?So, I think we CAN fix our gene regulation, and our first attempt, with limited understanding and maybe a dozen genes, we can make some headway, and herald it as a major breakthru, but 10 or 20 years later when we REALLY understand what we are doing? These postulated first efforts will seem like the dark ages where we drilled holes in the skull to "let the demons out".When will this happen? All the tools are there, heck, I've even identified an initial gene as a possible target. All it takes is someone to fund the study in a lab. Are we at the point where most funders see this as the next logical step? From what I know today? No they do not. This means we will need at least 5 more years of epigenetic mapping and research and refinements to the clock and understanding gene regulation pathways, and more importantly progress into the second and third epohs listed above to show that logevity is actually achievable, and and and... and then we can see some early results for a version 1 that mitigates aging in elderly folks who have gene disregulation, and once reset they get healthier. (the fact that they will live longer, thats not what the FDA will focus on - they will want to see folks with a better metabolism, with more muscle tone, etc, etc, etc, things they can measure NOW.)So, when will this happen? I think we may see the first scientific paper that addresses this root cause of aging within the next 10 years (unless you count THIS as the first paper, in which case... I'd be honored), and that... that will be the beginning of the 4th epoch of longevity.So, this is my take on the treatments, pills, therapies, processes, procedures, research and so on that will lead to a revolution in longevity.The short version to wrap this all up is: Given the roadmap I've laid out here and the progress we have already made - I THINK that we can get there.. Title by: John_Schlick Posted By: www.eurekaking.com

[dailytechnologynews]

The 4 Epochs of longevity

I have been studying Genomics for the last year, with a focus on longevity. I have come to the conclusion that there will be 4 distinct (although somewhat overlapping) epochs in the goal of living longer and healthier lives. I'd like to lay them out for you.

This is a long article, and the last epoch has the most to read because it's about research that hasn't even started yet, and I have to talk about the science we know today that will lead to that research. let me also be clear, that while this is based on letitimate research I have read, some of this is SPECULATION. Although in a conversation with the guy that runs the lab I am in the other day, he endorsed my speculation has having solid logical roots.

Epoch 1: Health Consciousness. This is the era that began as far back as we can imagine, and we are deeply into this today. This is the notion that (using the best current knowledge that) avoiding sugar, not smoking, eating well (more greens, more rawish foods, less processed stuff, less preservatives), not getting fat, and exercizing can all lead to longer healthier lives. This is undoubtably true. My local PBS station has shows that basically advertize programs (books, videos, you name it) detailing all the things you should do. This is at the rate of about one of these shows a week. I guess, as a species, we got serious about this when the surgeon general banned advertizing of cigarettes in 1970, and as time has passed, we have gotten more serious about it. Lets note, no matter how far forward we go with this process, these fundamental understandings of how NOT to abuse our bodies will always be good advice.

Now, an argument can be made that Mary-Claire King is singularly personally responsible for raising the average lifespan age by about 2 years worldwide based on her discovery of the BRCA1 gene - the breast cancer gene - allowing women to get screened and being able to largely avoid dying from breast cancer by knowing that they should get screened more often if they are at risk, and then getting treated early if something is detected. I believe this is true, and I mention it as a proxy for a whole host of life saving interventions (Seatbelts and airbags are two other technologies that are examples), but I don't see those as being DIRECTLY aimed at the issue of longevity, so... Even though that sort of thing is going on in the background, and they are all working in concert to increase the average lifespan, I am going to choose to not count them here. What DO I count then? Well...

Epoch 2. Longevity drugs. Starting as far back as 1999 (the earliest paper >I< have seen, though there are certainly earlier ones that I don't know about), specific drugs are mentioned as increasing healthspan, and that implies not dying from age related diseases, and that implies living longer.

A few people realize that we are in this epoch right now, and the awareness that we are in it is slowly dawning on the general public. I have 5 treatments that are the hallmarks of this age. 2 are diets and three are drugs. Buckle up, if you haven't heard about these they are becomming mainstream fairly quickly.

Lets start with the diets. It's long been known that Dietary Restriction leads to an increase in lifespan. If you knock off about %15 of the calories that you "need" on a daily basis, you tend to live about %20 longer. This, to a person living in the west, means living like a supermodel, and avoiding all those yummy calories - forever. And it turns out that very very very few people are willing to do that. So, a guy named Valter Longo said something genius: What is the minimum thing we can do to get the same effect as Dietary Restriction? He found that for a large number of reasons, fasting sporadically could accomplish that. There are some rules, During the fast, you can eat some things every day for minimum nutrition, but intake of calories is limited to 700 calories per day. Secondly, the fast has to be 5 days long, as you need your body to go into ketogenesis (where weak cells die and break apart and get flushed out of your body). Thirdly, you need to do this at least 7 times in a year for the longer term effects to show up. (These effects also include weight loss, and if you have pre-diabetic readings on some levels, those go back into the normal range). In fact, he was able to get FDA approval for this diet based on these pre-diabetic symptoms disapearing. An FDA approved diet. In this world of fad diets, this is a rarity.

Based on Valters work, I was told by a nutrition researcher at the Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center that someone said: Oh, this diet also has anti cancer benefits... What can we do thats the minimum possible that gives >those< benefits.... and based on that the 8/16 diet was born. Basically you eat normally for 8 hours a day, then you don't eat the rest of the time. Think about it... whats the job of a cancer cell? To grab nurients and replicate. But you have antibodies that go find cancer cells and tear them apart allowing those bits to get flushed from your body. (In fact it has been said that everyone has had cancer multiple times, it's just that the antibodies got rid of those cells before they could replicate. So? In that kind of war, if you don't eat for 16 hours a day, thats time for the antibodies to wipe these cells out when they aren't gathering nutrients and making more of themselves. It's about leveling the playing field. Seems legit to me. and if you don't die of cancer? That will certainly lead to a longer lifespan... right?

Moving on to the drugs: Rapamycin: This trug targets a gene called mTOR (want to know something funny? the TOR stands for Target Of Rapamycin). Now mTOr regulates a pretty well known metabolic pathway, so it turns out that rapamycin provides benefits in sort of the same way as Dietary Restriction. Lets note that there is a healthspan study in dogs at the University of Washington right now run by Dr. Matt Kaeberlein, but it's not in any clinical FDA trials for longevity even though it's FDA approved for transplant patients, but a number of scientists swear by it.

Metformin: This is an FDA approved drug used by diabetics. It works to lower the amount of sugar in the blood. It's milder in terms of effect than rapamycin, and it IS in human trials for healthspan improvement by the FDA at present. These trials are called TAME - Targeting Aging with Metformin. Again, a number of people swear by it.

NMN or NR. If you look at a cells energy cycle, cells burn ATP. The make ATP by breaking up sugar that enters the cell, and using some of the parts to make ATP. But they also make NAD+ out of other parts of the sugar - and later on the NAD+ also gets turned into ATP. Now, NMN and NR are chemicals that are along the pathway that cells use to make NAD+ so it's very easy for cells to use this same pathway to make extra NAD+ from a supplement that you take and that NAD+ is then later used to make more ATP. It's well known that NAD+ levels go down as people age... so it makes sense to try to boost those levels right? There have been a few human trials although none were FDA sponsored. There is really solid laboratory evidence in mice these two molecules work AMAZINGLY well, there are ongoing human trials right now, and there is loads of anecdotal evidence. There are also shenanigans about how it's made (enzymatically is FAR preferred to the solvent based manufaturing process), and there are a few lawsuits between some of the companies that sell one or the other as a supplement. But it's the big stick of the current crop of Epoch 2, and it looks like keeping energy levels in cells up helps them function well for a LOT longer.

Thats where we are today. There are a few drugs being tested, and in use by early adopters, and it looks very very promising. Where are we headed?

Epoch 3: Stem cells and senescent cell removal.

There are two breakthrus that will dramatically increase lifespan that are in the "actively being researched" but farther out than the drugs above which are already on the market.

Lets tackle stem cells first. These are basically skin cells turned into stem cells that get injected into problem areas, but since they can multiply and become any kind of cell, they can be used to repair damage from any number of age related maladies. Also stem cells tend to decrease with age, so this forced replacement of them can be a good thing if done right. There are stem cell therapies today (things like repairing severed neurons, restoring heart muscle after a stroke, and maybe helping to repair joint function, and on and on and on), none of them were specifically engineered with aging in mind, adn so like above, I won't dwell on them. But... you ask... why did I mention stem cells? Well, there are folks working on aging specific stem cell therapies. These longevity related stem cell therapies tend to be in the realm that uses genetically engineered stem cells. Repairing macular degeneration, and tissue regeneration are two that are on the radar. Lets talk about the first: It turns out that in the eye, there is a specific protein that builds up, that our bodies can't get rid of, but with a 1 base pair change to our dna, there is a protein that CAN get rid of it. So, we take a sample, make a few stem cells, then edit the dna of those stem cells so that they can clear this protein out of the eye, and grow a large number of them, and inject THOSE stem cells back into the eye. This is the macular degeneration fix. It is NOT here today, but there are labs that have done this in mice. This is the exact same approach that is being talked about for arterial plaque buildup. This first use is really indicative of a larger "category" of age related diseases where the body has built up some gunk outside of the cells over time, and it needs to get removed, but it never gets built up too much until after we have kids, so evolution doesn't see it as a problem. (Since evolution only cares about the genes we pass on, adn thats already done by the time this issue crops up.) We who want to live longer, clearly DO think that this is an issue. Since I mentioned them, for muscle regenation or nerve regeration, it's basically a genetically edited stem cell where the appropriate growth factor is somewhat overexpressed, injected into the correct tissue to stimulate faster or more growth thats wanted.

The first one of these stem cell therapies, if I have to guess is 5 to 7 years out since it is a new approach that the FDA has to approve. Thankfully they have approved stem cell therapies in the past, and they have approved genetic editing of single cells that get grown to a large number of cells in the past (the car-t lukemia treatment that got approved as of december 2017), so with the fundamental approaches being known it probably won't take them a full decade for us to start to see these uses for stem cells.

Senescent cells. Also on the "getting rid of what we don't want vein". It turns out that all cells start as a stem cell then divide into a stem cell and a differentiated cell - one that has a specific function. Senescent cells are those that are doing their differntiated job but getting old (and probably starting to be bad at their job), and refusing to die.. They are just a hangin around. Now, the body knows how to handle small scale damage (As a single example - there is a signal called PDGF Platelet Derived Growth Factor) that some cells excrete as they die telling stem cells in the area that someone is gone, and maybe another cell is needed...) So, IF we can get weak differentiated senescent cells to die we can force nearby stem cells to divide and get a fresh cell thats new and NOT bad at it's job to take the place of the senescent cell. Turns out that Hydrogen sulfide (present in garlic) is a good chemical to trigger weak sensecent cells to die. But there are issues getting it to the right cells, not having it be toxic, and any number of other issues. There are folks that have done work in mice that shows DRAMATIC improvement of healthspan, and restoration of many weakened body functions due to "age" when senescent cells are removed. There are no human trials yet, but be sure that once there is a senescent cell removal therapy, you will want to go get it.

I espect this to come about (given the state of research and published papers) within the next decade. These two technologies will make for a HUGE leap forward in both quality of life and longevity.

And if this is going to make things so much better, what could possible be epoch 4?

Epoch 4, Epigentic resetting.

This is where I extrapolate the future. If I am going to tell you what treatments are coming next, I think it's important to start with the ROOT CAUSE of aging - all the treatments above are treatments for first order effects - symptoms if you will - how do you better fix things after something has gone wrong. I want to talk about how we will be able to prevent things from going wrong in the first place inside your cells. It turns out that there might be a few things that cause aging, but far and away the most important of them is cellular disregulation. Think about this... We have a system that regulates what genes are on, and which ones are off, and how much of each gene is expressed. It's called the epigenetic system. I'll describe how it works in slightly more detail a bit later. For now, imagine that over time, the epigenetic system "degrades". And we have about 20,000 genes that do different things, and the DNA for each of those is in every cell in the body. Think about what might happen if a cell that makes light receiver in your eye gets turned on in a cell in your heart. Having to make those extra proteins will take some of the ATP that it takes to beat that heart cell - and having that protein present in the cell might interfere with other things in the cell - and this is one singular example. At the point that enough cells in your skin degrade, it will get saggy, at the point that enough muscle cells stop working right your muscles degrade, etc, etc, etc. In short aging. Now, I am not the first person to say that cellular disregulation is the most important thing, a number of people think that this is THE biggest problem we need to solve, and the entire field is slowly shifting to this point of view.

Ok, if thats the biggest problem... what causes the epigenome to "degrade"? Again, there are a number of causes, but right now the evidence points to "double stranded DNA breaks" being far and away the most important cause. Thats right double stranded DNA breaks. What? We have proteins that repair those right? Yes. But... There are side effects. It turns out that Dr. David Sinclair did an experiment with mice that doubled the double standed DNA break rate in very specific places on the genome of a mouse. He performed this experiment over the span of a year, and at the end, compared it to a litter mate, and yes, the DNA break mouse looked very elderly compared to it's one year old bretherin that was in the prime of it's life (mice live about 2 years, so testing aging in mice this way is fair game.) The takeaway of that experiment is that double stranded DNA breaks mess with the epigenome and that... causes aging.

OK, I've mentioned the epigenome a few times now, I'd better give a little bit more depth on it. Let me start with a statistic: We think we maybe understand the function of %90 of the DNA we have (I can justify this if needed) - but we maybe only understand %50 of what there is to be learned from the DNA we have. Compared to this, we understand only about %5 of the big picture of what there is to be learned about the epigenome. Let me give you a big picture overview of the basics: What we do know is that there are two main mechanisms at play. The way that genes are turned on or off (or regulated up and down like a volume control knob) is by that DNA being accessable to the proteins that make RNA copies of it. The first mechanism: On the outside of your DNA, almost as an annotation system we get "methylation", and in most cases, if you methylate something that gene turns off - think about it, the protein that wants to make a copy comes along and oops, it's blocked from getting to the DNA it wants by a methyl group, so... no copy is made. This is kind of the on off switch. The second mechanism is way way way more complicated (it's more the volume control knob). We have 2 meters of dna if you stretch it out. Thats a lot. Imagine it being a ball of yarn stuffed into the neucleus of a cell, how do you find anything? Well... in that scenario, you can't... but we have evolved "histones", and the dna wraps around them, and gets all coiled up. Lots of histones which allow everything to be wrapped up neatly and predictably. Now, histones have certain tails of amino acids hanging off the side that things can bind to. DNA has a very slight positive charge. And methyl groups have a very slight positive charge... and acetyl groups have a very slight negative charge. So... imagine adding a methyl group, and the two positives charges push each other away, meaning the dna wraps less tightly around the histone, meaning it's slightly MORE available to be transcribed, and acetyl groups help to wrap the DNA more tightly and turn down transcription. And now, let me blow your mind... there are about 200 different epigenetic markers that have been discovered, and people are working feverishly to decipher and understand and map them all. It's my understanding that DNA methylation has the largest "control authority" over gene expression so lets talk only about that.

It's clear that if the epigenome gets messed up by double standed DNA breaks that the implication is that the proteins that go to the break and repair it also knock some methyl groups off, or add some extra ones as they do their job - it appears that in certain areas of the genome it's more "add" and in other areas it's more "remove", but with age, gene expression TENDS to drop (meaning more methylation). Now the damage (extra methylation) appears to be somewhat random. Today noone knows the exact mechanism that causes this damage - so if you are looking for a PHD project? This is a really solid one to take on.

But what we DO know, is that there is a specific profile of DNA methylation that seems to be present at varying ages - certain important points on the genome either have it or don't. And as you age, other IMPORTANT points get methylated. This work was done by Horvath and Hanuum in about 2013 when they published separate papers on the "DNA methylation clock". There are 400ish sites that get methylated, and which of those sites is currently methylated can be used to determine your age (barring radiation, obesity, or smoking exposure) to within a few years. In fact, this clock is accurate enough that one european government is using it to determine the age of refugees who have no documentation (to determine if they are over or under 18 years old as the law has different rules for the two groups.) The method gives you an answer at the age of 18 thats within 2 years, and previously they called in dentists to look at wisdom teeth and got answers that were within 5 years. Even though this is a new technology, and it has so much room for improvement, it is already better than the old methods of determining age. (scary right?)

So, now you know what causes aging! Double stranded DNA breaks cause DNA methylation to increase messing up gene regulation. it's SO SIMPLE, RIGHT? Here is a paper with a bit more depth to it that explains what I just did again with diagrams and definitions, and way more detail: http://www.longlonglife.org/en/transhumanism-longevity/aging/epigenetic-aging-longevity/epigenetic-alterations-as-a-cause-of-aging/

So whats coming? Here is where I make my specualtive prediction: We will take every cell in your body and RESET the epigenome.

WHAT? How the hell is that possible?!? Well... if we look to biology for answers, how does the methylation on your DNA get there in the first place? We have an enzyme called DNA methyltransferase (actually there are alot of them that do this kind of thing), and there are other mechanisms that remove methylation.

You have all heard of CRISPR right? CRISPR is a combination of two things. First is the Cas9 gene that likes to cut DNA, and second is a peice of RNA that guides the Cas9 gene to the place it's needed to do that cutting. WAIT!!! Cutting DNA? Thats bad, right? Yes, but...

As of 2016 some scientists in China (Shawn Liu and Xuebing Wu, and others) developed a version of CRISPR where they took off the part that cuts DNA, and added on a part that demethylates DNA, and you can buy this off the shelf now.

So, all you need to do (hahaha, as if this really is easy, right?) All you need to do is to identify all the places that need to be demethylated, build the correct guide RNA, and deliver a cas9-dna-demethyltransferase along with the guide RNA into every cell in your body, and voila! No more cellular disregulation. And at that point the cell will behave normally, and it won't become senescent, or die, or misbehave in any way.

As part of identifying those genes that need to be reset? Lets talk for a moment about how we might do that. Remember the Hanuum clock? %10 of the methylation marks are in a gene called KLF14 which is a master regulator of metabolism and obesity. (I'll also note that one of the stem cell creation factors - Klf4 - is a brother protein to this). It strikes me that a lot of the drugs mentioned earlier focus on metabolism related things, so pointing at this gene seems to pass the smell test.

My bet is thats it's not a bad gene to start with, and resetting it might show some mild improvement in lifespan. But more likely, doing this will backfire as the gene regulation system is ridiculously complicated, and so I think that to get ANY effect we may need to reset a dozen or so genes, and to get the DESIRED true longevity effect, we may need to reset somewhere between 200 and 500 genes. and all I've talked about is the methylation. Remember there are 200 or more epigenetic marks to take into account and decipher.

And then there is the issue of delivering this drug to every cell in the body. We use viral vectors to do this today in gene therapy, and so some of this delivery part is available, but... it's expensive today, and as a technology, it too is in it's infancy.

And now, just to make sure that you understand the hieghts of the smooth granite mountain peaks you are about to free climb... there are 240 or so tissue types that are tracked today, thats clearly not all of them, and each tissue type is likely to have it's own set of genes that need specific "settings", and since the viruses used to deliver gene therapy products are usually attracted to very specific tissue types, we will need at least that many viral variants to deliver these specialized cocktails to those cells... Trivial, right?

So, I think we CAN fix our gene regulation, and our first attempt, with limited understanding and maybe a dozen genes, we can make some headway, and herald it as a major breakthru, but 10 or 20 years later when we REALLY understand what we are doing? These postulated first efforts will seem like the dark ages where we drilled holes in the skull to "let the demons out".

When will this happen? All the tools are there, heck, I've even identified an initial gene as a possible target. All it takes is someone to fund the study in a lab. Are we at the point where most funders see this as the next logical step? From what I know today? No they do not. This means we will need at least 5 more years of epigenetic mapping and research and refinements to the clock and understanding gene regulation pathways, and more importantly progress into the second and third epohs listed above to show that logevity is actually achievable, and and and... and then we can see some early results for a version 1 that mitigates aging in elderly folks who have gene disregulation, and once reset they get healthier. (the fact that they will live longer, thats not what the FDA will focus on - they will want to see folks with a better metabolism, with more muscle tone, etc, etc, etc, things they can measure NOW.)

So, when will this happen? I think we may see the first scientific paper that addresses this root cause of aging within the next 10 years (unless you count THIS as the first paper, in which case... I'd be honored), and that... that will be the beginning of the 4th epoch of longevity.

So, this is my take on the treatments, pills, therapies, processes, procedures, research and so on that will lead to a revolution in longevity.

The short version to wrap this all up is: Given the roadmap I've laid out here and the progress we have already made - I THINK that we can get there.