#this is the most evil nation to ever exist and nowhere in the world will ever know peace as long as it exists

[hevendor]

i dont kno how u cud leave this class im in w/o hating the us so fucking bad (even if u didnt already feel this way for whatever fucked up reason) like some of these readings make me so mad i cud tear multiple phonebooks in half

[felixcloud6288]

Higurashi: Festival Accompanying Chapter 15

This is a Takano chapter and I genuinely do not care about what happened in it.

The decision to end the Hinamizawa Syndrome research is entirely a political move. Tokyo is afraid of the international backlash if it's ever discovered that they were researching biological warfare.

But honestly, I think their cover-up attempt is going WAY too far. First off, every major international power is likely researching biological warfare. The only nation that will be humiliated is the one that gets discovered first.

Second, this research would actually be invaluable in the medical field. Everyone in the room fully acknowledges the existence of a brain parasite that can alter a person's mind and behavior. This could be invaluable in psychology, pathology, endocrinology, and several other fields.

Going full scorched earth is a gigantic setback to things like curing FUCKING RABIES!!! But no, looking like they've never done anything wrong is far more important than doing something right, even if it didn't have the purest motives.

So the decision is made to erase the pathogen entirely and pretend it and the research never existed, effectively erasing all the work Hifumi Takano had begun.

Takano's efforts to change the board's mind get her nowhere. In this moment where Rika is amassing allies to overcome her own fate, Takano is losing all the support she's had.

In a parallel to her grandfather, Takano presents her thesis to a group of people who can decide the future and survival of her research...

... and they also laugh at it.

Unlike with Hifumi, these men showed they weren't particularly interested in this meeting to begin. They aren't politically motivated to crush this research. They fully acknowledge the validity of Hinamizawa Syndrome. The mistake Takano made was she included the wild speculative conclusion that parasites are highly influential to human thought and philosophy.

Honestly, the problem I keep having with Takano's thesis is that it never talks about any practical uses. I keep bringing up rabies because rabies is one of the most terrifying diseases a human can contract. And if symptoms start to manifest, you have a 100% mortality rate.

If the ultimate purpose of the research was related to something like that, she would likely get moderate backing for it, maybe not secret government organization backing, but she'd get support to continue her research. But because she's sticking with Hifumi's original idea, she's being laughed at instead.

One of the people Takano presented this to said his friend who owned a publishing company would probably love Takano's thesis. Maybe she should do that. She should take the concept and make a series of psychological horror stories about people going insane because of brain parasites. She could make it a multi-book series. Throw in some extra fun stuff like demons, curses, and time loops to make it extra wild. I'm having a hard time coming up with a title though. "When the something cries"?

That moment where one of the men steps on the thesis was totally an accident. He got up and knocked over the papers and didn't realize he had stepped on some pages. When Takano cried at him to not step on it, he didn't know what she was talking about. And they clearly felt bad that they upset her so much.

As Takano walks the streets, she thinks how all her "allies" have turned on her the moment she and her research was no use to them. In truth, I'd say they're less actively hostile and more indifferent. In fact, the whole world is indifferent to her struggles. She's crying in the streets and no one notices her.

And then a new character walks in. Nomura from Tokyo. And she offers to help teach Takano what she can do.

Takano is definitely not an upstanding person at all. She's fine with killing people to advance her research. But she's not quite at the cackling mad while destroying a village evil yet. I think we're about to find out how she got there.

back

[the-daily-tizzy]

Men, like nations, think they’re eternal. 

What man in his 20's or 30's doesn’t believe, at least subconsciously, that he’ll live forever? 

In the springtime of youth, an endless summer beckons. 

As you pass 70, it’s harder to hide from reality. Nations also have seasons: 

Imagine a Roman of the 2nd century contemplating an empire that stretched from Britain to the Near East, thinking: This will endure forever…. Forever was about 500 years, give or take.

France was pivotal in the 17th and 18th centuries; now the land of Charles Martel is on its way to becoming part of the Muslim ummah.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the sun never set on the British empire; now Albion exists in a perpetual twilight. Its 95-year-old sovereign was a fitting symbol for a nation in terminal decline.

In the 1980’s, Japan seemed poised to buy the world. Business schools taught Japanese management techniques. Today, its birth rate is so low and its population aging so rapidly that an industry has sprung up to remove the remains of elderly Japanese who die alone.

I was born in 1948 almost at the midpoint of the 20th century – the American century. 

America’s prestige and influence were never greater.

Thanks to the ‘Greatest Generation,’ we won a World War fought throughout most of Europe, Asia and the Pacific.��We reduced Germany to rubble and put the rising sun to bed. It set the stage for almost half a century of unprecedented prosperity.

We stopped the spread of communism in Europe and Asia, and fought international terrorism. 

We rebuilt our enemies and lavished foreign aid on much of the world. 

We built skyscrapers and rockets to the moon. 

We conquered Polio and now COVID. 

We explored the mysteries of the Universe and the wonders of DNA…the blueprint of life.

But where is the glory that once was Rome? 

America has moved from a relatively free economy to socialism – which has worked so well NOWHERE in the world. We’ve gone from a republican government guided by a constitution to a regime of revolving elites. 

We have less freedom with each passing year. 

Like a signpost to the coming reign of terror, the cancel culture is everywhere. 

We’ve traded the American Revolution for the Cultural Revolution. The pathetic individual in the White House is an empty vessel filled by his handlers. 

At the G-7 Summit, ‘Dr. Jill’ had to lead him like a child. 

In 1961, when we were young and vigorous, our leader was too.

Now a feeble nation is technically led by the oldest man to ever serve in the presidency. We can’t defend our borders, our history (including monuments to past greatness) or our streets. 

Our cities have become anarchist playgrounds.

We are a nation of dependents, mendicants, and misplaced charity. 

Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels. The president of the United States unable to quote the beginning of the Declaration of Independence (‘You know — The Thing’) correctly 

Ivy League graduates routinely fail history tests that 5th graders could pass a generation ago. 

Crime rates soar and we blame the 2nd Amendment and slash police budgets. Our culture is certifiably insane. 

Men who think they’re women.

People who fight racism by seeking to convince members of one race that they’re inherently evil, and others that they are perpetual victims. 

A psychiatrist lecturing at Yale said she fantasizes about ‘unloading a revolver into the head of any white person.’

We slaughter the unborn in the name of freedom, while our birth rate dips lower year by year. 

Our national debt is so high that we can no longer even pretend that we will repay it one day. It’s a $28-trillion monument to our improvidence and refusal to confront reality. 

Our ‘entertainment’ is sadistic, nihilistic and as enduring as a candy bar wrapper thrown in the trash. 

Our music is noise that spans the spectrum from annoying to repulsive.

Patriotism is called insurrection, treason celebrated, and perversion sanctified.

A man in blue gets less respect than a man in a dress.

We’re asking soldiers to fight for a nation our leaders no longer believe in.

How meekly most of us submitted to Fauci-ism (the regime of face masks, lockdowns and hand sanitizers) shows the impending death of the American spirit. How do nations slip from greatness to obscurity?

Fighting endless wars they can’t or won’t win 

Accumulating massive debt far beyond their ability to repay 

Refusing to guard their borders, allowing the nation to be inundated by an alien horde

Surrendering control of their cities to mob rule

Allowing indoctrination of the young 

Moving from a republican form of government to an oligarchy 

Losing national identity

Indulging indolence

Abandoning faith and family – the bulwarks of social order.

In America, every one of these symptoms is pronounced, indicating an advanced stage of the disease. Even if the cause seems hopeless, do we not have an obligation to those who sacrificed so much to give us what we had? 

I’m surrounded by ghosts urging me on: 

the Union soldiers who held Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, 

the battered bastards of Bastogne, 

those who served in the cold hell of Korea, 

the guys who went to the jungles of Southeast Asia and came home to be reviled or neglected.

This is the nation that took in my immigrant grandparents, whose uniform my father and most of my uncles wore in the Second War. 

I don’t want to imagine a world without America, even though it becomes increasingly likely. During Britain’s darkest hour, when its professional army was trapped at Dunkirk and a German invasion seemed imminent, Churchill reminded his countrymen, "Nations that go down fighting rise again, and those that surrender tamely are finished." The same might be said of causes. 

If we let America slip through our fingers, if we lose without a fight, what will posterity say of us. While the prognosis is far from good, only God knows if America’s day in the sun is over.

[coloradoron]

What is America's Future?

Men, like nations, think they're eternal.  What man in his 20s or 30s doesn't believe, at least subconsciously, that he'll live forever? In the springtime of youth, an endless summer beckons. As you pass 70, it's harder to hide from reality.... as you lose friends and relatives.

 Nations also have seasons: Imagine a Roman of the 2nd century contemplating an empire that stretched from Britain to the Near East, thinking: This will endure forever.... Forever was about 500 years, give or take... not bad, but gone!!

 France was pivotal in the 17th and 18th centuries; now the land of Charles Martel is on its way to becoming part of the Muslim ummah.

 In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the sun never set on the British empire; now Albion exists in perpetual twilight. Its 96-year-old sovereign is a fitting symbol for a nation in terminal decline.

 In the 1980s, Japan seemed poised to buy the world. Business schools taught Japanese management techniques. Today, its birth rate is so low and its population aging so rapidly that an industry has sprung up to remove the remains of elderly Japanese who die alone.

 I was born in the 40"s, almost at the midpoint of the 20th century - the American century. America's prestige and influence were never greater. Thanks to the 'Greatest Generation,' we won a World War fought throughout most of Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. We reduced Germany to rubble and put the rising sun to bed.  It set the stage for almost half a century of unprecedented prosperity.

 We stopped the spread of communism in Europe and Asia and fought international terrorism. We rebuilt our enemies and lavished foreign aid on much of the world. We built skyscrapers and rockets to the moon. We conquered polio and now COVID. We explored the mysteries of the Universe and the wonders of DNA...the blueprint of life.

 But where is the glory that once was Rome? America has moved from a relatively free economy to socialism - which has worked so well NOWHERE in the world.

 We've gone from a republican government guided by a constitution to a regime of revolving elites. We have less freedom with each passing year. Like a signpost to the coming reign of terror, the cancel culture is everywhere. We've traded the American Revolution for the Cultural Revolution.

 The pathetic creature in the White House is an empty vessel filled by his handlers. At the G-7 Summit, 'Dr. Jill' had to lead him like a child. In 1961, when we were young and vigorous, our leader was too. Now a feeble nation is technically led by the oldest man to ever serve in the presidency.

 We can't defend our borders, our history (including monuments to past greatness) or our streets. Our cities have become anarchist playgrounds. We are a nation of dependents, mendicants, and misplaced charity. Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.

 The president of the United States can't even quote the beginning of the Declaration of Independence ('You know - The Thing') correctly. Ivy League graduates routinely fail history tests that 5th graders could pass a generation ago. Crime rates soar and we blame the 2nd Amendment and slash police budgets.

 Our culture is certifiably insane. Men who think they're women. People who fight racism by seeking to convince members of one race that they're inherently evil, and others that they are perpetual victims. A psychiatrist lecturing at Yale said she fantasizes about 'unloading a revolver into the head of any white person.'

 We slaughter the unborn in the name of freedom, while our birth rate dips lower year by year. Our national debt is so high that we can no longer even pretend that we will repay it one day. It's a $30-trillion monument to our improvidence and refusal to confront reality. Our 'entertainment' is sadistic, nihilistic, and as enduring as a candy bar wrapper thrown in the trash. Our music is noise that spans the spectrum from annoying to repulsive.

 Patriotism is called an insurrection, treason celebrated, and perversion sanctified. A man in blue gets less respect than a man in a dress. We're asking soldiers to fight for a nation our leaders no longer believe in, while meekly most of us submitted to Fauci-ism (the regime of face masks, lockdowns, and hand sanitizers) shows the impending death of the American spirit.

 How do nations slip from greatness to obscurity?                       * Fighting endless wars they can't or won't win

  * Accumulating massive debt far beyond their ability to repay

     * Refusing to guard their borders, allowing the nation to be    inundated by an alien horde

     * Surrendering control of their cities to mob rule

     * Allowing indoctrination of the young

     * Moving from a republican form of government to an oligarchy

    * Losing national identity

     * Indulging indolence

     * Abandoning faith and family - the bulwarks of social order.

In America, every one of these symptoms is pronounced, indicating an advanced stage of the disease.  Even if the cause seems hopeless, do we not have an obligation to those who sacrificed so much to give us what we had?  I'm surrounded by ghosts urging me on: the Union soldiers who held Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, the battered bastards of Bastogne, those who served in the cold hell of Korea, the guys who went to the jungles of Southeast Asia and came home to be reviled or neglected.

 This is the nation that took in my immigrant grandparents, whose uniform my father and most of my uncles wore in the Second World War. I don't want to imagine a world without America, even though it becomes increasingly likely.

 During Britain's darkest hour, when its professional army was trapped at Dunkirk and a German invasion seemed imminent,Churchill reminded his countrymen, 'Nations that go down fighting rise again, and those that surrender tamely are finished.'

The same might be said of causes. If we let America slip through our fingers, if we lose without a fight, what will posterity say of us?  While the prognosis is far from good,  only God knows if America's day in the sun is over."

Author UnKnown

[dvar-trek]

Scour the nonmedical literature and you’ll find various arguments linking anxiety and the Jewish mind. In a 2012 interview, the author of “Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety,” Daniel Smith, said the talmudic tradition is “one of constant, interminable questioning and turning things over and analyzing. It’s endless exegesis.” Others attribute our anxiety to the bias and anti-Semitism Jews have long encountered. In 1937, the rabbi, essayist and founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, Mordecai Kaplan, wrote, “The average Jew today is conscious of his Judaism as one is conscious of a diseased organ that gives notice of its existence by causing pain.”

Elsewhere you’ll find the idea that our anxiety stems from certain irreconcilable conflicts at the heart of Jewish life. In a roundtable conversation featured in Moment magazine in 2013, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach describes the competing forces forever acting upon Jews: “Since Abraham said, ‘I am both an alien and a resident among you,’ the Jew has experienced an inescapable dualism. On the one hand, we are the most influential nation that has ever lived, delivering to the world its God, its commandments and its belief that all human life is equal and of infinite value. On the other hand, we are perennial outsiders, shunned and misunderstood, vilified and ostracized.” A second rabbi, Laura Novak Winer, ties anxiety to our God-given free will: “As conscious and conscientious human beings, we all face potential anxiety about our work, about how we are perceived, about our capacities. When we experience those feelings, we are witnessing the struggle between our yetzer tov, inclination to do good, and yetzer hara, evil inclination. Anxiety is the expression of our fight to choose to do what is right and our worry about not reaching that goal.”

In his 1948 essay, “The Ever-Dying People,” the philosopher, author and professor Simon Rawidowicz draws a line of anxiety through essentially the entirety of history of the Jewish people. The fear he describes is something deeper than mere hypochondria; his thesis is that, for centuries, Jews have collectively been dogged by the sense that we’re moments away from extinction.

“He who studies Jewish history will readily discover that there was hardly a generation in the Diaspora that did not consider itself the final link in Israel’s chain,” he wrote. “Each always saw before it the abyss ready to swallow it up. There was scarcely a generation that while toiling, falling, and rising, again being uprooted and striking new roots, was not filled with the deepest anxiety lest it be fated to stand at the grave of the nation, to be buried in it. Each generation grieved not only for itself but also for the great past that was going to disappear forever, as well as for the future of unborn generations who would never see the light of day.”

In the centuries following the destruction of the Second Temple, almost every leading Jewish poet and scholar considered himself the last of his kind, and Rawidowicz wrote: “His Torah was the end of Torah; he had written the concluding page in the great book of learning of the nation; when he will have recited the shema for the last time, the Torah will either return to Sinai or be discarded as a useless object in the corner.”

This trend is visible in “deep and incessant lamentation that fills our literature of the past 2,000 years,” and in the “feeling of frustration, waste, and hopelessness” that “has persistently harassed the minds” of generations of Jewish thinkers. Certainly, similar feelings were present in the cultures of ancient Rome, and in Christianity and Islam, he acknowledges. “Yet… it has nowhere been at home so incessantly,” he wrote, “with such an acuteness and intensity, as in the House of Israel.”

[thefirstknife]

trying to do some research on Pre-Collapse Earth. did Earth change after the Traveler’s arrival? like did countries or cultures change in any way?

Absolutely.

The Traveler's arrival completely changed all humanity knew and thought about everything. Just the simple existence of the Traveler and its arrival to the solar system was enough to shatter pretty much every single concept of human knowledge and science, without even touching on its powers and paracausality.

It fundamentally changed humanity and how we relate to the world around us. Some believed we put too much trust in it. But overall, society changed due to the scientific and technological advancement that improved all human life at barely no cost.

This was the age of life, and governments did not, ever, use force against human beings. There were always alternatives. Every soul sacred. Every evil treatable.

Last Days on Kraken Mare

Last Days on Kraken Mare is really good for a lot of information about the Golden Age and how many changes happened to society. It's a pretty consistent theme about the Golden Age how cultures mixed together, which can be seen in names of pretty much every character from the Golden Age. This can also be seen through the history of the Bray family (more about them in posts here and here).

This one is interesting:

Mia van der Venne is more than 200 years old. Change comes faster, these days, and you live to see more of it. Changes like Ismail being allowed to pray not in the real direction of Mecca but in the direction Mecca would be if it were transposed from Earth to Titan. Changes like the rise and fall and rise again of the Bray cult of personality. Like the new worlds the Traveler opens up to humanity.

... as it shows how religions had to change and adapt to humanity's new way of life and interplanetary travel. As noted here, and in the posts I linked above in relation to the Brays, Islam seems to have thrived in the Golden Age and survived the Collapse. Other religions that we know of that were doing fine in the Golden Age are Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism, the latter having been confirmed to have survived the Collapse due to Lakshmi's comments here:

She playfully taps on all four of his hands. "I am named for an ancient goddess," she says, "with as many arms as you. In her hands are dharma, kama, artha, and moksha. Law, desire, meaning, and finally, liberation. Freedom from the war of death and rebirth."

War and general violence seems to have also been largely gone, as noted from the same lore tab:

"Are you threatening to shoot me?" Mia stares at the Exo woman in disbelief. She hasn't seen a gun in nearly 50 years, and now they are not only coming into her habitat, but they're also pointed at her.

Similar sentiments, about Golden Age being a time of peace, are mentioned a few other times as well.

There were the bad side-effects to this, obviously, most notably in the story of Clovis Bray and his company. Clovis Bray took the Traveler's gifts and the advancements of the Golden Age to an extreme that led him to commit incomprehensible atrocities for his own benefit. His entire journal is a good read, as well as confidential Bray Records lore book (though can be triggery with certain descriptions of medical stuff and violence).

Outside of just general idea about what the Earth was like during the Golden Age in regards to freedom from violence and wars, as well as obvious mixing between populations and cultures, we don't know many details about specific countries and how all of it worked. There are mentions of cities and areas, but not many details about the structure of countries and states.

The only one specifically described and mentioned several times is USA, consistently described as:

Nowhere outside the retro-nationalism of the North American Empire does any private organization have such sweeping, selfish authority over knowledge which should belong to the whole human commons—and at least the twin eagles are voluntary society, answerable to higher law! Clovis Bray reeks of the old unregulated capitalism.

And here:

"Some American you are," Mia teases him. David comes from the North American Empire, Earth's biggest voluntary retro-nationalist republic, full of people who love military pageantry and muscular aerospace displays.

I have a feeling Bungie has some strong opinions about the current state of the United States of America.

[asexual-abomination]

Plat!Yan!Chrollo x Autistic!Reader x Plat!Yan!PT - Soulmate AU Part 1

This is largely self indulgent writing, as I know that very little of this niche exists, if any. The reader here is largely based on myself and my own thoughts of the world, but I hope others enjoy my writing. I have no formal education in writing, so if you have any advice for my writing style, please feel free to send it in.

This idea was largely inspired by the lovely @kiame-sama, who wrote this concept with a romantically yandere Chrollo, though I am aro-ace and changed it just slightly for my own writing. I hope to continue this series with more parts, but they may not all follow the same story thread.

This part just includes the body swap.

-----

You were never going to make the best impression on your soulmate. Or at least, you could never make the best impression on their friends, and that was what mattered largely to you. Talking to people would never be your strong suit, but at least on your end you had many months and other friends to keep your soulmate entertained. Waking up in a stranger's body, talking to other strangers about all details of their life? Horrible.

It should have been a comfort that there was a small yellow flower tattooed just below the date on your back, indicative of a platonic soulmate, but the idea that you would likely be expected to spend time not just with your soulmate, but with their friends as well threw you off so incredibly. Your soulmate would surely need the patience of a saint to deal with you, at least according to most people you speak with about your soulmate.

Your preparations for the switch were over now, all things embarrassing put away for now, some good food prepped, and a letter you had written taped to the inside of your bedroom door. For now, you were going over the final rules for your friends who were under strict instructions of exactly what they could and could not speak about with your soulmate. Even though they chuckled under their breath about your extreme caution, at this point you had to trust that they would follow what you said, since your switch was just minutes away.

Your closest friend, Jo, assured you that they would keep the rest in line. Knowing their authoritative personality and intimidating aura, you were much more reassured that things would go well. Even as you got up to leave, they were giving everyone their famous evil eye to keep them quiet.

Heading into the bedroom, you laid down, only to realize that your breathing was coming short and there seemed to be not enough air getting in your lungs. Were you seriously having a panic attack just before your switch? You tried to calm yourself with the breathing exercises you had been taught, but there was little you could do, which only made your panic grow faster.

You had only seconds to spare, and the reality of the situation hit you with the force of a freight train. Keeping your eyes open, you took one deep breath to hope you wouldn't ruin everything on the spot.

Everything changed in an instant, the position of your body, the tension of your muscles, the temperature and smell of the room. And the last thing to hit you, the fact that your soulmate decided to switch while driving on a highway.

Internally, you felt a massive surge of panic, outweighing the mild anxiety you had been feeling by a landslide. Until you realized that the body you were in appeared to be functioning on its own.

It was common knowledge that during the switch, there was no change to the body's ability to understand and speak languages, though you wondered if you were among the first to find the same thing applied to driving skills.

Slowly, you brought your breathing back to a calm, knowing that a meltdown right now could spell things much worse than humiliation. Once you felt ready enough that you wouldn't cry the second anything moved a moment to fast, you looked up to the rearview mirror to take in the inhabitants of the car.

Seeing the body you were in -- your soulmate -- was jarring, but he didn't appear immediately scary in the mirror. He had slicked black hair, wide eyes the color of granite, and wore a black trench coat with white fur that was open to show his bare chest underneath. But your attention was quickly drawn from his reflection to the fact that there were others accompanying you in this car.

Sat next to you in the passenger's seat was a woman with bright pink hair and a stony face, staring straight ahead at the road, who didn't appear to have noticed that there was any difference in her driver's behavior. Taking up the back seats were three men, one blond with a babyish smile, another blonde much taller than the first with a toughened look about himself, and a man with long black hair tied back looking grumpily out of his side window. All of them gave off intimidating vibes, almost putting you off of speaking at all.

After a few moments of quiet driving, it became apparent to you that these people weren't going to notice you until you spoke up. You were grateful for the time to prepare your first words, but with the menacing energy all these people gave off, you had to put your minimal understanding of conversation to its maximum.

"Ah... This wasn't quite what I was expecting..." Not the best opening line, but at least you had begun to announce your presence.

It was the pink-haired woman next to you who first responded with a questioning hum.

"I'm not sure who this is, but whoever they are, I'm their soulmate." That seemed to incite a reaction from the entire car.

"Soulmate!?" The black haired man jumped from his position, his grumpy mood dissipated and replaced with confusion mixed with excitement. The two other men were looking between themselves, while the woman's face somehow got even tougher, glaring towards you with something that you assumed was suspicion.

"Hah... I'm about as surprised as you are!" You tried to add some joy to your tone, hoping that matching their excitement would somehow dispel the situation faster. However, they continued to glare at you, and you began to wish that you could sink away into the seat, though there was very little that would help with at this point.

It's almost deathly quiet in the car for just a few moments, before all hell breaks loose. The others in the car were yelling questions at you, and yelling in general at each other.

"Would you lot calm down!?" The woman seemed to be your ally here, "If you keep this act up, we're gonna scare his soulmate off before the switch is even over!"

"Why wouldn't the boss have told us about his switch? This isn't like him in the slightest!" The black-haired man was clearly upset, though you weren't sure if he was angry at 'the boss' or at you.

The woman hushed him by saying that 'the boss' likely meant this as a test, which only served to confuse your perception of these people further. After a few moments of whispering between themselves, they finally turned back to you.

"So, who are you?" The rougher looking blond asked, not exactly setting a good tone.

It took you a few moments to even notice that he had even spoken to you, as the realization that your soulmate made seemingly no preparations for your switch hit you hard. Even though the day he would switch with you was embedded on his body, he had let you wake up in some random moment of his life, while you had spent months working around this day to get the best outcome possible.

"My name is (Y/N)," you introduced yourself carefully, not quite sure if you wanted to give your full name away to these people, "And who might you be?"

The four looked between themselves, completely ignoring your question. "No-one we know by that name."

They went further into their suspicious act, but were kind enough to also give their own first names before continuing their own interrogation. It was the baby-faced boy in the backseat, Shalnark, who asked the majority of the questions, he seemed to be very pushy and tricked you into giving answers multiple times.

The conversation was very one-sided, as you tried every trick you had ever been taught for keeping interactions equal, only to eventually realize that all four of them were working against you, using tactics for talking that you had never thought of before.

You were quick to become frustrated with their incessant questions. There were no spaces for the others to talk, leaving you feel like bug under a microscope as they stared at you. Eventually, it seemed that they were happy with the information they had gotten from you, which was a lot, including the full name you hadn't wanted to give them earlier, your home nation and your line of work.

Whoever these people were, they were good at interrogation, Shalnark especially good at tricking you with simple questions that he insinuated much greater answers from, which worried you for what these people could do for a living. If your soulmate was their boss, could he be even better at this type of talk? You didn't think you could handle conversations with a man that potentially intelligent.

Now that they were being less interrogating, you tried to take the opportunity to add your own questions, but you could only glean a few things from the way they answered. For one thing, the highway that you were currently on was on the same continent that you lived on, but a few countries over. For another, there were many more members of this group that worked for your soulmate.

Asking questions about your soulmate got a strange reaction each time, all of the passengers of the car taking a moment to look between themselves before giving you vague answers. His name was Chrollo, and as their boss, they didn't feel it was right to tell you too much about him, or so they said. You found that he was well-read, though they still refused to tell you much about precisely what he read.

It felt useless to try and pursue the conversation further, as you were nowhere near their level of smarts in conversation. To try and alleviate some of the tension you were feeling, you attempted to bring up lighter topics, asking them for funny stories, which they somewhat complied with. Although their style of telling stories seemed odd to you, as they left out a lot of details without prompting, but you were at least happy that the focus was off of you.

They told you stories of traveling around the world, and how they saw some of the worlds most gorgeous sights and expensive luxuries nearly everyday. You had to assume that they were embellishing most of it, but they made their lives sound rather fun, and you wondered if your own friends were giving Chrollo anywhere near as good an impression back home.

It had to have been at least an hour before another fear hit you, one that plagued you nearly everyday. From your perspective, everything was going well, they were laughing and telling stories not just to you but with each other, which indicated that they were happy with how how you acted. However, the fear that plagued you from inside told you that they weren't happy, that you had done something wrong and now they were laughing at you. Looking back on every word you had spoken, you felt almost physically sick, seeing every flaw in your word choice and tone in hindsight.

The passengers were looking and laughing between themselves and talking, so they didn't notice right away that there were tears gathering in your eyes, for which you were grateful. Just as suddenly as you were sat there, surrounded by happy voices with tears in your eyes, you were back home, sat amongst your own friends, who laughed perhaps even louder.

Once you came to and realized that you were no longer driving, and in fact were sitting on your own couch with your own friends, the tears really started to run. The letter that you had spent so much time carefully writing was clutched hard in your hand, but not so much that it would crumple or bend.

You quickly stood while mumbling an excuse, rushing to your room as your friends called after you. It felt odd to be back in your own body, the smells and sounds of everything hitting you horribly clearly. There was very little you could do to keep yourself from getting overwhelmed.

Your friends had already been prepared for what to do if you were overwhelmed coming back from your switch, but that didn't stop their concern for the way you were acting.

"Hey, (Y/N)? You okay in there?" Jo's voice came through the door, and you were grateful that your closest friend was here for you. "The others are all gonna start heading home now, but I'm gonna stick around. I don't want you to feel alone at the moment."

With a quick confirmation from you from behind the door, Jo headed to get some rest in the living room. Practically falling into your bed, you pulled the weighted blanket you had gotten as a gift over yourself, staring up at the ceiling as all of the feelings of excitement and fear finally crashed down on you.

-----

Thanks for reading!

[pippenpaddlopsicopolisthethird]

That person might not have said top ten but I would like to see the other five underrated animes 👀

(First post) I’LL KEEP ‘EM COMING, I LIVE FOR RECOMMENDING ANIME. I keep changing my mind on which ones to include because there’s so much good shit out there.

By the way, all of the recommendations in this list AND the last one are 26 episodes or less and tell a complete story. No cliffhangers, no “finish the manga to see the finale”, no “where’s the rest of it???” endings. That’s why, for now, Stars Align and Princess Jellyfish still get stuck with the honorable mentions even though what’s been made for both of them is incredible.

1. The Tatami Galaxy (Drama, Introspective)

The director behind Ping Pong the Animation and the original author behind Eccentric Family join forces to make Tatami Galaxy, which capitalizes on the best strengths of both shows. The protagonist is a lonely college student facing the prospect of graduating after having thoroughly wasted his college years. He bemoans how circumstances outside of his control, from conniving fake-friends to selfish and shallow extras, have conspired to ruin what should have been a “rose-colored campus life”, and wishes he could do it over again so he can get it right.

So he does, with the show using avant-garde animation and abstract storytelling to explore all of his threads of what-ifs. The plotlines seem separate but weave together and subtly build on each other, culminating to a finale that explores the meaning of relationships and who you are in the absence of outside forces that can define you. It’s heartfelt, funny, raunchy, and deep, and perfectly encapsulates the existential dread of being in college. I watched it for the first time when I was about to finish undergrad and it hit like an emotional freight train, then I rewatched it during quarantine and it hit like a truck. This is one of my top favorite anime of all time.

2. Re:Creators (Fantasy, action)

Most of the anime I’ve put on these lists get their spots for being deep, nuanced, and delicately crafted. This is not one of them. But, by god, is it one of the most over-the-top fun shows I’ve ever seen. Re:Creators is a rare reverse-isekai. Fictional characters from popular anime, games, and manga suddenly start turning up in the real world, instructed to “find your Creator and reshape the world you came from”. The soundtrack by Hiroyuki Sawano is bar-none one of the hypest things out there; seriously, just listen to Layers, the song for a character from a grimdark everyone-dies series begging her author to tell her why.

The characters in this show are so fun to watch bounce off each other, even if they’re not as “three dimensional” as others. Magical girls fight Stand users, mechs face down scifi-noir detectives, Lawful Good Paladins go toe-to-toe with Chaotic Evil light novel villains.  But by including the artists who imagined these characters as characters themselves, it also has a lot to say about the creative process, the reasons people create, and the relationship between an artist and their work. Between the high-octane fight scenes, there’s a surprisingly human and genuine throughline.

3. Sora no Woto (Slice of life, music, post-apocalyptic)

This show is another of my favorite examples of worldbuilding done right. A young girl joins the army as a bugler because it’s one of the only ways she can learn to play music. The episode plots focus on how she and her tiny regiment of young women stationed at a small town in the middle of nowhere deal with day-to-day troubles, while the details of the world around them slowly fill and round out the picture of a broken society where people still just... live. They still create myths, they still have festivals, they still blow glass and tell ghost stories and make art. The plots seem inconsequential, until the world built into the background becomes too prominent to ignore. The background art and music is some of the most gorgeous I’ve seen. It’s part of a genre I’ve been calling “soft apocalypse” and it’s been one of my favorites for years.

BONUS MENTION: Girl’s Last Tour (Slice of life, post-apocalyptic)

Yes, I’m cheating, but listen. Girl’s Last Tour fits perfectly into the canon narrative provided by Sora no Woto, just set in the far future, a few apocalypses later. It’s got less of a main plot, because there’s almost nothing of society left, just two girls wandering together through an abandoned world. It’s soft, introspective, and bittersweet, showing how humanity is still humanity no matter how few people are left. Despite having nothing about their productions in common, it’s the perfect spiritual successor to Sora no Woto and they deserve to be recommended in the same spot.

4. Tamako Market (+ the movie) (Romance, slice-of-life)

This show is the platonic ideal of a soft, heartwarming, sweet-as-sugar, slice-of-life romance. It follows the daily life of Tamako, a high school girl who lives above a family-owned mochi shop in a shopping center, who is followed around by a talking bird trying to find a bride for his prince in a far-off land. But really the show isn’t about the bird. The show is about love in all its forms. The love that the other families in the shopping center have for Tamako, the love that she and her friends have for each other, the love they have for the activities they’re passionate about, the love you feel when someone makes you a cup of coffee, fated love, childhood crushes, family love.

Something about this show that also stands out is how gently and naturally it incorporates some of the best queer representation I’ve ever seen in anime. One of the shop owners is a kind and soft-spoken trans woman, who is never the butt of a joke, never questioned, never treated as different, loved all the same. One of Tamako’s friends is gay, and her crush on Tamako is treated with as much respect and care as every other moment in the show. This series never makes you flinch for fear of “representation” that turns sour. It’s the epitome of a feel-good show.

5. ACCA 13-Territory Inspection Department (Political, mystery, drama)

Yes, I keep saving my favorites for last on these lists. I can’t describe this show as anything but the perfectly written plot. As a rule, I don’t like political dramas, and this is one of my favorite anime of all time. It’s set in a fictional country, where 13 regions all exist relatively independently under one collective monarchical ruler, and follows Jean, an agent of the independent Inspection Department, which acts as a check and balance to each power. The series begins with Jean being assigned a full review of each territory while the powers-that-be field whispers of a coup. This show masters foreshadowing, intrigue, escalation, and mystery. The stakes build and overlap on scales from intensely personal to national. The pacing is amazing, keeping tension balanced with plot twists that answer more questions than they ask.

Plus, it’s got one of the most visually appealing and stylized openings out there. I realize that political drama isn’t exactly escapism right now, but believe me, this series is worth it.

[youuuimeanmee]

Eren Meta From 139

Many people believe chapter 139 butchered Eren's character because of this scene.

Because out of nowhere, Eren's motivation is to reach Mikasa's choice to satisfy Ymir's wish; thus, everything he said from the beginning about his motivation is all lies or meaningless.

No. And I'm no writing this to justify or condemn him. This post is more for myself, because I'm trying to understand his character.

Now let's see at his words. "All of it, was to arrive at that result. That's why I moved forward." What does he mean by it? Which actions?

This.

All the events, starting from ch 123-139, are going according to Ymir's wish.

Right after Eren told her to decide for herself.

She wants to end the world, at least 80% of it. She wants to push Eren's friends to stop him, even if they have to betray their nation. The Battle of Heaven and Earth, all of the clusterfucks in chapter 135-138 happens because it's Ymir's will to push Mikasa to make a choice. She chooses to end the titan curse after she gets to see what she wants.

Ymir did all of this, she watched all the events that unfold because Eren released her.

Then, what about Eren's will?

This is why I'm okay with the idea of Eren following Ymir; Eren doesn't have a reason to reject Ymir's wish because he got what he wants. He got the future he saw on the medal ceremony, the eradication of titans. He got the "freedom" to flatten the earth, and if his gamble paid off, he'd get his friends' safety; because they will become the world's savior after they stop him. It's a win-win situation, thus, putting him in a position where he becomes Ymir's ally and stands by her side.

The reason why Ymir chose Mikasa is not clear, but Eren had a hunch and it's something he could relate to; another reason for him to not object to Ymir's wish. It has something to do with that day when Mikasa practically confessed her love for him, the day where he could use the Founder's power for the first time. I leave this scene up to your interpretation.

What about Eren's will from before 123? What did he try so hard to achieve?

This scenery. Aside from the eradication of titans.

Here's the thing. Doesn't matter if fate favors you or not, you have to work hard to get what you want. To work hard, you need to know the reason. I take Isayama's artistic choice that the future memories he saw are fragments without context; he doesn't know why it happens the way it would. So, even if he saw the scenery, even if he saw the eradication of titans, why he has to go to hell first? Why he has to go through all of the suffering? Why he has to keep moving forward? He doesn't have to; but the world, destiny or whatever keeps feeding him reasons to move forward, until he reached a conclusion that the titan world is fucked up system and has been going for far too long. For Eren, this needs to end, and he wants to reach that scenery no matter what.

This is the man who saw how unforgiving the outside world is. The fact that a little girl got eaten by dogs just because she's an Eldia is proof that a subject of Ymir can never gain freedom, can never gain the privilege of human rights the way a normal human does. (I suggest you to read Gross' monologue from ch 87). The man saw how the world keeps pushing Paradis to be the source of evil without listening to what the other parties have to say. The man is manipulated to euthanize his own people as if Eldia doesn't deserve to be born. He saw the fucked up history of titans from 2000 years ago. He was so disappointed the world is not like in Armin's book, it's not like his ideal world. So he wants to wipe it away. He wants to bury the history and the civilization that created it, deep to the ground. He wants to destroy every last one of those animals, that's on this earth; titans or humans alike. He wants to leave the surface a blank plain. This is his ideal world, his freedom.

Eren said it himself. Even if he didn't know that his friends would stop him; even if it's not Ymir's will, he'd still trample the earth. To me, the reason why Eren commit genocide, the reason he said to Armin is no different than the reason he said to Zeke.

It's just the way he is ever since he was born.

A freedom seeker.

The wording is different with the receiver. With Zeke, it's different, because he's trying to make a point that this is who he is. But with Armin? He is going to die, with his best friend as his judge. He knew exactly why he wanted it: because he is free, ever since he was born. But somehow he couldn't say it outright with confidence. Maybe he's afraid to be judged as a monster by the person closest to him, or maybe he started to question his definition of freedom. Because to me, his eyes look like wonders.

Now. What is freedom? Many people believe that any acts out of violence is not freedom. But to Eren, that is freedom, his freedom. There's a meta that perfectly explains Eren's version of freedom, up until he did the rumbling. This is my highlight from that meta:

So freedom is the power of the individual to do as one wants. When you do something, you are imposing your internal desires onto the external world. If freedom is thus the power to impose your individual Will onto the outside world, then whoever has more power has more freedom.

This concept was highlighted when he told his friends in Paths that he's free to destroy the world and they're free to defend it; meaning that they're bound to clash, and they have to fight.

Freedom is not good. Nor is it bad. It is a force beyond good and evil, and that is precisely why it is terrifying. This, I believe, is why so many baulk at the idea that such a ruthless manipulator could be the avatar of freedom in this story. What I have always loved about SNK is how it delves ever deeper into its themes as the story goes on and discovers such fundamental paradoxes that your understanding of the idea is changed forever. If this is the horrifying face of freedom, perhaps we should not be free.

I don't know how much Isayama's involvement in this, but Grisha's commentary from the Lost Girls captures this concept perfectly.

For Eren, that "great power" is his own concept of freedom: A world without oppression. Doing what you want to do. He's free to protect his homeland by whatever necessary, whatever cost, and leave the rest of the world as an open plain.

Usually, the more we're obsessed with something, the more we stray from our humanity. After witnessing firsthand the vision-he-so-called-freedom, he doesn't know how to feel. He gets what he wants, but he's not happy at all, only the hollow scenery remains.

Eren realized how messed up he is, even before he did this. He tried to reach out to Mikasa that night after he saved Ramzi, to save his humanity left. It's one of the reasons why he asked her, "what is he to her?" Surely if he was loved –even after he killed those men when he saved her that day– would mean he's still human, right? And by running away with her, he could live in peace, maybe he could free himself from his obsession. But he's doing it so half-heartedly, that when everyone interrupted them, he just... let it go. He didn't bother to sneak with her or anything. He couldn't let go of the future he saw, he's losing himself to his desire/inner demon, to his obsession of freedom. Or maybe he's winning over his pathetic self so he could focus on what he needs to do? One could interpret this scene as Eren trying to break free from his obsession for "freedom." One could interpret this scene as Eren trying to break free from the shackles of his conscience. It's up to you.

Eren's outburst over Mikasa in this chapter is his pent-up feeling over her. It is, but after I write this meta, maybe it's more than that. It's because she's the proof of his humanity left. Many, many times, Mikasa is there to stop him from ruining himself. Mikasa's love creates a subconscious understanding that she will always be there for him. That's a part of her that he loves, and by feeling love, it means his humanity still exists. If Mikasa chooses to move on with another man, it means she will forget all the times they had together, she will forget the most human side of him. The only person who loves him as who he is, his home, would be lost. He would be lost. That idea scares him, even though he knows he doesn't deserve her love after everything he has done.

One more thing; another reason why Eren doesn't mind to be stopped, aside from Ymir's wish will get him what he wants –as I already explained. People argue that the conflict won't end until Paradis or the rest of the world remains; thus, Eren's half-hearted genocide is meaningless. No. No matter how angry he is that he wants to eradicate everything, he has enough maturity to understand, even back from the Battle of Trost, that humanity is far from united even if they're faced against a threat beyond human understanding. During the after-party night before the Battle of Shiganshina, he accepts that great power comes from joining ourselves together. We all need to find our own roles. Humans are created differently, because of times like this. By sparing the rest of the world, it keeps both Paradis and the world from collapsing. By keeping the diversity of people, someday it will open a path for peace because it's a part of human nature to try to understand each other; he learned it from the SC. Eren believes Armin could take him there, after he died. Maybe he forgot all of that because he's too caught up in his hate and anger up until 122, the same way he forgot back in the days.

Even if it's not explicitly explained in this chapter, I'd like to think that Eren got plenty of time to reflect on this matter when he did the Rumbling, to fill the emptiness he felt after he reached what he wants wanted.

Eren wins in the end, but at what cost? This chapter is calling out his tyrannical mindset, and it's great to see him realized his error, even if it's too late for him to go back.

Maybe this is what Isayama decided to focus on the last chapter, even if it's rushed. Maybe he (or his editor, idk) wanted the ending to focus on the protagonist's story about humans vs titans. The way Eren is so determined to wipe it out from this world, no matter how messed up his method, no matter how much he suffers, it doesn't matter if it's predestined or not. Because "freedom" is what he seeks ever since he was born. Because Eldia, every person deserves to be born in this world. Yes, every person, including everyone he killed. He knew the gravity of his action and choose to accept his death. Maybe it's the reason why Isayama doesn't delve into the aftermath of genocide further.

He wants the ending to be about Eren Yeager, The Attack Titan's journey about Attack. On. Titan.

[lightdancer1]

Avatar!Wilbur Whateley X), this makes me reevaluate the whole survival angle of the handmaids in Avatar! Az, I can imagine now that taking care of baby Az was an exercise in willpower for these handmaids (the existential fear, the FN propaganda painting the avatar as an enemy or worse a spirit disguised as a human) but still, they were able to offer a bubble of kindness to Azula as she grew up. It would be nice to catch a glimpse of their thoughts/feelings throughout their years of service.

Minako would often reflect, in the comfort of semi-exile on distant Karakorum, the place that collected the unwanted and unwelcome of parts of the Fire Nation that had nowhere else to go, on the whims of arbitrary fate. She had been selected as a lady in waiting for the last and yet somehow not the least of the Fire Nation Royals. Not merely a lady in waiting, a governess. That this one was not the least in spite of having in Azulon's eyes the twofold crimes of being a younger sibling and a girl against her was its first warning.

The second had been when an infant looked at her with the eyes of a grown man and had spoken: "You're my new governness" in spite of being a newborn in the tones of a mature man of the far eastern Earth Kingdom, raspy with the tones of the Si Wong Desert. Other people, perhaps the majority, would have fled at that moment when a newborn looked and spoke with the impressions of something impossible.

She did not deny that she felt a deep and abiding fear that such marvels could exist and did exist.

And yet she'd taken the child and spoken to her as both child and as whichever strange face of the past emerged there. The most terrifying times had been when a voice of the Earth Kingdom spoke with an autocrat-warlord's savage calm. It was a voice that she had never heard in life but which the Fire Nation's stories of the war gave her more than enough contexts to understand. Kuvira the Fist of Retribution.

She who had worn iron gauntlets as penance, iron instead of the stone of the Dai Li. Who had taken a new art, completely new, and taken it down much direr paths. She had bent metal as if it were water and from her power the Fire Nation had gone from having all but won a war to facing the prospect that it could truly lose it. Only General-Prince Iroh had turned that around after what was the hardest fight he'd ever fought. He was called Dragon of the West for slaying the last two dragons, TWO dragons. And he was also called Godkiller, for he had slain an Avatar in one on one combat, and had done so without being slain himself as had been the fate of his grandfather, the last one to do such a feat with Avatar Korra.

There were many stories about Kuvira but that first encounter had seen her watch in horrified awe as the child had stood before a suit of armor and taken the gauntlets and reshaped them to fit her. She was in all truth three at the time, already slowly hardened by the evils done to her.

She had looked at her with eyes of cold hate and a monstrous cruelty, something so very unlike Princess Azula in all truth (and that would be but one of many things that the world would find itself grateful for in all the worst ways).

"Minako," said the Earth Kingdom woman's voice in an accent of the Ba Sing Se Inner Ring.

"Avatar Kuvira," she said, and bowed in Earth Kingdom style. A three year old's head shouldn't have tilted in an adult's fashion like that, an eyebrow raised and the eyes going from golden to uncanny mirrors of the dead woman's.

"In life I despised every single one of your kind and wished to bring upon you what it is that you brought upon yourselves when you fell in ruin on the children of Air. The world is fortunate you did not altogether succeed and that there are some Airbenders, still, who defy you and deny you."

Minako's eye twitched. It was never easy to face this truth, of what she was facing and of who.

"And now?" Her question was calm and Kuvira's face broke out into a strange expression, a kind of smile.

"And now one who was once a lord of lords accepts crumbs from the tables given to others with the greatest gratitude. And in your case, and that of your friends, and of Mother.....more than that."

Words, in truth, that she could have rejected, a second test after the first. She bowed again.

"I am beyond honored that Kuvira the Conqueror would see anything of value here."

A blink and Azula's golden eyes were there and the girl sprang into the air with unconscious Airbending and her hands were around her neck. Minako held her, her eyes closed, breathing deeply. She could have seen the monster that spoke with knowledge and wisdom that could not have possibly been there. She saw the child.

---------

Minako all the same almost dropped her tea-cup when the winds picked up in that eerily familiar fashion and she saw something vast and impossible descending from the skies, a set of people on its back.

"Why here?" That was the question she'd asked then as the golden-scaled dragon with great bat-wings descended with an unnatural grace for something so large, and then roared with the impression of the storm and golden light gleaming from it as people slid down the left wing.

One of them was eerily familiar, clad in a variant of her old red outfit with traces of all four nations. She would have known those eyes anywhere. A part of her at first felt that the sparing was deceptive, that the girl had been overwhelmed.

Then as when she was a child she saw the girl moving with swiftness only to put her arms around her, letting herself shed two tears in relief.

"You're alive," she rasped.

Minako nodded.

"Fire Lord Jiren has done nothing to pursue me, or your other handmaidens, or your family."

The others behind her followed, cautiously. She smiled warmly to see Mai and Ty Lee, both of them reaching that same point of a kind of nirvana she'd reached, blissfully jaded and awed by points, the kind of serenity that made it possible to deal with the bizarre powers of the Avatar and yet to see the person who was always there beneath them and would always be. She was surprised, admittedly, to see two children of the Water Tribes who looked at her uncertainly, one with a boomerang and a sword strapped to his belt, the other Azula's own age, her head tilted.

The last person slipped away, or tried to, and was found by her grandfather who swept her into an embrace that stunned her with a boisterous laugh of relief. This was almost invisible to the people gathered at this moment.

"Katara, Sokka," Azula's voice and it was her voice, the one that spoke sometimes too seldom beneath the weight of what lay beneath her skin, "meet Minako. Mother died for me to save me, and nobody can ever replace her. But...." she grinned. "Minako did just as much to raise me and she's still here."

Understanding crossed their faces and Sokka bowed in Fire Nation fashion while Katara simply smiled and shook her head with a kind of strange fondness to it.

"You would do that," she mused. "Take us straight from liberating a prison camp to bring a kid home to her family and to find your.....stepmom, maybe, might be the word?"

Azula shrugged and she laughed, as the dragon stood back on hind limbs, great wings casting shadows beneath them. That was the thing that kept drawing Minako's gaze. A Dragon. Iroh might have slain a god, but it seemed he had missed a spot check with the dragons. It didn't matter. She was looking at the very spiritual heart and soul of her people, of Firebending itself in the flesh. She had lived to see wonders as well as nightmares.

Or maybe, mused Minako as Azula held onto her fiercely, he never slew them after all.

[the-daily-tizzy]

Men, like nations, think they’re eternal. What man in his 20s or 30s doesn’t believe, at least subconsciously, that he’ll live forever? In the springtime of youth, an endless summer beckons. As you pass 70, it’s harder to hide from reality. Nations also have seasons: Imagine a Roman of the 2nd century contemplating an empire that stretched from Britain to the Near East, thinking: This will endure forever.

Forever was about 500 years, give or take. France was pivotal in the 17th and 18th centuries; now the land of Charles Martel is on its way to becoming part of the Muslim ummah. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the sun never set on the British empire; now Albion exists in perpetual twilight. Its 95-year-old sovereign is a fitting symbol for a nation in terminal decline. In the 1980s, Japan seemed poised to buy the world. Business schools taught Japanese management techniques. Today, its birth rate is so low and its population aging so rapidly that an industry has sprung up to remove the remains of elderly Japanese who die alone. I was born in 1942, almost at the midpoint of the 20th century – the American century. America’s prestige and influence were never greater. Thanks to the ‘Greatest Generation,’ we won a World War fought throughout most of Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. We reduced Germany to rubble and put the rising sun to bed. It set the stage for almost half a century of unprecedented prosperity. We stopped the spread of communism in Europe and Asia and fought international terrorism. We rebuilt our enemies and lavished foreign aid on much of the world. We built skyscrapers and rockets to the moon. We conquered Polio and now COVID. We explored the mysteries of the Universe and the wonders of DNA…the blueprint of life. But where is the glory that once was Rome? America has moved from a relatively free economy to socialism – which has worked so well NOWHERE in the world. We’ve gone from a republican government guided by a constitution to a regime of revolving elites. We have less freedom with each passing year. Like a signpost to the coming reign of terror, the cancel culture is everywhere. We’ve traded the American Revolution for the Cultural Revolution. The pathetic creature in the White House is an empty vessel filled by his handlers. At the G-7 Summit, ‘Dr. Jill’ had to lead him like a child. In 1961, when we were young and vigorous, our leader was too. Now a feeble nation is technically led by the oldest man to ever serve in the presidency. We can’t defend our borders, our history (including monuments to past greatness), or our streets. Our cities have become anarchist playgrounds. We are a nation of dependents, mendicants, and misplaced charity. Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels. The president of the United States can’t even quote the beginning of the Declaration of Independence (‘You know — The Thing’) correctly. Ivy League graduates routinely fail history tests that 5th graders could pass a generation ago. Crime rates soar and we blame the 2nd Amendment and slash police budgets. Our culture is certifiably insane. Men who think they’re women. People who fight racism by seeking to convince members of one race that they’re inherently evil, and others that they are perpetual victims. A psychiatrist lecturing at Yale said she fantasizes about ‘unloading a revolver into the head of any white person.’ We slaughter the unborn in the name of freedom, while our birth rate dips lower year by year. Our national debt is so high that we can no longer even pretend that we will repay it one day. It’s a $28-trillion monument to our improvidence and refusal to confront reality. Our ‘entertainment’ is sadistic, nihilistic, and as enduring as a candy bar wrapper thrown in the trash. Our music is noise that spans the spectrum from annoying to repulsive. Patriotism is called insurrection, treason celebrated, and perversion sanctified. A man in blue gets less respect than a man in a dress. We’re asking soldiers to fight for a nation our leaders no longer believe in. How meekly most of us submitted to Fauci-ism (the regime of face masks, lockdowns, and hand sanitizers) shows the impending death of the American spirit. How do nations slip from greatness to obscurity? • Fighting endless wars they can’t or won’t win

• Accumulating massive debt far beyond their ability to repay

• Refusing to guard their borders, allowing the nation to be inundated by an alien horde

• Surrendering control of their cities to mob rule

• Allowing indoctrination of the young

• Moving from a republican form of government to an oligarchy

• Losing national identity

• Indulging indolence

• Abandoning faith and family – the bulwarks of social order. In America, every one of these symptoms is pronounced, indicating an advanced stage of the disease. Even if the cause seems hopeless, do we not have an obligation to those who sacrificed so much to give us what we had? I’m surrounded by ghosts urging me on:

• the Union soldiers who held Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg,

• the battered bastards of Bastogne,

• those who served in the cold hell of Korea,

• the guys who went to the jungles of Southeast Asia and came home to be reviled or neglected. This is the nation that took in my immigrant grandparents, whose uniform my father and most of my uncles wore in the Second World War. I don’t want to imagine a world without America, even though it becomes increasingly likely. During Britain’s darkest hour, when its professional army was trapped at Dunkirk and a German invasion seemed imminent, Churchill reminded his countrymen, ‘Nations that go down fighting rise again, and those that surrender tamely are finished.’ The same might be said of causes. If we let America slip through our fingers, if we lose without a fight, what will posterity say of us? While the prognosis is far from good, only God knows if America’s day in the sun is over.

~~~

from an uncredited Facebook page ||Author unknown

[itsmoonpeaches]

The Ocean Meets the Sky

Chapter 7: Souls

Please note: Every prompt for this Kataang Week connects into an over-arching story.

Prompt: Soulmate AU

Story summary: After his battle with Fire Lord Ozai, something lingers within Aang's spirit. Katara is the one that pulls the seams back together. No matter what, Aang and Katara find each other.

Chapter summary: There were pieces of wobbling, rickety furniture. A stool with three legs and with uneven lengths, a crate being utilized as a table, a cracked Pai Sho board with missing playing tiles. There were inky shadows in the corners that filled the lines in between the timbers. Outside, it looked impossibly bright. It was oversaturated with odd tones of pigment and motes of speckled dust that lightened the room.

“That was a brave thing that girl did, you know,” said someone. Their voice broke the silence.

-

Or, Aang remembers a promise.

Written for @kataang-week

Read on ao3 or ffn.

---

Aang blinked and he was floating above a scene with a ruined palace courtyard. He saw his own body struggling to keep itself standing up as if in a war with itself, eyes flashing from violet to bleached white. Katara was grasping his body’s forearm, eyes closed, face eerily calm.

He blinked again, and he was nowhere near the same scene.

He rose in the middle of a dilapidated structure made of run-down planks that were half-eaten with rot and nailed together with rusty iron. Thick, twisting tree branches snaked through a rectangular open window. Another broke the ceiling and proceeded through the floor, holding up the poorly made building in the treetop it stood in.

There were pieces of wobbling, rickety furniture. A stool with three legs and with uneven lengths, a crate being utilized as a table, a cracked Pai Sho board with missing playing tiles. There were inky shadows in the corners that filled the lines in between the timbers. Outside, it looked impossibly bright. It was oversaturated with odd tones of pigment and motes of speckled dust that lightened the room.

“That was a brave thing that girl did, you know,” said someone. Their voice broke the silence.

Aang saw as upon the three-legged stool there materialized a man in unkempt, draping, orange clothing. He was young, maybe just a few years older than Zuko was. He was scrappy, youthful, with a demeanor that told of a boy trying at being older than he really was. He was cleanshaven with dark, black hair that stood up in a mess of spikes.

His eyes were a Fire Nation golden brown and had a piercing quality to them that Aang recognized, but he could not quite figure out from whom. It was determined like Zuko’s stare, kind like Iroh’s, but there was something ancient and knowing behind them that reminded him of Roku.

“It was brave,” the man continued, lips quirking at one end, “but it wasn’t ever going to work…trading places like that…not in the way she thought.”

Aang felt a pull, a call, from someplace inside himself. He stepped toward the man and left the center of the room. “Who are you? What are you talking about?” he asked. He stopped walking when he was only a few paces away. He was in the patch of light that spilled from the window.

The man chuckled. He leaned forward and placed his chin on his palm, his elbow resting on the crate. “Wan,” he introduced himself, “but you already knew that didn’t you?”

Aang gasped as soon as he heard the name. There was a click, a resounding bell that tolled and that he thought he could feel resonating within him. An invisible force sliding into place.

For a moment he saw himself as an old man in an era long gone, surrounding by snapped arrows and shattered weapons on a battlefield. He apologized to Raava.

“It’s hard, you know,” started Wan again and bringing Aang back to reality, “to live nearly ten thousand years and to live so many lifetimes.” His gaze lingered on Aang’s. “But what doesn’t change is that every life is new, and every life is a continuation of the last one.”

“You’re…the First,” Aang whispered, almost in quiet reverence.

Wan stood up from his stool, and it faltered for a few seconds before it stabilized. He met Aang where he was, and they were bathed together in the same beam of sunlight.

“You know what else doesn’t change?” Wan spoke again. He smiled albeit with a bittersweetness. “The fact that in every new life we have, we remember what it’s like to be human.”

He pointed to Aang’s chest, and it glowed softly with the same light of Raava’s intricate patterns, reacting to his presence.

“In every life we have Raava, the spirit of light and peace with us. But there is a balance that is maintained and still, Vaatu, the spirit of darkness and chaos must exist,” said Wan. “They have an eternal battle, you see, like that of our own world’s. No matter if they are there or not, the essence of them always remains…because the world is like that. Because humans are like that.”

It sounded like an archaic parable told to children as a bedtime story. But Aang knew, as he did the other lives he has had, what was true.

He did not have to be reminded that there was great good and great evil that existed in the world. He lived through a war that proved that. He had longed, beyond all else, for Gyatso to be alive, for his people to come back.

“What Master Katara did was pure and courageous, and so, so human,” Wan began again. His expression was unreadable. “That is exactly why it didn’t work.”

Aang clenched a fist at his side. “What happened to her?” he pressed. “What happened to Katara?”

Wan bowed his head a little, and there was something kind in the way he looked at him. “She returned to her body, as you soon will,” he remarked. “She healed your soul, as only a person bonded with the soul of an Avatar could. She helped you to remember that there is love in this world, love that is reborn.” He paused, peering at him in an inquisitive fashion. “Vaatu made a gamble that he was sure to lose, even if he didn’t know it. For his error, he returned to his jail. He gambled on the fact that he could bond with any human, and for some that might be true. But he forgot that there is something even stronger than peace and chaos, even if they rule our lives, even if they are connected.

“Love is what makes us human, Aang. It’s what has driven our incarnations to do what they have done, what we have done. It is the ultimate balance…not good, not evil. It is the reason why a soul is born alongside every reincarnation, a soul to help the world remember that the Avatar is human…because they have forgotten before.”

Wan’s eyes were bright with white light, and all Aang could see was himself sitting cross-legged in a locked room alone.

The wooden floorboards he sat upon did not even creak as he stood on bare feet. The resounding silence followed him, an infinite specter that clung to his shoulders like a heavy cape. He paced, sliding open the window to witness the morning as it blanketed the bamboo forest outside. He closed it, and then the shadows in the room grew darker. He opened the window again and the moon was full and the stars a hoary bright.

He stared at a copse of trees just below him, for he was so far up. He waited and waited, but no one came.

It was then that he turned to the empty teapot that rested on the chest in the corner of his prison. He called for a servant to fill it with water. His hand went to his sleeve where he had hidden the packet of powder that he had swiped from the apothecary while on a visit to the islands where the people of the element of fire resided.

All he wanted was to be free.

The light subsided, and Aang was looking at Wan again. They were both misty-eyed.

“A spirit is born out of necessity, out of wishes. A soul is often born like that too. And if the wish is strong enough, then they will be reborn again and again,” Wan explained. His brow was crinkled, and he could not look at Aang directly for a time. “The people forgot that we are like them...until the fourth Avatar, Kun, and he paid the price for it. It was the powerful, resilient wish of the person that loved him most to give him the humanity he deserved.”

Aang let out a breath he did not know he was holding. Rivulets of tears ran down his cheeks.

“I’ve made many mistakes, but I think this is the biggest one,” Wan sighed. He did not look away from Aang again. “I told the people that I was part of legend when I had forgotten to remind them who I really was, and that thought continued from one life to the next.”

His firm hand grasped Aang’s shoulder as he spoke. “But love has foresight,” he said quietly. “You will meet across times, across lifetimes, in different places, in different eras. You could be friends, you could be family, you could be lovers, but you will meet…and when you do, your heart will remember that promise.”

When Wan released him, the branches and the timber fell away. He was rushed through a myriad of moving pictures, pushed back through space.

He only halted for a moment in a field of white. A palm opened before him, and he could not stop the smile that settled upon his face.

“I found you,” Katara said, and he was whole.

[thinkveganworld]

Is it possible for the human race to evolve beyond war, extreme income inequality, corporate money’s control of political systems, and other anti-democratic trends? Some people say even hoping for such evolution is too idealistic, even impossible. Others have said if humanity doesn’t evolve it will soon self-destruct. Martin Luther King once said society has to begin to either “love or perish.”

The U.S. today is rapidly becoming more an oligarchy than a democratic republic, and this oligarchy is polluting the environment, siphoning money from the poor and middle class, and dismantling civil liberties and democracy at an ever-accelerating pace. This trend won’t end well.

As our politicians hurtle downhill, the U.S. will experience many disasters and an eventual fatal crash. Many citizens feel their corrupt politicians of both major parties have taken so much power that the people can’t possibly play a significant role in improving the U.S. political system today.

Ordinary Americans often say we oppose our government’s perpetual wars, regressive tax system, extreme income inequality and other ills, but many say it would be impossible to reform the present system. I think meaningful change is possible based on what history has shown us.

The world has always included people who think it’s possible for the human race to evolve and others who say fundamental change isn’t possible. We’ve always had war and greedy politicians. Still, in some parts of the world at given moments in time, human beings have taken sudden leaps and left behind certain inhumane practices. If that weren’t true, we’d still have rampant blood sacrifices, witch burning and the same widespread use of slavery in the same areas of the world where they once existed.

Today some populations still practice those things, but many have evolved beyond them. The changes that happened started with a sort of “tipping point” where enough people acknowledged that a social ill such as slavery should end.

The more enlightened views, anti-slavery, anti witch-burning, etc., picked up speed, and the public took action to move beyond the old way. In a sense, the condoning of slavery, etc., became obsolete and unthinkably cruel. There is no reason to cling to the belief that the U.S. today can’t make perpetual illegal war and other egregious political abuses obsolete.

During the 1860s in the U.S. more and more people began to acknowledge slavery was unacceptable and started to challenge the power structure. Once the public conscience was awakened, people organized abolitionist groups, created the Underground Railroad, and spoke out publicly. Influential writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau spoke out often against slavery. A slave, Frederick Douglass, wrote prolifically and gave passionate speeches.

If those abolitionists and writers had not believed a big leap in human evolution was possible, they would never have made the effort to organize or speak out. Their action started with their confidence that abolishing slavery was possible, and it’s not that they didn’t know what they were up against.

In his May 11, 1847, speech before the American Anti-Slavery Society, “The Right to Criticize American Institutions,” Frederick Douglass talked about the country’s entrenched pro-slavery power structure. He acknowledged that the U.S. government was then so committed to maintaining the atrocities of slavery for financial reasons that he would need to appeal to authorities outside the government to help end slavery.

There are relevant parallels in America today. People who want to help end our country’s continual illegal wars and corporate money’s control of our political system are in a position similar to the one Douglass described.

Douglass said, “Where, pray, can we go to find moral power in this nation, sufficient to overthrow Slavery? To what institution, to what party shall we apply for aid? . . . [Slavery] is such a giant crime, so darkening to the soul, so blinding in its moral influence, so well calculated to blast and corrupt all the human principles of our nature . . . that the people among whom it exists have not the moral power to abolish it. Shall we go to the Church for this influence? We have heard its character described. Shall we go to politicians or political parties.”

He added that instead of helping end slavery, the church, politicians, press and political parties were “voting supplies for Slavery—voting supplies for the extension, the stability, the perpetuation of slavery in this land.”

Today, U.S. politicians, press, political parties and most spiritual leaders keep voting for (by supporting or passively tolerating) perpetual war, income inequality and other injustices. Average citizens who see we need to evolve beyond these maladies feel they have nowhere to turn, just as Douglass did.

However, in the same speech, Douglass also said that although the pro-slavery government was very powerful, there was one thing it couldn’t resist. He said, “Americans may tell of their ability, and I have no doubt they have it, to keep back the invader’s hosts . . . of its capacity to build its ramparts so high that no foe can hope to scale them . . . but, sir, there is one thing it cannot resist, come from what quarter it may. It cannot resist truth. You cannot build your forts so strong, nor your ramparts so high, nor arm yourself so powerfully, as to be able to withstand the overwhelming moral sentiment against slavery now flowing into this land.”

It turns out he was right. It wasn’t that public opinion alone ended slavery, but it was a game-changing factor, just as strong public sentiment against the Vietnam War played an important role in its resolution.

At various points in history, when the people reached a tipping point and became fed up with given injustices, they started to be vocal and organize to move humanity in a healthier direction. Their collective efforts did change things for the better. Humanity evolved.

Even though U.S. politicians have unprecedented power to do evil and squelch dissent, the public can step up its efforts to speak, write and organize to help us evolve beyond perpetual war, devastating income disparity, and the country’s anti-democratic drift. Writers and other public figures can help by clarifying what is going on and urging the few politicians with conscience to join us in finding solutions.

Throughout history the big evolutionary leaps, including moves away from slavery in certain parts of the world, started with the widespread public attitude that change was both imperative and possible. It is imperative and possible for the U.S. to change its war-for-profit paradigm and its condoning and allowing the other government corruption covered here.

A fitting excerpt from the Declaration of Independence says: “Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” People will put up with a large amount of abuse from their government before they make any effort to change it for the better.

It could be the U.S. public hasn’t yet reached a tipping point and will give in to a feeling of powerlessness. There is never a shortage of “can’t do” dialogue, and the pessimists have a point. We’re faced with daunting challenges.

However, as one of my favorite “lefties,” the late historian Howard Zinn once said, “To be hopeful in bad times is not being foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of competition and cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

“What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, it energizes us to act, and raises at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand Utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

Can humanity evolve beyond continual war and rule by the worst among us? Yes and no. We can do it if enough of us begin to see we need this evolution in order for our species to survive, and if we start to believe change is doable and take action. We can’t evolve, and probably won’t survive, if most of us stay in denial about the need for change, give in to a sense of powerlessness and do nothing. Frederick Douglass’s idea that powerful evil political forces can be overcome via the truth and public moral sentiment, and Martin Luther King’s view that humanity must ultimately either love or perish, are keys to sorting out which path we should take.

[kendrixtermina]

The “Genocidal Edelgard” Shallowtake

I was not going to make a post about this because it’s most likely futile and not going to convince anyone nor do I believe in dinifying the purity police with attention, but maybe it will let some ppl know that they dont have to let themselves be shamed for liking the wrong video game character

Whatever might have been the case in the distant past when Nemesis was around, by the “present day” the Nabateans are not at all some commonly oppressed stereotyped minority - the setting is chock full of characters that fit that bill a lot better like Dedue or Cyril. Characters that are ordinary humans not magic dragons. 

And even that is more founded on general purpose xenophobia than from the specific, relatively new early modernity construct of racism. (the dedue situation probably comes the closest)

Sure, Seteth and Flays have to hide from their old enemy the Agarthans, I see how some might find that relatable etc. but most of the population isn’t aware that they exist at all. They hold high status positions, are worshipped by the local religion and Rhea all but rules the entire continent (and says so herself to Byleth in that speech about how she was just “ruling this wayward country in your stead”, “you” being Sothis) - though that is mostly Rhea’s doing of which Seteth and Flayn are relatively innocent. 

The interviews pretty much confirmed that the Nabateans constituted the local aristocracy and that many humans genuinely saw the Elites as liberators - though there was definitely also an element of ppl going around killing random Nabateans to gain superpowers, not to speak of Nemesis’ very obvious very unambiguous mass murder. Not wanting to be ruled over by foreign powers is understandable, though obviously killing them all down to the last civilian was just flat out evil - its certainly not a simple situation, we can all agtree Nemesis & the Agarthans were evil but there is no clear defined good guy. 

There are historical conflicts you could compare this to, perhaps some conflicts in Africa or the middle eastwhere different groups took turns being the ruling class after the latest war,  but it’s not at all like the modern USA or early modernity colonialism, and forcing every real or, in this case, imagined scenario inherently dependent of fantasy elements, into this one framework from the present or near past isn’t conductive to understanding at all. 

And in the present day, by the time Edelgard is alive, we are talking about three specific people that she has good reason to dislike individually. Not any sort of group at all. 

She calls Rhea a cruel beast because that’s all she’s ever seen Rhea to be. She’s the shadow tyrant who rules her world, who created the crappy world Edelgard grew up in. It’s no different Cubans thiking badly of the castros after suffering through famines - or, no need for such extreme examples really, ppl call their least favorite politicians monsters all the time. 

She’s wrong to assume that Seteth & Flayn are wholly on board with this, but on the other hand, it’s not at all a far-fetched assumption to make: They hold high positions in the church though they ostensimbly just appreared out of nowhere one day. Do you have to be an evil bigot to assume that the brother and right hand man to the tyrannical god-queen is condoning & supporting her actions?

The truth is of course that underneath her pseudo-parental facade Rhea is sort of a scared girl, very lonely, very afraid, and ashamed, in a shallow, childish way, for “breaking the rules” just because they are rules. She says she can’t trust anyone, that she feels lonely & isolated... and while no one can blame her for distrusting humans after the slaughter of her people, but the reason she can’t trust Seteth is that she’s keeping her bad deeds secret from him. He wasn’t there the whole time, he just showed up a few decades earlier. 

She sees herself only as filling out for Sothis and doesn’t quite grasp that she’s in charge, very much a follower personality bent on stasis & regularity. 

Is Edelgard obliged to try & unravel the complex psychology of the tyrant who rules her home to correctly deduce why she would deceive even her own family? By all intents and purposes, Edelgard is the one getting rid of an oppressive government that doesn’t let ordinary humans let a say at all. A government where ppl of others faiths and nationalities are typically oppressed unless they work directly for the church.

It’s like having a disdain for, say, Ivanka Trump. She holds a high position in her father’s administration despite having no obvious qualifications, she appears to be profiting & making bank from her father’s atrocities, she certainly hasn’t done anything to stop him or disavow him the way that, say, her cousin Mary did - if you suffered under Trump’s regime you’d be very justified in assuming that Invanka is probably a bad person.

Flayn only looks young (She might not if we saw her in other clothes). I mean, Kronya could badly impersonate a schoolgirl. At the very least they’ve supported the regime by refusing to question their own side and they show some however benevolent belief that it is their duty to “guide” the people. Leaving her to the Agarthans is certainly questionable, but no more so than doing it with Rhea herself, under the assumption that she’s guilty and that it’s a sacrifice that will prevent larger chaos. The agarthans had their plan long before they created Edelgard as we know her, and she couldn’t stop their plots all on her own. 

You could say that it’s callous, distasteful or a deal breaker - as the death knight is her direct subordinate & she makes a personal appearance in mask, I would argue that she definitely knew & sanctioned the kidnapping - but she’s no more callous towards Flayn than towards anybody else. 

Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re evil, or that they deserve to die.... and Edelgard would agree with me.  She doing all this to prevent death – flipping the lever on the trolley problem so it crushes one person instead of five so to speak. She always gives her enemies the chance to surrender, unwilling allies the chance to leave, and jails enemies whenever leaving them alive wouldn‘t lead to further death… even the ones she has the most personal reason to hate, like the PM.

As servants of the church who have chosed to back her enemies, she’ll certainly kill them if she has to, but not any more than any other enemy. At no point anywhere in the story does she say anything like that they need to die on principle. Nowhere at all. Indeed there is much evidence to the contrary.

The church paints her as being completely against the religion or even wanting to set herself up as a satanic godess cause it‘s good politics & they don‘t get what she‘s doing – to an extent her own credibility & messaging is compromised by her secretive and at times unscrupulous actions, no one said she was perfect. In truth all she wants is to have the church out of politics, you know, what we have in nearly every modern country outside the vatican and saudi arabia.

You can absolutely let Flayn & Seteth go on CF and there is no word, no fuss about it anywhere. No „make sure to kill em all“ which would certainly be there if the narrative wanted to portray Edelgard that way. It requires the mediation of Byleth as someone they would talk to & not immediately assume the worst of, but, they see the church as the embodymet of all that is good & fighting its enemies as their sacred duty so of course it wouldn‘t be possible for just anyone to talk them down. It‘s framed as Flayn letting Byleth go cause they saved her life once, even if we know from behind the screen that she wasn‘t going to survive a fight to the death against the player-controlled faction.

Heck, even when it comes to Rhea, the one most guilty that Edelgard has the most reason to loathe, she‘s ultimately surprisingly gracious. She gives her the option to surrender – and this is not a lie, she discusses this with Byleth in a lecture question, and seriously ponders the possibility. Here Byleth gets a range of options like „stab her in the back“ and „keep the church under imperial control“ but you know which one nets you the support points? „Strip her of her authority so she can‘t interfere in politics“. She wasn‘t gonna mess with the religious folks & their religion at all, just make it so it‘s separate from government. Rhea could even keep being pope, if she could be satisfied without having complete supreme authority (and ripping her precious artifact out of Byleth‘s chest) – even when she puts her down she‘s not 100% without pity, telling her that „Your duty is done“ (the translators mucked this up)

Couldn‘t be any further from „lets kill them all on principle“.

What really annoys me is how ppl go and twist everything Edelgard says out of context to ascribe a motive to her that just isn’t there.

Common examples:

„If you have Flayn or Seteth fight her she‘ll say they need to die because they‘re nabateans“

Actually what she says is this: „You are a child of the godess. You must not have power over the people!“ Not getting to be privileges rulers anymore =/= being opressed. Stay out of politics =/= Diediedie. Also, this is from the VW/SS boss fight, where they have literally come to get her in her own capital.

„Linhard & Leonie don‘t tell her & hubert about Indech, probably cause he expects that she‘ll go & kill him„

What he actually says is: „Lake Teutates is a place that concerns the saints of the Church of Seiros. It may become bothersome should the two of them find out...“

„It may be bothersome“ as in, „we might get in trouble“, for doing the possibly very inadvisable thing of waltzing into what could possibly be an enemy location to satisfy personal curiosity. If it‘s something related to her agenda she might take over and Linny wouldn‘t get to investigate as he pleases – at very most you might construe it as Linny fearing that they‘ll be accused of consorting with the enemy, but „bothersome“ suggest possible annoyance not imminent murder.

The whole scene ends with Linhard telling Byleth to fill her in later. Doesn‘t sound at all like he expects her to go back with a harpoon.

„She said Claude isn‘t fit to be a ruler cause he‘s a foreigner“

What she actually says: „I understand your ideals are not so far removed from my own. But without knowledge of Fodlan‘s history, I cannot entrust its rule to you“

Now without the additional contexts that Claude won‘t get until after the fight, it might easily feel a bit like the former with the raw spots he‘d have from his backstory, but what she means is that he‘s ignorant of the Agarthan threat – which he is. Edelgard is all for making peace with Almyra and sees fostering isolationism & prejudice as one of the many faults of the church.

Once Claude basically kills Edelgard for information, he winds up having to take care of the storm she had been holding back. But to his credit, he DID „finish the job“ and get the info. But he didn‘t have it at that point.

And I don‘t mean any of this in the least bit as a diss of Claude - He is the smartest character, so there would be no plot if he got easy access to the info.  At this point, they both think they can probably do better, and more importantly, both their backstories have made them so that they won‘t let down their guard far enough to cooperate in this scenario.

That‘s also why the outcome in CF is contingent on Byleth‘s choice. - You‘d sort of have to trust that he will also act so as to minimize casualties.

Very disingenious since many players wouldn‘t necessarily trigger these dialogues.

I guess because Adrestia got a vaguely central-european aesthetic (partially; all the countries are hodgepodge mashups and there’s more than enough spanish or ancient roman vibes there) and central europe existed only for those 12 years of tyranny I guess, even though many other places have had similar BS happening, including the US that delights in making craptons of movies about their faraway victory because their governments haven’t added much of value to the planet as of late. -.- 

Faerghus (vaguely french/ russian - not at all places where nothing bad happened ever) has actually annexed some territory from their northern neighbors in the recent past, not to speak of the whole Duscur atrocity - but no one seems to go around laying that at Dimitri’s feet, because it would be nonsensical - he was a child at the time and as an individual he is super against it and champions a policy of reconcilliation if he gets to rule. after all, there wouldn’t be much of a plot if the characters inherited three perfect faultless problem free countries. 

Edelgard, too, is completely against the previous administration under Duke Aegir (which was in charge during the Bridgid war). She deposed him and is plotting to do the same with Arundel once she can politically afford to do so. For all that one can understand why she would chose the other path  (depending on how much she knows about what Edelgard’s doing and why) it makes all the sense in the world for Petra to support her on CF or if not recruited, because again, she got rid of that previous administration. 

[tetsuwan-atom]

Holy Grail War - Unraveling

(So, this is basically something I’ve been meaning to write for weeks. It’s in a specific verse about a specific event that had unfolded, that was plotted out between a few people. I have decided to give this event a bit of a ‘conclusion’ from the perspective of my muse and canon, to show how the story could have gone, how it could have ended.)

~~~~~~~~~~~

It really was like hell.

It looked like it, felt like it, like this was the most evil place, in all of existence.

Another dimension, another world but not at the same time. An experience that would burn into the retinas forever. A world in a world, like you had stepped into the end of it all.

And it really did seem like it was the end, of it all.

You never expected the Holy Grail to look like this. A beacon of such evil, of apocalyptic catastrophe. The very symbol that brought such chaos, time and time again, feeding upon the greed, the selfishness, of those who sought to use it to it’s truest potential.

But this individual wasn’t here for that.

This person had fought through the war. He had faced countless forces, foes, enemies. How many had to die? How many brought no other option to him, despite his attempts to make it out of the war without bloodshed?

A wishful outcome, that was doomed to perish.

The many he did save, those who joined him on the cause. Those he had to leave behind at the very end. Despite the pleas of those who tried to remain, he knew, he had to take care of this himself.

Because, there can only be one.

And here he stood. He stared evil right in the face, like it was his destiny to face this. There could have been others that would have taken his place, the sibling princesses, the spiky haired schoolboy, the Sorceress Supreme, but in the end he took his objective right to this moment.

He knew he had to take care of this himself.

Bowen Chuuno, The Mighty Atom.

He stared at the embodiment of the Holy Grail. He knew of it’s power, it’s energy, it’s deceit. How it calls out to him even now to turn back on all of his goals and make a wish he so deemed to come right from the heart.

But he knew better than to give in.

Hands gripped his IDND, a step forward in stance. He’s ready. He’s about to take the matters into his own.

To put an end to this.

For goo-

“Oh! There you are!”

Eyes widen in surprise. The male hesitates, stops, lowers his device. He’s not alone after all.

There is someone else here.

A voice, he recognises. A man he knows.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

Adachi Shiro.

A supposed detective of the National Police Agency, sent to Academy City to investigate the concerns that were happening literally during the time of the Holy Grail War. A very strange coincidence. One that the male took with quite a bit of suspicion at that, despite his cheerful character.

He only turned his head, to the man in question.

“What are you doing here, Adachi? How did you get in?”

“What do you mean? I just walked through. I was asking your friends where you were and they pointed me here. I gotta admit they were all acting strange. They didn’t want to let me pass, but I needed to see you. They can’t just interfere with police business like that.”

Adachi had been Bowen’s ‘sidekick’ throughout the war. Of course Bowen couldn’t hide it from him when the fighting started getting bad. Even he knew better than to lie to a cop.

“I’m busy. What you require of me can wa-.”

“Hey.” The man interjected. “Is this the ‘grail’ you’ve been looking for? Kinda looks odd for a piece of metal, doesn’t it?”

In case your wondering, yes, this man does get on Bowen’s nerves... especially right now, though he knew to remain calm.

“...........Yes. This... is the Holy Grail.”

“Aahhhhhhhh! Well done! I knew you would be the one to make it! Them bad guys got nothing on you, huh?”

His smile is just... why does it irritate him so much?

“...I guess...”

“So, what you going to do, huh? You said it grants a wish, right? I bet you planned this right from the very beginning, what you wanted out of it. I can’t believe I’m here to witness a man’s dream finally being granted!”

“I’m not going to give it a wish, Adachi.”

“You���re... not?” He looks surprised, for sure. “But you came all this way. I was there as you kicked those guys butts for the good of the world. Why would you come all this way if you weren’t going to make a wish? Weren’t you going to do something for mankind? Weren’t you going to save it?”

Bowen hadn’t told Adachi of his intentions, because he didn’t feel the man needed to know. But now, right at the last moment, when he couldn’t hide it anymore, there was no reason to lie.

“I am going to do something for mankind, I am going to save it.....”

The blonde grips his IDND, as if readying himself a second time.

“....By destroying the grail for good..”

“....”

There was this... pause. A silence, an awkward silence. How long did it last for? Probably a good ten, fifteen seconds, before some form of response was found from the arrival.

“Hmmmmmhmhmhmhmhm...”

“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!”

...That was an unexpected reaction, one which actually brought the blonde to turn around and face the other, still serious, but with confusion now mixed into his features.

Why the hell was Adachi... laughing?

“You, you really think I’d actually let you destroy this artifact of grand power?!?”

“What... are you on about?”

“Come now. You’ve got a good brain, you can figure this all out. Am I really a cop? Why did I actually hang around you of all people while this shit was going down, huh?”

“......”

”You know. I found it really weird that you showed up out of nowhere right at the start of the war. Then when things started heating up you reeeeallly didn’t act like I’d expect out of a cop. It was like you weren’t too caring when people were driven to death. You were also acting very strange when certain things were going on. I had a feeling you were in this war all along.”

There was this pause, but in that moment, the expression on Adachi’s face began to change... no his FACE began to change. It turned.. paler... in colour.. and his eyes.. they were turning yellow. A sort of... sickly... unsettling yellow.

“....”

“Well it doesn’t matter in the end, does it? I got exactly what I wanted. I played you to ensure you were the one at the very end. Nobody else could match up to you anyway.”

“...What do you mean?”

“Don’t play coy with me! You know exactly why. Your reputation precedes you far more than what you understand about it! While everybody else was distracted I kept my eye on the real threat. They were so worried about that dumb boy and that girl.. and then the others. They were all so useless. ”

The man then begins to circle the blonde, in conversation.

“Right at the beginning my eyes were on you. But it was quite a ride, wasn’t it? You were so good at minimising the work we had to do, putting people on side, finding some way to drop them from the war without killing them. But man everybody was making it hard, wasn’t it? I almost took advantage of that situation when the lucky kid got sent away. Can you believe it, a fake marriage just for the war! I knew it meant shit at the end of the day. More people, more mess, a whole Kingdom trying to get in on the war, those two princesses asserting their dominance. Remember how you reacted at first? You didn’t like them intruding, didn’t you?”

“...I don’t like getting others involved. But they were here for the same goal. As long as the initial plan was followed there wouldn’t be any problems.”

“But the younger one was such a real bitch about it! Making it out that it wasn’t all about you. You didn’t want to be playing second fiddle as others meddled in your objective... I can relate, for they were meddling, in MY affairs!”

“I had to take a breather after all that. I left Academy City for a bit while you cleaned up the trash. Some ‘fighter’ chick caught me talking to myself one day. I tried to downplay it cause I didn’t want more people coming into it but.. the stupid bitch nearly got sucked into it! It would have been soooo funny, seeing a tourney fighter getting wrecked by some loaded-ass Servant! More junk for the janitors to mop up!”

“But then too... I was laughing at the beginning. You got paired with Stacia Sequenzia! An ‘Atomite’ helping another Atomite! The irony there is laughable! You even tried to put her on the sidelines too, but you know, Servants are there to help their masters! I wonder if you ever had to perform a Mana Transfer on her!”

A laugh escaped the man. He wasn’t looking for an actual answer.

“Then there was that guy who just muscled in just to fight everyone, he wasn’t even IN the war. What a waste of fuckin’ time. And the Makiris, the Einsworths. Those fools were all bickering and bitching and making a mess of things. I nearly lost my cover when the war was to move to England.. but I got to pull some... strings and keep it here where I wanted. They were all so concerned about the lucky kid. I was ‘lucky’ I didn’t get to see Violent Violet or that Crowley moron come around to the war. I got to focus my efforts on you while the families shat on about their supposed ‘vessel’.”

“...Vessel... you mean... Index?”

“You dumb piece of shit. Index. Please. Everyone looks at her like she’s a fucking meal. No. She is not their ‘vessel’. Come on, think. Think reeealll hard. Do you remember a girl that the idiot took under his wing?”

“Her... you mean.. Akatsuki Miyuki?!”

“Mmm! Strange isn’t it? They were going to use her as a vessel. Too bad it wouldn’t have worked. I wasn’t interested. I don’t give a shit about humans and homunculi anymore. None of them lived up to my expectations. I wouldn’t have even used your girl either. No, I only had one person on my mind. I got what I wanted in the end, didn’t I?”

“....That’s... me... isn’t it?”

“Oh. No duh, what do you think? Of course I mean you. The Mighty Atom! The one with the power to change it all! It had to be you. The boy would have just been a candy bar. Those two princesses? I would have just killed them the moment they tried to walk through into my space! It was ME that made you an initial participant, it was ME that got you through right until the end. I knew you weren’t going to risk the suffering of those around you because maybe deep down you knew it had to be you, that anyone else would have died one way or another. They all underestimate my power... even those influenced by gods.. but not you. You knew what I can do... you knew it had to be you.”

“....But then... what are you... if you wanted so much.. out of me?”

“...Do I need to spell it out for you, boy? I AM the Holy Grail!”

That.. that was a bombshell.. he didn’t see that coming at all.

“...Y..you...”

“Yes. Me. But I’m rather an extension of the beast, allowed to roam in a body that people could lower their guard around. Nobody ever expected the beast would grow intelligent, to form a mind of it’s own. I’ve seen it, I’ve seen how greedy and malicious humans can get, for peace and for power. I was never surprised by how much they wanted to take over everything for themselves... I always enjoyed it when they were the ones losing right at the end. And then there’s those that want a ‘utopia’, but still kill, still maim, like any life is a sacrifice for the good of others. And then I kill and maim them, an eye for an eye, along with many many others. I loved playing on their wishes, lulling them in, bringing out their true nature, leaving them vulnerable right at the moment I strike! In the end they all get absorbed... ready for the next war. But.... no matter how powerful they are, it’s never... ever enough..”

“I’m bored of this game, this charade. I’m sick and tired of prancing around in a shit body. It’s still fun to prey on the gullible but, I have always yearned for something far... far greater. What I am... what I really, really am, they never suspect what I can really, really do, what they were playing with from the start. The power they were using. They thought they could play god... for their sick, twisted gains! Through their sick, twisted means!”

“But now I’m actually going to become one... thanks to you.. I’m going to be born, properly born! I’m going to burst forth as the being I should have become in the very beginning. Humanity will crumble as I consume anything and everything. Mark my words this will be the last Grail War because of you. You soul will be used to complete the process... it will make me... me! There was truly no vessel greater than you! Even now I’ve been slowly draining your energy away to grow, to develop... oh isn’t this exciting! You’re going to be a part of multi-universal history, the end of everything! Nobody will get in my way! Your power will make everything happen at once! You, responsible for the end of it all. The beginning and the end, death for life, the rise and the fall! Everybody shall die, your friend, your girl, your family, everything and everyone... and you will be the sacrifice that starts it all! It’s inevitable, boy. You cannot fight what has already happened, what was lead to happen. The game of cat and mouse is over. This is your fate. This is my fate. The less you struggle.. the easier it will be, for both of us!”

...Boy... this was a lot to take in. A LOT to take in.. and he didn’t even have the time to process it all, not when he was actually being affected right now. Inhale, exhale, carefully, gently. Remain composed.. then face the man head on.

“Adachi.”

"You know, as well as I do, I'm not going to willingly give in to you and just let this happen. You know what I am, what I do.. and what I'm going to be doing right here, right now. Your words have further influenced me in the belief that the Grail must be destroyed. And it will be destroyed. I made that promise to everyone, to Camellia, to Academy City, to my world, to Touma... to my beloved. I had an inkling I might have been targeted, that if I wasn't the one doing it, I'd be made to do it. I always had this feeling in the back of my mind that if I let others try ahead of me that they were only going to die in the end... turns out I was right."

His eyes began to glow. The usual process, close the eyes, then open them with sparks flying.

"So rather than causing more death, rather than beating around the bush, I'm going to take the matters as I was always planning to do. This was always my fight, because I was always the target. You wanted me. You have me... but man I'm not going to give up until I have no breath left. I have done so much for the multiverse, for Academy City. I never thought I'd be in a position where it all hinged in the balance like this. I know the stakes... I know what I must do. Whatever it takes, you will be destroyed for good, so that nobody can use you... so that you... can no longer use anybody. I won't let you live. I will not bring your birth. If I have to erase your very soul and existence to end this, then so be it."

“.... Well, so much for making this easy. I had a feeling your resolve was too great to kneel before me. No matter..”

“....But then there is no harm in having one last bit of fun before the next stage of life! And it would be better to wear down your.. rambunctiousness to make it easier for me to devour. Do not underestimate me... either way.. this.. will be your end!”

...And as the darkness swelled, the blonde readied his IDND again, at the man, at the embodiment of the Holy Grail. If this was to be his final fight, so be it.

This... would be the very fight that decides the fate of everything.

Of Academy City, of the multiverse, of everything.

So it shall be.

Game on.......

[fuckyeahevile]

Matt’s statement:

“This is an incredibly difficult statement to write, but I have to announce that I am stepping down as the frontman of Evile and leaving the world of live music. I want to make sure I explain this decision fully and effectively, as fans of the band, especially the people who have followed Evile from the beginning, deserve so much more than just a slapped together, generic, easily press digestible ‘band member leaves band’ paragraph. Evile has been a very large part of my life, something I have given a huge amount of energy and time to, and this is a decision which I have agonised over for a long time as it’s something I care about deeply, but it’s a decision I have to make. So, please allow me to explain it as best I can. There are two main reasons for this decision, firstly there is family. Since starting Evile, I had very few commitments, allowing me to sink as much time as possible into the band, but in the past several years that has changed. I became a stepfather to two young girls around a very traumatic time for them, and very shortly after became a father to my own daughter. The time that I have had available to pursue music has been vastly cut down, and considering the future when live music becomes possible again, the demands of a touring band lifestyle are not as viable and realistic for me anymore, as my duties as a father to three children outweigh anything else. I don’t want to be away from my family for large amounts of time, and outside of my full time employment I don’t want to divide 50% effort and time to the band and 50% to my family as I feel like I would be giving each side half of the time they really deserve, and if I have to choose which one I want to give priority and 100% to, it is my family. I don’t want to go out as a frontman who is only half prepared, half practised and half ready, as Evile and its wonderful followers deserve better than that - and on the other side of that, I don’t want to be away from home for long periods of time and not be around to help my children grow up, they deserve better than that, and I don’t want to miss out on any part of their lives. The other reason is my health. I’ve always said that I would do Evile for as long as possible, either until I’m dead or until I can physically no longer manage performing on stage. I have come close to the former, but the latter is now where things are (when compared to the former, a relief). Over the past couple of years I have had a non-stop run of health problems, mostly chest related, including costochondritis, several chest infections, a spontaneous collapsed lung (which I stupidly thought was another chest infection) and then kidney stones and a few other health detours. This all relates to singing, which is something that is nowhere near a natural ability or talent of mine, it’s something that I have had to work incredibly hard on to get to where I managed, which let’s face it, isn’t exactly anywhere spectacular, I’m never going to end up on anybody’s favourite vocalist list (although there is one thing I’ll mention later). But, the amount of upkeep it takes to maintain what vocal range/power/lung capacity I have/had to a usable standard is ridiculous, and my annoying health issues make that obstacle ever harder to overcome, made even more difficult by my limited available time to do so, it comes down to me accepting that I can’t do everything and I certainly can’t do everything and stay healthy. A singing voice is a muscle and I always had the time to spend training it so I could keep it in a decent place for getting through a tour. Now, my health issues of late have destroyed what singing voice I had, and in the past several months of starting vocal training all over again, getting somewhere, getting ill, starting all over again, getting ill, starting all over again, and so on - I have come to realise that I just don’t enjoy singing anymore and I’ve had to be very harsh with myself to realise that truth. I was never the best frontman, or the best singer, and Evile deserve to have a frontman who can give 100% to that craft, and I am fully confident that person is out there and can help take them to that next level where I hope and believe they can go, nothing would make me happier than to see the band be a real success. For twenty years I have had the great pleasure of writing and performing music with my brother Ol, Ben, Mike, Joel and Piers in Evile. It has taken us to places I never imagined, locations I never thought I would get to visit, let alone go to these places to play music for people who were willing to hear it. I’m proud of the band’s achievements so far, touring with some incredible bands such as Megadeth, Exodus, Kreator, Overkill, Voivod, Sepultura, Three Inches of Blood, Entombed, Forbidden, Machine Head, Amon Amarth, Satyricon, Gama Bomb, Warbringer, Dr. Living Dead, Lightning Swords of Death, Sanctity, Mutant, Pitiful Reign, Seregon, Onslaught and more, then getting to see pretty much all of America, Canada and a vast majority of Europe, living in Copenhagen for a month recording a debut album with Flemming Rasmussen and using some of the same gear used to record Lightning/Puppets, recording three albums with Russ Russell, releasing four albums with Earache Records, having songs featured on Rock Band, having a song in a Neil Jordan film (Ondine), getting into the UK charts, having original album artwork created by Michael Whelan (did you know the band members are hidden on that cover?), being on the front cover of Terrorizer magazine, playing at some amazing festivals and meeting some incredible people from all walks of life. There are plenty more to mention, plus all the brilliant things I’m grateful to have seen, which I wouldn’t have if I wasn’t in the band, like a small ‘up close and personal’ acoustic Skunk Anansie set in the press tent at Sonisphere (Paranoid and Sunburnt is one of my desert island discs, I had the chance to chat to them after their set but completely bottled it and will forever regret it), but I want to mention just a couple of other things while I have chance to do so. I’m proud of my contributions to Evile’s music, whether it’s riffs or sections here and there, or entire songs (Burned Alive, Plague to End All Plagues, Long Live New Flesh, The Naked Sun) but i’m proudest of the lyrics and vocal lines I contributed, which is roughly half of Enter the Grave, most of Nations, most of Five Serpent’s Teeth (for those two records however, Ol and Russ deserve a lot of credit for guiding me through parts I intended to sing, telling me it was nonsense after I tried it, and helping me find the correct choices, that was invaluable in making the albums as good as they could be) and nearly all of Skull - which is where I want to point back to what I mentioned about singing earlier, as while I acknowledge it isn’t a natural ability and I’m not the strongest or even that impressive of a vocalist, I will always be glad that my performance of Tomb exists on that album, it was a hugely personal thing to perform and record and I’ll be forever proud that I got to do that and do it as well as I possibly could, that is my favourite album of the four I got to be part of. I also want to quickly mention that I’m proud of being connected to Jackson Guitars for so many years, it’s an honour to have been in their catalogue too, I’ve played Jacksons for as long as I’ve been playing guitar, so I would like to thank them for being so kind to me for the 14 years I’ve been associated with them. This is a lot to read, but I want to get all of this written down as I’m trying to process my twenty years of experiences and thoughts on so many things connected to playing music, into several paragraphs, there’s a lot I would love to say, but I’m not one to outstay my welcome. I want to finish with a couple of things, one of them being a big regret I will have about leaving the band, that I never got to play a show with Metallica, that was my biggest personal goal in playing live music, not fame or anything material, I just wanted to play a show with the band that changed my life. Even just meeting James Hetfield would have been enough for me, but I guess that’s one personal goal I’ll have to live with missing the chance on. More important than the personal things I’ve just written about though, is one of my main areas of pride, and that is Evile’s fans, I’ve always been so proud to be able to say that Evile has such wonderful and dedicated fans, it has been a pleasure to meet so many of you, to stand on a stage and play music for you, to see and hear you singing lyrics and vocal lines that I’ve written, to see all that headbanging madness, I will truly miss getting on a stage to play those songs, so I would like to say a real thank you to everyone who has spent time listening to these first four albums and come to shows to see us play live while I got the chance to do it, I will miss your headbanging and energy like you wouldn’t believe, but I will never forget it. Lastly, and very importantly, I want to mention Mike. A person I wouldn’t have known if it wasn’t for being part of this band, one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met, a true heavy metal soul and a gentleman. This is one of the biggest things I’ve struggled with in my decision, I’m so sorry to him, that I can’t do my bit in continuing his legacy as a part it anymore. It breaks my heart to leave something that he was such a big part of, and that I was a part of with him, something that he was doing when we lost him. My hope is that, as a father himself, he would understand the decision I’m making. I’m taking all of my memories of Mike with me, and every year will always have a glass ready to raise on the day he entered this world, and on the day he left it. Thank you to everyone for reading this, hopefully I’ve written it well enough so you understand my reasoning. Please continue to support Evile as much as you ever have done, I wish the band all the success possible on their future journey, it’s been twenty years of extreme highs and lows, and everything in-between, I’m proud to be able to say I was part of it and I’ll be following where it goes from here with great interest, as a lifelong fan. My intention is to still play the Enter the Grave/Mike Alexander tribute show, whenever that may happen, as it would mean a tremendous amount to me to be able to pay tribute to Mike in a proper way, by playing the album he contributed the most to. But as of now, I am no longer part of the band. Please can I ask that people do not message me directly, I won’t be able to respond. Instead, please leave a comment below if you wish to say anything, positive or negative. The only thing I ask with that, is that you please remain respectful, whatever you want to say, good or bad, as the world has enough problems at the moment, and one of the things it needs is for people to think about what they say and care about how they say it. Thank you all again for your time in reading this, and thank you all for your time and energy given to Evile while I’ve been part of it. For the penultimate time (the last time will be the Enter the Grave/Mike show)... I salute you all.”