If anyone is interested in grading or looking over my LEQ I would very much appreciate it! I'm also attaching the google doc link for anyone who wants to add specific comments :D
LEQ Prompt: Evaluate the extent trans-Atlantic Voyages affected the Americas during the years 1491-1607
Before Europeans arrived in the Americas, the two continents were already populated by native peoples who formed different societies. Meanwhile in Europe, Spain wanted to find a new trade route to Asia after Portugal’s exploration and trade success and enlisted the help of Columbus. When Columbus arrived in the Americas, everything changed. Trans-Atlantic voyages during the years 1491-1607 greatly affected the Americas through conflicts with Europeans and fellow natives and cooperation through trade and intermixing.
After Columbus arrived in the Americas, more spanish conquistadors arrived with the desire to spread christianity to the natives and more importantly, find gold and wealth. As a result, these conquistadors would cause conflict with the natives. The Aztecs were very aggressive towards the Spanish which led to Noche Triste where they drove the Spanish out. As a result the Spanish returned with their native enemies to drive them out of their lands. This conflict highlights European desire to gain lands and even promoted conflict within natives. As a result, more conflicts would spring up because of Europeans like the Battle of Acoma. Here, the Spanish would drive out the Pueblos out of their lands showing more conflict between the Natives and Europeans as a result of trans-Atlantic voyages. However, conflict didn’t have to rise from wars. There was conflict in the Encomienda System where the Spanish enslaved natives because of their thought that they were barbaric. This greatly increased tensions between natives and Europeans, but it would also later lead to the bringing in of African slaves. As a result, the America’s were transformed by conflict which drove out many native populations and also diversified by the Europeans and blacks.
Not all relationships with the Europeans during this time were violent. Europeans also cooperated with natives during the Columbian Exchange. Europeans from the Old world would introduce goods and animals such as guns, metal tools, pigs, cows, horses, and unfortunately, slaves, while the natives from the New World introduced maize and showed Europeans how to hunt and navigate the lands. However, while this method brought new animals, goods, and people to the continent which transformed the environment, future agriculture, and makeup of the populations, it would also become destructive because the Europeans brought disease. Through this cooperation, many natives would die because of the mass wipeout caused by smallpox lowering the native population of the Americas. However, native populations continue to live on in the mestizo populations. The Spanish, contrary later on to the English, married and had children with natives to promote further cooperation in kinship ties. These children were called mestizos and had a mix of white and native blood. As a result of trans-Atlantic voyages which also brought cooperation with natives, the Americas changed because of the bringing in of new goods and resources, lowering of native populations by disease, and increased in diversity by new peoples such as the Europeans, blacks, and mestizos.
In the end, trans-Atlantic voyages greatly affected the Americas in a variety of ways. Through conflict, natives were driven out of their homes and forced to live under the Encomienda labor system. But through cooperation, the natives were able to gain new resources and goods which forever transformed the geography of the Americas and diversified it by the bringing in of blacks and intermixing which resulted in the mestizos. However, these voyages would also bring in disease like smallpox that would wipe out entire tribes and cultures. As a result, the world, both new and old, would never be the same again because of the trans-Atlantic voyages.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ilawALAwP5ehv1AbKeuBukg33oQADa3fxs4dzrvDt-0/edit?usp=sharing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaThis article is about the country. For other uses, see Mexico (disambiguation)).United Mexican StatesEstados Unidos Mexicanos (Spanish)📷Flag📷Coat of armsAnthem: Himno Nacional Mexicano ("Mexican National Anthem")Duration: 1 minute and 42 seconds.1:42📷Mexico in the Western HemisphereMexico and its neighborsShow allCapitaland largest cityMexico City 📷19°26′N 99°8′WOfficial languagesSpanish (de facto)Co-official languages

• 68 Indigenous languages

Ethnic groupsSee belowReligion (2023)[1]

• 71% Christianity
  • 56% Catholicism
  • 10% Protestantism
  • 5% other Christian
• 17% no religion
• 8% other religion
• 5% prefer not to say

Demonym(s)MexicanGovernmentFederal presidential republic[2]• PresidentAndrés Manuel López Obrador• President of the Senate)Ana Lilia Rivera• President of the Chamber of Deputies)Marcela Guerra Castillo• Chief JusticeNorma Lucía Piña HernándezLegislatureCongress• Upper houseSenate)• Lower houseChamber of Deputies)Independence from Spain• Start of War of Independence16 September 1810• Declared27 September 1821• Recognized28 December 1836• First constitution4 October 1824• Second constitution5 February 1857• Current constitution5 February 1917Area• Total1,972,550 km2 (761,610 sq mi) (13th)• Water (%)1.58 (as of 2015)[3]Population• 2023 estimate📷 129,875,529[4] (10th)• Density61/km2 (158.0/sq mi) (142nd)GDP (PPP)2024 estimate• Total📷 $3.434 trillion[5] (12th))• Per capita📷 $25,963[5] (70th_per_capita))GDP (nominal)2024 estimate• Total📷 $2.017 trillion[5] (12th))• Per capita📷 $15,249[5] (63rd_per_capita))Gini (2018)📷 41.8[6] mediumHDI (2022)📷 0.781[7] high (77th)CurrencyMexican peso (MXN)Time zoneUTC−8 to −5 (See Time in Mexico)• Summer (DST)UTC−7 to −5 (varies)Date formatdd/mm/yyyyDriving siderightCalling code+52ISO 3166 codeMXInternet TLD.mx

1. ^ Article 4 of the General Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples[8][9]
2. ^ Spanish is de facto the official language in the Mexican federal government.

Mexico,[a][b] officially the United Mexican States,[c] is a country in the southern portion of North America. It covers 1,972,550 km2 (761,610 sq mi),[11] making it the world's 13th-largest country by area; with a population of almost 130 million, it is the 10th-most-populous country and the most populous Spanish-speaking country.[12] Mexico is organized as a federal constitutional republic comprising 31 states and Mexico City, its capital. It shares land borders with the United States to the north, with Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; as well as maritime borders with the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Caribbean Sea to the southeast, and the Gulf of Mexico to the east.[13]
Human presence in Pre-Columbian Mexico dates back to 8,000 BCE, making it one of the world's six cradles of civilization. The Mesoamerican region hosted various intertwined civilizations, including the Olmec, Maya, Zapotec, Teotihuacan, and Purepecha. The Aztecs came to dominate the area prior to European contact. In 1521, the Spanish Empire, alongside indigenous allies, conquered the Aztec Empire, establishing the colony of New Spain in the former capital, Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City).[14] Over the next three centuries, Spanish expansion enforced Christianity, spread the Spanish language, and exploited rich silver deposits in Zacatecas and Guanajuato.[15] The colonial era ended in the early nineteenth century with the Mexican War of Independence.
Following independence, Mexico faced political and socioeconomic upheaval. The United States' invasion during the Mexican–American War resulted in significant territorial losses in 1848.[16] Liberal reforms introduced in the Constitution of 1857 prompted domestic conflict, including the French intervention and the establishment of an Empire, countered by the Republican resistance led by Benito Juárez. The late 19th century saw the rise of Porfirio Díaz's dictatorship,[17] sparking the Mexican Revolution in 1910, which led to profound changes, including the 1917 Constitution. Subsequent governance by a succession of presidents, often former war generals, persisted until the emergence of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 1929. Under PRI rule for 70 years, Mexico experienced significant economic growth, but also faced issues of repression and electoral fraud. The late twentieth century saw a shift towards neoliberal policies, exemplified by the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, amidst social unrest and indigenous rebellion in Chiapas. In 2000, PRI lost the presidency for the first time against the conservative party (PAN)).
Mexico has the world's 15th-largest economy by nominal GDP) and the 11th-largest by PPP), with the United States being its largest economic partner. As a newly industrialized[18] and developing country ranking 86th in the Human Development Index, its large economy and population, cultural influence, and steady democratization make Mexico a regional and middle power[19][20][21] which is also identified as an emerging power by several analysts.[22][23][24][25] Mexico ranks first in the Americas and seventh in the world for the number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.[26] It is also one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries, ranking fifth in natural biodiversity.[27] Mexico's rich cultural and biological heritage, as well as varied climate and geography, makes it a major tourist destination: as of 2018, it was the sixth most-visited country in the world, with 39 million international arrivals.[28] However, the country continues to struggle with social inequality, poverty and extensive crime. It ranks poorly on the Global Peace Index,[29] due in large part to ongoing conflict between drug trafficking syndicates. This "drug war" has led to over 120,000 deaths since 2006.[30] Mexico is a member of United Nations, the G20, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, the Organization of American States, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, and the Organization of Ibero-American States.

Etymology

Main article: Name of Mexico
Mēxihco is the Nahuatl term for the heartland of the Aztec Empire, namely the Valley of Mexico and surrounding territories, with its people being known as the Mexica. It is generally believed that the toponym for the valley was the origin of the primary ethnonym for the Aztec Triple Alliance, but it may have been the other way around.[31] In the colonial era (1521–1821) Mexico was known as New Spain. In the eighteenth century, this central region became the Intendency of Mexico, during the reorganization of the empire, the Bourbon Reforms. After New Spain achieved independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821 and became a sovereign state, the territory came to be known as the State of Mexico, with the new country being named after its capital: Mexico City. The official name of the country has changed as the form of government has changed. The declaration of independence signed on 6 November 1813 by the deputies of the Congress of Anáhuac called the territory América Septentrional (Northern America); the 1821 Plan of Iguala also used América Septentrional. On two occasions (1821–1823 and 1863–1867), the country was known as Imperio Mexicano (Mexican Empire)). All three federal constitutions (1824, 1857 and 1917, the current constitution) used the name Estados Unidos Mexicanos[32]—or the variant Estados-Unidos Mexicanos,[33] all of which have been translated as "United Mexican States". The phrase República Mexicana, "Mexican Republic", was used in the 1836 Constitutional Laws.[34]

History

Main article: History of MexicoSee also: History of the Catholic Church in Mexico, Economic history of Mexico, History of democracy in Mexico, History of Mexico City, and Military history of Mexico (i do not take credit for the original articale and information this is from wikipedia and i take no responsability for the original post or the information provied)

The following nations are at war, but only characters from their respective mythologies and legends fight in this war.
Rules. Characters that fight in this war must be humans (or, if they're monsters, they must have been originally humans). Demigods and demihumans are allowed, but they must have human blood as well (Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Hobits are allowed for South Africa). Omnipotent beings are banned. Each nation gets a World Map with the location of every nation participating in this war.
The territory, cities and technology of each Nation is transformed to the settings described in their respective mythologies, legends and stories. The rest of the world's civilizations are erased, but the geography remains the same.

Nations

• Greece - Greek Mythology
• Scandinavia - Norse Mythology
• Britain - Arthurian Legends
• Ireland - Irish Mythology
• Transylvania - Dracula Myth (+Vampires and Werewolves folklore from this region)
• Israel - Jewish Mythology
• Babylon - Babylon Mythology
• India - Hindu Mythology
• China - Journey to the West + Romance of the Three Kingdoms + Water Margin
• Egypt - Egyptian Mythology
• South Africa - Tolkien's Legendarium
• Mexico - Aztec Mythology
• United States - Hyborian Age stories (not only stories in the hyborian age, but also King Kull's stories and other stories from Howard's fictional setting)

______
ROUND 2. Non-human characters and creatures can take part in the war, but omnipotent characters are still banned.

Given that no nation in the New world had discovered iron working, the best counterpart for the Incans and Aztecs would be the Bronze Age civilizations such as Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, etc, which never grew anywhere near as big as the new world empires. How was this possible? As I understand it, the geography wasn't conducive to large empires either, due to mountains and tropical climate in central and South America.

I am creating a setting to set a novel against. I'm at a stage where I want to just get a layout for what this world is like so I can whittle down where I want to drop my characters and let them run free like crazed rodents. In particular, I'm thinking about the major political powers that exist in this world so that I know what I want creatively before I settle on the geography and decide how the narrative goes.
The premise for each of these factions goes like this: to avoid the trap of just ripping off an existing culture and dropping it into a setting with dragons, I'm taking a pair of cultures from the real world, separated by vast space and perhaps time, and mashing them together to make something new. Each faction's inspirations are melded over a set of fairly surface-level but nonetheless memorable similarities, which I'll detail below. The world itself is going to be a quasi-medieval setting (terribly original, I know) with fauna derived from across the Cenozoic, which I hope will give the animals a fantastic-yet-familiar feel; actual magic is probably going to stay at a minimum, as I don't feel like this is a setting that requires wizards. I have settled on 4 factions thus far, with the help of some other worldbuilders I've consulted:

1. Mongol Empire + American West (1800s): I recognize that, because the Mongol Empire was so huge, it's a great disservice to think of it as one cultural sphere; however, I wanted to focus on the cultural, ideological, and technological side of expansionism for this one. As such, if any one faction is the resident "evil empire," it'll probably be this. The key comparisons between the inspirations consist of memorable horsemanship and ranged combat (YEEHAW), the desert biome (ableit very different deserts), and of course, bloody conquest of neighboring cultures.
   
2. Vikings + Inuit: Not an original idea of mine, but a stroke of genius from someone on Discord. They're the resident naval power within the colder, northern waters. There's more continental crust on this world's "arctic" so it's easier to get resources and build cities; however, due to the limited resources available, they resort to piracy, much like the Vikings. Their religion draws heavily on their reliance on the sea, and they recognize the Kraken (actually Livyatan) as the king of beasts. Major comparisons: seafaring, cold biome, shamanic religion. (Like I said, very surface-level stuff, but enough to see some similarities.)
   
3. Feudal France + Feudal Japan: The first one I devised. Two cultural spheres--both with lots of coastline, a feudal system, a notorious warrior class, and lots of varied and novel arms and armor--that I just had to see put together. It mostly exists because I thought of the phrase "Gothic Samurai plate."
   
4. Aztec Empire + Ancient Egypt: A faction that's likely to be split down the middle, much like Upper and Lower Egypt, except this one may be split across a climate divide, with one side favoring a more arid biome and another preferring the neighboring tropics. (I'll have to work out the geography for that later...) Pyramids, sun worship, gods with animal traits, mummification, and human sacrifice (if we look at First Dynasty Egypt) are the points of unification here. I have the fewest ideas for this one, but I'm sure it'll come to me as I do my research.
   

Now, this is probably enough for one book, realistically. However, I reasoned that, while I'm still taking my first steps, this is the time to collect big ideas for conceptually-interesting factions that I may at least mention in the final narrative, and at best I may hear ideas of places I simply have to visit in the book. Thus I turn to you and ask, as I build this setting, what kinds of inspirations would you like to see? What ideas or styles do you think would be compelling, and what points of comparison draw your ideas together? If you have anything you want to say, speak up; else, leave this post to rot, and I may return when I actually have something concrete to show.
A few notes before I end the post: I had a thought for a 5th faction that would draw on the Qin Dynasty and Kingdom of Benin, united under the pretense of "built a bigass wall" and...nothing else. Hence, I didn't go through with it, as the connection felt rather flimsy. I would definitely want to draw on some African culture or other, but I cannot decide on what. On a related note, I want to pull from a wide variety of inspirations--hence the vast distances between each. And, finally, just to reiterate, I'm not going to literally copy and paste from history, arbitrarily choosing what to take from inspirations A and B for every faction. Rather, those inspirations are a starting point. Entirely new myths, customs, and terminology will have to come up to make this work, of course, especially to fit within the setting and move the plot forward; I felt a need to confirm this in the event that I come off as a lazy worldbuilder unable to solve his own problems.

Golden Sun obviously has some parallels to the real world, but these go a lot further than most people realise. Nearly every town and location has a direct real life inspiration.
Note: / and /l/ aren't distinguished in Japanese. Since the games are translated from Japanese, some places have the Roman letter L where there is an R in their real world equivalent and vice versa (eg. Yallam -> Yarram). Transliterated Japanese names are included in brackets if they're significant for real world identification.
EDIT: Thanks to marandahir for suggestions on Amiti, Briggs, Garoh, Goma, Mt Mikage, and Nihan.

Golden Sun

Continents
Angara = Eurasia. Named after Angara, a river in Siberia. Also Angaraland, the Siberian craton (a geological feature).
Gondowan (Gondwana) = Africa. Named after Gondwana, a prehistoric southern continent which split into South America, Africa, Antarctica, and Australia.
Towns
Vale (Hidea) = Japanese name from English 'hide'.
Vault (Coopup) = Japanese name from English 'cooped up' which is referenced in an in-game book.
Lunpa = Named after Lunpa, who is based on Arsene Lupin, a gentleman thief character created by Maurice Leblanc. The Lupin stories are popular in Japan.
Bilibin (Bilibino) = Bilibino, a town in the Kolyma region of north east Russia
Kolima = Kolyma, a river and region in north east Russia
Imil (Ymir) = Ymir, an ice giant in Norse mythology
Xian = Xi'an, a city in central China near the historical capital of Chang'an which was the beginning of the Silk Road
Altin = Altyn mountains, a range in east/central Asia
Kalay (Karay) = Carrhae (English pronunciation /karey/), an ancient town in modern-day Turkey. Kalay's location and status as a trading city are analagous to Istanbul.
Tolbi (Trevi) = Trevi, a district of Rome with a famous fountain people throw coins into.
Suhalla = Name from Sahara desert. Based on north Africa; one of the ovens contains mulukhiya soup, a traditional Egyptian dish.
Lalivero (Lalibelo) = Lalibela, a historic town in northern Ethiopia, home to famous rock-cut churches.
Places
Fuchin Temple = Based on Chinese Buddhist temples. Name from Fuqing, a city in east China.
Lama Temple = Buddhist Lama Temples of Tibet
Karagol Sea = Mediterranean Sea or Black Sea. Kara Göl is Turkish for 'black lake'.
Babi Lighthouse = Possibly based on the Biblical Tower of Babel. The sprite looks similar to Renaissance paintings of Babel. Might also be inspired by the Lighthouse of Alexandria which was in Egypt.
Idejima = Means 'exit island' in Japanese
Geography
Mt Aleph (Mt Alpha) = Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet.
Goma Range = Caucasus or Ural Mountains. Name from Gomer, the Biblical ancestor of the Pontic Steppe peoples who lived north of the Caucasus and west of the Urals (modern day south west Russia and Ukraine).
Mogall Prairie/Forest (Mogol Prairie/Forest) = The Mongolian steppe
Lamakan Desert = Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang, China
Suhalla Desert = Sahara Desert, Africa
Silk Road = The real Silk Road, several major trade routes which went from central China to the Middle East.
Altmiller Cave (Altamira Cave) = Altamira, paleolithic caves in Spain
Nol River = Nile River, Africa
People
Saturos (Satyros) = Satyr. The Satyrs resembled horse-tailed men, they accompanied Pan and Dionysus and engaged in their drunken orgies.
Menardi (Maenadi) = Maenad. The Maenads were the female equivalents of the Satyrs, worshipping Dionysus and taking part in his wild orgies.
Kraden (Sclater) = English name possibly from Kratos, Greek god of strength, or Graden, a British surname. Japanese name from Philip Sclater, a victorian scientist who proposed a hypothetical lost landmass in the Indian Ocean that he called Lemuria.
Hammet = Name from Muhammed (or Mehmet, its Turkish equivalent). The Prophet Muhammad was a merchant before starting his ministry, and several Turkish Sultans were named Mehmet.
McCoy = MacBeth, who thinks he sees a forest marching towards him in the eponymous play
Hsu (Urmuch) = English name from Hsu (Pinyin: Xu), a Chinese surname. Japanese name from Urumqi, a city in Xinjiang, China. Historically a major hub of the Silk Road.
Hama (Hamo) = Hamo is a Tibetan female name. Might also be from Lhamo, Tibet's classical theatre tradition.
Ouranos (Uranus) = Ouranos was the father of the Olympian gods in Greek mythology
Iodem = Name probably from Iodame, a priestess of Athena in Greek mythology. A gender-swapped name would be unique for the series.
Faran (Giyorgis) = Faran is an islamic given name. Giyorgis Bete is a rock-hewn church in Lalibela, Ethiopia (see Lalivero).
Sheba = The Biblical queen of Sheba, thought to be from Arabia. In Ethiopian legend she had a son with king Solomon of Israel and their descendents became the kings of Ethiopia.
Bosses
Hydros statue = Hydros was a Greek god of water and the name of a sea serpent
Kraken = A sea monster from Scandanavian folklore
Manticore = A fabled beast in ancient Greek writings that supposedly lived in Persia or India

The Lost Age

Continents
Indra = India. Indra is the name of a Hindu god.
Osenia = Australia and New Zealand. Name from Oceania.
Tundaria (South Island) = Antarctica. Named after tundra.
Atteka = South and Central America. Named after Aztecs.
Hesperia = North America. Hesperia was a mythical western land in Greek mythology.
Towns
Daila (Delhi) = Delhi, a city in north India
Madra = Madras (now called Chennai), a city in south India
Alhafra (Arafura) = Arafura sea, north of Australia
Mikasalla = Meekatharra, a town in west Australia. From Aboriginal phrase meaning 'place of little water'
Garoh (Popiichii) = English name from Loupe-garou, French for werewolf. Japanese name possibly from the English 'puppy'.
Naribwe (Niri) = Nairobi, a city in Kenya
Kibombo = Kibumba, a town in Congo; or Kibumbu, a region of Rwanda; or Kibumbu, a town in Burundi.
Yallam = Yarram, a town in Victoria, Australia. From Aboriginal phrase meaning 'plenty of water'.
Apojii Islands (Garapas Island) = Pacific islands. English name from apogee which means 'furthest distance from Earth'. Japanese name from Galapagos Islands.
Izumo = Izumo, a historical region of Japan
Champa = Champa, historical kingdom in south Vietnam
Lemuria = Lemuria, a hypothetical landmass in the Indian Ocean proposed by Victorian geographer Philip Sclater (see Kraden)
Contigo (Guiana) = English name means "with you" in Spanish. Japanese name from Guiana, a region in South America
Shaman Village = Self explanatory
Loho = Germany? Inhabited by dwarfs which feature in Germanic mythology. Name possibly from Rohonc (now Reichnitz) a city in Austria which gave its name to a mysterious codex which still hasn't been deciphered.
Kalt Island (Cuelt Island) = Probably Britain. Name from the Celts, an ancient people who lived in Britain and Europe. Kalt also means cold in German.
Prox = Proximity, because it's close to the edge of the world
Places
Kandorean Temple (Kandola Temple) = Kandla, a town in west India.
Ankhol Ruins = Angkor Ruins, Cambodia
Taopo Swamp (Taupo Swamp) = Lake Taupo, North Island of New Zealand
Anemos = Anemoi, wind gods in Greek mythology
Geography
Dekhan Plateau = Deccan Plateau, central India
Yampi Desert = Deserts of Australia. Name from Yampi Sound, an area of the Indian Ocean off north west Australia.
Air's Rock = Ayers Rock (Uluru), Australia
Balloo Range = The Blue Mountains, eastern Australia (part of the Great Dividing Range)
Aqua Rock = Possibly Cerro Azul ("Blue Hill"), an active volcano in the Galapagos Islands.
Mt Mikage (Mt Fuji) = Mt Fuji, Japan. English name can mean "divine shadow" in Japanese (mi kage); or from Mikage no Ishi meaning granite; or from Mikage, a village north of Mt Fuji
Sea of Time (Devil's Sea) = The Devil's Sea is a body of water south of Japan. The English name is quite generic so might have been invented by the translators.
Magma Rock = Possibly Mount Kilimanjaro, a dormant volcano in Tanzania. Or the Virguna Mountains, a chain of volcanoes in central Africa.
Anemos Crater = Possibly based on Chixclub Crater, Gulf of Mexico
People
Karst = Karst is a type of rock topography
Agatio = Name from Agate, a type of formation found in volcanic rocks
Briggs (Payayāmu) = English name from Benjamin Briggs, the captain of the Mary Celeste whose crew mysteriously dissappeared. Japanese possibly from the Thai word 'phyāyā' meaning 'try' or 'attempt'. Or from Panduranga (Panraun), a successor state to Champa.
Susa and Kushinada = Characters from a Japanese legend that the Izumo serpent storyline is based on.
King Hydros (Hydro) = Hydros was the Greek god of primordial water. Hydro is Greek for water.
Lunpa = Arsene Lupin, a gentleman thief character created by Maurice Leblanc. The Lupin stories are popular in Japan.
Moapa = Moapa, a native American tribe in Nevada, USA
Hoabna (Navaho) = Japanese name from Navajo, a native American nation in south western USA. English name from re-arranging the syllables of Navajo transliterated from Japanese (Navajo > Nabaho > Hoabna).
Yegelos (Yegros) = Fulgencio Yegros, a Paraguayan independence fighter who became the first head of state of the country
Puelle (Pure) = Possibly from the English 'pure', perhaps because he's a good character
Bosses
Aqua Hydra = The Hydra was a multi-headed sea serpent or serpentine dragon in Greek myth.
Serpent (Orochi) = Japanese name from a dragon in the Japanese folklore of Izumo
Avimander = In European folklore, salamanders could survive the high temperatures of fires and furnaces, which is why the Avimander is living in Champa's forge.
Poseidon = Greek god of the sea. The game's sprite looks more like Triton, Poseidon's son who had a fish's tail
Valukar (Balrog) = English name is possibly an invention of the translators. Japanese name from the Balrog in the Lord of the Rings.
Dullahan = A headless horseman in Irish folklore

Dark Dawn

Towns
Harapa = Harappa, ancient city that was part of a civilisation based around the Indus river in modern-day Pakistan and India.
Ayuthay = Ayutthaya, a city and medieval kingdom in Thailand
Passaj (Corridor) = A passage (corridor)
Kaocho = Japanese name for Xia, an ancient Chinese dynasty
Te Rya (Teilya) = Telia. A mountain town in Nepal.
Belinsk (Verkhne) = English name possibly from Belinsk Mine in Kazakhstan. Japanese name from Verkhne-udinsk, the old name for Ulan-Ude, a town in south Russia near Lake Baikal (see Lake Bycal).
Port Rago (Uraijo) = Uraijo, the Japanese name for Vladivostok, a city in east Russia.
Saha (Sahka) = Sakha Republic in north east Russia
Harun Island (Harin Island) = From Sakhalin, an east Russian island.
Yamata (Yamatai) = Yamatai, an iron age Japanese Kingdom
Tonfon (Tonfan) = Dongfang, a city in Hainan, China. Means 'eastern'.
Places
Tanglewood (Ayakashi Forest) = Ayakashi are monsters in Japanese folklore.
Konpa Ruins (Gonpa Ruins) = Gonpa, Japanese name for a string of Buddhist monasteries in the Himalayas
Barai Temple = Name from Barai, a Hindu caste in Uttar Pradesh, north India
Ouroboros = Ancient symbol depicting a serpent eating its own tail
Teppe Ruins = Tepe is the Turkish word for hill. There are several ancient ruins in Turkey which include 'tepe' in the name, most famously Göbekli Tepe
Endless Wall (Ten Thousand Li's Wall) = Great Wall of China. Li is a Chinese unit of distance, about half a kilometre.
Geography
Ei-Jei (Ei-Jie) = 'Ei' can mean descendent in Japanese. Ei-Jei (Ei-Jie) could mean 'Jenei (Jienese) descendents'.
Khiren Mountains = Qilian Mountains, China. Also likely based on the Himalayas.
Morgal (Morgol) = Mongolia
Sana = China. From sino-, a prefix meaning Chinese.
Nihan (Jipang) = English name from 'Nihon', Japanese word for Japan. Japanese name from the English 'Japan' (a little translator's in-joke there).
Otka Island (Okōtsk Sea Island) = Okhotsk is the name of a sea off east Russia.
Burning Island (Volcanic Island) = Possibly Sumatra or Java, Indonesia. Both islands are dominated by volcanoes, like Burning Island, and are south of Ayuthay (Thailand).
People
Blados (Spade) = Blades, a suit in traditional card decks, equivalent of spades
Chalice (Heart) = Cups, a suit in traditional card decks, equivalent of hearts
Arcanus (Ace) = The Major Arcana, the trump cards in a tarot deck
The Tuaparang (Tsaparang) = Tsaparang. An ancient city in Tibet, hypothesized to be the inspiration for Shangri-La.
The Jenei (Jienese) = Japanese name possibly from Jien, a Japanese Buddhist monk who wrote poetry and history
The Exathi (Exese) = Japanese name possibly from Latin 'ex' meaning 'out from' or 'outside'
King Paithos (Puttos) = Name possible from Phutthayotfa Chulalok, the first monarch of the Chakri dynasty of Thailand.
Amiti (Harumani) = English name possibly from 'amity' (peaceful relations, friendship). Japanese name possibly from the English 'harmony' which makes sense considering the localisation. Less likely it's from Hanuman, a monkey god in the Indian epic the Ramayana, which also exists in South East Asian versions.
King Wo (Uō) = Uō is a Japanese transliteration of Yu, the legendary founder of the Ancient Xia dynasty of China.
Ku-Tsung (Kouton) = From Kakoton, the Japanese name for Xiahou Dun, a character in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a classic of Chinese literature
Ku-Embra (Kouen) = From Kakoen, the Japanese name for Xiahou Yuan, a character in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a classic of Chinese literature
Emperor Unan (Ukan) = I haven't found anything for Ukan, but based on the other Sanan characters, it's probably from a Japanese name for a Chinese historical figure.
Emperor Ko (Shi-Kou) = Possibly Emperor Ku, one of the legendary Five Emperors of China
Volcheck (Bortechino) = English name from vole (because he's a beastman lol). Japanese from Borte Chino, a legendary ancestor of Genghis Khan
Himi = Himiko, a shaman queen of the historical Yamatai kingdom
Bosses
Mountain Roc = The Roc is a gigantic bird in Middle Eastern folklore. According to Marco Polo, Kublai Khan was presented with a Roc's feather.
Chaos Chimera (Doom Trias) = The Chimera is a monster from Greek mythology with the body of a lion and goat with the tail of a dragon.
Music
Lake Bycal Moonlight = Lake Baikal, south Russia.
Rainbow over Koba Desert = Gobi Desert, Mongolia/North China
Mountain Roc Rising = See Mountain Roc, above
Arangoa Prelude = Alan Gua, the mythical mother of the Mongol clans.

Summons

Earth
Venus = Roman goddess of love
Ramases (Amen-Ra) = English name from several Egyptian pharaohs. Japanese name from Amun-Ra, the Egyptian god of creation and the sun.
Cybele = A Graeco earth goddess from Anatolia
Judgement (Apocalypse) = The apocalypse. Appearance based on the Biblical cherubim which are a combination of a man, a bull, a lion, and an eagle.
Fire
Mars = Roman god of war
Kirin (Giraffe) = Qilin, a mythical Chinese beast. Japanese name refers to the traditional belief that the giraffe was the Qilin.
Tiamat (Vesta) = A sea dragon goddess in Babylonian mythology. Japanese name from the Roman virgin goddess of hearth and home.
Meteor = Self explanatory
Wind
Jupiter = Roman god of the sky and thunder
Atalanta = A huntress and the only female Argonaut in Greek mythology
Procne = Greek goddess who appeared as a bird
Thor = The Norse god of thunder
Water
Mercury = Roman god of communication, speed and financial gain
Nereid = A water nymph in Greek mythology
Neptune (Wodan) = Roman god of the sea. Japanese name from the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Odin, the Norse god of wisdom.
Boreas = The Greek god of the North Wind. One of the Anemoi.
Mixed
Zagan = The prince of Hell in western occultism. Depicted as a winged bull that turns into a man.
Megaera = A Greek goddess that is responsible for jealousy and envy. She also punished liars and cheaters.
Flora = Roman goddess of spring
Moloch = A demon in the Bible and Christian literature
Ulysses = Latin name for Odysseus, a hero from Greek Mythology. Depicted as a Japanese mage in Golden Sun and The Lost Age.
Haures = More commonly known as Flauros, a duke of hell in western occultism. Depicted as a humanoid leopard with long claws.
Eclipse = In Chinese mythology, eclipses are caused by a dragon eating the sun.
Coatlicue = Aztec mother of the gods who gave birth to the moon, stars, and the gods of sun and war
Crystallux (Crystal Dragon) = The chandelier dragon from an advert for the original Golden Sun. Name means 'crystal light'.
Daedalus = A master craftsman in Greek Mythology
Azul = Word for 'blue' in several languages
Catastrophe = The apocalypse. Appears to be a dark version of Judgement (bull -> demon; lion -> dragon; eagle -> bat)
Charon = In Greek mythology, the ferryman of Hades who transports souls across the river Styx to the afterlife.
Iris = Greek goddess of rainbows

Posts in this series (note: link will only work properly in new Reddit): https://www.reddit.com/lds/collection/363e4ce4-8cec-40ad-8ea9-5954cf1fe52d
I know I literally just said I was going to be better at making these posts a weekly feature again and then missed a few weeks, so I apologize for that. My dad was back in the hospital for a bit and there was holiday business. I also filmed an episode of the Come Back podcast, which should be out this coming weekend. And I was actually doing a lot of work a few weeks ago on another project for FAIR that I am very excited about. I am starting a new, investigative podcast series with two other FAIR faces you may be familiar with, Jennifer Roach and Zachary Wright. It’s going to be a podcast composed of multiple miniseries on different controversial topics in Church history and culture.
I admire and adore both of my co-hosts, and we’re already having such a great time working together. We met up before Christmas and laughed and planned and ate and filmed a few trailers, which should be out soon. We’re doing a bunch of filming this weekend, in fact. Our first miniseries should launch in early-to-mid February, and will consist of six episodes. I’ll have more to say on this soon, but we’re all very excited. The entire crew working on this project is amazing, and I couldn’t ask for a better group of people to work with.
Anyway, in the last post, we successfully wrapped up section 1 of the Letter For My Wife! We’re now on section 2: The Book of Mormon. The first subsection in this portion is on DNA. I’m glad we get the chance to talk about this, because so many people misunderstand the field and the data we have, and more importantly, the data we should have. So, it’s great to have the chance to dive into this a little bit.
Now, I’m not a geneticist, and I doubt many of you are, either. But here’s the thing: neither is Thomas Faulk, and neither is Jeremy Runnells, John Dehlin, or any of the other critics using this as an attack against our church. When I come up against a topic I’m not trained in, I turn to people who are. So, I’ll be doing that throughout this section.
As usual, though, Thomas Faulk begins this section with an intro and a bunch of quotes:

The Book of Mormon story begins with Lehi, an Israelite, who fled to the Promised Land with his family and landed somewhere in Mesoamerica.

That should read “allegedly landed somewhere in Mesoamerica.” That’s just a theory at this point. It’s a good one with a lot of solid scholarship behind it, but the exact location of the Book of Mormon events is still unknown and opinions strongly differ on the topic.

Lehi’s descendents [sic] grew into two large populations, the Lamanites and the Nephites.

Again, there is a caveat on this. Those descendants intermarried and mixed with the local populations, and that’s how the groups grew so large. And remember, there were multiple smaller subdivisions under those larger banners. Jacob just lumped them all together for convenience, with those who were friendly to the people of Nephi being called Nephites and those who wanted to destroy the people of Nephi being called Lamanites.
So, there were not two large populations, but multiple smaller populations that were generally friendly to one of two camps, and those multiple populations were only partially descendants of Lehi. Most of the people were not his descendants.

By AD 385 the Lamanites had destroyed the Nephites and then grew to populate the entire Americas.

What? No. The entire geography of the Book of Mormon, including both the Land Northward and the Land Southward consisted of only a few hundred miles in any given direction. It was a tiny stretch of land. “All the face of the land” does not mean the entire Western Hemisphere. It just means all of the land that they inhabited, which, again, was only a few hundred miles long.

This unique claim lends itself perfectly to genetic testing.

It really doesn’t, because that’s not what the Book of Mormon claims. That’s just what Thomas Faulk claims.

Studies have been performed on the genetic history of Native Americans and the resulting information reveals inconsistencies in The Book of Mormon narrative.

No, they reveal inconsistencies in Thomas Faulk’s narrative. But his narrative and the Book of Mormon narrative are two very different things.

Covered in this chapter: the Church’s original claim, statements by LDS scientists, genetic evidence, and the Church’s attempt to distance itself from the original position.

We need to be careful about calling it “the Church’s original claim” and “the Church’s...original position.” That’s not entirely accurate, as we’ll go into in a minute.
The problem Faulk has in this section is the exact same problem certain outspoken members of our Church had: overstating the Church’s position and what the scriptures actually say.

• Original Claim

Over the years, prophets, apostles, and the missionary department have preached an ancestral link between the ancient Hebrews and Native Americans.

Yep, absolutely. And that’s not a position the Church has recanted.

• "It is a record of God's dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas and contains the fullness of the everlasting gospel. The record gives an account of two great civilizations. One came from Jerusalem in 600 B.C., and afterward separated into two nations, known as the Nephites and the Lamanites. The other came much earlier when the Lord confounded the tongues at the Tower of Babel. This group is known as the Jaredites. After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians." (Book of Mormon Introduction, 1981 edition)

The introduction to the Book of Mormon is not and has never been scripture. It wasn’t on the plates or a part of the Book of Mormon for well over a century after it was written. It’s just a preface written in 1981 by Bruce R. McConkie about the same time he wrote the chapter headings. It was his opinion and his interpretation of what the text said, and it was a common interpretation.
It was a popular theory in the 19th Century that Native Americans may have descended from one of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. Right from the beginning, many Latter-day Saints also believed in a Hemispheric model for the Book of Mormon and shared the assumption that the family of Lehi were the very first inhabitants of the Americas. These were popular beliefs shared by the majority of the Saints right from the start.
But those opinions were not shared by everyone, and until the Gospel Topics Essay on DNA and the Book of Mormon was issued, there was never an official statement from the Brethren on the topic.
Before my critics freak out, let me explain what I mean by that. I mean, we never had a First Presidency statement, a proclamation, or any kind of canonized declaration. We just have this introduction by Elder McConkie that was approved by the Scriptures Publications Committee—and according to Dan Peterson, it was not even unanimously approved by that Committee. Some on the Committee felt that McConkie was reading more into the text than what it actually said.
Elder McConkie had a forceful personality and very strong opinions, not all of which were accurate. Anyone who knows of the controversies surrounding the publication and content of Mormon Doctrine knows what I’m talking about. Being strong-willed is not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case, it does mean that he was able to push through a statement that was not universally approved and that later was shown to be inaccurate.
Way back during the April 1929 General Conference, President Anthony W. Ivins of the First Presidency warned against this very thing:

“So, I say, one by one criticisms which have been made regarding the Book of Mormon are falling by the way through the investigation of scientists who understand their business. I thank the Lord for them and that which they are undertaking to do. I have never had any fear that a thing would be discovered to disprove the truths contained in this book.
“We must be careful in the conclusions that we reach. The Book of Mormon teaches the history of three distinct peoples, or two peoples and three different colonies of people, who came from the old word to this continent. It does not tell us that there was no one here before them. It does not tell us that people did not come after. And so if discoveries are made which suggest differences in race origins, it can very easily be accounted for, and reasonably, for we do believe that other people came to this continent. A thousand years had elapsed from the time the Book of Mormon closed until the discovery of American, and we know that other people came to America during that time period.”

We also know that people came to the Americas before that time period, as he previously said. So, instead of passing around our assumptions as fact, we need to make sure that we’re repeating what the Book of Mormon actually says about the people described inside its pages.

• “As I look into your faces, I think of Father Lehi, whose sons and daughters you are.... This is but the beginning of the work in Peru.” (Gordon B. Hinckley, God’s Holy Work in Peru, Ensign, February 1997, p.73)

The citation on this quote is wrong. “God’s Holy Work in Peru” is a subheading. The actual article is titled “President Hinckley Visits South America, Florida, Washington, D.C.”
But yes, President Hinckley said that. We’ll address this in much more detail next week, but we don’t know if this is an accurate statement or not. We don’t know where Lehi’s boat landed. We don’t know where the biological descendants of Lehi live. We don’t even know if President Hinckley was talking about biology and genetics. For all we know, he could have been speaking symbolically, like how we’re all adopted into the lineage of Abraham when we accept the Gospel.
As it says in the Church History Topic, “Lamanite Identity”:

While some early Latter-day Saints speculated about which specific groups were the descendants of Book of Mormon peoples, most considered the Native Americans broadly as heirs to Book of Mormon promises. ... Just as the history of the northern ten tribes of Israel after their exile in Assyria is a matter of speculation rather than knowledge, the history of the Lamanites after the close of the Book of Mormon record is a matter of speculation. The Church asserts that all members are part of the covenant house of Israel either by descent or adoption but does not take a position on the specific geography of the Book of Mormon or claim complete knowledge about the origins of any specific modern group in the Americas or the Pacific. Whatever the historical particulars, the Church continues its efforts to help realize the hopes of Book of Mormon prophets that the covenants of the Lord might be extended to all the lost sheep of Israel.

Remember, President Hinckley grew up in a time when all Native Americans were sometimes referred to as “Lamanites.” He was almost certainly not prophesying about the literal descendants of Lehi. He was using the term more broadly than that.
In fact, there has been a wide variety of opinions on the idea of every Native American being a descendant of Lehi expressed by Church leaders in the past. The identity of the Lamanites today is still unknown. It’s not even known if anyone from that biological bloodline still lives today.

• “Central America, or Guat[e]mala, is situated north of the Isthmus of Darien and once embraced by several hundred miles of territory from north to south. The city of Zarahemla, burnt at the crucifixion of the Savior, and rebuilt afterwards, stood up on this land as will be seen from the following words from the Book of Alma: ‘And now it was only the distance of a day and a half’s journey for a Nephite, on the line Bountiful, and the land Desolation, from the east to the west sea; and thus the land of Nephi, and the land of Zarahemla was nearly surrounded by water: there being a small neck of land between the land northward and the land southward.’” (Joseph Smith, Times and Seasons, October 1, 1842, vol.3, no.23)

That quote almost certainly wasn’t by Joseph Smith. He was the editor in name of the Times and Seasons during October 1842, but the paper was actually managed by John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff at the time. The article in question doesn’t have a name on it, which typically means it was written by the editor. In this case, it was almost certainly Taylor or Woodruff, rather than Joseph.
While he approved much of their work, it’s important to remember for most of October, 1842, Joseph was in hiding to avoid an extradition charge over the assassination attempt on Lilburn W. Boggs. He surely was not spending those days penning articles about Guatemala.
But even if he did, most of the Mesoamerican models for the Book of Mormon include parts of Guatemala, so that may well be accurate. At the very least, we can’t say for certain that it’s wrong.

• LDS Scientists

It should probably be titled Formerly LDS Scientists. I don't think any of them are still members of the Church.

• Simon G. Southerton, a senior molecular biologist with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia and former bishop.

Southerton said genetic research allowed him to test his religious views against his professional training. He examined studies of DNA lineages among Polynesians and indigenous peoples in North, Central and South America. He mapped maternal DNA lines from 7,300 Native Americans from 175 tribes. Southerton found no trace of Middle Eastern DNA in the genetic strands of today's American Indians and Pacific Islanders. In Losing a Lost Tribe, published in 2004, Southerton concluded that the LDS church, his faith for 30 years, needed to be reevaluated in the face of these facts.

While I’m sorry he felt the need to make such a rash decision, his quote below shows exactly how incorrect his assumptions were going into the project.
Additionally, as a molecular biologist, he should be very familiar with the reality of genetic drift, but he appears to ignore that entirely. That’s a topic we’ll discuss in detail in a future installment, though.

“The problem is that the Church cannot acknowledge any factual errors in the Book of Mormon because the prophet Joseph Smith proclaimed it the ‘most correct of any book on Earth.’ They can't admit that it's not historical. They would feel that there would be a loss of members and loss in confidence in Joseph Smith as a prophet." (Simon G. Southerton, Bedrock of Faith is Jolted, Los Angeles Times, February 2006)

Bluntly, this quote is asinine.
The Title Page of the Book of Mormon says right on it that there may be flaws and mistakes of men in the book. Isn’t that in fact the Church acknowledging that there are potential factual errors in the Book of Mormon?
Also, I’ve made this point repeatedly before, but “the most correct of any book on Earth” does not mean free from any errors whatsoever. Joseph Smith meant it was the most doctrinally correct book, not the most grammatically or factually correct book. He meant that the principles and doctrine taught inside was more correct than that of any other religious text. Which should be obvious from reading the full sentence in question:

I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.

• Dr. Thomas W. Murphy, Chair of the Dept of Anthropology at Edmonds College.

“In March 2000 Scott Woodward, a professor of microbiology at Brigham Young University, launched a multi-million dollar study ... The Molecular Genealogy Research Group (MGRG) compiled a database of DNA records that identified connections between past and present humans…. Some optimism was expressed by church members that such research would vindicate the Book of Mormon as an ancient document…. For those who held such an expectation, the data collected by MGRG and results of similar research projects have been disappointing. So far, DNA has lent no support to the traditional Mormon beliefs about the origins of the Native Americans. Instead, genetic data have confirmed that migrations from Asia are the primary source of American Indian origins.”
“Now that quantitative scientific methods can indeed test for an Israelite genetic presence in ancient America, we learn instead that virtually all Native Americans can trace their lineages to the Asian migrations between 7,000 and 50,000 years ago. While molecular anthropologists have the technological capability to identify descendants of ancient Hebrews, no traces of such DNA markers have appeared in Central America or elsewhere among Native Americans” (Thomas W. Murphy, Lamanite Genesis, Genealogy, and Genetics, in American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon, 2002)

Again, the answer to this is genetic drift. To give a brief explanation of this concept, among other things, it says that a small population mixing with a much larger one would be quickly enveloped and would leave little-to-no genetic trace hundreds to thousands of years later.
As the Gospel Topics Essay explains:

The effect of drift is especially pronounced in small, isolated populations or in cases where a small group carrying a distinct genetic profile intermingles with a much larger population of a different lineage. ... When a small population mixes with a large one, combinations of autosomal markers typical of the smaller group become rapidly overwhelmed or swamped by those of the larger. The smaller group’s markers soon become rare in the combined population and may go extinct due to the effects of genetic drift and bottlenecks as described above. Moreover, the shuffling and recombination of autosomal DNA from generation to generation produces new combinations of markers in which the predominant genetic signal comes from the larger original population. This can make the combinations of markers characteristic of the smaller group so diluted that they cannot be reliably identified.

Or, to quote non-LDS DNA scientist Daniel L. Hartl:

If a number of Semitic speaking people from the Middle East settled in North America about 2500 years ago, and the indigenous population was large, ‘the probability’ that the DNA markers of the Semitic speaking group would be lost ‘...is reasonably high.’

This is why you can’t find traces of Roman DNA among native Brits or Viking DNA among Native American populations from the Eastern US, despite known admixture between the groups. The much smaller population was encompassed by the much larger population and no traces of their DNA remain this many years later.

• In a collaboration, Thomas W. Murphy and Simon Southerton, wrote:

“Investigation of mitochondrial DNA of more than 5,500 living Native Americans reveals that 99.4% can be traced back to Asia primarily via maternal lineages known as A, B, C, D and X. Only 0.6% came from Africa or Europe, most likely after 1492. Lineages A through D are only found in Asia. While the X lineage also is found in Europe and the Middle East, Asian and American lineages have distinctive markers that indicate an ancient separation long before the events described in the Book of Mormon. Similar results from nearly 1,000 paternal lineages substantiate a Northeast Asian origin of American Indians. Likewise, approximately 99% of the Polynesians surveyed to date can trace their maternal lineages back to Southeast Asia. The other 1% almost certainly came from Europe in the recent past… Folk biological claims of an Israelite ancestry, a curse with a dark skin, and a whitening of dark-skinned Native American and Polynesian Mormons fail to stand up to scrutiny among scientifically literate Latter-day Saints.” (Thomas W. Murphy and Simon Southerton, Genetic Research a 'Galileo Event' for Mormons, Anthropology News, February 2003)

Tell that to the multiple LDS scientists and academics who believe in the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.
There are several solid responses to these claims. Population bottleneck is a particularly big one that we know occurred throughout the Americas after European contact, where traumatic events such as disease, famine, natural disasters, and war can cause genetic lines to go extinct. Genetic drift, as I’ve said, is another one.
The fact is, this is only an issue if the hemispheric model of the Book of Mormon is the only model possible. The problem goes away with a limited geography model, as Kevin Barney explains:

Murphy and Southerton appear to be nice guys. They are sincere, and they believe in what they are doing. Both seem to have had a similar experience. They apparently grew up with narrow, fundamentalist assumptions about the Book of Mormon, believing in and presumably knowing only of the hemispheric model. When they learned that the hemispheric model was scientifically untenable, each experienced unfulfilled (unrealistic) expectations and an ensuing crisis of faith, upon which each lost his belief in the antiquity and historicity of the Book of Mormon, and the Church with it. Now they desire to enlighten others under the banner of science.
The extant DNA evidence simply confirms what scientists already knew: that most Native Americans ultimately derive from Asia. This is inconsistent with the hemispheric model of the Book of Mormon. To that extent, Murphy and Southerton are not arguing against a straw man; many contemporary Latter-day Saints (to the extent that they have thought of the issue at all) continue to uncritically accept a hemispheric model of the Book of Mormon. To the extent that the kind of DNA research publicized by Murphy and Southerton causes these people to reexamine their assumptions about the nature of the text, I think the effect will be a salutary one.
The problem is that Murphy and Southerton go beyond that. They recognize, as they must, that the extant DNA evidence is not inconsistent with a limited geography model of the Book of Mormon. When they reject a limited geography model, they must do so on other grounds. At this point, their argument stops being a scientific one and becomes a theological one. ... Murphy’s and Southerton’s theological argument imposes the scientifically naïve assumption that Lehi and his family were the sole ancestors of all American Indians on their readers and argues that Latter-day Saints are not free to accept a limited geography model given various statements of past Church leaders. They also point, as in the article under review, to the statement in the introduction to the Book of Mormon that Lehi was the “principal” ancestor of the American Indians. I for one reject the adjective “principal” from that introduction, which was only added as a part of the 1981 edition and is not a canonical part of the scripture. I am perfectly free to reject that adjective, as well as the other similar statements Murphy and Southerton point to. Their inability to do so themselves simply reflects the fundamentalist character of the one-time faith they held in the Church....
In conclusion, for Murphy and Southerton to insist on holding the Book of Mormon only to a lowest common denominator, populist, folkloric reading would be like one judging contemporary anthropology by the opinions that average readers of Margaret Mead took from her columns in Redbook magazine.

This is the same approach that Thomas Faulk takes in this letter, and it’s the same approach Jeremy Runnells takes in the CES Letter. If you insist on caricatures and overly rigid assumptions, you can make anything look ridiculous. That’s what these authors are banking on. But their tactics fall flat when you take a step back and look at things through another lens. Yeah, the hemispheric model for the Book of Mormon is bad and full of holes. But a limited geography model has considerably more room to fit the facts.

Greater than 99% of the DNA lineages of Native Americans are only found among East Asians. The evidence suggests that they share a common ancestor and that American natives did not descend from Israeli lineage.

The Book of Mormon doesn’t say otherwise. That some leaders and lay members assumed it did does mean that it does. I’ve linked to it a few times already in this post, but the presentation by Mike Ash at last summer’s FAIR Conference addresses this issue very handily.

• Jamie Hanis Handy, Brigham Young University, MS Biological Science and Genetics

“DNA is definitive. DNA is trusted. DNA is a part of our lives now. There is nothing in which to be afraid. DNA is just information, lots of information…. In my experience, each generation trusts and relies on DNA more than the previous generation, and my children are growing up in a world where DNA just is and has always been a wellspring of reliable information. Anything, any group, or any organization that tries to discredit DNA as a legitimate data source will with each passing year lose credibility with the rising generations. And so I am very, very concerned about the faith that I call my spiritual home. The Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter Day Saints.

This person is badly misunderstanding the Gospel Topics Essay if they think that the Church is trying to “discredit DNA as a legitimate data source.” They’re using DNA science to support the Book of Mormon narrative as it actually unfolds in the text, rather than the inaccurate assumptions people hold about the narrative.

This quote appears in the newest manual for seminary and institute students, “As an example, you may want to explain that one way modern enemies of the Church attempt to discredit the Book of Mormon is by using DNA evidence to try to discredit any link between Book of Mormon peoples and Native Americans.”

That’s not discrediting DNA science. It’s saying that enemies of the Church will twist the DNA science to imply things it doesn’t actually say. Much like the way the author of this letter attempted to do.

DNA evidence has had a huge impact on the Mormon narrative. In my lifetime, a one-word change in the introduction to our holy scripture, The Book of Mormon, has had massive ripple effects while yet also remaining mostly undiscussed by the membership at large. Originally the introduction read, ‘The Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians.’ The new introduction reads much the same, but says the Lamanites ‘are among the ancestors of the American Indians.’

How is that a “massive ripple effect”? Other than to prompt some members of the Church to read the Book of Mormon more closely and to think more critically than they had before?

How has this one word swap changed things? I was taught every week that the Native Americans were the descendents [sic] of the Lamanites. I was shown pictures of Mayan and Aztec ruins all the time as if those were evidence of the Book of Mormon civilizations. Once DNA evidence began to show clearly that today’s Native Americans did not descend from Middle Eastern Jews (as we originally claimed), everything changed.

Weird. That’s incredibly different from my experience at Church. I was definitely not taught every single week that all Native Americans were descendants of the Lamanites, and I’ve never been shown Aztec and Mayan ruins at Church. Other than the initial buzz when the introduction was changed, I haven’t noticed a very big shift at all in the way it’s been discussed at Church—because we don’t really focus on Lamanite ancestry at Church. That’s not a common topic of discussion there. It might come up in Sunday School occasionally during Book of Mormon years, but even then, it’s not markedly different from how it was discussed when I was young.

And yet, despite this drastic shift, we still insist on publishing something that says “modern enemies” of the church use DNA evidence?

That’s not what it said. It said that modern enemies of the Church will use DNA evidence to try to discredit any link between Book of Mormon peoples and Native Americans. Using DNA evidence is fine. Using it untruthfully or manipulatively is not. When you only give one side of the argument and you use “a lowest common denominator, populist, folkloric reading” of the Book of Mormon to bolster your claims, and you ignore geography models and parts of DNA science you don’t like, that doesn’t make you the good guy. It makes you a troll.

… Our children will not see DNA that way. Instead they will see the church as afraid — afraid of the wonder and miracle that understanding DNA is. Afraid that truth cannot withstand study. Afraid that (for many of them) the very thing that brought them to this place, diagnosed their disease, treated their disorder, identified their parent, captured their rapist, freed their friend, gave them a healthy sibling, and that is trusted everywhere cannot be trusted at church?” (Jamie Hanis Handy, DNA and Mormonism, June 2015)

Hyperbole much? I don’t see the Church as being afraid. I see it as addressing these concerns and questions head-on. I see them being transparent about the fact that some leaders, such as Elder McConkie, got a few things wrong and didn’t look beyond their assumptions to see other possible answers. I see it publishing essays explaining how genetic testing in large populations works over time and what we can and can’t expect to find when looking for Book of Mormon DNA. I see it standing up to manipulative bullies and reinforcing its position.
I don’t see it saying anything at all about DNA science being untrustworthy. Please, show me where that claim appears in a Church publication? Notice that the source this person is supposedly citing doesn’t say at all like what they claim it says. How is that being honest and trustworthy?
Please look at cited sources more critically than that. Please don’t let someone manipulate you into doubting your testimony, especially when the arguments are this bad.

42.Famous Idaho Potato Bowl-Georgia State vs Utah State
Two Blue teams on a blue field is too much blue for me and I say this as someone who exclusively cheers for blue teams. Best bowl mascot though.
41.Famous Toastery Bowl-Old Dominion vs Western Kentucky
BOOOOO! CALL IT THE BAHAMAS BOWL YOU COWARDS!
One team that got to leave the C-USA vs a team that is still probably trying to figure a way out.
40.Camellia Bowl-Arkansa State vs Northern Illinois
Ol’ Butch Jones finally got the red wolves to a bowl after a couple of absolutely dismal seasons he has gotten them back to some form of respectability.
They will take on a NIU squad that went from being really good 2 years ago to awful last year and then to the mediocrity of this season.
This bowl could show us what path the huskies finally tend to stick on for next year and it could show us if this is just the beginning to success in Jonesboro for Jones.
39.Myrtle Beach Bowl-Georgia Southern vs Ohio
#MACtion meets #FunBelt
I know I ranked the Potato Bowl last for their blue field but the teal one just looks so much nicer than the dark blue to me.
Anyway, some stuff about the actual game; The bridesmaids of the MAC and the eagles of Statesboro clash to see if the Sun Belt truly was the best G5 conference this year as a middle of the pack Sun Belt squad takes on the 3rd best in the MAC.
38.Barstool Sports Arizona Bowl-Toledo vs Wyoming
FUCK THE BARSTOOL NETWORK! Oh, this will also be on the CW… Good.
The Rockets are coming off of failing to repeat as MAC champs after losing their rematch to the RedHawks, Wyoming can relate to a somewhat lesser extent as they followed the trend of many MWC contended this year starting off hot with wins over Texas Tech and Fresno State at home but their inability to perform well on the road cost them any chance at holding a conference championship.
These are two teams that really felt they should have won gold at the end of the year and only one of them will get to hold a trophy high (it’s surprisingly not a golden barstool).at the very end.
37.EasyPost Hawaii Bowl-Coastal Carolina vs SJSU
It’s not the worst excuse to be hungover and tired on Christmas.
The beach chickens fly west to the most pristine beaches in the whole country to take on a program that is much more used to playing well past midnight on EST.
These are also another pair of teams that just missed out on playing for a championship.
36.68 Ventures Bowl-EMU vs South Alabama
I know bowls should be neutral sites but when it comes to the smaller games it’s always more interesting when they will have a sizable crowd that is cheering for one team.
35.Quick Lane Bowl-BGSU vs Minnesota
While a 5-7 team playing for a bowl always feels wrong to me. I can't deny that a MAC team getting to playa B1G team at ford field doesn't sound fun especially when BGSU is the team that gave Minnesota of all time and definitely under Fleck’s tenure.
So, Minnesota and Fleck either get a chance at revenge, or the Falcons get to make another statement by beating yet another P5 team this year.
34.ReliaQuest Bowl-#13 LSU vs Wisconsin
The only time I wanted Iowa and LSU to play in a bowl game and you took it from me!
33.Cheez-It Citrus Bowl-#17 Iowa vs #21 Tennessee
Which team deserves to be ranked less? AND I STILL WANTED IOWA VS LSU DAMN IT!
32.Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl-Cal vs Texas Tech
The Golden Bears are finally back to bowling as they take on only the second most disappointing team in Texas this season in and what was probably a punishment for such a mediocre season, they got sent to the shadow realm known as Shreveport.
Sorry Cal that this will be your reward for finally getting back to it though.
31.Scooter’s Coffee Frisco Bowl-Marshall vs UTSA
I have no idea who scooter is and why I should care about their coffee but isn't it weird that this bowl has had three sponsors and two of them have been drink based?
Should be a lot of Roadrunners fans and they hope it will turn out better than their last game in Frisco where they lost by multiple scores to the Aztecs as a ranked team.
30.TransPerfect Music City Bowl-Auburn vs Maryland
Taulia’s last stand as a Terrapin as he looks to turn up the heat against these Freezy War Eagle Tigers from the SEC.
29.Isleta New Mexico Bowl-Fresno State vs NMSU
Jerry Kill is a miracle worker. The aggies have done so many first this season from back-to-back bowl games to destroying an SEC team to going to a conference championship that now they look to avoid doing another first by continuing their shockingly undefeated record in bowls as they get ready for a dog fight with a Fresno State team that started super-hot but has since struggled mightily the past few weeks against not even very good teams.
The Aggie faithful are hoping to cheer on their NMSU team to another win as they fill into their rival's stadium to see the bulldogs go winless against teams from the land of enchantment.
28.Avocados From Mexico Cure Bowl-App. State vs Miami(OH)
A conference runner up vs a conference champ as two of the best in the G5 fight it out to take on each other and cancer.
27.R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl-Jacksonville State vs Louisiana
The NCAA tried to stop it, but the cocks were just too game, and they got themselves a bowl game against the Ragin Cajuns in their home away from home. JSU will always remember their first, only this game will tell if it will be one worth remembering or will it be something they’ll try to forget.
26.Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl-Air Force vs James Madison
The other team in the fuck the NCAA gang.
Though the Dukes are still pissed as they still were still robbed from a chance to play for the Sun Belt Championship and maybe even a NY6 bowl.
They will definitely be ready to make a statement against the Falcons as the Air Force might just need all of Lockheed Martin’s catalog because they are the final in the MWC trio of teams that started the season hot but fell off in the second half.
If the Air Force that showed up for the first half of this season shows up, then expect a great G5 classic.
25.AutoZone Liberty Bowl-Iowa State vs Memphis
Memphis gets a taste of some of that sweet XII action that they missed out on during realignment as the sirens blare about the coming cyclone.
I always love me some G5 vs P5 bowl games and the Liberty bowl should be pretty packed for this one so it also should be one of the better bowl environments of the year.
24.Military Bowl-Tulane vs Virginia Tech
After missing out on the postseason last year the Hokies are back to that familiar feeling of playing in the winter.
They will face quite the challenge as with backing from what should be far from a bipartisan crowd (fitting for how close they’ll be to DC) they will take on one the best in all of the American in the Green Wave who will be looking to regroup after a disappointing game in the AAC Championship and missing out on punching their return ticket to the NY6.
23.Wasabi Fenway Bowl-Boston College vs #24 SMU
The Wasabi is spicy, but the weather probably won't be as the Mustangs get their free trial run with an ACC game before joining the conference next year.
This will be a nice litmus test for them as an away team in the conference even if they are disappointed by the double standard from the playoff committee that left them out of the NY6(Man ACC teams both future and present really got screwed by them).
22.SERVPRO First Responder Bowl-Rice vs Texas State
After a decade in the FBS the Bobcats are finally bowling, and they’ll get to play a fellow Texas school in Texas! There might be better teams playing against each other lower on the list but shit like this is why I love bowls and college football.
21.SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl-Northwestern vs Utah
The biggest surprise in the B1G had to be Northwestern as after a whole offseason of drama and controversy many had them picked to finish last in the conference, but David Braun had different plans and in his first season as a head coach managed to right the ship back on course to winning waters and for that a bunch a young adults get the rewards of Sin City.
While this isn't the season Utah had pictured for themselves considering all their injury issues and the fact that they played 11 P5 teams this year, I don't think that have anything to be ashamed of.
Though I suspect that they want to enter the XII with some winning momentum while the wildcats know that they are now on people’s radar and hope to make the most of it and build some momentum to a division less and much tougher B1G next year.
20.RoofClaim.com Boca Raton Bowl-Syracuse vs USF
The Bulls are finally back bowling, and they get reunited with their former Big East conference mate in Syracuse.
As the Orange wait for the Brown era to begin next season, they will just have to hope their interim HC can go 2-0 and avoid the upset against some bulls looking to wreck this like it was made from fine China.
19.Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl-Miami(FL) vs Rutgers
Speaking of Big East reunions.
This will be Rutgers first time going to a bowl game in almost a decade without covid shenanigans and o you know what they did in that bowl game they beat an ACC team by multiple scores something Miami will definitely look to avoid as they hope to against their traditionally poor bowl record for the last 15 years as they have only been victorious once in that time frame.
18.Guaranteed Rate Bowl-Kansas vs UNLV
Speaking of a team that has only won one bowl game in 15 years the Kansas Jayhawks though the sunflower sorrow is less about a poor bowl win loss record and more the fact that they’ve only been to two in that time frame.
Though things are definitely on the up in Lawrence as Lance Leipold looks to get his first bowl win.
Speaking of teams on the up, damn what a season UNLV has had!
I mean they got to go to their first ever conference championship and they have a chance at cracking into double digit wins though to do this they’ll have to stop their 2-game losing streak and pull a P5 upset that’s going to take more than what it took to beat Vanderbilt.
17.Duke’s Mayo Bowl-UNC vs West Virginia
Remember back when the Mountaineers were upset that they didn’t get to the ACC?
Well, I doubt they are upset about it now with talks of uncertainty in the ACC’s future while the XII seems stable despite their two best teams leaving after one embarrassed the entire league in its final season.
These two conferences will be in a desperate race for a distant bronze in the future of college football as we march closer to the greed of a P2 landscape.
Ignore all that existential dread and focus on the existential dread instead of seeing the broadcast inevitably dip shit like Oreos in mayonnaise again.
Oh yeah and these teams have also had very different seasons where one came in with big expectations and managed to trick many into expecting even bigger with their early season play before regressing to just being good instead of great the other came in with almost no expectations and quietly put together a sold season that most people have slept on a win here could get people to finally notice and acknowledge it.
16.Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl-Georgia Tech vs UCF
UCF is the team that finally convinced the AD to terminate the contract of the Collins and ever since then they’ve slowly unlocked their potential and success with Key as the yellow jackets will likely only get better in the future.
So now two teams from bordering states with a surprising amount of cross over now meet in a bowl as if they are destined to meet with Georgia Tech looking to repay UCF for their gracious gift with a beating like a sock full of coal.
The Gus Bus however plans to keep on driving and continue the Knight’s win streak over the ramblin wreck.
15.DIRECTV Holiday Bowl-#15 Louisville vs USC
Louisville is basically the P5 equivalent to UNLV, a still great season that was shaping up to be magical but their last 2 games left quite the bitter taste in the mouths.
Still, that’s nothing compared to the USC Trojans who had playoff hopes until they ran to the buzzsaw that was their late season schedule which handed them 5 straight beautiful losses.
The Trojans will also be without their star QB as the Cardinals look to get their offense some stretches and confidence after being snuffed out by the Seminoles offense.
14.TaxSlayer Gator Bowl-#22 Clemson vs Kentucky
After a season that started with 4 straight wins over not very good teams and a premature top 25 ranking the Wildcats struggled in conference play before pulling the big upset to stun their top 10 ranked rivals in Louisville.
On the same day Clemson held off any upset wishes as they won a game so ugly Iowa would be proud.
So now either one team will continue their streak of upsetting the ACC or one will get some nice SEC warm up meals before taking on Georgia in the opener next year.
13.TaxAct Texas Bowl-#20 Oklahoma State vs Texas A&M
A nice XII call back and a time when geography mattered a bit more in college football. I expect the pokes to play a bit better in the bowl game then they did in the championship as they should be a bit healed up by then.
Still the Aggies could still pile on the embarrassment for the XII and the Cowboys with yet another dominating performance at the hands of an SEC team from Texas as they will be looking to show off for their new coach Elko.
12.Starco Brands LA Bowl-Boise State vs UCLA
One last bowl game for the Broncos against the PAC 12.
The Bruins will be looking to try to get the PAC12 to at least almost 500 before what was a postseason tradition in the early 2010s comes to an end.
Despite it being in LA though I wouldn't be shocked by a split crowd considering how Bronco fans tend to show up for bowls and the program finally feels like it’s starting to get some of that moment that it hadn't seen in almost a decade.
The Bruins are in a very different spot with many of their fanbase being upset that Kelly is still a coach and being very concerned about their recruiting class and the departure of their star DC, a win here might help ease some of the hometown faithful and their concerns.
11.76 Birmingham Bowl-Duke vs Troy
This season will linger long in the minds of those in Durham as injuries(sorry) derailed a potential magical season into just a good one, and with the departure of Riley and Elko not much as much optimism can be found among the Blue Devils as there was in September this year for the future.
Troy however is feeling great about its program with back-to-back Sun Belt Championships and a chance at beating a power 5 program in front of a crowd that should have more Trojans than a college dorm.
10.Pop-Tarts Bowl-#25 Kansas State vs #18 NC State
Many people are calling this the first bowl game to have an edible mascot but one, anything is edible if you try hard enough and secondly spuddy has been around for years!
This year has been a bit of a disappointment for the kittens from Manhattan, but it has still been a very solid year as they look to repeat with double digit win seasons.
The Wolfpack however are hungry for the rare double digit win season even more after year after year where they have been teased with 9-win seasons in a season where not many had expectations for them at the beginning or even in the middle of the year, they have managed to put together one of the most quiet 9-3 seasons ever as they hope to finally break the double digit win season for Doren.
9.Tony The Tiger Bowl-#16 Notre Dame vs #19 Oregon State
The Irish managed to pull the only team that has seemingly more people transferring than them.
Though the Beavers at least have an excuse as school legend and somebody that seemed like a good fit as a forever coach Jonathan Smith abandoned his alma mater due to the greed and ever-changing landscape of the college football landscape where any pretenses of loyalty have been shattered for everyone except the fans that show up every Saturday.
Many older Oregon State and Notre Dame fans will remember the Fiesta Bowl and to a lesser extent the Insight bowl in the early 2000s where the Beavers took them to the woodshed and then destroyed even the woodshed.
Notre Dame finally has a chance to snap their losing streak to the pesky Beavs from the PNW while OSU hopes to keep their relevance alive in this ever shifting landscape that seems to want to leave them to die and so they will look just forward to just one day and game were they can have hope for the future while also remembering one of their biggest moments in school history by waking up their own echoes by pounding on Notre Dame.
8.Valero Alamo Bowl-#14 Arizona vs #12 Oklahoma
One team exits the XII the other enters and with the departure of the conference's traditional powers, the Wildcats are licking their lips at that void of power and seeing the rest of the conference as Fisch food.
Oklazhoma however want to beat the allegations that they were just a big fish in a lake and with them entering the SC they will now have to contend with the sharks and after their fellow conference jumpers Texas are looking ready for the eastern pastures the Sooners want to show off themselves with a dominating top 15 win as well.
Arizona however will get in their new conference's good graces if they are able to send Oklahoma packing on their wagon to boom and soon in a new conference.
7.Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl-#11 Ole Miss vs #10 Penn State
There are probably no two programs looking more forward to the 12-team playoff and the conference scheduling changes than these ones.
Despite their consistent success and great seasons they have just always been left out of the big dance due to just having the misfortune of being in the two toughest divisions in the sport.
A Battle of the bridesmaids if you will where only one will get to enjoy the taste of peaches and one last taste of NY6 success before likely being consistent fixtures in the playoff's future.
6.Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic-#9 Missouri vs #7 Ohio State
After so many great seasons in the past two decades but just missing out on the big bowls the Tigers from Missouri will finally get their roses or uhm cotton in this case.
The Buckeyes heart broke at the beginning of this year as their kick missed as the clock struck midnight to start 2023 and despite going 11-1 the season was still considered a disappointment by some in buckeye nation to the point that they were calling for their head coach to be fired.
This game could be a tale between who wants to be here and who considers this is a consolation prize.
Missouri has been waiting for this moment after feeling like they have been screwed on a couple of occasions while Ohio State was expecting bigger things and just considers this another day at the office at best.
5.CFP Semifinal Rose Bowl-#4 Alabama vs #1 Michigan
For most of this year Michigan was the most controversial team in the land.
Well that was all until Alabama got placed into the playoffs in a decision that seemingly pissed off everyone not in Gainesville, Tuscaloosa, or Connecticut.
Controversy abounds as the two most hated teams in the nation at the moment play each other for a chance to advance at a championship that many are pissed that they will get a chance to play for, either way a lot of neutrals will be upset at the outcome as every ref decision and call on commentary will be looked at with the most derision.
4.Vrbo Fiesta Bowl-#23 Liberty vs #8 Oregon
Speaking of hated teams, the Flames got in over SMU in what seemed like a gigantic double standard by the committee.
This will be the last ever traditional NY6 bowl before all become playoff games next year and the last in my favorite category of NY6 bowls which was the best in the G5 vs the P5.
And for probably the first time ever it seems many will be rooting against the underdogs(At least on Reddit) as the most controversial college gets the bright lights against the flashiest team for the last couple of decades.
Either Liberty is going to lose which will be funny or Oregon losses and seeing the reaction on Reddit will be entertaining.
3.CFP Semifinal Allstate Sugar Bowl-#3 Texas vs #2 Washington
You know it's weird when Texas is in a semifinal, and it’s considered the semi-final between the lesser hated schools.
The Longhorns get their first shot at the playoffs as the Huskies get their second chance and the last ever chance for the PAC12 to win the whole thing before they go out.
Both schools ironically have a chance to bring a conference their first CFP national championship as both bolt from it.
Two of the most talented teams in the land will square off with elite offenses and clutch defenses as the Huskies host in front of a crowd that should learn Burnt Orange but, in the end, the only color either team will care about is Gold.
2.CFP National Championship-TBD VS TBD
I’ll rank the possible match ups within here.
2D.#4 Alabama vs #3 Texas
I’m not usually a big fan of rematches especially when I didn’t care too much for the first meeting and it’s basically another SEC vs SEC Matchup for the title.
Basically, I’ll be seeing a lot of games between these two in the future and I saw them already play twice in the past two seasons so I can live without seeing another encounter for a bit.
2C.#1 Michigan vs #3 Texas
Speaking of two teams that will be playing each other next year, that game could very well be a rematch of the national championship game.
It will also be a chance for Michigan to get revenge on the state of Texas in the postseason while the Longhorns themselves can just leave those pesky Wolverines with a permanent branding of the Lonestar State on their ass after they kick it.
2B.#4 Alabama vs #2 Washington
This is the only matchup that we don’t have a chance of seeing in the regular season next year.
But that doesn't mean that there isn’t history as Washington’s previous playoff’s dreams got washed away by the tide in the Huskies’ first playoff appearance.
This time though the Huskies would be coming with a Heisman finalist QB and an elite offense that will be ready to score on the tide this time around.
Though the Tide had already beaten a team with the actual Heisman winner, and they won't be scared to beat yet another runner up to raise yet another trophy high as the rest of the nation groans and bemoans just to tune in next year and give Disney another billion.
2A.#1 Michigan vs #2 Washington
A lot of potential future national championship rematches for the Wolverines next year as they could battle their future conference mate for it all.
It will also be a classic game of offense between defense though don’t let that distract you from the fact that both of these are also good on the other side of the ball as well.
I know I took points from Alabama-Texas for basically being a conference championship match but there is just something so fitting to have the national championship be played between two undefeated teams.
1.Capital One Orange Bowl-#5 FSU vs #6 Georgia
I’m not even sure this will be any kind of competitive with all of the Seminoles that are injured or heading to different schools/the NFL.
Still there's so much intrigue with this game! Will FSU even show up? If they somehow beat the reigning two time national champs will they claim one for themselves?
I just have so many conversations and it seems like I’m not the one who is talking more about this game than any of the playoffs.
It’s also a chance for FSU to get some kind of revenge against SEC after the bias of that conference got them kicked out of the playoffs despite going 2-0 against them this year and with a chance to go 3-0 the country will congratulate them and pat them on the back as they hold high the world’s most bittersweet oranges.
Oh, and one more thing FUCK THE PLAYOFF COMMITTEE!

(I originally posted this as a thread in books, due to a thread entitled 'The Hardy Boys Have Not Aged Well' which got a lot of attention. I'm not certain that the moderator is going to allow it to remain its own thread, and Jennifer asked that I repost it here!)
Hi there, everyone. 🙂 I was made aware of the recent popular post on this sub arguing that The Hardy Boys series books have not aged well. As one of the world's leading Hardy Boys collectors, I couldn't disagree more, and I hope you'll read this long post to understand why these and other children's series books are such treasures in 2023. In many ways, the Hardy Boys are like the Scooby Doo of children's literature, and there's definitely a big overlap in the two fandoms.
First, you need to understand that the Hardy Boys were first published in 1927, by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which also produced Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, The Bobbsey Twins, and many others which are mostly long forgotten. The series continued until the early 1960s when it was recognized that the books needed revision to update the plots and verbiage to relevancy in that era. One of the books in particular was extraordinarily inappropriate due to racist language and characterizations.
As a result, the revised, slightly shortened and updated books - now featuring stories involving modern technology, the Space Age, etc - continued the series to 1979 with 58 books in the original hardcover series targeting approximately 4th grade readers. As some people noted, the series has continued in various formats for decades afterwards, notably the Casefiles series which features actual murders and notably more adult themes. (The frequency of knockouts, by the way, is that the books were required to have every chapter end with a cliffhanger.)
There is an argument that Nancy Drew is a more relevant character in 2023 than Frank and Joe Hardy, and I agree - she's an icon for girls and women everywhere. I'm not qualified to analyze her themes in more depth.
But Tom Swift and the Hardys present several themes extremely valuable to children that persists to the present day:
1) Optimism about the future, and a desire to constantly learn new things; 2) A strong sense of justice - a certainty that wrongdoers should be punished and the importance of equality of all under the law; 3) Using logic and critical thinking for yourself to solve problems; 4) The importance of treating everyone with kindness no matter where you go; 5) A firm belief in the impartiality and truth of science and the ability of innovation to solve problems and lift up humanity; 6) Most important to me personally - a window into other interests that a child may not yet have discovered.
I discovered the Hardy Boys in 1993 when my mother brought home #43, The Mystery of the Aztec Warrior in response to my interest at the time in Mesoamerican history. I was 8 at the time, very much the target audience for the books, and devoured the rest of the series. I've now collected them for 30 years, and I would have never developed such an interest in history, geography, and international affairs without the Hardy Boys.
Even in 2023, with the Internet at our fingertips, these books present a child with a wide ranging introduction to an incredible array of places and topics, because that's what these kinds of series books do - there's a theme for the book, usually a topic of scientific interest (Tom Swift) or a hobby or area of historical interest (the Hardy Boys) with a mystery surrounding it and very often the books are set in far-flung locales that prompts one to want to learn more about it and visit it someday. The Hardy Boys travel all over North, Central, and South America, the Caribbean, parts of Europe, North Africa, and even as far as Australia and Hong Kong in the original series, solving mysteries and meeting a wide array of people. (Notice again the similarity with Scooby Doo.)
The books have endured for almost 100 years as best sellers - we're coming up on the anniversary - and it's in large part because series books are like a sitcom. It's a timeless, insulated environment where you can enjoy the story and thrill of adventure and rest assured that all will be made right in the end, with the underlying themes I described above.
It might surprise some of you to learn that even though you might perceive the Hardy Boys as old-fashioned, there were active, reactionary attempts to remove them from school libraries in the 1950s and 60s as 'junk' and full of ideas that children shouldn't be exposed to, especially once the revised editions were released. They were progressive children's literature for their age, and I would argue that considering how toned down and generic a lot of verbiage is in more modern children's books, some of the older words and phrasing found in series books is actually invaluable to increasing a child's vocabulary - I was better prepared to read Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, and Salinger after reading the Hardy Boys.
Series books have changed and evolved and part of the timelessness of the Hardy Boys series is that the characters are rebooted in a new series on a semi regular basis, again much like Scooby Doo, with new and updated stories but still a comforting mystery sitcom with familiar themes and outcomes. They make kids want to read the next story, and the next, and fostering a love of reading may be the greatest influence the Hardy Boys had on me and many others overall.
For these and so many other reasons, I can't express enough my hope that those of you reading this will think back to the joy the books gave you as a child and consider introducing your own children to them. I already have.
If you have any questions about this topic, I'm happy to try to answer.

I have recently, after over two years of massive durations of writer’s block, finally finished the first part of my R-Rated HTTYD reboot fanfic. I have finished my personal reimagination of the first movie (and got a lot of positive feedback), but I am kinda lost on how to integrate new cultures. I do have a plan to just make the world less so Earth and more-so like Serra from Gears of War. Basically Earth but with a different geography. And I do want to include ancient/medieval cultures that didn’t meet in actual history. My main issue is figuring out how to include some of them. I already got the Romans by a cameo from a roman merchant, and I have a thought out plan on how to include Japan in the future, but I would really appreciate some pointers on how to better integrate other cultures (currently have some plans for Mayans/Aztecs (sort of mixing them together), Egypt, Ancient China and the Holy Roman Empire (hence the geography change) outside of the “Well, our mission is taking us to this new place” trope. Any suggestions?

I’ve only read the First Law trilogy, so that is the extent of my knowledge.
So, I think that for a while people have assumed that the inspiration for the Old Empire was the fallen Roman Empire. It seems somewhat implicit in the way it is written too. However, someone commented on a post I made yesterday that, despite them knowing it didn’t make sense, they always imagined Malacus Quai as a younger Steven Yuen. That got me thinking about a way to, if this were adapted, make a more diverse and realistic feeling world. So, here are the cultures I imagine in each of the nations, including influences on the architecture, the dress, the names, religion, traditions, etc.
THE UNION - a mix of high-medieval Slavic and Roman Empire/Romanesque Revival
-The Union is obviously a “melting pot” amalgam of different geographies, with territories in all of these different regions of the world. However, I think that this supports the idea of it being sort of a Roman Empire if the true Roman Empire stuck around until the 1500s-1600s. Lots of grand architecture, a central culture and ethnic identity but ultimately these things are secondary to the idea of a nation-state. I also think that some of the uniform/clothing descriptions, culture, and definitely the names makes me think of Balto-Slavic culture, specifically the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. I imagine a lot of the swordplay happening with curved sabers more than actual long swords or broadswords, but those don’t seem uncommon either.
THE NORTH - bronze-age -> medieval Scandinavia/Germany, as well as clear influences of Celtic and Pictish culture
I don’t think this one is a shock to anyone. The inspirations for the northmen are super clear cut. Big white northern savages, insert your barbarian of choice from Europe and they probably are some vein of inspiration here. When it comes to the Hill Tribes specifically, I imagined a group bearing some resemblance to a mix between Picts and Alpine Celts.
THE EMPIRE OF GURKHUL - Ottoman
I’d say there are elements, in names, military composition, and general other themes presented that could place them as any of the handful of great imperial adversaries to Europe from the southeast of Eurasia. I picked up vibes of Persia, Ottoman Turkey, and even some elements of major Indian dynasties, but with the idea of their geography and the nature of their war with the Union (as well as their position north of a Sahara-type desert that black-skinned folk live south of and their tendencies to have steamrolled smaller tribes in that part of the world to absorb them into their territories), The Ottoman Empire feels like the safest and most likely choice.
THE OLD EMPIRE - China
Hear me the fuck out. We don’t have any part of the world that seems to implicitly reflect far Eastern Asia, at least from what I’ve seen. This is crazy to me, as I think that East Asia has some of the richest and most amazing history on earth. The Han Dynasty makes Rome look like a favela. Their mythology and culture is amazing, some of it so old that it had no known authors. It’s one of the consistently most populous places on the planet. They were fighting wars that would make us shudder even in a post world war world. IN MY OPINION, the current state of the Old Empire is reflective of the Warring States period in Chinese history. Not only do I feel like this makes the Old Empire being geographically connected to both the far south of the world and the far north of the world make a lot more sense (Asia proper reaches almost from Scandinavia/Siberia to Southern Asia and the Middle East) but it also makes the story less Eurocentric in it’s inspirations and allows for a more diverse cast of characters (give me shit for being “woke” I don’t care. If Malacus Quai isn’t Asian in a live action adaptation, the traveling party to Shabulyan is made up of four, maybe five white guys, depending on where you think Longfoot is from (quick aside, he is a godly man, so he could be Gurkish), and a dark skinned woman. People don’t really want to see that, sorry).
STYRIA - Italy/Mediterranean Europe
I think this one makes sense. The names/vibes seem to fit, and I’d say that Duke Orso could be a “Duke of Venice” type in the first trilogy. His conquests at the beginning of Best Served Cold (I’ve only read the intro, don’t talk abt pls) could easily mirror the formation of the Italian state. Big Machiavellian vibes from what little I’ve seen of him.
The only other ones I can think of off the top of my head are Thrond and Suljuk. I don’t know much about either of them. Thrond worships the sun and has geography varying from frigid taiga forests and tropical jungles. I’d say…Native Americans, I guess. Specifically Aztecs. Suljuk I don’t think we ever learn much about, other than the inhabitants have narrow eyes and ample superstition, and are kind of cut off from the outside world. So…Japan I guess.
If you guys have any other world-building ideas, I’d love to hear them.

I dreamt of an Empire, a mix of aztec and asian architectures and culture in the geography where California exist today. It was weirdly name Yfarr (don't ask me. I got no idea why it name that)
I dreamt I was a sentry guard wearing a strange colorful uniform decorated with bone-like jewelry and armed with a spear-like energy weapon patrolling the mountains ranges of California which served as a natural barrier separating California from the rest of the USA.
However for some reason the technological advancement of California was a hundred years ahead of the world, the enemies that continuously attacking the California walls was like Civil War Era soldiers. I knew this and saw a fellow sentry guard gleefully shot down a group of soldier wearing greys, blasting their primitive looking cannon to bits.
I saw huge pyramid top with a hanging garden-farms platform underneath and it levitating, moving slowly around California's wide plains. In places that I knew were dry or deserts, there was water farms, huge man made lakes and ponds. For some reason though, I knew these water sources are seawater.
I saw flying ships, they looked as though they are made of stones, carved in the form of fishes for personal vehicles while for heavier transportation they were in form of whales, the way the machines move, it was like they were alive, like actual living stone fish/whale that swimming through the sky.
I saw massive cities made of granite yet they were extremely vibrant and full of life, I felt like an ants at the bottom of these cities as I walking through the street.
My dreams kept switching between visions and it eventually ended when I found myself walking on top of the massive wall barrier, I could feel the winds, I could feel the cold, and I saw a cannonball hurling itself toward me before the dream end.
Make any sense?

Hi y'all! I study Indigenous histories and languages of North America, and I learned of this web series because it makes use of a mythological figure known as the Horned Serpent found throughout the Americas. In fact, it's so popular that this series, alongside Harry Potter, appears with Indigenous accounts whenever you look it up on Google. This is actually what got me into the series in the first place, but after watching it with my background, I can definitely say what Monument Mythos does to the Horned Serpent definitely takes creative liberties. That isn't a bad thing necessarily, but with how popular this series is over interest in Indigenous cosmologies, I think it is a bit problematic that this interpretation of the Horned Serpent, that takes extensive creative liberties to fit it within its narrative, is peoples' first exposure and familiarization with the deity rather than in the context of Indigenous texts and stories. So, I decided to compare the Horned Serpent in the Monument Mythos series to Indigenous stories of the same deity to see what's similar and different, and how they ultimately may coincide. I will also be referring to the series with the initials MM going forward for convenience's sake.
First off, it should be established that the Horned Serpent in reality is an archetypical deity that stretches across many different ethnic groups in the Americas, with enough motifs and overlap between each iteration that a "proto-deity" can be reconstructed. A proto-deity is a theoretical concept in historical anthropology and linguistics that attempts to pinpoint a "common deity" from which other deities across varying cultures and languages may descend from. A popular example of this is Dyḗus patḗr, who is the reconstructed ancient god of the sky believed to be the forebearer of later Pagan deities like the Greek Zeus or Roman Jupiter. With that in mind, it makes sense why the Horned Serpent motif appears just about everywhere in North America from Vancouver, the Valley of Mexico, and Nova Scotia. The most famous incarnations of it are Quetzalcoatl (Nahua), Awanyu (Tewa Pueblo), K’uk’ulkan (Maya), Qʼuqʼumatz (Kʼiche Maya), and Uktena (Cherokee). While what features the Serpent takes on differs between regions, with most of North America properly describing it as horned, while Arido- and Mesoamerica describe it as plumed, its cosmological function is still the same. While there are hundreds of different stories ascribing different qualities to the Horned Serpent, the general motifs identified across them are as follows:

• The Horned Serpent resides within the subterranean Underworld as according to a triworld cosmological model similar to European Paganism and common throughout North America. And it will emerge in the middle world where humanity lives to interact with them, mostly in harmful ways for the duty of creating geological features. The big exception to this is Quetzalcoatl.
  
• It has magical control over the world's waters, often said to be residing within deep water like inland lakes, seas, or bayous. In Pueblo communities, it is involved in divination in hopes of bringing rainfall for the growing season.
  
• It is covered in crystalline scales said to be hypnotizing in appearance, luring people and game alike into its presence. And it often features a crystal in the seventh spot from its head that is said to grant supernatural powers to the hunter that can claim it.
  
• It usually has some pestilential properties, like poisonous breath or blood that is extremely dangerous, usually depicted in complementary harmony with its powers of rejuvenation over the world's waters.
  
• It has some familial relationship with the sun deity. In Aztec mythology, Quetzalcoatl was endowed with the responsibility of creating the fifth sun from the remains of previously destroyed worlds.
  
• It has an eternal rivalry with the deity of thunder, usually the Thunderbird.
  

The Horned Serpent as it appears in Monument Mythos embodies some of these qualities while disregarding others. In the canon, the Horned Serpent resides in and is a part of an alien dimension called Wonderland where it is infinitely long and reduplicative. It emerges from this realm into the realm of humans by protruding its limbs out from the ground. These protrusions in themselves act as antennae that can dispense its interdimensional properties towards surface-dwellers, including the ability to travel between dimensions. This is directly comparable in reality where the Horned Serpent is consistently described across mythologies as being of subterranean origin in the underworld in a triworld cosmological model. According to Tewa religion, natural springs are considered to be the portals in which Awanyu (their serpent) emerges onto the surface-world, hence why prayer in Tewa rite is often performed at springs. Further, the Tewa traditionally believe that all the Earth's water resides in the Underworld, which is described as a vast interconnected series of pockets and tubes underneath the surface of the Earth that connect rivers to oceans and seas to oases. This world model is demonstrated in this diagram. It is uncertain whether Awanyu is thought of as continuously stretching across all of these systems or having multiple versions or limbs of itself that are able to embody all of it.
So seriously is this belief held that intricate ritual theatrical performances are undergone for the blessings of Awanyu to nourish their reservoirs and grant their crop fields fecundity. As part of the Snake Dance ritual, designated priests called Snake Men would baptize specifically chosen snakes — as in they were colored according to the Four Directional spiritual guide — in yucca-root suds before being carried in the mouth, symbolizing purification of spermatic vessels containing the prayers from the middle world to the subterranean realm of both water and the ancestral spirits. This conduction is performed in kiva, which are subterranean chambers built by Antelope men — a complementary society — intricately designed with multicolored sand representing the Four Directions and subsequently different types of maize. It’s believed here that the blessed snakes travel into the underworld and bring that which perpetuates life in the middle world from the subterranean realm of the dead, typically in the form of rain clouds and their subsequent floods to nourish the desolate landscape of the American Southwest. Awanyu itself is also said to be an elaborate personification of lightning, which is said to eject from its mouth in an attempt to influence the overworld deities to coax rain from the sky. If angered, it will manipulate the relation between Earth's water reservoir and geologic structure to cause natural disasters against its offenders like earthquakes or floods. Lastly, rivers are said to be natural monuments to Awanyu in the middle world, streaking across the land in serpentine fashion just to end up back into the subterranean realm below when it enters the oceans.
The language used to describe the exposed antennae, or general limbs, of the Horned Serpent in MM is approximated as a "special tree." And, while this is somewhat of a stretch, I believe this is parallel to the world-tree that connects the three worlds to each other in Indigenous cosmologies, especially that of the Hodínöhšö:ni:h (Haudenosaunee). In their stories of primordial creation, the world before the creation of the Earth consisted of an island in the overworld where Atahensic (Sky Woman) lived with her husband. On this island was a tree which illuminated the entire island as the Sun had not been created yet. Upon telling her husband she was pregnant with twins, he became angry and uprooted the tree and pushed Atahensic into it. She fell down to the middle world where she landed on a giant turtle's back. She then replanted the same overworld tree on the back of this turtle, where it became the dominant root for the tree of life in the middle world. The connections don’t seem obvious at first, but when observing stories of recounted interactions with sacred trees, it becomes immediately apparent and almost obvious that this is where Monument Mythos drew its inspiration from:

In the book Black Elk Speaks, Black Elk, an Oglala Lakota (Sioux) wičháša wakȟáŋ (medicine man and holy man), describes his vision in which after dancing around a dying tree that has never bloomed he is transported to the other world (spirit world) where he meets wise elders, 12 men and 12 women. The elders tell Black Elk that they will bring him to meet "Our Father, the two-legged chief" and bring him to the center of a hoop where he sees the tree in full leaf and bloom and the "chief" standing against the tree. Coming out of his trance he hopes to see that the earthly tree has bloomed, but it is dead.

The Lakota will become more relevant to this analysis later on, but for now their distant shared mythology with Iroquoian peoples, by virtue of trade routes in the Ohio River Valley, could potentially mean this mystical property of world-trees was understood cross-culturally. The description here eerily matches the special trees in MM, down to its appearance as never blooming and having the power to transport people within proximity to it to another dimension. Additionally, trees were also used as burial grounds where a coffin would be placed atop of one so that the body could be neatly decomposed by scavenging birds until deboned. This created a mythological duality to death where it was simultaneously skyward and downward decomposition. While there is no strong semantic connection between the Horned Serpent and world-trees in any Indigenous stories I know of, cultures with similar cosmological models, such as Nordic cultures, depict the world-tree (Yggdrasil in this case) as having a serpent at its roots (in this case Nidhogg) that indirectly interacts with the creatures that inhabit the middle and above worlds. However, this is purely speculative and may just be a coincidence to Indigenous cosmologies.
Upon further speculation, the tree described in the Iroquoian creation story could also be conceived of as a white pine, which is such an enduring symbol that it was made the marker of the creation of the Great Law of Peace between the five Iroquoian nations when weapons were sealed under it and planted upon the land of the Onondaga, who were in the exact center of the political boundaries of the Hodínöhšö:ni:h: A powerful nation that was destroyed by George Washington’s Sullivan Campaign. Launching a scorched earth tactic against the Hodínöhšö:ni:h, it depopulated central New York and allowed for the eastern Ohio Valley to be opened up for post-war white settlement. All of this was in the name of repelling British presence from the interior of the Northeast and compromising on Washington’s plan to take Indigenous land for settlers with “minimal bloodshed.” Washington never chopped down a cherry tree, but what he did chop down was the white pine that promised an eternal peace between the Six Nations, as this was the domino that essentially set the stage for the Anglo-American colonization of North America. This earned him the name Hanödaga:yas (town destroyer), which is also an alternative name for the Horned Serpent in MM. Metaphorically speaking, the chopping of the Five Nations pine plunged Washington and the idea of America into a long series of domino effects that would eventually result in not just the swallowing of the continent’s interior until reaching the Pacific, but basically hegemonic control over the Western hemisphere, all with the backdrop of irony that the U.S. constitution itself was inspired by the Great Law of Peace. And this isn’t just hyperbole, as the white pine as a symbol for New World democracy was even cruelly paraphrased by Thomas Jefferson in this infamous quote to the son-in-law of John Adams:

What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

The white pine was also used as an old symbol for the Revolutionary War, often accompanied with the phrase “an appeal to Heaven”, which was phrased from John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government: A foundational text for liberal thought, the guiding philosophy of the US. The implication was that, if men could not appeal to earthly authorities, then they appeal to heaven to reach justice. However, the irony of this all is that the flag was adopted because New Hampshire loggers protested British regulations that would ensure the protection of the species due to its importance in manufacturing warships.

And where the body of the people, or any single man, is deprived of their right, or is under the exercise of a power without right, and have no appeal on earth, then they have a liberty to appeal to heaven, whenever they judge the cause of sufficient moment.

As everyone here knows, George Washington is depicted as either being the Horned Serpent or a human face the Horned Serpent adorns to be presentable to humanity. I think this is a fairly good creative decision that has some partial correlation to the real Horned Serpent, and is a clever inversion of the historical myth that Hernan Cortes was considered by Aztec priests to be the incarnation of Quetzalcoatl. The first point of comparison is masking a desire for a continual sacrificial bulwark population under the guise of seeking asylum from European turmoil. According to a Creek informant to anthropologist John R. Swanton, “The snake [that] lives in the water has horns like the stag… It does not harm human beings but seems to have magnetic power over game.” That last line implies a lot, but the direct correlation between being able to attract game over the control of the world’s waters corresponds with attracting European immigrants with control over the world’s abundance (within the Americas). And the choice of the Washington Monument, the world’s tallest obelisk, to be one of the main protrusion sites of the Horned Serpent was very clever. Additionally, the part about human sacrifice also correlates with Indigenous rituals and stories. The most obvious example is that epi-classic period temples to the Plumed Serpent in Mexico–for example Teotihuacan–often contain the bodies of numerous sacrificial victims within them, likely as a result of thematic concurrence with the creation story of the Aztecs and the peoples who preceded them where the gods sacrificed themselves to create the world. This is likely the source of inspiration for the sacrificial aspect of the Horned Serpent in MM, as the Temple of the Feathered Serpent’s function eerily imitates that of the Statue of Liberty. The other example is a story from the Cherokee nation that I also believe MM derives inspiration from.
The story of the Uktena describes the Sun (Unelanuhi) becoming angry at the first race on Earth, so the magical race preceding humans (Nvnehi), created the Uktena to try and kill the Sun. However, Uktena had failed at this task of killing the Sun, so they sent a Rattlesnake to do it instead. Angry that they had lost faith in him, Uktena had terrorized the Nvnehi into returning to the above world while he wreaked havoc in the waters of the primordial world. From this interaction, Uktena, in complement to his fiery scales, had developed a blazing diamond crest on its forehead, said to be as bright as the star: A scar from its failed attempt to kill the Sun. This crest is called Ulunsuti (literally meaning “transparent”), and it was mythically prized by all Cherokee, claiming that whoever could successfully slain Uktena and claim it would become a miracle-worker among their village. This was a mythological task, as Uktena was known to kill anyone who got too close to him, and if he was snuck up on, he would bring death to one’s family later on. One of these men was Aganunitsi, who was originally a captured Shawnee medicine man planned to be tortured to death, but was given an ultimatum that if he killed Uktena and brought back his crest, he’ll be freed and honored. Surprising the village, he slew Uktena in Mt. Duniskwalgunyi by striking the seventh spot from his crest where his heart was located. Aganunitsi kept Ulunsuti in a deerskin hide in a secret cave in the mountains, where it must be fed with the blood of slain game lest Uktena’s spirit comes out of the cave in the form of a fiery wisp and tries to satiate itself with the blood of its beholder. It is kept precisely because it offers supernatural powers of abundance and material prosperity to its possessor, but any time Uktena is conjured, he demands a blood sacrifice of game.
This is very similar to the role of the Horned Serpent in MM as an exploited resource teetering on the edge of management by its supposed slayers. But the overlooked detail of that story is that Uktena was initially created to destroy the Sun, and this is a motif that is also found cross-culturally throughout the Americas. According to the anthropological book Leyendas y consejas del antiguo Yucatán, a story exists among the Yucatec Maya that recounts K’uk’ulkan as having wings that enabled him to fly towards the sun in an attempt to speak with it. However, the Sun was too prideful and he burnt K’uk’ulkan’s tongue. A different Maya group, the Lacandon of Chiapas, attribute a different story where K’uk’ulkan was the pet of the sun god K’inich Ajaw who would destroy most of the world in an attempt to devour his tail end. Several other stories describe K’ulk’ulkan as being fed by a nurturer until growing too large to be contained, being only sizable to the great interconnected subterranean realm, and every once in a while he triggers an earthquake to remind his former nurturer that he is still there. The K’iche Maya of Guatemala have a similar deity named Q’uq’umatz who also takes the sun across the sky in his mouth, which is an important feat in the Maya epic text Popul Vuj, as he carried Hunahpu (the reincarnation of the sun) across the cosmos in a east-west axis that reached its zenith in the east, while the west marker represented its descent and renewal into the underworld. This story is even ritually retold in the Mesoamerican ball game, where the rubber ball represented the sun, and the player who won was considered blessed by Q’uq’umatz to have delivered the sun fully across the sky: Emblematic of his role as the mediator between the incarnate sun god Tohil and the incarnate moon goddess Awilix. He is simultaneously of the above and below world: Divine and demonic.
The last piece of evidence towards a shared motif of oral interaction with the sun is located in the United States. A couple miles southwest of Chillicothe, OH along the Ohio Brush Creek is an ancient geowork dubbed Serpent Mound for obvious reasons: It was in the shape of a snake. And this geowork is special because it’s the largest known serpent effigy in the world, of which adds to the records that Ohio already holds for the largest ancient earthworks. But it wasn’t just a simple depiction of a snake, as there are intricate symbolic decisions in its design: Among these being the presence of three, perfectly rounded humps on the snake’s body, a spiral towards the tail’s end, and a large ovular object that the snake’s jaw appears to be enveloping. While it’s still debated exactly who built it, most archaeologists believe it was built during the Adena culture that began in 800 BCE and ended at the turn of the millennium, and southern Ohio was where this region-defining civilization flourished. Later civilizations like the Fort Ancient and Hopewell cultures preserved and added onto the infrastructure of the mound, recognizing it as a continuous cultural achievement to be preserved. For centuries, settler academics were confused as to what the mound’s design represented, but geological analysis indicated something special: The site it was built upon was where a meteor had landed during the Permian period, with strata having been uplifted several hundred feet in the center of it. It’s now speculated that this special quality to the geography was “sensed” in some way, leading to it being chosen as the effigy spot.
Long considered to just be an abstract representation of a mythological scene, the Serpent Mound’s practical function wasn’t noticed until observing it over the course of an entire year. There, it’s revealed that each hump, rather than being purely stylistic, would perfectly align with the rising of the year’s two solstices and equinoxes. The first hump closest to the tail’s end aligned with the Winter Solstice, the second to the Spring and Autumn equinoxes, and the last hump to the Summer Solstice. On its own, this isn’t impressive as ancient peoples all over the world were capable of marking sunrise positions with great precision. But, the pointers of each event are rounded, which may just seem like an aesthetic limitation, but there’s an even deeper meaning present. These humps accurately cover the range of full moon risings at each solstice and equinox by covering both their minimum and maximum rising positions. This means that the sun is not the sole celestial object of focus; the moon’s peak reflection of it is also integrated. Lastly, it was found that the mouth of the serpent would mark the exact point in which the Summer Solstice would undergo sunset. The connection then became obvious: It was the same story as Q’uq’umatz carrying Tohil across the cosmos to the underworld where it would renew for the new day. But how does this relate to Monument Mythos? Essentially, the Great Division might be an abstraction of real-world American creation stories attributing the Horned Serpent as responsible for flying across the cosmos to carry the Sun in its jaws and bring it towards the underworld where it can be renewed for the creation of another world: Such as in Maya cosmology. Q’uq’umatz, breaking from his subterranean, destroys the middle world in the process of bringing the sun down to reside in the West where he resides. In a sense, this re-creation of life is reenacted every night when the sun is guided through the underworld.
Monument Mythos depicts the rupturing of the Horned Serpent from the Earth as if it was a chick hatching from an egg, or perhaps more aptly a parasite that invaded the egg and devoured the fetus. While an indirect comparison, the Earth or cosmic depiction of the rocky foundation of the planet has been metaphorically depicted in American civilizations as a turtle. The carapace of the turtle may be the idealized image of a cosmic house; it resembles rocks, which are often sacred, and has the rugged texture of the earth. In the Yucatan, turtles living in cenotes (sinkholes in the limestone that are sources of water) are sacred; offerings for rain are made to them. Turtles are said to weep when there is drought, and their tears bring rain; if a turtle is harmed, drought may ensue. While the link between the cracking of an egg-world to the cracking of a turtle shell is a bit of a stretch, it works for the most part: MM abstracts heavily from Indigenous mythologies, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the major inspiration.
The last major point of similarity between MM and the Indigenous Horned Serpent has to deal with maize. In MM, Maize is the name of a tech corporation responsible for various hardware alongside medical technology and military(?) weapons. Aside from the unsubtle nod to real-world Apple corporation, Maize Machines pushing the agenda of the Horned Serpent seems like an obvious reference to the fact that, in Aztec mythology, Quetzalcoatl gives the humans of the Fifth Sun the gift of maize. Maize Machines factories being located in hidden areas parallels how maize came from underneath the sacred mountain Tonacatepetl, and that the gods had to break open the mountain to obtain the kernels within. It is believed that maize came from a mountain due to the fact that ancient maize had to be cleansed in a limestone solution to be made non-toxic, hence why it originates and accompanies underground rock layers. It could also be a general metaphor for how difficult maize’s wild ancestor, teosinte, was to consume before becoming domesticated. Maya stories are more literal: Saying that humans were created from maize, which led to ritual practices where priests would let their own blood to plead the gods for a bountiful harvest. Maize planting was also emblematic of the cosmological model of the world, as it was often planted in a Three Sisters style of crop rotation in hilly areas, where beanpoles would wrap around the maize stalk and squashes planted at the bottom would reinforce the roots. While in real life maize was never used for computing technology, it had made its way into literally every food product. Maize has literally made the modern world possible through, alongside the potato, practically eliminating the cycles of famine in Afro-Eurasia. And through further advancements in the 20th century, it was able to be synthesized into so many different artificial food products that it’s safe to say that it’s in almost everything we eat, with it being impossible to go about daily life without consuming it in some form. It is the primary grain crop of the world, and it would only be further strengthened through drawing out more material from our underworld. This, I think, is the abstract allusion likely made in MM.
And that about concludes all the major connections I can find between Monument Mythos’s conception of the Horned Serpent from what I consider to be a surface-level analysis. Aside from some squabbles about Giza Glass possibly being an homage to the significance of obsidian in human sacrifice rituals among the Mexica, the main points of divergence between the actual Horned Serpent archetype are the complete absence of a deity in the series resembling the Thunderbird. Although, I have heard that it was originally planned to be included in the canon but was cut for speculative reasons. It now only survives in the in-universe video Operation Thunderbird, where it seems to only be metaphorical in name. While I understand MM has its own unique story to tell, I also think it’s a huge missed opportunity that there isn’t at least some character that resembles the Thunderbird (aside from maybe the Air Force One Angel, but the connection is tenuous), as wherever there’s a mythology of the Horned Serpent, there is also an accompanying story of it being in rivalry with the Thunderbird. This rivalry is an ancient one, often being found in petroglyphs across the American Northeast and Canada, with one particular example–Wizard Lake, ON–showing a rock panel dedicated to the Thunderbird on one side and the Horned Serpent panel on the other. Additional stories come from Cree sources, saying that the Earth Mother created the Thunderbird to protect other animals on the planet from the horned serpents that come from the Underworld Panther Mishipeshu. It would use lightning to fossilize them into the surface world’s ground, and whenever these bolts missed, they formed quartz deposits. If these bolts hit a tree, it would essentially invert it, leaving behind a deep scar in the ground that, if one were to dig through it, would find “thunder-stone”, which was prized as valuable medicine to ward off dangerous storms. And according to some Pacific Northwestern beliefs, the Thunderbird also contains snakes within its wings that are the cause of the lightning it emits, making it contain some elements of the subterranean world in its appearance despite being the ruler of the above world. They elaborate even further, saying the Thunderbird has two curved horns atop its head, potentially implying that antlers are of some cosmological significance in being able to cross dimensions in a triworld cosmological model.
One of the most famous examples of these stories is among the Lakota, where they describe an ancient serpentine menaced called Uŋkčéǧila (note its phonetic similarity to the Cherokee word Uktena) that arose from the icy waters of the Northeastern Atlantic and through the Great Lakes, being deferred by various other tribes along the way until they made their way to the Black Hills in South Dakota, where they remained. Its relationship was peaceful and ecologically harmonious at first, but when it began reproducing, it proved to be a problem as the offspring would destroy the land and peoples with wanton destruction to feed themselves. Needing to act, the Lakota sent warriors to slay Uŋkčéǧila, but she was impervious to most attempts, except when two brothers from the Bear Clan shot the seventh spot from her head, where she then retreated and was scorched into the land as she died, etching the Badlands into the surface of the Earth. Alternatively Uŋkčéǧila is killed by Wakíŋyaŋ (the Lakota equivalent of the Thunderbird) by flapping its wings to dry up the land and bombard with lightning, killing the serpent and scorching it into the geography and its bones scattered across the land. While this story takes place in the ancient past–and most accounts of the Horned Serpent imply historical worship–it has disturbingly modern parallels in the realities of Indigenous peoples aside from veneration. While it’s believed that Uŋkčéǧila was slain in the past, it still persists to this present day in the form of a a prophecy within Lakota eschatology. If you were keeping in touch with the Dakota Access Pipeline protests at Standing Rock Reservation from 2017, a common narrative thrown around was that the pipeline itself was a sort of monstrous serpent that would ravage the lands of the Lakota through oil leakage and subsequent pollution. To many, this was just a metaphor to put a mythological importance on what is essentially an existential threat to the Lakota, and it especially seemed so because there’s seldom mention of this prophecy prior to the protests. However, if it’s compared to the ancient stories of Uŋkčéǧila, it becomes apparent that this isn’t a prophecy but rather a repetition of world-building events. Once the link between petroleum and the Horned Serpent is made, it becomes very apparent that this deity isn’t just a dead god, but rather a living meme that is driving the course of world history. But that is for another day.
If you got through all of this, I thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts. I hope you learned a lot about the religious motifs and practices of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and I look forward to seeing what Monument Mythos pulls from next with its story, even if it diverges heavily from what it borrows from.

In a warehouse in the middle of nowhere New Mexico. A brutally beaten up man finds himself tied up to a chair, as numerous grunts and lsckeys are around him, armed to the teeth. A giant latino man with a scar across his left eye, steps forward to talk with his tied up prisoner.
El Jefé: So this is the infamous "Los Portadoré" Heh, no offense mi amigo. I thought you'd be bigger. Pathetic if I'm being honest
Which brings us to the prisoner. Ladies and gentlemen. May I present...Y/n also known as "Agent 13," "Deadeye," and "Los Portadoré" which means "The Lead-Bringer"
Y/n: Oh yeah? spits out blood And I thought you wouldn't have some cliché mustache, yet here we are. Now go on, tell me why you're so pissed off.
El Jefé: Simple. You have sadly cost me a lot of money, you and your American friends. And that makes me more or less... Gut punches Y/n ANGRY!
Y/n: Coughs and chuckles Come on padré. You know how we are. It ain't fun if Uncle Sam can't have none?
El Jefé: Uncle Sam hmmmm?... Now if I'm not mistaken... My product is only distributed within the borders of Mexíco.
Y/n: Yeah, still part of NA. What? You didn't take geography as a kid?
Y/n suddenly felt the cold end of a gun pressed at his forehead as the big boss stared him down.
El Jefé: With your death, those greedy pesty agencies will know, not to mess with El Jefé or the cartel. But I am a merciful man. So I shall grant you a final piece of saying.
Y/n: So last words?... Does the sound of a bomb suffice?
El Jefé: What?
Y/n quickly bit down a wire in his mouth, which triggered the highly explosive compound that was inside...Y/n's stomach.
Y/n: Welp it's about time this sht happened, I'll see you f*kers in hell... Hey, guess I did get some last wor-
The bomb went off. And everyone inside the building were engulfed by the flames. With El Jefé screaming in pain, as Y/n's now blown off head, was closing his eyes as his final moments were upon him...
...Well in this realm anywho.
A few moments passed, as Y/n woke up again. He found himself being whole again, all his limbs were intact.
Y/n: laying on the ground while rubbing his eyes closed Ugh! Painless death my ass.
As he stood up, Y/n partook off the air and smell, around him. All he could smell was that of burning flesh, blood, lead and hints of rusty metal. Which lead him to believe that he was in...
Y/n: So either I'm in Detroit, Ohio or Hell...sniffs the air again... Leaning towards the first one.
Y/n soon opens his eyes as he finally viewed his new home-to-be...
Y/n:... Okay Hell it is.
Y/n stood there taking in sites while a little Top-hat demon came out from the shadows to greet the newcomer, wearing a cartoony top-hat.
Top-hat demon: Wow a newcomer! Oh hot diggity dog welcome to he-
Y/n: Hell I know.
The little demon's mood quickly turned surprised, as he was interrupted.
Top-hat demon: Oh you already know you're in hell?
Y/n: Well it was either that or Michigan and honestly, not much of a difference... But if we're going into details. I can feel the horns on my head since they f*king itch like a baboon in a dog house. I noticed something that's feels like a mix between a leg and my dck, so I guess I have a tail. And totally wild detail... The sky is red.
Top-hat demon: Welp you're right about your looks and you're much more accepting than the usual jackoffs that ends up here. whiney voice "Oh I was such a good person when I was alive." And, "oh I don't deserve to be in this hot and cruel place." normal voice And my personal favorite whiney voice...again "Oh! but I paid my child support"
Y/n: chuckle Buddy. With all the sht I've done. Trust me, I deserve to be here for about...calculating in his fingers* three more life times and some change.
Top-hat demon: May I just say sir. takes out a file titled "Daddy-eye" I'm a HUGE fan of your work!
Y/n: stares confused Uhuh...
Top-hat demon: opens the file I mean the way you took down that juiced up Russian senator, was incredibly brutal... and awesome!
Y/n: checks himself, and finds himself wearing a potato sack Yeah, long day that mission. Hey you don't think that some of my clothes followed me down here?
Top-hat demon: Well...it's usually against protocol but seeing as it's YOU, we're talking about I think an exception can be made.
And with that, the little top-hat demon went inside his little shack, and came back with some of Y/n's clothes. As Y/n looked upon the outfit that was presented. He couldn't help but smile over the fact that it was his old "federalé" uniform. Which he didn't waste any time to put on.
Top-hat demon: Flip pages Oh what about the time you fought off AN ENTIRE HITMAN ORGANIZATION!
Y/n: dust himself off Yeah hell of a weekend that one. Think they made a movie about it.
Top-hat demon: flips to the final page AND MY ALL NEW FAVORITE! TAKING DOWN THE AZTEC CARTEL WAS SO BADASS!....Closes file But why did you decide t-
Y/n: Blow myself up? gets closer to the Top-hat demon Well wouldn't you like to know that.
Top-hat demon: I most certainly would... But I know better than to press Mr.Deadeye himself.
Y/n: Cool you're catching on. Now after that whole ordeal, I could use a drink... sooooo?
Top-hat demon: Oh the nearest bar is that away points to the city with his fingers and head
Y/n: Thanks uhhhh...
Toppy: Toppy the Top-hat demon.
Y/n: Welp Toppy, it wasn't horrible to meet you. walks away
As Y/n began to walk away, he suddenly felt a little pull from his backside.
Toppy: Before you leave takes out a pen do you think you could?
Y/n just shrugged, took the pen and signed the file Toppy had, and then walked away...finally.
Toppy: He's honestly much more nicer than I thought... Better than that Ice-cube choking punk anyhow.
AN HOUR LATER.
So after what felt like an eternity of walking. Y/n finally entered the promised land... Which is killer-language for "bar."... Which is also ironically the name of the bar
However as Y/n opened the entrance to the "Promised land." All the eyes of countless imps, salamanders and other types of demons, who's names that I couldn't care less about to memorize, were on him. Which he promptly ignored as he walked towards the barkeep who was a large demon with mouth-locked bullskull.
Y/n: Scotch, on the rocks and with a twist.
The barkeep nodded and obliged. No more than three seconds went before Y/n got his drink.
Y/n: Fast service... I like it.
As Y/n took his glass and were about to sip on the savory yet throat-burning liquid. The entrance to the bar, smashed open by a very large demon with bull-skull for a head.
???: YOU! points to Y/n
Y/n had a feeling whoever that rude individual was, were talking to him. So he begrudgingly layed down his, yet to be sipped, drink. And turned around to greet whoever had a bone to pick with him... this time at least.
Y/n: Can I help you?
???: Help me?! You have a lot of nerve camachó!
Y/n: scratching his head Do I know you?
???: I would think so... SINCE YOU KILLED ME!
Y/n: ... Sir, I have killed a lot of motherf**kers. Can you be more specific?
The bull-headed demon were growing more and more red with irritation by Y/n's attitude.
El Jefé: blowing fire out his nostrils I'M EL JEFÉ! YOU LITTLE SH*T!
Y/n: Oooooh........ Who?
With that being the last drop. El Jefé charged against Y/n, Bullstyle. But Y/n who just moved to the side. However with Y/n dodging the oncoming attack. El Jefé ended up hitting the bar table which caused all the drinks to fly up. Y/n saw this and quickly used El Jefé's back as jumping platform and grab his drink midair.
As El Jefé pulled his head out of the table. Y/n was being surrounded by all the other bull like demons.
El Jefé: shakes his head Ugh! sees Y/n being surrounded I see you've met the rest of the unfortunate souls you sent here.
Y/n: Well a very small percentage of the amount, sure. puts his drink on the table behind him Sht, when I said "See you f*kers in hell" I meant it figuratively.
El Jefé: AHAH! So you do remember me!
Y/n: Yeah, yeah I do. Look man, I just wanna have a quiet and peaceful moment already. I pretty much spilled enough blood to fill up the Nile... Two times over! And I don't exactly feel in a blood spilling mood. So here's my proposal. Since I wanna relax after, god knows how long since I last had a good night's sleep. And since I'm pretty sure you guys don't wanna die twice, on the same day mind you. I figured we can all just go back to our seats, and drink till we see the holy ghost... Sound good?
The circle of grunts, alongside El Jefé looked at each other for a moment. Before bursting into laughter.
El Jefé: This is the hardcore "Portador?" Ei carachó.
Grunt demon 1: Yeah more like "pesemiento!"
Translation. Pesemiento means Pansy...
Grunt demon 2: Ei little "cobardé!"
Also translation: Cobardé means Coward.
Grunt demon 3: Hehehe... little b*tch!
...I ain't translating that one. But with all the grunts laughing and hurling insults at Y/n. Our hitman just stood there with an unfazed look. You could even say he looked... tired.
Y/n: sighing while rubbing his forehead in exhaustion You know what... F**k it, I tried.
And with that being said. Y/n threw down a smoke bomb on the ground, causing everyone to lose sight of him while he drew out one of his throwing knifes and threw it straight onto the throat of one of the grunts in front of him. Causing him to gurgle yell in agony, which caused the others to be distracted, while Y/n took the opportunity to pick up a chair and smashing it on the three grunts to his left side. And quickly before the rest could notice him for real. Y/n jump-kicked back another grunt in front of him onto to a jukebox. While the grunt laid down, Y/n picked up his head and began repeatedly bashing it on the music machine, until it started playing random song with each bash.
First it started playing a techno song.
Y/n: Ew! No! bashes the jukebox with the hencmen's head again
Then it started playing some jazz.
Y/n: ...Hmmm nah, not the mood. bashes the jukebox with the henchmen's head yet again
And finally it played some good ol' fashion rock...
[... Freebird to be precise]
Oh I like this song. Y/n stood there listening for a few seconds before bashing the jukebox again...but then.
Grunt who was getting his head bashed: Oh man this is my favorite song dude.
That kinda just solidified Y/n's decision.
Y/n: Well that settles it then.
Y/n got the grunt demon back on his feet...Before drop kicking to the ground. With the smoke finally settled. El Jefé and his minions turned their attention to the man, standing nonchalant and yawning.
Y/n: yawning while cracking his neck Okay who's next?
And with that declaration of war. Everyone charged at Y/n...sadly...for them anyways.
The first grunt got head-butted and then stabbed on the throat by you-know-who and his brass-knife. The second tried to do cross hook but got blocked and then got stabbed three times in their stomach. The third and fourth attacked simultaneously...however they didn't calculate the fact, that Y/n could duck. And while he was on the ground, he picked up two glasses. One he smashed on the third grunt's head and the second he shoved onto the fourth grunt's mouth...before uppercutting the poor bastard. Y/n soon grabbed what seems to be a billiard stick. And with more grunts coming at him, Y/n just started swinging. Left and right, as more henchmen got their heads bashed. the stick outlived its usefulness after taking out a 6th henchman. Y/n split the stick in half, used on half as a spear to impale a grunt who were behind him. While another grunt was slowly getting back up but was soon put down again as Y/n shoved the the other part of the stick right through the grunt's eye.
Y/n: looking at the remaining henchmen So... who else want a piece?
The grunts kept on coming...and they kept on getting their asses brutalized. I leave it to your imagination, all I can say is "damn!... they really getting whooped." Finally with no more than 3 dozen henchman bodies were laying down on the floor as Y/n stood up with a rather emotionless face. El Jefé stood there with a smile on his, as he ran outside. In which Y/n just shrugged at and decided to go back to his drink...until.
Y/n: realizing he's chained up Oh crap on a rabbit.
Y/n were aggressively pulled outside of the bar by El Jefé and his now diminished but still very large group of henchmen, who are now armed.
El Jefé: Isn't this just grand? You being chained up and staring down multiple oppositions armed to the teeth...only this time tightens chain you don't have a pinché bomb in you.
Y/n couldn't help but chuckle over that last fact.
Y/n: Yeah I don't. But wanna know what I do have? My weapon!
And with that being said. Y/n (while still being chained) jumped back up and then on El Jefé shoulders, which caused our bull headed friend to lose his grip, freeing Y/n. But while midair, Y/n decided it's time for his nicknames to make sense. He pulled out his signature (and favorite) tool.
Allow me to present Y/n's favorite thing in the whole world. "Los Azul Bula" Or the L.A.B for short. A special two cylinder carbine revolver that fires two shots at the same time. Plus it's a pretty cool gun.
But enough about that. As Y/n was flying, he became an open target for all to hit, so yeah everyone started blasting. But as the bullets flew, Y/n felt like time had slowed down, he could see every bullet, every angle and every outcome. So with his gun in hand, he promptly pulled the trigger. And would you believe me if I said that those two bullets from the get go started ricocheting all the opposing shots. Hitting almost all the henchmen. From the ones running for their lives, to the ones hiding behind their car.
With that bloody blossom of death coming to an end. Y/n landed on El Jefé, who just bore witnessed to the slaughter of his men.
El Jefé: sweating So ummm... About that proposa-
Y/n: Nope. shoots El Jefé in the head
And with that said and done, and the song reaching it's end. Y/n walked back into the bar, wiping away the blood on his face. But as he went to grab his drink. The glass shattered at a finger's touch... welp better luck next time.
Y/n: holding the remains of the glass One break... One f**king break!
However someone came to the rescue as the barkeep whistled, making Y/n see another finished drink being laid on the pup table.
Y/n: looks at the glass and then at the barkeep That for me?
The barkeep nodded which caused Y/n smiled in relief as he went over to the pup table.
Y/n: Sorry about the mess pal.
The barkeeps just shrugged, and pointed to a sign saying "REMODELING. SOON"
Meanwhile. Two little imps hiding behind a table, were having a discussion about what had just transpired.
???: Holy sh*t Moxxie. Did you see that?!
Moxxie: I did indeed sir. I mean the way he took on all those guys with all sorts of techniques, and that marvelous firearm. He has was mag-
???: Shut up Moxxie! I wasn't talking about the show he put on. I was talking about how he ordered that drink. Imitates Y/n "Scotch, on the rocks and with a twist" speaks normally Now there's a guy who knows his liquor.
Moxxie: Sir, I fail to see what's so interesting about ordering a drink?
???: Well buddy. You can tell exactly what kind of person someone is by their choice of booze. For example. I knew you were a little snobby burb, when I saw you order that "Cosmo-politician" drink or something.
Moxxie: growing irritated It's pronounced "Cosmopolitan" sir.
???: Way to prove my point, shtheel. But my actual point being, *points to Y/n the company could definitely use someone like him...pushes Moxxie So go get him, employee of the month.
With the (forced) encouragement of his boss, Moxxie set out to talk to the very deadly sharpshooter who was just about to partake in his drink.
Moxxie: Ahem!...Hel-
Y/n: Let me stop you right there pal. Take a good look around. That happened because they wouldn't let me drink in peace. So unless the next words coming out of your mouth is "As you were." I don't mind adding one more body for this guy nods over to the barkeep to clean up.
You couldn't tell but every voice inside Moxie's head screamed "LET'S GET THE F**K OUT OF HERE!!!" But all he could do was sweat vividly and say...
Moxxie: gulps nervously Uhh as you were sir...
Y/n: Good man.
And with that peace of mind. Y/n finally drank that savory liquid... in one gulp... it was a really big glass too.
Y/n: Ahhh...turned his seat to greet to Moxxie Okay, you were saying?
Moxxie: snapping out of his sudden fear Oh yeah. I would like to inform that me and the company I work for, are very interested in yo-
Y/n: Not a f**king chance.
The answer caused Moxie to stutter his words and his boss to facepalm.
Moxxie: B..b..but I didn't finish what I wa-
Y/n: You were gonna offer me some sort of outlandish job that involves killing people. And I respectfully say "F**k no."
Moxie: Well... though it is a job that professes in assassinations. We actually do it u-
???: Turning up out of nowhere UP IN THE LIVING WORLD!
Wow that Moxxie, sure gets interrupted a lot, but anywho. With his boss popping up out of nowhere. Y/n turned his attention to the rather long horned imp.
Blitzø: taking and shaking Y/n's hand Blitzø, The "O" is silent. Pleasure to meet another f**k-tastic bourbon drinker and badass killer.
Y/n: taking his hand back Don't really wish I could say the same. So what was that about "Up in the living world" thing?
Blitzø: Well buddy. All can be explained through this. take out his phone
With his phone out. Blitz went to his video and gave to the Y/n.
Blitzø: Just press play.
And so Y/n did... But imagine everyone surprised, as the phone played some very loud moans. Which caused Blitz to take his phone back quickly.
Blitzø: Oops! Wrong video.
Picking the right video this time, Blitz gave Y/n his phone. And even though he was reluctant at first, Y/n decided to press play...And he came to see this.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fLVQ2LVN1tA
...What the f**k did I just watch?
Blitzø: So what do you think?
Y/n was speechless. I mean he was used to his business being ugly but this...well let's just say if he weren't the murderer of over 5000 people. He would definitely have a sour taste in his mouth.
Y/n: throws the phone back to Blitz If we weren't already in hell, I would tell you "You're definitely going to hell."
Blitzø: Soooooo... is that a yeeeeees?
Y/n: NO!
Blitz: Aw shucks. snaps his fingers in discouragement Welp I tried. begins to walk out the bar C'mon Moxxie, let's go back to our TOTALLY COOL HEADQUARTERS!
Moxxie: makes a slight bow to Y/n Well in any case it was a pleasure to meet you... begins also to walk away as frightening as you are.
With the two imps finally leaving, Y/n turned his attention to the thing that mattered most right now...paying his tab.
Y/n: So how much I owe you?
The barkeep took out a piece of paper, and wrote down a number and presented it to Y/n. But as Y/n went to see the number, he ended up viewing something that actually scared him.
Y/n: WOAH! 3150.HD (Hell Dollars) and 69.cent for two drinks?
The barkeep just shaked his head in decline. He pointed to the mess Y/n made, which probably meant that was what he owed in damages.
Y/n: Wait I thought you said, you were gonna remodel?!
The barkeep nodded.
Y/n: So don't you have insurance?
The barkeep just laughed in a very odd metallic voice, after hearing the fabled word "insurance." It made Y/n think... Oh yeah he's in hell... there's no such thing as insurance.
Y/n: Buddy I don't know what to do here? I don't have that much cash on me.
The barkeep surprisingly didn't get mad or irritated. He just went down to pick another piece of paper, with well written text and handed it over to Y/n.
Y/n: reading the paper Hi. If you're reading this, it means you owe me money. In which case, allow me to present myself. My name is Timothy, or as my well known alias "Three Horned Timmy." Now you might wonder why "Three horned" since I only have two horns on my head. It's because I count the one under my belt..."
Y/n stops reading and then looks at Timothy the barkeep, with a worried look. But quickly returns to reading the rest.
Y/n: "I count the one under my belt. Because back when I was alive, I was a [BLEEP]. I [BLEEP], men, women, and everything that had a hole and when I went to prison, I [BLEEP] me some more. Finally when I got my death sentence and ultimately ended up here, I [BLEEP] me some demons And grew even infamous... I don't do it anymore since it's bad for business but if I don't have a business... Well why bother... And again if you're reading this then you might wanna pay me back and continue to keep my business afloat... For everyone sakes and especially your own...P.S. If you think killing me would help, don't. You can't kill somebody you owe money to in hell... Hey we may not have insurance but at least we got that."
.....Okay that was... Really frightening... I think I might need to lay down.
Y/n: looks at Timothy, nervously I guess I should take that job offer?
Timothy slowly nodded in confirmation.
Y/n: Cool...takes out his hip flask Could you fill this up for the nightmare fuel, you just made me read?
Timothy just shrugged but obliged.
Now with a drink in his flask, Y/n quickly ran out the bar, to search for the two im- Oh there they are...jumping out of the bushes.
Blitzø: Look we really need another guy who's good at killing and who isn't Moxxie. So I'm willing to pay you double!
Moxxie: Wait sir!
Y/n: Uhhhhh okay!
Blitzø: OKAY FINE TRIPL- Wait did you just say?
Y/n: I said okay. I want the job.
Blitzø: Wait did you say okay to the first offer or the second?
Y/n: The first... But now that you're willing to pay triple, I'mma go ahead and say okay to that one.
Blitzø: Eh no skin off my horns, I'll just dock Moxxie's pay.
Moxxie: Wait what?!
Blitzø: So do we have a deal puts his hand out for a handshake
Y/n: takes a big sip from his flask Deal! takes Blitzø's handshake
A sudden fire came around the two killers arms, as they shook hands. Suddenly Y/n had the logo of I.M.P Incorporated on the front side of his shirt and tie. And with that being done, the three of them started walking towards to the I.M.P HQ.
Blitzø: Welcome to the team pal! Oh you're gonna love it! I can't wait to you introduce you to the rest. There's Millie who's basically Moxxie's backbone and then there's my adorable daughter Loona who is just the... fading off
Y/n: whispering to Moxxie Is he like this all the time?
Moxxie: whispers back On a really good day...
Y/n: sighing So much for finally getting that vacation.
Well it's certainly about to get very interesting in here...for better or for worse...
Bye.
A/n: WATER! I NEED WATER!!! drinks a glass of water Wooooh...that hits the spot. Honestly after an 5 hour session of writing this I gotta say...it's exhausting! But enough about my wellbeing. I made a Helluva Boss fanfic! And even more so I like it. I made it because...well...the ones I've read here are either waaaaay too horny, waaaaay too edgy or waaaaay too filled with memes. I mean there's literally one with Jetstream Sam. And although he's one of my favorite characters like... EVER. I can't take a story about Helluva Boss like that seriously. I wanna make a Helluva Boss fanfic that is still very much fan service but still sticks to the premise of the show. Botched up demons trying not to f**k up their contracts. And I figured why not just make Y/n, a super skilled and very depressed hitman who hates his job so much that he became an alcoholic to cope with it's never ending struggles, to join the I.M.P crew. Of course, just to putting it out there, I ain't saying all those other fanfics are BAD! Go give them a read if you will. I'm just saying I could probably make a better one for ME!... And possibly you guys.
Anywho catch y'all on Wattpad.

Hello everyone!
After doing a similar post in the AoE2 community, I wanted to extend this analysis to Age of Empires 4. Here is the original post I did: https://www.reddit.com/aoe2/comments/15syt13/the_historical_continuity_of_civilizations_in_aoe2/
One of the fascinating aspects of the Age of Empires series is how it brings different civilizations from various time periods and geographies into one playable arena. In AoE2, we sometimes see matchups like the Huns fighting the Spanish, which doesn't really make sense, but when you think of how these civilizations came to be and their predecessors and successors, it 'may' make slightly more sense - even though they didn't exist in the same period as 'Spanish' and 'Huns'.
In AoE4, the civilizations are overall more precise in their historical representation, which is a nice touch, but I thought it would still be interesting to break down the historical context of each age for the 10 civilizations in the game across ages.
Here is a my first assumption, based on general historical periods between 750 and 1670 AoE4 covers (750 is the earliest dated states for Abbasid Dynasty, while 1670 is the latest date stated for Malians), I did a high level mapping of years to ages in the game:

• Dark Age: 750 - 1000 AD
• Feudal Age: 1001 - 1300 AD
• Castle Age: 1301 - 1500 AD
• Imperial Age: 1501 - 1670 AD

​

Civilization	Dark Age	Feudal Age	Castle Age	Imperial Age
English	Anglo-Saxon England	Norman England	Plantagenet England	Tudor England
Chinese	Tang Dynasty	Song Dynasty	Yuan Dynasty	Early Ming Dynasty
Mongols	Early Mongol Tribes	Genghis Khan's Conquests	Yuan Dynasty	Oirat & Northern Yuan
Delhi Sultanate	Early Islamic India	Ghurid Dynasty	Slave & Tughlaq Dynasties	Lodi Dynasty
French	Carolingian Dynasty	Capetian Dynasty	Valois Dynasty	Early Modern France
Abbasid Dynasty	Early Abbasids	Golden Age	Fragmentation	Mamluk Sultanate)
Holy Roman Empire	Carolingian Empire	Ottonian & Salian Dynasties	Hohenstaufen Dynasty	Late Medieval Period
Rus	Varangian Rule	Kievan Rus	Mongol Yoke	Grand Duchy of Moscow
Ottomans	Seljuk Sultanate	Anatolian Beyliks	Rise & Expansion of Ottomans	Conquest of Constantinople & Suleiman's Reign
Malians	Ghana Empire	Rise of Mali Empire	Height of Mali Empire	Decline & Songhai Empire

​
Notes:

• For the Ottomans in the Dark Age, I have included the Seljuk Sultanate, which was a medieval Turko-Persian Sunni Muslim empire, originating from the Qiniq branch of Oghuz Turks. In the Feudal Age, I have included the Anatolian Beyliks, which were small principalities (or petty kingdoms) in Anatolia governed by Beys, the first of which were founded at the end of the 11th century.
• For the Malians in the Dark Age, I have included the Ghana Empire, which was located in what is now southeastern Mauritania and western Mali. It is considered the precursor to the Mali Empire.

Candidates for Expansion:

• Heian Shogunate 🇯🇵: Representing Japan's shogunates, starting from the Heian period. This could introduce unique Samurai units and a focus on strong defensive structures, reflecting Japan's historical castle-building prowess.
  
• Goryeo Kingdom 🇰🇷: Highlighting the significant Goryeo Dynasty of Korea, this civilization could have bonuses related to gunpowder and unique naval units, reflecting Korea's historical strength in these areas.
  
• Kingdom of Castile 🇪🇸: A prominent Christian kingdom during the Reconquista, Castile could have strong infantry and exploration bonuses, reflecting Spain's historical conquests and colonization.
  
• Al-Andalus Sultanate 🌙: Representing the Moors who ruled significant parts of the Iberian Peninsula from the 8th to the 15th centuries. This civilization could focus on advanced architecture, science, and unique cavalry units, reflecting the Moors' historical contributions to art, science, and military tactics during their rule in Spain
  
• Aztec Empire 🇲🇽: A Mesoamerican civilization known for its rich culture and fierce warriors, the Aztecs could bring a unique Mesoamerican flavor to the game with a focus on infantry and unique sacrificial mechanics.
  
• Inca Empire 🇵🇪: Representing the largest pre-Columbian American empire, the Inca could introduce new economic and defensive gameplay mechanics through unique architecture and terraced farming.
  
• Byzantium 🏰: As the Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium could have unique defensive and religious mechanics, reflecting its historical fortifications and strong Orthodox Christian tradition.
  
• Angkor 🇰🇭: Representing the Khmer Empire of Southeast Asia, Angkor could introduce unique building and farming mechanics, inspired by its iconic temples and water management systems.
  
• Norse Seafarers 🚢: Evoking the Viking Age, this civilization could have strong naval and raiding bonuses, reflecting the Vikings' historical prowess in these areas.
  
• Habsburg Realm 🏰: Representing the territories under the Habsburg Dynasty, this civilization could have unique mechanics related to alliances and economic bonuses due to extensive trade routes.
  

Hello Everyone! In this post, I just want to nerd about gem facts, and today's theme is geography! Here's a silly little headcanon on what Nationality each of the lustrous would be based on the the facts about their IRL counterparts (with a little fact included about each one!)
Phosphophyllite: Our protagonist comes in representing Bolivia! Our favourite Bolivian anime MC comes from the city of Potosí, and in particular the Cerro Rico (rich mountain) mine, where they are mined alongside silver and tin. Phos has also been spotted in other places such as Germany, but the deep mint green coloured variant is mostly endemic to Bolivia!
Kongo: N/A. Given that hexagonal diamond is mostly created in Labs around the world and that Kongo himself was created, it maybe either an international effort or any country could make it. A fact about hexagonal diamond IRL is that simulations show the harness of hexagonal diamond (Londsdaleite) to be 58% times greater than regular diamond. However, most samples obtained from meteorites or even in labs are impure and reduce this to a hardness of 7-8. These issues stem from either natural impurities or lattice imperfections. It is created in a lab by compressing and heating graphite, but a study conducted in 2002
Cinnabar: Chinese. Cinnabar has long been used as a red pigment (before everyone realised that mercury was slowly killing them) and China is the biggest producer of the sad red mineral. Other places that host larges amount of Cinnabar are Spain and Italy!
Dia/Bort: Russian. The largest producer of diamonds in the world is Russia. So it makes sense that Bortz and Dia are Russian. Bort may or may not be similar to the stereotypical idea of a Russian person. As for the rest of the diamond family, the unique colours (Yellow and red in particular are endemic to other areas asides from russia).
Yellow Diamond: South African. The eldest gem comes from South Africa, where the most vivid and deep yellow coloured diamonds are found. As for why the colour occurs, its is due to an impurity of nitrogen.
Zircon: mixed heritage, being South African-Australian. This is because 70% of all Zircon produced in the world comes from those two countries.
Rutile: Aussie. Our local quack understandably hails from the land down under. Being the largest producer of quack, Australia exports and uses the titanium based mineral for things such pigments, where it is used in sunscreen or white paints that effectively shield UV light.
Antarcticite: American (Californian). Although first spotted in Antarctica, antarcticite can also be found in dry brine lakes in places such as California. Few samples of this mineral are available due to its hygroscopic properties.
Jade: Myanmarese. Jade actually refers to two minerals, nephrite and jadeite. Jadeite is the valuable mineral which people often call jade and is closer to the imperial green and hardness that Speaker Jade is known for. About 70% of the worlds Jadeite comes from Myanmar, and is exported to places such as China. However, China is still a large producer of nephrite, which while having a lower hardness has a higher toughness. Interestingly enough, nephrite is derived from the Ancient Greek and latin word for kidney (nephriticus/nephritikos) and jade is derived from the Spanish word for the flank area of the body (ijada). This was because it was believed that jadeite and nephrite could cure kidney ailments.
Padparadscha: Sri Lankan. From their name meaning ‘Lotus Flower’ (For the IRL pink orange colour) in Sinhalese, Padparadscha comes from Sri Lanka. Most of the ideal material to fill their holes originally comes from the mines in Ratnapura (The city of gems in Sinhalese).
Amethyst twins: Brazilian. These twins comes from Brazil, in particular the most Southern state known as Rio Grande do Sul. Amethyst is considered sacred to the buddha by Tibetans, and the stone was considered a valuable previous gemstone on the rank of diamond, ruby, sapphire and emerald, but since the deposits in Brazil were discovered in the 18th century, the stones are now just semiprecious. The names given to 84 and 33 stem from the angle at which two amethyst crystals meet in a particular twinning pattern known as the Japan law. This angle is 84˚33’.
Alexandrite: Russian. Whilst the current supply of Alexandrite is now focused in countries such as India, Brazil and East Africa, the original supply of this stone was in Russia, specifically near the Tokovaya river in the Ural Mountains. It was named after Tsar Alexander II since they were discovered on the Future Czar’s birthday in 1834. It became the official gemstone for the Tsardom due to the color change from blue-green to red matching the Russian military colours. Natural Alexandrite is more rare than diamonds, and even synthetic alexandrite can be extremely expensive as well!
The following gems are Brazilian and from the state of Minais Gerais, a state known for mining.
Goshenite/Morganite: A thing to note is that Heliodor also comes from the same place as these two. This could explain why they were so determined to get Heliodor back at the start of the manga!
Ghost Quartz, where like the character itself, another crystal grown inside of it giving it a ghost like effect. The other name for it phantom quartz explains the formation of this unique mineral. Essentially, during the crystals growth phase, an inclusion may wash over it, temporarily interrupting its growth. When the crystal grows again, the inclusions create a phantom of the younger crystal inside the bigger crystal.
Watermelon Tourmaline: Another Brazilian, from the Araçauí and São José da Safira regions of Minas Gerais.
Euclase: from the Ouro Preto region of Minais Gerais. Enclose can come in other colours asides from clear and blue such as green yellow or even orange pink like padparadscha!
Benitoite/Neptunite: American (Californian). Benitoite is named after the Benito county in California. In addition, Neptunite is usually found with Benitoite IRL, so their partnership makes sense!
Lapis: Afghan. Our intelligent but mysterious librarian comes from the Sar-e Sang settlement in the Badakhstan Province. This place borders Tajikistan and has been known for its lapis mines which date back as far as 7000 BCE.
Cairngorm/Karen/Welegotogetyourmanager: Scottish. Our black bimbo comes from the Cairngorm mountains in Scotland. Truly a disappointment for any Scots on this subreddit.
Red Beryl: American (Utahn). Our fashionista of Feminine and Frilly clothes comes from the US, specifically the Beaver County in Utah. Red beryl is also known as bixbite, and comes from the Wah Wah mountains (That is the actual name). They along with the several other gems are among the rarest in the world.
Obsidian: Mexican. Obsidian is more of a glass than a mineral, and is produced by volcanos around the world. However, one of the largest producers and users of this glass is Mexico. The Aztecs used Obsidian weapons heavily throughout their existence.
Peridot: Egyptian. Our paper maker comes from Egypt. Funnily enough, Egypt was home to papyrus, one of the first plant based writing mediums (asides from leaves and actual paper which would've been made in China later).
Sphene: Madagascan. Our Furniture maker hails from Madagascar, where they can appear either brown or green (similar to their partner peridot). These differences are due to different mineral impurities such as chromium or manganese.
Hemimorphite: Chinese. While there isn’t a definitive largest source of hemimorphite, the blue-green variant of hemimorphite (anime colouring) is prominent in Yunnan province in China, but Mexico and the US also have them as well.
Next post might be about how the gems are coloured! If anyone is interested in this type of content feel free to suggest new topics!