#10/10 proof of how evolution and nature works as well | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

k-s-morgan · 4 years

Text

The Evolution of Will Graham’s Darkness

This meta is mostly written for new viewers who find themselves confused by Will as a character. I’ll incorporate some bits of analysis I’ve written before into it. Let’s start with a thesis of a sort: Will is a dark character who had this darkness from the very start, even before his encounter with Hannibal: he was terrified and disgusted with it, but after meeting Hannibal, slowly, he began to embrace himself, getting bolder and bolder in his violence.

**Before the show**

Will initially tried to get into the FBI but he didn’t pass the tests. It’s revealed in E1 of S1 when he’s ambushed by Beverly.

Beverly: Never been an F.B.I. Agent?

Will: Strict screening procedures.

Beverly: Detects instability. You’re unstable?

At the same time, Will became a police officer, working in the Homicide department. These decisions show that he's been stubbornly and rather hopelessly drawn to darkness, seeking ways to interact with it while remaining on the side of law. However, he had to leave the police, too, because he was incapable of pulling the trigger even when his life depended on it. He preferred to allow himself to get stabbed rather than to fight back and kill someone, which points to him having very serious issues with his violence. He knew that once the door in him opens, it might not close again, that if he kills or harms another person, he might be unable to stop (this is proven when he shoots Hobbs and then immediately tries to kill Stammets).

And still, Will chooses to stay close to darkness, only in safer ways. He becomes a teacher in the FBI Academy, letting himself delve into the ugliest cases from a theoretical perspective. This constant pull and struggle leave Will lonely and hostile to everyone. He avoids eye contact with people; Jack’s first impression of him was that he’s rude and arrogant (when they clashed about the name of the museum). Will is rude and haughty with his students, too – but more about it later. Alana refuses to stay alone in the room with him, thinking his instability is too fascinating and she might want to dissect it. Will has no friends; he lives in isolation with his dogs, someone who would never judge him. There are a lot of rumors about him going around, and most people don’t like him (based on Price’s and Zeller’s initial reactions as well as their later conversations on this topic). Will is lonely and pretty miserable.

The first real words we hear from Will are:

Will: Everyone has thought about killing someone.

It is very demonstrative of his personality. We also get evidence right here that Will is drawn to darkness primarily, not to the idea of saving lives (although the latter helps him feel better about his urges). He delves into the minds of killers even when he isn’t involved in the investigation. He had no other reason to explore the Marlows’ murder like he did at the start of the episode, when he was simply teaching students. It’s proof that he willingly craves contact with violent and disturbed minds — it’s not like he actually tries to solve this case for real, he just imagined himself there.

Will’s first conversation with Hannibal speaks volumes about who he is — because Hannibal senses it seconds after meeting him.

Hannibal: Do you have trouble with taste?

Will: My thoughts are often not tasty.

Hannibal: Nor mine. No effective barriers.

Will: I make forts.

This exchange has Will confess that his thoughts are often dark and that he dislikes it. To hold this darkness at bay, he literally builds forts around it, not letting it spread to other parts of his mind.

Hannibal: Your values and decency are present yet shocked at your associations, appalled at your dreams. No forts in the bone arena of your skull for things you love.

Hannibal almost directly calls Will out on his struggle with his inner darkness. He’s saying that he sees it, that he knows it’s there, in Will, in his mind, and Will is very disturbed by this — because Hannibal is right. The script even explicitly backs it up:

Hannibal has just described Will Graham to a letter.

Will is immediately wary and hostile, and he ends the conversation with snappy,

Will: Please don’t psychoanalyze me. You won’t like me when I’m psychoanalyzed.

What does it mean? It’s simple: Will assumes that Hannibal is a typical psychiatrist who wants to dissect him, so he says that once it happens, Hannibal won’t like what he finds (darkness and ugliness Will carries inside).

His hostility to Hannibal lasts up until the moment when Hannibal acknowledges him as a predator and shows approval of it. This is how it happens: Hannibal tries to subtly tell him that it’s all right to be who he is, hinting that they are the same.

Hannibal: You and I are just alike. Problem free. Nothing about us to feel horrible about.

He’s obviously talking about their darkness, but Will doesn’t react, so Hannibal continues. He tells him that Jack views him as a fragile tea cup, and Will genuinely laughs, amused by this (which is also very telling). Then Hannibal says:

Hannibal: [I see you as the] mongoose I want under the house when the snakes slither by.

Will grows quiet after this, and then his interactions with Hannibal become much more relaxed. Will takes him to search the property and even bothers to explain how they reached their conclusions and what they are about to do. Him grumbling, “What are you smiling at?” shows a much higher level of familiarity they now share. Something in Hannibal’s words made Will open up a bit, and everything indicates that it’s the acknowledgement of his predatory nature that played its part in it.

Will kills Hobbs by shooting him 10 times. This is his first kill, one he’s been trying to avoid for so long, ever since his police work. It’s not surprising that Hobbs haunts him later because his death became a breaking point for Will. A door did open in him, and he was unable to close it again.

In E2, Will is distraught. But first, we get a glimpse into how rude and insensitive he generally is. Look at how he treats his students. He tersely thanks them for clapping and then snaps for them to stop. He devises a little malicious test for them.

Will: It’s [Hobbs’] resignation letter. Anybody see the clue?

A few hands go into the air. Will ignores them.

Will: There isn’t one.

He looks so long-suffering with them, as if they are idiots. The fact that he asks a question, waits for people to think and raise their hands, and only then he tells them there is actually no answer is petty at best. He also admits to Jack that he doesn’t consider lessons socialization because he doesn’t have to actually talk to students, he talks at them. Not good for a teacher or even for a person who works with other people like this.

But Will has more serious problems. He keeps imagining Hobbs, and after his messy kill, Jack becomes worried about him. He makes Will go visit Hannibal for one-time evaluation. Will is naturally not fond of the idea, but he and Hannibal have a pretty personal talk. Hannibal ends it with an even more explicit hint at Will’s own darkness:

Hannibal: And Will… the mirrors in your mind can reflect the best of yourself, not the worst of someone else.

Hannibal is talking about Will’s personal brand of violence again. He’s trying to tell him that it’s fine to be a murderer in every way he can, that Will’s darkness might be the best part of him. He also gives him a fake official approval to work in the field, showing that Will can trust him. But their obligatory session ends and Will leaves — only to return after he tries to kill Stammets and misses (their talk about it was cut from the episode but is echoed in the conversation below).

Hannibal: [You are here to] prove that sprig of zest you feel is from saving Abigail, not killing her dad.

Will: I didn't feel a sprig of zest when I shot Eldon Stammets.

Hannibal: You didn't kill Eldon Stammets.

Will: I thought about it. I'm still not entirely sure that wasn't my intention when pulling the trigger.

This is a huge evidence of Will struggling with his violence. It proves that he had it before becoming actively involved with Hannibal — all Hannibal did was recognize it and coax it to come to the surface. Will has always been like this, and after finally killing a person, he found himself unable to stop because he liked the feeling too much.

Hannibal: It wasn't the act of killing Hobbs that got you down, was it? Did you really feel so bad because killing him felt so good?*

Will: I liked killing Hobbs.

Hannibal is pleased to receive the confirmation of what he sensed in Will. Seeing that Will is terrified about his own confession, he comforts him.

Hannibal: Killing must feel good to God, too. He does it all the time, and are we not created in his image?

Let’s be honest, every sane person would have run for the hills after hearing this. Hannibal literally justifies the fact that Will liked murder by drawing a parallel with God. That’s such a narcissistic, serial killer thing to do, and yet Will welcomes it with open arms. He’s happy to find someone who doesn’t think he’s a monster — he’s relieved to be able to finally discuss his darkest impulses freely. This is the reason why Will started coming back to see Hannibal on a constant basis, to Jack’s surprise.

The next huge proof of Will’s ever-present darkness is found in E5 (actually, every episode has some bits, but I’ll cover only the major ones). The Angel Maker, a killer-of-the-week, has a unique gift of being able to see if a person is good or evil. First, Hannibal tries to tell Will that he doesn’t have to self-destruct because of his darkness like he’s been doing.

Hannibal: Angel Maker will be destroyed by what’s happening inside his head. You don’t have to be.

When Angel Maker dies, Will suddenly sees himself through his eyes. And he sees a demon. He sees himself as evil. It proves that Will’s darkness is inherent since he hasn’t done anything really bad at this point. It also proves that he’s perfectly aware of who he is and the darkness he has. He has the following conversation with the imagined Angel Maker.

Angel Maker: I see what you are.

Will: What do you see?

Angel Maker: Inside. I can bring it out of you.

Will: Not all the way out.

So, Will acknowledges that his darkness is rooted so deeply inside him, it can’t even be extracted fully. It’s an inseparable part of him.

Will is shown admiring the Ripper’s murders, calling them elegant and referring to them as art. Meanwhile, he’s trying to half-heartedly flirt with Alana, but they don’t have a meaningful connection because Will can’t be happy with a person who doesn’t know him. He wants to be normal but he just isn’t. If you’re interested in my opinion about their relationship, it’s here.

Will’s next morally gray action happens when he agrees to cover murder for Hannibal and Abigail in E9. He agrees quickly and then he’s shown being fiercely devoted to it. He doesn’t seem to care that Abigail killed someone much — in fact, he basically threatens Freddie, another person who sees him for who he is, to make her write a book favorable toward Abigail.

In E13, Hannibal says what he wants from Will directly.

Hannibal: If you followed the urges you kept down for so long, cultivated them as the inspirations they are, you’d become someone other than yourself.

Will remembers this phrase (he later throws it back into Hannibal’s face), but for now, he’s too angry and bitter to listen.

Will is healthy again and he struggles with realization that Hannibal betrayed him. He starts a dark game of his own: he pretends he’s vulnerable, moving Alana to tears in the process, and asks Hannibal for help. He’s still drawn to him, but he also wants to take him down — for himself and for Abigail.

In E1, Hannibal tells Will the purpose of all their past meetings, how they were aimed at helping Will Become.

Hannibal: Our conversations, Will, were only ever about you opening your eyes to the truth of who you are.

Alana tries to hypnotize Will to help him remember what happened.

Alana: Imagine yourself in a safe and relaxing place... safe and secure here, safe to relax completely...

What does Will imagine? He sees Hannibal’s room and them sitting at the murder table together. He’s freaked out by it, but it proves how twisted his perception is: regardless of the betrayal, a part of him understands that Hannibal is the only person who’s ready to accept him, and he feels safe with him. @bloodsmile wrote a great meta about it here.

Will coldly manipulates Beverly, refusing to help her save lives unless she helps him as well. In E5, he engages in yet another manipulation. He gets Matthew Brown to try to kill Hannibal. This is the first premeditated murder attempt Will is responsible for. That is why we see him growing horns, that is why he sees a sink full of blood — his darkness starts progressing in noticeable ways. By E7, Will has figured out that Hannibal really did everything to open his eyes to the truth of who he is and that he wants to be his friend, but as he still wants revenge, he decides to honey-trap him with Jack.

In E8, Will is dealing with his complex feelings for Hannibal and explores his darkness further. He admits that Hannibal made him feel less alone and that he doesn’t hate him, no matter what; that he has no idea what he feels for him. Then Will tries to kill Ingram in cold blood as revenge for Peter. He asks him to pick up the hammer, indicating that he plans for the murder to look like self-defense. Hannibal tries to talk him out of it, but Will still pulls the trigger. It’s by a miraculous accident that Hannibal manages to stop him. This is the second conscious murder attempt by Will.

In E9, Will has a dream about Hannibal, love, and darkness.

Dream Hannibal: Must I denounce myself as a monster while you still refuse to see the one growing inside you?

Meaning: Will is fully aware of both the presence of this monster inside him and his attempts to ignore it since this is his dream.

Dream Hannibal: No one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them. By that love we see potential in our beloved. Through that love we allow our beloved to see their potential. Expressing that love, our beloved's potential comes true.

So, a part of Will realizes that Hannibal loves him, and that he really wants him to Become, to realize all his potential.

Will is shown as feeling bitter at Hannibal for not letting him kill Ingram.

Will: I regret what I did in the stables.

Hannibal (thinking Will means murder attempt): Then you were lucky I was there.

Will: Being lucky isn't the same as making a mistake. Mistake was allowing you to stop me.

Hannibal: So it’s not pulling the trigger that you regret. It’s not pulling it effectively.

Will: That would be more accurate.

Hannibal: I want you to close your eyes, Will, and imagine a version of events you wouldn't have regretted.

Will obeys, and he sees himself murdering Ingram. It proves that every word he says to Hannibal is true — he really does regret not killing him. But there is an even creepier dialogue ahead.

Hannibal: What did you see?

Will: A missed opportunity… to feel like I felt when I killed Garret Jacob Hobbs. To feel like I felt when I thought I killed you … a quiet sense of power.

This is disturbing. It proves once again that Will isn’t just a righteous killer, he enjoys the act of murder itself, and like many serial killers, he craves the feeling of power that comes with it.

He and Hannibal talk about the intimacy of murder, how Will was hiding behind a gun when he tried to kill Hannibal back in E5. Will takes note of it. Hannibal, remembering Will’s complaint about a missed opportunity, sends Randall to him as a gift. When Randall breaks into Will’s house, Will is shown thinking and then deliberately throwing the gun away. He doesn’t want to hide this time — he attacks Randall with his bare hands. This isn’t about self-defense or justice, this is about Will trying to experience a more intimate kind of murder. He beats Randall up until he’s incapacitated and then he snaps his neck, even though there was no reason to do it. He could easily call Jack and have Randall arrested at this point (since he was barely conscious and not fighting back). This could help him in his plan to catch Hannibal. But Will isn’t particularly concerned about it, he’s more interested in realizing his darkness.

He takes the body to Hannibal. This moment got deleted, but Will actually had to stick a note to it:

A piece of paper is pinned to his chest. On it is written: "Return to Sender."

Which excellently shows Will’s dark humor. He laughs with Hannibal a little as they talk about murder right above the corpse. Then Hannibal is treating his hands, and he says:

Hannibal: Stay with me.

Will: Where else would I go?

Nowhere — because Will understands that Hannibal is the only person who can understand his darkness and accept him for who he is.

Will: I've never felt more alive than when I was killing him.

This is, once again, huge. Will is a murderer who can get dangerously high on the act. The moment when he felt most alive is the moment when he took a life from another person — and he was vicious about it. Will is very, very dark in these scenes — and it’s going to get worse.

Will mutilates the body and places it in the museum. He keeps Randall’s suit in his house as a trophy, and he keeps his butchered parts of meat in his fridge. In the following discussion, Will confirms that he enjoyed doing all that. When Hannibal suggests that Randall’s killer felt disdain for him in front of Jack, Will disagrees.

Will: He isn't mocking him. This isn't disdain. He's commemorating him.

Hannibal: This killer has no fear for the consequences of what he's done.

Will: No guilt.

Then Will retreats into his mind to talk to Randall’s corpse.

Will: Hello again.

Randall: Come closer … Can you see you?

Will: Clearer and clearer.

This proves Will’s honesty in all his discussions with Hannibal. He really is exploring his violence, not just pretending to do it, coming to the realization of what kind of monster he is.

Will: You forced me to kill you.

Randall: I didn't force you to enjoy it.

This takes place in Will’s head, so every word is genuine.

Will: I gave you what you want. This is who you are. What you feel finally matches the reality of what I see.

Randall: This is my becoming. And yours.

Will shakes his head, this is not his becoming.

Will: This is my design.

So, what do we have here? Will calls murder, mutilation, and storage of Randall’s meat his design. It’s not his Becoming, not yet, Will isn’t ready to fully embrace himself, but this is a start. He understands his design now.

In the same E10, Will attacks Freddie when she discovered his trophies. We know he didn’t kill her, but would he have done it if she hadn’t called Jack? We can only guess. Will sure took his chance to be creepy and physically violent with her. At the end of the episode, he brought Randall’s meat to Hannibal and they cooked as well as ate it together. This was not about getting Hannibal to trust him. Hannibal already did, especially after thinking Will killed Freddie, so there was simply no need for it. Bryan Fuller confirmed Jack had no idea this happened, so Will was acting on his own, out of his genuine curiosity. This is where he willingly became a cannibal.

In E11, Will dreams of burning fake Freddie and hears himself screaming. It’s easy to interpret this dream: he feels guilty for betraying Hannibal. Alana comes by and Will is being deliberately creepy again. He gives her a gun for protection, but later, it almost becomes her undoing. Will is equally creepy during the funeral. He enjoys being dark, and he feels free to act like this because technically, he has an excuse.

In E12, Will is freshly angry at Hannibal. He fantasizes about murdering Hannibal in the most violent way possible. Then he makes three deals. The first one is with Mason: they agree to kill Hannibal together. The second one is with Hannibal: they tentatively agree to target Mason together. The third one is with Jack: they agree that when Hannibal tries to kill Mason, Will is going to arrest him. Will goes with his and Mason’s plan at first. Hannibal is kidnapped and presented in front of Will just like in his fantasy. But instead of acting on it, Will chooses Hannibal and frees him, getting all Mason’s people killed in the process. Later, he watches Hannibal mutilate Mason, approach him to kill him, and snap his neck. He does nothing: he ignores his deal with Jack completely and covers for Hannibal. Yet another proof that Will is siding with Hannibal more and more, and that his initial honey-trapping plan is almost a formality at this point. At the end of the episode, Will offers Hannibal to kill Jack.

In E13, Hannibal and Will are getting ready to kill Jack while Will and Jack are getting ready to arrest Hannibal. Will doesn’t seem to know on whose side he is until the end. At the same time, he lies to Jack about where the attack is supposed to take place. He helps Hannibal burn all evidence, even though he could have easily preserved some of it to use it later. He burns the evidence related to himself as well. Will doesn’t take Hannibal’s chance to run away before dinner, but he does hesitate and wonder about it. When the final moment comes, he calls Hannibal to warn him — he chooses him above everyone. Justice for Abigail, justice for himself, the desire to save other people — none of it matters to Will now. He made his choice, he chose his side, but he did it too late. When he goes to Hannibal’s house, Alana tells him that Jack is still inside, and Will takes out his gun. He doesn’t even try to point it at Hannibal. When Hannibal accuses him of lying, Will implies that he’s wrong.

Hannibal: I gave you a rare gift… But you didn't want it.

Will isn't so definitive.

Will: Didn't I?

Because yes, Will wanted it. He was ready to accept it. But he did so too late.

Will’s thoughts are only about Hannibal and Abigail. He breaks into Hannibal’s empty house and sits there in silence. When Alana comes to find him and tries to talk to him, he coldly sends her away. He’s repairing a boat to go after Hannibal. When Jack comes to him to ask about his motivations, Will is very open — he doesn’t care about hiding any more.

Jack: Do you remember when you decided to call Hannibal?

Will: I wasn't decided when I called him. I just called him. I deliberated while the phone rang. I decided when I heard his voice.

Jack: You told him we knew.

Will: I told him to leave. Because I wanted him to run.

Jack: Why?

Will: Because he was my friend. And because I wanted to run away with him.

In Italy, Will is full of regret over his actions. He blames himself for what happened, admonishes himself for lying to Hannibal. E2 shows his state of mind perfectly – Hannibal is his everything and he admits he wants to be with him. He doesn’t care about justice at all.

Will: I do feel closer to Hannibal here. God only knows where I would be without him … He left [me] his broken heart. He misses [me]. [I] still want to go to him? Yes.

He admires the corpse twisted into a heart, touching it and then lying at the place where it was located. He intimidates Pazzi who tries to talk sense into him and indicates that he’s not here to catch Hannibal.

Will: You couldn't catch him when he was just a kid, what makes you think you're going to catch him now?

Pazzi: You.

A small, polite scoff from Will, unable to take his eyes off the small stairwell to the catacombs.

Will: What makes you think I want to catch him?

Later:

Will: You shouldn't be down here alone.

Pazzi: I’m not alone. I'm with you.

Will: You don’t know whose side I’m on.

Pazzi stares at Will, cautious.

Pazzi: What are you going to do when you find him? Your Il Mostro?

Will: I'm curious about that myself.

Pazzi: You're already dead, aren't you?

Other people realize how dark Will is, too.

Then we move toward Will’s trip to Lithuania in E3. His reverent attitude to Hannibal begins to change once he meets Chiyoh, but he admits the following:

Will: I’ve never known myself as well as I know myself when I’m with him.

Will learns that Chiyoh has been staying here for all these years because she doesn’t want to kill another person. He notes that they can’t be sure whether her prisoner really killed Mischa because Hannibal is the only person who knows the truth. Despite all this, Will sets Chiyoh up to kill or be killed, releasing her prisoner secretly. Chiyoh rightfully accuses him of it:

Chiyoh: You said Hannibal was curious if I would kill. You were curious, too.

He was, if he is honest with himself.

What Will did was cruel and violent. Hannibal just left Chiyoh be, he openly and boldly risked her life, not caring about her safety or about whether her tortured prisoner deserves this. Will stays behind to make the body into art in Hannibal’s style, in accordance with his own design from when he killed Randall. This Will is dark and confident, and very in touch with his dark side. He dreams of killing Chiyoh and keeps asking her whether she saw what a monster she was, unable to accept the idea that only he has real darkness while Chiyoh doesn’t and that murder didn’t make her feel good. He repeats to Jack that a part of him will always want to be with Hannibal. Sadly, he then sees Bedelia as his replacement, grows even bitterer, and tries to attack Hannibal with the knife.

In E7, Will bites into Cordell’s cheek and tears a piece of meat out of it. Then he looks at Hannibal to see his reaction, waiting for his pride. He shows zero reaction to the news that Jack is alive — he doesn’t care about it. He rebukes Alana and shows that he still sees himself and Hannibal as a team, referring to them as “we”.

Will: You helped Mason Verger find us.

Alana: I helped Mason find Hannibal. We followed Bâtard-Montrachet when we should have just followed you.

Will: Almost as ugly as what Mason wants to do to us is the fact that he can do it with the tacit agreement of people sworn to uphold the law.

Alana: I was trying to get to Hannibal before you. I knew you couldn't stop yourself. So I had to try.

Will: By facilitating torture and death.

Alana: I can abide the thought of Hannibal tortured, not necessarily to death. I'd say he has it coming, wouldn't you? Or maybe you wouldn't.

Alana can no longer deny Will’s twisted morals. Will tries to push Alana to a darker side, manipulating her into releasing Hannibal, by telling her almost exactly what he and Hannibal were discussing in S2.

Will: Then you have to evolve, Alana. You have to spill blood. By your own hand or someone else's.

After the escape, Hannibal says the words that define Will perfectly:

Hannibal: You delight in wickedness and then berate yourself for the delight.

This is exactly what Will does — he acts on his darkness again and again, but then he gets scared and makes two steps back. He’s not ready to fully let go of the idea of a normal life yet.

Will sends Hannibal away. When Jack arrives, Will doesn’t even bother to pretend he tried to arrest him — he just says that Hannibal is gone. Jack clearly has zero trust in him at this point since he sends people to break into Will’s house without asking his permission. Will has completely discredited himself, proving himself as someone dark and twisted.

But Hannibal gives himself up and 3 years pass. After the epic Europe failure and his new insecurities, Will tries to retreat again. He decides to try being normal one more time, despite his previous failures at suppressing his darkness and his feelings for Hannibal. So he marries Molly, and it goes as well as expected. Their relationship is shown as weak from the start. The first time we see them, they are apart: Molly and Walter have gone fishing, which is what Will loves and dreamed of sharing with Abigail, yet he stays behind. He didn't let go of the past. He subtly manipulates Jack into talking Molly into urging him to come join the investigation — he deliberately leaves them alone under a weak excuse, knowing very well what Jack is about to do. Will is bored with his normal life and he misses Hannibal, even if he isn’t ready to fully admit it yet.

His treatment of Molly deserves a separate mention: this is the woman he lies to through his teeth, the woman whose “I love you” he doesn’t bother to return and who he doesn’t want to interact with the second she raises the topic he finds personally uncomfortable, someone he leaves her at the first opportunity. He never told her the truth about himself. The way Molly tries to joke about him having a criminal mind proves that she knows nothing of Will's dark struggles, and the way Will immediately shuts down demonstrates their incompatibility and his unwillingness to be honest and open with her.

On the very first day, Will demands to see Hannibal, lying about having to restore his mindset. We know it’s a lie because we’ve just seen him reconstruct Francis’ murder perfectly. He just wanted to see him because he missed him, and both Hannibal and later Bedelia call him out on it.

E9:

Hannibal: You just came here to look at me. Came to get the old scent again. Why don't you just smell yourself?

E10:

Bedelia: Have you been to see him?

Will: Yes.

Bedelia: Haven't learned anything, have you? Or did you just miss him that much?

This is what Hannibal says about Will’s marriage — and another reference to his darkness:

Hannibal: How did you choose yours? Readymade wife and child to serve your needs. A stepson or daughter – (off his look) – a stepson absolves you of any biological blame. You know better than to breed. Can’t pass on those terrible traits you fear the most.

This is very accurate and Will doesn’t bother to deny it. He’s more concerned about stalking Bedelia and asking her about her relationship with Hannibal than anything else. He makes zero efforts to preserve his family, which shows how irrelevant they are to him. This makes him a very cold and cruel person. Also, the way he acts with Bedelia is very different from how he acts with others. With her, he can be himself. He’s dark, relatively confident, and dangerous — which is likely why he keeps coming back to her. With others, he still puts on a rather meek mask.

There is quite a solid idea that a part of Will knew Hannibal might target Molly and Walter and send Francis after them (it’s up to interpretation, though). Hannibal gives Will very clear hints.

Will: Tell me who [the killer] is.

Hannibal: I don’t know who he is. When you close your eyes, Will... is that your family you see?

[Will scoffs at this.]

Will: Do you know who they are?

Hannibal: Yes.

Will: And you're willing to let them die.

Hannibal: They're not my family, Will. And I'm not letting them die. You are.

These are huge hints, and since Will is supposed to be an excellent profiler — more than that, a profiler who understands Hannibal intimately, it’s strange that he didn’t even suspect anything. Maybe a part of him subconsciously wanted proof that Hannibal is in love with him — since he goes to Bedelia with his question right after the attack. Maybe he wanted reassurance that the passion is still there. Maybe he even wanted an excuse to abandon Molly and Walter (and he does it very easily an episode later).

Ultimately, Will seems genuinely infuriated by the attack, but it’s possible that “the enemy inside him” secretly hoped for such outcome. He spends about a minute being truly angry at Hannibal — then he becomes concerned that he’s competing with Francis for Hannibal’s attention, which underlines the irrelevance of his family to him once more. When talking to Walter, Will doesn’t try to hug him or actually comfort him. They are like strangers, and Will shows resentment about having to explain some facts about himself to Walter later.

Will: He read about me in a Freddie Lounds article. I had to justify myself to an eleven year old.

Not “to my son”, but an indifferent and impersonal “11 year old”. Another reminder that Will is a cold person.

This attack made Will realize Hannibal is in love with him, and it finally started the process of his Becoming. Will is shown as full of resentment toward Jack and Alana. He callously sets up Chilton, an innocent person, for torture and death in E12. He explicitly says that he did it deliberately and doesn’t regret it.

Will: Damn if I'll feel … The divine punishment of the sinner mirrors the sin being punished. Chilton languished unrecognized until Hannibal the Cannibal. He wanted the world to know his face.

Bedelia: Now he doesn't have one.

At first, Will makes a half-hearted attempt at denial.

Will: I put my hand on his shoulder for authenticity.

Bedelia: To establish he really told you those insults about the Dragon? Or had you wanted to put Dr. Chilton at risk? Just a little?

Will: I wonder.

Bedelia: Do you really have to wonder?

Will: No.

Bedelia: You were curious what would happen, that's apparent. Is this what you expected?

Will sounds very ironic.

Will: I can't say I'm surprised.

Bedelia: Then you may as well have struck the match. That's participation. Hannibal Lecter does indeed have agency in the world. He has you.

Considering the timing, Chilton looks like Will’s courtship gift to Hannibal. This is the second time Will harms an innocent person, which makes him far darker than a righteous killer should be. And why? Just because. His darkness is really evolving.

When Will visits Chilton with Jack, he openly lies to him (Jack) and tells him Hannibal is responsible for what happened.

In E13, Will stages another deadly game. He plots with Francis to break Hannibal free — the immediacy of his plan makes it look like Will has already been thinking about it before. He lies to Jack and Alana. He hides the fact that Francis is alive from them, and when they discover it by themselves, he offers a plan: to use Hannibal as a bait and stage his escape. Jack begins to plan everything. If Will had actually followed this plan, it would have gotten Hannibal and Francis killed. But Will doesn’t care about justice — he wants Hannibal free and he doesn’t give a damn about the consequences. He shares his true intentions with Bedelia and threatens her.

Will: I don't intend Hannibal to be caught a second time.

Bedelia studies Will. Sensing where he might be going. Hoping she is wrong. A flicker of alarm plays in her eyes.

Bedelia: Can't live with him. Can't live without him. Is that what this is?

Will: I guess… this is my Becoming . I'd pack my bags if I were you, Bedelia. Meat's back on the menu … Ready or not… here he comes.

This is a crucial moment because while in S2, Will called Randall’s murder his design, now he’s finally Becoming. It’s the climax of everything. He leaks info about Hannibal’s transfer to Francis (who, if you recall, has attacked Will’s wife and her son). He gets many officers murdered by proxy; he sets up Jack and destroys him professionally again; he endangers Alana and her family as well as Molly and Walter. Without showing even an ounce of regret toward the dead officers, Will climbs out of the car. We don’t get to see it, but this is what he does according to the script:

Will takes the gun off the dead cop.

Still with no care, he watches how Hannibal throws another body out of the car and offers Will to take a seat. Will looks long-suffering and fond, even though he has just gotten about 5 people killed. He goes with Hannibal.

In the cliff house, he admits he’s not sure if he can “save” himself by killing Hannibal.

Will: I don't know if I can save myself. And maybe that's just fine.

He intends to try, though, but when Francis attacks, Will naturally chooses Hannibal because he can’t see him killed. He reaches for his gun and the fight begins. Seeing Francis strangling Hannibal, Will pulls out the knife from his body and rushes to protect him. He and Hannibal kill Francis together, and Will plunges the knife into him with obvious relish. Then he admires the way the blood looks on his hand.

Will: It really does look black in the moonlight.

This is proof of how Will remembers everything Hannibal has ever said to him. He reaches out to embrace Hannibal, finally allowing himself this weakness, finally accepting that this is who he is and that there is no way back.

Hannibal: See? This is all I ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us.

Will: It’s beautiful.

These words have a tremendous worth. Hannibal’s dream for them, the one he has been hoping for since early S1, has just become realized, and Will found it beautiful. The script confirms it additionally:

A moment as Will considers the brutal pack hunting he shared with Hannibal Lecter. He genuinely feels it is beautiful.

Upon this realization, Will gives the fate the last chance to stop himself and Hannibal, knowing that if they live, they’ll unleash their mutual darkness on the world. He pushes them off the cliff that has been confirmed to have no rocks by Hannibal, giving them a chance to survive. And they do — and they stay together and hunt. Will threatened Bedelia with being eaten and he kept his promise. The deleted epilogue to the series shows him and Hannibal in perfect harmony with each other.

Note that this is far from the only moments and details of Will’s long Becoming. There are many more, but if I addressed them, this meta would be even longer. However, here’s a quick analysis of Will’s softer sides — because they also aren’t as simple as it might seem at first. Will seems to sympathize only with people he can relate to personally, who remind him of himself in some way, and most often, they are murderers. He’s bitter about not being able to save killer-children in E4 because like them, he struggles with understanding what family means; he feels close to Georgia because he also thinks he’s losing his mind and no one can understand him; he’s gentle with Peter because he sees him as his fragile mirror; he’s soft with Reba because like Bryan said, they are both people in love with serial killers. With everyone else, Will is indifferent or cold. These traits were less visible in S1, but after he started to Become, they began to come to the surface. His softer sides still have a degree of selfishness to them.

So, Will has always had darkness in him. He has always been a rather cold person despite his genuine struggles, confusion, and the desire to be normal. Hannibal changed his life, helping him embrace himself and find unconditional love and acceptance. Will’s journey was very long, it had many setbacks, but in the end, he made it. They both did, and now they are free to enjoy their new life together.

Tagging some old fans who might be interested! @typicalher @hannibalized @bloodsmile @victorineb @he-s-dead-jim

#hannibal #hannigram #hannibal lecter #will graham #becoming

1K notes · View notes

miedemamadness · 3 years

Text

Vivianne Miedema: Dissecting the best strikers at Euro 2020 - The Athletic

There is an incredible variety among Europe’s top strikers at the moment, and that is reflected at Euro 2020. If you take the top goalscorers from the major European leagues, and then compare them to each other, they’re completely different players. It’s Harry Kane in England, Robert Lewandowski in Germany, Kylian Mbappe in France, and Cristiano Ronaldo in Italy. They’re all big names, but stylistically there is huge diversity.

I’ve always studied attacking players to try to improve myself. Growing up, I wasn’t really exposed to much women’s football, so I watched a lot of forwards from the men’s game. When you’re young, you have your idols. Mine was Robin van Persie. To this day, I try to examine players to understand what they do — movement-wise, technique-wise, tactics-wise.

Ronaldo’s record speaks for itself. He is now the top goalscorer in men’s European Championship history. After his two penalties against France last night, he has matched Ali Daei as the highest ever goalscorer in international football. Any footballer, at any level, can benefit from watching him.

I don’t think he gets enough credit for how he’s adapted his game over the years. I went back and did some research on his career — it feels like in every single season he made little tweaks to his game.

We all remember him at Manchester United. I was young then, but I still remember that excitable right winger taking people on, dribbling with the ball and shooting from outside the box. After a couple of years in Madrid, he converted himself into almost a second nine, just to the left of Karim Benzema.

Look back at his goals then: his striking ability and the power he generates is so good. He doesn’t need to put disguise on his shots, because he connects so well. Even if the goalkeeper knows where it’s going, he can’t get there.

But Ronaldo didn’t stop there. He continued evolving. When he went to Juventus, he started playing out on the left wing. He began dribbling again, and having a wider influence on the game. He was playing off a target man in Mario Mandzukic or Alvaro Marata, and then you saw something else happening to his game. It wasn’t just about goalscoring anymore, it was about creating too. To still be developing and changing at his age is pretty unique.

You can see that evolution in his physique too. He’s gone through such different stages. Once he got to Madrid, he really bulked up. He looked very strong, but his top speed was probably lower than it is right now. This summer he looks a little leaner, and he is flying.

We all saw his blistering run to score against Germany, covering 97 metres at 32 km per hour. To do that at 36 is incredible, but it wasn’t a surprise to me — I noticed that in one of the warm-up friendlies against Spain, he sprinted 60 metres in just seven seconds. That’s 32 km per hour. He’s doing this consistently.

He’s taken his game to a new level by making little physical adaptations. He’s worked out what he needs to do to make the difference on the pitch.

I try to do that myself. When we went into lockdown, I had four months training away from the Arsenal squad, trying to keep myself fit. I decided to work on running in-behind, to add a different dimension to my game. I was locked down with Lisa Evans, who is naturally super-quick and has always had that ability. We worked on it together so I could begin to introduce it to my play. Two years ago, I couldn’t have run behind 10 times in a match because I would have torn my hamstring! But now, when I see the opportunity, I can do it.

Of course, you need to have the stamina. Against Hungary, Ronaldo scored two goals in the last five minutes. That shows how mentally and physically sharp he still is.

His second goal against Hungary was not one of his most spectacular. Going through one-on-one, just a few yards out, he shaped to shoot before dummying past the Hungarian goalkeeper, Peter Gulacsi. It looked easy. It looked simple.

For a fellow forward, however, it was beautiful in its efficiency. The little touch he took to go around the keeper — how many other strikers would even try that? People say moments like that come from practising on the training ground, but that’s not right. This isn’t something you can learn in training, it’s something you pick up during your career. It’s something you earn through experience. It’s a sixth sense of knowing what to do in front of goal.

Ronaldo doesn’t panic. He knows that by taking it around the keeper, he turns a 50-50 chance into a 100 per cent goal. His instincts are perfectly attuned, his mind in perfect connection with his body. People say he is robotic. That’s not right either: you can only produce a piece of skill like that if you truly feel football.

When you’re analysing strikers, you can almost separate the tactical, technical and physical qualities of each player. Take Lewandowski and Romelu Lukaku, for example — there is a huge difference in style, but they’re both so effective.

I’ve watched a lot of Bundesliga this season, and Lewandowski — who scored two outstanding, and very different, goals against Sweden last night to keep his country in with a chance of getting out of the group — has such an instinctive understanding of where to be in the box. He scored 41 goals in 29 games — crazy numbers.

Yes, part of that is about knowing where the ball will drop, but it’s also about reacting to what other players do. That’s the difficult bit: you have to know your team-mates, and know your opponent — that’s what enables you to anticipate quicker than anybody else.

When I was at Bayern, Lewandowski was there too. I watched him train. He plays fully focused, all of the time. His concentration is unbelievable: even in the four-on-fours and seven-a-sides, you can see him looking at where the ball could end up. When a team-mate has a shot, his eyes aren’t on that player — they’re already looking at the goal, and anticipating where the ball might ricochet. It gives him a split-second before anyone else moves. The goals look simple, but when you break down all the work that goes into them, they’re far from it.

He does it so naturally. Personally, I don’t think of myself as a pure goalscorer in that way, I’m more of a creator. I’m always telling people I’m not a “nine” — but I score a lot of goals, so no-one believes me. Ciro Immobile is another predator who has shone in this tournament. He scored from outside the box against Switzerland, but it’s his goal against Turkey that sums him up: inside the area, first to react, first to the ball.

Lukaku is a different type entirely. His physique is something else. He’s got the body; he’s got the speed. The moment he faces forward and he runs at you, you’ve got absolutely no chance. He achieves such separation, so easily.

I love how he’s proven people wrong. When he was at United, people took the mick out of his first touch — but look at the way he’s played this season. His recent record for Belgium is absolutely ridiculous: 23 goals in his last 21 games.

Again, he deserves credit for the way he has evolved physically. I’m not saying he was overweight at Manchester United, but he didn’t have the same physique he has right now. For such a big guy, he’s now able to turn very quickly. You see that in his dribbling — he has such flexibility. He’s adding things to his game, and is a completely different player these days.

His athleticism means you can play him upfront alone, and he can run in behind time after time for the whole 90 minutes. You need that in this tournament — especially with so many teams playing a back five. When you’re up against three centre-backs, there’s obviously a lot less space for the striker. Personally, I hate playing against five at the back. To thrive, you need to engage your tactical brain.

There are different ways you can combat a back five: if they play a high block, like Russia tried to do against Belgium, you need the No 9 to make diagonal runs across the lateral centre-backs. It pulls them deeper and disrupts the line. Look at Lukaku’s two goals in that game — they both come from that very run.

If the defence sit in deeper, like Scotland did against England, then sometimes the striker really needs to pull one of the three centre-backs out. That can mean the No 9 coming back into midfield to drag his marker with him, enabling a No 10 or wide forward to run in behind. Kane has been criticised for playing deep, but tactically it’s the right move. His quality is on the ball, he needs to be involved — the issue is that, with England, he doesn’t have the same understanding he does with someone like Son Heung-min at Spurs. When he drops in, there isn’t the same movement in-behind. England are still a developing team, and those relationships aren’t there yet.

France are still trying to find the right balance too. For pure talent, few countries can match the trio of Mbappe, Benzema and Antoine Griezmann. The question is whether they can develop the relationships on the field quickly enough. Benzema joined the group late — though there are signs it may be clicking.

If it does, I’ll be watching. I’m still only 24. There’s still a lot to learn, and I believe I can still get better. Studying your contemporaries can only help you do that. At 36, Ronaldo is proof that the process never stops: keep observing, keep evolving, keep improving.

#vivianne miedema #arsenal women #arsenal wfc #womens football #football #euro 2020 #dutch #oranje leeuwinnen #arsenal #harry kane #romelu lukaku #ronaldo #robert lewandowski

81 notes · View notes

khali-shabd · 3 years

Text

Gender Theory

Readers, let us begin with a simple question- what is gender?

The Biological Theory Of Gender, and a majority of society, would say that gender is defined by biological sex, namely hormones and chromosomes. If you release estrogen and have XX chromosomes, you are female, and if you release testosterone and have XY chromosomes, you are male. However, this is an extremely flawed vision of gender for two reasons: one, that whatever proof of hormones altering gendered behaviour has been found only in lab rats1, which possibly will not exhibit the same extreme change in behaviour if the hormones were administered to them naturally in their own environment- and rats are not human- we have far too many differences as species for this study to be considered valid for homosapiens as well. And two, chromosomes are not strictly XX or XY- around 1 percent of the world population is intersex (and a similar percentage is redheaded, so its not inherently ‘anomalous’ or ‘unnatural’) , which means that they can have chromosomal variations such as XXY, X, XXXY etc, all of whom develop differently as compared to people with the traditional chromosome combinations.

Further, there are far more things that define ‘biological sex’, namely:

chromosomes

gonads

sex hormones

internal reproductive anatomy (such as the uterus)

external genitalia.

Out of these, in humans, genitalia and internal reproductive anatomy can be changed without there being a significant change in gendered behavior. Sex hormones, when administered to bodies change secondary sex characteristics more than any sort of behavior; with the exception of testosterone increasing sex drive and sometimes increasing ‘ego’. Every single part of this definition of binary biological sex is challenged by the existence of intersex people, henceforth proving that sex is not binary and never has been, unfounding the existence of a sex-based gender binary in itself. Further, transgender individuals have a completely different gender identity as compared to their biological sex, and it has been scientifically proved that this is because their brains develop in the same way the brains of the children of the gender they identify with do. That essentially means that the brain of a transgender woman develops similarly to the brain of a cisgender woman, and the brain of a transgender man develops in the same way the brain of a cisgender man develops. All in all, there are far too many differences in the experience of biological sex to confine it to a binary, hence unfounding the theory that gender is based on biological sex.

Then how do we define gender?

There are a number of theories, but the most logical one at the moment would be Judith Butler’s Theory of Gender Performativity. Butler says that gender, as an abstract concept in itself, is nothing more than a performance. We ‘perform’ our gender by carrying out actions that we associate with it. They further say that this does not mean that it’s something we can stop altogether, rather something we’ve ingrained so deeply within us that it becomes a part of our identity, and it's the part of it we call gender identity. Gender, hence, is created by its own performance. Butler also implies that we do not base gender on sex, rather we define sex along the lines of established lines of binary gener, i.e. male and female- despite the fact that more than 10% of the population does not fall into this binary sex, and has some variation in their biological sex that does not ‘fit’ into either category. Gender in itself is so culturally constructed by western society that anyone who does not perform their assigned gender ‘correctly’ is punished- this applies to not only queer individuals but even men who do not ascribe to or criticise predefined ideals of masculinity. They are made social pariahs and excluded as outcasts, leaving them to find and create their own communities and safe spaces. This is shown in the way society ostracises queer-presenting individuals, makes fun of ‘soft’ men, and forcefully tries to ‘fix’ intersex children whose variations in biological sex cause no harm to them. I quote:

“Because there is neither an ‘essence’ that gender expresses or externalizes nor an objective ideal to which gender aspires; because gender is not a fact, the various acts of gender create the idea of gender, and without those acts, there would be no gender at all. Gender is, thus, a construction that regularly conceals its genesis. The tacit collective agreement to perform, produce, and sustain discrete and polar genders as cultural fictions is obscured by the credibility of its own production. The authors of gender become entranced by their own fictions whereby the construction compels one’s belief in its necessity and naturalness.”

One of the criticisms of Butler’s theories is that it does not seem to apply to transgender individuals, whose innate gender identity is not the one that they have been assigned to perform at birth; whose brains develop the same way that their cisgender counterparts’ brains do from birth. Butler themselves have responded to this, saying:

“I do know that some people believe that I see gender as a “choice” rather than as an essential and firmly fixed sense of self. My view is actually not that. No matter whether one feels one’s gendered and sexed reality to be firmly fixed or less so, every person should have the right to determine the legal and linguistic terms of their embodied lives. So whether one wants to be free to live out a “hard-wired” sense of sex or a more fluid sense of gender, is less important than the right to be free to live it out, without discrimination, harassment, injury, pathologization or criminalization – and with full institutional and community support.”

Later on, Butler goes on to say that the main point of their theory is that identity is constructed, which means that it allows us to change how we view it as a concept. It leaves room for us to subvert gender roles, challenging the status quo on what it means to identify as someone of a particular gender, and re-structuring society such that we rally for change not along gender lines, rather on the basis of what’s right.

Further, if we combine the work of the psychologist Sigmund Freud with Butler’s theories, the latter does actually apply to transgender individuals. Freudian theory states that we internalize concepts of gender based on our parental figures at birth. That is, if you are born female, you begin to look towards the person who closest resembles your gender identity; which in this case would be your mother, to be your role model for your behavior as to how women are meant to act. Your mother would be your guide to how you perform your gender. If she crosses her legs, you cross your legs. If she dresses in a particular way, you would too, until you were exposed to the exterior world and allowed to develop your own sense of style. As such, you create your own gender identity within your mind, and perform that identity the way you have been taught to by your maternal figure. When you are transgender, you view yourself as innately as the gender you identify with, hence you base your gender identity off the parental figure of that particular gender. This means, if you are female to male trans, you would base your gender identity on your father, and accordingly perform your gender in that way.

Now the question arises: How do we create gender identity outside of gender roles? How do we identify anywhere on the gender spectrum while abandoning the performance that comes with that identity? Why is it important?

Well, the answer isn’t simple. For its importance, I allude, once again, to gender performativity theory- Butler even uses some evolutionary stances to support her views, saying that gender performance stems from gender roles which stem from the fundamental differences between the prominent male and female sex at the very beginning of evolution. Now that 'evolutionary' behaviors don't matter at this stage of societal, cultural, and psychological development, it renders gender roles and hence the performance of gender redundant. However, we still perpetuate these ideas regardless of their importance, or rather their lack of such. And in this process, we end up defining and segregating far too much on the basis of gender- from small things like friendships to even the feminist movement, which is majorly perpetuated and held up by people who identify as female. Other groups like men end up purposely excluding themselves from a movement that can benefit them as well(through deconstructing and eradicating ideas of toxic masculinity) just because of how strongly it is divided on the basis of gender lines. And as for how we create gender identity outside of gender roles; it takes a lot of work, at first, to unlearn all the biases you have internalized about what it means to be a certain gender. You have to actively work towards deconstructing what gender and gender identity means to you, and how much of it comes from societally misguided stances about the ‘role’ of a gender is. It may mean ridding yourselves of the school of thought that women belong in the kitchen and men belong in workplaces or even identifying and removing hidden biases such as those of toxic masculinity and/or toxic femininity. Lastly, it takes an understanding that often, gender expression is not the same as gender identity; and also that most gender expression is how people show how they feel the most comfortable viewing themselves. Once you’ve managed to deconstruct your biases, it’s just a matter of how you feel comfortable viewing and expressing yourself; and what label, among the myriad, you identify with the most. That would be your unique self-expression and identity.

#gender theory #gender #trans #trangender #lgbtq #judith butler #writing #essay #article #write #writers on tumblr #gender identity #theory #sociology #psychology

25 notes · View notes

didanawisgi · 3 years

Link

Why the ongoing mass vaccination experiment drives a rapid evolutionary response of SARS-CoV-2

Critical opinion article:

“The naked scientific truth on why the ongoing mass vaccination experiment drives a rapid evolutionary response of SARS-CoV-2

The ongoing denial by WHO, public health agencies and governments of science-based evidence on how to mitigate the already disastrous global and individual consequences of this pandemic are beyond mind-blowing. Whereas a number of medical doctors are now doing the utmost to make highly successful early multidrug treatment broadly accessible, I am contributing my part on analyzing the epidemiologic and health consequences of the ongoing mass vaccination campaigns and sharing - in all transparency - my insights with the broader public. From the critical opinion article below, it becomes already obvious that several scientists who are studying the evolutionary biology and genetic/ molecular epidemiology of this pandemic know too well that this pandemic is not over at all and that the global health risk posed by variants is very substantial. So, why do they keep silent?

I realize that the scientific language is not easily accessible to laymen. I hope the way I structured the article will, however, help them to grasp the key message.

Summary

As Sars-CoV-2 entered a highly susceptible human population, it has initially been spreading rapidly and in an uncontrollable way. This already explains why Sars-CoV-2 has been evolvingrather slowly with no substantial selection of fitness-enhancing mutations occurring over the first 10 months of the pandemic (i.e., between December 2019 and October 2020). More infectious ‘variants of concern’ (VoCs, i.e., alpha [B.1.1.7], beta [B.1.351], gamma [P.1]) started to appear as of late 2020 and led to a steep increase in cases worldwide.

Molecular epidemiologists have observed that mutations within the Sars-CoV-2 spike (S) protein of these emerging, more infectious lineages are converging to the same genetic sites, a phenomenon that coincided with a major evolutionary shift in the landscape of naturally selected Sars-CoV-2 mutations (1).

Significant convergent evolution(*) of more infectious circulating Sars-CoV-2 variants is not a neutral, host-independent evolutionary phenomenon that merely results from increased viral replication and transmission but is strongly suggestive of natural selection and adaptation following a dramatic shift in the host(ile) environment the virus is exposed to (1).

Molecular epidemiologists fully acknowledge that the pandemic is currently evolving Sars-CoV-2 variants that “could be a considerably bigger problem for us than any variants that wecurrently know in that they might have any combinations of increased transmissibility, alteredvirulence and/or increased capacity to escape population immunity” (1). This is to say that phylogenetics-based natural selection analysis on circulating Sars-CoV-2 lineages strongly suggests that viral variants resistant to spike (S)-based Covid-19 vaccines are currently expanding in prevalence and highly suspicious of causing future epidemic surges globally.

Deployment of current Covid-19 vaccines in mass vaccination campaigns combined with the ongoing widespread circulation of Sars-CoV-2 can only increase immune selective pressure on Sars-CoV-2 spike protein and hence, further drive its adaptive evolution to circumvent vaccine-induced humoral immunity. In this regard, the expectation of an increasing number of vaccinologists matches the current observation made by genomic epidemiologists in that S protein-directed immune escape variants are highly likely to further spread and expedite the occurrence of viral resistance to the currently deployed and future (so-called ‘2nd generation’) Covid-19 vaccines.

To monitor the circulation of hazardous viral variants in the population and to be able to provide unequivocal proof of the immune selection pressure exerted by mass vaccination campaigns and the harmful consequences thereof, there is an urgent need for conducting representative viral sampling on vaccinees, including those who are healthy or only subject to mild disease, and to genetically characterize the variants they shed upon exposure to Sars-CoV-2.

Conducting a mass vaccination experiment at a global scale without understanding the mechanisms underlying viral escape from vaccine-mediated selection pressure is not only a colossal scientific blunder but, first and foremost, completely irresponsible from the perspective of individual and public health ethics.

In the absence of vaccines capable of inducing sterilizing immunity, early multidrug treatment as proposed by Prof. Dr. P. McCullough and others (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33387997/), together with global chemoprophylaxis using highly efficient antiviral drugs, will be key to save lives, reduce the hospitalization burden anddramatically diminish transmission of highly infectious or neutralizing antibody (nAb)-resistant escape variants.

(*) Convergent evolution relates to the independent occurrence of one or more mutations that are shared in common across several viral variants

Preamble

There is currently a lot of confusion in regard of the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines with plenty of contradictory reports circulating in the literature and on social media. This in itself isprobably providing the most convincing evidence that the pandemic situation is rapidly evolving and is currently transitioning a kind of ‘gray’ zone. A pandemic is typically to be considered a very dynamic event (until it merges into an endemic situation). However, the evolutionary dynamics of this Covid-19 pandemic have now been shaped by human intervention in a way that is completely unprecedented. We do know about the outcome of a natural pandemic but don’t know at all about the outcome of the ongoing pandemic, as the latter has now become a ‘pandemic of variants’. From what follows below (and which is basically a summary of findings made by molecular/ genomic epidemiologists that I put into a broader context), there is however, one certainty, which is that Sars-CoV-2 variants are rapidly evolving in response to the natural immune selection pressure they are experiencing. Phylogenetics-based natural selection analysis indicates that a substantial amount of the immune selection pressure exerted during this pandemic is directed at the Sars-CoV-2 spike (S) protein, which is targeted by the vaccines. On their journey to adapting to the host(ile) environment of neutralizing antibodies (nAbs), variants further exploit their evolutionary capacity to overcome this S-directed, population-level immune pressure. Hence, in a given vaccination setting and stage of the ongoing pandemic, the success of mass vaccination campaigns will to a large extent depend on the evolving prevalence of increasingly problematic variants. Alternatively, S-directed immune interventions that seem effective in one vaccination setting and stage of this pandemic may not work as well when applied to another vaccination setting or when implemented at another stage of the ongoing pandemic. The observation that the effectiveness of mass vaccination campaigns, as assessed during a pandemic of immune escape variants, oftentimes evolves very differently between countries or regions is, therefore, not surprising. It is only when the population-levelselective immune pressure will culminate that variants and, therefore, the effects of these campaigns will start to globally converge to the same endpoint, which is ‘resistance’ to the vaccines. It is only at that very endpoint that all assessments of the alleged ‘effectiveness’ of this experiment will be unanimous and consistent. When exactly this will happen is still subject to speculation. However, as the immune selection pressure in the global population is now ‘massively’ rising and the set of naturally selected, S-directed mutations together with the plasticity thereof dramatically expanding, one can reasonably expect that the edition of asuper variant capable of resisting S-specific Abs will be precipitated such as to emerge within the next few months. When second-generation vaccines will be introduced, the virus will only be building upon this versatile foundation of circulating mutations to rapidly circumvent the immune pressure the re-vaccinated population will continue to exert on the Sprotein.

“The most important issue here is not whether this particular “super variant” ever arises….” (1)

It is unbelievable how public health authorities (PHAs) are lagging behind when it comes to understanding the evolutionary capacity of Sars-CoV-2. Or do PHAs and policymakers simplyignore the observations made by world-class molecular epidemiologists? How can they possibly justify mass vaccination campaigns in light of all the scientific arguments pointing tothe high likelihood that these campaigns will only expedite viral resistance to Covid-19 vaccines? Why are the scientists who are bringing all this evidence to the PAPER not bringingit to the TABLE? How can they predict that this pandemic is going to evolve even more problematic VoCs and keep silent? Why don’t they set up a forum of independent, knowledgeable experts providing indisputable and unanimously agreed evidence that the rhetoric put forward by the WHO and national health authorities is scientifically wrong? Don’tthey realize that keeping silent about the ongoing disastrous - but for now still largely hidden- evolution of the pandemic is only going to provide more ammunition for governments to extend their mass vaccination campaigns such as to reach as high as possible vaccine coverage rates in the population? Why on one hand do molecular epidemiologists seriously consider that resistance to the vaccines may occur as a result of rapidly rising S-directed immune pressure in the population but on the other hand don’t ringthe alarm bell? How can they acknowledge the effect of emergent viral variants on the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines without overtly pointing to the risk that vaccines failing to blockviral transmission will further shape the evolution dynamics of viral variants? How can they recognize that antibody(Ab)-based therapy (e.g., use of convalescent plasma and monoclonal Ab treatments) in immunocompromised, chronically ill patients promotes long-term viral shedding and may lead to the propagation of variants carrying Ab escape mutations while ignoring the likelihood for a similar effect to occur when mass vaccination enables an entire population to exert immune selection pressure on the very same immunodominant Sars-CoV-2 S protein (i.e., when large numbers of individuals are vaccinated while being exposed to the virus before having developed a full-fledged Ab response)? It cannot be that they don’t understand the disastrous consequences viral resistance to Covid-19 vaccines would imply! It cannot be either that they didn’t learn that the kinetics of natural selection of immune escape mutations are much slower (or even non-existent as in the case of the Influenza pandemic of 1918!) in the presence of naturally elicited immunity. Or don’t they realize that the type of immune priming following natural Sars-CoV-2 infection is very different from the one that results from prophylactic immunization with S-based vaccines? It is difficult to imagine they would not comprehend why under conditions of natural viral infection and transmission during a pandemic, the chances for freshly infected, immunologically naïve or previously infected subjects to become re-infected on a background of suboptimal S-specific Abs are much lower than for vaccinated people to become exposed to Sars-CoV-2 while not being armed with a high enough titer of full-fledged S-specific Abs.

In other words, if molecular epidemiologists would only realize that immune selection pressure exerted by S-directed Abs occurs much less frequently during a natural pandemic than in the course of mass vaccination campaigns, they would probably figure among the best placed scientists on earth to warn against the high likelihood for this virus to evolve immune evasion and, ultimately, to resist vaccinal nAbs as a result of mass vaccination. At any rate, they all recognize the need for careful systematic surveillance of the ongoing evolutionary immune escape, which currently translates in an enhanced expansion of variantscomprising mutations that further converge as they continue to adapt to rising population immunity in general and S-specific Abs in particular (1).

Although population cohorts exerting selective S-directed immune pressure, (i.e., now increasingly consisting of vaccinees!) provide a breeding ground for S-associated immune escape mutations, health authorities seem to no longer be monitoring viral shedding and genetic characterization of viral samples in healthy or only mildly ill vaccinees. This is, of course, highly problematic as even asymptomatically infected vaccinees are known to shed virus and are now granted more freedom of movement and adhering less to social distancing measures. In this way, we are currently largely incognizant of the true prevalence and distribution of new variants and the speed at which they spread in the population. However, epidemiologists are not raising their voice to put an end to this grave public healthnegligence, even though they clearly seem to disagree with this practice: “As antigenically different variants are continuing to emerge, it will become necessary to routinely collect serum samples from vaccinated individuals and from individuals who have been infected with circulating variants of known sequence” (3); and further: “Defining these dynamics, and their potential influence on vaccine effectiveness, will require large-scale monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 evolution and host immunity for a long time to come” (4).

In the meantime, the WHO and their advising ‘experts’ are still preaching the ludicrous mantra that the more we vaccinate, the less the virus can replicate and hence, the lower the risk that VoCs will arise and become dominant in the viral population. Is it this mantra of mass vaccination that leads PHAs to conclude that monitoring of viral shedding in vaccinees has become obsolete? However, their simplistic interpretation of viral transmission dynamics would only apply to conditions of neutral genetic drift as occurring during the early phase of a pandemic, i.e., in a population of immunologically unprimed susceptible subjects that does not exert significant positive selection pressure on the virus prior to its host-to-host transmission (2). However, at this stage of the pandemic where a multitude of variants, including several VoCs, are already circulating, the real global health concern is no longer about the likelihood for yet another problematic variant to emerge but rather about the ongoing population-level selection pressure that is now driving particular mutations of concern to expand in prevalence. Ignoring the positive selection signals that are now increasingly observed within nAb-binding S domains inevitably leads to an underestimation of the evolutionary potential of Sars-CoV-2 to escape from these nAbs (2). However, instead of investigating the conditions that underlie this strong positive selection pressure, PHAs are doing the utmost to make people believe that mass vaccination will stop the transmission of these variants, lead to herd immunity and, therefore, put a stop to the Covid-19 pandemic. There is currently no single scientific argument or rationale to back any of these statements. On the contrary, numerous reports on breakthrough infections in vaccinees clearly illustrate that those who have not been immunized against Sars-CoV-2 are all but provided indirect protection by vaccinees (5, 14). The mantra that mass vaccination will at least contribute to controlling the pandemic is fully incoherent with the scientific knowledge gathered by molecular epidemiologists. Whereas phylogenetics-based natural selection analysis is a well-established method for studying evolutionary adaptation to enhanced host immune pressure, PHAs don’t seem to be impressed by data that are strongly suggestive of immune selection pressure resulting from human interventions targeting Sars-CoV-2 spike protein. Findings from this analysis indicate that as soon as a certain threshold of infectious pressure is reached, a sufficient number of subjects will harbor dominant mutants that could then spread across the entire population provided positive immune selection pressure is exerted by a substantial part of the population (1).

Some VoCs have already been observed before mass vaccination campaigns were initiated. Because they reproduce more effectively in the population, these antigenically different variants are referred to as ‘more infectious variants’. In order to adapt to the increased pressure exerted by rising population immunity, variants are now increasingly incorporating additional mutations converging to specific sites within the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the virus and conferring resistance to multiple S-directed Abs (1). The ongoing convergentevolution of immune escape mutations may come with a fitness cost of new variants for as long as the contribution of the population exerting selective immune pressure is not high enough to enable its enhanced propagation in the host population. It is important to note, though, that multiple distinct point mutations can each evade a multitude of neutralizing Abs (2). This would already explain why very few mutations (e.g., within the RBD) could already lead to full resistance to vaccinal Abs. At this stage of the pandemic, mutations in theS protein that impact neutralizing Abs are already present at significant frequencies in the global viral population and evidence of expanding variants exhibiting a higher and higher level of resistance to vaccinal S-specific Abs is now accruing (3). In other words, it becomes increasingly obvious that Sars-CoV-2 immune escape variants are adapting to rising population immunity and improving on transmissibility by stepwise acquisition of new mutations (as shown, for example, by the recent expansion of the delta ‘plus’ variant in several countries). All of the above already explains why the ‘success’ as proclaimed by the WHO and other health authorities or advising experts merely relates to short-term assessments of morbidity, hospitalization and mortality rates. However, the data published by molecular/ genomic epidemiologists analyzing the ongoing adaptation of Sars-CoV-2 to the evolving immune selection forces at play in this pandemic of Sars-CoV-2 variants seem to indicate that the ‘success’ of current public health efforts will not last for much longer. Thisis because PHAs and their advising experts seem to ignore that mass vaccination campaigns conducted during a pandemic of variants fail to reduce the number of active infections to a level low enough to prevent natural selection of immune escape mutants (i.e., even includingdouble or triple mutants!) and curtail their adaptation to a steadily rising population-level immune selection pressure, no matter the speed at which these campaigns are conducted. Their mantra that the acceleration of mass vaccination campaigns will prevent the virus from evolving variants that escape vaccine-induced immunity is, therefore, simply wrong. Since all of the current Covid-19 vaccines deployed in this mass vaccination program will contribute to raising immune selection pressure and eventually provide variants capable of evading S-specific Abs with a fitness advantage in the population (i.e., increasingly consisting of vaccinees!), neither herd immunity nor eradication could conceivably happen.

In conclusion: There is no way that the ongoing pharmaceutical (mass vaccination) and nonpharmaceutical interventions will prevent propagation of more infectious variants (those got already selected before the initiation of mass vaccination campaigns, presumably as a result of widespread implementation of stringent infection prevention measures) or variants comprising one or more RBD-associated nAb-resistant mutations. On the contrary, all evidence from molecular epidemiology indicates that the ongoing shift in natural selection forces exerted by the population on Sars-CoV-2 mutations is merely going to expedite the selection and propagation of more problematic variants of concern. It is beyond any doubt that growing vaccine coverage rates in the global population will further exploit the evolutionary capacity of Sars-CoV-2 to adapt to a higher and higher S-directed immune selection pressure until full vaccine resistance is achieved.

There is now compelling evidence that sets of convergent mutations that have emerged in the context of VoCs evolved in response to the changing immune profile of the population. It has been postulated that convergent evolution of mutations primarily occurs in previously infected individuals or as a result of chronic infections (15-20). However, vaccinated people are far more prone to breeding viral immune escape variants than non-vaccinated naturally infected individuals. Why?

In immunologically unprimed subjects, the peak of viral replication and shedding occurs wellbefore host Ab responses appear. This already suggests that the host immune response in non-primed, S-sero-negative subjects (i.e., including previously asymptomatically infected subjects who lost their short-lived S-specific Abs) does not exert significant immune pressureon the virus(**). On the other hand, most countries started their vaccination campaigns before a substantial part of the population acquired immunity from natural infection. It is, therefore, reasonable to postulate that not natural infection or transmission but widespread deployment of vaccines is now becoming the primary cause of evolutionary selection pressure on viral expansion. This would already suggest that immune escape variants are now spreading rapidly in many parts of the world. It is fair to assume that the more widespread the presence of vaccinal S-specific Abs in the global population, the more the rate of evolutionary immune evasion from S-directed humoral immune pressure will rise. The frequent occurrence of suboptimal immune selection pressure exerted by virus-exposed vaccinees on Sars-CoV-2 spike protein will provide variants that are capable of evading S-specific vaccinal Abs with a selective transmission advantage. As already mentioned in previous contributions of mine, suboptimal S-directed immune pressure occurs in asymptomatically infected vaccinees who are still in the process of mounting Ab responses or possessing immature S-specific Abs (e.g., between 1st and 2nd injection of a 2-shot vaccine) or whose vaccinal Abs are low in titer and/ or not fully functional as a result of an immune compromised health status.

(**) There are two important exceptions. 1. If the number of active infections is very high (e.g., due to overcrowding and poor hygienic standards), the reservoir of people who are naturally susceptible to Covid-19 disease becomes rapidly exhausted. This will now provide a transmission advantage to more infectious variants harboring immune escape mutations that are capable of withstanding selective S-directed immune pressure exerted by short-lived Abs in previously asymptomatically infected individuals. When the infectious pressure is high, the likelihood for the latter to become re-infected shortly after their primary infection will increase and so will the likelihood of expansion of more infectious variants. 2. Likewise, selective immune pressure will be relevant in case stringent infection prevention measures targeted at controlling the pandemic are installed on a background of a sufficiently high infectious pressure. Under such conditions, viral transmission to naturally susceptible individuals is hampered and a similar type of more infectious variants may gain a transmission advantage when exposed to suboptimal S-specific humoral responses in previously asymptomatically infected individuals.

What determines the time required for Sars-CoV-2 to resist vaccinal Abs at a population level?

It is fair to assume that RBD-targeted immune selection pressure exerted on a background ofpreviously selected mutations enabling enhanced viral infectiousness will expedite natural selection of new, nAb-escaping mutations. Hence, circulation of more infectious viral variantsis likely to expedite convergent evolution of mutations, including such that enable viral resistance to S-directed Ab-mediated immunity elicited by the vaccines.

As a rule of thumb, the time for population-level anti-vaccine resistance to develop depends on

The transmission or fitness advantage of the nAb-resistant variant (2). This factor is dependent on both, the magnitude of the population-level selection pressure and theintrinsic evolutionary fitness cost. The higher the relative percentage of individuals with nAbs to a given epitope (i.e., the more widely a given epitope is targeted) and the lower the intrinsic evolutionary fitness cost (i.e., the more effective the ‘infectious’ function of the mutated epitope), the higher the transmission advantage of the nAb-resistant variant and hence, the faster the mutated epitope will generate resistance to nAbs that are targeting it. In the case of vaccines, however, resistance will require a combination of multiple RBD-targeted mutations. This is what is currently causing in several countries an insidious period of pandemic quiescence as it takes more time for the virus to acquire a combination of multiple mutations to overcome vaccine-induced immunity despite widespread immune selection pressure (so-called ‘fitness valley-crossing time’; 2). Full resistance to the vaccines can only occur through intermediate steps wherein immune escape variants progressively evolve to incorporate additional mutations that are required to eventually reach full resistance to the vaccine. As long as the acquired subset of mutations does not suffice to escapethe population-level immune pressure induced by the vaccine, the overall transmission or fitness cost from the immune escape mutations will be higher than theoverall transmission or fitness advantage provided by the selection pressure exerted by the expanding prevalence of nAbs in the population.

The mutation rate (2). This factor is dependent on both, the infectious viral pressure and the intrinsic mutability of the virus. The higher the mutation rate, the higher the likelihood that a combinatorial subset of mutations required for full-fledged resistanceto the vaccine occurs. Viral variants may even harbor mutations outside of S protein that are subject to natural selection and thereby drive an enhanced mutation rate (21).

Intermediate immune escape variants (i.e., harboring only a subset of the mutations requiredfor nAb escape) are characterized by a lower fitness level. However, fast-speed mass vaccination campaigns that are rolled out on a background of a relatively high infectious pressure will mediate a relatively strong population-level immune selection pressure (as vaccine coverage rates rise quite rapidly). All of this will expedite the evolution of intermediate lower fitness variants into nAb-resistant variants (e.g., USA case). Conversely, when a mass vaccination program is initiated on a background of low infectious pressure, transmission of intermediate lower fitness variants will be low and more time will be required for nAb-resistant mutants to establish in the population (e.g., Israel case). This has been motivating certain ‘experts’ and policymakers to precipitate their conclusions on the success of mass vaccination campaigns in that they pretend that the pandemic is increasingly gettingunder control!

It is fair to expect that the widespread presence of full-fledged, S-specific vaccinal Abs will eventually cause vaccine-resistant variants to dominate and further expand in the viral population. This is to say that ongoing mass vaccination campaigns will inevitably entail full resistance of Sars-CoV-2 to all S-targeting Covid-19 vaccines and are, therefore, highly likely to lead to an impressive wave of infection and disease in vaccinees, especially in those who have not previously experienced Covid-19 disease.

It suffices to acknowledge that the ongoing convergent evolution of new variants is driven by natural selection pressure to conclude that mass vaccination campaigns conducted in the heat of a pandemic are now promoting expansion of immune escape variants that vaccines will eventually no longer be capable of protecting against.

Whereas global and stringent infection containment measures may eventually have led to population-level selection of more infectious variants, increasing vaccine coverage rates are now likely to promote population-level selection of nAb-evading viral mutants. Viral VoCs that spontaneously arise as a result of viral replication cannot all of a sudden start to outcompete lineages that circulate in several different countries unless they acquire a competitive advantage. They can only acquire such an advantage if the environmental conditions they are exposed to change in ways that provide them with a transmission advantage when compared to the wild-type virus or previously circulating strains/ variants. Because some mutations will endow the virus with enhanced intrinsic viral infectiousness, viral variants comprising such mutations will naturally be selected when altered conditions in the host environment exert pressure on viral infectiousness. In this way, viral propagation andsurvival can be secured. Provided the selection pressure on viral infectiousness is widespreadin the population, more infectious variants will rapidly gain a fitness advantage and quickly expand in the population. Dominance of such new viral variants is, therefore, indicative of natural selection of a virus that is more transmissible at a population level. However, the more the combination of mutations required for immune escape impacts viral fitness, the more time it will take immune escape variants to reach a high enough infectious pressure in the population or the more immune selection pressure will need to be exerted by the host environment to compensate for the incurred evolutionary fitness cost (see also below). Alongthe same lines of reasoning, it is fair to conclude that more infectious or nAb-resistant variants will expand in prevalence upon their introduction into countries where mass vaccination is already well advanced. These variants are, indeed, well adapted to the widespread immune selection pressure that has been generated in the population as a resultof mass vaccination. Thanks to an excellent breeding ground, these variants will now reproduce more effectively than the previously circulating strains.

It is fair to postulate that the more widespread the presence of full-fledged, S-specific vaccinal Abs, the more readily variants will evolve resistance to the vaccines and eventually adapt to the immune environment they are exposed to as they spread in the host population. This is to conclude that ongoing mass vaccination campaigns will inevitably entail full resistance of Sars-CoV-2 to all S-targeting Covid-19 vaccines. This is highly likely to rapidly provoke a resurgence of Sars-CoV-2 infection and disease, especially in vaccinees. As already mentioned above, cases of severe disease would be expected to be more frequent amongt vaccinees who did not previously contract Covid-19 disease.

How can human behavior or infection prevention measures promote propagation of mutations in Sars-CoV-2 spike protein?

The natural host environment of Sars-CoV-2 can create several barriers that impact viral transmissibility and survival. Enactment of infection prevention measures or overcrowding are examples of situations threatening viral spread. As the infectiousness of Sars-CoV-2 is strongly shaped by the physicochemical properties of its spike protein, the above-mentioned obstacles will exert selection pressure on Sars-CoV-2 S protein and may, therefore, substantially contribute to natural selection of mutations that enable stronger binding affinity of S protein for the Ace-2 receptor of permissive cells. To adapt to such environmental constraints, viral variants have been shown to independently evolve to acquiremultiple unique as well as convergent mutations (1). Convergent evolution of mutations comprised within S-associated, immunologically relevant genes are proof of natural selectionand illustrate the evolutionary capacity of Sars-CoV-2 to adapt to S-targeted immune pressure.

Renowned experts in molecular epidemiology are now increasingly finding that the emergence and ongoing convergent evolution of Sars-CoV-2 variants coincides with a major global shift in the Sars-CoV-2 selective landscape (1). As this ongoing shift also coincides withglobally conducted mass vaccination campaigns, the question arises as to whether these ongoing campaigns have the potential to foster convergence between evolving variants. This boils down to the following question:

Does mass vaccination with current Covid-19 vaccines enable populations to exert S-directed immune selection pressure?

This is, indeed, an important question: If mass vaccination enables the vaccinated population-to exert S-directed immune selection pressure, the likelihood that current Covid-19 vaccines will be able to control the pandemic should be seriously questioned for adaptiveevolution of Sars-CoV-2 variants has already been shown to coincide with epidemic surges in multiple parts of the world. As already mentioned, most - if not all - of the above-mentioned evidence directly emerges from in-depth research conducted by internationally recognized molecular epidemiologists. These researchers acknowledge that rising population immunity and public health measures may complicate control of the pandemic by virtue of their positive selection effect on immune escape variants. However, they do not advance any hypothesis as to the underlying causes of rising immunity that leads to a transmission advantage for S-directed immune escape mutants other than through individuals who are chronically ill and sustain prolonged viral replication as a result of insufficient immune control. This is probably an area where molecular epidemiologists should synergize with immunologists to understand, for example, that during a pandemic previously asymptomatically infected subjects may become re-infected at a point in time where their innate CoV-nonspecific Abs are still suppressed by suboptimal S-specific Abs (which they acquired as a result from that previous asymptomatic infection). More importantly, molecularepidemiologists may find it useful to learn from vaccinologists as a better understanding of the immune priming by vaccines, as compared to natural infection, could inform a more targeted surveillance of viral mutations and variants. In this regard, it is important for them tounderstand that mass vaccination in the heat of a pandemic, much more than natural infection of immune suppressed subjects, provides a panoply of conditions for individuals to become infected while only harboring suboptimal, S-specific Abs. Suboptimal stimulation of S-specific Abs could be due to individual insufficiencies in immunological responsiveness to the vaccine but inevitably occurs in all vaccinees for as long as they are in the process of mounting their Ab response. This is particularly problematic in vaccinees who have not yet received the second shot of a 2-dose Covid-19 vaccine. In these vaccinees, the S-specific Ab response after the 1st dose will not suffice to control replication and transmission of more infectious viral variants. In addition, exposure of vaccinees to antigenically different variants is also to be considered a case of suboptimal S-specific Abs and would already explain why increasingly problematic variants (e.g., VoCs or other problematic immune escape variants with deletions in the N-terminal domain of S protein) are overrepresented in vaccine breakthrough infections (5,14). All of the above situations will enable a growing part of the population (vaccinees!) to exert selective immune pressure on the S protein when exposed to Sars-CoV-2 (which is all but a rare event during a pandemic!).

Unfortunately, vaccinees are not systematically monitored for shedding of antigenic Sars-CoV-2 variants and hence, the information on the type of variants they shed is scarce, the effective reproduction number largely underestimated and the evolutionary potential of the virus to evade S-specific Ab underexplored. As a result, reports on the relative distribution of variants are likely skewed to less problematic variants as those may still have a fitness advantage in vulnerable people compared to variants comprising a combination of nAb-resistant mutations.

As some sources of population-level selective pressure are known to be amenable to human intervention, there is an urgent need for systematic genomic sequencing of circulating variants in vaccinees as this would provide us with unambiguous evidence as to whether mass vaccination campaigns enable a population to exert immune-mediated selective pressure on critical functional characteristics of Sars-CoV-2 such as virulence, transmissibility and nAb-resistance.

Why will mass vaccination campaigns conducted in the midst of this pandemic inevitably cause viral immune escape at the population level, irrespective of the speed at which these campaigns are progressing?

It has been established that the threshold number of individuals required for natural selection is far lower than the threshold number for neutral genetic drift to drive evolutionarychanges in the Sars-CoV-2 landscape (2). But also mathematical modelling has already shownthat prophylactic nAb treatment (including vaccination) of a relatively low percentage of the population already suffices to provide an immune escape mutant impacting the neutralizing Ab capacity with a significant transmission advantage compared to the wild virus (2). In addition, mass vaccination campaigns conducted during a pandemic will inevitably enroll people who are exposed to an environment of relatively high infectious pressure. This will increase the likelihood for vaccinees to harbor a dominant double or even triple mutant that is capable of evading a multitude of nAbs and hence, likely to serve as a source for population-level resistance of Sars-CoV-2 to Covid-19 vaccines.

From a scientific perspective, it is impossible to imagine that the ongoing large-scale vaccination campaigns are not going to rapidly and globally breed vaccine-resistant mutants instead of generating vaccine-mediated herd immunity. As of early March 2021, I have, therefore, been warning several times against the rapid resurgence of Sars-CoV-2 morbidity and mortality rates that this evolution is now highly likely to cause, especially in vaccinees. Hence, I repeatedly called upon PHAs world-wide to immediately stop all mass vaccination campaigns.

Will the consequences of viral resistance to Covid-19 vaccines also affect non-vaccinated individuals?

Resistance to Covid-19 vaccines will only raise the infectious pressure and thereby increase the likelihood for non-vaccinated subjects to contract Covid-19 disease. On the other hand, nonfunctional vaccinal Abs in vaccinees could lead to Ab-dependent enhancement (ADE) of Covid-19 disease (2, 25). ADE is likely to shorten the pre-symptomatic phase of Covid-19 disease, viral shedding could be more easily and rapidly contained. Timely containment of viral transmission would contribute to diminishing exposure of non-vaccinated individuals to high infectious pressure. Provided unhampered functionality of their CoV-nonspecific innate Abs, diminished infectious pressure would likely protect non-vaccinated individuals from contracting Covid-19 disease. However, non-vaccinated individuals as well might be susceptible to ADE if they become exposed to Sars-CoV-2 while harboring S-specific nAbs as a result of natural infection. The risk may exist for as long as the concentration of these nAbs in their blood is high enough to outcompete innate, CoV-nonspecific Abs at the portal of viral entry. It is important to consider, though, that both, vaccinated and non-vaccinated subjects who previously contracted Covid-19 disease might be better protected against severe disease upon re-exposure thanks to the priming of protective, cytotoxic T cells.

Vaccine-elicited S-specific T cell responses against variants are largely preserved and have been suggested to enable robust vaccine efficacy against variants when the neutralizing capacity of vaccine-elicited Abs may not provide sufficient protection (11). Could vaccine-induced T cell immunity, therefore, diminish the prevalence of viral variants and mitigate resurgence of morbidity and mortality waves?

Some publications suggest that increased breadth in S-specific vaccinal CD8+ T cell responses in vaccinated as compared to non-vaccinated individuals may compensate for insufficient neutralization capacity of S-specific vaccinal Abs against a number of new, more infectious variants. This would, therefore, still enable vaccines to provide robust protective vaccine efficacy against emerging variants. It is unlikely, though, that largely preserved T cell responses against variants mediate S-specific killing of virus-infected cells. This is because killing by cytolytic CD8+ T cells (CTLs) is known to be genetically determined by protective MHC class I alleles. No evidence of promiscuous or universal, Sars-CoV-2 S-derived CTL epitopes has been reported. The robustness of protective vaccine efficacy against variants across a genetically heterogeneous host population can, therefore, not be explained by CTL-mediated killing as the latter would be MHC class I-restricted, even if S-derived CD8+ T cell epitopes are conserved. Robustness of protective vaccine efficacy against multiple variants ismost likely due to innate, cytokine-mediated immune cascades that are largely triggered by polyfunctional, broadly preserved memory T cells. These cytokine-mediated responses likely synergize with nAbs to further reduce viral load (and hence, likely diminish the likelihood of [severe] disease) but fail to abrogate viral transmission or curtail the expansion of viral variants. This is because non-antigen(Ag)-specific innate immune responses cannot target and eliminate Sars-CoV-2-infected cells. It is reasonable to assume, however, that vaccine-elicited S-specific T cell responses will contribute to promote viral evasion from innate immune mechanisms when elicited in the context of large-scale vaccination campaigns during a pandemic. Innate immune evasion mechanisms are well known and have been extensively described (12, 13). This would ultimately results in a robust, universal (i.e., MHC-unrestricted) and nonAg-specific decline in vaccine efficacy towards all infectious Sars-CoV-2 variants.

Why are mass vaccination campaigns likely to increase Covid-19 morbidity and mortality rates?

From a purely scientific perspective and even regardless of all (important!) ethical issues theyraise, mass vaccination campaigns conducted in the midst of a pandemic are doomed to fail and have unforeseeable health consequences, not only for individual vaccinees but also for the global human population.

As already mentioned, changes in the ‘traditional’ host environment (e.g., implementation of stringent public health measures and social distancing; overcrowding) may alter the evolutionary dynamics of the pandemic and drive natural selection and dominant propagation of more infectious variants (or, alternatively, promote their rapid expansion once they become de novo introduced into a population). Likewise, it is reasonable to assume that large-scale vaccination campaigns conducted during a pandemic will drive natural selection and dominant propagation of nAb-evasive variants. However, as viral adaptation evolves, replication and transmission of such naturally selected immune escape variants by asymptomatically infected or mildly ill vaccinees will become more and more frequent and eventually increase the risk of rapid re-exposure for non-vaccinated, previously asymptomatically infected individuals. This is now likely to prompt a new wave of morbidity and mortality in the non-vaccinated part of the population. Iin countries where mass vaccination campaigns are rolled out on a background of low infectious pressure, it will take more time for rising vaccine coverage rates to drive convergent evolution of additional, naturally selected mutations such as to ensure viral persistence in the face of a stronger and more widespread vaccine-induced immune response. However, there shall be no doubt that the endgame of this convergent evolution of vaccine-mediated immune escape mutants is full resistance of Sars-CoV-2 to the Covid-19 vaccines. When this happens, vaccinees in particular will become extremely vulnerable to Covid-19 disease as they will no longer be able to rely on their innate Abs for those will be outcompeted by their vaccinal Abs for binding to S protein.

It is important to note that it suffices for the virus to escape S- or RBD-directed immune pressure in order to become more infectious or to resist protective (neutralizing) vaccinal Abs, respectively. As neither previously asymptomatic, non-vaccinated individuals nor previously immunologically naïve vaccinees have experienced protective T cell priming, immune evasion from S-specific Abs is sufficient for Sars-CoV-2 to cause Covid-19 disease in these people. Given the intensity of natural selection signals observed in the current genomic landscape of Sars-CoV-2 spike protein (1), it is reasonable to assume that a further rise in population-level immune selection pressure on this protein (i.e., as a result of continued mass vaccination campaigns) will ultimately provide variants capable of evading a full set of vaccinal Abs (including those raised by 2nd generation vaccines) with a transmission advantage. As already mentioned, this is expected to dramatically raise morbidity and mortality rates in vaccinees.

Why are most countries not yet affected by enhanced circulation of increasingly immune resistant variants despite an advanced stage of their mass vaccination campaigns?

Full-fledged vaccine resistance is not yet observed as it may take much longer for a combination of multiple synergizing immune escape mutations to occur in a sufficient number of individuals in the population. However, once these immune escape variants are present in sufficient frequency, they will establish rapidly in populations that are subject to mass vaccination (due to widespread S-directed immune selection pressure). It is, however, important to note that during this period of pandemic quiescence, vaccination may lead to an increased risk of ADE as S protein from intermediate variants, which possess only a subsetof the S-associated mutations required for full resistance to the vaccine, may still be recognized (but not neutralized) by vaccinal Abs (see above).

Will mass vaccinations have a different outcome depending on geographic and/ ordemographic factors?

Regardless of the current evolutionary dynamics of the pandemic in any given country, immune escape variants will ultimately converge to a common adaptive endpoint, which is full resistance to S-directed nAbs induced by Covid-19 vaccines or resulting from natural infection. The speed at which Sars-CoV-2 is expected to develop resistance to S-specific nAbs induced by the current vaccines or acquired following natural infection will – among other, above-mentioned factors - depend on the speed at which mass vaccination campaigns are conducted. Enrolling youngsters and children in these mass vaccination campaigns is only going to rapidly expand the breeding ground for nAb-resistant variants and expedite the evolution depicted above.

Why are follow-up vaccines using key nAb epitopes from variant-associated spike protein unlikely to solve the issue of immune escape variants?

First, spike RBD displays a high level of evolutionary versatility whereas Covid-19 vaccines only induce a relatively narrow immune response (i.e., directed at a few immunodominant domains within a single viral protein). It is, therefore, reasonable to assume that the evolutionary capacity of Sars-CoV-2 to evolve variants capable of evading multiple nAbs reaches far beyond the breadth of S-associated epitopes Covid-19 vaccines can possibly target (2, 3, 9). This already suggests that these vaccines are highly likely to drive mutation-mediated escape from S-specific host Abs.

Upon re-vaccination with updated S-targeting vaccines (so-called ‘second generation’ vaccines), previously vaccinated people will rapidly recall their original vaccinal Abs while those who are waiting for their updated vaccine shot may do so as a result from natural exposure (as the virus will, indeed, still be circulating, primarily among asymptomatically infected vaccinees). In immunology, this phenomenon is known as ‘antigenic sin’. Consequently, a high level of S-directed immune selection pressure will be maintained within the vaccinated population, thereby promoting further expansion of viral variants and accelerating the speed at which variants will evolve a repertoire of additional immune escape mutations that is sufficient to eventually enable full resistance to the updated vaccineas well. In this context, it is also important to note that one single additional mutation could suffice to abolish the enhanced neutralization capacity of the updated vaccine by virtue of epistatic interaction between the additional mutation and multiple previously established adaptive mutations targeted by vaccinal nAbs. In addition, molecular epidemiologists are increasingly worried about a potential expansion of recombination-generated combinations of immune escape mutations as those could occur during co-infections with different variantsand generate even more problematic variants of concern that will better match the evolving fitness landscape of the continuing pandemic (1, 9).

When high infectious pressure coincides with high immune selection pressure, partially resistant variants can be expected to transit more rapidly through the ’valley of lower fitness’ and hence, expedite the emergence of dominant variants that fully resist the updated vaccines. This is to say that steadily increasing vaccine coverage rates combined with relaxedinfection prevention measures and global expansion in prevalence of more infectious variants are now serving as a breeding ground for upcoming nAb-resistant variants.

Re-vaccination with second generation vaccines is all but comparable with seasonal updates of Influenza vaccines as the latter are administered on a background of herd immunity. Dedicated molecular epidemiologist seem to recognize the likelihood that updated S-basedCovid-19 vaccines may fail and state that “Further studies may be required to understand the risk immune evasion poses to a strategy of annually updated vaccines” (2).

Could an immediate and global halt of mass vaccination campaigns still prevent the emergence of more harmful viral recombinations or resistance of Sars-CoV-2 toCovid-19 vaccines?

A global and immediate halt of mass vaccination campaigns would allow to diminish immune selective pressure exerted on sites within the S protein that mediate nAb evasion. However, at this fairly advanced stage of the global mass vaccination program, it is probably already too late to prevent viral resistance to S-Abs, even if mass vaccination campaigns would immediately and globally be halted, and even though vaccine coverage rates are still fairly low in a number of low-income countries. This is because

nAb-resistant virus selected in a particular population will easily adapt and expand upon their introduction into other populations that are undergoing a similar shift in the Sars-CoV-2 fitness landscape, even though the local variants they are harboring are less advanced in their adaptive process of evolutionary convergence of immune escape mutations

the current spectrum of escape mutations already lays the groundwork for multiple recombinations to occur as viral spread continues. Combinations of immune escape mutations more readily enable variants to circumvent vaccine-induced immunity or acquire other phenotypic characteristics that could potentially be more harmful (1, 2, 3, 9). Some of these combinatorial variants could, therefore, be more problematic than those which circulated before.

Consequently, it is reasonable to assume that an immediate halt of all Covid-19 vaccination campaigns could at most delay full resistance of Sars-CoV-2 to the vaccines by a few months.However, recombinations are likely to lead to super variants with unpredictable phenotypic characteristics, some of which may be responsible for a further increase in viral infectiousnessand/ or virulence or could even enable adaptation to another mammalian species (7). As already mentioned, recombinations are promoted by co-infection with different variants. At this stage of the pandemic, co-infection with different variants becomes increasingly likely as infection prevention measures are now being relaxed in many countries (9). Adaptation to other mammalian species may result from enhanced binding affinity of mutated spike protein for their Ace-2 receptor (e.g., in case of the Sars-CoV-2 Y453F mink variant) and generate an additional asymptomatic reservoir for recurrent transmission to humans (4).

Unless aggressive multidrug treatment is implemented at an early stage of disease and large-scale chemoprophylaxis campaigns are conducted, resistance of Sars-CoV-2 to Covid-19 vaccines is, most certainly, going to provoke a steep incline of morbidity and mortality rates in vaccinees, especially in those who did not contract Covid-19 disease prior to vaccination.

Are scientists suspicious of mass vaccination enhancing expansion of vaccine-resistant Sars-CoV-2?

In this regard, it suffices to cite D. Van Egeren et al. (2):

“Evidence from multiple experimental studies showing that single RBD point mutations can lead to resistance to neutralizing convalescent plasma from multiple donors suggests that specific single mutants may be able to evade spike-targeting vaccinal immunity in many individuals and rapidly lead to spread of vaccine-resistant SARS-CoV-2. One variant that can escape convalescent plasma neutralization is already circulating in South Africa and could experience greater positive selection pressure once vaccines are deployed widely”. These authors further suggest that natural selection of multiple mutations in individuals possessing nAbs against Sars-CoV-2 spike protein “could accelerate the emergence of vaccine-resistant strains in the months following vaccine deployment” and state that “Further studies are required to understand the risk immune evasion poses to a strategy of annually updated vaccines”. Additional citations from scientists studying the evolutionary biology of Sars-CoV-2 go as follows: “… vaccines themselves represent a selection pressure for evolution of vaccine-resistant variants…” (9).

The notion that vaccines have the capacity to drive immune evasion of mutable pathogens and enable dominance of antigenically different variants with altered biological characteristics when deployed at population scale is certainly not new (8, 13, 22). This knowledge combined with the remarkable ability of Sars-CoV-2 to rapidly adapt to new environments and different hosts, in particular via convergent evolution of specific spike mutations (7, 23, 24), led at least some scientists to state that “With increasing levels of host immunity helped by the deployment of vaccines and ongoing widespread SARS-CoV-2 circulation, we fully expect to see increased evidence for adaptive evolution in Spike and other genes…” (7) or that “Mutations affecting the antigenic phenotype of SARS-CoV-2 will enable variants to circumvent immunity conferred by natural infection or vaccination” (3). Other scientists come to the following conclusions: “Subsequently, many other changes in the spike protein were found to propagate rapidly, showing that the bulk of the selection pressure on this protein comes from adaptation to the host. We can therefore anticipate thatthis protein, and to a lesser extent the nucleocapsid protein, will evolve most rapidly under the selection pressure of vaccination” (9) or: “However, there is growing evidence that mutations that change the antigenic phenotype of SARS-CoV-2 are circulating and affect immune recognition to a degree that requires immediate attention”. But scientists also acknowledge that a recombination event within Sars-CoV-2 variants or between a Sars-CoV-2variant and Sars-CoV-2 from bats could be highly problematic in terms of precipitating resistance to the vaccines: “Due to the high diversity and generalist nature of these Sarbecoviruses, a future spillover, potentially coupled with a recombination event with SARS-CoV-2, is possible, and such a ‘SARS-CoV-3’ emergence could be sufficiently divergent to evade either natural or vaccine-acquired immunity, as demonstrated for SARS-CoV-1 versus SARS-CoV-2. We must therefore dramatically ramp up surveillance for Sarbecoviruses at the human–animal interface and monitor carefully for future SARS-CoV emergence in the human population” (7).

Biologists studying the genomic composition of CoVs in general and that of CoV-2 in particular published convincing evidence that also innate, nonAg-specific antiviral immune responses exhibited by infected host tissues (i.e., not only including lymphoid tissue!) exert immune selection pressure that shapes the genomic composition of infecting CoVs (10). As already mentioned above, vaccine-mediated T cell immunity is thought to contribute to protection by virtue of the innate immune cascades they stimulate.

It is generally agreed amongst molecular epidemiologists that resistance to nAbs and hence,to vaccine-induced immunity, could considerably be delayed by reducing the number of active infections (i.e., infectious pressure) in ways that do not exert a specific selective pressure on the virus. They literally state: “In this context, vaccines that do not provide sterilizing immunity (and therefore continue to permit transmission) will lead to the buildup of large standing populations of virus, greatly increasing the risk of immune escape”(2).

It is almost impossible to believe that scientists studying the genomic/ molecular epidemiology or evolutionary biology of Sars-CoV-2 would not understand that mass vaccination campaigns promote natural selection and propagation of immune escape variants when they all come to the conclusion that selective immune pressures exerted by antiviral host immune responses provide fitness-enhancing mutations with a transmission advantage enabling their adaptation to the infected host (tissue)-specific environment. In light of all scientific evidence provided and the sinister perspective of the current evolution when put in an immunological and vaccine context, knowledgeable scientists should feel a moral and ethical obligation to loudly voice their concerns publicly. It is appalling that some leaders of the very institutes disclosing some of these critically enlightening data on the evolutionary molecular dynamics of circulating variants seem to be denying the observationsof their co-workers and continue to blindly advocate for mass vaccination. Instead, some of them are even bold enough to encourage arrogant and scientifically illiterate fact-checkers to misrepresent compelling scientific evidence as a hoax and debunk experts who put their career on the line in making this critically important information accessible to the broader public.

Compassionate scientists who have been taking a deep dive in these complex matters are now increasingly left with the impression that health authorities and advising experts will simply continue to deny that they are desperately wrong, no matter how compelling the scientific evidence that has been brought to the table and no matter the consequences this unprecedented public health experiment may involve for many years to come.

Bibliography

1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33688681/

2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/

3. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34075212/

4. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33404586/

5. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.23.21257679v1

6. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.19.444774v1

7. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33711012/

8. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17210532/

9. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33769683/

10. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33351847/

11. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34107529/

12. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33953325/

13. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33101306/

14. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.23.21257668v2

15. Kemp, S. A. et al. SARS- CoV-2 evolution during treatment of chronic infection. Nature https://doi.org/ (2021).

16. Choi, B. et al. Persistence and evolution of SARS- CoV-2 in an immunocompromised host. N. Eng. J. Med. 383, 2291–2293 (2020).

17. Avanzato, V. A. et al. Case study: prolonged infectious SARS- CoV-2 shedding from an asymptomatic immunocompromised individual with cancer. Cell 183, 1901–1912 e1909 (2020).

18. Naveca, F. et al. SARS- CoV-2 Reinfection by the New Variant of Concern (VOC) P.1 in Amazonas, Brazil. https://virological.org/t/Sars- cov-2-reinfection- bythe-new-variant- of-concern- voc-p-1-in-amazonasbrazil/596 (2021).

19. Nonaka, C. K. V. et al. Genomic Evidence of a SARSCov-2 Reinfection Case with E484K Spike Mutation in Brazil. https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202101.0132/v1 (2021)

20. Rambaut A. et al. Preliminary genomic characterization of an emergent SARS-CoV-2 lineage in the UK defined by a novel set of spike mutations. SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus/nCoV-2019 Genomic Epidemiology—Virological (2021)

21. Duffy S. Why are RNA virus mutation rates so damn high? PLoS Biol. (2018) https://doi.org/10.1371/

22. Read A.F. et al. Imperfect Vaccination Can Enhance the Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens. https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002198 (2015) https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002198

23. Tegally H. et al. Emergence and rapid spread of a new severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) lineage with multiple spike mutations in South Africa. medRxiv. 2020 Epidemiology. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.21.20248640

24. Gu, H. et al. Adaptation of SARS-CoV-2 in BALB/c mice for testing vaccine efficacy. Science 443 369, 1603–1607(2020) https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abc4730

25. Lee W.S. et al. Antibody-dependent enhancement and SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and therapies. Nature Microbiology (2020) 5: 1185–1191. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-020-00789-5

#Geert Vanden Bossche #covid-19 #covid-19 vaccine #sars-cov-2 #immunology #immune escape #viral escape #immune pressure #selection pressure #evolution #print this off later

13 notes · View notes

thotsonthebible · 4 years

Text

Without Excuse

Romans 1.20

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

It's summer, and when I take my morning coffee to the back porch, God's handiwork never fails to amaze me!

The tiny hummingbird that hovers in front of my face to greet me is no mere accident. He did not 'evolve'; he was created. Every detail is perfection, from the small wings that beat 10 to 15 times a second, to the dazzling iridescent crimson feathers at his throat.

All creation displays His glory! From the massive Black Walnut tree that towers over my cottage, to the flash of orange of a Baltimore Oriole flying past, to the magnificent pair of Bald Eagles flying upstream, to the Red-Tailed Hawk that soars in and sits on a low branch to greet me. All creation displays His glory!

Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. —Psalm 139.14 (NASB)

Have you considered the night sky, with the stars and planets that are visible to the naked eye? And what about the photographs from orbiting telescopes? The more we discover about the universe, the more we realize we are not capable of comprehending.

The heavens are telling the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. —Psalm 19.1 (NASB)

George Willis Ritchey, a last century astronomer, who helped invent the reflector telescope, observed that the universe is more complex than we are capable of understanding.

When I think back to the time when I denied the existence of God, I marvel how I could have missed the wonders all around me. I was blind to creation!

What about you? Do you buy into man's vain attempts to explain a world without God? The late theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking said that one of the main goals of science is to justify the atheist philosophy. In reality, the more we discover about the complexity of the universe, the more we are forced to admit that it is impossible for our finite minds to comprehend the scope of creation.

Have you ever read Hawking's explanations for the existence of the universe? I've read some of his treatises, and all I saw was hubris. He wrote that 'a great many universes were created out of nothing.' He summarized, 'Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.'

Pressed for an explanation for the existence of the matter which spontaneously ignited, he revised his theory to include a period of 'imaginary time' that preceded the 'big bang'. Yes, you read that correctly: 'imaginary time'. This, from a man who was reputed to be one of the most intelligent people on earth. Was he really so foolish as not to realize that theorizing a pre-existing 'imaginary time' simply took him back to square one?

For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through that has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools. —Romans 1.20-21 (NASB)

What about evolution? We can plainly see microevolution in the plant and animal world. But I challenge you to provide proof of macroevolution. Where is the proof in the fossil record? Where is the proof today? There is none! Have you ever seen an animal—any animal—in a transitional evolutionary phase?

As for dinosaurs, I enjoyed Jurassic Park, too, but it is fiction. Were you aware that fossilized prints of men and dinosaurs have been discovered in the same layer of mud? That fact is generally hidden from the public, for it makes much of evolutionary theory impossible to explain.

Scientists are fond of accusing Christians of being unintelligent, of ignoring 'science', of being blinded by their faith. I propose that the opposite is true. In their desperate attempts to explain a creation without God, they have ignored the evidence before their eyes and have become fools.

I am not unintelligent, and I don't think you are, either. Proof of God's magnificence is all around you, if only you open your eyes and look.

'But now ask the beasts, and let them teach you; and the birds of the heavens, and let them tell you. Or speak to the earth, and let it teach you; and let the fish of the sea declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this, in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?' —Job 12. 7-10 (NASB)

Among towers of steel and concrete, it may be easier to deny God and buy into the lies that are presented as 'science'. I once did. But walk to a local park or drive out of the city, where you can marvel at the wonders of our magnificent Creator. Here in a beautifully-wooded lot, surrounded by the glory of creation, I can see God all around me, and I wonder how I once could have been so blind.

I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. —Psalm 139.14 (NASB)

We are surrounded by proof of God's existence, of the grandeur of His creation, of the magnificence of His intelligence, and 'my soul knows it very well.'

Mankind is without excuse.

#Bible #Bible study #Christianity #religion #God #creation #Hawking #nature #existence of God #atheism

11 notes · View notes

nuttypatroltale · 3 years

Text

IFORTIS CORPORATE Self-Made Indian Entrepreneur in Making Youth Self-Reliant

IFORTIS CORPORATE

Self-Made Indian Entrepreneur in Making Youth Self-Reliant

COMPANY PROFILE : https://ifortiscorporate.com/about-us

IFORTIS CORPORATE, has grown into One of the India’s leading Corporate. During its initial stage, IFortis was in the business of IT Services & Marketing Services. Gradually with time, Ifortis Corporate spread its wings into diverse areas as technology which began to hinder IFortis’s ability to guarantee competitive pricing and provide innovative services. Lack of communication being the major constraint, Ifortis decided to set up its headquarters in India to better satisfy the needs of Ifortis customers. Based upon demographic and geographic research, IFortis chose Sivakasi, India, as the location to begin it’s facility. As time went on, IFortis’s principals of transparency, timely communication, quality of services and competitive pricing allowed for significant expansion. As a result, IFortis is now one of India’s leading corporate. IFortis Corporate believes that ethical management is not only a tool for responding to the rapid changes in the global business environment, but also a vehicle for building trust with its various stakeholders including customers, employees, business partners and local communities. With an aim to become one of the most leading companies In the world, IFortis Corporate continues to train its employees and operate monitoring systems, while practicing fair and transparent corporate management. The Company principles focuses on keeping customer satisfaction on the top priority. It make efforts for the improvement of the ‘quality of life’ of our employees. The Company respects the dignity and diversity of individuals and compete fairly in accordance to law and business ethics. The Company pursues eco-friendly management and build relationships of co-existence and co-prosperity with business partners. Ifortis has dived into various divisions as IT services, Consultancy, Digital and Live Projects. The vision of Ifortis is To be a global firm of uniquely skilled executives who can build a better future. #ifortiscorporate #YouthShouldLead #MakingWomenSelfReliant #MakeIndiaProud

PROFILE OF CEO : https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohitnaidu-s/

“Rohit Naidu” is the co-founder and CEO of The IFORTIS CORPORATE, a public engagement company focused on creating one-of-a-kind products and programs for entertainers, brands, and celebrities.He is a self starter and has had the privilege of being part of starting and growing several management and service companies. He has helped companies grow from inception, to viability, through to sustainability. During the evolution of these companies. He has served on company boards and been instrumental in capitalization activities. He has also helped companies to expand to international markets. Rohit combines a unique blend of business acumen and technical knowledge.He have also lead the social campaigns with the motto of benefitting the society in various different means. He is continually assessing his effectiveness and infusing innovative and creative strategies thus ensuring that his team mates and co-workers also succeed. His foremost philosophy is to spend the necessary time it takes to build right skill set with the approaching individuals to his organization. He has come out to be the self-made Indian entrepreneur making indian youth self reliant. #ifortiscorporate #YouthShouldLead #MakingWomenSelfReliant #MakeIndiaProud

PROFILE OF TEAM LEADER : www.linkedin.com/in/namratasinku

My Team Leader “Ms. Namrata Sinku” is a highly motivated person who has guided me through all the projects. Her practical guidance has been beneficial to my professional development. Through her great leadership skills, she is able to deliver us all aspects of tasks being given and helps us to complete all the task in the best possible way and in the given period of time. #ifortiscorporate #YouthShouldLead #MakingWomenSelfReliant #MakeIndiaProud

THE LIVE PROJECTS: CSR https://ifortiscorporate.com/csr

At IFORTIS CORPORATE, our sustainability management aims to create integrated values. Not only do we create economic values by maximising profits and shareholder values, but also we take on a stronger responsibility as a global citizen to create social values. As we deliver innovative products and services along the value chain which is based on the core values we pursue at IFORTIS CORPORATE, we generate values in the fields of economy, society, and environment. We monitor the financial and non-financial impacts that we exert on society throughout such process so that we maximise our positive impacts while minimising any negative ones. We believe businesses have a responsibility to contribute to a sustainable future for work, for workers and for the world. We are driven to lead by example, and we are guided in everything we do by our Values, our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics and the Sustainable Development Goals. This is how we attract and retain the best talent and how we create a culture of conscious inclusion that fosters innovation, enables high performance and allows everyone to achieve their full potential.

The live projects being incorporated by Ifortis to empower women and youth to be self reliant are as follows :-

#Not A School - IFortis Corporate’s Not a School is an alternative educational programme co-created with and for school students aged 10-18 across the globe. The free programme aims to inspire our next generation of innovators and equip them with future-proof skills through exploring social issues they care about most with some of world’s most inspirational experts.

#AARAMBH 2020 - India’s First & Largest Virtual Youth Festival - AARAMBH, A Virtual 2 Day Mega Youth Festival empowering youngsters and solving the mental health problems, after Hours and a whole host of exciting Virtual Entertainment Experiences. The much-awaited mega festival is held from 29th – 30th September 2020. AARAMBH will be India's first Virtual Youth Festival experience which had 10,000+ audience and 1,500+ participants across India.

#Entrepreneurship 360 - Entrepreneurship 360 is a global initiative for ambitious career- driven women across the globe, who are ready to identify, hone and expand their potential as entrepreneurs."The mission of this program, is to solve global problems starting from hunger to health by helping women to learn how to start and grow businesses, as well as successfully compete in global markets, by providing quality training, counseling, and access to resources". This exclusive program had 4,900+ women across the globe.

#Become An Entrepreneur - IFortis Corporate launched Become An Entrepreneur, Practical learning on how entrepreneurs validate concepts through structured experiments, refine their business strategy, and raise the capital necessary to create value and grow their business. The program begins by providing access to potential business opportunities, outlines some of the challenges you might face, and offers a formula for creating your new company. The program will help in identifying the important people in the process of entrepreneurship and how each plays a powerful role in your success. The goal of the program is to support the development of Entrepreneurship in Youth through skill training, strategies, and expert advice.

#Solution For Tomorrow - IFortis Corporate has launched ‘Solution for Tomorrow’, an exclusive program offering all 16-26 year olds world-wide the chance to change the world with their ideas. The programme brings compassion, education and technology together to help young people nurture and create solutions to their local community’s most pressing problems within one of the four following categories: diversity & inclusion, education, social isolation and sustainability.

#Youth Should Lead - The Youth Should Lead by IFortis Corporate is Youth Leadership programme launched in 2020, explores how no one individual has the complete set of leadership skills. It enables youth to identify and reflect on their natural leadership style, personality and behaviours. Then, with the support of world class corporate trainers, youth will agree on areas for development where your leadership shows potential or is fragile. The youth will discover that to be a complete leader they need to be aware of their own limitations and draw on the diversity of their team.

#More Power To Women - The exclusive program, #More Power to Women by IFortis Corporate is aimed at highlighting women empowerment. It showcases how IFortis Corporate cares for dreams of women across India. With an ambitious mission to educate and empower more than 20,000 women in India to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams before the year’s end, IFortis Corporate has enlisted business owners from around the globe to share their personal journey of failure and success at this program.

#Blockchanging The World - IFortis Corporate’s Blockchanging the World is a mission to provide the youth with a well-rounded foundation of the intersection of blockchain technology with either technical practicality, the modern healthcare system, financial institutions, and a road map through the legal labyrinth that is blockchain regulation to aid them in the decision-making process. The program is intended to help the youth in implementing blockchain technology by meeting societal needs and overcoming such obstacles as risks, barriers, and regulations.

#GO Green -We at IFortis Corporate, committed to reducing our environmental footprint and that of our events. We have signed an international commitment to reduce our footprint company-wide (IAPCO Plastics Pledge), as well as the footprint of our clients’ events, through sustainable design and carbon offsetting. We work with partners and suppliers who have active sustainability policies and we also actively encourage discussions and awareness around environmental practice throughout our industry.

#Cultivate The Skills - IFortis Corporate’s Step Up is an executive Skill Development program, During the program the young people will be made to investigate complex challenges such as social problems, plastic pollution, genome editing, and global pandemics. The program is structured around real-world problems, its core is centred on academic disciplines and a range of research methods by IFortis Corporate’s Research & Development Team. The youth will gain a strong understanding over the rapidly changing future of work.

#We Are Fit - At IFortis Corporate, our staff are our heart and soul and their satisfaction and wellbeing is critical to the success of our Company. As such, we have policies in place to support staff on a personal level – including flexible working arrangements and mental health support – and we are continually looking to improve in these areas. People development is one of our highest priorities and we invest heavily into this each year – for example, deploying more than 1,000 hours of external training in 2020 – and strongly believe in promoting from within as well as staff retention.

#Social Accountability - At IFortis Corporate, we are committed to employing people from all cultures and backgrounds and we aspire to diversify our company across all indicators including gender, age, sexuality, ability and religion. This is evidenced through our many spoken languages, with our staff collectively speaking more than 30 languages. We acknowledge the Indigenous Indians as traditional custodians of our land and seek to be an employer of choice for those identifying as First Nations people. This is achieved through our values of an inclusive work environment, where we work to break down barriers and embrace diversity of people, ideas, talents and experiences.

CURRENT MISSION:

I Fortis Corporate’s mission is to help college-age youth and women to learn how to start and grow businesses, as well as successfully compete in global markets, by providing quality training, counseling, and access to resources. The Company launches Entrepreneurship 360. This program will be India’s first evidence-based practice in creating women entrepreneurs and we have secured women (and some men) business owners from around the world, to share their own insightful and practical journeys of business ownership. It will also have an opportunity to gain access to potential business opportunities and even possible startup funding for the best ideas, offered through IFortis Corporate. #MakingWomenSelfReliant #YouthShouldLead

COMPANY’S FUTURE GOAL :

IFortis Corporate is stepping into Apparel Manufacturing Industry (Textile & Manufacturing Industry) with an ambitious mission to create more employment opportunity for the women & youth across India and helping them to become self-reliant with obsessive focus on the quality, worker’s safety & welfare, Social Responsibility and customer satisfaction. #ifortiscorporate #YouthShouldLead #MakingWomenSelfReliant #MakeIndiaProud #textileindustry

For media inquiries, contact- [email protected] or,

Mail to -

[email protected]

1 note · View note

thepeoplebehindsustainability · 4 years

Photo

Piet Colruyt, impact investor - June 2019

“I believe the biggest problem today is our mindset: we still accept people being selfish or companies destroying nature or presidents denying climate change, on the excuse of being the natural condition of humans: we still accept people will always go for the short term benefit for their own just because “it is natural”.”

“I see myself as a social investor, which means that I want to invest in people, organisations, companies with solutions to the big societal challenges we are facing: it can be on climate change, social cohesion, inclusion, integration, poverty,… My focus is on inspiring innovations in impact investing. Which means (1) it will always be “investing” (which can be time, energy, people, money, for profit or not-for-profit) (2) where the first goal is to have positive societal impact (it can be social or environmental). (3) Innovations mean that I will not invest in existing solutions where enough money is already going to. If other people already invest in such things, I can spend my capital on other solutions. (4) And last but not least: it must be inspiring. If accountants give a certificate that the impact is great and the financial returns are ok, but it is too boring to be inspirational, I will not invest, because my ultimate goal is to change how people look at investing. Therefor it must be also fun & inspiring. People should want to change their investment strategies into impact investing not only because they have to, but because they want to.

Sustainability in my sector, the impact investing space, means a combination of positive societal impact and a fair financial return. It should be noticed that the financial return is not always for the investor: sometimes a project can have huge financial returns for the common good. These can also become sustainable if the system (the government, the foundations) provide funding because they see the return is bigger than the cost. Sustainability also means agility to react properly if the situation changes.

Coming from a family business (Colruyt, founded by my grandfather, is today in the top 3 of Belgian foodretailers) long term sustainability is in our DNA. When my grandfather started to sell coffee, wine, chocolate in the bakery of his father in 1928, he wanted to become rich (the first P of the 3P model is Profit): he had 9 children to feed and wanted a big house and a big car. The second generation added the people aspect: a company can only grow if the people grow. My uncle decided to spent 5% of the turnover in time and money in trainings. Since 1991, the third generation launched the Greenline program (the third P of the 3P’s, Planet) : as foodretailers we also have to take care about the planet to leave this in better conditions for our children. I became architect of the supermarkets in 2000 and became board member in 2001 and it was only than that we decided to diversify: we started investing in venture capital, funds and equity besides our main investment Colruyt Group. 10 years later I decided to become full time investor, after I discovered Ashoka and the world of social entrepreneurship and impact investing. We had long debates about the vision, mission, values and strategy of the family holding and I discovered the difference between social first or finance first impact investing. Although both are impact investors who want to combine doing good & doing well, the difference is in their theory of change. Finance first impact investors believe you can have the most impact if you reach market conform returns: in that case, you will find new investors, you can grow the company and the impact. Social first impact investors believe we should change our capitalistic system: if we don’t accept lower returns or higher risks, we are not able to find the new innovations needed to solve all societal challenges. To maximize the impact, they believe investors should lower their financial return expectations or increase their risk appetite. In 2010 I decided to do both: the family holding and the Colruyt Group are more finance first, but Impact Capital, my own holding, is able to promote and invest in “social first” impact investing. In 2012 I co-founded SI² Fund which was the first private social impact first fund in Belgium and merged with Shaerpa Fund in 2015 to become one of the leading social impact funds in the Benelux. SI² Fund can only survive if it is embedded in a broader ecosystem, where the right funding, coaching and network is provided at the different stages of a companies life. Therefore I started also investing in a foundation, a seed capital fund, an accelerator, a crowdfunding platform… all focused on impact. The Impact House, founded in 2018 is the materialization of this ecosystem view.

It seems that many people want change but no one wants to change. In strategy discussions on what will work best, for example, to tackle climate change, we always see the two positions: some people are convinced that awareness of the scientific facts and predictions of the consequences will people help to change habits. Other strategists are convinced that the only thing that works, is if there is a “what’s in it for me” and you’d better not talk about responsibility or negative consequences, but only positive nudging will change the mindset. Some people, arguing for the green economy, explain that we all should reduce our comfort levels and live differently, take public transport, eat less meat, pay more for fair trade, organic, local,... Others, arguing for the blue economy, are convinced that the green mantra will only convince the 10 to 15% of the people already converted, but if you want to reach the other 85%, sustainability must simply be the easiest or cheapest alternative. That’s why I am convinced that the role of the government is crucial: it is up to politics to change the rules, to raise taxes or give subsidies to steer consumption in a more sustainable, circular way. We need both sides: the green preachers who want us to change habits & the blue optimists who believe technology will finally solve most issues with no loose of comfort. I wanted to make this parallel with green or blue economy because the same discussion is going on in the impact investing space: some people strongly believe there is no trade-off between financial and social return. They look for companies with market conform returns and believe that’s the only way to grow. Others believe we should accept lower financial returns or higher risks, to discover the innovations and help them to grow before they are mature and eventually reach market conformity. We need both sides of the spectrum and that’s what I try to support since 10 years. In my opinion it is all about changing the mindset of investing, which is in essence about changing the human condition: can we be more empathic and more altruist for the common good even when in the short term it is less attractive for the person him/herself ? I strongly believe we are evolving on our planet towards a situation with polluted air, oceans full of plastic, global warming, where it is in our own personal interest to do more for the common good. We have to change mindsets and this takes time. The time we don’t have in case of the climate challenge.

I believe the biggest problem today is our mindset: we still accept people being selfish or companies destroying nature or presidents denying climate change, on the excuse of being the natural condition of humans: we still accept people will always go for the short term benefit for their own just because “it is natural”. But what is natural ? What is the nature of humans ? I dream of a world where every human being strives for the common good and no one is accepting egoism. We are the only species on earth able to fly to the moon, to use our brains and collaborate to invent treatments for diseases, to write and perform art works,… let’s become the only species in the world able to at least save the planet. Humans are the only animal species who can read and write, who can watch movies and understand literature. We are the only animal who can scientifically proof there is a climate crisis which will affect us all. We are the only species who can become angry or sad, just by reading letters in a newspaper about something terribly going wrong in the Amazone Forest. We cannot do nothing and pretend we didn’t know. We cannot keep quiet and continue our business as usual. This shift in the mindset is needed and I see my role in promoting it in the field of investing: by showing good examples of innovative social entrepreneurs who succeed in tackling a problem in a sustainable, healthy, inspiring way. Changing mindsets is a gentle evolution but the examples are often system changing or disruptive. We need both disruptions and gentle evolution, united around one common goal: positive impact for all.

In our book (“Allemaal Sociaal 3.0”) we described the interaction between exact these 3 major players. Social organisations and everyday citizens must become more entrepreneurial: everyone can become a changemaker. Corporates and companies should become more social. And we need a stronger policy level, not to solve everything on their own but to draft the boundaries, set the conditions, embody the rules with a long term vision and for the common good. Today we are in a crisis: politics seem not to work with more extremism, polarization, Brexit, populism… Governments complain, corporates complain and citizens complain. Every player in his/her corner, shooting on the others. While the only solution consists in more collaboration between those major players. And therefore we believe social entrepreneurs and inclusive businesses are best placed to show these new alliances.

I’m convinced we need to re-think the way our democracy is organized. Elections every 4 year and referenda with a simple yes/no question are not the best way to take the decisions for the long term in the common intrest. I would like to see a government of national unity where every party is represented and politicians are forced to find compromises without spindoctors, tweets or polls polarizing our society. If people see the positive effects and personal benefits of being more social and altruist, mindset will change.

Never give up when you see injustice: everyone can be a changemaker. As a consumer, you can inform yourself to vote everyday with your wallet. Choose those products and services who are better for planet & people. But inform yourself, be critical, because marketeers are smart and there is a lot of greenwashing, social washing, window dressing. And don’t be afraid to change your mind. Share what you have learnt to help people to make conscious consumption choices. And ask your bank for ethical investment products. Ask your bank about their fossil fuels policy. Choose a green energy provider. Eat less meat. But don’t blame others, but help them to change their minds. Optimism is a moral duty.

For me the urgency and dimensions of the climate crisis, explained in the alarming IPCC reports, was so obvious, that we simply cannot deny it anymore. It is about people, about ourselves, our children. Of course also about animals & nature. But the global warming above 2°C is not a problem for the planet itself. The globe will keep on turning, animals will adapt like they always did: some will die, others will come. The effects of global warming will be most extreme for the poorest people in the south, the ones who don’t have any responsibility in the current carbon levels, which were caused mainly by the Western countries. Those people in the South will migrate and look for better conditions. The current refugee numbers will only go up. It is not only our responsibility but also in our own intrest to tackle climate change. The costs of doing nothing are much higher than the investments needed to keep the warming below 2°C. We should act massively NOW: consumers, investors, companies, politicians,… Wake up !”

#impact investing #positive impact #sustainability #thepeoplebehindsustainability

3 notes · View notes

thearsonistbitch · 5 years

Text

Political Views or Some Shit Like That

1.Gun control

I won't deny that I keep a gun with me, nearly, all the time. Especially due to Sloane and how the people are around here. Despite carrying a weapon, I feel there should be a form of control. But I wouldn't necessarily agree with the very extensive tests discussed. Some yes, all no. I feel if you up the control screening more, crimes will just increase rather than decrease. More weaponry would be sold in the black market and the violence wouldn't cease. Gun control is a rocky view from my stand point to say the least.

2.Vaccines

Personally, if parents do not vaccinate their kids and believe in the hippie essential oils bullshit, I believe this world is going to die fairly quickly. Vaccinate your damn kids that way I can have children in the future and not have to worry about some freak viruses that the anti-vaccies have caused. I get that it can be scary and that there underlying possible causes. Trust me, I fucking hate hospitals as it is. But it'd be better than death.

3.Marijuana legalization

I believe, why not legalize it. It's safer than alcohol. Yet, alcohol is out here being sold to adults 21 and up. Also, a person with a marijuana charge will end up spending a longer sentence than someone that's out raping children. How is that even right? Legalize it. It helps people. Especially in the medicinal form. The only reason it became illegal in the first place is because a rich white asshole thought a black jazz man was going to take his wife or daughter from him. So he hired someone in the system to forge a bunch of statements about how marijuana caused murders, etc. If you're that damn scared of losing your wife or daughter, maybe you're doing something wrong.

4.Marriage equality

Considering I'm gay as fuck, you should know full well that I support marriage equality. Religious stand point or not. Nothing is black and white like the bible states. It's never been black and white. You gonna tell me that I can't marry the beautiful being I'm with because your God says, in an out of date script, that it's wrong? What about divorce? That's wrong. Marriage should be equal and let any damn person marry whoever they want. Hell, people marry their damn dogs. So why not let a not hetero couple do the same.

5.Privacy rights

Damn right you should have your own privacy. Fuck government surveillance and all that it stands for. It shouldn't even be an option. If I want a private phone call with someone I trust, it's not the government's right to spy and listen in. Ever heard of, this is an AB conversation now "C" your way out?

6.Global climate change

Global climate change is a thing. Those that disagree are dumb and blind as fuck. The east is barely getting winter now. Or when they do, it's the worst is ever been. Forest fires have gotten worse in the west. And the ice in Greenland is fucking melting. Is that not proof enough?

7.Transgender rights

I full heartedly believe transgender should have equal opportunity and rights just like everyone else. They want to die for their country? Fine. That's what the "don't ask, don't tell" was for. They want to be treated equal, do it. A dude wants to be a woman because they feel they were born in the wrong body. Fucking do it. Don't wanna conform to the stereotypical man or woman because you feel femme one day and masculine the next? Fucking go for it my dude. However, I do believe that those beings (such as myself when being nonbinary, transgender beings, etc) should see a gender therapist and find out their true feelings and wants before going and getting sex change surgeries. A lot have considered themselves trans due to society and social popularity forcing it on them, end up having the surgeries, and regret it. To be happy, you have to put in the work. See a therapist specifically designed to help you figure out your possible dysphoria.

8.Lives matter

The controversy of black lives and blue lives have become a huge issue. But why can't it be all lives? Blacks go for cops, even before the lives matter started. Blues have went for the blacks just the same. Honestly, I just think this world has become a sad dark place and all lives should be cherished.

9.Evolution

Evolution is a very weird topic for me. I believe we have evolved from sorts. But I also believe that something had to put us here. I don't necessarily believe in the big bang but something had to of happened to create us in the very beginning. Whether that's the God that the bible humpers believe in or whether it was another higher power. I have huge cross views with this as I also believe we were made of stars and stardust.

10.Green new deal

It is obvious that our world is changing. Humans are ruining it. And I believe when humans ruin mother nature, it just gives her more a reason to come back and beat their asses. The world will take back what belonged to it before humans ruined it and turned it to shit. We are tainting the world we live on and killing it. And mother nature is taking back by planning to wipe us out so she can renew herself again. Call me crazy, but that's how I feel on the matter.

#ac #ac144

1 note · View note

sly2o · 5 years

Text

Season 6 Plot Big Giant Spec Post

A - Major pieces I’m spec’ing for next season when I am feeling semi-confident on spec:

Nightblood is only needed for when BOTH suns are up.

Clarke will come to view the leader of the peaceful group they meet as a father figure.

“Our People” (Eligius, Delinquents, etc) will be sent on a mission to go mine hytholodium from a nearby asteroid. That hytholodium will be brought back and will power up something important for the finale.

Colonization of the new planet was originally modeled after how England initially settled the New World.

That plan went up in smoke when it was revealed the Earth had gone up in smoke and no subsequent waves of colonizers arrived.

B - Major pieces I am spec’ing that I am low-confident about:

Over the ~200 years that passed since those initial events, the planet split into two major factions: those with nightblood, and those without.

Nightbloods may be the subjugated class on this new planet.

The arrival of our people (Grounders, Eligius, Skykru, etc) will throw the current nightblood v. non-nightblood power balance into flux when it is revealed that the religion that evolved on Earth is one where nightbloods are revered.

It will become important for the oppressing class to figure out how to control The Flame.

C - Wilder pieces I am spec’ing:

If the non-nightbloods are the oppressing class, they will power up their version of ALIE in the finale.

OR, if the non-nightbloods are the oppressing class, we will get the AU where the “Mountain Men” got to return to Earth in the finale.

D - I am personally motivated to spec this, but also I got real reasons

“Unintended Consequences” (or something similar in Trig) will be the name of the Finale

Explanations for why I am spec’ing these things are under the cut, but can majorly be summarized as 1) I read The Sparrow, and 2) assumption that the EligiusIV twitter account is a valid source.

Warning: contains major spoilers for “The Sparrow”

A1 - This is implied through the BTS pictures we have of Clarke and Echo on the ground, the fact that “two suns, no sunscreen” was uttered by Shaw, and that in “The Sparrow” there is a species that sleeps through the time of day where only one sun is up.

A2 - “Clarke is in a really bad place right now” that Eliza has been saying in interviews, I strongly suspect she is having a similar story to the main character of The Sparrow. In the Sparrow the main character comes to view one of the aliens they meet as a daughter-figure. Clarke already has a daughter-figure (Madi), but Clarke has been missing a father figure for a while now. Plus Jake Griffin was back on set which supports this theory.

A3 - The BTS pictures that came out recently showed our cast on an Eligius vessel which describes a asteroid in the background that had a high amount of hytholodium. A while back there was a summary chart of the fake titles the writers had given to next season’s episodes - including two called “7 days part 1″ and “7 days part 2″ - with a gap in the middle. I strongly believe at minimum a subsection of our known characters will get sent on a mining mission.

A4 and A5 - I’m spec’ing this primarily on how “space colonization” has been stressed in the Eligius IV promo materials.

To clarify what I am talking about when I say “how England settled the New World” - I specifically am speaking to very early days colonialism (before the American Revolution) when lands were initially being taken away from the First Nations who lived there as England expanded. This is where England would have a white colonizer over there with a plot of land they were setting up for their way of life, and contracts would be made where other white colonizers would become “indentured servants” where they would have a contract drawn up where they got X amount of clothes per year, meals, a place to live, and at the end of 10 years or so of work would be given their own piece of property. Then they would become the lead of their own piece of property - and could coordinate a contract where they get their own indentured servants, and so the cycle repeats.

The destruction of Earth would have resulted in - to put it mildly - some contract disputes for those who were expecting subsequent waves of people to come to help them set up their own properties. This would set off major conflict among those who settled the new planet.

Particularly a new tweet from EligiusIV specifically mentions “there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves”.

B1-4 - I put these all in a “low-confidence” category because I am uncertain what this “alien” life is and how important it is. My spec is based on a premise that the Alien life is either 1) not really important, or 2) a cute way to say that “we’ve evolved so separately it’s like they are alien to us”. If alien life is a real thing, then a lot of my spec will likely be hogwash.

B1 - I am spec’ing this because it’s a redux of the Mountain Men vs Grounders, and also because a similar divide is found in The Sparrow. I am also spec’ing this because we know that redblooded people can give birth to people with nightblood. I have assumed that people with nightblood can give birth to people with redblood because otherwise the 100 year evolution that allowed people to reclaim the ground makes no sense. However we don’t really have proof of this thanks to the conclave, and the science/math on this show can be dubious anyways. It’s also another way to divide Clarke from her people which Jason loves to do.

B2 and B3 - This would be a reverse of how the religion on Earth evolved, which would naturally cause conflict, which is part of why I am spec’ing this.

I am also spec’ing this because

only the nightbloods would be able to be outside during the day - raising cause for why they are obligated to be the workers

it puts Clarke in the worker class (”let the privileged do the work for a change”)

it implies that that once the redblooded people started to be born that instead of casting them out for being genetically inferior, that work was done initially to protect them. We know Murphy and Clarke are going to be at odds this season, and that them being at odds could in some ways present a different look at “protecting the weak” vs. “taking advantage of the strong” because of how Murphy is tied to Emori who got cast out for being different, and Clarke being tied to this subjugated class. (I hope I explained this properly, since this is a very messy and complicated idea).

The fact that people with redblood worship someone with nightblood would be seen as radical and cause major issue on the new planet.

An easy way to temporarily placate the masses would be to say that Madi is only raised up as a nightblood because she has The Flame.

B4 - Irrespective of who the subjugated class is, the fact of the matter remains that a group of people led by a child soldier have landed on this planet and the reason she is raised above others is because she has a chip in her neck. The BTS pictures on the Eligius ship seemed to me to include an electronic schematic of The Flame - which to me begs the question of if they will try to reverse program The Flame this season (or something similar).

I am also low confidence on this one because another thing that could be happening here is that this chip wasn’t meant to last 200 years - and that it is starting to decay in Madi’s head after 125 in cryo, and needs to be repaired.

Or maybe it’s both things!

C1 - Putting this in the “wild” category for a few reasons. However I will say my primary reason for spec’ing this is because ALIE can relieve pain - and I have to wonder whether she can relieve the pain caused by solar radiation. To me the cascading events here are 1- redblood people can’t access their own mining ship or simply don’t have mining ship, 2- they get Our People to go mine the asteroid, and 3 - they turn on their version of the ALIE1.0 machine in the finale. This presumes the ALIE code was ever sent to these people in the first place. However it is possible it could be retconned that ALIE1.0 was developed as a permanent solution to the “nightbloods don’t always give birth to redbloods” problem - if that indeed was a problem. Also - with the trauma that was caused in the 6 year stay in the bunker, Abby’s addiction being stressed as a longing for the City of Light, and the fact that our main characters are almost evenly divided between those who did and didn’t go to the City of Light - I think the return of ALIE1.0 wouldn’t be so easily defeated.

C2 - Alternatively, it may be that Abby and Jackson are leveraged because they know (although may be a bit rusty about) the recipe for creating nightblood. They may spend the season recreating that recipe with the scientists on the ground. We did see a BTS picture (that got deleted) where the guy who played Robin Hood on OUAT was in a medical smock and had bits of black on that smock - which may be nightblood.

Either way for part C - I am anticipating these new “Mountain Men” to find a way to the ground in the finale.

D1 - Jason has spoken about how Clarke really takes to heart Monty’s message of “be the good guys”. It would follow the plot of The Sparrow, as well as simply fit into the type of show this is, to have Clarke try her hardest to “be the good guy” and then end up “being the bad guy” due to unintended consequences.

#the 100 #the 100 meta

50 notes · View notes

symonde · 5 years

Text

Dark sun (part 5) Taking responsibilities (Beckett/Zeph)

Pairing: Beckett x mc

Book: the Elementalists

Word Count : +/- 1352

Summary: Beckett strikes a deal with Zeph

Masterlist “Dark Sun” : Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Tag-List: @itsbrindleybinch @flyawayboo @daisy-ashton @alegria1580 @thefarrari

Joane’s spell illuminated the school grounds for three days straight. Only the wards kept it from spreading further. The school and the professors tried to keep up a normal schedule for classes but every student engaged in either ‘care for the magical creatures’ or ‘natural disaster regulation’ had to deal with the more urgent consequences of her magick. No one knew how to reverse it, so they had to wait for its effects to die down and reduce the caused damage to a minimum.

Beckett worried constantly about Joane but he couldn’t visit her for either Shreya, Zephyr or Griffin practically camped near her sickbed. He also needed to take on his assigned classes. To his own surprise, his first class had started out to be a success. His students respected him and listened to what he had to say. His reputation seemed finally to pay off. He introduced them to the various theories on how the magickal attunements could have taken root in people and creatures up to modern genetics. Beckett decided ultimately that he would give them a challenge to face outside off class to sort out the most promising students.

“As your first assignment I want you to crosscheck the very different theories of Mr. Magnus Blunt, Mr. Seamus Scrate and Mrs. Edna Weil in detail. All of these authors all have written essays on how they believe that magick takes root in certain species whilst not in others. The theories have been written in different time periods, and on different continents, so there will be social and religious characteristics to take into account. Analyse the differences in their evolutional theories based on scientific facts and your practical knowledge of magickal abilities. Where are the flaws in their reasoning? Who relays on beliefs rather than on scientific proof? You have three weeks for this assignment and you can work on it during our classes on Mondays. I will be available for questions at that time. I will expect at least 20 pages of analysis and another 10 pages of reflection on the subject – the manuscripts you need will be available at my desk – Thank you for your attention.” His class took notes on their assignment but he could see that they hadn’t expected this workload so early in his class. Yet they all nodded and took the manuscripts, before heading out.

“Well, well, well, the famous Mr. Harrington decided to grace us with his presence – how long can we count on you this time?” Zeph was leaning leisurely against the doorframe – his moves were cautious but his voice carried a hint of sarcasm and he seemed not on the verge of throwing some magick at him, so Beckett allowed himself to slightly relax. Out of Jo’s friends, he always liked Zeph best. He was also the only one that hadn’t expressed any deeper feelings for Jo over the years – not that he could blame anyone for having these...

“You handled your first class not so badly until you gave the class roughly 3.000 pages of scientific reviews to read and to analyse. Your students won’t even have time to hate you if you keep this workload up.” Zeph smirked, but his voice betrayed him being uncomfortable. Was it because he was concerned for the students or because he talked to him?

“Hi...” Beckett considered his words, frowning slightly. “... well, there are numerous detailed theories out there that are spreading non-scientifically founded beliefs. My students have to be able to distinguish them whatever their source. When they have understood this we can go on....”

“Listen to me Beckett... I know you do not have your social amplifier anymore since you threw her away... but I am trying to help you here... god knows why...” Zeph muttered. “You are teaching a class, were some students might be very talented but others will not. You crashed these students just now with a workload that I would have trouble finishing in that amount of time, and I passed that class with distinction. You went already beyond the requirements of the curriculum on your first day. I suggest you take it a little bit easier on them in the next few classes. They are afraid they won’t pass your class already now... when you keep this up they will start to cheat in your papers and skip your classes because they feel like they can’t keep up anyways. A lot of students in their teens already have low self esteem...”

“Are you done?” Beckett didn’t like being lectured on how to teach his students. He sighed biting back his temper “I... I might consider your points when you tell my why you are really here.” Beckett took a deep breath before continuing “Since I am back, neither you nor Griffin or Shreya have talked to me... I can’t visit Jo... I know I apparently have messed up pretty big, but I don’t know what happened here and no one will talk to me. So tell me what you want from me?” Beckett felt his hopes crumble when he saw Zeph arch up his eyebrows in surprise at his outbreak.

“I do not believe that we should be the first to tell our part of the story” however Zeph saw the hurt and worry in Beckett’s eyes. And he had admitted that his teaching was not perfect. He seemed changed, at least a little bit. “What happened 5 years ago to you? Why didn’t you tell anyone you were leaving or at least wrote a message explaining yourself afterwards? It’s not only Joane who was hurt, you know. The rest off us considered you a friend too.”

When Beckett didn’t reply right away and looked away blushing, Zeph sighed frustrated – perhaps not that much changed after all... “Listen Mister wannabe perfect in everything. You messed up pretty big with us and I can not consider weather you could help us get through to Joane if I do not know your motives for leaving...” He turned to leave.

Beckett had to steady himself before he was able to respond. He had had friends... that had cared about him. How could he make this right again with all of them? “Zeph wait... i will tell you all that i can but I would like to have Shreya and Griffin there too. They seem to hate me even more then you or Joane do... Do you think they would agree meeting with us so that I can explain myself...?”

Zeph considered his offer carefully. But then shook his head... “I don’t honestly know. Griffin probably yes, but Shreya can’t even stand someone say your name right now... and then I believe there is one person you should tell first what happened. Jo won’t like it but she has to know or she will never be able to deal with it.”

Beckett’s face must have betrayed his sinking stomach at that... the last time he had approached her, she apparently had tried to kill herself... “Listen, considering her condition now – she will probably wake soon. Physically there is nothing wrong with her. Her mind needs to accept that and wake up. I will tell Griffin about it, and I will be just next door... ” Zeph told him – daring him not to argue.

Beckett’s voice was barely a whisper. “Why do you help me?”

“I simply can’t believe that you would consciously be willing to hurt her. You were never a good actor and I believe you loved her once. No one can fake that love stricken look you always gave her. Furthermore you passed the infirmary everyday to ask about her, yet you never tried to force your way in like a Harrington without a conscience would have done. You need to face your responsibilities” Zeph shot him a final evaluating glace before leaving. “You are welcome.”

Joane was hurt, but perhaps Beckett would be able to help her get back to herself. God knows they had tried everything else and Joane was slowly gliding away, detaching herself more and more from her emotions and her humanity.

#the elementalists #the elementalists fanfiction #beckett harrington #beckett x mc #beckett harrington x mc #beckett harrington fanfiction #zephyr hernandez #dark sun series #dark sun #joane raven

32 notes · View notes

atheostic · 5 years

Text

Sh!t Abrahamic (Jewish, Christian, & Muslim) Theists Say

“Atheists believe the universe came from nothing via the Big Bang.”

1. The question is flawed, because “who created the universe” implies a sentient agent is required for a universe to be created.

It’s not.

2. If the claim that “something can’t come from nothing” is correct then either your deity came from something or your deity is a nothing.

And if your deity came from something, what was it and where did it come from, and so on and so on?

3. We can’t say something can’t come from nothing just because we’ve never seen something coming from nothing.

To do so would be what’s called a Black Swan fallacy.

The fallacy’s name comes from the example that the fallacy being committed would be akin to someone saying “black swans don’t exist because I’ve never seen a black swan”; it could very well be that you’ve never seen a black swan because they don’t exist, but you can’t be sure.

You would be correct to refrain from believing in black swans until such a time as proof of their existence was provided, but you couldn’t claim to know they don’t exist.

4. Since we have never had a nothing to examine we can’t make any claims about the nature of nothing, as we don’t have enough data to make any assumptions.

We can say that it’s highly unlikely that something in our universe as we know it can come from nothing, but NOT that we’re certain it’s not possible.

5. We cannot use the universe as we know it to make assumptions about what reality was like before the Big Bang, because the universe as we know it might very well not have existed until the first moment of the Big Bang.

As such, the rules that control our universe might be utterly irrelevant to cosmology.

We have no reason to believe anything started the Big Bang (nor do we have reason to believe something didn’t either) because we don’t have enough data to make any claims whatsoever about anything beyond the moment where the Big Bang occurred.

It may be that one day science gets advanced enough that we can solve the mystery of “what (if anything) existed before the Big Bang?”, but as it currently stands, anyone claiming to know for certain that they know what conditions were like before the Big Bang is either lying through their teeth or deluded.

6. Even if we were to assume that the universe didn’t always exist, it doesn’t mean the Big Bang had to have a cause to happen.

I know it seems counter-intuitive because in the universe as we know it there is no example of a consequence without a cause. But before the Big Bang our universe as we know it didn’t exist, and we have no way of knowing if reality behaved under the same parameters or some other way entirely.

Hell, some scientists even theorize that before the Big Bang there were way more dimensions than just the four we have now!

In fact, many scientists hypothesize that the universe always existed:

“The existence of gravitational waves is strong evidence that “our” universe may not only exist alongside an infinite number of parallel worlds, but may itself be infinite in extent, containing endless copies of our galaxy – and indeed our world and you and me – located countless trillions of light years apart.”

7. Scientists not knowing what happened before the Big Bang doesn’t mean “God did it” is correct.

Scientists not knowing something doesn’t mean you get to make up whatever you want, treat it as fact, and claim that people should believe you because you said so.

That’s not how reality works.

8. How the universe came to be isn’t a binary either/or option.

It’s not “either the Big Bang is true or 1+ god(s) did it”.

9. We know that the Big Bang happened because there’s evidence to back it up.

If there weren’t the Big Bang would be a hypothesis, not a theory.

Some of the most compelling evidence includes:

The Hubble Expansion - “The vast majority of galaxies are moving away from us, and the velocity of their recession is proportional to their distance from us,”with the ones further away moving faster, and the ones closest moving slower.

The Doppler Effect & Redshift - “The further from us a star is the more its light is red-shifted. This tells us that distant galaxies are moving away from us, and that the further a galaxy is the faster it is moving away.”

^ Spectrum of Helium in our sun

^ Spectrum of Helium of a distant star

Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation - “The “blackbody” nature of the CMB is exactly that expected from an initial (Big Bang) “fireball” of radiation.”

Predicted and observed abundances of light elements - Element abundance predictions based on the creation of light atomic nuclei (eg. Deuterium, which stars can only destroy, not create) during the first few minutes of the Big Bang agree extremely well with those observed. Helium, for example, should be about 25% of the total mass of the Universe according to the Big Bang model.

Guess what the content of helium we have observed in stars and gas clouds is.

Quasars - “We see a lot of quasars in the distant cosmos, which means these objects were very common billions of years ago. But there are hardly any quasars in our local, up-to-date neighborhood. And they’re common enough in the far-away (that is, young) universe that we should see a lot more in our vicinity. The simple conclusion: The universe was different in its past than it is today.”

Olbers’ paradox - “The sky should be ablaze with the combined light of a multitude of stars. That means either the universe is not infinite in size or it’s not infinite in time. Or maybe it’s neither.”

10. The Big Bang has nothing to do with atheism.

a) People believe in the Big Bang because there is testable evidence to back it up.

Many (if not most) theists believe in the Big Bang because it is able to correctly predict things about how our universe works and the more we learn the more evidence we have to corroborate its accuracy.

If one day we find some evidence that contradicts the Big Bang theory it will cease to be a theory and a new theory will replace it.

Until such a time, however, we have no reason to think the current theory is inaccurate.

b) The Big Bang has nothing to do with why I’m an atheist.

Neither does evolution or any other bit of science you don’t like because it contradicts how you want reality and the universe to work.

I’m an atheist because I am unable to believe a claim about the existence of a deity without testable evidence to back up that claim.

As the saying goes, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”.

If a claim is not testable, it is not reliable, because it cannot be corroborated via the scientific method, which is the single most reliable method we have to understand our reality (if you can think of a better way, I’d love to hear it; you’d be legit eligible to win a Nobel for innovation).

11. Proving the Big Bang wrong would not be proof of the existence of 1+ deities.

It would be proof that we were wrong about the Big Bang and that we needed to look at the evidence we have and try to come up with a new theory of why the evidence we have is the way it is.

12 notes · View notes

stageonmay · 5 years

Text

so let’s talk about this wallace cup thing a repost, purely for organization’s sake.

subject of discourse: who should have won: may or dawn?

disclaimer: now i’m gonna go ahead and acknowledge that we as RPers obviously have our biases for our characters. but what i CAN say is that i didn’t warm up to may until WELL after i watched DP and tbh i’ve held this opinion for some time. believe me or not--i’m going to go through this step-by-step.

what i want to do, to make this as simple as possible, is address the most common arguments (and also maybe some off the dash lol) i see for Dawn’s victory and tell you why they’re bologna.

everything under the cut cause it is LONG.

Exhibit A: Their Parents.

it is REALLY easy to say “well dawn’s mom was a coordinator” and bam. we’re done. but i want to challenge you to not... do that. let’s look at may first.

may is the daughter of a gym leader and a ???? housewife i guess. one would assume that she naturally loves training and is damn good at it. but, not only was she not allowed to watch gym battles (which is why she and max were so excited to watch ash’s battle), but she turned out to be literally afraid of pokemon and only left the house to get away from them. she then ends up falling in love with coordinating because she sees that pokemon can be beautiful, graceful, and fun.

now dawn. dawn is the daughter of a top coordinator, and we know nothing about her dad. she looks up to her mother to the extent that she worried a lot about living up to her legacy, but not so much that it overly crippled her. it’s heavily implied that dawn didn’t actually spend much time training with her mom. johanna really emphasizes dawn’s need to learn on her own--we in fact hardly see her give advice even as she’s on her journey. dawn doesn’t break away from the “family tradition” per se, but over the course of her journey she worries less about living up to “mom” and more about being the best “her” she can be.

the important takeaway here is that these stories have a core theme in common: that your parents do not define YOU. and as such, this argument doesn’t really work. it in fact defeats the purpose of their entire arcs, and, even on a technical level it’s pretty flimsy for reasons i pointed out above.

Exhibit B: Glaceon was a brand new evolution.

honestly there’s not much to say here um. charizard beating aerodactyl. ursula with her flareon & vaporeon appeal. Kkngler in the pokemon league. Swellow to win that tournament. Pignite to beat Shamus.

not only is winning via recent evolution a common pokemon trope, but the very concept is that if you understand your pokémon well, you can easily adapt to this change and succeed.

if you need further proof, just consider when the opposite was the case. ash was so used to winning after evolutions that when turtwig evolved, he got overconfident and misused him because he didn’t consider how his body had changed. So in that case a lack of understanding hurt him.

but given that may explicitly wanted a glaceon, i highly doubt she lacked that understanding of what she was getting into. this is just a really flimsy excuse at best.

Exhibit C: Literally any nitpicking about the battle itself.

you guys. the characters aren’t real. the writers decide how the battle goes. the writers make these choices. and if you felt at all upset when ash lost the kalos league? then you understand.

Exhibit D: Dawn needed a win.

ah, yes. my personal favorite. (which is to say I hate hearing this and from this point forward will demand 10 USD from everyone who says it to me.) first, a reminder: may was participating in the wallace cup because she needed a win herself. this was a high-stakes battle for BOTH of them so honestly I’d LOVE to end the counterargument here but I have more.

the thing is, guys, yes. dawn needed a win. but there’s no reason, at all, plot-wise, that that win needed to be against may.

a better thing to do would have been to give her an opportunity to conquer someone like zoey; someone in her realm of rivals, who is a challenge for her, but who could easily bounce back from a loss.

“But ky, what about the wallace cup??? how would you change it?? wouldn’t may still lose?????”

actually, no. we can do one of two things with the wallace cup:

a) push it earlier. maybe even allow more cameos. this could possibly even be the start of dawn’s temporary downfall rather than the end, which would be interesting because she would write off that loss at first. well it WAS may. no big deal. can’t be mad about losing to someone so nice and experienced. and to paraphrase geoff, it would give sort of a parallel. this is what dawn could become. woulda been nice.

b) push it later. let dawn have her win, and put the wallace cup closer to the grand festival. it could be a BIG DEAL around the world because the wallace cup is considered like a “warm up” for all the festivals and one of the LAST opportunities to get a ribbon. competition is FIERCE. only the best make it through. dawn’s loss is far enough away from her past ones that rather than take it hard, she becomes DETERMINED to train up for the grand festival. woulda been nice.

And lastly, (Exhibit E): I want to address the issue of skill/talent.

may simply showed more growth in a shorter period of time than dawn did. that’s a fact. whether dawn had more experience with her mom or not, she still loved pokemon. was around them. had a sense of what she was doing.

but may went from being afraid to even pick her starter to competing in a grand festival on her first try (this included conquering cheating in that season at least twice). she then went on to travel more regions, become more seasoned and no--i don’t want to discredit dawn at ALL. but it says something about your talent and skill to be able to grow so fast, and may should only have kept going up and up. it doesn’t make sense that dawn would have surpassed her having only started her journey.

and like... is it so bad? to let your old character shine? what’s the point of bringing them back if not to celebrate them?

obviously people are still going to disagree with me. but i think it was a HUGE disservice to may’s character for her to lose. like, if they were going to do her wrong, then just. don’t bring her back.

and that wraps up my hopefully-not-too emotional opinion about the wallace cup results, feel free to like, reblog, reply, whatever you like !

#wallace cup #coordinator may #coordinator dawn #coordinator haruka #coordinator hikari #haruka may #hikari dawn #ok to rb #☙❀❧⎬i'm holding onto this forever! ❀ ⌠saved⌡#☙❀❧⎬forge your own path! or something like that! ❀ ⌠retcon⌡

11 notes · View notes

sunflowerchester · 5 years

Text

I’ve had on odd relationship with time in 2018. As I look back on events of this year I’ve found that most of them feel like they’ve taken place weirdly out of order. Upon discussing this phenomenon with Rach, I realized we both felt this way. Then scrolling through my feeds on assorted social media I came to the conclusion that a LOT of us feel weird about how 2018 unfolded.

I started this year by losing my Grandma but that feels more recent to me than when I started dating an ex again in August. I visited Anya in Seattle at the beginning of May which feels more recent than when I went to Canada at the end of June. Going to NYC with Rocky at the beginning of June feels like it took place last year as does when Rachael came to visit me this past March. However she also came to visit me last December for my birthday which feels more recent than her March visit??

When I looked back at my Instagram archive, I couldn’t believe my little cousin’s wedding was just in February, and while I was going through all these twilight-zone-like epiphanies about how distorted time feels in 2018 Thursday morning, I realized it hadn’t even been a week since I was at work last. Which of course felt like a whole other type of surreal, because at that point, I felt like I had been off work for a month.

So as this year winds down I feel this pressure from within me bubbling up telling me to write a year-end retrospective, and while I have been procrastinating the start of whatever this is I’ve been wondering what is it that I want to say, and I think it’s this: In our never-ending desire to already be Where We’re Supposed To Be or to have Learned Our Lesson and Checked That Box, it’s natural to want to close out a year as if it’s the end of a story or a chapter with all the ducks falling behind us nicely in a row, to find meaning in all you’ve experienced within it. But what’s more reasonable to expect is, like this ridiculous wad of tangled up earbuds masquerading as 2018, we are not linear, our journeys are not in a straight line, and neither is our growth or evolution, neither is our story arc. I mean, if time doesn’t even have to adhere to chronological order, why do we feel we have to? And maybe you don’t feel that way (congrats!) but I sometimes box myself in, so therefore sometimes I do.

This was a year where I got to participate in my 2nd Women’s March. I saw one of my favorite bands, The Killers, after missing them for four years. I settled into my apartment and realized I love my apartment (the amount of skyline pictures I post weekly that all seem to look like the exact same picture is proof of that). I got to see Lorde in concert in --like-- the 5th row and definitely cried. I attended rallies and marches for things I believe in even when I had to go alone. I received my 10 year plaque at my job. I voted in multiple elections. I saw Congressman O’rourke speak at least 4 times. I saw Michelle Obama speak. I made it to my 100th ride at spin and I’m still going and still loving it. I started therapy. I got to see Haim with Lizzo in concert across the street from my apartment. I danced with one of my best friends in the rain, then walked to get pizza. I asked an artist I respect, Bo Burnham, a question about a piece of art he created that really meant something to me, Eighth Grade, and he answered it. I got my first tattoo. I said goodbye when my boundaries were breached and I didn’t feel guilty about it. I walked around London by myself. I paid off my student loan. I also saw Paramore in concert and Sir Elton John! I stood on the tallest building in NYC and got to see it as the sun set. I played with other people’s dogs and even got to dogsit from time to time.

I shouldn’t end a year like that feeling I accomplished little just because there was no straight line to be drawn through my “progress,” a term I don’t even really know how to define or why it matters! Sometimes trying to quantify a year (Well, yes I did watch Rent last night, why do you ask?) or figure out What it All Means can diminish an experience rather than highlight it. In the new year, I plan to let myself be what I am, where I am, and how I am, only, and push myself in ways that don’t box me in but allow me to flourish naturally, be it linear or not. (Spoiler: it won’t be linear.)

The warped way 2018 exists in my memory has served as a reminder to me that I don’t have to have it all figured out yet because no one ever does, not even time. You never reach a truly enlightened point in life where you’ve leveled up so far, you no longer struggle. You just get better at adjusting and dealing with what you face when it’s time to face struggle.

I’m ready to say “thank u, next” to 2018 and see what weird time loop 2019 will be.

#2018 #that's a text post #it's personal whatever #my writing

4 notes · View notes

meditativeyoga · 5 years

Text

Why Many Are Now Drawn To Holistic Healing

Learn why holistic recovery is becoming an increasingly popular choice to western medicine.

Joanne Perron, M.D., spent five years practicing medicine in a busy OB/GYN workplace, where the individuals rotated with as if on a production line-- in and also out in 10 mins. 'I was exhausted,' she remembers by phone from her home in Monterey, The golden state. 'By the end of the day, I really felt disconnected and also emphasized. Eventually, I got extremely aggravated as well as disillusioned and also started to ask myself, 'Is that there is?"

Perron needed to encounter that she wasn't the therapist she had actually laid out to end up being. 'Traditional medication is like a religion,' she claims. 'You get indoctrinated at an early age, and afterwards often you begin to doubt your idea system. You begin to ask, 'Why?'-- or, more crucial, 'Why not?"

The doubting began as she realized that the points conventional medication had educated her didn't often treat her people. As well as several of those patients came back to inform her they would certainly gotten much better after attempting different therapies-- for instance, botanical treatments for menopausal symptoms, Chinese natural herbs for uterine bleeding, or acupuncture for discomfort. In Georgia, where she was after that exercising medicine, petition is typically employed in order to help healing as well. 'I really felt there was a void in my expertise. My people were pursuing points I understood absolutely nothing around,' she claims. 'I had discovered all that I could, but I recognized I required to discover more.' Perron reduced her hrs at the workplace as well as began taking yoga classes, in time, she signed up in a 200-hour yoga educator accreditation program.

Perron's patients belong to the expanding group of Americans transforming toward complementary and also natural medicine to cure their ills and enhance their lifestyle. A national survey launched last Might by the National Facility for Complementary and Natural medicine (NCCAM) and the National Center for Health Stats found that 36 percent of UNITED STATE adults utilize corresponding and natural medicine. That number jumps to 62 percent when prayer made use of specifically for health factors is consisted of in the definition. The factors for alternate medication's popularity go past the useful, according to a 1998 Journal of the American Medical Association post authored by John A. Astin, Ph.D., labelled 'Why Clients Use Different Medicine.' Astin composed that individuals looking for alternative medication aren't always dissatisfied with traditional medicine, yet they find 'these healthcare choices to be extra congruent with their very own values, ideas, and philosophical orientations toward wellness as well as life.' It holds true, there has been a considerable evolution in our time towards a much more proactive, all natural sight of health. Conventional medicine has a lopsided sight of the physical, mental, as well as spiritual body,' surmises Andrew Weil, M.D. By currently a cultural symbol with his friendly smile and also big grey beard, Weil has long been willing to handle the clinical mainstream and also supporter exactly what he calls integrative medication. His definition of the term is really simple: healing-oriented medication that considers the entire individual (body, mind, and also spirit), consisting of all elements of lifestyle. It emphasizes the therapeutic partnership between customer as well as healer as well as utilizes all proper treatments, both standard as well as alternative.

In 1994, Weil was important in developing the University of Arizona medical college's Program in Integrative Medication, the first detailed, continuing-education fellowship to give doctors the possibility to find out about alternative treatments such as botanicals, acupuncture, Reiki, massage, diet plan, and also reflection-- and how they could be made use of to improve clinical care, protect against ailment, as well as improve lifestyle. However more crucial, this program encourages a thoughtful shift in the technique of the healing arts. 'Instead of simply bringing these treatments in with an emphasis on condition, we're taking a look at the entire body, at way of life, at the partnership between the expert as well as the patient,' Weil discusses. 'Not just is this the sort of medication individuals want, but it has the possible to recover the core values of medicine in an age of handled treatment.'

Perron registered in the College of Arizona's Integrative Medication program specifically to return to a path a lot more straightened with her original objectives for coming to be a medical professional. 'I wished to feel more like I was taking part in recovery,' she explains.

Perron remained in the second graduating class of an associate fellowship program that requires 1,000 hrs certainly work (mostly online) over a two-year duration and also three on-site workshops. Until now, the University of Arizona's Program in Integrative Medication has ended up 151 doctors that have found out the best ways to integrate the most effective of the East and the West into their medical techniques-- and also right into their very own lives.

Yet, how far have we actually come since Weil began his program, considering there are more compared to 800,000 medical professionals in the country? Medical schools are loath to require an integrative curriculum. Also the University of Arizona medical institution does not require an integrative program, integrative medicine stays an elective. Under these situations, what type of impact can 150 or so physicians make?

Even though some people in the clinical establishment refer patients to therapies like acupuncture or massage therapy, there still exists a bias towards allopathic (that is, conventional) medication. Perron has actually experienced this resistance from medical coworkers that are doubtful of her integrative approach. 'There is this uncertainty that just what I'm attempting to do is also 'woo-woo,' also much out in left field,' she says.

Weil has certainly took on his reasonable share of flak, a few of it virulent. As an example, in a 1998 New Republic post, Weil gadfly Arnold S. Relman, M.D., former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine and also teacher emeritus of medicine as well as social medication at Harvard Medical College, believed," Breathing' is a crucial and persisting style in Weil's prescriptions for wellness as well as healing, and it holds a popular place in [ Weil's book] 8 Weeks to Optimum Wellness, which showed up in 1997. As far as I can see, his viewpoints on this subject are largely nonsense.' Relman, apparently unknown with the yogic arts, included, 'In the lack of sustaining proof ... skepticism is certainly in order, specifically considering that idea in much of just what Weil is claiming concerning body and mind, and the ability of consciousness to run in the physical world, requires a rejection of the essential physical legislations upon which our present views of nature and the human body are based.' Weil rejects these remarks as a tirade from 'the quackbuster group. They'll pass from the scene. They're ideologues declaring to be doubters.'

With or without Weil, the medical facility could not neglect the pattern towards integrative medicine, especially taking into consideration the economics. In 1998, Americans invested $23.7 billion on alternative health and wellness care companies, in 1999, they spent $4.4 billion on herbs, up from $2.5 billion in 1995. In addition, the percentage of healthcare facilities supplying complementary and natural medicine has actually increased, from 8 percent in 1998 to 16.7 percent in 2002, inning accordance with the American Healthcare facility Organization. Clinical institutions have taken note: virtually two-thirds currently provide some sort of elective integrative medication curriculum.

Tracy Gaudet, M.D., supervisor of Fight it out College's Facility for Integrative Medicine (she was formerly the executive director of the University of Arizona's integrative medication program), has given herself as well as her cohorts a big charge. 'Our objective is to change the entire strategy to health care in this country,' she describes. 'We realize that it's not nearly using botanicals or obtaining acupuncture. Individuals are stating they desire the entire standard of therapy to change towards an extra aggressive concept. People wish to intend for their health as well as not await something bad to happen. In this way we're checking out the entire range of a person-- mind, body, and spirit, not just the body.'

To that finish, Gaudet and also her coworkers at Duke have created what they're calling a 'prospective' health and wellness care version, one that provides patients with individualized health care preparation and goals making use of a variety of modalities outside the clinical mainstream-- practices and also sources like yoga, mindfulness, reflection, and nourishment. Maybe the most innovative element of the Fight it out design is the principle of a 'health and wellness instructor,' a person educated to encourage actions modification. Initial results from a 10-month pilot research study, provided at an American Heart Association conference in 2014, suggest that participants in the treatment group significantly reduced their risk of developing heart problem. As well as this year, Duke will release outcomes showing that this group worked out extra regularly as well as consumed more healthy meals compared to the control group.

Renée Halberg, a licensed scientific social employee at the Battle each other College Eye Center, registered in the research study to assist take care of tension and also menopausal weight gain. At her consumption interview, she learned that her family members history of adult-onset diabetes and also hypertension, combined with her being overweight, greatly enhanced her danger for those diseases. 'I found out how much I might alter that negative outcome,' she states. 'It was worrying when they provided me with these threat variables expressed in lab results. It was also really motivating.'

The most valuable skill Halberg found out was the ability to change her habits towards the anxiety in her life. 'Like hundreds of various other people, I replaced food for things I lost: I was depressed. I was grieving over not having had a youngster. I underwent a divorce. And I acquired 60 pounds,' she remembers. 'That was terrible, particularly given that I didn't have any type of devices to do anything regarding it.'

The program, particularly the mindfulness and reflection training, aided her locate her self-confidence as well as motivation.

So far, she has actually lost concerning 25 extra pounds and also transformed her diet plan to incorporate whole grains, seeds, veggies, and health foods and also to remove fats and processed carbs. Her high blood pressure went from 150/90 to 120/80, and also her cholesterol levels are stable. The breathwork and also leisure skills are exactly what have helped her the a lot of. 'Whenever I have the impulse to consume something like a sweet bar, I do deep breathing or progressive muscle mass leisure,' she says. 'It takes my mind off it, as well as by the time I'm completed, I shed the wish. I feel focused as well as refreshed, and also I understand I can depend on myself rather than simply reacting to the tensions of the external globe.'

Research like Battle each other College's is vital to impacting change within the clinical establishment. Without it, it's really tough for the clinically minded to approve an extra integrative method to medicine. Fortunately is that funding for alternate treatment research has expanded significantly, owned mostly by the production of the NCCAM. From a first annual spending plan of $2 million in 1993, the center has actually expanded to a projected 2005 budget plan surpassing $121 million, and also today it is moneying groundbreaking research.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Facility in New york city is one of the organizations taking benefit of NCCAM's grant cash. Having actually opened up an integrative medicine center in 1999 both to deal with patients and also to better clinical analysis of corresponding therapies, the research healthcare facility has a number of studies in progress. One is checking out the results of acupuncture on bust cancer cells patients experiencing from chemotherapy-induced hot flashes, another is exploring massage therapy, and a third is discovering whether certain Oriental herbs can minimize or eliminate off tumors. The facility's healing as well as research study job is nicely intertwined and also accessible-- for instance, its Internet site (www.mskcc.org) consists of an 'Concerning Natural herbs' data source of natural herbs, botanicals, vitamins, and supplements that is examined and monitored by an oncology-trained pharmacist as well as a botanicals expert. It gives overviews of study, communication info, as well as damaging results, and mentions the benefits of natural medicine-- overall, a significant resource.

But also the world-renowned cancer facility experienced resistance when it initially opened its integrative center. 'It certainly took child actions,' claims Simone Zappa, the facility's program director. Once the doctors saw that alternate medication was efficient at handling symptoms like pain, queasiness, and also fatigue, however, points got easier. 'I think I could state that we're 90 percent there currently. There are still particular points we have to be aware of. Medical professionals aren't going to take us seriously if we begin chatting concerning chakras and power. Whatever our idea is, we need to maintain credibility in the doctors' eyes.'

Sloan-Kettering's integrative medicine center supplies both in- as well as outpatient care. For people in the medical facility, specialists come to the bedside as well as offer massage, meditation, hypnosis, and also yoga sessions-- at no added charge. Simply 3 blocks away, in a spa-like setup, is the Bendheim Integrative Medicine Facility, Sloan-Kettering's outpatient integrative medication center. Simply inside the entryway is a gurgling water fountain and also soft, relaxing shades. Crystals and also mandala art poise a few of the wall surfaces. Organic tea, fruit, or juice breaks and also discussion take area in a small kitchen location. At this facility, people and also their households could take yoga exercise classes, discover hypnosis or reflection, get a massage therapy, see a nutritionist, receive acupuncture, or take qi gong. 'We are very involved with the family members as well,' Zappa explains. 'Households are typically neglected in cancer circumstances, as well as we desire to provide them reflection, therapy, massage, and anxiety management methods.'

#healing #meditation #spiritual #Yoga #Yoga classes

2 notes · View notes