🪞
Welcome back to the Asylum write-up, where we explore the decade-long slow-motion car crash that is the Emilie Autumn fandom.
Sorry this installment took so long to upload! Just a heads-up, I may take some time to deliver the last one too – these posts take forever to format on Reddit's finicky-ass editor, and my dumb real life is currently keeping me from precious Internet time. Thank you for your patience! You have my word that everyone who pre-ordered the final installment will receive a PERSONAL, HANDWRITTEN letter autographed and illustrated by me, a list of the snacks I consumed while composing this write-up, some exclusive behind-the-scenes secrets, and a pony.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4.1 – Part 4.2 Part 5

Places, everyone This is a test Throw your stones Do your damage Your worst, and your best (...) And if I had a dollar For every time I repented the sin And commit the same crime I'd be sitting on top of the world today (“God Help Me”, 2006🎵)

Quick recap of where we left off. First, there were five to ten halcyon years of pleasant and meaningful interactions between EA and her blossoming fanbase, prominently by way of her official forum. Then, circa 2009-2010, EA's online presence shifted towards sudden anger outbursts, ban-hammering, and an increasingly top-down communication style.
This created a sort of primordial rift within the fanbase, between those who supported EA's right to speak her mind and regulate her own fan spaces however she pleased – and those who thought that her reactions were rude and inappropriate (at best), and that even fan spaces should allow for reasonable, non-abusive criticism of the artist.
Between a poorly-handled book release (see Part 3), the controversial (Part 2) or dubiously true (Part 4) contents of said book, and serious shade from various former collaborators (Part 5), more and more fans had pressing thoughts about EA's work ethic and choices. EA attempted damage control through drastic forum rules that made it virtually impossible to voice any “serious” critical opinion. It didn't work, of course: instead of squashing the mutiny, she created a schism.
Critical fans and active haters started congregating on unofficial platforms.

“WITH MUFFINS LIKE THIS, WHO NEEDS ENEMIES?”: TROLL LIKE A GIRL

So here we were, the early 2010s. The official forum (which had about 700 members in 2006, if you recall) was now thousands-strong, reaching just over 12,000 registered users in 2012 – not all of them active, but still. In terms of sheer numbers and content creation, the party was POPPIN'... but increasingly in parts of the Asylum that escaped EA's jurisdiction, such as Tumblr, where they could speak their mind freely.

You play the victim very well You've built your self-indulgent hell You wanted someone to understand you Well, be careful what you wish for, because I do (“I Know Where You Sleep”, 2006🎵)

In one wing of Asylum Tumblr, a smattering of call-out blogs emerged, which laid out EA's various lies, faux pas, shitty takes, and general deep-seated terribleness in detailed timelines and screenshots (or, short of that, long-winded bullet points). While many such blogs framed it as “serious” whistleblowing and did their best to remain as fact-based and neutral as they could, there was some genuine disgust, animosity and creepiness towards EA on that side of Tumblr; for some ex-fans, “exposing the truth” was mostly justify obsessive hatred, prying and verbal abuse. Some, for instance, felt the bizarre need to side with EA's mother in their estrangement. (One user, with the URL “emilyautumnfischkopf”, argued in a serious and down-to-earth tone - but with zero sources - that EA's upbringing had been nothing but peaceful and supportive until she ungratefully kicked her loving family to the curb for no reason at all. They were later revealed 🔍 to have an alternate handle as “eaisalyingcunt”.)
Either way, through these blogs, a number of potential drama bombs that had mostly flown under the radar were dredged up from over the years – some of which were hard to ignore, even for supportive fans. Where to begin?
There was that nonsense in-joke song, captured twice on camera during the 2009 tour (to very little outrage, at the time), crassly called “Manatee Retard”📺. Or EA's scathing response, in print, to a wheelchair user who found it insensitive that she used a bedazzled wheelchair as a prop to do sexy acrobatics on stage. (“Your offence taken at my hard-won self-acceptance proves that I indeed have something to fight against”, she wrote). Spoken word tracks where she made trivializing knock-knock jokes about serious mental illnesses she didn't have, like schizophrenia and OCD. Multiple instances of calling Britney Spears a “bimbo” and a “Hollywood fucked-up”, resentfully claiming that she only shaved her head because she was “hopped up on drugs” and certainly not because she was “bipolar”, a word the press liked to wield as an insult anyway. (“That's almost like calling someone a retard!” Yeah, heaven forbid.) The meanest, most distasteful paragraphs in the book. Basically everything problematic EA had ever said or written.📝 In retrospect, it had been a long time coming, but it was a lot to take in – and certainly more off-putting, even to less emotionally invested fans, than silly lies about her age and last name.
In another wing of Asylum Tumblr, some fans had had it up to here and just wanted to have fun. 🎵 If Plague Rats had learned one valuable lesson from EA, it was how to crack a joke in the face of absurd tragedy – and the general state of the EA fandom certainly warranted a few.
In 2012, Fight Like a Girl was released. After six long years, three of which had been peaceful, the Opheliac era was officially over. The new album and ensuing tour confirmed that the Asylum had entered a process of glamorous Broadway-style militarization. 🎵📺
The mood board was “Roman general meets Vegas showgirl meets Victorian street urchin”.🪞 The color palette was, to naysayers, “musty pink and rotten, stale piss yellow”. 🐀 The keyword was “REVENGE” (through the power of... self-expression! sorority! brutal assault with rusty medical implements!). The chorus of the title song had an intriguing run-on line about getting “revenge on the world, or at least 49% of the people in it” 🎵 – which seemed like an awful lot, and was widely interpreted (to cheers, boos, or uncomfortable sighs) as a misandrist jab at literally all men on Earth.
The show was essentially a demo version of the musical, in that the setlist vaguely reflected the order of events in the story – but prior reading was essential in order to get what the hell was going on on stage. This one Broadway reviewer had not perused the literature before seeing the show 🔍, and hated: the set, the choreography, the skits, the plot, the lyrics, the music, the concept. (Seriously, you should read the review. It's not even my show and I feel like quitting show business.)
Pre-show VIP encounters, now violin-free, were lorded over by EA's new manager🐀, whose official title was “Asylum Headmistress”. (Interesting choice – she sounds fun!) The swag bags were less substantial than before, and the “greet” part of the meet-and-greet was rarely more than a quick hug and photo op.
On Twitter, EA continued to embrace her “I am very badass” fronting attitude...

Often wonder if cyberbullies r aware they’re fucking w/ a girl who’s BFs w/ maker of the SAW films & is marrying a knife-throwing scorpion. (🐀📝)

...and her taste for needlessly inflammatory statements. About an aisle sign in a supermarket:

If this does not infuriate you, then you're a fucking potato.

(Again with the confounding crypto-ableism, EA! 🔍) She also went through a phase of raging against Lady Gaga 📝, who had stolen her idea of using a wheelchair on stage as an able-bodied woman. 🔍 That failed to convince anyone that she wasn't the histrionic diva that haters made her out to be.
Spurred on by EA's rallying cries and “us vs them” mentality, loyalists turned the white-knighting up to 11. On Twitter, some Plague Rats got into cat fights with Lady Gaga's Little Monsters (what a time to be alive). Others tried to balance out the Tumblr negativity with initiatives like “Spreading a Plague of Love” – a “positive-only” confession blog, whose extreme fangirling, comically drastic rules and hyper-defensive tone📝 did not debunk the increasingly popular notion that “true Plague Rats” were a bunch of authoritarian and hopelessly brainwashed fanatics.
EA truthers and other anti-fans started lashing out at anyone who dared express any positive opinion of EA, solidifying claims that the backlash against EA was just a conspiracy of bitter, hysterical bullies.
All this to say: every passing day brought new reasons for fans to get mad at EA and each other, and everyone in the Asylum was in need of a laugh. It's not easy having a good time.🦠
Leading up to Fight Like a Girl and in the years that followed, user-submission-based meme blogs took off, most notably “Spreading a Plague of Lulz / Troll Like a Girl”. A lot of the early submissions were absurdist humor and toothless, cheezburger-Impact memes (a style that was, oddly, already dated at the time). Those often originated in good fun, and from loyal fans, on the official forum. But there was also true snark, satirizing EA's questionable ethics, outrageous claims, and easily spoofed artistic gimmicks. A new slang of Asylumspeak emerged: Glittertits (slight NSFW), GAGA!!, EA Gusta and all its memeface variants, Get outta mah house!, Are You Suffering?, Fight Like A Goat, [Random celebrity] copied EA (a subgenre in its own right), ...
Most of the “trolling” was directed at unrepentant bootlickers and, to a lesser extent, red-in-the-face haters and creeps. Meme blogs would post joke comments under “serious” or gushing submissions on Wayward Victorian Confessions, and taunt loyalist accounts by tagging them in their posts. When a few people complained on WVC that almost all of the Bloody Crumpets to date had been thin white able-bodied women, and a few fans responded by sharing their dream-casts for a more diverse line-up, the blog was flooded for days with confessions that “X should be a Crumpet” (candidates included RuPaul, Mitt Romney, Nicki Minaj, EA's therapist, and the WVC admins). Farcical shenanigans like that.
Ah, but some people will always cross the line, won't they. EA threads popped up on merciless, bully-friendly snark platforms like Lolcow, Pretty Ugly Little Liar, and Encyclopedia Dramatica. Snarkers with a mean streak and obsessive haters mingled in some of the more aggressive, 4-chan-spirited retaliation against EA – which would be called “brigading” in modern parlance. This included flooding EA's Goodreads page with one-star reviews (see part 4), repeatedly editing her Wikipedia page to include her legal name and birth year, and ensuring that Googling said name would bring up current pictures of her.
All of this compounded agitation fragmented the once-united fandom beyond recognition.🦠 Through substantial disagreements among fans, personal bickerings, layers upon layers of inscrutable in-jokes, and cross-platform telephone games, the Asylum morphed into a booby-trapped Escher room.
Satire blogs were taken in earnest. Earnest fan blogs scanned as satire. Memes would get called out as abuse. Appreciation without attached criticism would get mocked as bootlicking. Obvious jokes made by EA would be taken at face value. One divisive confession could trigger days and days of debate, to the point that WVC eventually banned confessions in response to other confessions. New waves of infighting created a confusing web of rival sub-factions🐀, each accusing the others of being toxic, cliquish, and delusional.
The shared fantasy was broken, the collective vision had crumbled, no onez was speaking the same language anymore. Fans would jump down the throat of other fans who held almost identical views about EA, except for that one thing she said or did that one time. Everyone had differing thoughts on what should or shouldn't acceptable to discuss, question, excuse, make fun of.
War is hell.

SCORCHED EARTH SHENANIGANS: HONEY, I SHRUNK THE ASYLUM

Would you tear my castle down Stone by stone And let the wind run through my windows Till there was nothing left But a battered rose? (“Castle Down”, 2003🎵)

Haters vs sycophants is not really the kind of conflict where one side can come out on top (if you're participating, you've already lost). But in the long tug-of-war between “grassroots” and “EA-sponsored” fan spaces, the ultimate winner is obvious – in that the former is gasping in agony, a shriveled husk of its former glory, while the latter... is non-existent. This is due in no small part to EA's tendency, like the Czars of old, to settle conflicts by setting Moscow on fire.🔍)
That's not entirely fair: unlike EA, the czar only did it that once.
By early 2013, as EA was gearing up for her third Fight Like a Girl tour at the end of the year, the official forum was... not as lively as it once had been. Not just because of the stifling rules and disgruntlement towards EA, or because EA herself hadn't really posted anything on there in years; the Internet was also changing, and forums in general were fast becoming passé.
This made it difficult for EA to create a safe space where she could talk to fans, and fans could talk to and about her, in a way she deemed suitable (ie, a space she could gate-keep and regulate enough to keep it completely free from negative criticism). Social media was a minefield; she still posted regularly, but didn't interact very much. So EA and the Headmistress came up with a way to filter out the unbelievers: an official fan club📝, aptly called the “Asylum Army”, with a $100 entry price.
Joining the AA came with a dog tag, a sew-on patch, and a lifetime membership certificate signed by EA and – for some reason – the Headmistress. (Unlike EA's best friend and sound engineer back in the forum's heyday, I don't think fans ever really embraced the FLAG-era manager as part of the Asylum in-group. She came across more as a coordinator / businessperson / adult chaperone, at best.🐀) So, slightly better goodies than you'd get by joining the other AA 🔍 ... but not by much. The main appeal was that members would have access to exclusive content, special merch, giveaways, early bird tickets for future shows, and regular video chats with EA.
The concept itself drew a fair amount of criticism, as you can imagine. Between the name🐀, the price, and the inherent gatekeeping of a pay-to-join fanclub, many balked at the monetizing of a concept that had once (like, three years back) been significantly more DIY, grassroots, and inclusive. 📝🐀
Then again, many also longed for a positive, drama-free space where fans could just be fans. And while the creation of the AA was generally recognized as a quick cashgrab, a lot of people were surprisingly cool with it. EA was trying to finance her dream musical, after all – although a number of fans wished she had gone about raising funds in a less sketchy way.
So around 400 fans shelled out (which, according to the Headmistress📝, “basically cover[ed] the cost of running the fanclub itself – keeping the database up, website, etc.”). Enough for a close-knit, but sizable community. But already, there was a conflict of interest: a high fanclub entry fee essentially demands that you pledge loyalty to the artist over loyalty to your fellow fans, who wish to join but can't afford to. Sharing, caring, and ensuring no one felt left out were some of the more positive values cultivated in the fandom... but leaking exclusive content would surely piss off other paying members🐀, and make EA feel betrayed all over again. (And she had barely just started to mellow out on social media!)
...But then again, this is the internet. After the first month of secret AA drops (lyric sheets, some photoshoot outtakes – nothing too juicy, really), there were, yes, some leaks. EA was predictably miffed, and retaliated by... ghosting the fanclub for weeks at a time in its first few months of existence (great look!). She eventually found the “solution” to her problem, by providing something you couldn't right-click-save (and which had been part of the promised perks to begin with): live interaction.
Over webcam, she was her usual in-person bubbly, charming, funny self. Everyone seemingly had a good time during the fanclub video chat, and this gave people faith and hope.
There were a few more events, giveaways, etc. As promised, ahead of the fall 2013 tour (the last one to date, it would turn out), AA members got priority access to show tickets and VIP bundles. The latter were much pricier than before, and only included soundcheck, a photo-op, and three goodies: a tin of loose-leaf tea, a signed printer-paper setlist, and a small flag that said “F.L.A.G.”.🔍 Some stuff continued to leak – but, as some of the outlaws pointed out (scroll down to the Disqus comments), they were mostly relaying information that was relevant to the entire fanbase, such as updates about ongoing projects (the dragged-out recording of the audiobook, for one).
In early 2014, lifetime memberships were closed, and replaced with monthly, quarterly and yearly subscription tiers. Bizarrely, you ended up paying $3 more per month if you bought a $99 yearly subscription📝 – but it did include the patch, dog tag, and piece of paper!

Sometimes I kind of want to be part of the cool kids and register to the Asylum Army. Then I remember how it came about, what you could get for the same price a couple years ago, how the whole thing was and is handled, and that I won’t support any of this bullshit. (And then I roll around naked in all the money I’m saving.) (🐀)

Still, a number of fans rejoiced at the affordable monthly option, and joined – if not for the exclusive content and merch (which were... okay, but not much to write home about), then for the friendly, drama-free exchanges with an artist they actually did love, in spite of all the frustration.
For the still-too-poor or still-undecided, there was always the forum! It wasn't as active as it used to be, but a few die-hards still managed to keep the lights on... until, inevitably, Someone Did Something and Ruined Everything. (Once again: EA's wrath is spectacular, but rarely completely unprovoked.) The incident features one notable figure in the Asylum community. Let's call him the Collector.
OK, so maybe you remember the meme I linked to in Part 4, with Christian Grey and the ginormous EA hoard. Well, that's the Collector's collection. The “Violin” promo that I called the "Holy Grail of the fandom" in the same paragraph? Also his. The handwritten lyrics that went for $940? Guess who won that auction. Over the years, the Collector had probably spent five figures on EA merch and shows, and although that fact was a little unsettling, he was a very active, easy-going, and generally well-liked fixture of the fandom.
One day in 2012, shortly after the Headmistress had replaced EA's old Chicago BFF as main forum admin, the Collector's account got banned or restricted over something dumb. When the ban wasn't lifted as quickly as he hoped, he took it... the way one takes things when one is unhealthily invested: he started spamming Headmistress and the mod team with increasingly rambling and abusive emails (lost to time, probably for the best). When that didn't work quickly enough, he tried a different route.
One of the many auctions that the Collector had won, some years prior, was EA's old iPod Touch📝 – which contained all of her favorite tunes and, buried somewhere in the data cache... a phone number. Which the Collector tried calling. And wouldn't you know it: EA picked up. She congratulated him on his sleuthing skills, listened patiently as he made his case, apologized for any distress caused by the unfair account restriction, and then they got married.
Kidding! She freaked the fuck out, hung up, and banned him for life from the forum and all EA shows and events.
After his ban, the Collector allegedly still tried to attend at least one VIP pre-show (one source in the comments says he was allowed to buy some merch, refunded for his ticket, and escorted out). He joined the Reform forum to bitch about EA and try to rally people to his cause, possibly made revenge posts about her on darker snark forums, and continued to hound the Asylum mod team. So in June 2014, EA came up with a radical and unexpected fix to the Collector problem.

The official Asylum Fan Forum has been shut down permanently. I have personally paid thousands of dollars each year to keep the forum safe and secure for you ... Unfortunately, the forum has not been kept safe and secure for me, a truth which disappoints me greatly, instead becoming a place where people who have physically threatened myself and my staff prey upon forum members, pressuring them to contact me and my staff on their behalf. If the gullible wish to humor my stalkers (who live in their parent’s basement at age 30 something) and thus put me in danger, they may do it on their own dime. They may also fuck off, because stupidity can kill, and I won’t be your victim. To those who enjoyed the forum, you know who to thank for its closure. (“On the closing of the Asylum Forum”)

Voilà! This is how a decade-long archive of shared history ends: not with a bang, but with a dirty delete and a sod-off communiqué.
The obliteration of the forum took everyone by surprise...

I was actually on the forum when it was taken down. I was navigating between posts and when I went to click on a different board, an error message came up. I honestly cried a little, I'm not ashamed to say. (WVC admin on Reddit, 2024)

...and I do mean everyone:

Chicago BFF / ex-admin, the next morning: Whoa, EA forum shut down? Ex-mod: It turns out that if someone spends enough years actively “waging war” to destroy what they can’t have, eventually they’ll be successful. * eye roll * Not even mods got prior warning. Just all the sudden, poof, gone. BFF: Really? She did not let the moderators know?! This is sounding worse and worse. Uggh. I’m so sorry. Such a loss. (...) Ok, threats are serious, but why not just put it in archive mode so no one can post? (...) Sad. I shall light a candle in the forum's honor. (Facebook posts; scroll down for screenshots)

It was a gut punch, especially for people who had poured countless hours into the community, or could have used some prior warning to save years of their own writing from the role-playing threads. One last chance to take a look around the place that had meant so much to so many.

From the wording of the announcement of closing the forum and a number of other things, it sometimes seems like EA doesn't like her fans much. :/ (🐀)

Three months after the forum was nuked, Battered Rose (a venerable EA fansite, which had been around since the Enchant era and had one of the most complete EA galleries online) announced that it was shutting down too.📝 The admin, who had also been a long-time forum mod, cited a lack of “time, energy, passion, or money” to keep the website going... and being upset at the sudden disappearance of the forum. It was, truly, the end of an era for the Asylum.
...Well, no point in living in the past. For those who could afford it, and still wanted to talk to/about EA after that (not everyone did 🐀), there was always the Asylum Army fanclub!
Over the summer of 2014, EA held regular live chats and Q&A's, and... many attendees really enjoyed them, and thought the AA was well worth the money after all. She also quietly parted ways with the much poo-pooed Headmistress around that time.

Just spent over 4 hours giggling, drinking tea and playing guessing games in chat with EA and other Asylum Army members ... No griping, no downers, just lots of fun. I think I like the way the ‘new fandom’ is going and now I’m really glad I finally decided to join the Army. (September 4, 2014🐀; Battered Rose had closed the day before)

The forum was lost forever, but perhaps that was a chance for a fresh start. Could this fanclub thing really be the Asylum Renaissance that fans had been longing for?

...I have come today to a very difficult but necessary decision, and that is to discontinue the Emilie Autumn Official Fanclub. The site itself, and the community chatroom, will remain open to you indefinitely, but I will no longer be making updates to the site. (Newsletter, September 8, 2014📝)

...Never mind, then.
Turns out the fanclub had been the Headmistress' idea all along. EA had been reluctant from the start, and although she really enjoyed the live chats with a safe community of people “who are there for the right reasons”, she couldn't overcome her fundamental discomfort with the concept. Lifetime and regular members would receive a bunch of digital downloads and a -35% coupon on the Asylum Emporium for their troubles. EA said she would definitely pop back once in a while for live chats, for free, just for fun, but to my knowledge, she never did.
And so the most devoted fans were left standing in the rain...

She is happy, she made it. She is fulfilling her dreams, found love and happiness after all the pain. I understand that she now doesn’t need “us” anymore ... That doesn’t change the fact she broke my heart with taking the Asylum Army and the forum from me. Yet, I am happy for her. (🐀)

...while naysayers pointed and laughed, Nelson-style.🦠

I don’t feel sorry at all for the people that paid for the Asylum Army fan club. Most of them knew that EA is an atrocious business woman and has broken many promises before. In fact, I laugh at them. They seriously thought that EA would actually stay consistent with this? (🐀)

EVERYTHING MUST GO: THE ASYLUM WHOLESALE

EA fans were left without an “official” home for about three years. This gave them plenty of time to be annoyed at EA for: not releasing the audiobook on time, not materializing any new project for a while... and the new sin of peddling random, ridiculously marked-up AliBaba jewelry as “merch” on her official store. Think faux-antique cameo pendants and $30 Big Ben rings (...because the Asylum story is set in London, get it?).

The whole accessories section looks like a tacky overpriced English souvenir shop. (🐀)

The fanbase lost a lost of steam in those in-between years, because there wasn't much to stick around for. As evidenced by the positive reception of the AA live chats, even in the midst of unresolved drama, out-loud interactions in a friendly environment have always been EA's saving grace. Considering the amount of online hate, there are shockingly few accounts of bad IRL encounters with EA: most people say that in live conversation, she comes across as a fun, warm, and genuinely sweet person. Some report that their negative opinion shifted after meeting her.
But there were no chats or live shows anymore. There was only social media, where she ignored questions and vague-posted about overdue projects – and the newsletter📝, which was all saccharine love-bombing to promote bland dropshipped trinkets. For fans who remembered the handcrafted merch (and two-way communication) of the early years, it was a bitter pill to swallow.

CONTINUED IN COMMENTS

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Record temperatures, record migration, record emissions, record displacement, record PFAS……start building an ark.
Last Week in Collapse: May 12-18, 2024
This is Last Week in Collapse, a weekly newsletter compiling some of the most important, timely, useful, soul-crushing, ironic, stunning, exhausting, or otherwise must-see/can’t-look-away moments in Collapse.
This is the 125th newsletter! You can find the May 5-11 edition here if you missed it last week. You can also receive these posts (with images) every Sunday in your email inbox with Substack.
——————————
Flash flooding in northern Afghanistan killed 300+ people and destroyed 1,000+ homes. Hundreds of thousands of others have been affected. Last month, similar floods in the region killed 70+. Four died in Texas storms last week as well.
Venezuela is suffering from record wildfires, which so far this year have burned about 5M acres—almost the size of Sardinia. Some experts think indigenous people started the blaze as an attempt at forest clearance, which quickly got out of hand. “Institutional failures” compounded the disaster when the ailing government responded with an inadequate number of poorly equipped firefighters. Another study from last week examined the impact of wildfires on soil health.
Flooding and “cold lava” killed 50+ in Indonesia, injuring dozens and displacing several thousand. Cold lava is a mixture of water and rocks tumbling down the side of a volcano. Meanwhile, an actual volcano erupted in Indonesia, sending smoke & ash 5000m high; further eruptions are possible soon.
The Swiss Re Institute published a 37-page report last week about natural disasters in 2023—and how much damage, in USD, they caused. The largest catastrophe was the February 7.8 earthquake in Türkiye & Syria, which killed 59,000+ people and caused $163B+ in damage. The report is full of interesting graphics & data about natural disasters.

“Last year, economic losses from natural catastrophes reached USD 280 billion, meaning that 62% of the global losses were uninsured….the insured losses surpassed USD 100 billion for the fourth consecutive year….annual insured losses will grow by 5–7% over the long term…today’s insured losses could double in 10 years….There were 142 insured-loss inducing catastrophes in 2023, a new record. Most were of medium severity, which we define as events resulting in losses of USD 1–5 billion….Over the last 30 years, we estimate that natural catastrophe insured losses have grown by 3 percentage points more annually than the global economy (in inflation adjusted terms)...”

Flooding and heat waves are impacting Brazil’s oranges, responsible for about 70% of the world’s supply. One food analysts declared that the “era of cheap food is over”—in the UK, at least. That may be one reason why UK residents took record food bank packages last year. Madagascar is struggling to adapt to a future with far less rainfall.
France is growing more concerned about a dam on Lake Geneva, controlled exclusively by Switzerland. The Rhône River, which begins in Switzerland and flows south through France, is shrinking in summers as climate change melts Switzerland’s remaining glaciers.
The Tonlé San River has been dammed in Vietnam, lowering the level in Cambodia and sometimes drying the river downstream entirely. Meanwhile, China’s lychee harvest is getting blasted by rain, impacting the world’s largest source of lychee. And, once again, Saudi Arabia is suffering flooding in its inland regions. 7 dead in historic flooding in Iran.
The eminent climate scientist James Hansen posted that, since “human-made aerosols and their cooling effect are in decline,” the cooling effect of La Niña will be counterbalanced by these rising temperatures. He also identifies a “large anomaly of increased absorbed solar radiation at midlatitudes in the Northern Hemisphere” responsible for rising temperatures there. CO2 levels are rising faster today than they have at any point in the previous 50,000 years…and a study of millennia-old trees determined last summer was the hottest worldwide in 2,000+ years…
Record nighttime May temperatures were tied in the Philippines and Vietnam. A couple Indonesian cities broke records for May temperatures. And a number of southern African states saw more records drop. And Toronto saw a record tied for the number of days reaching 14 °C (57 °F). A heat wave has returned to Bangladesh. Flooding in Cali (pop: 2.9M), Colombia.
The University of Washington was ordered to stop a geoengineering project that scientists sere conducting from the deck of a decommissioned aircraft carrier. The experiment ejected aerosolized saltwater in an attempt to reflect solar radiation. A comparative study in Nature Communications of a number of carbon pricing found that, yes, carbon pricing does work to reduce the total CO2 emitted.
It’s that time of the year again. Wildfires in Canada grow, some of which are moving towards the tar sands—forcing thousands to evacuate. 39 of the total nation’s blazes are “out of control,” resulting in air quality alerts in the United States. Meanwhile, across the Caribbean, water shortages have become the new normal, and residents (and tourists) are finding their old consumption habits hard to change. St. Lucia has declared a water emergency. In Myanmar, water shortages worsen, particularly as related to the spiraling conflict.
At least ⅛ of Europeans live in a place at risk of extreme flooding—so says a 175-page report from the European Environment Agency posted on Wednesday. The number of people living in flood-risk coastal areas in the EU & UK is expected to jump 24% by 2050. The graphics-packed report also considers how flooding will impact healthcare facilities, mental health, wastewater treatment plants, the spread of disease, cyanobacteria, permafrost thaw, and much else.

“Europe has seen devastating floods following record rainfall, droughts of magnitudes not experienced in hundreds of years, continuing sea level rise, and increasing lake and sea temperatures….permanent water stress already affects 30% of people in southern Europe….since 2018, more than half of Europe has been impacted by extreme drought conditions….Climate change is expected to increase mercury bioaccumulation in the marine food chain due to rising ocean temperatures, ocean acidification and permafrost thawing….Depression, anxiety and PTSD may persist for years after a flooding event….Under the changing climate, northern Europe is becoming wetter in general, but drier in summer. Southern Europe is becoming drier, especially in winter. For central-eastern and western Europe, the trend is less clear…” -selections from the report

Milan suffered flooding last week, the worst May flooding in 170 years. Early spring in the UK has disrupted migratory bird species and their usual patterns.
A 74-page working paper which is not yet peer-reviewed claims that earlier estimates for how much GDP would be impacted by another 1 °C temperature rise is way less than it would be in actuality. The paper claims the real cost (in USD) is about 6x greater. They claim “global temperature has much more pronounced impacts on economic activity than local temperature” and that extreme weather is mostly behind the projected decline in productivity.
——————————
Epidemiologists are worried about how climate change in Africa may extend the life of disease-bearers like ticks and mosquitoes. Other epidemiologists are worried about how cattle may become a permanent reservoir for H5N1. Growing traced of bird flu have been found in wastewater testing in the U.S., but investigators think it may be runoff from infected dairy farms.
Obesity, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure rates today globally are 50% higher than in 2000—though researchers claim that air pollution still poses a larger threat. Of a study participants in Hawai’i, 75% had respiratory issues, probably from the Maui wildfires last year.
The 2024 World Migration Report is out, and its 384 pages are not as apocalyptic as one might think. However, internally displaced people are at their all-time highest. India, Mexico, Russia, China, and Syria lead the world in emigrants; another document contains the definitions for who exactly constitutes a migrant. Unfortunately much of the data relied upon ends in 2022. Data from this year, not included in the above report, indicates a 40% jump in traffic through the Darien Gap compared to the same time period in 2023.

“The last two years saw major migration and displacement events that have caused great hardship and trauma, as well as loss of life….There have also been large-scale displacements triggered by climate- and weather-related disasters in many parts of the world in 2022 and 2023, including in Pakistan, the Philippines, China, India, Bangladesh, Brazil and Colombia….disinformation tactics are increasingly being used by nefarious actors with negative impacts on public, political and social media discourse on migration….Forced displacement is the highest on record in the modern era…overconsumption and overproduction linked to unsustainable economic growth, resource depletion and biodiversity collapse, as well as ongoing climate change (including global heating) are continuing to grip the world….the risk of further conflict has not been higher in decades, as military spending reached a new record high of USD 2,240 billion in 2022…” -excerpts from the introduction

Another report, focusing on internal displacement, came out last week; its 69 pages show a cross-section of about 47M people displaced by natural disasters (56%) or armed conflict (44%). Most of the disasters were storms & flooding, and most of the conflicts were civil wars of some form. This report also provides detailed region-by-region analyses—with sub-Saharan Africa accounting for 46% of global IDPs.

“Conflict and violence triggered 13.5 million movements, the highest figure for the past 15 years….Disasters and conflict are presented as different triggers, but their impacts can overlap, often leading to repeated and/ or protracted displacement….Drought triggered 331,000 displacements in Somalia….Floods triggered 550,000 displacements in Ethiopia….Conflict and violence triggered 3.8 million displacements in DRC in 2023, a slight fall from the record four million in 2022, but still the second-highest figure globally after Sudan….nearly two-thirds of the internal displacements recorded in 2023 originated from Khartoum state. More than 39 per cent of the state's inhabitants were forced to flee, leaving entire neighbourhoods empty….Criminal and communal violence triggered nearly three-quarters of Nigeria's 291,000 conflict displacements….” -selections from the spotlight on sub-Saharan Africa

Experts are concerned about the mental health impacts that climate change has on our minds. Hotter temperatures reportedly increase depression & aggression. Wildfires and storms can cause PTSD. Workers feel stress and desperation as their usual industries are impacted. And air pollution influences ordinary brain processes in many ways.
Some analysts believe “Peak China” may be over, signaling a period of economic tapering-off, as well as a growing militancy. Increasing U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods are continuing to separate the two economies. The Netherlands finally formed a provisional government, though its proposed immigration & farming policies have set it at odds with the EU.
The Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank, released a 46-page report on potential climate risks to the banking system’s resilience. As far as I understood, most of the risk lies in extreme weather events and the risk to insurance agencies.
Part of southeast England experienced an outbreak of Cryptosporidium, a diarrhea & vomiting illness, highly contagious, which can last weeks. At least 22 cases have been reported. Meanwhile, the CDC is issuing warnings about the more dangerous strain of monkeypox circulating in the DRC, although cases are currently limited to Africa.
North Carolina’s Senate voted to ban mask-wearing last week, under the reasoning that it would make police identification of protestors difficult. An fMRI study found lasting neurological changes in COVID survivors; they “had significantly higher cognitive complaints of mental fatigue and cognitive failure….even two years after recovering.” Experts say a summer rise in COVID cases is coming to the United States.
A study on The Canadian/American Great Lakes found that PFAS levels are increasing in the 3 largest lakes (Superior, Huron, and Michigan), while decreasing in the other two (Erie, Ontario). The study also found that precipitation is the primary means by which the Lakes are accumulating PFAS, since the chemicals are small & stable enough to move through the water cycle. Meanwhile, in England’s Lake District, a telecom failure resulted in raw sewage being pumped into England’s largest and most famous lake, Windermere, on-and-off for 10 hours; and a major British water CEO took a $4M USD pay package last year. And a look into the Chicago River’s health found that microplastics & trash are endangering health & biodiversity.
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An assassination attempt by a lone wolf on Slovakia’s PM left him in critical condition, but likely to survive. 11 civilians were slain by cartel fighters in a few battles in Mexico. Violence continues to spiral out of control in Goma, DRC.
In Haiti, everything worsens indefinitely. Guns have reportedly entered from Florida, a phenomenon which officials call an “iron river.” Police have been put on the defensive against the growing might of the gang warlords.
A brawl broke out in Taiwan’s parliament. An Iranian plot was allegedly foiled to smuggle weapons into Jordan to destabilize the pro-U.S. regime.
Dozens more died in Sudan from escalating violence around Darfur. People are warning about “a disaster on top of a disaster” and the possibility of Sudan splitting apart. Others have called it “hell on earth” as 1,000+ refugees cross the Chad border every day. Disease and malnutrition are growing, while famine encroaches upon 9M helpless victims of the conflict—but the world’s attention is elsewhere.
The U.S. Army Engineers completed constructing the pier in Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid. Some 600,000 Gazans have been displaced from Rafah already, and fighting has escalated against Hamas militants in northern Gaza.
Taliban forces skirmished with Pakistani soldiers for about 90 minutes last week. Taliban attacks in Pakistan, and counterattacks have resulted in a kind of ambient disruption for the rocky border zone.
Violent protests—and counteroperations—are continuing in New Caledonia (pop: 270,000), a Pacific island part of overseas France. The riots, which have killed 6 people so far, began after metropolitan France proposed a plan to expand voting rights beyond indigenous residents. A state of emergency has been declared amid worries about a spiral of violence taking hold.
As the Sahel dries out, experts are concerned about the links to rising terrorism in the region. The Sahel accounts for over 40% of global terrorism deaths—according to the analysts’ understanding of “terrorism.” Mali in particular has reportedly become home to 41 new, different non-state armed groups (NSAGs) since 2007. A contested election in Chad resulted in the consolidation of the interim leader’s power.

“If governments are continually unable to solve regional issues, the people will be at the whim of any terror group that has a basic organization. It serves these groups’ interests to promote insecurity where they can and create security where they want. A “hearts and minds” campaign in the Sahel could lead to long-term and locally supported insurgencies in a land that is currently rife with civil strife.” -from the article

Some wargamers concluded that a Trump victory in 2020 would spell the end of NATO, or at least the end of its utility. Vladimir Putin replaced his minister of defense with a top economic advisor, just before going to Beijing to reaffirm their friendship with “no limits.” Some say Putin is planning on a forever war. Some say NATO is gearing up for one, too.
Russia made several gains in the suburbs of Kharkiv, seizing several settlements which some analysts doubt they will hold. Putin claims they aren’t really trying to take Kharkiv anyway… Russia also made small progress in the Donbas—although they suffered their largest one-day casualties since the start of the war. The U.S. allocated another $2B to hasten the delivery of weapons to the front lines. The next weeks will be crucial on the front. Switzerland has invited 160+ nations to send delegates to a peace summit intended to design a path to making peace in this War.
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Select comments/threads from the subreddit last week suggest:
-Brazil’s flooding was really, really bad, judging from this post and its accompanying images. Across just one of Brazil’s 26 states, 600,000+ people have been made homeless, 100+ have died, and the storm season isn’t over yet. Some of the flooding isn’t expected to subside for another month.
-How specifically might climate change make humanity extinct? This thread crowdsources a number of plausible ways, from ordinary famines to nuclear war and even a massive deoxygenation process. I tend to think it will be a consequence of an eventual nuclear exchange, followed by extended famine and disease.
Got any feedback, questions, comments, complaints, upvotes, doom prophets to follow, hugelkultur guides, directions to off-grid bunkers, ark schematics, etc.? Check out the Last Week in Collapse SubStack if you don’t want to check collapse every Sunday, you can receive this newsletter sent to your (or someone else’s) email inbox every weekend. What did I forget this week?

Ladies and gentlemen, extraterrestrials, and sentient AI overlords! Gather 'round because Zane Zany is about to take you on a wild ride through the mind-bending, reality-twisting, coffee-spilling world of fractal art! Yes, you heard it right—fractals, those brain-melting, visually addictive patterns that make you question if nature's been watching too much sci-fi. Buckle up, buttercups, because we're diving into the recursive rabbit hole of fractal geometry, where Mother Nature herself is the original nerdy artist.
First, let's talk about fractals. Imagine you’re scrolling through Netflix, and instead of choosing between true crime documentaries and that new reality show where people date while hanging upside down, you stumble upon an endless loop of visually stunning, infinitely complex patterns. These, my friends, are fractals—the artistic equivalent of getting lost in the comment section of a viral TikTok.
Fractals are essentially shapes that repeat themselves on different scales. Think of them as the visual manifestation of your favorite TV show that keeps rebooting itself. One of the most famous fractals is the Mandelbrot set, which looks like a trippy explosion of paisleys on LSD. You zoom in on one part, and bam! There’s another paisley party going on in there. It’s like a never-ending series of Russian nesting dolls, but way more psychedelic.
Now, Mother Nature, being the ultimate overachiever, decided to use fractals to design some of her best work. Ever noticed how a cauliflower looks like a tiny, edible brain? Or how lightning bolts resemble the family tree of Zeus's illegitimate children? That’s fractal geometry in action, folks! Nature has been using fractals to show off her math skills long before humans decided to scribble them on their trapper keepers.
Let’s take a closer look at the wacky world of fractal art, where the line between art and science blurs more than my vision after too much screen time. Imagine digital landscapes that look like Salvador Dalí on a coding binge. Artists like Hal Tenny and Kerry Mitchell create these digital masterpieces that make your eyes pop out like a cartoon character seeing a pie on a windowsill. Their works are a mix of math wizardry and artistic flair, transforming complex equations into visual feasts that make you wonder if you’ve accidentally ingested something illegal.
But wait, there’s more! It’s not just digital; hand-drawn fractal art is a thing too. Picture an artist with the patience of a saint and the determination of someone binge-watching an entire season of "Stranger Things" in one sitting. These artists meticulously draw each tiny, repeating pattern by hand. It's like watching Bob Ross on speed, each "happy little accident" turning into a mesmerizing fractal forest.
One of the coolest things about fractal art is how it mimics the infinite complexity of natural forms. It’s like nature’s way of saying, “I see your doodles, and I raise you a universe.” For instance, the branching patterns of trees, blood vessels, and even the internet’s favorite—snowflakes—are all fractal patterns. These natural fractals are so precise that they make human-made fractal art look like a kindergarten drawing contest.
Now, let's get real for a moment and talk about the science behind these bad boys. Fractals are the product of simple mathematical rules repeated over and over. It’s like taking your favorite GIF and putting it on an infinite loop until your brain melts. This process, known as iteration, is the secret sauce behind those stunning fractal images. And if you think that’s nerdy, just wait until you hear this: fractals are used in everything from computer graphics to diagnosing heart disease. Talk about a glow-up from mere doodles to lifesavers!
Alright, my intergalactic audience, let's sprinkle in some contemporary pop culture because why not? Imagine if Marvel’s Doctor Strange teamed up with Picasso after a bender at a hacker convention. That’s the level of surreal you get with fractal art. Or think about "Rick and Morty" if they decided to explore the infinite realities within a single broccoli floret. Fractals are the multiverse theory of art and science—every zoom reveals another layer of mind-blowing complexity.
And speaking of complexity, let’s not forget about the applications. Fractals aren’t just pretty pictures; they have real-world uses that would make even Tony Stark jealous. For example, in telecommunications, fractal antennas are all the rage. They’re tiny, efficient, and look like they belong in a sci-fi movie. These antennas use fractal patterns to pick up a wide range of frequencies, making your smartphone signals stronger than my desire for a pizza right now.
But fractals aren't just solving tech problems—they're also helping scientists understand natural phenomena. Take the coastlines of continents, for instance. They’re not straight lines but jagged, irregular shapes that resemble, you guessed it, fractals! By studying these patterns, scientists can predict erosion and even help with environmental conservation. It’s like Mother Nature gave us a cheat code to understand her secret plans.
Now, let’s wrap this mind-bending journey with a bow, shall we? Fractal art is the glorious intersection where art and science have a wild, late-night party and invite everyone they know. It’s proof that math isn’t just for nerds—it’s the creative force behind the beauty of the natural world and the digital masterpieces that leave us awestruck. So, next time you’re out in nature or lost in a fractal video loop, remember that you’re witnessing the same principles that make your phone work, keep planes in the air, and help us understand the universe.
So, there you have it, folks! Fractal art: where geometry, nature, and a splash of human creativity come together to blow our minds. It's the ultimate nerdy art form that proves even the most complex mathematical principles can be stunningly beautiful. And remember, whether you’re a digital artist, a nature lover, or just someone who likes trippy patterns, fractals have something to offer. Until next time, keep your eyes peeled for the hidden patterns in life, and don’t forget to tip your server. Zane Zany, signing off!

Just a quick warning I’m putting it all out here about our friendship, i just want to tell the truth.
I 19f had a messy relationship with my ex best friend who I’ll call Tina because she was tiny.
We met in our 7th grade math class after she was having a panic attack because of multiple things going on in her life. I comforted her and helped her escape a toxic friendship and introduced her to my group of friends. We called every night and gave each other ther the support we both needed as I was sheltered and new to everything and she was coming out of some serious mental tolls.
I was there for her even though she wasn’t always for me. I helped her through when her dad nearly died and his entire personality changed, when her mom became a single mother and Tina felt the need to step up as the other parent, and fully supported her in everything she did.
Everything was great until we hit high school. She demanded we talked everyday at school and at least an hour on the phone. I don’t mean to say she told me outright but she definitely forced my hand to keep the friendship. She would guilt trip me with fake panic attacks and swear I was being terrible to her. She also pretty much had to approve every friend I had not to mention boyfriends. The first two, granted, were asses to say the least. However, she’d look for reasons for me not to explore friendships outside of our little group.
I talked to several friends about how much this time affected my grades, love life, and other friendships and they all said the same thing, I went from cheerful and playful, to scared and there being no light in my eyes when Tina was around.
A couple years into high school I met my now boyfriend and we hit it off big time. She did everything to chase him away and even convinced me to break things off. Luckily he and I never grew apart and decided that we’d try again, but help make each other better and to keep a more open line of communication.
She tried to use the same tactic on my other friend from theater but didn’t succeed.
To add insult to injury, I wrote a children’s book and it went to a national competition and all she cared about is that she became a published author in a poetry book before I even started binding my book. I told her about my success in the hallway of a hotel while my club members celebrated all our national placements and all she had to say, “that’s cool but I won that poetry contest and I’m published now! I’m getting copies of the book on Saturday, aren’t you proud of me!”
When I confronted her about this, she said she was also proud of me but she felt I was being selfish. I won a trip to Florida and get to present the book I worked so hard on. But apparently, that’s not as important.
Now for the big conflict, in the summer of 2023, I left my parents house the night before my college orientation. I’ll do a separate story on that. The point is, I left.
She herself yes was there for me holding me as I cried about leaving my sister and helping me but what I need to couch surf for a while.
She had a plan, move me from the campus I was registered for to the one she was going to and have me split door-dash money with her and hopefully not have to live out of her car. She also wanted me to pull a hearty loan from the bank her mom worked for to pay for all this. I personally cannot do that as I’m in the middle of getting a name change and it was hard for me to even get a driving permit.
A couple months pass and the house I had stayed at for that time kicked me out. From the stress of college and getting a job I’ll admit, I wasn’t the nicest.
The day before I was told I needed to find another place to stay I got a call from Tina. She called me crying because she was worried I was going to commit suicide and I talked to her about my feelings and future. How I have so much left to do and see. Including marrying the man I love, my boyfriend. She cried about that and said I should have listened to her. I pretty much ignored it as we talked about it serval times.
I was served my eviction notice, apologized to my friends parents, and began packing my things. I get a FaceTime from her and I’m thinking that my best friend might have some words of comfort or something.
I answer the call and with my friend in the back, she starts in on me saying that no matter what, I never listen. I only don’t when it happens that I can’t or it goes against my wishes and boundaries I’ve set. She went on yelling after what seemed like hours as I zoned out and packed with shaky hands and blurry eyes. I couldn’t take it anymore so I hung up with saying, “we can talk about this when I’m sure where my next meal is coming from and I’m not scared I’ll be on the streets.”
From what my friend told me she blocked me immediately and never wanted to speak to me again. She’s blocked me everywhere even tiktok and it makes me feel bad.
It’s been months and I’ve been told that I’m not the a-hole however, I think I need an outside opinion.
AITA??

In proper English said "niece" is my second cousin once removed who lives a couple hours' flight from me. But in my culture "once removed" is the same as niece/nephew or aunt/uncle, so I will refer to this 16-year-old girl as Niece.
I am very close to her mother, my second cousin (42F). She recently flew in to attend a funeral in our family. While staying with me I learned that Cousin intends to move out tonight and file for divorce this coming week.
Cousin does have an affair and is leaving for her AP. In general I usually oppose affairs vehemently, as I have survived my own father's affair and know how it hurts the family. But please refrain from judging my cousin, because the point of my post is about what I could do to support her daughter, rather than debating the morality of my cousin's infidelity.
With proper context, I understand why Cousin went there. She's been enduring chronic emotional abuse from her own STBXH (43M) including rape, and being silenced and shamed for grieving for her father who died earlier this year.
Cousin has had trouble leaving because like many survivors of abusive marriages it takes time and enormous effort and willpower to pull off leaving. Not to mention that she and STBXH run a business together and have been striving to brave a presentable face for their delicate professional network.
Cousin's marriage has been dead for years, but before she managed to completely pull off leaving, her AP came into the picture and catalysed her exit. While I would never condone cheating to betray a loving spouse, I do find myself sympathetic to this particular grey area, especially because I see that the AP happens to have goals, values and capabilities that align with what Cousin needs in order to pursue a fulfilling future and not live the rest of her life as a zombie in an undead marriage.
Cousin has informed her 21-year-old son of the upcoming divorce and her affair. Although Nephew is a devout Christian who in principle does not condone divorce and affairs, he understands that this marriage has killed his mother's spirit, and he supports whatever his mother needs to do in order to reclaim her own autonomy, confidence and identity. He promises to look out for his sister in this difficult and potentially traumatising transitional period. He also told his mother that he loves her no matter what, though he is also honest and firm about boundaries like being unwilling to meet the AP because he does feel that AP has robbed him of his mother.
Niece has not been informed of what is about to happen in the coming days, and my heart breaks for her. Like her older brother, she is an intelligent and hard working young person with big dreams for her future, and a good heart. And I know she also loves her mother to the moon and back. My heart breaks for her because she will be blindsided by her parents' upcoming divorce.
Despite the marriage troubles, Cousin describes STBXH as an otherwise good father and provider. He will contest the fault divorce, but Cousin will offer him a full share of the house and custody of their daughter, because she will be moving to the countryside for her next job.
My Aunt (Cousin's motheNiece's grandmother) also lives in Cousin's STBXH's house, but will also be blindsided by this upcoming divorce. Aunt is a good person who I know will do her best to support her granddaughter, but she will also struggle with her own grief and strong emotions, and often speaks unfiltered before thinking.
While Cousin was staying with me, I addressed preparing Niece with some other good key people in her support system. I suggested hooking Niece up with a psychologist to see on a fortnightly or monthly basis so that she has a reliable adult figure to help her process her complicated emotions in a non-judgmental safe space, develop healthy coping skills and overcoming strategies, disarm traumas before they have a chance of festering, and gets empowered by someone who can model reclaiming her identity and self-worth in a world that's changing overnight.
I also offered to check in with Niece and to be there for her through this difficult transitional period.
I'm not half as close to Niece as I am to her mother, but we are on friendly terms. My ex husband is a novelist/filmmaker and my Niece is a huge fan of his, so at one point she texted me lovely compliments and expressed enthusastic interest in my ex's newer works-in-progress. I also offered her words of support when her now late grandfather was hospitalised and her family moved to his city to care for him.
I guess this brings me to my questions. Because I care about my Cousin, I'm interested in contributing to Niece's support system by offering to be there for her as a safe adult she can trust and approach anytime for perspective, a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on and a voice of reason. What can I do for a teenage girl in my extended family who is going through a parents' divorce blindsided?
For those of you who have been in these aunty/uncle shoes before, what are some do's and don'ts and key lessons you have learned from your experience?
And for those of you who survived parents' divorce as blindsided teenagers, who were the best safe adults in your support system at the time, and what did they do for you? Or if you weren't as lucky, what kind of support did you wish you had, and what do you wish adults in your life back then did differently?
Finally, what can I do to facilitate recovering my niece's love and respect for her parents in spite of their faults and her anger and grief about it?
Thank you!

Eliminated - Hugo (2011), shot by Robert Richardson and directed by Martin Scorsese - 14.8% of all votes. Hugo won Best Cinematography at the 84th Annual Academy Awards, as well as Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Art Direction, and Best Visual Effects. It received a total of 11 nominations, including nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. The other films nominated for Best Cinematography at the 84th Annual Academy Awards were The Artist, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Tree of Life, and War Horse. Hugo also received nominations for Best Cinematography at the BAFTA Awards, Critics’ Choice Awards, and ASC Awards. The Director of Photography for Hugo, Robert Richardson, was also the DOP for Platoon (1986), JFK (1991), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and 2 (2003 and 2004), The Aviator (2004), and Inglorious Basterds (2009), just to name a few. His Academy Award for Hugo was his 3rd of 3 Oscars for Best Cinematography.
First elimination so far that honestly surprised me. If you’d like to vote, fill out the form by just selecting the winner you want to be next eliminated the most, and then click submit. The more people who vote, the more competitive and fun the competition will be!
Remaining contestants:

• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Peter Pau)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Andrew Lesnie)
• Road to Perdition (Conrad L. Hall)
• Master and Commander: Far Side of the World (Russell Boyd)
• The Aviator (Robert Richardson)
• Memoirs of a Geisha (Dion Beebe)
• Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo Navarro)
• There Will Be Blood (Robert Elswit)
• Slumdog Millionaire (Anthony Dod Mantle)
• Inception (Wally Pfister)
• Life of Pi (Claudio Miranda)
• Gravity (Emmanuel Lubezki)
• Birdman (Emmanuel Lubezki)
• The Revenant (Emmanuel Lubezki)
• La La Land (Linus Sandgren)
• Blade Runner 2049 (Roger Deakins)
• Roma (Alfonso Cuarón)
• 1917 (Roger Deakins)
• Dune (Greig Fraser)
• Oppenheimer (Hoyte van Hoytema)

Ranking So Far:

1. Hugo (Robert Richardson)
   
2. Slumdog Millionaire (Anthony Dod Mantle)
   
3. All Quiet on the Western Front (James Friend)
   
4. Mank (Erik Messerschmidt)
   
5. Avatar (Mauro Fiore)
   

Link to Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/NBA2k/s/gZ8jukq7Lo
Here are some tips and notes in order to be a better teammate in No Squad Rec:

1. If your teammate has some constructive criticism, don’t take it necessarily as an offense or with ill intent. If your teammate tells you to drop from the wing to the corner, responding with “don’t tell me how to fucking play” is not the appropriate response. Getting hostile immediately improves nothing and leads to toxicity. If you disagree with their comment, then explain why you think an alternative is a better strategy. Let’s not jump to toxicity immediately, and maybe there is a bit of constructive advice out there.
   
2. If you don’t know your jumpshot, or you clearly shoot 21% from three, the Rec is not where you go to “practice your new jumper”. Please don’t use our valuable shot attempts for you to go 1/8.
   
3. If you’re not gonna defend your matchup, please, just quit. We will happily take the AI. This is even more egregious when some players try to score to makeup for their defensive deficiencies. You have 18 pts, great, but your matchup has 36 pts and we’re down 16 pts. I don’t care what you score if your matchup is out scoring you because you’re choosing not to defend or you are simply a poor defender. Leave early and give us a chance to win. Leaving in the 4th qtr when we’re down 17 pts with 3 mins is asinine. You’ve created an insurmountable hole to dig out of with no time left.
   
4. If your matchup is smothering the pass, be extra careful when inbounding the ball. As the PG, I will always try to align myself for a safe pass but that isn’t always possible and I have to get on the mic to tell the SG to come down and provide a 2nd option for the center. SGs should note this and come into the backcourt. For centers, don’t just spam pass and create a turnover. PG’s, give your bigs a safe option when possible.
   
5. When there is a sideline inbound, PLEASE, I don’t need 4 people on the strong side of the ball bringing 4 defenders able to pick off the inbound. Space the floor and let the PG get the inbound. Stop all coming to the inbound. You’re just crowding the pass and not allowing any dribbling if the catch even makes it through.
   
6. Bigs, please hedge the screen for your guards. Immediately when I see a big hedge a screen I know I’m working with someone above intelligence. When I see a big sitting in the paint while I’m being rocked by a Paint Beast with Hall of Fame brick wall and sending me to the floor while my matchup launches a wide open 3 is defeating. Also, for those on the wings, if you see the guard coming off the screen, you should be rotating to put a hand up and then recovering back to your matchup. A big responding with “I’m protecting the paint, y’all guard the 3s” is talking insanity. I can’t teleport through YOUR matchups screens. You’re putting me in a 2-on-1 situation on the perimeter and then looking at me for why the PG just went 4/4 from three. It’s because you’re building a camp site 🏕️ in the paint and ignoring the perimeter.
   
7. For the love of God, stop holding shoot when you’re cutting to the basket. Often times I will throw an alley-oop because it may be the safer option, I’m throwing it over the lock, etc. Learn how to time oops. If you don’t know, just tap shoot just as the ball is touching, or about to touch, your hand. The most important aspect is players need to STOP holding shoot cutting to the basket. Also, things can change and a shot blocker rotates and because you’re still holding shoot you go up and get your shot tossed. Also, I’ve been on complete fast breaks with a teammate with no defender in sight and my teammate, holding shoot, gives me a turnover because of their poor habit. Stop this habit.
   
8. Stop jumping. Some of you don’t know how to properly defend and just spam block. Good defense is a smothered contested shot, not a block that will put you out of position on a pump fake. Put your hands up and let them miss and snag the board. Jumping is just bailing them out with a wide open finish or sending them to the line. STAY DOWN. There are cases when going for the block is 💯 the correct move but most players don’t seem to know and so I’d rather have a teammate stay down. You’ll learn the proper instances when to block with time, such as help defender for a teammate, chase down, etc.
   
9. The ball moves faster than the defender. Make the defense constantly have to rotate and the ball will find the open man and the defense will make a mistake. Don’t receive the ball and immediately go into an isolation dribble, first assess if your teammate is cutting and is open or the corner defender is gapping your teammate for an easy corner 3.
   
10. Please, please hit your centers for jump shots. If you’re center makes two threes (2/2), there center has no choice but to come out of the paint and now the paint is sweeter than Hersheys for the rest of the other 4 teammates. Do NOT ignore your centers. Many of them can shoot better than y’all. My favorite plays in the 1st qtr are to attack the rim, suck in the centers defensively and give my centers wide open jump shots. Once their jump shot is wet and going down, for the next 3 quarters we’re getting wide open lanes to the basket.
    

I hope this helps make some players better teammates and some of this may seem “simple” to some of you, but if you’ve played any significant time in No Squad Rec you’ll know much of this is not common.

The Good: -Annabella was a really unique character and honestly drew so much emotion out of me that I was PISSED she killed herself, and not by my own hand. I was yelling at the TV "YOU COWARD". -Development of NPC's like Blackthorn, Charon, and Mid was top tier and to see Blackthorn go from super standoffish and distrusting to friendly and emotional in his own ways was really nice to see. I enjoyed those quest lines. -the world map was kind of cool. This diorama "miniatures" with moving water and dynamic lighting was pretty cool. -I enjoyed the fact that this game gave a fresh take on "summons" and didn't just have them pop out, but allowed Clive to use their abilities. -i greatly enjoyed the voice actors work and especially liked how every tiny npc had a voice and they would comment on things happening around them as the story progressed. -I felt the relationship between Dion and Terrance was tastefully done and didn't scream "look look we put gays in the game! See how pc we are!". It just felt normalized and honestly Dion dismissing Terrance from duty to go care for the little girl, and having it NOT end up with a passionate goodbye kiss was honestly a good move in my opinion and honestly made me tear up. Had they done that, I think it would've pushed the pc-ness too far. Dion had to summon his resolve and ensure his lovers and his rescuers safety, and sacrificed a relationship for the greater good.
The Bad: -lets face it, Jill takes more than a few pieces of inspiration from Tifa. She's that kind, soft spoken, almost-motherly figure with long hair tied off at the end. She's the protagonists best friend since childhood and ends up becoming his partner. I enjoyed her character a lot but wanted to see more of who she was. -it felt as though Cid died too early in relation to Clive's reaction to his death. It was akin to reality competition TV show contestants crying when someone gets eliminated. Like girl, you just met like a week ago, why are you screaming to the heavens with tears pouring down your face? This moment felt uncomfortable to me and had Clive not reacted so... dramatically, I'd have felt better about it. -the combat seems really clunky. In real-time action games, we expect animation frames to be able to be canceled out because those seconds count in battles. I spent a lot of time being like "FINISH THE MOVE" because im mashing a button but Clive is too busy flourishing his sword to listen. This also applied to the dash/warp. The frames to recover were. so. long. -though I understood why Clive was the only playable protagonist in light of his many many abilities, I'm growing tired of the ever-shrinking party size trend that SE is leaning towards. The past 2 games only had 1 controllable character (this doesn't count ff15's dlc or the unlockable ability to use the other 3 boys in battle because that takes a LOT of grinding to save up points for). We used to have party's of 4 or 5, and as the years go by those party's get smaller and smaller and now we only control one character. Bummer. Let me fight as Jill already.
The Ugly: I do not regret saying this in the slightest, but FF16 is a direct copy of FF12. FF12 is my favorite installment of all time for many reasons I won't mention here, but the way the story beats are nearly identical is wild to me. I understand all FF's have common themes, especially the ones surrounding Fabula Nova Crystallis, but this... this was eerie how easily I was able to guess what was going to happen so early on based on what was happening around me in-game. It's "copy my homework but change a couple things so it doesn't look like you copied it". The games are extremely similar and I was a bit disappointed by how much they were alike.
Rating: 4/10 I played it, overall I enjoyed it, but it felt like a lazy reiterating of a story we've heard many times within the franchise. I was frustrated with the combats pacing and lack of animation-cancelling. I'd have liked to see them make Ultima even more otherworldly and even more of an eerie presence. I was left craving a humans vs alien scenario which is essentially what it was, but I'd have loved it if they went all the way with it.
This is all just my opinion, as a super fan of the franchise I owed it to myself and the developers to play it beginning to end and was definitely left wanting more.
For the next entry in the mainline, I'd love to have new, fresher minds working on the story and settings alongside our regular faves, to give things a more vivid imagining of the themes we know they'll hit.

The Tang Empire arc began around chapter 390. It's been over 83 chapters, but the plot seems to stagnate and the progression is almost non-existent. Here are some shortcomings:

1. Lack of a formidable antagonist: Perhaps the most significant shortcoming of this arc is the lack of a single, centralised antagonist who actually poses a threat.

• All the fake Mara ever does is make random appearances, devour injured Innate experts, and make inexplicable disappearances while spouting edgy lines. He spends more time running away than actually putting up a fight. This portrays him as a wannabe edgelord and a coward rather than a proper villain in his own right.
• We know nothing about him except that he is a sock puppet for Ji Jinye, used to bait the Eternal Heavens. In other words, he has no value to make the reader emotionally invested in him.
• His strength level is inconsistent. One moment he gets his ass pounded by an Innate Realm - 3rd Layer expert; the next moment, he casually tanks a series of lethal blows from an Innate Realm - 5th Layer expert.

Some good examples of formidable antagonists are:

• Yi Daochi - The best in-story example of a formidable and entertaining antagonist. He stole the show in the 9 sects arc.
• Xi Sanmei - Rather tough and vicious.
• Xu Min - Scheming, actually logical and observant.
• Qiu Sheng - Interesting fighting style and he was quite the threat.
• Ashby - Not exactly intimidating, but he was cruel, had an interesting backstory, and put up quite the fight.

1. Bland fights: I was looking forward to the Flower Anniversary Tournament, but it turned out to be a disappointment. Here are my reasons:

• For a prestigious event of the Main World, the tournament is just an entertainment show with fancy effects to improve the Dongdu government's public image, rather than being an actual contest of strength among the young generation.
• Xie Yan and Ji Yuntao's "fight" against the elders felt like a WWE match scripted to entertain the public. And it was Ji Yuntao who did most of the fighting while Xie Yan was merely spamming primordial spirit detonations. It didn't feel like their reputation skyrocketed, and certainly not in the right direction.
• All the fights in the Tang Empire arc consist of using fancy gimmicks to show off, slap the opponent in the face, then run away. There are no trials of strength or actual life-or-death battles.

Good examples of a properly written tournament are:

• The 5 peaks sword conference in the world of Qun Xiong, where Xie Yan casually swings the FoFS to demolish the five peaks and kill Long Xiaotian. The part where he finishes off Hua Nongyue and her boyfriends with a finger snap is one of the most satisfying minor world climaxes.
• The Global Fighting Summit of the Ba Quan world is a more appropriate example where there were 8 interesting matches showcasing various martial arts; one minor boss fight; and one hell of a boss fight with a post-climax twist.

1. Poorly executed disguises: This is a recurring issue with many arcs:

• It is annoying to watch the protagonist taking foolish risks while relying on his limited set of disguise skills. He always runs the risk of getting his cover blown and implicating the Mo Qing Sect in the process. There was no need for Xie Yan to pretend to be the envoy during the Tang empire arc when he could have harvested thousands of origin points from a minor world at relatively low risk. The cooldown ended months ago. He could have also found a way to deal with the fake Mara's blood river skill.
• In the Xin Mo Sect arc, Xu Min and Yuan Sheng immediately noticed that "Ge Huaiyu" was an imposter. The "Xilan Wei" disguise was a monumental blunder because Xie Yan was dangerously complacent and did not do his homework. Everyone immediately noticed that "Xilan Wei" was an imposter. The envoys' disguise was also busted when Bian Shifei (one of my least favourite characters) found out that all the envoys were one person. Xie Yan certainly needs to improve his disguise skills and stop underestimating the Main World.
• Xie Yan constantly underestimates the Dongdu government. The Dongdu government may be inept, but it is certainly not weak.

Good examples of disguise experts are:

• Ge Huaiyu, who could create reliable masks using the Mantra Of Disguise and replicate the appearance of different martial arts using the Mantra Of Formlessness.
• Zhou Yanping/Ji Jinye, who is proficient in different martial arts, analyses the situation thoroughly, and uses decoys and skilled subordinates to handle delicate missions. Judging by the fake Mara's skills, Ji Jinye does have the ability to imitate martial arts.

My final thoughts:

1. I think the author should establish Main World system missions, similar to the missions in Physical Descent mode. This would clearly outline the objectives of each arc, instead of letting them develop in haphazard directions. The current arc is a mess of tangled sub plots. Introducing main world system missions would make it easier to chart the progress of each arc. Providing a large number of origin points as incentives would also be an excellent addition because it would be more convenient for Xie Yan to efficiently earn more origin points in the main world. He wouldn't have to rely on gimmicks to earn small amounts of origin points in the Main World.
2. Xie Yan should follow Ji Jinye's example and actually analyse the situation and people he is dealing with, instead of recklessly provoking them. He should improve his disguise skills, either by finding skills similar to what Ge Huaiyu had, or learning a sophisticated decoy skill similar to the 4 Confucian masks that Ji Jinye has. Remotely controlling a decoy while sitting in your lair is safer and more efficient when exploring unfamiliar and dangerous territories. There wouldn't be any immediate danger in case the cover is blown and one can respond properly.
3. Better pacing: Tao Du arc lasted for only 13 chapters, yet it is relevant to the overall story. In contrast, the Xilan arc lasted for 55 chapters and the Tang Empire arc is around 80+ chapters, but the plot is mostly stagnant and most chapters are filler. Proper pacing and exposition can enhance the quality of the narrative.

What is your opinion?
Sorry for the wall of text.

WPA – A Completely Average Roadtrip
Disclaimer: Not canon, and I don’t use patreon so please don’t spoil me. Also, any opinion held by a character is that of the characters and not my own. Enjoy.
Town of Ljosalfington, local time 14:00, week 7
Emma Booker
“Again Illunor, I warned you before that this is a utility vehicle, not a party rated smart-limo. I am already compromising more than I should by allowing you to use the sample cooler as a minifridge, one which I can’t even use!” I said as I loaded the materials I had just purchased into the back of the high-G All terrain fusion-ethanol-electric hybrid 24th-century legacy pickup truck that I had printed out earlier this week, carefully avoiding the heavy ordinance hard point.
“That is hardly an excuse for that abysmally cramped leg space barely fit for cattle, never mind the bare minimum for standard decorum suitable for nobility. If this is what a car is like, then I don’t see why you care for your technology,” complained Illunor, who was sitting around idly with a malformed garish bowl of icecream that he had stashed away from lunch.
“If it bothers you so much, perhaps you could help next time with your ‘bigger-on-the-inside’ magic,” I retorted as I slid the last core sample into the back before covering it up with a tarp and strapping it down.
I had originally planned to visit Ljosalfington by myself to acquire much needed exo-materials to test various mana manipulator configurations as I worked to develop my first wand as not all of the materials I needed were procurable locally from Elaseer. I eventually yielded, much to my regret, to allowing Illunor to come with me as he insisted on wanting to deliver a letter personally in town after Thacea had pointed out the wisdom of not travelling alone.
We continued our back and forth for a bit yet as I finished securing my payload a voice called out to me from the direction of the town.
“Excuse me a moment, I couldn’t help but notice but are you from the academy?”
I turned to see an elf dressed in a plain brown buttoned up tunic matched by a slightly shabby pair of trousers with what appeared to be a lute upon his back and a plain and unenchanted longsword on his belt gesturing at our robes. Mine especially were new and unusual, tailored by the academy to go over my armour and allow access to the anchor points and allow me to exit my armour with minimal hassle. Illunor scoffed at what was evidently a commoner’s arrogance at approaching nobility and turned his head away in disgust. I glanced at Illunor and shook my head before turning to face the new man. I had time to spare, and any opportunity to engage in a hearts-and-minds dialogue with the locals outside the bounds of the managed environment of the academy was more than worth the time to chat. Especially as most of the other locals seemed to be content in ignoring me.
“Yes, we are currently studying at the Transgracian Academy. I am Cadet Emma Booker representing the United Nations of Earth and Luna from Earthream, and my aloof compatriot is Lord Illunor Rularia of the Vunerian courts. We were just about to head back but are in no rush. May I ask your name and what brings you by?” I asked with my hand outstretched in greeting.
“Ah yes, yes. My name is Edhel Redoehdelnif, a wandering bard by trade like my father and his father before him. My apologies, Cadet Emma Booker, I am unfamiliar with Earthrealm,” said Edhel as he grasped my hand with both of his and shook it tepidly yet vigorously. Or rather, tried to, as the motors on my suit resisted his efforts.
“News doesn’t seem to spread all that fast around here, so it makes sense you haven’t heard of us. We’re a new realm, and only just got here. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Edhel Redoehdelnif,” I replied.
“Absolutely fascinating! And a knight no less, or perhaps a squire? I’m sure you have many stories to tell of Earthrealm. Say, by chance are you about to head back to the academy? I have business in Elaseer and the usual coach has been absent as of late so I would rather not go it alone,” said Edhel.
I was hesitant to bring a stranger back in the car with me, even if Illunor was present. However, the opportunity that meeting a bard presented was too good to pass up from an intel perspective and to win the favour of the populace at large.
“That is a great idea. I think I have room for one more…” I paused before gesturing towards Illunor, “provided everyone is ok with it that is.”
Illunor gave a huff and turned his head away in silence.
“Very well, I will allow this. But he will not be joining me in your sorry excuse for a coach,” said Illunor dismissively.
Illunor approached the backseat expectantly and the door opened for him automatically, allowing the dlc kobold to gracefully enter and lounge across the length of the seats, once again ignoring the seatbelts. I sighed as I made my way to the driver’s seat, and Edhel entered from the passenger side as he marveled at the automatic doors and the interior.
“What a strange carriage this is! Although I must say, shouldn’t you be retrieving your horses? I didn’t see any harnesses or sense any artifices,” inquired Edhel as he attempted to make himself comfortable on the car seat, lute in front of him.
“Oh no, this thing doesn’t need horses or magic,” I said with a chuckle as EVI started the car. The elf raised his eyebrows at the sudden hum of the engine and made an expression of alarm when the car started driving itself without my input. “See, purrs like a kitten.”
“Earthrealm must have some large kittens if they purr like that,” noted Edhel, “but you must be concealing the enchantments somewhere. Such a thing as this with such strange yet precise craftsmanship is only possible in the crownlands.”
“Nope, no magic,” I said cheerfully.
“Then how?” Asked Edhel.
“It’s rather simple really. Are you familiar with the workings of a mill?” I asked, deciding to keep things surface level and elementary to avoid provoking the IDOV threshold.
“Somewhat, though I confess to not being familiar with their workings. Are you suggesting this is akin to a mill?” Asked Edhel perplexed.
“It’s the same principal. A mill works by taking a source of rotation such as a waterwheel or windmill, transferring that rotation along a series of rotating shafts and interlocking gears, and finally putting that energy to work by rotating a millstone,” I began as the car pulled out onto the smooth cobbled road in the direction of Elaseer. A notification popped up in the corner of my vision indicating my recon drone swarm had shifted from a holding formation to a convoy screening formation, and while the roads were clear I kept the speed at 60km/h to account for my passenger’s apparent distaste for seatbelts.
“Rotation…” muttered Edhel. He turned to face one of the wheels and EVI pinged an alert for a probable match for a detection spell, “fascinating.”
“Edhel, what are you doing?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, perhaps I should have asked first. Yes, I can see how it all fits together. But the source of this rotation? I see no mighty river or great wind to power this, so where does it come from?” Asked Edhel, not really apologizing. Elven arrogance, it seemed, was not limited by class.
The act reminded me of Sorecar when he inspected my gun, but where the armourer had been respectful with it, Edhel was more flippant. I considered the possibility that he was a spy sent by one of her peers or the crownlands, though this did not mesh with the methods I had seen so far. Edhel may have been just overly enthusiastic. In either case, I quickly decided to only reveal the antique design for the ethanol engine, and not that of the batteries or the emergency coupler to my suit’s fusion reactor.
“Right, well please ask first next time. As to your question, I won’t bore you with the details, but the rotation is generated by creating a periodic sequence of explosions inside of a machine – a manaless artifice – called a combustion engine, said Emma.
“So that’s what that sound is…” pondered Edhel, “are these artifices typical in Earthream?”
“You are awfully inquisitive for a commoner,” noted Illunor as he inspected his nails for dirt, “and rather accepting of something which should be impossible.”
“I wouldn’t be much of a bard if I wasn’t, my lord,” said Edhel shifting uncomfortably in his seat, “perhaps some music might set the mood better?”
“That would be preferable, bard. I have heard enough of the Earthrealmer’s Road Trip Playlist and would like to listen to some music of real culture,” said Illunor.
The bard agreed and proceeded to awkwardly play a ballad about an adventurer who slew a hydra in some frozen wasteland. Partway through, I politely interrupted the Edhel to point out the seat controls much to his fascination and Illunor’s grumbling at their common nature, and after some adjustment the bard went on playing and I half-heartedly listened while I paid attention to the road and my drone feed.
Particularly after EVI detected something unusual and alerted me to its presence.
”Attention Caded Booker. There is a disabled vehicle blocking the primary route to destination. Heat signatures in the woods are consistent with that of an ambush.”
“Damn it,” I muttered.
I glanced at the drone feed to see a broken cart strewn horizontally across a wooden bridge over a brook. On the surface it looked like a pair of civilians who required aid and assistance, but off in the woods were several heat signatures, several of which held weapons of varying levels of enchantments. Occasionally one of the pair on the bridge would talk with them, suggesting they were in cahoots rather than hostages. I recalled crossing that very bridge not a few hours earlier, so the blockade was very recent.
“EVI, did we pass that cart on the way here?” I asked.
”Negative,” replied EVI.
I grimaced. I had been trained to handle road-side ambushes, but it was only something that was a theoretical possibility. Something that should only occur in a warzone or a corrupt and unstable polity. I knew I had the capacity to handle such an encounter, even non-lethally, but that didn’t change the fact that these were civilians and as such were the responsibility of local law enforcement. Combined with the fact that I had passengers I was responsible for and engaging the ambush was a risky option.
“EVI, give me a list of alternative routes,” I commanded.
”Affirmative. Here is a list of routes in order of recommendation,” replied EVI.
I looked over the routes superimposed on a map of the region and quickly dismissed taking a shortcut through the forest and cutting through farmland. A detour caught my eye that extended the journey by roughly ten kilometers and I immediately sent a pair of drones to scout it out before committing to the detour.
“Are you alright, Cadet Emma Booker? You seem distracted,” asked Edhel, snapping me back to reality.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just focused on driving,” replied Emma.
“I suppose it must be quite taxing to command an artificed carriage of this complexity. Perhaps it might ease your mind if you were to regale me a tale of a hero of your realm?” Said Edhel, strumming a complex tune from his lute as he spoke as each and every pluck triggered a low-level spell.
“Well, that may be a problem. We don’t have any monsters to fight, and wars are a thing of the past,” I said while desperately tip-toeing the subject of aunt Ran, the subject of war, and our voyages through the cosmos, “though we are not without the adventurous spirit. We certainly have many stories of grand voyages. Some mythical and fictional such as The Odyssey as told by the Greek poet Homer and some historical such as the race to the south pole.”
“The south pole,” muttered the bard, “so you have explored all of Earthrealm then? I suppose that makes some sense, if you have artifices such as this then traversal of a globe would be quite manageable.”
“You are quite perceptive,” I said, not wishing to elaborate.
“A great performer knows his audience,” said Edhel with a charming, honest, almost human smile.
I felt a pang of homesickness as an intrusive thought reminded me that I could have gone to a real college surrounded by friendly faces my age, engaging in nightly holostreams and dreaming of adventures in the stars from the safety of a college dorm room. The sight of Illunor in the rear camera was the only thing that kept me grounded, as I almost felt like I was back at home on a road trip rather than returning to a fantasy feudal court, constantly evading death at every turn with the fate of humanity on the line. As such, and prompted by EVI, I barely had the wherewithal to take the planned detour.
A fact which did not pass by Edhel.
“I believe you may have taken a wrong turn, Emma,” he commented.
“Nah, I’m just taking the scenic route. I came from that direction on the way here, and you have inspired me to see the other road and I figure it should only add a few extra minutes to our travel time,” I said, gesturing at a paper map which I had referenced exactly once, “though on that subject, you seem to know these lands quite well. Do you have any recommendations on places to visit in the Nexus to scratch that itch?”
Illunor raised his eyebrow at the detour excuse, knowing full well this was not part of the plan. I worried that he might complain about the issue and but thankfully remained silent as he snacked on the contents of the misused sample storage unit. Edhel himself took on a more pensive posture.
“I’m happy to have been such an inspiration, Emma, though I am sure an explorer such as yourself has little need of such. I would normally suggest the skyward fountains of Verdellan or the cloud tides of Asturia, but that may be too casual for someone of your calibre. Perhaps the severed chasm or the fire marsh of Bhandahova may be more to your liking. Or perhaps…” Edhel leaned in, “I have heard rumours of a dragon in the glassy obsidian wastes of Vurcanar.”
I chuckled at that, knowing how I was fortunate enough to fish a dragon scale out of the nearby lake for the ECS. “The thought of going dragon hunting had certainly crossed my mind…” I mused aloud.
“Yet you sound hesitant. Perhaps it is too much for a newrealmer. Perhaps a slime or a dire rat might be more appropriate,” he said with a tease.
“No, it’s not like that! It’s” I stammered, before attempting to change course after realizing I had been goaded, “what I mean is, I was under the impression that dragons were an endangered species. Where I come from, hunting endangered animals is usually illegal, and big game hunting in general is frowned upon. We do make exceptions in the case of problem animals such as if a large predator starts hunting humans, but as a rule we prefer conservation and try to find ways of coexisting with wildlife such as the use of barrier fences and scaring away dangerous animals rather than being forced to cull their numbers. Having a species go extinct would prevent future generations from appreciating them and risks destabilizing the ecosystem they are a part of. Now if this dragon was actively razing villages and eating civilians and livestock, that would be one thing, but this does not look to be the case. I don’t imagine the Nexus has any settlements in this wasteland, and the dragon clearly wants to be left alone. Killing an innocent dragon would be murder.”
I grinned to myself after delivering a diatribe that would have made my tenth grade social and environmental studies teacher beam with pride, though by the expressions of my passengers my view did not appear to be shared. Edhel’s mouth was agape in shock and fascination, while the Venurian in the back seat merely huffed in disapproval.
“I assure you Newrealmer, there are no innocent dragons,” stated Illunor with a hint of terseness breaking through his otherwise regal demeanor.
“Illunor, I understand that Venurians have personal reasons for not liking dragons, but you can’t just extend that disdain to their descendants or those uninvolved just because they are the same species,” I said.
“If I may interject on your behalf, my lord, I believe I can address Cadet Emma Booker’s concerns,” said Edhel with a bow. Illunor nodded in approval.
“Very well, you may proceed,” he said.
“Thank you, my lord. My dear Emma, you must understand that dragons are not simple animals driven entirely off of instinct as it appears to be the case in Earthrealm. They are monsters. Intelligent, long-lived, violent, greedy, cruel, territorial, selfish flesh-eating monsters. They are evil by the very nature of their being, unable to change by their own accord, and unwilling to change when His Eternal Majesty offered them freedom from their nature. It isn’t that they want to be evil. As intelligent animals – intelligent monsters – dragons are capable of understanding morality, and many have tried to overcome their evil nature at great expense to themselves. A well intended and noble sentiment, yet a doomed one as like all animals, they all succumb to their nature in the end. Overcoming one’s nature is impossible,” said Edhel. His eyes took on a stoic, almost remorseful gaze as he spoke, and Illunor nodded with approval.
I was appalled by this claim, not by the contents so much as how blatantly false it was. As a representative of the human race, I was a living counterexample to his whole argument. We had remained physiologically unchanged as a species since the last Ice Age, and yet in spite of that, in spite of our many flaws, we had found peace and balance. If we could do it, anyone could do it.
“Will all due respect Edhel, that is nonsense. Monsters aren’t born, they are made. It is the mark of any intelligent species can adapt their behaviour to their environment for better or worse, and under the right care any so-called monster can grow to be a force for good,” I began, but while I searched for the right words Edhel shook his head.
“I appreciate your race is an empathetic one, Emma, your idealism is unfounded. As flesh eaters, a dragon must take the life of another animal or person to survive, or they will perish. As such, every dragon has taken a life. As long-lived creatures, they will have amassed a significant number of kills. As the land can only support so much animals, a dragon must be fiercely territorial and aggressive to remove competition, lest they starve. As such, even the most kind-hearted dragon alive must be violent and greedy, and their intelligence fuels this even more so if they know a bountiful land of morsels exists just outside their range.
Now perhaps a multitude of dragons may find a way to co-exist together in some settlement, but to support such a venture would require a large territory of prey, or a livestock animal. Perhaps they could support a large colony by farming grain for their livestock, but that would require effort on their behalf. As large animals, such efforts require a great deal of energy. Yet that size makes it easy for them to intimidate smaller races to do their labour for them, and to keep their client race in line dragons must be cruel. And even so, as their numbers grow so do their needs. As such, they must expand into the lands of their neighbours to survive until there is nothing left to devour, at which point they must turn against their own lest they starve. As such, it is the nature of dragons to conquer and devour. That is why there is no such thing as an innocent dragon,” finished Edhel.
I was speechless, not because I believed Edhel had a point, but because I was horrified at how easy he found it to rationalize the extermination of an entire sapient species. If this was how the elves thought, then it wasn’t the dragons who were the monsters. I suppressed that dark thought. Edhel’s thought process was a product of his culture, not a feature of his elven heritage. If there was any hope of peace between our people, I needed to show him there was another way of being. I needed to prove that co-existence was possible, no matter one’s nature.
I took a deep breath to steady myself before replying.
“That- that is a callous way of seeing things,” I began, though the shock was still there in my voice, “you speak as though there is no natural equilibrium with a dragon, that their only state of being must be to be cruel, to devour, to conquer. But I see things differently. In fact, I might wonder if a fledgling civilization might see the presence of a dragon as a boon rather than a curse. Being intelligent, the locals may be able to come to some agreement with the dragon. Perhaps they might leave some land as a hunting ground or offer up a share of their cattle or guard the dragon as it sleeps. In exchange, the dragon might allow them to build a town outside its mountain and protect them in times of danger. An equitable exchange. A civilization might even create artificial lairs to attract dragons for this very reason. True, some dragons may behave tyrannical towards their town, but a well armed populace of a large city would be more than capable of fighting such a threat, and a rational dragon might reason that threatening their own populace would put their reliable source of food and shelter at risk. You see, it’s all a matter of perspective.”
“You certainly are an imaginative one, Emma, to wonder up a quixotic world where the hare and the fox live together in harmony as equals. Even so, you seem to have ignored one key detail to such a society. What would happen should the dragon not be fed for months on end?” Asked Edhel with his eyebrow raised.
“The same thing as stranded a dozen starving, stranded Elves!” I spat back.
[Alert: Vehicle speed above recommended limit for conditions. Recommendation: slow down. ]
“I am driving slow!” I seethed, not realizing I had sped up with manual control enabled.
“I grow tired of this common prattle,” interjected Illunor just in time to prevent an awkward silence, “bard, play us another song.” “As my lord wishes,” said Edhel with a bow before turning to me with another smile, “perhaps a more soothing melody would be in order? A love song perhaps, to honour Cadet Booker’s compassionate nature?”
I said nothing as Edhel began to strum his lute again to the tune of a love story of a pair of doomed lovers named Ramian and Junette, hating his cheeky knowing grin that only served to get under my skin further as I focused on calming down and slowing the car back to a more reasonable pace before investigating a priority alert which I had been blinded to moments prior.
[Alert: hostile roadblock is absent, location unknown.]
Shit.
“Illunor, we may have a problem,” I said.
“Shush, Newrealmer, have you no class? We are almost at the best part! I’m sure it can wait,” replied the contextually clueless lizard.
I had never wanted to throttle Illunor as much as I did now.
“Illunor, shield, now,” I said with a raised voice.
“I don’t see-“ he started, pausing mid-sentence as his ears perked up.
[Alert: Multiple manafield and spell signatures detected!]
I took evasive maneuvers as Illunor tried to piece together a shield spell, fumbling it twice as panic appeared to set in and providing me with a reminder that Illunor was a civilian, not a soldier. A hail of arrows pelted the exterior of the truck, piercing but not penetrating the composite armour. I was tempted to do nothing but just drive away from the arrow fire, but a foreboding premonition of danger filled me as I recalled Sorecar’s hunter-seeker arrows.
Seeking to avoid that fate, I triggered the active defenses.
The smoke screens deployed around the vehicle, obscuring the sight of any who depended on visible light to see me. A barrage of decoy flares equipped with wooden cores shot upward at angles and diffusing to the side like a pair of giant wings which when combined with the MFD, short for mana-field dampener, inside the vehicle meant that the pelting hail of arrowfire softened to a whirr as the arrows whiffed over the top of the truck, retargeted away from the soft flesh of my passengers and even invoking friendly fire amongst the ambushers.
In the chaos, EVI and my drone swarm fed me complete tactical information on the ambush. Of the 26 individuals at the first blockade, 20 were accounted for, and 3 had died from friendly fire. Ahead at the bridge, 5 more of them were at the bridge where a barrier had been hastily erected to cage me in as the river valley was too deep to cross.
“Illunor, we need a bridge,” I said, taking stock of the wellbeing of my passengers.
The bard was huddled down low and suppressing his manafield, but otherwise rather composed. Illunor, on the other hand, was cowering in the gap between the seats with his hands covering his eyes and his tail tucked in.
“A bridge is no small request, Ne- Cadet Emma Booker,” replied Illunor, “and your ‘Emeffdee’ has blinded me to the outside of this moving death trap.”
“If I drop it, can you at least make a ramp?” I asked as I circled the battlefield. Or tried to, at least, as earthen ramparts emerged from the ground from a yet unseen source to cut off other avenues of escape.
“A ramp? Surely you don’t mean-“ he stammered.
“Yes or no,” I said.
Illunor paused, before taking an unsteady breath.
“Yes. But not with that Emeffdee,” he replied.
“Good. Steady your nerves and prepare to make a ramp ahead of us on my signal,” I said, “in the meantime, get your seatbelt on. This is going to be hairy.”
As I circled around to make my approach on the bridge, the final combatant made his appearance on a nearby tree, revealing himself as an elven mage. An alert focused on the air around him indicating he was preparing an unknown high-tier spell, and I locked the predator drone on him indicating the elf as a high-priority target if our escape plan failed, and I was forced to use lethal force.
If I was forced to kill.
It was one thing to know you may have to kill in the line of duty, but it was much harder to reconcile that with reality. No number of simulations could match the real thing, and a part of me wanted to simply offload the responsibility to EVI to keep my hands clean, but to do that would be betraying my duty as a human being. I breathed in deep and tried not to think about it, instead hoping to rely on the ace I held in my sleeve instead.
“EVI, ready the spell jammer,” I said unevenly.
“Acknowledged, the prototype Exo-Radiation Wave-Field Distruptor is primed. High risk target identified and locked, permission to engage?” EVI asked, forcing me to address the dreaded question.
“Negative,” I replied, “hold your fire. If the ramp fails, then you have permission to engage,” I said.
“Affirmative, on your mark,” replied EVI.
I lined up the truck with the bridge and bolted through the smoke, keeping a careful eye on the mage as I went. His spellform took on a more concerning shape as I accelerated, and I realized I could not afford to let him finish his spell. I triggered the spelljammer.
A terrible roar erupted from an array of speakers printed from mana-resistant materials that would have made Godzilla herself beam with pride. The sound was decidedly unnatural, gnarly, dubstep drop composed of an electric eel, a whale, a mountain lion, and a tyrannosaurus rex all being simultaneously assaulted by a swarm of angry cybernetic murder hornets as an equally chaotic wave of mana blasted outwards from the exterior of the truck, with the interior thankfully sheltered by audio and mana dampening.
The ambushing assailants cowered and panicked, and it was enough to cause the Elven mage’s spell to backfire in his face as his form exploded into ashes, meeting a horrific fate which I had tried so desperately to help him avoid. With all the combatants momentarily incapacitated or dead, I lowered the dampener and turned off the smoke.
“Ramp!” I shouted, snapping the lizard back to reality.
The Venerian nodded and hastily formed an earthwork ahead of us right before the blockade, and the truck leapt off the ramp with a not insignificant amount of air beneath our wheels. I braced for impact, regretting skimping on the shocks in the name of preserving materials, but the impact never came.
[Alert: Friendly spell designated ‘Feather Fall’]
Illunor thankfully had enough wherewithal to gently land the steel brick, and I sped off into the distance away from the trap that had unfolded behind us, leaving the interior of the truck in an awkward silence as we each processed our brush with death in our own way. “How many are dead?” I asked EVI.
“6 hostiles confirmed dead,” replied EVI.
I drove on in silence. Those were six deaths I had tried to avoid, and I became lost in thought as I wondered what I should have done differently to avoid the confrontation entirely.
Edhel broke the silence with a bout of laughter.
“Terrific! Absolutely terrific! Why, I can conjure up many a tale from this encounter alone! I live for this kind of inspiration!” Exclaimed Edhel a little too chipperly considering the circumstance.
“I would rather not hear stories about how I bravely ran away,” I moaned in deadpan sarcasm.
“You think too little of yourself, Cadet Emma Booker. It is plain to me that you are no ordinary rabbit. Make no mistake, I see it as a privilege to bear witness to the roar of a vorpal hare!” Said Edhel as he supressed his laughter, “though I am afraid with all the excitement that I must finish my song some other time.”
“How about I play some of our music?” I offered after the elf revealed his thrill-seeking side.
“Splendid, I would like that. Perhaps something of your ‘Roadtrip playlist’ you speak of? It sounds like a collection of your voyages,” said Edhel.
“That would be an improvement on the truth,” said Illunor dismissively as he eased from his state of shock, “it is little more than noise under the pretense of music.”
“Illunor…” I muttered to myself before turning the mic on, “no, no it’s not like that. I have terabytes of pre-recorded songs from various artists back home which can be played by… an artifice called a speaker. A playlist is a set of songs which are grouped together, usually to listen to in specific situations such as studying, partying, or travelling. The latter collection is what Illunor is referring to.”
I very deliberately chose not to reveal my ‘Unfortunate Daughters’ playlist.
“An artifice which plays music, and a magicless one at that. I must say, Emma, I fear for the bards in your realm,” said Edhel with a laugh.
“Your fear is misplaced, Edhel. Entertainers live like kings where I come from,” I retorted with a smirk of my own, “well, the ones with talent at least.”
“Well, well, I suppose I have to hear my competition!” Said Edhel with a laugh.
“Do as you must, though let it be known that I warned you,” said Illunor as he watched a play on his sightseer.
I had EVI compile a list of songs that left out content offensive to Nexian sensibilities or violating OpSec and as it compiled I mused over what type of sample spread I wanted to show off. Then it struck me. What better way to show off our culture than with some good old blue jumpers and nova rock! Sadly, jumpers were unavailable to show but I still had a whole list of modern artists to choose from.
Moments later, the car speakers sprung to life to the tune of ‘Innocent Youth of Mine. Edhel’s eyes lit up like a child visiting a zero-g gravity park for the first time, seemingly star-struck by the antique electric guitar and the synthesizer-drums in particular.
“What… what is this? I have never heard anything like this!” Proclaimed Edhel.
“Dreadful, isn’t it?” said Illunor, doing what he did best and pretending to hate it.
“Oh there is a lot more where that came from,” I said with a cheeky grin of my own, “this one is called ‘Innocent Youth of Mine’ by ‘Cannons and Poppies’. It’s part of the Nova Rock genre.
“And those strange instruments?” Asked Edhel.
“Oh, you mean the electric guitar and the synthesizer. They are electronic instruments, taking advantage of channeled and modulated electricity to create near any sound we can imagine,” I replied.
“Channeled electricity… are you suggesting these sounds were made by some form of lightning?” Asked Edhel.
[Suggestion: Avoid topic of electricity due to OpSec risk]
I nodded at EVI’s warning, thankful that it caught me before I discussed the very thing that all of my equipment ran on.
“It’s not exactly lightning, but close enough,” I said.
“If I had not witnessed to your display of power earlier, I might have perhaps been more skeptical of such a claim, but I suppose a lady must keep her secrets.” said Edhel with a raised eyebrow and chuckle, “but I digress, this music is most interesting.”
“There is a lot more where that came from,” I said with a cheeky grin of my own.
“If I ever have a prisoner in need of torture, I will turn to you first,” replied Illunor, “if you are willing to subject your peers to this madness then I cannot imagine what you would force upon your enemies before dunking them in ice.”
“In your dreams,” I retorted.
I played a few other songs including Astrodesee’s ‘Meteor Struck’, the Martian classic ‘Hotel Cydonia’ and even ‘Switching to Warp’ before Elaseer emerged from the distance, and I pulled up outside the gate to drop Edhel off.
“Here already?” Asked Edhel.
“Well, yeah. I was just running a quick errand, I didn’t want to go too far,” I replied casually.
“That was a distance worth at least five days of walking by foot, and you call that a ‘quick errand’?” Asked Edhel. I shrugged, and he laughed.
“Well in any case, thank you for allowing me passage in your car. I must apologize for my lack of gift or payment…” said Edhel. “Don’t worry about it, it was on the way,” I replied.
“I see, how generous. Perhaps we might one day meet again?” Asked Edhel.
“Maybe, but I’m not sure how likely that is. The academy takes up most of my time,” I replied, “though you never know. I still have a lot of quest hours to complete.”
“Is that so? In that case, I hope we meet again! Goodbye Cadet Emma Booker and farewell Lord Illunor Rularia,” he said. “And good travels to you, bard,” said Illunor.
I waved off Edhel and drove back to the academy, Illunor still sulking in the back seat.
“Perhaps next time, you should steer us away from danger?” Suggested Illunor.
“I tried, but we were tracked,” I replied.
I groaned inwardly at the additional work needed to fix the truck. EVI compiled a list of upgrades for future engagements, batting away my idea for a ‘turbo mode’ and a ‘jump boost’. Though at the end of the day, meeting the bard wasn’t a complete loss. It felt good to talk to someone almost normal for once, and I hoped I met him again.
Edhel Redoehdelnif
I watched as Cadet Emma Booker’s vehicle went off into the distance, getting one last look at the Earthrealmer’s strange artifice before turning towards the gate. The voyage was an exotic experience, not unlike that of a fever dream or a peak into a world completely alien to my own. Indeed, it was a struggle to contain my excitement and enthusiasm and process the experience rationally as I made my way through the southern gates of Elaseer and turned the corner of an alley before entering an impossible structure that did not exist.
“You are earlier than expected,” said the shadowy figure of my handler as I made my way to the meeting hall.
“The Earthrealmer’s means of transportation proved far more expedient than anticipated, my lord” I spoke as I knelt before him, “even with her unexpected departure from the anticipated road and the ambush we traveled for scantly more than an hour.”
“Yes, I will require a full report from you. Perhaps you can shed some light on the ‘smoke dragon’ my men claim intervened on the Earthrealmer’s behalf,” said my handler.
“Smoke Dragon, my lord?” I asked.
My handler responded by activating his sight-seer, revealing how the ambush had appeared from the outside. The Earthrealmer’s uncanny artifice traversed down the road, a pair of manafields displaying proudly from within until the archers began their assault. The artifice then transformed as smoke billowed out from its pores and wings sprung forth above until it was the form of a mighty wrym with a pair of glowing eyes springing forth from its ever extending head where it then gave forth a terrible unholy roar which sent waves of mana outward. The mage working to seal the area and trap their mark vapourized in an instant as his spell backfired. It was apparent to Edhel that his exceptional experience in the carriage was merely a muted rendition of the events unfolding around them.
It would seem the hare had the shadow of a dragon.
“I do have some insight, though I must confess the Earthrealmer did very little in the way of direct action. I suspect she has some unseen means of commanding and scrying through her artifices,” I said, “one which does not utilize magic as we know it.”
“Such a statement is heresy,” said my handler, “but such special circumstances are your reason for being. I will require you submit your memories for verification. What is your appraisal of the new realmer?”
“The girl is far more dangerous than a surface appraisal would suggest, though she prefers to conceal that power rather than utilize it out of a misplaced sense of compassion. Her people appear to have a boundless creative drive through which such artifices are birthed, though again it is misdirected towards more common applications. I believe that if properly tamed, this human animal may provide us with great works of art,” I said with a bow.
“I see. Does the girl know you work for us?” Asked my handler.
“She may harbour some suspicions, though did not voice them outright beyond concealing her knowledge,” I said, “though nothing significant. Provided our next meet is under believable circumstances such as a festival she should view me as cordial.”
“She has indeed proven clever,” conceded my handler, “very well, I will make arrangements for your paths to cross again. Perhaps I will arrange for her to be a contestant at the next inter-academy tournament. In the mean time, prepare your report and don’t wander far. This is a priority assignment.”
“As you wish, my lord,” I said with a bow and a smile.
Emma Booker had proved to be an interesting animal indeed, and I hoped our paths crossed again.

Come play with us at "The Grimoire" community discord server (aka The Grim).
I'd like to welcome you to come play with us at "The Grimoire" community discord server. To join our discord server and learn more go to https://join.thegrim.gg
We specialize in teaching new players and making everyone feel welcome. We promote a healthy fun gaming experience. We have engaged moderators and official Storytellers and run multiple regularly scheduled official FREE games on our server every week. These are always run by one of our vetted official Storytellers. We also have lots of impromptu non-official games run by members of our community.
Here is our current schedule for our official games:
SUNDAY: Sunday is our Beginner focused night. We typically run two separate game lobbies on the official app (https://botc.app) and these are always free. One of these lobbies will always be Trouble Brewing and the other lobby will always be a "Base 3" script. No custom scripts on Sundays. These games run at 10 pm EST / 7 pm PST US.
MONDAY: This is our LIVE STREAM night. Come watch Evil Steve Storytell live on stream with The Grimoire's stream team at 10 pm EST / 7 pm PST. This is our only night where you have to be invited to play. However, anyone can watch us live on stream (or watch the videos later once uploaded). To check out the stream on YouTube go to https://watch.thegrim.gg
To watch live on TwitchTV go to https://live.thegrim.gg
WEDNESDAY: Open Game Night. This is our busiest night. We almost always have two full game lobbies running. Each game will be run by one of our official STs. One game lobby will have a Base 3 script playing. The other lobby will be a Custom Script. Again these are free games on the official app environment. These games also run at 10 pm EST / 7 pm PST US.
THURSDAY: Europe friendly night. This is our newest official game slot and is focused on a Euro friendly time slot. Our number of EU members has been rapidly growing. Please join one of our official STs (usually Amber) as they lead very fun games at a favorable time slot. Non-European players also welcome. These games start at 7pm BST (British Summer Time) which is 2pm EST US / 11 am PST US.
NEW CHARACTER RELEASE BONUS STREAM - LIVE STREAM THURSDAY with Ben Burns once per month
Join us to watch on stream live each month on the night TPI officially announces the new character release. Our live stream starts immediately after TPI's release stream finishes. Usually this is the 3rd Thursday of the month, but on occasion it is the 4th Thursday. The chaos gets started at 9 pm EST US / 6 pm PST US. Again you can watch us live on YouTube at https://watch.thegrim.gg or on TwitchTV at https://live.thegrim.gg
Our next bonus new character release stream with Ben Burns is scheduled for this Thursday May 23, 2024.
We are also rapidly approaching our 1000th member and plan to have a 1000th member celebration in mid-late June 2024. We will soon be announcing our 1000th member celebration Script Contest as well (including prizes for the top 3 finishers). So if you join us, keep an eye out for more information on those upcoming events.
Best,
-Community Outreach Liason / The Grimoire

Wake up
Jashwant ke sath fake love wali baate karo 2 min. "Hum itne close aa gaye itne jaldi" 🤡
Digvijay Unnati ke against planning plotting shuru karo. Sabke rooms me jaake batao unko kya karna hai 🤡
Scroll aaya scroll. Kood kood ke jao sabse pehle. "Sab hato guys mujhe read karna hai" 🤡
Chori wale kapde pehen ke reach task location. Fir kisi random purani baat pe footage Lena shuru karo. "Sir mujhe kuch discuss karna hai. 4 din pehle usne mujhe kuch bola tha..." 🤡
Task shuru hone se pehle hi Digvijay ko out karne ka try Karo. Manipulate the dumb contestants. "Ideal match ki baat sun lo guys. Nahi to..." 🤡
Poore task me taunting and manipulation chalu rakho "Ruru apne liye stand leeee" 🤡
Task over hone ke baad wapis aake taunting chalu rakho. Koi reply de to fight karke aur jyada footage lo 🤡
Night me dome session me jaake bhav khao ache se. "Kis kisko pitch karna hai. Tune to pitch Kiya hi nahi. Mai apne friends ke liye aai hu yaha" 🤡
Dome session me footage ke liye faltu ke 4-5 points discuss karo jinse aapka door door tak koi lena dena nahi. "tune us din usko ye bola tha"🤡
Because of twist agar iske target Bach jaye to wapis aake firse unke against planning 🤡
Fir camera me bolo. "Hum to yaha bas love ke liye aaye hain" 🤡
Goodnight sweet dreams. Raat Bhar Digvijay unnati ke dreams dekho 🤡
Next day repeat 🤦‍♂️

I figured I would post this since there isn’t a lot out there like this and get some fresh perspectives. So we met in 2010, dated for years. Was absolutely out of this world the first year. She F(22) and myself (29) at the time. Moved in together after 4 months and the passion was like nothing I had ever experienced. Well, I lost my job, was on unemployment and she was a waitress. We made ends meet. I finally got work about 6 months later and we started to have a life again. But everything was a whirlwind by year 4. I was doing good, making six figures, buying houses. It was evrything we always wanted . But she was on ig and got really popular and she started looking at that life. She had always done bikini contests and what not so, i thought we could handle it. Around 2017, we break up as we weren’t seeing eye to eye and she was always saying she wasn’t in it. Well, 2 months later she comes back. She had hooked up with two guys but never told me. So, we are back together for 6 months and we get engaged and life seems blissful, sort of. Just she didn’t seem right all the time but we were out planning the wedding and we ever go on a cruise and had the time of our life. Then in September things started getting off with her and she is pulling away. She had been talking and texting a guy for the last 6 months. Well, she leaves again, and gets her own place. I tried talking to her for a few months, even got her out but she wasn’t having it. Two months later she still has a Christmas dinner with her Mom and stepdad at my house while texting a guy the whole night she is there. She was going to stay the night but was just pushing it and wouldn’t stop so I told her she might as well leave. So, needless to say, we don’t talk again until 2 months later as she needs help moving some stuff and she is moving states away. That was the hardest time for me. Watching the last 8 years of my life drive off into the distance. Devastated was an understatement. Everything seemed so real at that point. I didn’t hear from her for about 10 months, maybe once but nothing really. I messaged her off and on. She would tell me not to message her as she was on dates or doing something else. But anyway, she tells me 10 months later that she needs help with her house and wants me to come up. So, I do and we hang out every day and night for a week. I couldn’t believe it was happening. I am a nervous wreck while I am there and just trying to be the old me. Well, a few mo the go by and she wants to make it official. So, I buy a house in her state and move up there. She sleeps with a guy she had been with a week before I get there and never says a thing. So I get up there and things seem off. And we got into it a lot and I couldn’t figure it out. Well 6 months go by and we flip a house and sell mine that we were staying at. While flipping the house, she wants a house with land so we buy another house and I think our lives can finally start, but she goes back to the house in a different state and tells me she is done. She talks to me every now and then and decides to do counseling over the phone. While in counseling she tells me she doesn’t know if she wants to continue because she may miss Mr. Right. Well, I stay where I am and finish up two flips. 3 months later she decides she wants to try us again, I find out about all the guys she has been with and what happened the last year and I was upset and deeply hurt. Told her I just need to work through all of this. Well, for the next two months I was kind of in and out. But got back to our baseline. For 6 months the or so, we were good but then everything was off again. She wanted to break up, but wanted to keep the house. I tried to make it work for the next six months but she wasn’t in it and wanted to be successful and be with someone successful. So, I leave the state for six months. And I don’t see or hear from her for a year. I am back in the state she is in and I go to a concert. Meanwhile she had been dating someone for the last 7 months. She messages me at the concert and says she is single. We meet up and I grab her and kiss her. She calls me after the concert and go back to her house and talk for 6 hours. Well slowly we start talking and before you know it are back again. Once again, good for 6 months and she is done. I would get anxious sometimes and push if she needed space. And the other times she really wasn’t in it. But this last time, for some reason she was different. And I was different. But we needed up in the same place. I am the affectionate one, I am the passionate one, I am one who made it feel special. But I feel such loss everytime she leaves. People use the word soulmate. But it’s like I met myself. She was a daredevil, loved going for motorcycle rides and nice cars, we loved all the same music, same shows, same beliefs and values. We played ping pong and did karaoke. It was like nothing I have ever experienced.
The strange part is…. I never followed the ex back coaches advice. I would email her and message her. I always stayed in contact. And I wonder if that’s why she came back but always left. Months apart, years apart, it didn’t matter. When we were back together, it was like we had seen each other 5 mins ago. She would get with other guys and date around but I never did. I worked and dated a few but nothing serious. Always thought about her, no one else really compared.
Well, fast forward to today. It’s been about two and half months and we haven’t spoken. I have sent her some emails telling her how I feel. And left it at that. She reads them all but doesn’t respond. I am trying to let go and really move on but I don’t know how to let go of her or what we had as we have been together for 14 years and no matter how crazy the story, my love for her is forever. I always think, maybe she will come back again this time, she has 5 other times. But then I think, what will be different. I stayed in contact before, I think this time, I will have to let it be, and she would have to come to me. I know I always saw her as the love of my life. It was never a question. She loved me but nothing how I viewed her. She always left and got with other guys and didn’t skip a beat. Life went on and couldn’t be better. But when she was in it, she was all about me. When she went into her off modes, she had nothing.
I know with most of the forums and stories, the women leave and they can’t get that feeling back. But for her it’s like an on/off switch. So, she can always find it again. I feel like I really don’t know what to do? Where to go. We were going to start a family this year and really move forward but that didn’t happen. Now I am wondering will she talk to me? Will it be years? I know she will date other people. Will she stay with one of them. It’s all a lot to take in right now and the last two months have really sucked. You think it would get easier being the 6th time but it really doesn’t. Maybe a little bit it still hits like a freight train.i guess i will leave this here and if you have any questions, can fire away. Sorry for the long read, but any thoughts would be appreciated.

Greetings, members of the MysteryDungeon writing guild! ♪ This is where your prompts for the upcoming Writing Prompt Wednesday (WPW) can be submitted for nomination!
Now then, let me explain the process. This nomination thread will be set to "contest mode" for the next 48 hours. During that time, each user will be able to submit a single writing prompt of their own making in a comment. Other users will be able to vote for the prompt or prompts that they deem worthy simply by upvoting them. The comment with the highest vote count by the end of this period will be submitted as Wednesday's prompt, courtesy of me!
The format of your submission should be as follows: a one-sentence title at the beginning of your comment and, optionally, a line break followed by your description of the prompt.
It is important to keep in mind that editing your comment after submitting it will cause it to not be considered for that week's vote, even if it has received the highest vote count. Also, prompts that have the potential to lead into NSFW territory will not be permitted. Any attempts to tarnish the guild's image will not be tolerated! Squawk!
(...Apologies. I almost got carried away there.)
Once the 48-hour voting period has passed, this thread will revert to the default sort and the ranking of the prompts will be revealed to the entire guild. Perhaps you can use this information to try improving upon a previous prompt, or coming up with a prompt that has a high chance of winning. All of this is up to you.
That is all. We expect everyone to contribute some great content to the guild!

Greetings Guardians (and potential future TSOLites)!
I’m Stevie and I’m an admin here at The Servants Of Light. We are a broad group of gamers and friends who like to hang out, chat and play games, sometimes even Destiny. Take a moment to read through our little recruitment post here and see if you think that our little corner of the internet is somewhere you would like to call home.

The Essentials

System: PC - All platforms are welcome thanks to crossplay. But please make sure you have a way to chat with us over discord as that's how we arrange everything.
Region: We are primarily based in the UK. We have a fair few EU members and even 1 or 2 on other timezones. We don't really recommend signing up if you are US based as you will likely miss out on alot of our events and fun things due to the time difference. (sorry)
Active Times: You will usually find us active from late afternoon/early evening and sticking around toward midnight.
Rules Summary: Our rules boil down to not being an idiot or a bigot. We love to joke around with each other but we do not tolerate hate. No homophobia, sexism, racism or any kind of gender or religious attacks. We are a welcoming place for all people but if you harbour distaste for anyone for just existing as their true self, you don't belong with us.

Who Are The Servants Of Light?

About Us: So, The Servants Of Light (or TSOL [tee-sol] for short) started out as another Destiny 2 clan made to give a few people a way to earn some extra rewards and group up easier. Over the past 5 years we have grown and evolved into so much more. Destiny is, of course, a big part of what we do and who we are, but I think that what makes TSOL special is everything else we get up to. From just talking to each other in the general chat, debating silly things like what counts as a sandwich all the way to all our events. We have fortnightly Game Nights, Movie Nights and a special raid night known as Raid Roulette. We also like to do bigger events throughout the year, the biggest of which is our end of year BONANZA! A huge gameshow style event where we like to dress up all fancy, announce the winners of our community voted awards and challenge you to various themed rounds with a prize on offer. We even have a yearly meetup for those so inclined towards in-person interaction.As for our general focuses for within Destiny, we do a little bit of everything. I would probably say we are a much more PvE leaning clan, we have teams going for clears on contest mode (and may have a space or two open for the next one if you are into that kind of thing and get along with us), we do GM’s and raids every season and aren’t scared off by legend difficulty activities. PvP wise, we have a few guardians who jump into things like trials regularly but for most of us PvP is an ‘as and when’ kind of activity, stacking 6 in iron banner is always fun though.No activity is mandatory and we really just want to play the game we love with people we like, in whatever form that takes. (NOTICE: If Gambit is your favourite gamemode then you will be judged for it but not penalised)

The Testimonials

Not something you see much of in your average recruitment post but I asked some of our current members as well as some friends of the clan to give a little insight into what people really think of the clan named TSOL.
NebulaAndi (our clan leader): "TSOL was created as a place for people to come together and hang out, not just play destiny. It has blossomed into something I'm incredibly proud of, and has fostered some amazing friendships and memories. I've watched many of our longer-standing members grow, and everyone continues to welcome new people with open arms. We've got so many things going on - day one raids, movie nights, and we even had our second irl meetup last year which was incredible. I love these guys with all my heart, and despite them forcing me at gunpoint to write this, I know they'll welcome you too."
Lucasacul (one of our mods): “If you are looking for the funniest, kindest and most helpful clan in Destiny 2 then join us here at The Servants of Light. This is not a cult”
Weiland: "very welcoming group of people, almost always down to run stuff/help people out."
Rapideagle147: "It's a clan full of muppets"
Havelock: "TSOL is a really welcoming, friendly and diverse clan and absolutely not a cult. Brilliantly social not just playing Destiny but having DnD, Minecraft, games/film nights and solid definitely not cultist chat."
Kenny: “A clan so good, you’ll kill your old clan just for the chance with them”
DT: "I used to hate destiny 2 the video game with a passion, now I hate destiny 2 the video game with a passion, but with friends."
Evey: "TSOL - A Haiku Sherpa'd my first raid, Then soon became dearest friends: This weird clan is great!"
Sheep: “TSOL is a fantasic clan, who really go out of their way to be welcoming and inclusive to anyone that joins. Destiny with them is always fun and there's a great community where anyone will try to help with whatever you want which just makes destiny, even when it's not fun, just that little bit more enjoyable”
Nuggets: "excited monkey noises"
Athena: "Found TSOL about a year ago and the people here are nothing short of being the weirdest and loveliest folk that I've ever met. There's always something going on in the server, even during the quiet periods of Destiny."
yapX: "TSOL allows you to actually enjoy Destiny 2, a remarkable achievement that Bungie haven't been able to replicate"

How to get involved

Requirements: The only real requirements we have for joining the clan are 1) to use Discord, which is how we communicate with everyone and arrange all our activities. It's also where you can chat to your clanmates and have fun. 2) follow the rules. The full rules list is in our server for you to read through.
How to: So, if you somehow made it through all that and still think that this is a clan you would like to check out, add or shoot me a DM over on Discord (indigostevie) and I'll get you sorted. If you wanna jump in the server and get to know us a little before you join the in game clan, that's fine too, same deal.
I love this clan with all my heart. They are some of the best friends I've ever known. I hope you like us too :)
https://www.bungie.net/en/ClanV2/Index?groupId=3541785 (we will not accept join requests without a message to an Admin just FYI)