JITA — Local channel is still recovering.
A ganker operating under the increasingly ironic pseudonym “TearsForFears” intercepted Mike Azariah’s Bowhead on a 49-jump leg of what appears to be an ongoing charity run to Exordium, exploding the industrial vessel in a flurry of Concord-documented violence and posting the killmail to zKillboard with the caption “L + Ratio + Built Different.” The implication, presumably, was that the victim would show up in the comments to rage, cry, or at minimum acknowledge the cultural victory.
Mike Azariah did not rage. Mike Azariah did not cry. Mike Azariah opened a public broadcast channel and spent the next 45 minutes explaining to the ganker, in calm and measured detail, why reacting with anger to loss is “like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” He then continued his route, picked up the replacement Bowhead from a contact in Dodixie, and delivered a package of rookie-fit Rifters to a corporation of brand-new players who had no idea they were being used as the closing image of a real-life parable about emotional regulation.
TearsForFears has not posted in local since. Sources close to the ganker, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are embarrassed on his behalf, say he has been in his quarters “processing some things.” The Killboard shows his activity since the interaction has dropped by 60 percent. Mike Azariah’s charity run continues. He is now on jump 31 of 49 to the next delivery node, and has not mentioned the gank once.
The Exordium rookie corporation issued a formal statement thanking Mike Azariah for “the ships and also for being a better person than whoever blew them up.” The statement did not mention the ganker by name, which somehow makes the burn worse.
